As he spoke, the Doctor was already climbing through the jagged hole. He turned back for long enough to add: ‘Except of course, as we said – it’s not a natural phenomenon.’
Olga followed the Doctor, keeping carefully clear of the sharp edges of torn metal.
He offered no further explanation, but set off into the red light. They were in a wide walkway. It joined a gantry, from where Olga could look down into deep red nothingness. ‘I can’t even see the ground below.’
‘Ship’s bigger than I thought,’ the Doctor admitted. His voiced echoed off the metal walls. ‘Lifts are probably out, but there should be emergency stairs.’
The gantry ended in a metal stairway leading steeply downwards. The steps were obviously intended for someone with far longer legs than Olga and she practically had to jump down each one. The oil lamp guttered, and she wondered how long it was going to last. She didn’t fancy being plunged into near darkness, the world only lit blood-red. She felt chilled at the thought.
‘We could dismantle the equipment in the church tower,’ the Doctor said as he descended the stairs with ease. ‘Assuming we could get past the Cyberguard and its mate.’
‘Its mate? You mean like animals take a mate?’
‘No. Animal definitely, but more of a pet. And that makes things tricky. Probably just one Cyberman left awake to sort things out. That’d be the efficient way to do it, and they’re nothing if not efficient are the Cybermen.’
‘And what is this one lonely Cyberman doing?’
‘Slowly drawing off power to keep the ship alive. There may be others, held in suspended animation. Hibernating. Asleep. Preserving power and resources.’
‘Others? How many?’
‘Oh not many – just one or three. Whatever survived the crash.’
Olga jumped down yet another step. She shivered. After the stifling tunnels, it seemed cold down here. ‘You say they are asleep. Hibernating. Hibernating animals are revived by the warmth of the new spring. What if they wake up?’
‘Not likely. They’re drawing power from the storms, and like I said it’s not natural – they’re seeding the atmosphere to create the storms. But without a power converter, it’s very inefficient. They’re just using induction. Most of the energy gets lost again.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Oh yes, I do. This is me, here and now, saying it. I saw what’s in the church, and the tail-end of this ship where Drettle and Worm were scavenging was shattered. That’s where the power converter would be if they had one.’
‘So the Plague Warriors will not wake.’
‘That definitely won’t happen,’ the Doctor said confidently. ‘Because for another thing, I saw broken bits of power converter on the Watchman’s workbench.’
Finally they had reached the bottom of the steps.
‘What’s this place? Are we still within the ship from the sky?’ Olga’s voice echoed – the chamber was obviously large. ‘It’s freezing.’ She held up her lamp. ‘I can see my own breath – look.’ Olga breathed out heavily by way of demonstration.
‘Probably because there’s no power and the heating’s all switched off. It’s below minimal lighting too. But since we’re not worried about wasting the energy that the Cybermen think they’re saving for their resurrection …’ The Doctor set down his lamp on the floor and strode into the red-darkness. There was a ‘thunk’ as he threw a switch. ‘Let there be light!’
Enormous lights flickered on high above them. At floor level too, lamps burst into white-brilliance. The polished silver walls reflected the light again, and after the near-darkness it was so dazzling that for a while Olga could see nothing.
She heard the Doctor’s gasp before she could see what he was looking at. She blinked quickly, and gradually her vision cleared and she could look into the bright light.
The chamber they were in was huge – as large as her father had described the cathedral at Drettenburg, and as tall. The far wall rose high above them. A structure of metal walkways and gantries, similar to the ones Olga and the Doctor had already traversed criss-crossed the wall. It took Olga a moment to work out its purpose. Then she realised that the walkways connected to steps cut into the metal framework at either end of the wall so that the whole upright beam formed an enormous ladder.
Arranged along each walkway were hexagonal doorways, a honeycomb of tessellated cells. They looked tiny at the top of the wall, but closer to ground level, Olga could see how large they really were. Each doorway was covered with a translucent membrane, dusted with frost, like a thin layer of ice across the surface of a pond.
‘I told you it was cold,’ she said, putting her lamp down on the floor beside the Doctor’s.
