Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen (16 page)

'That gun cannot harm me,' he said.

'Careful!' screamed Victoria, but Kaftan fired again and again, too furious to hear her. The Controller raised his Cybergun. Again Victoria screamed, but it was too late. As Victoria and Callum watched in horror the black Cyberweapon rattled its deadly message and Kaftan slowly subsided on to the floor—the telltale smoke creeping from the neck of her tunic.

Victoria screamed again and Toberman, still in his trance, moved towards her, but hesitated. The flash of his own metal hand raised to strike confused him; he looked at it and looked down at Kaftan lying dead.

The Doctor, Parry and Jamie entered and took in the scene.

The Doctor, noticing Toberman's confusion, went up to him and spoke quietly.

'See what they have done,' he said. 'You are not one of them.

You're still a man like us. You must help us.'

The Controller was now standing over the opened hatch.

'He has killed Kaftan,' said the Doctor urgently to Toberman.

'You must help.'

The Controller bent forward to let his great voice echo down the icy shaft.

'YOU... WILL... COME... TO... THE... SURFACE...'

Toberman, as if unable to take in what he saw, looked again at Kaftan's body sprawled at their feet, then over at the giant silver Cyberman leaning over the hatch.

He stepped forward hesitantly, lifted up his new silver arm and chopped the Cyberweapon from the Controller's hand.

As it fell, Jamie snatched it up, but the Cyberman swung his arm like a whiplash against Toberman, just missing him. Toberman, the ex-wrestler, ducked easily and then, with a roar of rage as the true situation began to be clear to him, joined his hands and struck down with all his force on the Controller's neck, sending the giant Cyberman reeling back against the control panel. The others saw smoke begin to escape from his frontal power-pack. The Cyberman straightened up, but his movements had become jerky and uncontrolled.

Toberman waited for the next blow from the now staggering Cyberman, dodged it and, bending down, lifted the Cyberman from the floor, and with a wrestling throw, flung him against the other control panel. There was a flash and crack from the panel—the Cyberman was flung off by the force of the shock and the huge body lay on the floor, twisted and apparently dead, smoke curling from his helmet.

The humans watched,.breathless with awe, as Toberman walked over to the shattered Cyberleader and looked down at him in grim triumph.

There was a sound at the hatch. The Doctor looked over—

another Cyberman had appeared, his helmet gleaming in the bright light of the control room.

'Quick!' shouted the Doctor. 'The hatch! Jamie—the gun!'

Jamie ran across to the hatch and for an agonised moment, couldn't find the trigger to the Cybergun. Then he found the button, the rattle sounded and the Cyberman lay jack-knifed over the edge of the hatch, smoke pouring from his mouth-place.

Jamie ran forward and tipped the heavy metal body, still twitching and jerking, over the hatch edge. There was a crash below.

Jamie looked down after him.

'There's another coming up!' shouted Jamie, leaning over the chill shaft and seeing a silver gleam growing larger. Again he shot with the laser-gun and watched as the silver monster lost his footing and crashed backward down the shaft. There was silence.

'Any more?' asked the Doctor.

'No, it's quiet,' said Jamie. 'Close the hatch.'

'No, wait,' said the Doctor. They looked at him. 'We'll have to go down,' he said.

'Oh, no!' cried Victoria. 'Please don't go down there again.'

'It's the only way to make sure,' said the Doctor with a look that was fully four hundred and fifty years old.

'Then I'm coming too,' said Jamie staunchly.

'No,' said the Doctor. 'Stay and look after Victoria. This time I'll take someone else.'

And he walked over to Toberman.

13

'Toberman,' said the Doctor to the huge man who was still gazing at the shattered hulk of the Controller. 'Look what these creatures have done to you. They've tried to make you look like, them, do you understand?' Toberman moved his stare from the Controller's body to the Doctor. 'They tried to make you their slave.

They only wanted to use you.'

Toberman looked at Kaftan's body.

'They are evil,' the Doctor went on. 'Think of what they have done to Kaftan. Evil!' he said.

Toberman clenched his fists. 'Evil!'

But as they all watched him, behind them, unseen, Klieg's body stirred. Slowly, still a little dizzy from the Cyberman's blow, he propped himself up on his elbows and listened to their conversation.

