by Gerry Davis
They were sitting beside Jamie’s bed. Jamie was now sitting up, still a bit groggy, but entirely his old self again. His fever seemed to have passed and he was drinking a large jug of lemon squash. Polly was eyeing the way the squash was going down a little apprehensively.
‘Hey,’ said Polly, ‘be careful. You’ll drown yourself.’ Jamie finally put down the nearly empty jug. ‘Och, I feel myself again.’ He pushed the blanket back and tried to swing himself out of bed, but Polly pushed him back. ‘No you don’t, Jamie. Stay right back there.’
‘But I’m aye better.’ He swayed a bit as he spoke and put his hand to his head. ‘Except for my head.’
‘Now, come on, mate,’ said Ben, ‘take it easy.’
‘Yes,’ said Polly, smiling. Then, to try and distract him, she went on, ‘At least you know it’s not your McCrimmon Piper, anyway.’
‘It had me aye worried, I’ll admit it.’
‘These Cybermen have us all worried,’ Ben chipped in. ‘We’ve seen them in action before.’
‘There’s so little we can do,’ said Polly.
‘Och,’ said Jamie, ‘I dinna believe that. They must have some weakness. Everything does.’
‘Yes,’ said Ben, ‘they cannot stand radiation, but that’s about all. The trouble is neither can we.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ said Polly. ‘Where do we get hold of radiation here?’
‘There’s the Gravitron power units,’ said Ben. ‘But it’s thermo-nuclear. No one can get inside it once it’s going.’
‘Why not?’ Polly countered.
‘Because, duchess,’ said the sailor, ‘the temperature inside it is about four million degrees, that’s all!’
Polly shrugged and turned away.
‘You know, in my day,’ said Jamie. The others looked at him. It was a new thing for Jamie to admit that he was living in a different time from 1745. ‘In my time,’ repeated Jamie, ‘we used to fight evil, like witches and warlocks, by sprinkling them with holy water.’
Ben gave a short laugh. ‘You can imagine what would happen if we tried sprinkling the Cybermen with a little holy water!’
Polly had now removed all the nail varnish from one hand. She looked at it for a moment. A thought came into her head. ‘Perhaps Jamie has an idea there,’ she said. ‘What are the Cybermen covered with?’
Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘As far as I know, their suit is a metal of some sort.’
‘Oh.’ Polly looked disappointed. ‘What about the thing on their chests? You know, the part which replaces their heart and lungs.’
‘Some sort of plastic, I think,’ said Ben.
Polly snapped her fingers. ‘I thought so!’ She held up her hand. ‘Nail varnish remover dissolves nail varnish. Nail varnish is a thin plastic coating, so suppose we do what Jamie says, and sprinkle them? Do you see?’
Ben shook his head. ‘You’ve lost me, duchess.’
Jamie leant back in the bed. ‘But you’d aye have to sprinkle them with holy water. I don’t see anything like holy water around here.’
‘Here’s our holy water,’ said Polly, holding up the small bottle of nail varnish remover. ‘I’m going to do an experiment.’ She turned and walked towards the door of the Medical Store Room. ‘You coming?’ Ben reluctantly got up from his chair. ‘Yeah, O.K., professor.’ He started to follow Polly out of the room.
In the Weather Control Room, the technicians and their director were getting impatient. The men in the Gravitron room were still trying to control the hurricane on Earth, but without much success. Hobson watched the cursors swing slightly off course for the third time since the Cybermen had entered.
‘How much longer?’ He began turning round to the first Cyberman, then halted and stared in complete disbelief at the door.
The door opened slowly and in stepped Dr Evans. Hobson backed away and sat down. The other men paled as they watched Ralph and Geoffrey, the other ‘dead’ men, file in and stand facing them. They moved quietly, smoothly, like zombies. Their eyes showed no emotion. They stared straight ahead, waiting for the orders from their controlling Cyberman. On their heads they wore the shiny mind-control headpiece.
Behind them came a third Cyberman, carrying a small box which resembled the control used to guide model boats and aeroplanes.
Hobson and Benoit stepped up to the three zombie-like men, and Benoit waved a hand in front of their eyes.
