Part 4 (2/2)

'A Cyberman would stand in that form and be-well- revitalised. No? That must be it.'

Viner looked at her with respect. 'Yes, of course!' he replied eagerly. 'That is most reasonable. These bioprojectors-' He pointed to the hose-like projections around the Cyberman form. 'They were probably meant to fire in some sort of neuro-electric potential. Yes, that's it. Not making Cybermen so much as revitalising them. Recharging their batteries, you might say.' He paused, but they didn't laugh at his little joke. 'Yes, that's it, Madam. I think you're right.'

Victoria was now standing right inside the Cyberman sarcophagus, measuring her size against the nozzles of the bioprojectors.

'The Cybermen must have been giants!'

She ran her hands over the gleaming cool surfaces.

'Will you please be careful and come out of there,'

remonstrated Viner like a schoolmaster. 'The first rule of archaeological work is that nothing must be touched until it has been described and recorded.'

Victoria reluctantly stepped out. He turned back to his notebook.

'Now, please, we have far too little time here to waste any.

Cable number three runs from point four in the diagram to cowl three,' he said forcing himself to concentrate. Victoria, like a little girl, made a face at his back, stepped back into the Cyberman form and again ran her fingers along its tantalising inner surface.

Kaftan glanced at Viner to make sure he was fully absorbed.

She quickly examined the controls, worked out which should logically be the main switch and pressed it down. Nothing happened.

Victoria stood, idly humming, in the Cyberman form, and Viner, lost to the world, was niggling away in his notebook. Kaftan waited. But no beginning click or hum responded to the switch. The controls were dead.

She quickly threw the switch up again and turned to Victoria.

'Are you pretending to be a Cyberman?'

Jamie and Haydon had progressed at a watchful pace down the right corridor. This corridor too glistened with silvery walls, completely blank.

'You know!' said Jamie. 'It's just struck me-these corridors are getting light yet there are no windows, away down here.'

'Alpha meson phosphor,' said Haydon casually. He looked at the arch at the end of the corridor, wondering where it led.

'Eh?' said Jamie.

'It's a lighting system that feeds on light. Works by letting cosmic rays bombard a layer of barium. These torches are enough to activate it.'

'Oh, ”aye. That!' Jamie answered as casually. Every day since he'd met the Doctor, he'd been surrounded with such a forest of things he didn't understand. He'd found that by keeping his mouth shut and saying 'Oh, aye, that,' in an offhand voice whenever people started mentioning such things, he could fool them into believing he knew what they were talking about. It usually worked.

The archway opened into a long rectangular room. At the far end there were a pair of close-fitting doors. But in this room too there was a central console, smaller than the one in the great control hall.

'Point is,' said Haydon, 'what was this room used for?'

'Mebbe to raise caterpillars,' came Jamie's voice. He bent down by the console and came up with something in his hand-a silver object like a large caterpillar or silver fish, the size of his forearm.

'For heaven's sake watch out, until we know what it is!'

shouted Haydon.

'Och, I'm accustomed to handling creatures,' said Jamie, holding the silver thing gently but firmly by its sides.

'Anyway it's dead,' said Jamie, feeling the chill of its cold stillness in his hand. 'Dead as a stone.'

'No wonder,' said Haydon. 'It was never alive-it's made from metal and plastic, like a Cyberman.'

He looked down at the metal object with its two red bulbs for eyes.

'But what is it for, then?' said Jamie. 'Surely it'll no be a pet!'

In the Control Room, the top brains of the party were working steadily at the Cyberman code. Klieg was leaning intently over the code machine, frowning slightly and working out combinations on the colour-coded tiers of b.u.t.tons. The Professor watched over his shoulder, mentally checking each move. But the Doctor, as usual doing something entirely different from the others, seemed totally uninterested in the code, and was looking at the well hatch, which remained tightly shut.

'Well?' breathed the Professor impatiently over Klieg's shoulder.

'The basis of the code is binary,' said Klieg.

'Of course,' snapped the Professor. 'Go on.'

'-To digital,' continued Klieg, 'with an intervening step involving a sort of Whitehead logic. When this Pourrier series is complete,' he pointed to a board engraved with Roman numerals, 'then there is no more to be done.'

'Agreed. Yes,' nodded the Professor.

'But why do it?' The Doctor's lazy voice cut irritatingly into their concentration.

'Really, Doctor.' Professor Parry rounded on him. 'For a professional archaeologist, you seem to be singularly lacking in curiosity.'

The Doctor looked back at him, his face grave for once. 'Some things are better left untapped,' he said. 'I'm not sure that this isn't one of them.'

'What do you mean by that?' said Klieg, suspiciously.

'Well,' said the Doctor slowly. 'It's all too easy, isn't it?'

'EASY!' exclaimed Klieg, exasperated. He had mentally sweated blood to work out those equations.

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