The Man Who Would Be Nyder

Nyder woke up and he couldn't open his eyes.

He felt like his body was a nail: a nail that had been driven into a board by a very large, very rough hammer. His neck was solid agony, his shoulders and chest and spine hurt, and there was a hideous ache digging into each side of his head from his ears. But the most frightening thing was the lack of sensation he felt, or rather did not feel. He couldn't feel his eyes or the top of his head; he tried wiggling his eyebrows, and had no idea if anything moved.

Was he dead? He remembered the blast, feeling the great blow coming down on the top of his head and his shoulders. Was Slai dead? And -

"Davros?" he said aloud - or thought he did.

There was a confused noise in his ears, like words being spoken underwater, and then the touch of something against his cheekbone, something flat and wet.

A voice came into his head, oddly blurred and distorted; it didn't seem to come from any one place, but from all around him. "If you can hear me, raise your left hand twice."

Nyder tried, and it felt like lifting his arm against some tremendous weight. But slowly, he raised his left hand off whatever he was lying on, bobbed it twice, and then dropped it. He clutched at the soft material under him; a blanket. Was he in bed? Was he in hospital?

"Davros is safe?" he asked again, softer; there was a raw bloody taste in his throat that promised to grow worse if he spoke too much.

"I am uninjured," said the voice, and Nyder whimpered. Almost by reflex, he tried to raise his hand to salute, but stopped before he got halfway there; the pain was just too great.

"I am speaking to you with a bone conduction microphone," said Davros, in that half-familiar blurred voice. "That is the object you feel on your face. Your ears have been bandaged to help them recover from the acoustic trauma. You have a dislocated shoulder, two slipped spinal disklets, a badly lacerated scalp or rather remains of a scalp, shrapnel wounds to your upper torso, numerous contusions and two sprained ankles. And your vision…your eyes, have been permanently damaged."

Nyder swallowed, and finally whispered, "Slai?"

"Dead."

"But - you are uninjured, Davros?"

"Only my pride is bruised. I underestimated the price my enemies were willing to pay in order to strike at me. None of the traitor Councilmen survived; I will make certain that their replacements are more sympathetic to my long-term projects."

Nyder tried to squeeze his eyes closed, to feel if there was anything there, but he couldn't. Not that it mattered, anyway.

Permanent eye damage. A Level One injury. After everything he'd endured, after all the suffering of the culling ward and his surgeries, after all his Elite training, he was going to die anyway. And this time the taste of death was even bitterer in his mouth, because he had really believed he had a chance. The disaster had come when he was fed and healthy, not dazed with exhaustion and hunger and fear.

Nyder sobbed, dryly. Once. Then he caught hold of himself, and said weakly, "May I - I beg to make a request, Davros."

"I am listening," echoed the voice from all around him.

"I - my last request. I would be most grateful if I c-c-c," he stuttered, then found his voice again. "If I could be c-culled, here. Please don't send me back to the culling ward - alive."

There was some sort of confusion; he vaguely sensed motion around him, and heard a garbled noise, as though someone else was speaking and Nyder was only hearing a few bits of the words.

He forced himself to go on. "And if that's against, against regulations, if someone could just bring me my service dagger." He had lain with that dagger at his hip in the culling ward, unable to draw it. But now he could open and close his hands, so - "Just leave it here, within reach, and I will take care of - me."

Instead of answering his request, Davros asked a new question. "Why did you kick my chair?"

Nyder swallowed; but then realised that this would probably be his last chance to tell a useful fact to Davros. "I saw something in the Councilmen's faces, something wrong, and I knew what was going to happen. And - when you're thinking, Davros, and sometimes when you're startled, you - you clamp your chair to the floor, I don't know how, I don't know how it works. But you lock yourself down. And if I'd shouted the warning, if I'd startled you and you'd done that, you would have died."

There was a long silence around Nyder, then more half-heard words. Nyder got the impression that Davros was talking, but not to him. Then there was a sudden touch on his skin. Something wet circling on the back of his left hand, coating it with wetness.

Disinfectant, of course. He knew that sensation: it was someone disinfecting his skin, wiping the liquid round with a sponge. They must have a poison injector here, and were preparing him for the needle. How ridiculous, to disinfect the skin of a man about to be culled. Regulations, he thought, and the corners of his mouth turned up for a moment in what was probably going to be his last smile.

