A Change in the Rules

One

The experimental TransWarp Drive had clearly malfunctioned, Gold Leader realised. Not only had they not arrived at their planned destination, but the stars around them did not match any sector or even quadrant in the ships' database.

"Att-empt to con-tact Sup-reme Comm-and." Gold ordered.

"Ob-ject a-head." Red Leader stated.

"De-fine." Gold demanded.

"Not poss-ible." Red admitted. "No com-par-able phen-om-en-a in da-ta-base."

"App-roach and scan." Gold ordered -this was an exploration mission.

As the saucer shifted course, Black Leader reported. "No con-tact with Com-mand poss-ible. All chan-nels emp-ty."

"Are comm-uni-cations dam-aged?" Red asked.

"Neg-a-tive." Black replied. "Our equip-ment is funct-ion-ing. But there are no trans-missions of any-y kind on an-y wave-length or chan-nel. No act-ive rec-eivers of an-y kind."

Then they were close to the object. It was huge -bigger than a planet. Telemetry indicated some type of shelled marine reptile, swimming through hard vacuum! Four other life-signs, standing on the shell. Mammals of some kind, and on their backs….

The saucer swooped in lower, and the crew had a glimpse of a bowl-like structure, filled with seas, plains, mountains and forests, illuminated by a tiny, hurtling sun. Then all systems went down and the saucer plummeted like a stone.

Gringakh was a very old, very large and rather irascible Troll. He had lived in the Ramtops for two millennia and had begun to get sleepy. He had, in fact, been taking a nap when the whoosh and bang woke him up. Groggy and more than usually irritable at being woken a mere six months into his sleep, he opened his eyes and noted the column of smoke and dust about half a mile off. That brightened his mood. Stones occasionally fell from the sky, providing an easy meal for a Troll. Sometimes they contained minerals not found locally, many of which were delicious.

Gringakh heaved himself to his feet and went to investigate, brushing moss and grass off himself as he went. He was a bit disappointed to see that the object in the middle of the new crater was mostly metal, but then he brightened. The local Dwarves loved metal and were willing to trade it for gourmet-quality deep-mined rock.

He was halfway down the side of the crater when he felt the first sting. Then there were little white bugs all around him. The stings weren't very painful, but they were irritating, and Gringakh was short-tempered at the best of times. He set about swatting and stamping. He was thorough. None of the bugs escaped.

From the opposite lip of the crater, Gold Leader watched as Red Leader and the majority of the crew were destroyed.

"The na-tive life-forms seem ve-ry ro-bust." It remarked.

"I con-cur." Black Leader replied.

"It must be ex-ter-min-ated!" White Dalek 347 stated.

"If you have an-y sug-gest-ions as to how we might acc-om-plish that, state them." Gold told it. "Oth-er-wise re-main si-lent."

"It is ta-king the ship." White Dalek 362 observed.

"Ir-rel-evant." Black said. "The ship is be-yond re-pair. What is our next act-ion?"

"I am in-stig-ating Sur-vi-val Pro-to-col." Gold decided. "We will with-draw from here. We will in-vest-i-gate the local pop-u-la-tion and cul-ture. Find some-where to set up a base."

"Then we will ex-ter-min-ate them!" 347 said.

"Then we will find a way to con-tact Com-mand." Gold said. "We will re-quire a fleet and spe-cial wea-pons to deal with the sil-i-con life-forms here. Fol-low me."

They turned and headed away. None of them noticed the large raven that had been observing them from a tree, and which now took off and flew purposefully in the direction they were heading.

As Gold led off, a small, entirely foreign, thought occurred to it. I never liked Red anyway.

Red Leader was as much at a loss as a Dalek can be. One minute it had been attacking a life-form apparently bent on stealing the wrecked ship. Then something akin to a cliff-face had slammed into it and everything had gone black. Now it stood on a grey, featureless plain that stretched out beyond scanning range in all directions.

"It takes getting used to." The voice was deep, like lead slabs dropped onto stone. "Despite what they say, you're never quite prepared."

Red turned to face a three-metre tall figure, wearing a black robe and carrying some kind of primitive agricultural implement.

"Pre-pared for what?" It asked.

"For me." The figure replied. As it came closer, Red saw that inside the hood was not a face, but a human skull. "Even going into battle, or after a long illness, I'm still a shock to them. They never really expect me, except wizards and witches."

"You are hu-man. You will be ex-ter-min-ated!" Red declared, and fired. The beam passed completely through the figure and dissipated in the distance.

