"Leader, our human agent reports that the Doctor has destroyed the Cyberscout and is now fleeing towards the hills outside the city. Our scan of the area shows he is heading toward the area of the temporal disturbance."

 "The Doctor must not be allowed to destroy the source of the emissions."

 "Yes, Leader."

 The Cyberleader turned its emotionless face towards its underling and clenched its fist. "Order the human agent to follow them. You and one other Cyberman will then follow him. Once the human leads you to the Doctor, you may eradicate them."

 The Cyberlieutenant hesitated. "What about the agreement you made with the human to let him live? He may be of further use to us."

 The Cyberleader turned towards him, in what could have been mistaken for anger, had the Cybermen possessed any emotions. "Promises made to aliens have no validity. The human is weak and may betray us. You will eradicate him with the others."

 "Yes, Leader."

 If the Cybermen had bothered to study the readings on the energy monitor, they would have realized that the psychic energy systems on their ship were nearing the point of overload from the fear and anger of the captives they had begun to convert.

 ***

 Wil watched in silence as Jacob paced impatiently up and down the living room of Nana's small dwelling. They had been waiting here, bored, for over an hour, discussing the invasion, and arguing over what they should do about it. To make it worse, Jacob and Bevin had been staring at each other in the way that only two people who fancy each other but don't want to let each other know they fancy each other can do. It made him pretty nauseous. He flipped another playing card into the olive green army cap that matched his jacket.

 "What do you call a hundred rabbits walking backwards?"

 Jacob and Bevin glared at him.

 "A receding hare line."

 Jacob finally slammed his fist into the wall. "I'm not going to wait here any longer. While we're hiding away in here like foxes from the hunters, our people are being captured and having God-only-knows-what done to them."

 Bevin stood up. "Yeah? Well, what can we do against those -- those machines? You felt one of them manhandle you! You were powerless!"

 Wil flipped another card into his hat. "Yeah. Let's just wait here. The Doctor will sort things out."

 Bevin spun around angrily to face him. "The Doctor will only make things worse! At least, according to Nana."

 Wil sat up straight. "Yeah -- what was supposed to happen according to Nana'? She must have given you some of the details. Did she specifically say that the Doctor was to blame for what happens? Or are you just jumping to conclusions?" Even Jacob stopped pacing to hear what Bevin had to say.

 "Well ..." Bevin closed her eyes, as if trying to remember the details. "Yes! I ... I don't remember word for word what Nana said, but I distinctly remember her saying once that the Doctor would be responsible for the accident that kills her."

 Wil stood up, pocketing his remaining playing cards. "Well, nothing we can do about that, then. At least, not yet. Why don't we do something constructive like find some weapons that might kill these robots? Do you have any more gold lying around anywhere?"

 Bevin snorted. "Gold isn't exactly a common metal around these parts. Nana must have spent her whole life collecting that bag of gold dust that killed the Cyberman outside."

 Wil could almost see the light bulb go off above Jacob's head. "Why don't we go around and take up a collection? Surely there must be some others who will be willing to part with a little gold to prevent becoming like those ... those machines. We can organize a proper resistance while we're at it, too. There can't be too many of those Cybermen things out there. I only counted four or five at most."

 "There were six at first," interjected Bevin, "at least according to Nana. We just killed one of them, so there are only five left. We should be able to scrape up enough gold to kill the last five."

 "Well, what are we waiting for then?" Jacob said, rushing for the door. "Let's go organize a resistance to these metal bastards."

 "Wait for me," Bevin said, grabbing her gun.

 Wil groaned. Just as he was getting good at the card-flipping trick. That would teach him to open his big mouth.

 ***

 Nana turned around as the Doctor cried out in anguish and fell over, nearly rolling down the hill. She turned back to help him, but he waved her away and stumbled back to his feet. "It's all right. We're getting close to the source of the temporal fissure, aren't we?" Nana nodded.

 At the very top of the hill stood Nana's hacienda. "Rather a difficult walk in the winter for someone your age, isn't it?" the Doctor asked.

 "I bought it when I was young, because it was near the site where the temporal fissure would open," Nana explained. "I haven't been here in years, but I've had it ready for the day when the invasion took place." She looked down at the ground as she slowly continued up the dirt path, the Doctor helping her along.

 "Things didn't work out quite the way you had planned, did they?" the Doctor asked, not unkindly.

 Nana shook her head. "When I was Bevin, Nana warned me to stay away from the hacienda. She repeated over and over again what a mistake it would be if I ever went there. Of course, I didn't listen to her. When ... I die, Bevin will be here. And she will go back in time and become me."

 "It must have been difficult for you, seeing your Nana die."

