Doctor Who: The Zarbi (7 page)

The Zarbi came lurching on now over rougher, rising ground till their leading Zarbi reached a ridge. Here they paused and turned to haul
Tardis
up with them, then rested.

One of the Zarbi turned its glaring eyes to look ahead. It chirruped faintly and extended a claw. Its companion at the head of the column joined it and followed the pointing foreclaw.

Beyond the ridge, in the centre of a great basin of land dotted with crags, a light shone, pulsating as it turned. The revolving light crowned the dome ofa strange, sprawlingstructure whose spokes spread out like living creeper all over the land around, enveloping rocks and circling the bases of the crags.

The creeper, reaching and curling far outward from this building, glowed luminously.

The building itself was like a colossal, illuminated web, thick and dome-shaped at its core. The light pulsing at its very centre revolved again, its reflections glittering faintly on the shiny bodies of the watching Zarbi.

The leaders of the toiling column seized the tow strands in their claws and began moving down towards it.

It was growing harder for Ian and Doctor Who to follow the tracks of the ship and the prints around it. The glassy.sand had given way to rocky ground, and here, gradually, the furrow left by
Tardis
grew fainter. So did the strange marks that had pitted the softer terrain over which they had come.

Finally the tracks petered out entirely and Ian halted, scanning all around him for further marks.

‘They’ve disappeared,’ he said.

Doctor Who ground a foot into the flinty terrain. ‘Mm

— hard as rock here. Still, we should pick up some marks.

Have a good look round.’

But Ian was worried. He stared at the landscape ahead of them, then at Doctor Who.

‘Doctor — what are we going to do when we
find
the ship?’

Doctor Who waved an impatient hand, peering all around him intently. ‘One thing at a time, Chesterton.

Let’s not cross our bridges until we get to them. It’s a waste of brain-power!’

‘Yes, but — Barbara and Vicki...’

Doctor Who raised his head, glared and snapped, ‘Do you imagine I’m not thinking about them? Now start looking!
Start looking!
’

He turned his attention to seeking tracks where the smooth unyielding surface gave way again to a tumble of glassy stone and jagged pebbles.

Ian watched him stepping gingerly away, the silvery head peering alertly this way and that. He himself surveyed the going ahead. The ground sloped downward and narrowed into a pass between great outcrops of pointed rock. Ian started towards it, placing his feet as delicately as a mountaineer on the polished, time-worn slope.

Was that a chirruping he heard, echoing somewhere ahead of him in the distance?

Ian went on. The shadows of the pass folded around him until he could hardly see the ground.

Then his foot crunched into something softer, a shape lying on the ground.

It was not a rock. Ian bent and stared, and the hairs prickled icily on the back of his neck. He pulled his foot hurriedly away and shouted, ‘Over here, Doctor!’

He turned back and looked again at the thing he had stepped on.

A strange face, with holes where eyes might have been, stared sightlessly back at him from the shadowed ground.

His foot had gone straight through its chest, crumbling it like a hollow shell.

Steps came slithering down towards him from behind, and Doctor Who bent and looked in the direction of Ian’s pointing finger.

‘What do you make of that, Doctor?’

The Doctor’s eyes gleamed with interest as he stooped to study the shape. Suddenly Ian realized, staring down, what the crumbling body reminded him of.

‘That great statue we saw back there — it was a figure of this.. creature, surely? Look..

He pointed. ‘See where the wings were?’

‘Indeed I do. Hm! Yes!’

‘Then now we know at least what took
Tardis
! These creatures!’

Doctor Who knelt for a closer look. He shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, straightening. ‘Those tracks we’ve been following are claw marks of some kind.’

‘Well?’

Doctor Who indicated the lower part of the mummified figure.

‘Take a close look at the feet. Not claws — in fact, almost like human feet. See?’ He paused. ‘No, I don’t think it’s this creature which has the ship.’

He bent again to examine the rest of the body.

