Doctor Who: The Zarbi (10 page)

The Voice boomed, ‘Very well – speak-eak!... Why have you come to this planet-et...?’

Doctor Who recovered from his surprise. He turned his head this way and that, mustered a defiance, and snapped back.

‘W-who are you? We come in peace...!’

‘Peace?’ the Voice echoed back at him. ‘Is that why you attack-ack? We require to know where your main force is-is..!’

Ian and Vicki, held at bay by the Zarbi and under the menace of a venom grub which remained pointing implacably at them, could see Doctor’s Who’s head, grotesquely distorted through the glassy side of the Dome, but they could hear nothing. They saw the Doctor’s head turn their way. The distortion magnified his lips into a huge rubbery duck’s bill.

Vicki exclaimed, ‘He’s speaking – to something! Why can’t we hear what he’s saying?’

Ian was shaking his head, bewildered. He didn’t answer because he had no answer. He remained staring at the strange Dome.

Inside it Doctor Who was answering vehemently, ‘I repeat – we are alone! We have strayed from our astral path!’

The Voice boomed angrily back. ‘You heard the alarm.

Your force is on its way-ay...! We wish to know when this invasion fleet will arrive,
and
its weaponry-y...!’

‘I have
told
you – we are peaceful travellers from Earth!’

‘You lie!’ the Voice thundered. ‘You are the Menoptera-a...! Our detectors show you massing in space to attack.

This is your final chance to speak-eak...!’

A pause. Doctor Who stared. He said quietly, ‘We know nothing of this... Menoptera force you speak of...’

The Voice rose to a terrifying pitch as it boomed back, raging.

‘Very well-ell! We shall show you the fate that awaits
all
your ships,
all
your people-le...!’

The control panel on the wall beyond the Dome came to life. A series of lights flashed and a loud humming burst from the big speaker beneath them.

At that an urgent chirruping broke out among the Zarbi. Their leader wheeled, pointed at the venom grub whose snout covered Ian and Vicki.

The grub moved, turned, and slithered swiftly – towards
Tardis
.

The Zarbi gestured. The grub lifted its evil snout, pointing it directly at the ship’s doors.

Even through the distorting glass of the Dome covering his head, Doctor Who saw it. He lifted his head and shouted upward.

‘Listen to me! You
must
listen! I have not finished explaining...!’

Vicki caught at Ian’s arm. She screamed.

‘Ian! They are going to destroy the ship!’

Ian, staring, wrested himself free of the Zarbi who gripped his arms.

‘If they do, they might as well destroy us too!’

The Zarbi controlling the venom grub raised its foreclaw, and poised it to give the signal to fire.

The Dome encircling Doctor Who’s head rose suddenly and slid upward. The Doctor turned and saw more clearly what was about to happen to the ship. He saw Ian lunging desperately forward to prevent it.

‘Chesterton, get back! Back!’

Ian checked and suddenly pressed back against the wall with Vicki. The Doctor backed too.

The Zarbi flashed down its foreclaw, and the venom grub spat a streak of flame towards the ship’s hull.

They waited, horrified, expecting to see
Tardis
smoulder and burst into flame.

Instead, the venom grub kicked backwards suddenly, and overturned on its scaly armoured back. Its multiple legs threshed feebly, and as it did so, the Zarbi commanding it folded and collapsed slowly to the floor, its luminous eyes paling, its legs jerking convulsively.

Several Zarbi near their leader fell.

‘The venom-gun!’ Ian yelled. ‘It misfired — kicked back!’

‘Yes. Yes!’ Doctor Who was alight with excitement. He turned, fixing a triumphant stare on Ian and Vicki.

‘Remember when we were aboard that Dalek saucer?

Mm? The repellent magnets?’

‘Is... that what’s happened?’

‘Something of the sort,’ Doctor Who snapped. ‘Yes!’

Vicki was looking on fascinated at the Zarbi leader, still lying prone and threshing its steely limbs feebly.

