by Adam Roberts
‘It’s . . . it’s incredible,’ I gasped.
‘I . . . I know,’ said the Dr. ‘With the advantage of their new thought-medium their IQs increased a hundredfold overnight. It drove them mad . . . for what creature could acquire godlike intellectual and processing powers in an instant and not become insane? But their insanity was of a cold, calculating, machinic sort. They reinvented their bodies to be immune to almost all attack, encasing their delicate inner organs in a shell of hard silver. And then, with their invulnerable bodies and their vastly superior medium for thought, these half-human, half-scrumpy creatures began to spread through the galaxy, ruthlessly imposing their caravan-based habitation upon hapless worlds; scooping up whole armies in their monstrous Combine War-Harvesters. The Cydermen!’
‘Never mind the history lesson,’ urged Linn. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘A good question?’
‘And the answer?’
‘A good answer,’ replied the Dr. ‘That would be best.’
‘And what is the good answer?’ Linn pressed. ‘In this circumstance?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was another explosion, much closer, and a rain of slush and small pieces of ice rained down upon us. ‘But we’d better think of it soon, or we’ll be goners. The Cydermen take no prisoners.’
‘Think of something, somebody!’ I cried. ‘Can’t you - I don’t know - remote-control the TARDY to materialise here, so that we can escape?’
‘Nope,’ said the Dr. ‘Can’t do that.’
We were silent for a bit.
‘They do seem,’ Linn observed, ‘to be firing fairly randomly. If they coordinated their fire they could have killed us by now.’
‘The cold may be affecting their processing power,’ said the Dr. ‘Computers. They don’t like the cold.’
‘They’re still coming, though,’ I pointed out. ‘They’ll be on us in a moment.’I
Suddenly the gunfire, explosions and the sound of metallic limbs marching on ice ceased. There was complete silence. A man’s voice called across the chamber. ‘Doctor?’
‘I know that voice,’ said the Dr. ‘But it can’t be!’
‘Doctor! Show yourself! Or I shall have to ask my friends here to eliminate you.’
‘It is my nemesis, my adversary!’ gasped the Dr. ‘The Master Debater!’
This was the first that I had heard of this mysterious and villainous figure; but it was not going to be the last.
‘Stand up Doctor,’ he boomed. ‘And your two companions. ’
‘We’ve no choice,’ said the Dr. ‘We’d better do what he says.’
We stood up.
Standing in the midst of the mass of Cydermen was a tall dark-haired man dressed in black velvet, and sporting an arrowhead-shaped beard on his chin. I mean, I call it a beard, but it barely covered the chin. It was more of a beardette. A hemi-beard. A bea. But it was nattily trimmed and sculpted, and it made a nice accompaniment to the black-velvet three-piece and pointy brogues the fellow was wearing. They were exactly the sort of clothes you’d expect an evil genius to wear. It was as if he’d been to a clothes-maker not on Saville Row, but on Eville Row. Hah! Do you see? D’you see what I did there, with the joke? That’s an example of the sort of joke that substitutes one word for another than sounds similar but . . . what? What’s that?
Alright, alright, I’ll stop.
‘So, Debater,’ declared the Dr. ‘We meet yet again.’
‘And this time,’ the suavely evil figure announced, ‘I have the upper hand.’
‘How did you manage to persuade the Cydermen to work for you?’
‘It’s a long story. Too long to go into here, I’m afraid. Instead of worrying about the hows of the situation, Doctor, you should be worrying about the imminence of your own death. Not to mention the deaths of your two charming companions-stroke-victims, there.’
‘But what are you doing here?’ the Dr demanded. ‘On this prototype British Navy Habbakuk warship?’
‘That’s another long story,’ said the Master Debater. ‘Suffice to say that, due to an involved and interconnected set of events, I have been deprived of my TARDY, which has stranded me on this backwater world. My plan was to use these Cydermen to capture this ship, and then use it to harass the world powers, sink their navies, that sort of thing. In six months I anticipate conquering the entire globe. Then I can use its resources, and direct its best scientific brains, to build me a new TARDY, and - escape!’
‘And what do the Cydermen get from the deal?’ the Dr demanded.
