by Adam Roberts
‘I see your dilemma,’ said the Dr.
There was another explosion, somewhere below us. ‘We’d better get down there,’ said Antenealle, finishing his tea and plonking the mug back next to the brass urn. ‘Come on!’
The Dr made as if to follow, but Linn grabbed his elbow. ‘You’re not going after him are you?’ she hissed. ‘Didn’t you hear what happened to his men?’
‘Of course,’ the Dr hissed back. ‘I feel certain that these strange silver men represent a pretty major grammatical error in the fabric of spacetime. Don’t you? Do you really think that nineteen-twelve Earth should have creatures like that running around?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Linn, sulkily.
He walked smartly off the bridge; and, after exchanging a wary look, Linn and I followed.
The four of us went down some ice-carved staircases, and into a long corridor. The sound of explosions continued. These were not long-drawn out explosions, but short snappy blasts: not bo-oo-oom! Not even boom! boom!, but more like bom! bom!, or perhaps bum-bum-bum!
No. On second thoughts, that last one looks rather stupid, written down.
Anyway, let’s just say that we could hear explosions. Interspersed amongst those percussive noises was the sound of gunfire, sharp and abrupt as the breaking of old bones: rat, rat-tat, rat-tat. Yes, that’s good. That’s exactly what the gunfire sounded like.
‘We’re definitely moving towards it,’ said Linn, nervously. ‘Those gunshots and explosions. They’re getting louder.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘If all your men are dead, Captain, what are these silver men shooting at?’
‘Just at things in general I think,’ said Antenealle. ‘They don’t seem too particular. They may just really enjoy shooting.’
The corridor opened into a wide ice cavern, a large groined space. Which is to say shaped (perhaps I should add for the sake of clarity) like a female rather than a male groin. Which, I mean, is what I’ve always assumed the phrase ‘groined arches’ to refer to. Unless I’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. That’s very possible, you know.
‘Ah,’ said Antenealle. ‘There they are!’ He sounded pleased. Pulling off one of his mittens and unbuttoning his holster, he drew his gun.
Directly in front of us was a rank of silvery, gleaming, robotic men. Nothing could be imagined that looked less like ghosts than these figures. They were the most solidly metallic and material fellows I ever saw. And what’s more, they were marching slowly towards us.
‘Tally ho!’ said Antenealle. He levelled his pistol and fired three shots in quick succession. Then he started running directly towards the silvery men. There were pinging noises as his bullets ricocheted off their metallic chests.
One of these silver warriors lifted his hand, and a blast of smoke and a blaze of noise slammed Antenealle off his feet. He landed on his back with a large, gooily tomato-coloured hole evident in his chest.
‘Ooo,’ said the Dr. ‘That’s not good.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Dead right. Perhaps a strategic retreat . . .’ suggested the Dr. We turned to return, back the way we had come, but more of the silver men were visible coming along the corridor.
‘Trapped!’ cried the Dr. ‘Quick!’
The three of us ducked into the left of the wide ice-chamber, passing in front of the row of advancing robotic soldiers and sprinting away to the side. It was obvious to me at once that there was no way out in this direction.
‘What are we going to do?’ demanded Linn, as we slid to a halt. ‘We can’t stay here.’
The menacing-looking, silvery humanoids had wheeled about, and now were advancing upon us in a single rank, marching in perfect step. They moved unhurriedly; implacably; determinedly, deadly-ly. They looked, in fact, like a rank of Nazi stormtroopers parading down Evilstraße, Berlin, in 1938. Except they were all silvery, rather than wearing any kind of black uniform. And that they were marching through a large chamber carved from solid ice, rather than along a city street. And that they wore no insignia, and carried no banners or flags or anything like that. And that they weren’t, to be fair, lifting their legs quite so high as Nazi stormtroopers might have done. So, on reflection, not very like the Nazi stormtroopers then. You see, you need to understand that I chose just now the ‘Nazi storm-trooper’ analogy to convey their sinister orderliness and threat, rather than wanting to create a whole visual picture that would inevitably be more distracting and less expressive.
‘Cydermen!’ cried the Dr. ‘The second most feared evil creature in the galaxy! But what are they doing aboard a British experimental naval craft in nineteen-twelve? ’
‘Cydermen?’ I said ‘What sort of being might they be?’
