Doctor Who: The Zarbi (16 page)

‘Well, blood relatives or not, they’re your enemies now!

And unless we can persuade them differently, they are at this very moment discussing how they are going to kill us!’

Ian motioned savagely towards the next chamber from which a subdued mutter of talk issued.

Vrestin was pondering that. ‘There just may be... a way... of explaining... how they came to be here...’ he mused.

There was a scuffling of feet from the neighbouring room as the council ended. The guards parted their ranks to make way first for the aged leader, Hetra, and his lieutenants. They came to Ian and Vrestin and stopped before them. There was a grave silence.

Hetra spoke.

‘The decision has been reached,’ he announced in his high-pitched quaver. ‘Every creature who invades our domain comes only to prey on us. You are guilty..: He beckoned to his deputy. ‘Nemini...?’

The stunted creature called Nemini stepped forward.

His slitted eyes glittered as he surveyed both Ian and Vrestin. He clapped his hands and several guards seized the Earth man and the Menoptera. Nemini pointed to the smoking fissure over which the cauldron hung.

‘Throw them into the fire chasm!’

Ian threw off the hands that grabbed him, wheeled to face Hetra, and yelled, pointing at Vrestin, ‘This man is your own kind! Are you going to murder him?’

Nemini and the guards halted a moment, gaping, and looked to their leader. Hetra stared towards Vrestin who had drawn himself erect, staring contemptuously around him.

‘This stranger?’ Hetra said with scorn. He pointed upward. ‘You are both from that wilderness above ground, where the light blinds, the air chokes, where only destroyer races live, where none of us who has gone forth has ever returned.’ He levelled a shaking finger first at Ian, then at Vrestin. ‘You come foraging into our world only for new victims! Take them!’

As the guards leaped forward and overpowered them, Vrestin shouted.

‘Listen! The wilderness you speak of up there belongs to you! We are coming in our legions to free this planet of its killers – the Zarbi! It’s they who are your enemies...!’

But resist as he might, their tiny captors dragged Ian and Vrestin to the brink of the precipice, and as they stared down, the flames and molten glow from far below lit their faces.

The guards turned to await the signal from their leader

– but Hetra was frowning, puzzling over Vrestin’s words, gazing into a distance as if at a memory... or a vision. He held up a frail hand, and his narrow eyes sought Vrestin’s questioningly,

‘The... Zarbi...?’ Hetra quavered.

‘They seized this place fifty generations ago!’ Vrestin retorted. ‘They enslaved your forbears and mine who remained. They are spreading their poisonous web to every corner of Vortis!’

Nemini interrupted, waving an impatient hand. He turned a mistrustful glare on the two prisoners and shouted, pointing to the fire chasm, ‘As long as we deal with intruders thus, we are safe here! Come...!’

Ian rounded on him. ‘Can’t you understand? You are the Menoptera! Like him!’

He pointed at Vrestin and then checked. A sudden total hush had fallen. The eyes of the entire company of their captors had turned on him in awe.

Hetra broke the silence. ‘The... Menoptera?’ he asked.

Nemini glared. ‘You blaspheme! You are talking of our gods!’ he stormed, raising a spear.

‘Your gods?’ Vrestin echoed, astonished. ‘The Menoptera are your
kinsmen
!’ He reached out among their guards, now standing, stunned, like statues – and whirled one of them round with a thrust of his arm. He pointed at the stumps which sprouted from the creature’s narrow shoulders.

‘Your wings have withered on your bodies, while you crawled blindly underground like so many pupae. You were born to the greatest freedom of all creatures – to light, to beauty, and to peace!’

As these ringing words sunk in, their guards exchanged wondering glances, half-sensing the possibility that they might be the truth.

‘But...’ the aged Hetra protested feebly. ‘It is death... for us... up there...’

Vrestin gestured around him. ‘What is this place for you

– but a
living
death? This is not your element!’

