The Lair of Zarbi Supremo.
The shock of hearing the voice was so great that Doctor Who had barely time to complete
the materialization process.
But old habit was strong, and smoothly and efficiently the TARDIS slid in through the
trans-dimensional flux and fitted its rearranged atoms into the new sphere.
By all the Doctor's coordinates and calculations, this world should be the planet Vortis, but
just where on the planet, or when in the time scale of that world, he could not as yet know.
He drove home the last lever, and with hands on the edges of the control panel, panted
with excitement.
The voice, through his radio, had been talking in modern English.
He strapped the walkie-talkie apparatus on his shoulders, already clad in the atmospheric
density jacket he remembered having needed on his previous visit to this ill-omened world.
Then activating the great door, he stood waiting for it to open, fidgeting with impatience.
This was not at all like the Vortis he remembered, was his first thought, as he peered out through
the open portals.
True, there were several moons in the sky, two of them so close to the planet that they
could be seen in daylight.
The sparkles, he remembered, were in the sky also, but the mists were not there, nor the
white basalt needle-like spires.
Quite evidently, his TARDIS had landed him in an entirely different part of the planet.
He walked steadily through the doorway, the voice from the radio still murmuring in his
ears.
He had first heard it during the materialization of his ship from intradimensional non-space
into the real space in which Vortis swam.
The voice sounded low and weary and consisted of but few words.
It was as though the effort to dredge the words out was almost too much for the throat
uttering them.
Help, help, the voice was muttering, beware Zahabi Supremo, warn Earth, warn Earth.
That was all.
It was so tantalizingly obscure that Dr. Who was almost dancing with impatience as he set
foot outside his ship, but what he saw when he looked around the landscape momentarily
drove all else from his mind.
He was on a low plateau overlooking a broad plain.
At least it should have been a plain, but the ground itself seemed flat enough.
It was the structures that reared themselves up from that plain that made the eyes almost
start from his head.
On every side and outwards as far as the horizon, there reared up from the ground a multitude
of cone-like structures like Duncy's Caps, like Sugar Loaves, like... and now he knew
for certain that he was back on Vortis, just like ant hills.
He darted back inside his ship and re-emerged with binoculars.
He trained the glasses on the cones nearest to him and his gaze roamed over the surface
confirming that his first deduction was only too true.
These monstrous hills of maybe a hundred feet high were the counterparts of the ant hills
or termitories to be seen in the southern hemisphere of earth, and crawling all over
them, in and out of their holes, were hordes of the hideous inhabitants of Vortis, the
huge ants or termites known as the Zabi.
Fascinated, he allowed the glasses to lead his gaze over first one immense hill and then
another.
There they crawled, hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of them, those noxious, mindless
creatures controlled from a distance by some unknown intelligence who preyed upon the likeable,
innocent butterfly people, the Monoptera, the other species native to Vortis whom he
had encountered on his last visit.
He had seen but little of the Zabi themselves then, but he had heard enough to know that
they were to be dreaded.
Help!
Beware!
Zabi Supremo!
The voice in his earphone droned on.
Warn earth!
He started as the voice again penetrated into his consciousness.
Somewhere, not too far away from him, was a man of earth.
He seemed to be weak and was perhaps wounded or a prisoner, somewhere in that veritable
maze of termitaries.
The doctor stared somberly at the forest of cones and lowered the glasses.
On his walkie-talkie there was, of course, a directional aerial and he began to twist
the knob, listening as the sound of the voice sank or grew louder.
At last he determined roughly the quarter where the sound originated.
He turned his face in that direction.
It looked no different from any other part of the plain of Antilles, but somewhere out
there must be the owner of that tired voice, that voice that cried out hopelessly on an
alien planet for a rescue of which it had lost all hope.
But Dr. Who had made up his mind that he would attempt a rescue, no matter where it led him
or through what perils.
That his first greeting on vortis should be the sound of a human voice speaking in his
own native tongue was so extraordinary a thing that the doctor knew that fate had directed
his hands as they had locked home the controls which had precipitated the TARDIS into the
sphere of vortis, at this precise place and at this precise time.
As he approached the termitaries he was almost deafened by the shrill chirping of the millions
of zarbi as they crawled about their mysterious business.
On earth ants and termites have no real voices.
They communicate by rubbing their back legs together.
Dr. Who reflected that he could very well be mightily in error if he was to assume that
these zarbi were just very large ants or termites.
These loathsome creatures could be entirely different from the ants and termites which
had evolved on earth, even though they were insectile.
They seemed to take no notice of him as he passed trembling close to their hills.
Of course he avoided getting too close to any of them, for he could see that most of
these zarbi were of the soldier class.