‘Terrible, implacable creatures,’ said the Dr. ‘Implacably terrible. Their terror really knows no plac.’
The approaching humanoids were chanting something as they advanced: ‘Ooo Aur! OOO AUR!’
‘What are they saying?’ I asked.
‘It’s their war cry. If I remember correctly, Aur means gold in their language.’
‘Gold? That’s their war cry? - gold ?’
‘It has religious significance for them, I believe,’ said the Dr. ‘It means they can always believe in their soul, and that they have the power to be . . . to be, um, very much like a reactively inert and non-corrosive metal.’
‘OOO AUR!’ bellowed the Cydermen, stepping closer with every goosey-gandering step. One of the silvery men lifted his hand. I saw then that it consisted not of fingers and a thumb, but of four silver pistol-barrels and a small thumb-sized cannon. The middle finger detonated, puffing smoke, and the ice-wall behind us burst under brief fire. The ice-chamber rocked, and chunks of ice fell from the ceiling.
‘Also,’ said the Dr, ducking behind a large ridge of ice at the far end of the chamber. ‘They’re allergic to it. Gold, I mean.’
Linn and I were not slow to join him behind the ridge of ice. It was the only cover in the place.
‘What kind of creature is allergic to gold?’ said Linn. ‘Given how perfectly inert and unreactive it is? There’s nothing in it to be allergic to.’
‘A good point,’ agreed the Dr. ‘Nevertheless, they are. Gold allergic, I mean.’
A second explosion clattered away behind us. Once again, chunks, stalagtites and stalaglufts of ice showered down around us. We were in a situation of some peril.
‘Have you got any gold?’ I asked.
‘Not on me,’ said the Dr. ‘No. Nor, indeed, off me. Neither on me nor off me, do I have any gold. Not really my style, gold, now, is it?’
‘Linn?’ I asked. ‘Do you have any gold?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied.
‘Well that’s not much use,’ I pointed out.
‘OOO AUR! OOO AUR!’ bellowed the advancing Cydermen.
‘If we could get some gold, could we stop these Cydermen?’ I asked the Dr.
‘Easily,’ he said.
‘And what if we can’t get the gold?’
‘Then they will be - literally, as well as metaphorically - unstoppable. They won’t stop until we’re dead. And, actually, they won’t even stop then. They’ll carry on after we’re dead just as implacably as they are presently doing, before our deaths. Nothing will stop them. In conclusion,’ he concluded, ‘they won’t stop.’
I hazarded a look around the side of the ice ridge behind which we were hiding. The Cydermen were continuing their implacable slow advance, their silver limbs moving with weird machinic co-ordination.
‘Do you see their heads?’ the Dr asked.
‘Yes.’ Their crania looked like hard, shiny jar-shaped containers.
‘Slopping with Cyder,’ said the Dr.
‘Cyder?’
‘The cybernetically enhanced conducting fluid that is the medium of their intelligence. You see, the Cydermen used to be men and women, like you and me. Well, like you, at any rate. But one day, they realised that the jelly-like substance that c
onstitutes naturally occurring organic brains was an inefficient conducting medium for intelligence. The neurones are fixed, trapped in static relation to one another. So the reinvented themselves; reconfigured their brains as a true fluid, in which every neurone could connect with every other one as they swirled and swished about - that enables a huge number of possible connections, many more than can ever be the case in the normal, solid brain tissue. The entire race abandoned their grey-matter brains and uploaded their intellect into the fluid of their jars - a special blend of electrolyte enhancer and accelerant, alcohol-derivative, and an organic-based nutrient solution, derived from some fruit or other I think.’
‘It’s . . . it’s incredible,’ I gasped.
‘I . . . I know,’ said the Dr. ‘With the advantage of their new thought-medium their IQs increased a hundredfold overnight. It drove them mad . . . for what creature could acquire godlike intellectual and processing powers in an instant and not become insane? But their insanity was of a cold, calculating, machinic sort. They reinvented their bodies to be immune to almost all attack, encasing their delicate inner organs in a shell of hard silver. And then, with their invulnerable bodies and their vastly superior medium for thought, these half-human, half-scrumpy creatures began to spread through the galaxy, ruthlessly imposing their caravan-based habitation upon hapless worlds; scooping up whole armies in their monstrous Combine War-Harvesters. The Cydermen!’