"If my robe weren't immaterial, I'd be really annoyed about that." Death remarked. "Fugilin robes aren't easy to come by, and the paperwork for expenses is ridiculous.

"Look, just for the record, you can't exterminate me or anyone else any more. That's because you've just been exterminated yourself. It happens when you upset a Troll. Your friends all took off in various directions as soon as it happened, but you looked lost, so I came to see if I could help. Getting shot at wasn't in the plan, thank you very much."

"You are a pro-jec-tion." Red decided. "I will seek out your cre-a-tors and ex-ter-min-ate them. I will lo-cate more Da-leks and join with them. The Da-leks will be vic-tor-i-ous!" It set off across the plain.

"Good luck with that!" Death called after it, then shook his head and turned back to his horse. "Some people can be really pig-headed. Still, no skin off my nose, eh, Binky?"

Binky had started out as an ordinary horse, but his career had had its effects, and they showed in the look he gave his master.

"I know." Death sighed. "No skin, no nose. It's just an expression." He swung himself up into the saddle. "Everyone's a critic, these days."

Gold saw the native standing in the path ahead, just before they left the woods. It called a halt.

"There is a na-tive a-head." It said. "Hu-man. Fe-male."

"We will ex-ter-min-ate it!" 347 said at once.

"That would be dan-ger-ous." 362 pointed out. "Hu-mans are the most dan-ger-ous spe-cies we have e-ver en-count-ered. Al-so, where there is one hu-man, there are ma-ny."

"362 is cor-rect." Black noted. "What are your or-ders, Gold Leader?"

Gold considered for a moment.

"We will app-roach the hu-man op-en-ly and ques-tion her with-out threat." It decided. "Her at-tire sug-gests that this is a pri-mi-tive col-o-ny. They may not have heard of us. If we do not pre-sent a threat, we may learn much."

Granny Weatherwax watched them troop out of the woods and come towards her. They came openly and slowly, saying nothing. It wasn't what she expected. None of it was what she expected. She's been Borrowing a raven to investigate whatever it was that fell out of the sky that morning. When she saw who and what it was, she'd been disturbed -she'd been told they wouldn't come here. But here they were and they were behaving in a way very different from they way she'd been told they acted. That was why she'd come to meet them alone. Something wasn't right, and that made this her job.

They stopped a yard or two away, the golden one in front, with the black one slightly behind and to one side. The two white ones stood behind it, line abreast.

"Blessings on all here." Granny said.

One of the white ones suddenly jerked forward, but its companion moved sideways at the same time, bunting the first into the roadside ditch. The thing gave a squawk as it fell, and the black one swung its eye-piece around. The white one still in the road had its own eyepiece swinging around to the sky, the trees, the nearby fields. Its entire attitude radiated 'nothing to do with me'. If it could whistle, Granny thought, it would.

The other had extricated itself from the ditch by hovering. But it had gone well in, and was covered in mud and draped in trailing wet vegetation.

"Da-lek 347!" The black one barked, in a voice which, for all its artificial flatness, was unmistakably that of a sergeant. "Cal-i-brate your nav-i-ga-tion prop-er-ly and clean your-self up!"

Throughout this, the gold one had kept its attention on Granny, now it spoke.

"Gree-tings. I am Gold Da-lek Lea-der. May we know your name?"

"Esme Weatherwax. People call me Granny." She replied. She looked over to where the clean white Dalek was supposedly 'helping' its companion to clean up. The black one was watching them, and if Granny hadn't known better, she would have thought it was trying hard not to laugh. She jerked her head at the gold one and moved off a few yards. The Dalek followed.

"Look," Granny said quietly, "I know who and what you are. The Doctor told me, he's a friend of mine." She paused to let that sink in.

Some people think that Daleks have no emotions, but that isn't true. Daleks have powerful emotions. They run on their emotions. But the computers in their suits filter out all but a few. Anger and hatred are the main permitted ones, but there is also fear. Gold felt a cold wash of it as it heard that name. The Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, knew this world, had been here, had friends here. The odds on their survival had suddenly become very slim.

"Where are we." It asked. "What world?"

"This is the Discworld." Granny told her. "You're in the Kingdom of Lancre, in the Ramtop Mountains.

"Now look, this is my territory, and the people here are my people. They're daft, and stubborn and annoying, but they're mine. If you mean 'em harm, you'll have to go through me first, and whatever you might think, that won't be easy!"

