Doctor Who - I Am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts Page A

exterminate!’
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
    ROSE HURRIED TO THE Doctor’s side. He waved his hands in front of the Dalek. ‘Come on. Fire. Even you can’t miss at this range.’
    He nodded to Kate. ‘Oh, and you’ve got a girlfriend now, have you?
    About time. We were all starting to wonder.’
    The Dalek lowered its gun.
    ‘It won’t kill you,’ said Rose. ‘So it wants something from you?’
    ‘Of course it does,’ said the Doctor. ‘It needs knowledge. That old data store it’s using is out of date. It wants to take the knowledge from my mind. Am I right?’
    ‘That knowledge is of value,’ said the Dalek.
    ‘We can discuss having my brain sucked out later, over a burger perhaps,’ said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. ‘But first I want a few explanations.’ He strolled over to the Dalek casually.
    ‘Stay back!’ shouted the Dalek.
    ‘Yeah, not afraid at all,’ called Rose.
    ‘Come on, then. Let’s get the whole story. Because after I’ve destroyed you, Rose over there’s gonna be full of questions. You know, yatter-yatter in my ear, how did it come to life in the first place and all that. So you might as well tell her now.’
    Rose could see that beneath his jokiness the Doctor was actually furious.
    The Dalek faced the Doctor squarely. In an even louder voice than usual, it began. ‘My glorious Dalek ancestors –’
    ‘Oh, here we go,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘Couldn’t resist showing off, could you?’ He smiled at Rose. ‘I can play a Dalek like an old fiddle.’
    ‘My glorious Dalek ancestors,’ the Dalek repeated, ‘sent a time capsule back to Earth. It arrived here centuries ago. Its mission was to spread the Dalek factor to all humans and use their life force to create back-up from raw matter.’
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    ‘How embarrassing for you,’ said the Doctor. ‘The mighty race of Daleks, so weakened they needed help from the humans they despise.
    A last, desperate gamble. To alter the genetics of the human race. And judging from that scented candle shop over there, it didn’t work.’
    The Dalek continued, ‘The capsule was blasted towards Earth in the final battle of the Time War. Its engines failed on the journey. My ancestor, the owner of this casing, ejected and fell to Earth.’
    ‘Where it let go a little bit of Dalek factor, just a whiff,’ said the.
    Doctor, ‘before it died. It caught on to some humans. Not active, but always there in their genes, handed down from generation to generation. Probably only one in half a billion have got it-now, including Kate over there.’
    ‘The Dalek factor was triggered when this casing was disturbed by the humans digging,’ continued the Dalek. ‘Kate answered the call.
    Her Dalek life force was used to bring to life a new Dalek from the data stored in the casing.’
    ‘Nifty,’ said the Doctor. He raised his voice. ‘But this is where it stops.’ He suddenly became more serious. ‘You have two options: destroy yourself or I will destroy you. Up to you.’
    ‘You cannot destroy me!’ shrieked the Dalek.
    The Doctor leaned up close and whispered simply, ‘Wanna bet?’
    ‘There is another option, Doctor,’ it replied. ‘A choice for you to make.’
    The Doctor blinked. Rose could tell he hadn’t been expecting this.
    ‘I offer you a deal,’ said the Dalek.
    The Doctor laughed. ‘In the old days I knew a few people who did deals with Daleks. What happened to them? Let’s see if I remember.
    Oh yeah, they all ended up being exterminated. In the back, usually.’
    The Dalek ignored him. ‘I know of your emotional attachment to this planet. I can kill all the humans. But I am prepared to spare Earth and its people.’
    The Doctor bit his lip. ‘For what?’
    ‘You must give me the power to escape. The means to travel in space and time. I wish to travel to another planet. I will give you the space-time coordinates for my journey.’
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    ‘And what’ll you do there, settle down to a quiet retirement? Or, I dunno, build a