Doctor Who_ Tenth Planet Part 1

Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet.

by Gerry Davis.

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 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 functions in human beings. As bodies became old and diseased, they were replaced limb by limb, with plastic and steel. 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. 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 s.p.a.ce. They were immune to cold and system allowed them to live in the airless vacuum of s.p.a.ce. They were immune to cold and heat, and immensely intelligent and resourceful. Their large, silver bodies became heat, and immensely intelligent and resourceful. Their large, silver bodies became practically indestructible. practically indestructible.

Their main impediment was one that only flesh and blood men would have recognised: they had no heart, no emotions, no feelings. They lived by the inexorable laws 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 of pure logic. Love, hate, anger, even fear, were eliminated from their lives when the last flesh was replaced by plastic. 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 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 subst.i.tuted another goal-power! aware of the lack of love and feeling in their lives and subst.i.tuted another goal-power!

Later, forced to leave Telos, the Cybermen took refuge on the long-lost sister planet of Earth... Mondas. planet of Earth... Mondas.

1 The s.p.a.ce Tracking Station

The long low room housed three separate rows of control consoles and technicians and resembled Cape Kennedy Tracking Station in miniature. At one end, the interior of a s.p.a.ce capsule had been projected on to a large screen. Two astronauts were seated at the capsule controls.

The scene is a familiar enough one to TV watchers -but the attentive viewer would have noticed that the Tracking Station's ceiling was a little lower than that of Houston or Cape Kennedy, and that more of the technicians wore uniforms.

What he would never have guessed-looking round at the flushed, sweating men, in their singlets and open-necked s.h.i.+rts-was that immediately above the ceiling lay six feet of ice, and above that, the blizzard-swept wastes of the snowy Antarctic: the tracking station, code name Snowcap Snowcap, was situated almost exactly over the South Pole.

One of the consoles, slightly raised above the others, faced the three rows of technicians. Behind it sat the three men responsible for the safe operation of s.p.a.ce Tracking Station Snowcap Snowcap: General Cutler, the American soldier in charge of the predominantly military installation; Dr Barclay, an Australian physicist; and Dyson, an Englishman and senior engineer of the base.

General Cutler, his immaculate uniform neatly b.u.t.toned, and wearing a collar and tie, was apparently unaffected by the close atmosphere inside the tracking station. Tall, with close-cropped grey hair, a firm jaw line, small shrewd black eyes and a large, unlit cigar clamped firmly between his teeth, he easily dominated the other two men.

The voice of Wigner, Head of International s.p.a.ce Control, came over the loudspeaker system.

'We're now handing Zeus Four Zeus Four to Polar Base. Will you take control, please?' to Polar Base. Will you take control, please?'

Cutler glanced towards the lefthand console, and received a nod from the monitoring technician. He pulled the desk microphone towards him: 'Yeah, we have Zeus Four Zeus Four, thank you, Geneva.'

The engineer, Dyson, clicked open his desk mike: ' Snowcap Snowcap to to Zeus Four Zeus Four, over to local control channel J for Jack.'

On the big screen facing them, one of the two men in the s.p.a.ce capsule turned his head slightly and raised his thumb. His voice came over the loudspeakers: 'Over to J for Jack-now.'

General Cutler leaned back and removed his cigar for a moment. He smiled.

'Good morning, gentlemen, you lucky fellas! Having a good time up there?'

The second astronaut, Schultz, turned his head towards the camera. 'Why don't you come up and join us, General?'

Cutler gestured with his cigar. 'And miss my skiing?'

There was a ripple of laughter among the technicians facing Cutler. The General liked his little jokes to be appreciated. The two astronauts in the capsule grinned at the camera. Cutler nodded-as if acknowledging the laughter-and stuck the cigar back between his teeth.

'O.K., Barclay,' he said. 'They're all yours.'

Dr Barclay turned to Dyson. 'Give Texas tracking the next orbital pattern.'

Dyson nodded and started to operate his desk transmitter. 'Will do.'

Barclay glanced up at the screen. ' Snowcap Snowcap to to Zeus Four Zeus Four, Zeus Four Zeus Four, how do you read me?'

