Doctor Who and the Zarbi by Bill Strutton

Author:Bill Strutton [Strutton, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-02-05T06:47:57.033198+00:00

What was it guarding? A gate, leading outward? What else could it be?

Ian sidled along the wall towards the unaware Zarbi. He was almost on the creature when it turned and saw him. It reared up, chirruping loudly, and Ian leaped desperately forward.

But the Zarbi was astonishingly quick. Its foreleg lashed and its cruel pincer closed on Ian’s throat. He choked and threshed, trying desperately to prise open the claw, the hideous humming around his ears now deafening him.

He kicked – and the pincer relaxed its hold. Again Ian kicked – and scrambled free. He poised, and aimed a rabbit punch at the joint between the evil head and shiny body –

the tiny, thin neck.

The Zarbi guard sagged. Ian hit again, at the same spot, and it dropped like a stone, still, its feelers stiff, the lights of its eyes dimmed. Gasping, feeling his throat, Ian moved on into the wider space before the webbed door. He examined it. There seemed no way of opening it.

He touched it.

Immediately a hooter shriek shattered the stillness all around him. Ian jumped and wheeled, alarmed. Then with the warning howl of the hooter echoing down the empty corridor he shook the door desperately in an attempt to force it. The sweat streamed down his face as he tore at the door.

There was nothing for it – he would have to get out of this corridor. He turned to run back from the door, but as he did so another webbed door swished down in front of him, walling him in completely as he ran into it. He smashed his fist against it in despair – and this set off another siren howl, higher pitched but just as loud.

Now the Zarbi guard trapped with him between these two doors was coming round. No matter how Ian pulled, the webbed door gave but would not open, nor break.

Now he heard an ominous humming-and-chirruping, approaching. He could hear it even above the warning hooters. At his feet the Zarbi guard was now weakly trying to rise.

Ian sprang past the Zarbi to wrest again at the outer door. As he did so a venom grub appeared in the corridor, and behind it a swarm of Zarbi guards. He heard their chirruping and turned as the grub rushed swiftly down towards him. Outside the webbed trap which now caged Ian in, it paused. Its Zarbi controller halted, raised a foreclaw. Ian hurled himself to the side of the cell formed by the two webbed gates. The venom grub spat fire.

The webbed outer door crackled, flashed, and a column of acrid smoke billowed up as the grubs’ blast tore a great hole in it, revealing the open landscape of Vortis beyond it.

Ian scrambled to his feet and clawed his way through the burning hole. He staggered out and ran blindly on.

Dimly ahead of him he saw a crag which reared out of the sparse landscape. He raced for its shelter while behind him he heard the massed chirruping and the humming of the Zarbi swarming at the gate.

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