 "Yes." She continued walking silently towards the hacienda, her arm linked with the Doctor's. "It was even more difficult when I realized that I would become Nana, and that I had seen my own death."

 They continued in silence towards the hacienda. As they neared it, the Doctor could see that it was built in the classic Spanish style. It reminded him briefly of the Dona Arana's hacienda where his sixth and second selves had met, but Nana's was smaller, and it also had a large laser drilling rig towering above the building from behind. When they reached the entrance, Nana opened the loudly creaking front door and ushered the Doctor inside. He entered, taking in his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the light. The hacienda seemed to have been a kind of summer house for Nana when she was younger. An old holophoto of a young man and woman hung on the wall. Not recognizing either of the couple, the Doctor walked closer to examine it.

 "My mother -- well, my daughter, and her husband," Nana explained. The Doctor nodded. He then turned his attention to a heavy metallic box lying on a table. He bent over to open it. Nana quickly stayed his hand. "I wouldn't if I were you -- not yet," she warned. The Doctor drew his hand back and continued to look around.

 "My friend Leto once told me that prescience was the ultimate boredom. Knowing every possible future makes it possible to affect its outcome, but what's the fun of that? Luckily -- or perhaps unluckily -- for Time Lords the future is always fluid and changing. I've never been able to see every possible future, but there was a time in my life not very long ago when I tried to create the future -- and sometimes the past -- in my own image, to make it better. I found that it usually made things worse. Those days are over. I'm content now to just sit back and enjoy time, taking on life's challenges as they come rather than creating my own."

 "Don't forget -- I'm not really prescient."

 "In a way you are. You've seen the future -- you've been trapped in a boring, endless loop. Once -- who knows how many cycles ago -- the original Bevin was born to a mother whose mother wasn't her daughter. But something happened to start the cycle. Perhaps, when she was thrown back in time, something she did caused her original grandmother to be killed, and so she married your grandfather to prevent her own death, unintentionally beginning the time paradox. Every loop has been slightly different -- until now. You've already seen the loop change once. We can do it again."

 Nana shook her head. "I thought the loop could change -- that's why I originally bought this hacienda. I spent my free time up here burrowing in the ground for the source of the time disturbance, believing I could put an end to it before my granddaughter Bevin was thrown back in time. But as it turns out, I was the one who activated the rift in the first place." The Doctor frowned. "Yes, it's my fault the temporal energy is leaking. I didn't realize that by looking for the source, I would set it off."

 "I think you'd better show me what you found," the Doctor replied, his face grave. He took Nana's hand, and she led him to a door, through which were steps leading down to the basement.

 "My Nana had never told me that she had been the one who set off the temporal disturbance. I had always intended to tell Bevin, but ... I realized that doing so would reveal that she was really me, and I could never find the courage to tell her that she would become me. I could never hurt her, destroy her future in that way." The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Nana continued. "Even if I did tell her now, it wouldn't change things. It would just bring her revelation forward a few weeks. She'd still go back in time, still become me. The future is un ..." She stopped, realizing that the future had changed. Slightly.

 As they reached the basement, Nana led the Doctor to an open-air lift hanging above a deep mining shaft. The Doctor remembered riding down a similar lift, in the mines where he fought the Green Death. Nana lifted the safety bar for the Doctor and he stepped inside. "I had wondered what the drilling rig outside had been for."

 Nana pulled down a lever. The lift began to descend. "I knew as Bevin that the Cybermen had been after whatever had been buried under the hill in this spot. I didn't know, though, that I was the one who had dug the shaft and accidentally activated the machine below. I worked for three decades to save enough credits to buy the laser drilling rig that dug this shaft. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I told them I had found Jethryk under the hill." She shook her head, remembering the folly of what she had done. "I worked my whole life to stop the future from happening, but instead I ended up causing it." Her voice was beginning to sound choked up.

 The lift continued to descend. If the source of the temporal fission were buried this deeply, the Doctor thought, it was no wonder the Cybermen wanted such a large work force. He had some nasty suspicions about what lay below.

 Nana clutched the Doctor's arm. "Tell me ... tell me things will be different this time. Tell me it won't all happen like it happened before." The Doctor could see a tear in Nana's eye. She knew the moment of her death was only days, maybe hours away. "I never thought it was possible, but seeing your young friend alive back there, and talking to you... it has given me hope that the future might be different this time. And it's also made me afraid. I've known what the future would be like for so long, that I've never really feared it before. Now I'm not so sure. I don't want to die, Doctor. Tell me it will be different this time."

 The Doctor looked into the old woman's eyes, and found himself smiling. "I'll do everything I can to make sure the future is better this time."