This was evident from their powerful, huge mandibles, which in a creature of that size
could tear the limbs from a man just as a man might tear apart a roasted chicken.
The voice over the radio was stronger now, so that the doctor felt he was getting very
close to its source.
Walking as warily as he could, and avoiding contact with any of the zarbi, he trod softly
on the sandy surface of the ground, his gaze moving constantly about.
Now he switched on his sender and spoke urgently into the microphone.
"'Help is here,' he said.
"'Direct me to where you are.
Give me some landmark to go by.
I am coming to you.'
But the radio gave him no reply.
Only the monotonous low repetition of the message he had first heard.
Baffled, he glowered round him at the jungle of termitories and shuddered to think of his
own position, one feeble, weaponless earthman, alone among these hordes of malevolent giant
insects searching for the owner of a voice which could not hear him.
Looking for a needle in a haystack would be simplicity itself compared to this task, he
told himself irritably.
But, he reflected grimly, a needle would glitter, wouldn't it?
That was just what he could see ahead of him now, a dull glitter that lay ashore two anthills
relatively close to each other.
Excitedly, now, he pressed on until he came to the thing.
It was circular and was half buried in the sandy soil.
On every side rose the gigantic anthills, and here it lay, like a child's lost ball,
unseen by the Zabi, many of whom were even then crawling over the sand that had gathered
on the top.
Dr. Who sensed that he had reached his objective.
He was convinced that inside this sphere was the owner of the voice, now sounding much
louder in his earphone.
He squatted down on the sand, and for five minutes he spoke urgently into his microphone.
But it was soon obvious that whoever was inside the sphere, if indeed there was anyone inside,
either had no receiver or else one that was out of order.
He leaned forward and rapped sharply on the metal surface.
There was no reaction.
He felt in his pocket, and producing a torch, he began a tattoo on the same place as before.
Then he moved on and around, speculating that the hull of a spaceship must be very thick
and searching for a thinner place.
Thus it was that he came upon the door, half buried in the sand.
The hollowness of his knocking told him there was emptiness behind it.
Steadily to his knees he began to scoop away the sand and soon uncovered the door, a small
circle just about large enough for a normal man to wriggle through.
In his excitement he leaned against it, and the next moment he had fallen through the
doorway and into an open space.
The door closed behind him, evidently on powerful springs.
It was hot and close and dark, and he reflected that it must be an airlock, now broken, and
that there would be another door into the ship proper.
His torch soon revealed it, and he put his shoulder against the panel.
It needed all his strength to force it open against extremely powerful springs, but finally,
with a mighty heave, he was inside the ship, breathing hard through the breathing apparatus
necessary for the thin air of Vortis.
He got to his feet and smoothed down his clothes.
My goodness, he murmured to himself.
Now, here is a fine thing, not a soul to greet me, upon my word.
Then he stopped, for the voice he had been hearing in his radio was now coming directly
to his ear, and it was coming from a cabinet on the opposite wall of the room.
He went closer and saw the reels of the recorder going slowly round and round, while the voice
seeped hopelessly and monotonously from the speaker, repeating over and over again the
appeal for help and the warning.
He stared round him bitterly.
No, this was the end of his search.
A tape recorder, endlessly sending out its message while no one lived and breathed here.
He was as much alone as he had been before.
Exasperated, he stared round him at what was evidently the control cabin of a spaceship.
Compared to his TARDIS, it was, of course, a very primitive spaceship, but he could recognise
many of the principles which in his own ship were so refined that only an expert could
have seen the resemblance.
A ship like this would require quite a crew.
Where were they?
Was this ship like the Mary Celeste, which was found drifting, cruelless, on the sea
of earth?
Just so, this spacecraft lay, marooned and cruelless, on this cruel planet of Vortis,
so far from where men lived and laughed under the bright sun.
Then it was as though the heavens opened.
He heard a voice.
Something in him told him this was a human voice and no electronic reproduction.
It was calling for help, and the sound came from a round port.
He struggled and fought with the unfamiliar mechanism, and at last the door opened.
He put his head through and his heart lightened.
There were two people in there, a man and a boy.
Both lay on mattresses, and the man looked as though he was dead.
His eyes were closed and his head had fallen sideways.
But the boy was very much alive.
He was sitting up on the mattress and crying out to the rescuer.
Earth was the boy's original birthplace, the doctor decided, and the twentieth century
was his period.
That was obvious.
His name was Gordon Hamilton, and he was the son of the man who lay motionless on the mattress.
All the others have gone, the boy told him.
Father was ill, so they left us with food and water and went out to explore.
You see, we didn't know where we were.