Even as she spoke, Granny realised that there was no threat here. These weren't the ravening killers the Doctor had warned her about, not here, not now. They were alone. Lost. Afraid. They might not admit it to themselves, but they were. Gold's next words proved it.

"We do not seek con-flict, whatever the Doc-tor might have told you. We are few, and out of con-tact with Com-mand. We seek only to sur-vive. A place of safe-ty."

"Well, if that's all you want, I can help." Granny said. "There's a barn about half a mile down the road. It's not being used, the old owners died and the new one hasn't arrived yet, but it's sound. You can put up there tonight, out of sight. Then in the morning leave early before anybody's about, take the track round the town and head down onto the plains. From there, take any road you like, they all lead to Ankh-Morpork.

"Ankh-Morpork is a big city, they've got Golems, Trolls and Dwarves and even a few Elves there. It's the only place you can go where you won't stand out like sore thumbs. Somebody there'll give you work and a place to live, if that's what you want."

"You have my gra-ti-tude." Gold said – it came surprisingly easily. "We will leave your people in peace."

Granny watched them go. Sending them to Ankh-Morpork had been a bit of a dirty trick. Either they'd be stripped down and sold off for scrap within a day, or they'd fit right in and make a home for themselves. If they wanted to make trouble, there were people there who could stop them. If the regular letters she got from Mustrum Ridcully were accurate – and they probably were, for all the bluster, you didn't get to be Archchancellor of Unseen University by being stupid – Lord Vetinari and Commander Vimes of the Watch were men to be reckoned with. So was Mustrum himself, you didn't earn Esme Weatherwaxs' respect easily, after all.

Daleks don't need to sleep, as such. The suits filter out the fatigue chemicals from their bodies and support their metabolism at a constant rate. But they are still living beings, with minds that need to dream regularly. Davros had tried to eliminate this, only to find that it led to mental instability in Daleks as it did in other species. That was unacceptable. Davros wanted his creations stable. Vicious, ruthless and homicidal, but stable. So Daleks need downtime, which is what Gold ordered the squad to do. Black divided watch duty between itself and the two Whites, then reported back.

"It was dan-ger-ous to move aw-ay from us to speak with the hu-man." It remarked.

"I did not rea-lise you had no-ticed." Gold said.

"I al-ways know where you are." Black replied.

"Do you?" Gold asked.

Black seemed puzzled at the question. "Of course. You are our lea-der. It is my du-ty to guard you."

"You are cor-rect." Gold couldn't have described the reaction it had to this statement, or why it did what it did next. "Leave me!" It said imperiously. "I need to plan!"

Gold swept away into an enclosed section of the barn, leaving Black wondering what had just happened.

In the early hours of the morning, Black went to alert Gold that it would soon be time to leave. The first thing it saw was Golds' suit, open and empty. The next thing it saw was Gold, sprawled out on a heap of straw. For a second or two, the tableau held, then Black spun on its axis, turning its back. There was a rustle of straw, then the whirr and click of the suit closing.

"You can look now." Gold said.

Black turned back. "I ap-ol-o-gise." It said. "I did not ex-pect…."

"It was my err-or." Gold interrupted. "I should have been more aw-are of the time."

"It was unsafe to leave your suit in un-known terr-i-to-ry." Black warned.

"Do you ne-ver feel the need to get out of the suit for a while?" Gold asked.

Truthful response to a leader is mandatory, so Black replied. "Yes, occ-a-sion-ally. I find it…lib-er-a-ting."

It did not occur to either of them that modesty is not a Dalek concept.

It was when they came down into the plains that it happened. They had been proceeding through a forest for several hours when they were suddenly surrounded by humans. Most of them were wearing green and brown clothes, except one who wore some kind of robe and another all in red. One, Gold noticed, was very large, while another was very small. The one who stood directly in front of them was cleaner than the others, had a sword rather than a bow, and wore a large, colourful feather in his hat which clashed violently with the green outfit he wore. He stepped forward and addressed them in the tones of someone who had rehearsed his speech carefully.

"Ho, there travellers!" He declaimed. "Know ye not the forest ye walk is the domain of Roger Flood and his Cheerful Chaps? If ye would travel here, ye needs must make tribute. Give freely, and ye may go your way in peace. Refuse, and we shall loose upon ye!"

Before 347 did something irretrievable, Black raised its gun and fired at a nearby bush, which was immediately reduced to ashes and smoke. There was a moment of silence, then series of brown, green and one red streak radiated outwards from the area at high speed. The man with the feather in his hat looked around.

