The Doctor and Berman raced to the sleek silver spacecraft and skidded to a halt at the firmly closed ramp. The Doctor looked up resentfully at the tiny portholes in the ship's side but his protest was forestalled by Kallon's voice booming from a concealed speaker:
"I'm sorry, Doctor, I can't risk it. I suggest you keep running. I'm taking off now."
The Doctor glanced back at the soldiers pounding along through the mist not far behind him. Alison's voice burst from the speaker.
"Hold on, Doctor, I'm going to get that door open if it..."
Scuffles were audible and something was knocked over with a crash. The Doctor pursed his lips.
"Oh, for pity's sake."
With a flourish he produced the sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket and pressed it to the locking mechanism embedded in the ship's hull. Sturdy as it was, it hadn't been designed to be thief-proof and he sprang it open with a deft twist of the frequency modulator. He and Berman hastened up the ramp into the warm.
Alison and Kallon were struggling by the pilot's seat, his fists clamped about her wrists in an attempt to restrain her from pressing any more buttons. A draught of cold air warned them of the new arrivals and they both froze and looked up, she with relief, him with a look more of embarrassment than guilt.
"What were you saying?" the Doctor inquired archly. "We couldn't quite catch it over the intercom so we thought we'd better come inside and talk face to face."
Kallon quickly released Alison and stabbed at the switch to close the ramp once more.
"All right, all right. I felt it was too dangerous to open the door. I was trying to keep your friend here safe as well, you know."
"Oh, how heroic," the Doctor replied with excruciating sarcasm. "And how fortunate that saving your own skin happened to coincide with that selfless goal."
Kallon dropped back into the pilot's seat, quickly recovering his self-possession, his head lifting and his features becoming primly unreadable as he started work on the controls again.
"Yes, well, no harm done. Let's get airborne."
The Doctor's hand fell on his wrist.
"You're joking, of course."
Kallon looked up at him, perfectly uncomprehending.
"What do you mean?"
"The soldiers are still out there," the Doctor said patiently. "We're not about to sit here in the warm while they're massacred."
On the monitor, the troopers were visible swarming about the craft, hammering at its hull with fists and rifle butts, while every second the Cybermen drew nearer.
Inside, the hammering was inaudible. Kallon pulled his arm free.
"We certainly are. You weren't here, Doctor, those men were trying to kill us."
"That's a matter to be addressed once they're safely inside. Now, this is the door control, yes?"
"Berman! Restrain this man!"
Kallon rapped out the order, his light, smooth voice turning into a harsh bark of command, and in a flash Berman's sidearm was in his hand.
"Step away, Doctor," he warned.
The Doctor turned just his head to glare at Berman, standing there with gun drawn.
"Berman. And I thought we had such a good rapport going."
The young soldier swallowed nervously, but the muzzle of the gun didn't waver.
"Sorry, Doctor. Orders."
Alison could see his nostrils pinching as he drew breath for an acid rejoinder, and she spoke up shyly to forestall him.
"Doctor... I don't think we can let them in."
It was startling how his look of frosty disdain fell away, a brittle mask cracking apart. The look he turned on her was one of simple disappointment.
"Alison?"
It stabbed her deep, she felt a cold pang in her chest, but shamefacedly she persisted.
"You weren't there before, back in the mess hut. They were out to kill us. I don't want to give them a second chance."
His calm, grave eyes bored into her.
"I seem to remember a few hours ago you were the one who was desperate to help them. But I see that doesn't apply once you have your own neck to worry about."
She lowered her head and Kallon spoke up.
"Doctor, you do realise that if they got on board they'd have to kill you as well, to keep you quiet?"
The Doctor whirled and glared down at him, face thinning, his gaunt cheeks hollowing, and seemed to have to force the words out through lips gone stiff as oak:
"You just... don't get it, do you?"
He looked at the viewscreen. The soldiers were frantic, panic-stricken, surrounded. Some shouldered their weapons to make a futile last stand, others waved their arms and screamed up at the ship, pleading inaudibly for the sanctuary it offered. The Cybermen's blank faces and empty eyes formed a pitiless row of executioners in a tightening noose about them.
"And you're really going to just sit and watch this?" the Doctor asked. "You're going to sit here in safety and comfort with the door securely locked and watch?"
Kallon deliberately averted his eyes from the screen.
"No," he said briskly, "I'd say it's time we were leaving."
"Doctor?" said Alison quietly. He didn't look up from the monitor.
"What?"
"Sorry."
He didn't have time to respond, because with that she threw herself on Berman's gun hand like a wildcat, sinking her teeth into the base of his thumb and clinging to his wrist with both hands. He screamed in shock and pain, and the Doctor and Kallon stared at her wide-eyed for a second before both leaping into action.
Kallon lunged from his seat towards the plasma rifle he'd discarded on the other side of the room. The Doctor moved as if he'd spent the last half hour expecting this move and planning what he'd do in response. With a smooth motion he grasped the collar of Kallon's sharply-cut uniform in one hand, using his own momentum to swing him off balance and send him hurtling out of control, head-first into a wall mounted computer stack. A second later his thin, precise fingers were stabbing at the switches, and with a hiss of hydraulics and a rush of cold, damp air, the ramp split downwards, opening them up to the night and all the dangers it held.