Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen (7 page)

Before anyone had a chance to reply, Viner ran forward hysterically.

'He's dead!' he shouted. 'Another corpse! It's this damned building. It's watching us, it's alive, it'll get us all, if we stay here.

We've got to leave!'

'Silence, man! Control yourself!' shouted the Professor. He looked down at Haydon again. He'd known him as a promising student and had been pleased when a few years later Haydon had come to his office to ask if he could do some research on the history of the Cybermen with him. He could see the young man now, standing eagerly in front of his desk in the old university building in southern England. So far away... now.

'Terrible,' said the Professor quietly. 'Terrible. Poor Haydon.'

He gazed down at the body. Then he stirred.

'How did it happen?' he asked. But Viner, still shocked, was pressed against the indifferent silvery wall, as far from the terrible doors as he could get.

'We've got to get out of this building,' he was muttering, gazing wildly about him. 'It's deadly. They'll kill us all if we don't get back to the orbiter.'

'They?' asked the Doctor sharply.

'The Cybermen!' whispered Viner. 'Didn't you see him?'

'A Cyberman?' asked the Professor. 'A
live
Cyberman? My dear Viner, they've been dead for the last five hundred years.'

'I tell you there was a Cyberman and he came out of there.' He pointed to the doors. Parry looked unbelievingly at the hysterical man.

'He's right,' said Jamie.

The Doctor was examining the. doors. Parry moved towards the screen.

'Keep back,' screamed Viner. 'Keep back! You'll bring it out again.'.

'The question is,' said the Doctor calmly, 'what killed him?'

'But
you
saw the Cyberman, Doctor,' said Victoria.

'I saw something,' said the Doctor.

'For Heaven's sake, what else!' said Viner.

'Haydon looked at the screen,' the Doctor said, 'in the same direction as you were facing, right?'

'Of course,' said Viner, 'must you state the obvious?'

'Not quite so obvious,' said the Doctor, 'when you consider.

that he was shot in the back.'

'In the back?' exclaimed Jamie.

'Are you sure, Doctor?' the Professor interjected.

'See for yourself,' said the Doctor gravely.

The Professor and Viner crouched over Haydon's body and gingerly turned him over. They all saw a large ragged circular burn mark on the material. The Doctor looked round the room. 'If the Cyberman didn't shoot him, then who did?' he said. 'The answer lies over there, I think.' He went over to the wall he had been examining.

'Jamie...'

'Aye, Doctor?'

'Can you remember what you did—the exact sequence?'

'Oh, I'm not sure.'

'You must try, Jamie,' said the Doctor firmly. 'I want you to repeat the operation when I give the word.'

'Very well, Doctor,' said Jamie, looking anxiously at the control console. 'If you really think...' He stopped, not wanting to show his fear.

'You're crazy, man!' shouted Viner. 'You'll bring out... that...

thing again!'

'I hope not,' said the Doctor offhandedly. 'We'll just have to see.'

'When you're ready, Jamie,' said the Doctor crisply, 'let me know.'

'Aye, any time you want, Doctor.'

The Doctor turned to face Viner and the others. 'There is a distinct element of risk in what I am doing, so I suggest that anyone who wants to leave should do so now.'

They looked back at him, knowing the danger was real and close. Viner was in such a panic he couldn't move. He stood where he was, pressed stiffly against the wall. The Professor set his stiff upper lip bravely to face death in the cause of science. Victoria was ready to go anywhere the Doctor went. But Jamie, who enjoyed life and didn't see the point of throwing it away in this spooky place if he didn't have to, stepped down from the console platform and started firmly for the doorway.

'No, Jamie,' came the Doctor's voice. 'Not you.'

For a moment the young Scot hesitated. 'Of course, if you're afraid?' Jamie stiffened, glared at the Doctor, and stepped back on to the platform.

'Can't you stop all this? He'll kill us all!' cried Viner to the Professor.

'Not if you keep back, I won't,' said the Doctor lightly. 'Keep back against that wall in the corner there... please, Mr Viner,' he added, because although the others had moved to the safest place, Viner didn't apparently know who he was and what he was doing.

'Come on, man,' said the Professor.

