Ben turned to Barclay. 'Think, man!' He went over to the reactor manholes and pointed. 'Is there anything radioactive down there?'

'Yes,' replied Barclay, coming over. 'Of course! The base nuclear reactor that supplies all the power!'

'Well, what's it like?' asked Ben excitedly. 'I've never seen a nuclear reactor. Is there anything we could move by hand?'

'Well,' Barclay kneeled down, 'it's powered by thin uranium rods. They could be carried a short distance. But they are highly radioactive. It would be a ticklish operation.'

'Ticklish or not, we've got to do it. It's our only chance. Come on.' Ben looked around. 'How do you get these things up?'

Dyson came forward. 'Have you all gone mad?'

Ben turned on him angrily and Dyson, although bigger built, backed away. 'We're the sane ones, mate! You really think those Cybermen mean to let us live?'

'They gave us their word,' said Dyson.

'Word!' Ben laughed. 'They just said anything they thought we'd listen to. They've got no feelings, remember. They They told us that. So what's to stop them?' told us that. So what's to stop them?'

Dyson fell silent. Ben shook his head.

'You might as well face it, mate. Your number's up either way-so why not at least try to find a way out of this mess?' His tone changed. 'We need your help-alright?'

For a moment Dyson looked undecided, then nodded.

Ben turned to Haynes, the technician. 'How about you?'

'Count me in.'

As they spoke, Barclay was already levering up the first manhole in preparation for the difficult-and dangerous-operation of lifting the uranium rods.

In the tracking room, the large circle of the Tenth Planet now almost filled the huge telescopic screen. The Cybermen watched it in silence. Mondas was violently alternating from light to dark. The Cyberleader looked up at the wall clock.

'Our planet is nearing saturation point,' Krang said. 'Switch on the monitor. Their three minutes is up. We must hear their decision.' He gestured to another black helmeted Cyberleader.

Cyberleader Jarl switched the Tv monitor on-but the screen remained blank. He turned to Krang. 'There is no picture.'

He switched on the PA connection to the reactor room-but there was no 'on' light.

'They have cut themselves off.'

'Then,' retorted Krang ominously, 'we must use other methods.'

Ben flung open the door of the reactor room. He had checked the observation room-the corridor was empty. The irradiated Cyberman had either left or been carried away by his comrades.

'All clear,' he called. 'But hurry it up. It won't take them long to find out that we've cut off the TV monitor.' He stood aside to allow Dyson and Haynes, each carrying a nuclear rod, through into the corridor.

They held the dark grey rods, which were three feet long. by long pincers at arm's length. Behind them Barday carried a small geiger counter-one of the emergency sets permanently stored in the reactor room. The Australian physicist watched the rapidly ticking machine.

'Steady,' he called. 'Steady. Hold them away from yourselves. Gently does it now.

Very, very gently.'

He turned to Ben. 'Stand by the emergency power switch. The lights will be going any second now.'

The men could hear the hum of the great dynamos set beneath the base begin to run down. The lights faded.

Ben raised the large lever and thrust it into position. Immediately the whine of the dynamos rose again in pitch. The neon lights brightened to normal.

Dyson looked back at Barday nervously. 'You realise that there is only an hour's lighting and heating on the emergency batteries? Then we shall freeze to death?'

'If this doesn't work-you won't have to worry about the cold!' Ben joked grimly.

He pointed along the corridor. 'While it's clear-get around the corner. Dyson hide in one of the rooms up there in the corridor. When the Cybermen pa.s.s you, come out behind them. Haynes,' he indicated the other stretch of corridor, which made a right hand bend just outside the reactor room, 'you'll find a room along this corridor.'

'I'll draw their fire,' Ben continued. 'When you hear this gun,' he held up the Cyberweapon abandoned by the Cyberman in the reactor room, 'start moving forward.'

Ben and Barclay watched as the two men lumbered awkwardly away down the corridors in their bulky radiation suits, gingerly carrying the deadly grey rods in front of them.

Ben turned to Dr Barday. 'Think there's enough radiation in the two rods to trap them?'

Barclay looked at the geiger counter. 'Should be.' 'Let's get back in here then,' said Ben.

They re-entered the radiation room and dosed the door.

Inside the tracking room, the second Cyberleader, Jarl, had mounted a pair of cylinders-very like a skin diver's compressed air kit-on his back. A black, corrugated pipe led to a nozzle held in front of him.

Krang inspected Jarl. 'We will not use this gas unless we have to. We need them conscious.'

The Cyberleader unstrapped a small black transmitting unit used to keep in contact with the Cybership, and placed it on the desk. He then unclipped the Cyberweapon held underneath his chest unit.

He turned and beckoned to the other Cyberman. As the captive technicians watched, the Cybermen filed out after Krang and Jarl.

There was a moment's relief in the tracking room after the Cybermen had left. The R/T technician jumped up, ran over and tried the door. It was locked. He turned back to the others.

'We could break it down!'

Rogers, the base's senior engineer, shook his head. 'They'd soon hear us and return. And then there'd be more killing.'

'We've got to help them.' The R/T technician pointed at the blank screen of the reactor room. But again Rogers shook his head.

'That sailor's a very resourceful man-they've obviously got a plan of some kind. If we start acting on our own initiative, it could upset it. The best thing we can do is sit tight.'

