Doctor Who: The Zarbi (13 page)

Vrestin did not answer. He straightened. ‘I think it is safe to go now. I will direct you on your journey. I must continue my watch on their headquarters.’

‘You? Alone?’

‘I am the only survivor of our landing-party. I must render what service I can for our main force, when it lands.’

‘What can you do on your own?’ Ian protested. ‘There are four of our party — two of them inside that headquarters. Help us — and we shall find a way of helping you. The Doctor’s wits are more than a match for the Zarbi — or whatever is behind them...!’

Ian wished he could be wholly sure of his own boast.

‘The... Doctor?’

‘He is the head of our party. A brilliant man of science, who has travelled infinitely in time and space.’

Vrestin hesitated, doubtful. Ian urged him. ‘Take me to this... Crater! In return we’ll do whatever we can... get word to the Doctor... glean their secrets, their plans! You know the country, but it is we who could have the power to help your invasion!’

Vrestin pondered this. He stared across the landscape at the glow of the light from the Zarbi Headquarters. He looked uneasily skyward.

Finally he nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right. One alone can perhaps do little. Come. We can risk moving now.’

Vrestin climbed up out of the hollow, looked about him carefully, beckoned to Ian, and led on.

They flitted quietly from the shadow of one crag to another, holding their breath to listen for any alien sound.

Vrestin pointed ahead of them.

‘No cover there. We shall just have to cross it openly.’

He stepped out, leading the way up a bare rise, ploughing now in sandy ground. At the top he looked down, surveying the landscape ahead. He stretched out a slim hand to the rocky horizon.

‘That is the way to the Crater of Needles...’

‘How far?’

‘We should be there in two hours.’

Ian nodded and prepared to follow the tall Menoptera.

Suddenly the humming and the chirruping shattered the silent air. The Zarbi rose out of the soft sand straight ahead of them, rearing their evil heads, and with them a squat, snouted venom grub, too, emerged from its cover of sand and slithered on its multiple legs into position, barring the way.

Ian wheeled. He saw a thin outcrop of rock rising out of the sand away to their right and yelled.

‘Over there!’

Vrestin turned and they both raced for its scanty cover, slithering down an incline over the rise.

A Zarbi gestured quickly with its claw. The sting grub spat fire. Sparks skittered off the rocks and an acrid smouldering rose in the air as Ian and Vrestin threw themselves and slid behind their cover. They both stared wildly about and again Ian spotted a fresh refuge.

In the semicircle of rocks a small cave-like opening yawned, partly screened by a drift of sand.

‘Vrestin! Here!’

Ian gripped the Menoptera and pulled him, slithering towards the opening as the sand around them now flashed and smouldered under the fire of the venom grub. He urged Vrestin in through the narrow opening and turned for a last look round. He was about to follow the Menoptera in when a choked hollow yell issued from the tiny cave.

‘Get back! Get back! The ground’s giving way!’

Ian lunged inside, reached out his arm, and yelled back,

‘Catch hold of my hand!’

Behind him the Zarbi now appeared, their leader directing the gun. Ian felt downward into the opening and found Vrestin’s hand. He seized it, but already Vrestin was sliding down out of sight. As Ian hung on grimly he, too, was dragged in through the opening. Vrestin’s muffled choking voice came back despairingly.

‘Let go – you’ll be pulled down with me!’

Still Ian hung on. Vrestin’s weight had pulled him entirely into the shallow cave under the rock. As he fought to pull Vrestin back, Ian felt the ground crumble and sink under his weight. Sand cascaded down from the cave walls on either side and suddenly a fissure yawned beneath him.

Vrestin’s hand was wrenched from his grip. With a wailing cry Vrestin fell down through the dark opening crevasse amid a shower of falling earth.

His cry echoed hollowly back as if from an immense depth before if faded. Ian pulled back now but it was too late. His hands and feet threshed wildly for a hold on firm ground but felt only crumbling sand and emptiness. He slid, and gathering speed fell into a darkness with a wild yell.

