One by one, their limbs became diseased—they were
replaced by plastic and steel!
Little by little, their brains tired—computers worked just
as well!
With metal limbs, they had the strength of ten men. They
could live in the airless vacuum of space. They had no
heart, no feelings, no emotions, and only one goal -
power!
In the year 2070, a small blue planet caught their attention.
They would land on its satellite and, from there, attack,
ransack, destroy and finally abandon...
THE SATELLITE WAS THE MOON
THE HELPLESS PLANET—EARTH
THEIR NAMES? THE CYBERMEN!
Can the Doctor defeat an enemy whose threat is almost as
great as that of the mighty Daleks?

ISBN 0 426 10575 3
            DOCTOR WHO
              AND THE
             CYBERMEN

   Based on the BBC television serial Doctor Who and the
Moonbase by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis by arrangement with
           the British Broadcasting Corporation




                 GERRY DAVIS
              Illustrated by Alan Willow




                      published by
                The Paperback Division of
                 W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Target Book
Published in 1974
by the Paperback Division of W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd.
A Howard & Wyndham Company
44 Hill Street, London WIX 8LB

Copyright © 1974 by Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © 1974 by the British
Broadcasting Corporation

Printed in Great Britain by
The Anchor Press Ltd, Tiptree, Essex

ISBN 0 426 11463 9

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS

1 Prologue: The Creation of the Cybermen
2 The Landing on the Moon
3 The Moon Base
4 Attack in the Medical Unit
5 The Space-plague
6 The Doctor Investigates
7 The Cybermen’s Plot
8 The Battle with the Cybermen
9 Victory, perhaps...
10 The March of the Cybermen
11 Into Battle with the Gravitron
                     1
        Prologue: The Creation of the
                 Cybermen
      Centuries ago by our Earth time, a race of men on the
far-distant planet of Telos sought immortality. They perfected
the art of cybernetics—the reproduction of machine functions
in human beings. As bodies became old and diseased, they
were replaced limb by limb, with plastic and steel.
      Finally, even the human circulation and nervous system
were recreated, and brains replaced by computers. The first
cybermen were born.
      Their metal limbs gave them the strength of ten men,
and their in-built respiratory system allowed them to live in
the airless vacuum of space. They were immune to cold and
heat, and immensely intelligent and resourceful.
      Their main impediment was one that only a flesh and
blood man would have recognised: they had no heart, no
emotions, no feelings. They lived by the inexorable laws of
pure logic. Love, hate, anger, even fear, were eliminated from
their lives when the last flesh was replaced by plastic.
      They achieved their immortality at a terrible price. They
became dehumanised monsters. And, like human monsters
down through all the ages of Earth, they became aware of the
lack of love and feeling in their lives and substituted another
goal—power!
      Their large, silver bodies became practically
indestructible and their ruthless drive was untempered by any
consideration by basic logic.
       If the enemy was more powerful than you, you went
away. If he could be defeated, you killed, imprisoned or
enslaved. You were unswayed by pity or mercy.
       By the year 2070, they had become as known and feared
in the galaxies as the Viking raiders of the eighth, ninth and
tenth centuries.
       It was in that year that a raiding party from Telos
directed its attention to a small blue planet in a remote solar
system... the Earth.
       Every planet, they had learnt, had its vulnerable side.
This one seemed technologically advanced and was well
protected by missile bases which were capable of blowing a
marauding space-craft out of the sky. Finally, they probed out
its achilles heel. In this case, it proved to be a small, lifeless
satellite reflecting the solar sun...
       There was even an Earth base there of some kind.
Control of that base, armed with Cybermen weapons, could
lead to control of the Earth.
       They had no use for the small blue planet. When they
had finished with it, stripped it of its precious metals,
destroyed any technology that might one day challenge their
own supremacy in space, they would leave it shattered and
lifeless.
       The only previous time a Cyberman space ship had
landed on the Earth, it had been humiliatingly defeated. So,
although revenge was not a part of their mental make-up any
more than the other emotions, the Earth people needed to be
taught a lesson. Or they might, one day, challenge the
Cyberman empire.
       The Cybermen circled the moon-satellite in search of a
well-hidden landing place. This time they were going to take
no chances. Earth people were too resourceful for that. Their
conquest of the moon would have to be accomplished by
stealth.
      Their small fleet of Cyberman space ships landed on the
moon at exactly 4.30 a.m. on October 15th in the year 2070.
Nobody at the nearby lunar base or those manning sky-probes
at watching stations on the blue planet saw them—so effective
were the Cyberman screening devices.
      The huge silver monsters that had once been men had
achieved their first objective...
                      2
           The Landing on the Moon
      The TARDIS was wildly out of control, spinning
helplessly over and over, and throwing the hapless occupants
from side to side across the cabin.
      Like a ship in a heavy sea, it would pause for a moment
and seem to stabilise, giving the crew a moment to hold on to
any convenient handle, grip or ledge; then plunge sickeningly
down to left or right, rolling them headlong against the
mercifully padded bulkheads.
      Ben, the young cockney sailor from East Ham, had
managed to brace himself between two side struts. His head
was bleeding slightly from a cut, but otherwise he was in
better shape than his companions, Polly and Jamie.
      Jamie was probably the worst damaged of the three,
though, with a highlander’s stoic indifference to pain, he had
rolled himself up into a tight, human, tartan ball. His plaid
was taking the brunt of the impact as he was rattled from side
to side by the space ship.
      Polly, her long legs thrashing around as she tried to find
a foothold on the steeply angled deck, was making the most
noise—screaming as yet another violent lurch spun her back
across the narrow area of deck between the large, hexagonal
control desk and the bulkheads.
      ‘Got yer!’ Polly rolled to within a foot of Ben’s arm and
he locked it round her waist, bracing himself to take their
combined mass when the next lurch came. It was doubtful
whether Ben would have been injured at all if he had not
been trying to anchor Polly at the same time. Three times he
had tried to help the girl, and each time lost his own hold as
well and been flung against the bulkheads.
       This time he seemed to be succeeding. Or was the ship
finally levelling out? Polly whimpered and clung to him. He
tightened his grasp. But there was no doubt about it; the
TARDIS was finally steadying down to a level course.
       They looked over at Jamie, the human hedgehog,
cautiously uncoiling enough to see out from his enveloping
plaid blanket, and then at the Doctor.
       Throughout the crisis, the Doctor had seemed to
withdraw into some remote world of his own, apparently
unaffected by the plight of his young companions. He had
found a way of wedging himself into the control position on
the console and had begun by making lightning-quick
adjustments to the complex array of switches, levers and
buttons before him.
       Later, as the machine seemed to take on some frenzied
life of its own, he withdrew slightly, held on to the control
levers for support, and let the time-vehicle have its head;
intently studying the ever-changing lines of data on the read-
out screen before him.
       There was no doubt about it. The dizzying motion of the
TARDIS had ceased. The roar of overworked motors, driven
almost beyond endurance during the last few hectic minutes,
was dying down.
       ‘We’re coming down!’ Ben’s trained ear had caught the
different inflection of the TARDIS’ mechanism—the slowly
descending whine made on landing.
       ‘Let me go.’ Polly tried to free herself from Ben’s iron
grip which had tightened involuntarily. ‘Ben! Please!’
       Ben looked at her and released his hold. She sat up
almost crossly, yanking down her short skirt. ‘I’m a mass of
bruises all over. What happened, Doctor?’
       The Doctor had finally moved. Still in an intense
concentration like a chess player, he gently flicked over a row
of switches.
       ‘Doctor!’ Polly’s voice had an edge to it. ‘Won’t you at
least talk to us?’
       Ben straightened and stood up a little painfully, his
muscles aching from the strain. ‘Yeah, Doc. Tell us.’
       ‘Aye,’ Jamie was finally uncoiled from his protective
cocoon, ‘if it’s always like this, ye can leave me back at
Culloden field. I’d rather tak’ my chances wi’ the red-coats.’
       Jamie had just joined the Doctor’s motley crew. In
contrast to Polly and Ben, both from stable backgrounds in
1970’s London, he was a hunted man, a refugee: not only
from the British and Scottish soldiers searching his native
Highland moors for survivors from the Culloden battle-field;
but also from his age, 1745. An age before the invention of
electric lights, trains, cars, aeroplanes, space ships or any of
the modern marvels that the other two took for granted.
       Luckily, while Jamie had the courage of a lion and all a
Highland crofter’s resourcefulness and cunning, he was a
little thick, even by 1745 standards. Otherwise, this sudden
leap-frogging of two and a third centuries might have
unhinged his reason.
       He accepted each new wonder philosophically, relating
it to his primitive world when he could, accepting it without
question when he couldn’t. Much as his father would have
accepted the first sight of a stagecoach or a sailing ship as he
journeyed from his mountain home.
      ‘Just a moment...’ The Doctor had reached into his
capacious pockets and brought out his diary. He took out a
pencil and began making notes from the figures on the
computer read-out screen in front of him. The others
clustered around him, nervously waiting for a word. He
remained utterly absorbed.
      ‘Don’t you even care what happens to us?’ Polly stamped
her foot. ‘We’ve nearly been killed. We don’t know where on
Earth... or space... we are, and all you do is ignore us.’ She
burst into tears.
      Suddenly, the Doctor became aware of the others,
snapped his diary shut, replaced it in his pocket, and became
all contrition. ‘Yes, yes, of course, my dear. You’re none of
you hurt, are you?’
      ‘Nae thanks to ye if we are.’ Jamie glowered at him. Ben,
his service instincts aroused at this rudeness to the captain of
the ship (he was a naval rating, Able Seaman, with five years’
service, man and boy, behind him) nudged the Scot and
stepped forward, just resisting the temptation to salute.
      ‘We’re all right, sir. Barring the odd bruise and scrape.’
He hesitated. ‘Doc, we’d like to know what happened and
where we are.’
      ‘Ah yes!’ The Doctor had been glancing anxiously at his
three companions, looking for injuries or broken bones.
Reassured, he nodded. ‘Of course, good question!’
      ‘First, what happened?’ Polly turned round, her tears
dried.
      ‘Interference,’ the Doctor began to explain, then
stopped.
      ‘Interference with what?’
      ‘The TARDIS’ motors. From some kind of force-field.
Very strong one by the feel of it.’
      ‘I’ll say!’ Polly tenderly felt her back and thighs.
      ‘I’m really most sorry...’ the Doctor began.
      ‘Second question now, sir.’ Ben took over the
questioning of the chronically vague and evasive Doctor.
‘Where are we?’
      The Doctor punched a button on the TARDIS’ control
console and a picture appeared on the monitor screen in
front of them. It showed a brilliant expanse of arid, lifeless
plain with foothills in the near distance. The three crew
members winced and covered their eyes. The Doctor adjusted
a control like the brilliance control of a TV set and the screen
darkened.
      ‘Is it Mars? It must be!’ Polly’s eyes were shining.
‘Doctor, you’ve actually done it, haven’t you? You’ve landed
the TARDIS exactly where you said you would. It’s almost
worth not being able to sit down for a week!’
      ‘Whar’s Mars?’ Jamie began. ‘I dinna ken where yon
place is. Is it near to Glasgow, maybe?’
      ‘Hold on,’ Ben cut in. ‘I ain’t seen Mars, but that looks
very like somewhere I have seen, on TV, lots of times.’
      Polly’s face began to fall. ‘Yes, I see what you mean, it
does look like...’
      The Doctor was edging away, his diary out again,
pretending to be absorbed in his calculations.
      ‘The moon.’ Ben continued from Polly. ‘Yeah! It’s the
moon’s surface, all right.’
      They all turned towards the Doctor.
      ‘Is it the moon, Doctor? Is that where you’ve taken us?’
Polly said.
      The Doctor nodded unhappily.
      ‘You’ve goofed again... sir,’ said Ben.
     The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh well,’ Ben continued, ‘only
missed it by two hundred million miles this time. We’re
improving!’




             Yeah! It’s the moon’s surface, all right!

      Jamie was looking at the screen and shaking his head.
‘The moon. Nay, yon canna be the moon. The moon’s up in
the sky.’
      ‘Well!’ the Doctor finally put away his diary with a
dissatisfied, puzzled air, ‘let’s get moving... while we can,’ he
added under his breath, turning back to his controls.
      There was a chorus of protests from the others and the
Doctor looked up in surprise. Polly spoke:
      ‘Now you’ve got us on the moon—after going through
all that—you expect us to leave—without even seeing it?’
      ‘Yeah, Doctor,’ Ben added, ‘always wanted to be an
astronaut meself. First giant step and all that. Can’t we take
just a little step while we’re here? To say we’ve really been on
the moon’s surface?’
      The Doctor looked from one to the other then across at
Jamie, still absorbed in the monitor screen.
      ‘Yon wee picture canna be the moon, not the moon in
the sky!’ Polly opened her mouth to explain. ‘Oh, leave him,’
said Ben, ‘he’ll get it figured out eventually.’
      ‘Please, Doctor,’ Polly did another of her instant
switches. This time it was from, as Ben put it, the ‘toffy-nosed
Duchess’ giving orders, to the coy ‘little girl lost’ act. All big
eyes and wheedling, she took his arm. ‘Just a little look
around... no more.’
      The Doctor became thoughtful. ‘There’s some danger
present here.’
      ‘What, Doctor?’
      ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged, ‘not yet!’
      ‘Then we can go, can’t we?’
      The Doctor smiled. ‘I suppose you’ve earned some—
what do you call it, Ben?—shore leave. We’ll go out for half an
hour. Give the TARDIS time to cool down.’
      ‘Great... super...’ They all rushed towards the door like
excited children.
     ‘But you’re not going out like that!’ The Doctor’s voice
stopped them. ‘We all need space suits. There’s no
atmosphere out there.’
     ‘You’ll find space suits in the equipment room.’ Then, as
Ben looked puzzled, ‘Here, I’d better help you on with them.
They’re tricky if you’re unfamiliar with the air and heat
systems.’
     The Doctor led the way out, followed by Polly. Ben
turned back to Jamie, still staring fascinated at the TV screen.
‘Hey, Jamie boy! Did you hear any of that?’
     ‘Aye.’ Jamie’s eyes were still fixed on, the bright
landscape shown on the screen., ‘Do ye think we’ll meet the
Auld Man in the Moon?’
     ‘You won’t meet a dicky-bird, mate, if you don’t follow
me and get some gear on.’ Ben led the way into the TARDIS’
equipment room, followed by a still bemused Jamie.

      Standing together on the moon surface, the Doctor’s
three companions, each clad in bulky white space suits
numbered one to four, took their first long look...
      Through their transparent head globes, sun visors
pulled down to shield their eyes from the intense glare, they
looked slowly aroung the glittering moon surface.
      The TARDIS had landed on a long slope inside a huge
crater. Behind them rose the high rim of the crater, like a
series of small broken hills. Ahead of them a long, white plain
stretched out to a black horizon.
      Had they landed on top of the crater rim, they would
have seen an even more extraordinary sight: a fleet of
Cybermen space ships. Long sleek and black, like marine
torpedoes with small swept-back wings, they lay in a
protective circle, their Cyber-weapons mounted like sharp
snouts in the bows of the craft.
      Their nuclear-powered engines emitted a high-pitched
winnowing sound, which died down as the last arrival
manceuvred into landing position. The engines cut. A long
streamlined observation bubble mounted on the top of the
craft began to pulse red.
      Outside the TARDIS, only Polly was looking back at the
ridge. She noticed the red glow gilding the topmost hill and
pointed. ‘Look... back there!’
      The Doctor was locking the TARDIS’ door when Polly’s
words filtered through the inter-com which was built into
each helmet. He finished locking-up and turned to follow her
pointing arm. The glow had faded.
      The other two men had also turned too late to catch it.
      ‘I dinna see anything, Pol.’ Janie tried to shake his head
inside the space helmet.
      ‘What yer see, Duchess?’ Ben asked.
      ‘A great glow in the sky.’
      ‘Probably your eyes getting used to the lunar light, eh
Doctor?’ Ben looked slowly round at the Doctor who had just
joined them.
      ‘Possibly.’ The Doctor looked thoughtfully back over at
the crater rim but, as usual, did not reveal his thoughts to the
others.
      ‘That’s more interesting, Doc. What is it?’ Ben pointed
down the slope. As their eyes became accustomed to the white
landscape, they were able to follow Ben’s keen gaze to a low
plastic dome apparently imbedded in the lunar surface.
Inside, the shapes of other buildings and a long gun-like
object were just visible...
      ‘A lunar base of some kind, I imagine,’ said the Doctor.
      ‘Lunar base! Do they have such things?’ Polly said
excitedly.
      ‘If, as I suspect, we’ve gone forward in time. There were
certainly manned lunar bases by the twenty-first century,’
replied the Doctor.
      Jamie, meanwhile, had found something else to look at:
a small white and blue globe high above them in the black,
space ‘night’.




  A low plastic dome was apparently imbedded in the lunar surface

     ‘I thought you said we were on. the moon, Doctor?’ He
sounded disappointed.
     ‘We are.’
     ‘Then what’s that?’ The others looked upwards. To Ben
and Polly, photographs brought back by the astronauts had
made the sight a familiar one.
     ‘The Earth, of course,’ Ben answered impatiently.
      ‘Then where’s the moon now?’ Jamie tried to
understand.
      ‘You’re on it,’ said Ben impatiently. Polly had already
started off down the slope with long swinging strides, each
one of which propelled her some ten or twelve feet in the
reduced moon gravity.
      The Doctor, concerned, followed her down. Still Jamie
stood there, looking up at the Earth.
      ‘Are you coming?’ Ben took a leap that carried him
twenty feet but nose-dived him into the thick lunar dust as he
landed. The Doctor looked back at them. ‘Careful. One tear
in these space suits and you’ll suffocate. Now you try, Jamie.’
      Giving up his struggle to understand where they had
touched down, Jamie took a great thirty-feet leap that landed
him right beside the waiting Doctor. He grounded with a
rock-scrambler’s sense of balance.
      ‘Och, I like this.’ He leant back and touched Ben, who
had gingerly stood up. ‘Ye canna catch me.’ In two seconds
both of them were leaping down the slope, like goats with
gigantic strides, chasing Polly and calling out to each other
with the sheer physical pleasure of near weightlessness. ‘Just
like a trampoline,’ Ben thought.
      The Doctor looked back once again, but all was quiet
and still behind the crater rim. He followed the others
towards the base.
      Five minutes later, still chasing each other and playing a
moon version of tag, the three companions had almost
reached the plastic dome. They could now see that it was an
enormous size—like a gigantic upturned bowl.
      Suddenly Jamie, easily the winner in this game of moon-
tag, leapt over a small rise in front of the dome and vanished
from sight. Polly and Ben stopped, wobbling as they tried to
keep their balance.
      ‘Where did he go?’ Polly’s face looked anxious through
the thick plexiglass face globe.
      ‘There, in line with that gun, or whatever.’ Ben pointed
to the side of the dome where the long gun-shaped object was
visible through the clear plastic.
      Carefully, they climbed the last low rise, scrunching in
the thick lunar sand, and looked down. A twenty-yard gap,
rather like a dry moat running all round the lunar base,
divided the rise on which they were standing from the plastic
dome.
      Polly caught her breath and touched Ben’s arm with her
glove. As they looked down, they saw Jamie lying in a twisted
position at the edge of the dome beside an entry port. He was
lying very still, one leg doubled awkwardly under him. He
had obviously over-leapt the rise, crashed against the plastic
dome and had slid down to his present position in the ‘moat’.
      ‘Quick! We must get down to him,’ said Polly. But,
before either of them could move, the curved sliding door of
the entry port slid open. Two figures emerged, both in space
suits and, expertly lifting the unconscious Scot, carried him
inside. The port closed behind them.
      ‘We’d better tell the Doctor.’ Ben started to turn. But
the Doctor was standing beside them and had seen the men
carry Jamie inside. ‘We’ll go down... carefully,’ he said
sharply.
      They jumped down into the moat, landing lightly on
their feet and strode, with the curious, plunging moon jog
they had now mastered, towards the entry port. There was no
sign of a bell push.
      ‘Not expecting visitors,’ muttered Ben. ‘Well, they’ve got
’em, expecting or not.’ He banged on the plastic dome. They
waited. It was Polly who noticed the entry port glide
soundlessly open. They hesitated for a moment then, led by
the Doctor, filed inside.
                        3
                   The Moon Base
      A large weather control room dominated the interior of
the huge plastic dome of the moon base. In this room were
housed the two main instruments which, in the year 2070,
controlled the Earth’s weather.
      The first half of the large room was dominated by a flat,
illuminated projection of the world. As in a conventional atlas,
the continents were picked out in green and the oceans in
blue. Over the top of this projection a grid of ruled red lines
and figures had been traced. A number of flat, transparent
indicators or cursors were in constant motion across it. They
were directed by operators who sat by a console underneath
the screen.
      To the right, could be seen large computer assemblies,
their magnetic tape memory heads exposed, and all the
ancillary apparatus of computer machinery.
      The second half of the control room, separated from the
first by a transparent plastic partition, was a large circular
room-within-a-room. This housed the principal weather-
control machine: a huge Gravitron, or gravity controller.
      This gravitron, directed at the Earth by means of its tall,
gun-like probe (noticed by the Doctor’s party) was a large
torodal, or doughnut-shaped object, which stood alone in the
middle of a large space. A number of very thick and powerful-
looking cables snaked out from its external surface. The
doughnut-shaped object was parallel to the moon’s surface.
Its long probe rose up from its centre.
                      The Gravitron room