The wiping continued, and then there was the sensation of more motion near him; the bed moved a little, and he shivered at the pains that tiny shifting woke in him. All going away now, all the world. His last feeling in the world, it seemed, would be pain.

There was a pressure on his wet left hand. He expected a pinprick sensation, but this was something flat and cold, but not perfectly flat. It seemed to have ridges on it.

It moved. It spread those ridges, feebly, and grasped at Nyder's hand with - fingers.

It was Davros. Davros, touching him with his single hand. The old withered hand shook atop his, and he shook as well, all over, at the terrifying implications. Why would Davros touch him, Davros never touched anyone-

Davros' voice was thunder rolling through his head. "I fear I must deny your last request. I am in need of a new Security Commander. And you are the one I have chosen to take that role."

"I can't." Nyder said that quickly, and then tried to - take it back? No, he couldn't do that. He wasn't fit to serve, not in his condition. He was unable to give Davros the protection he needed. "Davros, I'm injured, Level One injury-"

"Doctor Cennell says that your eye injuries will be correctable, either with surgery or minor prosthetics. And that your other injuries will heal as well. I am not planning on going anywhere, not after this assassination attempt. I will stay in the Bunker, and wait for your recovery."

The hand pressed down on his. "Nyder. I have faith in you. Do not fail me." And then the cold shivering weight of Davros' hand was withdrawn.

It did not matter. That hand might as well have been pressed directly to Nyder's heart, so great was the effect on him. The cold of that touch had fired Nyder, filled him with new life as it were. Cold life, to be certain, but he tried to keep his voice steady as he said, "I will not fail you, Davros."

* * *

He lay in bed and he healed. His ears recovered quickly, and Cennell was often there to talk to him, reassure him, let him know how the surgeries were going. He had gained more wounds in those seconds in the Dome corridor than he had in all his previous military training and career. Nyder wondered how much of the shrapnel being picked out of him was bits of table and bomb casing, and how much was bits of Slai, and then put the thought aside.

His eyes were responding well to treatment, although his night vision would probably never recover. They managed to save some of his scalp, and patch the rest together with skin grafts; Davros was unhappy with the prospect of a piebald second in command, however, and ordered that a solution be found.

They resurrected an antique machine from the depths of a Kaled warehouse, and set it to scanning his scalp and skull before it permanently implanted thousands of strands of artificial hair on his head. There would be some real hairs mixed in where follicles had survived: still, he wouldn't need to get his hair cut very often, and anyone who tried to set his head on fire wouldn't be able to get it to do more than smoulder.

Drugs could keep the pain of the implantation machine away, but could do nothing for the slow sluggish trickle of blood from the myriad tiny wounds. The blood soaked his hair, old and new. It soaked the bandages over his eyes, making them heavy and sticky, and Cennell kept bringing him more water, urging him to rehydrate himself.

When the machine was done, and his wounds and eyes had healed, he was done. Finished. They brought him the uniform of a Security Commander, antique glasses to correct his vision, and the work schedule, and he began.

* * *

He could use Slai's weapons, but none of the deceased Commander's clothes would fit. Nyder cleared them out of his new quarters, along with the extra-width bed, the pictures of old comrades, everything that had been Slai's. The great mirrors that lined the walls went into storage; Nyder had no desire to look at himself. He would have removed the mirror from over the sink in his new personal washroom if he was good enough at shaving, but he still nicked himself sometimes.

The only non-regulation item Nyder kept was a small picture on browned paper that had been carefully sealed in clear plastic. It was an uncoloured picture of a group of people, standing in front of a white wall. There was the remains of a caption on the torn bottom edge; 'Scientific Elite Coordi-' and 'Team has' were all he could read. But one of the people standing there was strange. He had very long hair, even for a civilian, which was caught in a tube-shaped clasp over one shoulder. There was something odd about the shape of his body - no.

This had to be a woman. A her, not a him. A woman, and she was wearing the same white laboratory uniform as the men in the picture. The idea of a woman in the Scientific Elite was too much of a mystery for Nyder to abandon, so he put the picture back where he had found it, hidden in the back of the desk.

When he was done the quarters were bare of anything but a standard bunk, locker and desk. On the desk, one last reminder of his time in the Wastelands: his service dagger, the hilt worn bare, the pommel notched. That was all he needed.