At the mouth of the opening under the rocks the Zarbi halted and peered down. Before them a wide fissure now yawned with trickles of sand cascading down it, too deep to see the bottom.

The Zarbi backed hurriedly away from its crumbling edge as the echo of Ian’s cry floated upward from its depths.

Ian’s last memory was of crumbling rock and a deluge of sand cascading all around him as he whirled and fell.

Something hit him and it seemed that the back of his head opened and let in an explosion of light and pain.

His consciousness faded like a rocket, trailing fire.

There was an eternity of darkness before the shadows lightened – and very slowly, muttering and relapsing into sleep, he finally awoke. He blinked hard. His head was one great throbbing ache. He moved painfully on to an elbow.

Near him a shape stirred and moaned and he turned, touched it.

It was Vrestin. Ian reached and shook him. The Menopter’s eyes fluttered, opened slightly.

‘It seemed... we were falling... forever...’ Vrestin mumbled, then suddenly sat up and stared around.

‘This place – what is it?’

The rough walls glowed with colour. When Ian focused his eyes he saw they were designs – decorations – gaudy and brilliant enough to rival the colouring of Vrestin’s own splendid wings.

A greenish light pervaded this place. They were in a rocky underground chamber, smooth-floored except for a scatter of small rocks and sand about them which had accompanied their fall.

Vrestin looked up – and sure enough, a gap showed in the roof of the cave.

‘We must have fallen through that.’

‘I’m taking a look round,’ Ian said.

He got up stiffly. As he did so he heard a rush of feet –

and stopped dead.

Several shadows launched themselves at him from the corner of the room. The eerie light glittered on the weapons which they thrust forward at Ian and Vrestin, now rising dizzily to his feet.

It was hard to see the faces behind the thicket of spears which suddenly hemmed them in, immovable, staring around them.

The Crater of Needles was a vast, flat depression in the land. The horizon on all sides was rimmed by high, jagged rocks.

From its level floor hundreds of slender stalagmites rose sheer and high like multiple glass spires, and the ground between was dotted with acid pools, giving off their vaporous fumes. Something like vegetation remained here

– scattered stumps of petrified trees.

On one of the high rocks, a Zarbi, holding in control the humped shape of a venom grub, surveyed the scene below with its large, shining eyes.

A small army toiled beneath on the floor of the crater, watched by guards. They were felling the brittle, petrified tree trunks and breaking off the smaller mica stalagmites, chipping wearily away at them with heavy implements.

The workers were grimy and ragged. Their wings were dull and short-clipped, but otherwise they resembled the more colourful Menoptera.

These were the remains of the Menoptera race which had been left on Vortis. They had been enslaved by the conquering Zarbi. Near by stood their primitive huts built between the tree trunks and the spar stumps of the broken stalagmites.

The brilliantly coloured Hrostar stood out among this grimy mass of slaves. Though a prisoner, he walked with dignity, unhurried, bearing a bundle of broken stalagmite spars. At the brink of an acid pool he paused for a moment, tired. The Zarbi guard on the pool chirruped and gestured angrily. Hrostar glared and then, stubbornly taking his time, emptied the spars into the pool. A puff of acrid smoke swirled up.

Near him an old slave Menoptera came staggering towards the pool, breathing heavily under his burden of spars. Hrostar halted him with a gesture.

‘You are too old to carry such a burden, Prapillus,’ he said. ‘Let me take it.’

‘I am fitter than many half my age,’ the old man retorted testily, clinging to his bundle and stumping on towards the pool.

‘My father is very stubborn,’ a voice said. Hrostar turned. A Menoptera girl, Hlynia, was looking at him. She smiled. Though her winged finery was tarnished and soiled, she was beautiful.

‘Not stubborn – proud’, Hrostar said gently.

Barbara came toiling towards them with a load of spars.

She was exhausted, and she stumbled and fell. Not until a Zarbi guard turned and chirruped menacingly did she gather enough strength to rise. Hrostar bent and helped her gather the spars. She looked around her wearily.

