Doctor Who: The Zarbi (18 page)

Ian was drawing a design on the floor of the chamber in which they sat.

‘We’ll make our way underground, through your tunnels, digging where we have to — until we’re underneath the web.’

Vrestin pointed. ‘Then upwards, into its soft under-belly.’

Hetra straightened. He looked at his comrades, their slitted eyes now glowing with excitement and hope.

‘Very well,’ Hetra quavered. ‘
You
know what faces us.

We can only agree.’

There was a mutter of assent.

Hetra beckoned to his deputy, Nemini. ‘It will be better if Nemini leads — there are many dangers in the tunnels.’

Ian looked as Nemini approached. ‘Very well. Tell him we’ll have to hurry. Time is short.’

Nemini paused at that, and looked at Ian. ‘Don’t worry about my speed. You just worry about keeping up with me!’

He shouldered his spear and marched ahead. Hetra signalled to the others. ‘Forward!’ Vrestin watched his dwarfish Menoptera kinsmen march after Nemini. He turned a doubtful face to Ian.

‘I wonder how much we can count on them...’ he said.

‘Do we have a choice?’

‘They are all right down here, Ian – but what when we strike upward? Their fears of the surface may prove too strong.’

‘Let’s worry about that when it happens. Come on!’

They moved off after the pigmy diggers. The leader Nemini paused as they emerged from a tunnel into a natural underground cave, bristling like a forest, with stalagmites and stalactites, reaching from floor and rcofe Nemini swung his coiled tool, snapping off enough of the sharp spars to clear a way for them, and led on.

As Ian followed he saw cracks in the wall of the caves –

and through these seeped wreaths of misty smoke. He nudged Vrestin and pointed, frowning. A wisp of the fumes stung his nostrils. He coughed and they plunged on.

Doctor Who and Vicki, still stepping ahead of the Zarbi, turned into a new tunnel and stopped. In front of then a webbed gate hung down and blocked the exit. Beside it hovered a Zarbi guard. The Doctor turned, stared at the Zarbi standing docilely under his control. He reached out, touched the necklet encircling its scraggy throat and stared into its dull eyes meaningly. Then he pointed towards the guarded web-gate and walked on stiffly, as though under the creature’s control.

He and Vicki dared do nothing but gaze straight ahead of them as they came up to the gate. Out of the corner of their eyes they flashed a brief glance at the guard who now reared questioningly, and chirruped.

It was answered by a slow, muted chirrup from the slow-moving creature behind them.

The guard turned its glaring eyes on the Doctor. Then abruptly it touched a lever in the tunnel wall.

The webbed gate rose high in the air – and beyond them stretched the scarred, crag-dotted landscape of Vortis.

Doctor Who took a deep breath and stepped out. Vicki followed. They walked slowly, stiffly on, not daring now to look behind them. They listened intently but heard no sound of alarm. Only when they had reached a rise and the shelter of a line of rocks did they risk a pause, and turned.

The Zarbi shuffled along obediently in their wake.

‘How will we find the plateau?’ Vicki asked.

Doctor Who pointed. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Zarbi tracks.

Those who left the web were surely headed that way. We simply follow. This way, my dear.’

He turned and gestured to the Zarbi. Vicki smiled. ‘I’m getting quite fond of Zombo,’ she said.

‘Of
whom
?’

‘That’s what I call him. When they behave so tamely, they’re rather... cute, don’t you think?’

‘No, I do
not
! I find them revolting! I hope you’ve got no idea of making a pet of him!’

‘Well...’

‘We’re not taking him aboard
Tardis
, mind! Now hurry, child.’

Vicki smiled at the Doctor’s anxiety and crooked a finger at the Zarbi as it followed them dazedly down a slope.

Even the pigmy diggers were coughing now as they ploughed onward through the tunnel-like caves and the mist seeping from the fissures in the walls thickened.

‘Air’s getting terrible,’ Ian muttered.

‘Hurry,’ Vrestin urged, ‘don’t let them get too far ahead of us.’

Even Nemini and Hetra, leading the column, had to pause, coughing.

‘The gas is getting thicker,’ Nemini said.

Hetra looked about them. ‘Is there no other way forward?’

Nemini shook his head. ‘We’ll have to cut our way through the wall – and hope we can find an adjoining tunnel that is clear.’

Ian and Vrestin stumbled into sight. They had caught up with the pigmy leaders.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Delay,’ Hetra replied. ‘We shall have to dig.’

‘We could track back,’ Nemini offered, ‘and pick up another route...’

Ian looked around at the walls and the ceiling.

‘I don’t like the idea of digging here. Look at those cracks. Is it... safe?’

‘Ian!’ Vrestin shouted, beckoning from farther back in the tunnel. Ian turned and jumped towards Vrestin, who held up a hand, listening, head cocked towards the rear.

They heard a rumbling behind them. It rose in volume.

The ceiling above them split and opened. Ian wrenched at Vrestin’s arm, dragged him clear, and together they leaped for safety as, with a great tearing and grinding of rock, the roof where they had been standing fell in. Silica rock and glassy earth tumbled and roared, deafening them and sending up great choking eddies of dust.

When it settled and all was silent again they saw the gas swirling in through a host of cracks which the fall had opened in the wall. Ian stared.

‘We’re cut off! Blocked on all sides! It’ll take hours to clear!’

Hetra raised a hand urgently. ‘Nemini – we’ll have to go on. Start the men digging through!’

The pigmy diggers glared at the task ahead of them, at the cracks in the walls around through which the noxious mist was seeping thickly now. They picked up their spiral spears and began attacking the rock face ahead of them.

Vrestin was coughing and choking.

