DOCTOR WHO.

THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN.

by GERRY DAVIS.

The Creation of the Cybermen

Centuries ago by our Earth time, a race of men on the far-distant planet of Telos sought immortality. They perfected the art of cybernetics-the reproduction of machine functions in human beings. As bodies became old and diseased, they were replaced limb by limb, with plastic and steel.

Finally, even the human circulation and nervous system were recreated, and brains replaced by computers. The first Cybermen were born.

Their metal limbs gave them the strength of ten men, and their in-built respiratory system allowed them to live in the airless vacuum of s.p.a.ce. They were immune to cold and heat, and immensely intelligent and resourceful.

Their main impediment was one that only a flesh and blood man would have recognised: they had no heart, no emotions, no feelings. They lived by the inexorable laws of pure logic. Love, hate, anger, even fear, were eliminated from their lives when the last flesh was replaced by plastic.

They achieved their immortality at a terrible price. They became dehumanised monsters. And, like human monsters down through the ages of Earth, they became aware of the lack of love and feeling in their lives and subst.i.tuted another goal-power!

Their large, silver bodies became practically indestructible and their ruthless drive was untempered by any consideration other than basic logic.

If the enemy was more powerful than you, you left the field. If he could be defeated, you killed, imprisoned or enslaved. You were unswayed by pity or mercy.

For many years after the explosion of Mondas in 2000 and the defeat of the Cyber-raiding party on the moon in 2070, there was no further sign of the silver giants.

Man pushed further and further into s.p.a.ce exploring galaxy after galaxy in perfect safety.

Until one day a party of archaeologists landed on the now barren and deserted planet of Telos. All they were after (they said) was to uncover and record the beginnings of the long dead race of Cybermen. Just as the tombs of ancient Egypt had been unearthed.

But the tombs of the Cybermen were very different from the pyramids of the Pharaohs. They held a terrible secret that was to convulse the universe and, once again, pit the Doctor against his most dreaded adversaries.

1.

Victoria and Jamie.

The Doctor and Jamie were standing with one eye on the TARDIS screen and the other on the door of the TARDIS equipment room.

On the large monitor screen a small yellow circle of light was rapidly approaching. As the image enlarged and the detail became clearer, it was resolving into. a small, moon-like planet pitted and scarred by light-centuries of astral bombardment.

Inside the equipment room the latest crew member of the TARDIS was changing clothes. Her name was Victoria and she came from the middle 1800s when her scientist father was. killed in a struggle with the Daleks. The Doctor had felt responsible for the orphaned girl and taken her aboard the time-craft.

Victoria was dressed as any proper mid-Victorian miss in a thick overskirt, an underskirt and three layers of petticoats. Her skirts were held out from her body by means of a basketlike cage and took up a great deal of room in the confined s.p.a.ce aboard the TARDIS.

After tripping over Victoria's skirts for the third time, the Doctor had insisted she change her clothes for something less hampering for adventures in s.p.a.ce.

The Doctor had not told her what to wear-he believed in letting people make up their own minds. He had simply turned her loose on the vast wardrobe of clothing from wet-suits to evening dress.

Jamie, amused by her prim ways, wondered what she would choose. He was a refugee from the 1746 battle of Culloden. The Doctor had brought him aboard the TARDIS to rescue him from the English redcoat soldiers.

'Ahem.' Victoria gave a discreet cough. The Doctor and Jamie had been watching the screen as the TARDIS moved gently towards the unknown planet. They turned. Victoria was clad in a simple dress that ended just above the knee. It had been left behind by Polly, the girl from the 1970s, now safely returned to England.

'Och, that's far better,' said Jamie. But the Doctor noticed two red spots of colour on Victoria's cheeks. They weren't used to showing so much of their legs in Queen Victoria's reign!

'Don't worry, you look very respectable,' he smiled.

Victoria shook her head angrily and pointed towards the equipment room.

'All you have there are children's clothes like this.' She held out her short skirt. 'Or...' she blushed slightly, 'men's breeches. I wore such skirts when I was little. You've made me look like... Alice in Alice in Wonderland. Wonderland. ' '

The Doctor smiled. With her wide blue eyes and long fair hair, she did look a little like Alice. Jamie began to laugh at her shocked expression. He was interrupted by the Doctor, pointing at the screen.

'We're about to land.' He looked at a side dial. 'Atmosphere's breathable. Gravity's similar to Earth. We won't need s.p.a.ce-suits.'

'Aye.' Jamie, impatient as always, hitched up his kilt slightly and checked that the sharp dirk was in position in his long checkered sock. 'I'll no be sorry to stretch ma legs, Doctor.'

'I can't go out like this. What if someone saw me?' Victoria cried, scandalised. But the Doctor, his mind on the new planet, was too busy checking landing s.p.a.ce to listen to her.

'Ye'll just have to stay here... Alice!' said Jamie, grinning at the girl's outraged expression.

2.

An Expedition in s.p.a.ce.

It was a planet like a million others; stone and dust, arid, with crater mountains cutting a blank sky. But humans from the s.p.a.ce orbiter nervously glanced behind them as they huddled together in the crater basin, watching Ted Rogers fiddling with the fuse wire.