Viner joined the others in the corner by the entrance arch.

'Right, Jamie,' said the Doctor. 'Now!'

Jamie pressed the white and black buttons.

FLASH! Unable to look away they stared as the doors glided quietly open, the gleam of silver, the realisation that this was the shape of a Cyberman they were looking at a Cyberman holding a long black Cyberweapon.

'Look the other way! The other way!' said the Doctor.

Only Jamie and Victoria dared to look, and therea panel slid back and revealed a gun similar to the one held by the Cyberman.

There sounded the low rattle of the Cyberweapon. It had fired at the Cyberman. Victoria screamed as the Cyberman's head rocked on the huge shoulders, toppled forward and off.

The Doctor leaned over the controls and flicked a switch by the two firing buttons. This time both the doors and the panel which had covered the gun remained open. Cautiously the Doctor moved forward.

'Careful, Doctor...' said Victoria.

'Quite safe now, I think,' said the Doctor as he walked across to fhe open doors where the body of the Cyberman lay sprawled.

'Don't—' squeaked Viner, but the Doctor had already crouched down and touched the trunk of the dead Cyberman. They watched, fascinated, as he lifted the great silver trunk and looked inside. It was as empty as a suit of armour..

'There, you see, it's only a model—a mock-up,' said the Doctor.

The Professor, ever curious, leaned forward and tried to touch the gun, but the Doctor stopped him. 'Careful. That may be real!'

'It's a trap,' said Viner.

'Oh, I don't think it's anything as elaborate as that,' said the Doctor, 'more likely it's a testing room for weapons. This,' he said, turning over one of the great silver limbs, 'is a purely robotic Cyberman. It contains no humanoid material. It's simply made as a target for weapons.'

Once he had explained it, they relaxed. But Haydon was still dead.

'Let's go back to the control room with this poor fellow,' said Parry.

Viner and Jamie picked up Haydon's body.

'What's that?' said Victoria suddenly, pointing to the silver fish creature that Jamie had been examining.

'Och, only some wee creature I found on the floor,' said Jamie over his shoulder as they carried Haydon away. Poor Haydon, he'd been afraid of the wee silver beastie, Jamie thought, as they manoeuvred the body through the door and along the corridor.

'It's a fossil,' said Victoria curiously, as she picked it up. It did look a bit like a crustacean from hundreds of millions of years ago that had turned to silvery metal instead of stone.

'Victoria,' said the Doctor sharply, coming over to her. 'Be very careful. Let me see it.'

He took it from her gingerly, looked at the holes in the head where the 'eyes'. and 'mouth' would be, and examined the antennae closely.

'It looks inactive,' he said, 'but it's not a fossil, Victoria. It's a...'

He hesitated, trying to remember a small fact from the recesses of his mind, then took his dog-eared diary out of his pocket and looked up something. under the 'C's.

'Here we are—a Cybermat!'

'What is a Cybermat, Doctor?' asked Victoria.

'Oh, it's one of those...' he began, but thought she had had enough unpleasant stories for a while. 'I'd just leave it alone if I were you.'

He went out after the others. Victoria, whose scientific curiosity, inherited from her father, didn't allow her to leave something unanswered once she had begun to wonder about it, made a face at his know-all back, picked up the Cybermat for later examination and put it in the large handbag she always carried.

In the great hall of the main control room Kaftan and Klieg were still standing by the master code console. The scientist was still wrestling with the symbols, trying to work out the correct sequence and getting more and more irritable when it continued to elude him.

The sound of a footstep made them look up. Toberman stood silently before them, his arms folded.

'Well?' asked Kaftan curtly.

'It is done,' said Toberman.

She nodded with a half-smile.

'Good.' She waved him back.

Toberman stood aside.

But Klieg was still absorbed in the code machine. 'I'll never completely understand this code,' he said crossly. 'The sequence just doesn't make sense.'

Kaftan looked at him derisively. 'You, a logician, and you say a code the brilliant Cybermen invented doesn't make sense! What you mean is your brain's not up to it, eh? You must. work harder.

You must master it.'

'How can I, in this short time?' Klieg looked angrily at her.

'We have plenty of time,' said Kaftan. 'You will see...'

