WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.520 The Lair of Zarbi Supremo. 00:05.520 --> 00:09.260 The shock of hearing the voice was so great that Doctor Who had barely time to complete 00:09.260 --> 00:11.720 the materialization process. 00:11.720 --> 00:17.600 But old habit was strong, and smoothly and efficiently the TARDIS slid in through the 00:17.600 --> 00:24.060 trans-dimensional flux and fitted its rearranged atoms into the new sphere. 00:24.060 --> 00:30.060 By all the Doctor's coordinates and calculations, this world should be the planet Vortis, but 00:30.060 --> 00:36.400 just where on the planet, or when in the time scale of that world, he could not as yet know. 00:36.400 --> 00:42.060 He drove home the last lever, and with hands on the edges of the control panel, panted 00:42.060 --> 00:43.860 with excitement. 00:43.860 --> 00:50.500 The voice, through his radio, had been talking in modern English. 00:50.500 --> 00:55.140 He strapped the walkie-talkie apparatus on his shoulders, already clad in the atmospheric 00:55.140 --> 01:01.820 density jacket he remembered having needed on his previous visit to this ill-omened world. 01:01.820 --> 01:09.820 Then activating the great door, he stood waiting for it to open, fidgeting with impatience. 01:09.820 --> 01:15.420 This was not at all like the Vortis he remembered, was his first thought, as he peered out through 01:15.420 --> 01:16.980 the open portals. 01:16.980 --> 01:22.540 True, there were several moons in the sky, two of them so close to the planet that they 01:22.540 --> 01:24.740 could be seen in daylight. 01:24.740 --> 01:29.780 The sparkles, he remembered, were in the sky also, but the mists were not there, nor the 01:29.780 --> 01:33.100 white basalt needle-like spires. 01:33.100 --> 01:38.380 Quite evidently, his TARDIS had landed him in an entirely different part of the planet. 01:38.380 --> 01:43.500 He walked steadily through the doorway, the voice from the radio still murmuring in his 01:43.500 --> 01:44.740 ears. 01:44.740 --> 01:49.820 He had first heard it during the materialization of his ship from intradimensional non-space 01:49.820 --> 01:53.860 into the real space in which Vortis swam. 01:53.860 --> 01:59.120 The voice sounded low and weary and consisted of but few words. 01:59.120 --> 02:04.200 It was as though the effort to dredge the words out was almost too much for the throat 02:04.200 --> 02:05.620 uttering them. 02:05.620 --> 02:18.300 Help, help, the voice was muttering, beware Zahabi Supremo, warn Earth, warn Earth. 02:18.300 --> 02:19.960 That was all. 02:19.960 --> 02:25.780 It was so tantalizingly obscure that Dr. Who was almost dancing with impatience as he set 02:25.780 --> 02:31.460 foot outside his ship, but what he saw when he looked around the landscape momentarily 02:31.460 --> 02:34.940 drove all else from his mind. 02:34.940 --> 02:39.060 He was on a low plateau overlooking a broad plain. 02:39.060 --> 02:43.640 At least it should have been a plain, but the ground itself seemed flat enough. 02:43.640 --> 02:48.860 It was the structures that reared themselves up from that plain that made the eyes almost 02:48.860 --> 02:51.140 start from his head. 02:51.140 --> 02:57.860 On every side and outwards as far as the horizon, there reared up from the ground a multitude 02:57.860 --> 03:05.020 of cone-like structures like Duncy's Caps, like Sugar Loaves, like... and now he knew 03:05.020 --> 03:12.420 for certain that he was back on Vortis, just like ant hills. 03:12.420 --> 03:15.660 He darted back inside his ship and re-emerged with binoculars. 03:15.660 --> 03:20.980 He trained the glasses on the cones nearest to him and his gaze roamed over the surface 03:20.980 --> 03:25.580 confirming that his first deduction was only too true. 03:25.580 --> 03:31.180 These monstrous hills of maybe a hundred feet high were the counterparts of the ant hills 03:31.180 --> 03:38.020 or termitories to be seen in the southern hemisphere of earth, and crawling all over 03:38.020 --> 03:45.140 them, in and out of their holes, were hordes of the hideous inhabitants of Vortis, the 03:45.140 --> 03:51.380 huge ants or termites known as the Zabi. 03:51.380 --> 03:57.500 Fascinated, he allowed the glasses to lead his gaze over first one immense hill and then 03:57.500 --> 03:58.500 another. 03:58.500 --> 04:05.980 There they crawled, hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of them, those noxious, mindless 04:05.980 --> 04:12.940 creatures controlled from a distance by some unknown intelligence who preyed upon the likeable, 04:12.940 --> 04:19.700 innocent butterfly people, the Monoptera, the other species native to Vortis whom he 04:19.700 --> 04:22.260 had encountered on his last visit. 04:22.260 --> 04:27.180 He had seen but little of the Zabi themselves then, but he had heard enough to know that 04:27.180 --> 04:28.900 they were to be dreaded. 04:28.900 --> 04:29.900 Help! 04:29.900 --> 04:30.900 Help! 04:30.900 --> 04:31.900 Beware! 04:31.900 --> 04:32.900 Zabi Supremo! 04:32.900 --> 04:37.820 The voice in his earphone droned on. 04:37.820 --> 04:39.900 Warn earth! 04:39.900 --> 04:41.940 Warn earth! 04:41.940 --> 04:46.300 He started as the voice again penetrated into his consciousness. 04:46.300 --> 04:51.420 Somewhere, not too far away from him, was a man of earth. 04:51.420 --> 04:57.020 He seemed to be weak and was perhaps wounded or a prisoner, somewhere in that veritable 04:57.020 --> 04:59.980 maze of termitaries. 04:59.980 --> 05:05.660 The doctor stared somberly at the forest of cones and lowered the glasses. 05:05.660 --> 05:11.340 On his walkie-talkie there was, of course, a directional aerial and he began to twist 05:11.340 --> 05:17.100 the knob, listening as the sound of the voice sank or grew louder. 05:17.100 --> 05:21.820 At last he determined roughly the quarter where the sound originated. 05:21.820 --> 05:24.100 He turned his face in that direction. 05:24.100 --> 05:29.740 It looked no different from any other part of the plain of Antilles, but somewhere out 05:29.740 --> 05:35.980 there must be the owner of that tired voice, that voice that cried out hopelessly on an 05:35.980 --> 05:41.540 alien planet for a rescue of which it had lost all hope. 05:41.540 --> 05:49.740 But Dr. Who had made up his mind that he would attempt a rescue, no matter where it led him 05:49.740 --> 05:52.300 or through what perils. 05:52.300 --> 05:55.980 That his first greeting on vortis should be the sound of a human voice speaking in his 05:55.980 --> 06:01.780 own native tongue was so extraordinary a thing that the doctor knew that fate had directed 06:01.780 --> 06:07.340 his hands as they had locked home the controls which had precipitated the TARDIS into the 06:07.340 --> 06:14.340 sphere of vortis, at this precise place and at this precise time. 06:14.340 --> 06:20.020 As he approached the termitaries he was almost deafened by the shrill chirping of the millions 06:20.020 --> 06:24.620 of zarbi as they crawled about their mysterious business. 06:24.620 --> 06:27.820 On earth ants and termites have no real voices. 06:27.820 --> 06:31.340 They communicate by rubbing their back legs together. 06:31.340 --> 06:36.060 Dr. Who reflected that he could very well be mightily in error if he was to assume that 06:36.060 --> 06:40.540 these zarbi were just very large ants or termites. 06:40.540 --> 06:45.660 These loathsome creatures could be entirely different from the ants and termites which 06:45.660 --> 06:50.780 had evolved on earth, even though they were insectile. 