Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen (15 page)

'Toberman!' cried Kaftan, touching his cheek. 'It is so good that you are back.' She indicated the Doctor and the others. 'Watch them,'

she commanded, and Toberman, as he had always done, obeyed her.

'He looks all right, doesn't he?' said Jamie, who had been expecting to see Toberman wounded by the Cybermen.

'Perhaps,' said the Doctor, looking at Toberman sharply.

The Controller stepped forward.

'Stay where you are,' snapped Klieg, raising the Cybergun again. 'Do you agree to accept our plan?' asked Klieg.'

'Plan?' asked the Doctor.

Klieg took a deep breath and gave the Doctor a scornful glance.

'The conquest of Earth,' he said.

'What?' gasped the Professor. 'You must be quite mad.'

'Silence!' shouted Klieg. 'Your answer?' He turned back to the Controller.

What was going on behind the Controller's impassive mask?

What was his computer brain making of the situation? The humans waited for his reply. 'We accept,' he said at last. 'We will give you some of our power devices.'

'Good!' said Klieg, sweating with triumph. He turned to the Professor. 'I told you an understanding could be reached. Now I shall let you be revitalised,' he said condescendingly. 'For you to survive, I realise it must be now. Right?'

The Controller inclined his head. 'Yes!'

'Come forward slowly,' said Klieg.

'Eric,' breathed Kaftan, tense, next to him. 'Be careful.'

Klieg brushed her aside. 'Leave this to me.'

The Controller walked forward step by step, slowly, as if his energy was draining out with every minute that passed. The humans shrank back from his terrible silver presence. He reached the door to the recharging room, turned around and turned his face first towards the group of humans, then to Toberman. Then he walked in.

The Doctor looked about him uneasily.

'You are absolutely crazy to trust them,' said the Professor.

'You think so ?' asked Klieg. He smiled. 'Then, perhaps you and your colleagues had better join him. Go on.'

He pushed the Doctor, Parry, and Jamie after the Controller.

Victoria rose from Callum to follow them, but Klieg barred her way.

'The girl stays with us,' said Klieg. 'If there is any trouble, she is our hostage.' He nodded to Toberman. 'Close the hatch.' Toberman stood still. 'Do you hear me,' said Klieg loudly. Toberman just moved behind Klieg and folded his arms.

Klieg looked at him angrily, but Toberman just stood. there.

Kaftan turned the closing lever herself. Tobernian stood as still as a Cyberman. She looked at him wonderingly, but his face was blank and gave nothing away.

The others followed the Controller into the revitalisation room filled with an awed compulsion to see what he would do. As he moved into the room, his steps were visibly flagging, the last few steps across the room to the control panel were almost in slow motion.

They watched, fascinated, as he pressed the lever to open the lid of the recharging machine. His motions had become stiff and jerky. As he lumbered forward to the recharging sarcophagus, he seemed about to topple forward with each laboured step. Finally, the silver giant stopped in front of the machine, teetering slightly as if unable to move.

'Look. It's too weak to get in,' said Jamie in awe. 'Shhh, Jamie,'

said the Doctor.

After a moment the Doctor walked cautiously towards the fumbling Cyberman. He put out a hand towards it, but felt the chill from the silvery metal and drew his hand back.

'You seem to be in trouble,' he said to the Controller. With difficulty, the great creature turned his whole body so that he could see the Doctor.

'The... energy... levels... are low...' creaked his voice; no longer a magnificent array of chords, now a croak that moved in jerks like a stuck record needle. 'We... will... survive...' he went on. He waited, his great silver body drooping into massive immobility. The Doctor waited. 'You will help us,' said the deep voice, still imperious. 'You will help us.'

The Doctor waited and watched while the great black head drooped lower. He came to a decision.

'Certainly,' said the Doctor briskly. 'Jamie. Professor.'

'You're not going to help him?' cried Jamie, thunder-struck.

'Surely not,' said Parry. 'You can't support these... things.'

'I think it best,' said the Doctor with authority. 'Come on.'

The other two moved over towards the Cyberman. They also stretched out their hands to the giant's arms, hesitated at the touch of the chill metal and drew back.