We crash-landed and father was injured, and the others left us here and went off to get
help.
We could hear noises outside which told us the planet wasn't uninhabited, and so the
voice in the recorder asked the doctor, what is that?
Father made that recording before he lost consciousness, Gordon said.
By that time we'd given up all hope that the others would ever return, and also we'd
seen through the other window those things out there.
Dad said they must be for an invasion of Earth.
There aren't any other planets inhabited in the solar system.
You should see them.
Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Now, Sonny, wait a minute, the doctor who protested.
Not so fast.
You talk of the solar system.
This planet is nowhere near.
Tell me, how long had your ship been traveling?
What is her motive power?
Oh, we've been in space for two years, the boy said.
The ship moves by anti-gravity and can travel many times the speed of light.
The doctor reflected.
This boy quite evidently had not the least notion that Vortis was not even in the Milky
Way.
A spaceship traveling even at many times the speed of light would need millions of Earth
years to traverse the waste space between galaxies.
There was a mystery here.
But this was scarcely the time to argue.
He must see what could be done for the poor fellow lying on the mattress.
In spite of all his ministrations, however, he could get no response at all from the unconscious
man, although his breathing was even enough.
He was bearded but evidently not old.
There seemed to be no injury to the body and, baffled, the doctor got up from his knees
and looked around.
How many were in the crew, he asked, staring round the small cabin shaped like the segment
of a circle which he judged to be one of the living quarters.
There were six, Gordon told him.
All scientists, like father.
They took weapons and food and they'd be gone five days now.
I looked through both ports and saw the spaceships on one side and the big hills on the other.
There are things crawling about on the hills.
You came from outside.
What are they?
And where did you come from?
Have you a ship here?
Which question should be answered first, the doctor wondered.
The boy did not seem to be aware that the Zabi he had seen outside were one of the dominant
species of this planet.
He was evidently thinking in terms of human beings living on this world and assuming that
the six crewmen had been captured or killed outside.
What a position to find himself in!
He went to the other window and looked out.
At first all he could see was a continuation of the multitudes of termitories.
Then a gleam caught his eye.
The things were so superficially like the termitories that he could see why he had not
recognized them before.
Now he found he could see scarcely anything else.
The things were torpedo-like spaceships and almost as tall as the anthills.
But as he looked, he discerned that their outline was smooth and regular and that they
gave out a deceptive gleam.
He turned to the boy.
You said they were spaceships, my boy?
How did you know that?
Well, they couldn't very well be anything else, could they?
The boy gave a youthful grin.
They're like the rockets they used on Earth in the first half of the century.
They must travel by chemical explosion.
They'll be slow enough, and if we could get the Solar Queen repaired, we could get back
to Earth and warn them of the invasion.
Bless my soul, boy!
snapped Doctor Who.
What nonsense are you talking?
Warn Earth, indeed!
Why we are millions and millions of miles from Earth.
We are in a different space and a different time.
And what's this talk of invasion?
Who is going to invade Earth?
I'm only telling you what Father told me, the boy said stubbornly.
Before he went unconscious, he used to lie still as though he was listening.
He said there were messages sort of drifting into his mind.
He said it was almost like eavesdropping on someone else talking by radio or telephone.
But it wasn't either of those things, because there wasn't any apparatus.
He said there was a force on this world which was intent on invading Earth.
Water was what they wanted, water and vegetation.
There were millions of them, but always the talk seemed to be about just one individual,
Dad said.
He didn't give many details.
Most of the images that came into his mind didn't have any meaning for him, but the parts
about the spaceships were very clear.
Father knows about things like that.
He'll be very interested in your ship.
I shouldn't be surprised at that, said the doctor dryly.
Well, all you tell me is very interesting, Gordon, but we are wasting time.
I am a scientist.
I came here by a rather different route than you did.
My ship is outside in a safe place, I hope.
What we must do now is to work out some plan of campaign.
Well, we've time enough, said the boy in a matter-of-fact tone.
Dad says Earth is at present on the other side of the system, and it'll be months before
this world is in a position, you see, for the spaceships to travel there.
Doctor Who looked at him curiously.
Did your father tell you any more about his ideas as to where this planet is, he asked.
Oh, yes, said the boy brightly.
It's a rogue planet, he said.
Not one of the Sun's real family.
Those moons we can see, he said, are the outer moons of Jupiter, some of them.
All the other planets are in the plane of the ecliptic, but this one isn't.
He said it's been driven into the solar system under power.
He said that if we could get out into the open at night, we'd see the solar system from
an angle no other people have ever seen it from.
Doctor Who reflected within himself without answering.