06:50.780 --> 06:55.780 They seemed to take no notice of him as he passed trembling close to their hills. 06:55.780 --> 07:00.220 Of course he avoided getting too close to any of them, for he could see that most of 07:00.220 --> 07:03.340 these zarbi were of the soldier class. 07:03.340 --> 07:08.460 This was evident from their powerful, huge mandibles, which in a creature of that size 07:08.460 --> 07:14.580 could tear the limbs from a man just as a man might tear apart a roasted chicken. 07:14.580 --> 07:19.260 The voice over the radio was stronger now, so that the doctor felt he was getting very 07:19.260 --> 07:21.860 close to its source. 07:21.860 --> 07:27.300 Walking as warily as he could, and avoiding contact with any of the zarbi, he trod softly 07:27.300 --> 07:32.780 on the sandy surface of the ground, his gaze moving constantly about. 07:32.780 --> 07:38.220 Now he switched on his sender and spoke urgently into the microphone. 07:38.220 --> 07:41.740 "'Help is here,' he said. 07:41.740 --> 07:44.740 "'Direct me to where you are. 07:44.740 --> 07:47.700 Give me some landmark to go by. 07:47.700 --> 07:50.420 I am coming to you.' 07:50.420 --> 07:54.000 But the radio gave him no reply. 07:54.000 --> 07:58.380 Only the monotonous low repetition of the message he had first heard. 07:58.380 --> 08:03.540 Baffled, he glowered round him at the jungle of termitories and shuddered to think of his 08:03.540 --> 08:10.660 own position, one feeble, weaponless earthman, alone among these hordes of malevolent giant 08:10.660 --> 08:15.340 insects searching for the owner of a voice which could not hear him. 08:15.340 --> 08:20.580 Looking for a needle in a haystack would be simplicity itself compared to this task, he 08:20.580 --> 08:22.340 told himself irritably. 08:22.340 --> 08:27.900 But, he reflected grimly, a needle would glitter, wouldn't it? 08:27.900 --> 08:34.340 That was just what he could see ahead of him now, a dull glitter that lay ashore two anthills 08:34.340 --> 08:36.260 relatively close to each other. 08:36.260 --> 08:40.420 Excitedly, now, he pressed on until he came to the thing. 08:40.420 --> 08:44.660 It was circular and was half buried in the sandy soil. 08:44.660 --> 08:52.900 On every side rose the gigantic anthills, and here it lay, like a child's lost ball, 08:52.900 --> 09:00.060 unseen by the Zabi, many of whom were even then crawling over the sand that had gathered 09:00.060 --> 09:01.060 on the top. 09:01.060 --> 09:04.980 Dr. Who sensed that he had reached his objective. 09:04.980 --> 09:11.180 He was convinced that inside this sphere was the owner of the voice, now sounding much 09:11.180 --> 09:13.820 louder in his earphone. 09:13.820 --> 09:20.380 He squatted down on the sand, and for five minutes he spoke urgently into his microphone. 09:20.380 --> 09:27.940 But it was soon obvious that whoever was inside the sphere, if indeed there was anyone inside, 09:27.940 --> 09:32.420 either had no receiver or else one that was out of order. 09:32.420 --> 09:37.620 He leaned forward and rapped sharply on the metal surface. 09:37.620 --> 09:39.460 There was no reaction. 09:39.460 --> 09:45.340 He felt in his pocket, and producing a torch, he began a tattoo on the same place as before. 09:45.340 --> 09:51.380 Then he moved on and around, speculating that the hull of a spaceship must be very thick 09:51.380 --> 09:55.100 and searching for a thinner place. 09:55.100 --> 10:00.540 Thus it was that he came upon the door, half buried in the sand. 10:00.540 --> 10:06.020 The hollowness of his knocking told him there was emptiness behind it. 10:06.020 --> 10:10.900 Steadily to his knees he began to scoop away the sand and soon uncovered the door, a small 10:10.900 --> 10:14.820 circle just about large enough for a normal man to wriggle through. 10:14.820 --> 10:20.060 In his excitement he leaned against it, and the next moment he had fallen through the 10:20.060 --> 10:23.780 doorway and into an open space. 10:23.780 --> 10:28.980 The door closed behind him, evidently on powerful springs. 10:28.980 --> 10:38.100 It was hot and close and dark, and he reflected that it must be an airlock, now broken, and 10:38.100 --> 10:42.060 that there would be another door into the ship proper. 10:42.060 --> 10:46.700 His torch soon revealed it, and he put his shoulder against the panel. 10:46.700 --> 10:53.580 It needed all his strength to force it open against extremely powerful springs, but finally, 10:53.580 --> 10:59.860 with a mighty heave, he was inside the ship, breathing hard through the breathing apparatus 10:59.860 --> 11:02.260 necessary for the thin air of Vortis. 11:02.260 --> 11:05.460 He got to his feet and smoothed down his clothes. 11:05.460 --> 11:09.180 My goodness, he murmured to himself. 11:09.180 --> 11:17.140 Now, here is a fine thing, not a soul to greet me, upon my word. 11:17.140 --> 11:22.140 Then he stopped, for the voice he had been hearing in his radio was now coming directly 11:22.140 --> 11:27.900 to his ear, and it was coming from a cabinet on the opposite wall of the room. 11:27.900 --> 11:36.140 He went closer and saw the reels of the recorder going slowly round and round, while the voice 11:36.140 --> 11:43.340 seeped hopelessly and monotonously from the speaker, repeating over and over again the 11:43.340 --> 11:47.340 appeal for help and the warning. 11:47.340 --> 11:50.060 He stared round him bitterly. 11:50.060 --> 11:54.020 No, this was the end of his search. 11:54.020 --> 12:01.980 A tape recorder, endlessly sending out its message while no one lived and breathed here. 12:01.980 --> 12:05.020 He was as much alone as he had been before. 12:05.020 --> 12:11.540 Exasperated, he stared round him at what was evidently the control cabin of a spaceship. 12:11.540 --> 12:16.580 Compared to his TARDIS, it was, of course, a very primitive spaceship, but he could recognise 12:16.580 --> 12:21.420 many of the principles which in his own ship were so refined that only an expert could 12:21.420 --> 12:23.380 have seen the resemblance. 12:23.380 --> 12:26.140 A ship like this would require quite a crew. 12:26.140 --> 12:27.500 Where were they? 12:27.500 --> 12:32.460 Was this ship like the Mary Celeste, which was found drifting, cruelless, on the sea 12:32.460 --> 12:34.460 of earth? 12:34.460 --> 12:41.980 Just so, this spacecraft lay, marooned and cruelless, on this cruel planet of Vortis, 12:41.980 --> 12:47.220 so far from where men lived and laughed under the bright sun. 12:47.220 --> 12:50.140 Then it was as though the heavens opened. 12:50.140 --> 12:51.980 He heard a voice. 12:51.980 --> 12:58.340 Something in him told him this was a human voice and no electronic reproduction. 12:58.340 --> 13:03.100 It was calling for help, and the sound came from a round port. 13:03.100 --> 13:09.500 He struggled and fought with the unfamiliar mechanism, and at last the door opened. 13:09.500 --> 13:13.460 He put his head through and his heart lightened. 13:13.460 --> 13:16.500 There were two people in there, a man and a boy. 13:16.500 --> 13:20.460 Both lay on mattresses, and the man looked as though he was dead. 13:20.460 --> 13:24.140 His eyes were closed and his head had fallen sideways. 13:24.140 --> 13:27.500 But the boy was very much alive. 13:27.500 --> 13:31.100 He was sitting up on the mattress and crying out to the rescuer. 