Rathi was a watchman. He patrolled a small portion of the diameter of the Londaar module, checking for any threats. Since Ulris was a very boring planetoid by nature his was an easy job.
Rathi was about to finish his first walk of the day across the piece of rim that was his patch when his suit told him that there was unusual background noise. It was only a fraction above normal, but Ulris was about as unpredictable as a brick, so Rathi was immediately on full alert. There was nothing he could do but wait, although the wait didn't last long.
On the horizon a tiny black dot appeared, then it flashed yellow against the purple sky. Rathi had just enough time to get excited before the yellow fire reduced him to a fine white dust. The yellow light travelled through the glass module and into the city beyond.
***
The TARDIS wheezed its way into another landscape, before the door opened and the old man known as the Doctor emerged, followed by his assistant and friend, Jo.
The Doctor quickly took in his surroundings; "A colony of some sort, inhabited by humans if the dimensions and air are anything to go by."
Jo giggled. "Inhabited by humans if that person over there is anything to go by!" She and the Doctor approached the newcomer.
"Greetings," started the Doctor. "Could you tell us where we are?"
The young man turned round to face the pair, revealing a face wet and red with tears. "Who are you?" he yelled.
"This is Jo Grant, I am the Doctor."
"Then can you tell me who I am?"
"What do you mean?" asked Jo.
"I don't know who I am, what I'm doing here, anything! It's like someone's stolen my memories."
"We'd better find some kind of security force to help this man. There's nothing I can think of doing to help him," said the Doctor.
The pair headed for the nearest way out of the room they had appeared in. They exited to find themselves on a balcony, overlooking a plaza. Down below was a scene of mass hysteria.
People ran through the square screaming, some fighting with each other futilely. Not one face didn't look distressed and scared.
"It appears the memory problem has affected the entire local population," observed the Doctor.
"But why are they fighting?" asked Jo.
"Without memories the people have reverted to their basic instincts, some will be angry and are trying to blame each other."
"Look!" said Jo suddenly. She pointed to a piece of ornamental metal pattern on the wall above them, it had been highly polished taking on mirror like qualities. A faint yellow glow flickered upon it, slowly fading away.
"Interesting, possibly the after effect of a device that did this to these people."
The pair continued along the balcony. It eventually ended, leading them into another room. On the floor was a male body. The Doctor immediately approached and examined the corpse.
"His neck was snapped. By the looks of things he was killed by something stronger than a human."
"His hand is clenched Doctor, like he's holding something."
The Doctor prised apart the stiff fingers. They held a thin piece of silver tubing. The Doctor frowned. "Something he pulled off his attacker as he defended himself."
"A little silver pipe? What kind of monster could that be?"
"Cybermen."
"Worse than the Daleks, Doctor?"
"Depends if you like to be killed outright or be made to serve your enemies and kill your friends."
"That's horrible."
"It's important we stop any Cybermen quickly. In their present state the colonists will be culled like cattle. Since the corpse is still warm, I'm guessing this man was killed since we arrived. That means the Cyberman must have left through the other entrance to this room."
The Doctor and Jo left, entering a long staircase. At the bottom a silver body lay against the wall. As they got closer they could hear its grating voice.
"Mission records lost... lack of data... requesting data from source... failure... Terminating to prevent detection."
The Doctor pulled Jo back as the Cyberman burst into flames.
"Incredible, it was also affected by the memory wipe. I had assumed they'd be responsible."
"With any luck all it's friends will have been caught too. They won't be much use for invading this colony then."
"The people here are safe, but they've lost everything. We'd better get back to the colony centre and help in any way we can."
The pair headed back, but found their assistance wasn't needed. A group of men and women dressed in black suits were organising the people into groups, and were teaching them what they could.
The Doctor looked at the newcomers. "It couldn't be, they wouldn't!" He ran up to the closest official. "You people did this, didn't you?"
"Please get in line, and we will help you as we can sir."
"You've destroyed all these peoples minds to stop some Cybermen that had entered the colony."
"You still have knowledge of Cybermen? Interesting."
"Interesting? Is that all you have to say? You probably did this to stop the Cyber army getting bigger, didn't you? That these people are still alive at all is probably an inconvenience to you."
