There were now about twenty Cybermen outside the ship, and more still emerging. The Cybermen walking down the ramp began to fire randomly into the crowd. People screamed in terror as they were shot down in cold blood.
"It's a trap! Get out of here!" Jacob shouted to the crowd. The mob began to scatter in all directions.
Wil ran for his life, hearing the roar of blasters, and the screams of people all around him. He knew that any moment he would feel a stab of pain, and that his life would end on this far away world. Sure enough, he felt himself fall face-forward into the mud.
***
Nana Bevin pulled herself to her feet and for the first time in many years knew the fear of uncertainty. She remembered her grandmother opening the lead box, and watching the silver monster fall to the ground. She had been there as a young woman, the Doctor had been there, the mayor had not, and there had only been the single Cyberman. After all these years when time had felt like a well known book, each turning page as certain as the sun rising, she didn't know what to do, had no idea of what would happen next.
"Help me!" The mayor's cry gave her a purpose; she shuffled over to him. "I'm in pain, I....", he gasped for breath, and then retched, "I ... want... to.... die, please......."
Nana Bevin looked at him, pale, with burns down one-side of his face.
She looked over at the fallen alien, a gun in its lifeless hands. She remembered that he had betrayed her and the Doctor to the Cybermen. Her compassion left; she stood up; content to leave him to die slowly, in agony, punishment for his treachery.
"Don't leave me, I had no choice, they threatened me, It wasn't my fault that they came here."
Nana Bevin heard the last few words, remembered why the Cybermen were here, knew whose fault it was that they had descended on this world; realised that she had little right to make moral judgements. She walked over to the prone silver body, knelt, and picked up the gun.
She turned, pointed it at the mayor, and moved her hand to the trigger.
***
The Doctor ran, towards the basement, away from the fear that had begun to haunt him.
***
The surviving Cyberman was also heading towards the basement, to find the source of the Tachyon emissions. The greatest imperative of all life forms, survival, drove it forward. With the secret of time-travel, he could return to the Sol system in the Twentieth Century, and save his home from destruction. He would be a hero. The thought flashed through his mind; the subroutines that should have reacted to this flash of emotion failed to trigger.
***
"Are you all right?" Wil heard Bevin ask.
Wil opened his eyes, aware that he was sprawled in the mud, aware that he could still hear screams, the sound of people running, but that the roar of the Cybermen's guns had ceased. He was also aware that while he felt bruised, there was no searing pain, nothing to suggest that death was only a few heartbeats away.
"You tripped and fell. You blacked out. I thought you might have been hit. I've lost Jacob. They've stopped firing."
The words rushed out. Wil rolled over and looked up at Bevin; there were tears in her eyes. "I'm sure he's all right, help me up, we'll head back to the town. We'll find him there, he'll be organising the resistance."
Bevin extended a hand, and Wil staggered to his feet, brushed some of the mud off him. He looked round, seeing the quarry floor scattered with the bodies of the dead and dying. He smelt an acrid odour of burnt flesh. He heard the moans of those in their final pain, and shivered. He wanted to run away, to forget these killing fields, but he knew even then that they would come back to haunt him in some future nightmare; if he lived long enough to dream again.
***
"Cyberleader, unit X656A reporting."
"Proceed."
"We fired 256 shots, as ordered."
"Excellent. Minimal use of ammunition has achieved objectives. The mob has been dispersed and large amounts of the emotion that organic life calls fear has been produced among the survivors. Their reaction will ensure no further attacks are made."
The Cyberleader turned to another of his newly formed troop. "Update on unit Q23 and Q23XX required."
"Q23 is inactive, Q23XX is in pursuit of the alien known as the Doctor, and the source of the time disturbance."
"Excellent! Despatch a unit to collect the inactive one." A Cyberman entered the room, dragging a semi-conscious figure behind it. "Cyberleader, we have the fleshware identified as the prime cause of resistance."
"Excellent! I wish to talk to him; give him a stimulant." The other Cyberman obeyed, plunging a syringe into Jacob's arm. Slowly the injured man came to. He tried to stand, but was still too weak to do so. He looked up at the Cyberleader, and defiantly said, "You won't win, the resistance will defeat you; killing me will make no difference."
"We will not kill you; that would create a martyr. We will further destroy the morale of this planet's creatures, by converting you. You will be like us."
