Killing Ground Part 24

'They're shutting down like storage comps in a magnetic storm!' he crowed.

'Like what?'

'I mean, the Cybermen are switching to hibernation mode. A hundred, at least.'

'And Henneker? Will he be all right?'

'He was built to withstand more than a bit of cold. So were the Cybermen - it's just that we've convinced them it's bedtime.'

'How many are left outside the chamber?' Jolarr was already scanning the various scenes available, to see how the battle had progressed elsewhere. He frowned as the monitor alighted upon a patrol of eight Cybermen, marching swiftly along a plain corridor. Where was that? he wondered.

'Seventy-eight,' reported Grant.

Then Jolarr heard footsteps and, with a horrible realization, he pushed Grant aside and lunged across to the door control panel. He stabbed at the 'close' b.u.t.ton even as the first Cyberman appeared on the threshold. An unnervingly thin metal sheet slid across to conceal it and to take a fatal blast meant for him. 'They've traced your terminal!'

he exclaimed unnecessarily. Grant was trembling, almost pale enough to be Jolarr's reflection. They looked to each other helplessly, then fright catapulted Jolarr across the room as a loud bang sounded from behind him. The door now sported an inwardly protruding, fist-shaped dent. A second punch and it began to buckle. It clung to its frame, but couldn't do so for much longer.

Jolarr began to gather chairs and to hurl them towards the besieged portal. Seeing that they would do litde good, he tried to manhandle a table across to bolster the flimsy barricade. He shouted for Grant's help, but his friend was back at the computer. 'Never mind that,' he called, 'I need you here. Get me one of those things off the wall.' He gestured towards a pair of thin, cylindrical pipes which spanned the width of the room just above floor level. Jolarr had a.s.sumed them to be part of the complex's heating system. He couldn't imagine what Grant was hoping to achieve, but a quick glance at his own collection of furniture persuaded him that this new plan could be no less effective than his current one.

He knelt by the pipes and pulled at the top one where a bracket fixed it to the wall. It didn't give, and Jolarr was terrified to hear a crunch of tearing metal as the door was ripped from its hinges and the Cybermen gained access to the laboratory. Had he been alone, he would have surrendered - but Grant was still typing away, despite being more directly in the line of fire. His courage gave Jolarr the strength to ignore the approaching army and to make one last attempt to complete his task.

'You will step away from the computer,' the lead Cyberman ordered.

Grant made no attempt to acknowledge the instruction.

Jolarr planted a foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength.

The pipe snapped along a vertical stress fracture and came free, turning out to be quite flexible.

But the act of vandalism resulted in none of the destructive consequences he had hoped for. He had merely drawn the Cybermen's attention. He faced them, his expression almost apologetic, a useless metal tube in his hand. He couldn't even hurl it at them; more brackets pinned it to the wall further along its length.

The Cybermen closed in and Grant leapt back from the terminal at the last possible second as a silver fist swiped down and crushed it. The eight monsters had arranged themselves into a row now, blocking off all hope of retreat. Jolarr felt tears in the corners of his eyes. After so many close calls, so many dangerous escapes, he had almost begun to consider himself invulnerable. But there was no way out of this one. He saw an orange flame igniting in the head-mounted weapon of the nearest of his captors as it reached for its chest unit, preparing to deliver a fatal blast.

And then the pipe bucked of its own accord and Jolarr realized that something was surging through it. Instinctively, he aimed for the head of his would-be executioner. He felt a cold sensation in both palms and, suddenly, a liquid which could only have been freon from the Cyber scout ship shot from the makeshift hose to extinguish the fire of his impending death. Grant had come through after all.

The Cyberman staggered, not with the force of the attack, but with the realization that the freezing substance posed a hazard to it.

Uselessly, it attempted to deflect the onslaught with its hands. Then its arms fell to its side, its head drooped and it became immobile. Its hibernation protocol had been activated. Still, seven of its fellows remained.

