Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis Part 6

'Listen,' Ace told him. She flicked a switch on the ghetto blaster. Sound came through the speakers: a distorted electronic burst. The Doctor, however, stopped, his ears p.r.i.c.king up as instantly as a dog's. His eyes narrowed.

'You could be right after all,' he agreed slowly. 'Could be, shmould be,' said Ace. 'It's definitely an alien device: it must be the Cybermen.'

The Doctor smiled indulgently. 'But,' he told her gently, 'they're scrambling their signal. If we try to make sense of that we could be here for ever. Much better to find them with our eyes and ears. Come on.'

But Ace remained where she stood. An idea had occurred to her. 'What,' she said, 'if we jam their transmission?'

'I suppose it might interfere with the coding...' The Doctor looked at her anew. There were quite frequently moments when she surprised even him. This, he realized, was one. '... so we could listen in. Not bad. Have you got anything handy?'

Reaching into her pocket, Ace triumphantly pulled out a ca.s.sette. It was the one she had bought from the jazz band at the pub after their untimely summons into their present circ.u.mstances. Recalling the Doctor saying there was no time for her to obtain it, she said with a certain playfulness: 'This do?'

The Doctor grinned. 'Perfect,' he replied.

Ace slotted it in and pressed the play b.u.t.ton. They waited intently, too absorbed to notice the strained but faint and gagged cries for help drifting towards them from the nearby tree.

'Commence final phase,' the Cyber Leader grated at the communications console operator. 'Repeat. Commence final phase.' Lights twinkled on the console and the transmission, coded instantly, was transmitted immediately. The Lieutenant shifted.

'I must repeat my objection to the transmission of incorrect data, Leader,' he said again. The Leader turned to him slowly. He continued undeterred, however. 'Our force does not,' he emphasized, 'yet possess all three units of validium.'

There was a silence. 'You are outside your function,'

grated the Cyber Leader.

The communications console operator cut in. 'Your transmission has been received, leader.'

The Cyber Leader nodded slowly in satisfaction.

'Repeat once more,' he said, 'then relay the response.'

Suddenly, the entire communications console began to emit a high pitched screech. Warning lights flashed erratically. The Cybermen moved around it.

'Report!' the Cyber Leader said to the console operator.

The operator hurriedly checked his readings.

'Interference,' he said quickly. 'Transmission and reception affected.'

'Interference?' the Leader was so ominously calm he might simply have been requesting a weather report. 'From what source? Provide more information.'

There was a delay as the computer checked and double-checked the circuits. The Cyber Lieutenant listened in to the interference impatiently. He was at a loss. 'It's a completely unknown form of sound, Leader,' he reported.

'Open the monitor facility,' ordered the Cyber Leader.

The console communications operator did as he was told and flicked the switch.

The crypt was flooded with the honking and swooping wail of a saxophone-led jazz quartet. The computers simultaneously registered negative results to the demands for information regarding the ident.i.ty of the sound. The Cybermen looked at each other, presumably in incomprehension.

The music swung out into the sky, into the ether, into s.p.a.ce. It bounced, a tiniest fraction of a second later, off the moon, and travelled billions of miles from star to star, across the universe.

'Monstrous,' said Ace in delight as the ca.s.sette turned silently in her ghetto blaster. 'That should keep them busy.'

The Doctor chuckled in agreement. 'I love a jam session,' he said. 'Come on.' They hurried forward, Ace carrying the tape player. Suddenly they were stopped short by the astonishing sight which met their eyes. Two skinheads with very red faces and wearing only their underpants, were hanging upside down, bound and gagged, from the tree in front of them. Overcoming their surprise, the Doctor and Ace approached them. The Doctor produced his penknife and cut the gag from the mouth of the nearest one. 'Who on earth did this to you?' asked the Doctor in amazement.

'Social workers,' came the terrified reply.