***
Deep inside the crystal heart of the pirated ship, the hate and bloodlust of the mob added to the fear that the slaughter outside had produced started their reaction. The ancient Sumaran circuits pulsed with energy, with life; a life born of fear and hatred. The emotions ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time, and something evil slipped through. It felt around, trying to sense a living creature to tempt, to lure into the darkness. The ship was full of empty, emotionless creatures. It let its awareness coil out further, and then it felt it: a creature with a weakness to exploit. With the speed of thought, the evil that is Mara struck.
***
The Doctor knew that to break the cycle that had led Bevin to be her own grandmother, he would have to let her die. He could remember that in his past he would have done it for the plan, for the greater good. He shivered as he recalled those who had died when the Daleks had fallen for the Hand of Omega bait. He saw the dead police officers, who had been killed by the Cybermen that had grasped the Nemesis lure. They had all been innocent victims of his grand plans. He wanted to change, to be different from that last dark incarnation. Uninvited, a memory of taking a mercury link from the TARDIS, so that he could explore a city, returned. The first time he had endangered others to satisfy his own interests and curiosity. Maybe he could not change, but as that thought crossed his mind, he saw a figure dressed in black, a figure from a possible future. It was laughing, beckoning to him.
No, he would change. He would avoid the path that led that way.
***
Nana Bevin stood holding the gun, finger on the trigger. She had never killed another person before. The closest she had ever come before was all those years ago/just recently when she had tried to kill the Doctor. Then she had failed. Failed to kill a man she thought would be responsible for the death of her grandmother. How was she going to kill in cold-blood?
"Please, in Hreth's name, kill me."
Nana Bevin pulled the trigger and was thrown onto her back by the recoil. She looked up, to see a burnt, smoking heap where the mayor had been. She felt her stomach rise, and then she threw-up. She was not sure if it was revulsion at what she had done, or the effects of radiation, but she knew that the Doctor would be in trouble. She slowly stood up, and carrying the gun staggered towards the basement, and the time machine that lay at the heart of Altos 3.
***
The survivors of the massacre gathered in the tavern. They were dusty, dispirited, but alive. Bevin looked around the bar when she entered, then stared at the door, her eyes flashing with momentary hope when the door opened, only to be clouded with increasing despair as someone who wasn't Jacob staggered in.
"Has anyone seen Jacob?" She cried after a dozen or so people had come into the bar after her.
"I think I saw one of the Silver-Giants drag him into their ship", said a man who was slumped against the wall.
"We must rescue him; who's with me?"
There was no response, and as she looked round the room, people dropped their glances to the floor, avoiding eye contact. "Look, he is our leader, we owe it to him."
"Leader? Look where following him got us; we don't stand a chance against them," said a man sat on a barstool, holding his arm, with a burn mark on his left cheek. "If you want to die, go ahead. I have had enough of following people."
There were murmurs of agreement from the others in the room. Bevin looked at Wil, who avoided her glance. He wanted to say something funny, to lighten the funeral mood, but for once his wit had deserted him. "Bevin, you can't do anything, if the Cybermen have him, he is as good as dead."
"Then I might as well follow him." So saying, Bevin ran out of the bar.
Wil looked round at the other people in the bar. No one looked as though they were about to give chase. Wil was afraid, but he knew that Bevin had stopped to help him when he had fallen, knew what the Doctor would do. He stood up and ran after her.
***
The Doctor was in the lift-cage descending to the control room of the planet-TARDIS. He had a dilemma. He could rip the planet away from the Cybermen, but its programmed course would destroy Twentieth Century Earth. He could deactivate the machine, but then the Cybermen might find how to re-activate it, and with a time-machine capable of destroying planets, what could stop them from eternal domination? Altos 3 was a planet with living creatures on it. He had to find a fourth alternative.
***
The damaged Cyber-lieutenant reached the lift shaft, grabbed the metal rope that held the descending lift-cage, and slid down it.
***
The Doctor heard a loud thump as something hit the top of the lift-cage.
***
The Mara felt someone close, but the tachyon leak meant that close was no longer limited to four dimensions. The Mara's target was somewhere and somewhen else.
***
November on a Queensland beach, there are few better places on earth. The sun was warm, the beer was cold, and Jack had found an attractive, vivacious girl. He was walking across the sand carrying a Fosters and a Diet Coke. His feet felt the hot sand, his eyes saw the attractive women soaking in up the sun, but his thoughts where on the woman he had fallen for. He could see her lying on the sun baked sand. He reached her, offered her the can.
"Tegan?"
His girlfriend turned round; he noticed, for the first time, a snake tattoo on her arm, and then saw the hatred in her dark eyes.
To be continued......