Ben had opened the reactor room door slightly, and was looking along the corridor.

He saw the tall frame and black helmet of Krang turn the corner and darted back inside, still leaving the door slightly ajar. 'They're coming-quick-behind the door ! '

As the heavy tramp of the Cybermen resounded along the metal-floored corridor, the two men positioned themselves behind the door. Outside, the heavy footsteps stopped.

Krang's voice rasped through the slightly open door.

'Your three minutes is up. What is your decision?' The two men stood stock still without answering.

'We shall be forced to kill you,' went on Krang.

'We will give you one more chance to come out and yield us the Z-Bomb.'

'Come in and get us,' yelled Ben.

Krang nodded to Jarl, who thrust the gas nozzle through the crack in the door. The Cyberman turned the control k.n.o.b to full, and the gas hissed out in a steady stream.

Inside, as the thin stream of white gas started spreading through the doorway, Barclay started to cough.

The gas was beginning to seep through the breathing filter on his helmet.

'Keep your position,' whispered Ben. He ran over to the far wall, levelling his Cyberweapon at the doorway. 'Now,' he called.

Barclay leant forward, grasped the door lever and, keeping safely behind it, swung the heavy, lead-covered door wide open.

Ben saw Jarl outlined in the cloud of white gas in the corridor. Hardly stopping to aim, he levelled the Cyberweapon and fired.

The rattle was deafening in the radiation room. Through the clouds of gas, Ben saw the tall Cyberman drop the nozzle, raise his hands in the air, and stagger back.

Quickly, the agile sailor leapt to one side as Krang and the other Cybermen fired their weapons through the radiation room door.

Ben reached Barclay, now almost doubled up behind the door. The nozzle of the gas cylinder continued to spurt out a white stream of gas. Barclay gasped in Ben's ear. 'I can't hold out much longer.'

Ben, his eyes and nose also streaming from the tear-gas, croaked, 'Where are Dyson and Haynes?'

The Cybermen were having difficulty seeing in through the heavy white cloud. A Cyberman stepped over Jarl's body-but Krang stopped him. 'No. That is what they want.

We shall be immobilized if we enter the radiation room. Let the gas do its work.'

The Cyberman stepped back. The whole corridor was now full of the smoke-like gas but, behind the Cybermen's backs, the white-clad figure of Haynes was approaching stealthily, holding the nuclear rod before him.

Suddenly, his head began to swim with the tear-gas. He coughed violently. The end Cyberman wheeled round and made out his figure through the swirling clouds of gas. For a moment he paused, irresolute. Clad in the radiation suit, with its square helmet, Haynes looked not unlike another Cyberman.

The Cyberman called to Krang, who turned and saw the technician advancing down the corridor. The Cybermen were beginning to shake from the effects of the radiation which emanated from the out-thrust nuclear rod.

'We must leave,' Krang said.

The Cybermen turned to escape down the other corridor-but the figure of Dyson loomed through the fog-like gas, a second nuclear rod held in front of him.

The Cybermen were now shaking uncontrollably from the effects of the radiation.

Krang raised his Cyberweapon and turned from one man to the other, trying to make out a target. He aimed at Haynes, whose shape was now clear through the gas, and fired.

The technician gave one cry, staggered, and with the last of his strength, thrust the rod towards the Cybermen before collapsing forward in the corridor.

Ben, choking and almost insensible from the gas, reeled out into the doorway and aimed point blank at the Cyberleader. His gun rattled. Krang slowly turned, his weapon still levelled and, for one moment, Ben thought he was going to fire.

Like a forest giant, the dead Cyberleader slowly toppled forward, crashing on to Jarl's body.

Ben ran forward, felt for the control wheel on the gas cylinders, and quickly turned them off.

As the gas began to clear, he saw that the other three Cybermen had frozen into position; their weapons pointed uselessly downwards. Lights were flashing on their chest units. As Ben raised the Cyberweapon their chest lights died out and, one by one, the Cybermen teetered and fell.

Dyson appeared, stepping gingerly over the Cyberbodies. He was still carrying the nuclear rod.

'Quick,' said Ben, coughing from the effects of the gas. 'Get Barclay out of here.'

Dyson carefully placed the nuclear rod in the corridor and helped Ben drag Barclay away along the corridor. As they pa.s.sed Haynes, they glanced at him quickly-and shuddered. His eyes were staring upwards in death.

They staggered up the stairs at the end of the corridor, ripped off their helmets and gulped in the clear air !

13 The Destruction of Mondas!

Uncertain as to what was happening, the men in the tracking room watched with apprehension as the door began to open. They braced themselves for the reappearance of the Cybermen but, to their surprise, Ben and Dyson staggered in supporting Barclay between them. They were still wearing the lower part of their radiation suits.

They placed Barclay on his seat at the console and leant against it, drawing in long, shuddering breaths.

The technicians crowded around excitedly. Dyson told them of the fight in the corridor and the defeat of the Cybermen. 'Get back to your desks,' he continued. 'The emergency is not over yet. There are those rods out of the nuclear reactor-see they get put back.'

'Yeah,' added Ben, 'and don't forget they've still got the Doctor and Polly.' Stripping off his radiation suit, he began to walk towards the door.