* * *

The task of filling the giant Slai-sized hole in the hierarchy with himself gave Nyder less trouble than he had thought. He supposed that most of it had to do with his close working relationship with Slai; for the rest, he tried to fill the space he now occupied with cold menace.

The extremely high mortality rate among Security Commanders probably helped as well. The men probably thought they would not have to put up with him for too long.

He was certain that the Security Elite would subtly chafe under his discipline, and they did. They had a way of looking down their noses at him, and hesitating before obeying his orders. He decided to call a group training exercise. Once the guards were lined up in the training room, in full protective gear, he had two of the Laboratory Assistants haul in a standard metal desk, heavy and solid.

There were several elbow nudges in his audience, and he picked up the words 'desk warrior'. His own eyes narrowed in chill satisfaction, but no one could see through the padded bars of the helmet he wore.

"We are going to have a discussion of combat terrain in the Bunker," Nyder said, in that smooth cold voice that he had carefully cultivated. "Private Coun, step forward."

Coun stepped forward, standing beside the desk in the middle of the room, and in an instant he was sitting on the floor, staring wide-eyed at his left forearm which now curved oddly. A wet patch spread on his padded sleeve. Nyder had seized his arm and broken it over the edge of the desk, as calmly as he would sign a memo. And he had done it so fast, with so little warning, that Coun hadn't even had time to tense his muscles, much less counter-attack.

Coun didn't scream, but he gave a little shout when Nyder tapped him with the side of his foot, not gently. "Dismissed to the medical bay. Now, we are going to practice manoeuvring around and over this desk, because in real combat we do not line up in neat rows on a bare empty floor and do Forms until they are all just right. This is the Bunker, this is the terrain that you are defending and which you will fight in." His eyes froze the men in place, except for Coun, walking carefully out the door and supporting his broken arm so as not to jostle it. "Real combat is messy, hard and graceless, and you will use your skills and the terrain, together, to save your neck and break your opponent's. In roster order, forward and over!" And as each man jumped or rolled over the desk, Nyder did his best to impede them - and his best was very, very good.

When the lesson was done, four men were on their way to the medical bay, and every man bore bruises. Including Nyder: his hands were a mass of blood-blisters under his gloves, but nobody could see. Nyder thought that four men disabled was about right to make his authority clear. He pulled the reserve men onto the schedule, and made a note to himself not to disable more than one of them at a time.

He showed the Security Elite every hand-to-hand combat trick he'd painfully learned on the battlefield. He trained them mercilessly, criticised them endlessly: they were never good enough for him. They strove endlessly to improve themselves, and he kept setting the bar higher. Kept them running, so they'd never notice that he was running just as fast, scrabbling to stay ahead, to become one of the Elite.

Security Commander Slai had been a wall: Security Commander Nyder would be a stiletto, silent and lethal in the dark, moving too quickly to be seen, using speed rather than size as his defence.

* * *

Once his authority was established, Nyder made occasional use of the men under him for sex, in a fairly normal fashion. He wasn't obsessed with gymnastics and endurance; most of the time he preferred his own hand. He took no lovers, only temporary bed-warmers, and he never spoke as they serviced him. He emptied himself into them and sent them back to duty. Sometimes at the peak he thought of a gun that never ran out of bullets; sometimes he thought of a cold hand on his.

* * *

They issued him a medal for his role in saving Davros; Nyder stood at attention as some military functionary draped it around his neck on its ribbon. He didn't care about the honour that the medal represented; his honour was that Davros was there, personally, watching as he saluted and the recorded sound of cheering was played.

Afterwards, Davros told him that he had reset the motor controls of his chair, to prevent the clamping-down habit that could have cost him his life. That was a greater honour still. That was what he remembered when he wore that medal.

* * *

Davros watched the development of his new Security Commander with something approaching intense interest. It was gratifying to see the man change himself to conform to his new role's requirements. And it was galling that Davros could not consult his own notes on the Spire Project subjects: the notes were currently in his safe, and he could not access it without help. Under the circumstances it might be unwise to ask Nyder, and there was nobody else in the Bunker he could trust to move or destroy those papers.

