Stillman heard a muffled voice calling him in the darkness. “Hello?” it said. All he could think was that this was a stupid thing to say when he was obviously dead. For that was the only way his mind could comprehend what had happened to him. This afterlife was always how he imagined it would be, an endless dark silence.
“Hello!” said the voice again, this time more insistent than before.
Go away!  Leave me alone!
“Hello! It’s Simon isn’t it? Can you hear me Simon?”
How do you know my name?
“My name is Orpheus, Simon. The boss has sent me to find you.”
Tell him I’m quite happy where I am thank you.
“You don’t understand, if you stay here much longer you’ll be trapped in the wall forever. You don’t want that do you?”
How do you know? I might just like being here!
“But then you would never see Horowitz again, and you would never know…”
That’s unfair! Who have you been talking to?
“That’s not important Simon,” continued Orpheus. “Just follow the sound of my voice and I will lead you out of there.
Stillman found himself grudgingly drawn to the voice with its indefatigable calmness. Up through layer upon layer of absolute cold darkness.
“That’s it Simon! Follow the sound of my voice! You’re nearly there now, just a little bit more to go!”
Stillman became aware of his body once more, his arms and legs moving desperately against something cold and unyielding, his lungs aching desperately for breath. He broke surface in what at first appeared to be a lake of oily water, only when he realised that his colleagues were hauling him horizontally did he see he was being pulled from the wall. Somehow he had ended up on the outside again, and the dying light of the mechanical sun hurt his eyes. With a final sucking, popping noise he was wrenched free of the wall. He was aware of being hoisted over gravely ground, Olsen’s voice reaching him through the turmoil.
“Six bloody hours looking for that daft fucker!” he heard him say. “Whose bright idea was it to dig that fucking stream? Don’t you know an area of quantum instability when you see it lad!” From what he could gather it seemed that Luton was being given a toasting by the Boss. That one thought brought a smile to Stillman’s lips as he once again slipped into unconsciousness.
This was the way of things for the next few hours, Stillman lost track of time, and all he was aware of were snippets of reality, random tableaux that played out above his plane of awareness. Eventually he became conscious of the same voice he had heard earlier, but this time associated with a face a large, sombre face with brown weathered skin, deep-set brown eyes. The man’s scalp was closely cropped to the scalp; Simon figured he must be in his early forties it was hard to tell in the darkness.
“Orpheus?” croaked Stillman.
“He speaks at last!”
Stillman found he was looking out on a courtyard from under a corrugated tin roof, above him the mechanical night was well under way.
“Are they stars I can see up there?” he asked.
“Up? Down? Those concepts don’t work very well here,” said Orpheus. “No, those are the lights from the Dalek City, it is directly below us.”
“Or over us, yes, I see what you mean now,” Stillman raised himself up, no longer comfortable with looking upwards.
“If you look closely,” said the man, “you can see the suspended rail lines that the sun moves across. I still think of the sun going from East to West, though that is about as meaningful in this place as up and down. So we must be directly South, I believe, we’re in the antipodes as far as the City is concerned. As far away as we could possibly be inside this rock.”
“Where am I?” asked Stillman.
“You’re at the encampment several clicks due east of the mines. That was some way you found of getting out of work. Even Olsen couldn’t order a dead man about.”
“Dead?” coughed Stillman.
“Here, you must drink,” said Orpheus, gently handling him a water flask. Stillman gratefully guzzled a mouthful, sloshing the liquid around his mouth before gulping down another taster.
“Thank you!” he said. “Where was I? Was I really…”
Orpheus smiled in the diffuse light. “You were absorbed into an area of quantum instability. You merged with the wall at a subatomic level; only your essence remained, the barest idea of you in fact.”
“I was dead?”
“To all intents and purposes. We’ve lost countless people to the wall over the years. That’s why Olsen asked me to seek you out.”
“You’re a psyman aren’t you?” said Stillman. “I always wanted to meet a genuine psychic.”
