'Och, he's right,' Jamie muttered.
Zoe stared at the grinning young Scot in sheer disgust. 'Jamie McCrimmon, just because you're a man... well, a boy anyway, you think you're superior.'
Jamie raised his eyebrows innocently. 'I didn'a say that... but it's true!'
Zoe nudged Isobel in sisterly solidarity. 'Righto. Come on,' she cried.
Isobel looked nonplussed for a moment, then the penny dropped. She linked arms with Zoe. 'What a splendid idea,' she agreed and they moved towards the door at the rear of the Operations Room.
Jamie barred their way. 'Hey, now where do ye wee lassies think ye're going?' he demanded.
'Should we let him come?' Zoe consulted her new ally. Isobel grinned. 'Well, men aren't usually much good in such dangerous situations,' she objected.
Jamie persisted. 'What are ye up to?'
'We're off to London to take some photographs,' said Zoe.
'Coming?'
Jamie looked shocked. 'London? Listen lassie, ye shouldn't go anywhere without telling the Doctor.'
Zoe stuck out her chin with characteristic defiance. 'Okay, Goody Goody. You tell him.'
She and Isobel pushed Jamie aside and marched out to find the friendly Transport Corporal and persuade him to arrange a secret lift for them.
Jamie hesitated, unsure whether to say anything to the Doctor.
'Och, here we go again...' he muttered at last, trailing uncertainly after the rebellious females, determined not to be left out...
Captain Turner crept back into the Operations Computer Room to find the Doctor still engrossed in a piece of circuitry he had removed from the mainframe cabinet of the Hercules's central processor. With a non-committal sigh the Doctor let the watchmaker's eyeglass drop into his lap.
'Found something?' Turner asked quietly.
'Yes!' cried the Doctor confidently. 'And no,' he added, holding up the circuit from the International Electromatix computer and the small back panel from Jamie's transistor. 'These two micromonolithic systems seem to match...'
'What do they do?'
The Doctor shook his head with a baffled frown. 'I don't know, young man, but I do know that they have no useful function in either your central processor or in Jamie's wireless.'
Turner waited, hoping for some enlightenment, but the Doctor brooded silently over the mysterious panels.
'Why put in a circuit that has no function?' Turner muttered.
The Doctor stood up, weighing the components thoughtfully in his hands. 'Oh, they serve a function all right, Captain. I'm convinced that these monolithic systems have something to do with the Cybermen. But I need to conduct certain tests...'
'I'm sure we can arrange whatever facilities you require,'
Turner offered promptly.
The Doctor thanked him politely. 'However I think I'll find what I need among Professor Watkins's equipment in Professor Travers's basement in London if you don't mind,' he said.
They went through into the Operations Room, where the Brigadier had just finished briefing his photoreconnaissance unit over the radiotelephone.
The Doctor looked around for his three young associates.
'Where are Jamie and Zoe and Isobel...?' he asked in some alarm.
'No idea,' shrugged the Brigadier, busy at his desk.
'Excuse me sir,' piped up Sergeant Walters, 'but Corporal Benton's driven them into London.'
'Benton's what!' exploded Lethbridge-Stewart.
'Said they had to get some vital evidence for you, sir.'
The Brigadier looked appalled. 'Evidence for me? Get Benton on the R/T immediately,' he shouted.
The Doctor looked up from the circuits, utterly bewildered.
'What on earth is going on?' he asked plaintively.
The Brigadier took the Doctor aside. 'I'm sorry, Doctor, but while my back was turned those crazy kids got it into their heads to slip back to London to try to obtain photographs of Cybermen... no doubt from the sewers.'
The Doctor flapped his arms aimlessly. 'Oh, my goodness me!'
he gasped, completely at a loss.
The Brigadier fumed silently while he waited for Benton to make contact. 'Benton? At last. What the devil's going on?' he yelled into the radiotelephone.
'Sorry, sir, I thought it was official. The young ladies told me you'd authorised them to fetch some important photographs from town so I...'
'So you succumbed to the charms of the fair sex... as usual,' the Brigadier shouted acidly. 'Where are they now?'
'I've just dropped them in the vicinity of Blue Sector One, sir...
corner of Chaplin Street.'
