The Doctor had brought a length of rope from the TARDIS. He would need it, not to reach the lower deck, but for the return journey.
He tied one end to a pillar and dropped the other through the hatch, praying that it wouldn"t be discovered. There wasn"t much chance of it, he a.s.sured himself. Cybermen didn"t exactly stroll about without reason. Those which weren"t conserving power in suspended animation would be in work areas, refining fuel, repairing battle-damaged comrades and planning future campaigns. He hoped.
The Doctor stripped off his beloved multicoloured jacket (he wasn"t prepared to let that get water-damaged), rolled up his shirt sleeves and kicked off his shoes. Then he took a deep breath, clamped his fingers over his nose and jumped. He fell ten feet through the operations deck and hit the water feet-first.
In the s.p.a.ce of a second, with blank, almost melancholy, teared eyes keeping him paralysed, a dozen plans jostled for attention in Grant"s mind. Split up; rush the creature; try to bluff it; confuse its logical thought processes. Each required a degree of physical control which he didn"t possess. Each would have resulted in his death, and Jolarr"s. He chose the final option: to stare at the Cyberman and wait for it to kill him. It wasn"t the most effective, but it was the only one for which he had his nervous systems support.
And then the new arrival hesitated and put a hand to its forehead in an almost human gesture. "Jolarr?" It was looking at the alien boy, seemingly confused. "What are you doing here, Graduand?"
"Hegelia?" Jolarr sounded astonished and repelled at the same time.
"Get out before I kill you!" This time, it was more of a warning than a threat. The Cyberman clenched its fists as if fighting for control and Grant"s body agreed that flight had become a viable proposition. He grabbed his friend"s arm and propelled him towards the exit. The Cyberman"s head snapped up and it fired.
The two young men leapt back as the door exploded in a Catherine wheel of sparks. Their attacker moved to block the way to salvation - then faltered again. "The hatch!" yelled Grant, without pause for thought, fired by adrenalin. He pushed the still-dazed Jolarr first and the alien boy practically dropped into the pit. As Grant followed, the Cyberman took an unsteady swipe at him. He ducked, but was hindered by the claustrophobic surroundings. He clipped a wall and lost his balance. The Cyberman fired again, but missed (deliberately?) and Grant scrambled onto the ladder. The last thing he saw before the c.o.c.kpit shot above his eye-level was the monster which might have been Hegelia, slapping both hands onto its face and emitting a keening, hopeless wail.
"The Doctor sealed this place up," protested Jolarr from the base of the conversion chamber below. "How do we get out?"
"We"ll have to break into the complex," Grant called. He cleared the last few rungs with a jump and glanced upwards. The Cyberman was on the ladder and descending. "Come on," he said, "we can"t count on it showing compa.s.sion again." He sprinted across the chamber but came up short, realizing that Jolarr wasn"t behind him. For a startling second, he thought his friend might be waiting for the Cyberman, hoping to get through to the colleague whose mind was buried in there. He was only partially relieved to see that, in feet, he had made a diversion to pluck a Cyber gun from the tangled and mangled remains of two dead monsters beneath the balconies. His attention distracted, Grant felt his heel kick something soft. He recoiled when he saw that it was Madrox"s charred corpse.
Their pursuer was in the room now and striding closer without a trace of indecision. Grant hauled himself to the first balcony and mentally urged his friend on as his path and that of the Cyberman converged. Jolarr, running frantically, got to the ladder first and followed Grant up. They had almost reached the top when the Cyberman appeared beneath them and tipped its head back, gun barrels flashing. Grant leapt onto the penultimate level, Jolarr close behind, as it fired and molten metal trickled from the tier above. They raced along the balcony, Grant thankful that the insides of the compartments were obscured by ice. They were almost halfway around the chamber when he saw that the Cyberman wasn"t following. It had stopped by the ladder and was standing impossibly still. They halted, and neither of them could speak for a moment. Grant was acutely aware of his own quickened heartbeat, recalling its recent short cessation. A wave of giddiness washed over him and he felt a sense of sick despair at this latest unwitting descent into danger. How had he, a quiet, una.s.suming New Earth boy, become a magnet for situations of this type? And how many more of them could he survive?