Suddenly a great flame illuminated the compound; Stillman instinctively flinched; however he saw the soul-seeker was not perturbed.
“Do not worry, it’s only the celebration Olsen has arranged for you Newbies,” said Orpheus.
“Celebration?”
“Yes, its not every day we get a resurrection like yours,” said Orpheus. “Even slaves have to let their hair down some-time you know.”
Olsen was indeed leading the festivities; he was at the centre of a growing crowd of miners who huddled together in the warmth of the fire. Newbies and veterans were now indistinguishable under a common layer of black grime. Gone was Olsen’s Overseers cap and blue overalls. Tonight he was the genial host for the new guys; he stood in the clearing dressed in his vest and wearing a ceremonial toga. Stillman suddenly found he was being pulled into the centre of the circle and next thing he knew Olsen had a meaty arm around his shoulder.
“Well if it isn’t our very own Lazarus,” bellowed Olsen. The crowd cheered and whooped in response while Stillman grinned shyly, the smell of the Overseers armpits almost overwhelming him. “And let us not forget the man who tracked him down as his soul flitted through the stones, our very own psychic phenomenon, the one and only Orpheus!”
The soft-spoken psyman took his bow, smiling pleasantly at the crowd.
Olsen hugged Stillman to him and patted him on the shoulder once more. “Now lad,” he said with boozy breath. “We’ve got something special for you to celebrate being the only clean one amongst us,” the audience roared with laughter at this. Stillman found himself pinking up with shame. “Oh, but don’t worry lad, at least you made a good impression on your first day! No one’s going to forget that escapade for a long time!” he laughed as a drumbeat started in the distance. “Now lad, to mark your first day we’ve arranged a special treat for you, and do you know, I think it must be ready.”
To Stillman’s alarm the drumbeats got louder and the crowd started chanting.
“Stillman! Still-man! Still-man!”
A gap appeared in the crowd as they formed a corridor away from the fire, Stillman thought he could see something moving in the shadows. But it was too low to be a person. Then he thought he saw something else, but he couldn’t make out what. Then it came to him, but his mind couldn’t accept that information. Then he found his fears confirmed when the object broke with the shadow and came bearing down towards him.
“It’s a Dalek!” he cried, incredibly no one else seem too bothered. “Christ it’s a bloody Dalek!” The audience were whooping and screaming by now, but whether with terror or amusement Stillman couldn’t say.
“I will exter-mi-nate!” said the Dalek. Stillman recognised the voice instantly.
“Lemuel! You bastard!”
The crowd bellowed their approval as Lemuel emerged grinning from where he’d been crouching behind the silver and blue machine. With a casual gesture he flipped open the domed ‘lid’ of the creature. “And just wait until you see what’s inside!” he declared.
Cautiously Stillman peered into the open casing. There, bubbling inside was a brownish, foul smelling liquid.
“Alcohol?”
“These old casings make excellent stills,” said Olsen, handing Stillman a plastic cup. “And you’ve earned the privilege of being first to taste our new concoction. Here, give us yer cup.” He took hold of the Dalek’s gun stick and directed it to pour a generous helping of a yellowish looking liquor. Stillman thought it smelt faintly like brandy. “Come on lad down the hatch!”
“Cheers!” said Stillman taking a long draught. It burned down the back of his throat like a thimble full of high-octane fuel. The Dalek casing had definitely left a metallic taste behind in the liquor. The crowd cheered once more and everyone started milling forward eager for something to eat. Stillman steadied himself against the machine as everyone pressed around him. After the initial throat burning the Dalek liquor had been not too unpleasant. In fact it helped numb out the cold wonderfully. “I’m hungry,” he said to Lemuel. “Take me to some food!”
