'Now,' said the Captain more briskly. 'Were you here when they opened it all up?'

'Yes,' said Victoria.

'Then,' said Hopper, 'you must have some idea how they did it, right?'

'I don't know,' said Victoria, still furious with his manner, but too absorbed in the problem to let it worry her. 'I wasn't really looking. I think it was one of these lever things down here.'

She indicated the left-hand side of the board.

'She thinks!' said Callum scornfully.

Victoria glared at him but he was beginning to examine the wiring system at the left of the board. Even if he didn't know as much symbolic logic as Klieg or the Doctor, he was a first-cla.s.s electrical engineer, able to calculate which wire led to which lever...

After the Controller Cyberman had spoken, he turned back to his Cybermen. The humans had edged back towards the tunnel entrance.

'Can we not make a run for it, Doctor?' whispered Jamie.

The Doctor shook his head.

'We'd never even reach the ladder. Too risky.'

'What can we do?' asked Parry, frankly, turning to the Doctor for help.

'Play for time and watch for our chance,'. said the Doctor decisively. 'Leave it to me.'

The Doctor walked towards the Controller, his hands out of his pockets, with a respectful air. He cleared his throat.

The Cybermen turned their mask faces towards him, waiting for him to speak.

'May I ask you a question?' he said, dwarfed, yet seeming completely unbothered by the big silver figures with their still air of menace.

The Controller indicated by inclining his helmet a millimetre that the Doctor might talk.

'Why did you subject yourself to freezing?'

The Controller took a step nearer the Doctor to examine him more thoroughly. The Doctor flinched slightly from the intense scrutiny of the giant.

'Er, well, you don't have to answer that, if you don't want to.'

'It was necessary...' The Controller's speech mechanism was still a little stiff and halting-like a talking computer. 'To survive,' he said.

'Ah...' said the Doctor ironically. 'I had guessed that bit. Well, if that's all you have to say.' He turned.

'Wait!' The Cyberman's voice gained volume. 'Our history computer contains full details of you and,' he looked over at Jamie, 'that young humanoid male there.'

'Oh, splendid!' said the Doctor lightly. 'It's so nice to be recognised, isn't it, Jamie?'

'We know of your high intelligence,' said the Controller.

'Thank you very much,' said. the Doctor, as if highly flattered by this compliment. 'Ah, yes,' he added. 'The lunar surface, you mean?'

'Yes. Our machinery had stopped and our supply of replacements was depleted,' continued the Cybercontroller.

'That's why you attacked the moonbase?' said the Doctor..

'It was necessary. You had destroyed our first planet, Mondas, and we were becoming extinct.' There was no anger or hint of revenge in the Cyberman's voice. Anger, hate and revenge were as unknown to him as love, pity or mercy.

'What difference does capturing us make?' called Jamie, suddenly finding his voice. 'You'll still become extinct.'

The Controller seemed to grow in height. His voice took on a new, deeper vibration. 'We will survive.' Around him the a.s.sembled Cybermen took up the chant echoing their credo.

'WE WILL SURVIVE.'.

'And you will help us,' he added, as the reverberations of the Cybermen's harsh voices began to die away.

'What makes you think we are going to help you?' said Professor Parry with sudden courage. 'That murderer'-he pointed to Klieg- 'does not speak for us.'

'You will become the first of a new race of Cybermen,'

answered the loud harsh voice. 'You will return to the Earth and control it for us.'

'Never! Never!' cried the Professor.

'Everything we decide is carried out,' continued the level voice of the Cyberman. 'It is useless to oppose our will.'

'A new race of Cybermen?' puzzled Jamie. 'But we're human.

We're no like you-'

The huge Cyberleader turned and raised his hand threateningly. 'YOU... WILL... BE.'

As his sound died away, the humans shivered and stood closer together. But still the Cybermen did nothing more terrible than stand and seem to communicate together without spoken words. But while the Doctor had been talking, distracting the Cybermen's attention, Toberman had glided quietly away down the tunnel.

The Cybercontroller turned back and the Cybermen closed around him in a circle, as if to confer.

