Doctor Who: The Zarbi (12 page)

Ahead of him and to his right, he saw a wide gap in the tunnel where another bigger tunnel crossed it. He rounded it carefully and came into an immense corridor. He had only taken a couple of paces along this before he halted, stared about at a new sound, and swiftly ducked into a recess – another small tunnel.

The chirruping grew swiftly louder. As Ian flattened himself against the wall of the recess, two Zarbi appeared around a bend in the main corridor and scuttled on past him.

He waited, wiping his face in his sleeve. Then he stepped into the main corridor, peered up and down. It appeared empty. He stepped out and headed down it, away from the direction the Zarbi had taken.

He estimated that if he continued in the same general direction, it would take him away from the control room in the Zarbi Headquarters and perhaps, finally, to the outside of this huge, rambling complex of webs laced with tunnels.

But it was clearly too dangerous to keep to the main corridor. Better to slip off into a side tunnel and to see if he could zig-zag through this maze while keeping roughly parallel to it. After all – he reasoned – if this place was constructed like a web, then its tunnels would probably lead outward from the centre.
If
he had taken the correct direction...

He dodged down a side tunnel and went warily along it, seeking a further turning along it to correct his direction.

Distantly he could still hear the humming which betrayed the presence of Zarbi activity.

He saw that this corridor ended in a webbed gate.

Suddenly Ian heard a loud chirruping, so close that it pierced his ears. A Zarbi guard had reared up at the door, its back turned to him.

Ian pressed himself against the wall. He peered to see if the Zarbi was alone. It was. It had relaxed and was now crouched by the door.

What was it guarding? A gate, leading outward? What else could it be?

Ian sidled along the wall towards the unaware Zarbi. He was almost on the creature when it turned and saw him. It reared up, chirruping loudly, and Ian leaped desperately forward.

But the Zarbi was astonishingly quick. Its foreleg lashed and its cruel pincer closed on Ian’s throat. He choked and threshed, trying desperately to prise open the claw, the hideous humming around his ears now deafening him.

He kicked – and the pincer relaxed its hold. Again Ian kicked – and scrambled free. He poised, and aimed a rabbit punch at the joint between the evil head and shiny body –

the tiny, thin neck.

The Zarbi guard sagged. Ian hit again, at the same spot, and it dropped like a stone, still, its feelers stiff, the lights of its eyes dimmed. Gasping, feeling his throat, Ian moved on into the wider space before the webbed door. He examined it. There seemed no way of opening it.

He touched it.

Immediately a hooter shriek shattered the stillness all around him. Ian jumped and wheeled, alarmed. Then with the warning howl of the hooter echoing down the empty corridor he shook the door desperately in an attempt to force it. The sweat streamed down his face as he tore at the door.

There was nothing for it – he would have to get out of this corridor. He turned to run back from the door, but as he did so another webbed door swished down in front of him, walling him in completely as he ran into it. He smashed his fist against it in despair – and this set off another siren howl, higher pitched but just as loud.

Now the Zarbi guard trapped with him between these two doors was coming round. No matter how Ian pulled, the webbed door gave but would not open, nor break.

Now he heard an ominous humming-and-chirruping, approaching. He could hear it even above the warning hooters. At his feet the Zarbi guard was now weakly trying to rise.

Ian sprang past the Zarbi to wrest again at the outer door. As he did so a venom grub appeared in the corridor, and behind it a swarm of Zarbi guards. He heard their chirruping and turned as the grub rushed swiftly down towards him. Outside the webbed trap which now caged Ian in, it paused. Its Zarbi controller halted, raised a foreclaw. Ian hurled himself to the side of the cell formed by the two webbed gates. The venom grub spat fire.

The webbed outer door crackled, flashed, and a column of acrid smoke billowed up as the grubs’ blast tore a great hole in it, revealing the open landscape of Vortis beyond it.