Hobson turned back to the Doctor. ‘I thought you said they were dead?’ he said.
Benoit spoke bitterly. ‘Better if they were, by the look of them.’ The three men, seemingly unaware, stared straight ahead without the slightest change of expression, their eyes unblinking.
The first Cyberman turned to the assembled technicians. ‘You will leave your places. Go over there.’ He pointed over to the wall by the entry door. Hobson stepped forward. ‘You can’t do that. We need men to monitor the effect of the Gravitron on the Earth.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ said the Cyberman. ‘From now on these men,’ he pointed to the three zombies, ‘will run the Gravitron. Now tell the operators in the Gravitron room to come out.’ Hobson hesitated. ‘Immediately,’ said the Cyberman.
The three Cybermen raised their weapons, each aiming at one of the men in the room. ‘Otherwise we will kill a man a minute, until you have obeyed our orders.’
Hobson nodded wearily, bent over and picked up the hand mike. He spoke to the men in the Gravitron room who had continued operating with an occasional fearful glance over their shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you have all seen what’s been happening. Come out. Leave the machine, and don’t try anything.’
One by one the men in the Gravitron room reluctantly left their controls and filed out to join the waiting technicians in the Control Room.
The first Cyberman spoke to the Cyberman holding the control box. ‘They will now take over the Gravitron power unit.’ The third Cyberman raised the operating box in his hand and pressed a button. He then turned a small knob beside it. The three men turned, almost in unison, and filed into the Gravitron room. One by one they took their seats at the controls.
‘One moment.’ Benoit stepped forward, aghast. ‘You can’t send them in there without protective helmets!’
‘Why?’ The first Cyberman looked at him.
‘Because the machine produces very intense sonic fields. Without the helmets, those men will be insane in a very few hours.’
‘Be more precise,’ said the first Cyberman. ‘How many hours?’
Benoit looked at the others for confirmation and then turned back to the Cybermen. ‘I don’t know. Twelve, possibly.’
‘Then,’ said the first Cyberman, ‘there is no problem. Our purpose will be achieved long before that.’
‘But what about the men?’ The normally calm Benoit pointed towards the Gravitron room, his voice rising in pitch.
‘Afterwards,’ said the first Cyberman, ‘they will be disposed of.’
While this had been going on, the Doctor had been watching the third Cyberman controlling the zombie-like men. He had sidled close to the Cyberman’s arm from where he could get a good view of the controls of the box. Then, while Benoit was confronting the leading Cyberman, he edged back behind a couple of the waiting technicians to the R/T set which was situated close to the entrance door. The loudspeaker system was giving out a soft ‘gain’ hum. He looked for the volume control and gently turned it. The hum rose in volume. One of the Cybermen began to turn towards him. The Doctor quickly turned the knob back to its former position.
The three converted men, took over the positions previously occupied by the Gravitron technicians. The first Cyberman turned to the third Cyberman who held the control box. ‘Now we will start sequence A.’ The Cyberman turned one of the knobs on the control box and the men, seated at the controls, bent forward and started to activate them.
Polly had been cutting bits of plastic from the various items which the Doctor had earlier examined. She called out to Ben. ‘Ben, please com
e here.’ Ben came into the Medical Store Room. ‘I need some help,’ said Polly. ‘What’s nail varnish remover made from?’
‘Must be…’ Ben thought for a moment. ‘It’s a sort of thinner, like acetone.’
Polly looked up at the shelf. ‘Acetone. Good!’ She pulled a large bottle down with Acetone written on the label. ‘We’ve got plenty of that.’ She poured a little of the acetone into a glass beaker. She then dipped a bit of the plastic into it and held it up to the light. As the Doctor’s two companions watched, they saw the piece of plastic swell, distort and finally dissolve. ‘It works,’ said Polly, ‘and fast.’
‘O.K.,’ said Ben, ‘it works. What then?’
Polly looked at him. ‘If we could squirt some of this at their chest unit, it might soften it up, don’t you think?’
Light was beginning to dawn for Ben. For the first time he showed some enthusiasm. ‘Yeah, I get it, duchess. You mean it will clobber their controls or something?’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ Polly replied.
Ben thought for a moment and then his face fell. ‘How do we know that acetone will dissolve their sort of plastic?’
