'I'm perplexed,' he said and off they ran in the direction which Simes had given them.
'So, the Master failed to become a "god"?' Jo gasped as she tried to keep up with the Doctor.
'Yes Jo (gasp) but (wheeze) someone, or (pant) something else did, and they've got (cough) the Master (groan) acting like their (puff) puppet on a..'
Jo suddenly stopped dead and screamed. Following her gaze as he straightened his trunk from the infamous "Groucho Marx" position, familiar to the more athletic of you, the Doctor froze in disbelief and back-ache.
Three squat silver shapes were gliding towards them. Each of the objects was fitted around the base and middle with various pieces of equipment which shone in the glow of the two flashing lights of top, and various antennae swung and rotated in finely adjusted arcs, as if probing the very matter of the air for data with which to feed their cold and ruthless computers. Well - need I tell you what they were?
The Doctor turned around to find the Master standing behind them. One of the Daleks spoke: 'You have done well to capture this our greatest enemy. Take them to central control where we shall decide what is to be done!'
The Master motioned Jo and the Doctor forward, a neat little gun in his right hand. Jo recognised it as Mr. Hasjat's. There was blood on the barrel.
~~~
The Doctor and Jo stood now in the Master's control room. The Doctor's TARDIS was there too. The whole place was alive with the "beeps" and "bleeps" of computers, and on large TV screens they could see a giant silver space-rocket which dissected the horizontal bands of white and yellow - land and sky.
The Master held the couple at gun-point, but his face betrayed no signs of pleasure; this was not how he wished to gain revenge on the Doctor. If the Doctor was to be exterminated now, then he would undoubtedly die with the pleasurable knowledge that he, the Master, had been brought to heel by these semi-robots. The Doctor must be kept alive - at least for the time being...
The three Daleks, which had been conferring together, glided across the room to where stood the uneasy threesome. One Dalek spoke:
You will hold the prisoners here until we return. Now we must report to the Supreme Dalek!'
Like angels of death, they glided silently, and most sinisterly, from the room. There followed a brief but awkward silence. The Master was forming a plan yet did not wish the Doctor to suspect anything other than that which seemed to be the most obvious situation.
The Doctor nodded towards the screen.
'So, this is you invincible rocket, Master?' he said with a tried smile.
The Master's face was expressionless. The Doctor went on: 'Or should I say, this is the Dalek's invincible rocket?'
The Master's wall of endurance was starting to crumple.
'My, my, my. You have come down in the Universe, haven't you/? You ought to call yourself "the Servant"! '
Now, the Master did not explode quite as vehemently as the Doctor had expected, and as Jo had hoped he would not.
'And you ought to be "the Nurse"! ' The Master began to plead, 'Doctor, join me in this enterprise. With this rocket we can hold any planet - any planet - to ransom. You and I, as it was long ago. This pompous fascination with playing the galactic policeman in his galactic police box does not befit a Time Lord of your intelligence!'
'It won't work, you know!' said the Doctor, 'The Time Lords will never allow it!'
'The Time Lords?!' laughed the Master, 'If anyone is the servant, Doctor, it is you. tell the masters that no force in the cosmos can destroy my rocket - not the Time Lords...not even...' He broke off as the Daleks re-entered the room. 'My Lords,' he said, bowing.
'The Doctor is to be exterminated!' they said.
'My Lords,' the Master croaked, resuming his bow 'The Doctor has long been my own enemy, while I have been your faithful and loyal...err...servant (ahem). May I suggest that we allow the Doctor and his young companion to witness the effectiveness of our weapon at first hand? In anticipation of this moment, I have some "accommodation" fitted - into the nose-cone!'
The Daleks cared not how the Doctor died, but they did require the loyalty of the Master - he who alone knew the secrets of the rocket's manufacture. The villain's wish was granted. Jo and the Doctor began to quake with fear when, at a silent command, there, stepped from the shadows a couple of Ogrons. To Jo, they looked rather like a pair of Ogrons one would normally see on a Harley-Davidson, for she noted that each wore a helmet with goggles, with what looked like a transistor radio on the side. The technology was more familiar to the Doctor who had nearly been robo-tised by the Daleks himself once. Yes, these were clearly Robo-Ogrons; the normal Ogrons having obviously been deemed too clumsy.
