by Doctor Who
The girl watched him leave.
‘Pity,’ she thought.
‘Completely
bonkers, of course. But he looked rather interesting for a geek.’
She went back to her thesis.
20
Chapter Six
Reunion
MARTHA JONES STOOD IN a familiar ward, soaking up the atmosphere.
Nurses’ station, nurses, medicine bottles and bedpans, bedside tables with flowers and fruit, a bed with the curtains drawn. Patients in various states of good and bad health, cheerfulness and misery. Strange how the really ill ones were often the most cheerful and uncomplaining. It was always the patients with in-growing toenails who gave the most trouble.
She was chatting to Rachel, a fellow medical student. Rachel was an old friend and had seemed pleased to see her, greeting her with a hug and squeals of delight. She seemed to have got over the ordeal of recent events at the hospital, almost to have forgotten it. Or rather, it was as if she didn’t want to remember it, not in any detail.
Martha remembered what the Doctor had said in the car park.
‘Oh yes, things are pretty well back to normal now,’ said Rachel cheerfully. ‘Same old grind. What about you? We were afraid you were dead, or had a breakdown or something.’
Martha realised she hadn’t actually worked out a cover story. She laughed nervously. ‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Where did you get to? Where’ve you been all this time?’
Martha had to think fast. ‘Well, I was pretty shaken up. I mean, we all were, weren’t we? I just had to get away for a while. . . ’
(‘And boy, did I get away!’ she thought to herself.), Rachel giggled. ‘There were all sorts of rumours flying about. Some people said you’d gone off with the mystery man.’
‘What mystery man?’
‘Skinny bloke in a suit. The police were looking for him afterwards.’
Martha didn’t know what to say.
‘Anyway, when are you coming back?’ Rachel went on.
21
‘I’m not quite sure. Things aren’t really sorted out yet.’
‘Exams soon, remember. Have you been keeping up with the work?’
Martha laughed. ‘Not exactly.’
She’d learned quite a lot while she’d been away, she thought. But most of it wasn’t on any exam syllabus.
A commanding voice called from the end of the ward. ‘Miss Swales?
If you could spare me a moment?’
Rachel pulled a face. ‘Chambers, he’s starting his rounds. I must fly.’
‘Me too,’ said Martha. ‘Look, don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me, OK?’
As Rachel sped away, Martha hurried from the ward. It had been a mistake just dropping in like this, she thought. Bound to provoke lots of awkward questions.
She didn’t want to get trapped in a lift with someone who knew her and would ask even more questions, so she took the stairs down to the busy main foyer and then headed for the car park.
To her relief the TARDIS was still standing in its place. At least the Doctor hadn’t taken off leaving her stranded on Earth.
‘What do I mean, stranded?’ she thought. Earth was her home. This hospital, this car park, were places where she belonged. The idea was strangely hard to accept. Was she becoming. . . . There wasn’t a word for it. A citizen of the cosmos? Like the Doctor. . . How long could she go on jaunting about through time and space with the Doctor? And how could she bear to stop?
It all needed a lot of thinking about. Leaning against the TARDIS, she settled down to wait.
Suddenly, the air in front of her seemed to shimmer. Martha rubbed her eyes and blinked, but the shimmering went on. Inside it, a shape began to form.
It was human-like – head, body, arms, legs – but far bigger than any human. It appeared to be made of metal, of gleaming steel. The massive body had a kind of chest unit with what looked like layered armour beneath. The head had tubes coming out of it like handles.
The eyes were round holes, the mouth a narrow oblong slit.
22
Martha knew what it was. She had seen the terrifying shape on television and in countless newspaper photographs at the time of the invasion.
It was a Cyberman.
‘Impossible, Doctor?’ she thought. ‘But here it is, large as life and twice as nasty! You’ve got some explaining to do.’
The Cyberman spoke. Its voice was metallic, flat, inhuman. ‘Where is the Doctor?’
Martha gulped and swallowed. ‘Who?’
‘We have monitored a double heartbeat at this location. The Doctor has a double heartbeat. Where is the Doctor?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This box was seen inside the Torchwood Tower. Is the Doctor inside?’
‘No, he’s gone away.’
‘Where has he gone?’
Martha was backing slowly away from the nightmare figure. ‘Far away – for a long time,’ she stammered, Wishing it was true. But the Doctor might return at any moment – and he would be walking into an ambush.
The Cyberman stretched out an arm, and the barrel of a weapon clicked into place at the wrist.
‘We need the Doctor. Without the Doctor you are useless to us. This is your final warning. Tell us where to find the Doctor or you will be deleted.’
23
Chapter Seven
Caught
MARTHA STARED INTO THE dark barrel of the cyberweapon.
If she spun round and ran, weaving from side to side. . . In her heart, she knew it would be useless. The Cyberman would simply shoot her down. Still, it was better than standing still to be shot. She tensed, ready to leap aside – and an indignant voice shouted, ‘Oi, you!’
The Doctor stepped out from behind a van. The Cyberman whirled round, with its arm still raised. The Cyberweapon was aimed directly at the Doctor.
‘Look out, Doctor!’ shouted Martha.