‘Look... look at the one who fired the gun!’

The other Zarbi near the venom grub had raised themselves, chirruping agitatedly, and now bent to help their leader upright. It recovered, reared up, its head waving groggily this way and that. A fresh, furious burst of

humming came from the control panel. The Zarbi turned towards it, braced themselves visibly, and several of their number wheeled to advance on Doctor Who and his companions.

One of them had taken up several of the strange wishbone-shaped gold necklets and now held these pointed towards them. Vicki cringed back.

‘Doctor – don’t let them put those things on us!’

Doctor Who, trapped, looked around him as if searching for some means of escape, or of stalling the Zarbi. He looked up at the Dome and strode to stand beneath it. The Zarbi jailer came straight for Ian and Vicki. Before it reached them Ian acted. He kicked out at the guards closing on either side of him and hurled himself at the jailer holding a necklet poised at Vicki’s neck, ready to clamp it around her throat.

The Zarbi jailer lurched sideways, but immediately two of its companions were on Ian, gripping him fiercely, swaying this way and that with him as he wrestled violently to shield Vicki.

The jailer recovered his balance and moved inexorably forward to the shrinking Vicki. She moaned, twisting her head to avoid it, but the necklet closed around her neck.

Immediately she stilled her struggling. Her face grew blank. Her eyes dulled. She slumped back against the wall.

Doctor Who saw it, and saw the Zarbi turned to close now on him, too. He lifted his head and yelled desperately up towards the dome.

‘Fool! Silencing us will achieve nothing!
Nothing
! It is more important that you know of the great secrets we have inside our ship!’ He waved towards
Tardis
. ‘You and your creatures dare not go inside! You
cannot
! Only
we
can tell you what it holds!’

Suddenly he choked, cut short, as a Zarbi, chirruping angrily, thrust a gold clamp around his neck. The Doctor staggered, stiffened.

Only Ian remained free, kicking like a madman. He lunged and sent one of his captors sprawling, then leaped to the Doctor’s side. He reached and snatched the necklet from Doctor Who’s neck, pulling it free.

But as Ian did so, he began to sway. He looked down dazedly, stupidly at the necklet he held, tried to drop it –

but slumped and fell to the floor, his hand still clutching it.

Doctor Who revived in time to see the Zarbi restore the stricken venom grub to its feet. At a gesture from one of them it now turned to cover Doctor Who and his party –

Vicki, slumped weakly against a wall, Ian lying feebly on the floor, his hand still holding a necklet – and himself.

The Zarbi ‘gunner’ raised a claw. At the same time its companion thrust a necklet towards Doctor Who.

‘Doctor – they’re going to shoot – at us!’

Doctor Who stood stiffly, helpless, waiting now for the

‘fire’ signal from the Zarbi. But its claw remained poised, and suddenly its eye was caught by a large light flashing from the control panel. The master light above the web indicators was glowing furiously off and on. The Zarbi manning the panel roused themselves, humming and chirruping excitedly.

At the same time the great Dome in the roof again began to descend. Doctor Who’s Zarbi guard lowered the trance-necklet, and instead pushed him towards the centre of the room, urging him towards the lowering dome.

Doctor Who shook his head, glaring back, and put up a hand. In deliberate defiance of the Zarbi he first took a pace towards Ian and Vicki, wrenched off their necklets and cast them hurriedly, with a gesture of contempt, at the Zarbi’s feet.

Ian came to himself dazedly, saw the venom grub with its vicious snout now harmlessly lowered, and noted the hum of activity around the glowing control panel.

‘Lucky they changed their minds!’ he muttered.

‘They didn’t!’ Doctor Who snapped. ‘These creatures have no mind to change! Something changed it for them.’

The Doctor nodded towards the descending Dome, and only now, at a further angry shove from his Zarbi guards, allowed himself to be hustled beneath it. The Dome closed down over his head.

Immediately the Voice within it boomed around him.