13:31.100 --> 13:36.860 Earth was the boy's original birthplace, the doctor decided, and the twentieth century 13:36.860 --> 13:38.300 was his period. 13:38.300 --> 13:40.180 That was obvious. 13:40.180 --> 13:47.020 His name was Gordon Hamilton, and he was the son of the man who lay motionless on the mattress. 13:47.020 --> 13:51.340 All the others have gone, the boy told him. 13:51.340 --> 13:57.380 Father was ill, so they left us with food and water and went out to explore. 13:57.380 --> 14:00.300 You see, we didn't know where we were. 14:00.300 --> 14:06.300 We crash-landed and father was injured, and the others left us here and went off to get 14:06.300 --> 14:07.300 help. 14:07.300 --> 14:12.780 We could hear noises outside which told us the planet wasn't uninhabited, and so the 14:12.780 --> 14:18.820 voice in the recorder asked the doctor, what is that? 14:18.820 --> 14:22.560 Father made that recording before he lost consciousness, Gordon said. 14:22.560 --> 14:28.020 By that time we'd given up all hope that the others would ever return, and also we'd 14:28.020 --> 14:33.300 seen through the other window those things out there. 14:33.300 --> 14:36.180 Dad said they must be for an invasion of Earth. 14:36.180 --> 14:39.980 There aren't any other planets inhabited in the solar system. 14:39.980 --> 14:41.980 You should see them. 14:41.980 --> 14:43.460 Hundreds and hundreds of them. 14:43.460 --> 14:47.820 Now, Sonny, wait a minute, the doctor who protested. 14:47.820 --> 14:49.640 Not so fast. 14:49.640 --> 14:53.460 You talk of the solar system. 14:53.460 --> 14:56.580 This planet is nowhere near. 14:56.580 --> 15:00.260 Tell me, how long had your ship been traveling? 15:00.260 --> 15:02.220 What is her motive power? 15:02.220 --> 15:06.100 Oh, we've been in space for two years, the boy said. 15:06.100 --> 15:11.820 The ship moves by anti-gravity and can travel many times the speed of light. 15:11.820 --> 15:13.980 The doctor reflected. 15:13.980 --> 15:20.020 This boy quite evidently had not the least notion that Vortis was not even in the Milky 15:20.020 --> 15:21.020 Way. 15:21.020 --> 15:26.100 A spaceship traveling even at many times the speed of light would need millions of Earth 15:26.100 --> 15:30.100 years to traverse the waste space between galaxies. 15:30.100 --> 15:33.020 There was a mystery here. 15:33.020 --> 15:35.820 But this was scarcely the time to argue. 15:35.820 --> 15:40.580 He must see what could be done for the poor fellow lying on the mattress. 15:40.580 --> 15:44.740 In spite of all his ministrations, however, he could get no response at all from the unconscious 15:44.740 --> 15:48.300 man, although his breathing was even enough. 15:48.300 --> 15:51.340 He was bearded but evidently not old. 15:51.340 --> 15:55.740 There seemed to be no injury to the body and, baffled, the doctor got up from his knees 15:55.740 --> 15:57.940 and looked around. 15:57.940 --> 16:02.940 How many were in the crew, he asked, staring round the small cabin shaped like the segment 16:02.940 --> 16:06.220 of a circle which he judged to be one of the living quarters. 16:06.220 --> 16:09.660 There were six, Gordon told him. 16:09.660 --> 16:11.980 All scientists, like father. 16:11.980 --> 16:16.940 They took weapons and food and they'd be gone five days now. 16:16.940 --> 16:23.020 I looked through both ports and saw the spaceships on one side and the big hills on the other. 16:23.020 --> 16:27.740 There are things crawling about on the hills. 16:27.740 --> 16:28.900 You came from outside. 16:28.900 --> 16:31.180 What are they? 16:31.180 --> 16:33.020 And where did you come from? 16:33.020 --> 16:35.220 Have you a ship here? 16:35.220 --> 16:38.660 Which question should be answered first, the doctor wondered. 16:38.660 --> 16:43.740 The boy did not seem to be aware that the Zabi he had seen outside were one of the dominant 16:43.740 --> 16:46.300 species of this planet. 16:46.300 --> 16:50.740 He was evidently thinking in terms of human beings living on this world and assuming that 16:50.740 --> 16:56.580 the six crewmen had been captured or killed outside. 16:56.580 --> 16:59.320 What a position to find himself in! 16:59.320 --> 17:01.940 He went to the other window and looked out. 17:01.940 --> 17:07.820 At first all he could see was a continuation of the multitudes of termitories. 17:07.820 --> 17:10.300 Then a gleam caught his eye. 17:10.300 --> 17:13.900 The things were so superficially like the termitories that he could see why he had not 17:13.900 --> 17:16.180 recognized them before. 17:16.180 --> 17:19.660 Now he found he could see scarcely anything else. 17:19.660 --> 17:25.620 The things were torpedo-like spaceships and almost as tall as the anthills. 17:25.620 --> 17:31.060 But as he looked, he discerned that their outline was smooth and regular and that they 17:31.060 --> 17:33.880 gave out a deceptive gleam. 17:33.880 --> 17:35.780 He turned to the boy. 17:35.780 --> 17:38.300 You said they were spaceships, my boy? 17:38.300 --> 17:39.300 How did you know that? 17:39.300 --> 17:42.740 Well, they couldn't very well be anything else, could they? 17:42.740 --> 17:44.380 The boy gave a youthful grin. 17:44.380 --> 17:48.140 They're like the rockets they used on Earth in the first half of the century. 17:48.140 --> 17:50.540 They must travel by chemical explosion. 17:50.540 --> 17:55.660 They'll be slow enough, and if we could get the Solar Queen repaired, we could get back 17:55.660 --> 17:58.340 to Earth and warn them of the invasion. 17:58.340 --> 18:00.100 Bless my soul, boy! 18:00.100 --> 18:01.540 snapped Doctor Who. 18:01.540 --> 18:03.700 What nonsense are you talking? 18:03.700 --> 18:05.340 Warn Earth, indeed! 18:05.340 --> 18:08.900 Why we are millions and millions of miles from Earth. 18:08.900 --> 18:13.140 We are in a different space and a different time. 18:13.140 --> 18:15.180 And what's this talk of invasion? 18:15.180 --> 18:16.900 Who is going to invade Earth? 18:16.900 --> 18:21.540 I'm only telling you what Father told me, the boy said stubbornly. 18:21.540 --> 18:26.620 Before he went unconscious, he used to lie still as though he was listening. 18:26.620 --> 18:31.760 He said there were messages sort of drifting into his mind. 18:31.760 --> 18:37.300 He said it was almost like eavesdropping on someone else talking by radio or telephone. 18:37.300 --> 18:42.260 But it wasn't either of those things, because there wasn't any apparatus. 18:42.260 --> 18:48.220 He said there was a force on this world which was intent on invading Earth. 18:48.220 --> 18:52.340 Water was what they wanted, water and vegetation. 18:52.340 --> 18:57.900 There were millions of them, but always the talk seemed to be about just one individual, 18:57.900 --> 18:59.100 Dad said. 18:59.100 --> 19:01.620 He didn't give many details. 19:01.620 --> 19:07.460 Most of the images that came into his mind didn't have any meaning for him, but the parts 19:07.460 --> 19:11.200 about the spaceships were very clear. 19:11.200 --> 19:13.420 Father knows about things like that. 19:13.420 --> 19:15.700 He'll be very interested in your ship. 19:15.700 --> 19:19.940 I shouldn't be surprised at that, said the doctor dryly. 19:19.940 --> 19:24.980 Well, all you tell me is very interesting, Gordon, but we are wasting time. 19:24.980 --> 19:26.500 I am a scientist. 19:26.500 --> 19:32.140 I came here by a rather different route than you did. 19:32.140 --> 19:35.740 My ship is outside in a safe place, I hope. 19:35.740 --> 19:40.020 What we must do now is to work out some plan of campaign. 