Doctor Who: The Zarbi (22 page)

And the old Menoptera led them impetuously, charging down the corridor to meet the advancing Zarbi and their venom grub. With only a moment’s hesitation, the others leaped forward to join Prapillus in his charge.

The leading Zarbi halted, and its foreclaw swivelled till the sting’s snout levelled at Prapillus and the others running and dodging towards them.

Suddenly all the Zarbi, including their leader froze. The creatures stood like graven images as the charge carried Barbara, Prapillus and the other two Menoptera clean through their ranks. Barbara paused for a moment of wild disbelief as she looked back and saw the Zarbi still halted where they were.

‘They let us through!’ she shouted unbelievingly. ‘They didn’t do a thing to stop us! Why?’

Prapillus paused, looked back, and then ahead —

ominously.

‘We were expected,’ he muttered. He braced his shouldders. ‘Well — let us not disappoint... whatever awaits us.’

He pointed at the door before them with the fierce glow of light beyond it, and took the lead again, marching grimly towards it.

‘It may be expecting us — but I doubt if it will be expecting
this
,’ Hilio said, and tapped the Web Destructor he carried.

As they reached the vast web doors they paused a moment, wondering how to force them. Hlynia looked back. She nudged Barbara and pointed.

Behind them the Zarbi had turned and had moved silently after them, not attempting to molest them —

merely shadowing their progress. The Zarbi halted now and watched from a distance.

Hlynia was uneasy. ‘Whatever is in there thinks itself strong enough without
them
,’ she murmured.

Then the big web doors swung back silently inward and the intense light beyond it bathed them all in its glare.

Barbara and the Menoptera moved warily in, Hilio with the Web Destructor at the ready.

They halted and blinked and could see nothing in the blinding glare which now enveloped them. No sooner had they entered than they suddenly felt the pull of an immense, unseen power. The force of it made them lurch forward clumsily, clouding their thinking, their resolve, so that they had stumbled several paces before Barbara shouted.

‘Stop! Wait! Don’t go any farther!’

But the powerful force field in this dazzling chamber seemed to have affected the Menoptera more than Barbara.

They did not appear to have heard her. The three of them

— even the valiant Prapillus — were shuffling, blank-eyed towards a fierce, blinding core of light which pulsed and glared in the centre of the chamber.

‘Hilio!’ Barbara shouted. ‘The Destructor...!’

Hilio turned and stared dazedly back at her — but made no other move. It was as though he no longer had a will of his own. Barbara darted forward and snatched the Web Destructor from the Menoptera’s nerveless hands. She wheeled and pointed it towards the source of all this light

— the great, revolving bladder-shaped organ which breathed, whose brilliant glare stung her eyes and dazzled her.

Several paces in front of Barbara, and now perilously near to the blazing centre, Vicki — dazed, sleepy as though drugged, but still resisting — heard Barbara’s voice. She turned.

‘Barbara?’ she called weakly. ‘Barbara...?’

Dimly, as she narrowed her eyes, Barbara made out the silhouette of Vicki ahead of her, haloed against the great light... then the frock-coated figure of the Doctor, oddly pathetic and helpless as the old man stood and fought against the power that drew him into its vortex. The silvery head turned. Hazily the Doctor saw Barbara.

He called hoarsely, ‘Use the Destructor... use... the...

Destructor...!’

Barbara lurched forward, pulled violently, and brought up the Web Destructor, peering to find the centre of the target in the blazing fog of light.

‘The dark side...’ she muttered despairingly. ‘Hilio said... I must aim at... the dark side...!’

She summoned her strength and darted across to one side, her steps stumbling and sluggish against the immense pull inward. She wheeled, shading her view, her hand trembling on the lever of the Destructor.

‘There is....
no dark side
...!’

Then she heard the Voice boom out. ‘... your struggles...

are futile-ile... Approach... earth people... approach...!’

Barbara saw the helpless figures of the Doctor and Vicki as they moved inward, their legs braced and struggling as if caught in a mighty undertow.

Barbara fought a further step sideways to keep the Doctor out of her line of fire. Desperately now, she levelled and aimed the Destructor at the fiery mass whirling on its pivot in the centre of the chamber.

Nothing happened.

‘It’s... not working...!’ she gasped, and pressed the trigger again.

She stepped forward. Perhaps if she got in closer...

But as she did so the field of force closed around her and the pull on her grew immensely more powerful.

She staggered forward, stared about, and saw a fissure suddenly open up in the floor beneath the great sparkling web. A strange, curly spear poked through it, then hands gripped the floor and the figure of a man heaved his body up through the crack and stood gazing blindly about him on the vast floor of the chamber.

It was Ian!

‘Ian...!’ screamed Barbara.

Ian turned to look towards the voice and then threw up his arms against the light which blotted out all else. He staggered and fell, groping blindly around him, lost.

Barbara saw that they could all now count their life in seconds – and that everything now depended on her.

She was dragged a step closer to the flashing light and raised the Destructor: She fired it again, this time holding her hand clamped down on its electronic lever.

The Voice droned on echoingly, apparently unharmed, addressing them all.

‘You have not... the power... power... I...

Master...of...you...’

Barbara kept the Destructor pointed at the heart of the monstrous shape and breathed a prayer, blinking against the light, steadying her hand to keep the Destructor on its target.