The Daleks cared not how the Doctor died, but they did require the loyalty of the Master - he who alone knew the secrets of the rocket's manufacture. The villain's wish was granted. Jo and the Doctor began to quake with fear when, at a silent command, there, stepped from the shadows a couple of Ogrons. To Jo, they looked rather like a pair of Ogrons one would normally see on a Harley-Davidson, for she noted that each wore a helmet with goggles, with what looked like a transistor radio on the side. The technology was more familiar to the Doctor who had nearly been robo-tised by the Daleks himself once. Yes, these were clearly Robo-Ogrons; the normal Ogrons having obviously been deemed too clumsy.
As the Robo-Ogrons bundled the Doctor and Jo off to the rocket, the Master stood out of the way, chuckling to himself - he would be killing three birds with one stone - or rather, with one "rocket": the Doctor, the planet Earth, and the Daleks who had been keeping him at heel for over a century...if all went to plan!
Once he was free of the Daleks, he would build more rockets and be Master of all intelligent life in the Cosmos! A rocket built from "arckbloit" (a metal found only on Min Terr which, very soon, would be his planet) and then coated with his own secret-formula resin would be utterly invincible!; travelling at such a speed that the resultant atmospheric vibrations would shatter any civilisation to pulp! Indestructible and invincible!
Meanwhile, the Daleks were once again holding private conference:
'Our space ship is now loaded with the arckbloit ore!' said one.
'We need no more ore. From these samples our computers on Skaro can duplicate it!' said another.
'Min Terr humanoid population has been totally exterminated!' reported the third
'The spaceship is returning to Skaro!'
'Excellent! On Skaro we shall use the mind probe on the Master to discover the formula for the secret resin!'
'We will build our own rockets! We will destroy the Earth! Nothing can stand in our way!!'
'Daleks can not fail!'
'Daleks will triumph!'
'Daleks are supre-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-eme!!'
Now, the Daleks are noisy braggarts, and rarely truly discreet (not that the Master trusted them, anyway), and while holding this particular discussion, they happened to be floating around in the vicinity of the count-down microphone, transmitting everything to the nose-cone compartment in which our hero and heroine now found themselves "accommodated". Thus did the couple hear everything, and realise with horror just what Mr. Simes had meant when he said that everyone had been "took to the cleaners" and had "done a bunk".
Now, the Daleks are noisy braggarts, and rarely truly discreet (not that the Master trusted them, anyway), and while holding this particular discussion, they happened to be floating around in the vicinity of the count-down microphone, transmitting everything to the nose-cone compartment in which our hero and heroine now found themselves "accommodated". Thus did the couple hear everything, and realise with horror just what Mr. Simes had meant when he said that everyone had been "took to the cleaners" and had "done a bunk".
True it was that the Master had been double crossed, for a separate Dalek task-force, of which he knew nothing, had just left for Skaro in an ore-filled flying-saucer.
However, back at mission-control, the Master stood staring loathingly at the Daleks. Fools - their logic-banks could see no further than their suction-cups.
~~~
At last - all was ready.
There was a countdown, and on the zero-stoke the silver rocket shifted its appearance through all the colours of the spectrum; its image was magnified and refracted across the mustard sky. It was gone and on its way to Earth.
The Doctor and Jo had heard the countdown through the wall-speakers. The couple found themselves bound with rope to two conventional astronaut-chairs, and the Doctor had correctly concluded that this compartment had been part of the Master's design for the rocket from the very beginning - in an emergency, the rocket could be used to effect a simple escape from the Daleks should anything have happened to his TARDIS. Before the seats, in the faint light, a bank of guidance-computers.
On hearing the countdown, the Doctor had warned Jo to brace herself for the inevitable skew-whiff gravity effects. Instead, he sensed nothing more than a very familiar tingling in the little finger of his right hand, and in his left knee.