Only a few hundred yards away, the social workers themselves were creeping slowly and with extreme care through the woods towards the crypt, when they came upon a gleaming silver structure. It looked to Richard the size of a palace. Although neither he nor Lady Peinforte had any way of identifying it as the Cyber s.p.a.cecraft, their instincts connected it with the tall silver creatures without need for even so much as a glance pa.s.sing between them.

Thus they had begun to make their way slowly and silently through the trees and bushes which surrounded it before even seeing the two large identical men wearing silver ornaments on their heads neither Lady Peinforte nor Richard possessed the information to be able to identify these as headphones who were evidently guarding it.

They continued skirting through the undergrowth and were almost past the s.p.a.cecraft when they were frozen by the nearby roar of a lion. It was a casual, rather than a belligerent, roar, but to two people who had never heard one before it was extremely disturbing. Richard immediately fell to his knees. Even Lady Peinforte was rattled. She kicked him and, as ever torn between his obeisances to G.o.d and herself, he took the line of least resistance and rose reluctantly to his feet, looking about him in terror.

'My lady...' he began in a whisper.

'Of course I heard it,' Lady Peinforte interrupted tersely. 'Am I deaf?'

'It sounds like a bear,' whimpered Richard. 'But worse.'

Lady Peinforte unwrapped the arrow and examined it.

It was buzzing and now almost transluscent, pulsating with an ever brighter light.

'See,' she said urgently. 'We are near the Nemesis.' She wrapped the arrow in its cloth again, although even this could not now conceal the extraordinary quality of light radiating from it. 'Come,' she said with her usual firmness.

Richard hesitated. Lady Peinforte raised an eyebrow threateningly. 'The bear will not pursue us. Such things happen only in the theatre.' She marched forward. As usual, Richard followed reluctantly. Emerging from the forest, they stopped, stunned.

Ahead of them, a small herd of giraffes grazed peacefully.

Richard found his voice. 'What creatures are these?' he asked in horror.

This time Lady Peinforte was noticeably shaken. 'I know not,' she admitted.

'They will eat us.' Richard gave way at last to complete panic. He fell to his knees, this time in front of Lady Peinforte. 'I beg you my lady, return us to our own time.

England now is full of terrors.'

Lady Peinforte immediately regained control of herself at the suggestion. 'You are mad,' she replied coldly.

'Return without the Nemesis? Never. And without my knowledge,' she added, seeing the desperate look in his eyes, 'you cannot return at all. I tell thee Richard, either you'll a.s.sist me and we gain it or I will leave you here for ever. Now come. I think they are peaceful.'

Richard stared about himself wildly. 'What place,' he asked, 'what place is this?'

Lady Peinforte turned to him with a peculiar intense relish. 'This piece of ground on which you stand? Why I will tell you. It is thy grave, Richard.'

Richard was petrified with shock and disbelief. His entire body felt cold all over. He could manage only a terrified whisper.

'What?'

'Yes,' said Lady Peinforte sweetly, enjoying her moment. 'I ordered that you should be buried here when I planned my tomb. See,' she pointed to a small and withered piece of rock planted in the ground at their feet, 'there was your stone. If the dogs would not eat thee, I ordered you put out here, to attend me in the next world as in this.' She made a large sweeping gesture with the arrow and pointed grandly out of the trees. For the first time, Richard saw the dark tower on the edge of the clearing.

'Because here, you see, is mine.' Lady Peinforte was possessed with an excitement Richard had never seen in her before. His senses reeled. Lady Peinforte's voice continued inexorably. 'And aptly, the silver creatures there do hold the Nemesis. We shall attack.'

She loaded her bow with a gold-tipped arrow, motioning to Richard to do the same. In a dream, he did so. Lady Peinforte strode forward. Too terrified to remain alone on the awful spot where he stood, Richard reluctantly followed her once again. Leaving the cover of the woods they pa.s.sed a sign which neither of them could read.

Printed on it in large white letters was the message: 'Stay in your car while in the safari park.'