      Inside the Gravitron room it was essential to wear
helmets to block out the sound of the machine—a very low-
pitched, high-energy rumble, which could destroy a man’s
hearing. Unless the door to the room was open, the sound
was scarcely audible.
      At the time the Doctor and his party were exploring the
moon’s surface, the operators, all dressed alike in one-piece
brown overalls with only a number to reveal their rank or
identity, were facing a full-scale emergency.
      The lights on the huge central map of the world had
started to flash wildly and, at the far end of the room, there
was a sustained high-pitched buzz. A red light over the
console was flashing on and off and, above it, the words
‘Emergency Signal’ appeared.
      The operators had been monitoring and controlling the
direction of a hurricane in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
One of them, seemingly suffering from over-tiredness, had
not paid full attention to the vastly important task he was
performing on the controls in front of him. In collapsing over
the controls, he had moved them from their former position.
       At the sound of the buzzer the Director of the moon
base, Jack Hobson, a large, thick-set Yorkshireman of forty-
five, jumped to his feet from the Director’s seat at the console
and strode over to the collapsed operator.
       He was followed by his second-in-command at the multi-
national base, Jules Benoit, a tall, thin French-man in his mid-
thirties. Together, they lifted the unconscious man from his
seat at the console and laid him on the floor.
       ‘What do you think it is?’ Benoit and Hobson looked
down at the man’s face. His neck was swollen and it had a
curious black appearance. As they watched, the black lines
seemed to move up the side of the man’s face.
       ‘The same as before!’ Hobson’s face was grim. He
beckoned to a man with No. 7 on the front of his tunic. ‘Get
him down to the medical unit.’ Benoit shrugged his
shoulders. ‘What’s the use? Dr. Evans has gone down with it
as well. He is pretty ill, I think.’
       Hobson nodded wearily, the lines of strain showing on
his brow. Nobody on the base had had much sleep over the
last two days since the mystery virus had started wreaking
havoc amongst the crew. Hobson had not been to bed at all
for over forty-eight hours.
       ‘The relief doctor from Earth should be along soon, on
the next space shuttle. Take him down.’ Hobson nodded to
two of his men. They picked up the unconscious man and
carried him carefully from the room.
       ‘Franz.’ Hobson turned to a short, fair-haired German
working on the inside of one of the computers. ‘Leave that for
now, will you, and take over from Geoffrey.’
       The man, who could only have been in his very early
twenties, nervously started packing up the tools he had left
lying all over the deck. Hobson called again, more sharply this
time. ‘Right away, please. That can wait!’
       Franz came over and sat gingerly at the control console.
Hobson loomed over him. ‘Come on, lad. It won’t bite you.
You won’t catch anything from the controls.’ He leaned over
the young man and punched up some figures on the
computer screen. ‘Those correction figures will bring the
Gravitron back on course. Follow them and report when the
cursors are back where they should be.’
       As Franz began to correct the large sweeping indicators,
now well out of alignment on the big screen, Hobson turned
back to Benoit. ‘There must be some source to this infection,
whatever it is. We’d better get the lads together, Jules, and tell
them what’s happening before...’ He edged away from Franz.
‘... there’s a mass panic. Get them on the blower, will you?’
       Benoit nodded, ‘Oui, chief.’ He picked up a small hand
mike from the console and switched on the public address
system that would broadcast his voice all over the moon base.
       ‘Jules here. We have a bit of a flap on.’ His French
accent seemed at odds with his fluent and colloquial English.
‘The chief wants a word with all of you—up here in Weather
Control Room. Right now—as quick as you can. This means
everyone on the base.’
       He put down the microphone and looked up in
amazement as the door opened and one of the scientists’ crew,
No. 6, an Englishman called Sam, came in followed by the
Doctor, Ben and Polly—all out of their space suits and in their
usual clothes, which they had worn underneath.
       The Doctor was clad in a too-long down-at-heels black
frock coat that had seen much better days, baggy striped
trousers and a large, very floppy red cravat. Polly was wearing
a skimpy tee-shirt and her usual mini-skirt. Ben still had on
his sailor’s singlet and bell-bottomed navy trousers. They were
all clothes that hadn’t been seen on Earth for some sixty years
or more.
       Benoit touched Hobson on the arm and pointed. The
burly Director swung round, and did a double take.
       ‘What in Heaven’s name...! Where did you lot spring
from? And where did you get those clothes?’
       Behind him the other men, their fears forgotten for the
moment, were grinning broadly. The Doctor and his
companions began to feel uneasy. Hobson came up to them.
‘Don’t tell me that shuttle rocket I sent for has arrived
already?’
       Benoit shook his head. ‘No, chief. I know it hasn’t.’
       Sam stepped forward. ‘There’s another one with them,
chief. Bob’s taken him down to the medical unit.’
       ‘How is he?’ Polly broke in. Sam looked at her. ‘He’s
alright. Just knocked himself out by the look of him.’
       ‘Oh, thank goodness. Will you take me to him?’ Polly
turned to go but Hobson stopped her.
       ‘No you don’t. We’ve enough trouble in this base as it is
without you wandering around.’ He turned to Sam. ‘Have
they been through the sterile room?’
       Sam nodded. ‘Yes, chief.’ The Doctor, who had been
taking in the room and its activity with great interest, now
thought it was time to step forward. ‘We don’t want to give
you any trouble. Just let us collect our young friend and we’ll
be off.’
       Hobson looked at him suspiciously. ‘Not until we’ve
established who you are.’
       ‘That,’ said the Doctor, ‘will be difficult!’
      Polly broke in impatiently. ‘I’m sorry—but while you’re
arguing, Jamie is lying injured. Will you please let me see
him?’
      Benoit stepped forward gallantly. ‘Of course,
Mademoiselle. I will take you there.’
      Polly looked at Hobson, who grudgingly nodded. ‘All
right, you can go, young lady.’ Then, as the Doctor and Ben
started to follow her out... ‘But not you two. You stay here.’
      ‘You two could do with an extra bacteria check,’ Hobson
continued.
      ‘Bacteria check?’ The Doctor exclaimed indignantly.
      ‘Ay, that’s what I said. You’re a walking mass of germs
by the look of you.’
      The Doctor was struck dumb. Ben had to turn away to
hide his smile. Behind them the various moon base scientists
began to file in. A great variety of nationalities was
represented: British, French, Italian, German and Dutch.
      ‘I’ll have you know the TARDIS is as sterile as...’ the
Doctor began, then stopped. He had said too much. Hobson
was on to it at once. ‘The TARDIS?’
      ‘Our space-craft,’ Ben said.
      The scientists were all assembled now, filling up the
curved semi-circular room. No. 5, a Dutchman called Peter,
spoke. ‘All here, chief. Any time you’re ready.’ Behind him
Benoit entered and took his place beside Hobson.
      The Director reluctantly turned back to the Doctor.
‘We’ll find out about this mysterious space-craft that hasn’t
shown up on our screens later. Meanwhile, now you’re here,
you’d better meet my team and hear what I’ve got to say. You
know what this place is, I suppose?’ His tone sounded a little
sarcastic.
      The Doctor studied the weather map again and then
looked through the glass doors to the Gravitron room. ‘A
weather station of some kind, I imagine. And in there,’ he
pointed to the Gravitron, ‘the thing you use to control the
weather.’ He turned to Ben. ‘That’s the culprit!’
      ‘Eh?’ Ben looked puzzled.
      ‘That gave us the rough landing—some kind of anti-
gravity device.’ There was a ripple of laughter and scattered
derisive applause from the assembled scientists.
      ‘Some kind of anti-gravity device!’ Hobson snorted. He
looked closely at the Doctor. ‘You are from Earth, aren’t you?’
      ‘Er, yes... of course,’ the Doctor said hastily.
      ‘Yeah.’ Ben nodded. ‘London town.’
      ‘Well, I don’t know where you’ve hidden yourselves for
the last fifteen years. Every school kid has heard of the
Gravitron in there.’
      ‘Gravitron! Ah yes, of course!’ The Doctor consulted his
battered diary again. ‘The year must be about 2050 then.’
      This remark brought a real outburst of applause and
laughter from the scientists.
      ‘Your name wouldn’t be Rip Van Winkle, would it?’
Hobson raised his eyebrows. ‘It happens to be 2070.. just for
the record.’
      The Doctor turned triumphantly round to Ben.
‘There—only 20 years out!’
      The scientists laughed again. This was a welcome break
after the almost unbearable tension of the last few hours.
Hobson had had enough. He drew a hand across his brow
and called the men sharply to order. ‘Before we all forget
what century we’re in, I’ll tell you why I’ve called you here.’
      ‘First,’ the Doctor broke in, ‘you might introduce us. I’m
a doctor.’
       Hobson, who had been on the point of telling him to
shut up, looked interested. ‘A doctor! Well, perhaps yours is a
timely visit. We need your help.’
       ‘Help?’ The Doctor looked unhappy. ‘Medical help?’
       Hobson nodded. ‘Perhaps you’d better meet us all first.
We’re all scientists here. At least two jobs each to do. Jules
here is my assistant. He takes over as director and chief
scientist if anything happens to me. He’s a physicist, like me
and Joe Benson there.’
       A youthful looking man with No. 9 on his tunic smiled at
them. Hobson nodded towards the man sitting at the radio
transmitter at the end of the console. ‘Nils, our mad Dane, is
an astronomer and mathematician, as is Pierre. Ralph,
Helmut and Pedro are geologists when they’re not acting as
cooks, engineers, look-outs, or general handymen.’
       The Doctor and Ben had been going round shaking
hands with each man in turn. Now the Doctor turned his
attention to the weather control screen. ‘And you control the
Earth’s weather from this console?’
       ‘Cor, must be complicated!’ Ben exclaimed.
       ‘Not really.’ It was Benoit who replied. ‘The Gravitron
controls the tides. The tides control the weather. We plot it all
on this map. Simple, eh?’
       ‘Oh yeah,’ Ben said dryly. ‘Nuffing to it! Wish we’d had
this set-up back in the 1970’s, Doc,’ he added under his
breath.
       Violent buzzing and flashing lights again cut across the
activity inside the weather control room. The men turned
round to see one of the Gravitron operators waving urgently
before collapsing across the controls.
       ‘Pierre,’ Hobson’s voice rang out. ‘Take over from him.’
       The man called Pierre, a short, round Parisian, grabbed
an acoustic helmet from the rack and opened the Gravitron
doors, followed closely by Ralph and Peter. Ben watched,
open-mouthed, as the two men lifted the unconscious
operator from his chair. As soon as he was clear, Pierre slid in,
immediately resuming control.
       The Doctor noticed that Benoit, Hobson and the rest
were more interested in the effect upon the world screen.
       ‘Cursor five, over Pacific, starting to slide.’ Benoit spoke
urgently.
       ‘What’s it mean, Doctor?’ Ben looked back at the screen.
‘A change of weather of some kind?’
       The Doctor looked at Hobson. ‘We’ll soon hear from
Earth what it means,’ said Hobson grimly. Almost on cue the
radio transmitter began to splutter. Nils put on his earphones.
‘Here it comes!’
       The radio transmitter loudspeaker suddenly blared into
life, together with a red alert light above the console. A loud,
clear, penetrating female voice echoed around the room.
‘International Space Headquarters Earth calling Weather
Control Moon. Come in, please. Come in, please.’
       ‘Moonport standing by. Moonport standing by,’ Nils
replied.
       The two men Ralph and Peter were carrying the sick
operator towards the door. As they passed the Doctor, the
man’s head lolled over and the Doctor saw the black swollen
lines on the side of his face. The Doctor stiffened and became
aware of Ben pulling at his arm. ‘Doctor!’ He looked at the
sailor, his face set and preoccupied. ‘Yes?’
       ‘Ever seen anything like that before, Doctor?’ Ben’s
voice shook a little. The Doctor brought out his diary but
seemed at a loss where to start looking. ‘I think so... I’m not
sure.’
       ‘Hobson here.’ The Director had picked up the desk
microphone and was speaking into the R/T link to Earth.
       The female voice cut in again. ‘We would like to know
what is happening up there.’ The English had a slight foreign
inflection. A little too correct. ‘The hurricane you were
guiding is forty-five degrees off course. It is now threatening
Hawaii.’
       ‘One of our men was taken ill at the controls,’ Hobson
replied.
       ‘Only for a few seconds,’ Ben muttered to the Doctor.
The Doctor nodded, and motioned to him to keep quiet and
silent.
       ‘We are fully operational now,’ Hobson continued. The
cool R/T voice did not acknowledge his message but cut in
with: ‘Mr. Rinberg would like to know the exact cause of the
illness.’
       The name of Rinberg seemed to irritate the red-faced
Hobson. His face darkened a further shade and his voice rose.
       ‘So would we. We’ve got three men clown with this
mystery virus in the past few hours—including Dr. Evans. If
Mr. Rinberg has any advice, we’d appreciate it.’
       There was a pause, then the R/T voice spoke primly,
‘Stand by for further instructions.’
       Hobson’s accent seemed to get broader and more
Northern. He put his hand over the mike and turned to the
men. ‘Hang about for a couple of minutes, lads. Happen we’d
all better hear what the great Mr. Rinberg has to offer.’
       Nils, meanwhile, was leaning closely over his R/T set.
For a moment Benoit thought he was ill and leaned forward
anxiously, but Nils was closely watching one of his meters. As
he and Benoit looked, the needle flickered up and down.
      ‘Chief,’ Nils’ voice was controlled but urgent. Hobson
turned to him. ‘Yes?’
      ‘There it is again,’ said Nils. ‘I’ll play it back to you.’ He
pressed the starter button on the vertically mounted tape deck
built into his R/T console. The end of Hobson’s conversation
with Earth was replayed, ending with the R/T voice... ‘Stand
by for further instructions.’ Hobson shifted his feet
impatiently. ‘Well?’
      ‘You must have heard the background noise on that re-
run,’ Nils said. ‘We’re being monitored again.’
      ‘Monitored?’ Hobson replied. The others began to
cluster around the set.
      ‘Someone, not too far away from the base, is listening to
every word we say.’
      There was a stunned silence while everyone took in the
implications of this new threat. The R/T voice with its cutting
edge broke in again, causing Ben to jump.
      ‘Moonport?’
      ‘We’re still standing by,’ said Hobson.
      ‘Your instructions,’ continued the impersonal R/T voice,
‘are to send blood samples back to Earth for investigation.’
      Hobson’s voice sounded strained: ‘How? The next
shuttle rocket’s not due for a month.’
      There was a pause, then the voice continued smoothly.
‘Then they must be put on that rocket. In the meantime, the
entire moon base is to be put in quarantine.’
      ‘Quarantine?’ Hobson’s big voice exploded. ‘But what if
these men are too sick to carry on? I shall need replacements.’
      Again the pause, then the voice continued: ‘If you radio
information about this virus, we shall do our best to identify it
and suggest treatment.’
      ‘I demand to speak to Mr. Rinberg... now!’ Hobson was
angry.
      ‘Mr. Rinberg is busy. I am sorry. Over and out.’ There
was a click and the voice cut out.
      Nils’ voice broke the silence. ‘I’m sure that whole
conversation was monitored by someone or something.’
      Hobson pushed past him angrily. ‘Never mind that now.
That Rinberg feller just won’t talk to you! How can we track
down a mystery disease with the blessed doctor down with it
himself? Radio instructions, hah!’ He slammed his large fist
down upon the console in frustration. The men stood
awkwardly waiting for their angry chief to calm down and
give them the orders they had been waiting for. The Doctor
nudged Ben. ‘We’d better see how Jamie is.’ The Doctor
turned to Hobson, ‘Er...’
      ‘Yes!’ Hobson’s voice bellowed at him.
      ‘Perhaps I can help down there.’
      ‘You!’ Hobson stared at him for a moment, then turned
away. ‘Yes, yes, anything you can do.’ He called to one of his
men. ‘Bob, show them down to the Medical Unit, will you.’
Then, before the man could move, he raised his voice and
spoke to all the assembled men:
      ‘One moment. Every one of you had better hear this.
We don’t know what this infection is or how it got into this
base, but I want you to take extra precautions while this
emergency is on. We may be short-handed for quite a while.
This means extra duties for everyone. I’ll try and share them
out as fairly as possible, but I’ll need your full co-operation.’
He turned round to look at the Doctor and Ben. ‘That goes
for everyone on this base. No-one leaves for the time being. As
you heard, we’re all under strict quarantine. That’s all.’ He
nodded and the men started to disperse.
      Outside in the corridor, Ben turned to the Doctor. ‘That
means even if Jamie feels O.K. we can’t leave here.’
      The Doctor nodded gravely. ‘No chance, I’m afraid. Not
unless we can locate the source of this virus for them.’
      ‘Oh!’ This was a new thought for Ben. ‘You reckon we...’
But the Doctor was already half-way down the corridor,
striding ahead with his long legs. Ben had to jog to keep up
with him.
                        4
           Attack in the Medical Unit
      The Medical Unit of the moonbase consisted of a bare
metal enclosure containing five or six beds. The beds were
light, cantilever triangulated constructions which projected
from the wall. The ‘bedclothes’ were a single, light quilted
square. Each ‘bed’ had beside it an electronic unit to which
the patient was attached by a thin leash of cables. The cables
terminated in a small circular unit, strapped to the centre of
the chest. Polly had just finished strapping the unit to Jamie’s
chest when the Doctor and Ben entered.
      Polly turned to the Doctor. ‘Is that how it goes, Doctor?’
      The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes, that looks right. Then the
unit there...’ He pointed to the electronic box beside the bed.
‘... automatically records his pulse, temperature and
breathing.’
      ‘A sort of electronic doctor,’ said Polly. The Doctor
smiled and nodded. He patted the top of the unit. ‘This unit
has everything except striped trousers and a Gladstone bag!’
      ‘And it even gives him medicine automatically, too,’
commented Ben.
      The Doctor nodded. ‘Almost everything.’ But Polly, who
was cradling Jamie’s head, turned round. Her face looked
anxious. ‘How do you think he is, Doctor?’
      The Doctor was looking at the small electronic read-out
sheet at the end of Jamie’s bed. ‘He’s not too bad. He’s a bit
concussed and feverish, but he’ll be all right with some rest.’
      Suddenly a voice came out from Jamie. A strange high-
pitched strangulated voice, quite unlike the Scot’s usual
baritone. ‘The Piper. The McCrimmon Piper. Dinna let him
get me.’
       The other three time travellers stood in silence for a
moment. Then the Doctor spoke, turning to Polly. ‘Piper?
What does he mean, piper?’
       Polly shook her head sadly. ‘It’s some legend of his clan.
He’s a McCrimmon himself and as far as I can make it out,
this piper appears to a McCrimmon just before he dies.’
       ‘Oh, come off it!’ said Ben. ‘Nobody believes that sort of
guff these days.’
       ‘But Jamie doesn’t come from these days, remember?
He comes from a past time in which people believed this sort
of thing.’
       The Doctor, as usual, had been pursuing his own vein of
thought and didn’t seem quite aware of their conversation.
‘Has Jamie seen this phantom piper yet?’
       Ben turned round, puzzled. ‘Surely you don’t believe...?’
       The Doctor looked down at Jamie, now sunk in an
uneasy slumber. ‘He does. It is obviously important to him.’
       ‘He keeps asking us to keep the piper away from him,’
said Polly.
       ‘Good,’ exclaimed the Doctor, ‘then that’s exactly what
we’ll try to do.’
       Ben shrugged and turned away, rolling his eyes as if to
say that he was the only sane one around. He dug Polly in the
ribs. ‘Carry on, nurse.’
       Polly turned quickly round, her hand upraised, but Ben
had dodged out of reach, grinning.
       ‘At least,’ said Polly glaring at him, ‘I try to help! With a
ward full of sick men and no doctor, someone’s got to do
something.’ She stalked disdainfully off to the other beds,
fussing round the patients and eventually stopping opposite
the one containing Dr. Evans. ‘I wonder who this is?’ she said.
        The others had followed her down the ward. ‘Don’t get
too close, Polly,’ said the Doctor. ‘Have a look at his chart.’
        ‘That’s a good idea.’ Polly picked up the temperature
chart from the bed and looked at it. Ben looked over her
shoulder. ‘It’s Dr. Evans!’ he exclaimed.
        ‘Ah, yes, the station doctor. He was the first to get it.’
The Doctor looked down at the unfortunate Dr. Evans. The
side of his face was covered with a spreading tree of black
swollen lines. They had almost reached his temple.
        ‘He looks one of the worst,’ said Polly in a hushed voice.
        The Doctor came to a decision. ‘I’m staying down here.
There is something I don’t quite understand about this
epidemic. It doesn’t look like a real disease at all. It’s almost as
if...’ He stopped as if afraid to put his thoughts into words.
        Ben looked around the ward. ‘Not real! What more do
you want then?’
        The Doctor was twirling a stethoscope he had draped
round his neck. ‘I don’t know. But there are one or two signs
and symptoms which don’t add up. You go up to the Control
Room, Ben. Keep an eye on things.’
        Ben, for once, looked rather blank. ‘How am I going to
do that, Doctor? I’m about as popular up there as the
measles.’
        The Doctor waived him away. ‘Offer to help, do
anything, but keep your eyes and ears open. There is
something very wrong here.’
        Ben and Polly looked at the Doctor. They had never
seen him look quite so grim and worried. Worry was
something that the Doctor normally never allowed to show on
his face.
      ‘There’s something very wrong indeed.’ He pulled out
his diary, balanced it from hand to hand in an undecided way,
and put it back in his pocket. As he did so, the room lights
flickered once and then dimmed. Certain lighting tubes went
out and a new pattern of reddish-coloured working lights
came on.
      Polly gave a slight cry and put a hand over her mouth.
The Doctor was quick to reassure her. ‘They’ve switched over
to the moon base “night”.’

      Up in the Control Room the main light was also out.
The lighting resembled the bridge of a ship at night. The
huge map in the centre of the room had been illuminated
from behind, and now provided the main light source.
Hobson, looking tired and dishevelled, was still on duty. He
was pacing up and down, like the captain of a ship, watching
the operators punch results up on the map.
      Jules Benoit entered, still looking, with a particular
knack that he had, fresh and unwearied, and went over to
Hobson. ‘Still up, chief?’ he said. ‘Why not take a rest. Go
below and get some sleep.’
      Hobson turned on him irritably. ‘How can I rest when
that thing’s up the spout!’ He pointed to the Gravitron. ‘You
know the score as well as I do. Five units off centre and we lift
half London into space. Five more and the Atlantic water level
goes up three feet. Rinberg just doesn’t realise the pressure
we are under.’
      But Benoit was obviously well used to these tirades from
his superior. He understood that they were a necessary
letting-off of steam to the older man. In the years they had
worked together, Benoit had come to feel a considerable
respect and affection for the gruff Englishman. He kept silent,
therefore, a faint smile on his face.
       Swinging round, Hobson spotted Ben lurking in the
shadows on the far side of the illuminated screen. At last he
had found someone to vent his irritation on. ‘Hey you!’ he
yelled, ‘what do you think you’re doing skulking there?’
       Ben came over to him and stood as if at attention before
his commanding officer. ‘Wondering whether I could help,
sir,’ he said.
       ‘Help!’ Hobson snapped. ‘How could you...’ But Benoit
smoothly intervened. ‘We could use an extra pair of hands.
He can help me.’
       Hobson glared once more at Ben. ‘Well, keep him out of
my way, that’s all.’
       Ben stepped back a pace in the approved naval fashion
and Hobson wearily turned back to Benoit. ‘All right, Jules, I
know what you’re thinking. I’ll take a break. Call me if
anything happens. Oh, by the way, there were two more of
those momentary drops in air pressure while I was on. I’ve
put them in the log.’
       The Frenchman nodded. ‘Right!’ Hobson turned and
walked slowly and stiffly towards the exit, watched by the
others. After he had gone, the men in the Control Room
seemed to visibly relax a little. Benoit turned to Ben and
smiled. ‘There are some coffee cups to clear away.’
       Ben nodded gratefully. ‘Good. Right away.’
       Benoit’s attention was now back on the huge screen, He
remembered something. ‘Also Ralph, that is, No. 14, needs a
hand down in the food store. Can you find your way there?’
       ‘I’ll find it,’ said Ben.
       ‘Good.’ Benoit nodded a little absently, his mind totally
on the job of maintaining the weather control station. Ben
moved towards the door and cast a quick look around the
room. Everyone was totally engaged in their tasks. At least,
thought Ben, now I have something to do as well. He
collected the tray of coffee cups set down by the door, and
walked out of the room.
      The corridor in which Ben found himself was the main
thoroughfare of the base. Most of the living quarters, repair
rooms and store rooms ran off it. The Medical Unit, for the
sake of quietness, was on a lower level than the Weather
Control Room. Ben remembered seeing the words ‘Food
Store’ on the door next to the Medical Unit, immediately
before the stairway leading to the main corridor.
      Near the top of the stairway was a small galley and Ben
quickly and efficiently washed the cups, dried them and put
them away in the appropriate locker. It was surprising, he
noticed, how quickly one’s eyes got adjusted to the dimmer
‘night’ lighting with its prevailing reddish tinge.
      Thoughtfully, Ben filled up the huge coffee urn with
water, replaced the filter bag with fresh coffee, and switched it
on. If he could not be of use in any other capacity, he was
determined that no one should want for coffee while he was
the official moonbase coffee boy.
      Meanwhile, in the Store Room, the man named Ralph
—No. 14 on the moonbase personnel list—was ‘shopping’
along the loaded racks. The men thought of their job as
‘shopping’ because the overall lay-out of the store was rather
like a smaller version of a supermarket. Ralph was pushing
along a basket on wheels. It was very similar to the
supermarket carriers except that these wheels were
rubberised to prevent the danger of a spark if the carrier
should accidentally knock into one of the metal walls. As he
went along the long racks, he checked off the various food
supplies, now and again taking a package and placing it in the
carrier.
      The food on the racks was packaged in soft shapeless
plastic bags, which gave little indication of content. The bags
were labelled, ‘Duck concentrate’, ‘Algae block’, ‘General
Hydroponic Concentrate’, and ‘Vegetable Pellets’. Ben would
have thought the titles most unappetising, but Ralph, a man
from a different age, saw nothing unusual in them. He
reached over and picked up a bag marked ‘Sugar’. The bag
was broken and, as the man raised it, the powdered contents
streamed out over the racks and floor.
      Ralph snorted in disgust. He would have to clear up this
mess. He carefully screwed up the bag, with what remained of
its contents, and took it over to a flap opening labelled ‘Dry
Waste Disposal’. ‘Anyone would think we had rats up here!’
he exclaimed.
      Just then there was a sound at the far end of the food
store. At that end, were piles of tinned stuff. The sound was
obviously the clatter of a falling tincan. Ralph turned round
anxiously. ‘Who on earth’s that?’
      The food carrier trolley blocked the narrow space
between the piled up stores. ‘Who’s there?’ he called again..
      The overhead lighting threw deep shadows across the
far end of the food store and Ralph had to strain his eyes to
see. It seemed to him that one shadow, different from the
rest, was moving, although whatever caused it to move was
hidden by one of the centre racks. It was the shadow. of a
large, human figure with a strange flat, almost square head,
and two jug-like side protections. Ralph only caught a glimpse
of it before it disappeared from view. ‘Who is it?’ he called
again.
               It was the shadow of a large figure

     ‘Only me, mate!’ Ben had entered the store at that
moment and heard Ralph’s call. He stepped into the narrow
passageway where No. 14 could see him. The shadow had
now completely disappeared.
     Ralph was relieved but angry. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t
go sneaking around like that. Knock first.’
      Ben walked along the narrow aisle and looked curiously
at the other man. ‘Blimey! You lot aint ’alf edgy.’
      Ralph pointed to the scattered sugar on the floor. ‘Are
you responsible for these broken bags?’
      Ben looked down at the sugar. ‘Come off it, mate. I just
got here, didn’t I? I’ve been sent down to help you.’
      Ralph eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but there
was something so open, friendly and uncomplicated about the
young sailor that he merely tore off half the list and handed it
to Ben.
      ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘See if you can find that lot. Most of it’s
round the next aisle. Let’s see... we still need milk and...’ He
looked ruefully down at the spilt white powder, ‘sugar’. Ralph
turned and went along to the centre aisle of the store while
Ben, the list in his hand, comtinucd where the cook had left
off.
      ‘Let’s see now,’ Ben muttered to himself, ‘chicken
concentrate—what on earth’s that?’ He looked up and saw the
appropriate rack with ‘chicken concentrate’ written across the
front, and gingerly pulled out one of the shapeless plastic
packets. As he suspected, it bore no visible resemblance to any
chicken he had ever seen. He threw the packet with distaste
into the trolley. ‘And I used to complain about too much navy
stew and plum duff! Won’t ‘alf be glad to get back to the mess
deck after this little lot!’
      Ralph was now down at the far end of the middle aisle
near the spot where he had seen the shadow which he had
taken to be Ben. It was dark at this end of the store room.
One of the overhead lights had gone out and had not been
replaced in the current emergency.
      Ralph, holding up the list so that he could see it in the
dim light, extended his hand, with easy familiarity, towards
the spot occupied by the milk containers. Instead, his fingers
touched a hard, metallic surface. The surface was slightly
rounded and, as his fingers strayed down, he encountered a
large, accordion-like projection. He turned his head in
amazement and looked. There, in the dim light stood a huge
silver-clad figure, like a man but obviously not a man. The
head of the figure loomed at least a foot above Ralph’s head.
It was of silver metal with thin cut-out slits for eyes and
mouth. Above the fore-head was a large lamp like a miner’s,
and at each side of the head, two handle-like projections in
place of ears.
       Ralph’s mouth dropped open. He was just about to call
out when the Cyberman stretched out from the shadows and
touched him lightly at the side of the head. A sudden flash,
and the man collapsed. He was soundlessly caught by a silver
arm and hand that hooked in his clothing and dragged him
quickly aside into the shadows.
       ‘Yes?’ From the other end of the room Ben thought he
heard a sound. He looked up and down the aisle. There was
no sign of Ralph. ‘No. 14. Hey, No. 14. Ralph!’ He walked a
little way down the aisles but there was no sign of the man
anywhere in the food store. ‘Where are you?’ He walked
down to the end of the aisle just to make sure, but again the
food racks seemed intact and, again, no one. Nor had he seen
or heard the door of the corridor open.
       ‘Scarpered.’ Ben scratched his head. ‘Cor, there’s some
right nutters aboard this tub!’ He shrugged, walked back to
his trolley and recommenced loading it.

