Your Little Dalek

      One hundred and fourteen skarels later we’re chilling in TARDIS, totally exhausted, ready to drop. The Doctor lazily spins around the console, and I yawn and think about a sleep, a shower, and a check of my combat systems. Alas, this is only a dream for now, the hardest thing awaits ahead.       ‘Well, are we done with all this?’ The Doctor asks.       ‘You were supposed to calculate the course.’       ‘I’m not a Dalek to count coordinates of two hundred and eighteen people and route so fast. If you wish it faster, you would have done it yourself.’       No way, Predator, they’re your associates, then do your best.       ‘According to my data, we still have about two dozen coordinates ahead. Among them are the most difficult stages, especially one. I see no way how we will exterminate them without causing a rift of high-level rank in Time.’       He clutches his head, ‘Ponds?’       Once again, I expect clumps of hair on his fingers, but nope. So I patiently correct him, ‘Rory and Amelia Williams.’       ‘Well, that's what I'm saying! And how do you imagine…’       I interrupt him with fun, ‘Daleks do not adhere to the concept of “Imagination”. You're an expert on Time, so prove your degree by solving this paradox.’       He's silent for a long time. A very long time. About seven rels. Then his symmetrical face lights up with a next brilliant idea, he gallops around the console to some device, and, with a cry of "She'll kill me for this!" obviously scribbles out a message.       Before I can blink, the door opens and another sickeningly symmetrical comet with a bunch of uncontrollable curls flies in. Why do I want to swear and dematerialize? The outershell protective field, full power, immediately!       ‘Come on, sweetie, explain what your letter meant? I flew to visit mom and dad, and found two cyborgs instead of them! Two cyborgs made by those fucking Daleks! Next, your message about where to look for the TARDIS, although I’m no longer supposed to be in this time!!’ She stops short and jumps over the handrail like a magnedon, already with a gun in her hand. The next moment a sheaf of blue sparks flies from me. By Mother Radiation, thanks to my force field: it has worked at its limit. Now, my batteries are almost empty.       She. Shot. At me.       And I have no energy to shoot back!!!       ‘Doctor, a Dalek! Behind you!’       ‘Yeah, I know.’ My priceless enemy phlegmatically waves his hand and doesn't even try to save me.       ‘Okaaaaay, sweetie…’ the member of the top-twenty list of the main Dalek enemies is staring at me, taking out a suspiciously magazine from her purse and reloading the gun. I bet there’s the good armor-piercing rounds in there, capable to destroy all the layers of my defense and me at the same time. ‘Elaborate from this point on, please.’       The Doctors says sulky, ‘River, Wildy; Wildy, River. And I asked not to shoot in my TARDIS.’       Song's face, which had just been full of an explosive cocktail of hostility and fear, literally deflates with relief, and the magazine jumps out of the gun. Checking to see if there is a bullet left in the barrel, she says cheerfully, ‘Wow, Wildy, I didn't recognize you in this suit. It looks too new. Sorry about the shot.’       Excuse me?...       ‘Wel… come, Doctor Song.’ I say with exaggerated neutrality. Anyway, quick calculations show that she doesn't give a damn about my edited vocabulary, it’ll never stop her.       ‘Professor.’ she corrects.       ‘Professor.’ I quickly agree. It’s better to be a goodie-goodie for while I am powerless.       ‘Let me get this straight.’ River hides the gun in her handbag, snaps her fingers, pulls out a blue notebook, suspiciously reminiscent of a box of the same color, and begins to quickly leaf through it. ‘Wildy, have we never met before in your timeline?       Mother Radiation was merciful.       ‘No.’ I answer to her, all confused.       ‘Then let me explain for the newbie: the Doctor and I live in opposite time streams, so the future of everyone who lives with him in the same stream is my past. You haven't met me yet, but I already know you. Got it?’       ‘So, this is not our last meeting?’ I ask, sadly examining the scratch on my outershell. It stings a little. Obviously, that shaggy biped maniac really talks to me as if we’ve known each other for a long time. Hey, I didn't sign up to be stuck on the TARDIS as a Doctor’s associate! I'm a Dalek!       ‘Spoilers.’ Song grins slyly. The Doctor sighs, casting a fleeting glance at her blue notebook. I wonder if he himself is aware of this look and sigh?       ‘Okay, you both, now tell me, what’s going on here.’       The next few rels The Doctor retells everything that happened, and I pretend to be a concrete wall. What else can I do? River Song is not The Doctor, even we avoid her and did not dare to replace. She is really worthy opponent and a death machine, who may desintegrade even our trooper squad. She’s dangerously clever and totally inpredictable for us, she could even run away and forewarn The Doctor about our plans. May her friendly behavior be a cunning plan to kill me? I know almost nothing about Time, but I know enough about Song to tuck all my limbs and be afraid. The Doctor doesn't shoot in the back, but she does.       Mother Radiation, Father Transgenesis, help me to survive!       Meanwhile, both of my enemies are talking to each other. Somehow, while I was deep in my thoughts, I lost the thread of their conversation. Oh, right. Song dryly stated that she disintegrated both duplicates, having first extracted all the data from them. And now she and The Doctor are comparing diaries and she is grumbling that she wouldn't want to accidentally cross her own timeline, and somebody needs to think about when and how to call her and from what year, and that if she ever wants to look at all the Doctor's regenerations, she will do it herself, with all the safety rules and without his custody.       While they are bickering, I'm calculating where else we need to go. There are still enough coordinates left, The Doctor has too much of associates. And the first on the list is that gang from ancient London. I don't know if I can neutralize a duplicate of a Sontaran with such bad equipment, this isn't like shooting school teachers. But, if I’ll do it, then us rests about two dozens dates, and soon we’ll go to the AHoH Zone. I feel uneasy about it. If TARDIS is really alive and sencible… If only I could speak with it… her? My brain feels about to explode from all… this, I wish a break.       ‘My energy is on a low level. I need to recharge my batteries.’ I say in the most harsh tone. A Dalek intellectual can't run after duplicates for so long.       I turn the photoreceptor to The Doctor and continue quite haughtily, ‘Nutrition time was missed too. Also, you ate my strawberry yogurt. I'm going to rest. And you'll cook me milk semolina.’       How nice it is to troll the Predator with impunity. I go to the exit, The Doctor stays in shock, Song is laughing like crazy, ‘It’s really YOU, Wildy! In the flesh!’       ‘No stories about me to The Doctor.’ I order one last time and go away to my cabin.       I really don't have the strength to cook, I'm so tired psycologically that I don't even want to eat.       Also this Song. I deadly need to develop some strategy to tame her, so that she doesn't raise the gun faster than me. Maybe I should use the tactics of so-called "politeness" according to the standards of the inferior races? It will be difficult, but if you want to live, you'll go out of your hammock.       That’s it. I close the airlock, put the outershell on charge, turn on the TV and record, flop down on the bunk and freeze. I have to catch a couple of skarels of sleep, then to wake up somehow and talk to the TARDIS.       No idea, how long exactly I slept, but my olfactory receptors suddenly caught the scent of nourishment. Semolina. Right under my face. Milky semolina with a lot of sugar! Carbohydrates and proteins, yum... Aaaah! Insanely hot! I try to catch my breath and not spit out the nourishment, and only then I realize that the plate is held by a hand in a protective glove. I raise my half-sane gaze...       ‘Professor Song?’       ‘Hi, miss senior researcher.’ She smiles through the helmet of the high-protection spacesuit. And there is no any xenophobia in her gaze. ‘Tlayll, did I understand correctly that The Doctor doesn’t know anything about you yet?’       I choke on the semolina so much that I almost turn inside out. What did she call me?! How… How does she know…?!       ‘Yeah,’ River raises her free hand conciliatorily, ‘I know your full call sign. Ypsilon, lambda, delta - it’s what why “Wildy”, isn’t it? - zero, zero, one, comma, digamma, six, two, zero, three, one, zero, eight, four, five, Tlayll Dal-Rah, or just “Solar Tetrahedron from Dalazar”. It's a hobby of mine, to know names. Now do you believe that I'm not pretending and have really known you for a long time?’       ‘I believe you.’ I can hardly speak through my burnt entrails. What a knowledgeable person. Wasn't Song taught this rule, “these who know too much, will never grow old”?       She smiles at me, ‘Eat, or you'll lose weight and slyness, old weasel.’ She puts a plate for me and stares at the screen, when I’ve lost my appetite from that. She punched me right in my soft belly, in my emotional instability, especially when I'm so defenseless without my outershell.       I slowly suck on the milky semolina and try to digest it along with my shock.       ‘I asked the Doctor for more details,’ River reports in the meantime. ‘If I understand well, you even managed to replace the Chestertons family.’       ‘Correct. But they are peaceful, their duplicates were easy to intercept and exterminate.’ Probably, my voice without an amplifier and a radiation interference filter sounds like a squeaking of a rubber toy for her. Unpleasant. ‘The Doctor was very offended because of them.’       ‘Well, who awaits us ahead?’       I strain to formulate my thought as informally as possible in order to completely confuse Song and defuse the situation between me and the absolutely dangerous inferior creature as much as possible.       ‘A Victorian lizard, her pet viper, and their biped potato.’ I lick the remains of semolina from the plate. As soon as I started talking about mission, my appetite immediately woke up. ‘Then there are twenty-three more coordinates left. All the other Doctor’s associates are listed in the Dalek database as having died before the Doctor's eyes, or as missing, or too minor, or involved in the paradoxes that are dangerous for ourselves.’       Song smiles mysteriously, but says something completely different from what I expect, ‘Let's go shooting? It seems my training room is still intact here.’       ‘Impossible. I don't have free access to all TARDIS space.’ I respond sullenly.       ‘She'll let you in, if I ask.’       ‘I still need some recharge.’ I say even more gloomy. If I start shooting, I’ll bet carried away and risk to kill anyone or be killed by Song.       ‘You're afraid of yourself and don't trust me.’ Song says. Look, she really knows me. This makes me feel very, very uneasy.       ‘The calculations show that I will lose.’ I state just as sullenly.       ‘You was in the war fleet, right?’       ‘As an engineer.’ I turn away slightly. After all, it's not the same as being a decade in the troopers.       She smiles strangely, even slyly, ‘I don’t care. We have to warmup before to hunt cyber-Sontaran.’       Then I ask a question that I don’t expect from myself, ‘I need an expert opinion, Professor. Will the TARDIS talk to me?’       She raises her eyebrow in responce, ‘Why do you ask it?’       ‘If you really know me in the future…’ It’s hard to speak without direct orders and inferior’s obedience, but I must, I must do it! ‘…then you should know exactly what will happen in the next few days.’       ‘I don’t know. Spoilers.’ She answers shrugging. ‘If you want to talk to the TARDIS, then try.’       Hmm, she has puzzled me. Well, I’ll try.       ‘TARDIS. Do you hear me? TARDIS, if you can hear me and agree to talk, blink your light twice.’       Naturally, nothing happens. Quite expected. I was idiot to hope.       I say, ‘That’s an answer. Professor Song, if you want to practice with me on the gun range, if you are so sure that The Doctor will allow me, I will be ready in a little while. I still need to get forty-three percents of my power back up.’       ‘Okay, cutie. I'm waiting for you.’ River takes the empty plate and throws it in the disposal, then goes to the exit. ‘Hmm, the AHoH Zone. This will be interesting. I've never been there before.’       She goes out with a dreamy face, leaving me in my thoughts. I wish a little more semolina and to get rest, but a yellow light is invitingly blinking in the slightly open outershell. While I was dead asleep, something was recorded. I need to view it, analyse it and thought over. But, the first of all to wash up. It will remove the last fatigue after my battlechase. Or should I still watch the recording? Or... Ugh, the lighting is glitching. I hate it when the light flickers, it makes my eye pop and my brain explode. Did we crash into something or burrow into something, some kind of time storm that devours ships during the flight? It is no jolts right now, no any vibration… Strange.       Then I feel some impatience in the air. The light blinks again, every time twice. Twice!       ‘TARDIS, I'm an idiot.’       The light blinks twice.       I pause.       ‘So, you can hear me, but you don't want to talk in front of Song.’       The light blinks twice.       ‘So you know what exactly I'm going to do.’       Pause, pause, and then the light blinks twice again, but it's a little uncertain.       I sigh.       ‘It is an obviously dangerous operation. The AHoH Zone does not like to part with its prey. Probably you understand that you won't be able to get The Doctor and the others out of the Zone that easily.’ The light blinks twice, and I feel a stream of wariness. ‘Before calling you and The Doctor, I had to work out a rather risky plan. Will you be able to connect to the Dalek Pathweb from the Zone if I give you my access key and the connection algorithm?’       The light blinks again. That's what I supposed. The box, which… who exists everywhere and nowhere, stretches across all space and time, may be able to enter our main computer from anywhere in the Universe.       ‘Then the battle mission is doable. When we complete the task, you will give me an access to the Pathweb. I will send my memory backup to the Daleks. This will create a powerful surge of rememberances about The Doctor and his associates, and the Zone will not be able to hold them. But my plan has a significant fault. The Daleks will remember everything again and will hate you even more. Perhaps not all of them; we have too many colonies, the connection can be flawed, and not everyone will receive my backup. But the Dalek anger will definitely be enough to your relise, and I cannot calculate other ways to succeed. TARDIS, do you agree with my plan and its consequences?’       Because, obviously, The Doctor will never be agreed with it.       TARDIS wait silent, then its… her light blinks twice again, and I feel something like relief. I don’t understand, what she is getting at? The relief because of consequences? It is illogical.       ‘One more thing. I feel your strong emotions.’ I do not know for what brain bacteria I say it. Perhaps, because it bothers me. ‘Apparently, your spectrum of emotional radiation is too wide and captures my wave. Feel more quietly. That's an order.’       The light blinks twice again.       Finally, I dive into my outershell, seal it up and start scrolling through the recording, half looking at the virtual screen, half dozing. Oh yeah, that's what I need. It is the third popular science documentary since I began my records. Oh, Doctor. If you knew what secret attracts the little Dalek the most onboard your ship, you would have scattered me into quarks on that balcony, ahead of the Dalek troopers. Although... You said me that you want to solve me as a riddle. Perhaps you guess everything for now and are playing insidiously with me? I’m really afraid of it.       There is a secret which we have not yet uncovered, but which the Time Lords have. We still cannot properly control the time jumps, even knowing how to cross the Time Vortex. The risks are enormous each time, and a hell of a lot of resources are spent.       I thirst to know how to control well Artron energy and the Vortex itself. There must be some algorithms to do the result high efficient and hundred percent predictable. The Time Lords control the Time trough their intuition, but the Daleks… It would be correct to say that the flow of Artron particles spins us, and we try to stay afloat and somehow throw ourselves towards a suitable shore. No chance even to catch at least one free moment to study, I mean “moment” as a discrete physical quantity, and not a “second”. Our claw is too short for it now; let’s saw off taranium, as they say… Our theories are being refuted, none of them have been confirmed. We lack something to understand the Truth of Time. But if you can't find out something yourself, then read. Ask. Conquer. Steal. So I’m stealing it. If I use popular science programs from different races from the near future, maybe I can find what I need. Usually, the mechanism of physical laws is explained there in very accessible language. I need to collect as much information as possible about how the Vortex actually works. Because I have to know it.       Funny Predator. What makes him think that a Dalek who has a hacked brain filter to expand the available associative field will betray the General Ideology, especially if that Dalek is thinking far more important and complex thoughts than the trooper battle cry of “EXTERMINATE”?       You are getting old, Predator.       I’ll cheat you.