‘Just stay where you are,’ the Doctor told her calmly, before ducking back out of sight behind the van. The Cyberman strode after him.
There followed a deadly game of hide-and-seek between the rows of parked cars. The Doctor’s aim was simple – to dodge around the Cyberman and reach the TARDIS.
The Cyberman, however, was clearly well aware of this. Whenever the Doctor made a dash for the police box, the Cyberman was there ahead of him.
But the Doctor was quicker and more agile than the Cyberman, and finally he got his chance. He faked a move to the left, moved to the right, dodged around the Cyberman and sprinted towards Martha and the box, reaching for the TARDIS key as he ran.
Martha looked on anxiously, poised to leap into the TARDIS the moment the Doctor opened the door.
Then, to her horror, the air between them started to shimmer. . .
Suddenly a second Cyberman appeared, and the Doctor ran straight into its arms. It held him in an immensely powerful grip. The Doctor struggled furiously, but it was no use.
The first Cyberman marched towards them.
25
Martha froze in horror, unsure what to do.
‘Run, Martha!’ shouted the Doctor.
The air shimmered again and, to the Doctor’s astonishment, the fierce grip on his arms was gone. The Cyberman holding him had simply disappeared. So had the other one.
Shaking his head in amazement, the Doctor hurried over to’ Martha, who stood looking at him as if stunned.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she said calmly. ‘Attacked by alien monsters – happens every day. Actually,’ she decided, ‘I think it does happen every day.
You OK?”
‘Oh, I’m fine. Let’s-get away from here.’
‘What a good idea!’
Martha moved towards the TARDIS door, but the Doctor shook his head.
‘Not yet. One or two things round here need looking into. Actually, not just round here. Actually, not just one or two either. Tell you what. . . ’
‘What?�
�
‘I could do with a nice cup of tea.’
‘Typical,’ thought Martha. ‘Just when you want to go, he wants to stay.’
Out loud, she said, ‘I know just the place.’
They found a corner table in the busy hospital canteen and sat down with their teas.
‘Now then,’ said Martha. ‘Explanation time. Where did those Cybermen come from? And why did they disappear?’
‘I can make a guess at the second question. Their transportation system is on the blink. I don’t remember the Cybermen being able to teleport, so it may be alien technology – alien to Cybermen, I mean.
Probably overdue a service. And I’m guessing they don’t have a main-tenance agreement with Teleports R Us, first and best in teleport repair and conditioning. As for where they came from. . . ’
26
‘You said it was impossible for there to be any more Cybermen on Earth,’ said Martha accusingly.
‘It is.’
‘But there they were.’
. There they were,’ agreed the Doctor.
‘So you were wrong.’
‘I’m never wrong,’ said the Doctor simply. ‘I’m a genius.’
‘But –’
The Doctor held up his hand. ‘What I actually said, or at least, what I actually meant, or at least what I actually meant to say, was that it’s impossible for any of the Cybermen who invaded from the Void to be still on Earth.’
‘Why?’
‘They were all contaminated with Void material, and I fixed it so they’d all be sucked back into the Void.’ He shot his arm out to demon-strate. ‘Shumm. Like that.’
‘So those two were the first of a new lot – scouts for an invading army.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No,’ he said definitely. ‘It’s impossible for any more Cybermen to break through. I told you, the gap into the Void is sealed forever.’ Once again that expression of sadness passed over the Doctor’s face.
‘But, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ asked Martha. ‘The gap being permanently sealed.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then why are you looking so glum about it?’
‘Personal reasons,’ said the Doctor briefly. He brought his attention back to the present.
‘Anyway,’ Martha was saying, ‘according to you, none of the old lot of invading Cybermen can still be here.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And no new ones can have arrived?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Then how can those two we saw be here? I mean, unless they were here all along –’
27
She broke off. The Doctor was staring at her, wide-eyed.
‘That’s it! Home-made! Hey, perhaps you’re a genius too.’
‘Thanks. Doctor –’
‘Even before they finally invaded, the Cybermen had established a base inside the Torchwood Tower at Canary Wharf. They were making new Cybermen there. They must have made some using purely Earth materials. Stuff they found here. This lot have never passed through the Void.’ The Doctor thought of the accounts of the raids he’d found on the Internet. ‘There can only be a few of them. . . ’
‘Just as well.’ Martha paused. ‘You were there, weren’t you, at the final battle?’
The Doctor nodded.
‘My cousin – Adeola. She worked at Torchwood Tower. She never came home after. . . ’ Martha sighed. ‘I just wondered if you might have seen her. She looked a bit like me.’
The Doctor didn’t answer. He was staring across the canteen. But what he saw in his mind’s eye was a dark-skinned girl sitting rigidly upright at a control console.: He saw her earpiece being wrenched away, the fleshy Cyber-filament being tugged out from deep inside her brain. He’d freed her and several of her colleagues from Cyber-control – and killed them in the process.
Martha was watching the expression on the Doctor’s face.
‘What is it, Doctor?’
With an effort, the Doctor pushed the terrible memory aside.
‘Things were pretty chaotic there at the end. A lot of people died.
I’m sorry, Martha.’