      Polly was dozing in one of the three armchairs in the
Medical Unit. The chair was set in the centre of the room so
that she could keep an eye on the whole unit. Despite her
intention of keeping awake, her eyes kept closing. She tried
pinching herself, but the pinches only bruised her leg. Her
heavy eyelids, after so many hours without sleep, kept closing
involuntarily.
        She had just nodded off for the fifth time when the door
of the Unit opened and the Doctor entered. Immediately,
Polly sprang awake, startled. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘what’s that?’
        The Doctor put his fingers to his lips, ‘Shh... we don’t
want to wake everyone. You could do with some sleep
yourself by the look of you.’
        Polly obstinately shook her head. The Doctor’s arrival
had started her awake again. ‘I’m all right. What have you got
there, Doctor?’
        The Doctor looked round cautiously. ‘I have been doing
a little investigation around the base.’ He felt in his pocket
and brought out a piece of silver metallic material. He handed
it to Polly. ‘Ever seen anything like this before?’ he asked.
        She examined it, rubbing it between her fingers. It was
extremely pliable. Polly held it up to the light. ‘No,’ she said.
‘It’s like some kind of metal. At least it feels like metal. Cold!
But it’s as flexible as a piece of cloth.’
        ‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor.
        Polly shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well I give up, Doctor.
What is it?’ She handed it back to the Doctor who put it in his
pocket. He smiled at her. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
        Abruptly the lights in the room flickered twice and
began to dim down again even more. The shadows intensified
and it became difficult to see across the room. Polly
involuntarily grabbed the Doctor’s hand. ‘What’s happening!’
she exclaimed.
        ‘It’s probably another switch over in the time cycle.’ The
Doctor tried to look reassuring.
      ‘What do you mean?’ asked Polly.
      ‘Well, you see, it’s all rather fascinating, actually. On the
moon they have a fortnight of days and a fortnight of nights.’
      ‘Well?’ said Polly.
      ‘It’s obvious, surely, that they have to make their own
day and night artificially up here. To match what they are
used to on Earth. Otherwise, it would throw their whole
biological time-clock.’
      ‘Their what?’ Polly looked confused.
      The Doctor was finding it hard to explain the
elementary scientific processes he knew so well. ‘Our bodies
have to have a biological time-clock. A rhythm that tells you
when to get up, when to eat, when you need sleep, etc.’
      ‘Yes,’ said Polly doubtfully.
      ‘Otherwise we wouldn’t know whether we were coming
or going, would we? Understand?’
      ‘I suppose so,’ said Polly.
      ‘Clever girl,’ said the Doctor patronisingly. ‘So that’s
why it is now night time in here.’
      There was a sudden cry from the far end of the ward.
Polly started up and ran along to the bed. It was Dr. Evans.
      ‘Dr. Evans,’ Polly cried. As she reached his bedside,
closely followed by the Doctor, they saw that Evans was tossing
from side to side in delirium. His face was covered with sweat,
his breathing laboured and heavy. The Doctor bent over and
started taking his pulse.
      ‘Impossible!’ The Doctor was looking at his watch in
incredulity. Dr. Evans’ body suddenly bent from the middle
and he sat up in bed stiffly, almost like a zombie, his eyes open
and staring. Polly moved back a pace, frightened.
      ‘The hand.’ Dr. Evans’ voice was hoarse and shaking.
His face registered an almost unbearable fright. ‘No,’ he
shouted, shrinking away from the Doctor, and pulling his
hand and wrist from the Doctor’s grasp, ‘don’t touch me.’ His
hands raised and clutched his head. He twisted it from side to
side as though in great pain. ‘Keep that hand away from me...
that silver hand.’ He closed his eyes for a second and then
opened them. His body gave a convulsive twist and he fell
back in bed, apparently dead, his eyes open and staring.
       ‘Oh no, Doctor!’ Polly shrank away from the bed. ‘Is
he...?’
       The Doctor had raised his stethoscope. He bent over the
man and listened for his heart beat. ‘Yes, I’m very much
afraid he is.’ He pulled the sheet up over the man’s head,
covering up the staring eyes and the twisted, distorted face.
Behind him Polly, in a state of shock, wrung her hands in
desperation. ‘What are we going to do?’ she moaned.
       The Doctor brought out the silver piece of cloth from
his pocket and examined it closely. As usual, he seemed quite
unperturbed by the way events were shaping. Almost without
fear, in the conventional sense.
       ‘What did he say? The silver hand? Look...’ he turned to
Polly, ‘I’d better go and tell Hobson about this.’ He started for
the door, his thoughts entirely on the business in hand.
Behind him Polly held her hand to her mouth. ‘No, Doctor,
please...’ The Doctor turned round and looked back at her,
his hand on the door handle. ‘Yes, Polly?’ He seemed a little
remote, far away, his mind wrestling with the problem of the
‘silver hand’.
       Polly decided to be brave. ‘Nothing, Doctor,’ she said.
The Doctor nodded, smiled vaguely, and went out the door.
Polly, left alone, crept back to the armchair and sat in it
gingerly. There was no need to pinch herself to keep awake
now. She was only too wide awake, trembling at the slightest
sound in the room...

      In the Weather Control Room, Ben had just explained
to Hobson the mysterious disappearance of No. 14. Hobson
had been absent from the seat of operation for a little over an
hour. He had tried to sleep but had found it impossible. The
rest seemed to have done him some good, however. He
looked a little less tired, more alert.
      ‘Can’t find him?’
      ‘I was helping him load some stores and he just
vanished—like that!’
      ‘What? In this place?’ Hobson looked incredulous.
‘There are only fifteen of us in the base.’ Nils, standing beside
him, broke in, ‘Did you try his quarters?’
      ‘Yeah, I did,’ replied Ben.
      Hobson’s irritable tone came back. ‘Why didn’t you
report this to me?’ His tone annoyed Ben. He’d had just
about enough of this base and its wackey crew. ‘I’m doing it,
aren’t I?’
      For a moment, Hobson looked about to explode. The
tension broke when the Doctor entered and came up to them.
He was obviously the bearer of urgent news. ‘Now what is it?’
snapped Hobson.
      ‘It’s Dr. Evans.’
      ‘Well?’ Hobson continued.
      ‘He’s dead, I’m afraid.’ The Doctor looked
sympathetically at the overwrought base director.
      ‘Dead!’ Hobson’s voice was almost a shout. There was a
sudden silence in the Weather Control Room as the operators
turned round to look back at their chief and the Doctor. As
the words sunk in, the men paled and looked at each other.
The first death from this strange new virus. Who would be
struck down next?
       Nils, the radio operator, spoke first. He had a job to do.
‘This must be reported at once.’
       Hobson was collecting his thoughts. He shook his head.
‘No, not yet. I’ll come down to the Medical Unit with you,
Doctor. Come on.’ Hobson lead the way to the door, followed
by the Doctor and Nils.
       Down in the Medical Unit, Polly was giving the feverish
and semi-conscious Jamie a drink of water. Her back was to
the other end of the ward. She held the glass to Jamie’s lips.
The Scot’s eyes were roving restlessly round the room as if he
was unsure of his location.
       ‘Easy,’ said Polly. ‘Easy, Jamie, you’ll choke yourself.’
She cased back the glass slightly. Jamie suddenly spluttered,
spitting the water out on to the sheet. ‘Now look what you’ve
done,’ cried Polly. ‘I told you to be careful.’ But she saw
Jamie’s eyes, looking past her, widen in horror.
       ‘Jamie,’ said Polly anxiously. But all he could do was to
try and point. He opened his mouth to speak but no words
came out. As Polly watched, his eyes rolled upwards and he
fell back on the bed, unconscious.
       ‘Oh no!’ It was too like the death of Dr. Evans, and
Polly’s voice shrank to a whisper. ‘Jamie, please, no
       .’ The Scot opened his eyes again. ‘What is it, Jamie?’
asked Polly relieved, but the Scot seemed to be in a sort of
coma, unable to speak.
       The door at the far end of the ward opened and Polly
started and turned. But it was only Hobson followed by the
Doctor, Nils and another scientist they had picked up en
route.
      ‘How is he?’ Hobson strode over to the bed and stood
beside Polly. There was something reassuring in the
Yorkshireman’s big, solid presence, even his gruff manner.
      ‘He seemed to see something that frightened him.’ Polly
explained.
      ‘He’s got a high fever,’ Hobson explained. ‘It’s probably
delirium. Where’s Dr. Evans’ body?’
      ‘Over there.’ The Doctor led the way across the room to
Evans’ bed, followed closely by the others. Hobson was
breathing heavily, obviously deeply distressed at the loss of
one of his men. ‘Let’s get it over with then.’ Nils stepped
forward and threw back the blanket.
      Underneath there was a pillow and a bolster in the
shape of a man. Nils ripped off the rest of the blanket. Evans
had disappeared.
                        5
                 The Space-plague
      Hobson looked up and down the bed incredulously and
thumped the bolster angrily. ‘Is this someone’s idea of a
particularly bad joke?’ The Doctor crouched down by the bed
and examined it with his magnifying glass. He looked up and
spoke. ‘This is no joke, believe me!’
      The telephone light on the opposite wall began flashing.
Nils hurried over, picked up the phone and listened, then
turned to Hobson. ‘We’re wanted. Another man’s collapsed at
the controls. The Gravitron has swung off alignment again.’
Hobson’s reaction was immediate. This was something he
could understand, unlike the missing bodies. He turned to
the Doctor and pointed, emphasising his words: ‘You,’ he
then pointed over to Polly, ‘and you had better find Evans’
body, quick, or out you all go, quarantine or no quarantine.’
He followed Nils to the door and hurried out.
      Polly was almost distraught. ‘Doctor, what can have
happened? I must have dozed off without realising it. How
could this have happened?’
      ‘What did Jamie see?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Did you turn
round? To see what he was looking at?’
      Polly shook her head. ‘No, I thought,’ her voice broke
slightly, ‘he was going to die. I couldn’t take my eyes off him
for a second.’
      The Doctor turned away from her and-looked around
the room. ‘That body cannot have just vanished into thin air.’
He came to a sudden decision and strode towards the door,
stopped, thought, and then turned back to Polly. ‘Can I leave
you alone?’ He noticed the girl’s stricken expression. ‘It will
only be for a moment this time, I promise you.’
       Polly nodded. ‘I’ll be all right, Doctor.’
       As the door swung to behind the Doctor, she turned
back to the bed. Lying on the coverlet was the Doctor’s piece
of silver cloth. He must have left it behind, she thought. Polly
picked it up, turned and ran across the room and out into the
corridor after the Doctor.
       As the door swung to behind her, Jamie, his face flushed
and red, started calling out. ‘Water, water. I’m dying of thirst.
Some water...’ He seemed almost conscious and struggled to a
sitting position in the bed, looking round for Polly. At the far
end of the ward he made out a tall figure. ‘Polly,’ he called, ‘is
that you?’
       The shadow moved out of the darkness and into the
lighted centre of the ward, walking along between the beds
towards Jamie. The figure was silver, the walk stiff and slightly
mechanical and the face, the terrible mask of the Cyberman.
       Jamie’s eyes widened in terror. He shrank back in his
bed. The Cyberman continued its slow ponderous march
towards the terrified Scot. Jamie had worked himself up into a
sitting position in the bed, the sweat saturating his head
bandage and pouring down the side of his neck. ‘Nam, naw,
ye canna tak me now. I’m no ready tae gang wi’ ye yet!’
       The Cyberman paused for a moment, looking over
Jamie’s bed. He looked over at the still figures of the other
patients. He moved to the nearest man, and picked him up as
easily as one would a doll. The man’s head lolled limply to
one side. The black lines on his face stood out in the dim
reddish lighting as the giant figure walked away from the bed.
At the side of the room, a small door led to the surgical store
room where the drugs, bandages and instruments were kept.
The Cyberman paused at the door and stretched forward a
hand to open it, still carrying the man effortlessly under his
other arm.
      Polly entered. She looked round, saw the giant figure
and screamed. The Cyberman hardly seemed to notice her
presence. Opening the door, he pulled the man through, and
closed it behind him.
      Polly rushed over to the button controlling. the alarm
system and pressed it with both hands. Immediately, outside
the sick bay could be heard the faint sound of the alarm
buzzer. She was still shaking, her hands pressed against the
button, when Hobson entered, followed by the Doctor, Ben
and another of the men, Sam.
      Hobson walked quickly over to the girl. ‘What is it?’ he
said. He eased her away from the alarm control button with
more gentleness than might have been expected from the
irascible chief, and lowered her into a chair.
      Polly was practically rigid with fear. The words came
tumbling out. ‘It was horrible. A giant creature like...’ she
thought, then realised, ‘... like a Cyberman!’ She
remembered, with a sudden thrill of horror, her previous
encounter with the tall, silver mcnsters. ‘That’s what it was... a
Cyberman... now I know!’
      The Doctor was standing over her, stroking her hair to
calm her. ‘I thought as much. Don’t worry, it’s all right now.’
      ‘No,’ said Polly urgently, ‘it’s not all right, Doctor.’ She
looked up at Hobson. ‘The Cyberman, he was carrying one of
your men!’
      Hobson turned and rushed over to the beds and looked.
The bed next to Dr. Evans’ was empty. ‘There’s another one
gone.’ Hobson turned back to the Doctor and Polly. Ben had
gone over to Jamie’s bed and was easing him back into a
sleeping position. The Scot’s eyes were half-closed now and he
was breathing a little easier.
      ‘Now, look.’ Hobson sat down in a chair, and faced the
other three. ‘We’ve got to find these men. They can’t just
disappear in a place this size. Sam...’ the man looked
expectantly at Hobson, ‘organise a search. You’re bound to
find them. Go through the place completely. Search every
conceivable square inch. They cannot be outside, not without
space suits. So they must be somewhere in the base. Now
move!’ Sam walked quickly towards the door and exited.
Hobson turned back to Polly and, dropping his voice to a
more gentle tone, asked her to tell her story again.
      ‘What exactly do you reckon you saw?’
      Polly was calm again. ‘I told you. I saw this giant man, or
creature, or something, going out of that door...’
      She pointed across to the door leading to the medical
store. ‘He was carrying the patient. Lifting him just like a
mannequin... a doll! I’m sure it was a Cyberman.’
      Hobson looked across the room. ‘That doesn’t lead
anywhere, just the medical store room. Did this, this creature,
come out again?’
      ‘No.’ Polly shook ‘her head decisively. ‘I’m sure of it.
There was no time. You came so quickly.’
      Hobson stood up and strode across to the door of the
medical stores. He hesitated for a moment, then flung it open
and walked inside, followed by the Doctor. Polly timidly got
up from her chair and walked over behind them. Ben, having
seen that Jamie was sleeping, followed her over.
      The room was little more than a large closet. At one end
stood the refrigerator which contained the drugs, and along
each side a series of glass cupboards mounted on the wall held
a wide variety of surgical instruments, wound dressings and
various medicines. At the other end of the refrigerator there
was a small laboratory bench with microscopes, petri dishes,
assorted scientific glass-ware, and staining bottles. On a shelf
above stood a number of large bottles of chemicals, each
labelled clearly. There was no sign of anybody in the room. It
could scarcely have concealed a cat, let alone a Cyberman.
Nor, Polly saw, looking over the Doctor’s shoulder, was there
any sign that it had been disturbed.
      Hobson went over and glanced down behind the
moveable refrigerator but all he could see was the plain wall.
Ben experimentally opened a cupboard or two, while the
Doctor sat down at the bench, his eyes glistening at the sight
of the superb microscope and compact scientific equipment.
      Hobson’s voice rang out in the confined room. ‘There’s
obviously nothing to be found in here.’
      ‘I’m not so sure.’ The Doctor was looking into the
microscope and adjusting it above one of the slides which had
been positioned in the cradle underneath.
      ‘I am.’ Hobson’s voice was blunt and uncompromising.
‘Come out of here.’ He led them out and then walked over
and sat in one of the chairs. ‘Here. All of you. Now, for once, I
want the truth. What do you know about all this?’ He looked
directly at the Doctor.
      The Doctor put on his blandest expression. ‘Nothing, I
assure you, nothing whatsoever. No more than you do.’
      ‘We’ll see about that in a minute!’ He turned to Polly.
‘This thing you saw, describe it to me.’
      Polly nodded. ‘It was very tall. It was covered in some
sort of silver material, had holes for eyes and a slit for a
mouth—like a giant robot.’
      Hobson leaned back and snorted derisively. ‘A robot!’
Behind Polly, the Doctor was pacing up and down furiously.
       ‘Say,’ Ben interjected, ‘weren’t the Cybermen all killed
when their planet MONDAS blew up?’ Hobson leaned
forward.
       ‘Stop this Cyberman nonsense. There were Cybermen,
every child knows that, but they were all destroyed long ago.’
       The Doctor stopped and brought out his well worn
diary. ‘So we all thought!’
       Hobson thumped the arm of his chair. ‘Put that book
away, Doctor. Now let’s have a little calm thinking, shall we?’
The others turned towards him, impressed by the change in
his voice. Hobson was now quieter than usual, well controlled,
a little menacing. The scientist in him had taken hold. He was
setting out his thesis.
       ‘For the past few hours a completely unknown disease
has appeared in the base. People drop in their tracks and
develop this black pattern on their skin. Then some of the
patients disappear, right? They cannot go outside the base
without wearing space suits, and there are no space suits
missing, so, where are they? Answer... nobody seems to know.’
       The Doctor made a futile gesture with his hands. ‘It
does all sound a little odd, I suppose.’
       ‘A little odd!’ Hobson echoed. ‘Aye, more than a little.
But one thing I do know. A new disease starts, people
disappear, and then you turn up.’
       ‘You don’t actually think we did it?’ Polly asked hotly.
       ‘How could we have anything to do with it?’ chipped in
Ben. ‘We’ve just got here.’
       ‘That I don’t know,’ said Hobson. ‘I’ve only your word
for it. I don’t know who you are, what you are, or where you
come from, and you don’t seem very anxious to tell me. All I
do know is you must get off the moon, as soon as possible.’
       ‘What good will that do?’ asked Polly.
      ‘I’ve no idea, but I do know that it will eliminate one of
our problems.’
      ‘That suits me fine,’ Ben broke in. ‘The sooner we get
shot of this place, the better. Believe me, skipper, I’ve no wish
to stay around here!’
      The Doctor interposed. ‘No, Ben, we cannot go yet.’
      ‘Why not?’ Ben was angrier than Polly had ever seen
him before. ‘They don’t want us here. We’ll be a darn sight
healthier away from their crummy base.’
      The Doctor’s voice was suddenly low, urgent. ‘There’s
evil here. We must stay.’
      ‘Evil!’ Hobson raised his eyebrows. ‘In what way,
Doctor?’
      The Doctor had, as Polly put it afterwards, a ‘far-
horizons’ look in his blue-green eyes. ‘There are some corners
of the universe,’ the Doctor went on, ‘which have bred the
most terrible things. Things which are against everything we
have ever believed in. They...’ he shivered in spite of himself,
‘... must be fought. To the death.’
      No one spoke. The Doctor visibly relaxed, the slight,
teasing smile returned to his face, and he looked round at the
others. ‘This disease, for example. It isn’t really a disease, but
I think I can help you with it.’ He drew his stethoscope out of
his pocket and put it round his neck, the bumbling, absent-
minded professor again. ‘I’ll find the cause for you.’
      ‘I thought I’d just told you,’ said Hobson, ‘I want you
out of here.’
      The Doctor looked back at him evenly. ‘That, if I may
say so, will hardly solve any of your most urgent problems. I
am a doctor, and a scientist. I have some experience of this
type of disease. All I need to do is to examine the base. I think
I can find the cause for you.’
        Hobson sat back in his chair, scratching his jaw and
looking from one to the other. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You
have just twenty-four hours. One Earth-day cycle to find the
cause, and then—out!’
        ‘That’s hardly any time at all!’ Ben exclaimed.
        Hobson rose. ‘Time enough, then you all get off the
moon, complete with this bloke here.’ He pointed to Jamie in
bed.
        ‘No,’ said Polly, ‘he’s ill. You can’t move him.’
        The Doctor interposed between her and Hobson. ‘I
accept. Tell me, have you any sort of pathological equipment
here?’
        ‘Only what Evans had in there.’ Hobson pointed to the
open door of the medical store room. The Doctor nodded
and rubbed his hands. ‘That will do splendidly.’
        Hobson walked over towards the door. ‘Right. I’ll leave
you to it. But, mind, just twenty-four hours.’ Before he had
closed the door behind him, the Doctor, running excitedly
like a small boy to a new toy, was inside the medical store
room and seated at the research bench.
        Curiously, Polly and Ben came over and stood beside
him. The Doctor picked up a tube of swabs and a glass petri
dish. He then got up and walked back into the medical unit,
followed by Ben and Polly.
        ‘What are you going to do, Doctor?’ questioned Ben.
        The Doctor looked round. ‘You’ll see. We’ll start with
this chap.’ He strode over to one of the sick men.
        ‘Just a minute.’ Polly was beside him, her face looking a
little anxious. ‘Are you really a medical doctor?’
        The Doctor stopped, thought for a moment, and then
brought out his inevitable diary. ‘Yes. I think I did take a
medical degree once.’ He opened an early page in the diary
and looked. ‘There it is; Edinburgh, 1870! What’s this...’ He
looked closely at the entry. ‘... Lister... Mmm...’ He closed the
diary, thrust it back into his pocket and turned to the patient.
        As the Doctor uncovered the man’s hand and arm, they
saw the filigree pattern of black lines they had already noticed
on the faces of the other patients. The Doctor delicately
rubbed a small metal scraper over the black lines on the hand.
As he did so, the hand clutched convulsively twice. Polly gave
a little gasp and started back in horror.
        ‘Don’t worry,’ the Doctor reassured her. ‘It’s quite all
right. He’s unconscious.’
        The Doctor led the way back into the medical store
room. He sat down at the small laboratory bench and put the
slide under the microscope. Then, watched by Ben and Polly,
he opened a petri dish and gently rubbed at the inner surface
with the swab from the bottle. The others watched with
interest as he bent down and fixed his eye to the microscope
lens. Their interest soon wandered, however, when the
Doctor seemed to become fixed in that position, totally
concentrating on the enlarged segment seen through the two
eye-pieces.
        ‘Hey,’ Ben said, ‘can we have a look?’
        The Doctor hardly moved. ‘No,’ he said quietly.
        ‘What can we do to help you then?’ said Polly.
        The Doctor finally looked up from the microscope. ‘I’ll
need to examine everything; clothing, boots, food, soap,
towels, everything. Will you go and get them for me?’
        ‘Have you any idea yet what it is?’ Polly and Ben looked
hopefully at the Doctor. He looked back at them quizzically.
‘Haven’t the faintest idea, so far. But...’ he added, as he saw
their faces fall, ‘... we’ll have a lot of fun tracking it down.’
                       6
             The Doctor Investigates
        In the Weather Control Room, a state of emergency had
been declared. Both Hobson and Benoit were seated at the
main controls eyeing the world map on the huge luminous
screen.
        Most of the off-duty personnel of the base were working
through the banks of computers, or, with acoustic head gear,
checking the Gravitron itself.
        ‘The damn thing won’t stabilise.’ Hobson, for once,
sounded more anxious than angry. ‘I just don’t understand it.
I’m sure there’s a loss of co-ordination somewhere.’
        ‘But where?’ Benoit was still his cool efficient self, the
only sign of intense strain a tight furrow running down the
centre of his brow.
        ‘Look at the indicators,’ Hobson replied. He pointed
and Benoit, following his gaze, saw one of the cursors hunting
restlessly back and forward across the World map. ‘It should
be as steady as a rock.’
        ‘Surely it is a fault in the Gravitron itself?’ said Benoit.
        Hobson swivelled around in his chair. ‘Nils, here.’ The
man Nils left his R/T set and came over to the main console.
        ‘Yes, chief?’
        ‘We’re going to run a test. Move the probe and we’ll see
if the cursors move the right distance on the map. O.K.?’
        ‘Right, chief.’ Nils nodded to Hobson and sat beside him
in the control seat.
        ‘Jules,’ Hobson continued, ‘keep an eye on the probe
itself, will you?’ Benoit nodded and took up his position at the
far end of the room where he had a good unlimited view of
the tall, cylindrical probe.
       As soon as he was in position, Hobson gave the order:
‘Deflect probe five degrees, now!’ Benoit watched the probe as
it slowly moved to a new position. Hobson and Nils at the
console anxiously watched the cursors which were still
hunting about on the map.
       ‘Look at them,’ said Hobson in disgust. ‘They’re way off.
Five degrees should put them over Iceland.’ On the huge,
illuminated screen the cursors were quite obviously moving to
and fro over the north of Spain. ‘It’s useless. Move the probe
back again into position.’
       ‘Right.’ Nils operated the controls. Again, the men
heard the heavy whine of the motors as the probe swung back
into its former position.
       Benoit strolled back over to Hobson. ‘The probe seemed
to deflect all right.’
       ‘Then the fault must be here,’ Hobson replied. ‘This
could be a major disaster. We cannot stabilise the Earth field.’
       ‘If we lose that hurricane, chief,’ Nils broke in, ‘all hell
will break loose on Earth. I have a wife and family...’
       Hobson put a large hand on the man’s arm. ‘Aye, lad.
We all have.’ He turned to Benoit. ‘Check the potentiometers.
Nils, check the hydraulic levels. Shake it up now! We haven’t
got much time.’
       Benoit walked over to the head-gear rack and pulled on
one of the acoustic helmets. He opened the door and passed
quickly into the Gravitron chamber, closing the door behind
him. As he did so the rumbling noise from within the
Gravitron room seemed to increase in volume and, for once,
did not decrease when the door was closed.
       Inside the Gravitron room the noise would have been
deafening without the acoustic headgear. The round,
doughnut-shaped torus of the Gravitron was giving out a
bright pulsing light. Benoit motioned to the head operator to
turn up the power on the controlling levers.
       The tension in the room was as perceptible as the
vibrations of the machine. The dial needles flickered and
inched up as the full nuclear power of the torus was fed into
it.
       Outside, in the Control Room, Nils was reporting to
Hobson. ‘Field stabilising forty-eight, chief.’
       Hobson reached forward and pulled over the mike that
communicated with the inbuilt receiving sets in the acoustic
headgear worn by the Gravitron operators. ‘Jules,’ he said,
‘prepare to move probe. Check the co-ordinates. We’ve got to
hold the hurricane in the Pacific.’ He looked up at the huge
map. ‘Stand by!’ The tension was visible on the faces of every
man in the Control Room as they watched the map. Would
the extra power stop the restless shifting of the cursors?
‘Now,’ said Hobson. The huge cylindrical gravity probe began
to move slowly and massively from its previously vertical
position and, to the accompaniment of the rumbling motors,
tilted to the the right about twenty degrees.
       Benoit came out of the Gravitron chamber and pulled
off his headgear. He glanced across at the controls. ‘Twenty
degree right tilt, complete.’
       Hobson was studying the cursors on the map. They had
not moved from their position over Spain. ‘The field is not
correcting. We will have to increase the reactor power.’
       For the first time, Benoit looked anxious. ‘We can’t do
that, thief, the torus will burn out. We’re giving it everything
we’ve got already.’
       ‘We’ll have to take that chance.’ Hobson was resolute,
determined. ‘It’s the only thing we can do.’
       A bright red warning light started flashing in front of
him. The men heard an angry buzzing sound. Nils got up
from his control desk and called over another operator to take
his place. He then strode over to the R/T set and flicked a
switch. ‘Earth calling, chief,’ he said. ‘The line’s open now.’
He pointed to the hand mike standing by the director’s chair
and Hobson pulled it towards him.
       The same impersonal voice as before rang through the
loudspeaker system. ‘International Space Command on Earth
calling Moon Weather Control.’ This time the background
static was loud and Nils glanced at Benoit and Hobson.
       ‘Weather Control here,’ Hobson spoke into the mike.
       ‘Stand by for the Controller,’ the voice continued.
       ‘Come in, please,’ said Nils over the R/T set.
       Hobson leant back in his chair and turned to Benoit,
hardly bothering to lower his voice. ‘The great man’s actually
going to speak to us this time.’
       A new voice came over the R/T system. This time it was a
man’s voice, authorative and crisp. ‘Controller Rinberg
speaking. Is that you, Hobson?’
       ‘Yes, Mr. Rinberg,’ said Hobson.
       ‘The directional fields are showing progressive error.’
The voice had a dry rasp to it. ‘Reports have come in of
widespread pressure fluctuations in Atlantic zone six. You
must get the Gravitron back into balance.’
       Hobson shifted forward in his chair. ‘We’re trying to
compensate the error by re-aligning the probe. We have an
error in the servos.’
       The voice sounded even more acid. ‘Well, there’s no
sign of any improvement here. We’ve just had a report from
Miami, Florida. Thirty minutes ago they were enjoying clear
skies and a heat wave. Now hurricane Lucy is right overhead.’
      Benoit leant over and touched Hobson on the arm.
‘There’s only one other thing we can do, chief.’
      ‘What’s that?’
      ‘Shut it down.’
      ‘What!’ Hobson sounded incredulous. ‘Switch the
Gravitron off?’
      ‘Yes,’ continued Benoit. ‘It’s the only chance we have.’
      ‘We can’t do that, man.’ Hobson’s voice was urgent.
‘The collapse of the gravity would devastate half the globe.
There’d be storms, whirlwinds, hurricanes...’
      Abruptly, Rinberg’s voice cut in. ‘I overheard your
conversation. It is quite out of the question. You are not to
shut down the Gravitron under any circumstances. And that’s
an order.’
      ‘One moment,’ Hobson’s face was flushed and angry, ‘I
think perhaps you don’t appreciate how serious the situation
really is.’
      Again, Rinberg’s cold voice echoed around the Control
Room. ‘I am well aware. We have spent years in the general
assembly negotiating methods of agreement between farmers,
landowners, and so on. Now the weather is out of control and
they are after our blood and I must say I can’t blame them.
You’ve got to get that thing under control. And soon! Now
please get to it.’
      There was a click and the voice abruptly cut out.
      The various technicians and Weather Control men had
gathered around Hobson expectantly throughout the tail-end
of Rinberg’s speech.
      After his flash of anger, Hobson was calm again and fully
under control. He pushed the hand microphone away from
him and looked around at the assembled team. ‘You’ve heard
the voice of God,’ he said. ‘Now you’re all in the picture.
We’ve got trouble, bad trouble, and, what’s more, not much
time! We’re going to run through every circuit, every field
pattern, every nut and bolt on Charlieboy in there.’ He swept
his hand over towards the Gravitron. ‘A full class A test, in
fact. Until we’ve got it running sweet and smooth. Now you all
know what to do, so let’s get on with it.’ As he finished
speaking, without further preamble, the technicians scattered
to their various positions and settled down to hard work,
comparing circuit diagrams with the response of their
instruments. Very tired men forgot their fatigue, and
concentrated on the job in hand.
      It was into this scene of concentrated activity that the
Doctor, armed with a bottle of swabs, specimen tubes and a
large pair of scissors entered and immediatly began to
disrupt. He was doing what he enjoyed best; research for a
scientific, or in this case, a medical truth. With a mad gleam in
his eye, he moved quickly round the room snipping off pieces
of the men’s overalls and putting them into bottles. Scraping
their shoes and boots and taking swabs from their hands. He
seemed not at all put out by the irritated gestures of his
victims.
      Meanwhile, Nils and Benoit were checking the main
Weather Control console. Hobson was standing behind them
holding a board with circuit diagrams and notes on it. He was
holding a pencil and checking the items as he went through.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ll start on the main tape programme.’
      The men looked over at the computers. ‘Running now,’
said Nils. ‘Jules,’ said Hobson. ‘Give me analogue values on
module six.’
       ‘Will do.’ Benoit looked at the instruments. ‘They look
all right. A at ten millivolts. B at fifteen millivolts. C at twenty-
six millivolts. That fits, doesn’t it?’
       Behind Hobson, unnoticed, the Doctor was on his hands
and knees examining a piece of material he had scraped off
the rubberised flooring of the base.
       Hobson finished checking the papers on the board.
‘Everything seems within normal limits,’ he said. ‘Jules, finish
checking here, will you? The answer may be in the control
panel itself.’ He turned to go and almost fell over the Doctor.
‘Will you please get out of my way?’ he said and brushed
angrily past.
       Benoit turned to Nils. ‘I’ll sing out the binary conversion
values. You check them on read-out. O.K.?’
       The Dane nodded and picked up a piece of punched
computer tape protruding from the machine.
       ‘Channel one,’ Benoit continued, ‘eight, one, three,
four...’ As he read out the figures, Nils concentrated on the
punched tape. As each number came up he checked the tape
and nodded affirmatively.
       ‘Six, eight, twelve. O.K.?’ Benoit looked enquiringly at
Nils. ‘Yes,’ said Nils, ‘all spot on.’
       ‘Right.’ Benoit studied the papers on the board and
made a note. At that same moment the Doctor rose from the
floor and nicked a small piece off the edge of his tunic collar.
‘Hey! Careful!’ The Doctor held up the small sample of cloth
and smiling, carefully put it into one of his sample tubes.
       ‘Now, where were we?’ Benoit continued. ‘Yes, the fluid
servo pressures. I reckon this is probably where the fault is.’
       ‘Do you want them all?’ said Nils. ‘Or just the main tank
readings?’
       ‘The mains will do.’
      ‘Right. Header—one—forty-five pounds. Header—
two—forty-seven. Three—forty-two. Sine values equivalent.’
      The Doctor became obsessed by something he saw on
Nils’ boots. He bent down to examine them.
      ‘They all fit,’ said Benoit. ‘Nothing there. It must be the
potentiometer net, then.’
      ‘Looks like it. Take us some time to do that. We’ll need
the digital vault meter.’ The Frenchman looked up over his
board at Nils. ‘I’ll get it now.’ Nils turned to go, but the
Doctor had got a firm hold on Nils’ boot and unlaced it.
      As the Dane moved away, the Doctor held on to the
boot. Nils went flying forward, leaving the Doctor
triumphantly holding the boot.
      Hobson turned round angrily. ‘What the blazes do you
think you’re doing?’
      The Doctor looked up from his prize and raised his
eyebrows. ‘Just taking specimens, that’s all.’
      ‘Specimens!’ Hobson seemed about to erupt again, then
recollected. ‘Oh yes, of course. Get on with it. But don’t
disrupt my men.’
      The Doctor nodded, placed Nils’ boot into the large
plastic bag he had brought with him, and continued his
search.

