Doctor Who: The Invasion (14 page)

They could be anywhere...' he whispered. Then he stopped abruptly.

'I think there's someone up ahead.'

Next moment the five men uttered a chorus of astonished gasps as two silver figures stalked into view round the curve.

'Blimey... what the 'ell are they?' exclaimed the sergeant as five safety catches snapped off in unison. 'Hold your fire!' Turner ordered calmly. 'Move back slowly. I think we've found our evidence.'

Isobel tried to wrench free from Jamie's restraining grasp. 'But it's my dolly soldier,' she insisted. 'At least let's tell him we're here.'

Jamie was adamant. 'Wait, there are Cybermen between us.

We daren't give ourselves away.'

'The next lot might not be so shortsighted,' Zoe pointed out wryly.

They listened. The Cybermen's terrible tramping seemed to recede in the direction of Turner's voice.

'I do hope James is not alone...' Isobel murmured with a shiver.

The squad backed away from the looming aliens as they advanced, hissing and whirring menacingly.

'Grenades, Sergeant...' Turner whispered.

The sergeant unhitched three grenades from his belt and carefully handed them round.

'Do not resist!' one of the Cybermen suddenly warned in a grating voice. 'You will obey instructions.'

'What must we do?' Turner answered steadily, gesticulating behind his back.

'Pins out,' whispered the sergeant. 'Ready, sir.'

'You will come with us. Obey or we shall destroy you.'

All at once the two Cybermen swung round as the guttural cries of the berserk third Cyberman suddenly erupted behind them.

'Now!' Turner breathed.

The sergeant and the privates hurled the primed grenades down the tunnel and the squad threw themselves face down on the slimy brick floor. The grenades rolled among the feet of the Cybermen as two of them grappled with the crazed newcomer. Three explosions followed in rapid succession and the sewer filled with smoke and flying fragments.

As the smoke cleared, the incredulous soldiers saw the crazed alien lurching to its feet. It seemed indestructible as it jerked inexorably towards them, screeching metallically. 'Get it, Perkins!'

yelled the sergeant.

Private Perkins fumbled desperately with the pin of a fourth grenade. Just as he yanked it out, the Cyberman's laser unit strobed with a blinding blue light. Perkins threw up his arms and staggered backwards, his uniform ablaze and his frozen face a treacly mask.

The primed grenade clattered along the tunnel towards the crouching squad. Diving forward, Turner seized it and flung it back at the advancing Cyberman. The grenade exploded in the monster's chest unit and thick black fluid pumped copiously out of the severed tubes as part of the tunnel roof collapsed onto its head.

While the sergeant attended to Perkins, Captain Turner cautiously approached the three prone aliens half-buried under the smoking rubble. He could still hear the faint sound of strangled mechanical breathing. He shouted urgently into the darkness.

'Jamie... Zoe... Isobel... If you can hear me come out quickly...'

To his relief he heard a faint cry of acknowledgement from Isobel. 'There's not much time,' he yelled. 'Quick as you can this way!'

'Perkins is dead, sir,' reported the sergeant. 'Harris copped a shrapnel splinter in the shoulder.'

'Right, get him out of here,' Turner ordered, covering the still breathing Cybermen with his machine pistol while Benton and the sergeant manhandled Harris to the manhole shaft.

'Get a move on, you idiots...' Turner shouted, peering into the tunnel as one of the Cybermen's hands started twitching spasmodically.

Eventually he heard running footsteps and the three fugitives suddenly appeared round the curve shouting excitedly.

' James... thank goodness you're...'

'Shut up and get out of here,' Turner snapped, jerking his head towards the shaft.

Isobel scowled. 'Well, there's no need to be so rude!' she retorted.

'I've already lost one good man because of you lot and I don't want to lose any more,' Turner said, bundling them roughly past the gasping Cybermen and the hideous corpse of Private Perkins.

'See any more behind you?' he asked Jamie as the girls clambered up the ladder.

'No,' Jamie mumbled shamefacedly.

'Well, give me a hand with Perkins's body,' Turner snapped,

'And watch out. Those Cyber things are still breathing.'

Jamie helped sling the corpse over Turner's shoulder and started to follow him painfully slowly up the ladder to the street.