‘Hrostar – what is this work we are doing for?’

Hrostar held up a spar. ‘Raw materials for the Zarbi buildings.’ He tossed an armful of spars into the acid pool and watched the smoke rise. ‘These are drawn into the centre, through underground streams. As we load them in

– the building reaches out across Vortis.’

‘This centre – this... building – that’s where the Doctor will be,’ Barbara mused. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘At the Zarbi Headquarters?’

Again their Zarbi guard chirruped and raised a threatening foreclaw. Hurriedly Barbara collected the rest of the spars and fed them into the pool. She and Hrostar turned and tracked tiredly back for another load. Barbara was thoughtful.

She said, ‘Somehow I shall have to try and make my way there...’

‘To the Headquarters of the Zarbi? Impossible!’

‘Is it?’ Barbara asked, defiantly.

‘A girl alone? Do you imagine you can succeed where a

dozen of our Menoptera scouts failed?’ Hrostar turned and gestured to the toiling slaves. ‘We landed here to liberate our own folk. We know this planet better than you. Yet we met disaster, Vrestin, myself and the others. The Zarbi were everywhere. They captured our guns. We were trying to contact our spearhead, waiting out in space, when the Zarbi burst into the cave. We had to smash our communicator. And now...’ Hrostar shrugged helplessly.

‘This spearhead force of yours – when does it arrive?’

Barbara asked.

Hrostar was about to answer when he checked himself warily. He turned away. ‘Soon,’ he said curtly.

‘Will the invasion succeed?’

‘It must! The Zarbi Headquarters building has got to be destroyed, or we shall lose Vortis forever!’

‘But if the Zarbi are so powerful, how will you overcome them?’

‘We have a new weapon. Our scientists have been working to perfect it. If it fulfils their hopes, it will sweep these vile creatures from Vortis.’

‘What is this weapon?’ asked Barbara.

Hrostar hesitated, doubtful whether he should confide in Barbara, a stranger.

‘If we ever get near enough to the Zarbi Headquarters with it – you will see what it does,’ he said.

Doctor Who and Vicki were staring at the small slow-moving mass of light spots on the astral map.

The Doctor straightened, nodded.

‘Yes, I’d say definitely - a space army. And on the move, too.’

Behind them a Zarbi entered the control room from one of the webbed tunnels. Vicki turned and noted it was carrying a strange tubular object. Its muzzle was ringed with small clusters of tubes, and at the wider stock end it held a panel of buttons like a typewriter keyboard.

Vicki nudged the Doctor and pointed it out furtively as the Zarbi laid the instrument near a pile of the gold wishbone necklets.

‘What’s that thing it’s got?’

Doctor Who peered sidelong at the Zarbi and the object it was examining before laying it down.

‘Mm — looks like some sort of weapon, child...’

He returned to his calculations.

‘Yes, but what sort — it’s nothing like these creatures could make, surely?

‘That’s true — no.’

The Doctor pondered that, until a fresh burst of hummed instructions came from the Zarbis’ control panel and the great light above the web indicator glowed. The Zarbi manning it chirruped and rose to attention.

Then the Dome in the roof began to descend.

Vicki began to back away. The Zarbi had laid down the gun and was now coming towards her with a necklet levelled at her throat.

‘No...!’ she moaned. ‘No... no...’

Doctor Who stepped in the Zarbi’s way. ‘What is it you want?’ he stormed. The Zarbi extended a foreclaw and thrust the Doctor roughly aside. It seized the shrinking Vicki and clamped the necklet roughly about her throat.

Doctor Who wheeled and strode angrily towards the descending Dome. He stood beneath it, lifted his head, and raged into it.

‘What is the meaning of this? I demand the child be set free! Is this the way you reward us for our help?’

The Voice boomed back. ‘It is the way we reward your lack of it! You have had time to present the information you spoke of, yet still you delay! To teach you obedience, the child will die!’