      In the Medical Unit, Polly was busy administering to the
patients. Ben was checking through a number of small bottles
of drugs.
      ‘We’re nearly out of this interferon stuff.’ Ben held up
one of the bottles. Polly looked at him. ‘Perhaps you’d better
go up to Mr. Hobson and ask him where the rest of the stuff
is.’
      Ben cocked an eyebrow. ‘Hobson,’ he said, ‘must I?’
        ‘The Doctor told us to administer these drugs every four
hours.’ Polly sounded a little exasperated, as if to say it was
hard enough trying to be a nurse without having to put up
with incompetence from the hospital orderlies. Ben looked at
her for a couple of moments, shrugged his shoulders and set
off for the Weather Control Room.
        Polly walked over to Jamie’s bed and looked down at
him. She wet a face cloth in the stainless steel washbasin
beside the bed, and mopped his brow. ‘It’s alright, Jamie,
dear, it’s alright. You’re getting better, but you must keep
still. The Doctor says you need rest.’
        Jamie opened his eyes and looked around him. ‘Where
am I, what is this place?’ He clutched Polly’s arm anxiously.
‘Is it the home of the Piper?’
        ‘No, Jamie, you’re on the moon. You know, the moon
up in the sky.’
        Jamie shook his head. ‘Nay, I canna be alive. I’ve aye
seen the phantom Piper.’ As he spoke a shadow fell across the
lower end of his bed and slowly moved towards him.
        Jamie looked past Polly, his face stiffening with horror.
He pressed back into the bedclothes. Polly, the hair prickling
at the base of her skull, turned slowly round. Facing her was
the giant figure of a Cyberman. She opened her mouth to
scream but before she could do so the two square metal hands
of the Cyberman came forward and pressed Polly’s temples.
Her body gave a violent convulsion and she dropped limply
back across Jamie’s bed.
        The Cyberman looked down at Jamie and extended a
hand. ‘I defy ye, Piper.’ Despite his injury and delirium,
Jamie still had the fighting spirit of the McCrimmon clan.
Even death, the grim Piper, could be resisted.
       The Cyberman shot out his terrible hand. The spark
found its mark and Jamie fell unconscious back on the bed.
The Cyberman bent over to pick up his body then saw the
head wound, and the stained bandages. He hesitated, then
turned round to a bed further down the line, occupied by the
man known as Jim.
       As he bent to pick up the man, his movements were only
slightly reminiscent of a robot. Apart from a slight jerkiness
about the limbs, he could still have passed for a man—except
for the colossal strength, which was equivalent to that of five
men.
       The man was tall and the Cyberman, holding him by the
legs under one arm, the blanket dangling beside him, headed
for the door of the Medical Store Room. It closed behind him.
       A moment later, the main door to the ward opened and
the Doctor came in. He was carrying a plastic bag full of
oddments for testing. He looked across the ward, took in the
scene at a glance and with the surprising agility he showed on
such occasions, raced across the room and lifted Polly up into
a sitting position. Polly stirred, and the Doctor, reaching over
her, tenderly wiped her face with the wet face cloth. She
started to come to...

      In Weather Control, the search for an error in the
equipment had now eliminated most of the working parts of
the Gravitron and weather control consoles. Sam, the head
technician, came over to Hobson. ‘Chief...’
      Hobson looked up a little impatiently. He and Benoit
were examining the test figures on the Gravitron probe itself.
‘Yes?’
      ‘I think I’ve found something.’
      ‘Well, man? Get on with it,’ Hobson.snapped. ‘We’ve
had a drop in the air pressure again.’
      ‘The same as before?’ Benoit broke in.
      Sam nodded. ‘It’s beginning to form a pattern. It lasts
about five seconds.’
      ‘Just long enough for somebody to enter or leave the
base.’ Benoit looked over at Hobson.
      ‘Could be. It’s not the pumps, I’m sure of that.’ Hobson
was thinking out aloud. ‘Has anybody asked permission to
leave the base?’
      ‘No, sir.’ Sam shook his head. ‘As far as I know, the
compression chamber’s empty.’
      Hobson’s jaw tightened. ‘If I find anyone’s been messing
about in there without permission, I’ll tear the hides off
them.’
      As he spoke, far below in a base storeroom, another
Cyberman was entering the base. At this point, the plastic
dome extended some six feet below the mixture of rocks and
loose sand that formed the moon’s surface. The Cybermen
had broken into the base by digging down behind one of the
large craggy rocks and burrowing up to the buried edge of
the plastic dome. With their superior tools, they had cut out a
neat square panel. This they had hinged with a strong
adhesive plaster so that it operated as a door—just large
enough to allow entry of the Cybermen into the base. Once
inside the plastic dome, there were no further tell-tale drops
in pressure.
      Having climbed inside, there was a space of some six
feet to the wall of the nearest building, the lower end of the
Weather Control complex. The base store room stood
immediately in front of them, and it became a comparatively
simple matter to cut through its metal walls and get inside.
Their point of entry into the store room had been concealed
by stacked cartons of foodstuffs.

       Sam looked at the dials. ‘Pressure is up again now, sir.’
       ‘Thank heavens for that!’ Hobson muttered. ‘I’ll check
over the control loop monitor now.’ He rose from his seat.
       ‘I think you’ll be wasting your time, chief...’ Benoit
began but Hobson cut him off angrily. ‘Nothing is a waste of
time until we trace this fault, and don’t you forget it. You saw
what’s happening on earth. We can’t afford to miss anything.
Now get on with it.’ The other two men returned to their
work while Hobson started the laborious business of checking
the monitor which governed the uniform air pressure
throughout the base.
       ‘Chief,’ Sam shouted excitedly, ‘I think I’ve found
something.’ The Director and his assistant moved over to him.
Sam was looking at a computer read-out sheet used for
checking the Gravitron and its probe. ‘It’s one of the probe
control antenna,’ he said.
       ‘What’s the matter with it?’ said Benoit.
       ‘According to these readings,’ Sam went on, ‘there are at
least two pieces of it missing—not responding.’
       ‘Missing?’ Hobson questioned.
       ‘Probably meterorites,’ Benoit chipped in.
       Hobson looked back at him, a new thought beginning to
dawn. ‘That could be. But I think there may be a simple
explanation. Jules, when did these people arrive?’
       Benoit looked at his watch, set to a completely different
timescale from Earth time. ‘Let’s see, it would be period
eleven in this present lunar day.’
       ‘Right,’ said Hobson. ‘When did the Gravitron start
playing up?’
       ‘About...’ Benoit thought carefully, ‘why, about the
beginning of period twelve.’
       Hobson turned to Sam. Now he had something to get
his teeth into and he felt and looked much more cheerful than
he had done for the last few hours. ‘And when was the last
time we had anyone outside?’
       ‘During period thirteen,’ Sam reported. ‘Two men went
out to re-align one of the solar mirrors.’
       ‘That’s it then! That’s quite enough for me!’ Hobson
snapped his fingers excitedly.
       ‘I don’t follow you,’ said Benoit.
       ‘Simple. Strangers arrive during period eleven, the
Gravitron goes up the spout during period twelve. One of our
vital outside antennae is damaged shortly before they arrive at
the base. None of our people has been outside in the same
period, and there’s no one else, that we know of, on the
moon.’
       ‘What about the Cybermen?’ Jules queried.
       ‘A put up story,’ said Hobson. ‘Who else has seen them
except for the Doctor and his two companions? All we know is
that since they arrived, there has been this terrible space virus
sweeping the base, people have disappeared, and, to cap it all,
the outside of our Gravitron probe has been sabotaged. That’s
quite good enough for me. It’s time we put the Doctor and his
friends into cold storage.’
       They made for the door. At the door Hobson turned
back to Sam. ‘While we’re taking care of the Doctor and his
chums, get two men outside to look at the antenna, will you,
Sam?’
       Sam nodded. ‘Yes, chief.’ He put down his check board
and left the Weather Control Room.
      Hobson turned to Benoit. ‘Now for the Doctor.’ They
turned to go just as Ben burst through the door. He was out
of breath from running and leant back against the door for a
second to catch his breath. Hobson looked at him sceptically.
‘Well, what’s the story this time?’
      ‘Another patient’s gone,’ said Ben.
      Hobson stared at him for a moment and then, without a
word, brushed past him and hurried on down the corridor.

      Meanwhile, Sam had got on to the emergency control
crew. Two men were kept on permanent stand-by, ready to
go out on the moon surface to effect any instant repairs to the
dome or the exterior aerials. Alerted by Sam, the two men
had been donning their space suits. Sam assisted them with
their transparent head globes which were screwed on into
place, rather like the helmet of a deep sea diver. When these
were in place, the men flexed their shoulders and paced up
and down the narrow decompression chamber to get used to
the feel of the suits.
      One of the men gave the thumbs up sign and Sam, after
a quick look to make sure that their suits were adjusted
corectly, the air dials up to full, etc., nodded to them and went
out through the pressure door into the base itself.
      He then swung the heavy door shut and clamped it
from the inside.
      Left inside the circular decompression chamber, one of
the two men pressed a button on the wall. There was a loud,
hollow, hissing, roaring sound as the atmospheric pressure of
the base exhaused to the lunar vacuum. While they waited for
the pressure to equalise, they each, in turn, checked the valves
of the cylinders on each other’s back.
      The hissing died away. The second man pressed
another button. Slowly, the exit port rose upwards. As it did
so, the totally different, hard, brilliant light of the lunar day
streamed in. They pulled down their tinted sun visors and
carefully moved out on to the moon surface.

      The Doctor was sitting at his microscope in the medical
store room. He was looking more pessimistic than Polly had
seen him for some time. Around him were piles of clothing,
baked bean tins, boots, saucepans, space-suit globes, and all
the other paraphernalia he had collected throughout the base.
      Polly was standing looking down at him. She was still
feeling a bit groggy, but determined to stay on her feet and,
most important, not to be left alone in the future.
      The Doctor threw an instrument down on the desk.
‘Nothing, absolutely nothing.’
      ‘Isn’t there any clue?’ asked Polly.
      ‘Complete blank.’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘All the
tests are negative. As far as I can see, this whole ridiculous
place is completely sterile.’
      ‘Then we’ll have to tell Mr. Hobson, I suppose.’
      The Doctor rose and, kicking aside some of his collected
specimens, strode to the other end of the medical store room
and back. ‘I don’t think he’s going to like it very much, do
you? He seems to be relying on me to discover the cause of
this disease.’
      Polly looked a little embarrassed. She stared at her
painted fingernails, which, to the amusement of Ben and
Jamie, she kept up in the midst of their most hazardous
adventures. ‘Could it,’ she said haltingly, ‘could it possibly
have anything to do with Lister?’
      The Doctor stopped pacing and turned to her. ‘Lister?’
      ‘You did say that you took your degree in Edinburgh in
1870.’ Polly looked enquiringly over at him. ‘That seems an
awful long time ago from now, 2070, or whatever it is!’
      The Doctor came up to her, a slight smile on his face.
‘Polly, are you suggesting I may not be competent to
undertake these tests?’
      ‘Oh no, no, I was just wondering if there was something
Joseph Lister hadn’t known about in 1870 which might have
helped now?’ The Doctor looked searchingly at her, but Polly
was still examining her fingernails. He was about to reply
when his very acute hearing picked up something outside the
door. ‘Shh... Someone’s coming. Hobson is probably out for
blood... Ours!’
      Polly closed the door of the medical store unit. The
Doctor rushed over to the pile of clothing, boots, etc., and
started piling them up on the bench by his microscope. He
turned to Polly impatiently. ‘Quick, the rest of that stuff...
Look busy...’
      Polly started carrying the rest of the bottles, clothes,
instruments, etc., over to the bench. The Doctor sat down and
immediately became very absorbed in his lens. Hobson,
Benoit, Ben and two other men entered from the Medical
Unit.
      ‘That’s about the limit!’ Hobson glared over at the
Doctor.
      ‘Mmmm!’ The Doctor didn’t look up from his
microscope.
      ‘That’s the third person to disappear in a few hours. It’s
completely illogical. A field base. No one coming in and out.
People just vanish. They cannot be found inside...’
      ‘Would you...’ the Doctor suddenly broke in.
      ‘Eh...’ Hobson was stopped in full spate. ‘What?’
       ‘Please close that door,’ said the Doctor. ‘My slides, you
know. Dust and all that.’
       Benoit closed the door. The Doctor reached out for a
boot and started scraping a bit of the sole off with a knife.
       ‘I’ve come to the conclusion,’ said Hobson ponderously,
‘that it must be you people. No other explanation. We’ve got
some straight talking to do, you and I.’
       ‘Polly,’ the Doctor looked over at her.
       ‘Yes, Doctor?’ said Polly.
       ‘Another boot.’ Polly smiled nervously at Hobson and
passed another boot to the Doctor, walking past Hobson as
she did so, who had to step back out of the way. The Doctor,
she thought, was being his most irritatingly mysterious. She
rather wished she was out of the room.
       ‘Did you hear me?’ Hobson insisted.
       ‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor nodded. ‘All very strange.’ He bent
down to look in the microscope. Hobson came over and
loomed over the seated man. ‘Now look here...’
       The Doctor gently pushed him back. ‘Do you mind?’ He
picked up a slide. ‘I’m trying to help.’
       Hobson exploded. ‘Help! Is that what you call it? Well,
your time is up.’
       ‘Oh please, not yet,’ said Polly, ‘you said...’
       ‘I don’t care what I said.’ Hobson pulled back as the
Doctor turned and whipped out a magnifying glass and
started examining the front of his jacket. ‘Have you found
anything yet?’
       The Doctor suddenly raised his finger to his mouth.
‘Shh...’ he said with great confidential excitement, ‘I believe I
have.’
       Hobson was impressed in spite of himself by the
Doctor’s manner. ‘Really?’ The Doctor nodded. ‘I’m certainly
on to something.’ He suddenly rose from his chair up to his
full height and turned round. ‘But...’ he thundered, ‘I must
have peace and quiet. How can I work under these
conditions? Out now. Out all of you.’
      His sudden onslaught took them all by surprise and
even Hobson found himself moving towards the door. As he
turned to go out, however, he turned back to the Doctor.
‘We’ll give you just ten minutes and that’s final.’ Hobson
exited.
      Polly had also been carried away by the Doctor’s ploy.
‘Did you mean that, Doctor?’
      The Doctor’s manner changed again. He seemed to
relax, subside.
      ‘You’ve found something?’ Polly questioned.
      He gently led her over to the door. ‘Why don’t you go
and make some coffee? Keep the others happy, while I try
and think of something.’
      Polly’s face fell. ‘So it was just a trick?’ The Doctor
merely looked at her and repeated, ‘Coffee.’ Polly nodded
dispiritedly, her hopes dashed again. She left the medical
stores room and the Doctor walked over to the microscope,
his eyes restlessly looking around for a clue...

      Outside, on the lunar surface, the two men from the
base were slowly making their way towards the damaged
antenna. As they walked towards the aerial they were unaware
of being closely watched.
      Close by the site of the probe aerial, there was a large
collection of boulders. These had rolled down the slope from
the high crags beyond the landing place of the TARDIS. The
boulders were some twelve to fifteen feet high and the dark
shadows they threw sharply contrasted with the harsh
brilliance of the lunar surface. In the shadow, had the two
Earth men been less preoccupied by the damaged aerial, they
might just have made out a large outline in the shape of a
man. They would have had to have had exceptional eyes,
however, to have seen the watching eyes of a Cyberman in the
deeper shadows. Behind him another Cyberman stood in the
shelter of the boulder...




