'May I have everyone's attention, please,' Barclay was standing by his console. He waited until all the men in the room were attending fully, and then continued, 'This is important-so please listen carefully. Final orbit beginning from base reference one is...' he paused to look down at his console. '... four minutes ten seconds. Now we have an extremely difficult job on our hands. Everyone must be on their toes all the time. If the capsule power falls too low I shall take over re-entry from here, and for that I shall need all the radar tracking team behind me. Reference one commencing now.'

Inside the observation room, the three time travellers were sharing the general tension outside. 'They must bring them down right away,' remarked the Doctor.

'Why?' asked Polly.

'Because they will be quite unable to complete another orbit.'

'Hadn't you better tell them?' Ben motioned to the three men on the dais.

'They probably know already.'

Ben rose from the bench. 'Well, if you don't, I will.'

He turned to leave the observation room-but the Doctor caught his arm and held it in an iron grip. Ben winced. But the Doctor didn't seem to be aware of the pressure he was applying-something at the far end of the tracking room had caught his attention.

Three parka-clad figures had noiselessly entered, moved to the centre of the tracking room, and now stood immobile, their backs to the wall. Most of the occupants of the tracking room had their backs to them-and parka-clad soldiers were, anyway, a familiar enough sight. All Ben could see through the gla.s.s of the observation were three tall figures with their heads slightly bent-and a glimpse of snow goggles.

'What is it?' asked Ben.

'Stay-in-here.' The Doctor spoke urgently, and shook Ben's arm to punctuate his words.

'I don't get it. It's only those soldiers...'

'No-look,' cried Polly. She let out a slight scream and held her hand to her mouth.

From the other side of the room, the three Cybermen were slowly removing their goggles. The time travellers could now see quite clearly the flat, expressionless masks, and the reflected glints of light as their hoods were thrown back to reveal the menacing silver helmets.

Suddenly, a nearby technician turned-his mouth fell open, thunderstruck. He was followed by others. One by one the men became aware and turned to face the new arrivals.

Cutler, sitting on the dais with his back to them, was the last to notice. He caught sight of the men rising from their consoles and backing away from the three visitors.

'What the devil!' he called. 'Get back to your places.' Then he turned and saw the tall, menacing figures.

A soldier standing guard at the other end of the room saw the Cybermen, reached for his carbine, and took aim. The nearby technicians ducked under their consoles. In response, one of the Cybermen casually raised a short silver baton-like object, and levelled it.

The soldier's shot rang out across the room. It was followed almost immediately by a red flash and a short hard noise like a football rattle from the Cyberman's weapon. The soldier froze in his tracks, the carbine dropped from his hands, and he fell back against the console. Smoke spiralled upwards from the openings in his uniform.

'Oh no!' Polly moved past the Doctor to go to the aid of the fallen soldier, but was stopped by Ben.

'Stay where you are, d.u.c.h.ess. They'll blow your head off.' He pulled her back inside the observation room.

Everyone was waiting breathlessly for the Cybermen's next move. Finally, Cutler flung his cigar on the floor, stamped on it and stood up. 'Everyone back to their places.'

The Cyberleader Krail, who had fired on the soldier, stepped forward. His flat, monotonous voice spoke sharply. 'Stop.'

Cutler, his face black with rage, turned on the Cyberman. 'I don't know what you are, or who you are, but we've got two men up in s.p.a.ce and if we don't act now they won't get down alive.'

The Cyberman replied in the same flat, inexpressive monotone. 'They will not return.'

There was a chorus of exclamations from the men in the room.

'Not return?' spoke up Barclay. 'Why not?'

The Cyberleader waited until the chorus of voices had died down.

'It is unimportant.'

'Like h.e.l.l!' Cutler flared. 'We must get them down. Get out of my way.' He started to move towards the radar screen-but was blocked by the Cyberman.

'There is no point,' the Cyberleader continued. 'They could never reach Earth now.'

The three time travellers came out of the observation room. Polly walked up to the Cyberleader. 'But don't you care?'

'Care?' the Cyberleader repeated. 'I do not understand.'

'Care because they're people. They're going to die.'

'There are people dying all over your world. Do you "care" for all of them?'

'But...' Polly floundered, 'we might save these two men.'

The Cyberleader ignored her and strode slowly and ponderously towards the head dais. He addressed Barclay. 'You will be wondering what has happened. Your astronomers must have just discovered a new planet. Is that not so?'

Barclay nodded excitedly. 'Yes, that's right.'

'That is where we come from. It is called Mondas.'

'Mondas,' Barclay repeated. 'Isn't that one of the ancient names for Earth?'

'Yes. Aeons ago the planets were twins. Then we drifted away from you to the very edge of s.p.a.ce. Now we have returned.'