Ian scrambled to his feet and clawed his way through the burning hole. He staggered out and ran blindly on.

Dimly ahead of him he saw a crag which reared out of the sparse landscape. He raced for its shelter while behind him he heard the massed chirruping and the humming of the Zarbi swarming at the gate.

He paused at the crag, looked back, then around him, and ran on.

Suddenly the control room blazed into life. The web maps glared, their shapes outlined in glittering buttons of light.

The big central light pulsed. A humming broke from the speaker.

Doctor Who and Vicki looked up, startled, from their astral map. The Zarbi had sprung to life, too – and a venom gun controller among them turned and was suddenly menacing the Doctor and Vicki with the squat malignant shape of a sting grub, its master’s claw poised ready to fire it.

Beyond the control room a further humming and chirruping echoed inward from distant tunnels, together with the wailing of warning hooters.

‘Already?’ Doctor Who muttered. ‘It can’t be! Yet it sounds as if we’re under attack!’

Vicki caught at his arm despairingly. ‘It’s Ian – I know it is! They’ve found him!’

A Zarbi was now pointing at Doctor Who, and indicating the Dome. It slid down towards the Doctor from the ceiling. He stepped obediently beneath it, and the tirade which greeted him nearly knocked him over.

‘You were warned!’ the Voice thundered. ‘Your request was a trick – to cover the escape!’

Doctor Who drew himself up. ‘Nonsense,
nonsense
!’ he snapped back. ‘We are not responsible for that young man’s behaviour!’

‘You plotted with him-im...!’

‘Really? If it was a plan – then why did I not go with him too? Eh?’

At that the tirade halted. Then...

‘You will no longer be trusted.’

‘Were we ever?’ Doctor Who answered coldly. He sighed. ‘Very well. Then I take it that the information I have gathered is of no use to you...’

The Voice interrupted him. ‘Information? Of the Menoptera invasion?’

‘What did you think I was talking about – the weather?’

Doctor Who roared back irritably.

‘Speak!’ the Voice commanded.

Doctor Who hesitated. ‘I’m... still collating my instrument readings...’

‘– you lie! It is another of your tricks!’

‘That is for you to decide.
Am
I lying? Or do I
really
have something of importance for you? Think, before you make up your mind!’

The Doctor clamped his mouth shut, expecting another outburst all around him in the echoing Dome.

Instead, abruptly, it lifted, and he was free of it. Vicki moved to the Doctor’s side. He was looking upward with a faint, pleased smile. He turned. A signal hummed from the control panel, and the Zarbi leader guarding them scuttled across to answer it. Doctor Who noted that and moved

back to his astral map. He straightened, relaxing.

‘Well, it appears we have won another breathing space, my dear.’

‘What did you tell them?’

He grinned. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing!’

‘Will you tell them — about the Menoptera?’

‘Only as much as I feel I safely can. Come, child, we must appear to be busy.’

‘But what are you going to do now... to get us all out of here...?’

At that Doctor Who halted, thoughtful. He wagged his head slowly, baffled, and said simply. ‘Frankly, as yet I have no real idea... The answer is’... he looked around them

‘the answer is... here. The power... the control — whoever it is that speaks to us... all here. But—’

He stroked his chin. Vicki turned, eyeing the Zarbi bustling about their control panel.

‘A leader, I suppose — that voice? One of those creatures?’

‘I hardly think so. Here — put this recorder back.’

Vicki obeyed, and took the recorder to replace it in a drawer of the control table. She paused at the sight of the specimen glass cases ranged in the drawer and drew one out.

‘What did you want with these?’ she asked:

‘Nothing. Put them away.’

A Zarbi moved towards them and hovered, watching. Its approach startled Vicki and she dropped a glass case. It crashed to the floor and broke. From it rolled a preserved earth specimen — a large spider — a tarantula. It rolled and lay motionless on the floor, its hideous furry legs stiff and unmoving, but the effect on the watching Zarbi and its comrades was extraordinary.