'That's close to Vaughn's headquarters, sir,' Walters put in smartly, listening on the extension.
'Get them back at once!' ordered Lethbridge-Stewart.
'I'll try, sir, but I'm not sure which way they've gone...' crackled Benton sheepishly.
'Then find out, Benton, find out. Otherwise you're in deep trouble,' the Brigadier threatened, purple cheeked with rage. He slammed the receiver down and seized Turner's arm. 'You'd better take a small force to the area, Jimmy, just in case.'
Turner saluted and hurried out.
The Doctor pulled himself together. 'I'd better go back to London with him. I want to do some tests on these circuits,' he informed the Brigadier. 'They may be connected with the Cybermen.
I'll leave my three young friends in your capable hands, Brigadier...'
And he shuffled out after the Captain.
'Don't worry, Doctor, we'll find them,' Lethbridge-Stewart promised. But his face was furrowed with anxious foreboding as he watched the Doctor depart.
7
The eerily flickering pinpoints of light in the crystal cast a macabre pattern over Vaughn's and Packer's faces as they listened to the Cyber Unit rasping in its alcove.
'One hour before Invasion the Cyber transmitter units will be launched into Earth orbit. Transmission will penetrate to all areas with immediate effect...' it croaked with sinister detachment.
'And if it doesn't work?' Vaughn inquired calmly.
The Cyber Unit sparked menacingly. 'Humans cannot resist Cyber control. Cyber forces will select suitable humans for conversion. Unsuitable humans will be eliminated,' it announced.
Packer glanced anxiously at Vaughn. 'Conversion into Cybermen?' he breathed.
'Affirmative.'
Vaughn's face betrayed a hint of vulnerability. 'This is not as we agreed,' he murmured.
'It has been decided,' rasped the machine.
'No!' rapped Vaughn. 'We agreed that I should remain in control of the Earth and supply the minerals you require. You will honour our agreement, otherwise there will be no invasion.' His pale eyes were filled with a wild fire.
The Cyber Unit oscillated with ominous precision. 'To retain such control you must complete your conversion, Vaughn. You must become one of us.'
Vaughn shook his head vehemently. 'No. My body may be cybernetic but my mind will remain human,' he vowed.
Packer trembled in the shadows as the machine stopped flickering and there was a long, tense silence. Vaughn waited, outwardly calm but inwardly strung like a piano wire.
Eventually the Cyber Unit sparked into life again. 'It has been agreed. Discussion terminated,' it croaked, falling silent and still.
Vaughn twisted the pen cap in his pocket and the alcove closed up again.
'You're taking a terrible, terrible risk opposing them,' Packer whispered shakily.
Vaughn chuckled drily. 'My dear Packer, they need me. I know they'll try to take control away from me once the invasion is completed, but they don't know about the Cerebration Machine, do they? That's our trump card.'
Packer looked scared and sceptical. 'How do we know the Cyber transmissions won't affect us as well?' he challenged.
Vaughn smiled complacently, his silver hair shining in the fading light. 'We shall be protected by the implanted shielding capsules,' he reminded him, tapping the back of his neck. 'You see I've thought of everything, Packer. Everything.'
In the deserted back street, Jamie heaved at the heavy manhole cover while Zoe and Isobel, with her photographic gear slung around her neck, looked on admiringly. At last the iron cover shifted and swung open with a tremendous clang. Mopping his glistening face, Jamie knelt and peered into the gloom.
'Third time lucky,' he gasped thankfully.
'Okay, down you go,' Zoe prompted.
Jamie hesitated. 'Och, at least let's contact the Doctor first,' he pleaded.
'Scared, Jamie?' Zoe twinkled.
He glared at her. 'All right, lassie, just you wait,' he muttered, lowering himself into the manhole and clambering down the rusty metal ladder set into the shaft.
Zoe winked at Isobel and followed him down.
Just as Isobel followed suit, she heard a shout in the distance.
A young policeman was striding rapidly along the street towards them.
'It's the fuzz!' she warned, scrambling onto the ladder and disappearing into the sewer.
The constable broke into a run, shouting to her to stop.
Reaching the manhole he called into the dank darkness after them:
'What are you doing down there, you young idiots? Come on out or I'll be down there after you!'