19:40.020 --> 19:44.540 Well, we've time enough, said the boy in a matter-of-fact tone. 19:44.540 --> 19:49.140 Dad says Earth is at present on the other side of the system, and it'll be months before 19:49.140 --> 19:54.980 this world is in a position, you see, for the spaceships to travel there. 19:54.980 --> 19:57.580 Doctor Who looked at him curiously. 19:57.580 --> 20:03.700 Did your father tell you any more about his ideas as to where this planet is, he asked. 20:03.700 --> 20:06.340 Oh, yes, said the boy brightly. 20:06.340 --> 20:08.540 It's a rogue planet, he said. 20:08.540 --> 20:10.900 Not one of the Sun's real family. 20:10.900 --> 20:16.500 Those moons we can see, he said, are the outer moons of Jupiter, some of them. 20:16.500 --> 20:22.260 All the other planets are in the plane of the ecliptic, but this one isn't. 20:22.260 --> 20:26.660 He said it's been driven into the solar system under power. 20:26.660 --> 20:32.500 He said that if we could get out into the open at night, we'd see the solar system from 20:32.500 --> 20:37.480 an angle no other people have ever seen it from. 20:37.480 --> 20:40.940 Doctor Who reflected within himself without answering. 20:40.940 --> 20:47.860 It sounded all very wild and unlikely, and he told himself irritably, downright impossible. 20:47.860 --> 20:54.180 But then many of his own voyages would sound impossible to other ordinary people. 20:54.180 --> 20:57.620 This boy sounded tough and strong. 20:57.620 --> 21:02.260 He had not seemed frightened when the Doctor had come upon him, marooned on an alien world, 21:02.260 --> 21:07.380 his father motionless and speechless, and all his friends vanished. 21:07.380 --> 21:14.300 The Doctor realised that Gordon would be his only helper in what he had decided must be 21:14.300 --> 21:15.300 done. 21:15.300 --> 21:19.900 We've got to follow your friends, he said tersely. 21:19.900 --> 21:22.060 No use cowering in here. 21:22.060 --> 21:25.860 I've got a feeling they won't come back without our help. 21:25.860 --> 21:27.260 The boy caught in his breath. 21:27.260 --> 21:29.700 You mean they've been captured, he muttered. 21:29.700 --> 21:32.140 But they had all the weapons. 21:32.140 --> 21:34.060 They were scientists. 21:34.060 --> 21:35.840 The Doctor looked at him. 21:35.840 --> 21:40.140 The boy looked frightened enough now that the situation was put coldly to him. 21:40.140 --> 21:44.780 But this was no time for squeamishness. 21:44.780 --> 21:48.300 We've got to go and find them, he said as he got up. 21:48.300 --> 21:51.580 Your father is as comfortable as we can make him. 21:51.580 --> 21:56.260 We'll take food and weapons and we'll secure your ship. 21:56.260 --> 21:57.980 And we've got to hurry. 21:57.980 --> 21:59.820 Five days, you said. 21:59.820 --> 22:03.340 We haven't a moment to lose. 22:03.340 --> 22:07.980 After five days of confinement, the boy seemed glad enough to go outside the marooned ship 22:07.980 --> 22:11.980 once the Doctor had convinced him that his father would be in no greater danger alone 22:11.980 --> 22:16.660 and unconscious than with his son there, powerless to help him. 22:16.660 --> 22:23.380 They emerged from the broken airlock, and the boy stood still, thunderstruck, staring 22:23.380 --> 22:24.380 round him. 22:24.380 --> 22:33.420 I saw it from the windows, he stammered, but I couldn't really believe why. 22:33.420 --> 22:35.420 They're insects. 22:35.420 --> 22:37.420 They're ants. 22:37.420 --> 22:40.420 They must be all as big as men. 22:40.420 --> 22:41.660 How can that be? 22:41.660 --> 22:44.460 Where are the people of this world? 22:44.460 --> 22:51.420 These are the people of this world, which is called Vortis, Gordon, said Doctor Who 22:51.420 --> 22:52.420 firmly. 22:52.420 --> 22:57.860 They are named the Zabi, and they are one of the two dominant races on this planet. 22:57.860 --> 23:04.860 I've met the others, a gentle, peaceful race, almost like earth's butterflies with great 23:04.860 --> 23:05.860 wings. 23:05.860 --> 23:10.700 They talk, and they, too, are as big as men. 23:10.700 --> 23:15.300 But here I see none of the Manoptra. 23:15.300 --> 23:19.340 This is all Zabi territory. 23:19.340 --> 23:24.860 They stood looking in wonder round them, the crawling, busy Zabi seemed to be taking no 23:24.860 --> 23:29.860 more notice of them than they had of the Doctor when he had passed them alone before finding 23:29.860 --> 23:32.060 the Solar Queen. 23:32.060 --> 23:37.860 Busily and furiously they crawled hither and thither about their mysterious business, each 23:37.860 --> 23:44.820 one seeming to be furiously intent on some unknown and urgent task. 23:44.820 --> 23:50.180 It was this furious haste that directed the Doctor's attention to several of the creatures 23:50.180 --> 23:54.820 lying motionless on the sand between two of the hills. 23:54.820 --> 23:59.660 Maybe half a dozen in number, they lay as still as stones. 23:59.660 --> 24:04.820 He cautiously led the way, and they both stood looking down on them. 24:04.820 --> 24:07.100 Are they dead? 24:07.100 --> 24:09.900 asked Gordon with a little shudder. 24:09.900 --> 24:14.860 The Doctor who gave the nearest Zabi form a touch with the toe of his boot. 24:14.860 --> 24:17.700 He gave out a metallic ring, and he started. 24:17.700 --> 24:20.860 They're not dead, my boy, he said. 24:20.860 --> 24:25.100 They've never even been alive. 24:25.100 --> 24:32.100 These are dummies, Gordon, dummies, or should I say robots. 24:32.100 --> 24:34.740 I wonder what is inside them. 24:34.740 --> 24:36.980 Gordon looked round fearfully. 24:36.980 --> 24:41.780 It was evidently very strange to him that these hordes of loathsome huge insects appeared 24:41.780 --> 24:45.020 quite unaware of the existence among them of the humans. 24:45.020 --> 24:48.940 But Doctor Who was not taking any notice at all of the creatures. 24:48.940 --> 24:51.100 He was too intent on this find. 24:51.100 --> 24:54.300 Upon my soul, he muttered. 24:54.300 --> 24:56.820 It's only too true. 24:56.820 --> 24:58.460 These really are robots. 24:58.460 --> 25:03.980 Look, they are made of metal, and they can be opened up. 25:03.980 --> 25:08.300 And do you know, a most ingenious idea occurs to me. 25:08.300 --> 25:10.580 Quick, lend a hand here. 25:10.580 --> 25:15.700 If we can use two of these things, we can follow the trail of your friends and see where 25:15.700 --> 25:19.420 it leads to and what has happened to them. 25:19.420 --> 25:20.660 Help me with this plate. 25:20.660 --> 25:22.580 It lifts off and inside. 25:22.580 --> 25:26.940 Oh, oh, oh, oh, my goodness gracious. 25:26.940 --> 25:29.100 What have we here? 25:29.100 --> 25:34.180 Inside the robot's army, there was indeed an inhabitant, and Doctor Who's memory went 25:34.180 --> 25:37.500 back to his previous visit to Vortis. 25:37.500 --> 25:45.460 It had then been in another galaxy, but now it had crossed intergalactic space and was 25:45.460 --> 25:47.900 in the Milky Way. 25:47.900 --> 25:55.500 How many ages had passed since then, and yet these Earth people were of the modern era. 25:55.500 --> 25:59.820 Time was indeed filled with paradoxes. 25:59.820 --> 26:05.540 It was a dead Monoptera that lay inside the robot's army, and with a certain amount of 26:05.540 --> 26:09.460 reverence Doctor Who removed the body from its case. 26:09.460 --> 26:12.700 Quick, quick, he directed the boy. 26:12.700 --> 26:13.700 That other one there. 