Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [0]
machine Tardis on the cold, craggy planet of Vortis. The Doctor and his companions, Ian and Vicki, are soon captured by the ZARBI, huge ant-like creatures with metallic bodies and pincer claws; meanwhile Barbara falls into the hands of the friendly MENOPTERA who have come to rid Vortis of the malevolent power of the ZARBI . . .
A TARGET ADVENTURE
U.K. ............................................................25p AUSTRALIA..................................80c NEW ZEALAND.........................80c CANADA..............................................95c ISBN 0 426 10129 4
DOCTOR WHO
AND THE
ZARBI
Based on the BBC television serial Doctor Who and the Web Planet by Bill Strutton by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
BILL STRUTTON
Illustrated by John Wood
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Target Book
Published in 1976
by the Paperback Division of W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd.
A Howard & Wyndham Company
44 Hill Street, London WIX 8LB
Novelisation copyright © Bill Strutton 1965
Original script copyright © Bill Strutton 1965
Illustrations copyright © W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd 1965
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1963
Printed in Great Britain by
Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks.
ISBN 0 426 10129 4
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS
1 The Web Planet
2 The Zarbi
3 Escape to Danger
4 The Crater of Needles
5 Invasion
6 Centre of Terror
CHAPTER ONE
The Web Planet
It was almost quiet inside Tardis. There was only a slight hum from the control column, where Doctor Who bent and peered at his instruments. He flipped a switch. A panel on the ship’s control board glowed. A needle on it flickered into life, unsteadily at first. Then it began dancing wildly back and forth across the scale.
Doctor Who stared and frowned.
‘Strange,’ he muttered. ‘Very strange...’
He flipped on the space scanner switch and stared up at the screen. A harsh, crackling sound invaded the ship and the screen was suddenly speckled with brilliant, dancing bursts of light.
The sound made Ian turn. He had finished dressing before a mirror panel and was knotting his favourite tie —
his Coal Hill Old Boys’ tie — when he saw the screen. The blobs of light on it pulsed and grew, then exploded in dazzling bubble shapes. The crackling sound was growing louder.
Ian finished tying his tie and crossed to the control column. He stared up.
‘What is it, Doctor?’
Doctor Who was too intent to answer for a moment.
The bursts of light from the space scanner screen lit his face. He flicked on the power response switches. The needles on the lighted dials of his control panel, instead of rising steadily to give a reading, jerked crazily into life, and began flickering wildly all over the scale.
He said, ‘Try the time calculator, Chesterton. Tell me what reading you get.’
Ian press the time button. The pointer on the time scale rose jerkily from zero. It climbed in a series of unsteady spurts and hovered for a moment. Ian stared closer.
‘About 7000 B.C.’ He paused. ‘No — wait!’
The time pointer dropped, rose giddily on the scale, plunged again.
‘It’s gone haywire! We could be at any point in time between 7000 B.C. and about A.D. 200000! Look!’
Doctor Who turned to share Ian’s inspection of the time calculator scale. His face was grave. He said nothing, but turned slowly back to fix his gaze on the cluster of instruments immediately in front of him on the big control panel.
Behind them the door of the dormitory section slid open and Barbara stepped into the control room. She stopped at the sight of the bursting lights on the scanner and at the harsh crackling.
‘What’s