‘Can... hardly breathe...!’ he gasped.

‘There’s no outlet for these gases now!’ Ian muttered.

He turned as one of their diggers, coughing and retching, staggered and crumpled in a heap on the floor.

Ian bent and grabbed the digger’s tool and attacked the wall furiously.

‘Dig! Dig like mad! Or we’ll all suffocate!’

The frail Hetra was the next to collapse as the thick swirling fumes billowed about them. Ian and Vrestin both had tools now and were joining the others hacking furiously at the walls in their frenzied efforts to tear a way out of the trap.

Through the thick smoke he saw the workers’ leader Nemini clutch at his throat and fall, then the tiny digger next to Ian sank to the floor. Still Ian drove furiously on, heedless of those who were choking and sinking about him, holding his own breath as long as he could. But the effort was making him gasp – and take in great gulps of the fumes, denser now than the thickest London fog.

‘Are you all right, Vrestin?’

‘A faint muffled call answered him. ‘All... right... but everybody else... out...’

Ian attacked the wall like a man demented. He felt his

strength ebbing. He had to pause, wrapped a handkerchief around his mouth, tried breathing through it. He picked up the tool and again slogged at the wall, his strokes becoming more feeble and aimless. He coughed and retched. He felt a dizziness now, and his knees were buckling.

He could hardly see any more. It was no use. They were all doomed, he thought dimly, to be gassed to death in this tomb of a place.

His eyes began to close and he sank to his knees.

A large web had been scratched in the floor of the temple and Barbara pondered it wearily.

They had been arguing – for hours it seemed – about the best way to reach the centre. It was the newcomer Hilio who had proved the biggest stumbling block to any really novel plan. Try as he might to agree, the Menoptera officer could not cast off his lofty confidence in attacking openly –

in spite of the grim lesson his ill-fated spearhead had just been given.

Barbara stared at the map and said again, ‘I still think that the best idea is to create a mock attack on one of the web openings, while one of us tries to reach the centre from the opposite side...’

‘It will fail!’ Hilio declared. ‘Even if it drew most of the defences, it would only need one sting grub to stop anybody penetrating in from the other side!’

‘Still,’ Prapillus murmured, ‘with only five of us, it does seem the best strategy...’

‘I agree,’ Hrostar said, ‘It’s still terribly risky, but I can see no sensible alternative.’

Hilio stood up. ‘Very well! I shall go in alone from the other side!’

Hrostar looked at Hilio scornfully. ‘You? When you don’t even believe in its success?’

Hilio glared back, opened his mouth to retort, and Barbara interrupted hastily. ‘Please... please – we can decide who goes by drawing lots.’

‘No!’ Hrostar insisted. He looked around at them. ‘Two women... an old man... and an unbeliever – I am the natural choice!’

Barbara looked at him and smiled. The proud Hrostar had drawn himself up and spread his magnificent wings.

‘You’ll also be the most easily spotted,’ she reminded him gently.

‘Shh!’ Hlynia commanded. She was standing at the winged rock door, listening intently. ‘Quiet, there’s somebody outside!’

They all stood stock-still. From the other side of the rock they heard it clearly now – a faint scratching.

‘Not very loud,’ Barbara said.

‘Open the door – just a crack,’ Prapillus suggested.

‘No!’ Hilio exclaimed. ‘It must be the Zarbi!’

‘Then we’ll see – won’t we,’ Prapillus retorted.

‘Carefully, Hrostar. The rock is counterbalanced, look. Be ready to slam it shut instantly if...’

They waited as Hrostar applied his weight to the winged door of rock. It swung back suddenly several feet – and they recoiled. A Zarbi stood there, reared, and came scuttling in. Hilio dived for the electron-gun. The others scattered and grabbed around them for rocks, spars, any weapon. Hrostar lunged to close the door aperture behind the lone Zarbi.

‘Wait!’ Barbara yelled. ‘Look – friends!’

The Zarbi had come to a halt and simply stood there motionless and peaceful. Behind it, poised at the entrance, stood the slight, frock-coated figure of – Doctor Who!

Vicki stood clinging to the doctor, staring at them.

‘Hello?’ the Doctor called cheerfully. ‘Any body at home? Please – don’t attack him! He’s harmless...’

Barbara rushed out to greet the Doctor. He and Vicki saw her and his kindly face wrinkled into an amazed beam of delight. Vicki shrieked excitedly, ‘Barbara! It’s Barbara!’

‘My dear girl,’ the Doctor stammered, ‘What an extremely pleasant surprise!’

‘Doctor... Vicki!’ Barbara gasped, unable to express her joy and relief.

They hugged each other. Doctor Who looked about him inquiringly.

‘Is, um, Chesterton not with you?’

Barbara stared back, her joy fading.

‘No... no! What... has happened to him...?’

They all looked at each other, troubled, wondering.

All was silent now in the underground tunnel. The figures of the pigmy-menoptera diggers, of Ian and Vrestin, were strewn about the floor like so many corpses.

One of the figures stirred weakly. It was Ian. He dragged himself to his knees and looked hazily about. He remembered, and sniffed.

The poisonous mist had thinned. The air was almost clear. He reached out a hand to touch the body of Vrestin, and stirred him. Vrestin groaned and moved. The Menoptera’s eyes fluttered open. He sat up with difficulty on one elbow and stared.

‘The gas – it’s gone!’

Ian nodded. On the other side of them Nemini was waking. The dwarf Menoptera peered dimly at the tunnel walls which enclosed them, and pointed. A large fissure showed.

‘Air currents,’ Nemini muttered, and coughed.

‘Pressures in these tunnels rise and fall without warning.