"What"s it doing?"
"Waiting," Grant deduced. "If it followed us, we could keep ahead of it until we got back to the ladder. By staying where it is, it"s trapped us here."
"Unless we can climb down over the balcony rail?"
"You must be joking!" Even at the peak of his health, Grant wouldn"t have fancied that. It would have been a suicidal action.
"It"s stalemate, then."
"For now. But we"ll have to sleep before it does." Grant looked at Jolarr"s appropriated weapon. "We"ll have to use that." He tried to gauge the distance across the chamber and estimated it to be about a hundred metres. "Do you think it"ll be effective at this range?"
"I"ve no idea, but there"s one way to find out." Jolarr hefted the gun to his shoulder. Agonizing seconds pa.s.sed as he carefully aimed it across the divide. To Grant"s perturbation, the Cyberman didn"t move. It obviously wasn"t expecting to be damaged.
Jolarr lowered the gun. "What if it"s really Hegelia in there?"
And suddenly, something exploded behind them and showered them with gla.s.s fragments. The occupant of the nearest compartment had stepped straight through its door, and it now lashed out blindly. Jolarr dropped his weapon and, stooping to collect it, took a glancing blow to the forehead. Grant backed away, shouting for his friend to do the same. Jolarr, hurt but not wounded, took advantage of the newly born Cyberman"s confusion and slipped through its flailing arms. Reaching Grant"s side, he brought up the Cyber gun and pulled the trigger.
"It"s useless!" he cried. Grant had almost expected it to be, from Hegelia"s reaction. As well as summoning its kin, the dying Leader had broadcast a disabling signal to all Cyber technology within range.
The emergent monster rounded on its prey, who turned automatically and began to flee. They halted as they realized that the former Hegelia had left its post at the ladder and was marching towards them, confident now that escape was impossible.
"We"re surrounded!" Jolarr dropped the useless gun and it fell through the balcony rail, to clatter to the floor below.
They cowered together as death closed in from each side.
The Doctor was trapped in a service duct, still struggling with the slippery, seaweed-like wiring of the warcraft"s offensive systems, when the Cybermen found him. He became aware of a disturbance in the murky green water, seconds before he saw them swimming in from above with powerful, sure hydraulic strokes. Abandoning his task, he flipped over and struck out downwards, pushing off the glistening rocky instrument face and cursing himself for having clearly tripped an alarm. His continued survival confirmed his hypothesis that the Cybermen"s guns wouldn"t work down here - but if the duct wasn"t open at both ends, that only meant he would be killed more slowly when they caught him.
Thankfully, it was. The Doctor emerged into an open area and tried to get his bearings. He seemed to be in an engine bay; great chunky appliances surrounded him, looking like dormant sea monsters thanks to the Selachians" organic technology. His lungs were beginning to ache and it worried him that he no longer knew where his next breath was coming from. He chose a random direction and lost almost half his air in shock as mechanical arms clamped about his neck. Another Cyberman had concealed itself and waited in ambush. The Doctor lashed out, squirmed and managed to roll so that he and his captor were upside down. A well-placed elbow dislodged the hold and allowed him to kick free. Fortunately, without balance or leverage to use their strength, the Cybermen were more disadvantaged underwater than he was - except that they didn"t need oxygen. The Doctor could hold his breath for several minutes, but he had been down here for over three already.
He reached the bay"s ceiling, dismayed to find that no air was trapped above the water. He swam on, praying for a hatch, and was forced to dive again as the shadows of two Cybermen loomed. This time, he wasn"t followed. They knew his weakness and were guarding the route to the surface instead. He had a choice. He could either surrender in the hope that their orders were not to kill him. Or... the alternative was only slightly more desirable.
