Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [54]
It was answered by a slow, muted chirrup from the slow-moving creature behind them.
The guard turned its glaring eyes on the Doctor. Then abruptly it touched a lever in the tunnel wall.
The webbed gate rose high in the air – and beyond them stretched the scarred, crag-dotted landscape of Vortis.
Doctor Who took a deep breath and stepped out. Vicki followed. They walked slowly, stiffly on, not daring now to look behind them. They listened intently but heard no sound of alarm. Only when they had reached a rise and the shelter of a line of rocks did they risk a pause, and turned.
The Zarbi shuffled along obediently in their wake.
‘How will we find the plateau?’ Vicki asked.
Doctor Who pointed. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Zarbi tracks.
Those who left the web were surely headed that way. We simply follow. This way, my dear.’
He turned and gestured to the Zarbi. Vicki smiled. ‘I’m getting quite fond of Zombo,’ she said.
‘Of whom?’
‘That’s what I call him. When they behave so tamely, they’re rather... cute, don’t you think?’
‘No, I do not! I find them revolting! I hope you’ve got no idea of making a pet of him!’
‘Well...’
‘We’re not taking him aboard Tardis , mind! Now hurry, child.’
Vicki smiled at the Doctor’s anxiety and crooked a finger at the Zarbi as it followed them dazedly down a slope.
Even the pigmy diggers were coughing now as they ploughed onward through the tunnel-like caves and the mist seeping from the fissures in the walls thickened.
‘Air’s getting terrible,’ Ian muttered.
‘Hurry,’ Vrestin urged, ‘don’t let them get too far ahead of us.’
Even Nemini and Hetra, leading the column, had to pause, coughing.
‘The gas is getting thicker,’ Nemini said.
Hetra looked about them. ‘Is there no other way forward?’
Nemini shook his head. ‘We’ll have to cut our way through the wall – and hope we can find an adjoining tunnel that is clear.’
Ian and Vrestin stumbled into sight. They had caught up with the pigmy leaders.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Delay,’ Hetra replied. ‘We shall have to dig.’
‘We could track back,’ Nemini offered, ‘and pick up another route...’
Ian looked around at the walls and the ceiling.
‘I don’t like the idea of digging here. Look at those cracks. Is it... safe?’
‘Ian!’ Vrestin shouted, beckoning from farther back in the tunnel. Ian turned and jumped towards Vrestin, who held up a hand, listening, head cocked towards the rear.
They heard a rumbling behind them. It rose in volume.
The ceiling above them split and opened. Ian wrenched at Vrestin’s arm, dragged him clear, and together they leaped for safety as, with a great tearing and grinding of rock, the roof where they had been standing fell in. Silica rock and glassy earth tumbled and roared, deafening them and sending up great choking eddies of dust.
When it settled and all was silent again they saw the gas swirling in through a host of cracks which the fall had opened in the wall. Ian stared.
‘We’re cut off! Blocked on all sides! It’ll take hours to clear!’
Hetra raised a hand urgently. ‘Nemini – we’ll have to go on. Start the men digging through!’
The pigmy diggers glared at the task ahead of them, at the cracks in the walls around through which the noxious mist was seeping thickly now. They picked up their spiral spears and began attacking the rock face ahead of them.
Vrestin was coughing and choking.
‘Can... hardly breathe...!’ he gasped.
‘There’s no outlet for these gases now!’ Ian muttered.
He turned as one of their diggers, coughing and retching, staggered and crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Ian bent and grabbed the digger’s tool and attacked the wall furiously.
‘Dig! Dig like mad! Or we’ll all suffocate!’
The frail Hetra was the next to collapse as the thick swirling fumes billowed about them. Ian and Vrestin both had tools now and were joining the others hacking furiously at the walls in their frenzied efforts to tear a way out of the trap.
Through the thick smoke he saw the workers’ leader Nemini clutch at his throat and fall, then the tiny digger next to Ian sank to the floor. Still Ian