 "Thank you."

 The lift came to a stop, and Nana led the Doctor out. They were in a tunneled surface with a gleaming stone floor. It resembled the stone that made up his TARDIS' current interior architecture. And for good reason, thought the Doctor.

 At last they came to a doorway. Above it loomed the Seal of Rassilon. The Doctor closed his eyes. Why did so many of his recent adventures lead him to confront skeletons in the Time Lords' past? Nana waited for him to recover. Opening his eyes, he strode confidently forward, and pushed open the doors.

 Just when the Doctor thought he had been in the biggest chamber he would ever set foot in, along came another which was even bigger. This was one of those occasions. The Doctor gawped at the room before him. He was standing along a balcony overlooking a one-mile deep chasm, with a city of glittering lights below him, and a dome with a swirling vortex of color rising at least half a mile over his head. The Doctor shook his head.

 He turned to Nana. "You activated this, didn't you." She nodded ashamedly. The Doctor strode along the balcony, to a catwalk leading out to a gigantic pillar set in the center of the mile-wide chamber. With Nana tagging along behind him, the Doctor led the way silently out onto the catwalk, all the way out to the gigantic six-sided pillar in the center of the chamber. The pillar was covered in controls similar to the Doctor's TARDIS console. He shook his head again. He turned to Nana. "Do you have any idea what this is?" She shook her head dumbly. The Doctor threw his hands in the air and began to examine the gigantic hexagonal column before him.

 "Do you know what it is?" Nana asked, shyly.

 The Doctor spun around on her. "As a matter of fact, I do." He pulled a lever, and a flat videoscreen slid out from the column and rotated ninety degrees to face them. The Doctor pushed a button to activate it, and a map of the galaxy appeared. "Millions of years ago, a Time Lord named Rassilon -- one of my people -- built a large artificial planet which was capable of traveling through time and space as the ultimate safeguard for the galaxy. The planet was capable of shifting its continents, seas, and atmosphere to mimic any planet in the universe." The Doctor punched a few buttons on the pillar, and the view on the screen changed to that of a planet Nana recognized as Altos 3.

 "It was just one of a great variety of 'ultimate weapons' designed for my people's use in the war against the Vampires. Rassilon thought it would be clever to use the Vampires' principles against them, by creating a planet which could suck all the energy from other planets. Rassilon used it to destroy a few of the Vampire planets, but because the planet ship took nearly 24 hours to completely drain a planet, the Vampires were for the most part able to flee their doomed planets before their worlds were destroyed. In one attack, so the legend says, the Vampires nearly managed to take over the planet-ship, and realizing the danger should the planet-ship fall into enemy hands, Rassilon had the planet taken back in time to where the Vampires could not reach, and deactivated it so that no one would ever use it again." He touched another button, and the map of the galaxy appeared again, with a line running through it. He tapped another button, and the star at the end of the line was enlarged to show its solar system. The Doctor shook his head and buried his face in his hands.

 Nana tapped him on the shoulder. "What's the matter?"

 The Doctor peeked out through his hands and pointed to the monitor. He tapped another button on the control panel, and a blue and white planet appeared, surrounded by lines of alien script. "The ship's coordinates are locked in to return it to its point of origin." He pointed to the screen. "It's set to return to Earth's solar system in the twentieth century."

 ***

 Jacob, Bevin, and Wil entered the bar in which Wil had almost been trampled in the bar fight the night before. Patrons were sitting around miserably, drinking their troubles away and complaining about the way the Cybermen had captured or killed their friends. Jacob made his way to the front of the saloon and jumped onto the top of the bar, much to the bartender's astonishment. He clapped his hands sharply.

 "Attention! Citizens!" The disgruntled patrons turned to see who dared to interrupt their drinking. "Most of you know me -- I'm Jacob Maguire, the Mayor's assistant. We've found a way to stop these Cybermen who are terrorizing the city, but we'll need your help to defeat them."

 The patrons began to pay attention now. Most of them looked up from their drinks and began to whisper to each other.

 Bevin climbed up onto the bar beside him. "It's true! These Cybermen can be killed by gold! That's right! Gold! We've killed one ourselves!"

 The crowd began to mutter again, and Wil cringed as he heard someone yell, "Hey, ain't that the crazy old woman's granddaughter?" Someone else yelled, "Do you think we're stupid or something? We ain't giving you our gold!" The crowd began to laugh.

 Jacob motioned for the crowd to calm down. "Listen! I know you probably don't believe us, but it's true! Look, these Cybermen are killing our friends, our families, and we've been helpless against them, until now! Isn't it worth the sacrifice of one small, little piece of gold to see whether or not we're telling the truth? It can be a ring, a watch, anything -- all we need is one piece, and we'll prove it to you!" Jacob looked around at the crowd, desperately searching for someone who might help out.