26:13.700 --> 26:17.380 Open it up, remove the body, and get inside. 26:17.380 --> 26:22.780 We'll then lie still and talk and try to investigate the controls of these things. 26:22.780 --> 26:27.780 Without them, we wouldn't get very far among those millions of brutes out there. 26:27.780 --> 26:32.260 But they aren't taking any notice of us, Gordon objected. 26:32.260 --> 26:35.340 I don't like the idea of being cooped up in that dark thing. 26:35.340 --> 26:39.940 Can't we just leave them and go on and trust the luck? 26:39.940 --> 26:43.140 The Zabi aren't interfering with us at all. 26:43.140 --> 26:46.940 That can't last, said the Doctor testily. 26:46.940 --> 26:48.460 Do as I say, boy. 26:48.460 --> 26:50.580 It's our best chance. 26:50.580 --> 26:53.780 He was mollified to see that Gordon at last gave way. 26:53.780 --> 27:00.220 As they lay inside the great metal replicas of the Zabi, with the thorax plates half open, 27:00.220 --> 27:06.260 Doctor Who looked at anything that might be thought of as a control of these awkward creatures. 27:06.260 --> 27:11.820 In the dim light, he could see levers which might move the legs and the feelers, the thorax 27:11.820 --> 27:13.580 and the abdomen. 27:13.580 --> 27:20.180 The eyes, though seeming compound from outside, were clear enough vision plates from inside. 27:20.180 --> 27:25.420 As he tried a few tentative experiments, he heard a frightened squeal from Gordon. 27:25.420 --> 27:32.020 The great Zabi robot, with the Doctor inside, stood up on six legs and waved its feelers 27:32.020 --> 27:33.020 about. 27:33.020 --> 27:35.180 Inside, the Doctor chuckled. 27:35.180 --> 27:41.340 It looks so real, said the boy, that I was scared. 27:41.340 --> 27:42.340 How did you do it? 27:42.340 --> 27:46.980 Oh, I can feel now, these levers and handles. 27:46.980 --> 27:48.540 It isn't too hard, is it? 27:48.540 --> 27:51.340 I say, this is a bit of fun, isn't it? 27:51.340 --> 27:53.260 We can go anywhere in these things. 27:53.260 --> 27:56.260 Yes, yes, anywhere, said the Doctor. 27:56.260 --> 27:59.580 The trouble will be to determine which way we shall go. 27:59.580 --> 28:07.340 There'll be no trails in this soft sand, and these forests of anthills are so confusing. 28:07.340 --> 28:12.020 I say, came Gordon's excited voice, I've just thought of something. 28:12.020 --> 28:15.780 All the men had walkie-talkies, like that one of yours. 28:15.780 --> 28:22.220 If you send out a signal, at least some of them might hear it and reply. 28:22.220 --> 28:28.540 Now why didn't I think of that, mused the Doctor to himself as he switched on his radio. 28:28.540 --> 28:32.900 With the metal antenna protruding through the half-open thorax plate of his robot, he 28:32.900 --> 28:38.160 sent out a powerful waveband, designed to radiate to the outermost limit of the range 28:38.160 --> 28:39.940 of his set. 28:39.940 --> 28:44.880 The result of his action was astonishing in the extreme, and was a total surprise to both 28:44.880 --> 28:45.880 of them. 28:45.880 --> 28:51.020 A sudden, dead silence descended on the whole scene around them. 28:51.020 --> 28:56.740 Through the eye-plates, the Doctor saw that every one of the Zabi in his view had stopped 28:56.740 --> 29:01.100 in its tracks, as still as a stone. 29:01.100 --> 29:07.300 The sounds of their myriad cricket chirpings died away into utter silence, and on the surface 29:07.300 --> 29:13.420 of every termitary, the hordes of Zabi lay motionless, as though dead. 29:13.420 --> 29:19.620 The reason came to him like a thunderclap, and feverishly he switched off his set and 29:19.620 --> 29:22.940 stayed, trembling and sweating inside his metal prison. 29:22.940 --> 29:26.940 Can you hear me, Gordon? he whispered. 29:26.940 --> 29:30.820 After a while, there came a muffled, murmured reply. 29:30.820 --> 29:34.940 I won't be able to use the radio, after all. 29:34.940 --> 29:36.980 You can see what has happened. 29:36.980 --> 29:43.020 There is something not too far away from us that is receiving our wave. 29:43.020 --> 29:48.180 Did you notice how all the Zabi out there stopped moving and trilling as soon as I switched 29:48.180 --> 29:49.180 on? 29:49.180 --> 29:52.660 They're still motionless and silent. 29:52.660 --> 29:58.980 If I switch on again, whatever it is, we'll be able to get our location. 29:58.980 --> 30:04.060 The others have been captured, then, came Gordon's hoarse reply. 30:04.060 --> 30:08.420 Each of them had a walkie-talkie receiver, but we never heard any signal from any of 30:08.420 --> 30:10.140 them for four days. 30:10.140 --> 30:14.340 The last signal was cut off in the middle of a sentence. 30:14.340 --> 30:17.660 What did the message say? asked Dr. Who urgently. 30:17.660 --> 30:20.180 Gordon considered a moment. 30:20.180 --> 30:23.140 Something about being very dark and very hot. 30:23.140 --> 30:26.500 I didn't really pay much attention. 30:26.500 --> 30:28.300 Snapped the doctor angrily. 30:28.300 --> 30:30.100 That might have told us quite a lot. 30:30.100 --> 30:31.900 Now listen carefully, Gordon. 30:31.900 --> 30:34.740 Stay absolutely still where you are. 30:34.740 --> 30:37.340 Don't touch any of those controls at all. 30:37.340 --> 30:39.660 We'll have to wait and see. 30:39.660 --> 30:46.260 It's obvious that all the Zabi out there are controlled at a distance in some weird way. 30:46.260 --> 30:52.980 These robot Zabi were operated by Monoptera, who were killed in some unknown way. 30:52.980 --> 30:56.860 I can't think when I've ever been in such hideous danger. 30:56.860 --> 31:00.100 There must be millions of those beasts out there. 31:00.100 --> 31:01.980 They're moving again. 31:01.980 --> 31:05.580 Look, came an excited murmur from Gordon. 31:05.580 --> 31:07.020 It was true. 31:07.020 --> 31:10.780 The Zabi hordes had come to life and were moving. 31:10.780 --> 31:16.100 But now there was none of the haphazard zigzagging about they had seen before. 31:16.100 --> 31:22.020 Now their movement was like a surge of the sea, all in one direction. 31:22.020 --> 31:27.500 The sounds of their shrill, trilling note rose in crescendo all around them, and the 31:27.500 --> 31:33.380 thunder of those millions of feet and feelers made the ground tremble. 31:33.380 --> 31:36.820 The doctor operated his controls quickly and turned. 31:36.820 --> 31:41.220 A vast wave of the creatures was approaching them from the rear. 31:41.220 --> 31:45.260 On every side, they were surrounded by approaching Zabi. 31:45.260 --> 31:47.900 Close the plate and hang on, boy. 31:47.900 --> 31:52.500 We're going to be swept along wherever these monsters are going. 31:52.500 --> 31:55.700 It's like a landslide, an avalanche. 31:55.700 --> 32:01.620 His words were swept away as the robot moved along with the multitude of Zabi. 32:01.620 --> 32:07.780 Like corks on a turbulent sea, they were carried along over sandy ground, through and around 32:07.780 --> 32:13.460 the anthills, past the great forest of torpedo ships. 32:13.460 --> 32:17.580 Then Dr. Who saw what was obviously their destination. 32:17.580 --> 32:22.140 It towered up over twice the height of all the other anthills. 32:22.140 --> 32:24.800 It was squatter than the others, too. 32:24.800 --> 32:30.460 And there was only one entrance, not a number of holes like all the others, but a great 32:30.460 --> 32:36.420 black, gaping hole at the base of the conical mountain. 