by Gerry Davis
'Barclay! Ben! Do not help them. Do you hear me?'
Before he could explain further, the steel hand of the Cyberleader clamped over the Doctor's, flung it aside and pushed back the switch with such violence that it almost broke in his steel grip..
The base radiation room, a long, low, vault-like chamber, lined with lead to prevent the escape of radiation, was situated beneath the rocket silo. The Z-Bomb had now been taken out of the rocket war-head, into the silo room, and from there had been lowered by cradle through a trap door to the floor of the radiation room.
Beside the Z-Bomb, a series of hexagonal manhole covers led down to a small nuclear reactor pile which provided the base with light, heating, and power.
The reactor rested on nothing but the solid bedrock of the Antarctic.
Ben, Barclay, Dyson and one of the technicians were easing the bomb on to a trolley in readiness for its removal to the lefthand side of the room.
They looked like spacemen in their bulky white anti-radiation suits and perspex head vizors.
'Do not help them.' The Doctor's voice boomed through the loudspeakers.
They looked up at a small monitor screen showing the tracking room. The Doctor had turned to Cutler's console and depressed the PA switch. Again, his voice came over the loudspeakers.
'They mean to use the bomb to blow up the Earth ! '
The PA system abruptly clicked off and, on the monitor screens, they saw the Doctor flung back against the wall with one sweep of the Cyberman's arm. The Cyberleader leant over the console and slammed his fist down. Abruptly, the monitor screen blanked out.
Ben turned to the others, his voice muffled through the mouthpiece of the radiation suit. 'Did you all hear that?'
'Of course,' replied Barclay. 'It all makes sense now,' he continued on bitterly. 'We've allowed ourselves to be fooled by them.'
Dyson nodded. 'We just set them up nicely. Cutler was right, wasn't he? We should have used the bomb on them—whatever the consequences.'
Barclay shook his head. 'That might easily have started off something far worse.'
'Worse ! ' Dyson raised his arms as far as his bulky suit would allow. 'We're about to be blown up, along with the entire population of the Earth, and you talk of something worse happening! '
'Give over, mate.' Ben spoke sharply. 'What he means is while there's life, there's still hope.'
But Dyson moved away in despair. 'I've a feeling we've just signed our own death warrant.'
Barclay turned away from the bomb, silent and preoccupied.
Ben looked from one to the other. An idea was beginning to form. 'Half a mo'. I'm beginning to get the drift of all this.'
'Marvellous ! ' said Dyson sarcastically.
'Yeah,' continued Ben angrily. 'Well you might at least listen! I haven't heard any bright suggestions from you two brains!'
Barclay turned back. 'Sorry. Go on.'
'Any idea how strong these Cybermen are?' asked the sailor.
Barclay shrugged. 'A rough idea.'
'Well, they can lift a man like...' Ben looked around and lifted a spanner, '... this spanner, right? They are five, maybe ten, times as strong as we are. They are also pretty advanced geezers, right? Way ahead of us in science and technology?'
Dyson snapped irritably. 'What's all this got to do with it?'
'Plenty. If they're so strong and clever, why do they want us to do the work for them? They could shift this bomb in half the time. What's more, you must have noticed that the Cyberguard always stays outside this room, watching us through that door.' He pointed to the Cyberman's helmet, which was visible through the thick glass observation panel. 'Why?' Ben asked.
'This is just a waste of time,' mumbled Dyson.
But Barclay grasped his arm. 'No, wait. I see what you're driving at. They use us because they can't handle the bomb themselves.'
'Yeah, that's it!' said Ben excitedly. 'The point is, why? You're the scientist.'
Barclay thought for a moment, then smiled. 'Of course, it's quite clear. Don't you see, Dyson? The reason could be that they are afraid of radioactivity!'
Dyson looked towards the door, and then back at the others. He nodded a little reluctantly. 'Could be!'
'Well don't let's just stand here, let's prove it,' said Ben. 'Let's get this one inside here. See what it does to him. Come on, lie down on the floor.' He turned to the waiting technician. 'You, too. All of us. Play dead.'
'This is ridiculous,' grumbled Dyson, but Barclay caught hold of him and pulled him to the ground.