But the Doctor didn’t answer. He was staring in horror at the structure.
‘What is it, Doctor?’ Olga asked. ‘Are these storehouses of some sort? To preserve things the Plague Warriors may need on their voyage through the sky?’
‘Sort of.’ The Doctor’s voice was a husky whisper. ‘Certainly storage. This is a colonisation ship. They spend the journey inside those cells, frozen into immobility, preserving their power, conserving energy and resources. One inside each compartment. Dozens of them.’
Olga shivered, and not just from the cold. ‘Dozens of what?’
‘Cybermen.’
Chapter 7
‘But they are hibernating, you said. And it is certainly cold.’
Olga seemed drawn to the honeycomb of survival cells.
The Doctor was also making his way slowly but inexorably towards the cells. ‘On Telos, the archaeologists referred to these structures as the tombs of the Cybermen. But they never expected them to wake up again.’
Olga paused in mid-step. ‘When spring comes – will they wake up then?’
‘Not if I can help it. There’s certainly not enough power right now, so we’re quite safe.’
They had reached the tombs. So close, Olga felt dwarfed by the structure that rose high above her. Her feet felt fizzy just at the thought of how high it was.
The Doctor reached out and brushed at the thin membrane over the front of the nearest compartment. Through the smeared frost and glittering ice, Olga could see a figure inside. It was curled up into a foetal position, but even so she could see its size, imagine its power.
‘Those tombs you mentioned,’ she said slowly. ‘Did the Cybermen wake up?’
The Doctor hesitated. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘You are not a good liar.’
‘It was a completely different situation,’ the Doctor protested.
‘Frozen Cybermen waiting to thaw. In what way was it different, exactly?’
‘Well …’ The Doctor looked round, brows furrowed as if he was hoping to see something that would provide a good answer to Olga’s question. His face cleared. ‘Well, for one thing, on Telos, they didn’t leave a damaged Cyberman on guard.’ He frowned. ‘Though maybe that’s not such good news right now.’
The Cyberman was tall – towering over even the Doctor. It was huge compared to Olga as it stepped out of the shadows at the side of the chamber. The metal of its armour was pitted and rusty. One of the struts from its head had snapped off leaving a jagged stump.
As it marched towards the Doctor and Olga, they saw that one of its arms had been torn off at the elbow. A mass of wires and cables fanned out from the joint, like the roots of some metal plant. But below the collar of wiring, a new arm was grafted incongruously in place. A pale, human arm with delicate fingers, nails broken and grimy. Some of the wires ran down the outside of the arm and looped over the fingers like a flexible metal cage.
The arm seemed out of proportion, short and slender, as if the metal armour had been stripped away to reveal the flesh beneath. Discoloured, rotting flesh.
Together with the Doctor, Olga sidled along the front of the tombs. The Cyberman stopped, looking at them almost quizzically, head slipping slightly to one side.
‘It’s all right – well see ourselves out,’ the Docto
r said.
The Cyberman didn’t move or answer. It was as immobile and silent as a statue.
‘Can it understand us?’ Olga whispered.
‘Not in a million years. It might be able to comprehend the words we use, but what we mean by them – the emotion and humanity of it? Never. Not sure what it’s up to, actually.’ The Doctor took a wary step back towards the Cyberman. ‘Deactivated, maybe? If the power levels are low.’
‘Take care,’ Olga cautioned.
‘No, it’s all right,’ the Doctor told her. He reached out and knocked his knuckles against the Cyberman’s shoulder. It clanged like a hollow suit of armour.
The Doctor grinned and turned back to Olga. ‘You see?’
But as soon as he turned away, the Cyberman was moving again.
‘Doctor!’ Olga warned.
The Cyberman’s metal fist lashed out, snatching at the Doctor. The Doctor dived to one side, but the fist connected with his arm, knocking him sideways. The Doctor sprawled across the floor. The Cyberman leaned down to grab him.
