Doctor Who_ Tomb Of The Cybermen Part 7

The Doctor rushed over to the controls and tried to release the two depressed b.u.t.tons. But they wouldn't come up. Rapidly the Doctor glanced at the rest of the panel, working out its possible function with supermind speed.

'What's the matter, Doctor?' asked Jamie. After all, nothing terrible had happened yet. They'd had far worse on this nasty planet.

As he spoke, the far wall seemed to lose its light and grow dark. They saw it was not a wall:, it was doors silently gliding open.

Out of the blackness loomed a huge figure. A silvery apparition with gigantic limbs and a ma.s.sive helmet for a face. Victoria screamed.

Behind her, Viner, who had just entered the room stopped, aghast, his mouth open.

But the silver figure with the blank face raised its metal fist and in its fist was something like a gun, black and menacing. Every human stood there, mesmerised with fear.

The Cyberman went on raising his gun, slowly, slowly. It was pointing at them, they could see the dark hole of the barrel.

'Down.' The Doctor pulled Victoria to the ground followed by Jamie and Viner. FLAs.h.!.+ There was a cry of agony. Lying on the floor they saw Haydon twitching, his eyes wide. Out of his tunic at his neck, arms and legs poured smoke, thick yellow smoke. Almost in slow motion his body crumpled up and he fell to the ground, his eyes open, staring.

7.

The Finding of the Cybermat The others clutched the floor in fear, but almost before they had time to look up again, the figure of the Cyberman had stepped back and the doors had glided shut.

They all lay absolutely still, expecting with every second another terrible flash and the Cybergun delivering its terrible, lethal charge at them. But as seconds ticked by and nothing happened, Jamie, impatient as always, raised his head.

'Wait!' said the Doctor. They lay there for another two minutes before he motioned them to their feet and went over to look at Haydon, signalling the others back. Then he took out his handkerchief and placed it over the man's face.

'Now, Jamie,' said the Doctor in a businesslike voice, 'what exactly happened here? What did you do? What sequence did you use?'

Jamie looked puzzled.

'Sequence? Och, I just pressed these two,' said Jamie, indicating black and white b.u.t.tons, now fully extended again. Then, realising, 'I've killed him, Doctor.'

Victoria turned to him and held his hand as Professor Parry bustled in, absorbed in his research.

'Doctor,' he said, 'if you could spare us a moment...' He gasped, seeing Haydon's body, ran over to it, bent down and removed the handkerchief from the wide, staring eyes.

'Haydon!' He turned round fiercely on the others. 'What's happened to him?'

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

'He's dead!' he shouted. 'Another corpse! It's this d.a.m.ned 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 live Cyberman? My dear Viner, they've been dead for the last five hundred years.' 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 you saw the Cyberman, Doctor,' said Victoria. 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 b.u.t.tons.

FLAs.h.!.+ 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 b.u.t.tons. 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.