"Oh, bugger!" He said, in a more normal voice. He took off his hat, stuck his sword in the ground and sat down on a nearby tree-stump with an air of utter dejection. "Took me months to get that lot together!"

"You are Rog-er Flood?" Gold asked.

He shrugged. "That's just my work name." He allowed. "My real name is Sir Egbert of Humphleigh, second son of Lord Rannley of Rothershire. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get the right people together for a job like this?"

"I und-der-stand that cri-min-als are nu-mer-ous in hu-man so-ci-eties." Gold replied.

"They are." Egbert confirmed. "If we were in the plains, or the mountains, or a town, I could've hired anyone. But this is the forest, isn't it? Special rules for forest banditry, and the Thieves Guild don't like rule-breakers!"

He rummaged in the large pouch that hung at his belt, finally pulling out a thick octavo volume and flicking through it to find a turned-down page.

"Rules for Forest Banditry." He read. "Forest Bandit leaders must be disgraced noblemen using an alias. That was the easy bit, that's me. Bands must be composed of peasants driven off their land by unjust lords. Not easy, most of the landlords around here are pretty decent – my lot got chucked off for non-payment of rent, most of 'em. At least one ranking officer must wear red at all times. You get dye round here by boiling down leaves or bark, it's green or brown. We had to send to Ankh-Morpork for red cloth and it wasn't cheap! Each band must contain one very tall member, one very short member, a minstrel, a mendicant priest and a disgraced noblewoman."

Egbert sighed. "Little Willy's big enough, but he's as thick as two short planks and he gets annoyed at his nickname. Grot's a Dwarf, so that's all right, but he doesn't like the regulation longbow, it being taller than him. Ollie has a good voice, but he only knows the Hedgehog Song. Nobody actually knows what 'mendicant' means, but Brother Invite-the-Curious-to-Evening-Service is happy to help out as long as we make donations regularly. As for disgraced noblewomen, Maid Grizelda is back at camp; she's got a face like a horse and a punch that will stop a bear, but she can cook and she's always up for a laugh!

"Then you're supposed to donate twenty-five per cent of your gross takings to the poor. Except the local lords have rumbled that one, and most of the time the reward for handing us in is a lot higher, so you have to find a really traditionalist poor person to give it to. We give it to a local witch – at least she knows who actually needs it!"

"We do not have an-y curr-en-cy, an-y-way." Gold told him. "Sor-ry."

"Oh, well." Egbert said. "I only tried this because my older brother told me that knight-erranting was really boring and underpaid. My Gap Year is almost over anyway. Come to think of it, so is Grizeldas'. Maybe we could find somewhere quiet for a couple of months -we're both still getting our allowances -then go home. Maybe ask our parents if we can get married -it works out better if it's somebody you actually know you get on with."

Suddenly much brighter, he jumped to his feet. "I'll go and talk it over with Grizelda now!" He decided. "Here, you're technically poor, aren't you? Have this, with my thanks!"

He handed Gold a heavy pouch, picked up his hat and sword, and went off into the woods, whistling.

"Did you un-der-stand an-y of that?" Gold asked Black.

"Not a word." Black said.

"Oh. Per-haps you had bet-ter look af-ter this." Gold passed the pouch over. "I would pro-bab-ly waste it. Log-is-tics and sup-ply are part of your pro-gamm-ing, not mine."

"We should have ex-ter-min-a-ted all of them." 347 said.

"Shut up, will you?" 362 told it.

"You do not have au-thor-i-ty to com-mand me!" 347 snapped.

Black turned round, increased vocal output to max and boosted the bass as much as it would go.

"347, YOU HOR-RI-BLE LIT-TLE DA-LEK!" It roared. "IF I HEAR YOU SAY EX-TER-MIN-ATE ONE MORE TIME, I WILL HAVE YOU POL-ISH-ING ALL OUR SUITS FOR A WEEK. WITH A VER-Y SMALL LEAF! Do you un-der-stand!"

347 muttered something.

"I CAN-NOT HEAR YOU!" Black bellowed.

"I O-BEY, BLACK LEADER!" 347 responded.

An odd tinkling sound came out of Golds' speakers. They all looked at it.

"Sor-ry." Gold said. "Small vo-cal mal-func-tion. Give me a rel."

