Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis Part 5

A slight gust of wind blew the smoke from the burning buildings, clearing the air for a moment. Near the crater, the TARDIS was suddenly visible. Lady Peinforte was exultant. 'O glorious evil,' she cried. ' It is he It is he!'

'Where did it come from?'

The object of Lady Peinforte's unconfined joy was crouched with Ace near the crater, examining the arrow that had killed the Cyberman. Now the Doctor was at last prepared to give his companion undivided attention, and his face was deadly serious.

'I couldn't see,' said Ace.

'Cybermen killed by a bow and arrow?' said the Doctor.

'It's ludicrous...' A thought struck him. 'Unless...' he said, half to himself. He pulled the arrow out of the chest panel.

It glinted. 'Of course. The head's made of gold.'

Ace was impressed. 'That's real gold?'

'The only substance,' the Doctor replied, 'to which Cybermen are vulnerable.'

'Cla.s.sy,' said Ace. She reached out to touch the arrow head. The Doctor s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

'Gold dipped in poison.' Ace froze. 'Lady Peinforte's signature.' He looked around them carefully. Fifty yards away, the last paramilitary apart from Karl and De Flores was fighting a losing battle with the remaining Cybermen who were steadily closing in on him. There was no sign of anyone else. Ace s.h.i.+vered.

'I really think we should get out of here, Doctor,' she said.

The Doctor agreed. 'I think you're right. Now,' he mused, 'the Cybermen and Lady Peinforte both hate me to the death. The others mustn't feel left out.'

He darted across the open s.p.a.ce. The bow lay s.h.i.+ning in the open flight case where De Flores had left it. The Doctor took the bow and snapped the case shut. He turned back to Ace.

'Come on,' he said. Ace needed no encouragement: together they bolted to the TARDIS.

On the rooftop, Lady Peinforte watched in horror as the Doctor took the bow. This development had played no part in her calculations of imminent victory. 'No,' she screamed. ' No No!' She hastily loaded her bow and took aim at the Doctor's fleeing back. But the door of the TARDIS was closing behind Ace before Lady Peinforte could fire; the deadly poison-tipped arrow slammed into the already-closed door. A second later the TARDIS had dematerialized and was gone.

Absorbed as Lady Peinforte and Richard were in these actions, neither of them noticed Karl snaking foward across the ground towards the flight case. Lasers flashed over his head but he continued, and retrieved it. He then leapt to his feet and ran full-tilt back across the scorched ground to where De Flores was waiting in the shelter of the partly finished house. Without a word being necessary, they dashed through the building to the back and were through the perimeter fence and into their waiting vehicle as the Cybermen lumbered into the front of the house. As the sound of the engine starting and moving off reached the Cybermen, the Cyber Leader raised a hand and the pursuit was abandoned. There were more important matters that demanded their attention.

The Cyber Leader turned to his Lieutenant. 'Bring the bow at once,' grated the metal voice.

There was the slightest hesitation before the Lieutenant replied: 'The Doctor and the female companion have escaped with it, Leader.'

'Escaped?'

A sudden rattle, similar to that of a Geiger counter, attracted their attention. They turned towards it. A Cyberman was pa.s.sing a scanner over the body of the Cyberman from which De Flores had removed Lady Peinforte's arrow. The Cyberman responded immediately to his Leader's unasked question.

'Terminated by another human female using gold, Leader,' he said.

The Cyber Leader tightened his fist. 'The bow must be located at all costs.' His voice had risen slightly. It became even more ominous. 'We must also discover who this woman is.'

In the crater, two other Cybermen began to use their lasers to cut the statue from its rocket sled. The two separated almost instantly and more of the rock crust covering the statue fell away. As it did so a sudden great wind seemed to descend from above, as if pus.h.i.+ng down on the earth.

Wakened by it, one of the policemen lying on the ground some distance away stirred groggily and opened his eyes. It seemed to him that he saw a number of tall, silver robotic figures, and approaching them two men, identical twins, wearing silver headphones. As he stared in disbelief, all the robots gathered near the crater where the comet had landed. They seemed to be holding a silver statue of a beautiful woman. All the time the rus.h.i.+ng wind from above grew stronger and stronger. He could hear it now. Dust and stray paper blew all around him. He looked up, but could see nothing and yet the sense of some large physical object was so strong he s.h.i.+vered. Strangest of all, the robots, statue, and the men seemed to begin to disappear from the tops of their heads downwards. After a moment their heads had vanished, and for a bizarre instant they became headless robots. The descent of invisibility, however, continued relentlessly: shoulders, torsos and legs steadily disappeared in a matter of seconds until there was nothing to be seen at all except the rocket sled. It was only then that there was another sudden rush of wind, this time much shorter than before, and then calm normality returned to the atmosphere. The policeman reached with difficulty for his radio and pressed the call b.u.t.ton. The radio did not respond.

