Killing Ground Part 12

Waiting for his crimes to be discovered; for the Cybermen to march through the door and take him. Wondering how much longer his execution could be postponed.

On the playback screen of thirteen years before, Taggart saw Overseer Madrox sneering threats. He saw Tim Roylance, his old Patrol Leader, pinning the young upstart against the wall and outlining in detail what would happen if he dared to go to the Cybermen with his discovery. Their next visit - the first since the rebellion - had been more fraught than most, but Madrox had chosen the path of self-preservation and looked for other ways to further his career.

Amendments to census records had gone unquestioned and the children had not been missed by most.

Patrol Leader Roylance was dead now, as were most of Taggart's few friends from that distant time. Madrox had been quick to exercise his powers, when he got them, to rid the Overseers of all those he deemed to be corrupting influences. Those he had not disposed of himself had been reported for behavioural lapses, real or imagined. Madrox had taken no chances and he had forgotten nothing. Somehow, Ben Taggart had been spared. He had lived with the fear for a decade and a half.

Five visits. This time, as always, time crawled by reluctantly. The walls leaned over him with the physical impossibility of claustrophobic delirium, and Taggart wondered how much longer it could be before his turn came to die.

The ArcHivist's unexpected p.r.o.nouncement was greeted by silence.

Madrox knelt on the floor of the control centre, hand to his throat, and stared as if he couldn't believe that salvation had come from such a quarter. The Cyberleader showed no such expression, of course, but Hegelia's words had given it pause. It would need more information to interpret this superficially illogical occurrence.

'Why do you desire conversion?'

'Is that so hard to understand?' she countered.

'The feelings of organic animals are irrational and therefore unpredictable.'

'You need not look to the future, Cyberleader. Look instead to your own past. Remember the animals that you once were. The proud people of Mondas wanted to be converted, didn't they? You made the choice to become Cybermen. Why do you a.s.sume that n.o.body else can share your lofty ideals?'

'Not all Mondans welcomed our proliferation. It is a matter of record that emotions blind organics to its benefits.'

Hegelia took a step forward, resisting the urge to take the Leader's arms and stare into its eyes in an attempt to communicate her pa.s.sion.

'I am not blind! I have devoted my life to researching the history of your race. I have studied the Cybermen from afar for so many decades.'

She paused. She wanted to talk about her devotion to her field; her joy at the uncovering of each piece of the puzzle, each fragment which brought her closer to total knowledge. It wouldn't understand. 'I have learnt what it is to be a Cyberman,' she said instead. 'I know that it is a... logical path to take.' She struggled to fight down her emotions, speaking in as calm and detached a voice as she could muster. 'I am yours.'

'Do not listen to the human.' This came from the other Cyberman, which had stood and was approaching them. 'Emotional creatures lie - and this one is a companion of the Doctor. His deceit is well known.'

'Why should I lie?' demanded Hegelia.

'You fear conversion and will resort to illogical means to avoid it.

This is a trick.'

'I do not fear conversion, I embrace it.' Hegelia turned back to the Leader. 'Why should I fear? You can see that I am old. I am nearing the end of my lifespan. Conversion would enable me to overcome that weakness of my organic form.'

'Your age makes you imperfect.'

'What nonsense! Where I come from, medical science is more advanced than you can imagine. I am fit for your purpose - and, willing as I am to undergo this operation, the chance of its success is improved. I will not resist the brain alterations as some do.'

Clearly, the Cyberleader hadn't yet reached a decision. Hegelia decided to play her trump card. 'You may not realize this, Leader, but I have travelled to this colony from the far future.'

She didn't even know if it had heard her. The pregnant atmosphere was suddenly dispelled by the arrival of three more Cybermen, the foremost of which had the Doctor's unconscious body slung easily across its shoulders. It dropped its prisoner into an untidy heap and made its report. 'Our attempt to capture the Doctor's TARDIS failed.

He would not operate the locking system.'

The Cyberleader greeted the news with a curt nod. 'Remove him to the ship. He will accompany us when we return to the main warcraft. I will extract his secrets from him there. Also, locate Overseer 4/3 and bring him to me.'

The Doctor was lifted again and two Cybermen left the control centre obediently. The third awaited instructions. Hegelia, somewhat put out by their inattention to her, cleared her throat and addressed the Cyberleader in commanding tones. 'As I was saying, I have travelled here from your future.'

'I am aware of your previous statement.'