32:36.420 --> 32:41.140 Within minutes, the doctor and Gordon inside their robot Zabis were swept along with the 32:41.140 --> 32:44.260 hordes into the darkness inside. 32:44.260 --> 32:49.100 By some miracle, they were not separated, and as soon as the doctor could manage it, 32:49.100 --> 32:53.860 he manipulated his levers so that one of the robot feelers was round the cleft between 32:53.860 --> 32:57.500 the thorax and the abdomen of Gordon's steed. 32:57.500 --> 33:00.900 He quickly locked the lever. 33:00.900 --> 33:06.300 Together they had a chance, but if they were separated, their plight would be hopeless 33:06.300 --> 33:07.300 indeed. 33:07.300 --> 33:13.460 The heat and the smells were almost overpowering, and the doctor felt as though he would faint 33:13.460 --> 33:14.460 at any moment. 33:14.460 --> 33:18.780 But he knew he must hang on to consciousness as long as possible. 33:18.780 --> 33:23.220 Once let either of them lose control of their robot, and they would be trampled to a sticky 33:23.220 --> 33:26.780 paste by the millions of scurrying feet. 33:26.780 --> 33:32.100 The Zabi were being impelled in their headlong rush by some remote but imperative call, he 33:32.100 --> 33:38.620 decided, for this was so obviously different from the previous random crawlings of the 33:38.620 --> 33:39.780 things. 33:39.780 --> 33:45.180 This great termitory must be the haunt of their ruler or controller, great queen or 33:45.180 --> 33:50.100 whatever thing dominated these hordes of mindless creatures. 33:50.100 --> 33:54.820 Willy-nilly they were being swept along towards that thing. 33:54.820 --> 34:01.180 In reality this was just what he had wanted, the doctor thought wryly, and he shuddered. 34:01.180 --> 34:04.220 What sort of a mess had he landed himself in now? 34:04.220 --> 34:10.500 But the plight of this ill-fated expedition from earth could not have been ignored. 34:10.500 --> 34:13.740 That he knew very well. 34:13.740 --> 34:16.540 How did the Manoptra fit into all this? 34:16.540 --> 34:22.780 Was it an attempt by them to invade Zabi territory by penetrating into it disguised as the native 34:22.780 --> 34:23.780 Zabi? 34:23.780 --> 34:28.860 Or were the few they had seen merely spies? 34:28.860 --> 34:33.220 In that case, why had they been killed, and how? 34:33.220 --> 34:39.500 There had been no time to examine the body he had hauled from the robot. 34:39.500 --> 34:44.860 The air grew closer and hotter, and now through his vision-plates in the huge eyes of the 34:44.860 --> 34:48.180 thing the doctor could see dim lights. 34:48.180 --> 34:53.580 What they were he could not discern, whether they were natural lights, such as fireflies 34:53.580 --> 34:57.140 or phosphorescence, or whether they were mechanical. 34:57.140 --> 35:01.980 By now he was a little light-headed, and he was ready to credit the mysterious something 35:01.980 --> 35:08.020 toward which they were obviously being carried with miraculous powers and unheard-of technology. 35:08.020 --> 35:14.500 But the Zabi were, after all, he told himself, merely huge insects, weren't they? 35:14.500 --> 35:17.340 But were they merely insects? 35:17.340 --> 35:21.420 What about that forest of torpedo spacecraft outside? 35:21.420 --> 35:22.980 What about the radio? 35:22.980 --> 35:30.220 And what, to crown it all, about the mysterious control under which all these myriads of Zabi 35:30.220 --> 35:32.220 were moving? 35:32.220 --> 35:34.620 It was a nightmare journey. 35:34.620 --> 35:39.900 Afterwards, Dr. Who scarcely knew whether he had dreamed it all, whether he had really 35:39.900 --> 35:45.020 seen and heard all he remembered, or whether he had imagined it. 35:45.020 --> 35:48.620 At the time, it all seemed real enough. 35:48.620 --> 35:52.300 But dreams sometimes have a quality of reality. 35:52.300 --> 35:55.340 There were caverns in which there was machinery. 35:55.340 --> 35:58.420 Of that he was certain at the time. 35:58.420 --> 36:06.980 He saw and heard great engines and vast furnaces with hordes of the Zabi working round them. 36:06.980 --> 36:11.140 These would be the workers' Zabi, while the host in the midst of which they were being 36:11.140 --> 36:14.460 swept would be the soldiers. 36:14.460 --> 36:19.500 He remembered the great mandibles of the robot in which he was imprisoned. 36:19.500 --> 36:22.900 Would it be possible that these monsters practiced engineering? 36:22.900 --> 36:27.820 The idea was so fantastic that at first he discounted it. 36:27.820 --> 36:33.700 But then who or what had built those spaceships? 36:33.700 --> 36:38.980 And he was quite sure that the forms he saw working round the fires and at the machines 36:38.980 --> 36:40.820 were Zabi. 36:40.820 --> 36:48.860 They passed great galleries in which hung suspended like sides of meat in a cold store 36:48.860 --> 36:54.620 thousands and thousands of grey shrouded forms. 36:54.620 --> 36:58.180 Of course, these would be the larvae of these creatures. 36:58.180 --> 37:03.180 The nurseries where the young ones were raised to make way for the dead Zabi. 37:03.180 --> 37:10.340 Like grey unmoving spectres, the rows and rows of larvae hung and the doctor shuddered 37:10.340 --> 37:12.340 violently. 37:12.340 --> 37:18.940 A great opening to one side revealed in a lightning glimpse what he had suspected from 37:18.940 --> 37:20.540 the beginning. 37:20.540 --> 37:28.940 Perhaps two or three hundred feet in length she lay, a bloated queen with a host of workers 37:28.940 --> 37:34.700 feeding her and stroking her and attending to her wants. 37:34.700 --> 37:41.660 He saw and then it was gone and he felt very sick. 37:41.660 --> 37:47.460 There would be many of these queens in a termitary as large as this and from them had come the 37:47.460 --> 37:52.580 countless hordes of the Zabi from outside. 37:52.580 --> 37:57.420 Now the pace was slackening and Doctor Who found a little more opportunity to see where 37:57.420 --> 37:59.380 they were being taken. 37:59.380 --> 38:02.540 Also the passages and the galleries were opening out. 38:02.540 --> 38:08.760 He felt certain that they were by now far underground judging by the heat and the rising 38:08.760 --> 38:09.760 pressure. 38:09.760 --> 38:17.460 There came a time when the tide that bore them on stopped completely and they were at 38:17.460 --> 38:19.220 rest. 38:19.220 --> 38:27.220 Dazedly the doctor hung in his robot and then moving gently he knocked against the thing 38:27.220 --> 38:29.260 that held Gordon. 38:29.260 --> 38:33.380 An answering knock told him that the boy was at least alive. 38:33.380 --> 38:40.060 There had been no chance for them to communicate during that headlong flight. 38:40.060 --> 38:45.860 It was like a vast amphitheatre the doctor saw as he moved the great metal head from 38:45.860 --> 38:50.420 side to side peering through the huge eye plates. 38:50.420 --> 38:57.500 Rank upon rank of the Zabi were there in great semi-circular rows, their number almost countless 38:57.500 --> 39:01.300 and all of them very still. 39:01.300 --> 39:07.020 Almost against his will his gaze was slowly, inexorably drawn towards the middle of the 39:07.020 --> 39:14.940 great throng where something sat upon a raised dais with a glowing light shining down upon 39:14.940 --> 39:18.440 it from a roof that was almost out of sight. 39:18.440 --> 39:25.820 As the doctor's eyes reluctantly reached it he recoiled in horror and downright disbelief. 