Doctor Who: Earthshock (8 page)

They ran along one side of a block of silos, turned and then crept rapidly along the other side to the next junction, where they waited in ambush. They waited in vain.

'Lost him again,' Vance spat.

As he spoke, Buchanan gripped his arm and pointed back the way they had just come. They just caught a glimpse of a tall glinting figure crossing along one of the transverse corridors some distance away. They stared at one another in astonishment.

Vance rubbed his eyes. 'How did he get over there so fast?' he exclaimed.

'Perhaps there's more than one of them,' Buchanan murmured, priming his laser, 'whatever it is.'

'I don't like this,' Vance said, checking his own weapon.

'Come on . . .' he breathed, setting off back the way they had come.

Buchanan tapped on a silo wall with his knuckles before moving warily after Vance. 'What's in these things anyway?' he whispered uneasily...

'Aren't we being just a little bit casual?' Adric suggested, struggling to keep up as the Doctor breezed along between the silos, turning left or right at whim.

'Oh there's no one about. This ship is totally automated,' retorted the Doctor airily.

'There must be some kind of crew.'

'Perhaps a small one. Somewhere.' The Doctor had stopped abruptly in front of a small security camera angled along the alleyway and was bowing and doffing his hat at the lens in exaggerated politeness.

Adric shook his head resignedly. 'I don't like being so far away from the TARDIS,' he complained. 'Could we go back now?'

'Give them a chance!' the Doctor protested, smiling and waving at the camera.

'I want to announce my presence.'

Adric tapped the metal side of the nearest silo, marked 533, and put his ear up against it. 'Sounds empty,' he muttered.

'Come along!' cried the Doctor, setting off again. As they hurried along, a tall shadow followed them, flapping and whipping over the curved walls of the silos.

Adric started glancing uneasily over his shoulder. 'Doctor, I've suddenly got the feeling we were spotted a long time ago...' he breathed.

The Doctor rubbed his hands approvingly and quickened his step. 'You mean we're being followed?' he whispered loudly with a grin.

'Why don't they show themselves?' Adric demanded unhappily.

Suddenly they both froze as two prolonged and piercing screams tore through the hold. The horrifying sound lingered, echoing round the dark recesses between the silos for several seconds.

Adric spun round and stared back down the alleyway. There was nothing there.

The Doctor had turned pale. 'This way,' he whispered and ran swiftly off along a side corridor with Adric hard on his heels. The hold was filled with a raucous klaxon alarm which made the hair rise on the backs of their necks. In a few seconds, they stumbled across the bodies of Vance and Buchanan sprawled in the shadows.

They had been savagely beaten to death.

'What a mess,' Adric gasped, wincing at the fearful wounds gouged in the crewmen's heads. 'Doctor, let's get out of here before we're caught and blamed.'

The Doctor knelt beside the bodies rapt in thought. 'They're dead. I've seen injuries inflicted this way before...' he mused, as if trying hard to remember something.

Adric seized his shoulder. 'This is hardly the time for a trip down memory lane, Doctor,' he protested nervously.

The Doctor leant over and gently closed the corpses' wildly staring eyes. Then he stood up. 'Coming, Adric...' he murmured quietly.

They turned to find themselves up against the barrel of Ringway's laser pistol.

His bloodless lips were pressed tightly together and his grey eyes smouldered with anger. 'Stowaways!' he breathed. The pistol emitted a faint whirring sound as Ringway aimed it into their faces. 'On this ship we execute murderers!' he whined.

'Then I sincerely hope that you make sure that you execute the right people,'

the Doctor retorted. He gestured at the two brutally beaten victims. 'How could we have done this without covering ourselves in blood?' he demanded logically.

Ringway said nothing.

'And we are not stowaways. We have transport of our own,' Adric added feebly, gesturing vaguely across the hold.

'No tricks!' Ringway snapped. 'Stowaways or pirates - you're still murderers.

Now move!' He jerked his head in the direction of the nearest stairway leading up to bridge level. The prisoners reluctantly began walking with Ringway covering them from behind.