In the seconds remaining to him, the Doctor found the best hiding place he could, concealed by one of the hulking engine stations. He slipped partway beneath its slimy bulk and closed his eyes, forgetting his peril and turning his mind inwards until he was aware of every component of his own body and was able to switch each one to a metaphorical standby status. This Time Lord trance was deeper and more dangerous than the one in which he"d pa.s.sed time in custody - but, in such a state, he could suspend his breathing for an indefinite period. He told his biological clock to wake him in twenty minutes"
time, at which point he would have one last chance to slip through the Cybermen"s cordon unexpectedly... or die.
That was if his comatose and helpless body wasn"t discovered before then, he thought as darkness overwhelmed him.
"Rush Hegelia! She might let us through."
Grant stopped Jolarr with a firm hand on the shoulder. "I don"t think she"s in there any more." The Cyberman marched on with no sign of its earlier reticence. It would soon be close enough to slay them. Grant looked to the other monster and saw that it was swaying, uncertain of its untested limbs. "This way!" He grabbed Jolarr and pulled him along until the alien boy took control of his own flight. They dived for each side of the living obstacle and it occurred to Grant, in that cold stop-motion instant, that he would never have time to apologize if he had made the wrong decision.
He ducked and threw himself forward, the armour of the Cyberman"s leg brushing his left arm. He thought he had made it, but his jubilation ceased as he felt a sharp, penetrating pressure on his shoulder and hit the floor, knees first, with a cry. The Cyberman had pivoted to follow his pa.s.sage and had caught him in its unyielding grip.
It squeezed and blood rushed to Grant"s head. His vision blurred, but he saw that Jolarr had managed to get through. The alien boy hesitated, staring at Grant in indecision, then flung himself at the Cyberman only to be greeted by the barrier of a steadfast arm. It caught him and wound him in towards its chest, where he was held. He had sacrificed himself for nothing.
Almost blind, with agony, Grant looked up and tried to meet his captor"s hollow gaze. He saw a flicker of orange in the barrels of its cranial weapon and inwardly railed against the unfairness of his inevitable fate.
Then the Cyberman"s head blew apart in a ferocious cloud of orange fire. It released its prisoners to fling its hands up to where a sheath of spluttering wires protruded from a neckpiece to which it had nothing left to connect. Grant was on his hands and knees, trying to cope with the pain in his shoulder and to calm his stomach as his back was spattered by a hot metal rain, and blood and oil flowed over his neck and dripped off him.
Jolarr was shouting something and although Grant"s blast-deadened ears couldn"t hear the words, his body language was descriptive enough.
The other Cyberman was upon them. With Jolarr"s help, he forced himself to stand and they ran. Beside and before them, more Cybermen were waking from their hibernation, flinging open gla.s.s doors or simply punching through the ineffectual barriers. Silver hands reached blindly for the fugitives and Grant and Jolarr were forced to run a deadly gauntlet, ever mindful of the monster which had been Hegelia, relentless in its pursuit. At one point, Jolarr was caught and Grant had to prise steely fingers from his arm. He was grateful that the newborns hadn"t yet attained full strength and awareness - but, with more and more of them breaking out, he couldn"t help but wonder how long it would be before they started to fire. Prematurely activated or not, he couldn"t expect more Cybermen to share their colleague"s misfortune.
They reached the ladder and Grant began to climb down, intending to run for the c.o.c.kpit. "Go up!" Jolarr urged. "There"s an opening."
Grant followed the advice and was grateful to confirm what Jolarr had seen from the balcony"s far side. This level"s door to Population Control had been forced open, presumably to bring the late Chief Overseer Madrox into the chamber from his place of incarceration.
Only as they hurtled along the corridor did Grant realize the implication of that deduction. The only exits from this pa.s.sage led into the complex"s cells... locked cells! Indeed, they pa.s.sed the open hatch through which Madrox must have been freed and saw only a closed door beyond. They kept on and hoped for a miracle, but as they rounded the next corner, they came up short at the sight of four approaching Cybermen. They had split up to surround their prey.
"Back!" Jolarr squeaked, sounding close to tears. They retraced their steps and hurtled into Madrox"s former cell; the nearest to salvation they could get.