'Toberman!' the Doctor was saying, as Toberman's injured powers of concentration again slipped. 'Toberman! They must be destroyed, do you hear me? Evil must be destroyed.' Toberman nodded.

'Destroyed,' he said. And again he clenched his fist and raised it.

Klieg behind them listened.

'Come with me,' said the Doctor and led Toberman towards the dangerous hatch. Toberman looked at it, seemed to remember something that had happened down there, and flinched back.

'Come with me now,' said the Doctor.

As they turned, Klieg closed his eyes again, pretending to be unconscious.

The Doctor reached the hatch and waited until Toberman had clambered over.

'Good luck,' said the Professor. Victoria, hardly able to speak, watched the Doctor follow the Turk down the icy shaft. Jamie ran over to the Cybergun, picked it up and leant down the shaft with it.

'How about taking the gun?' he shouted.

'Never use the things,' said the Doctor and disappeared from view.

'Och, he should have taken it,' said the disappointed Jamie, shuddering as he watched the Doctor disappear into the gloom of the shaft. He put the gun down beside the shaft—ready in case the Cyberman reappeared. Callum, when they had gone, could not prevent himself letting out a groan of pain.

'Oh, poor Mr Callum,' said Victoria. 'How are you feeling?'

Callum had turned paler, and was bent over to relieve the never-ending pain in his shoulder.

'If only we had some pain-killers,' said Victoria. 'I suppose they've all been left on the orbiter... Professor, can you help?'

As they gathered around him in concern, Klieg got up quickly, unseen by the others, seized the Cybergun and slipped down the hatchway after the Doctor.

As the Doctor and Toberman reached the bottom of the shaft, all was silent. Around them lay the shattered debris of the two dead Cybermen, but there was no sound. Ice gleamed as before from the sides of the tunnel. Nothing moved.

'This way,' whispered Toberman, and they walked as quietly as possible along the tunnel towards the cavern, though the crunching of their feet on the reformed ice seemed to echo backward and forward along the corridor.

They reached the cavern and looked cautiously around. The remaining. Cybermen were lying in their cells, but not quite in the final position of rest. The membranes had not reformed into place over the entrance and their heads were unbowed. The sound of electric throbbing quietly pulsed through the cavern, as the controls, still switched on, waited in neutral. Toberman saw the fearful conversion unit that had trans-formed him, lying by the control desk and with sudden rage, picked it up and slammed it against the wall, shattering it.

'Evil!' he shouted.

'Shh!' said the Doctor anxiously. 'Keep quiet, you'll wake them. They're not frozen, not yet. We've work to do—you watch.'

Toberman, his rage over, stood impassive, as the Doctor went over to the controls and studied them. His eyes ranged the control board. That was what he wanted—the cryostat. He pressed the switch and immediately a louder humming noise filled the cavern.

'The cryostat!' cut in an angry voice behind him. 'You're freezing them!'

'Klieg!' The Doctor turned, astonished.

Klieg stood behind him, the Cybergun raised. He motioned the Doctor aside—then turned off the cryostat.

'Please! Don't do that!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'You'll wake them up!'

'That is exactly my intention,' said Klieg. He smiled his superior smile. 'You still don't understand, do you? The Controller is dead. Now I shall control the Cybermen. They will do what I say.' As his voice echoed out through the vast cavern, one of the Cybermen stirred and began to raise his head. 'You see, Doctor,' said Klieg.

'Yours is the privilege to witness for the first time the union between mass power and my absolute intelligence.'

But the Doctor wasn't giving Klieg his full attention. Klieg saw him make a slight sign to someone behind him.

'Who is that?' said Klieg, wheeling and raising his gun. 'Come out of there.' Silence. A drip of water splattered on the floor. 'Come out,' said Klieg, delighting in his power, 'or I shall kill the Doctor.'

There was a footstep in the tunnel and out came—Jamie.

'Oh, it's you, is it,' said Klieg virulently. 'Get over by the wall, both of you. Now!' He motioned to Toberman. 'You, too.'

There was no arguing with the Cybergun. They all went over to the wall.

'I'm sorry, Doctor,' said Jamie. 'But I had to...'