'Then you should consider what it means for your race. If you were to accept me for conversion, my memories would enter your history computer. Memories, Leader, of future battles; of Cyber defeats. With that information, you could avert your destined extinction.'

'The Cybermen will not die!' The weight of determination given to that statement belied the Cyberleader's claims to impartiality. It was, naturally, the result of a programmed imperative.

'With the knowledge I possess, you will not have to. What is your decision?'

'No.'

' I . . . beg your pardon?' Hegelia felt her mouth go dry and she couldn't beheve the evidence of her ears.

'You will not be accepted for conversion. As the Doctor's other companion is not available, your presence will be required to ensure his co-operation.'

'But my knowledge -'

'With the Doctor's TARDIS, we can reverse all setbacks both in the future and in the past. It is the greater prize.'

For one of the few times in her life, Hegelia didn't know what to say.

She felt her aspirations slipping away like sand through her fingers and she could do nothing to stop it. She had gone over her argument a thousand times in her head. It had been perfectly logical. She had not foreseen its inadequacy and had therefore not made contingency plans.

But the Doctor's presence had thrown several metaphorical spanners into everyone's works. She should have antic.i.p.ated that. She hadn't.

The Cyberleader turned away dismissively and ordered that Hegelia should be taken to join the Doctor. The last of the Cybermen which had brought in the Time Lord jerked to life and seized her arm in a threateningly strong grip. She didn't struggle as it led her away. Her mind was in turmoil, still trying to cope with the stupefying impact of her failure.

Her escort halted at the sound of the Leader's voice as they reached the door. 'Should your companion refuse to divulge his secrets,' it said to Hegelia, 'it will prove necessary to maim or destroy you. However, in the event of your outliving such a use, you may be converted.'

Somehow, Hegelia didn't find the promise very comforting.

Jolarr pushed his way through the scrub and located the hatch where Taggart had said it would be. He knocked on it tentatively, but received no answer. He was uncomfortable being so close to Population Control, and the noises occasioned by a gentle breeze planted paranoid thoughts in his mind. His gaze flicked from one direction to another, expecting enemies to rise from the darkness created by an overcast sky.

The dangers of being outside had been evinced by the desertion of the villages, even before the curfew. Jolarr was frightened.

A particularly cough-like gust of wind galvanized him into action. He jerked the trapdoor open and, without pause, swung his legs over the parapet and dropped through. He cried out as he collided with something soft and irregularly shaped, the object tangling itself around his body as they hit the rough dirt floor together. Focusing through the darkness and his own panic, he saw that he had landed atop Grant Markham, who had evidently been making his way up the entrance ladder to greet the visitor. Jolarr got to his feet and mumbled an embarra.s.sed apology as he brushed down his dishevelled green suit.

Only then did he register the bunker's other occupants.

'What's going on?' he asked in a small voice, backing away from the five armour-plated hulks which confronted him. 'What are they?'

'Bronze Knights - our secret weapon against the Cybermen.' The speaker was the blond man alongside whom Jolarr and Grant had made their unsuccessful flight earlier. He proffered his hand to his guest, who took it hesitantly 'Well, one of our weapons anyway. You're the second.

I'm Henneker, by the way'

'What do you mean? What do you want?'

Henneker gave him a smile which was slightly more sinister than it was rea.s.suring. He clapped a firm hand onto Jolarr's shoulder and guided him towards and into a seat. He leant on the wooden chair back and loomed over him, making Jolarr feel as intimidated as he had been by Madrox. 'You can help us to win this war,' he said with studied earnestness. 'Where is your ship? What weapons do you have?'

'Just a minute,' Jolarr protested. 'I can't answer that!'

'You have a friend in prison, don't you?'

'Yes, but -'

'How else do you think we can rescue her?' Henneker's voice was stressed. He was on the edge, and Jolarr's rejection could topple him over. Jolarr hadn't expected this. He had hoped to be given a chance to rest and some rea.s.surance that Hegelia could be freed. He threw a pleading look towards Grant, but his fellow teenager only shrugged in a gesture of helpless sympathy.

'What about your bronze things?' Jolarr asked. The creatures - if they were truly alive - had gathered into a crescent formation at Henneker's back. Their coppery hides absorbed the feeble electric light and their rigid eye slits seemed to be narrowed in threat.

'You've seen what's going on,' said Henneker, 'what the Overseers and the Cybermen are doing to our people. We need every advantage we can muster.'

'I know, but I can't do anything for you.'

'You mean you're on their side?'

'I'm not!'