Suddenly there was a croaking roar from below. Jamie looked down and saw the glinting figure of one of the Cybermen shaking itself free from the rubble and lumbering towards the shaft. Above him, Turner was just struggling out of the manhole helped by Benton and the sergeant. Jamie scrambled up the ladder for dear life, but just as he reached the surface his ankle was seized in a crushing grip.

Screaming with pain and panic, he fought to free his foot. Benton and Turner each took an arm and tried to drag him clear, while the sergeant knelt down and smashed the Cyberman again and again on the head with a rifle butt.

At last the weakened Cyberman released its grip and Jamie was hauled out. Then the sergeant dropped a grenade into the Cyberman's arms and he and Benton heaved the heavy iron manhole cover back into place. The thick plate shook as a muffled explosion spurted smoke round its edges. They all watched the manhole cover in the ensuing silence. It did not stir.

'I don't believe it,' gasped the sergeant. 'Them things are almost indestructible.'

Turner glanced over at the jeep where Zoe and Isobel were making Private Harris comfortable. 'Maybe, but we're not,' he snapped, helping Jamie to hobble. 'Let's get out of here.'

As the Doctor poked among the monolithic circuitry with two probes, frowning unhappily at the wavering traces on the oscilloscope beside him, he didn't notice the Brigadier quietly enter the makeshift laboratory in the basement of Professor Travers's London house.

'Any success, Doctor?'

'Ah, Brigadier. Not yet I fear. There's an alien logic in these circuits, but I haven't managed to work it out yet,' smiled the Doctor, rubbing his tired eyes.

Lethbridge-Stewart yawned. 'The Watkins girl's just developing her snapshots upstairs. I'm taking a full report to Geneva in the morning.'

'How long will that take?'

'Depends. Should get some action in a day or two.'

The Doctor stared dubiously at the oscilloscope screen. 'That could be too late,' he warned glumly.

Just then Isobel burst in waving some large photographic prints still dripping wet. Zoe and Jamie followed.

'There you are, Brig! Aren't they beauties?' Isobel cried, laying the black and white prints out on the bench.

The Brigadier glanced at the greyish, blurred shapes unenthusiastically. 'Er... Well done, Miss Watkins...' he muttered, turning back to the Doctor.

'What's wrong with them?' Isobel demanded in a wounded tone.

The Brigadier attempted a conciliatory smile. 'I don't want to hurt your professional pride, Miss Watkins, but to be honest they look a little like... well, fakes.'

'But they're Cybermen,' Jamie protested. 'Anyone can see that, ye Sassenachl'

The Brigadier smiled condescendingly. '
You
can because you've seen them before. But
I
have to convince a bunch of sceptical international defence experts.'

All at once the Doctor leaped up like a Jack-in-the-box. 'Yes, of course...' he cried.

'What?' Zoe asked eagerly.

But the Doctor sat down again just as abruptly, resuming his tinkering without another word.

Vaughn and Packer stood in the subdued light of the suspended spherical lamps, looking out at the lights of the city under the darkening sky.

'It was definitely a UNIT force. They destroyed two Cybermen,' reported Packer despondently.

'How clever of them,' purred Vaughn.

'But they got out alive, sir. The authorities will know by now,'

Packer whined.

Vaughn shrugged disinterestedly. 'They are powerless to stop us. In a few hours the invasion will be completed. We shall control all that...' he murmured, gesturing expansively through the window.

A buzzer sounded.

'That will be Gregory. The Professor's machine must be ready, sir.'

'Excellent. Let them in, Packer.'

Gregory entered, followed by Professor Watkins carrying his Cerebration Mentor like a precious baby. It looked lighter and more compact and the earphone pads had been replaced by a long, narrowly tapering horn.

'We've added narrow bandwidth transducers to focus the output directionally,' Gregory announced, as the Professor placed the device on Vaughn's desk and turned his back on it.

'This is sheer madness,' Watkins shouted. 'That machine is now a deadly weapon.'

'I compliment your efficiency,' Vaughn murmured, examining the device approvingly.

'Those modifications were totally unnecessary,' Watkins protested, blinking unhappily behind his thick glasses.

'For your purposes perhaps, Professor. But I have a somewhat different use for your little gadget.'

Watkins rounded on his tormentor. 'Do what you will. It's yours. Now just give me my niece and let us go free.'

Vaughn laughed urbanely. 'My dear fellow, your niece is already at liberty and no doubt sitting comfortably at home.' He turned to his Chief Researcher. 'Now Gregory, how does one operate this thing?'