It sounded all very wild and unlikely, and he told himself irritably, downright impossible.
But then many of his own voyages would sound impossible to other ordinary people.
This boy sounded tough and strong.
He had not seemed frightened when the Doctor had come upon him, marooned on an alien world,
his father motionless and speechless, and all his friends vanished.
The Doctor realised that Gordon would be his only helper in what he had decided must be
done.
We've got to follow your friends, he said tersely.
No use cowering in here.
I've got a feeling they won't come back without our help.
The boy caught in his breath.
You mean they've been captured, he muttered.
But they had all the weapons.
They were scientists.
The Doctor looked at him.
The boy looked frightened enough now that the situation was put coldly to him.
But this was no time for squeamishness.
We've got to go and find them, he said as he got up.
Your father is as comfortable as we can make him.
We'll take food and weapons and we'll secure your ship.
And we've got to hurry.
Five days, you said.
We haven't a moment to lose.
After five days of confinement, the boy seemed glad enough to go outside the marooned ship
once the Doctor had convinced him that his father would be in no greater danger alone
and unconscious than with his son there, powerless to help him.
They emerged from the broken airlock, and the boy stood still, thunderstruck, staring
round him.
I saw it from the windows, he stammered, but I couldn't really believe why.
They're insects.
They're ants.
They must be all as big as men.
How can that be?
Where are the people of this world?
These are the people of this world, which is called Vortis, Gordon, said Doctor Who
firmly.
They are named the Zabi, and they are one of the two dominant races on this planet.
I've met the others, a gentle, peaceful race, almost like earth's butterflies with great
wings.
They talk, and they, too, are as big as men.
But here I see none of the Manoptra.
This is all Zabi territory.
They stood looking in wonder round them, the crawling, busy Zabi seemed to be taking no
more notice of them than they had of the Doctor when he had passed them alone before finding
the Solar Queen.
Busily and furiously they crawled hither and thither about their mysterious business, each
one seeming to be furiously intent on some unknown and urgent task.
It was this furious haste that directed the Doctor's attention to several of the creatures
lying motionless on the sand between two of the hills.
Maybe half a dozen in number, they lay as still as stones.
He cautiously led the way, and they both stood looking down on them.
Are they dead?
asked Gordon with a little shudder.
The Doctor who gave the nearest Zabi form a touch with the toe of his boot.
He gave out a metallic ring, and he started.
They're not dead, my boy, he said.
They've never even been alive.
These are dummies, Gordon, dummies, or should I say robots.
I wonder what is inside them.
Gordon looked round fearfully.
It was evidently very strange to him that these hordes of loathsome huge insects appeared
quite unaware of the existence among them of the humans.
But Doctor Who was not taking any notice at all of the creatures.
He was too intent on this find.
Upon my soul, he muttered.
It's only too true.
These really are robots.
Look, they are made of metal, and they can be opened up.
And do you know, a most ingenious idea occurs to me.
Quick, lend a hand here.
If we can use two of these things, we can follow the trail of your friends and see where
it leads to and what has happened to them.
Help me with this plate.
It lifts off and inside.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, my goodness gracious.
What have we here?
Inside the robot's army, there was indeed an inhabitant, and Doctor Who's memory went
back to his previous visit to Vortis.
It had then been in another galaxy, but now it had crossed intergalactic space and was
in the Milky Way.
How many ages had passed since then, and yet these Earth people were of the modern era.
Time was indeed filled with paradoxes.
It was a dead Monoptera that lay inside the robot's army, and with a certain amount of
reverence Doctor Who removed the body from its case.
Quick, quick, he directed the boy.
That other one there.
Open it up, remove the body, and get inside.
We'll then lie still and talk and try to investigate the controls of these things.
Without them, we wouldn't get very far among those millions of brutes out there.
But they aren't taking any notice of us, Gordon objected.
I don't like the idea of being cooped up in that dark thing.
Can't we just leave them and go on and trust the luck?
The Zabi aren't interfering with us at all.
That can't last, said the Doctor testily.
Do as I say, boy.
It's our best chance.
He was mollified to see that Gordon at last gave way.
As they lay inside the great metal replicas of the Zabi, with the thorax plates half open,
Doctor Who looked at anything that might be thought of as a control of these awkward creatures.
In the dim light, he could see levers which might move the legs and the feelers, the thorax
and the abdomen.
The eyes, though seeming compound from outside, were clear enough vision plates from inside.
As he tried a few tentative experiments, he heard a frightened squeal from Gordon.
The great Zabi robot, with the Doctor inside, stood up on six legs and waved its feelers
about.
Inside, the Doctor chuckled.
It looks so real, said the boy, that I was scared.