‘Hollow,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘Yet — preserved. A vertebrate creature, highly developed. Just the shell left. It makes sense, Chesterton. It... makes... sense...’

‘How do you mean — sense? You talked as though you
expected
to find beings like this...’

The Doctor, lost in thought, nodded absently. ‘... living in a high order of civilization. And apart from that deserted, crumbling memorial, this... thing is the only other sign of that civilization we’ve seen — so far...’

‘Are you saying you’ve been here before?’

‘No. No, my boy — but, well — the geology of these rock formations, the pools of liquid acid, and now... this creature. They all suggest that this is the planet Vortis. It’s a planet I have... knowledge of...’

‘But you’re not sure it is?’

‘M’well – Vortis is in the Isop Galaxy – many light years from Earth. But according to my knowledge, it should have no satellites. This planet has several – see...?’

The Doctor waved towards the pale sky where several satellites hung seemingly motionless, bathed in a faint reflected glow.

‘Perhaps things have changed here...’

‘If this is Vortis,’ Doctor Who muttered, ‘they have changed indeed!’

Ian straightened up from staring at the dead shell and looked around again.

‘Well, whatever it is, this is not getting us any nearer the ship.’

Doctor Who rose too. ‘Quite, quite. Come on, my boy –

we’ll try this way.’

He began to retrace his steps, still glancing back at the mummified shadow on the ground.

‘Not that way, Doctor – that’s the way we’ve come.’

‘Eh?’ Doctor Who halted. ‘Oh, er, yes – of course. Very observant of you, Chesterton.’ He snapped his fingers as he now strode forward, heading up the pass. ‘Well, come on, my boy!’

As Ian followed he noticed that Doctor Who’s silhouette ahead of him was becoming more sharply outlined against the sky. It was getting brighter. He strode after him quickly and caught up as the pointed rocks on either side of them fell away and they emerged from the pass.

Doctor Who halted to take stock of the ground. They both peered around.

‘Here, Chesterton!’

Doctor Who was pointing down. A scattering of the glassy sand over hard rock showed scratches – and the unmistakable marks of claws. They both stopped, following them clearly now, and Ian looked up to where they led.

The landscape ahead of them, featureless now except for a scatter of rock and an occasional stunted crag, rose gently up-ward towards a ridge.

As Ian noted it and prepared to follow the tracks, a glow swept across the sky and lit the ridge from behind so that it stood out clear and stark for a moment.

Ian halted and put out a hand to touch Doctor Who.

‘Lights!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s no satellite!’

‘Where?’

‘Over there! It turned... swept across the sky! I’m sure it did!’

‘Wait!’ Doctor Who commanded.

After a moment or so, the sky glowed and the ridge lit again. It faded.

‘There – don’t tell me that’s anything natural! It’s a searchlight, or something like it, surely?’

‘M’yes... yes. Well, we shall see when we reach the top of that ridge, I imagine.’

‘The tracks lead to it – over there – and there, see?’

And Ian moved swiftly ahead, taking up the lead.

‘Carefully, Chesterton. Keep your eyes open!’

But Ian was already absorbed in picking up the tracks, stumbling in his urgency up the slope, pausing only to check on the scratches and prints which the looser ground now revealed clearly in a growing radiance.

He reached the top of the ridge, paused there – and caught his breath at the sight. He remained wordless until Doctor Who, toiling painfully upward in his wake, joined him, breathing heavily.

Then Ian pointed downward, grim and questioning.

Doctor Who stared at the sight beyond the ridge – at the huge glowing web-structure which lay beyond them in the shallow valley, its luminous tentacles seeming to stretch around it endlessly before they writhed and disappeared around the sentinel crags.

Above this strange, sprawling web-building a light wheeled and flashed.

‘So that’s where they took the ship!’ Ian breathed.

Doctor Who rubbed his chin, narrowing his eyes as he sized up its sinister pulsating shape.

‘It would seem so.’ He paused uneasily. ‘We’ll have to go down there, of course, but...’

‘But what? Come on!’