Without thinking, Olga launched herself at the creature’s back. It was like running into a stone wall. But she managed to knock the Cyberman slightly, so that its fist smashed down into the floor, missing the Doctor’s head by a fraction. The sound of metal on metal echoed round the chamber.
The Cyberman straightened up, turning to see where Olga was. She jumped backwards, desperately trying to stay out of reach as it lurched towards her, arms outstretched.
Behind the Cyberman, the Doctor leaped back to his feet. He charged at the metal man, knocking it with his shoulder and sending it staggering a few steps sideways.
It was not off balance for long. But it was long enough for the Doctor to grab Olga’s hand. ‘Come on!’
‘Where to?’ she gasped as they ran.
‘Anywhere!’
It seemed much further back to the steps, as if the chamber had somehow expanded while the Doctor and Olga examined the tombs. The rhythmic thump of the Cyberman’s steps followed them, gaining speed, closing in on them. The main lights cut out suddenly, and the whole place was again bathed with a pale, blood-red glow. The shadows pressed in around them.
The stairway was a mountain to Olga. The steps were so widely spaced that each was a struggle. The Doctor’s long legs had no trouble. He still had hold of her hand, jolting her shoulder with every upward movement. When he paused to look back and see how she was doing, it was concern etched on his face rather than frustration. Olga forced a smile. The Doctor’s eyes widened.
And a hand grabbed Olga’s ankle. The Cyberman pulled her leg from under her and she crashed down face-first on the metal stairway. The breath was forced from her body so she couldn’t even scream.
The Doctor leaped over her, landing with a shhhunnk on the Cyberman’s wrist. The sound that grated out from the metal creature might have been pain, or anger, or just a mechanical response. But Olga heard the bone in the human arm snap. The pressure on her ankle was gone. She tore it free of the failing grasp, and hauled herself upwards.
‘Lucky he didn’t use his other arm,’ the Doctor gasped as they hurried on up the stairs. ‘I’d have needed a crowbar.’
There was no time to catch their breath. The Cyberman was already back on its feet. The human arm hung limply at its side, but it strode purposefully up after them. It moved steadily. Not as fast as Olga – who was spurred on now by pain, fear, and adrenalin. But she knew from what the Doctor had told her that it would never tire.
They reached the level walkway at the top of the stairs. Their running footsteps reverberated metallically round the chamber, counterpointed by the steady tread of the Cyberman. The sound seemed to come from all around them, echoing back from the other end of the walkway.
The Doctor skidded to a halt halfway along the gantry.
‘What is it?’ Olga demanded. ‘Why have you stopped?’
‘You hear that?’ He was looking all round, peering into the gloom. Several metres below them, another walkway crossed underneath. Red light shone up through the mesh and ironwork.
The sound of the Cyberman’s footsteps beat a regular rhythm. But there was a double-beat now for every tread.
‘There is another one,’ Olga realised with horror. ‘But where?’
‘That’s what I was … Ah.’
The Doctor pointed along the gantry. The red light glinted on rusted metal ahead of them. Another Cyberman was making its way inexorably towards them. Olga turned quickly – to see the first Cyberman approaching from behind.
‘Open to suggestions,’ the Doctor said. ‘Don’t think they want to chat. In fact, one of them’s after a new arm.’
Something in the way he said it told Olga exactly where the Cyberman would look for the arm. ‘I would rather not think about that,’ she said.
‘Then think of what we do now.’
‘Your metal wand?’
‘The sonic screwdriver? Sadly, it doesn’t do Cybermen.’
The two Cybermen were closing in. The metal floor under Olga’s feet was shaking with their heavy footsteps.
‘So what does it do?’ she demanded.
‘Ah, good point.’ The Doctor took out the wand – the sonic screwdriver. He twirled it between his long fingers. ‘It does bolts. So hold on tight!’
‘Bolts? What do you mean bolts?’
‘Actually, make that very tight.’
Just ahead of them, the gantry rail was jointed. One long metal strut was fixed to the next. The join, Olga now saw, was repeated with the walkway beneath her feet. The whole section they were standing on was fixed to the next – with large, weathered bolts.