'Get with it, Rogers, will you !' barked Captain Hopper.

'O.K., Captain, it's about there,' Rogers called, his trained engineer's fingers holding the wire gently in place while he set the timer. The grey uniform of his s.p.a.ce Orbiter Engineer Cla.s.s uniform was crumpled and dusty with the effort.

Captain Hopper looked at his crew member, wondering why he had ever taken on the job of transporting this crazy archaeological expedition of Parry's to such an inhospitable planet.

There was a movement behind them. They sensed it rather than saw it, turned-there was something at the cliff edge-a head appeared. It was Toberman, the giant of the expedition, b.u.mbling down the dusty scree of the crater side, small rocks clattering round him in the unearthly silence.

'Hey! Toberman! Get that big head down!' shouted Professor Parry, the leader of the expedition. 'What's the matter with you, have you gone mad?'

'No personnel within the explosion field,' shouted Captain Hopper, but Toberman, as if he hadn't heard, lumbered towards them through the thin atmosphere, ignoring both Parry and Hopper. He came to a stop near them and stared in silence as Rogers clicked the fuse wire finally in place and covered it with timeless dust.

'You're a fool!' shouted Viner, Parry's second in command, a thin, fussy little archaeologist, at the great Toberman. 'Don't you realise the danger you're in? None of us knows what's going to happen when we press that thing...in this rarefied atmosphere!'

Viner pointed a trembling finger at the silent crater edge where the explosive was set.

'All right, Viner,' said Parry, clearing his throat. 'It's a waste of time using words with that man. He obviously doesn't understand what we say... or doesn't want to.' He turned to the figure next to him, a woman's figure with a sleek and shining s.p.a.ce suit topped by a fine-boned, beautiful Arabian face.

'Kaftan,' he said crossly, 'can't you keep your servant under control? You insisted on bringing Toberman. You control him.'

Professor Parry was the kind of man who was never at ease talking to a woman. Kaftan waited a moment before answering.

'If I wish to I can,' she said. She beckoned to the giant to come-over beside her. Rogers, still crouched over the time control of the bomb plunger, was making a final adjustment.

'Hurry it, Rogers,' ordered the Captain again. 'I don't know what you think you're going to find anyway,' he added gruffly to Professor Parry.

'I am convinced, and ready to stake my reputation on it-that this is the entrance to the city of Telos,' Parry said stiffly, disliking the Captain's tone.

'Well, I sure hope you're right because I want to get us all safely out of here,' said the Captain loudly.

'Hopper.'

It was a new voice, a cold hard one from the strongly built man, Eric Klieg, at the back of the group, who up to now had been silent.

'I must remind you, Captain, that you are being very well paid for your part in this expedition.'

The red-haired American Captain opened his mouth to retort but the engineer, Rogers, stood up.

'I think that's it, Captain,' he said.

'All right, let's get on with it,' said Parry officiously. 'We've wasted enough time. Stand by. Everybody down. Including you, Toberman.'

'Everybody under cover?' came the Captain's voice. 'Professor Parry, will you count your party, please, and account for everyone?'

'Viner, Haydon, Kaftan, Klieg and Toberman. And myself.

Yes, all present.'

'First Officer Callum, Ted Rogers, two crewmen and myself on this side,' Hopper replied. 'All take cover and do not raise your head until Engineer Rogers gives the O.K. signal.'

Silence. They crouched behind the rock, looking at the dust that silted over their feet, listening. All round them in the silence the mountains of the crater edge loomed, unmoving.

Ccccrrmpboooomcrrrrmp.

The explosion seemed to bowl on and on like thunder in a valley, echoing against the alien mountains.

Toberman raised his head.

'DOWN!' roared the Captain.

Toberman crouched again as the m.u.f.fled sounds of the blast died away, and silence took over again. Rogers raised his hand.

'O.K.,' he said. Cautiously they stood up, but a pall of fine dust stood in an almost motionless cloud about the blast site, obscuring it from view.

'Nothing to see,' said Professor Parry anxiously. 'Yet I'm sure sure-'

'Just hold on for, a minute or two,' said the Captain. 'There's no wind on this planet to disperse the dust; we have to give it time to settle.'

'This dust hasn't been disturbed for thirty centuries, remember,'

said Viner. The party rose and started walking towards the blast site, unable to keep away.

Through the dust loomed a shape.

Parry and the others stopped walking and moved closer to each other.

The dust cleared further-the shape resolved into nothing but a jagged spur of rock blown clear of the crater by the explosion.

'There you go,' laughed Hopper. 'You blast one lump of rock and all you get is another lump.'

'No,' said Rogers suddenly. 'Wait a minute-look!'

Through the clearing dust cloud at the side of the rock...

something gleamed.

They all ran forward, as fast as the atmosphere and dust would let them, and stopped amazed.

'Man alive,' whispered Hopper, awestruck. 'You just blew yourself a pair of doors.'

Beside the rock, and becoming clearer every moment as the dust fell, were two gigantic doors of metal, gleaming with a strange blue sheen, ma.s.sive and flawless, standing vertically in the wall of the crater.