On most worlds, evolution - the physical adaptation of living things to changes in their environment – is a process that takes millennia, or even hundreds of millennia. Psychological adaptation – the process by which intelligent beings adjust to changes – can be as long as a piece of string. It depends on the nature of the change, the nature of the person (all intelligent beings are people) and many other factors.

Among the factors here were four highly intelligent people, some very advanced technology, being a long way from a very oppressive society and a long journey in the intense magical field of the Discworld. But in the end, a person has to want to change.

It was the better part of a year after the crash when the four Daleks finally arrived on a hilltop where the road led down to the smoky, dusty, muddy, crowded geographical, topological and sociological splodge that was Ankh-Morpork. They could have completed the journey much faster, but things had happened.

They had experienced the urge to explore certain places, for one thing. For another, they had been busy. The Plains were rife with bandits, dangerous animals and even bands of marauding Elves. The arrival of four odd-looking but heavily-armoured strangers in a village or market town frequently led to a diffident request for them to 'do something about those (insert menace here)'. Since such requests were accompanied by monetary offers of varying degrees of generosity, and since the travellers had discovered that money made things go much more smoothly, the requests were accepted.

Daleks are by nature efficient, so the jobs were completed with precision and dispatch – although 347 was prone to sulk when the action involved arrest rather than extermination. This in turn led to a reputation which preceded them, the opportunity for more employment, and a significant increase in the weight of the pouch Black carried.

Black and 362 would have been perfectly content to make a career of this, but 347 was uninterested in anything, and Gold was determined to reach Ankh-Morpork. She wanted a base, she said.

Nobody was quite sure when Gold had become 'she', or the rest of them had become 'he'. It had just happened. So had the thickening and strengthening of their lower tentacles into something like real legs, while the vestigial remnants of their torsos where also increasing in size.

At least Blacks' and 362s' were. Black had thought it was just him at first. But then Gold had decided that, whenever opportunity allowed, they were to get out of their suits and wash their bodies. She bathed in privacy, of course -leaders' privilege. But the three males often made use of communal facilities in the villages and towns they passed through. So Black knew that 362 was also changing. 347 – who had had to be flatly commanded to bathe, and to leave his suit open to air out – was not changing at all, however.

"So, we're here." Black noted. "What next, Gold Leader?"

"Don't go all formal on me, Black!" She told him. "We're not leader and deputy any more. We're… friends."

"I know, Gold." He said more quietly. "But I have to be formal, or the lads get nervous, you know that."

"You mean 347?" Gold sighed. "He's not adjusting well, is he?"

"He's not adjusting at all." Black stated. "I suppose back on Skaro they'd say he's stayed a true Dalek and that we're corrupt. I tend to think he's just a psychopath."

"If this is corruption, I'll have a bit more, thank you!" Gold decided, and they both laughed.

That had been disturbing at first – Golds' 'slight vocal malfunction' had been the first sign of a growing trend. First the urge to express the new emotion, then the odd staccato sounds emerging from their speakers. The sounds had changed, as had the voices. Gold was now a musical soprano, Black an authoritative baritone while 362 had developed a gravelly tone. 347 still squawked electronically, when he remembered to. Caught off guard, he had a high-pitched, whiny voice that made you instinctively want to hit him -the voice of a spoiled child denied his sweeties.

"We need to find somewhere to live – buy or rent a place." Gold said. "Then we need a way to make a living. We don't need much, but we'll have to buy what we do need."

"We should en-ter the sew-ers." 347 said. "Est-a-blish a se-cret base and re-cruit hu-mans to spy for us. We can cre-ate Ro-bo-men and use them for our con-quest."

"Bugger that!" 362 replied. "I've heard about the sewers in this town. Fumes'll rot these suits in an hour, and there's things live there I don't even want to think about!"

"We could con-trol them. Use them as wea-pons." 347 insisted.

"Oh, knock it off, mate!" 362 groaned. "You really get on my tits, sometimes!"

With Blacks' eyepiece on him, 347 lapsed into semi-audible grumbling.

By this time, they had reached a large square that was clearly the centre of a commercial district, surrounded with shops and businesses.

"First order of business is to get ourselves cleaned up. None of you are at your best, and I must look a fright!" Gold decreed.

"You look fine to me." Black said.

"You're sweet, Black, but you're a terrible fibber!" She told him. "Could I have those carbon crystals the small hairy humanoids gave us instead of currency? I've got an idea.

"You boys find us a place to live and work. Meet me back here at sunset."

