Alone in the crushing darkness of a foot high tunnel, Stillman counted down from a thousand. This was a fairly effective way he’d found for coping with the feelings of panic that constantly sought to overwhelm him. He hated confined spaces at the best of times-the Andromeda had been bad enough. However, that had been nothing compared to the coffin spaced confinement of the mines.
“…Nine hundred and ninety eight, nine hundred and ninety seven, nine hundred and ninety six…”
Five cycles had passed since the party on the first night. His second day, replete with hangover, had been Stillman’s real introduction to the mines. In many ways it had been better being trapped in a state of quantum flux within the walls, at least there he was beyond fear, hunger and exhaustion. The Daleks had placed them on basic rations and no one was getting through from the agricultural zones now. All the surplus had been consumed at the party, which meant that they were reduced to the tasteless food tubes the Daleks issued. These were barely enough to sustain a sedentary human being, never mind one engaged in hard manual labour. By the fourth ‘day’ Stillman walked around in a ghost like haze. Light headed from hunger and poor sleep he slipped in and out of detached states of being with alarming regularity.
“…Eight-hundred and ninety two, eight hundred and ninety one, eight hundred and ninety…”
A muffled shout reached him in the shadows: “Quick get help!”
Relieved that a legitimate reason for abandoning work was at hand, Stillman gradually inched his way out of the tunnel. He was greeted with a scene of pandemonium when he crawled out the other side. Miners were running around in the dark waving glow lamps like tiny stars in the void, their shouts echoing from the walls. Stillman soon located the source of the commotion; a circle of slaves including the overseer had gathered around Lemuel who had the writhing figure of a dark haired woman cradled between his knees on the floor of the mine.
“Back off!” shouted Lemuel. “Give her some room!”
“We have to move her, now!” Olsen shouted back. “She’s causing a psychokinetic feedback!”
“She’s having a seizure for Christ’s sake!” Lemuel screamed. “We could kill her if we’re not careful.”
“Then she’ll die here when she brings the roof down!” exclaimed the Overseer. Bewildered Stillman turned from the still writhing woman to the walls of the mine. They were also writhing, psychomorphically reacting to the storm in the woman’s head.

“It’s the dark matter,” said Lemuel. “It must have triggered a cascade effect in her brain!”
“Anything that runs on electrical impulses,” muttered Stillman.
Rocks began to fall from the roof as tremors convulsed the mine, the woman between Lemuel’s knees twisted and turned more urgently. Support beams began to crack and buckle under the strain. Olsen looked white with terror.
“This needs to end now,” Stillman heard him mutter. “Back away from her!”
Startled, Lemuel did as he was told. He regretted this instantly once he realised what the Overseer intended. Crossing over to the woman on the ground, Olsen held up a large rock. For one terrifying moment he stood there, the large stone gripped in both hands, then he brought it down on the woman’s face.
“Stop!” screamed Stillman, whose stomach lurched at the sickening crunch that followed the first impact.
“Die you bastard, die!” grunted Olsen, pummelling the woman’s face. Lemuel threw himself at the overseer and wrestled him to the ground. The fight was short lived, Olsen had the twin advantages of weight and experience and he easily overpowered the distraught medic, leaving Lemuel nursing a cut lip on the floor.
“Back off you fools!” growled Olsen, his face splattered with blood. “Listen! The tremors have stopped! If I’d let her continue we’d all be dead!”
Lemuel looked away from the disgusting bloody mess that was the woman’s head. He narrowed his eyes on Olsen.
“Murderer!” he hissed. “Bloody murderer!”
An old dirty blanket was found to serve as a shroud for the battered corpse. Stillman and Lemuel found themselves on burial duty again, digging a shallow grave in the area outside the mine entrance. The two shipmates worked silently, excavating a three-foot deep trough in the ground, this was as much as their tired muscles could manage. They lay the body down and used dark matter rocks to build a cairn.
“Do you even know who this was?” asked Lemuel.