There was lots of food on offer, another surprise for Stillman; apparently this feast was the work of powerful connections between the slaves in agricultural assignments and their Overseer. A loose network of slaves traded with each other in what was essentially a huge open prison. Stillman didn’t ask too many questions, especially when it came to his stomach. He settled on some barbecued meat, he didn’t know what it was exactly and didn’t want to. It had the texture of chicken but tasted like fish. There was wine, brewed in a more conventional way than the liquor and consumed with gusto by the ravenous slaves. As soon as Stillman had sated his hunger he sought out Orpheus once more. It took him some time to find the psychic who was sitting on the corrugated roof of the compound studying the internal landscape that was home.
He pointed to a patch of cloud to the left of the Dalek City: “You see that,” said Orpheus. “That is where the Dark Matter ends up.”
Stillman followed his finger but could not see anything of any substance, only a large boiling mass of thick cloud, partially illuminated by the city lights.
“How do you know that?” asked Stillman, kneeling down next to him. The corrugated roof was cold and uncomfortable, but at least the view was a compensation of sorts.
“I know that because for the last five years I’ve been loading the trucks which are taken by train from this place to the processing plant, which you can’t see now but is just over there,” he pointed at another patch of darkness on the ‘sky’. “From there I’ve observed, through an image intensifier, slaves loading processed capsules into the transit tubes.”
“What are they?”
“They run throughout the asteroid, a system of vacuum pumps directs the capsules straight from the processing plant up to that clouded area.”
“And that clouded area is what exactly?” asked Stillman, his mind more focussed on the real reason he’d come to see Orpheus.
“Those clouds never shift, night or day they swirl around obscuring everything from view. I think it could be the area where the Daleks keep their heavy industry, it’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
Stillman found it hard to pretend that this part of the conversation was of interest to him on more than an abstract level; he couldn’t really give a damn for what the Daleks were up to.
“Orpheus, you know when you spoke to me in the wall.”
“I formed a mind-link with you, I’d been tracking your essence for hours.”
“What you said about Horowitz, I mean Jane,” began Stillman.
“That was the only thing I could focus on,” said Orpheus. “Your thoughts of this woman, so intensely sad, such horrible yearning. It was the one consistent thread that led me too you.”
“I would have never have known, in fact I can’t remember…”
“Memory is a linear illusion that we impose on a disordered universe,” said Orpheus grimly. “What I saw was your deepest desires and fears, such matters don’t usually broker any deals, they just are.”
Stillman stared up to the lights of Dalek City and found his eyes were moist with tears. “She’s up there somewhere. I know it, if only I could get to her, talk to her, so much to say so much to do.”
“So little time?” suggested Orpheus. “Maybe, just maybe, I might be able to help you there.”
“How?”
The psyman exhaled noisily: “You must be prepared to form another psychic link with me. I warn you now, it will not be easy and could leave…emotional scars…But I judge that you have the strength of character to withstand such an ordeal.”
The proposition both appalled and thrilled Stillman in equal measure, he did not know how to process it, and had never thought of himself as being particularly brave or noble. Certainly not telepathic, no, the idea was absurd…
Before he could get any further his thoughts were interrupted by a thin whining noise coming from above them. As he listened the whine started to deepen and get louder, the air screeching in torment as a rapidly moving object slowed to hover. Below them the drums had gone silent, all the slaves now straining their ears to listen.
The Daleks were coming.
Olsen stared at the sky in horror and disbelief: “But they never come out here!”
Around him the party was turning into a panic, as everybody seemed to reach the same conclusion at the same time; up in the starry city their metal gods had perceived their hedonistic excesses. Now they had sent an expedition to enforce the Dalek Law.
Olsen stood next to the Dalek Still, a plastic cup in his hand, frozen to the spot like a rabbit in the headlights. Lemuel gently led him away from the incriminating object whilst everyone else milled and screamed in terror. Death was upon them and now its staccato voice echoed around the enclosure.
“Stay where you are! Do not move!”