Black found a place in a quiet street off the main market. A row of small, discreet shops with signs such as 'Corsetieres', 'Bespoke Tailoring' and 'Craftsman-made Furniture'. It had a shop space in front, a workshop area behind and a rather commodious apartment upstairs. The owner seemed eager to give a substantial discount to the three heavily-armoured purchasers.

That done, they went to get themselves cleaned up. By the time they met again in the market square, the differences were noticeable. Not so much for 347, who had just paid a couple of youngsters to throw some water over his suit and wipe it down. 362 had gone to a coach-cleaners and had his suit buffed and polished to a serious shine. Black had gone even further; the dusty matt casing was now a deep and glossy black.

"That looks really good!" Gold exclaimed. "How did you manage it?"

"The process is called 'enamelling', they told me." Black said. "They coated the suit with powdered silicon compounds, then heated it up. I think they were worried it would hurt me until I told them the suits could withstand much higher temperatures.

"You look fantastic, by the way!"

"Do you like it?" Gold asked. "Females here seem to like to wear coloured crystals and I wanted to try it for myself."

A circle of small, identical red stones had been mounted around her dome, just above the eyepiece. Another circle of green stones was placed around the base of her operating arm, and a circle of blue on the base of the gunstick. Overall, her suit had been buffed to a high gloss. Black was dazzled, and it had nothing to do with his polarisation filters.

When she saw the shop, Gold was delighted.

"It's perfect!" She said. "I've been thinking -shut up 362 – about how we could make a living here. I'm sick of chasing bandits and animals, and I know humans like to make things and sell them. While I was having my crystals put on, I watched how the people in the shops do them. How they cut and polish the crystals and mount them in soft heavy metals. I'm sure I can do the same, only better. People pay a lot for good 'jewellery', as they call it, so I wouldn't have to do much to make more money than we need!

"But I'll need some special tools. 362, you have some engineering programming, don't you? If I send you specifications of what I need, can you make them?"

"Yes, even with the primitive technology here." 362 said. "There's a place on the corner where the small humanoids have a forge. If you give me some currency I should be able to pay them to let me use their facilities."

"First thing in the morning, then." Gold said.

'First thing in the morning', however, brought visitors. Shortly after 362 had left, two male humans came into the shop. Both were wearing the uniforms of the City Watch, but had badges of rank that neither Gold nor Black recognised.

The first was a little above medium height and reasonably fit-looking, in his middle years. His face was craggy and impassive, but his eyes were piercing and gave the impression that here was a man who missed very little.

His companion was so tall that he had to duck to come through the door, and so wide that his shoulders almost brushed the sides as he came through. He had a broad face which was pleasant rather than handsome, but his eyes were also penetrating. He removed his helmet to reveal a shock of bright red hair and favoured Gold and Black with a wide, friendly smile.

The shorter man spoke without preamble. "I'm Commander Samuel Vimes, City Watch, this is Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson. You're the Daleks." He said.

"You know about us?" Black asked.

Vimes shrugged. "I know you've made a reputation for yourselves out on the Plains." He said. "An efficient group of mercenaries who do clean work, don't overcharge and don't make trouble if there's no work for you.

"That's fine out on the Plains, but this is Ankh-Morpork. We have a Watch here, so we don't need anyone else chasing thieves. Now, you might be planning to hire yourselves out as bodyguards and that's fine. Just be careful who you work for, and remember the Assassins do the assassinations. You break the rules, or end up working for the wrong people, and we will come for you! Or the Guilds will, in which case you'll wish it was us!"

"We understand your concerns, Commander." Gold assured him. "But we only took the mercenary jobs to pay our way across the Plains and raise some capital to set up a shop here. We're going into the jewellery business, you see."

"Are you now?" Vimes said. "Well if that's true, I wish you well, Miss. But the reports say there are four of you, and I only see two here."

"362 is over at the blacksmiths." Gold explained. "347….Black, where's 347?"

"Locating." Black said, then. "He's in the Square. Dammit! He's going into combat mode!"

Black shot out of the door, Vimes and Carrot followed and Gold trailed anxiously behind.

Black swung round the corner and into the square in time to hear 347 fire. There was a loud explosion, screams, smoke and a pattering rain of organic debris. 347 fired again as the smoke cleared. It revealed 347 beside the ruins of some kind of hand-cart, a body in Watch uniform lay nearby and another human was crouching on the ground, menaced by 347.

"Re-veal the for-mu-la or be ex-ter-min-ated!" 347 was saying.

"White 347, stand down!" Black commanded. "Report!"