Stillman blinked, trying his best to remember the face of the dead woman. All that came to his mind was the memory of her crushed skull. “No,” he said painfully.
Lemuel muttered something under his breath. “Her name was Truman, she worked in stellar cartography,” he said.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” Stillman confessed.
In the dying light of dusk they finished the grave. The cairn of dark matter was a chocolate silhouette against the setting sun.
“Why didn’t you help me Simon?” asked Lemuel.
Stillman sighed; he’d been half expecting this. “I don’t know, I just froze, it was all so…strange.”
“Strange!” snapped Lemuel. “Simon, a crew mate has just been murdered and we’ve had to bury her body. And all you can say is that it’s strange?”
“I can’t, can’t give you any satisfactory explanation,” grunted Stillman. “It’s this place Lemuel! It’s draining me dry, I can almost feel it sucking the humanity from me.”
“Then don’t let it!” snapped the medic. “We haven’t the luxury of cracking up at this moment. We can’t let the bastards win!”
Stillman nodded. “Yes, I don’t disagree with you. But how are we going to survive this?”
“There must be a way,” Lemuel insisted. “And we will find it, we have to!”
Stillman looked away and focussed on the lights of the Dalek City which were just starting to become visible as the mechanical sun dipped below the ‘horizon’. What were they doing with all this dark matter?
The following day was the final cycle at the mine. Long ago the Daleks had learned the value of giving their slaves rest periods- and so they had reinvented the weekend. Tomorrow the slaves would return to the Dalek City for a full day of recuperation. But they would return to the mines again the following morning, for yet another six cycles.
Stillman didn’t dwell on this for long, for he was intent on finding Orpheus that afternoon. The psychic had made him an offer, which he now felt ready to take him up on. He eventually located him on the roof of the slave quarters, basking in the late sun.
“I want you to do that thing you said you could do,” said Stillman uncertainly. The psyman sat up and smiled: “You want me to try and find Jane?” he asked.
“Y-yes, if you please,” stuttered Stillman. Orpheus regarded him uncertainly.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll help you, but I can’t promise anything.”
“That’s okay, I understand,” said Stillman.
Orpheus invited him sit opposite, together they held hands as the psychic asked Stillman to focus on Jane.
“Call her,” he said.
“Horowitz! Horowitz where are you!”

“In your mind, please,” Orpheus insisted.
“Sorry,” muttered Stillman. Again he focussed on Jane. Jane. He never used her first name, a peculiar habit he’d picked up from his all male school. Somehow always calling someone by his or her surname helped to protect one from getting too close. Not a very effective way of doing things he saw now.
 Then a woman’s voice spoke, coming to him from nowhere.
Jane? Who’s Jane? My name's Rachel.
Who is that? Snapped Stillman. The voice faded away. He opened his eyes and looked at Orpheus.
“I- just heard a voice,” he said.
“Was it your friend?” asked Orpheus.
“No, at least I don’t think so,” said Stillman.
“Then search some more, maybe this other person knows Jane,” Stillman nodded and once more closed his eyes. But the voice was gone.
Then came a flood of images and Stillman found himself floating over New Skaro Central, the Dalek City spread out in concentric rings of buildings around him. At its centre stood an incongruous structure- a vast statue of a golden Dalek on a giant pedestal. He barely had time to acknowledge that before he was drawn on again and found himself looking down at a simple chrome coloured sink. Next minute a mouthful of foaming spittle hit the gleaming metal near the waste hole. He was watching someone clean his or her teeth. Then, oddly familiar hands came into view, holding a toothbrush, the owner of the hands looked in the mirror. A woman with a gaunt face and streaming blond hair looked back at him.
“Jane!”
“Who said that?” asked the woman.
“Horowitz…”
“Simon?”
“Who are you talking to?” rumbled a third voice.
Stillman felt the tension within Jane as she turned to see Morrison standing directly behind her. They were in a small room, Stillman presumed in the Dalek City somewhere, sparsely furnished with metallic green walls.