Again, the voice of the astronaut Schultz, sounding unnaturally high-pitched and squeaky in the weight-less atmosphere, came over the loudspeaker. 'Loud and clear, Snowcap Snowcap, loud and clear. Hey, we have a great view of your weather. How is it your end?'

'Really want to know?' Barclay grinned. 'There's an ice blizzard and a force sixteen wind. Repeat your velocity for ground check, please.'

The two astronauts were reclining in the narrow capsule. Immediately above their heads, a complex row of instruments clicked out a stream of necessary data and information as the capsule hurtled round the earth towards its re-entry window. Through the two round side ports, the long shaft of sunlight constantly changed position as the s.p.a.ce craft sped around the globe.

Major Schultz, a round-faced cheerful-looking German-American of about forty, and the older of the two men, turned to his partner. 'Skiing he says!'

Williams, a tall, handsome American negro of about thirty, nodded briefly before clicking on the communications microphone again. 'Williams. Cosmic ray measurements are now complete. Are you ready to receive data?'

The voice of Dr Barclay came through on the console above Williams' head. 'Yes, go ahead.'

Williams glanced over to the computer read-out controls set slightly to the right of the capsule panel, and started to relay the measurements. Schultz eased back in his seat and stretched his legs slightly in one of the approved isometric astronaut's exercises. It had been a good, if uneventful, flight. In another couple of hours the capsule would be sitting in the blue waters of the Pacific, waiting to be winched aboard the aircraft carrier. And after that: the pleasures of hot food, a bath, and a real bed...

A pleasant run-of-the-mill mission. For a moment, the veteran astronaut thought back to the tougher flights of the past when s.p.a.ce flight still entailed unpredictable hazards.

The good old days! Perhaps it was all becoming a little too easy!

Inside the TARDIS, Ben, the c.o.c.kney sailor, was having similar thoughts. The last three landings had been uneventful-even dull. No danger, no excitement-merely a landing on some uninhabited planet, lengthy rambles with the Doctor to collect specimens of plants and rocks, and then off again.

Worse still, the Doctor seemed to be ageing rapidly. He was beginning to stoop a little, and his absent-mindedness had increased to the point where he did not seem to recognise his two companions, frequently addressing them as Ian and Barbara, the names of his first two fellow s.p.a.ce-travellers.

Just before their most recent landing Ben had turned to Polly and muttered: 'I tell you, d.u.c.h.ess, if it goes on like this, I'm slinging my hook next port of call. Don't mind a bit of agro, but when it comes to sitting around waiting for the Doctor all day-and then him never telling us what he's doing-I've had it!'

The two of them were looking up at the television monitor screen which showed the latest landing place of the TARDIS. It didn't look very promising: white landscape, grey sky, and a thick swirling curtain of snowflakes.

'You can't go out in that!' The old Doctor shook his long white hair and tapped his lapel nervously with his long fingers-a familiar habit of his. 'It's quite out of the question.'

Ben was normally a good natured and obedient member of the Doctor's little party.

Polly even teased him by saying that he was too ready to jump to attention and salute when the Doctor told him to do something. On this occasion, however, Ben stood firm. He crossed his arms defiantly. 'If I don't get some sh.o.r.e leave now, I warn you, I'm quitting. I don't care where we land, or what age it's in. Next time you open those doors, I'm going to scarper.'

The Doctor looked impatiently at Polly, and waited for her reaction. By nature a kind man, the Doctor had grown irritable and dictatorial of late. He didn't like to be crossed by one of his companions.

'Well,' he said, looking at Polly, 'what about you?'

Polly smiled a little nervously: 'If you say we can't go out, then of course we can't.

But it wouldn't do any harm, would it?'

The Doctor flung his hands up. 'Any harm!' He looked at the control board. 'With a gale force wind and a blizzard-plus a mean temperature of thirty below zero ! ' He glanced up at the screen again. 'I don't even know where we've landed, or in which period of time.'

Ben threw a quick glance at Polly as if to say, 'That's why he's cross. Lost again!'

In spite of his age, the Doctor had sharp eyes and seemed almost able to read their minds. He noticed Ben's glance, interpreted it, and sulkily turned away.

'Oh, very well.' He nodded towards the almost inexhaustible equipment room of the TARDIS. 'You'll find some Polar furs in there. You'd better bring some for me. I suppose I shall have to go out with you. Ten yards away from the TARDIS in this sort of weather, and you'd be hopelessly lost.'

