Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis Part 4

'I know nothing about it,' said Ace. The Doctor stepped forward protectively.

'She really doesn't,' he told De Flores. 'Allow me to explain, Ace.' Turning his back on the guns of the paramilitaries and on De Flores he proceeded to do so with his customary animation. 'You see, for validium to become active you must have a sufficient quant.i.ty of it. A critical ma.s.s, in fact. The statue alone is not enough without the bow...'

'I have the bow,' De Flores interrupted emphatically.

'And,' continued the Doctor, ignoring him, 'the arrow.

But if someone could put the bow and the arrow into the statue's hands...'

'They have the power of life and death, not only over the Earth but over any planet in existence.' De Flores completed the explanation for him. There was silence. The German stared menacingly at the pair. His voice became sinister. 'You are,' he said slowly, 'remarkably well informed for someone who claims to know nothing.'

The Doctor looked at him, unequivocally. 'I simply notice what is obvious. You apparently don't.'

'What do you mean?' demanded Karl. Ace realized from his tone that Karl was rattled.

The Doctor pressed home his moment of advantage.

'Can you smell anything?' he asked, sharply. The paramilitaries looked at one another. Even De Flores sniffed.

'Building materials,' he responded.

The Doctor smiled drily. 'Nerve gas,' he said. His face became steely. 'Oh, you're forgiven. This is of a kind with which you would be entirely unfamiliar.'

De Flores suddenly lost his temper. 'Who are you?' he demanded, savagely. The Doctor, however, was in full flow.

'Doesn't it occur to you to wonder what happened to these policemen?' he continued.

'I asked that,' said Karl eagerly. The Doctor smiled indulgently. 'Well done,' he said with approval, kneeling to examine one of the unconscious figures on the ground.

'And what, I wonder,' he said distantly as he did so, 'were your conclusions?'

'Don't play games with us.' De Flores's voice was deadly.

'I haven't the time.' The Doctor stood up. Suddenly, he too was utterly serious. 'These men have been attacked by a technology more advanced and more terrible than you can imagine.'

Karl struggled with disbelief. 'What technology?' he asked. But De Flores cut in sharply.

'That's quite enough nonsense,' he said.

'And look at their cars,' continued the Doctor, ignoring him. 'Look at their radios. Isn't it strange they all seem to have failed at once?'

Karl was unable to disguise his fascination. 'I thought that too,' he said.

'Very good,' replied the Doctor, with the faintest hint of sarcasm. 'Clearly their batteries are no longer operative.

You might also have noticed one or two hiccups in the local electricity supply during the last few days.'

'Like at the castle?' Despite the danger of their situation, Ace too was unable to resist the lure of the mystery to which the Doctor evidently knew the answer.

'Exactly,' he confirmed. He looked around at his audience in satisfaction. De Flores, however, had reached the limit of his patience.

'Tell me where the arrow is,' he shouted.

'Listen,' replied the Doctor 'and you might just save your life. There are creatures in the universe which make you look as dangerous as babies. And they're here for the same reason you are.'

De Flores took the gun Karl was holding and raised it.

'You will now tell me,' he said, quietly, 'where to find the arrow.'

'I am very glad to say I can't,' the Doctor replied firmly.

'Then,' concluded De Flores, 'I will shoot her.' He aimed the gun squarely at Ace.

There was a terrible silence. Even the Doctor was still.

De Flores began to squeeze the trigger.

Ace murmured: 'Doctor...'

Suddenly there was a blinding sheet of light, dazzling them all. As their eyes became accustomed to the glare, they turned to its apparent source, some yards away. De Flores' face turned deadly white; every trace of colour draining from it in his amazement. Ace stood open-mouthed at what she saw. Some twenty yards away, a disc-shaped s.p.a.cecraft had appeared in silence. A door panel was sliding open. From it, a first, then a second, and a third, silver figure stepped out. They were, Ace reckoned, about eight feet tall. She dimly registered that the paramilitaries, Karl, and De Flores were mesmerized by the spectacle of them. Suddenly she knew she was not going to be shot after all. Shock and relief flooded through her. The Doctor's voice cut into her consciousness; his tone was at its most severely authoritative.

'Don't move,' he hissed.

Ace found her voice with difficulty. 'What... what are they?' she whispered, unable to take her eyes from the group of now eight silver figures which, having a.s.sembled outside the s.p.a.cecraft, were beginning to advance towards them with heavy steps. The Doctor's face was twisted in hatred.

'Cybermen,' he answered quietly.

5.

The Cyber Leader approached first. Behind and to his left, he was flanked by his Lieutenant. The others spread out behind them. The paramilitaries stared at them aghast.

The Cybermen came to a halt, the Leader's attention directly on the Doctor.

'So, Doctor,' the metallic voice grated. 'A new appearance. Otherwise our antic.i.p.ation of your presence has proved entirely accurate.'

From the corner of her eye, Ace caught the movement as one of the paramilitaries, apparently un.o.bserved, swung his machine-gun and fired a rapid burst at the Leader.

There was no effect. The others immediately followed suit; there was a deafening blast of gunfire as they all opened up at the Cybermen. The bullets bounced off them. The gunfire stopped, the paramilitaries staring in disbelief.