He could, however, access the computer. He discontinued the Spire Project alerts, and discovered that the alerts were not going to be necessary anyway. Subjects Eisel, Lett, and Marb were MIA; Subjects Borr and Nettek were deceased; and Subject Nyder was under his control. So he could put the Spire Project aside. Forget its subjects; forget that it had ever existed. And enjoy the sole result, a man with Standard obedience and Elite intelligence. Nyder.

* * *

There was one thing that Security Commander Nyder had the authority to do, that Security Trainee Nyder had not: look up personnel records. He sat in front of his terminal for a long time, before his fingers typed in the command to pull Erem's record. The wait while the computer called up the file seemed endless; and his heart froze when he saw the last entry was nearly eight months ago. Every personnel record should be updated at least once a month.

He read:

// F!FTS - A Bt - D //
FAILED FITNESS TO SERVE - ASSIGNED BATTLEFIELD DUTY - DECEASED.

Nyder looked at those words for a long time, and felt as though a part of him had died with them. Or rather, felt a certain confirmation that a dead part of him was truly dead.

Erem was gone.

* * *

He waited a day, three days, before he looked up another record.

Nenno.

It had not been updated in three years. // D // DECEASED.

White rage leaped up in Nyder's heart, rage and crushing disappointment; but he didn't show it in his face or body. The tortures that he had fantasised for that boy-hunting monster if he ever had the power: and now he had the power, and Nenno had escaped him. All those fascinating machines down in the Interrogation Centre that he'd been planning to use on him, and the man had the gall to just die!

He breathed in, then out, slowly, with control. That's what you get for caring about revenge, he told himself silently. Better to never care. About anything, except duty.

Then he thought of something, and his hands returned to the keyboard. This was going to be a more difficult search: he needed to pull the list of names of men in a certain role at a certain time, and look at their faces. He didn't know the name he was looking for.

* * *

The Dome guard had no idea why he had been arrested. Or stripped of weapons and clothes and fastened down in the Bunker Interrogation Centre. The Security men who brought him here didn't say anything to him; they just double-checked the restraints and left. He frantically reviewed his personal history, and found more than enough errors, mistakes, complicity in certain things - but he didn't know anything he'd done that would be worth bringing him to the Elite Bunker!

He did not think in terms of illegality, or innocence. That was not the way things worked in Kaled society. The Elite were a law unto themselves: they punished and rewarded according to rules that nobody else understood or could hope to follow.

The Security Elite man who entered next was as sleek as some deadly black-chromed weapon. He circled the helpless guard, staring at him. He was wearing glasses, and the eyes behind the lenses burned like red-hot knives being drawn over bare flesh.

He spoke - and the guard thought he felt his heart die in his chest. He would come to wish, in the minutes and hours and days to follow, that it had died. But instead he would live out those minutes and hours and days, and regret living every single one of them.

In a good imitation of the guard's own voice, as though quoting him, the man said, "'Here's one, Administrator Nenno'."

* * *

Davros almost never left the Bunker now. Nyder visited the Dome for him, delivering orders and confiscating supplies, with armed Security escorts always at his back. On one of those trips, he vaguely noticed a man duck away as he passed: if he had stopped and looked closer, he would have got quite a surprise. Because the man was someone he thought dead.

But Nenno was alive, and he intended to stay that way. He was a paranoid man who loved his pleasures, and he had blackmailed a Computer Systems Coordinator into duplicating and editing his record. Three years ago, Nenno was marked deceased. The new record, (space)Nenno(space) gave him private quarters and an unlimited ration card and access to the boys' barracks: that was all he desired. And thanks to those spaces in the copied record, he was hidden from any computer search.

But he remembered that filthy little boy Nyder, who had somehow survived the Wastelands to become Security Commander Nyder. And surely, Nyder would remember him.

Now Nenno hid in a darkened room, and shivered, his fingers nervously moving up and down the edge of his tunic. He would have to be more careful. One sight of his face, and everything would be over for him. Three years ago he had cut off contact with his previous allies, changed his clothes and his haircut. Now he had to be more thorough. He knew a doctor who did reconstructive work on battlefield casualties, and also knew his addiction to a certain drug. Perhaps it was time for Nenno to change his own face. And reward the doctor with a poisoned batch of his drug, for the sake of silence.