How did you do it?
Oh, I can feel now, these levers and handles.
It isn't too hard, is it?
I say, this is a bit of fun, isn't it?
We can go anywhere in these things.
Yes, yes, anywhere, said the Doctor.
The trouble will be to determine which way we shall go.
There'll be no trails in this soft sand, and these forests of anthills are so confusing.
I say, came Gordon's excited voice, I've just thought of something.
All the men had walkie-talkies, like that one of yours.
If you send out a signal, at least some of them might hear it and reply.
Now why didn't I think of that, mused the Doctor to himself as he switched on his radio.
With the metal antenna protruding through the half-open thorax plate of his robot, he
sent out a powerful waveband, designed to radiate to the outermost limit of the range
of his set.
The result of his action was astonishing in the extreme, and was a total surprise to both
of them.
A sudden, dead silence descended on the whole scene around them.
Through the eye-plates, the Doctor saw that every one of the Zabi in his view had stopped
in its tracks, as still as a stone.
The sounds of their myriad cricket chirpings died away into utter silence, and on the surface
of every termitary, the hordes of Zabi lay motionless, as though dead.
The reason came to him like a thunderclap, and feverishly he switched off his set and
stayed, trembling and sweating inside his metal prison.
Can you hear me, Gordon? he whispered.
After a while, there came a muffled, murmured reply.
I won't be able to use the radio, after all.
You can see what has happened.
There is something not too far away from us that is receiving our wave.
Did you notice how all the Zabi out there stopped moving and trilling as soon as I switched
on?
They're still motionless and silent.
If I switch on again, whatever it is, we'll be able to get our location.
The others have been captured, then, came Gordon's hoarse reply.
Each of them had a walkie-talkie receiver, but we never heard any signal from any of
them for four days.
The last signal was cut off in the middle of a sentence.
What did the message say? asked Dr. Who urgently.
Gordon considered a moment.
Something about being very dark and very hot.
I didn't really pay much attention.
Snapped the doctor angrily.
That might have told us quite a lot.
Now listen carefully, Gordon.
Stay absolutely still where you are.
Don't touch any of those controls at all.
We'll have to wait and see.
It's obvious that all the Zabi out there are controlled at a distance in some weird way.
These robot Zabi were operated by Monoptera, who were killed in some unknown way.
I can't think when I've ever been in such hideous danger.
There must be millions of those beasts out there.
They're moving again.
Look, came an excited murmur from Gordon.
It was true.
The Zabi hordes had come to life and were moving.
But now there was none of the haphazard zigzagging about they had seen before.
Now their movement was like a surge of the sea, all in one direction.
The sounds of their shrill, trilling note rose in crescendo all around them, and the
thunder of those millions of feet and feelers made the ground tremble.
The doctor operated his controls quickly and turned.
A vast wave of the creatures was approaching them from the rear.
On every side, they were surrounded by approaching Zabi.
Close the plate and hang on, boy.
We're going to be swept along wherever these monsters are going.
It's like a landslide, an avalanche.
His words were swept away as the robot moved along with the multitude of Zabi.
Like corks on a turbulent sea, they were carried along over sandy ground, through and around
the anthills, past the great forest of torpedo ships.
Then Dr. Who saw what was obviously their destination.
It towered up over twice the height of all the other anthills.
It was squatter than the others, too.
And there was only one entrance, not a number of holes like all the others, but a great
black, gaping hole at the base of the conical mountain.
Within minutes, the doctor and Gordon inside their robot Zabis were swept along with the
hordes into the darkness inside.
By some miracle, they were not separated, and as soon as the doctor could manage it,
he manipulated his levers so that one of the robot feelers was round the cleft between
the thorax and the abdomen of Gordon's steed.
He quickly locked the lever.
Together they had a chance, but if they were separated, their plight would be hopeless
indeed.
The heat and the smells were almost overpowering, and the doctor felt as though he would faint
at any moment.
But he knew he must hang on to consciousness as long as possible.
Once let either of them lose control of their robot, and they would be trampled to a sticky
paste by the millions of scurrying feet.
The Zabi were being impelled in their headlong rush by some remote but imperative call, he
decided, for this was so obviously different from the previous random crawlings of the
things.
This great termitory must be the haunt of their ruler or controller, great queen or
whatever thing dominated these hordes of mindless creatures.
Willy-nilly they were being swept along towards that thing.
In reality this was just what he had wanted, the doctor thought wryly, and he shuddered.
What sort of a mess had he landed himself in now?
But the plight of this ill-fated expedition from earth could not have been ignored.
That he knew very well.
How did the Manoptra fit into all this?