‘They get the world when I’ve finished with it . . . a whole planet to enslave and dominate. But now that you’re here, my dear Doctor, I don’t believe I need to go to the bother of making war on the whole of humanity after all. Instead of conquering this world and enslaving it to make my TARDY I can simply . . . steal yours!’ He laughed. It was not an attractive laugh. Nor, if I’m honest, was it an especially effective laugh. It didn’t capture that penetrating nya-ha-ha-ha-ha! laugh that the best evil geniuses have down pat. Instead it was a high-pitched shrieky sort of bray, the sort of noise a very small woman might make if strapped to a kitchen stool and tickled with a feather.
‘Steal my TARDY!’ exclaimed the Dr. ‘Never!’
‘I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter. I shall take your TARDY whether you like it or not.’
One of the Cydermen, to the Master Debater’s left, spoke up: ‘But if you zteal der man here’s cra-a-aft and buggeroff . . .’ it said, in a raspy metallic burr, ‘what shall us do about conquerin’ der world and all, oo-aur ?’
‘Ooo Aur,’ grumbled the ranks of Cydermen, uneasily. ‘Ooo. Aur.’
‘Don’t be foolish,’ said the Master Debater. ‘You’ll still have control of this warship. You can conquer the planet yourselves. It might take you a little longer than it would do if I were here to guide you, what with my tactical brilliance and all. But you’ll get there eventually.’
‘Oi zuppose so,’ said the Cyderman. ‘Ooo Aur.’
‘Master Debater!’ said the Dr. ‘You have surpassed yourself! Or, to be strictly accurate, you have subpassed yourself. Which is to say, you have gone lower than ever you have before.’
‘Give me your TARDY!’ retorted the Master Debater.
‘Never!’
‘Then you leave me no choice. Cydergentlemen, fire away.’
All the Cydermen in unison lifted their hands and pointed their finger-clickin’ guns in our direction. We three ducked back down behind the ridge. There was a deafening volley of gunshots, mixed with the sound of small cannon fire: smoke and ice engulfed us. Shards and chunks of ice flew through the air.
‘We’re doomed,’ said the Dr.
‘We may indeed be,’ said Linn. ‘Can’t either of you think of anything?’
There was an especially loud explosion, and larger pieces of ice scattered and rolled. ‘Quick,’ said the Dr. ‘I think they’ve just blown a hole in the wall behind us . . . through it! Quick! Whilst the smoke still covers our retreat!’
We ran as fast as we could, and stumbled through a ragged gap in the ice-wall and into the corridor beyond. Blocks and chunks of ice littered the floor, like scatter-cushions, although markedly less downy or soft. ‘Along here!’ cried the Dr, running left.
As we sprinted away we heard the voice of the Master Debater behind us: ‘but there’s nowhere to run to, Doctor! We’ll catch up with you eventually!’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said the Dr. ‘If we leave this ice ship floating with its complement of deadly Cydermen, they almost certainly will indeed over-run the Earth. They’re immune to all the weaponry that these humans can muster. It’d be no contest. And an Earth conquered by the Cydermen . . . that’d be disastrous. That would completely mess up millions of lives.’
‘Surely, and without wishing to sound callous,’ I said, panting a little as we ran, ‘that’s their problem, not ours?’
‘It’ll alter the timelines. T
he Cydermen aren’t supposed to conquer the Earth in the twentieth-century. Not until the beginning of the twenty-first.’
‘So some time lines get a little kinked . . .’ I said.
‘It’d mean you’ll both cease to exist, for instance,’ the Dr said. ‘Both of you. You see, you were both born on Earth after this event.’
‘We really must defeat these Cydermen,’ I said. ‘We can’t leave Earth to its terrible fate.’
We reached the bridge.
It had obviously seen some fighting since we had last been there: the teak was scorched, and water pooled on the icy floor. The Commodore and his helmsman were both lying face down.
‘Poor souls!’ cried the Dr. ‘Mortem, and without leaving their posts.’
‘Unless you want to join them,’ said Linn. ‘We’d better think quick.’
