[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
cubic components at either end of the glass tube.
‘How much damage could this bomb have done?’ Adric
asked, handing the Doctor a probe.
‘Enough...’ the Doctor replied enigmatically, poking
cautiously about in a mass of small, flexible tubes.
‘For what?’
‘Enough to blow the entire planet apart if it were sited at
the right spot,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘For example at a
focus of geological fault lines... Laser cutter, please.’
Adric handed over a compact tool resembling a large
fountain pen. ‘It’s totally bizarre,’ he murmured, holding
his breath as the Doctor sliced through a thick wire.
‘Professor Kyle told me she’d been working down here
almost a month before those androids attacked her team.
Why did they wait so long?’
‘No need to attack until the Professor’s investigations
brought her too close to their little secret here. Magnetic
drone, please.’ The Doctor started attaching the small coil
Adric passed him to an exposed circuit. Suddenly he
jumped back with a yelp of pain and dropped the drone.
‘There was power in there,’ he said with a puzzled frown,
‘and there definitely shouldn’t have been.’
At that moment the fluorescent tube began to pulse
again intermittently. The Doctor gaped at it in dismay.
‘The signal’s breaking through again!’ he cried as the
erratic blue flashes grew quickly stronger and more
regular. For a moment the Doctor looked completely
defeated. Then he took a deep breath. ‘Only one answer—
abandon methodical procedure for sheer blind instinct...’
he declared.
Seizing the laser cutter, the Doctor held it close to the
exposed circuit which had given him the shock. He held
up crossed fingers on his free hand and smiled at Adric.
‘Here we go...’ he whispered, and he firmly squeezed the
trigger.
Inside the TARDIS, Nyssa had been leaning over the
console desperately trying to boost the jamming signal
being generated by the TARDIS’s circuits, while Tegan
and the others anxiously watched Adric and the Doctor on
the viewer screen. The ominous blue flashes had grown
stronger and stronger as the mysterious alien command-
signal had increased in power, and Nyssa knew that the
Doctor’s hastily devised lash-up was approaching its
maximum capacity. With sinking heart she realised that
the jamming circuit could utilise only a tiny fraction of the
TARDIS’s enormous energy potential. She glanced in
despair at the two puny little figures crouching in front of
the hatchway in the pulsating cavern on the viewer. She
caught Tegan’s eye and slowly shook her head.
‘It’s stopped...’ The Professor’s joyful cry made them
look back at the viewer. The flashing in the cavern had
stopped. Nyssa stared down at the console displays.
‘It’s true,’ she cried excitedly. ‘They’ve stopped
transmitting. The signal’s vanished. The Doctor’s done it!’
The Cyberleader strode round and round the control
module while the Deputy made rapid adjustments to the
holovisor disc mounted on top of it.
‘The Earthlings cannot have deactivated the device
themselves,’ the Leader stormed, ‘our technology is too
advanced. Either they received help from some superior
intelligence, or we have been betrayed. Whoever is
responsible will be found and eliminated.’
The Deputy announced that the apparatus was now
prepared. Seconds later a replay of the battle between the
two androids and the troopers in the cavern began to glow
in three-dimension under the projector tubes. The
Cybermen watched closely.
‘All the alien participants appear to be humans, Leader.’
The Leader raised his arm sharply for silence. On the
disc Adric could be seen throwing the second rock at the
male android and, just as the android turned to fire at him,
the faint image of the TARDIS appeared fleetingly in the
background.
‘There...’ the Leader rasped, stabbing a hold button and
freezing the image. He then operated an intensifier
adjustment and the TARDIS image was magnified and
focused in the centre of the disc.
The Leader leaned forward expectantly, his ventilator
hissing harshly. ‘A TARDIS...’ he grated.
‘Time Lords are forbidden to interfere, Leader,’ the
Deputy objected.
‘This one calls itself “the Doctor”,’ the Leader boomed,
selecting a programme from the holovisor’s memory and
switching it on again. ‘It has assumed a variety of
regenerative forms and it does nothing but interfere...’
On the disc appeared the head of an old man with a
narrow face, long hooked nose, flowing white hair and thin
lips. He was saying something in an earnest, wavering
voice: ‘... but have you no emotions... like love, pride, hate,
fear...?’
The image faded and was succeeded by the head of a
dark-skinned man with a fringe of straight black hair,
heavy dark eyebrows, brown eyes and a smallish mouth
who was leaning forward with a cynical smile which made
deep furrows on each side of his nose and saying: ‘... I
imagine that you have orders to destroy me...’
The Leader jabbed the hold control. ‘In this regenerated
form, the Doctor confined the Cybermen to their ice tomb
on Telos,’ he hissed.
The Leader released the control and the glowing image
changed once more. This time an enormous head of curly
brown hair appeared, a huge face with staring blue eyes
and a wide mouth curling with contempt. The image
loomed over the disc as a deep, rich voice ranted
mockingly: ‘You’re just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers
scuttling about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship...’
The holovisor went dark.
‘It was in that last regeneration that the Doctor defeated
our attempts to destroy Voga,’ the Leader concluded.
At the mention of the planet Voga the Deputy had
clasped both hands protectively across his ventilator grille.
‘The planet of gold...’ he hissed convulsively. For a few
seconds both Cybermen uttered a curious gasping and
choking sound before recovering their composure.
‘Leader,’ the Deputy objected eventually, ‘none of those
creatures appears in the cavern with the Earthlings.’
‘The reason for that is obvious,’ the Leader declared.
‘Our enemy, the Doctor, has regenerated once again...’
On his triumphant return to the TARDIS, the Doctor
modestly brushed aside the barrage of congratulations
awaiting
him
and
immediately
concentrated
on
dismantling the lash-up still littering the console and on
preparations for departure. Scott and the Professor tried
hard to persuade him to remain on Earth just a little
longer.
‘But you have done so much, Doctor. We want to
express our gratitude,’ pleaded Professor Kyle.
‘Thank you, but we must leave,’ the Doctor insisted.
‘There is still a great deal to do.’
‘Haven’t you done quite enough for one day, Doctor?’
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