At the bottom of the deep shaft the intrepid trio huddled together listening helplessly as the policeman's threats echoed down the tunnels.
'If he goes on like this we'll have every Cyberman in the area on top of us...' moaned Jamie.
'If there are any,' Isobel giggled nervously.
Zoe grasped each of them by the arm. 'I think there's something along that tunnel,' she warned.
Isobel opened her camera case and fiddled with the telephoto lens attachment. 'I can't see anything... but just in case...' she murmured bravely.
Jamie peered in the direction Zoe had indicated. 'I think perhaps we should get out of here,' he advised in a quavering voice.
But Zoe led them both determinedly forward into the damp darkness. 'This is what we came for,' she reminded them.
They soon reached a junction. Zoe chose a branch of the fork and cautiously crept forward with the other two trailing timidly behind her. Suddenly Zoe stopped. 'Yes, I was right,' she whispered.
'Look there.'
They strained to see along the oval, brick-lined sewer with just a trickle of water in the bottom. A vague shape was just discernible by another junction.
'You kids come on out,' called the constable from the shaft.
'Stop mucking around.'
'Och, ah wish he'd shut up,' Jamie grunted, clenching his teeth to stop them chattering.
There was a chilling silence. The dim shape stirred. Hissing and high-pitched bubbling sounds echoed along the tunnel as the Cyberman turned and started lumbering towards them.
'Fantastic!' gasped Isobel, adjusting the settings and hastily clicking the shutter button.
Jamie clutched Zoe's cold hand. 'Come on, let's get out.'
But Zoe seemed rooted to the spot, staring at the lurching silver figure as its warm, acrid breath wafted past them.
'Wait,' Isobel begged. 'I must get a close up... This is absolutely marvellous.'
'Where are you?' yelled the policeman from somewhere behind them.
Isobel's shutter whirred incessantly. She seemed fearless and utterly fascinated by the advancing apparition.
Jarnie could stand it no longer. He grabbed the girls by the hand and started dragging them back to the shaft. 'Will ye come away? Ye don't know what yon things can do to a body,' he muttered at Isobel.
Every few steps, Isobel turned and shot a few more frames of the huge creature creaking and hissing behind them.
'What's that...Who... who are you...?' they heard the policeman yelling ahead of them.
Next moment two vivid flashes of light sizzled in the distance.
A dreadful scream tore into their ears and froze them to the spot.
'The... policeman...' gasped Isobel in the awful silence.
'Cybermen must have killed him,' Zoe muttered.
'Killed him?' Isobel quavered, as if suddenly it was no longer all a kind of game.
The grating and rasping sounds were coming at them from both directions now. Jamie whipped round. The pursuing Cyberman was staggering drunkenly towards them.
'We're trapped,' he gasped. 'They've got us.'
'What can we do?' Isobel screamed, breaking into a hysterical shaking.
Jamie pushed the girls into the other arm of the junction they had reached and shielded them with his body as the Cyberman began screeching and wildly flailing as if striking at an invisible foe: He closed his eyes and waited for the searing blast from the monster's laser units. But the maddened Cyberman lurched past them as if they were not there and disappeared in the direction of the shaft.
They gazed after it in amazement.
'It ignored us...' murmured Zoe, trembling with relief. 'Aye,'
Jamie gulped. 'It looked almost mad.'
'It was frightened,' said Isobel, calming down, 'just like us...'
Corporal Benton stood indecisively beside his jeep staring into the open manhole, his stomach turning at the smell of burnt human flesh rising from the shaft and his ears ringing with the policeman's dying screams. A second jeep carrying Captain Turner, a sergeant and two privates rounded the corner and squealed to a halt next to him. Benton gave Turner a brief report and Turner immediately led his squad cautiously down the rickety metal rungs into the shaft.
They averted their faces as Turner's flashlight picked out the young constable's scorched remains a few metres along the tunnel.
The gaping terror-stricken face was puckered like shrivelled polythene.
Turner called out softly at first, then more loudly:
'McCrimmon... Zoe... Miss Watkins... Can you hear me? This is Captain Turner.'
The flashlight beam showed the empty tunnel curving gradually into the distance. There was no response.
'Reckon they've copped it as well, sir?' asked the sergeant quietly.
Turner began to advance slowly. 'These tunnels are a maze.