The nearest Zarbi chirruped wildly in alarm and backed hurriedly against a wall. Those nearest to it also reared and scuttled back out of the way, chirruping loudly, all eyes focused on the tarantula. Doctor Who turned at the commotion. Vicki was pointing at the spider, at the Zarbi backing away from it.

‘They’re frightened, I’m sure of it! Huge evil creatures like them!... Doctor — they’re frightened!’

Doctor Who’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He nodded.

Ian ran on, dodging from cover to cover among the rocks and crags, listening for sounds of pursuit, of an alert. He paused to catch his breath, debating which way to go.

Suddenly he lifted his head at a sound he had not heard before. It was a fluttering, a whistling, as of something travelling through the air. He stared about him. As he did so, the Menoptera Vrestin planed down swiftly towards him, his brilliant wings spread, from the vantage point of a crag.

The Menoptera landed, the swiftness of his flight carrying him running towards Ian, his outstretched arms grabbing the young earth man and carrying him on with him. Ian gasped as together they rolled and tumbled down into a dip surrounded by low rocks.

It was not a moment too soon. A loud chirruping now throbbed in the still air and within seconds a swarm of Zarbi was scuttling into view over the landscape, pausing to quest this way and that with their huge glaring eyes.

The Zarbi divided and spread out across the landscape, combing it as they went. The chirruping, the scuttling sounds they made over rock and hard grounds, all faded again.

Only then did Vrestin remove the wiry hand he had held firmly clamped over Ian’s mouth. Ian stared back at this strangely handsome creature in wonder. Vrestin’s straight mouth moved.

‘They have gone.’ The voice was high-pitched, the accent stilted.

‘Who... are you?’ Almost before he had blurted out the question, the realization struck Ian who this winged creature was.

‘You’re the... Menoptera!’

Vrestin nodded. ‘And you are... from the planet Earth.’

‘How do you know?’

Vrestin bowed. ‘I have already met one of your party.’

‘Barbara. Where is she?’

Vrestin paused.

‘The Zarbi have her.’

‘At this place they call the Crater of Needles?’

Vrestin nodded, and raised a sudden warning hand for silence. He listened, then climbed to the rocks surrounding their hiding-place and peered out. He ducked down as one of their scouts came close by the hollow where they crouched, still looking about, and passed on.

‘They are widening the search. We can move on shortly.’

‘This Crater of Needles – where is it? How do I get there?’

Vrestin paused. ‘Wait and I shall tell you,’ he said, watching the Zarbi out of sight.

Ian stared at Vrestin. ‘You are the people who are invading this planet?’

Vrestin stiffened. ‘
Invading
it?’ he echoed. ‘This is our planet! We come to reclaim it! And those of our race who have survived enslavement.’

‘But these Zarbi control it. Are you saying they are the invaders?’

Vrestin shook his head grimly. ‘No. Many generations ago, both our races lived in peace on Vortis. The Zarbi are not an intelligent species – though they were essential to the life pattern here..

‘And yet they are now the masters?’

‘They became organized, warlike... and as they did so –

that building back there from which you escaped... it... just, well, appeared from nowhere – growing, spreading out. We had no weapons – we had never needed them, till then.

Too late. They suddenly overran us.’

‘So you left the planet?’ Ian asked.

‘We had no choice. We scratched a bare existence on a planet near Pictos – and planned, multiplied, all for the day when we would return!’

Vrestin rose and peered out again over the rocks.

Ian said, ‘And now you’re ready?’

‘No!’ Vrestin said curtly. ‘Nowhere near ready. But our elders realized that when the strands of these Zarbi buildings, these webs you see everywhere — when they have joined up across our planet here -- we shall have lost forever. Even with such little chance, we have to attack.

Now!’

‘But their tunnels... their building... their organization.

What intelligence brought all that into being? Surely not these Zarbi?’