Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [24]
Cannibalizing the messroom TV had not enhanced their popularity with the enlisted men.
‘Where are we going to get a parabolic reflector?’
‘Radio aerial,’ suggested Mike.
‘No, it says silvered, as in mirror. It’s the last item.’
‘I know, it’s...’ He stopped and waved his free hand around.
‘On the tip of your tongue,’ said Allison.
‘Hot.’
‘Cooker,’
‘Warm.’
‘What?’
‘Like a cooker... electric...’ he was getting quite frantic,
‘ring... electric ring.
‘An electric heater?’
‘Yes,’ said Mike with relief.
‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place.’
Rachel watched the figures clatter on to the teleprinter: orbital co-ordinates, occlusion and estimated mass.
That can’t be right, she thought.
The mass was given as four hundred thousand tonnes.
Oh my god! That was incredible!
A hand reached down and ripped the completed message off the machine.
‘Here we are,’ said the Doctor.
He sounds almost cheerful, thought Rachel. What does he know?
‘It’s a big mothership of some kind – could have as many as four hundred Daleks on board,’ continued the Doctor. ‘At least we know where it is.’
‘Much good that does us,’ said Rachel.
‘It would be foolish of me, I suppose,’ said Gilmore, ‘to hope that this mothership is not nuclear capable.’
Doesn’t he realize yet what we are dealing with, thought Rachel – engineering on that scale, technology beyond anything dreamed of.
‘That ship has weapons capable of cracking this planet open like an egg.’
Allison and Mike banged through the doors with armfuls of junk. ‘We got the parts you wanted, Doctor,’
said Allison.
‘Put them on the table.’
Rachel winced as delicate circuit boards tumbled on to the billiard table amid strips of metal, wires and unidentifiable components.
The Doctor pulled up a chair and sat facing the pile.
Delicately he unrolled a wide suede strip on the table to reveal interesting looking tools that were held in place by loops and pouches. The Doctor picked up a circuit board and selected one of the tools.
‘Is the mothership the Daleks’ main base?’ asked Gilmore.
‘For one group at least,’ said the Doctor, prising a transistor out of its socket. ‘I suspect we are dealing with two possibly antagonistic Dalek factions.’
‘Two?’ queried Allison.
‘But both come from outer space?’ asked Gilmore.
‘From another planet,’ said the Doctor, ‘and the distant future. We must try to contain both factions and let them destroy each other.’
Gilmore looked at the maps again and the big red circle that defined the evacuation zone. ‘Shouldn’t we bring in reinforcements?’ he asked. ‘Armoured units...’
The Doctor cut him off. ‘Haven’t you listened to me, Group Captain? The ship up there has surveillance equipment that can spot a sparrow fall fifteen thousand kilometres away. Any sign of a military build up and they may decide to sterilize the area.’
Rachel suppressed a shudder at the word sterilize. It brought sudden pictures of Hiroshima to her mind: fabric patterns etched into flesh, people burnt away to nothing with only their shadows left to mark their existence.
‘And we have no defence,’ said Gilmore. It was a statement, not a question.
‘Frightening, isn’t it,’ said the Doctor, ‘to find that there are others better versed in death then human beings.’
The Doctor was making final adjustments to his contraption. It was an ungainly mixture of parts: there was a parabolic reflector of an electric fire at the front, from which wires led back into a maze of tubing.
‘What does it do?’ asked Rachel.
‘At best it will interfere with a Dalek’s internal controls,’ said the Doctor. ‘I rigged up something similar once on Spiridon.’
‘And at worst?’
‘It will do absolutely nothing.’
Spiridon, thought Rachel, fine.
Allison called over from the radio. ‘Red Nine reports an increase in modulated signalling.’
The Doctor asked where. As Allison talked back to Red Nine the Doctor beckoned Mike over. ‘Call Ace and tell her that someone will pick her up.’
‘The signal emanates from Coal Hill School,’ called Allison. ‘Multiple signals in close proximity.