Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis Part 10

Mrs Hackensack was thrilled. 'You study history?' she asked.

'Dorothea Hackensack,' said Lady Peinforte with great intensity, 'did bribe away my cook.'

Mrs Hackensack's expression clouded. 'You lost me,'

she said. 'Let me see, there was a Dorothea. Died around sixteen..

'... twenty-one,' interrupted Lady Peinforte with relish. ''Twas a slow poison.'

Richard realized he did not know how to open the doors of the car. Escape was impossible. He closed his eyes.

Mrs Hackensack was open-mouthed. 'This is unbelievable...' she murmured.

'Many found it so,' agreed Lady Peinforte.

'Here I am driving along and I pick up someone who's researched my family tree.'

Lady Peinforte smiled at her. 'We ride to destiny,' she said.

Mrs Hackensack smiled again. 'We sure do, honey,' she agreed. 'We sure do.'

The building site looked just as ordinary to Ace as it had the first time she saw it. Which, considering the, fate of the universe was about to be decided on it, she thought was perhaps after all only as it should be. The Doctor had no time for such reflections. He hurried out of the TARDIS, rubbing his hands, and looked about himself appreciatively. 'What fun we had here last time,' he remarked. 'Right. The statue should arrive any minute.

Now everything depends on my final calculations.'

Ace looked at him anxiously. 'It's OK,' she said. 'I promise not to interrupt you.'

A shadow crossed the Doctor's face. 'There is a slight problem,' he admitted, 'in that we're likely to be attacked by the Cybermen at any minute. I can't allow myself to get the figures wrong this time.'

For a moment he looked like a small child. Ace grinned rea.s.suringly. 'Don't worry, Doctor,' she said, and patted him on the hand. 'I'll look after you.' She pulled out her catapult.

'Ah,' said the Doctor with enthusiasm. Rummaging through his pockets he produced a small pouch, which he opened and spilled the contents into her hand. A number of gold coins glinted in the watery sunlight. 'Aim at the chest panel,' he said. They each caught the other's eyes.

Suddenly they were looking at each other with the utmost seriousness. Ace realized the Doctor was depending on her as he had never had to do before. She nodded slightly to let him know she understood. The Doctor smiled. 'I trust,' he said portentously, 'you remember my strict instructions that you're never to cause any future explosions?'

Ace put on her best little girl's face. 'I'm a better person as a result, Doctor,' she replied politely.

'Good.' The Doctor grinned confidently, 'We'll be ready for anything.'

Ace squeezed his hand and was gone.

The Doctor watched her run across the wasteland and disappear into a large empty warehouse. For a moment, a flicker of worry crossed his face, but he dismissed it with difficulty and searched again among his pockets to discover his abacus. He turned his concentration on it and began moving the beads at a ferocious rate.

At times during the next quarter of an hour or so, Ace could be glimpsed at various points around the building site. At one moment she was visible through the gla.s.sless upper window of a half-completed house; at another she was to be seen digging in the mud near the site's entrance, then again flitting into the large and as yet undemolished warehouse that had evidently formed part of the original site. Inside the building, the vast s.p.a.ce had clearly been in disuse for many years as the weeds growing everywhere attested.

The Doctor continued to be exclusively absorbed in his calculations. Since they were both so preoccupied with their tasks, it was not for some minutes that they became aware of a distant strange, unearthly sound that was growing nearer. Ace was the first to hear it. Initially, it seemed to suggest a kind of wailing wind, as though all the disharmonies ever heard in the world had combined simultaneously to provide an awesome cacophony. As it grew nearer, this seemed to become a deep, ominous rumble, like continuous growling thunder.

The bow of Nemesis, lying on the ground at the Doctor's feet, began to react, buzzing and pulsating with intense silver light. Dimly aware of it, the Doctor, however, did not allow his mind to stray from his calculations, and the abacus continued to click as rapidly as before.

The daylight darkened almost completely. In the course of less than a minute there was the effect of an almost total eclipse. The only source of light in the area now was the silver bow, which shone like a laser beacon into the gloom as the Doctor struggled with his work. He was so absorbed that he did not even look up. But then he had no need to do so; he knew perfectly well that the ma.s.sive changes in sound and light meant the statue of Nemesis had arrived.

When he finally did look up in a second's respite from the ma.s.sive mathematical problems which possessed him, the statue stood complete, holding the bow. The light from inside the Nemesis abated steadily to a bright silver radiance. The light was of a different quality now: cold and sharp, calmer and yet somehow more deadly than before.