Suddenly the Doctor stopped and turned sharply. 'How do you know they are dead?' he said challengingly.

Ringway's finger twitched slightly and his pistol emitted another short burst of whirring. 'Don't tempt me...' he said harshly, forcing them forward again.

When they had gone, a huge black shadow suddenly stretched across the two bleeding corpses. As it lingered a moment the air was filled with a rhythmic hissing.

Then, with a flash of silver, the mysterious figure disappeared.

The Cyberleader had watched the capture of Adric and the Doctor with fascinated concentration as it was revealed in vivid detail on the holovisor disc.

'Even under threat of death the Doctor displays all the arrogance characteristic of a Time Lord,' he exclaimed, leaning forward, the faint mechanical and electronic sounds beginning to speed up inside him. 'The Doctor must remain alive so that he can suffer for all our past humiliations...' he concluded with chilling deliberation.

'It is time to secure the freighter,' the Deputy announced, moving round the module to the main panel and waiting expectantly for instructions.

The Cyberleader switched off the holovisor as Adric and the Doctor were marched away. 'It is time. Activate the first taskforce,' he ordered. 'The crew is small.

They will offer little resistance.'

The Deputy keyed a series of commands into the module. 'Condensors maximum charge, Leader.'

'Excellent. Stabilise and activate.'

The Deputy gave a master key a half-turn. A faint, subterranean grinding noise suddenly rumbled through the freighter. The Deputy turned sharply. 'The commander of the freighter will know that his electrical reserves are being tapped,' he warned.

The Leader rasped menacingly. 'Why did you not jam their instruments?' he demanded.

The Deputy hesitated, staring blankly at the instruments clustered on the module. 'Our drain on the supply is excessive, Leader. The freighter's computers will be alerted.'

Inside the Cyberleader the circuits flashed faster and faster with increasing precision. 'Then we shall take the bridge at once,' he ordered. 'Accelerate reactivation to optimum immediately. This time there must be no failure.'

Again the Deputy hesitated. A low, angry buzzing sound suddenly began to issue from the Cyberleader's enormous silver head. Slowly and reluctantly the Deputy completed the full turn of the master key...

Not far away, in another silo, huge cocoon-like objects were ranged motionless in the darkness. Beneath manifold layers of transparent plastic wrapping, enormous silver forms stood erect and silent. In the vast tomb-like space the creatures waited. They were not living, they were not dead. They were waiting to be born.

At last there began a faint crackle, as if a chrysalis were starting to split open and release the imprisoned glory of some beautiful butterfly. Something flickered and tore through the protective layers: first a powerful, stubby finger and then a ripping, shredding hand. Then an arm jerked spasmodically and with a vicious slicing movement carved the plastic shroud asunder.

Laboured gurgling sounds gradually settled into a rhythmic hissing breathing and eerie electronic clicks developed into a relentlessly logical chattering. The silo echoed with the savage infant movements as the Cybermen burst out of the chrysalids and took their first uncertain steps.

Subdued shudders rippled through the freighter, almost as if it knew it was giving birth to the silver horror concealed in its bowels...

'Reaction levels normal, Leader,' the Deputy reported in a strangely hushed tone, the module instruments reflecting in a sinister pattern on his metallic face.

'Excellent. Prepare to engage autonomous control mode.' The Cyberleader watched as the Deputy slowly moved a sliding switch, his ventilator emitting a constant hiss of anticipation.

'Mode engaging in five seconds...' the Deputy affirmed.

The enormous fingers on the Cyberleader's hands twitched slightly as they hovered over the module. 'So,' he hissed, 'my army awakes.'

Captain Briggs had returned to the bridge in a foul temper after being disturbed. She slouched in her command seat, yawning and rubbing her eyes and wincing at the screech of the security alert.

'Turn that damn thing off,' she snapped at Berger, who was working away at the bank of surveillance monitors, trying to get them all operational again. Briggs waited impatiently for the prisoners to be brought in, drumming on the arm of her seat and struggling with the jammed zipper of her jerkin.

A few minutes later Ringway marched in with Adric and the Doctor at gunpoint. 'These two were apprehended by silo 550 Captain,' he reported smugly.