"The locking panel"s on the outside," Jolarr reported miserably. "We can"t shut them out." Grant was already hammering on the far door and yelling for help. His fists were aching and the whole building seemed to shake around him, but no one responded.
"They"re in sight." Jolarr ducked back into the cell. "Both ends of the corridor. They"re coming!" He joined Grant in shouting and knocking, but both were aware that time was running out.
Then the viewing hatch was pulled open to reveal the welcome visage of a Bronze Knight. Grant almost exploded with relief. "The Cybermen, they"re after us. Get us out of here!" It hesitated for a second and then the door clicked open and Grant and Jolarr tumbled through gratefully. Barely had they done so when the first two Cybermen appeared behind them and fired. The Knight took the brunt of both shots, fell back and hit the wall, its armoured body denting the metal.
Grant grabbed the keycard from its hand and swiped it through the reader. The cell door closed and locked, but he knew that its flimsy material wouldn"t hold up for long against a Cyber onslaught.
The Knight knew it too. "Tell Henneker," it said. Then it positioned itself to await its enemies" attack. Despite their exhaustion, Grant and Jolarr found the strength to do as it had bade them. But, as they took the first corner at a run, Grant felt compelled to look back.
A Cyberman"s fist had just punched through the cell door.
The Doctor woke to find himself soaked and lying on his stomach on what was clearly the bridge of the Selachian warcraft. The room was semi-circular and elegantly furnished, although a second look revealed that the comfortable chairs and pleasingly contoured instrument banks were grown from the same organic material as the machinery on the lower deck. A panorama of s.p.a.ce took up most of the curved wall, the view dominated by the dirty brown ball of Agora at its centre. The Doctor"s nose wrinkled at a musty smell, no doubt caused by the evacuation of water from this area. Despite his efforts to resist, he was doubled up by a coughing fit as his lungs strained to fill themselves.
That attracted the attention of the room"s six other occupants, and the Doctor was quickly surrounded by Cybermen. He made the best of it and lifted himself to his knees, forcing a smile as he faced another black-highlighted Leader, identical to the one which had perished on the world below.
"h.e.l.lo," he said pleasantly. Then, feigning recognition: "Didn"t I kill your brother?"
The Cyberleader wasn"t amused. "You were foolish to come here, Doctor. You had no hope of defeating us."
"I did get a little out of my depth, didn"t I?"
"You were first detected in a service duct. You will tell us your purpose in being there or you will be destroyed."
The Doctor scowled at hearing yet another threat. "You"re going to kill me anyway, aren"t you?" He had recovered enough to begin to feel thoroughly resentful towards his predicament.
"Perhaps not - if you give me your TARDIS."
"Oh yes," the Doctor retorted, "so you can whip back in time and alter your past defeats. You"d kill me before I even met you! What sort of a deal is that?"
"You were clearly attempting to sabotage our vessel," said the Cyberleader, refusing to follow the Doctor"s conversational route.
"Oh, well done! A logical a.s.sumption, Captain!"
It c.o.c.ked his head as if puzzled. "My rank is that of Leader."
"You just don"t get it, do you? You never do - that"s your problem!"
The Doctor leapt to his feet. Two Cybermen raised their guns in threat, but he ignored them. A torrent of rage surged out of his hearts, fed by the frustration of the past weeks: his time in prison; his false escape and recapture; his brutal treatment by the Bronze Knights; his return to captivity; his release, only to blunder into enemy hands once more.
Since his trial by the Time Lords, the Doctor had fought to keep the naturally aggressive nature of his present incarnation in check - but right now, he was sick of being caged, bullied and beaten, and he wasn"t prepared to take any more.
He thrust a scolding finger at the Cyberleader"s chest unit. "Why do you keep coming back? Why don"t you just accept defeat? You always tell me how you need to survive and propagate. Well, why do you?" He turned and flung his arms wide to include his whole audience in the tirade. "You don"t have feelings, you don"t have hearts, you don"t appreciate anything. Your condition is utterly meaningless! Who would care if the Cyber race disappeared from the galaxy tonight? n.o.body, that"s who! Not even the oh-so-cold-and-calculating Cybermen themselves! And why should you? You have no quality of life, no pleasures, no culture. The only purpose of your existence is to prolong that existence. Use your logic on that one. Tell me how you justify such a circular, pointless argument!"