In the bushes, the Doctor and Ace lay still and watched them pa.s.s. 'Good,' said the Doctor quietly. 'Very good.'

Quietly and with extreme care, Lady Peinforte and Richard approached the tower, their bows at the ready.

There was no movement from within. They reached the doorway; all was silent. They burst inside.

The crypt was deserted.

The arrow, however, was shining so brightly that it illuminated the inside of the tower with the power of several arc lights.

Richard lowered his bow in relief. 'There is nothing here,' he said unnecessarily.

'See the arrow,' hissed Lady Peinforte. 'The statue is here, depend on it. Quietly, Richard.'

They began to search, Richard warily avoiding the tomb. Lady Peinforte noticed, and sneered. 'Rather fine, is it not?' she said proudly. Immediately she was possessed by a sudden fit of rage. 'But where is the statue of Nemesis?'

she screamed. 'Where is it? Where?'

Her voice carried without difficulty to the nearby thicket in the forest where the Cybermen were hiding. The Lieutenant turned to his Leader as the cries reached them.

'Is this the human condition of madness, Leader?' he asked.

'It is,' came the reply. 'Kill them.'

The Cybermen moved stealthily forward into the open towards the tower. As they did so, Lady Peinforte's screeches continued to travel towards them.

In the tower the arrow was flashing uncontrollably.

Lady Peinforte was beside herself with fury and frustration. 'It must be here,' she was yelling. 'It must be.'

Judiciously keeping a watch at the door, Richard saw the Cybermen leaving the cover of the forest and making their way towards them.

'My lady,' he said urgently, reaching for an arrow and loading his bow.

Lady Peinforte, however, was unhearing, running her fingers up and down the walls. 'It is here,' she muttered. 'It is. The arrow tells me.'

Taking careful aim at the Cyberman in the centre of the group, Richard fired.

The arrow embedded itself in the ground.

Automatically the nearest Cyberman reached out and tested its composition. The others paused momentarily and turned.

'Gold,' reported the Cyberman. They immediately turned back towards the forest. As they did so, Richard fired again. This time the arrow lodged in a Cyberman's chest panel. He turned to inform Lady Peinforte that he had almost no arrows remaining, but he could see at a glance she was incapable of hearing. She had been seized with inspiration. 'Of course,' she breathed, transfigured.

'Help me, Richard. Help me. It's in my tomb.'

Richard was appalled. Lady Peinforte, however, would stand for no argument. 'Help me,' she repeated menacingly. With extreme distaste, and shuddering with terror, Richard began helping her to remove the ancient stone lid.

6.

The Doctor and Ace had crept away from the vicinity of the crypt and were peering cautiously through the undergrowth at the Cyber s.p.a.ceship. The two men with silver headphones were still guarding it. The Doctor had been wrestling with a mental problem, though he now seemed to have solved it. He turned to Ace decisively. 'I don't suppose you've completely disobeyed my instructions and secretly prepared any nitro-nine have you?' he asked with a seemingly casual air.

Ace knew him too well to be deceived. 'What if I had?'

she countered defensively.

'You naturally wouldn't do anything so insanely dangerous as to carry it round with you, would you?'

'Of course not, Professor. I'm a good girl and do what I'm told.'

'Excellent,' concluded the Doctor with satisfaction.

'Blow up that vehicle.'

The Cybermen were suffering badly from Lady Peinforte's gold-tipped arrows fired by Richard, despite responding with their laser beams. The Cyberman with an arrow lodged in his chest panel was beginning to die, writhing on the ground, and there was an almost desperate note in the Cyber Leader's voice as his commands barked through the trees. 'Destroy them. Destroy them,' he ordered.

The Lieutenant moved nearer to him and spoke. 'We cannot sustain these losses, Leader,' he said. 'We must withdraw.'

The Cyber Leader turned on him quickly. 'No,' he said.

He was emphatic. 'We must hold the statue and take the arrow from them.'

An arrow hissed through the air and embedded itself in a tree a few feet away from them.