‘Never mind the history lesson,’ urged Linn. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘A good question?’
‘And the answer?’
‘A good answer,’ replied the Dr. ‘That would be best.’
‘And what is the good answer?’ Linn pressed. ‘In this circumstance?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was another explosion, much closer, and a rain of slush and small pieces of ice rained down upon us. ‘But we’d better think of it soon, or we’ll be goners. The Cydermen take no prisoners.’
‘Think of something, somebody!’ I cried. ‘Can’t you - I don’t know - remote-control the TARDY to materialise here, so that we can escape?’
‘Nope,’ said the Dr. ‘Can’t do that.’
We were silent for a bit.
‘They do seem,’ Linn observed, ‘to be firing fairly randomly. If they coordinated their fire they could have killed us by now.’
‘The cold may be affecting their processing power,’ said the Dr. ‘Computers. They don’t like the cold.’
‘They’re still coming, though,’ I pointed out. ‘They’ll be on us in a moment.’I
Suddenly the gunfire, explosions and the sound of metallic limbs marching on ice ceased. There was complete silence. A man’s voice called across the chamber. ‘Doctor?’
‘I know that voice,’ said the Dr. ‘But it can’t be!’
‘Doctor! Show yourself! Or I shall have to ask my friends here to eliminate you.’
‘It is my nemesis, my adversary!’ gasped the Dr. ‘The Master Debater!’
This was the first that I had heard of this mysterious and villainous figure; but it was not going to be the last.
‘Stand up Doctor,’ he boomed. ‘And your two companions. ’
‘We’ve no choice,’ said the Dr. ‘We’d better do what he says.’
We stood up.
Standing in the midst of the mass of Cydermen was a tall dark-haired man dressed in black velvet, and sporting an arrowhead-shaped beard on his chin. I mean, I call it a beard, but it barely covered the chin. It was more of a beardette. A hemi-beard. A bea. But it was nattily trimmed and sculpted, and it made a nice accompaniment to the black-velvet three-piece and pointy brogues the fellow was wearing. They were exactly the sort of clothes you’d expect an evil genius to wear. It was as if he’d been to a clothes-maker not on Saville Row, but on Eville Row. Hah! Do you see? D’you see what I did there, with the joke? That’s an example of the sort of joke that substitutes one word for another than sounds similar but . . . what? What’s that?
Alright, alright, I’ll stop.
‘So, Debater,’ declared the Dr. ‘We meet yet again.’
‘And this time,’ the suavely evil figure announced, ‘I have the upper hand.’
‘How did you manage to persuade the Cydermen to work for you?’
‘It’s a long story. Too long to go into here, I’m afraid. Instead of worrying about the hows of the situation, Doctor, you should be worrying about the imminence of your own death. Not to mention the deaths of your two charming companions-stroke-victims, there.’
‘But what are you doing here?’ the Dr demanded. ‘On this prototype British Navy Habbakuk warship?’
‘That’s another long story,’ said the Master Debater. ‘Suffice to say that, due to an involved and interconnected set of events, I have been deprived of my TARDY, which has stranded me on this backwater world. My plan was to use these Cydermen to capture this ship, and then use it to harass the world powers, sink their navies, that sort of thing. In six months I anticipate conquering the entire globe. Then I can use its resources, and direct its best scientific brains, to build me a new TARDY, and - escape!’
‘And what do the Cydermen get from the deal?’ the Dr demanded.
‘They get the world when I’ve finished with it . . . a whole planet to enslave and dominate. But now that you’re here, my dear Doctor, I don’t believe I need to go to the bother of making war on the whole of humanity after all. Instead of conquering this world and enslaving it to make my TARDY I can simply . . . steal yours!’ He laughed. It was not an attractive laugh. Nor, if I’m honest, was it an especially effective laugh. It didn’t capture that penetrating nya-ha-ha-ha-ha! laugh that the best evil geniuses have down pat. Instead it was a high-pitched shrieky sort of bray, the sort of noise a very small woman might make if strapped to a kitchen stool and tickled with a feather.