It's worth a try,' he whispered. 'Lie still.'
Ben looked at the three men now lying motionless on the floor, their limbs spread, eyes closed behind the face vizors. 'Lovely!'
He walked towards the door, pulled back the opening lever and swung it open. His eyes met the blank stare of the Cyberman.
'You,' said Ben, pointing to him. 'Help us! Come in here quick. Something's happened to the others.' As he spoke, he sagged, grasped at the door frame, and staggered back into the room.
For a moment, the Cyberman paused suspiciously and looked through the open doorway. Then he caught sight of the prostrate, apparently dead, scientists. Ben slowly crumpled to his knees; his head bowed.
The Cyberman cautiously stepped inside: one pace; two paces. After three paces he stopped dead. Ben looked up, a whirring noise from inside the Cyberman's chest unit had begun; the lights on his frontunit were flashing wildly—like a pin-ball machine. The Cyberman stiffened, his hand opened; the Cyberweapon dropped.
Quick as a flash, Ben sprang up and grabbed the gun. The Cyberman was completely immobile; frozen as a lump of Polar ice. Ben pulled on the silver giant's arm, swung him around and, with one great shove, sent him crashing out of the room. He slammed the door, and threw the bolt. Behind him, the others started to rise.
'What on earth did you do that for?' said Dyson, getting to his feet. 'We could have escaped.'
'You're still not using your nut, chum. Escape! To where? We're O.K. right where we are.'
Barclay looked more hopeful. 'And they can't set off the bomb while we defend this room?'
The sailor nodded. 'Yeah, that's what I figure. All we've got to do now is sit tight and wait for Mondas to shrivel up like the Doctor said. We've got 'em.' For a moment he grinned at the two men triumphantly—then his face fell.
'But they've still got the Doctor and Polly!'
In the tracking room, Cyberleader Krang had just watched the tail end of the action in the radiation room. He had turned the monitor sets volume control up to catch Ben's last words.
The Doctor was standing, menaced by one of the Cyberguards. He looked over at Krang. 'There, gentlemen. Stalemate I would say, wouldn't you? Now perhaps we can talk!' He placed his fingers together in a characteristic gesture.
The Cyberleader turned, and replied angrily. 'You forget—we can do what we like with all of you.' He indicated the technicians. 'And, of course, the girl.'
'Of course,' the Doctor nodded. 'But that won't save your planet, will it?'
Krang thought for a moment, then stepped forward and picked up the address mike. 'I will speak to them.' He looked across at the TV monitors, depressed a switch, and began speaking to the small figures of Barclay, Ben, Dyson, and Haynes on the screen.
'Listen to me. This close proximity of our two planets mean that one has to be eliminated for the safety of the other. The one to be destroyed will be Earth. We cannot allow Mondas to burn up. If you help us, we will take you back to Mondas with us. There you will be safe.'
'Oh yeah!' Ben shouted up towards the mike in the radiation room. 'For how long?'
'No,' Dyson whispered. 'Don't antagonise them. It could be our only hope.'
The watching Cybermen saw Ben push Dyson aside and look up directly at the monitors. 'The answer is no! We will just sit tight here until your planet breaks up. Now you'd better release the Doctor and Polly and send them down here. You'll need our help when Mondas is gone!'
&nb
sp; The Cyberleader's voice began to speak with greater intensity. 'Mondas will not explode.' He turned to one of the other Cybermen. 'Take the old man out to the spacecraft.'
'No,' pleaded the Doctor. 'I must stay here. You need me.'
'The Cybermen do not need anyone's help,' snapped Krang. He gestured and the Cybermen standing by the Doctor grasped his arm and led him from the room.
Krang turned back to the monitor screen. 'Now! We give you three minutes to start fusing the warhead. If you fail, you will never see your friends again!'
Dyson turned to the others. 'It's hopeless. We must do as they say.'
'It could be a bluff,' said Barclay uncertainly.
'Yes,' Ben agreed. 'Perhaps we should find out?'
Barclay shook his head. 'We must keep to our plan and sit tight. There are millions of lives at stake.'