39:25.820 --> 39:32.060 That it was a Zabi was obvious enough, for its form was the same as that of all the others 39:32.060 --> 39:35.220 crowding round him motionless on all sides. 39:35.220 --> 39:37.980 But its size! 39:37.980 --> 39:45.380 It towered, perhaps twenty feet tall, standing on its dais three times the height of a normal 39:45.380 --> 39:50.940 Zabi and completely motionless on its pedestal. 39:50.940 --> 39:56.900 The doctor tore away his eyes to gaze in startled astonishment at another scene. 39:56.900 --> 40:01.500 In a cleared space in front of the gigantic Zabi were two parties of creatures and one 40:01.500 --> 40:03.660 party was human. 40:03.660 --> 40:10.060 There were six of them and they were standing like marble statues in a tight group. 40:10.060 --> 40:15.420 Opposite them was another party and Doctor Who knew that these were Monoptera, although 40:15.420 --> 40:20.540 they were wingless and as motionless as the human beings. 40:20.540 --> 40:23.420 He heard the hoarse voice of Gordon close by. 40:23.420 --> 40:25.420 They're down there! 40:25.420 --> 40:27.700 They're still alive! 40:27.700 --> 40:28.700 All of them! 40:28.700 --> 40:31.940 How are we going to escape with them from here? 40:31.940 --> 40:36.860 A very good question, my boy, muttered the doctor grimly. 40:36.860 --> 40:40.380 If you have any ideas, now is the time to express them. 40:40.380 --> 40:48.420 I confess that at this very moment I must admit myself totally baffled. 40:48.420 --> 40:56.540 We got in easily enough, but I fancy it's going to be much harder to get out. 40:56.540 --> 41:04.340 He could see now that all the members of each of the two parties, evidently all prisoners, 41:04.340 --> 41:09.020 were quite still as if made of stone. 41:09.020 --> 41:14.140 He tried to remember all he knew about the insect world of Earth, which was indeed remarkably 41:14.140 --> 41:15.140 little. 41:15.140 --> 41:20.460 Anyway, why try to relate these Zabi to earth ants or termites or whatever? 41:20.460 --> 41:23.660 The conclusions would be quite mistaken. 41:23.660 --> 41:28.140 He went on examining the scene closely and saw that all the prisoners wore something 41:28.140 --> 41:32.140 that looked like a loose collar or ring around their necks. 41:32.140 --> 41:36.340 It shone a little and fitted very loosely. 41:36.340 --> 41:41.660 He watched as one of the Zabi attendants on the Zabi Supremo, for that is what the doctor 41:41.660 --> 41:46.660 had called the creature in his own mind, moved forward. 41:46.660 --> 41:52.620 The creature's mandibles hovered above the head of one of the motionless Manoptra prisoners, 41:52.620 --> 41:56.100 and the ring was lifted from the Manoptra's neck. 41:56.100 --> 42:01.620 In the silence, the doctor could just hear the voice of the Manoptra speaking to Zabi 42:01.620 --> 42:05.300 Supremo up on its dais. 42:05.300 --> 42:09.660 It was really most exasperating, the doctor thought irritably. 42:09.660 --> 42:13.060 He could hear the voice, but not the words. 42:13.060 --> 42:17.340 From the giant Zabi there came no sound at all. 42:17.340 --> 42:24.460 How it was replying he could get no idea, unless perhaps it was through some electronic 42:24.460 --> 42:28.360 translator invisible to the doctor from where he stood. 42:28.360 --> 42:32.020 They must somehow get closer to the centre of operations. 42:32.020 --> 42:38.260 His robot nudged Gordon's and pushed it forward through the massed ranks of motionless Zabi. 42:38.260 --> 42:44.460 None of them took any notice, and gradually, inch by inch, the two robots edged their way 42:44.460 --> 42:49.900 forward until at last they were on the rim of the cleared space. 42:49.900 --> 42:54.580 Now Dr. Who found that he could hear what the Manoptra was saying. 42:54.580 --> 43:04.060 You will have to kill every one of the Manoptra on Vortis before we will agree to help you, 43:04.060 --> 43:06.800 the soft voice was saying. 43:06.800 --> 43:13.660 We have watched you over the generations as your mighty engines have moved this planet 43:13.660 --> 43:17.020 into this alien system. 43:17.020 --> 43:22.180 You are transgressing the paths of nature. 43:22.180 --> 43:27.980 Vortis can be made such a world as you want. 43:27.980 --> 43:34.060 A very little of the powers you have spent would have done this. 43:34.060 --> 43:39.380 But you cannot invade a peaceful world as you plan. 43:39.380 --> 43:45.220 First, you would have to slaughter all of the creatures that live there. 43:45.220 --> 43:48.500 They are not insects. 43:48.500 --> 43:55.260 They are mammals, and their world is suited to their needs. 43:55.260 --> 44:02.180 Vortis can be made suitable to beings of our own species. 44:02.180 --> 44:09.780 You say that you need us of the Manoptra as your ambassadors to the humans because we 44:09.780 --> 44:12.500 speak as they do. 44:12.500 --> 44:20.020 You would have us speak to them as though we came in peace because you know they would 44:20.020 --> 44:25.780 kill you as soon as they saw what you were. 44:25.780 --> 44:34.940 Then, when their suspicions were lulled by us, you would turn on them all and exterminate 44:34.940 --> 44:36.380 them. 44:36.380 --> 44:42.020 We will not help you to do this. 44:42.020 --> 44:49.500 There was a silence, and the great Zabi on the dais moved, a limb angled out, and the 44:49.500 --> 44:56.740 doctor saw it manipulate a dial on an instrument board beside it. 44:56.740 --> 45:03.020 The doctor knew that it was replying to the speaker, but not one sound could he hear. 45:03.020 --> 45:07.540 It was obvious, however, that the Manoptra was hearing something. 45:07.540 --> 45:12.700 That instrument must be some means by which the Zabi brainwaves were translated into speech 45:12.700 --> 45:15.580 in the brain of the Manoptra. 45:15.580 --> 45:21.620 You must kill us all then, came the reply from the Manoptra. 45:21.620 --> 45:26.540 It will be war between us as has never happened before. 45:26.540 --> 45:32.700 On our hemisphere, we are building weapons which will give you pause. 45:32.700 --> 45:36.460 We who speak to you now are doomed. 45:36.460 --> 45:39.280 That we well know. 45:39.280 --> 45:45.740 These humans also will die, for we recognize that in you has arisen a new spirit among 45:45.740 --> 45:51.220 the Zabi, the spirit of cruelty and destruction. 45:51.220 --> 45:53.620 We cannot halt you now. 45:53.620 --> 45:55.660 We are too few. 45:55.660 --> 45:59.700 But later, you will not find your task easy. 45:59.700 --> 46:02.060 I promise you that. 46:02.060 --> 46:08.200 A limb shot out from the great Zabi body and hovered above the head of the Manoptra. 46:08.200 --> 46:13.380 Like a moth caught in a flame, the creature shriveled and was gone. 46:13.380 --> 46:19.980 Doctor Who writhed in his excitement, and his robot knocked against that of Gordon. 46:19.980 --> 46:24.620 The mandibles, boy, he cried, discretion now gone. 46:24.620 --> 46:28.980 Operate the mandibles and lift those collars from round the necks of your men. 46:28.980 --> 46:30.460 I'll do the same. 46:30.460 --> 46:32.860 These creatures round us are all hypnotized. 46:32.860 --> 46:36.740 If we are quick enough, we may bring it off. 46:36.740 --> 46:42.860 His robot angled forward awkwardly, and the mandibles, operated by inside levers, went 46:42.860 --> 46:46.380 up over the heads of the human prisoners. 46:46.380 --> 46:50.580 First one, then two, then three. 46:50.580 --> 46:56.900 Gordon, by that time, having found the right controls, freed the last three. 