‘If your ship is proof against our weapons – remember, you are not-ot! Tell us the secret of your armour-our...!’

‘Impossible!’ The Doctor rapped back. ‘Who can tell why it withstood the fire of your... your gun creature, unless you tell me how
it
operates?’

The anger of the Voice which roared back around him dizzied the Doctor. ‘You have the insolence to demand
our
secrets – instead of yielding up your own!’

Doctor Who braced himself and thundered back.

‘Then do not ask me questions I cannot answer!’

On a plateau above the cave a faint movement showed.

Two waving feelers showed against the sky. Then the Menoptera Vrestin hauled himself into sight through a crevice in the ground.

He stared around him for a sign of the Zarbi party which had invaded the cave with a venom grub, killed his two comrades, and borne Hrostar and the earth girl Barbara away.

Vrestin listened. He could hear nothing. As he turned he saw a glow sweep across the ridge to his right. Staring cautiously about him he crouched low and ran dodging for the ridge. He threw himself flat upon it and peered down the other side.

He stared at the great sprawling web which spread out its glowing tentacles in the shallow valley. Cautiously Vrestin rose and began stepping warily towards it when he was suddenly alerted by a humming, coupled with a chirruping.

Immediately Vrestin dodged for the shadow of a crag and dived for cover there, watching. The shadows of two Zarbi appeared from behind him and marched past, heading down towards the great headquarters.

After a moment Vrestin rose cautiously from hiding and looked after the moving figures of the Zarbi. Looking all around him for signs of any other movement, he began shadowing them, flitting from crag to crag and making use of whatever cover the ground offered.

As the great writhing shape of the web building appeared before him he turned, noting how its tentacles curled around rocks and crags, the globular tips puffing, bursting and throwing out fresh web patterns as they inched forward over the land. Vrestin halted uncertainly.

Beyond him the two Zarbi stood at a recess in the tangled mass of web.

As he watched, a section of webbing rose before them like a portcullis, revealing a tunnel-like corridor beyond, leading inward. The Zarbi moved in, and the entrance slid down behind them with a whirring sound, blotting them from his view.

Carefully Vrestin began to circle the great structure, looking intently around him.

Inside the Dome Doctor Who was still shouting back defiantly at the Voice while Vicki and Ian watched and wondered. They could hear nothing, and could see only his face, which distorted with every movement through the Dome as he answered his inquisitor. His arms waved and gestured angrily.

The Voice had changed its tone from thunderous anger to a booming menace.

‘You speak of the great secrets in your ship. You will give them to us to use against the invader. In return you will be given...’ the Voice paused... ‘... your... freedom...’

Doctor Who hesitated. ‘What of the fourth member of our party? Where is she?’

A silence answered him.

‘Well?’

‘She has been taken to the Crater of Needles-les. She will be restored to you —
after
you have helped us... Now

— will your secrets look into the stars?’

The question puzzled the Doctor. He called back, ‘I, er, have an astral map, if that is what you mean...’

‘Will it show where the Menoptera are massing-ing...?

Where they will... land-and...?’

‘You say it is the Menoptera who are invading this planet?’

The answer was partly lost in echoing sounds. Doctor Who cupped a hand to his ear to shield it against the reverberations.

‘... somewhere in space... beyond the range of our locators... they are grouping... scattering false trails to mislead us... their numbers are great-eat... I am aware only of movement... ent...’

‘You — cannot determine their position?’

‘This is what I require you to do-o...’

Doctor Who paused as though considering that. He decided on a bluff, but his voice as he answered was innocent. ‘I shall... need assistance.’

‘Bring your... astral map out of your ship.’ The Voice boomed back.

‘Even to do that, I shall need help...’

Doctor Who waited for the answer, hopefully. His face took on a dismayed expression as no answer came. Instead the Dome rose from his head into the air towards the roof.

He looked anxiously towards Ian and Vicki, and muttered anxiously to himself; ‘What will it do now?’