 Someone tugged at his pant leg from behind, and Jacob turned around to see the bartender pulling the wedding ring off his finger.

 "Here," the bartender said, handing Jacob the ring. "If this will help kill those robotic bastards that kidnapped my wife, then more power to you."

 Jacob smiled kindly to the man, knelt down, and accepted the ring. "Thank you." He stood up again and showed the ring to the crowd. "Is anyone else with us? Will anyone else join the resistance?"

 The crowd was suddenly hushed as a large, menacing shadow fell across the doorway. The crowd turned as a Cyberman strode in, slamming open the double doors like an outlaw in an old cowboy film. The Cyberman and Jacob faced each other in a Wild West faceoff.

 "You will all come with me. Resistance is useless."

 No one moved.

 The Cyberman drew its gun. He slowly lifted it to aim it at Jacob. "You will obey me, or I shall destroy you one by one, beginning with the human up there." Jacob raised his hands in fright. He was too far away to make a jump and slam the gold ring into the Cyberman's chestplate. The Cybermen began to press the trigger...

 At that moment Wil did a cartwheel to land in front of the Cyberman, and pulled a bouquet of flowers from the sleeve of his army jacket. Taking advantage of the Cyberman's momentary confusion, Jacob and Bevin slipped off the bar.

 "What did one eye say to the other eye?" Wil asked the Cyberman. The Cyberman nearly staggered, so confused was it by this human's illogical behavior.

 "Just between you and me, something smells,'" Wil finished. The Cyberman didn't get it. The crowd might have, but they didn't laugh. Wil sighed. Just like old times on Paracastria.

 "Your observation is irrelevant and illogical," the Cyberman replied. He raised his gun to point at Wil.

 "Duck!" screamed Bevin. Wil ducked. Jacob came flying over his back, lodging the bartender's ring in the Cyberman's chestplate. The Cyberman staggered back and gave an inhuman shriek of pain. It fired its gun, blowing away a large chunk of plaster and a rotating fan from the ceiling. Wil, Jacob, and Bevin all grabbed at the Cyberman's gun arm and tried to pry away the gun. The Cyberman continued to issue its harsh electronic wail. The gun fired again. At last, with the help of the bartender and several patrons, the Cyberman was toppled to the ground, and Jacob gained control of the gun.

 Reversing it on the helpless automaton, Jacob fired the gun at point blank range into the Cyberman's chest. Smoke began to pour from the Cyberman's chest unit, and the metallic giant groaned one last time before dying.

 Jacob put one foot atop the robot and held the captured gun above his head in a victory stance. "See? We can overcome these invaders. No one else needs to die. Now who's with us?" The crowd cheered. "Then come on!" Jacob led the mob outside to capture the Warship P8764X.

 ***

 Inside the Sumaran warship, the psychic energy systems were now just moments away from overloading from the hatred and fear being produced by the humans being Cybernetically converted inside.

 ***

 As the Doctor and Nana emerged from the basement of the hacienda, they heard an insistent pounding on the door. The Doctor darted over to a window and peered outside. It was the Mayor. Nana nodded to let him in.

 Out of breath and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief, the Mayor stumbled in and collapsed, exhausted, on a sofa. "Thank you ..." he panted. "Those Cybermen... they're... killing people... left and right."

 "There, there," Nana said, patting his shoulder. "Doctor, could you get him a glass of water? The kitchen is right through there."

 "Certainly," the Doctor replied, disappearing inside.

 "Now what brings you all the way up here?" Nana asked the Mayor. The Doctor returned, bringing with him a glass of water. He handed the glass to the Mayor, who slurped it thirstily.

 "Ahh... thank you. I... well, Nana, I've... heard stories, you know, the stories that say you can predict the future, and, well... I don't know what else to do. I thought, maybe, you could, you know, tell me what I can do, to save the town?"

 Nana turned to the Doctor, a gleam of sadness in her eyes. The Doctor knew what it meant. Nana remembered seeing the Mayor dead.

 "Now, now," Nana said, patting his shoulder again. "Everything will be all right. The Doctor and I think we can put an end to the energy emissions that have attracted the Cybermen to our planet."

 If anything, this announcement began to make the Mayor panic a bit more. "Wha -- what energy emissions?"

 Nana turned to stare at the Doctor, but his face was a blank mask. "There's a gigantic ... machine underneath our planet, a machine that can send this planet back through time and space," Nana explained. The Mayor's eyes grew wide, whether from horror or excitement, it was difficult to say.

