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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.
24
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.
25
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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]