Doctor Who: The Zarbi (3 page)

Ian took a deep breath and resolved to tell her now what he and the doctor planned to do. Exploring this planet in search of whatever had wrecked the ship’s controls, and now held them tight, would mean leaving the two girls alone in
Tardis
— unprotected.

He said, ‘Barbara?’

‘Just a minute, Ian.’

Barbara was opening doors and drawers in the astral computer table, rummaging for the first-aid kit. She clicked her tongue in disgust.

‘Tch-tch. Look at all this stuff!’ She had pulled out a mixture of tools, boxes of wire, valves, and some specimen cases containing souvenirs of various planets and the civilizations they had visited. At length she found the first-aid kit. ‘Ah!’ She paused, turned and looked accusingly across at Doctor Who. ‘One of these days, Doctor, I’m going to have a big spring-clean around here, I promise you.’

Doctor Who grunted, absorbed with a problem. Ian stopped Barbara as she took a pill from a box and started back towards the dormitory.

‘Barbara, the Doctor and I are going to have a look round — outside.’

Barbara halted and stared at him. An anxious look clouded her face. She flashed a look across towards Doctor Who and opened her mouth to protest. Ian added hastily,

‘Don’t worry — I’ll see he doesn’t wander too far away.’

‘Well...’, Barbara said uneasily.

Doctor Who got up abruptly and barked, ‘Ready, Chesterton?’

Ian gave Barbara a reassuring smile and turned.

‘Right,’ he said briskly.

Barbara hesitated. She glanced at the grim landscape surrounding them which showed steadily now in the inspection window, then at both men. Her voice was a little uncertain.

‘Uh, well... be careful, both of you.’ She cleared her throat and smiled at them. But she could not prevent herself from taking another fearful look at the scanner.

‘Yes, yes,’ Doctor Who said cheerfully. ‘Of course.

Chesterton?’

Ian moved to join the Doctor. Barbara halted, watching them, then straightened and went back to the dormitory.

Doctor Who pressed the exit door button on the control panel and, staring thoughtfully, waited for the ship’s door to slide open.

He was answered by a whirring sound, but the exit doors remained shut. Doctor Who flashed a look at Ian, frowned, and poised a finger to jab the exit button again —

when the doors suddenly started to slide open, as if on their own accord.

It was Ian’s turn to look puzzled. The Doctor masked his uneasy surprise.

‘Delay in the circuit, probably,’ he muttered.

Ian nodded and strode towards the now open exit. On the threshold, he turned. Doctor Who was still staring thoughtfully at the doors, muttering to himself.

‘Doctor?’

‘Yes, yes, my boy — coming...’

Doctor Who squared himself uncertainly and marched towards the open doors.

Ian stepped out.

Doctor Who followed him, staring about.

The ship’s doors slid closed behind them.

Vicki raised herself on her bunk as Barbara came in, filled a glass, and offered it to her — together with a pill.

‘Take that and you’ll feel much better.’

‘What is it?’ Vicki said suspiciously. She loathed pills.

‘It’ll just help you sleep easier, that’s all.’

Vicki shrugged, took the pill, closed her eyes, and swallowed it, sipping the water. Barbara sat on the edge of her bunk.

‘That was quite a fall you took. No aches or pains?’

‘No. My ears still sting a bit — but that’s all.’

‘Try and get some rest. You’re a nervous sleeper. You were tossing and turning all the time during your last sleep period.’

Vicki remembered. ‘I was dreaming,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Yes — I dreamed about... that sound! Before I ever really heard it.’

‘Well, you can forget about it now. The pill should take care of that.’

Barbara absently pushed a bracelet back up her arm.

The bracelet had slipped to her wrist. It was of heavy gold, with an incised pattern of laurel branches and a worn Latin inscription. It caught Vicki’s eye.

‘How lovely. I haven’t seen you wear it before.’

‘The bracelet? I haven’t had it all that long...’

‘Was it a present?’ Vicki asked. She turned the bracelet on Barbara’s arm to look at the pattern.