Polly sat down despondently. ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that!’
‘Hold on, though,’ said Ben. ‘That can’t be the only solvent on the shelf. Look, we’ve got Benzene, Ether, and Alcohol. We’ll make up a mixture.’
‘A cocktail,’ Polly looked around for something to mix it in, and came up with a large glass jar.
‘Mixed together,’ said Ben, ‘it will either work or,’ he smiled at her grimly, ‘it’ll blow right up in our faces.’
Polly looked apprehensive for a moment. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘No,’ said Ben. ‘Anyway, it’s worth trying.’
They started pouring the contents of the various bottles into the glass container. ‘One thing,’ said Polly, ‘how are we going to throw it at them?’
‘We’ll use these bottles,’ said Ben. Then, as the contents of the last bottle went in the jar, he turned to her again. ‘Wait, I’ve got a better idea. Won’t be a minute.’
Polly looked at the large container. Ben ran through into the Medical Unit and then out into the corridor.
The men in the Weather Control Room were intently watching the activities in the Gravitron room, which they could see through the clear plastic window. The Cyberman who was controlling the activities of the three ‘zombies’ was standing by the door, the control box in his hand.
The first Cyberman came over and stood beside him. ‘Prepare to align field reactors,’ he said, speaking into a hand mike.
The third Cyberman turned the knob on the control box as his words reached the earphones of the men in the Gravitron room. The three men started to work their controls and Hobson and Benoit looked quickly towards the screen. The cursors were on the move again, gliding slowly over the world map.
‘Main power into vertex generators, now.’ Inside the Gravitron room one of the controlled men, Ralph, stood up, went over to the control levers and pushed them forward. The noise increased. Their heads bowed as the full power of the sonic field inside the Gravitron room hit them.
‘Servo pumps to full pressure.’ The Cyberman was directing them as a shepherd directs sheep dogs in the Welsh mountains. Geoffrey turned the controlling knob marked ‘Servo Pumps’ up to full.
In the Weather Control Room, Hobson noticed something and whispered to Benoit, ‘Why did they go to all this trouble?’
‘What do you mean?’ Benoit muttered back.
‘Why don’t they operate the controls themselves?’ Hobson looked questioningly at Benoit.
Standing by the control panel, the Doctor noticed that all the Cybermen had their full attention on the activities in the Gravitron room. He slowly reached over to the knob controlling the loudspeaker again and gingerly moved it. The volume on the tone rose. He then felt over for the next knob on the R/T marked ‘pitch control’. Without increasing the volume, the tone rose a little in pitch.
The effect was immediate. The controlled men at the consoles showed a definite twitching of the limbs and loss of co-ordination.
It was also noticed by the Cybermen. ‘What is happening?’ snapped the Cyberleader.
The third Cyberman re-adjusted the controls on the box. ‘There is loss of control!’
The Doctor moved the two knobs back to their former positions. The pitch dropped and the volume died away slightly. The Cyberman was again controlling the men.
Behind their backs, the Doctor was grimly triumphant. ‘I thought so,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Sonic control, that shouldn’t be too difficult!’ Like Hobson and Benoit, he was speculating on the reason the Cybermen had gone to all the trouble of creating zombies to do their work for them. The reason, he thought, must be that there was something in the Gravitron room they didn’t like. It couldn’t be the pressure. Their suits were resistant to any amount of pressure. He looked up at the lighting. Electricity? No. No danger there. Radiation? Yes! He seemed to remember that they disliked radiation. But it wasn’t excessive in the Gravitron room. What was left? Of course, gravity! For some reason they were afraid of gravity.
The Cyberleader’s harsh voice cut into his deliberations. ‘Start probe generators.’ The electrical and radiophonic noises from the Gravitron room sounded louder to the waiting men in the Weather Control Room.
‘Re-align the probe.’
Benoit clutched Hobson’s arm for a moment and pointed. The previously tilted probe was now massively swinging back to the vertical position. Finally it stopped, creating a sharp, ninety degree angle with the vertical floor of the Gravitron room.
Inside the Weather Control Room they could hear the sound of the heavy motors powering the probe dying away in volume and pitch.