  The arms swept down... with a massive chopping blow to the necks

      The two men examined the broken, tubular pieces of
aerial. The aerial had obviously been shattered by the force of
some object striking it. Had Hobson kept all his men fully
informed of the possibility of attack from an alien race, the
men might have been alerted to the real cause of the damage.
As it was, they wrote it off as the result of one of the periodic
meteorite showers that swept the moon surface.
      The plastic dome itself had been damaged on various
occasions by large meteorites, some weighing up to several
kilogrammes.
       The men dismantled what was left of the aerial and
started laying it out on the grey lunar sand. They had
brought various joints with them. Their task was to fit the
tubular segments together in the joints and rig it up again,
until such time as a new, stronger aerial could be brought up
from Earth.
       So totally engrossed in their work were the two men,
that the first intimation the men had of any danger was a
large shadow that fell across the pieces of broken aerial.
       The two men whipped around alarmed, but it was too
late. Behind them the two huge silver figures had their arms
upraised and before the men could defend themselves, the
arms swept down, almost in unison, with a massive chopping
blow to the necks of the men, just below their face globes...
       The force of the blows was such that the bodies of the
two men rolled over and over in the reduced lunar gravity,
finally coming to rest like grotesque dolls, sprawled face
upwards in the soft lunar sand.
                      7
              The Cybermen’s Plot
      The Weather Control Room now held almost the entire
able-bodied population of the base. Hobson was sitting back in
his chair looking at the Doctor, who had left his microscope
unwillingly to accompany Benoit. He was standing uneasily in
front of Hobson, a hang-dog expression on his face. He was
well aware that nothing would bluff the base director any
further.
      Hobson, searching the Doctor’s face, put the inevitable
question. ‘Have you completed your examinations, Doctor.’
      ‘Er...’ the Doctor mumbled, ‘just about.’
      Hobson crossed his fingers and tilted his head back
slightly, playing a cat and mouse game with the Doctor.
‘You’ve turned the base upside down, I see.’
      The small boy inside the Doctor broke through for a
moment and he nodded happily. ‘Oh yes. Everything, I
assure you. Clothing, machinery, boots.’
      ‘And you’ve found...?’
      ‘Found?’ the Doctor looked away. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’
      As if this was what he’d been waiting for, Hobson leaned
forward in his chair, his jaw out-thrust aggressively. ‘Yes.
Somehow I didn’t think you would. So what I told you still
stands.’
      At that moment the door opened and Polly, followed by
Ben, entered with a piled tray of coffee, cups, biscuits and
sandwiches. Behind her Ben was carrying a large jug of cream
and a sugar bowl.
      ‘Here,’ she said brightly, ‘this will make you all feel
better.’
      The men gladly diverted their attention from their work
for a moment and started taking sandwiches, coffee and
biscuits from the tray. Hobson was temporarily at a loss. He
took a sandwich from the tray and a cup of coffee and placed
them beside him.
      Again he cleared his throat, ready to make his
pronouncement to the Doctor and his companions. Just then
Sam entered and walked over to him. He seemed worried
about something.
      ‘Chief... I think I’d better go outside and take a look
around.’
      Benoit raised his eyebrows and the man went on, ‘Those
two, Frank and Luigi, haven’t reported back. Their oxygen
must have practically run out by now. There’s been no word
from them since they started re-assembling the aerial.’
      Hobson seemed unwilling to acknowledge a further
cause for worry. ‘I expect they are having trouble
reassembling the aerial. They’ll have taken the spare oxygen
tanks with them. That will give them at least another two
hours. No need to panic as yet.’
      Sam nodded, relieved, and walked back to his console.
As he left, Polly had just finished handing out all the coffee.
‘That’s everyone, I think,’ she said looking around. She
looked over to where Ben, his attention distracted by
something on the large world map, had put down the cream
and sugar. ‘Ben,’ she called. As Ben appeared not to hear her,
she strode over and picked up the cream and sugar herself.
She brought it over to Hobson, who declined the cream and
took two large spoonfuls of the sugar. He raised the coffee to
his mouth,
      ‘Careful,’ said Polly, ‘it’s hot.’ Hobson lowered the cup
again. Beside him another of his men, Bob, the youngest
member of the base crew, a bespectacled youth of nineteen,
sipped his coffee and smiled at her. ‘Not too hot for me,’ he
said.
      She turned to the Doctor. ‘Doctor, don’t you want your
coffee?’ She passed him the cup that she had put down on the
console for him. The Doctor nodded gloomily, lost in
thought. ‘No thanks, Polly.’
      Hobson returned to the attack. ‘As I was saying, you’ve
had your chance, Doctor. What have you found? Nothing!’
      Bob, the young technician, suddenly stiffened. His hand
started shaking.
      ‘Careful,’ Polly shouted. But it was too late. The cup
tipped forward from his hand and fell on to the floor. His
entire body began to shudder. He stiffened and slowly
collapsed into a heap on the floor. Everybody rose to their
feet.
      ‘Stand back,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘Let me look.’ As they
backed away he bent over the man and examined his hand.
On the back of the technician’s hand the black lines were
slowly creeping, swelling up like veins and reaching along the
fingers... the men reacted in silence to the plight of yet
another victim of the black plague. The Doctor slowly rose to
his feet. He looked over to where Nils was raising his coffee
cup to his mouth and yelled out, ‘Don’t drink that!’ Nils
lowered the cup again. ‘Everybody, listen!’ said the Doctor.
‘Don’t touch that coffee, whatever you do.’
      ‘What on earth,’ began Hobson.
      ‘It’s the sugar,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s why the disease
doesn’t affect everybody. The virus is in the sugar. Not
everybody takes it.’
       Hobson, still with his coffee cup in his hand, looked at it
with distaste and slowly put it down on the side of the console.
Ben reached over to pick up the sugar bowl, but the Doctor
motioned him not to touch it. He came forward, brought out
a pair of forceps from his capacious pockets, and gingerly
picked up the bowl and its contents.
       He turned back to Ben. ‘Ben, you and one of the others
bring this fellow down to the Medical Unit. I’ve got to analyse
this.’
       Hobson lumbered forward. ‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘I’m
not sure that I’m going to allow you to go down there again,
out of my sight.’
       The Doctor was already at the door and nobody made
any move to stop him. He turned round. ‘You’d better come
with me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to show you exactly what this
mysterious virus looks like.’
       Down in the Medical Store Room the Doctor mixed a
sample of the sugar with a drop of water and placed it on the
slide. He slid it under the electron microscope and bent over
to look.
       ‘Just as I thought,’ he said, ‘a large neurotropic virus.’
He stood up and allowed Hobson to sit down at the
microscope. ‘See for yourself,’ he said. ‘The classic virus
shape.’
       Hobson saw a number of hexagonal objects like crystals
made up of ping pong balls with flat sides. It meant nothing
to him. He looked back at the Doctor and shrugged his
shoulders.
       ‘It’s a large infective agent which specifically attacks the
nerves,’ explained the Doctor. ‘That’s why the patients have
got those lines on their faces. They follow the course of the
nerves under the skin.’
       Hobson leaned back and looked at him. ‘I’m not sure I
follow all this,’ he said. ‘Anyway, how did it get in here?’
       ‘Quite obvious,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Cybermen are
deliberately infecting the base.’
       ‘No.’ Hobson shook his head obstinately. ‘My men have
searched every square inch of the base. There’s nobody
unaccounted for, and there’s no space big enough to hide a
cat, let alone a Cyberman.’
       The Doctor, who had been pursuing his own thoughts,
suddenly froze. ‘One moment,’ his voice carried a new
urgency that made Hobson look at him. Polly felt a sudden
prickling of fear at the base of her neck. The Doctor rarely
spoke like this, and when he did it was usually with good
cause.
       The Doctor beckoned to Hobson and the others and led
the way back into the Medical Unit. The lighting was still
down to its reddish half-glow. Bob was in the bed nearest to
them, flushed and unconscious. The Doctor motioned them
to stop by his bed. His apprehension began to infect the
others. He spoke in a whisper and Hobson, catching the
Doctor’s mood, answered in the same way, scaling his big
voice down to a mutter.
       ‘Did you say you had searched the base?’
       Hobson nodded. ‘Yes. What of it?’
       ‘Everywhere?’
       Hobson nodded.
       ‘But,’ the Doctor continued, ‘did you search in here?’
       Hobson looked over at the other technician, Peter, and
shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think so!’ Peter looked undecided,
and Hobson turned back to the Doctor. ‘There have been
people in here all the time so they probably...’
       The Doctor was looking across at Peter. ‘I want a direct
answer. Did they search in here?’
       Peter shook his head. ‘No.’
       ‘But there’s nowhere in here where they could hide,’
said Polly.
       The Doctor put a finger to his lips, motioning them to
silence, and then warily moved along the beds, the others
following close behind him. The third bed looked more bulky
than the others. The feet, they noticed, stretched right up to
its end.
       With a sudden apprehension, Polly put her hand to her
face. ‘Oh no, no, please!’
       The Doctor stopped about two feet from the bed, turned
round and waved the others back. He leant forward to pull off
the blanket but, before he could do so, the bedclothes were
flung off and a Cyberman, gleaming dully in the red glow,
swung massively to his feet, holding a Cyber-weapon.
       The weapon the Cyberman was holding fitted into two
small clips under his chest unit to which it was connected by a
thin cable. In appearance, it was a plain, foot-long metal rod
about an inch in diameter with a white cylinder on the end
which lit up when the weapon was fired.
       The Doctor had seen these Cyber-guns before and he
motioned Ben, who was edging back towards the door, to
keep still.
       ‘Stand back from that door.’ The Cyberman’s voice
vibrated harshly, as though computerised.
       Hobson’s mouth fell open as he stared, thunder-struck,
at the huge silver creature. Then he recovered and turned to
the Doctor, speaking quite calmly. ‘It seems you were right,
Doctor. I apologise. It is the Cybermen.’
      Unseen by the Doctor and Hobson, Peter the last one to
leave the Medical Store Room, had taken in the situation and
was carefully edging round behind the others out of sight of
the Cyberman. In his hand the man was carrying a large
heavy metal handle which was used for jacking up the ends of
the beds. Quickly slipping under the nearest bed, he managed
to crawl to a position almost directly behind the big silver
monster. Then, he to his feet, motioning the men facing him
not to react.
      The Cyberman was unaware of the man behind him.
The technician raised the handle to strike at the Cyberman’s
head. The Doctor, the only one there who was familiar with
the almost indestructable nature of the Cyberman’s armour,
looked on in horror, but dared not react.
      At the other end of the ward, a door was flung open
breaking the suspense for a moment. The men turned round
as a second Cyberman entered.
      Peter sprang forward and swung down the heavy bed
handle with all his might upon the back of the Cyberman’s
neck. The handle connected and then glanced off, throwing
the man back. To his amazement, he saw that there was not
even a dent in the Cyberman’s tough outer shell. He raised
the handle again as the Cyberman turned, his Cyber-weapon
levelled. There was a loud metallic rattle. The tip of the
weapon lit up and the technician froze in his tracks. As the
others watched in horror, smoke began to pour from the
openings in his clothes. His eyes went blank. His body seemed
almost to shrivel up. His face twisted and contorted, and he
crashed forward to the ground.
      Polly, her face white, turned and leant against the
Doctor, almost in a faint.
       ‘Remain still.’ The rasping voice of the first Cyberman
echoed round the room.
       ‘You devil.’ Hobson stepped forward and knelt by the
dead technician. The man looked as though he had received a
colossal electric charge. His face was almost black, his close-
cropped hair shrivelled as though badly burnt. Hobson
looked up. ‘You’ve killed him, an un-armed man.’
       ‘He was attacking us. He had to be destroyed.’ The
       Cyberman’s English was perfect. But the flat delivery
was much more like a robot or a computer than a man. He
turned to the Cyberman who had just entered. ‘See that they
remain here,’ he said.
       The second Cyberman, distinguishable from the first by
a red line across the front of his accordion-like chest unit,
unclipped his Cyber-weapon and drove the assembled
humans back against the wall.
       ‘What are you going to do?’ said Hobson. ‘Kill us all?’
       ‘That will not be necessary. You will keep quiet and
wait.’ The first Cyberman operated a control on his chest unit
and pulled out an aerial. He bent his head slightly and spoke
into what appeared to be a small built-in mike in his chest
unit.
       ‘Operational system two now complete, operational
system two now complete. Ready to start operational system
three.’
       Another voice came from a small hidden loudspeaker on
the chest unit itself. ‘Message understood. Operational system
three will now begin.’
       The first Cyberman switched off his receiver and
returned the aerial to its place by the side of the unit. He
walked along, surveying Hobson, Ben and Polly. He stopped
opposite the Doctor.
       ‘You are known to us.’
       The Doctor stared back at him. Polly noticed with pride
that there was not a glimmer of fear in his face. In fact, he
looked more relaxed than he had at the end of the search
when it was apparent that he would have to report his failure
to Hobson.
       The first Cyberman looked around at the others. ‘Who
is in command here?’
       Hobson nodded resolutely. ‘I am.’
       ‘You will be needed.’
       ‘What have you done with my men?’ Hobson turned
and indicated the empty beds in the Medical Unit.
       The first Cyberman answered: ‘They will return.’
       ‘You mean they are not dead?’ said Hobson.
       ‘No,’ the Cyberman answered. ‘They are not dead. They
are converted.’
       ‘Converted?’ exclaimed Hobson. ‘What have you done
to them?’
       ‘They are now under our control.’
       Polly noticed that, except when they were moving, the
two Cybermen were as still as two suits of armour in a
museum. The only thing that indicated life was a very slight
whirring noise, which seemed to come from the chest unit
every time they were about to speak.
       ‘Now look here...’ Hobson began to bluster again, ‘if
you’ve done anything to my men...’
       The Cyberman again turned its head slowly towards
Hobson. ‘You will do nothing.’ The second Cyberman walked
over to Bob, the latest patient, and examined him. On the
side of his face the others could see the black lines spreading.
The Cyberman then came up to Jamie and looked at him.
‘This one has not received the neurotrope X.’
       Polly walked towards Jamie.
       ‘Stand back.’ The Cyberman voice, although still flat in
expression, had risen in volume, and Polly froze in her tracks.
       ‘Please,’ she said, ‘leave him alone. He’s had an accident.
His head is hurt.’
       ‘His head?’ The second Cyberman looked round at the
first, as if for some signal of confirmation. ‘Then,’ he
continued, ‘he will be of no value to us. The others are ready
for conversion.’ He turned away from Jamie.
       The first Cyberman spoke to Hobson again. ‘You will
now take us to the control centre.’
       Hobson seemed about to say something but the
Cyberman slowly raised his Cyber-weapon and Hobson
shrugged and led the way out of the Medical Unit. The
Doctor followed him out, but when Ben and Polly made their
way to the door the second Cyberman, who had remained
behind, stopped them.
       ‘You will remain here. If you leave, you will be
converted like the others.’ He looked at them for a moment
and then exited, closing the door behind him firmly.
       Ben scratched his head and heaved a long sigh of relief.
‘Phew, I’m not sorry. I don’t like that word “converted”.’

     The Cyberman space ship nearest to the base somewhat
resembled the interior of a submarine. No concessions were
made for comfort, rest or food, as in a human space ship.
     Every spare inch was covered with highly sophisticated
apparatus. The Cybermen themselves did not rest. When
necessary, they could fit themselves into giant clips connected
to the powerful Cyberman batteries, and re-charge
themselves. Otherwise, they were operational twenty-four
hours a day.
      The rear section of this space ship, however, was
exceptional in that it had been specially fitted out for the
conversion of the Earth men. Lying from stem to stern were
three long narrow tables; like operating-theatre tables. Several
Cybermen were at present attaching metal clips to the heads
of three of the men from the moon base. These were
respectively Evans, Geoffrey and Ralph.
      The clips consisted of long headpieces of highly polished
metal. On the forehead end, there were several ridged
extensions leading to the skin of the forehead. The tail end,
running over the crown of the head, almost reached down to
the nape of the neck.
      When the clips were attached, a Cyberman who was
standing by a large illuminated control unit pressed down a
switch and signalled to the others. Another Cyberman, slightly
larger than the others, stood by the table near Evans. In
contrast to the others, his headpiece was a dull black. He was
obviously a leader of some kind. He looked down at the
unconscious men and spoke to them.
      ‘Raise your left arm.’
      As if pulled by an invisible wire, the men’s left arms
swung up to a vertical position.
      ‘Raise your right arm.’
      The men swung their right arms into position opposite
the left.
      ‘Now, get up.’
      Smoothly and without jerking, with perfect muscular co-
ordination, the Earth men rose to a sitting position, slid their
feet off the tables, and, almost in unison, got to their feet.
Each face stared expressionlessly ahead. The black lines down
the sides of their faces were still visible, but the swelling had
faded somewhat.
      The Cyberman looked closely at each one in turn.
‘Control is excellent. Prepare to transfer them to the capsules.’
      At the far end of the cabin, in a specially built rack, were
a series of circular canisters. A Cyberman removed one from
the rack and wheeled it along like a large rubber tyre. When it
was opposite Evans the Cyberman bent down, turned a small
lever, and pulled open the door which resembled the lid of a
circular powder compact. Inside there was just enough space
for a man to curl up. The Cyberman turned to Evans, lifted
him bodily, and pushed him into a foetal position in the
canister. He closed the door, turned the lever which locked it
and adjusted a small control that released oxygen to the
interior.
      This procedure was followed for each man in turn.
Finally, Tarn, the Cyberleader, motioned to one of his men.
      ‘They are now ready for transportation to the moon
base. You have your orders.’
      The Cyberman repeated after the Cyberleader, ‘I have
my orders.’ He beckoned to two more Cybermen and
together they started to wheel the canisters, with their human
cargo, towards the exit port to the moon surface.
                      8
        The Battle with the Cybermen
       In the Weather Control Room, Benoit and Sam were
anxiously conferring. ‘Still no word from the surface party,’
Sam anxiously remarked. ‘I think I’d better go out and have a
look.’
       ‘Let’s try once more,’ said Benoit. He picked up the
mike, pressed the switch and spoke again. ‘Surface party,
surface party, come in. We are not receiving you. Over.’
       All that could be heard from the loudspeaker, even
when Benoit turned it up to full, was a loud jarring static.
Benoit switched off the set and turned to Sam. ‘Can we see
the control antenna from here?’
       ‘No, not fully, it’s away on the far side of the moat
outside the main port.’
       Benoit nodded. ‘Right. Then you’ll have to go out, Sam.
Get ready to...’
       At that moment, the door burst open and Hobson, the
Doctor and a technician were thrust in by the two giant
Cybermen. As the Cybermen appeared in the gloom of the
door opening, everyone rose to their feet in complete
amazement. Benoit moved forward. ‘Chief, what’s happened?’
       Hobson made an urgent gesture. ‘Get back, get back—
these things are lethal.’
       The second Cyberman moved forward, raising his
Cyber-weapon. ‘No one will move. You will remain still. If you
move, you will be killed.’
       Everyone remained still except Nils. ‘Who are they?’ he
said to Benoit. ‘How did they get...’
      The second Cyberman’s voice cut in again. ‘Silence, we
are Cybermen. You will listen to us.’
      Benoit sat down on the edge of the console, his cool self
again. ‘But the history books say you were all killed when
your planet, MONDAS, exploded in 1986.’
      The first Cyberman had moved to a position where he
could watch the activity in the Gravitron room. He now
turned round to answer Benoit. ‘We were the first space
travellers from MONDAS. We left before it was destroyed. We
have come from the other Cyberman planet, TELOS.’
      The Doctor broke in, ‘Then you know how MONDAS
was destroyed?’
      The first Cyberman looked at him. ‘Yes, and we know
what part you played in that. We have returned to take the
power you used to destroy MONDAS.’
      Hobson looked from one to the other, confused. ‘But
that was back in 1986,’ he said. He scratched his head. ‘I don’t
understand all this. What are you doing on the moon?’
      ‘We are going to take over the Gravitron and use it to
destroy the surface of the Earth by changing the weather,’
replied the first Cyberman.
      ‘But that will kill everyone on Earth!’ A shade of
Hobson’s old aggressive self returned as he vainly tried to
understand this sudden change in events.
      ‘That is possible.’ The first Cyberman turned back to the
Gravitron, indifferent to the conversation. Benoit broke in
again.
      ‘You people, who are supposed to be so advanced, here
you are taking your revenge like children!’
      The Cyberman turned and looked at the second
Cyberman, then back to Benoit. ‘Revenge? What is that?’
      ‘It is a feeling people have when...’
      The first Cyberman broke in, ‘Feeling? Yes, we know of
this weakness of yours. We are fortunate. We do not possess
feelings.’
      ‘Then why are you here?’ Hobson questioned.
      ‘To eliminate all dangers to the Cyberman empire.’
      ‘But you will kill every living thing on the Earth,’
Hobson replied.
      ‘Yes,’ said the first Cyberman, ‘all dangers will be
eliminated.’
      ‘Have you no feelings of, well, mercy?’ questioned
Benoit.
      The first Cyberman was obviously bored with the
conversation. No wonder humans were so retarded when they
talked in this ridiculous way. ‘It is unnecessary,’ he said flatly.
He turned to the second Cyberman. ‘Keep a close watch on
them.’ The second Cyberman swung his weapon in a low arc.
Nobody moved. The first Cyberman unfolded his chest aerial
and spoke into the mike.
      ‘Operational system four.’
      Again, the high-pitched filtered tone came from the
Cyberman’s chest unit loudspeaker. ‘Operational system four
complete. Entry to base now complete.’
      ‘Entry!’ Hobson looked up. ‘How did you get in?’
      ‘It was very simple,’ said the Cyberman. ‘Only
rudimentary Earth brains like yours would have been fooled.’
      Hobson folded his arms, a little more his old self. ‘Is that
so? Well, go on.’
      ‘Since we couldn’t approach direct,’ said the Cyberman,
‘we came up under the surface and cut our way in through
your store room. On the way we contaminated your food
supplies. It was quite simple. You had provided no under-
surface defence. All that was needed was one of our cutting
tools.’
       ‘A hole.’ Hobson turned to Benoit. ‘They cut a hole.
That explains those air pressure drops we’ve been recording.’
       The Cyberman turned round and loomed over the base
director. ‘You should have acted upon them. No Cyberman
would have neglected such a vital fact.’

       In the Medical Unit, the first relief at not having been
taken away by the Cybermen had worn off. Ben was sitting
gloomily eyeing Polly who, to calm her nerves, was redoing
her fingernails.
       They were sitting beside Jamie’s bed. Jamie was now
sitting up, still a bit groggy, but entirely his old self again. His
fever seemed to have passed and he was drinking a large jug
of lemon squash. Polly was eyeing the way the squash was
going down a little apprehensively.
       ‘Hey,’ said Polly, ‘be careful. You’ll drown yourself.’
Jamie finally put down the nearly empty jug. ‘Och, I feel
myself again.’ He pushed the blanket back and tried to swing
himself out of bed, but Polly pushed him back. ‘No you don’t,
Jamie. Stay right back there.’
       ‘But I’m aye better.’ He swayed a bit as he spoke and
put his hand to his head. ‘Except for my head.’
       ‘Now, come on, mate,’ said Ben, ‘take it easy.’
       ‘Yes,’ said Polly, smiling. Then, to try and distract him,
she went on, ‘At least you know it’s not your McCrimmon
Piper, anyway.’
       ‘It had me aye worried, I’ll admit it.’
       ‘These Cybermen have us all worried,’ Ben chipped in.
‘We’ve seen them in action before.’
       ‘There’s so little we can do,’ said Polly.
      ‘Och,’ said Jamie, ‘I dinna believe that. They must have
some weakness. Everything does.’
      ‘Yes,’ said Ben, ‘they cannot stand radiation, but that’s
about all. The trouble is neither can we.’
      ‘Now wait a minute,’ said Polly. ‘Where do we get hold
of radiation here?’
      ‘There’s the Gravitron power units,’ said Ben. ‘But it’s
thermo-nuclear. No one can get inside it once it’s going.’
      ‘Why not?’ Polly countered.
      ‘Because, duchess,’ said the sailor, ‘the temperature
inside it is about four million degrees, that’s all!’
      Polly shrugged and turned away.
      ‘You know, in my day,’ said Jamie. The others looked at
him. It was a new thing for Jamie to admit that he was living
in a different time from 1745. ‘In my time,’ repeated Jamie,
‘we used to fight evil, like witches and warlocks, by sprinkling
them with holy water.’
      Ben gave a short Iaugh. ‘You can imagine what would
happen if we tried sprinkling the Cybermen with a little holy
water!’
      Polly had now removed all the nail varnish from one
hand. She looked at it for a moment. A thought came into her
head. ‘Perhaps Jamie has an idea there,’ she said. ‘What are
the Cybermen covered with?’
      Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘As far as I know, their suit
is a metal of some sort.’
      ‘Oh.’ Polly looked disappointed. ‘What about the thing
on their chests? You know, the part which replaces their heart
and lungs.’
      ‘Some sort of plastic, I think,’ said Ben’
      Polly snapped her fingers. ‘I thought so!’ She held up
her hand. ‘Nail varnish remover dissolves nail varnish. Nail
varnish is a thin plastic coating, so suppose we do what Jamie
says, and sprinkle them? Do you see?’
      Ben shook his head. ‘You’ve lost me, duchess.’
      Jamie leant back in the bed. ‘But you’d aye have to
sprinkle them with holy water. I don’t see anything like holy
water around here.’
      ‘Here’s our holy water,’ said Polly, holding up the small
bottle of nail varnish remover. ‘I’m going to do an
experiment.’ She turned and walked towards the door of the
Medical Store Room. ‘You coming?’ Ben reluctantly got up
from his chair. ‘Yeah, O.K., professor.’ He started to follow
Polly out of the room.

      In the Weather Control Room, the technicians and their
director were getting impatient. The men in the Gravitron
room were still trying to control the hurricane on Earth, but
without much success. Hobson watched the cursors swing
slightly off course for the third time since the Cybermen had
entered.
      ‘How much longer?’ He began turning round to the first
Cyberman, then halted and stared in complete disbelief at the
door.
      The door opened slowly and in stepped Dr. Evans.
Hobson backed away and sat down. The other men paled as
they watched Ralph and Geoffrey, the other ‘dead’ men, file
in and stand facing them. They moved quietly, smoothly, like
zombies. Their eyes showed no emotion. They stared straight
ahead, waiting for the orders from their controlling
Cyberman. On their heads they wore the shiny mind-control
headpiece.
     Behind them came a third Cyberman, carrying a small
box which resembled the control used to guide model boats
and aeroplanes.
     Hobson and Benoit stepped up to the three zombie-like
men, and Benoit waved a hand in front of their eyes. Hobson
turned back to the Doctor. ‘I thought you said they were
dead?’ he said.




             They moved quietly, smoothly, like zombies

      Benoit spoke bitterly. ‘Better if they were, by the look of
them.’ The three men, seemingly unaware, stared straight
ahead without the slightest change of expression, their eyes
unblinking.
      The first Cyberman turned to the assembled technicians.
‘You will leave your places. Go over there.’ He pointed over
to the wall by the entry door. Hobson stepped forward. ‘You
can’t do that. We need men to monitor the effect of the
Gravitron on the Earth.’
       ‘That will not be necessary,’ said the Cyberman. ‘From
now on these men,’ he pointed to the three zombies, ‘will run
the Gravitron. Now tell the operators in the Gravitron room
to come out.’ Hobson hesitated. ‘Immediately,’ said the
Cyberman.
       The three Cybermen raised their weapons, each aiming
at one of the men in the room. ‘Otherwise we will kill a man a
minute, until you have obeyed our orders.’
       Hobson nodded wearily, bent over and picked up the
hand mike. He spoke to the men in the Gravitron room who
had continued operating with an occasional fearful glance
over their shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you have all seen what’s
been happening. Come out. Leave the machine, and don’t try
anything.’
       One by one the men in the Gravitron room reluctantly
left their controls and filed out to join the waiting technicians
in the Control Room.
       The first Cyberman spoke to the Cyberman holding the
control box. ‘They will now take over the Gravitron power
unit.’ The third Cyberman raised the operating box in his
hand and pressed a button. He then turned a small knob
beside it. The three men turned, almost in unison, and filed
into the Gravitron room. One by one they took their seats at
the controls.
       ‘One moment.’ Benoit stepped forward, aghast. ‘You
can’t send them in there without protective helmets!’
       ‘Why?’ The first Cyberman looked at him.
       ‘Because the machine produces very intense sonic fields.
Without the helmets, those men will be insane in a very few
hours.
       ‘Be more precise,’ said the first Cyberman. ‘How many
hours?’
      Benoit looked at the others for confirmation and then
turned back to the Cybermen. ‘I don’t know. Twelve,
possibly.’
      ‘Then,’ said the first Cyberman, ‘there is no problem.
Our purpose will be achieved long before that.’
      ‘But what about the men?’ The normally calm Benoit
pointed towards the Gravitron room, his voice rising in pitch.
      ‘Afterwards,’ said the first Cyberman, ‘they will be
disposed of.’
      While this had been going on, the Doctor had been
watching the third Cyberman controlling the zombie-like
men. He had sidled close to the Cyberman’s arm from where
he could get a good view of the controls of the box. Then,
while Benoit was confronting the leading Cyberman, he
edged back behind a couple of the waiting technicians to the
R/T set which was situated close to the entrance door. The
loudspeaker system was giving out a soft ‘gain’ hum. He
looked for the volume control and gently turned it. The hum
rose in volume. One of the Cybermen began to turn towards
him. The Doctor quickly turned the knob back to its former
position.
      The three converted men, took over the positions
previously occupied by the Gravitron technicians. The first
Cyberman turned to the third Cyberman who held the
control box. ‘Now we will start sequence A.’ The Cyberman
turned one of the knobs on the control box and the men,
seated at the controls, bent forward and started to activate
them.

