Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [46]
There was still no answer.
‘Well?’ the Doctor challenged.
Finally the Voice replied, almost quietly, but on a new and chilling note.
It said, ‘I have been informed that you pocketed some equipment. I have been informed...’
‘Quite so, yes — a piece of equipment damaged during my uh, tests...’
His voice trailed off as an alarming noise now sounded and echoed around the Dome — a low-pitched throbbing, rising to an intense hum. Then to his amazement the noise of a transmitter opened up.
It was coming from the recorder in his hand!
Now the voices he had recorded intoned, repeating the messages he had picked up... ‘course on bearing two-sixfive. Speed point owe-one of light. We jettison craft at altitude two-five leagues...’
Doctor Who stared speechless at the recorder.
Desperately he jammed at a switch to cut it off. But it continued, entirely unaffected.
‘... individual descent to group on Sayo Plateau... at northern extremity of Crater of Needles...’
The transmitter sound and the voice with it faded and cut off as the message ceased. A deathly silence followed.
Then the Voice boomed with harsh triumph.
‘You were in possession of the information all the time-me! You will be dealt with when the invasion has been repelled...!’
Abruptly the Dome lifted and rose away to the roof.
Doctor Who turned and stared. He and Vicki were surrounded on all sides by glaring Zarbi.
It was useless to resist. Neither he nor Vicki could take a pace in any direction.
One of the Zarbi held two necklets. It levelled these, thrust them forward. Doctor Who fought to keep his consciousness but his eyes glazed, and he and Vicki stood suddenly motionless, in a trance. The Zarbi pointed with its foreclaw. Obediently the Doctor and Vicki turned and walked dazedly towards a wall. They stood there, their eyes wide but unseeing.
One Zarbi remained to watch them, reared on its hind legs.
Now the control panel burst into action with a fresh stream of hummed orders, and with the great central light glowing. The Zarbi operators turned and scurried to obey its summons.
Clearly the Intelligence which controlled them had triumphed. It had secured all the information it needed.
Now it was acting, and issuing its battle orders.
Gripped tightly by the hardened gum which held their hands and feet in this weird nest far below ground, Ian and Vrestin sat staring around them at their captors, waiting.
Ian strained his ears to hear the mutter of conversation from this odd tribunal of creatures who had captured them and now sat in a neighbouring chamber, debating their fate.
He could make nothing of their words. His look turned towards their guards who ringed them in a circle a few paces away. Vrestin was also looking around him with puzzled curiosity. He wagged his head, baffled.
‘I can’t understand it,’ he muttered.
Ian growled. ‘You refuse to admit that such grubby, undersized little creatures as these could be related to the great race of Menoptera! Is it because you’re proud, or simply blind!’
Vrestin stared at Ian. He peered more keenly at the stunted guards who watched them from a distance. At length he nodded a little unwillingly.
‘But no Menoptera would live under the ground,’ he protested. ‘They would rather be slaves! Yet... they could be of our species... another race, but... still, a kind of Menoptera.’
‘Have you no idea how such a race could have come here, down into a foul place like this... or from where?’ Ian asked.
Vrestin shook his head. ‘There are no records of our flight from Vortis. It was long ago, before my time. Many fell to their death – but I cannot think how or where these kind came from...’
‘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