‘Probe field to full power, now!’
The rumble of the Gravitron now increased as the huge doughnut-shaped nuclear reactor roared up to full power. The watching Hobson was now white and shaking. ‘They’ll devastate the whole Earth, once that field takes a hold!’
Benoit’s voice was fiercely urgent. ‘We’ve got to do something.’
‘Hello, moon base, come in…’ The clipped, flat voice of the R/T operator from Earth startled both the men and the Cybermen. The flashing light and the buzzer drew everybody’s attention to the R/T set. Benoit and Hobson started towards the hand mike. Nils reached over to switch to a two-way position, but the Cyberleader motioned to one of the other Cybermen who held the end of his weapon against Nils’ head.
‘Remain still,’ said the first Cyberman. The men froze again.
‘Hello, moon base, come in please.’ The voice was backed by a heavy curtain of static but rang out quite clearly from the loudspeaker.
The first Cyberman’s voice was menacing. ‘You will all be silent.’
The voice broke in again, a little impatiently. ‘Moon base, come in please. We are reading on the five centimetre band. Come in! Your last routine signal was not received. Over.’
The Cyberman standing by the set had now driven Nils, Hobson and Benoit back to join the others against the wall.
‘We are not receiving you,’ the voice continued. ‘If you hear us and cannot transmit, fire a sodium rocket. We shall see the flare.’
The leading Cyberman turned to Hobson. ‘What does that mean?’
Hobson hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s a distress rocket. It ejects sodium into space. The sun lights up the sodium as a yellow flare.’
‘What will your Earth do if they do not see the flare?’ The Cyberman walked over towards Hobson, and looked intently at him. Hobson shrugged his shoulders. ‘Er… nothing, I suppose. They’ll think we’re all dead.’ Benoit standing beside him looked straight ahead, his face expressionless as the director told the Cyberman what Benoit knew to be an obvious lie.
Then, as the first Cyberman walked back towards the Gravitron room, after motioning to the other Cybermen to turn the speaker off, Hobson whispered to Benoit, ‘If I.S.C. d
oesn’t get our next transmission, they’ll send up a relief rocket.’ Benoit, his eyes fixed straight ahead, nodded slightly. For the first time, a glimmer of hope shone on the men’s faces.
9
Victory, perhaps…
In the Medical Store Room, Ben was dismantling a fire extinguisher. From the interior, he had withdrawn a glass canister with a removable top. Polly and Jamie, now feeling much stronger, were looking on.
‘Get it? This bottle thing holds the stuff that puts the fire out, and this cylinder pushes gas into the bottle so the stuff squirts out, here.’ Ben pointed to the nozzle. ‘Now, all we’ve got to do is to undo this.’ He unscrewed the canister top and sniffed the contents. ‘Cor blimey! We empty it,’ Ben poured the mixture down the small, stainless steel sink, ‘and we fill it up with cocktail Polly.’
‘Voilà cocktail Polly!’ Polly turned and picked up the large jar of solvent.
‘What hae you got in there?’ said Jamie.
Polly turned to him. ‘Do you really want to know?’ She counted off the various solvents on her fingers. ‘Acetone, Benzene, Ether, Epoxy, and Propane.’
‘Oh, aye,’ Jamie tried to look as though he understood what she was talking about.
‘Well, one of them should do it!’ Ben pointed to the loaded extinguisher. ‘Now we need another one of those.’ He looked back to the jar Polly had placed on the bench. It was still half full.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Jamie eagerly.
‘No,’ said Polly.
‘You’d better stay where you are, mate,’ Ben broke in. ‘You’re really not well enough yet, Jamie,’ said Polly.
‘Look,’ said Jamie, ‘it takes more than a mere crack on the head to put down a McCrimmon.’
‘We just don’t want you cracking up on us.’ Ben shrugged and turned away. ‘I’m sure Polly’s very impressed, but…’
Jamie flushed slightly. ‘I told you I was better.’ He moved forward to block Ben’s way out of the Medical Store Room. ‘Do ye want me to prove it to ye?’
With the strain of the last few hours, Ben’s anger was also near flash point. He turned quickly on his heels and bunched his fists. ‘Any time, mate.’