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  A mysterious power-loss strands the TARDIS on Exxilon, a sinister fog-shrouded alien planet. Forced to brave the dangers of the planet, the Doctor meets the survivors of a beleaguered expedition from Earth searching for a precious mineral that can save the galaxy from a terrible space-plague. Sarah finds a mysterious super-City and becomes a captive of the savage Exxilons, and, worst of all, the Doctor's greatest enemies, the dreaded Daleks, arrive on a secret mission of their own.

  What terrifying power makes captives of all who come to the planet? What is the secret of the mysterious deserted City with its great flashing beacon? And what sinister plan has brought the Daleks to Exxilon? The Doctor and Sarah must risk their lives time and again in a desperate attempt to foil the Daleks and save millions of humans from the horrific plague.

  ISBN 0 426 20042 X

  A Target Book

  Published in 1978

  by the Paperback Division of W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd.

  A Howard & Wyndham Company

  44 Hill Street, London WIX 8LB

  Text of book copyright © 1978 by Terrance Dicks Original script copyright © 1974, 1978 by Terry Nation

  'Doctor Who' series copyright © 1974, 1978 by the British Broadcasting Corporation

  Daleks created by Terry Nation

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks.

  ISBN 0 426 20042 X

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  DOCTOR WHO

  DEATH TO THE

  DALEKS

  * * *

  Based on the BBC television serial Death to the Daleks by Terry Nation by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation

  * * *

  TERRANCE DICKS

  published by

  The Paperback Division of

  W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1 Death of a TARDIS

  2 The Ambush

  3 Expedition from Earth

  4 The Deadly Arrivals

  5 A Truce with Terror

  6 The Sacrifice

  7 Escape to the Unknown

  8 Bellal

  9 The Pursuit

  10 The City Attacks

  11 The Trap

  12 The Nightmare

  13 The Antibodies

  14 The Last Victory

  Prologue

  He was a dead man running.

  He ran blindly, desperately through the swirling green fog, deep, sobbing breaths rasping into his tortured lungs. He knew there was little hope. Somehow he had been separated from the others in the ambush, and now his enemies were hunting him. Without checking his run, he glanced back over his shoulder. Shadowy figures were flitting through the dunes behind him.

  His foot slipped on a loose rock and he pitched forward on to his face. He rolled over, scrambled to his feet and ran on, snatching another quick look behind him. This time he saw nothing, but he knew they were all around him, herding him across the dunes like a hunted beast. As he ran, confused memories flashed through his mind. Selection for this all-important mission, farewells to family and friends on Earth, the landing on this isolated hell-planet. And then—disaster. A superbly-equipped expedition, from one of the most advanced cultures in the galaxy, suddenly and utterly helpless.

  He reached a small, stagnant pool, stopped to get his bearings—and a black-cloaked, hooded figure rose up before him like a ghost. He turned aside—and another appeared, barring his path. He swung round. More silent figures had appeared behind him.

  He snatched the blaster from his belt and glared defiantly around him. The weapon was useless on this planet, but if one of them came close enough, he could use it as a club.

  There was a sudden blur of movement from one of the silent figures and he felt a blow over the heart. It felt no worse than a heavy punch, but when he looked down there was an arrow jutting from his chest. More arrows thudded into his body and he staggered back, falling with a splash into the little pool. As its darkness swallowed him, his last, bitter thought was that he had failed. His entire mission had failed, and because of that failure, untold millions would die a hideous death...

  1

  Death of a TARDIS

  The police box, which was not a police box at all, sped through that mysterious void where space and time are one. Inside the impossibly large control room a tall, white-haired man with a deeply-lined, young-old face was making a few final adjustments to the instruments. Despite the ultra-modern nature of his surroundings, he was dressed with old-fashioned elegance, in narrow trousers, velvet smoking jacket and ruffled shirt.