Martha would have asked more questions, but suddenly she heard a voice calling her from across the room. ‘Martha – over here!’
Martha jumped up. ‘It’s Rachel, an old mate of mine. We were talking earlier. I’ll get rid of her, but I’ll have to chat to her for a few minutes.’
The Doctor nodded as if he had barely heard her, and Martha hurried away. He sat staring into his plastic cup of cold tea. He needed to find out more about what was going on. . .
28
Then a shadow fell over him.’ He looked up and saw an attractive fair-haired girl in army uniform. She was flanked by two very large, red-capped military policeman, both armed with revolvers.
‘I am Captain Sheila Sarandon,’ she said crisply. ‘And you are the Doctor.’ It was a statement, not a question.
The Doctor looked thoughtfully at her. This didn’t look too’ good.
‘There are lots of doctors here,’ he said mildly. ‘It is a hospital after all.’
She gave him a wintry smile. ‘Ah, but you’re the Doctor. The one we want. You’re under arrest.’
29
Chapter Eight
Arrest
THE DOCTOR LEANED BACK in his rickety plastic chair, glancing idly around the canteen. His eyes passed over Martha, who had stopped talking to the girl in the tea queue and was looking at him in alarm.
She started to move towards him and he gave a tiny shake of his head.
On the other side of the room Martha picked up the signal. No use both of them getting scooped up by the authorities. She turned to Rachel. ‘Lend me your coat, quick. Just for a moment.’
Puzzled, Rachel took off the white coat, and Martha slipped into it.
She saw a familiar figure just ahead of her in the queue and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Fanshawe! How’s it going?’
The young man, another fellow medical student, turned and looked at her in amazement. ‘Martha, what are you doing here? Are you back with us?’
‘Not exactly. That a new stethoscope?’ she asked. ‘Let’s have a look!’
She slipped it from around his neck, put it on and pretended to listen to his heart.
Rachel had been watching all this. ‘What’s going on Martha? Is that your mysterious friend over there with those army types? He seems to be in trouble.’
‘He usually is,’ said Martha. ‘Look, I can’t explain right now. Just keep chatting, OK, so I can blend in with the crowd.’
At his table, the Doctor was still playing for time.
‘So what am I charged with? I do have rights, you know.’
‘I doubt it, Doctor,’ said the young woman ‘You’re not a citizen, are you? According to-the confidential files, you’re not even human. Let’s just say it’s a matter of national security.’
31
‘Planetary security might be more accurate. The Doctor stood up.
‘All right, if we’re going, let’s go.’
‘And no trouble,’ said one of the two massive military policemen.
The Doctor looked thoughtfully at him. As it happened, the Doctor was quite keen to get in contact with the authorities – on his own terms. This seemed as good a way as any.
Captain Saran don said, ‘By the way, where’s your companion?’
The Doctor looked puzzled. ‘Companion?’
‘According to the files, there’s always a companion. Usually an attractive young female. Where is she?’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said the Doctor. ‘But you can be my companion if you like.’ He watched her expression change to a frown. ‘OK, so you don’t like. The job’s still vacant then.’
Captain Sarandon looked around the busy canteen. It was crowded with doctors, nurses, medical students and patients. There were quite a few attractive young females among them.
�
�Never mind, we’ll pick her up later. Come along, Doctor.’, She led the way out of the canteen and the Doctor followed, flanked by the two military policemen. They crossed the foyer and left the hospital. As they reached the top of the hospital steps, the Doctor couldn’t help glancing towards the car park.
‘Don’t worry about your TARDIS, Doctor,’ said Captain Sarandon.
‘It’s being taken care of. It’ll reach Chadwick Green soon after us.’
She led him across the car park to the spot where he had left the TARDIS. A lorry with built-in lifting gear, the kind used to take away illegally parked cars, stood next to the police box. Men in denim overalls were fitting padded clamps around it.
‘Should have bought that ticket after all,’ said the Doctor.
He
grinned at the men. ‘Handle her with care, won’t you. She’s not as young as she used to be. But then, who is?’
‘This way, Doctor,’ said Captain Sarandon. She led him to an army staff car parked nearby. One of the military policemen climbed into the back seat, and the second signalled to the Doctor to follow him.
He got in, and the second policeman followed. The Doctor was sandwiched between them.
32
Captain Saran don took the/ seat beside the driver, and the staff car swept away.
‘So, where and what is Chadwick Green?’ asked the Doctor, as they drove out of the car park.
‘Army research centre, just outside London,’ said Captain Sarandon.
‘No more questions till we arrive, please, Doctor – then we’ll be asking them.’
‘Oh, now that’s a surprise. Big surprise that is. Surprise so big you could paint it red and call it a bus – oof!’
The policeman on his left had given him a painful elbow jab in the ribs.
‘You heard the officer – shut it!’
The Doctor shut it, and the staff car sped on its way.
In the vast, shadowy chamber where the Cybermen had set up their base, the three Cybermen were debating in their cold, unfeeling way.
‘You have failed in your duty,’ the Cyberleader told the Cyber-engineer. ‘The teleport failed at a vital moment. Transmission focus was lost. The Doctor was in our hands. Now he has escaped us.’