The Doctor's two young companions ran into the equipment room before he changed his mind. Within five minutes, clad awkwardly and heavily in fur parkas, leggings and fur caps with ear flaps, the three adventurers opened the door of the TARDIS and stepped out into the snow.

The wind had already piled up the snow around the small blue police telephone box, and Polly began to s.h.i.+ver violently. The extreme cold cut short their breath and burned their lungs; icy particles of snow stung their faces with thousands of tiny pin p.r.i.c.ks.

Polly and the Doctor made little progress in the face of the driving wind, but Ben heaved himself forward, step by step, through the loose drifting snow. Suddenly he appeared to collapse on his knees.

'He's hurt!' shouted Polly, and tried to hurry towards him, the Doctor close behind.

But Ben was pointing excitedly to something he had found. Four squat, black chimneys protruded through a small mound of snow. The three time travellers bent over them and felt warm air against their cheeks, flowing up from below.

'Something's buried under here, Doc.' Ben was shouting against the shriek of the Polar wind, his face close to the Doctor's ear. 'What is it?'

Before the Doctor could answer, Polly squealed excitedly from the other side of the chimneys. The long black snout of a periscope, similar to those used on submarines, had appeared from under the snow !

'Look what's here!' she called excitedly. 'A periscope!'

She turned back to peer into the lens of the periscope. 'Do you think there could be a submarine down here?'

Meanwhile, the Doctor was thoughtfully sc.r.a.ping the snow from a square hatch which he had discovered to one side of the chimneys. Obviously a trap door-but leading where?

The thick-set sergeant on duty in the base guardroom below stared in disbelief at the monitor screen which relayed the picture taken by the periscope's camera. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and looked again. 't.i.to. Hey, t.i.to, come over here will'ya ! '

Against the far wall of the guardroom stood a couple of bunks on which the guards took it in turn to s.n.a.t.c.h a few moments' sleep or relaxation. On the lower one, the second guard, an Italian-American named t.i.to, was reading a comic.

'Yeah, what is it?' He couldn't take his eyes off the adventures of Captain Marvel, who was engaged in a life or death struggle with a marauding party of robots.

The American Sergeant was still staring at the screen.

'I can see people!'

The bored soldiers at the base often played jokes on each other. t.i.to had heard it all before.

'Sure, sure. Lot's of people, skiing out there.' He turned another page of his comic.

'One of them's a girl.'

The Italian dropped his comic, swung himself off the bunk, and ran over. The three other guards, who had been playing poker at a table by the door, dropped their cards and converged on the small monitor screen.

Polly's face filled the screen as she looked into the lens of the periscope.

'A real live girl!' t.i.to grabbed the handles of the periscope and turned it round slightly.

Outside, the day had brightened and the driving snow eased a little. The a.s.sembled men could just make out the outline of the TARDIS. 'That looks like some kind of hut!'

The Sergeant looked over t.i.to's shoulder, and came to a decision: 'We'd better investigate.' He turned to the other three men.

'Take your small arms.' He jerked his thumb over to the row of sub-machine guns which were ranged in a rack by the door. 'Get outside and bring them down here. Now get moving!'

The three men quickly swung into their parkas, zipped them up, s.n.a.t.c.hed a gun each from the rack, and started climbing the exit ladder at the far end of the room.

The three time travellers had finished inspecting the periscope. Despite the thick furs, Polly was trying to keep warm by swinging her arms and stamping her feet in the snow.

'I... th... think my face is getting frostbitten,' she stuttered through chattering teeth.

'C... Can't we go back now, Doctor?'

As usual, the Doctor's mind was elsewhere. He continued to examine the periscope. 'Some kind of base, I imagine, set under the ice.'

Ben looked at Polly, and then at the Doctor. 'She's had enough, Doc. She wants to go back inside the TARDIS.'

'Oh yes, of course. I'm sure we've all had enough...'

He swung round to lead the way back to the TARDIS, and stopped abruptly.

Unnoticed by the three of them the trap door had been opened, and ranged alongside it were the sinister figures of the three soldiers in hoods and snow goggles. Their machine guns were levelled. The leading soldier gestured back towards the open trap door with his weapon.