"This hu-man att-emp-ted to ex-ter-min-ate me!" 347 replied. "He has a bi-o-log-ical wea-pon he calls sau-sage in a bun with which he threa-ten-ed me!"

"That's Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler." Carrot said, coming up beside Black. "His sausages aren't that bad!"

"If you're new to the city, they can be pretty nasty." Vimes allowed. "Still, no excuse to blow the cart up!"

"We'll pay for the damage." Black promised.

Then Gold had pushed past them and gone up closer to 347.

"347," she said quietly, "I know this hasn't been easy for you. The rest of us have adjusted to this new world, but you've had a hard time of it, haven't you? It's my fault, really. I should've paid more attention, been more supportive. But you should've come to us…"

"SHUT UP!" 347 screamed. " I DON'T WANT TO ADJUST! I'M A DALEK! WE DON'T ADJUST, WE EXTERMINATE!"

"I understand." Gold said. "But things are different here. We can't just go around exterminating everyone we see anymore. This place is different, it wouldn't let us do that, I don't think. We have to live here now, with these people, and try to make friends with them."

347s' tone was deadly calm. "If you want to make friends with humans, then you're not a Dalek anymore. If you're not a Dalek, then I have to…"

Black had never moved so fast in his life. He was between them before 347 could fire, and fired himself at the same time. Both of them shook as their force fields shorted out. 347 slid back almost into the arms of a couple of Watchmen. Black felt Golds' operating arm on his back, steadying him.

"That's enough." Black said quietly. "You've had your tantrum. Now let's talk about this like adults, 347. We don't want to lose you."

"You never liked me!" 347 whined. "362 is a wimp and her! She'd never look at me. Not with you there, sucking up all the time! You with your macho black armour and your deep, manly voice and your big shiny gunstick!"

"What," Black asked, "are you talking about?"

"Oh, like you don't know!" 347 replied. "But I'll show them who the real Dalek here is!"

"Black doesn't want to kill him." Vimes observed.

"Of course not." Carrot said. "I wouldn't want to kill one of my men, even if he had gone mad."

Carrot jerked his head at the two Watchmen nearest 347. As the white Dalek prepared to attack again, Constable Dorfl, the golem, reached out and took hold of the gunstick, snapping it off with a twist of his wrist. 347 squawked once, then Sergeant Detritus' fist came down on his dome.

Detritus was a Troll, so the effect was similar to that of a large boulder dropped from a great height. The dome caved in, the suit split in several places, there was a shower of sparks, a cloud of smoke, and 347 was still.

Black felt himself being spun round.

"What did you think you were doing?" Gold demanded. "I've got my own force field, my own armour and my own gunstick! You didn't have to…"

"My duty.." Black began.

"Duty?" She yelled. "YOU COULD'VE BEEN KILLED!"

She spun away from him, shaking. Odd, irregular sounds came out of her speaker.

"Would somebody mind giving me a hand?" The voice came from ground level. Black looked down to see the Watchman 347 had shot earlier glaring up at him.

"Aren't you dead?" He asked.

"Of course I'm dead!" The man replied. "I've been dead for bloody years, mate! But that's no reason to take pot shots at me or leave me lying around in bits!"

"Constable Shoe is a zombie." Carrot explained. "How are you doing, Reg?"

"Not bad, all things considered." Reg replied sourly. "I can see my liver from here, but where my heart and spleen have gone is anybody's guess! Dogs've probably had 'em by now!"

Carrot turned. "Constable Visit? Cut along back to the Yard and get Sergeant Littlebottom and Captain Angua, will you? Tell them to bring a stretcher and a sack. Then tell Constable Ygor that he's got a big job coming.

"There you go, Reg. I'm sure Cherie and Angua will find most of you, and if not, Ygor always has plenty of spares. You'll be up and about again in no time!"

Black sighed. "I'd been wondering why people didn't seem to bothered by us." He told Carrot. "Now I know. By comparison with a lot of folk here, we're practically ordinary!

"We'd better go and see how 347's doing."

"I'm afraid he's probably dead." Carrot said. "With an armed and armoured suspect, Detritus forgets to pull his punches."

"Oh, he should be fine." Black replied. "His suit's damaged but I dare say 362 can repair it. 347 might have been knocked out, or he might just be sulking in there, but he'll be alive."

"So those things are actually suits, then?" Vimes asked. "Only some people reckon you lot are a new kind of golem."