“No one,” said Jane. “I thought I heard something, but it was all in my mind.”
Morrison grunted disapprovingly. Stillman sensed the first mate hadn’t changed for the better. In fact the big man looked a terrible mess, his skin an unpleasant slick pallor and his voice croaking and stilted. “The Doctor has ordered a new series of experiments for tomorrow,” he said to Jane.
“Has he?” asked Jane, clearly thrilled at the prospect.
“They will begin at 13.00 rels. He will brief you in full when they are due to start.”
“Great,” muttered Jane. She seemed pretty bored at the prospect, which was no bad thing really. At least it was not abject terror she was experiencing. Stillman wanted to say so much, but dare not in case he compromised her. He was vaguely aware that he couldn’t really be there with her, that this was simply some kind of projection he was experiencing. Nevertheless he did not for a second doubt its veracity-this wasn’t just some projection filtered out from his head.
He could sense her disquiet at the memory of his voice, but he could not read her thoughts directly. If only he could just reach out!
They carried on in this way for several minutes before taking a break. Stillman suddenly felt shattered from concentrating so hard. The sun was now low enough in the sky so that the city lights were beginning to show.
“Thank you,” he said to Orpheus as they broke contact.
“Your friend is okay?”
“Yes, she’s alive and seems to be well treated,” he said.
“You sound surprised?”
“Knowing the Daleks that’s an understatement!” exclaimed Stillman. “There was something else as well.”
“And what was that?”
Stillman lay back on the roof and studied the city and the ever-present cloud of smog that hung in the air nearby. “In the middle of that city is a statue of a gold Dalek,” he said.
 
As the train roared into New Skaro Central the Black Dalek and two subordinates were waiting for the returning prisoners. They singled out Olsen as he let himself off the train.
“You Halt!” the Section Leader barked. Stillman almost felt sorry for him, for in this world with thousands of humans all around, you were always alone when the Daleks called your number.
 “Yes, I hear you,” said Olsen grimly.
“You will follow me Overseer Olsen!”
Curiosity got the better of Stillman, and he found himself trailing the Overseer and his Dalek entourage through the crowd of disembarking slaves. He pursued them to where they disappeared around a corner of the train station, staying out of sight he strained to hear what was happening. Olsen had to explain to the Section Leader why production quotas for his unit were not being met.
“But I’ve had to induct a new group of workers and one died not two cycles ago,” he said falteringly.
“Slaves die all the time,” said the Black Dalek. “As do Overseers and their families.”
Olsen turned very pale: “My daughter…”
“She is alive, for now,” said the Black Dalek, fixing Olsen with its single eye.
The Overseer coughed to clear his throat: “I shall make up the quotas by the end of the next work block…”
“Not good enough!” snapped the Section Leader. “After this rest period your unit will work in shifts around the cycles until quotas are reached and new ones are set.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Olsen. “I mean, how can we work at night, we have no electricity up there!”
“Irrelevant!” snapped the Dalek. “You will use the glow lamps, daylight does not penetrate the mines- your logic is impaired. You will obey the Daleks!”
Unable to resist the temptation to look, Stillman foolishly poked his head around the corner; the sudden movement was clocked straight away by one of the Section Leader’s grey Daleks.
“You! Stay where you are!” it roared. Stillman froze as the machine creature glided up to him. “What are you doing here?” it demanded.
“I’m sorry, I just heard voices and thought someone was in trouble, so I had a look”- Stillman said breathlessly.
“You will explain yourself to the Section Leader,” said the Grey Dalek. “Move!”
Stillman was motioned down the gap between two walls where the Black Dalek had Olsen pinned in a corner. “Who is this?” it demanded.
“This is Stillman,” said the Overseer. “One of the new recruits.”
“Why were you spying on us?” the Black Dalek asked Stillman.
“I wasn’t spying,” said Stillman. “As I was just saying to your, er, colleague here, I heard shouting and wondered what was going on. As we humans say, curiosity killed the cat.”