'It's all right,' said the Doctor quietly. Again they reached out and touched the huge arms, grasped them more firmly, and the three of them pushed the enormous weight of the Controller towards the inside of the sarcophagus. Now the Cybercontroller stood inside the form, weak but erect.

The humans propped him up and moved away.

'You... understand the... mechanism?' the Controller said.

'I think so,' said the Doctor. He went over to the controls, his hands in his pockets. 'One moment.' He examined the code system.

'Have you taken leave of your senses, Doctor?' yelled Jamie, rushing over and taking him by the arm. 'Let's get away from this room.'

'It does seem somewhat unwise,' said the Professor.

'We'll see,' said the Doctor mildly, operating the controls.

'Now, are you ready?' he asked.

The Controller moved his head very slightly. It was all the giant could manage.

The Doctor pressed the first lever, moved his fingers fast over the sequence of buttons, and immediately the buzzing noise started, the lights flashed, the floor trembled—and the lid began to move over the waiting form of the Cyberman.

'We will... survive..' rasped the voice. 'Weee... wulll...

srrrvvv...' The words slurred and ran down as the lid closed.

The Doctor relaxed and put his hands in his pockets. 'There,'

he said, smiling. 'Where would you rather have him—in or out of there?'

Casually he turned back to the control board and examined it.

'Och,' said Jamie, smiling in relief. 'You do give us a hard life of it, Doctor.'

'Ah, I see,' said the Professor. 'Good idea.'

The Doctor gave a wry shrug at the chorus of congratulation.

The others did not notice his crossed fingers.

12

Victoria sat quietly in the Control room, still in the power of Klieg and Kaftan, trying to work out a plan of action. She realised that she was alone again, and anything she did would have to be her own decision. There was no one else around to help this time.

'Do you really believe,' she forced herself to say to Klieg. 'Do you really believe you will be able to bargain with those terrible Cybermen?'

'That is our concern,' snapped Kaftan. 'Keep quiet.'

'I'm talking to him, not you,' snapped Victoria, as sharply as Kaftan. Kaftan herself rose for a moment, her eyes flashing—then subsided at a glance from Klieg.

'They will agree to our terms,' he said complacently.

'What about the other weapon?' asked Victoria, lying in as natural a voice as she could muster.

'What other weapon?' pounced Klieg.

'I saw another one like that in that room there,' said Victoria, pointing to the recharging room. 'It was behind the sarcophagus.'

'Is that true?' Klieg asked Kaftan quickly.

'I don't know. I did not see one. But we'd better make sure.'

Kaftan walked towards the door. Surely that gauche child couldn't be plotting something again?

'NO. Wait!' Klieg stopped Kaftan. 'That means that any one of them could...'

'Yes. You're right, Eric.'

'Then we had better wait in here. If the Cyberman is aroused, we'll be ready for him.'

He steadied the gun in his hand, and as before the solid feel of the cold metal calmed his sweating hands.

'Now, stand clear,' he ordered. 'I'm taking no chances.' He stood tense, the gun pointing at the door, his face full of his mission to conquer the world, his bald head gleaming with sweat, his finger nervously on the trigger button.

Kaftan nodded and went over to the control board. None of them noticed particularly when Toberman came over to stand behind by Klieg. He would be an extra bastion against the invading Cybermen.

The revitalisation process was now in full spate. The bioprojectors were pulsing and inside the sarcophagus form, the electronic neuro-charges were blasting full power into the Cyberleader.

'Quick,' said the Doctor. 'Those cables. Tie them around the form.'

'Aye. Those doors won't be strong enough to hold him,' agreed Jamie.

The three of them cut cables from the walls, coiled them around the great coffin-form and pulled them tight, tying them in enormous knots, devised-by Jamie. The pulsing light from the bioprojectors was reflected on the faces of the three men as they watched the sarcophagus anxiously, to see what would happen.

Finally the projectors changed from buzzing and humming to a high-pitched siren whine. Red lights flashed to show that it was time to turn off, that the Cyberman's energy cells were now fully recharged and were now approaching overload. Still the Doctor left the switch on.

From inside the sarcophagus-shape came an insistent hammering from the now fully powered Cybercontroller.

Boom—boom—boom.

The Professor looked anxiously at the others. What if he should get out? Fully charged with power?

