Doctor Who: The Zarbi (4 page)

‘Your tie - that’ll do... let me have your tie.’

‘My tie?’ Ian said, gaping a little.

‘Quickly man, come on!’

Ian shrugged and removed the tie around his neck.

Doctor Who snatched it without a word, held it up in his hand, and poised it over the misty pool.

‘Now let’s see...’ he murmured.

Ian shouted an alarmed protest. ‘What are you doing?

Hey...!’

Doctor Who might have gone deaf, for he took no notice. Instead he slowly lowered the tie into the pool, absorbed and intent, while Ian goggled.

As the tie dipped into the milky water of the pool a thick smouldering arose on the surface around it. The fumes drifted across and caught sharply at Ian’s throat. He coughed and stared. Doctor Who dipped the tie deeper, waited, and then pulled it out. He turned and displayed this triumphantly to Ian.

The lower end of the tie had completely gone, eaten away, leaving only a frayed and smouldering remnant.

Ian choked, partly in fury, partly from the fumes still rising from the pool.

‘Well, of all the...!’ he spluttered.

‘You see?’ Doctor Who said simply.

‘You... you’ve
ruined
it! That’s my Coal Hill School tie!

And you - you just...’

‘... I just what? Saved your life! You were about to put your hands in it, were you not?’ Doctor Who gestured towards the pool. ‘There could have been the remains of a Coal Hill School
teacher
in there, instead of just his tie...’

The Doctor offered the remnant of Ian’s tie back with a lofty disdain. Ian snatched at it furiously. Doctor Who snorted, ‘Water, indeed! Water! What
did
they teach you at that school - apart from that ridiculous pastime of kicking a bladder about on a field? Mm?’

Ian shrugged. He had to grin. ‘Ah well,’ he said, and flung the rest of his tie into the pool, and watched it smoulder and vanish. Doctor Who chuckled, dug him consolingly in the ribs, wheeled, and took a couple of thoughtful paces away from the pool. He halted and stared around him at the strange landscape, pondering.

‘Silica...’ he muttered. ‘Interference... possibly electronic?.... and now... acid. Similar properties to formic acid, I shouldn’t wonder. Strange... very strange...’

His voice trailed away into a mutter.

Ian watched the smouldering thinning away on the pool and roused himself to proceed on their exploration of this place.

As he did so, the head and shining eyes of a great ant-like creature appeared from behind a rock on the crag overlooking the pool.

It stared down at Ian and Doctor Who, both unaware of its presence.

Ian turned. The creature moved, vanished. A fragment of rock rolled from its place and fell.

Ian checked suddenly and stared more closely back at the pool. A ripple broke its surface and spread sluggishly towards him. He paused, his attention frozen, and yelled,

‘Doctor – quickly!’

‘Eh?’

‘There’s something in there! I saw a light – then something broke the surface!’

Doctor Who joined him, staring sceptically at the now still surface, and sniffed disbelievingly.

‘A light?’ The Doctor looked around them and snorted.

‘Reflection of one of those planets, most likely...’

‘I tell you I
saw
it! There were two lights, close together... down in that pool. Then something broke the surface – a sort of... claw, or something.’

Doctor Who was eyeing Ian stonily.

‘Cherterton, if this is your idea of a prank, because of that tie business, it’s a pretty childish one—’

‘I tell you,
I saw something moving
!’

‘In a pool of acid like that? Impossible! Come on!’

But Ian stood his ground, watching for further signs of life from the pool. Doctor Who flared impatiently.

‘We’ve left those girls alone in
Tardis
to find the source of this interference! I suggest we put our minds to that!’

Doctor Who moved off. Ian turned unwillingly away from the pool to follow him.

Then they both halted. Out of the stillness among the crags both of them heard a sound. It was a low throbbing, which rose quickly to a steady humming. The brittle crags took up the sound as it grew. The humming rose in pitch until it was echoing all around them. Now, as it swelled to deafening proportions, a high-pitched chirruping joined the sound and pierced their ears.

Both men stared around them tensely, listening. The noise was so shrilly intense now that it hurt their ears.

Yet not a thing around them moved.