'But Polly and the Doctor?' said Ben desperately. 'There must be something we can do!' He looked round and, before the others could stop him, rushed over to the TV monitor and ripped out the lead wires from the camera lens and microphone.
'What on earth did you do that for?' asked Dyson. 'Now they cannot communicate with us.'
'Yeah,' said Ben, turning back. 'They can't spy on us either, can they? I've got a plan...'
Aboard the Cyberman spaceship, the Doctor was now seated beside Polly in another of the Cyberchairs. The Cyberguard was clamping the broad silver bands across his waist and arms.
'Doctor,' said Polly, 'can't you do anything?'
The Doctor shook his head and looked pointedly at the Cyberman. They waited until he had turned and left the room. 'At least, my dear,' replied the Doctor, 'they have allowed us some heat. They obviously mean to keep us alive.'
'But there's something else. A few minutes ago they started up some kind of engines.'
'Engines?' queried the Doctor.
'Yes. Listen!'
The Doctor became aware of the low throbbing vibration coming from the heart of the ship.
'It wasn't here before. They're not taking off, are they?'
'No.' The Doctor shook his head. 'Wait! Listen! Feel the vibration. I don't believe it is the engines.'
Their bodies were vibrating with the rest of the Cybership.
'Mondas must be causing this.'
'Mondas?' queried Polly.
'This spaceship gets its energy from Mondas. It must be absorbing too much.'
'Do you mean it will blow up, Doctor?'
'I don't know, child. I really don't know...'
The men in the radiation room were having an urgent counsel of war. Ben had raised a bench on end to block the door observation window. For the first time since the advent of the Cybermen, the men felt that they were not being watched.
Ben pointed to the Z-Bomb. 'What's it weigh then?' Dyson smiled. 'You're not thinking of trying to carry that around, are you?'
'Who's asking you, laughing boy?' Ben retorted. He turned to Barclay. 'Can it be shifted?'
Barclay shook his head. 'It would be an impossible job, I'm afraid. To use it as you would intend to use it, that is.'
'Well,' Ben looked round, 'what is movable in this room? Something that a bloke could carry?'
'Nothing,' replied Dyson decisively. 'You're wasting your time and ours.' He looked at his watch. 'The three minutes is nearly up anyway.'
Ben turned to Barclay. 'Think, man!' He went over to the reactor manholes and pointed. 'Is there anything radioactive down there?'
'Yes,' replied Barclay, coming over. 'Of course! The base nuclear reactor that supplies all the power!'
'Well, what's it like?' asked Ben excitedly. 'I've never seen a nuclear reactor. Is there anything we could move by hand?'
'Well,' Barclay kneeled down, 'it's powered by thin uranium rods. They could be carried a short distance. But they are highly radioactive. It would be a ticklish operation.'
'Ticklish or not, we've got to do it. It's our only chance. Come on.' Ben looked around. 'How do you get these things up?'
Dyson came forward. 'Have you all gone mad?'
Ben turned on him angrily and Dyson, although bigger built, backed away. 'We're the sane ones, mate! You really think those Cybermen mean to let us live?'
'They gave us their word,' said Dyson.
'Word!' Ben laughed. 'They just said anything they thought we'd listen to. They've got no feelings, remember. They told us that. So what's to stop them?'
Dyson fell silent. Ben shook his head.
'You might as well face it, mate. Your number's up either way—so why not at least try to find a way out of this mess?' His tone changed. 'We need your help—alright?'
For a moment Dyson looked undecided, then nodded.
Ben turned to Haynes, the technician. 'How about you?'
'Count me in.'
As they spoke, Barclay was already levering up the first manhole in preparation for the difficult—and dangerous—operation of lifting the uranium rods.
In the tracking room, the large circle of the Tenth Planet now almost filled the huge telescopic screen. The Cybermen watched it in silence. Mondas was violently alternating from light to dark. The Cyberleader looked up at the wall clock.
'Our planet is nearing saturation point,' Krang said. 'Switch on the monitor. Their three minutes is up. We must hear their decision.' He gestured to another black helmeted Cyberleader.
Cyberleader Jarl switched the Tv monitor on—but the screen remained blank. He turned to Krang. 'There is no picture.'