Behind us we could hear the war-chant of the Cyderman, getting implacably and horribly closer. Ooo Aur. Ooo Aur. OOO AUR.
‘There!’ said the Dr triumphantly, pointing through the navigation slit at the front of the bridge. ‘You see that ship?’
It was the profile of a mighty liner, visible against the black sky by virtue of its glittery banks of illuminated portholes, and its gaily lit upper decks. Its four fat funnels blocked out the starlight, passing bales of smoke up into the cold night air.
‘We’ll contact them,’ the Dr said. ‘Recruit them . . . as reinforcements.’
‘Recruit them how?’ I boggled.
‘Tell them the truth! They can send people aboard this craft. It looks like an affluent ship: they’ll surely have gold. That’s what we need to defeat the Cydermen - gold.’
‘So,’ I summarised. ‘You’re suggesting we radio a strange ship, tell them that we’re the only survivors aboard a secret Naval experiment that nobody has ever heard of, and that they must come aboard with all their gold to help us fight a race of implacable cyborg creatures who otherwise will conquer the Earth?’
‘Yes!’
‘There’s the chance,’ I said, ‘—and I appreciate that it’s only a chance - that they might not believe us.’
‘The future of the whole world is at stake! They must help!’
‘The radio,’ said Linn, ‘is broken, I’m afraid.’
The Dr and I looked at the radio. It was a charred mass of twisted metal and burnt wood.
‘There’s nothing for it,’ cried the Dr, grabbing the ship-steering-wheel-y-thing and hauling it as far to starboard as it would go. Or to port. I’ve never, if I’m being honest, been quite sure which is which when it comes to those two directions.
‘Doctor! What are you doing!’
‘It’s our only chance. I’ll pull this ship across their bows. Bump into them, if necessary, to attract their attention. ’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘And by sure I mean, absolutely insane?’
‘Certainly not,’ said the Dr. ‘Drastic measures are called for. The fate of the whole world is in the balance.’
We all three of us peered through the forward viewing hatch.
‘We seem to be powering directly towards the ship now,’ said Linn.
‘So we do,’ agreed the Dr. ‘Well, the rudder is hard down, as far as it will go. I suspect that we’ll keep turning, and pass in front of their bows soon.’
We stared anxiously forward.
‘We seem,’ said Linn again, ‘to be heading straight for them still.’
‘Hmm,’ said the Dr. ‘That does seem to be the case.’
‘Doctor . . .’ I said, increasingly alarmed. From behind us the ooo aur ! ooo aur ! chanting was becoming ever-louder.
‘This Habbakuk-type ship seems to be much less manoeuvrable, ’ said the Dr, in a worried voice, ‘than I had anticipated. Perhaps we should . . .’ and he seized hold of the steery-wheely-circle again. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘This seems to be . . . more . . . sort of . . .uh! uh!’—he was heaving with all his might—‘stuck,’ he concluded.
We were almost upon the hapless other ship.
‘Watch out!’ cried Linn. But it was no use.
With a massive shuddering cacophonous crunch we collided with the mystery ship, careering into its side in a glancing but nevertheless catastrophic blow. I was knocked from my feet and slipped about in the cold pools of the bridge floor. The whole structure trembled and shook, and a rain of ice chunks plummeted from the ceiling.
The Dr was supporting himself by clinging onto the big steering wheel. I hauled myself to my feet hand over hand on one of the consoles, barely keeping upright as the bridge shimmied and shook. Straight ahead I saw the black flank of the other craft sliding past us, close enough to touch.
And then the shuddering stopped, and we were floating free again.
Linn screamed, pointing to the door.
Behind us the Cydermen were crowding in at the entrance to the bridge. ‘Oo Aur !’ they bellowed, levelling their guns at us.
‘We’re doomed!’ cried the Dr. ‘Hide!’
