Doctor Who_ Attack of the Cybermen - Eric Saward [42]
If he had been less upset, less tired, less preoccupied with his own sense of failure, he might have stopped to consider why the Cybermen seemed no longer interested in them.
Instead they ran blindly on...
Flast handed the Doctor her cup and he filled it with a tiny amount of vastial. Crossing to the door, he took out his sonic lance and pressed it against the control panel. A moment later it was open and the Time Lord was rummaging amongst the wiring inside. Fascinated, the Cryon watched the Doctor at work.
‘Are you certain the vastial will explode on contact with the warmer air outside?’
‘Certainly within a few seconds,’ she said.
Completing his work, he placed his sonic lance on a tiny diode. All he now required to open the door was to pass a pulse of energy between its two electrodes. ‘Wait a moment,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at the Cryon.
‘If I open this door what will happen to you? You can’t leave here. The warmth in the corridor will kill you.’
But Flast wasn’t interested in such considerations. ‘First destroy the guard in the corridor, then we’ll discuss it!’
Her tone convinced the Doctor that this was not the time to argue. Activating the diode, the heavy door glided slowly open. He slid the cup containing the vastial onto the corridor.
As it slithered across the floor, the Cyber guard lumbered towards it. Unsuspectingly, he bent to pick it up.
At the same moment there was a blinding flash and an enormous explosion. Instantly the Cyberman disintegrated.
Once the smoke had cleared, the Doctor popped his head around the door for a quick inspection. ‘When the Cyber Controller learns about this,’ he said, withdrawing into the refrigerated area, ‘he’ll have you killed.’
Flast lowered herself onto a seat near the box of open vastial. ‘They’ll simply complete a job they started a long time ago,’ she muttered pragmatically. ‘But now I have a way of fighting them.’
She held out her hand indicating the sonic lance. The Doctor handed it to her. ‘This is what I have been waiting for, Time Lord.’ She waved an arm at the boxes stacked around them. ‘There is enough explosive here to annihilate Cyber Control.’
Although he couldn’t dispute the destructive potential, he was very doubtful about the detonator she wished to use. ‘There isn’t much power left in the lance,’ he said.
‘And the vastial is very cold. It may not generate enough heat.’
‘That is for me to risk.’ She held up the lance in a gesture of victory. ‘Go, Doctor – we both have important work to do.’
The Time Lord nodded, aware that it was pointless to argue. ‘Good luck!’ He gave the Cryon greeting and left.
Flast switched on the lance and buried it in the open box of vastial. Carefully she replaced the lid, stood up and moved away. She did not intend to draw attention to it when the Cybermen arrived. Quietly she began to hum a Cryon death lament. If the lance worked the Cybermen would never leave Telos, though she knew it would cost her her life.
On hearing of Lyttop’s capture, the Cryons had become uneasy. Whereas they knew that Stratton, Bates and Charlie Griffiths were continuing their attempt to steal the Cybermen’s time vessel, they also knew they must act concerning the Doctor’s TARDIS.
Peri had protested, saying that she did not know how to operate the controls. But the Cryons were adamant that she try. So it was with some forcefulness that she had been ushered to where the TARDIS stood.
But outside stood two Cyber guards. Although they would be easy to destroy, the Cryons did not know how many were inside. Neither could they enter the warm atmosphere of the time machine to find out.
They would have to wait and watch until they could think of some way of solving the problem.
Peri silently prayed that the Doctor would escape and come to their aid.
9
Caught
Dwarfing all around him, the Cyber Controller stood well over two metres high. With legs slightly apart and hands on hips he appeared like a mighty Colossus dominating the middle of the room. Surrounded