'Isobel free? I don't believe you!' Watkins whimpered, realising his utter helplessness now.

'Careful, Mr Vaughn,' Gregory, warned, as Vaughn picked up the device and pointed it at Watkins. 'Dangerous is it?' Vaughn sneered, pressing a sequence of switches.

Watkins backed away, wide-eyed with terror. 'Don't... don't point it...' he beseeched him.

'Do you know what fear is?' Vaughn taunted as the machine began emitting its evil clicking sounds, rising rapidly to a piercing whistle.

Watkins shut his eyes and pressed his hands over his ears, moaning pitifully.

'Mr Vaughn, you could kill him!' Gregory warned, trying to intervene. Packer held him back, watching the torture with excited eyes.

'We must make sure he's done his work thoroughly,' Vaughn laughed, increasing the power so that the whistling rose even higher.

Watkins's glasses fell off his nose as he writhed and cowered against the wall, his kindly eyes popping widely open as he focussed on some imaginary horror. He started punching wildly at the air as if warding off some loathsome attacker and then uttered strangled squeaks of submission. Impassively Vaughn watched the cringing old man slide down the wall to his knees, sobbing with fear. Then he switched off the machine and put it back on the desk.

'Most effective,' he beamed. 'I congratulate you, Professor.

Such a pity we cannot test it at full strength. However, we have further need of your expertise.'

Watkins peered blindly up at him, foaming at the lips and trembling with shock.

Vaughn turned to Gregory. 'You will take the Professor back to the complex immediately. I want these devices on the production lines at once.'

Packer yanked the old man to his feet and shoved his glasses back onto his nose.

'You force me to work for you, Vaughn,' Watkins suddenly burst out in a hoarse whisper. 'You are an evil man. I pity you, but given the chance I shall kill you.'

Vaughn gazed at the hunched figure, momentarily disconcerted by his victim's impassioned threat. 'Kill me, Professor?'

he mocked. 'Would you really?'

Watkins nodded vigorously.

Vaughn walked over and took Packer's machine pistol out of its holster. He thrust it into Watkins's hand. 'What are you waiting for?' he laughed, slapping the old man's tear-stained cheek. 'Shoot me!'

Watkins stared at the gun, then at Vaughn in bewilderment.

'Shoot me!' Vaughn shouted, sending Watkins reeling with another vicious slap before walking away a few paces and turning.

Recovering his balance, the Professor fired a burst. Shots smashed into lamps and a video screen.

Vaughn shook his head derisively. 'Surely you can do better than that?' he taunted. 'Try again.'

Racked with conflicting emotions, Watkins hesitated. Then he took careful aim and fired again. Several holes appeared in Vaughn's jacket and shirt as bullets ricochetted round the office. Vaughn threw back his head and laughed at Watkins's incredulous stare.

'Take him away and get the device into production!' he cried, casually flicking the torn shreds of cloth off his jacket.

In Travers's basement the Doctor was still struggling to solve the riddle of the monolithic circuitry. Jamie was fast asleep in an old armchair with his injured foot propped on a cushion, while Jimmy Turner sat sleepily by his portable radiotelephone unit on the workbench.

Isobel brought in some tea and shortcake biscuits and sat down beside him. 'Am I forgiven?' she asked.

Turner grinned. 'Not really your fault, I suppose,' he murmured, patting her hand.

'I just didn't realise about the Cybermen...' Isobel explained.

'I've been listening to Zoe telling the Brigadier all about them for his report.'

Turner shook his head in amazement. 'We hit 'em with four or five grenades and one still survived! I'd hate to have to tackle a whole army of the things.'

Suddenly the Doctor threw down the circuits in despair. 'No, no, no,' he muttered, rubbing his bleary eyes irritably as he rose and walked about restlessly.

'What's the matter?' Jamie gasped, waking with a start and wincing at the pain in his ankle.

The Doctor ignored him, absently picking up Turner's tea and sipping it deep in thought again.

At that moment the radiotelephone bleeped. Turner answered it, asking Isobel to fetch the Brigadier.

'What's the flap?' asked Lethbridge-Stewart, taking the receiver.

'Benton reported from Blue Sector One, sir,' Sergeant Walters's voice informed him mushily. At 2130 hours he saw two security guards and another man leaving the IE Headquarters with Professor Watkins. He's on their tail now.'