A brilliant light illuminated a circle of ground in the centre of the enclosure; three Daleks on flying discs dropped down out of the gloom and alighted on the ground near the fire. As Stillman approached he could see it was the black and silver Dalek and two underlings. They stood against the flames, three short towers of concentrated hatred gloating over their human prey. An endless minute of agonising silence followed with the machine creatures coldly sitting there for some reason known only to them. Had they decided to exterminate them all as part of a general cull? Were they to be punished for some misdemeanour? Surely the Daleks wouldn’t come out here for a trivial thing like that? That meant it had to be something big-didn’t it?
Only the fire dared to crackle- what was going on under their domed carapaces? Stillman thought of the mutants inside those shells, vast incomprehensible brains, amorphous and vile, the very essence of evil. A chill passed through him that was worse than the cold he’d felt marooned in the black wall.
“Stand by for an announcement!” said the Black Dalek abruptly, turning to face its colleagues. They operated controls on their hoverbout panels, causing little ripples of light to dance up into the air. These coalesced into a holographic image, which crackled into noisy life as the sound came through hidden speakers on the flying machines.
The image was of the Dalek Supreme, addressing a huge assembly in New Skaro Central:
“I speak to you for the last time as your Dalek Supreme; the Supreme Council is no more, victim of its own intransigence. Ever since the destruction of Skaro our race has hid in the shadows, licking its wounds and building up its strength.  In these trying times there is a need for firm leadership to guide us through the struggles ahead. That is why I ask all of you to now swear your allegiance to me, your supreme ruler, the Emperor of the Daleks!”
“All hail the Emperor!” trilled the Black Dalek.
“Hail the Emperor!” came a huge metallic roar through the speakers.
“Only through absolute obedience and trust in me can the Daleks take their rightful place as supreme beings. Only through resolute commitment to change can we avenge the death of Skaro and bring the Law of the Daleks to all the galaxies!”
This invoked more rapturous chanting and saluting. Even the slaves were obliged to join in. “Honour our Emperor humans!” barked one of the Black Dalek’s underlings fiercely.
“Hail the Emperor!” chanted the slaves between gritted teeth.
The new Prince of Daleks held up his sucker arm to cease the chanting:
“The Mark V travel machine has successfully completed the last of its field trials. It represents a significant improvement on present Dalek life-support technology. Mass production must proceed as soon as possible and resources will be needed to fulfil this vital mission. Work details will be redirected to assist construction and maintenance of the automated production lines. A wide base of skills is needed and I urge Section Leaders to consider all of the resources both technical and intellectual that they can spare for this purpose. All Section Heads must prepare shortlists of personnel and equipment, Dalek and humanoid slave labour that can be brought to production readiness in five cycles.”
There was more in this vein and it continued for a good three-quarters of an hour, punctuated every so often by more vigorous saluting and chanting. Stillman saw that his earlier indifference to the Daleks’ schemes was misplaced; it seemed that they must be preparing for a major offensive. He already knew how lethal the upgraded version of them was- now their leader wanted to go into mass production. The implications chilled him further.
Eventually the broadcast came to a stop and the Black Dalek turned to face them: “Humanoid slaves, you have heard the Emperor speak, now you know the honour that is yours by virtue of serving us. At the end of this work period I shall be ordering your Overseer to…” The Dalek broke off suddenly, its eyestalk twitching in agitation. Stillman realised that it had spotted the Still.
“What is this!” it roared, furiously getting down from the flying disc. “Who dares to mock the Daleks!” it barked as it moved to inspect their handiwork.
A trembling Olsen stepped forward, still dressed in his party toga.
“It was me section leader, I’m the one responsible.”
The Dalek looked at him with disgust. “You will answer for this when you return to New Skaro Central,” it said. Turning to its comrades it directed them to open fire. Everyone stood back as the Still was blown to atoms by the Daleks’ death rays. “Do not mock the Daleks!” roared the Section Leader. “Your food ration will be cut by ten-percent has punishment for this!”
 Within moments they were in their hoverbouts again and accelerating into the sky. Behind them the dumbstruck slaves stared at the burning still with a mixture of despair and relief.