The sound the Nemesis had brought with it had faded entirely to be replaced by an eerie quiet. Slowly, almost cautiously, the daylight returned.

The Doctor noticed Ace standing near him staring at the Nemesis. The statue's metal eyes looked ahead, seeing yet unseeing. Ace shivered. There was for her a great sense that she stood in the presence of something unimaginably destructive.

Still rushing mentally headlong through a vortex of figures, the Doctor pointed silently to the rocket sled as the abacus continued to click under his fingers. As Ace watched, the Nemesis moved and climbed slowly on to the sled. The Doctor nodded absently and took no further notice of either of them, reabsorbed in his thoughts.

Ace suddenly realized as she stared at the Nemesis that it was now looking down at her from the rocket sled. She froze. Then the statue opened its mouth.

'I am beautiful, am I not?' the statue asked. The voice was cold, clear, and deathly calm.

'Yes,' said Ace. She looked back at the statue. 'You're very beautiful.'

The corners of the statue's mouth twitched slightly in the merest imitation of a bitter smile, perhaps more of a grimace. 'It is only my present form,' said the voice. 'I have had others which would horrify you.' There was the slightest pause. 'I shall have both again.' The words hung in the air. Ace gazed on in fascination. 'You are surprised I speak?' asked the Nemesis.

Ace struggled to find her voice. 'I... I know you're living metal,' she replied.

Again, the statue seemed almost to smile. 'I am whatever I am made to be,' it said calmly. 'This time Lady Peinforte named me Nemesis, so I am retribution.'

Ace became aware that a sudden wind had picked up.

Debris blew past her feet and she shivered again. The stare which the statue had directed at her was so intense that she looked away, towards the entrance to the building site. At the gateway she saw a group of Cybermen. There appeared to be seven of them, including the Lieutenant and the Cyber Leader.

'Catch you later,' she said to the statue, and ran towards the buildings. The statue did not respond.

As soon as Ace was gone, the clicking of the abacus stopped, and the Doctor at last looked up. His eyes met those of the statue and for an instant an understanding of some kind seemed to pa.s.s between them.

9.

Ace peered cautiously over the window-sill of what would eventually become a front bedroom of the half-completed house if, she reflected, the house ever got completed; if there was ever a world left for it to be completed in. Below her, the Cybermen were carefully advancing, spread out and silent, their laser weapons at the ready.

Ace took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself. Whatever happened, they must be kept away from the Doctor until he had finished and could set the rocket sled on to its correct course.

At that moment she was jolted back to reality by a loud explosion. A cloud of smoke enveloped the Cybermen, and for an instant she could glimpse them floundering uncertainly, looking about them for the source of the attack. Ace grinned to herself.

She took out the first of the gold coins and loaded it into the sling of the catapult, then, remembering the Doctor's firm injunction, took careful aim at the chest panel of the nearest Cyberman. She drew the catapult elastic taut; there was a second's pause, then she fired.

The Cyberman's reaction was even more immediate than she had expected. The coin evidently lodged inextricably in his chest panel and the ugly death-rattle began instantly. The Cyberman keeled over, clutching desperately at his chest as the others turned to observe him, it seemed to Ace, in slow motion. For a few seconds she watched, fascinated, and then as their heads began to turn in search of the position of the attacker, she remembered herself in time and was running from the room and down the stairs.

The Cyber Leader, however, his reactions a milli-second quicker than those of his inferiors, had glimpsed her as she turned from the window. His voice grated thickly: 'Destroy the human female.'

The other Cybermen scanned the area, their lasers ready. The Cyber Leader's voice reached a semitone higher. 'Find and destroy her,' he said.

The Cybermen spread out around the half-completed building and began to search for Ace. They peered through the empty windows into the uncompleted rooms but there was no sign of her on the ground floor. At a signal from the Lieutenant, three of them moved purposefully inside.

Once in the house, they double-checked the downstairs rooms. The interior of the understairs cupboard was blasted with lasers but contained no human female. The unfitted kitchen was empty, as was the unfinished living room. The house shook as the heavy steps of the Cybermen clumped up the stairs, but even this failed to frighten their target into making a break for freedom. Upstairs, the bathroom and bedrooms too were empty.