Was it an attempt by them to invade Zabi territory by penetrating into it disguised as the native
Zabi?
Or were the few they had seen merely spies?
In that case, why had they been killed, and how?
There had been no time to examine the body he had hauled from the robot.
The air grew closer and hotter, and now through his vision-plates in the huge eyes of the
thing the doctor could see dim lights.
What they were he could not discern, whether they were natural lights, such as fireflies
or phosphorescence, or whether they were mechanical.
By now he was a little light-headed, and he was ready to credit the mysterious something
toward which they were obviously being carried with miraculous powers and unheard-of technology.
But the Zabi were, after all, he told himself, merely huge insects, weren't they?
But were they merely insects?
What about that forest of torpedo spacecraft outside?
What about the radio?
And what, to crown it all, about the mysterious control under which all these myriads of Zabi
were moving?
It was a nightmare journey.
Afterwards, Dr. Who scarcely knew whether he had dreamed it all, whether he had really
seen and heard all he remembered, or whether he had imagined it.
At the time, it all seemed real enough.
But dreams sometimes have a quality of reality.
There were caverns in which there was machinery.
Of that he was certain at the time.
He saw and heard great engines and vast furnaces with hordes of the Zabi working round them.
These would be the workers' Zabi, while the host in the midst of which they were being
swept would be the soldiers.
He remembered the great mandibles of the robot in which he was imprisoned.
Would it be possible that these monsters practiced engineering?
The idea was so fantastic that at first he discounted it.
But then who or what had built those spaceships?
And he was quite sure that the forms he saw working round the fires and at the machines
were Zabi.
They passed great galleries in which hung suspended like sides of meat in a cold store
thousands and thousands of grey shrouded forms.
Of course, these would be the larvae of these creatures.
The nurseries where the young ones were raised to make way for the dead Zabi.
Like grey unmoving spectres, the rows and rows of larvae hung and the doctor shuddered
violently.
A great opening to one side revealed in a lightning glimpse what he had suspected from
the beginning.
Perhaps two or three hundred feet in length she lay, a bloated queen with a host of workers
feeding her and stroking her and attending to her wants.
He saw and then it was gone and he felt very sick.
There would be many of these queens in a termitary as large as this and from them had come the
countless hordes of the Zabi from outside.
Now the pace was slackening and Doctor Who found a little more opportunity to see where
they were being taken.
Also the passages and the galleries were opening out.
He felt certain that they were by now far underground judging by the heat and the rising
pressure.
There came a time when the tide that bore them on stopped completely and they were at
rest.
Dazedly the doctor hung in his robot and then moving gently he knocked against the thing
that held Gordon.
An answering knock told him that the boy was at least alive.
There had been no chance for them to communicate during that headlong flight.
It was like a vast amphitheatre the doctor saw as he moved the great metal head from
side to side peering through the huge eye plates.
Rank upon rank of the Zabi were there in great semi-circular rows, their number almost countless
and all of them very still.
Almost against his will his gaze was slowly, inexorably drawn towards the middle of the
great throng where something sat upon a raised dais with a glowing light shining down upon
it from a roof that was almost out of sight.
As the doctor's eyes reluctantly reached it he recoiled in horror and downright disbelief.
That it was a Zabi was obvious enough, for its form was the same as that of all the others
crowding round him motionless on all sides.
But its size!
It towered, perhaps twenty feet tall, standing on its dais three times the height of a normal
Zabi and completely motionless on its pedestal.
The doctor tore away his eyes to gaze in startled astonishment at another scene.
In a cleared space in front of the gigantic Zabi were two parties of creatures and one
party was human.
There were six of them and they were standing like marble statues in a tight group.
Opposite them was another party and Doctor Who knew that these were Monoptera, although
they were wingless and as motionless as the human beings.
He heard the hoarse voice of Gordon close by.
They're down there!
They're still alive!
All of them!
How are we going to escape with them from here?
A very good question, my boy, muttered the doctor grimly.
If you have any ideas, now is the time to express them.
I confess that at this very moment I must admit myself totally baffled.
We got in easily enough, but I fancy it's going to be much harder to get out.
He could see now that all the members of each of the two parties, evidently all prisoners,
were quite still as if made of stone.
He tried to remember all he knew about the insect world of Earth, which was indeed remarkably
little.
Anyway, why try to relate these Zabi to earth ants or termites or whatever?
The conclusions would be quite mistaken.
He went on examining the scene closely and saw that all the prisoners wore something
that looked like a loose collar or ring around their necks.
It shone a little and fitted very loosely.
He watched as one of the Zabi attendants on the Zabi Supremo, for that is what the doctor
had called the creature in his own mind, moved forward.
