Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis - Kevin Clarke [38]
There was no sign, however, of Ace: she was hanging by her fingertips from the window-ledge. With great difficulty, and as silently as was possible in the circumstances, she clambered back into the room. She could hear the heavy footsteps making their way down the wooden stairs. Quietly, she followed.
Outside, the air seemed pervaded with a strange scent which she was unable to identify. It was a faint but perceptible odour, sharp and cold. After a moment she realized it somehow emanated from the statue. Her head hurt where the shattered brickwork had hit it, and she felt nauseous and not a little light-headed. She wanted more than anything to lie down and sleep. The odour was so disturbing that for a second she again caught herself longing to be back in safe, boring Perivale.
This feeling lasted for only a second. There were, if her reckoning was correct, two more Cybermen to finish off.
Even the Doctor would have to admit she had done rather well. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pouch. To her dismay she discovered she had only one gold coin. Focusing with difficulty, she loaded it into the sling of her catapult.
She forced herself to move forward, and began making her way across the mud and puddles between the buildings towards where she had left the Doctor with the Nemesis.
Perhaps he had finished by now. She had trouble walking in a straight line but insisted to herself that she did so. She approached another half-completed house and looked forward to leaning for a second on the wall at its corner as she passed. She reached it gratefully and put out her hand, touching the brick. It was at that point she heard the faint sound behind her. She was spinning round when the grating voice reached her.
‘Still,’ it rasped. Ace froze. Oh well, she decided, she had stopped most of them.
The Cyber Leader moved round the corner and stood in front of her, his laser weapon at the ready.
‘Why?’ said Ace. ‘You’re going to kill me anyway. Isn’t that right?’ She turned, disobediently, and as she had expected, the Cyber Lieutenant was poised behind her.
The Cyber Leader pushed her against the wall and both Cybermen moved in front of her, looking her up and down.
‘We detect only one more piece of gold,’ he said finally with something like satisfaction in his voice.
‘Correct,’ said Ace. Suddenly she raised the catapult menacingly. ‘So,’ she said, summoning the last of her strength. ‘Who’ll be next and who’ll be lucky?’ She aimed the coin directly at the Cyber Leader. There was a pause.
She swung fast to her left and aimed it at the Lieutenant, and then back at the Leader.
The Cybermen were nonplussed. The Lieutenant spoke first. ‘You have only one projectile left,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ Ace agreed. ‘But one of you has had it.
Now which one’s it going to be?’
In the silence that followed, Ace was sure the Cybermen could hear the pounding of her heart. Certainly it sounded to her as though a giant bass drum were being beaten invisibly between the three of them. Nothing moved.
Finally, the Cyber Leader spoke. ‘Kill her,’ he said.
Ace glanced quickly from one to the other. Was this a trick? It must be. Then she caught the glint of light as the Leader’s finger tightened on his trigger. She released the elastic and the coin lodged in his chest panel as she twisted her body aside. The laser blasted a hole in the wall immediately behind where she had stood, but the Cyber Leader was down, writhing on the ground. Ace bolted round the corner and was gone.
10
The Doctor was almost beside himself with the exhaustion of the mental efforts he had made during the course of the previous hour. The abacus whirred and clicked as his fingers flew over it. These sounds reached a peak, then suddenly, and almost miraculously, stopped. There was silence. The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The statue watched him, silent and unblinking,