"Your outburst is pointless."
The Doctor rounded furiously on the Cyberleader. "You"re supposed to be dominated by logic. Well, prove it. Switch yourselves off. Leave life to those who have a good excuse for living it!"
"Surrender is not logical. We must endure." The Leader turned its back on the seething Doctor and strode towards the fungal outcrop of a control panel. "Our logic will triumph over your emotions. You will be unable to stand and watch whilst I destroy more of the humans below."
"You wouldn"t," the Doctor whispered. Then, more fiercely: "What do you hope to gain from this?"
"Your compa.s.sion will force you to prevent my use of the plasma beam by surrendering your TARDIS."
"No!" The Doctor sprang across the bridge, making to tackle the Leader. It antic.i.p.ated his attack, swung about and knocked him from the air with a sweep of its arm. He hit the floor by its feet, with a new graze on his temple. His foe looked down at him, managing to seem insufferably smug despite the inflexibility of its expression.
"I will now activate the beam," it said - but paused, to await the Doctor"s reaction. "You will surrender," it prompted, when none was offered.
"Will I?" the Doctor said sadly. "But that wouldn"t be logical, would it?
To prevent the deaths of those people by giving you a weapon with which you"d destroy them - and many more - anyway?"
"You are learning, Doctor," said the Leader, actually giving him an approving nod as if he were a favoured pupil. "Your application of logic has delayed your defeat. However, you are an intrinsically emotional creature. You will break eventually." It turned back to the console and announced, for his benefit: "Weapon systems are on line. Sensors are targeted upon Sector Two of the breeding colony Agora."
Then it activated the plasma beam.
The Bronze Knights filed out into the corridor, led by Henneker. Grant remained behind in the laboratory with Jolarr, watching them go with cold foreboding. There were roughly thirty of the creatures now, compared to... how many Cybermen? Some wouldn"t have come through the conversion intact, but many more would. Their newborn weakness could hardly begin to outweigh their ma.s.sive advantage of numbers. The Bronze Knights were heading towards their deaths.
They made an impressive sight none the less, these living weapons of war - though no one was there to see them as they strode with pride, in formation, along the corridors of Population Control. One floor below, Maxine Carter"s head tilted upwards as their footsteps reverberated through her surgery. She ached to know the purpose of their march, but knew that it could not be good news. She would best aid the cause by continuing her work. Six more Bronze Knights were almost complete and they might serve to tip the balance in whatever war was being fought now.
The reddish-brown army moved into single file to mount the stairs.
They climbed two levels in silence and dismounted on the top floor of the complex, their sure course taking them towards the cell block.
Elsewhere in the building, one alien from the future and one Agoran expatriate watched their progress on a hastily established internal video link. Ahead of the army, Cybermen were swarming from Madrox"s former cell. The single Knight which stood sentry was being overwhelmed and ripped apart.
"We"ve got to help," said Jolarr. "What if we got an Overseer gun each? I saw where Henneker put them."
Grant shook his head. The thought of joining the battle terrified him - but more than that, he could see how little good it would do. "We"ve got control of the computer system here. We must be able to do something with it!" But nothing came to mind.
The Bronze Knights and the Cybermen had closed in battle now; the metal walls of Population Control vibrated with the sheer kinetic force of their clash. The narrow confines of the corridor worked against both sides, but the Cybermen were especially hampered. They queued to climb through the jagged hole in the cell door, whilst their comrades fought alone and in vain.
For a moment, the situation looked hopeful for the defenders of the colony - but only for a moment. The Cybermen were quick to adapt to their disadvantage, and as their troops continued to march up from the conversion chamber, they gained access to other cells and began to tear paths through them. They attacked their foes from ahead, behind and between. The fight would be long and brutal, but the ending was already inevitable. And once the Bronze Knights had fallen in martyrdom, could those who were known to be their allies long endure?
"The beam has not functioned, Leader."