The noise was everywhere. Inside
Tardis
’ control room Barbara had heard it, paused in her watch on the inspection screen, and stiffened. The sound boomed around her as if the control room had become one vast echo chamber.

Barbara backed towards the dormitory, slid the door aside to retreat from the sound, then with a glance towards the sleeping Vicki, changed her mind.

Vicki stirred in her sleep, and moaned.

Barbara closed the door on her and turned, trapped. The humming grew louder, speckled now with a high-pitched chirruping. She stared towards the screen in hopes of seeing the comforting figures of Ian and the Doctor in the distance, out among the crags on the planet, but the inspection window was black. Then something caught her eye.

The control table to the right of the ship’s doors moved

– visibly. A metal food canister on the table’s surface jumped – then fell back with a clatter. Its lid dislodged and fell on to the floor, spinning away into a corner and rolling to a stop.

The control table turned, slowly at first, then spun, violently. A ruler and several containers whirled off it on to the floor and scattered loudly.

Barbara gasped and instinctively moved to halt the table and gather the fallen containers – but she could not budge.

It felt as though her feet were suddenly glued to the floor.

She remained, back to the dormitory door, frozen now with fear.

As she stood there her arm jerked abruptly – out of her own control. She gave a little scream and tried to pull her hand back to her side but it remained immovable, pointing towards the ship’s exit doors.

A moan of terror died on her lips. She caught her breath quickly as, slowly, the ship’s doors slid open.

‘What... what’s happening?’ she whispered.

Beyond the doors she could see the shadowy crags and a pale gleam of light on the brittle ground of this strange planet.

The humming and the chirruping now rose to fever pitch, and with it Barbara’s face clouded slowly and her eyes grew blank.

Dully, like a sleepwalker, with her arm still held out before her, she began to move.

She took a reluctant step towards the door, then another. The gold of the Roman bracelet glittered on her outstretched arm. She moved on stiffly and did not even pause as she went out of the now open doors.

Without looking around her, and with her face now blank, empty of expression, Barbara stepped on out and walked dreamily forward into the gloom of the planet.

The ship’s doors whirred quietly and slid closed behind her.

As they did so the humming and the high-pitched chirruping which overlaid it faded. It seemed impossible to believe that such a total silence could follow such all-enveloping sounds. But now, as a container lid ceased spinning on the floor and settled after a final clatter, the control room was ghostly quiet. The control table had ceased spinning and stood solid and motionless.

In the dormitory Vicki had been turning in a troubled sleep, moaning, her face puckered and strained.

It was the abrupt silence which suddenly woke her. She sat up and listened.

‘Barbara?’ she murmured.

The dormitory door to the control room was closed.

‘Barbara?’ she called louder.

There was no answer, no sound from the other room.

Vicki threw aside her blanket and got up. Sleepily she slid aside the door and came into the control room.

It was empty. She peered into the corners. The scatter of metal containers across the floor caught her eye.

Again she called, ‘Barbara!’

Suddenly a terror seized her too. Wildly she looked at the scanner, then at the closed exit doors.

She screamed, ‘Where are you?’

The control room only threw back the panic sound of her own voice.

Vicki stared about her again. She was alone in the ship.

Doctor Who, Ian and Barbara had now all left it!

She lunged towards the control table and pressed the exit button. A quiet whirring answered her, and they opened.

Vicki ran to the door and peered out fearfully. The landscape with it sinister towering crags, harsh and empty in the ghostly light, gave back no sign of life, no sound now.

Vicki was afraid to break this chilly silence, but then her fear of being alone overcame all other thought.

‘Barbara!’ she screamed. ‘Barbara...!’

Doctor Who and Ian listened, but the roaring hum and the strange chirruping that had risen with it had now vanished utterly, so that when Ian took a pace forward, his step echoed again. He halted, straining his ears.

‘Where did it come from?’

Doctor Who remained where he was, listening too. The Doctor wagged his head, frowning thoughtfully.

‘It’s... it’s some form of communication. I’m sure of it...’

Ian turned his head swiftly back. ‘Are you saying those noises we heard were
messages
?’

A slow nod. A pause.