‘Yes.’

‘From — Ian?’ Vicki asked, faintly sly.

Barbara smiled at her curiosity. ‘No. As a matter of fact it’s from the Emperor Nero.’

‘Oh, pull the other leg!’

Barbara shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

‘How? When?’

Barbara got up. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you about it when you wake up. Not before.’

‘Very well,’ Vicki said. ‘I’ll ask Ian.’

‘Then you’ll have to wait. He and the Doctor are...

looking around.’

Vicki started up, staring. ‘You mean — they’ve gone
outside
? Into that dreadful place?’

‘Now hush! They’ve promised not to go far. They’re just trying to find out what it is that made the motors fail. Do try and get some sleep.’

Vicki sank back, her eyes clouded with doubt. Barbara watched her a moment. The young girl’s eyes began to close, sleepily now, and Barbara pulled her blanket up to her chin.

Then she tiptoed out of the dormitory through the sliding doors into the control room, past the control table, and paused before the inspection window.

Through it she could make out the figures of Doctor Who and Ian as they paused near a crag, then went on slowly, looking all round them, until the gloom of the place swallowed them from the scanner’s sight.

Barbara turned back to the control table, and as she did so, her arm jerked strangely, as if of its own accord, and the gold Roman bracelet on it glittered in the light from the control panel. She halted and gave a startled gasp. She felt her arm and smiled. It was no wonder that she had a nervous twitch, after the strange events of the past hour.

Then her bracelet arm jerked again, strongly — so strongly that she could not resist its pull. A fearful half-scream rose in her throat.

She stifled it and wheeled around nervously, as if expecting to see someone else in the control room. But the control room was silent and empty.

A little panicky now, Barbara backed towards the sliding dormitory doors.

‘Barbara?’

The call came from Vicki, but it startled Barbara and made her turn. Vicki stood in her bare feet at the door, wide-eyed at the sight of her.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you, Vicki?’

‘I thought I heard you call out.’ Vicki said. ‘Did you?’

Barbara hesitated. ‘No, no. You shouldn’t have got out of bed.’

‘Aren’t the others back yet?’ Vicki yawned.

‘Not yet.’

Vicki took another shrewder look at Barbara.

‘Something
is
wrong — isn’t it?’

‘No! No...’

Barbara forced a smile. She rubbed her arm and sat down. Vicki was still looking at her. The younger girl said accusingly, ‘You’re nervous
too
. Like a cat on hot bricks!’

Barbara shrugged. ‘It’s just... something about this planet...’

Vicki yawned again. ‘Uhuh... now why can’t we materialize in some really
lovely
place?... at some truly wonderful time in its life among the stars... with lots of beautiful things to buy... gorgeous clothes to wear...

splendid things to eat... and marvellous people to meet and talk with...’ She paused at the sight of Barbara rubbing her arm. ‘Your arm — is it hurting you?’

Clearly Barbara could not keep up her pretence that nothing strange had happened. She smiled and explained lightly, as though it were nothing...

‘Sounds silly, I know, but it feels as though... my arm doesn’t belong to me. A moment ago — it moved. All on its own, without my intending it to.’

She tried to keep it matter-of-fact, but Vicki stared.

Barbara forced a laugh.

‘There’s probably a perfectly sensible explanation. It’s only the things we don’t understand that scare us.’

But Vicki was still staring, wide-eyed at this story. Then she turned to look around the control room, and up at the inspection window.

‘Doctor Who... Ian — I can’t see them out there!’

‘They’re not far away. Now look — I thought you were going to catch up on your sleep.’

Vicki nodded obediently and turned back towards the dormitory. Barbara watched her go. The doors closed and suddenly, in the deathly still of the control room, she felt very alone. It seemed chill. She shivered.

Doctor Who and Ian had walked some fifty yards now from the police-box shell of
Tardis
. In the uncanny stillness, their footsteps crunched loudly on the terrain, which was like pebbly glass. Doctor Who came to a crag, bent close, peered at its base.