Briggs clicked her tongue and cast her eyes towards the ceiling.

'"Apprehended" . . . why don't you say "caught"? You're so melodramatic,' she complained.

Ringway told her about the murdered crew members.

Briggs jumped up and stamped furiously up and down. 'That's all we need!'

she cried exasperatedly.

The Doctor took off his hat politely. 'I do assure you, Madam, that you have the wrong people,' he said calmly.

'Quiet!' Ringway snarled, waving his pistol.

Captain Briggs turned on him sharply. 'Thank you, Mister Ringway but I can fight my own battles,' she said with withering scorn. 'You'll get your extra bonus.'

'Thank you, Captain, but I'd rather have Vance and Buchanan alive,' Ringway retorted in an accusing tone.

For a moment Briggs looked as though she would fling herself at Ringway, but she controlled herself and turned to the Doctor with a sour smile. 'And I suppose you're going to tell me that you know nothing about my three missing crew either.'

'How could we? We've only just arrived on board your ship, Madam,' replied the Doctor courteously.

Briggs gave a strange, whooping laugh. 'Only just arrived...' she echoed, as if enjoying a joke. Then her face hardened. 'Well someone is responsible...' she snarled.

'It isn't us,' Adric protested aggressively.

At that moment a warning tone sounded from the main console and a computer print-out started chattering furiously.

'Another power surge, Captain,' First Officer Berger cried, turning apprehensively to the monitors displaying elaborate coloured diagrams of the freighter's systems. 'But the tracer circuits are still completely jammed.'

'Not again!' Briggs moaned, clasping her head in both hands.

A faint tremor vibrated through the ship and the Doctor instinctively stepped forward to examine the monitors.

'Is this your doing?' Briggs demanded, her mouth drawn tight with suspicion.

Ringway's laser whirred softly.

Ignoring Ringway and his threatening attitude, the Doctor turned earnestly to the Captain. 'We may not have much time...' he warned her. As quickly and simply as he could, he explained the events which had brought them to the freighter. Briggs and Berger listened with increasing incredulity while Ringway watched the Doctor with a dangerous frown.

When the Doctor had finished, Briggs gaped at him for several seconds in silence, her angular features flushed and blotchy. 'A bomb... on Earth... controlled from this ship!' she scoffed at last. 'Are you a comedy troupe or something?'

'At least the story's original,' Berger muttered, desperately trying to make some sense of the mysterious readings on the instruments.

'Every word of it is true!' Adric insisted indignantly.

Captain Briggs thrust her face close to the Doctor's. 'Are you trying to make a fool of me?' she murmured menacingly.

Ringway flourished his pistol impatiently. 'He's obviously just playing for time,' he sneered.

The Doctor spoke confidentially to the Captain. 'You have admitted yourself that things have happened which you cannot explain,' he reminded her reasonably.

'It doesn't follow that there's a gang of conspirators hidden aboard my ship planning to blow up the Earth!' she shouted shrilly, pacing agitatedly in front of the console.

'Your crew members who disappeared or were murdered may have discovered otherwise...' the Doctor said quietly, with a penetrating stare at Ringway.

Ringway snorted. 'All this is just a diversion, Captain.'

Once again the systems warning sounded urgently from the console.

'It's happening again,' Berger cried distractedly. This time she succeeded in instructing the computer to search for the source of the power loss.

The Doctor watched carefully as a fluorescent tracer blip began rushing along the enormously complex grid showing the ship's electrical systems on the display monitor. 'How often has this occurred?' he asked.

'Several times since we left Toobes Major, but never on this scale before,'

Berger replied. Just then the blip stopped and a whole section of the electronic diagram started flashing. 'The main hold!' Berger exclaimed in astonishment.

The Captain spun round abruptly. 'Mister Ringway take a squad down there immediately,' she ordered.

The Navigating Officer hesitated, glancing from Briggs to the Doctor and back again.

'What are you carrying in those silos?' the Doctor asked, frowning at the spasmodic flickering of the few surveillance monitors still operating.