The creature's mandibles hovered above the head of one of the motionless Manoptra prisoners,
and the ring was lifted from the Manoptra's neck.
In the silence, the doctor could just hear the voice of the Manoptra speaking to Zabi
Supremo up on its dais.
It was really most exasperating, the doctor thought irritably.
He could hear the voice, but not the words.
From the giant Zabi there came no sound at all.
How it was replying he could get no idea, unless perhaps it was through some electronic
translator invisible to the doctor from where he stood.
They must somehow get closer to the centre of operations.
His robot nudged Gordon's and pushed it forward through the massed ranks of motionless Zabi.
None of them took any notice, and gradually, inch by inch, the two robots edged their way
forward until at last they were on the rim of the cleared space.
Now Dr. Who found that he could hear what the Manoptra was saying.
You will have to kill every one of the Manoptra on Vortis before we will agree to help you,
the soft voice was saying.
We have watched you over the generations as your mighty engines have moved this planet
into this alien system.
You are transgressing the paths of nature.
Vortis can be made such a world as you want.
A very little of the powers you have spent would have done this.
But you cannot invade a peaceful world as you plan.
First, you would have to slaughter all of the creatures that live there.
They are not insects.
They are mammals, and their world is suited to their needs.
Vortis can be made suitable to beings of our own species.
You say that you need us of the Manoptra as your ambassadors to the humans because we
speak as they do.
You would have us speak to them as though we came in peace because you know they would
kill you as soon as they saw what you were.
Then, when their suspicions were lulled by us, you would turn on them all and exterminate
them.
We will not help you to do this.
There was a silence, and the great Zabi on the dais moved, a limb angled out, and the
doctor saw it manipulate a dial on an instrument board beside it.
The doctor knew that it was replying to the speaker, but not one sound could he hear.
It was obvious, however, that the Manoptra was hearing something.
That instrument must be some means by which the Zabi brainwaves were translated into speech
in the brain of the Manoptra.
You must kill us all then, came the reply from the Manoptra.
It will be war between us as has never happened before.
On our hemisphere, we are building weapons which will give you pause.
We who speak to you now are doomed.
That we well know.
These humans also will die, for we recognize that in you has arisen a new spirit among
the Zabi, the spirit of cruelty and destruction.
We cannot halt you now.
We are too few.
But later, you will not find your task easy.
I promise you that.
A limb shot out from the great Zabi body and hovered above the head of the Manoptra.
Like a moth caught in a flame, the creature shriveled and was gone.
Doctor Who writhed in his excitement, and his robot knocked against that of Gordon.
The mandibles, boy, he cried, discretion now gone.
Operate the mandibles and lift those collars from round the necks of your men.
I'll do the same.
These creatures round us are all hypnotized.
If we are quick enough, we may bring it off.
His robot angled forward awkwardly, and the mandibles, operated by inside levers, went
up over the heads of the human prisoners.
First one, then two, then three.
Gordon, by that time, having found the right controls, freed the last three.
Doctor Who could feel the crackling and surging of electrical waves as he worked, and it seemed
obvious that the great Zabi was fighting them with its only weapons.
Weapons which thank heaven were proving ineffectual against human organisms.
Then the doctor was out of his robot and dragging Gordon out.
Your guns, he yelled to the released prisoners, still dazed.
That thing up there, fire.
Empty your magazines.
The head, the thorax, the abdomen, anywhere.
We don't know where the brain and the nerve centers of that thing are.
Around them, the vast hordes of the Zabi were awakening as the hypnotic control of the giant
creature took hold of them.
Their trilling sound grew and grew into a crescendo and drowned the noise of the shots
as the six crewmen and the doctor emptied their revolvers into the giant form above
them.
Many of the shots ricocheted from the hard carapace, but many found their way through
chinks in that chitinous armor.
The doctor saw the creature stagger, its limbs and feelers thrashing about as though in agony.
The great expressionless compound eyes brooded downwards over these Lilliputian creatures
who were intent on thwarting its dreams of world conquest.
It was like a great building falling when at last death came to it.
Even above the shrill chirping of the Zabi, the crash of that downfall could be heard.
It lay still, a fallen hulk of insectile ambition, while all around it surged the myriads of
its fellow creatures which it had dominated.
Now the Zabi were leaving them alone and milling about in the haphazard fashion that seemed
to be their natural life.
The little group stayed in a tight circle, watching with apprehension, but they were
not attacked.
Doctor Hu heaved a sigh of relief and going over to the group of Manoptra prisoners who
were still standing motionless, he released them by lifting from their necks the rings
which in some odd way must have hypnotized them.