  A door opened and an attractive, dark haired girl appeared. She wore an abbreviated beach robe, over a twentieth century bathing costume, and carried a big, striped beach bag. 'It's all in here, Doctor. Sun glasses, sun lotion, water-wings...'

  The Doctor smiled. 'You won't need water-wings, Sarah.'

  'Oh yes I will. You said we were going swimming...'

  'You can't sink on Florana.'

  'I can sink anywhere,' said Sarah pessimistically. 'I need a life jacket in my bath.'

  'The water on Florana is effervescent. The bubbles support you.'

  'Sounds like swimming in a glass of health salts.'

  The Doctor was in great good humour. 'All right, Sarah, all right. Just wait till you've seen Florana. It's the most beautiful holiday planet in the galaxy.'

  Sarah felt contrite. It seemed unfair to be so suspicious when the Doctor was in such a holiday mood. But somehow she just couldn't help wondering if the Doctor's lavish promises about their destination were really going to be fulfilled. During her relatively brief acquaintance with the Doctor, the TARDIS had taken her to a particularly violent era of England's medieval past, and to a London mysteriously infested with dinosaurs.

  The Doctor had assured her that this time everything would be different. To make up for these terrifying experiences he was taking her to the most beautiful, the most peaceful planet in the galaxy.

  She noticed that a red light was flashing on the TARDIS control console. Other lights began to flicker, and needles on the instrument-dials were oscillating wildly. She looked at the Doctor, but he was staring blissfully into space, still summoning up the beauties of Florana. 'I always come away from those long golden beaches feeling a hundred years younger...'

  'Doctor...'

  'And the beauty of Florana is that unlike your own little planet it hasn't yet been spoiled by—'

  'Doctor, should that red light be flashing like that? And all those others?'

  The Doctor swung round, and saw alarm signals registering all over the TARDIS console. He dashed frantically around the console, adjusting controls. A fuse blew with a crackle of sparks and a puff of smoke. The lights in the control room went dim.

  Sarah was frankly terrified. 'What is it, Doctor, what's happening?'

  'There seems to be a major power failure. Hang on, I'll cut in the emergency circuits.' The Doctor pulled a lever and all at once everything returned to normal. The main lights came up again, the warning lights went out. 'That's a relief,' said the Doctor. 'If the emergency units hadn't worked, we'd have been in real trouble.'

  The main lights began to fade, and the emergency signals on the console started flickering once more.

  'It's happening again,' said Sarah. 'Do something, Doctor!'

  The Doctor was leaning o
ver the controls, frowning in concentration. For the TARDIS to fail in this way meant only one thing. Some outside force was operating against it. A sudden fierce jolt made him clutch the console for support, and sent Sarah staggering. 'What's happened, Doctor ?'

  'I can tell you one thing, Sarah. We've landed.' He pointed to the centre column which rose and fell steadily while the TARDIS was in flight. It was motionless.

  One by one the warning lights on the TARDIS console started to go out, and the indicator needles on the dials crept back towards zero. The main lights grew dimmer and dimmer, and there was an uncanny silence. 'It's as if the TARDIS is dying,' whispered Sarah.

  'I'd better try the scanner—while there's still enough power to operate it,' said the Doctor. He threw the switch, and the scanner screen lit up. The picture was dim and fuzzy and all it showed them was sand dunes and swirling green fog. Slowly the picture faded and the scanner screen went black. 'Fascinating,' murmured the Doctor.

  'What's so fascinating about fog?'

  'Perhaps that fog is what's putting the TARDIS out of action.'

  The concealed lights in the TARDIS ceiling began going out one by one. Section after section of the TARDIS was plunged into darkness. Finally one central light-source was left, bathing the console, the Doctor and Sarah in a little circle of light. Then it too began to fade.

  'Don't you have any other emergency power source?' asked Sarah.

  'Yes, of course. I'll switch over to the back-up system.' He threw a switch and the lights came up again. Sarah smiled with relief—but not for long. Slowly the lights began to fade.