* * *

Nyder was a much better spy than Slai had ever been; being small did have its advantages. While searching Scientist Parran's quarters he found a pair of metal dice: gambling was forbidden of course, and Nyder was pleased to bring the information to his Commander. Davros said that Parran was worth keeping alive, so Nyder had him flogged, and then flayed the bottom of one of his feet to bare muscle. He made it clear that he'd flay the other foot and both hands next if Parran did not turn in all his co-gamblers for punishment. He did, and was permitted to stay in the Bunker; he just limped for a few weeks.

Nyder dimly remembered that there was a time when torturing someone who had not personally hurt him would have been unthinkable to him. This was not that time.

Some of the things he uncovered were more serious. There were Elite scientists who actually disapproved of Davros' work, who could not see the brilliant vision of their leader for what it was: the only way for their species to survive. Nyder reported his misgivings to Davros, and kept track of those men who could not be trusted.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Davros wants you to fail!" the man hissed, hidden in the shadows of the lower level. "What did you do, Quol?"

Nyder heard that hiss, and his lips moved in what was not quite a smile. He'd been tracking certain irregularities in the flow of men to and from this area, and now he had found them. And he recognised the speaker's voice. Doctor Cennell. He made not the slightest noise; he stood still and listened.

He recognised the voice that replied as well: Quol was one of the Senior Researchers. "I didn't do anything, except look in the archives for a certain paper that ought to be there: the one that Davros' current research is based on. When I couldn't find it, I put in an inquiry, thinking it had been withdrawn. Has - has he ordered you to fail me in the Fitness to Serve test?"

"Your annual exam is next week." Cennell sounded terribly sad. "He has asked that the physical tests be made as exacting as possible. He didn't say outright that I fail you, but he implied it."

"You're not how he's going to fail me, Cennell. It will be the intelligence test, on something obscure, something non-standard. Something he's sure I won't know about. And I'll fail. That means transfer to the Dome, to one of the lesser military laboratories."

"Or a bullet." Cennell sighed, deeply enough that even the hidden listener could hear. "Prem's axioms."

"What?"

"They're what Davros is going to give the extra test on; I heard him discuss it with that Standard he's got as our new Security Commander."

Nyder narrowed his eyes. Deceit on a Fitness to Serve test, or helping other to deceive it, carried specific penalties.

There was an new tone in Quol's voice: hope. "Prem's axioms, of course. Something we haven't thought of since our first lessons, but that we are supposed to know by heart." Quol chuckled, and Cennell hissed for silence. Then Quol went on, more quietly, "You may have just saved my life."

"I hope it wouldn't have gone that far. But what's to prevent Davros from claiming that you failed anyway?"

"Even Davros wouldn't do that, not if I truly pass. He can't. If I pass all the tests, all of them, and keep my head down, I have a chance." A slap, as of a hand on a clothed arm. "You're a good man, Cennell."

"The Bunker needs you, no matter what Davros thinks." A muffled laugh. "Just - be careful, please."

As the two men departed, Nyder watched from the shadows. They entered the lift together: Quol was looking at Cennell with gratitude as the doors closed behind them.

* * *

When Nyder needed to think at length without input from others, he did so in his shower. He took a lot of showers, now that he had his own washroom and an unlimited water ration. Two and sometimes three showers a day. A stiletto can never be too clean or too sharp.

He stood in the hot downpour, feeling his tense muscles relax, and the uneven napping effect as his artificial hair shed water. The sound of the water blotted out all other noise and let him concentrate.

Cennell and Quol were breaking regulations, absolutely. Conspiring to cheat at the Fitness to Serve tests, the standards by which all Kaleds were judged fit to live - or not.

But according to their words, Davros was also misusing the tests. Those tests were the foundation of Kaled civilisation, as much as the infant testing that marked children as Standard or Elite. It was wrong, deeply and obscenely wrong to think about biasing them in any fashion.

If Nyder remained silent about the researcher's foreknowledge, Quol would refresh his knowledge of Prem's axioms, and he would pass the test. Davros could always find another way, a regulation way, to dismiss him. But Quol was not the person he was thinking of.

He closed his eyes, feeling the hot water drum on his eyelids.

Cennell had worked hard on Nyder, rebuilding his hands step by step, finger by finger. He held those hands in front of him, and then rubbed them on his arms, feeling the long scars, the bent knuckles, the skin crinkled by water and by grafts. He could not see his hands; he always showered in the dark.