As their captors now hesitated and muttered among themselves Ian shouted, ‘If you throw us into the fire chasm you destroy your own future!... and condemn yourselves to skulk down here forever!’

Nemini wheeled to challenge them both. ‘Prove what you say!’ he demanded.

Vrestin drew himself up, towering above their guards, staring haughtily around him.

‘I am Vrestin, a leader of the Menoptera. You are our kin! We come to rid this planet of a creature which has it in its grip!’

‘and we need your help!’ Ian added.

There was an abrupt rustle, a great swish of sound.

Hetra, Nemini and all their fellow creatures were now staring past Ian in fascination and awe.

He turned. He saw that Vrestin now stood before them with his arms outflung and his magnificent wings unfolded, stretched to their full magnificent beauty for the first time.

At this rich and inspiring sight, some of their guards had staggered back and were standing with their heads hung – bowing before the Menoptera leader in his gaudy splendour.

A long winding climb among rough and little-used paths had brought Barbara, Hrostar, Hlynia and her father Prapillus out of the Crater of Needles at its northern tip until they could pause, crouched and breathless, in the shelter of a circle of rocks, and survey the tableland that now came into view.

‘The Sayo Plateau,’ Hlynia whispered, pointing.

They waited, scanning the sky anxiously, listening for any sound.

The satellites hung above the horizon, glowing, motionless against the pale vault of space. The silence was complete. There was not even the remotest sound of Zarbi in the area.

‘I... can’t hear a thing,’ Barbara said. ‘Surely the Zarbi—’

‘—Listen!’ Hrostar commanded them sharply.

They halted, straining their ears – and then they heard it. A great swooping sound planed over their heads. They turned their eyes quickly in the direction from which it came.

Hrostar stiffened. ‘They’re landing!’ he exclaimed.

Barbara wheeled towards the exit from their rock shelter and called, ‘Let’s get on to the plateau – we’ll stand a better chance of warning them from there...’

The others moved quickly to follow her. As they did so a mighty beating of wings sounded all around them – like the passage of a great swarm of huge birds. As Barbara looked up, she saw the shadowy shapes of Menoptera planing down, running to a halt before them on the plateau, and turning this way and that, questing where to go.

Right in front of her a Menoptera dropped out of the sky. It saw Barbara and brought up its gun. She ran towards it stumbling over the wavy ground. As she halted to call a greeting, she froze. A great humming and chirruping had broken out all around them. There was a sheet of flame and the Menoptera facing her only a few paces ahead spun around and crumpled, his body smoking from the deadly jet of a sting-gun.

As Barbara and Hrostar turned to look wildly this way and that they saw the shapes of the Zarbi creeping over the hillocks, bordering the plateau, guiding their sting grubs like so many avenging hunting dogs. As the first jets of venom burst among the descending fighters, the Menoptera swooping to land on the plateau flattened themselves in a desperate search for cover and levelled their own guns.

The blast of a Zarbi gun seared Barbara’s ears and a Menoptera running towards their shelter screamed. Now the Zarbi fire crackled and flashed all around them, and Barbara, Hlynia and Prapillus could only press themselves back into the shadow of their rock shelter and watch the battle out on the plateau in horror.

‘An ambush!’ Barbara breathed.

‘I must help them!’ Hrostar yelled and plunged towards his newly arrived comrades. Barbara clutched at him and held on desperately, shouting, ‘You will only get yourself killed! You haven’t even a gun! You can do nothing!’

A swoop sounded above them. They looked up and the figure of a Menoptera alighted on a crag, staring down at Barbara and the others. Hrostar sighted it and cried,

‘Spearhead!’

The figure levelled a gun and rapped back.

‘Codeword?’

‘Electron!’ Hrostar answered.

The Menoptera officer surveyed them, stared about him.

‘Where is your pilot party?’

‘Destroyed!’ Hrostar shouted back. ‘Your force — get it off the plateau!’

The Menoptera astride the crag glared grimly towards the fighting. ‘Why?’ he demanded.