Was it because she was dazzled – or was this monstrous creature changing its shape? Was she imagining it – that its breathing was growing ragged, its steady pulsing light changing into an irregular, staccato pattern, first bright, then darkening to a dull glow...?

The Voice became more bronchial, more hesitant, and stumbled.

‘... Master... the... the...’

She was
not
dreaming! She held the trigger lever of the Destructor grimly pressed, its squat muzzle pointing unwaveringly towards the searingly bright Ellipse, and the Voice rose to a whining scream.

‘... the... the... Universe...’

Suddenly the Voice choked, and was silent. Its bronchial wheezing faded, gasping, and was stilled. The pulsating light within the bladder dwindled slowly down to a ruddy glow — and then blanked out. A darkness came into the room, and with it, a coldness.

The lifeless bladder shape continued to revolve, slackly, without breath, slowing, and spun tiredly to a stop. The silence in the room now was total.

The centre of all this evil which had seized Vortis in its grip shuddered once, and was still.

Barbara dropped the Destructor. It clattered through the now-lifeless web on to the floor below.

Doctor Who roused himself and stepped towards what was left of the Intelligence. Vicki joined him. Ian had picked up the Destructor and weighing it curiously in his hand, stared around the room.

‘It’s dead,’ Vicki said in a flat, tired voice, ‘dead...’

Ian nodded and put his arm around her. He turned her head away from it.

‘It’s all over,’ he said gently. ‘We can leave now.’

Doctor Who’s control table with its astral map and its clutter of equipment had been loaded back into
Tardis
.

The Doctor stood with Prapillus before the smashed remains of the Zarbi’s control panel. He eyed the Web Destructor admiringly and laid it down.

‘A giant can die, from the sting of a fly,’ he quoted.

‘Yes... an interesting weapon.’

‘If I had not lived to see this — I would have counted my life entirely wasted,’ old Prapillus said. His voice trembled.

Doctor Who put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. He said, ‘It was your wisdom, Prapillus, that helped us to defeat this creature — and all it controlled.’

He turned towards the ship. Barbara and Vicki were near the door, waiting. The Doctor paused and said to the old Menoptera, ‘Well — there’s nothing more to keep us here. It’s... time to leave.’

He held out his hand to Prapillus, and smiled. ‘Good-bye.’

Prapillus clung to the Doctor’s hand. ‘You must stay!’

he insisted. ‘All of you! Share in the adventure of a new civilization! We need you!’

Doctor Who shook his head.

‘No — you don’t need us. You are more than a man of science, Prapillus. Yours is the wisdom of a ruler.’

The Doctor strode to the ship. Barbara was waving to the Menoptera grouped in the control room — to Hlynia, Hilio and Prapillus.

‘Good-bye!’ she called. ‘And... thank you.’

She climbed inside. Vicki followed her.

Ian shook Vrestin’s hand. Vrestin looked at him and said, ‘You will come back?’

Ian shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ he smiled.

‘Come on now, Chesterton,’ the Doctor said. He halted and surveyed Ian, who was rather dishevelled from his adventures underground, his usually immaculate suit stained and crumpled.

‘Hmmph!’ the Doctor grunted. ‘I suppose the least I can do is find you somewhere where they have neckties.’

‘That’s right,’ Ian reminded him, following the Doctor inside. ‘With green and black stripes, for dear old Coal Hill School...’

‘Huh!’ the Doctor snorted, ‘I didn’t know they had colours in a kindergarten!’

He turned into the ship.

The doors closed. A whirring started up — the smooth steady noises of
Tardis
’ machinery, no longer hampered by the force that had drawn it on to Vortis.

As the Menoptera stood and watched, the police-box outlines of
Tardis
melted and faded gently until the contours of the control room showed clear through it.

Then it was gone.

The silence among the Menoptera was broken by the lovely Hlynia. ‘It... disappeared...!’ she breathed.

Prapillus nodded. ‘Their deeds have written the greatest page in our history,’ he murmured. Then he became brisk.

He turned to the others.

‘We must welcome the invasion forces. Come!’

The old Menoptra stumped off, leading the way, and paused as the hand of the aged leader of the pygmy-menoptera, Hetra, reached out to stay him.

‘And - my people...?’ Hetra quivered.

Prapillus smiled down at him and his dwarvish squad of comrades.

‘They will be put in their rightful place - join us in rebuilding Vortis.’ He put his arm on Hetra's shoulder.

‘And the Zarbi?’ It was Hilio who spoke. He pointed to a cluster of Zarbi crouching mutely in a corner of the control room - aimless, leaderless, waiting dociley now for someone to command them.

‘They too have a place in the order of things here,’

Prapillus said. He led his small group towards an opening in the control room wall. Here the webbing had already melted and sagged away, and through the gaps in the crumbling remains of the great web they could see the landscape of Vortis.

The old man stood there for a moment, looking out upon his planet.

It seemed to be growing lighter. A radiance shon from behind the crags, gilding their outlines and dispelling thir shadows, like the rising of a sun.

• Front cover
  
• Rear cover
  
• Title page
  
• Copyright
  
• Contents
  
• Chapter One - The Web Planet
  
• Chapter Two - The Zarbi
  
• Chapter Three - Escape to Danger
  
• Chapter Four - The Crater of Needles
  
• Chapter Five - Invasion
  
• Chapter Six - Centre of Terror