     Polly had been cutting bits of plastic from the various
items which the Doctor had earlier examined. She called out
to Ben. ‘Ben, please come here.’ Ben came into the Medical
Store Room. ‘I need some help,’ said Polly. ‘What’s nail
varnish remover made from?’
       ‘Must be...’ Ben thought for a moment. ‘It’s a sort of
thinner, like acetone.’
       Polly looked up at the shelf. ‘Acetone. Good!’ She pulled
a large bottle down with Acetone written on the label. ‘We’ve
got plenty of that.’ She poured a little of the acetone into a
glass beaker. She then dipped a bit of the plastic into it and
held it up to the light. As the Doctor’s two companions
watched, they saw the piece of plastic swell, distort and finally
dissolve. ‘It works,’ said Polly, ‘and fast.’
       ‘O.K.,’ said Ben, ‘it works. What then?’
       Polly looked at him. ‘If we could squirt some of this at
their chest unit, it might soften it up, don’t you think?’
       Light was beginning to dawn for Ben. For the first time
he showed some enthusiasm. ‘Yeah, I get it, duchess. You
mean it will clobber their controls or something?’
       ‘Yes, that’s it,’ Polly replied.
       Ben thought for a moment and then his face fell. ‘How
do we know that acetone will dissolve their sort of plastic?’
       Polly sat down despondently. ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of
that!’
       ‘Hold on, though,’ said Ben. ‘That can’t be the only
solvent on the shelf. Look, we’ve got Benzine, Ether, and
Alcohol. We’ll make up a mixture.’
       ‘A cocktail.’ Polly looked around for something to mix it
in, and came up with a large glass jar.
       ‘Mixed together,’ said Ben, ‘it will either work or,’ he
smiled at her grimly, ‘it’ll blow right up in our faces.’
       Polly looked apprehensive for a moment. ‘Do you really
think so?’
       ‘No,’ said Ben. ‘Anyway, it’s worth trying.’
      They started pouring the contents of the various bottles
into the glass container. ‘One thing,’ said Polly, ‘how are we
going to throw it at them?’
      ‘We’ll use these bottles,’ said Ben. Then, as the contents
of the last bottle went in the jar, he turned to her again. ‘Wait,
I’ve got a better idea. Won’t be a minute.’
      Polly looked at the large container. Ben ran through
into the Medical Unit and then out into the corridor.

      The men in the Weather Control Room were intently
watching the activities in the Gravitron room, which they
could see through the clear plastic window. The Cyberman
who was controlling the activities of the three ‘zombies’ was
standing by the door, the control box in his hand.
      The first Cyberman came over and stood beside him.
‘Prepare to align field reactors,’ he said, speaking into a hand
mike.
      The third Cyberman turned the knob on the control
box as his words reached the earphones of the man in the
Gravitron room. The three men started to work their controls
and Hobson and Benoit looked quickly towards the screen.
The cursors were on the move again, gliding slowly over the
world map.
      ‘Main power into vertex generators, now.’ Inside the
Gravitron room one of the controlled men, Ralph, stood up,
went over to the control levers and pushed them forward.
The noise increased. Their heads bowed as the full power of
the sonic field inside the Gravitron room hit them.
      ‘Servo pumps to full pressure.’ The Cyberman was
directing them as a shepherd directs sheep dogs in the Welsh
mountains. Geoffrey turned the controlling knob marked
‘Servo Pumps’ up to full.
       In the Weather Control Room, Hobson noticed
something and whispered to Benoit, ‘Why did they go to all
this trouble?’
       ‘What do you mean?’ Benoit muttered back.
       ‘Why don’t they operate the controls themselves?’
Hobson looked questioningly at Benoit.
       Standing by the control panel, the Doctor noticed that
all the Cybermen had their full attention on the activities in
the Gravitron room. He slowly reached over to the knob
controlling the loudspeaker again and gingerly moved it. The
volume on the tone rose. He then felt over for the next knob
on the R/T marked ‘pitch control’. Without increasing the
volume, the tone rose a little in pitch.
       The effect was immediate. The controlled men at the
consoles showed a definite twitching of the limbs and loss of
co-ordination.
       It was also noticed by the Cybermen. ‘What is
happening?’ snapped the Cyberleader.
       The third Cyberman re-adjusted the controls on the
box. ‘There is loss of control!’
       The Doctor moved the two knobs back to their former
positions. The pitch dropped and the volume died away
slightly. The Cyberman was again controlling the men.
       Behind their backs, the Doctor was grimly triumphant.
‘I thought so,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Sonic control, that
shouldn’t be too difficult!’ Like Hobson and Benoit, he was ,
speculating on the reason the Cybermen had gone to all the
trouble of creating zombies to do their work for them. The
reason, he thought, must be that there was something in the
Gravitron room they didn’t like. It couldn’t be the pressure.
Their suits were resistant to any amount of pressure. He
looked up at the lighting. Electricity? No. No danger there.
Radiation? Yes! He seemed to remember that they disliked
radiation. But it wasn’t excessive in the Gravitron room. What
was left? Of course, gravity! For some reason they were afraid
of gravity.
      The Cyberleader’s harsh voice cut into his deliberations.
‘Start probe generators.’ The electrical and radiophonic
noises from the Gravitron room sounded louder to the
waiting men in the Weather Control Room.
      ‘Re-align the probe.’
      Benoit clutched Hobson’s arm for a moment and
pointed. The previously tilted probe was now massively
swinging back to the vertical position. Finally it stopped,
creating a sharp, ninety degree angle with the vertical floor of
the Gravitron room.
      Inside the Weather Control room they could hear the
sound of the heavy motors powering the probe dying away in
volume and pitch.
      ‘Probe field to full power, now!’
      The rumble of the Gravitron now increased as the huge
doughnut-shaped nuclear reactor roared up to full power.
The watching Hobson was now white and shaking. ‘They’ll
devastate the whole Earth, once that field takes a hold!’
      Benoit’s voice was fiercely urgent. ‘We’ve got to do
something.’
      ‘Hello, moon base, come in...’ The clipped, flat voice of
the R/T operator from Earth startled both the men and the
Cybermen. The flashing light and the buzzer drew
everybody’s attention to the R/T set. Benoit and Hobson
started towards the hand mike. Nils reached over to switch to
a two-way position, but the Cyberleader motioned to one of
the other Cybermen who held the end of his weapon against
Nils’ head.
       ‘Remain still,’ said the first Cyberman. The men froze
again.
       ‘Hello, moon base, come in please.’ The voice was
backed by a heavy curtain of static but rang out quite clearly
from the loudspeaker.
       The first Cyberman’s voice was menacing. ‘You will all
be silent.’
       The voice broke in again, a little impatiently. ‘Moon
base, come in please. We are reading on the five centimetre
band. Come in! Your last routine signal was not received.
Over.’
       The Cyberman standing by the set had now driven Nils,
Hobson and Benoit back to join the others against the wall.
       ‘We are not receiving you,’ the voice continued. ‘If you
hear us and cannot transmit, fire a sodium rocket. We shall
see the flare.’
       The leading Cyberman turned to Hobson. ‘What does
that mean?’
       Hobson hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s a distress rocket. It
ejects sodium into space. The sun lights up the sodium as a
yellow flare.’
       ‘What will your Earth do if they do not see the flare?’
The Cyberman walked over towards Hobson, and looked
intently at him. Hobson shrugged his shoulders. ‘Er...
nothing, I suppose. They’ll think we’re all dead.’ Benoit
standing beside him looked. straight ahead, his face
expressionless as the director told the Cyberman what Benoit
knew to be an obvious lie.
       Then, as the first Cyberman walked back towards the
Gravitron room, after motioning to the other Cybermen to
turn the speaker off, Hobson whispered to Benoit, ‘If I.S.C.
doesn’t get our next transmission, they’ll send up a relief
rocket.’ Benoit, his eyes fixed straight ahead, nodded slightly.
For the first time, a glimmer of hope shone on the men’s
faces.
                           9
                  Victory, perhaps...
       In the Medical Store room, Ben was dismantling a fire
extinguisher. From the interior, he had withdrawn a glass
canister with a removable top. Polly and Jamie, now feeling
much stronger, were looking on.
       ‘Get it? This bottle thing holds the stuff that puts the fire
out, and this cylinder pushes gas into the bottle so the stuff
squirts out, here.’ Ben pointed to the nozzle. Now, all we’ve
got to do is to undo this.’ He unscrewed the canister top and
sniffed the contents. ‘Cor blimey! We empty it,’ Ben poured
the mixture down the small, stainless steel sink, ‘and we fill it
up with cocktail Polly.’
       ‘Voilà cocktail Polly!’ Polly turned and picked up the
large jar of solvent.
       ‘What hae you got in there?’ said Jamie.
       Polly turned to him. ‘Do you really want to know?’ She
counted off the various solvents on her fingers. ‘Acetone,
Benzene, Ether, Epoxy, and Propane.’
       ‘Oh, aye.’ Jamie tried to look as though he understood
what she was talking about.
       ‘Well, one of them should do it!’ Ben pointed to the
loaded extinguisher. ‘Now we need another one of those.’ He
looked back to the jar Polly had placed on the bench.
       It was still half full.
       ‘I’ll get it,’ said Jamie eagerly.
       ‘No,’ said Polly. ‘You’d better stay where you are, mate,’
Ben broke in. ‘You’re really not well enough yet, Jamie,’ said
Polly.
       ‘Look,’ said Jamie. ‘it takes more than a mere crack on
the head to put down a McCrimmon.’
       ‘We just don’t want you cracking up on us.’ Ben
shrugged and turned away. ‘I’m sure Polly’s very impressed,
but...’
       Jamie flushed slightly. ‘I told you I was better.’ He
moved forward to block Ben’s way out of the Medical store
room. ‘Do ye want me to prove it to ye?’
       With the strain of the last few hours, Ben’s anger was
also near flash point. He turned quickly on his heels and
bunched his fists. ‘Any time, mate.’
       Polly quickly stepped between them. ‘Please, haven’t we
enough trouble without you two fighting each other!’
       ‘You’re right.’ Jamie nodded. ‘I go.’ He said it, with an
air of finality that stopped the other two from further
expostulation. He was obviously feeling better. The colour
had returned to his cheeks, his eyes were clear. His tough,
stocky body, trained to undergo feats of endurance and
strength that the two youngsters from the twentieth century
could only dimly guess at, was responding again. The
Cyberman spark seemed to have helped clear the congested
blood passages in his injured head!
       Ben smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘O.K.,
mate, come on then.’ The three of them moved across the
Medical Unit towards the door leading to the corridor. As he
turned to go out, Ben noticed Polly standing behind him. ‘Not
you, duchess,’ he said, ‘this is men’s work.’ He walked out
followed by Jamie, leaving a very red-faced and furious Polly
behind.

     The Gravitron was now almost white-hot, throwing out
an intense light that dazzled the watching humans outside in
the Weather Control Room, although the three controlled
men seemed unaffected by it. The deep rumble had grow to a
great thumping roar that filled the entire base, shaking it to
its foundations. The men, standing against the wall, facing the
assembled Cybermen’s weapons, were beginning to be
affected by it and were trying to shut it out with their hands
over their ears. The only unaffected member of the party
appeared to be the Doctor, who still crouched by the R/T set.
       As the men watched, one of the controlled humans
sagged and drooped away from his control panel. Hobson
took his hands from his ears. ‘You’ll kill them,’ he shouted.
       The leading Cyberman wheeled on him. ‘If you do not
remain silent, you too will be given brain control.’ Hobson
looked wildly around for a moment and then subsided. His
hands returned to his ears.
       The leading Cyberman nodded to the third Cyberman
with the control box, who turned the knob. The controlled
man gave a convulsive jerk, visibly uncoiled again, and sat up
and resumed his work on the control panel. It was almost as if
he were dragged by wires.

      Outside in the main corridor of the moon base, Ben and
Jamie, both holding heavy fire extinguishers, were crouched
at the main intersection, listening for a sound. The sound,
when it did, came from an unexpected source: behind them.
They whipped around, pointing the extinguishers in sudden
fright. Then their faces collapsed with relief as they saw it was
only Polly.
      ‘Polly,’ Ben spoke in a loud whisper, ‘I thought we told
you to stay behind?’
      Polly was holding another extinguisher. ‘I managed to
mix together another jar of cocktail Polly.’
       ‘Ye’ll maybe get hurt, lassie. Go back now,’ said Jamie.
       Polly’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m coming with you. I feel a lot
safer with you than I do down in that Medical Unit by myself.’
       Ben shushed her impatiently. ‘Look, we haven’t got time
to argue. Come on then if you’re coming.’ They crept along
the corridor towards the door labelled ‘WEATHER
CONTROL—NO UNAUTHORISED ADMISSION’, and
looked up and down the long passageway. There was no sign
of life. Ben looked up, peered through a small window in the
door, and bobbed down again quickly. ‘There’s three of them
now. Lucky thing you joined us, duchess.’ Despite the tension,
Polly glowed. Ben went on. ‘When I open the door, we’ve
only got one chance. Drop down as low as you can, aim these
things at their chests, and squirt like hell! Right? Now get
ready. I’ll give the signal.’

      The second Cyberman stood facing the men, his weapon
at the ready. Suddenly, he listened, as though he had heard
something, clipped his weapon back in its rack, and adjusted a
control on his chest unit. His head slowly turned, following
the source of the signal.
      ‘Someone is there,’ he said to the first Cyberman, and
pointed to the door.
      The Doctor, watching intently, put his hands behind
him and grasped the two control knobs. As the Cyberman
unclipped his weapon again and moved towards the door,
followed by the first Cyberman, he flung both controls right
over, the tone rising to a shriek. The effect was instantaneous.
      The three controlled men jerked violently and then
froze into fixed positions, like statues. The third Cyberman,
holding the control box, frantically tried to regain control but
failed. He looked round the Control Room and saw the
Doctor moving away from the R/T set. He pointed to the
Doctor. ‘He has jammed the beam.’
       Almost with one action, the other two Cybermen turned
from the door, raised their weapons, and pointed them at the
Doctor, who braced himself to meet the shock.
       The door from the corridor burst open. Ben and Jamie,
backed up by Polly, leapt in, dropped to their knees, aimed
their fire extinguishers, and squirted them at the three
Cybermen. Jamie hit the third Cyberman in the chest unit
and face, but the other two missed their targets and had to
readjust their aim. The jets slashed across the room, doused
the technicians and consoles in a blinding spray, and finally
focused on the Cybermen’s chest units.
       The first Cyberman to fall was the one who held the
control box. His chest unit turned porridgey, appeared to
grow bubbles, and then distorted out of shape. He fell
backwards, crashing to the floor,
       The other two Cybermen tried to level their weapons to
fire at Ben and Polly. As they did so, their limbs began to jerk.
They uttered spasmodic cries and began to pluck uselessly at
their chest units which were inflating and distorting. Their
movements grew feeble, and finally they crashed massively to
the ground. Their struggles gradually ceased. The three silver
giants were now still, burnt out shells.
       The Doctor broke the short silence. He pointed towards
the three men in the Gravitron Control room. ‘Quick. Get
those things off their heads.’
       Quickly donning acoustic headgear, Ben, Polly and
Jamie, led by Benoit and Hobson, rushed into the Gravitron
Control room. While the Doctor’s three companions dragged
the men from their seats and gently prised off the shining
metal headpieces, Hobson and Benoit took over the controls
and started reducing the power output of the Gravitron.
      The other technicians returned to their various tasks.
The other Gravitron operators relieved Hobson and Benoit at
the controls as the giant ring began to drone down to its
normal level of operation.
      Polly, Ben and Jamie, helped by the technicians,
brought the men out from the Gravitron room and carried
them down to the Medical Unit.
      The shattered shells of the Cybermen were carried away
to a store room on the basement floor. The Doctor picked up
the Cyber-weapons and placed them carefully on the end of
the console.
      The three young space travellers accompanied the
affected men through the Control room. There was no time
for formal thanks or congratulations from the technicians.
The situation was still too tense. The Gravitron was not yet
under control! All they could manage was a quick smile and a
thumbs-up sign. But it was enough for the three youngsters.
      Once they were outside in the corridor, Ben put it in his
usual blunt style: ‘An hour ago they were ready to chuck us
out, now we’re heroes!’

      Inside the Cyberman space ship, Tarn, the Cyberleader,
was listening to another Cyberman, in charge of
communications, speaking into the transmitter. ‘We are not
receiving you, we are not receiving you.’ He paused, then
turned back to the Leader. ‘There is no reply.’
      ‘Then they must have failed.’ The Cyberleader, besides
being taller than his counterparts, had a noticeably deeper
voice. ‘We must invade now. Prepare the weapons.’
    He watched as the Cybermen prepared, like well-drilled
machines, to invade the base.

       The huge cylinder of the probe was now clanking back
to its former tilt of twenty degrees. The men at the Weather
Control console watched as the cursors inched back to their
positions over the Atlantic. Hobson was standing, feet astride,
his fatigue forgotten in the urgency of the moment. He
directed operations with a word here and a word there; more
gentle hints than shouted commands. The real leadership
qualities of the man were now evident, thought the Doctor,
watching him from the end of the room. The base was in
good hands. Despite his occasional bluster and irascibility,
Hobson was a man in a thousand. It was doubtful if he would
crack now.
       Benoit, followed by Sam, came over to Hobson. ‘Sam’s
just reminded me,’ said Benoit. ‘We still have no contact with
those two men outside.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Even with
the extra tanks, their air should have practically run out by
now.’
       ‘Send someone else out,’ said Hobson.
       ‘I’ll go.’ Sam spoke urgently but Hobson shook his head.
‘No, I can’t spare you.’ Sam was the second oldest man on the
base, and their main repair technician. He was known as the
‘nuts-and-bolts man’ of the base and was probably the only
man in the crew who understood the workings of every piece
of machinery on the moon surface. ‘We’ll have to find
someone else,’ Hobson continued.
       ‘I’ll go myself,’ said Benoit. He looked around the room.
‘There’s no one else who can be spared and, anyway, it is a job
for a very fit man.’
       Hobson, Sam and the Doctor looked at the tall
Frenchman. Benoit made almost a fetish of his superb
physical condition. All the men were required to do a
stipulated amount of exercise during the week, but only
Benoit had the capacity for a daily physical work-out, in
addition to his usual duties.
       Hobson looked as if he was going to argue with the man
for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Keep in close R/T contact
and be as quick as you can.’
       ‘And be careful,’ the Doctor cut in. ‘You don’t know
what you’re going to find out there.’
       ‘Yes,’ the Frenchman nodded at the Doctor, turned and
left the Weather Control room.
       ‘Nils,’ Hobson looked over at the man, now back at the
R/T control, ‘lock your control on to the base channel.
Channel fifteen, isn’t it? Then go up to the look-out point and
keep an eye on Jules Benoit while he’s outside.’
       Nils switched over the channel to the one used by
members of the base when they were reporting back from the
moon surface. He stood, walked across to a corner of the
room, and pressed a button set in the wall. As the Doctor
watched, fascinated, a hatch swung open and a long steel
ladder unfolded until it touched the control room floor beside
Nils. He started climbing up to a plat-form high above the
Weather Control and Gravitron rooms, set in the apex of the
dome.
       This had been built for two purposes: to effect repairs to
the top of the telescope-like probe which could be reached
from the platform, and to provide a look-out point for the
surrounding lunar landscape.
       The ladder led up to a circular catwalk just above the
Weather Control room and Nils took out a pair of polarised
sun-goggles, standard equipment for everybody on the base,
and put them on before continuing his climb up to the small
platform, high above the base.

      Benoit enjoyed going outside the base on the moon
surface, as did all the crew. There was a magnificent feeling of
release from the cramped quarters inside, with the long lunar
slopes stretching away in every direction. Once freed from the
base’s artificial Earth-like gravity, it was like having springs in
your boots.
      The athletic Frenchman soon established a long loping
stride that quickly carried him through the soft crunchy sand
over the moat and up towards the bluff where the broken
antennae were located. He climbed the slope, looked down
and saw the two figures. What he did not notice was a
movement from behind the rock where the Cybermen had
lain in ambush.
      In three strides, Benoit was standing above the two
crumpled figures. He looked down but all he could see were
flattened space suits, their helmets lying beside them. There
was no sign of the men. He reached his hand up and clicked
on the intercommunication transmitter. ‘Hello base, hello
base. I’ve found them, or at least, I’ve found their space suits.
There is no sign of the two men.’
      Hobson’s voice sounded small and squeaky through the
globe phone. ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do at the moment.
Get back inside as quick as you can.’
      ‘Right. Over.’
      Just at that moment a new voice broke in over the linked
inter-space R/T system. It was the voice of the Dane, Nils,
from the look-out post. ‘Jules, there’s one of those things out
there. He’s after you. I can see him.’
        Benoit quickly swivelled around.
        ‘Did you hear that?’ Hobson’s voice came through
urgently.
        ‘I did,’ the Frenchman replied grimly. There,
confronting him some twenty yards away, was a Cyberman
unclipping his Cyber-weapon.
        Benoit looked desperately around for cover, but he was
in the middle of a slight plateau on the mountain slopes. The
nearest cover was the rocks on the far side of the Cyberman.
He tensed his muscles to bound sideways, just as the
Cyberman levelled his weapon and pressed the button.
        The weapon didn’t work. The Cyberman shook it
slightly, aimed at Benoit again, and pressed the button. Again
it failed to work.
        Benoit, who had been bracing himself against the shock,
his arm protecting his face, dropped his arm in amazement.
He called into the mike inside his globe. ‘Can you see that
from up there? Their weapons don’t work in this vacuum!’
        The Cyberman now replaced his weapon in the clips
under his chest unit, and started advancing in huge lunging
strides. Benoit turned and made for the base as fast as he
could.
        To Nils, watching from the top of the dome, it became
apparent that it was a race which the human would lose.
Although the Frenchman was in top physical condition, the
Cyberman seemed able to move faster in this low gravity,
slow-motion chase. The scene had an almost nightmare
quality as the man, straining every muscle and nerve in his
body, found himself unable to draw away from the heavy,
powerful robot behind him.
        Inside Weather Control, Nils’ voice was keeping up a
running commentary on the desperate situation below. Ben,
Jamie and Polly had rejoined the others. Ben was frantically
undoing one of the extinguishers and withdrawing the glass
bottle, still half full of solvent.
       ‘Why can’t you just squirt it like we did just now?’ asked
Polly.
       The Doctor, assisting Ben, answered her. ‘It would
vapourise in the vacuum before it hit them.’
       Ben got the bottle loose and sprinted from the room,
closely followed by Sam and the Doctor.
       Outside the chase was still going on, but the Cyberman
had narrowed the gap to a mere five yards. Benoit’s heart was
pounding, his lungs almost bursting as he gulped in the
oxygen. His breathing made a harsh grating sound over the
intercom system.
       Inside the port, Sam helped Ben to get into the space
suit. He dropped the globe and screwed it tight, then touched
Ben on the shoulder and stepped back out of the compression
chamber. The door closed and Ben pressed the button for the
moon port to open. There was the usual roaring hiss as the air
exhausted into the vacuum. Without waiting to follow the
usual safety checks written in large red letters on the wall, Ben
leapt outside.
       Benoit had leapt down into the moat and was now
almost up to the door, stumbling with exhaustion. Behind
him the Cyberman, almost on top of the fleeing man, had
raised one long arm ready for the terrible Cyberman chop
that could break a man’s neck with one downward slice. Ben
leapt over, pushed the exhausted man aside and flung the
bottle at point-blank range against the Cyberman’s chest unit.
       It travelled like a bullet in the low gravity and burst on
the Cyberman’s chest. As it burst a tremendous cloud of
steam-like vapour shot out from the chest unit. The
Cyberman stopped and staggered, clawing at his sagging unit,
his mouth jerking in completely soundless screams. Ben
grabbed the falling Jules Benoit by the shoulder and backed
away with him towards the open entry port. The Cyberman
took one more. step forward, then folded and collapsed in the
lunar dust..
       Aided by Ben, the Frenchman dragged himself into the
compression airlock. Ben pressed the controls. The port door
dropped down. The air started hissing back into the room
and Ben turned and started to unscrew the head globe of
Benoit’s space suit.
       In the Weather Control room the voice of Nils echoed
through the loudspeakers. ‘They’re both in, chief. They seem
to have destroyed one of the Cybermen.’
       The men inside visibly relaxed and smiled at each other.
Nils’ commentary had been as exciting as that of a cup final.
Hobson turned to the others. ‘Now listen, everybody. I don’t
know how many more of these Cybermen there are, but from
our point of view, we’re under siege. I reckon they’ll be back
in a bit. Nils will keep trying to get through to I.S.C. Earth
until he gets contact. The rest of you lower the armoured
doors at all exits.’
       He turned to the Doctor, Jamie and Polly. ‘And you’d
better make up as much of that lethal mixture as you can find.
We may be needing it.’
       The door opened and Ben came in, half supporting
Benoit, who was still out of breath and a bit weak. Polly, Jamie
and the Doctor went to their aid. Both men were still in space
suits. Hobson helped Benoit out of his suit while Ben, aided
by Polly, scrambled out of his.
       Behind them Nils clambered down the last rungs of the
ladder and went back to his R/T set.
       ‘Ground radar?’
       Sam walked over to the, as yet unused, ground radar set
in the corner. This was a small installation, mainly used to
monitor incoming space shuttle flights from Earth. He pulled
the cover off and switched it on. Hobson walked over to join
him. ‘Can you get a fix on the Cybermen’s spaceship?’
       The dark screen began to light up as the scanner
revolved. The white line left little pulsating dots as it swept
round. Sam stabbed with his finger towards the screen. ‘We’re
getting a strong pulse from fifty-four degrees north at about
three kilometres.’
       ‘That makes it just over the rim,’ Hobson exclaimed.
Sam nodded.
       The Doctor was at Hobson’s elbow. ‘How far can you tilt
the probe down?’ questioned the Doctor. He pointed upwards
at the tall cylinder of the probe.
       Hobson looked up. ‘About another twenty degrees, I
should say.’
       ‘Pity,’ the Doctor frowned. ‘That’s no use.’
       ‘What do you mean?’ asked Hobson.
       ‘Isn’t there any other part of it that can be moved
around?’ pursued the Doctor.
       ‘Well,’ Hobson thought, ‘the main coil lenses could be
shifted without too much trouble, but why do you...’
       Suddenly, over the intercom, came the voice of Chuck,
the only American on the base, who had gone up to relieve
Nils. ‘There’s something outside, chief.’
       Hobson strode over to the R/T and took up the mike.
‘What is it?’
       The slow drawling voice came down again. ‘Can’t quite
make it out. It’s still a long way off.’
      ‘I’ll come up.’ Hobson replaced the mike and went
towards the ladder, followed by Ben, Polly and the Doctor.
‘Wait!’ Before the Doctor’s two companions and the Doctor
climbed the ladder behind Hobson, Benoit, now recovered,
came over to them. He had opened a locker and brought out
three pairs of sun-goggles which he now gave them. ‘You
can’t go up there without these. You’d be blind inside ten
minutes.’
      They thanked him and started climbing the ladder. At
the top, on the look-out platform, Chuck was looking through
a pair of powerful binoculars, carefully tinted to protect the
user from the sun’s rays. Hobson came up, panting slightly
from the climb, and stood beside him. He waited until Chuck
had moved aside and then looked through the binoculars. In
the superb clarity of space, he could see the rim of the crater
and the launching and landing area for the space shuttle from
Earth. To one side, there was a very small row of flashing,
glinting reflections. Hobson straightened up from the
binoculars and rubbed his eyes. ‘What do you make of it?’ he
asked Chuck.
      Behind them Polly, Ben and the Doctor had reached the
platform. Polly was shivering slightly in her thin clothes. It
was markedly colder up there at the top of the huge plastic
dome.
      ‘It’s nothing I’ve seen before,’ said Chuck Cautiously.
      ‘May I look?’ the Doctor queried. Hobson nodded and
he put his eyes to the binoculars.
      After a moment he straightened up, his face grim. ‘Ben,
you’re trained to make out objects at a distance. What do you
make of them?’
      The sailor looked through the binoculars. To his keen
gaze, the line of glinting objects, now slightly nearer, resolved
itself into a long line of human figures. The silver points of
light reflected off their helmets and suits made it quite clear
who they were. He straightened up. ‘It’s the Cybermen,
dozens of them, marching along like the guards on parade!’
He bent to look through the eye-piece again. ‘There’s
something else. They’re carrying something. It looks like a
bazooka of some kind.’
       ‘A bazooka!’ Hobson turned, puzzled, to the others.
       Ben explained. ‘A kind of gun for destroying tanks. It’s
portable and fires a rocket.’ He straightened up and moved
away from the binoculars. ‘That’s what it looks like to me.’
       Chuck bent to look again and Hobson moved slightly to
one side. ‘We’d better get down,’ he said. ‘Chuck, we need
you below. Perhaps you,’ he looked at Ben with a new respect,
‘wouldn’t mind manning this look-out post. You can report
down to us through this.’ He touched the inter-
communication phone hanging beside the binoculars. Polly
looked at him in alarm. ‘Isn’t it dangerous up here, Ben?
You’d be safer down there.’
It’s the Cybermen, dozens of them, marching along like the guards on
                               parade!