Outside, Ace carefully completed her silent descent of the drainpipe and reached the ground. For the flicker of an instant a memory crossed her consciousness of slipping equally silently down the drainpipe at the back of a semi-detached house in Perivale, as her parents sipped their bedtime drinks. The thought registered just long enough for her to catch herself wishing she were safely back there, before she was moving again, creeping carefully to the corner of the building. Having checked there was no Cyberman guarding the doorless front entrance, she crept forward and entered the house.

In the hallway, she pulled the catapult from her pocket and tugged a second gold coin from the pouch. She loaded the sling.

As she did so, the heavy tread of the Cybermen thudded on the ceiling above her head. They were moving from the bedroom towards the stairs, evidently having decided to continue their search.

Ace slipped quickly out of the front doorway and stood to one side of it, listening intently, with her back against the wall. The heavy steps moved along the upper'pa.s.sageway to the top of the stairs. The boards creaked and the tone of the next step was different: the first Cyberman had stepped on to the top of the staircase. It took another step; then another.

Ace swung into the doorway, tightening the catapult elastic as she did so. Her small figure framed in the light gave her a moment before the descending Cyberman spotted her. This was just long enough to give her a bearing on his chest panel as she brought the child's weapon up to her own eye level. Automatically, his weapon raised.

Ace fired first, in the instant of surprise. The coin sparkled through the air as the deadly laser sought to find her, and was immediately followed by the pure ring of a metallic note, clear as a tuning fork, as it lodged itself in the Cyberman's grating. Ace did not stay to see the results of her action but she had no need to do so. As she fled across the open s.p.a.ce of the building site she could clearly hear the heavy crashing as the creature tumbled helplessly down the stairs. Ace gained the cover of another incomplete house and hid in a front room. Cautiously, she peered over the window ledge but she had evaded any pursuit. The other two Cybermen emerged at the bottom of the stairs and stood for a moment looking down at their stricken companion. Two down, five to go she thought; not bad for a beginner. She wondered how the Doctor was managing with his sums.

No sooner had the question raised itself, however, than the Cybermen looked up and saw her. The lasers raised and fired instantly. This time they were much nearer the mark and the brickwork and unvarnished window frame next to Ace's face shattered into smouldering matchwood.

Ace instinctively threw herself on to the floorboards.

For the first time, the deadly pursuit became entirely real. Behind and across the room from her, a large smouldering hole had suddenly appeared in the wall. Ace caught her breath, and carefully pushed back the feeling of shock and terror that threatened to grip her uncontrollably. The only possible course was to keep the Cybermen's attention entirely concentrated on herself and away from the Doctor, whatever the cost.

Keeping this thought clearly in the forefront of her mind she stood up, next to the ruined window frame, in time to glimpse two Cybermen carefully making their way across the muddy open s.p.a.ce, pitted with tyre tracks, towards the house were she was hiding. Ace rallied herself.

'Try to keep up,' she shouted, as contemptuously as a child.

'I've heard of metal fatigue, but you lot are pathetic.' With that, she rushed from the room and through the hallway towards the unfitted kitchen at the back of the house. The Cyber Leader's voice echoed after her.

'Kill her,' he shouted. 'Kill her.'

Ace ran into the kitchen, grabbing the door handle, and stopped. The door was locked. This possibility had not occurred to her. At the same instant she heard the steps of a Cyberman approaching round the side of the house. In a few seconds it would round the corner and she would be in full, and almost unprotected, view. Her only hope was to go back through the house. She turned and ran back into the hallway, only to stop as a laser blast demolished the bottom of the staircase next to her. The two Cybermen from the house opposite were very near indeed.

Ace was trapped. She heard the kitchen door behind her splintering as the Cyberman at the back of the house entered. Jumping on to the ruins of the staircase, she made her way upstairs as the Cybermen entered the building.

She reached the top of the stairs as the first one came through the front door. Another laser blast blew a hole through the wall to her right as she swung out of sight on the landing.

Ace squatted down, facing the top of the stairs. From below came crashing and more splintering sounds as the nearest Cyberman stepped into the ruins of the bottom of the staircase, but this was followed by a solid step, as menacing as a single drumbeat, as his weight was taken by the first step which had not been damaged in the onslaught.

There was another step, followed by another, and another. The heavy, sinister, and purposeful footsteps of the Cyberman were followed by more. There were evidently two Cybermen now climbing the short staircase towards her. Ace's heart was pounding deafeningly, it seemed to her. She brushed at what felt like a cobweb on the side of her forehead and was surprised to see blood on her hand. She felt again and realized the brickwork blown off the wall as she reached her present position had shattered over the side of her face.

