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.The Turk nodded.Together they followed the Dalek carefully, keeping close to the side of the corridor.The Dalek turned and vanished into a room ahead of them.Jamie pressed on a little faster, his left hand touching the wall as he pressed close to it.His fingers registered a change in the material – the thick wallpaper was broken by a small circle of glass.Alerted by the change, he glanced down.There was a low red glow from the glass, and he had a sudden bad feeling.‘Down!’ he snapped, and threw himself backwards and to the floor.Kemel slammed to the boards beside him.The ceiling opened up and a huge metal weight on a rod swung down.It whistled above their heads and through the spot where they had just been standing.If they had not moved, they would have been severely injured, if not killed.The weight swung in place, slowly coming to a stop.‘Tricky little devils, aren’t they?’ muttered Jamie.He and Kemel moved past the huge weight, then continued on their way.By tacit agreement, they moved very slowly, one either side of the corridor.In the monitoring room, the Doctor chuckled to himself as he set the new readings.This was proving to be a most fascinating experiment indeed.Jamie was showing a great deal of resourcefulness, and every last measure of it was being captured in detail by the Daleks’ devices.The Dalek monitoring the Doctor moved forward slight.‘We do not trust you,’ it stated.‘What thoughts are you using now?’Without looking round, the Doctor continued his fine tuning.‘Human beings have five senses,’ he informed the Dalek.‘Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.’ He knew that the Daleks had few biological senses, preferring to trust their mechanical devices for information.‘But there is instinct, too,’ the Doctor added.‘That’s a mental component of the senses, which compares information with experience.Sometimes it provides human beings with more data than they could possess using their five senses alone.Jamie used his instinct to avoid that last trap, so I am programming instinct into the human factor.’The Dalek considered the point.‘Proceed,’ it finally grated.‘Thank you.’ The Doctor set the silver recording wire in motion again, registering the latest information.Jamie drew level with the door that the Dalek had entered earlier.It was still ajar.With their sucker-sticks instead of hands, they probably had trouble with door knobs, he supposed.It was easier to leave the doors open.Cautiously, he peered around the frame.Beyond was a large, wood-panelled room.The ceiling was very high, and at the far end of the room was a minstrels’ gallery.There was a large fireplace, now empty except for dust and dirt.This must have been some kind of banqueting hall back when the house was new, two or three hundred years earlier.Now it was completely without furnishings.The balcony of the minstrels’ gallery was of finely carved oak, each panel separated by a vertical post that ended in a gargoyle’s head decoration.Beyond the gallery was a large door that was closed.In the main room, two Daleks waited.There was a click of machinery, and a spotlight flashed on, shining directly at the door leading to the balcony.There was the sound of a bell.A moment later, the door opened.Shielding her eyes from the glare of the lamp, Victoria stepped nervously out.Gripping one of the carved heads, she peered down at her tormenters below.Jamie felt like charging into the room and attacking the Daleks with his bare hands.Victoria was just as beautiful in person as he had guessed from the painting of her mother.But she was also exhausted, scared and pale.Rage began to rise, and he had to force himself to stay calm.Charging in now would not help her, and would only serve to get him killed.‘Name?’ the first Dalek demanded.‘Victoria,’ the girl replied tiredly.This was obviously a routine she had been through several times.‘Louder!’ the Dalek ordered.‘Victoria!’ she said, and then shouted, her voice on the verge of breaking, ‘Victoria Waterfield! You know my name.Why do you make me stand here like this? What do you want of me?’‘Silence,’ the Dalek grated.‘Inspection is over,’ the second Dalek added.‘Return to your room.’With a sigh audible to Jamie, Victoria turned and slowly moved back into her room.The door closed behind her.A second later, the searchlight clicked off.The two Daleks turned to each other, apparently conferring silently.Jamie looked at Kemel.‘She’s very beautiful,’ he whispered.‘We have to help her.’Kemel grinned and nodded.He moved a little way back down the corridor, to where there was an antique mace in a bracket set on the wall.He pulled the mace down and returned to Jamie’s side, hefting it.‘What are you going to use that for?’ asked Jamie.The Turk used it to point at the two Daleks.Jamie snorted and shook his head.‘You won’t get near enough to use it,’ he said.‘One of those two arms on the front is a kind of gun.And if you did get to use it, you probably wouldn’t even dent the things, if what the Doctor has told me about these beasties is true.Better put it back.’ He reached out to take it from Kemel.The Turk released it.The mace was far heavier than it appeared; Kemel’s immense strength had made it look light; and Jamie was unprepared for the weight.It slipped through his fingers and fell towards the floor.Before it struck, Kemel plucked it up and set it back on its bracket.Jamie studied the room again, desperately trying to come up with some idea of how to reach Victoria.There had to be some other way up to the minstrels’ gallery.He pulled out the folded map that Mollie had given him, hoping it might help.He discovered that the only other entrance to the gallery was a side door that had once led down to the lower level of the wing.According to the plan it had been bricked up a long time ago.Frowning, Jamie wondered how the Daleks had managed to get Victoria into the room.Had they used a ladder, and forced her to climb it? They didn’t look as if they’d be agile enough to get up there.Still, it was evident that the only way to Victoria now was through the banqueting room.How could he and Kemel get past them?And, once past the Dalek guards, how could they get up to the gallery?Kemel tapped Jamie on the arm, then pointed to himself.Then he gestured at the Daleks and made a chopping motion.Before Jamie could protest that an attack would be suicide, Kemel mimicked turning and running away.‘You want to attack the Daleks and run away?’ guessed Jamie.Kemel nodded [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]