Doctor Who_ Tomb Of The Cybermen Part 20

'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 impa.s.sive, 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 ma.s.s 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.

'G.o.d!' 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.

The Cyberman turned, magnificent, silver, looming above them, and raised his arm ready for another terrible Cyberman chop.

Toberman pushed the others aside and went forward alone to meet him. The Cyberman brought down his arm, but Toberman's Cyberarms were in his way, defending his human body, and the blow clanged metal on metal.

Toberman raised his hand and, while the Cyberman was off-balance from the force of his own first blow, dealt him a sideways slam so fierce that the Cyberman staggered, his neck dented with chips of metal sparking and showering from the place.

While they struggled, the Doctor and Jamie rushed over to the controls.

'Jamie, that lever there, and this one-together.'

'I canna shift it,' grunted Jamie, with all his weight against the great lever.

'Press that b.u.t.ton first,' said the Doctor urgently. Jamie pressed the release b.u.t.ton for the lever.

Together they slowly lowered the levers that would freeze the Cybermen for ever.

Behind them. the Cyberman tried to rise, but Toberman's metal hands grabbed at the plastic control unit and, with one mighty pull, wrenched it away from the-monster's chest. Foam welled up, the Cyberman staggered, poised and crashed forward like a pylon.

Toberman, feeling. alone after the intensity of the struggle; gathered himself together and walked away down the tunnel. The Doctor did not stop him.

Awed, the Doctor and Jamie turned towards the tombs. Now at last they were freezing properly; the Cybermen were lying back in their rest positions, the membrane had started forming across their hexagonal cells, already frost was clouding the gleam of their bodies and a thin wall of ice was forming. The floor beneath their feet hardened as the thin film of water congealed.

'Last time it was for five centuries,' said the Doctor. 'Now it must be for ever. Come on.'