Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [60]
The bomb half killed it, destroyed its memory banks and severed it from communication from the main Cyberforce.
Hence the sudden appearance of Mr Wall and associates.
The Luftwaffe have unwittingly sabotaged the Cybermen's plans. We have to stop them setting up again. And stop His Majesty's government getting their grubby little paws on them.'
The Doctor closed his writing pad. 'The bomb marks the last piece of coherent data. From there it's all a terrible mess.'
He scratched his head. 'But there's still so much missing. We still don't know where he was sent from. We still don't know where the main Cyberforce is based. We still can't explain the colossal explosions.'
'Explosions?'
'There was one earlier tonight. Even over the sound of the bombing, you couldn't miss it. It nearly blew us off the road.'
'And you think that that may be connected to the Cybermen?'
'Well, of course it is, Mr Limb. Nothing produced on Earth could make a bang like that. Not for a very few years yet, anyway And there's something else.'
'I am all ears, Doctor.' said Limb between decorous sips of tea.
'The Cybermen are in disarray at the moment. British Military Intelligence in this age, as in most others, is run by paranoid incompetents; the same is true, only more so, of our enemy across the Channel. And yet I sense an intelligence at work, hovering somewhere in the background. I don't know what it is, but I know it's playing games with me. I can't fathom its nature. At best it is mischievous; at worse, malevolent, reptilian.'
He sprang to his feet.
'Thank you for the tea, Mr Limb.'
The Doctor's cup sat exactly where George Limb had placed it, full and untouched, only colder.
'There is much to be done. The cellar!'
He marched from the room. George Limb finished his third cup of tea and slowly followed him. By the time the old man reached the foot of the stairs the Doctor was engaged in the intricate task of removing the Cyberleader's head from its body.
'Do you have a hammer and chisel, Mr Limb?' he asked.
By the time he left the old man's house the Doctor had the Cyberleader's head in an old tweed bag. He had painstakingly disconnected a jungle of wires, plugs and circuits and chiselled through the more obstinate of the clamps that held the head to the body.
'The Peddler factory,' he had muttered repeatedly under his breath.
Finally, he had hefted the head from the body.
'I'll be back to dispose of the rest of the Cyberleader later, but for now I would suggest you answer the door to no one, and keep out of the cellar. I'm afraid I have to leave you.'
And with that the singular little man had strolled out of the front door, climbed into the driver's seat of a large black police car and driven away.
George Limb had closed the door and stood several moments in thought. This had turned out to be quite a day.
What he needed was a nice cup of tea.
CHAPTER 16
The Doctor pushed open the door of McBride's office and peered inside.
'Hello? Inspector?'
The room was dark and empty. 'Hm. Nobody here but us time travellers.'
He snapped on the light and dumped the bag with the Cyberleader's head in it on McBride's desk. The office was still a shambles from his earlier tussle with the Cybermat. The thing that had been the death of Sharkey. He made a mental note: before he left this time period he would have to make sure that he gathered up all the errant pieces of Cybertechnology.
He pulled the Cyberleader's head from the bag and extricated it from the newspaper that George Limb had wrapped it in. The Doctor smiled. George had packaged it as if it was a portion of fish and chips. He stood for a moment holding the silver head in his outstretched hands, looking for all the world as if he was about to deliver the soliloquy from Hamlet.
The head glinted in the moonlight. The technology was quite, quite beautiful. The Doctor sighed. So many of the races that he pitted