Now Jamie too dropped back from the cl.u.s.ter of humans. But he wasn't so quick that the hypersensitive antennae of the Cybermen hadn't noticed. One of the Cybermen silently moved to the back of the group towards the tunnel. Holding his breath, Jamie slipped into the entrance to the tunnel. Nothing happened ! His ears had been waiting for an explosion, his body held tense for a shot-but nothing had happened. Maybe he was going to get away. He turned the corner into the tunnel. Facing him was a Cyberman, his arm outstretched, his finger pointing at his head. A stream of sparks seemed to fly from the outstretched finger to Jamie's head. He twitched, and fell backwards into darkness.

Toberman had almost reached the ladder. He glanced behind him-but the tunnel was clear. Relieved, he set his foot up the rung, only to feel a large claw-like metal hand grip his foot in a vice-like hold.

A Cyberman! He must have come down from the up-ward sloping section of the tunnel. Toberman gripped his attacker by the helmet and exerted all his great strength, forcing the Cyberman to let go his hold. For a moment the computer-sensory messages in the Cyberman reacted as if to an equal in strength-but gradually the superior cybernetic power of the Cyberman's arms overpowered the great human and forced him backward on to the ground.

'TO... STRUGGLE... IS... FUTILE'.

The Controller's voice echoed through the cavern and along the tunnel pa.s.sages as the Cyberman touched his hand to the man's head and released his knockout spark.

Above the hatch, Callum, using his engineer's know-how, had removed the control board and was examining the intricate ma.s.s of colour-coded wiring.

'You're sure they're the ones?' asked Hopper, as Callum isolated a multi-coloured group of lead wires.

'Yup,' said the engineer confidently. 'Only thing it could be. It leads up to... two control levers.' He indicated the levers on the left-hand side of the board.

Kaftan looked around her, saw the gun lying on the floor near her and edged towards it.

'Please hurry, Mr Hopper,' said Victoria anxiously as the two men prepared to try out the opening switch.

'Just keep back, will you,' said Hopper briskly. 'Leave this to us. Jim, stand by to cut the power off-just in case.'

He waved Victoria back out of the way, and the three of them braced themselves for the unexpected.

'Do not move!' cut in Kaftan's voice.

Startled, they turned around. She stood behind them, the gun in her hand. Victoria too turned and saw her. 'Oh, no!' she cried despairingly.

'Raise your hands.'

'Now look here, lady,' began Hopper, stepping forward.

' I shall kill you I shall kill you,' she said clearly. Hopper stopped and raised his arms.

'Look, your own men are down there too, remember?' Hopper said. 'What are you doing all this for, anyway?'

'Move away from that board,' she said, ignoring his words.

'Over here.' She indicated the side of the room opposite the hatch. 'I shall open the hatch when Klieg gives me the signal,' she said.

'But, why close it in the first place, for Pete's sake?'

'Eric Klieg must not be disturbed.'

'Klieg!' Victoria burst out, 'what about the Doctor, Jamie and the Professor?'

'Your friends will not escape from.there.'

'But I saved your life,' Victoria said. 'Does that mean nothing to you?'

'Nothing must interfere with our work,' Kaftan said, moving sideways past the control panel and keeping her gun levelled. Just a few more steps-but then her foot stubbed against something metal.

The Cybermat. She did not dare look away from the men in case they jumped her.

Victoria could see that the Cybermat was still curled and lifeless, but she could also see the fear in Kaftan's face.

She screamed, piercingly.

Kaftan started, looked down at her feet, saw the Cybermat and jumped back in terror. In that moment Callum and Hopper jumped forward, grabbed the woman by the arms and took away the gun.

'O.K., Jim,' said Hopper: 'Take this.' He gave Callum the gun.

'Watch her. If she moves-let her have it.' He turned quickly to Victoria.

'That scream was pretty good, Vic,' he said to her with respect.

'Thanks.'

But Victoria was already at the control board.

'Come on, please,' said Victoria. 'Open the hatch.'

'We'll take the risk,' said Hopper. 'Stand by.'

He pressed two b.u.t.tons-then pulled down the two levers. The gear noise started, rumbling from below in exactly the same way as before, and rea.s.suring Victoria. Gradually, but hardly fast enough for her, the heavy hatch cover creaked back into its upright position. She rushed over and looked down the shaft, followed by Hopper and Callum.

They could see nothing but the ladder leading down to hidden depths. The melting of the ice had hardly begun here, and the blast of air from the tunnel had not warmed up enough to be noticeable.

'It's terribly quiet down there,' said Victoria, and felt a shiver across her back.

'Yeah,' said Hopper. 'Too quiet.'