Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [64]
They had nearly reached the entrance to the chamber at the end of the corridor when Barbara halted them with a sign. She ventured forward to the threshold, and flattening herself against the corridor wall, peered inward.
Hastily she ducked back and crouched with the others.
‘Zarbi!’ she said.
Hilio came darting from the rear to join Barbara.
‘How many?’
‘I only saw one,’ Barbara answered, keeping her eyes on the door.
‘With venom-guns?’
Barbara shook her head. ‘No — alone, I... think...’
Hilio darted on to the door, gripping the necklet he carried, and peered inward too. Prapillus tiptoed up to join him. He touched Hilio’s winged shoulder.
‘Make sure you stop it reaching the control panel, Hilio!’ he urged.
Hilio nodded curtly. He tensed himself— and then charged through the doorway and into the chamber.
The lone Zarbi on duty turned and saw Hilio hurl himself forward, the necklet levelled at the creature’s throat. The Zarbi in alarm chirruped, dodged, and lashed swiftly with a steely claw, knocking Hilio sideways in his rush. It turned and scampered across towards the control panel. Hilio, recovering, lunged between the creature and the glowing web map, paused, feinted, then charged. He gripped the Zarbi’s foreclaw, wrenched it aside, thrust at its throat — and clipped home the sense-deadening necklet.
Immediately the Zarbi stiffened, and calmed.
Barbara, Prapillus and Hlynia hurried now through the doorway towards Hilio. Prapillus nodded with delighted approval at the immobilized Zarbi.
‘Well done, Hilio!’ he beamed.
Hilio reached out a hand and took the stalagmite spar which Hlynia was carrying. He whirled it and smashed it across the control panel, again and again.
Vicki and Doctor Who now stood perilously near the great revolving ellipse which puffed in and out and pulsed with dazzling light. They were straining desperately backward, but the pull which drew them in towards the blinding centre grew irresistibly stronger.
The whole floor beneath their lurching. feet was a gigantic, pulsating web, its mesh glittering as the super-parasite, the creature Doctor Who had called a cosmic spider, rotated and breathed.
Vicki was exhausted, and with the tiredness her will was fading.
‘I can’t struggle... any more... Doctor!’ she moaned. ‘I can’t...!’
Doctor Who looked desperately all around them. They were shut in alone with this burning eye-shaped monster, and all help against its immense power seemed far away.
But he urged Vicki still. ‘Don’t give in now, child. We must not let it win!’
‘But, Doctor... there’s no chance... nobody to help us now! And it was my fault... my fault.’
She sobbed as she felt the deadly forte pulling her trembling legs forward. The Voice boomed closer now, on a great note of triumph.
‘Approach... approach... what I will assimilate from you will enable me to reach beyond this galaxy, into the solar system... to pluck from the earth its myriad techniques... in its hundredth Christian millennium...!’
The Doctor muttered as, in spite of himself; he lurched forward a step... then another...
Suddenly a new note overlaid the echoes of the booming Voice. Doctor Who stiffened and strained his ears to catch it.
Yes — a humming, a throbbing of the same sort as they had heard from the communicators on the panel in the control room. It was speckled with an alarmed chirruping.
The noise faded again.
Then the Voice boomed out harshly, close.
‘Section Q not responding to command? Aliens in control!’
A roar of rage accompanied this surprise and Doctor Who lifted his head. He turned to Vicki and flashed her a triumphant look.
‘That sounds like help, child. Don’t give up... don’t give up...!’
But still they felt the pull of the cosmic spider drawing them in towards it, and lurched another agonizing step or two, fighting against it.
Barbara and the Menoptera stared around the control room.
‘The Doctor and Vicki should have got to the centre by now,’ Barbara murmured to Hlynia.
‘Yes... we must trust in their success.’
Prapillus