‘Our combat weapons are useless. The Zarbi have our rendezvous. Disperse the spearhead, or they will be massacred!’

‘It’s too late. We are committed to attack!’

‘Look!’ Barbara screamed, pointing out beyond their shelter. The shapes of the Zarbi now stood out on top of every rock fringing the plateau. The hills erupted with flashes as their venom-guns went into action and the Zarbi poured down to meet the invaders. The Menoptera crouched and fired at the oncoming hordes — but it was as if their electron combat-guns were harmless toys. Realizing this, some of the Menoptera threw their guns aside and backed for the shelter of the hills and rocks around the plateau. They ran and fell as the deadly murderous stings spat and smoked on their crumpled bodies. Others stood their ground and launched themselves barehanded with suicidal courage at the oncoming Zarbi.

Now the fighting was all about them. One Zarbi on a near-by crest paused and directed the sting of its creature into the sky. A Menoptera, flying in to land, crumpled suddenly and fell out of space like a plummet.

‘Look out!’

It was Hlynia who screamed the warning to Barbara and the others. A Zarbi had appeared on the crest of the rocks overlooking their own shelter and now with a gesture of its claw it summoned its sting grub.

They all saw the danger, and unarmed as they were, there was nothing for it but to turn and run. Alone, the Menoptera officer, Hilio, who had dropped to the ground from the crag and joined them, faced the sting-gun and levelled his own weapon. It spat harmlessly. He fired again, and again.

The ground erupted around him as the sting creature poised its snout and answered with a staccato flashing.

‘It’s useless!’ Hrostar yelled. He threw himself on Hilio and dragged him away. They turned and ran, heading around a corner of the rock and into a defile with the Zarbi and its sting grub slithering after them.

As they ran Barbara halted and stared ahead of them in dismay. She turned despairingly to the others as they panted towards her — Hlynia, Prapillus, Hrostar and Hilio. She pointed.

‘No exit!’

The others halted. Ahead of them rose sheer rock face.

‘We’ve run into a dead end!’

‘Are there no crevices leading off?’

Barbara turned and ran towards the rock face, casting about desperately for an escape. There was none. They were hemmed in by rock on all sides.

‘No...!’

There was a scuttling behind them. First the venom-gun slithered malignantly into sight round the, corner of the closed defile — and then its Zarbi master.

The sting grub poised, levelled its snout, aiming it at the group now huddled and backing hopelessly against the sheer rock wall.

The Zarbi, its great eyes glaring, raised a foreclaw, then brought it down.

The sting-gun fired.

As the murderous sting fired, the cornered party scattered wildly. The first flash hit the sheer rock face as Barbara sidled along it.

The wall smouldered — and moved.

Barbara wheeled, staring.

A great crack appeared in the rock — and it sprang apart, like the opening wings of a giant Menoptera, revealing a cavern inside. Barbara shrieked and pointed as the sting-gun flashed again and the ground beneath her feet burned and smoked.

‘Look — in here!’

The others turned, gaping, and plunged desperately through the opening. They tumbled inside the cavern as the venom-gun spat again and a huge chip of rock above Hrostar’s head broke off, smouldering, and fell.

Then, with a mighty grinding, the slabs of rock clashed down behind them.

Barbara and her Menoptera companions lay sprawled on the floor, safe for the moment, shielded by a great wall of rock, breathing heavily and not daring to question the great miracle which had spared them.

As they got their breath back they began to look around them. Hlynia was the first to recover.

Her eyes opened wide as she took in the sight which greeted her.

She pointed.

‘Look...!’ Hlynia breathed.

The web indicator on the great Zarbi control panel glowed and flashed as its lights reported the story of the ambush and the rout of the invading Menoptera.

The speakers below it hummed and buzzed triumphantly with the news of the Zarbi victory.

During all this Doctor Who and Vicki stood motionless against the wall as if carved out of stone, staring unseeingly ahead, their faces blank.