He suddenly realised why Davros of all people would be so forgiving of a Security Trainee who had taken Level One injuries. Davros, after all, had sustained far worse and been permitted to survive. Nyder cupped his face in his hands and imagined it like Davros': paralysed, eye sockets empty. Burnt hairless, scarred and mutilated.

Cennell was far too young to be one of the doctors who had helped heal Davros. But he had given Nyder back his hands and his sight. Paid attention to him, above and beyond what duty called for.

Cennell had been kind.

Nyder rubbed his hands over his face, and then over each other, deciding.

* * *

Cennell was very nervous when he was called to Davros' office; he was terrified when he arrived and found Davros there, with the new Security Commander standing at his left side - and Quol in front of them both.

"Davros," said Cennell, going to stand beside Quol.

"Doctor Cennell." Davros' mechanical voice was as smooth as it ever got. "I have just been reviewing a report from a civilian scientist, Kavell. He has done some groundbreaking work on the treatment of genetic disease, specifically Vos' Syndrome. He has a series of treatments which should prevent it from manifesting in people who carry the Vos' Syndrome gene."

Davros turned his chair a fraction. "I have reviewed my staff and find that you, Quol, carry the genes for Vos' Syndrome. I thought that as a favour to Kavell - who is truly a gifted scientist, he should be assessed for assignment to the Bunker - I could send yourself, and Cennell, along with a copy of your medical records to see if his treatment would be applicable to you."

Cennell was forcing himself to relax; apparently this had nothing to do with Quol's upcoming testing. And if Davros was suspicious of either of them, he would never arrange for them to leave the Bunker together.

"I have already contacted Kavell; he is waiting to see you both, in the Dome. Commander Nyder will escort you."

"Thank you, Davros," Quol said, and Cennell echoed him.

The three men left Davros' office; he remained, his sole hand tapping at the console of his chair. He had already given Nyder his orders.

* * *

There was a tiny rail line running from the Bunker to the Dome, for the fast transfer of troops and supplies. There were three people in the open car moving down that rail now; Cennell and Quol sitting in one seat, side by side, and Nyder in the seat behind them, his calm eyes looking at the backs of their heads. The narrow tunnel was dark, and the only noise was the echoes of the metal wheels clicking on the metal rails.

The darkness was broken: ahead was light, artificial light reflecting off a small white-tiled platform, marking the entrance to the Dome proper. As the train slowed to a halt, Nyder carried out Davros' orders.

Cennell died first, died before he realised what was going to happen to him or to his patient. In a way, that was almost a kindness. And then Quol, an instant later. Nyder put the small handgun away, and reminded himself to clean it when he got back to the Bunker. Then he sat and waited for the rest of Davros' orders to be carried out.

After the sounds of the two shots stopped echoing against the tiles, the Dome cleaning crew emerged, with hooked poles to remove the bodies and drag them up onto the platform, and a cart of cleaning supplies. They worked with practiced efficiency together: they had recovered the bodies of the dead before, many times. Nyder did not move as they scraped the blood and brains from the front of the car, and cleaned the great wet spray off the rail bed, recovering every scrap of organic matter for recycling. He just watched, blank-faced as a corpse himself. The crew worked quickly, to be done and out from under that gaze.

When they were finished, Nyder pushed a foot pedal to reverse the train's direction; he did not bother to turn around in his seat. He watched the dark rails flow away from him as he moved backwards through the tunnel, back to the Bunker. He moved through the darkness, silent.

He had obeyed Davros' orders.

He would live.

Live, he would live. There was something else that went with that, but he blotted it out, didn't think about it. He would live. He would obey. That was enough.

THE END

NOTES ON THE TALE:

First and foremost, many thanks to LilacFree for her generous beta-reading of this story.

Events in this story are AU and do not synchronise with the "I, Davros" audio CD series. However, people who have listened to that series, or to the stand-alone "Davros" CD, will quickly guess the identity of the young woman in the photograph that Nyder finds.
The name Slai reminds me of Slay and Liar and Sly, and also of Elisabeth Sladen.
The numbers which young Nyder calls 'special' are prime numbers.
Tasty Treats for your (something) Polla! - A polla is a small ground mammal, which mutated during the War to have a poisonous bite. Nyder of course has no concept of the word 'pet', and is unable to read that word on the food packaging.