The Cybermen on each end of the line moved in to seize Jolarr and he was forced back, shaking the pipe so that its contents sprayed in a random arc. That did no good. Instead, he concentrated his fire on the nearest monster. It walked on, despite the white liquid jet which beat against its chest. Its hands reached out to inflict deadly punishment and Jolarr cringed against the wall, with no avenue of escape left open. The Cyberman, finally, was shut down - but its comrade was already too close. Jolarr tried to turn, but a hand gripped his shoulder and twisted so that his arm felt as though dislocated and the pipe fell from pain-spasming fingers. His hands were raw from clutching freezing metal and his toes felt like ice cubes as freon lapped about his shoes.

Six Cybermen gathered before him and even if Jolarr could have guessed which one was to deliver the killing blow, he was helpless to avert it.

Max backed away from the approaching Cyberman. She pa.s.sed the two remaining Knights-in-progress (resolutely inert on their slabs) and the steaming vat of armour compound; the trappings of her greatest work, so useless to her now. She couldn't comprehend that it was going to end like this. She wouldn't accept it.

'How did you get in here? Where did you come from?'

To her surprise, the Cyberman answered her desperate questions. 'I am from the conversion chamber.'

'But how? We shut it down!'

It seemed to consider that. 'The details are available in our history computer. The chamber was reactivated by the late Vincent Madrox.'

Max seethed at the mention of the name. Madrox was - ruining her life even now, from beyond the grave. She wasn't going to let him win again. She had engaged her attacker in conversation; she was beginning to pierce its artificial hide. She could work with that. 'Who are you?' she asked. 'Does your computer have a record of that too? You must have a name, buried somewhere.'

This time, there was no pause. 'The information is recorded, but it is of no value.'

'Oh no? Listen to me. I've carried out operations similar to your own conversions. I've altered people's brains and I know how it affects them. The man you used to be would be appalled if he could see himself committing murder. He wouldn't want you to do this. So stop.

Think about it. You owe it to the person you were - the person you still are!'

'I am a member of the Cyber race,' it said. But Max had piqued what curiosity it had. It didn't make to attack her, and she couldn't believe that it would now. The still-newborn Cyberman had to have some sense of compa.s.sion, of humanity, no matter how deeply hidden it was.

'They haven't taken your brain, they've simply grafted spare parts on top of it. They're telling you how to think, what to do. It's little more than advanced hypnosis. You can resist. Be true to yourself!'

The Cyberman seemed to think for a long time. Max watched it and ached with antic.i.p.ation. She hadn't realized before just how much she needed to live through this; how much she wanted to see her baby born. The news of Madrox's death had made clear the long-denied conviction that she wanted this child. For herself, not for him.

Then the monster which held her future - and her offspring's - in its grasp announced: 'My duty is clear. We will proliferate.' And it fired at her.

Max ducked instinctively, a half-second before the blast came. She flung herself behind the nearest, largest obstacle, but knew that it could not protect her.

The Cyberman fired again, but its shot hit the vat which concealed its true target and unleashed a deluge of lava-like red sludge. Taken unawares, the Cyberman toppled and put out a hand to save itself. But the compound, kept in a liquid state only by a complex heating system, was solidifying. Its feet and one hand were held in an amalgam of plastic and metal almost as durable as its own sh.e.l.l. It was trapped, its face to the wall, and despite its struggles and its whining, mechanical pleas, it couldn't tear itself loose.

Max scrambled across the room before she too could be caught by the fortuitous leak. She leant against the wall and breathed heavily, regarding the captive creature with grateful incredulity. She felt a fierce, brief twinge in her stomach and, for a horrific moment, she thought she had been injured.

Then she realized that her baby girl was kicking and she laughed until she started to cry.

Which didn't take long.

The sound of a Cyber weapon rang out and Jolarr flinched as something hot and sticky hit his face. He recovered his senses to see that one Cyberman was missing its head. It fell and the other five turned as one to where Grant crouched behind a work bench, reaiming the gun which he had clearly s.n.a.t.c.hed from one of the dormant monsters. Jolarr took his chance to dive for cover and the Cybermen hesitated as if unsure who to destroy first. They decided on Grant, who let loose three more shots before they drew uncomfortably close and he was forced to retreat. A row of blaster burns scarred the far wall in his wake. He should have been killed, but Jolarr realized that his attackers were moving sluggishly, affected by the temperature.