‘Steal my TARDY!’ exclaimed the Dr. ‘Never!’
‘I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter. I shall take your TARDY whether you like it or not.’
One of the Cydermen, to the Master Debater’s left, spoke up: ‘But if you zteal der man here’s cra-a-aft and buggeroff . . .’ it said, in a raspy metallic burr, ‘what shall us do about conquerin’ der world and all, oo-aur ?’
‘Ooo Aur,’ grumbled the ranks of Cydermen, uneasily. ‘Ooo. Aur.’
‘Don’t be foolish,’ said the Master Debater. ‘You’ll still have control of this warship. You can conquer the planet yourselves. It might take you a little longer than it would do if I were here to guide you, what with my tactical brilliance and all. But you’ll get there eventually.’
‘Oi zuppose so,’ said the Cyderman. ‘Ooo Aur.’
‘Master Debater!’ said the Dr. ‘You have surpassed yourself! Or, to be strictly accurate, you have subpassed yourself. Which is to say, you have gone lower than ever you have before.’
‘Give me your TARDY!’ retorted the Master Debater.
‘Never!’
‘Then you leave me no choice. Cydergentlemen, fire away.’
All the Cydermen in unison lifted their hands and pointed their finger-clickin’ guns in our direction. We three ducked back down behind the ridge. There was a deafening volley of gunshots, mixed with the sound of small cannon fire: smoke and ice engulfed us. Shards and chunks of ice flew through the air.
‘We’re doomed,’ said the Dr.
‘We may indeed be,’ said Linn. ‘Can’t either of you think of anything?’
There was an especially loud explosion, and larger pieces of ice scattered and rolled. ‘Quick,’ said the Dr. ‘I think they’ve just blown a hole in the wall behind us . . . through it! Quick! Whilst the smoke still covers our retreat!’
We ran as fast as we could, and stumbled through a ragged gap in the ice-wall and into the corridor beyond. Blocks and chunks of ice littered the floor, like scatter-cushions, although markedly less downy or soft. ‘Along here!’ cried the Dr, running left.
As we sprinted away we heard the voic
e of the Master Debater behind us: ‘but there’s nowhere to run to, Doctor! We’ll catch up with you eventually!’
The corridor led to steps, which brought us to an upper deck. The bodies of British soldiers lay sprawled and scattered all about. ‘Back to the TARDY,’ I urged. ‘Let’s get away!’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said the Dr. ‘If we leave this ice ship floating with its complement of deadly Cydermen, they almost certainly will indeed over-run the Earth. They’re immune to all the weaponry that these humans can muster. It’d be no contest. And an Earth conquered by the Cydermen . . . that’d be disastrous. That would completely mess up millions of lives.’
‘Surely, and without wishing to sound callous,’ I said, panting a little as we ran, ‘that’s their problem, not ours?’
‘It’ll alter the timelines. The Cydermen aren’t supposed to conquer the Earth in the twentieth-century. Not until the beginning of the twenty-first.’
‘So some time lines get a little kinked . . .’ I said.
‘It’d mean you’ll both cease to exist, for instance,’ the Dr said. ‘Both of you. You see, you were both born on Earth after this event.’
‘We really must defeat these Cydermen,’ I said. ‘We can’t leave Earth to its terrible fate.’
We reached the bridge.
It had obviously seen some fighting since we had last been there: the teak was scorched, and water pooled on the icy floor. The Commodore and his helmsman were both lying face down.
‘Poor souls!’ cried the Dr. ‘Mortem, and without leaving their posts.’
‘Unless you want to join them,’ said Linn. ‘We’d better think quick.’
Behind us we could hear the war-chant of the Cyderman, getting implacably and horribly closer. Ooo Aur. Ooo Aur. OOO AUR.
‘There!’ said the Dr triumphantly, pointing through the navigation slit at the front of the bridge. ‘You see that ship?’
It was the profile of a mighty liner, visible against the black sky by virtue of its glittery banks of illuminated portholes, and its gaily lit upper decks. Its four fat funnels blocked out the starlight, passing bales of smoke up into the cold night air.