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'Here we are a Cybermat!'
'What is a Cybermat, Doctor?' asked Victoria.
'Oh, it's one of those...' he began, but thought she had had
enough unpleasant stories for a while. 'I'd just leave it alone if I were
you.'
He went out after the others. Victoria, whose scientific
curiosity, inherited from her father, didn't allow her to leave
something unanswered once she had begun to wonder about it, made
a face at his know-all back, picked up the Cybermat for later
examination and put it in the large handbag she always carried.
In the great hall of the main control room Kaftan and Klieg
were still standing by the master code console. The scientist was still
wrestling with the symbols, trying to work out the correct sequence
and getting more and more irritable when it continued to elude him.
The sound of a footstep made them look up. Toberman stood
silently before them, his arms folded.
'Well?' asked Kaftan curtly.
'It is done,' said Toberman.
She nodded with a half-smile.
'Good.' She waved him back.
Toberman stood aside.
But Klieg was still absorbed in the code machine. 'I'll never
completely understand this code,' he said crossly. 'The sequence just
doesn't make sense.'
Kaftan looked at him derisively. 'You, a logician, and you say
a code the brilliant Cybermen invented doesn't make sense! What
you mean is your brain's not up to it, eh? You must. work harder.
You must master it.'
'How can I, in this short time?' Klieg looked angrily at her.
'We have plenty of time,' said Kaftan. 'You will see...'
Klieg was too deep in this defeating puzzle of mathematics to
take in her meaning. Before he could question her, Jamie and Viner
came in carrying the dead Haydon followed by the Professor and the
others. Kaftan, seeing the body, stepped down from the console and
looked concerned. Klieg looked up briefly, then went on with his
maths.
'Right,' came Professor Parry's voice. 'We're all here, it seems.
If you will all sit down for a moment.'
Beside the control panels were benches for the technicians.
They all sat down except Klieg, who seemed not to have heard.
'Mr Klieg,' insisted the Professor.
'Oh, leave me alone,' snapped Klieg disrespectfully. 'Can't you
see I'm working or have.you forgotten the purpose of this
expedition?'
'You will kindly take your place.'
Klieg obeyed with bad grace.
'I'll come straight to the point,' said the Professor. 'I have
reluctantly decided to abandon the expedition and return to Earth.'
They stared at him.
'It's impossible,' said Klieg. 'You can't abandon this now.,
'Why do you decide this?' asked Kaftan.
'What! Why?' came from the others in a great babble of
objection. After all this trouble, just when they were on the verge of
making such exciting discoveries! The Professor raised his hands for
silence.
'I feel as strongly about it as you this expedition has been my
dream for years. But there were those, like Mr Viner, who said that
more preparation was needed. More men and equipment.' He paused.
They were silent. Viner nodded to himself. 'I refused to heed their
warning,' the Professor went on, 'and the result is that two men have
died.'
There was silence.
'I'm sorry, but we must leave at the first available conjunction.
We shall take back all we can for further study, of course but that is
my decision, and that is what must happen.'
Clattering his bench, Klieg stood up.
'I insist that ' he began, when he felt Kaftan's hand on his.
She gave him a reassuring look and shook her head slightly. He
glanced around angrily but sat down again.
Only the Doctor had noticed.
'My decision is final,' said Professor Parry. 'We leave when the
north hemisphere is properly tangential, which will be ' He looked
at his space-time watch. 'At 18.42.'
He had hardly sat down when there was the sound of someone
running, heavy space-boots thumping on the metal floors. In burst
Captain Hopper.
'Ah, Captain,' continued the Professor, absent-mindedly. 'Just
the man! Can you be ready to blast off at 18.42?'
'No,' cried Hopper, still trying to get his breath.
'I beg your pardon?' said the Professor, startled. 'Did I hear you
right? You are paid to take orders, Mr Hopper.'
'Not impossible ones.' The Captain's gruff voice echoed around
the large metallic room. 'It's the fuel pumps. Some character has
messed up the lot.'
The others froze. To be stranded on the chill metal planet, to
die slowly in the tomb of the soulless Cybermen...
'Someone... or something,' said the Doctor quickly, voicing
their fears.
'Well, whatever it is,' answered the Captain bluntly, 'it nearly
sabotaged our chances of getting off this crumby planet;
8
The Secret of the Hatch
Hours later, the outer surface of Telos was dark and silent.
Nothing moved. The remote stars of other galaxies shone in the clear
atmosphere, but gave only a sliver of light on the black crater
mountains.
Inside the control room the artificial daylight gave a harsh
shadowless glare. Viner looked around at the others, annoyed at their
apparent indifference. 'Well, I don't care what any of you do,' he said,
'but I'm not going to spend the night on this planet.'
'You seem to have little option now.' The Doctor, relaxed as
ever, leant back in his chair with his hands in his pockets.
Viner looked round at the bright walls where the Cyberman
bas-reliefs still stood stiff and huge, dominating the humans below.
'Well, at least we can get out of this sinister place,' he
muttered. He tapped the notebook in his hand. 'I have recorded all I
wish to. I suggest we all return to the orbiter and wait there.'
'That's a very bad suggestion, Mr Viner.' Captain Hopper had
just entered, unnoticed. 'You know that?'
But Viner moved towards the door. The space orbiter glowed
cosy and safe in his mind and he wasn't going to stay a second longer
in this gleaming metallic hall.
'I insist!' he said. The tall space-commander stepped in front of
him, blocking his way.
'You do a lot of "insisting", don't you, Viner,' said the Captain.
'Well, I'm going to tell you something now the first guy who steps
into my orbiter is going to stop the repair work just like that. My men
will just down their tools.'
Viner glared at him but was no match for the other man. He
turned back and sat down, his back to the others, staring moodily at
the metal floor.
'How long will it take to get the orbiter operational again?'
asked Parry.
'Working non-stop, without interruption, maybe some
seventy-two hours,' said the Captain.
At the words 'seventy-two' there was a gasp of indrawn breath
against the silence. Viner jumped up again, like a puppet controlled
by fear.
'It's quite impossible!' he cried. 'We'd be all out of our minds [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]