Voices began to speak to him, not human voices but the soft, furry voices of the folk he
remembered from his previous meetings on Vortis with the peaceful Manoptra.
But he took no notice.
He wanted to be with his own kind again.
Your father, Gordon, how is he?
Asked one of the men.
And you, sir, how in heaven's name did you come in the nick of time?
We'd given ourselves up for lost.
You're from Earth?
Where is your ship?
When did you land?
Doctor Hu chuckled.
One thing at a time, my friend.
First we've got to get out of here, you know.
Even with these Zabi uncontrolled, it's going to be hard.
Zabi?
Said another crewman.
Are these creatures, these bugs, the Zabi then?
Are they intelligent?
They are no more intelligent than their needs demand, came a soft voice, and one of the
Manoptra stood at their shoulders.
For many years, we and the Zabi shared this world and lived in peace.
They were our servants, our workmen, and our cattle.
We and the Zabi gave to each other what the other lacked.
But over the generations, evolution has evolved a mighty intelligence in that creature who
dominated them and dreamed of world conquest, even of universe conquest.
We had no weapons, but we are building some, and we came as an expedition to see what they
were planning and if we could stop them.
Look, there are our people emerging from their robots.
All around them, from recumbent Zabi, were emerging many of the Manoptra.
These were full-grown, magnificent specimens who spread and shook their wings after their
confinement.
There were many hundreds of them, and at once they began to shepherd the now docile Zabi
and leave a path for the exit of the released prisoners.
Wonderingly, the humans followed the first Manoptra party, the wingless ones, no doubt
elders among them.
Their path led upwards through the galleries and passages out to the world of day.
Gordon's father still lay unconscious, but he was breathing better.
The rescued men crowded into their ship in great excitement, for they had given up all
hope of ever seeing it again.
Don't you agree, Doctor, one of them said.
We can use your ship to ferry us across to Earth to get equipment to repair our ship.
In time, we could do it ourselves, but with Earth being so relatively near…
That's what puzzles me about the whole thing, said Doctor Who.
By my calculations, this planet should be in another galaxy altogether.
But Gordon kept telling me about the moons of Jupiter and all such nonsense as that.
Not nonsense, laughed a crewman.
We found this planet when we were headed for the moons of Jupiter, in fact.
How it got here and how long it's been here, we don't know.
How it's been missed by Earth's observers beats me.
The evil Sábi intelligence devised mighty engines which drove our planet out of its
orbit many, many millions of miles away, explained one of the Manaptra.
It was searching for a green, damp world such as yours.
We have only just arrived in your skies, but before very long, we will leave you and will
sweep out of your system to find whatever fate has in store for us.
Not so fast, said one of the men belligerently.
Those engines of the big bug we killed will come in mighty handy for humanity, I can tell
you.
There'll be many things that creature invented that we can use and profit by.
What profit can be made out of evil?
Answered him the soft voice, no, we will use the engines to drive our world on a new orbit
out of your sky, and then we will destroy them and seal them off.
It is not given to creatures to do what Sábi Supremo was trying to do.
I heartily agree, said Dr. Who enthusiastically.
Now you men must realize that this planet belongs to the Manaptra and the Sábi, so
long as they keep their places, of course.
There must be no thought of using the powers that creature developed to dominate other
beings.
Oh, you crazy old man, said the other coldly.
And what in thunder do you think we're doing exploring the universe?
We're looking for just such set-ups as this, inhabited by weak and unintelligent creatures.
The natural resources of this world alone, even without the power that the big bug down
there developed, will put us technology millions of years into the future.
There was a stirring of Manaptra wings, and the crewman drew his revolver.
The doctor was glad to see that the others hung back, while Gordon remained at his father's
side in the globular spaceship.
He lifted an arm, and felt himself clasped by a pair of tiny, furry, claw-like hands.
He was lifted into the air, and he saw that all the Manaptra were rising, those wingless
ones being lifted by their flying fellows.
He looked down.
Angrily, the man was firing his empty revolver up at them, and then the scene faded from
his sight.
Gently and easily, they dropped him beside his TARDIS.
We have legends in our world, said one of the Manaptra, of you and your strange vessel.
We know we have nothing to fear from you, strange, immortal human, who can flit in and
out of all the ages.
We will watch those others, and will ensure that they bring no harm to us.
It was good that you came to our rescue, for how else could Zabi Supremo have been toppled
from his lofty height?"
The doctor beamed at them.
Mere human ingenuity and refusal to admit defeat had won again, he thought, as he turned
and went through the great doorway.
Activating the controls that would close it, he wondered just what would be the future
of the strange world of Fortis.