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crouched over the computer keyboard, frantically trying to solve the last of the three
codes.
'I am well aware of that, young man,' Briggs snapped icily, 'but in a few
minutes from now we shall enter Earth's gravitational field and we are still fixed on a
direct collision course.'
With a soft buzzing sound the emergency airlock opened.
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'There's still time to crack the third code,' Adric protested. 'It's much more
complex, I admit, but...'
'Abandon ship!' Briggs repeated, raising her voice in a kind of swooping
falsetto.
Adric glanced at the monitor. The Earth was looming larger and larger. Berger
came over and gently took him by the arm. 'Adric, you've done all you can,' she said.
Reluctantly, Scott ordered his troopers into the airlock. 'Hurry, lad,' he urged,
as Adric resisted Berger's persuasive grasp.
'Just one more minute . . . please . . . I know I can do it!' Adric pleaded.
'That's an order!' Scott insisted.
Adric allowed himself to be led across to the airlock where Captain Briggs
was ushering everyone through the hatch. She stood aside, gesturing to Adric to join
the others in the escape capsule while she cast a final glance around the bridge she
had commanded for so long. As he entered, Adric's sharp eye noticed the irreversible
initiation control fitted into the wall at the capsule end of the airlock.
When Briggs eventually stepped into the capsule, Adric slipped out past her,
tapping the initiation button as he went. Before Briggs could react, the airlock doors
had started to close. Adric waved at the startled and horrified faces and just caught a
glimpse of Briggs's severe face as she mouthed 'Good luck' at him a split second
before the airlock sealed itself shut between them.
'Don't worry. I'll be all right!' he shouted.
Alone on the deserted bridge, Adric ran across to the computer and resumed
work on the fiendishly complicated calculations. Above his head, the Earth now
almost entirely filled the monitor. 'I can do it... I can do it... I must do it...' he
murmured over and over again, as if he were uttering some kind of magic incantation.
So engrossed was he that he failed to hear the sinister shuffling and hissing
sounds coming closer and closer along the walkway. In his excitement he had
forgotten all about the Cybermen...
Nyssa watched the viewer with bated breath as the tiny silver capsule slowly pulled
away from the huge dark hull of the freighter. For a moment she was filled with hope.
'What is it?' she murmured.
Tegan moved beside her and clasped her hands anxiously together. 'Adric?'
she whispered, turning expectantly to the Doctor.
'My secondary taskforce is evacuating the freighter,' boomed the Cyberleader.
'We shall complete the destruction of any surviving systems or life-forms on Earth
following the explosion of the freighter.'
The Doctor frowned at the images of the capsule, the freighter and the Earth
on the viewer. 'Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that,' he retorted, glancing
significantly at his two friends as he drew his hands out of his pockets and clasped
them firmly behind his back. 'It may interest you all to know that we have reversed
our time co-ordinates by some sixty-five million years.'
The Cyberleader emitted a hot, rancid hiss and rapidly scanned the instruments
on the console as if trying to check the truth of the Doctor's startling announcement.
'Big deal, Doctor,' Tegan sniffed.
'Just think about it,' the Doctor continued earnestly. 'Remember the fossil
dinosaur bones in the cavern?'
'And the reason the dinosaurs died out so suddenly!' Nyssa added excitedly,
pointing to the viewer screen.
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'So what?' Tegan shrugged impatiently, more concerned with the fate of Adric
than the history of the dinosaurs. 'Everybody knows that the Earth collided with some
kind of...' She stared at the viewer wide-eyed for several seconds, her jaw dropping.
'The freighter?' she exclaimed with a gasp. 'That's the "asteroid"?'
The Doctor nodded. 'It is inevitable now. The anti-matter containment vessel
will burst open on impact, with a colossal explosion,' he explained, with a reassuring
smile. 'The history of your planet is secure after all. Thanks to the Cybermen!'
The Cyberleader rounded on the Doctor with a menacing rasp. 'You lie,
Doctor...' he roared, stamping across the chamber and looming over the smiling Time
Lord.
The Doctor backed away very slowly. 'Not at all. You have lost. The Earth is
safe and the Congress will proceed as planned - in approximately sixty-five million
years' time!' he cried, with a mocking laugh, spreading his clenched fists wide in an
expansive gesture of defiant satisfaction.
At that moment, the small radio lying on the console bleeped urgently and
Nyssa snatched it up.
Scott's voice crackled faintly from the speaker. 'Scott to the TARDIS... Scott
to the TARDIS...'
'This is the TARDIS,' Nyssa hurriedly replied, 'we have Cybermen on board
and...'
Before she could say any more, the Cyberleader had wrenched the radio out of
her slender hand.
Scott's voice crackled on: 'We've managed to escape from the freighter, but
I'm afraid Adric is still aboard...'
The Lieutenant's words abruptly ceased as the Cyberleader's enormous hand
crushed the radio into a mess of wires and transistors and dropped the debris onto the
floor.
'So Adric's still trapped,' Tegan gasped in a choked voice, her eyes brimming
with tears as she stared up at the image of the freighter on the viewer. 'We've all failed
him.'
The Doctor had been smiling ironically at the mangled remains of the radio,
filled with contempt for the Cyberleader's puny gesture of superiority. 'I fear that the
Cybermen have failed yet again,' he said quietly.
The Cyberleader swept Nyssa aside with a savage thrust and advanced on the
Doctor with his blaster directed straight at the Doctor's head. 'A temporary setback to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]