Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [43]
and again paused to call back, mockingly.
Watching from within the hut doorway, Hrostar suddenly exclaimed, ‘Now!’
He darted forward and out. Barbara followed, then Hlynia. As they came out into the clearing before the hut, the Zarbi turned and saw them. It broke into an angry, jabbering chirrup, raising its foreclaw swiftly – and the sting gun turned and began to bear on the three friends as they rushed out of the hut.
Before it could fire, a shadow rose out of the ground behind the Zarbi. It was Prapillus. With the agility of a monkey the old man leaped on the creature’s back and bore it staggering to the ground. As it did so, Barbara and Hlynia rushed the venom creature, their spars raised like clubs. At the same time Hrostar leaped to aid the old Menoptera. Before the Zarbi could recover, it was felled with a mighty blow from a spar, then another, and another, leaving it stunned and almost motionless on its back, its limbs waving faintly, feebly.
The venom-gun, powerless without the controlling influence of its Zarbi master, crumpled under the spars of Barbara and Hlynia and lay twitching on its side. Hrostar and Prapillus joined them.
‘Good work!’ Hrostar panted.
Barbara turned to the old Menoptera, Prapillus.
‘His was the good work. None of us could have done it.’
Prapillus tapped his head and chuckled. They looked about them for a sign of any other Zarbi.
‘Come!’ Hlynia said. ‘I can lead you to the plateau? She hurried ahead. With a last look about them at the jerking, helpless Zarbi and the crushed sting creature, Barbara and Hrostar moved to follow her.
Ian and Vrestin stood hemmed in by the spears levelled at their throats by the silent beings who had rushed to surround them as they recovered from their fall.
The weapons held at their throats were strangely twisted, like huge corkscrews, with murderously sharp tips, and behind these the eyes of their captors glittered. No sound came from them.
Ian’s eyes took in more clearly the slanting, highly decorated walls around them.
Vrestin was also taking stock of the place, and the creatures who crowded around, holding them at bay.
‘It’s some kind of a nest!’ Vrestin exclaimed.
Ian peered at the creatures behind the strange spears. As his eyes became used to the gloom he saw that they were not unlike the Menoptera. They were smaller – dwarfed, in fact, by the tall Vrestin – and paler of skin. Their eyes were narrow, and they lacked the gaudy Menopteia markings, Also, they had no wings – only stumps, which hunched their backs. But they were alert, quick, and venomously hostile as they pressed Ian and Vrestin back against a wall with their spears and silently held them there.
Then one of their number thrust through and pointed.
At that the thicket of spears jabbed at Ian and Vrestin, forcing them to turn and stumble along a short corridor between the brightly painted walls.
Hustled by the jabbing spears, the earth man and the tall Menoptera staggered down into a large chamber daubed with bright markings.
Ian stared ahead of him and saw they were being forced towards a wall of smoke.
The smoke wreathed upward into the chamber from a crevice in the floor, A crude cauldron was suspended over this great fissure, filled with a thick, gluey liquid which bubbled and spat. At the sight of this Ian halted, resisting the jabbing which drove them forward, and yelled desperately.
‘We mean you no harm! Vrestin – tell them!’
Vrestin walked stiffly and proudly beside him, sparing their captors a disdainful glare. He said loftily, ‘They do not believe me any more than you!’
As they were forced in front of the smoking cauldron Ian peered downward. He saw a ruddy molten glow far beneath him and felt the heat which swirled up through the crevasse.
‘There’s a flame down there! It’s a crack in the planet’s crust.’
They halted. The thicket of spears behind them parted