Doctor Who hesitated, thinking. ‘I... wish I knew more of what we are up against...’

Ian halted, considered this and stared downward. He nodded, began moving carefully forward, not taking his eyes off the sight ahead of him.

‘Yes’ he muttered, and turned. ‘Perhaps if we — Doctor, look out!’

Suddenly Ian was threshing and lashing out as, with a swish, something landed and enveloped him— a fine net, a web. He kicked and struggled in its coils.

‘Go back!’

But his voice was half-drowned in a sudden humming which rose from the rocks around them, and as Doctor Who himself halted, then turned, another net swished from the shadows of a rock and enmeshed him too.

Doctor Who stood stock-still in the grip of the web-like net. He looked around.

From all directions the eyes of the Zarbi shone as they closed in on them. Their shapes appeared, sleekly bulbous, emitting their hideous chorus of chirrups that pierced the ears.

Doctor Who’s mouth opened in astonishment.

‘Zarbi!’ he muttered.

The creatures came scuttling forward till they swarmed all around them, the pulsating light from below lighting their shapes weirdly.

Ian had fallen and lay there threshing blindly, but Doctor Who kept his feet. In the face of their terrifying appearance he strove to maintain his composure.

Calmly, with a slow gesture, Doctor Who lifted the net which enclosed him and managed to sweep it clear.

One of the Zarbi reared in front of him and its great shining eyes inspected him closely.

He stared steadily back, erect and unmoving now, at the evil shape of the creature confronting him.

Ian was shouting and writhing on the ground. He had succeeded in struggling half clear of the net but suddenly a Zarbi from the surrounding swarm lunged at him. Ian kicked out and his shoe stubbed hard against its metallic body. It checked, and Ian struggled to his feet, one arm free, wary, circling, hampered by his net, ready to kick again.

The Zarbi reared, lumbered with incredible swiftness towards him, its feelers raised. It lunged and struck with steely foreclaws.

Ian went down like a log. He stirred and still tried dazedly to get to his feet again. At that the Zarbi confronting Doctor Who emitted a shrill commanding chirrup which rose above the concerted noise, and pointed with a foreclaw.

Doctor Who’s amazed stare followed the pointing foreclaw. He saw a rod-shaped instrument surrounded by a coil of glass-like tubes swivel from the nearest crag until it pointed directly down on Ian.

He froze at that, then abruptly yelled, above the din.

‘Chesterton –
don’t struggle
!’

Ian ceased lashing about him in his attempts to rise. He looked, dazed, in the direction in which Doctor Who was grimly pointing.

Instinctively Ian made to resist as two of the Zarbi bent their huge, evil shapes towards him.

Again Doctor Who shouted desperately.

‘Don’t move! If they wanted to kill us they’d have already done so! Look!’

Ian stared and saw the strange gun levelled directly at him from a crag, with the shiny head and glowing eyes of a Zarbi behind it.

‘They have weapons!’

‘Yes! Now do as I say! Obey them!’

A Zarbi clamped its pincer claw on Ian’s arm. He winced at its grip, but submitted. Another gripped him and together the creatures dragged Ian to his feet.

‘You mean – you’re going to let them take us... down there?’

‘What else? What can we do anyway? The brain you were given, Chesterton – such as it is –
use it
!’

Doctor Who turned to ponder the gun. ‘Interference...’

he muttered. ‘... the way the ship’s door behaved... could it have come from that...? A magnostatic gun...? I...

wonder...!’

Ian was on his feet. He groped to raise the net, and now that he had ceased struggling, the Zarbi, chirruping all around him, made no move as he succeeded in tearing off the net.

But one of them kept its cruel claw clamped agonizingly tight on his arm. Ian looked about him.

‘It’s these things that are making that sound. Could we...

try talking to them, do you think? Make them understand?’

Doctor Who grunted. ‘I doubt it. Short of rubbing our back legs together like some sort of grasshopper. No. I’m afraid I haven’t the key to this kind of grammar.’