Doctor Who_ The Zarbi - Bill Strutton [7]
She tried to keep it matter-of-fact, but Vicki stared.
Barbara forced a laugh.
‘There’s probably a perfectly sensible explanation. It’s only the things we don’t understand that scare us.’
But Vicki was still staring, wide-eyed at this story. Then she turned to look around the control room, and up at the inspection window.
‘Doctor Who... Ian — I can’t see them out there!’
‘They’re not far away. Now look — I thought you were going to catch up on your sleep.’
Vicki nodded obediently and turned back towards the dormitory. Barbara watched her go. The doors closed and suddenly, in the deathly still of the control room, she felt very alone. It seemed chill. She shivered.
Doctor Who and Ian had walked some fifty yards now from the police-box shell of Tardis. In the uncanny stillness, their footsteps crunched loudly on the terrain, which was like pebbly glass. Doctor Who came to a crag, bent close, peered at its base.
Ian halted and stared about him, listening, watchful, and uneasy.
The Doctor reached and pulled away a loose piece of rock. He turned, showed it to Ian. The rock, too, was glassy and shone.
‘See this, Chesterton? Looks like mica — or one of the Silicates. I’d say it’s capable of withstanding great heat.’
His voice echoed weirdly in the still air.
Ian said abruptly, ‘Listen!’
Doctor Who jerked up his head a little irritably at the interruption.
‘You heard that, Doctor?’
‘Now don’t you start that nonsense, confound it! Heard what?’
But the Doctors protests died as Ian, still listening, raised a finger for silence. Now they both heard it again. It came back almost as his original voice, hollowly.
‘... -ound it... heard what?... heard what... heard what?...’
The echo trailed away, repeating itself. Doctor Who exploded impatiently.
‘Is that all? My dear boy, it’s just an echo! You behave as if it’s the first one you’ve ever heard.’
Ian was still listening to the fresh echoes of Doctor Who’s voice. They rang and swooped among the crags. He shook his head and muttered, ‘Of course not. But never an echo quite like that... Besides...’ He shrugged.
‘What is it?’
Ian looked about him. ‘Just a feeling,’ he said.
Doctor Who sniffed, stared again at the glassy piece of rock. ‘What of?’ He said testily.
‘Well — of being watched...’
‘Oh, good heavens! If there were any life here, naturally it would be curious about strangers appearing in its midst, wouldn’t it? As it is, I see nothing. Not a thing! Now come on!’
And the Doctor dropped the glassy rock and strode forward again, staring keenly around him at the strange landscape formation, the shimmering ground, at the satellites which hung pale and motionless in the sky. Their footsteps echoed with startling loudness.
The shape of another crag loomed up ahead of them in the twilight gloom. Doctor Who was about to proceed on around it when Ian gripped his arm. He pointed upward silently.
This was no crag.
As their gaze took it all in they saw that this tall column of rock had not been fashioned by time and weather, like the other crags. It had a shape, a design.
Ian breathed, ‘This was built!’
It was a statue, gigantically tall. Doctor Who was taking it all in.
‘So it was... Mm!’
The enormous rock was roughened by erosion and its weird design was barely visible on its shadow side. All that survived of its massive outlines made it appear like a huge totem pole of a figure not unlike a man’s, with giant wings, ribbed and folded, and with the remains of its upper limbs crossed on its chest.
The statue had a face of sorts, as scarred as a Sphinx...
two great holes that might have been eyes... and a slit for a mouth. It stared unseeingly out across the desolate planet from high above them.
‘Then there is life here - to have built that thing!’
‘... or was,’ Doctor Who corrected him, looking about.
‘It’s old, Chesterton. In these conditions, it might have been made a million years ago.’ He stared upward. ‘Pity we didn’t bring a ladder with us. We might get a clearer idea of what it was.’
Ian laughed a little nervously. ‘Well it’s not