He crawled beneath a table and reached behind him for the heating pipes on the wall. His erstwhile weapon still spurted freon at the Cybermen's feet. By yanking his end of the pipe, he managed to send it springing back into action. It reared like a snake, discharging its payload in all directions. The Cybermen were distracted from Grant and two more shut down, overcome by the twin perils of cold and fire.

Grant was strafing them from cover again and the three remaining creatures reeled. One fell, its chest unit exploding with a billow of black smoke; another found its hibernation protocol engaging. Emboldened by success, Jolarr ran towards the last one, scooped up the end of the pipe and blasted freezing liquid into its face. It squealed and toppled, landing atop its fellows with a painful-sounding crash. Jolarr couldn't tell if it was dead or simply inert.

In the aftermath of the short but frantic battle, he stood and listened to the gasping of his lungs as the liquid in the pipe ran dry. Grant raised his head and cautiously stepped out into the open, still holding his weapon and eyeing the ranks of the fallen suspiciously.

'We've done it,' said Jolarr, hollow-voiced. 'We won.'

'I thought we were dead,' said Grant in the same disbelieving tone.

'If you hadn't diverted the freon to those pipes - or grabbed that gun...'

Grant tried to shrug, but his muscles didn't seem to know quite what to do. 'I'm not sure what happened. If I'd had time to think, I'd probably have seized up at the sight of those things. I guess I was just more frightened of dying, in the end.'

They stood together in silence, surrounded by the bodies of the Cybermen, still managing to seem somehow frightening in death. A minute or more pa.s.sed before it occurred to Jolarr that something was different. It was too quiet.

'The fighting,' he whispered. 'It's stopped!' He could see that Grant had noticed it too. The previously overwhelming clangs of metal against metal; the vibrations of the walls as ferocious combat shook Population Control... all had ceased. It was over.

One way or another.

Grant was the first to move. He picked his way across the room until he reached the destroyed computer terminal. Despite the damage, the screen was active. Grant looked at it. He blinked and looked again.

Then he fell back against a table, breathing deeply and too overcome to speak.

'What does it say?' asked Jolarr hoa.r.s.ely, feeling as if his heart had stopped in antic.i.p.ation of the news. 'Who won?'

This time, the Doctor knew for sure that he had come home. The healing embrace of the TARDIS was unmistakably real. The white walls seemed to wrap themselves about him and he felt as if he had slipped into a tank of soothing salve. He had even managed to retrieve his colourful jacket... well, he couldn't have left that behind! He clung to it, comforted by the familiarity of its patchwork design.

The events of the past few... minutes? hours? days?... were an indistinguishable blur of corridor walls and vivid imaginings. He wasn't quite sure how he had managed to climb the rope and make his way across the hospitality deck, but he felt pride at his own resolve and stamina. Give up? Not this Doctor! Once again he had triumphed, saving thousands of lives. What's more, he had done it his way. The right way. He had not given in to Henneker or to anyone. He had not compromised his lofty principles.

He would sleep now, letting his ship and his Time Lord const.i.tution work together to rebuild his shattered cells. The damage wasn't as extensive as it had been on Metebelis. He might survive, this time, without having to regenerate. No, he corrected himself. He would survive. There was too much left for the sixth Doctor to do - and he was ready to do it, despite the spectre which hung over his future. That too could be overcome.

'I'm still the Doctor,' he muttered to himself through cracked and parched lips, 'whether I like it or not!'

Epilogue.

he TARDIS arrived on Agora once more, inside Population T Control. The Doctor emerged, feeling a momentary weakness as he left the protective environment of his ship. He walked through the building, alarmed by the number of part-mechanical corpses, of both persuasions, Uttering the corridors. Their distribution became more dense as he drew nearer to the cell block and the Cyber conversion chamber beyond. For the first time, he realized that Grant and the colonists had had more to occupy them during his absence than simply a waiting game. For a second, he wondered what the outcome of the struggle had been - but only for so long. Although he had encountered n.o.body, the Doctor could sense an atmosphere of strained antic.i.p.ation which could not have emanated from machine creatures.

'Where have you been?' Maxine Carter remonstrated with him, when they finally met. 'You disappeared hours ago!' He told her that, in fact, it had been weeks. The evidence of his healed face supported the unlikely claim. Max didn't waste time worrying about it. The Doctor had brought the news for which a world had been praying. The Cybermen had fallen.