Ian halted and stared about him, listening, watchful, and uneasy.

The Doctor reached and pulled away a loose piece of rock. He turned, showed it to Ian. The rock, too, was glassy and shone.

‘See this, Chesterton? Looks like mica — or one of the Silicates. I’d say it’s capable of withstanding great heat.’

His voice echoed weirdly in the still air.

Ian said abruptly, ‘Listen!’

Doctor Who jerked up his head a little irritably at the interruption.

‘You heard that, Doctor?’

‘Now don’t
you
start that nonsense, confound it! Heard
what
?’

But the Doctors protests died as Ian, still listening, raised a finger for silence. Now they both heard it again. It came back almost as his original voice, hollowly.

‘... -ound it... heard
what
?... heard what... heard what?...’

The echo trailed away, repeating itself. Doctor Who exploded impatiently.

‘Is that
all
? My dear boy, it’s just an echo! You behave as if it’s the first one you’ve ever heard.’

Ian was still listening to the fresh echoes of Doctor Who’s voice. They rang and swooped among the crags. He shook his head and muttered, ‘Of course not. But never an echo quite like that... Besides...’ He shrugged.

‘What is it?’

Ian looked about him. ‘Just a feeling,’ he said.

Doctor Who sniffed, stared again at the glassy piece of rock. ‘What of?’ He said testily.

‘Well — of being watched...’

‘Oh, good heavens! If there were any life here, naturally it would be curious about strangers appearing in its midst, wouldn’t it? As it is, I see nothing. Not a thing! Now come on!’

And the Doctor dropped the glassy rock and strode forward again, staring keenly around him at the strange landscape formation, the shimmering ground, at the satellites which hung pale and motionless in the sky. Their footsteps echoed with startling loudness.

The shape of another crag loomed up ahead of them in the twilight gloom. Doctor Who was about to proceed on around it when Ian gripped his arm. He pointed upward silently.

This was no crag.

As their gaze took it all in they saw that this tall column of rock had not been fashioned by time and weather, like the other crags. It had a shape, a design.

Ian breathed, ‘This was built!’

It was a statue, gigantically tall. Doctor Who was taking it all in.

‘So it was... Mm!’

The enormous rock was roughened by erosion and its weird design was barely visible on its shadow side. All that survived of its massive outlines made it appear like a huge totem pole of a figure not unlike a man’s, with giant wings, ribbed and folded, and with the remains of its upper limbs crossed on its chest.

The statue had a face of sorts, as scarred as a Sphinx...

two great holes that might have been eyes... and a slit for a mouth. It stared unseeingly out across the desolate planet from high above them.

‘Then there
is
life here - to have built that thing!’

‘... or
was
,’ Doctor Who corrected him, looking about.

‘It’s old, Chesterton. In these conditions, it might have been made a million years ago.’ He stared upward. ‘Pity we didn’t bring a ladder with us. We might get a clearer idea of what it was.’

Ian laughed a little nervously. ‘Well it’s not Nelson, for sure.’

Doctor Who smiled, agreed. ‘No. No pigeons. Still - that isn’t what’s holding the ship here... come on...’

‘Right.’

This time it was Ian who took the lead. They came round the base of the great statue and there Ian halted again.

A round pool of liquid shone dully in the ground ahead of them. It was small, only a few paces across. A mist wreathed slowly upward from it.

Ian called, ‘Doctor? Here...!’

He pointed and went on to the brink of the pool. He looked down at it and called back, ‘I suppose it could be water? Any type of life would need that.’

And he stooped to gather up the liquid in both hands.

Doctor Who yelled, ‘Chesterton - wait!’

Ian paused and the old man came rushing forward as if panicked by something. He thrust Ian aside from the pool so roughly that he staggered and almost fell.

‘What’s the matter?’

Doctor Who ignored him. He bent over the pool, stared down into it, then held out a hand and clicked his fingers.