The footsteps were now almost at the top of the stairs, and the leading Cyberman about to step into view. Ace pulled back the elastic on the catapult and a third gold coin glinted in the unlit gloom of the landing.

The Cyberman saw Ace at the moment she saw him, but Ace had already fired. The gold coin once again stuck neatly into the chest panel and the now familiar rattle of death sounded immediately. The Cyberman she had struck fell backwards, tumbling down the stairs and taking down the one behind him.

Quietly, she began picking her way through the rooms towards the rear of the house. It was essential that the Cybermen were not able to track her movements by being able to hear her. Fortunately, the new floorboards beneath her shoes were stiff and well laid, and she crept into the main bedroom without any reaction from below. Distantly, she could hear the Cyberman at the foot of the stairs disentangling himself from the one she had destroyed.

Reaching the window, she carefully looked outside and saw to her satisfaction that there was, as she had expected, a drainpipe nearby. She reached through the gla.s.sless window-frame and took hold of the pipe. She was just about to pull herself through prior to using the drainpipe to lower herself to the ground when a laser blast struck several feet below her, shattering the metal in her hand and scorching her arm. Ace drew in her breath in a gulp, silencing the cry of pain. She pulled back instinctively, catching as she did so a glimpse of a silver figure beneath her. A Cyberman was guarding the back of the house.

'Getting the idea, are we?' she whispered to it grimly. As if in reply, a second blast from below roared through the empty window and took out most of the ceiling above her head. There was an immediate rain of plaster, and the room suddenly acquired the appearance of being filled with dense fog. Given the gla.s.sless window, Ace knew it could remain so for only a few seconds, but that might be long enough to give her the time she needed. Loading the catapult, she crept through the opaque white dust to the window.

To the Cyberman below, she must have appeared like the apparition of death itself, she thought. Her face and hands appeared out of the white cloud suddenly, so that even before he had focused his weapon on her, the gold coin was lodged in his chest panel and the deadly rattle was sounding. For an instant the image of the statue of Nemesis crossed her mind... but at that moment she became aware of tramping steps coming up the stairs. 'Now what?' she wondered.

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs. Two Cybermen could be heard entering each of the upper rooms in succession, preceded by laser blasts. They were not taking any chances. When the bedroom door was blasted open and two simultaneous laser bursts tore into the room the dust had already cleared from the air.

There was no sign, however, of Ace: she was hanging by her fingertips from the window-ledge. With great difficulty, and as silently as was possible in the circ.u.mstances, she clambered back into the room. She could hear the heavy footsteps making their way down the wooden stairs. Quietly, she followed.

Outside, the air seemed pervaded with a strange scent which she was unable to identify. It was a faint but perceptible odour, sharp and cold. After a moment she realized it somehow emanated from the statue. Her head hurt where the shattered brickwork had hit it, and she felt nauseous and not a little light-headed. She wanted more than anything to lie down and sleep. The odour was so disturbing that for a second she again caught herself longing to be back in safe, boring Perivale.

This feeling lasted for only a second. There were, if her reckoning was correct, two more Cybermen to finish off.

Even the Doctor would have to admit she had done rather well. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pouch. To her dismay she discovered she had only one gold coin. Focusing with difficulty, she loaded it into the sling of her catapult.

She forced herself to move forward, and began making her way across the mud and puddles between the buildings towards where she had left the Doctor with the Nemesis.

Perhaps he had finished by now. She had trouble walking in a straight line but insisted to herself that she did so. She approached another half-completed house and looked forward to leaning for a second on the wall at its corner as she pa.s.sed. She reached it gratefully and put out her hand, touching the brick. It was at that point she heard the faint sound behind her. She was spinning round when the grating voice reached her.

'Still,' it rasped. Ace froze. Oh well, she decided, she had stopped most of them.

The Cyber Leader moved round the corner and stood in front of her, his laser weapon at the ready.

'Why?' said Ace. 'You're going to kill me anyway. Isn't that right?' She turned, disobediently, and as she had expected, the Cyber Lieutenant was poised behind her.

The Cyber Leader pushed her against the wall and both Cybermen moved in front of her, looking her up and down.

'We detect only one more piece of gold,' he said finally with something like satisfaction in his voice.

'Correct,' said Ace. Suddenly she raised the catapult menacingly. 'So,' she said, summoning the last of her strength. 'Who'll be next and who'll be lucky?' She aimed the coin directly at the Cyber Leader. There was a pause.