 "You -- how do you know this?" the Mayor asked. The Doctor tried to interrupt, but Nana spilled the beans. "There's a shaft in my basement leading down to its control room," Nana revealed.

 At that moment, the front door to the hacienda was kicked in by two Cybermen. Their guns held before them, they strode steadily and relentlessly toward the organic beings inside.

 "Do not move -- resistance is useless," the Cyberlieutenant commanded.

 "Perish the thought," the Doctor replied, sarcastically.

 The Mayor leapt to his feet and walked hesitantly towards the towering silver figures. Nana stepped out of his way and used it as an excuse to edge nearer to the large metal box on the table.

 The Mayor raised his hands and strode up to the Cybermen as if they were old friends -- or slave masters. "I -- what are you doing here? I thought I was supposed to be the one following the Doctor and the woman!"

 The Cybermen stared at him impassively. "We learned everything we needed to know from the radio transmitter placed upon you while you were aboard our ship." It swung its gun around to cover the now-quivering fat man.

 "I -- I thought I was your friend! I was helping you!" The Mayor sank to his knees.

 "You would think humankind would have learned by now not to make deals with self-centered, genocidal aliens like the Cybermen," the Doctor announced in disgust.

 "No... no!" the Mayor cried as the Cyberlieutenant lowered his gun to shoot him.

 "You are no longer of use to us."

 At that moment, Nana lifted the heavy box onto its side and undid the latch. The Doctor saw what she was doing and cried, "No!" while darting over to stop her. He was too late. Nana swung open the door of the lead-lined case, revealing a large rod of uranium 238. Seeing the radioactive bar, the Cyberlieutenant sank to its knees, using the mayor as a shield. The other Cyberman was not so lucky. It took the blast of radiation full in the chest, scrambling its computer systems. As the radiation interfered with its electronic components and microprocessors, it collapsed, silently, dead.

 The Doctor ran over and slammed shut the door of the lead-lined case. "You fool! What did you think you were doing?" Nana smiled, then collapsed weakly to the couch. The Doctor heard the Cyberlieutenant's gun fire, and dived behind the sofa for cover. The Cyberlieutenant hadn't been aiming for him, though. It had fired at the lock on the lead-lined case, fusing it shut. It heard a pitiful moan from the floor below him and looked down to see the Mayor, red burns on his face from where the radiation had struck. The Mayor looked back pitifully at the Cyberman. The Doctor took advantage of this distraction to flee the room.

 "Kill me ..." the Mayor begged.

 "It would be illogical to waste valuable ammunition on a human who is already dying," the Cyberlieutenant replied. "Since you sacrificed yourself to protect me, I shall allow you to enjoy your final moments of life." The Cyberlieutenant stalked off in search of the Doctor. The Mayor, covered in radiation burns, feebly reached out for him. Failing, he collapsed into blubbering sobs.

 Although the Cyberlieutenant's fault indicators did not report any malfunctions, the radiation had managed to damage a tiny mathematical subprocessor which formed a part of its logic circuits.

 ***

 Just as the Sumaran Warship's systems were about to overload, the enormous amounts of mental energy being produced by the frightened humans inside stopped abruptly.

 ***

 The unruly mob, having grown in size and shouting slogans like "Death to the Cybermen!" and "Metal Bastards Off Our World!" approached the Sumaran Warship lying in the quarry below. Jacob, Bevin, and Wil, at the head of the motley crowd, paused to make some sort of plan.

 "So, you're certain there were only six of them on board the ship?" Wil asked uncertainly.

 "That's what Nana said."

 "Well, we killed two, and a few men reported seeing two others heading for the hills. That leaves only two to defeat," Jacob deduced. "We've got quite a bit of gold here; we should have no problem overcoming two," he declared confidently.

 "Then what are we waiting for?" Bevin shouted. "Let's attack!"

 The mob stormed down into the quarry below. As they neared the ship, the door to the warship opened, and two Cybermen emerged. "Halt!" shouted the Cybermen in unison.

 "No chance!" shouted the bartender. "We're gonna finish you bastards off once and for all!" The crowd shouted their approval and prepared to charge.

 Suddenly, to Jacob's amazement, another Cyberman emerged from the ship and walked down the ramp. Followed by another. And another. And another. An entire line of Cybermen were emerging from the ship. The crowd was thrown into confusion.

 "I don't get it!" Jacob shouted angrily at Bevin. "You said there were only six!"

 "There probably were, at first!" Wil shouted. "But remember, they've been converting other humans in there since they arrived!"

 "But... they captured nearly a hundred people!" Bevin shouted.

 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.

 To be continued ...