Ben turned to the Doctor and spoke under his breath. 'You were right, Doctor.'

General Cutler, confused by this exchange, strode forward and tried to rea.s.sert his authority.

'But who, or...' He looked at their shining, silver-clad limbs-obviously made from a plastic-and-metal alloy. '... what what are you?' are you?'

'We are called Cybermen,' replied the Cyberleader. 'We were exactly like you once.

Then our Cybernetic scientists realised that our race was weakening.'

'Weakening? How?' asked Barclay.

'Our life span was contracting, so our scientists and doctors invented spare parts for our bodies until we could be almost completely replaced.'

'But,' Polly burst in, 'that means you're not like us. You're not people at all, you're...

robots ! '

'That is not so. Our brains are just like yours except that certain... weaknesses have been removed.'

'Weaknesses?' repeated Barclay. 'What weaknesses?'

Behind him, Cutler started edging back towards his console.

'You call them emotions, do you not?'

'But that's terrible!' exclaimed Polly. 'You mean you wouldn't feel for someone in pain?'

'There would be no need. We do not feel pain.'

'But we do.' Polly's eyes flashed. Alone of all the people in the room, she seemed completely unafraid of the three tall visitors from s.p.a.ce.

Shielded by Barclay and the other men, Cutler reached the console. He lunged forward and pressed down the call switch to the International s.p.a.ce Command headquarters.

Krail's two a.s.sistants immediately raised their guns to fire at him-but the Cyberleader raised a restraining hand and walked over to the General.

Cutler stared at him defiantly. 'That'll stop you. I've just declared a state of international emergency!'

Wigner was speaking urgently to his conference colleagues at International s.p.a.ce Command.

'It seems to me that there is a pattern. Number one-a new planet appears.

Number two-the Earth is losing its energy. Number three-the planet gets nearer and the energy loss increases. This, to my mind, connects the two. Exactly how, I don't know. But...

yes, what is it?'

One of the technicians by the communications console had stood up to catch his attention. 'An emergency buzz from the Pole, sir.'

'What do they say?'

'Nothing, sir. It went off again immediately.'

Wigner looked around at the other men and pondered for a moment. 'Heavy static, emergency signal-they're in serious trouble, sir.'

He nodded to the waiting technician. 'Get them on the emergency microwave link.'

The tension in the s.p.a.ce tracking room had reached fever pitch. Only the Cybermen themselves seemed to show no signs of having been affected by the situation.

The Cyberleader, his voice flat and monotonous as ever, began to speak to Cutler. 'You will-'

A loud, intermittent buzzing interrupted him. A red light started flashing behind the dais. Cutler smiled triumphantly at the Cyberleader.

'Now,' continued the Cyberleader, 'you will pick up the radio and tell Europe International s.p.a.ce Command that nothing further has happened and that all is well here.'

Cutler shook his head firmly. 'No way!'

'That is an order.' The Cyberman's flat electronic voice only emphasised the menace in his words.

'I refuse-and there's nothing you can do about it.' The tall General's head was almost on a level with that of the Cyberleader. He stared hard at the blank circular eye holes as if trying to probe through to the mind within.

For a moment, the Cyberman seemed to pause indecisively.

'They're going to back down,' whispered Polly in excitement. But Ben quickly put his hand over her mouth before the Cyberman could catch another word.

The Cyberleader put his hand to his chest unit and turned one of the k.n.o.bs mounted on its concertina-like surface. A blinding flash of light-similar to a photographic flash gun-streaked out from the mounted light on the Cyberman's helmet. It seemed to stretch in a long vivid blue arc to the side of General Cutler's head. He screamed with pain, his head jerked back, and he crumpled to the floor.

As the man nearest to him rushed forward to help, Krail gestured to him to stay back.

'You murderers!' Polly shouted. 'You've killed him!'

6 Ben into Action

At the order of the Cyberleader, one of the Cybermen bent down, lifted the heavy body of the American General as easily as that of a five-year-old child, and stretched him out along the top of the nearest console. Apart from a slight black burn mark where the lightning flash had struck, the General seemed to be unharmed.

'He is not dead,' confirmed the Cyberleader. 'He will recover.'

There was a gasp of relief from the a.s.sembled men.

'Now,' continued the Cyberleader, looking around, 'who will give the message to your s.p.a.ce commander?' His eyes came to rest on Dyson, and a long silver arm pointed towards him. Dyson fell back, face sweating, mouth sagging open with fear.

'You-which are the communication controls?' Dyson quickly turned and walked over to the R/T communication console.

'Dyson,' Barclay's voice was like a whip lash. 'Think what you're doing, man!'