The Daleks looked nonplussed at this, before they could get any further a single bass note signalled the transmission of an official announcement.
“Attention! Attention! This is the Dalek Emperor speaking!” came a familiar metallic voice. High above the City a large holographic image of the Dalek Supreme was projected into the sky.
“Daleks of New Skaro, we stand on the verge of rebirth!”
The Black Dalek and its companions all waved their plunger sticks in the air, much as they had done at the dark matter mines.
“At this time of immense change it is worth reflecting on the first birth of the Dalek Race, long ago on the home world. A great and terrible war had destroyed our world and only two survived. They were Zolfian and Yarvelling the fathers of the Dalek Race. Together they found the First Dalek who commanded them to build more travel machines for the mutant survivors of the Great War.
But we have a sickness, quoth Yarvelling. We are doomed!
Then you must hurry! Said the First Dalek. You must build more machines, we cannot we are just brains!

“Zolfian and Yarvelling worked non stop to refurbish their war factory and before long the production lines were busy and a new race was born.
A New Race…A New System, these Daleks may be mutations Zolfian, but their minds are a thousand times superior to ours!

And the First Dalek said: I will be the Emperor…Get Flidor Gold, Quartz and Arkellus Flower Sap; I must have a special casing.

“And so the First Dalek Emperor was born and began a tradition where the Emperor was always different from its subjects.”
Stillman wasn’t sure but it seemed that the Black Dalek muttered something then, it sounded like ‘abominable’ he thought.
“Like the first Emperor my reign also marks the beginning of a new race and a new system…”
At this the holographic image changed to a shot of shiny production lines waiting in readiness. The Emperor continued speaking over the images.
“The Mark V Factory has been completed in record time, thanks in great part to the efforts of the new First Dalek.”
The original Mark V appeared, commanding a group of human slaves and replicants as they put the finishing touches on the production line. The prototype turned to address the camera.
“We are ready to serve the Dalek Empire!” it rattled off in its tinny voice.
The shot changed again to show the Dalek Emperor and Mark V standing shoulder-to-shoulder slats.
“Thank you Mark V,” said the Emperor. “You are now promoted to the position of Dalek Supreme in recognition of your services.”
Again Stillman was sure the Black and Silver Dalek was muttering that word ; Abomination- what did it mean?
Up above, through some elaborate photonic imaging, the Mark V changed colour to Gold and Black. Both Daleks now had the same livery.
“Whilst I follow the example of the Golden Emperor and also assume a new form.” More special effects began to morph the image of the Emperor, Stillman had to smile. He had no idea the Daleks could be so cheesy; the Section Leader didn’t look too happy though. His lights continued to flicker on and off, which Stillman guessed signalled his muttering, now inaudible against the noise of the broadcast. The Emperor’s new casing reflected his elevated status, a short gold plated body with a large bulbous head, in many ways a faithful interpretation of the statue Stillman had seen in the square.
“Behold! I am your new god!” exulted the Emperor. “Through me the Daleks will achieve greatness once more!”
With this the broadcast closed with a shot of the production lines, now busily throwing out dozens of blue and silver Mark V travel machines. The Emperor’s voice spoke off camera: “Long live the New Race of Daleks!”
Once the broadcast was over the Black Dalek turned to deal with Olsen first. “You are free to return to your quarters Overseer. Remember what I have told you- your daughter lives, for now.”
“Thank you Section Leader,” said Olsen. “I shall make sure my unit reaches its targets.”
With that he departed, leaving Stillman to face the Daleks on his own.
“You!” snapped the Section Leader. “You were the human being who caused trouble when the new slaves arrived!”
Stillman froze with terror; he could see the Dalek was furious about something and here was he, a convenient and vulnerable scapegoat. The Black and Silver machine advanced on him, its gun-stick pointed at his chest. He closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable.
“You have defied the Daleks for the last time!”
The gun stick opened up like a deadly flower, enveloping Stillman in a blue halo of fire.