In a field outside Windsor, the TARDIS materialized. Out stepped the Doctor, carrying the eerily glowing silver bow like a water-diviner's branch. Ace followed. It was almost as though the bow were pulling the Doctor along, with a momentum emanating from its own secret nature. 'Aha,'

the Doctor called back over his shoulder, 'I was right.' He cackled happily. 'They're moving the statue.'

Ace looked disapprovingly at the bow. 'I really don't like this stuff,' she said.

'You shouldn't,' agreed the Doctor. 'Validium was created as the ultimate defence for my planet Gallifrey.

Fortunately, it's never been used. None of it should ever have left, but as always with these things...' His eyes hardened and his voice paused, momentarily interrupted by some distant memory, '... some did.'

Ace began to see the connection. 'So you had to stop Lady Peinforte...' she began.

'Or anyone else,' interrupted the Doctor.

'... ever putting the three bits together.'

'So,' nodded the Doctor, 'I launched the biggest one into s.p.a.ce.'

'But you got the sums wrong.'

The Doctor sighed. 'Yes,' he admitted. He stared sadly into the distance as they continued to hurry along, the bow still pulsing with silver light. 'Instead of going into a permanent circle, every orbit was bringing it back to its point of departure. It was only a matter of time.' To Ace's relief, given the expression of such deep sadness on his face, the Doctor's attention was drawn back to the bow.

'Ah,' he said, 'we're getting close. Look.'

The bow had begun to buzz slightly, and the light flas.h.i.+ng from it was now becoming slightly brighter.

'I'd feel a lot safer tracking them inside the TARDIS,'

Ace complained.

The Doctor, however, was firm. 'The Cybermen might trace the TARDIS. This way we let our validium find theirs,' he told her.

'Isn't that a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned?' asked Ace.

The Doctor looked at her and smiled. 'I'm an old-fas.h.i.+oned guy,' he said.

Another, admittedly different, old-fas.h.i.+oned guy, in the form of Richard, was at that moment peering nervously round the corner of a back street at the cars pa.s.sing a few yards away. Lady Peinforte wrapped the glowing silver arrow back in its cloth and pointed firmly in the direction of Windsor High Street. Richard quailed.

'My lady,' he ventured, 'there are people there.'

Lady Peinforte snorted indignantly. 'Of course there are people. This is Windsor. Come.' She marched past him.

Richard took a deep breath, crossed himself, and followed.

Oblivious to the stares and giggles they were attracting, Lady Peinforte strode along the High Street with something approaching pleasure.

As Richard and she pa.s.sed, two skinheads leaning against a wall outside an off-licence nudged each other and began to follow.

As De Flores had ordered, Karl pulled the van to a halt in the lay-by. De Flores reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a large leather wallet. He unfastened it and took out a number of gems and some currency. These were evidently not of immediate concern to him. Finally he located a small pouch and, pulling the string which fastened it, shook into his hand a quant.i.ty of gold dust.

He glanced up at Karl's interested expression, and carefully poured the dust back into the pouch.

'You are wondering what the gold dust is for, Karl,' he said, and smiled bleakly.

Karl nodded.

'Eventualities,' said De Flores. 'Drive on.'

In a clearing in the forest outside Windsor, the gra.s.s suddenly stirred as a strong wind rushed downwards at it.

It flattened in a large circular patch. There was a powerful and hypnotic humming sound which grew steadily louder in volume, growing to a crescendo. The birds in nearby trees scattered. Having reached its height, the sound suddenly stopped.

On the edge of the clearing there was a ruined crypt: bleak, stark, and eerie.

Outside, the silence seemed to grow more intense. This time the Cyber s.p.a.cecraft did not need to conceal itself; it flashed into visibility and hovered to a landing. The panel door slid open and the Cybermen began to emerge. They carried among them the statue of Nemesis.

'Are you looking at me?' said the smaller of the two skinheads, stepping firmly in front of Lady Peinforte. He and his larger friend had followed her and Richard through the town, and now, on a deserted road on the outskirts, they had made their move. Lady Peinforte, however, was firm.

'Stand aside,' she said imperiously.