'Then help us!' Henneker turned and tore at his hair, then buried his face in his hands as if to calm himself down. Jolarr could empathize, to some extent, with his frustration. Since his own arrival on Agora, he had felt alternately terrified, alone and unbearably impotent. Nothing he had watched or read had prepared him for a dreadful reality like this. A life of dedicated research had done little to teach him the practicalities of survival in the sort of situations he had been learning about. It was tempting just to reveal his knowledge and to let Henneker make the tough decisions - but if one thing had been drummed into him at Arc University, it was the importance of leaving history unchanged. To surrender a ship - worse still, a time ship - would be to violate that edict and to court unthinkable consequences.

He couldn't explain, of course, that he was from the future. That would only increase the rebel leader's desire for his technology. 'I really am sorry,' he offered instead.

'I'd like to help you, but there are good reasons why I can't, believe me. I have to free my colleague and get both of us away from this planet as soon as possible.'

'We all want to get away from here. It's just that some of us aren't lucky enough to have the option.'

'I'm sorry,' said Jolarr again.

Henneker punched him in the face. Jolarr winced, more with surprise than with pain.

'What do you think you're doing?'

At first, Jolarr didn't know where the strident female voice had come from. Then he blinked away the tears drawn by Henneker's blow and saw that a woman had entered through a red curtain at the far end of the bunker. She was on the young side of middle age; short and pretty, in a hard sort of way, and in the advanced stages of pregnancy. She stood with her arms folded, glaring.

'This is nothing to do with you, Max.'

'Oh no? I'm helping you to overthrow the rulers of this colony, remember? if I thought you were going to be as bad as they are, I'd withdraw my support.' Henneker rounded on her, but the woman called Max didn't give him time to speak. 'Now if you've quite finished bullying that poor boy, I'm ready for the next two volunteers.'

The curtain billowed out beside her as two more Bronze Knights pushed through it. The bunker extended further beyond the part.i.tion than Jolarr would have guessed, and he realized that the creatures were being manufactured in the additional s.p.a.ce. Was 'manufactured' the right word? he wondered. From Max's comment, he guessed that the Knights were cyborgs - created, like the Cybermen, from organic stock.

It was some consolation to him that Grant shifted to avoid the new arrivals. He too had qualms.

Max raised an eyebrow. 'So? I've got one subject through here. I believe I'm looking at the other.'

'You're having the operation yourself?' Grant asked Henneker, clearly surprised.

'It's called leading by example.'

'It's called wanting body armour and a big gun,' Max contradicted him scathingly. Henneker shot her a dirty look and she beckoned him towards the curtain. 'I suggest you lead on.'

Henneker hesitated, glancing towards Jolarr with an expression of regret. One of the Knights reacted to his indecision. 'We could extract the alien's secrets from him,' it said, its part-human voice sending a trickle of dread down Jolarr's back.

'You'll do nothing of the sort!' Max ordered.

Reluctantly, Henneker conceded. 'Okay, forget the boy. But don't let him leave here before I get back. I might still be able to use him.' Max rolled her eyes and pulled the curtain around both of them.

Jolarr rubbed his smarting cheek and looked up at the unnerving array of cybernetic warriors, gathered around him and staring balefully as if willing him to dare risk a movement. He was almost alone with them now. Grant stood in the background, but he was watching and not acting.

Jolarr sat very still and tried not to think about what Henneker might do to him once he too had become one of these powerful, inhuman monsters.

Taggart knew what the sound portended as soon as he heard it. The unnaturally regular rhythm of metal on metal, its volume increasing, could only have meant one thing. It was his turn, finally.

He greeted the Cyberman in a standing position, waiting in front of the door as it softly swished open. A part of his mind marvelled at how calmly he was accepting this. His overwhelming emotion was not fear, but rather an abiding sadness. He had expected to be dragged to his death, when it came, with tears and screams. Instead, he thought of Lakesmith and Henneker and Roylance.

He thought of Grant and that image lingered longest.

'You are required.' The Cyberman took Taggart's arm and propelled him down the familiar stark corridors. He hung his head and avoided the sympathetic looks of the occasional Overseers who shrank against the walls to allow them clear pa.s.sage.

The journey seemed to be over in seconds, although paradoxically it felt like for ever since Taggart's fate had been sealed. He was pushed into the control centre which was already occupied by another Cyberman and by the black-liveried Leader. The Overseers of Patrol Two pretended to be busy at their work. Madrox was present, but uncharacteristically, he didn't look at Taggart either. He cowered in the background as if afraid to draw attention to himself.