  'Dud battery?' suggested Sarah nervously.

  'Hardly. Listen.'

  'I can't hear anything.'

  'Exactly. Neither can I. Nothing at all. Not a click or a tick. Nothing. The TARDIS is a living thing, hundreds of complex instruments, working all the time. It's energy sources are perpetual—never stop.'

  'Well, they have now. Everything's completely dead.'

  'It's just as you said. The TARDIS is dying.' The Doctor looked around the control room. It was almost completely dark now, just the faintest of glimmers from the central light. 'Sarah, look in that locker over there. I think there should be a torch on the upper shelf.'

  Sarah opened the locker and groped inside. She took out an enormous torch, the heavy industrial kind covered in black rubber. She switched it on and a beam of bright light illuminated the console. Sarah felt better immediately—until the beam of the torch began slowly fading. In a matter of seconds it had died completely and the darkness returned.

  The Doctor was hunting inside another locker. He emerged carrying a large, old-fashioned lamp, the sort coal miners used to use. Sarah managed a smile. 'Don't tell me—you're going to rub it and produce a genie!'

  The Doctor held the lamp to his ear and shook it. 'On the contrary, I'm going to cast some light on our situation!' He took a box of old-fashioned sulphur matches from the locker, struck one and lit the lamp. A pool of soft yellow light bathed the area around them.

  Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. 'Well, hooray for good old-fashioned oil!'

  The Doctor turned up the wick and the light grew brighter. 'That's better. Now, we'd better go outside and find out where we are.'

  Sarah gave him a sceptical look. 'I bet it isn't Florana!'

  He passed her the lantern. 'Hold this a minute, will you? The door controls won't be working. I'll have to open them manually.' He went to a tool locker in the base of the control console and took out an iron lever, rather like the starting handle of an old-fashioned car. Crossing to the doors, the Doctor slipped the handle into a wall socket and began to turn it. Slowly the doors started to open, and green fog drifted into the room. It seemed to chill the air. Sarah shivered inside her beach robe. The Doctor opened the door a little wider and went outside. Nervously Sarah followed.

  There was little enough to see. The TARDIS seemed to have landed in the middle of sand dunes—their low rounded shapes stretched away into the greenish fog.

  Coarse grey sand crunched underfoot as they moved cautiously away from the TARDIS. Sarah shivered. 'It's so cold...'

  'Come on,' said the Doctor. 'Let's take a look around.' They walked on through the dunes for quite some time. Suddenly Sarah jumped back in terror as a menacing black figure loomed up out of the fog.

  The Doctor held her arm. 'All right, Sarah, it's only a rock.' It was a kind of monolith, a fantastically-carved shape in black stone. He went to examine it more closely. 'It could be some kind of statue or even some form of native life that became petrified long ago.'

  'I was pretty close to being petrified myself!'

  The Doctor picked up a handful of the coarse gravel-like sand and rubbed it thoughtfully between his fingers. 'This part of the planet seems quite dead, I doubt if anything has grown here for centuries.'

  'Well, unless you're planning to settle down here and raise lettuce, that doesn't seem too important.'

  The Doctor ignored her. 'If the rest of the place is like this, then the whole planet may be completely lifeless.'

  'Look, Doctor, we're not on some kind of scientific study expedition. All we want to do is get away from here.'

  'I quite agree. But to leave this planet, we must first understand it.'

  'Why?'

  'Think! Some power emanating from this planet has drained the TARDIS's energy banks. Now, either it's a natural phenomenon or—'

  'Somebody or something is doing it deliberately.'

  The Doctor nodded like some teacher whose pupil has finally come up with the answer. 'Exactly.'

  'Well, now we've got that settled, can't you just fix the TARDIS and clear out?'

  'You're missing the point, Sarah. The trouble isn't in the TARDIS. To get away from here we've got to find whatever's blocking our energy-sources and neutralise it.'

