Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [102]
'You know what to do, don't you?'
The command unit burbled back at him.
'Doctor...' Ace was struck by a sudden thought. 'Where's George?'
'I'm here.' The voice seemed to come from the mouth of a dead Cyberman, lying on its back against a wall with half of its hydraulic guts missing. 'Help me up, would you, my dear.'
Now Ace could see an arm flapping behind the fallen silver giant. Faded tweed, brownleather elbow patch. Definitely not SS. Straining, Ace rolled the Cyberman's body over and into the room. George Limb emerged, coughing. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I though it prudent to as it were play dead until the shooting stopped. Unfortunately, having crawled behind our friend there he seemed to... settle.' 'Are you hurt?' Ace was shocked at the note of concern in her voice. The old man seemed hunched, cradling his left side. 'It's... nothing,' he said. 'I'm glad to see that you two are unscathed.' He shuffled over to the Cybercommand unit. 'So... am I correct in my assumption that this is the device which was causing those rather alarming explosions in the East End of London?' 'Don't touch it!' the Doctor snapped. 'In fact, don't touch anything. In fact, stand over there. We shall be leaving shortly? The Doctor rapped hard on the head of the nearest Cyberman.
'Come on, he said testily 'Wake up.' The Cyberman twitched into life. So did its fellows. 'I take it you have a prearranged means of escape from the island,' said the old man.
'Something like that,' the Doctor replied. 'We shall take you with us as far as the mainland, whereupon we shall hand you over to the authorities.'
'Ah,' said George Limb. 'I take it, then, that you do not intend to honour our little wager.'
'All bets are off. It's far too late for that. Besides, I doubt you could honour your side of the bargain now. You might have powerful friends in all manner of governments, but we are dealing with a mad SS officer with a death wish. Your friends are in Berlin, and he is just down the hall.'
'I don't suppose I could persuade you just to let me go. I could disappear somewhere, live out the rest of my days quietly, perhaps grow cabbages. That's what the Roman Emperor Diocletian did, you know...'
'Mr Limb,' said the Doctor coldly, 'you are lucky that I am prepared to hand you over to the British authorities. Now, stay behind me. Ace, watch him.'
The Doctor prodded a Cyberman in the back with his umbrella. 'After you.' he said to it.
Ace didn't like this at all. Was the fact that she was flanked between twenty towering Cybermen supposed to make her feel safe? She didn't like the rather sinister tone of dark familiarity the Doctor had adopted when talking to them.
She didn't like the slightly twitchy way they moved in response to his barely worded commands. How did they know what he meant? Why were they acting like puppets to his dark puppetmaster? And what if his control over them wasn't as complete as he thought? She felt as if she was at the circus, putting her head into the mouth of trained lions.
They entered the corridor.
'Fire!'
Facing them, perhaps twenty yards away, was the huge, floormounted Spandau machinegun.
Bullets exploded from the end of it. The Cybermen in front of them reeled beneath the impact. Heads and chest units exploded in sparks and fluids.
'Get down!'
For the second time the Doctor pulled her to the floor.
'Back,' he whispered. 'Crawl.'
The three of them, Time Lord, teenager, and septuagenarian, wriggled among falling Cybermen, back the way they had come.
Like the doomed millions of an earlier conflict, the silver colossi kept on walking, deadeyed, into the spitting mouth of the huge machinegun.
Colonel Schott, veteran of that futile, bloody conflict, stood in the darkness and the rain outside one of the huge entrances to the compound, engaged in a threeway debate with General Schumacher and Brigadier Kraus. The only light came from General Schumacher's purring staff car. Behind them a squad of heavily armed infantrymen waited tensely.
Away in the darkness a giant Panzer growled.
Schumacher was being evasive, as