Slowly, ponderously, the Cyber Leader turned towards the man who had first shot at him, and raised his laser gun.

There was a sudden flash of light from the muzzle, and the man fell dead.

'Cover!' shouted De Flores. The paramilitaries scattered for concealment.

'Eradicate them,' boomed the Cyber Leader.

The Cybermen immediately opened up with lasers, to be met by the automatic fire of the paramilitaries. The noise was continuous and deafening. A steel girder supporting a partly constructed wall dissolved as a laser shaft glanced across it, bringing down the side of a building. The machine-gun bullets, meanwhile, continued to bounce uselessly off the Cybermen.

Through the smoke and dust, Ace glimpsed the Doctor.

He was kneeling in the crater where the Nemesis had landed, apparently deep in thought. Taking a careful look round, and discovering the warring factions were fully occupied with each other, she crawled towards him.

'Doctor!' she called. The Doctor, absorbed, did not hear her. Reaching him, she put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her in surprise.

'Ah, Ace,' he murmured. 'There you are.'

'Come on,' said Ace, urgently, ducking as a stray burst of bullets whizzed over their heads. 'We can't stay here.'

'We certainly can,' replied the Doctor with some asperity. 'This is exactly what happened last time. The only difference is that then it was Lady Peinforte and agents of the Inquisition. Well that's not going to happen again.'

No sooner had he spoken than Ace noticed a nearby Cyberman stagger and fall as an arrow hit and lodged in his chest panel.

The Doctor's attention, meanwhile, was still largely submerged in his calculations. 'Imagine,' he said testily, 'trying to calculate the correct angle of projection, taking into account gravity and all the rest of it, while all around you people are trying to kill each other. No wonder I got the sums wrong.'

Ace, however, was watching the Cyberman, who was writhing in what was clearly agony. His movements grew slower.

'Utter waste of time shooting at them, of course,' the Doctor continued over his shoulder, rattling his abacus with dexterity as the gunfire and explosions continued unabated. 'As you'll have realized, they're completely bullet-proof.' He giggled slightly. 'Those men might just as well be using bows and arrows.'

Ace smiled grimly. 'It looks like they're a bit more effective,' she said.

The Doctor looked up at her fully for the first time.

'What?' he asked.

On the partly finished roof of a nearby building, Lady Peinforte looked on with satisfaction as the stricken Cyberman's faltering movements grew slower and then stopped. She turned to Richard. 'A hit, a palpable hit, Richard,' she said.

She discovered that Richard, oblivious to her words, was praying on his knees. 'And I shall devote myself to good works,' she heard him murmur. 'Swear will I never, steal not, and observe evermore the Lord's day.'

Lady Peinforte snorted in disgust and reloaded her bow.

'See,' she said rather more loudly, 'how my poison is as deadly as ever, Richard.'

'I shall comfort the sick,' continued Richard. 'Which reminds me, I'll return to Briggs his money.'

Exasperated at his attention to G.o.d, which she felt was unquestionably better expended on herself, Lady Peinforte kicked him. Richard yelped and opened his eyes.

'Get up, fool,' she snarled. Richard rose hastily, rubbing himself. a.s.sured he was now listening, Lady Peinforte continued. 'I tell thee,' she said warmly, 'were there men of silver like these in our day, my life had been quite different.' For a moment an unusual, almost dreamy expression, which Richard had never seen there before, crossed her sharp features. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, to be replaced by her normal calculating sneer.

'Now, though, I'll let them all destroy each other, then we take the Nemesis.' She pulled back the bowstring and fired another arrow into the melee below.

Seventy-five feet away, another Cyberman fell. Crouched under cover near him, De Flores watched as Lady Peinforte's arrow proved as deadly as the last. His men were falling right and left, and it was clear that soon he and Karl, who was providing pointless covering fire from next to him, would be the last left. He shook Karl's shoulder.

The young man stopped firing and c.o.c.ked his ear to De Flores.

'We must retreat,' shouted De Flores above the gunfire.

'It's our only chance of final victory.'

Karl was disbelieving. 'And leave the statue?' he shouted back. To his surprise, De Flores agreed.

'The statue alone is useless to them and the bow is ours.

Retrieve it.'

Without hesitation, Karl crawled into the open and began making his way across the ground towards the flight case. Lasers and machine-gun fire, with the occasional explosion from grenades, continued all around him.

As soon as Karl was away, De Flores too broke cover and dashed to the nearest dead Cyberman. Pulling the arrow from its chest, he ran back behind the wall where he had sheltered. He examined the arrow closely, although he had confirmed everything he suspected with a glance at its shining head.

On the rooftop, Richard's attention was caught by something. 'My lady. Who is that little man?'

Lady Peinforte fired another arrow, this time narrowly missing her intended target. She glanced across in the direction that Richard was indicating.

'Who knows?' she replied, reaching for another arrow.

'Some interfering...' she stopped, and peered more closely.

Suspicion dawned. 'It cannot be,' she whispered.

'His face has changed,' said Richard.

'The wench's too. But... of course. Why, toads and adders can be leaders of men, can the Doctor not change his face?'