"Do they?" Black said. "I'm not surprised, we don't often get out of the suits in public. For one thing, we don't have any other clothes. Also we don't get about very well without them.

"That's odd. I'm not getting any life-signs from 347. In fact I'm not detecting him at all!"

The reason became clear when they saw the large split in the back of the suit.

"He must have slipped out while nobody was looking." Black said. "Never expected that!"

"Is he dangerous?" Vimes asked.

"Out of the suit?" Black said. "No more so than anyone else. Probably less than most people around here. It's just that I have no idea what he'll do now. 347 always complained about getting out of the suit to take a bath. Not like him to deliberately climb out of it and go off naked!"

"What does he look like?" Carrot asked.

"Big brain, one eye, six tentacles, sort of pinkish colour." Black said.

"We'll look out for him." Vimes said. "But looking like that, he's liable to end up on the menu at a Klatchian restaurant by the end of the week!"

347 was out of the suit, and really didn't care anymore. Everyone had been too busy watching what was going on, so he'd slipped out of the back, scrabbled across the hot, uncomfortable cobbles on the square and gratefully slipped into the cooling mud of an alley.

He'd made, he reflected, a proper Charlie of himself! All that stuff about conquering the world, exterminating everybody. Then going on about Gold and Black like that! He knew what was going on with those two, and so did 362, but they kept on pretending it wasn't. 347 wasn't actually jealous, but the suit kept twisting things. Making him say and do things he didn't really mean. But all that time, he'd never wanted to leave it – it made him feel safe.

Now, alone, in the mud, with nobody noticing him or criticising him, he felt better than he had his entire life! A cockroach scuttled by and, without thinking, 347 snatched it up in a tentacle and popped it into his mouth. Crunchy and savoury. It had come from a nearby grating.

With a little effort, 347 lifted the grating. Cool air wafted up, laden with enticing smells. It would be dark and quiet down there, with lots of small, scurrying things to eat and nobody to bother him or order him about. He could find a little nook to live in and be happy. He was careful to pull the grating closed after him. He didn't want to be followed.

Detritus carried 347s' battered suit back to the shop for them. They pushed it into a corner of the workshop.

"362 can strip it down for spares." Black said. "I don't think 347 will want it again, somehow. He never did anything by halves, so if he left the suit, he meant to stay out of it for good."

Gold didn't answer for a moment, then she said. "I'm sorry I shouted at you earlier. I was angry, upset and so scared! I thought 347 might kill you, and I'd be left….

"And then all you did was go on about duty again! I thought we were past that, Black!"

"It wasn't duty." He admitted. "Tried to tell myself it was, but the truth is I was scared I was going to lose you!"

She didn't answer, just headed for the stairs. From half-way up, she called. "Are you coming, or what?"

Black followed her. In the main bedroom there was a large double bed on which the previous owner had left a mattress and an old sheet. Gold opened her suit and moved gracefully onto the bed. Her torso had also grown, in ways that Black found fascinating. She looked up at him.

"Stop fighting it." She said softly.

Her opened his own suit and joined her.

"My, my!" She remarked. "That is a big, shiny gunstick!"

Golds' jewellery business prospered. Her graceful, geometric designs proved popular among the 'younger set' of Ankh-Morporks' richer classes. So much so that she was able to hire two well-bred young ladies ('pin-money girls', they called themselves) to handle front of house work. She still wears her suit for going out, but has had a local dressmaker run her up a few simple garments to wear for work and around the house, or for meetings with customers who want to commission special pieces.

White 362 impressed the forgemaster with his skills to the extent that he was offered a job, which he took. They call him 'Chalky'. He rents an apartment nearby and has recently been seen walking out with the forgemasters' middle daughter. He's growing a beard and sings about gold as he works.

Black was at a loose end for a few weeks, until Captain Carrot asked him to join the Watch. His armour, his unusual but powerful weaponry (even when set to stun), his unique sensor array and his ability to fly when necessary actually came second to his tactical and leadership skills, in Carrots' estimation. He got promoted to Sergeant and, along with the newly-promoted Corporal Dorfl and some of the more formidable Constables, went on to form the Seriously Powerful and Large Arrest Team (SPLAT), which deals with more heavily-armed and dangerous criminals.

Gold and Black were married in the Temple of Small Gods. Black has recently been overheard ordering a new 'very small' Dalek suit from Chalky 362. Reports indicate that the colour will either be pink or blue.

The only person who might have a clue as to the whereabouts of 347 is the Death of Rats, but all he says is "Squeak."