Boom—boom—boom—the sarcophagus was shaking with the impact of the blows. Cracks began to appear on the surface. There was a louder crash and the sound of rending metal, but still the solid metal casing held together. The great cables leading up to the form now began to smoke, the control panel lit up and shook with the vibration, the bioprojectors turned from red-hot to white-hot—the form itself began to reek smoke from the cracks of the seams.

'Keep back, it's smoking!' shouted Parry.

All, the humans backed away.

'Maybe we shouldn't have touched it!' cried Jamie.

'Turn it off! It's out of control! It'll blowup!' Professor Parry, shaken, ran forward to the throbbing control panel and reached out towards the hot metal. CLICK! At that moment it turned itself off.

He started back.

'It's taken over,' the Professor said terrified. The unbearable scream of the dynamo whined down, the lights dimmed.

'I think not,' said the Doctor. 'There must be an internal timing mechanism.'

Boom—boom—boom.

The blows of the giant Cyberman against the metal sounded even louder, now that the machine had turned off. CRACK! A gauntleted hand appeared through one of the fractures and began enlarging the hole.

'Are you sure those cables are secure?' said the Doctor to Jamie nervously.

'Aye. The King of the Beasties himself couldna get out of that one.'

The crack widened. The massive wire cables began to stretch.

The metal was now rent like tissue paper, the cables snapped asunder and fell aside. Knocking back the lid contemptuously, out of the crush of metal rose the greatest of the Cybermen, new power glowing from his gigantic metal limbs. The three humans drew away from the giant in awe as he stepped from the ruins of the recharging machine and bore. down upon them.

'Jamie,' said the Doctor, 'remind me to give you a lesson in tying knots, some time.'

'YOU... WILL... REMAIN... STILL,' said the voice, now so vast and powerful it seemed to blast them back against the wall.

The Cyberleader pressed a button. A light flashed on the control desk and a high-pitched buzzing sound began.

The buzzing reached the control room, where Klieg still stood holding his gun and no one there noticed that it made Toberman's eyes widen, as if something was happening in his brain.

'Stay here,' Klieg ordered Toberman, 'and watch that door.'

Toberman stood where Klieg indicated and Klieg assumed he was obeying. 'Now at least we shall have some warning,' he said, and sat down, putting down the heavy Cybergun.

Callum was now sitting up, his wound dressed by Victoria with pieces of his torn under-tunic.

'What do you two hope to gain by all this?' he asked.

'That does not concern you,' said Klieg, an arrogant superman once again.

Toberman did not stay where Klieg had ordered him; he was moving slowly and quietly around behind Klieg and Kaftan. Victoria noticed but said nothing.

'He might as well know,' said Kaftan. She turned to Callum, her face proud. 'We are going to build a much, much better world than there has ever been—responsive to the laws of pure logic.'

'That's...
better
?' asked Callum, unimpressed. 'Who for ?'

'What are you doing?' shouted Klieg, suddenly noticing Toberman. 'What are you standing there for?'

For answer, Toberman slowly raised his arm, his white smock fell away and below glinted a metal Cyberman arm. As they stared, horrified, he raised his arm, gleaming like a heavy sword and brought it down with the terrible Cyberman chop on the back of Klieg's neck.

Klieg fell unconscious, Kaftan screamed and Toberman turned towards her, as if hypnotised, raising his arm for another blow.

'Toberman,' she screamed. The giant Turk stopped, confused.

And then, over Kaftan's screaming, came the great bass of the Controller's voice.

'Silence! He is now under our control.' The Cybercontroller entered the room and looked at Klieg, then up to Toberman. 'You have done well,' he said, picking up the Cybergun. 'NOW... OPEN...

THE... TOMBS...'

'No,' said Kaftan, shrinking back. 'You have broken your promise.'

'Cybermen do not promise. Such ideas have no value... open!'

'Never!' said Kaftan.

The Controller turned and walked heavily over to the control console and switched the levers to open. As they watched, helpless, the gears worked and the hatch began to rise. The cold from the shaft again rose and chilled the humans.

Kaftan darted across the room, snatched Callum's space-gun from his belt, turned and fired at the great metal creature, but the bullet ricocheted off the Cyberman and he stood unharmed.