He switched on the PA connection to the reactor room—but there was no 'on' light. 'They have cut themselves off.'
'Then,' retorted Krang ominously, 'we must use other methods.'
Ben flung open the door of the reactor room. He had checked the observation room—the corridor was empty. The irradiated Cyberman had either left or been carried away by his comrades.
'All clear,' he called. 'But hurry it up. It won't take them long to find out that we've cut off the TV monitor.' He stood aside to allow Dyson and Haynes, each carrying a nuclear rod, through into the corridor.
They held the dark grey rods, which were three feet long. by long pincers at arm's length. Behind them Barday carried a small geiger counter—one of the emergency sets permanently stored in the reactor room. The Australian physicist watched the rapidly ticking machine.
'Steady,' he called. 'Steady. Hold them away from yourselves. Gently does it now. Very, very gently.'
He turned to Ben. 'Stand by the emergency power switch. The lights will be going any second now.'
The men could hear the hum of the great dynamos set beneath the base begin to run down. The lights faded.
Ben raised the large lever and thrust it into position. Immediately the whine of the dynamos rose again in pitch. The neon lights brightened to normal.
Dyson looked back at Barday nervously. 'You realise that there is only an hour's lighting and heating on the emergency batteries? Then we shall freeze to death?'
'If this doesn't work—you won't have to worry about the cold!' Ben joked grimly.
He pointed along the corridor. 'While it's clear—get around the corner. Dyson hide in one of the rooms up there in the corridor. When the Cybermen pass you, come out behind them. Haynes,' he indicated the other stretch of corridor, which made a right hand bend just outside the reactor room, 'you'll find a room along this corridor.'
'I'll draw their fire,' Ben continued. 'When you hear this gun,' he held up the Cyberweapon abandoned by the Cyberman in the reactor room, 'start moving forward.'
Ben and Barclay watched as the two men lumbered awkwardly away down the corridors in their bulky radiation suits, gingerly carrying the deadly grey rods in front of them.
Ben turned to Dr Barday. 'Think there's enough radiation in the two rods to trap them?'
Barclay looked at the geiger counter. 'Should be.' 'Let's get back in here then,' said Ben.
They re-entered the radiation room and dosed the door.
Inside the tracking room, the second C
yberleader, Jarl, had mounted a pair of cylinders—very like a skin diver's compressed air kit—on his back. A black, corrugated pipe led to a nozzle held in front of him.
Krang inspected Jarl. 'We will not use this gas unless we have to. We need them conscious.'
The Cyberleader unstrapped a small black transmitting unit used to keep in contact with the Cybership, and placed it on the desk. He then unclipped the Cyberweapon held underneath his chest unit.
He turned and beckoned to the other Cyberman. As the captive technicians watched, the Cybermen filed out after Krang and Jarl.
There was a moment's relief in the tracking room after the Cybermen had left. The R/T technician jumped up, ran over and tried the door. It was locked. He turned back to the others.
'We could break it down!'
Rogers, the base's senior engineer, shook his head. 'They'd soon hear us and return. And then there'd be more killing.'
'We've got to help them.' The R/T technician pointed at the blank screen of the reactor room. But again Rogers shook his head.
'That sailor's a very resourceful man—they've obviously got a plan of some kind. If we start acting on our own initiative, it could upset it. The best thing we can do is sit tight.'
Ben had opened the reactor room door slightly, and was looking along the corridor. He saw the tall frame and black helmet of Krang turn the corner and darted back inside, still leaving the door slightly ajar. 'They're coming—quick—behind the door ! '
As the heavy tramp of the Cybermen resounded along the metal-floored corridor, the two men positioned themselves behind the door. Outside, the heavy footsteps stopped. Krang's voice rasped through the slightly open door.
'Your three minutes is up. What is your decision?' The two men stood stock still without answering.
'We shall be forced to kill you,' went on Krang.
'We will give you one more chance to come out and yield us the Z-Bomb.'
'Come in and get us,' yelled Ben.
Krang nodded to Jarl, who thrust the gas nozzle through the crack in the door. The Cyberman turned the control knob to full, and the gas hissed out in a steady stream.