Klieg was too deep in this defeating puzzle of mathematics to take in her meaning. Before he could question her, Jamie and Viner came in carrying the dead Haydon followed by the Professor and the others. Kaftan, seeing the body, stepped down from the console and looked concerned. Klieg looked up briefly, then went on with his maths.

'Right,' came Professor Parry's voice. 'We're all here, it seems.

If you will all sit down for a moment.'

Beside the control panels were benches for the technicians.

They all sat down except Klieg, who seemed not to have heard.

'Mr Klieg,' insisted the Professor.

'Oh, leave me alone,' snapped Klieg disrespectfully. 'Can't you see I'm working—or have.you forgotten the purpose of this expedition?'

'You will kindly take your place.'

Klieg obeyed with bad grace.

'I'll come straight to the point,' said the Professor. 'I have reluctantly decided to abandon the expedition and return to Earth.'

They stared at him.

'It's impossible,' said Klieg. 'You can't abandon this now.,

'Why do you decide this?' asked Kaftan.

'What! Why?' came from the others in a great babble of objection. After all this trouble, just when they were on the verge of making such exciting discoveries! The Professor raised his hands for silence.

'I feel as strongly about it as you—this expedition has been my dream for years. But there were those, like Mr Viner, who said that more preparation was needed. More men and equipment.' He paused.

They were silent. Viner nodded to himself. 'I refused to heed their warning,' the Professor went on, 'and the result is that two men have died.'

There was silence.

'I'm sorry, but we must leave at the first available conjunction.

We shall take back all we can for further study, of course—but that is my decision, and that is what must happen.'

Clattering his bench, Klieg stood up.

'I
insist
that—' he began, when he felt Kaftan's hand on his.

She gave him a reassuring look and shook her head slightly. He glanced around angrily but sat down again.

Only the Doctor had noticed.

'My decision is final,' said Professor Parry. 'We leave when the north hemisphere is properly tangential, which will be—' He looked at his space-time watch. 'At 18.42.'

He had hardly sat down when there was the sound of someone running, heavy space-boots thumping on the metal floors. In burst Captain Hopper.

'Ah, Captain,' continued the Professor, absent-mindedly. 'Just the man! Can you be ready to blast off at 18.42?'

'No,' cried Hopper, still trying to get his breath.

'I beg your pardon?' said the Professor, startled. 'Did I hear you right? You are paid to take orders, Mr Hopper.'

'Not impossible ones.' The Captain's gruff voice echoed around the large metallic room. 'It's the fuel pumps. Some character has messed up the lot.'

The others froze. To be stranded on the chill metal planet, to die slowly in the tomb of the soulless Cybermen...

'Someone... or something,' said the Doctor quickly, voicing their fears.

'Well, whatever it is,' answered the Captain bluntly, 'it nearly sabotaged our chances of getting off this crumby planet;
8

Hours later, the outer surface of Telos was dark and silent.

Nothing moved. The remote stars of other galaxies shone in the clear atmosphere, but gave only a sliver of light on the black crater mountains.

Inside the control room the artificial daylight gave a harsh shadowless glare. Viner looked around at the others, annoyed at their apparent indifference. 'Well, I don't care what any of you do,' he said,

'but I'm not going to spend the night on this planet.'

'You seem to have little option now.' The Doctor, relaxed as ever, leant back in his chair with his hands in his pockets.

Viner looked round at the bright walls where the Cyberman bas-reliefs still stood stiff and huge, dominating the humans below.

'Well, at least we can get out of this sinister place,' he muttered. He tapped the notebook in his hand. 'I have recorded all I wish to. I suggest we all return to the orbiter and wait there.'

'That's a very bad suggestion, Mr Viner.' Captain Hopper had just entered, unnoticed. 'You know that?'

But Viner moved towards the door. The space orbiter glowed cosy and safe in his mind and he wasn't going to stay a second longer in this gleaming metallic hall.

'I insist!' he said. The tall space-commander stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

'You do a lot of "insisting", don't you, Viner,' said the Captain.

'Well, I'm going to tell you something now—the first guy who steps into my orbiter is going to stop the repair work just like that. My men will just down their tools.'