Then everything happened very quickly. The three of us jumped behind the steering column. The leading Cyderman fired a volley from his thumb, and it thudded into the floor of the bridge a few metres in front of us, exploding in a violent burst that turned the pools of water to steam, and sent shards and shrapnel of ice spraying everywhere. Then there was a moment’s silence, just enough to hear a deep, distant groan pass through the fabric of the ship, a vast deep sound like a gigantic beast moaning in pain. Then - like a giant diamond crystal struck in exactly the right place by the jeweller’s hammer - the mighty craft began to split. Jarred and sheared by the impact with the mystery ocean liner, this explosion (to the front of and along the dead centre of the craft) proved the tipping point. A crack spread the length of the bridge. In moments it widened, gaping and parting for all the world like a huge grin. ‘Hold on!’ shouted the Dr as the ice groaned and heaved. We clung together, and felt the angle of the bridge floor tip as the left side separated from the right. The oo-aurs of the Cydermen had taken on alarmed tones, and then everything was blotted out by a massive crumbling roaring symphony of structural collapse.
The floor rocked left, tipped right, rocked left again and finally turned through ninety degrees, sloughing us all off. We fell into the blackness of night, plummeting through cold air until we struck the icy black water with a swallowing splash of cold agony. The water felt like it was cutting all parts of my body at once. It was bitterly and agonizing cold.
Momentarily we were submerged, and I felt my chest constrict. Then we broke the surface, still all clinging together, gasping and crying.
I blinked the seawater from my eyes, and tried to look around. The two portions of the Icetanic were falling away from us on either side, rotating slowly in the choppy water as they searched for their new points of flotational equilibrium. The swell from this motion buoyed us up. The twin halves of the ship slid and rolled steadily away from us.
‘The cold!’ cried Linn. ‘The water is so cold !’
Then I saw the Cydermen. They were tumbling from the slippery ice, shelled out of the internal chambers and caverns of the mighty ice-structure like peas from a great white pod. The distant calls of ‘Ooo! Aur!’ were cut short with gloop! and glurg! noises, and then they disappeared.
They were all falling into the freezing waters and sinking into its depths.
‘What,’ I gasped, through chattering teeth, ‘what will happen to them?’
The Dr was treading water by kicking his legs in froggy motions. ‘Straight to the bottom,’ he said, grimly.
‘Will they drown?’
‘Dear me no,’ said the Dr. ‘They’re far too toughly designed to drown.’
‘Well - will the pressure down there kill them?’
‘Certainly not. They’ll gather themselves and start walking - slowly but surely - for the shore.’
‘Then the Earth is doomed!’ I moaned. ‘We have failed!’
‘Well,’ said the Dr, kicking more furiously as the swell dipped us all down, ‘I don’t
think so. They’ll all be dead long before they reach the shore, you see.’
‘But how?’ I gasped.
‘The sea water of course,’ snapped the Dr. ‘It’ll poison them. They’ll be walking through a fatal medium.’
‘I thought you said that only gold could kill them?’
‘That’s quite right. There’s a surprisingly large amount of gold dissolved in the ocean, you know. Approaching two milligrams per tonne. And if that doesn’t sound like a lot, then consider how many tonnes of seawater there are in the world . . . something like one and a third billion cubic kilometres of the stuff. The Cydermen will have to march through billions of tonnes of the stuff, and all that gold will accumulate in their chest-grills. They’re doomed.’
‘That’s good news,’ I said. Actually what I said was ththththats gg ggg ggood n-news attshOOO!. But I feel sure the Dr and Linn understood me.
‘What about the ship we hit?’ asked Linn.
The swell carried us up, and we caught a glimpse of the mystery ship over the top of the still slowly tumbling right-side half of the Icetanic. It was sailing away, apparently unharmed. ‘Looks alright, don’t you think?’ said the Dr.
‘I suppose so. But what about us?’
‘I think we need to find the . . . ah there we go - there she is: the TARDY!’
‘Can the TARDY float?’ I asked, shiveringly. I was thinking how very heavy it must be.
‘When you consider the relationship between the compact external shape of the thing, and the amount of air inside the structure,’ said the Dr, ‘the TARDY may well be the most buoyant object in the history of the universe.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ I said.
‘Come on.’
We broke apart, and swam, our limbs aching with the ferocity of the cold, towards a rectangular shape. The Dr was right: it was so buoyant, in fact, that it was in effect standing on top of the water. We opened the door and crawled up onto the floor inside, shivering and soaking but alive.