'That's all right, Jamie,' said the Doctor easily. 'I have come to believe that we are very privileged to witness the take-over of Mr Klieg.'

Klieg watched him suspiciously, suspecting irony, but the Doctor went on, smiling at him: 'Such a combination of intelligence and power must make you formidable. For a man with your brilliance to be Commander of the Universe, makes one's imagination reel with the possibilities.'

'A very sudden conversion, Doctor,' Klieg sneered, but the Doctor could see he was impressed in spite of himself,

'Better late than never, surely,' the Doctor said.

'If only I had known that you shared my imagination, you might even have worked for me,' said Klieg, only half sarcastically, wanting to believe the Doctor.

'Perhaps there's time yet,' said the Doctor.

'Doctor!' exclaimed Jamie, startled and shocked.

While they were talking the Cybermen in their warm cells were quickly gaining energy again. Unnoticed by the humans, who were absorbed in their conversation, there was a slight clanking and clinking as the great silver creatures turned their heads and sat up, straightening their limbs.

'No country, no person... no creature, will dare to have a single thought that is not your own,' the Doctor went on, and Klieg hung on his words now. 'Eric Klieg's conception of the rights of Man will be the final law of the finished Universe.'

'Brilliant!' said Klieg, his eyes burning. His hold on his gun loosened. 'I couldn't have said it better myself. Yes! You're right.

Master of the world!'

'I just wanted to make sure,' said the Doctor, 'now I know you're mad.'

Klieg jerked back as if he had been struck in the face. He jabbed the gun up and levelled it. This was the final insult. He aimed the gun at the Doctor.

In the control room above, Victoria and Parry were listening nervously at the hatch.

'Maybe we shouldn't have let your friend go down after him,'

said the Professor, still burdened with the responsibility for all the deaths his expedition had caused.

Victoria put her hand on his arm. 'No, no,' she said. 'We had to warn the Doctor.'

There was a footstep behind them. They jerked round —but it was only Captain Hopper.

'Well, the tel system is O.K., now,' he was saying. 'We can blast off any time.'

They looked at him as though he came from another planet.

They had forgotten he and the orbiter and the Universe existed.

'Shhh!' said Victoria, afraid to miss a crucial sound from below.

'Hey, what gives? Where is everyone?' asked Hopper. He looked around and saw the wounded Callum sleeping by the control board. 'Jim?'

'Don't wake him,' said Victoria. 'He's wounded.'

'What's happened?' Hopper said.

'It would take too long to explain,' said the Professor. He pointed over at the Cybercontroller, lying almost under one of the benches.

'God!' Hopper started back. 'Where are the others now?'

'Down there,' said the Professor, pointing down the shaft. 'And so are Klieg and the Cybermen.'

'Well, I hope they know what they're doing,' said the Captain.

'I've been down there once and I don't reckon to go again.'

'That's all right, Captain Hopper,' said Victoria. 'It's comforting for a weak female like myself to know we have your superior strength to call on—should we need it.'

She turned back to the hatch as the Captain looked back at her, not quite sure what to make of that remark.

After an agonising moment, Klieg lowered the Cybergun. He liked the feeling of having the Doctor in his power. He would keep him alive, just for the pleasure of choosing the time to annihilate him.

'You have forfeited your right to survival,' he said. 'I shall make an example of you to all who question my intelligence and the supreme power of the new race of Klieg Cybermen.'

'I've heard all this before, you know,' said the Doctor.

'Somewhere.'

'Aye, and your trouble is,' said Jamie, unabashed, 'you talk too much.'

'You are both stupid,' said Klieg. 'You still think your puny minds can survive against us. You are decadent! Weak! There is no place for you now.'

'Go on, then, kill us,' said the Doctor casually, but watching the man intently with his hypnotic green eyes. Again, with that crazy surge of power through him, Klieg raised the gun, then lowered it again.

'No. I have a better idea,' he said. 'A much better idea. I shall leave you to the Cybermen. I have no doubt they will have a use for you, or parts of you.'

He smiled, and as he smiled, a metal hand and arm swung down in a tremendous fatal chop. Still smiling, he fell forward to the ground, dead. A Cyberman. The first of the newly aroused Cybermen. He crunched towards the control board; Jamie, the Doctor and Toberman advanced towards him.