      Ben grinned at her. ‘Only place I can be really useful,
duchess,’ he said. He tapped his forehead. ‘Besides, I’m the
only bloke who’s really trained to use these.’ He indicated his
eyes.
      A little apprehensively, Polly allowed herself to be led
down the ladder by the Doctor, Chuck and Hobson.
      Ben, left alone, shivered a little. It really was quite cold!
Then he shrugged and looked philosophically through the
binoculars. The Cybermen were marching in unison and were
now quite clearly visible through the strong magnification of
the lens. There were two rows of them, some thirty in all,
walking slowly, ponderously, with a massive certainty, towards
the base.
      The Doctor and Hobson had reached the catwalk level
of the climb down. Polly had gone ahead. The Doctor turned
to Hobson. ‘They can’t just march in here, can they?’
      ‘Not now we’ve discovered how they get in to the base,’
replied Hobson.
      ‘And we’ve discovered that their weapons don’t work in
a vacuum,’ said the Doctor. ‘Therefore this march towards the
base is probably a show of strength, to scare us the way the
Zulus used to intimidate their enemies with their famous slow
march.’
      Hobson looked a little blank at the mention of Zulus.
The Doctor was wondering how to explain when Jamie
appeared at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Doctor, Mr. Hobson,’
he called, ‘come quickly.’
      In the Weather Control room the men were clustered
around the RAT set. Hobson strode over to them. ‘Why have
you stopped? What...’
      Benoit raised his hand for silence. There was a loud
burst of static on the R/T loudspeaker and then the voice of
the Cyberleader—Tarn.
      ‘Moon base. Moon base?’
      ‘They’ve got our wave length,’ said Nils. Then into the
mike he replied, ‘we hear you.’
      ‘You are surrounded,’ the Cyberleader went on. ‘All
resistance is useless. You must open the entry port.’
       Hobson seized the mike from Nils. ‘Let me.’ He spoke
directly into the mike. ‘You are wasting your time. We have
discovered your passageway and have blocked it. You can’t
enter now.’ He switched off the mike.
       The voice of the Cyberleader, with its thick rasping
quality, echoed round the room. ‘Resistance is useless. You
must...’ Hobson motioned to Nils who abruptly cut off the
Cyberleader’s voice.
       Polly turned to Hobson. ‘Can they get in?’
       ‘Not if we keep our heads,’ Hobson replied. He turned
to Nils. ‘Get me Earth, quick!’
       Nils nodded and turned the control knobs. ‘Weather
Control room calling Earth. Come in, please.’ He switched
over the receiver switch. An intense stutter of high-frequency
static filled the room.
       Jamie leapt back, his hands over his ears. ‘Och, what’s
that?’ Polly also clapped her hands over her cars. ‘What a
terrible row.’
       Hobson motioned Nils to turn it off. He did so. There
was a sudden silence in the room.
       ‘We’ll never hear anything through that,’ said Hobson.
‘Are they jamming it?’
       ‘Perhaps,’ said Benoit, thinking fast. ‘Or could it be...?’
The thought came to both men at the same time.
       ‘The aerial,’ Hobson put their thoughts into words,
‘they’re having a go at the aerial.’ He picked up a
Cyberweapon from the console and turned to the door.
       ‘Where are you going?’ Benoit queried.
       ‘Outside.’
       ‘You’re crazy.’ Benoit shook his head. ‘They’ll get you in
a flash. And those weapons don’t work out there, remember.’
       Hobson wearily put the weapon back on the console.
‘Someone’s got to go.’
       Nils raised his hand. ‘No need.’ He turned a switch on
the console. ‘Listen, it’s the sailor reporting from the look-out
post.’
       Ben’s voice came through the loudspeaker system. ‘Can
you hear me? Can you hear me below?’
       ‘Yes,’ said Nils, ‘go on.’
       ‘The Cybermen,’ said Ben, ‘are stripping the radio
antenna. They’re ripping the whole thing to bits, and flinging
it away. Cor, they ain’t half strong! The pieces are going clear
over the crags. The whole thing is completely wrecked.’
       There was silence for a moment after the cockney sailor
had spoken. Hobson slumped wearily into the seat beside
Nils. ‘They’ve got us every way, these creatures.’
       ‘I don’t believe that,’ said the Doctor. He seemed to he
speaking almost to himself, rather than to the others.
‘Everything’s got its weak point. You just have to wait for it to
show up, that’s all.’
       ‘And how long do you think we’ve got to wait?’ asked
Hobson.
       ‘Perhaps not too long.’ It was Benoit who came in. ‘They
are bound to send a relief rocket within twelve hours if no
signals are received from us.’
       Nils turned round from the console. ‘That’s right, chief.
And with all the trouble we’ve been giving them, I’d say it’s
certain a rocket’s on its way. Sent up hours ago! Rinberg’s
very quick off the trigger, remember.’ Hobson looked back at
him, and spoke a little sourly. ‘With a replacement for me
aboard, no doubt.’
      ‘Then what are we worrying about?’ Polly tried to sound
a cheerful note. ‘The Cybermen can’t get in here and help is
on its way.’
      Hobson nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He turned
round to the assembled men. ‘All right, everyone get back to
work. You heard what the girl here said. We’ve just got to
hold out until the rocket arrives.’ He turned to Nils. ‘Nils, get
the solar telescope lined up on the flight path between moon
and Earth. Keep a constant watch, and let me know the
instant you spot anything.’
      Nils nodded and turned to another screen on his
extensive communications console. This screen was next to
the radar screen and marked ‘Solar Telescope’. Situated at
the side of the moon base dome was a small circular bubble
housing a fifteen-inch telescope used mainly for solar
observations. It could be operated by remote control, and the
image picked up through a television camera and transmitted
to a small screen on Nils’ communications console.
      Polly noticed the Doctor was now deep in his notebook,
doing a series of intricate calculations. She knew that he
sometimes used logical calculations as a way of thinking out
problems. The calculations themselves meant little. They were
often some mathematical problem he set himself and then
worked on while he was puzzling out a solution.
      She came up to him and touched him on the ann. Jamie
was close beside her. ‘Doctor,’ she spoke in a quiet tone so that
the others could not hear, ‘what do you think will happen?’
      The Doctor looked up from his notes. ‘Doesn’t really
depend on us, does it, Polly?’
      ‘I dinna understand,’ Jamie chipped in. ‘Who does it
depend upon?’
      ‘It rather depends on the Cybermen, don’t you think?’
said the Doctor. ‘If the space shuttle is on its way, they will
probably be aware of it already, and working out what to do
about it.’
                    10
         The March of the Cybermen
       Inside the Cyber space ship the Cyberleader, Tarn, was
sitting by the control panel studying the intricate system of
dials. He leant over and turned a switch, opening up a
channel in his R/T set.
       ‘Emergency, emergency. There is a space ship
approaching from Earth. It will arrive on the lunar surface
within fifteen to twenty minutes. Immediate defensive action
must be taken.’
       Ben, from his vantage point on the platform, was
looking down at the Cybermen. They had split up into three
groups of ten, each standing in a cluster at three separate
points on the mountain side of the moon base and some
distance away. As yet, they seemed disinclined to come any
nearer or to assemble the long Cyber-cannon the leading
group was carrying.
       One of the Cybermen, standing by the Cyber-cannon,
had a helmet similar to the Cyberleader’s, a black one
mounted on his silver trunk. His name was Krang. He
reported back to the Cyberleader.
       They have blocked our way into the base. Other
methods to gain entry will be tried.’
       Krang listened as the voice of the Cyberleader came
through his chest unit. ‘The machine from Earth must first be
destroyed. It must be destroyed from within the base.’
       ‘That is understood.’ Krang gestured to another
Cyberman who came up with a control box similar to the one
used to control the converted men within the base. This one
had, in addition, a small hand microphone.
      ‘Transmit control signal.’ Krang’s words, spoken
through his chest unit transmitter, were received by the other
Cyberman, who immediately pressed a button at the side of
the box. A control tone, identical to the one used on the
converted men, issued from the box.

      In the Medical Unit the three men were lying on their
beds, as they had been left by Ben and Jamie. No attempt had
been made to hook them up to the complicated monitoring
consoles by the bed. That would have to wait until the
emergency was over. The three Cybermen control headpieces
had been placed beside Evans on his bedside table.
      One of them was now giving out the signal transmitted
from the control box outside the base. A change came over
Evans’ face, formerly sunk in a motionless, waxen, deathlike
coma. The jaw moved, the eyes slowly came open. His hand
moved out towards the head-piece.
      He picked it up. The control signal rose in pitch, and his
body stiffened. He turned slowly, slid his legs off the bed and
stood upright as the voice of the controlling Cyberman came
through the headpiece. ‘You will listen to me,’ it said, ‘and
follow my instructions carefully. These are your orders...’

      In the Weather Control room, Benoit was now sitting by
Nils. Both men were watching the telescope for the first sign
of the rocket from Earth, which was already showing clearly
on the radar screen. Benoit nudged the Dane. ‘Switch on
again,’ he said.
      ‘Without an aerial?’ Nils queried.
      ‘We can pick up local signals,’ said Benoit.
       ‘Local!’ The penny dropped and the Dane nodded. ‘I
see, yes, the Cybermen.’
       ‘If they have any more words of cheer for us, we might
as well hear them, don’t you think.’
       Nils leant over and switched on the R/T set.
       Hobson came out of the Gravitron Control room. He
ripped off his acoustic helmet and joined Benoit and Nils.
Benoit looked up at his chief. ‘How’s young Trueman
shaping?’ he enquired.
       ‘Not too badly.’ Hobson turned to look back at one of
the younger members of the crew who had just taken over the
control of the Gravitron. All they could see from that end of
the Weather Control room was his hunched back and the
acoustic helmet—rather like a pair of ear-muffs connected
with a thin layer of leather membrane—bent over the control
desk.
       ‘At least the Gravitron’s stable again,’ Hobson continued.
He mopped his brow. ‘I don’t know how anyone can take that
room for long. Or perhaps,’ he cocked an eyebrow at his
younger assistant director, ‘you have to be under forty to
stand it.’
       ‘Do you think he should be on it alone?’ asked Benoit.
       Hobson shook his head. ‘Who else have we got? You’re
the only other operator who could relieve him. And you’re
needed right here for the time being.’ Benoit shrugged. Dui,
but it’s pretty tough for him.’
       Hobson suddenly turned and snapped at him. ‘I know,
Jules. It’s tough for all of us. The lives of millions of people
depend on that.’ He indicated the map. ‘We’ve got to do the
best we can with what we’ve got.’
       Benoit, a little hurt by his chief’s attitude, nodded and
turned back to the controls.
       Polly entered with a tray of coffee and some sandwiches.
‘I’ve brought some coffee to keep us all awake,’ she said,
trying to be bright.
       Benoit looked up, a wry sense of humour showing
through his tiredness. ‘Without sugar this time, I hope!’
       Polly made a grimace. ‘Don’t remind me.’
       ‘You’d better take some up to your sailor friend. And
the Doctor’s also up there with him.’ Hobson threw his thumb
up towards the ladder leading to the dome.
       Polly finished distributing the coffee to the grateful men
sitting around the Control Room. She checked her tray. It was
a large circular, transparent plastic one. On it there was one
jug full of coffee, two cups, a couple of small containers of
cream and a small bowl full of saccharins. Nobody was taking
any more chances with the base’s sugar supply. She started
climbing up the ladder.
       While the men’s attention was diverted by Polly’s mini-
skirt, the door opened behind them and a man slipped in,
looked around, and quickly walked across to the Gravitron
room. He opened the door, slipped inside and bent down out
of sight behind one of the computer units. It was Evans. None
of the men, such was their fatigue, noticed the sudden
increase in sound as the door opened and closed.
       Joe Trueman, number 15 of the crew, was bent over the
controls, concentrating fiercely on the, to him, unfamiliar job
of controlling the Gravitron. He did not see Evans come up
behind him and raise his arm in a Cyberman-like gesture.
       The arm swung down and chopped him neatly across
the unprotected nape of his neck. Trueman slumped forward
over the controls and Evans, after a quick glance back
through the door to see if anybody had noticed, removed
Trueman’s unconscious body from the Gravitron control seat
and ripped his acoustic helmet off. He then put the helmet on
over the mind-control unit and took the young man’s place at
the controls. From the back, clad in the same one-piece brown
tunic, he was indistinguishable from Trueman, whose body
was lying out of sight behind the computer banks.
      ‘You will now begin to change the field co-ordinates as
instructed.’ The voice of the controlling Cyberman seemed to
come directly into Evans’ ear. It was clearly audible over the
roar of the Gravitron. Evans’ staring eyes slowly moved down
and focused on the board in front of him. Like the rest of the
men at the base, he had received specific instructions on the
control of the Gravitron as part of his basic training. His
hands came forward and he began to operate the controls as
instructed.
      Polly clambered down the ladder again, followed by the
Doctor. She had left both tray and flask behind and seemed in
a hurry. She rushed across to Jamie. ‘Jamie,’ she said, ‘could
you be an angel and fetch Ben a warm jacket. It’s freezing up
there.’
      Jamie nodded and exited from the room just as Nils
called out to them and pointed to the telescope screen. All
that had been visible to date was a black area of sky with a
number of star clusters. Now, quite distinctly, one of the small
bright dots was moving across the sky.
      ‘That’s it,’ said the Dane excitedly. He grinned. ‘They’re
on their way in to land!’
      ‘That’s a space ship?’ queried Polly.
      ‘Can’t be very far off,’ said the Doctor.
      ‘Far off!’ Hobson was excited. ‘It’s coming in now off
parking orbit. It will be down in six minutes.’
      ‘Shouldn’t we try and warn them?’ asked Polly, looking
anxiously at the moon base director. ‘Just in case the
Cybermen are waiting for them.’
      Hobson, like the rest of the men around the room, was
smiling broadly. ‘Don’t worry about that, young lady. They’ve
got their own warning system. And weapons! They’ll blast the
Cybermen and their space ship to Kingdom come in,’ he
looked at his watch, ‘about five minutes from now.’
      Catching the prevailing enthusiasm, Polly also smiled
and clapped her hands, watching the dot grow larger on the
screen. ‘Oh come on,’ she said, ‘come on. It’s moving so
slowly.’
      Nils refocused the telescope. The dot was moving
steadily across the screen from the top left hand corner to the
bottom right hand corner, growing larger as it did so.
      Then, as they watched, it began to veer round and
change direction. It seemed to hesitate for a moment and
then move more rapidly up towards the top right hand
corner. There was a surprised intake of breath from the
assembled men.
      ‘What are they doing?’ said Benoit.
      ‘It looks as though they’ve changed direction,’ said Nils.
      Hobson nodded. ‘They’ve changed into an escape orbit!’
      Now the dot seemed to be moving even faster, and to
Polly’s horror she saw that it was growing smaller. It was
shooting off the top of the monitor screen.
      ‘Hurry, man!’ Hobson slammed the console top with his
fist. ‘Follow it.’ Nils was desperately juggling with the
telescope controls to keep up with the small fleeing dot, ‘It’s
going too fast,’ he said. ‘I can’t stay with it.’
      ‘Keep trying,’ Hobson insisted.
       ‘I can’t hold it. It’s accelerating too fast.’ Despite the
agile manipulation of the Dane, the telescope picture was
weaving all over the night sky in an effort to keep up with the
moving dot. A sudden flare filled the screen.
       ‘Look out, man!’ exclaimed Benoit. ‘You’re on the sun.’
       Nils was desperate. ‘That’s where it’s heading.’
       ‘The acceleration!’ Benoit had risen from his seat, his
face ashen. ‘It’s gigantic!’
       Hobson’s hands were gripping the top of the desk. ‘Get
R/T contact with the ship, quick!’
       Nils shook his head frantically. ‘It’s no good, sir... the
doppler effect... it’s going too fast.’
       Benoit suddenly slumped back in his chair as the full
implication of what he was watching struck him. ‘They’ve had
it, I’m afraid.’
       ‘The sun?’ queried Hobson. Benoit seemed to crumple.
He looked down. ‘Yes,’ he nodded.
       During the previous exchange, Polly had been turning
from one man to the other. ‘Will someone please, please,
please tell me what it aII means?’ she said.
       Benoit brought his hands up, palms upwards in a
resigned gesture. ‘The shuttle rocket has been deflected
towards the sun. Nothing can save them now.’
       ‘Save them!’ said Polly frantically. ‘What are you talking
about?’
       ‘From plunging into the sun!’
       The girl still looked puzzled. ‘The sun’s millions of miles
away,’ she said.
       The other men turned away, sickened, not wanting to
watch the telescope screen. Nils had now given up the attempt
to follow the fast moving craft which was practically out of
sight.
       The Doctor gripped Polly’s arm. ‘You see, Polly,’ he
said, ‘once they get into the sun’s gravity belt, they can’t
change course. It may take a week, but they’lI end up there
just the same—burnt up in the sun’s heat.’
       Hobson sat with his head in his hands, stricken. ‘What
on earth could have caused it?’
       Benoit leant back and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘The
rocket was deflected off course.’
       ‘But why? And how?’
       The Doctor’s eyes were flickering quickly round the
room. He was speaking half to himself, as usual. ‘Deflected,
yes, of course.’ He took out his notebook. ‘The Gravitron.’
       Hobson looked up at the Doctor. ‘Have the Cybermen a
gravity weapon, do you think?’
       The Doctor flicked open his diary, but he knew the
answer. It was purely a routine gesture. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they
haven’t—but we have!’
       There was a hush in the room and everybody turned to
him. ‘You’re not suggesting?’ said Hobson.
       ‘There is only one way that space ship could have been
deflected to the sun, and that is from this very room.’ The
Doctor’s slightly hushed tone carried to every corner of the
room, and the listening crew caught their breath.
       ‘I see what you mean,’ said Benoit slowly. He turned to
look at the Gravitron room.
       Hobson rose from his seat. ‘Of course, the Gravitron.
Young Trueman. He must have...’
       ‘I told you it was unwise to...’ Benoit began.
       They turned round to look at the Gravitron room. The
Doctor stepped in front of them. ‘If it is Trueman!’ He turned
and led the way towards the Gravitron room door. The man
at the controls rose, as if in response to some order, turned
and walked towards the door. The men inside the Weather
Control room fell back in amazement.
      ‘It’s Evans!’ said Hobson.
      Evans, staring ahead, reached the door, bent down and
slid home the bolt. He then turned, walked back to his seat
and sat down stiffly, his hands reaching out for the Gravitron
controls.
      Benoit was trying to understand. ‘He was down in the
Medical Room, wasn’t he?’
      ‘The Cybermen must have got them under control
again,’ said the Doctor.
      ‘And the other men down there?’ It was Jamie who
spoke. He had carried Ben’s coat up to the look-out platform
and was now standing beside the Doctor.
      ‘The other men may not be affected yet! But we can’t
count on that for long.’ He turned to the Scot. ‘Jamie, get
down to the Medical Unit. Barricade the door with anything
you can find. Keep them in at all cost.’
      ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Polly breathlessly.
      Polly and Jamie hurried out of the room.

      In the Medical Unit, the two remaining headclips had
started their soft insistent signal tone. The man, Ralph, lying
on the other side of the control units, reached out a hand,
took one of the clips and placed it on his head. He then stood
up and, responding to the signals from the Cyberman, lifted
the other clip, walked round the bed, and placed it upon the
bead of the third man, Geoffrey.
      Outside in the corridor, Polly and Jamie cautiously
turned the corner as if expecting to see the men already
striding, with that curious rigid walk, along the corridor.
There was no sign of anyone.
       ‘It’s all right,’ said Jamie. ‘We haven’t passed any of
them.’
       ‘Perhaps Evans is the only one they’ve reactivated,’ said
Polly.
       ‘We’d better keep watch out here,’ said Jamie.
       Polly nodded and shivered. ‘You’re so right. I don’t
fancy going into that room again. For all we know, one of the
Cybermen might still be in the base.’
       Jamie looked at her. ‘Aye, it’s a thought. Maybe if we
stuck that bench against the door.’ He looked. This part of the
corridor was wider and against one wall there was a long
bench where Dr. Evans’ patients had sat while waiting for
treatment.
       Polly looked at it doubtfully. ‘It wouldn’t stop them for
very long?’
       ‘Och,’ the Scot was impatient as usual, ‘it’s something to
do, isn’t it? Come on.’ He walked over and lifted one end of
the heavy bench.
       They staggered forward with it but the weight of the
bench was almost too much for Polly and she dropped her
end.
       She sat down on the bench, gasping for breath. ‘Oh
Jamie, I’m sorry, it’s a bit too heavy for me.’
       ‘It’s alright, lassie,’ said the Highlander. ‘You can push
it.’ Polly nodded, looked up and gave a piercing scream.
Behind Jamie the door opened outwards. Framed in the
doorway stood Ralph. As they watched, he moved out into the
corridor towards them.
       Polly quickly slipped off the bench and raised her end,
the weight forgotten in the tension of the moment. ‘Quick,
Jamie,’ she said. Jamie raised his end and together they
swung the heavy bench against the edge of the door. The
weight took the stiff, almost unseeing, man by surprise and
sent him reeling back into the room. The door slammed.
They wedged the long bench between the closed door and the
opposite wall.