‘They come from some sentient thing... or,... perhaps, a machine operated by it.’

Suddenly Doctor Who stopped as though struck by an idea.

‘Of course!’

He looked up at the crags, around him, then stared triumphantly at Ian.

‘That’s what’s holding us here!’

‘This... sound?’ Ian said, puzzled.

‘Whatever’s making it... yes! Aurally it’s the same pattern. The same pulse, the same rhythm as we got on the scanner.’

‘Those bars of light, those blobs... all that interference!’

The Doctor gripped Ian’s arm. ‘Chesterton, we’ve got to locate its source!’

Ian hesitated. ‘Yes... but how? With all those echoes around us? It could have come from anywhere! Trying to trace it would be hopeless!’

‘It isn’t,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Not if we use one of our detectors. Come on – let’s get back to the ship...!’

He turned to retrace his steps. Ian pointed to a defile between the crags.

‘It’s this way, Doctor’.

He led on. As they entered the defile another distant sound floated to them over the crunching of their boots.

Ian was first to hear it and stayed Doctor Who with his hand. They paused and it floated to them again, a faint anxious echo.

‘... Barbara... Barbara...!’

‘It’s Vicki!’ Ian shouted. ‘Something’s wrong, back at the ship!’

‘I thought you told them not to leave it?’

‘I did! Come
on
, Doctor!’

Ian raced ahead, stumbling over the uneven ground, charging blindly down the defile. It was the Doctor who saw the danger which loomed suddenly ahead of them both, and halted.

Illuminated palely in this cold light something was stretched between two tall rocks across the defile, barring their way. It glittered faintly.

It was a web – a giant one, swaying faintly between the crags. Ian, stumbling ahead, turned to yell over his shoulder. ‘Hurry, Doctor!’

‘Chesterton! In front of you! Look out!’

But Ian had turned to race on and came charging straight into the immense web. Its threads enveloped him stingingly wherever they touched. Ian thrust out his hands and clawed wildly to free himself, but the web caught his hands too, and prickled wherever they touched bare flesh.

He saw Doctor Who running towards him as he fought vainly to free himself.

‘Keep away, Doctor! Get back to the ship!’

His further shouts were drowned in the humming that now again rose all around them, speckled with the curious insect chirruping. He yelled again desperately, as Doctor Who halted a little helplessly.

‘Get back to the ship!’

But Doctor Who stood there, warily free of the great mesh of the glistening web.

‘Don’t move! Stay absolutely still!’ the Doctor commanded.

‘It hurts!’ Ian gasped. ‘It... stings...!’

‘Don’t move, I say!

Ian ceased his struggling. He winced at the strands of the web which lay stingingly across his face. Doctor Who was peering at the web for all the world as if it was a specimen of great scientific interest. He reached out a wary hand, touched it, and drew immediately back.

‘Hmmm!’ he grunted. ‘No good – I’ll have to go back to
Tardis
– get something to free you with.’

‘... all... right...’

‘Now keep as still as you can! I’ll try not to be too long!’

Ian managed a faint nod. The web strands which held him powerless prickled even through his coat-sleeves and across his chest.

Doctor Who backed away, took his bearings, and looking cautiously around him, circled the crag.

Vicki gasped and backed away, clutching her ears as the noise invaded the ship again and pierced her ears like a knife. As she stumbled backward into the control room, the exit doors whirred and closed.

The ship gave a sudden lurch. She shrieked and put out her hands to grab the control panel. The whole room tilted to one side. She held on desperately as the ship lurched again, and looked wildly up at the inspection window.

Tardis
seemed to be moving!

The whole control room tilted and jerked with its slow movement, and in answer to it the view of the dark landscape outside through the inspection window, now clearing, tilted crazily this way and that.

In her terror Vicki flicked desperately at the switches on the control table, pausing only for an agonized moment to press her ears against the intolerable noise that rumbled and chirruped all around her.

The control column glowed in response to a switch and began moving up and down.

But no other controls answered. The ship lurched again.

Scraping sounds came from its hull. Yes, it was moving all right! Through the inspection window the crags moved slowly passed, tilting jerkily as the ship scraped and slithered forward.