Celebrations began almost immediately. The parties would continue through the day and well into the formerly forbidden night. But there was sadness, too. Long years of occupation had left deep scars across the planet and its people. The civilization which had once been committed to the ideals of an agricultural paradise would always be dependent upon second-hand alien machines now. Furthermore, the fates of the most recent victims - the villagers of Redemption and the five hundred final sacrifices - hung like an invisible weight over the proceedings. The survivors wept, with tears almost equally of misery and of relief. The war was over, but the difficult task of rebuilding was yet to start.

In the aftermath, five Bronze Knights stood triumphant, still led by the seemingly invulnerable Ted Henneker - except that he would no longer answer to that name. The cyborgs had given themselves identifying numbers instead. He was One.

The Doctor found Grant, sh.e.l.lshocked and only beginning to adjust to the events of the past weeks. There was nothing left to keep him on his homeworld. The boy was relieved when the Doctor made it clear that he was still welcome aboard his ship. He meant it too. He had originally invited Grant to accompany him out of some perverse desire to avoid his future by eschewing the brave and capable mould of his usual companions. He had proved himself beyond the Doctor's expectations.

Grant's friend, Jolarr, wanted to travel in the TARDIS too. However, he required pa.s.sage only to his own place and time. He explained about the disappearance of the Arc Hives' vessel and Hegelia's guess that it had suffered 'temporal drift' - and Grant recalled his father's story of a ship which had once appeared from nowhere. Jolarr found it ironic that, after all his efforts not to change history, he had done so simply by landing here. In a roundabout way, he had brought the Doctor to Agora by facilitating his first meeting with Grant. He had been a key figure in the Cybermen's defeat. But Jolarr had had enough of 'real life'

and its dangers. He wanted to return to his studies. In any case, he had made a promise to a most remarkable woman, to carry on her work.

Only the Doctor had doubts about the outcome of the struggle, and he kept those to himself. Even so, he was spotted several times regarding the Bronze Knights through hooded eyes as they discussed what future they could have. It was left to Max to announce their decision, once it was made, to the revellers outside Population Control.

'You can see how it would be difficult for them to reintegrate into society,' she said. 'They appreciate that. They also appreciate the fears which have been expressed to them; that, some day, the Cybermen may return and take revenge. We have found a solution to both problems.'

The Doctor watched Grant, later, as he tried to talk Max out of it.

His cause was a lost one. She was determined to see her choice through. She could not, she said, settle into an ordinary life after her most extraordinary one. Their parting was a tearful affair and Grant returned to the TARDIS in a subdued mood. For several days thereafter, he slept or skulked in corners, lost in morbid thoughts. He had been through a lot, both physically and emotionally. The Doctor empathized with him. He had suffered too.

It ended more or less as it began. The Doctor and Grant stood in the TARDIS, watching on the scanner screen as the Cybermen's former scout ship struggled free of Agora's gravity. It pa.s.sed the Selachian warcraft, abandoned to its...o...b..t and destined to remain uninhabitable for decades, and set out into the unknown.

'So where now?' the Doctor asked. 'You wanted to go to mid twenty-first century Earth, I believe? The zenith of the Technological Age?'

Grant looked at him uncertainly. 'Eventually, yes. Maybe not just yet.'

The Doctor smiled and nodded understandingly. Perhaps a vacation, he thought. Somewhere without machines.

'Do you know what will happen to them?'

He couldn't answer Grant's question. 'If we're lucky, they'll do just what they said. With their main base knocked out, the remaining Cybermen are scattered across the galaxy in ships like that one.

Henneker and company could do a lot of good by stopping them before they cause more harm.'

'And if we're unlucky?'

He frowned. 'The Bronze Knights could become as big a threat to humanity as the Cybermen.'

'Isn't that partly why Max went with them?'

'Maintenance, technical support and moral yardstick, rolled into one,'

the Doctor mused. 'I hope she's up to the task. The Agorans have already travelled too far down the same road as the Mondans.'

'She can do it,' said Grant. 'I know she can.'

'I'll give her one thing,' the Doctor conceded with a hopeful grin.

'It's a logical idea.'

He turned to the console and began to set new coordinates.