       In the Weather Control room, Hobson was making a
desperate effort to contact Evans. He was speaking into the
base tannoy mike and his voice was resounding from the
speakers in the room, besides reaching the man through his
earphones.
       ‘Evans! Can you hear me? We need your help.’
       Evans looked up from the Gravitron controls and slowly
turned to face the men. For a moment, Hobson thought his
appeal had succeeded. Then he watched as the affected man
drew a Cyberman gun from his pocket, and placed it ready on
the control console. Hobson edged nearer to the intervening
glass screen, stretching the mike as far as it would go on its
connecting cable.
       ‘Now listen, Evans, it’s Hobson talking. Evans, you’ve
got to concentrate. Your brain has been altered by the
Cybermen. You are being controlled by them!’
       Evans slowly twisted round to face him again and
Hobson quickly motioned to one of his men to pass him one
of the Cyber-weapons left on top of the control desk. He held
it up so that Evans could see.
       ‘We’ve got one or two of these things as well, you know.
You can’t shoot all of us. Anyway, you’re a man. You’re not a
Cyberman. Leave the controls and come out of there.’
       Beside Hobson, Benoit was anxiously watching Evans’
activities on the control desk. ‘What’s he doing in there?’
       Evans, apparently heedless of Hobson’s voice, turned
back to the controls again. Benoit looked at the illuminated
screen of the world. ‘The field reactors!’ He pointed,
clutching Hobson’s arm. Hobson let the mike fall down by his
side, and looked to where Benoit was pointing.
      ‘We must try to get back control,’ Benoit said, ‘and soon!
He could flood half of Europe if he keeps the Gravitron
aligned with the Spring tides.’
      Hobson took in the world map at a glance. He nodded.
‘That settles it. We’ll have to rush him. Get those weapons
out.’
      Before he or Benoit could move across to the weapons,
there was a sudden high-pitched hum from the R/T set,
followed by a series of bleeps. Tam’s voice came over the
loudspeaker.
      ‘Resistance is useless: All further ships from Earth will be
deflected.’
      The men in the Weather Control room stopped what
they were doing and looked at the loudspeakers.
      ‘You must put down your weapons and open the
entryport to us,’ the Cyberman continued. ‘Then you will be
spared. If you do not, we shall demolish the base and you will
be destroyed.’
      Hobson stepped forward and raised the mike. ‘Can you
hear me?’
      The voice of the Cyberman came through the speaker
again. ‘Everything you have said in the past half-hour has
been overheard.’
      Hobson nodded grimly. ‘Yes, well you can hear this too,
then. We’re not finished yet, and we’ll fight you to the last
man. You’ll never get into this base.’
      There was a slight pause, then the Cyberman spoke
again. ‘We are in it already.’
      Suddenly, a sweeping gale of wind blew through the
Weather Control room. Such was its force that everyone
present, including Nils and the other technicians, was
dragged momentarily in the direction of the wind. Polly, who
had rejoined the Doctor, was almost bowled over and
clutched at him for support.
      As the men steadied themselves, catching on to what-
ever surface was handy, they found their breath abruptly cut
off and began to choke.
      ‘The pressure,’ Hobson croaked. He clutched his throat.
‘They’ve punctured the dome!’
      Next to him, gasping for breath, Benoit managed to call
out, ‘The oxygen masks! Everyone take a mask!’ He pointed.
‘They’re over there.’ He indicated a narrow bridge that ran
the full extent of the room. On the bridge there were a
number of panels activated by buttons. Benoit was the first to
reach it. He punched one of the buttons. Immediately, as in
an airliner, the panel fell open and a cone-shaped oxygen
mask on the end of a long piece of plastic piping fell out.
      The wind was still intense, the lack of oxygen collapsing
their lungs as the men and Polly fought to stay upright and
reach one of the masks.
      The Doctor found a mask at the end of the bridge and,
clutching the nearly unconscious Polly, thrust it over her
mouth and nose. When she began to revive, still supporting
her with one arm, he reached up and, punching the next
button, brought one down for himself.
                       11
        Into Battle with the Gravitron!
      All the men now had the oxygen masks and were
recovering. Hobson looked around, then motioned to Benoit.
He put the mask down for an instant. ‘Come on, we’ve got to
stop it.’
      Revived by the oxygen, the two men ran over to the
ladder and began to climb. Benoit was the first to reach the
top of the ladder. He turned round and saw Hobson only
three rungs up, hanging limply. The older man was purple in
the face, trying to get his breath. ‘I—can’t —make it.’
Hobson’s words were expelled, one by one, with the last
remaining oxygen in his chest.
      Benoit hesitated for a moment. He watched as two of
the technicians left their oxygen masks and hurried along to
support the nearly unconscious Hobson.
      Fighting to hold his breath, Benoit turned to look
around the catwalk, which extended in a circle around the
inside of the dome. There it was! A round hole about a foot in
diameter had been cut in the plastic dome. Benoit staggered
along the catwalk in the howling gale. He pulled himself
along by the rail, fighting to get to the hole. The rush of air
from the base was now helping him, drawing him towards the
opening. He held on with one arm opposite the hole and,
with the other, pulled off the loose tunic he wore on top of the
one-piece brown overalls. Finally, he had it off and then,
holding it with both hands, let the air draw him towards the
hole. He spread the coat over the hole.
      For a moment the wind noise ceased and Benoit
thankfully gulped in what remained of the base’s oxygen. His
eyes closed for a moment as he leant back against the rail.
Then he opened them again, focused, and cried out in fear as
he watched the air pressure slowly draw his tunic through the
hole. He grabbed the sleeve and held on desperately, but it
was useless against the enormous pressure. He let go just
before his arm was dragged out in the wake of the coat, and
watched the coat fly away over the surface of the moon. Away
in the distance, he could see a group of Cybermen with a box-
like apparatus on legs set up on the lunar soil.
      Someone touched his shoulder. He turned. It was Ben.
Ben’s face seemed to be asking him a question and Benoit,
fighting for breath again, shook his head despairingly. ‘There
is nothing we can do. I can’t hear you.’
      Ben shook his head violently and pulled Benoit’s arm.
Benoit looked down and saw that Ben was holding the plastic
coffee tray that Polly had left with him in the look-out post.
He was holding it against his body to avoid it being dragged
away by the wind. He had brought it down from the top of
the dome in that way.
      Summoning up all his remaining strength, Benoit took
hold of one side of the tray, while Ben held on to the other.
‘Slide it to me,’ he mouthed, shouting in the sailor’s ear.
‘Careful, don’t let go of it. We’ll have to place it in one action.
No second chance! Ready?’
      Ben nodded.
      ‘Now!’ said Benoit.
      The two men lifted the tray and slammed it against the
plastic side of the dome. It covered the hole with a three inch
margin all round. The edges of the hole were clearly visible
through the transparent plastic of the tray.
       Both men stood for a moment, almost unwilling to
believe that the tray had worked. They continued pressing
with all their might against the edges, then they noticed that
the wind noise had ceased. Benoit let his hand drop, followed
by Ben. The tray remained sealed in position by the air
pressure in the base.
       They both slowly subsided on to the iron framework of
the catwalk, gasping for breath.
       Within a minute, the oxygen began to circulate again
and the two men had recovered enough to stand and take a
closer look at the hole cut in the plastic dome. The edges,
seen through the tray, were cleanly cut and slightly burnt
around the edges—by a laser beam. Benoit looked out
through the clear perspex of the dome to the group of
Cybermen. ‘They’re just playing with us. They could cut the
dome to ribbons with that thing.’
       ‘Perhaps it was just a warning,’ said Ben. ‘Obviously they
want the dome and Gravitron intact, if they can get it.’
       Below them, in the Weather Control room, Nils was
standing by the control panel. He had depressed a lever
marked ‘Oxygen Reserve’ and was watching the dial showing
the air pressure in the base creep upwards. Around him the
others were reviving as they heard the steady hiss of oxygen
filling the interior of the Weather Control room.
       The Doctor dropped his oxygen mask and carried Polly
over to a nearby seat. ‘Are you all right?’
       Polly looked up, smiled, and breathed in the air
thankfully. ‘Where’s that marvellous air coming from?’
       ‘Oxygen reserve tanks.’ Nils indicated the oxygen
pressure gauges, now registering seventy per cent.
       ‘But why couldn’t we have had them before?’
      Nils smiled back at the girl. ‘And lose all our oxygen!’
Polly nodded a little self-consciously. ‘I see.’
      ‘It’s quiet,’ he said.
      The Doctor was looking over at Hobson, who was
beginning to recover with the rest. He was seated at the
central console. ‘Yes, so it is.’ He suddenly looked around.
‘The Gravitron’s stopped!’
      Nils turned round with the same thought in mind. The
Gravitron had stopped and Evans was sitting with his head on
the controls, unconscious.
      ‘Quick,’ said the Doctor, ‘before he comes too.’
      The two men raced to the door and Nils shattered the
bolt with one well-aimed kick. The door swung open and they
went over, dragged the unconscious man away from the
controls, and out of the Gravitron control room.
      Benoit, closely followed by Ben, climbed down the
ladder just as Nils and the Doctor dragged Evans’ body out of
the room.
      ‘Doctor!’ Jamie had just entered. ‘I’ve barricaded the
sick bay with half the chairs and tables in the base, but it won’t
hold them for ever.’
      ‘Good,’ the Doctor smiled and pointed to the
unconscious Evans, ‘here’s another one for you!’ Jamie raised
his eyes skyward. ‘Oh no, Doctor, what am I going to do wi’
him?’
      ‘Anything you like, Jamie. Ben can help you,’ he said, as
the sailor came up to them. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t come
back here for a while. We can manage better without him.’
      Ben groaned. ‘I’ll be after a job as a copper when I get
back to the 1970’S. Come on, Jamie.’
      The Doctor bent down and pulled off Evans’ acoustic
helmet and headpiece. Jamie and Ben carried out Evans while
the Doctor looked thoughtfully at the helmet, pulled out his
notebook and studied it.
      Hobson and Benoit, after making sure that the
Gravitron was back in operation again, had climbed the stairs
to the first platform and were examining the hole in the
plastic. The Doctor climbed the ladder and stood beside them.
      ‘Doctor,’ Hobson turned to him. The Doctor was
gratified to notice a new tone of respect. ‘What do you make
of this?’
      The Doctor gave the hole a quick glance. ‘Made by a
laser beam, I should say.’
      ‘Is there anything known to science the Cybermen
haven’t got?’ Hobson said tiredly.
      ‘They haven’t got a Gravitron, have they? Or they
wouldn’t be after yours!’
      ‘We’ll have to stand guard up here with their
Cyberguns.’
      ‘Not much use, I’m afraid,’ said Benoit. ‘They’re getting
reinforcements.’
      ‘What!’ Hobson exclaimed.
      Benoit took out a small pair of binoculars from his
pocket, opened them up and passed them to Hobson. He
pointed to a long, black, torpedo-shaped object which was
landing to the left of the cluster of rocks near the aerial.
‘They’re bringing up their space ships.’
      ‘And over there.’ The Doctor pointed to the other side
of the base where the ground sloped down towards one of the
big lunar plains. Another black, torpedo-shaped object was
coming into land, its red light flashing.
      Hobson turned back towards the ladder. ‘I imagine we’ll
soon be hearing the latest bulletin from our Cybermen
friends.’ He started to climb down.
      Below them, Polly, standing by Nils at the R/T controls
started as the voice of the Cyber-leader broke in on the
loudspeaker system.
      ‘We have brought up reinforcements with other
weapons. You have one chance. You must open the entry
port. You cannot stop us now. You will all be completely
destroyed.’
      Polly turned to Nils. ‘What does he mean, other
weapons?’
      ‘We’ll soon find out.’ Nils rose. ‘You stay here. I must
report this to Mr. Hobson.’ He walked over to the ladder just
as Benoit reached the bottom rung. ‘We’ve had a message.’ he
began, but Benoit stopped him. ‘I heard as I was coming
down.’
      ‘What can we do?’ Nils’ composure was beginning to
crack.
      ‘For the moment,’ said Benoit, ‘we must simply keep the
base operational.’ He put his hand on the Dane’s shoulder
and walked over with him back to the control console.
      Standing on the catwalk, the Doctor and Hobson
watched as the Cybermen group with the long bazooka-like
weapon, brought it forward and started assembling it.
      Beside them on the catwalk, on one of the supporting
girders of the dome, was a small R/T set with a ’phone.
Hobson leant over and turned the volume up on a small
volume control.
      Again, the voice of the Cyber-leader rasped through
with its mechanical halting delivery. ‘I shall count up to ten.
We do not wish to destroy the base. But if you force us, we
shall blow a hole in the plastic dome that all your ingenuity
will not be able to make good. I shall start counting up to ten,’
continued the Cyberman. ‘Unless you open the door by the
time I have finished counting, we shall fire.’
      There was a long pause. The Doctor was looking
through the binoculars. ‘They’re aiming their weapon right at
us.’ He suddenly realised something and turned round a little
panicky. ‘We’ll be visible to them here.’
      ‘I realise that,’ Hobson snapped. ‘We’d better take
cover. We’ll have to lie down, make less of a target.’ Hobson
awkwardly knelt down and then lay prone on the catwalk.
‘Hurry up, Doctor,’ he said testily.
      The Doctor appeared to dither for a moment. ‘Is the
Gravitron still switched on?’
      ‘Yes,’ Hobson replied.
      ‘Good,’ continued the Doctor, ‘then I shall certainly
remain where I am.’ He raised the binoculars again and
stared at the weapon.
      Over the tannoy system the Cyberman’s count had now
reached eight... nine... ten... ‘Fire!’
      As the Doctor watched fascinated through the
binoculars, his hands shaking so that the picture in the lens
joggled up and down, he saw one of the Cybermen sweep his
arm down for the weapon to fire.
      A bolt of flame leapt from the nozzle. As the Doctor had
anticipated, before it reached the plastic dome, it deflected
upwards and away into the black canopy of space.
      The Cyberman’s harsh voice blasted through the tannoy
system again. ‘Again, fire!’
      Once more the Cyberman on the moon surface swept
his arm down and the weapon belched forth a long ball of
fire. For the second time, it deflected upwards, harmlessly
away from the dome, and disappeared in a tiny pin-point of
light heading towards the stars.
       Hobson looked up at the Doctor. ‘What’s happened?’ he
asked.
       The Doctor was still on his feet, rocking a little from the
strain. ‘It just,’ he made a gesture with his hands, ‘deflected
over the dome.’ His knees gave way and he sank down to a
kneeling position.
       Benoit, who had just climbed the ladder, hurried over to
them. ‘Doctor, are you all right?’
       The Doctor shook his head. He had a relieved, almost
silly, grin on his face. ‘Of course I am.’
       Hobson slowly got to his feet. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the
Gravitron, it deflected it. It puts forth a strong force-field all
the way round the base.’ He turned to the Doctor. ‘You
worked that out, didn’t you?’
       The Doctor nodded and slowly got to his feet. ‘I never
take needless risks,’ he said. ‘And that gives me an idea.’ He
looked around him, back at the probe. Benoit took the
binoculars from the Doctor and stared out over the lunar
landscape.
       ‘What are they doing now?’ Hobson queried.
       Benoit put the binoculars down and looked back at
Hobson in wonderment. ‘They’re going away. I wonder what
they’ll cook up next?’
       The Doctor turned to them and shook his head. ‘No,
now it’s our turn to cook up something.’ The two men looked
at him. Normally dreamy and a little absent from the
proceedings, in a gentle, charming sort of way, the Doctor
occasionally showed a different nature underneath the easy-
going pose. Now his green eyes became steely, his face
hardened. He walked over to the edge of the catwalk and
pointed at the probe.
       ‘How far down can this be aimed?’ Even his voice had a
new ring to it and the other men hurried to his side,
impressed by the change.
       ‘Down?’ said Hobson.
       The Doctor nodded. ‘Can it be brought to bear on the
surface of the moon?’
       Hobson and Benoit looked at each other. ‘I see,’ said
Benoit slowly. ‘Well,’ Hobson sounded a bit dubious, ‘I don’t
know.’
       ‘Has it ever been tried?’ asked the Doctor.
       ‘No,’ said Benoit. Then, with sudden conviction, ‘but we
shall try now.’
       ‘Evans is out of it,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Gravitron is
now all yours.’
       ‘Good.’ Benoit suddenly seemed galvanised with a new
excitement. He hurried over to the ladder and slid down it
quickly, followed by Hobson and the Doctor. They each
donned an acoustic helmet and entered the Gravitron room.
       Hobson climbed over the narrow catwalk of the
doughnut-like torus and studied the probe itself. ‘It will only
go down to here,’ said Hobson pointing to a forty degree
angle. ‘This is a safety measure.’ He pointed to an iron
retaining bar that stopped further movement of the probe.
‘Any further and the field may affect the base itself.’
       ‘Does it matter now, in this situation?’ queried the
Doctor.
       ‘No,’ said Hobson with sudden decision. ‘I suppose it
doesn’t, not now.’
       The Doctor turned to Benoit. ‘Then I suggest you
operate the probe right now.’
       Benoit glanced at Hobson, who nodded, and then sat
down at the control desk.
       The Doctor turned to Hobson. ‘I’ll go up in the dome
and relay down instructions on the R/T telephone.’ He had to
shout above the rumble of the Gravitron, but Hobson
understood and nodded his head affirmatively.
       The Doctor left the Gravitron room, took his helmet off
and went over to Nils. ‘Can you open a direct channel
between the R/T set on the catwalk of the dome and the
Gravitron room?’
       Nils nodded. ‘Yes, right away.’ He flung a switch but the
Doctor was already on his way over to the ladder.
       In the Gravitron Control room Benoit had set up the
fail-safe system that had to be cleared whenever the probe was
to be moved, and nodded to Hobson who swung the huge
wheel controlling the angle of the long cylinder. The cannon-
like probe started its descent from its nearly vertical position.
       Upstairs on the catwalk, the Doctor looked back
apprehensively as the large probe seemed to be dropping in
his direction. He shifted his position slightly, then noticed that
the probe was coming down some thirty feet away. It was
shielded against affecting anything in the base, but the Doctor
was taking no chances. He pulled the belt of his trousers off
and looped it around his arm and then to the rail. If there was
any local loss of gravity, he didn’t want to be floating up to the
top of the dome in the middle of all the action!
       In the Gravitron room, the rumble of the machine had
risen again as the huge arm clanked slowly down. Hobson
and Benoit were watching the probe angle recorder. The line
moved down from eighty degrees, to sixty, to fifty, to forty.
Then it stopped.
       Benoit jabbed at the button and nodded to Hobson.
        Hobson shook his head despairingly. The control wheel
was turned full over. The arm would not deflect any more. It
was jammed by the safety bar.
        There was an urgent bleep on the phone and Hobson
picked it up and listened as well as he could over the rumble
of the Gravitron. The Doctor’s voice came through urgently.
‘It’s still over their heads.’
        Shouting into the phone, Hobson could just make
himself heard by the listening Doctor. ‘That’s as far as it will
go.’
        ‘One chance,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘Get all the men into
the Gravitron room and force it down. Bring it down by
hand.’
        Nils, at the R/T desk, had been listening as had the
other men in the room. He rose and beckoned them and they
all rushed forward, put on the acoustic headgear and crowded
into the Gravitron room. Only Polly was left behind in the
Control Room looking through the glass partition.
        The men climbed on to the narrow walk-way over the
Gravitron and lined up on either side of the probe.
        ‘One, two, three, pull!’ Urged by Hobson, the men bore
down with all their weight. But the probe would not deflect
any further.
        ‘Once more,’ Hobson called. The men again flung
themselves on the long probe cylinder, stretching their
muscles and expending all their remaining energy in one last
desperate effort.
        Still the probe wouldn’t shift.
        Suddenly, Benoit stood up from the controls and gave a
cry audible even over the rumble of the Gravitron. ‘Of
course,’ he said. He beckoned the men down and shouted to
Hobson. ‘The angular cut-out.’
       Hobson looked back at him, light dawning.
       ‘Don’t you see,’ Benoit shouted, ‘there’s got to be a
safety cut-out on the angle of the probe, or it would wreck the
base.’
       He turned and, followed by two of the strongest
technicians, crawled under the side of the Gravitron. The heat
was intense. The danger from radiation was great and each
man knew it.
       Suddenly, the Doctor’s voice came down to Hobson
through the R/T system, calling urgently. ‘They have brought
out laser beam torches,’ he cried.
       ‘What?’ Hobson yelled over the din of the Gravitron.
       ‘Laser torches.’ The Doctor’s voice came through the
small loudspeaker in the earpiece. ‘There are about a dozen
of them. They’re going to attack the base from each side at
once. Hurry, for heaven’s sake.’
       From his vantage point the Doctor could see the ring of
Cybermen, each with laser torch ignited, waiting for the final
signal to advance from the black-helmeted Cyber-leader on
the moon’s surface.
       Benoit, followed by the other two men, wormed his way
along to the underside of the probe. There was the angled
cut-out! It was a triangular plate set to stop the Gravitron
deflecting further than forty degrees and was secured at
either end by two heavy split pins.
       Benoit stretched his hand back for the hammer the
third man, Sam, was carrying. The technician passed it to the
Frenchman and Benoit, taking it, started knocking out the
pins. It was difficult, strenuous work, crouching under the
probe mechanism and striking upwards. The pins had not
been removed since the Gravitron was installed several years
ago and were difficult to force out.
      Sam, nearest to Benoit, overcome by the heat,
soundlessly fell forward and passed out. Benoit motioned to
the other man to drag him clear of the insufferable heat of the
Gravitron. As he did so, Benoit knocked out the final two
inches of the pin and rolled clear as the heavy triangle swung
forward.
      He quickly wriggled back under and out, and gave the
thumbs-up signal to Hobson.
      Hobson swung the control wheel again and, creaking
slightly, the huge arm deflected down... thirty degrees...
twenty degrees. At five degrees it would be pointing straight
out of the clear plastic dome at the surface of the moon.
      Up on the catwalk, the Doctor suddenly became aware
of somebody standing beside him. He turned and saw Polly.
For a moment he frowned at her. Then he grabbed her arm
and held her tightly as the huge probe began to slice
downwards. The whole iron catwalk was vibrating as the
probe exerted its influence on the metal.
      Suddenly, Polly pointed outside. The Cybermen were
now standing on the far side of the moat only five yards away
from the base. Their laser beams were held straight out before
them. Another few feet and the beams would slice through the
plastic of the dome, in a dozen places.
      From their vantage point, the Doctor and Polly could
now look down upon the long arm of the cylinder as it
reached its lowest level... ten degrees... five degrees.
      Inside the Gravitron room, Benoit. was sitting at the
controls of the gravity torus. He pushed the two levers up to
full. The Gravitron noise rose to a high-pitched whine. The
room vibrated with the sheer energy emanating from the
machine.
      As the Doctor and Polly watched, they saw the
Cybermen stop in their tracks on the edge of the narrow
moat.
      The lowered probe was now blasting out its maximum
power. The movements of the Cybermen started to become
jerky. Their feet left the ground. Their laser guns left their
hands and rose with them.
      One by one, as their gravity was neutralised, they rose
slowly into the air, frantically gesticulating. Their weapons,
their laser beams, the Cyber-cannon and other items of their
equipment, swirling around them, were also raised by the
force of the Gravitron.
One by one, as their gravity was neutralised, they rose slowly into the
                                 air

     Like dangling puppets, they accelerated rapidly into the
black of space. Finally, dwindling, gleaming spots of light,
they diminished into the stars...
     The rumbling below them increased. The whole dome
seemed to be shaking as the long, gun-like probe started
swinging in a wide arc, like a scythe through a field of corn. As
the probe swung round, the second line of Cybermen turned
and started running back along the lunar soil, heading for
their space ships. But the power of the Gravitron was too
great for them. Still running, they were lifted into the air in a
grotesque space ballet and released completely from the
moon’s slight gravity field, like rockets into space.
      Behind them, the space ships themselves started
trembling on their moorings, shifting slightly on the crater
floor. Then rising slowly and massively into the air in the
wake of the Cybermen, accelerated more and more rapidly
into space as their gravity was neutralised...
      As they rose, they spun round and round, the red light
in the centre forming a pin-head like the centre of a giant
catherine wheel. Finally, as the Doctor and Polly watched,
they too disappeared into the immensity of space.
      The Doctor crawled back to the ’phone, lifted it and
spoke over the R/T system. ‘Stop,’ he called, ‘stop!’
      Down below, Hobson, his face drenched with sweat,
motioned to Benoit, who eased back the levers. The rumble
subsided sufficiently to allow Hobson to hear the Doctor.
      ‘They’ve gone,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’ve been shot off
into space.’
      ‘All of them?’ Hobson’s voice sounded cracked, his
throat parched with the heat of the Gravitron room.
      ‘Every last one of them,’ said the Doctor. ‘You can shut
down the power now.’
      Hobson replaced the ’phone, turned round to the
weary, sweating men inside the Gravitron room and waved
his arms. Benoit pushed the levers back into position and
started winding down the huge machine. The high-pitched
whine dropped again, the roar died down to the normal
rumble and the men, thankfully, staggered out of the
Gravitron room, and ripped off their helmets.
      Inside the Weather Control room they found Ben and
Jamie. Ben, ever thoughtful, had brought up a large tray of
cold drinks from the galley refrigerator. The men gratefully
ripped the tops off the bottles and drank, collapsing into the
various seats around the console.
      Polly, followed by the Doctor, clambered down the long
ladder.
      Hobson, becoming aware of his responsibilities now the
danger was past, looked at Jamie and asked, ‘What of the men
down in the Medical Unit?’
      ‘Still shut in,’ said Jamie. ‘I think the Cybermen just
forgot all about ‘em,’ Ben added. ‘They were not necessary
any more.’
      Hobson nodded slowly. ‘We’ll take care of them later.’
He turned to the Doctor. ‘Do you think there’s any hope for
them?’
      The Doctor nodded. ‘Every hope, I imagine. I don’t
think they were ever really dead, in the true medical sense. It
may take them a while, but they’ll recover.’
      The Director nodded. Now that the danger was over the
muscles on his face seemed to have sagged, making him look
nearer sixty-five than forty-five. He took a long pull at one of
the bottles, put it down and looked around at the remainder
of his crew. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what are you waiting for?’
      The crew, still half dead with fatigue, looked up
wonderingly.
      ‘You’ve got a job to do,’ Hobson said, ‘or have you
forgotten! Get the probe back into position.’ He pointed to
Franz and another of the technicians.
      ‘Sam, take a party outside and re-assemble the aerial.
We must establish radio contact with Earth as soon as possible.
Then, Nils, call up space control. Tell Rinberg we’ll be
operational in,’ he looked at his watch, ‘about two hours. He
won’t like it, but it’s the best we can do.
      ‘Jules,’ he looked over at Benoit, ‘I want you to make a
survey of the damage done to the base by the low deflection of
the Gravitron. We may have damaged something irreparably.’
      The Doctor and his companions, almost forgotten by the
technicians as they wearily went back to their jobs, were
standing over by the door. The Doctor looked at Ben, Polly
and Jamie. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I think we’d better get
out of here,’ he murmured, ‘before he starts charging us for
having damaged their Gravitron. It was my suggestion!’
      Ben nodded and smiled. ‘Let’s scarper while we can,’ he
said.
      Quietly, without disturbing the base crew, the Doctor’s
party left the room.
      Inside the Weather Control room, Hobson had finished
organising his men. ‘Now,’ he said heavily, ‘Doctor.’ He
turned around, swivelling in his chair. But the Doctor and his
companions had gone. ‘What the...?’
      Only Benoit had noticed their departure. He looked
over to his chief. ‘I think they decided it was a good moment
to depart.’
      For a moment, Hobson seemed about to say something.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just as well, perhaps,’ he said.
‘We’ve got enough lunatics here already. Liked to have
thanked them though... and found out where they came
from!’ He turned back to his crew.
      ‘Right, men, start calibrating the Gravitron control unit.
Come on now, I want to see a first weather plot in five
minutes time. Remember... I’m the one who’s got to report
back to Mr. Rinberg...’
      Outside the moon base, the Doctor, Ben, Polly and
Jamie, clad in their space suits, toiled up the slope towards the
TARDIS.
      Polly looked up in the night sky. Far above them they
could just make out a couple of shooting stars, flashing across
the black immensity.
      ‘Could that be the Cybermen?’ questioned Polly.
      ‘It’s possible.’ The Doctor’s voice filtered into the other
three’s space helmets. ‘I hope that’s the last we ever see of
them.’
      Ben turned to him, but the Doctor’s face could not be
made out clearly through the sun visor.
      ‘You said “possibly”, Doctor. Can’t you be sure?’
      ‘No,’ said the Doctor, ‘I wish I could. The trouble with
the Cybermen is that one can never be entirely sure...’