  'And how do we do that?'

  'For the moment, I haven't the slightest idea.'

  'But unless we can do it, we're trapped? Stuck here forever?'

  'That's right,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'So we'd better get busy.'

  'What do we do first?'

  'We start by investigating the immediate area.'

  'All right,' said Sarah bravely. She shivered again, looking at the shadowy dunes shrouded in green fog. It was bitterly cold. 'I'm not exactly dressed for this climate though, am I ?'

  'What?' The Doctcr realised Sarah was still in bathing costume and beach robe, ready for the promised beaches of Florana. 'For goodness sakes, girl, go and get on something warm.'

  'All right. Don't go away, Doctor, will you?'

  The Doctor was absorbed in examining the black monolith with his oil-lamp. Sarah gave him a despairing look, and hurried off towards the TARDIS.

  The Doctor went on with his examination. The monolith could be of natural origin. It was perfectly possible that swirling sand storms had gradually carved the rock pillar into its present fantastic shape. Or was it a statue of some kind, worn away by the passage of time? Then there was the other theory he'd mentioned to Sarah. Perhaps it was some creature of the planet, dead for untold thousands of years, petrified into its present form. Perhaps it had once been one of the planet's intelligent life-forms.

  Absorbed in his speculations, the Doctor didn't notice that black-robed figures had appeared silently out of the fog. They began stalking slowly towards him...

  2

  The Ambush

  Sarah slipped through the half open door of the TARDIS and groped her way to the wardrobe locker. Working by touch she began sorting out some clothes. Trousers, a heavy sweater, some comfortable walking shoes and a nice warm jacket... Hurriedly she started to change.

  The Doctor went on examining the monolith, while behind him black-robed shapes edged ever closer...

  Outside the TARDIS Sarah looked fearfully around. The fog-shadowed dunes looked as sinister as ever, but now she felt better equipped to cope with its unknown dangers. You could hardly be expected to tackle some ali
en monstrosity when you were wearing a bathing suit. She looked for the glow of the Doctor's lantern, but saw only blackness and swirling fog.

  'Doctor!' she called. No reply. 'Doctor! Are you there?' Still the silence. Nervously Sarah began hurrying in the direction of the stone pillar.

  (As she hurried off a black-clad shape slipped from behind the TARDIS and stood poised, looking after her. It hovered as if about to attack, then turned, moving silently towards the still-open TARDIS door.)

  Sarah was beginning to fear that she'd missed her way. There was no sign of the Doctor. She couldn't even see the monolith. Hoping desperately that the Doctor wasn't too far away Sarah called, 'Doctor? Doctor, I'm lost. Where are you?' Silence. She heard a faint scuttling sound behind her and turned in alarm, but there was nothing to be seen. Only the rolling sand dunes and the swirling fog.

  In sudden panic Sarah started to run, and blundered straight into something that grabbed at her. She screamed and pulled away, but it was only a scrubby thorn-bush that had caught on her jacket. Freeing herself, Sarah gazed round in panic—and caught a sudden glimpse of a tall figure carrying an oil lamp. With a sob of relief she ran up to it—then stopped in disappointment. It wasn't the Doctor at all. It was the statue-like rock where she'd last seen him. The oil lamp was perched on a stone spur that stuck out like an arm.

  'Doctor!' she shouted. 'Doctor, where are you?' There was no reply. She went up to the monolith and took down the lamp. It felt sticky to her touch and she looked closely at her fingers. They were smeared with blood.

  Sarah dropped the lamp—which went out, leaving her in darkness. She stood for a moment, fighting down her panic. Should she go and look for the Doctor? In this foggy darkness she would be exposed and vulnerable to whatever enemy had attacked him. She decided to go back to the TARDIS and wait. She'd be safe there, and there was always a chance that the Doctor would come back to find her. If he didn't, she would go out and look for him when it got light.