The second, and larger, skinhead belched and took a swig from the can of lager with which he had been refres.h.i.+ng himself. He looked Richard up and down, obviously a.s.sessing his weight and height and apparently finding it deficient. Richard said nothing. 'What are you?'

the bigger skinhead demanded suspiciously. 'Social workers?'

'Out of my lady's way,' said Richard.

The two skinheads sneered scornfully at his shoulder-length hair and then ignored him.

'We want to tell you our problems,' the smaller one leered at her.

Lady Peinforte recoiled in disgust from the stink of tobacco on his breath. 'Will you,' she asked ominously, 'be turned into rats?'

The two skinheads laughed, the smaller one taking advantage of his colleague's inattention to relieve him of the can of beer. 'We already have been,' the fat one was telling her ladys.h.i.+p. The two boys collapsed in a fit of laughter. Lady Peinforte and Richard remained stonily silent. The mirth faded at the skinheads' leisure, to be replaced by the expressions of threat of which it had been only another form.

'Poor rats,' said the smaller skinhead dangerously.

'That's our problem.'

He produced from inside his jacket a ninja fighting stick with which he attempted a series of impressive manoeuvres. These were clumsy but the weapon, as Richard immediately understood, was none the less formidable.

'Money,' said the second skinhead.

Lady Peinforte and Richard looked at each other. It was left to Richard to speak. He turned back to the two skinheads. 'Money, say you?' he asked politely.

The crypt contained a heavy stone sarcophagus covered in cobwebs, inside which lay the statue, glowing slightly in the semi-darkness. Above it, mounted on the wall was a carved stone sign which read 'Death Is But A Door'. Also looking down on it were the Cyber leader and his Lieutenant, who effortlessly pushed shut the stone lid of the tomb. Another Cyberman descended the steps leading from the ruined tower of the small building.

'The remaining validium approaches, Leader,' he reported in the usual monotone.

'Activate the communications unit,' replied the Cyber Leader calmly.

The Lieutenant reacted to this, interrupting as the Leader turned away. 'But the Doctor and Peinforte are still to be destroyed,' he said. His words stopped the Cyber Leader short. He turned back to face his second-in-command.

'Do you question my authority?' the Leader asked.

Even Cybermen prevaricate. He paused momentarily.

'We should wait before communicating,' he finally said.

'And will you answer for the delay?'

This was evidently too much to contemplate. The Lieutenant gave the required command at once. 'Activate!'

he ordered sharply.

A Cyberman pressed switches on the portable communications console set up in a corner of the crypt.

Tiny red lights twinkled in the dusty darkness, reflecting dully on the ancient marble of the tomb to state that a transmission signal had been emitted. An amber light flashed briefly, informing the operator that it had been instantaneously received in the further reaches of distant s.p.a.ce.

The Cyber Leader's voice boomed and echoed from the old stones inside the dark tower. 'Our victory is inevitable,'

he p.r.o.nounced. 'The Doctor cannot conceal himself, as he is carrying validium. And when Peinforte sees what is awaiting her here, the shock will cause her the immediate condition of insanity. Remember, this is why we chose this position. She is a simple savage accompanied by a terrified peasant.'

Several fields away the two skinheads were attempting to yell for help through the gags which bound their mouths tightly, although one could be forgiven for a.s.suming their muted noises were screams of pain. They were certainly suffering enough for this to be believable, hanging as they were side by side and upside down from the branch of a tree. Both were now clad only in their underpants, their hands and feet tied. The smaller one was suspended by his feet from the branch by means of his ninja fighting stick.

On the top of the fire burning immediately beneath them were the now charred remains of their clothes. The proximity of the flames meant that the skinheads had constantly to jerk about to reduce the areas of their bodies that were being scorched. These discomforts, however, paled into insignificance as far as either of them were concerned, given their audience. A few yards from their defenceless faces, although as yet keeping carefully away from the fire, four lions watched them motionlessly.

The skinheads' entire hopes of liberty and life for the future were at that moment centred on the two distant figures they could see approaching them through the forest. Unfortunately, their attempted yells through the gags had as yet failed to attract the attention they desperately needed. The two seemed entirely intent on the objects they were carrying. The girl's attention was obviously focused on the bizarre ghetto blaster to which she was evidently listening on headphones, while the strange man's was occupied by the thin metal object which he was carrying in a peculiar way, as though they were both following it. As they emerged from the trees it could be seen that this was a bow, flas.h.i.+ng with strange silver light.

Their voices drifted across.

'I'm sure I'm nearly getting something, Professor,' said Ace.

The Doctor was hurrying on. 'Static,' he said shortly.