• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Ace was barely listening.

'Hartmann said you were going to give the Nazis Cybertechnology, you creep. He said you set me up to be brought here.'

'You were never in any danger from Captain Hartmann, my dear. Of that I can assure you. I'm afraid it was necessary to make these people... an offering...'

'An offering?'

'As I said, you would not have been harmed. You are under my protection. I have assured Captain Hartmann's superiors that you are one of very few people on this planet at this time who can shed light upon the technology of the Cybermen.'

In spite of herself, Ace laughed.

'Don't look at me, mate. I'm as in the dark about what makes the tinheads tick as you are.'

George Limb smiled. He blinked his strange, slow blink.

Suddenly, Ace knew what that blink reminded her of. A lizard.

'Such colourful language. You know, when I was in Whitehall my language was considered too colourful. I think it embarrassed people. Civil service reports and memoranda are terribly dry things. Come, walk with me.'

'You're not listening to me, are you? I don't want anything to do with this, and I don't want anything to do with you.'

'Ace, I hope you will in time forgive me for all the injustices which have been inflicted upon you recently. All I can say is that they were necessary. I am playing a very delicate tune on the fragile strings of time.'

'I trusted you. The things you said. The light in your window.'

'Lights attract many things, Ace. The lost traveller, the doomed moth, the over curious intruder. Lights lure ships on to the rocks' Is that what it was, then? A wrecker's light?'

'I hope not, Ace. I hope not.'

Slowly, he began to walk towards a corridor Ace hadn't noticed before, hidden in shadow behind a concrete pillar, another blank, greytiled, underground thoroughfare. Warily; Ace followed.

'I have something for you,' said Limb. 'In here.'

He stopped outside yet another of the anonymous green doors. 'One moment,' he said, and disappeared through it.

When he reemerged he was holding Ace's rucksack.

'You left your bag at my house.' he said, handing it to her.

'I didn't exactly have time to pack. That bastard Hartmann electrocuted me.'

'Oh, believe me, Ace, I no more approve of their methods than you do. We live in times of great violence, times when the rights of the individual seem to count for little. This will not change, even after this war. Of that I am sure. But then I suspect you would know more about that than I.'

He walked on up the corridor. It ended in a pair of grey metal double doors.

The guard on the doors snapped instantly to attention.

'Oh, ah, Heil Hitler, and so forth.' said Limb, vaguely waving a hand in the air as the guard opened the doors for them.

Beyond lay a huge, brightly lit expanse of white plaster and metalwork, gigantic machines, pipes and valves, towering thirty feet into the air. And along one massive wall, rank upon rank, row upon row, scores of Cybermen stood in a honeycomb of cavities, inert but upright, as though to attention, lifeless, embryonic, waiting to live.

Greyuniformed guards and whitecoated technicians moved like insects across this technological cliff face.

'My God...' Even Ace was astonished. She had never seen so many Cybermen.

'Impressive, isn't it?' said Limb. 'Unfortunately, there is a problem. It seems that the finest scientific minds in the Third Reich are no nearer to understanding Cybertechnology here at its heart than I was in my bedroom in Belsize Park. All we can do now is wait.'

'What for?'

'The Doctor, of course. To come and rescue you. I am afraid you will have to play the hostage a little longer, Ace.'

He gestured absently to a nearby soldier. 'Uh, guard...'

The soldier approached.

'Return the young lady to the guest suite. And be pleased to inform Captain Hartmann that she is to be extended every courtesy whilst she is here. Any further attempts to frighten her and to undermine my plans and I shall not waste my time speaking to the captain's superiors. I shall