Rust flaked from the bolts on the floor section as the Doctor aimed the sonic at them. The end flared into life, accompanied by a high-pitched whirring sound. Slowly, the bolts started to turn. The gantry jolted as the joints loosened, and Olga grabbed the side rail, hugging it tight under the upper arm, bracing herself against the inevitable fall.
With a scraping, grinding roar of protest, the whole section of the gantry ahead of them dropped away at one end. It tore free of the loosened bolts, collapsing onto the gantry crossing underneath.
The Doctor and Olga stared down.
‘Ah,’ the Doctor said. ‘Right. Was kind of expecting the section we are on to fall actually. Then we could escape along there.’
‘Instead we now have nowhere to go and an angry Cyberman approaching,’ Olga said.
‘No, no, no,’ the Doctor chided. ‘Not angry. They don’t do angry.’
Beneath them, the Cyberman on the fallen section of gantry pulled itself to its feet and stared up impassively at the Doctor and Olga. The Doctor gave a little wave.
‘I think, all in all, this counts,’ he said, ‘as an “Oops”.’
They turned to face the other Cyberman, now just a few steps away from them.
‘Backs to the absence of wall,’ the Doctor said. ‘So only one option.’
Olga glanced behind her. She was perilously close to the broken end of the gantry. The Doctor took her hand. She held on tight, hoping he had a plan. Any plan. No matter how ridiculously dangerous and foolhardy.
Even so, she wasn’t prepared for his next word.
‘Jump!’
There was no time to object. Since Olga was holding tight to the Doctor’s hand she had no choice but to jump with him as he leaped off the end of the gantry. The Cyberman below looked up at them through blank teardrop-sad eyes. If its eyes could have widened, perhaps they would have done as the Doctor and Olga dropped towards it.
The Doctor’s feet hit first – connecting with the Cyberman’s chest and driving it back against the gantry rail. The structure was already angled downwards where it had fallen. The combined weight of the Doctor and Olga sent the metal giant staggering backwards. Its arms lashed out as it tried to hold its balance. But the angled rail caught in the small of the Cyberman’s back.
It pivoted round, over the rail, and crashed to the floor far below.
Face-down on the gantry where she had landed, Olga stared down through the mesh of the walkway. The Cyberman lay on its back, crumpled and dented. One leg was bent round underneath it. The side of the head had been staved in by the impact. Dark fluid wept out of one misshapen eye …
She looked up, smiling at the Doctor with relief. But the expression froze on her face. Above them, the other Cyberman stood at the broken edge of the upper walkway. The Doctor hauled Olga to her feet as she realised what was about to happen.
‘Doctor—’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Run!’
Olga gathered up her skirts and raced after the Doctor along the walkway, away from where the upper level had smashed into it. Behind them, the Cyberman jumped. The whole structure shook as the Cyberman landed, both feet together, on the walkway.
‘Now what do we do?’ Olga called as they ran.
‘I had my go. Now it’s your turn to think of something,’ the Doctor yelled back.
The gantry connected to another stairway, which took them up to the level they’d been at before jumping down. Along another walkway, and they found themselves back in the main corridor.
‘This way.’ The Doctor charged off down the corridor.
‘But we came in …’ Olga sighed, glanced back to where the Cyberman was stomping after them, then ran after the Doctor. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Maybe – just maybe – he knew what he was doing.
At the next intersection they paused for breath. Not that the Doctor seemed to need it, but Olga certainly did.
‘Where are we going?’ she managed to ask between deep gulps of air. ‘We came in back that way.’ She nodded back the way they had come. In the distance, they could both hear the metallic tread of the approaching Cyberman.
‘Did we?’ the Doctor seemed surprised. ‘Never mind, we’ll sort something out.’
‘Sort something out?!’
‘Trouble is,’ the Doctor went on, looking round and peering into the red gloom, ‘I used to know the layout of a typical Cybership like the back of my hand.’
‘What happened?’
He waggled his hands, fingers close to her face. ‘Got new hands.’
Doctor Who: Plague of the Cybermen Page 7