46:56.900 --> 47:01.860 Doctor Who could feel the crackling and surging of electrical waves as he worked, and it seemed 47:01.860 --> 47:07.940 obvious that the great Zabi was fighting them with its only weapons. 47:07.940 --> 47:14.700 Weapons which thank heaven were proving ineffectual against human organisms. 47:14.700 --> 47:18.740 Then the doctor was out of his robot and dragging Gordon out. 47:18.740 --> 47:23.900 Your guns, he yelled to the released prisoners, still dazed. 47:23.900 --> 47:26.660 That thing up there, fire. 47:26.660 --> 47:28.540 Empty your magazines. 47:28.540 --> 47:31.940 The head, the thorax, the abdomen, anywhere. 47:31.940 --> 47:36.540 We don't know where the brain and the nerve centers of that thing are. 47:36.540 --> 47:41.900 Around them, the vast hordes of the Zabi were awakening as the hypnotic control of the giant 47:41.900 --> 47:43.940 creature took hold of them. 47:43.940 --> 47:49.980 Their trilling sound grew and grew into a crescendo and drowned the noise of the shots 47:49.980 --> 47:55.100 as the six crewmen and the doctor emptied their revolvers into the giant form above 47:55.100 --> 47:56.100 them. 47:56.100 --> 48:00.500 Many of the shots ricocheted from the hard carapace, but many found their way through 48:00.500 --> 48:03.100 chinks in that chitinous armor. 48:03.100 --> 48:08.220 The doctor saw the creature stagger, its limbs and feelers thrashing about as though in agony. 48:08.220 --> 48:13.940 The great expressionless compound eyes brooded downwards over these Lilliputian creatures 48:13.940 --> 48:18.140 who were intent on thwarting its dreams of world conquest. 48:18.140 --> 48:22.820 It was like a great building falling when at last death came to it. 48:22.820 --> 48:28.580 Even above the shrill chirping of the Zabi, the crash of that downfall could be heard. 48:28.580 --> 48:36.900 It lay still, a fallen hulk of insectile ambition, while all around it surged the myriads of 48:36.900 --> 48:40.740 its fellow creatures which it had dominated. 48:40.740 --> 48:45.460 Now the Zabi were leaving them alone and milling about in the haphazard fashion that seemed 48:45.460 --> 48:47.500 to be their natural life. 48:47.500 --> 48:52.820 The little group stayed in a tight circle, watching with apprehension, but they were 48:52.820 --> 48:53.820 not attacked. 48:53.820 --> 48:59.540 Doctor Hu heaved a sigh of relief and going over to the group of Manoptra prisoners who 48:59.540 --> 49:05.140 were still standing motionless, he released them by lifting from their necks the rings 49:05.140 --> 49:09.300 which in some odd way must have hypnotized them. 49:09.300 --> 49:15.980 Voices began to speak to him, not human voices but the soft, furry voices of the folk he 49:15.980 --> 49:21.500 remembered from his previous meetings on Vortis with the peaceful Manoptra. 49:21.500 --> 49:23.380 But he took no notice. 49:23.380 --> 49:26.020 He wanted to be with his own kind again. 49:26.020 --> 49:29.220 Your father, Gordon, how is he? 49:29.220 --> 49:30.220 Asked one of the men. 49:30.220 --> 49:34.780 And you, sir, how in heaven's name did you come in the nick of time? 49:34.780 --> 49:37.180 We'd given ourselves up for lost. 49:37.180 --> 49:38.180 You're from Earth? 49:38.180 --> 49:39.980 Where is your ship? 49:39.980 --> 49:41.900 When did you land? 49:41.900 --> 49:43.980 Doctor Hu chuckled. 49:43.980 --> 49:46.380 One thing at a time, my friend. 49:46.380 --> 49:49.380 First we've got to get out of here, you know. 49:49.380 --> 49:53.260 Even with these Zabi uncontrolled, it's going to be hard. 49:53.260 --> 49:54.260 Zabi? 49:54.260 --> 49:55.260 Zabi? 49:55.260 --> 49:57.060 Said another crewman. 49:57.060 --> 50:01.020 Are these creatures, these bugs, the Zabi then? 50:01.020 --> 50:03.180 Are they intelligent? 50:03.180 --> 50:09.580 They are no more intelligent than their needs demand, came a soft voice, and one of the 50:09.580 --> 50:11.820 Manoptra stood at their shoulders. 50:11.820 --> 50:18.300 For many years, we and the Zabi shared this world and lived in peace. 50:18.300 --> 50:22.820 They were our servants, our workmen, and our cattle. 50:22.820 --> 50:28.220 We and the Zabi gave to each other what the other lacked. 50:28.220 --> 50:35.740 But over the generations, evolution has evolved a mighty intelligence in that creature who 50:35.740 --> 50:45.020 dominated them and dreamed of world conquest, even of universe conquest. 50:45.020 --> 50:52.660 We had no weapons, but we are building some, and we came as an expedition to see what they 50:52.660 --> 50:56.060 were planning and if we could stop them. 50:56.060 --> 51:02.820 Look, there are our people emerging from their robots. 51:02.820 --> 51:09.380 All around them, from recumbent Zabi, were emerging many of the Manoptra. 51:09.380 --> 51:15.260 These were full-grown, magnificent specimens who spread and shook their wings after their 51:15.260 --> 51:16.260 confinement. 51:16.260 --> 51:22.860 There were many hundreds of them, and at once they began to shepherd the now docile Zabi 51:22.860 --> 51:27.140 and leave a path for the exit of the released prisoners. 51:27.140 --> 51:34.260 Wonderingly, the humans followed the first Manoptra party, the wingless ones, no doubt 51:34.260 --> 51:36.500 elders among them. 51:36.500 --> 51:45.380 Their path led upwards through the galleries and passages out to the world of day. 51:45.380 --> 51:49.980 Gordon's father still lay unconscious, but he was breathing better. 51:49.980 --> 51:54.300 The rescued men crowded into their ship in great excitement, for they had given up all 51:54.300 --> 51:57.100 hope of ever seeing it again. 51:57.100 --> 51:59.940 Don't you agree, Doctor, one of them said. 51:59.940 --> 52:05.740 We can use your ship to ferry us across to Earth to get equipment to repair our ship. 52:05.740 --> 52:11.020 In time, we could do it ourselves, but with Earth being so relatively near… 52:11.020 --> 52:16.060 That's what puzzles me about the whole thing, said Doctor Who. 52:16.060 --> 52:20.740 By my calculations, this planet should be in another galaxy altogether. 52:20.740 --> 52:27.220 But Gordon kept telling me about the moons of Jupiter and all such nonsense as that. 52:27.220 --> 52:30.240 Not nonsense, laughed a crewman. 52:30.240 --> 52:35.340 We found this planet when we were headed for the moons of Jupiter, in fact. 52:35.340 --> 52:39.740 How it got here and how long it's been here, we don't know. 52:39.740 --> 52:44.840 How it's been missed by Earth's observers beats me. 52:44.840 --> 52:53.940 The evil Sábi intelligence devised mighty engines which drove our planet out of its 52:53.940 --> 53:01.660 orbit many, many millions of miles away, explained one of the Manaptra. 53:01.660 --> 53:07.240 It was searching for a green, damp world such as yours. 53:07.240 --> 53:14.340 We have only just arrived in your skies, but before very long, we will leave you and will 53:14.340 --> 53:21.620 sweep out of your system to find whatever fate has in store for us. 53:21.620 --> 53:25.540 Not so fast, said one of the men belligerently. 53:25.540 --> 53:30.100 Those engines of the big bug we killed will come in mighty handy for humanity, I can tell 53:30.100 --> 53:31.100 you. 53:31.100 --> 53:36.980 There'll be many things that creature invented that we can use and profit by. 53:36.980 --> 53:41.500 What profit can be made out of evil? 53:41.500 --> 53:50.060 Answered him the soft voice, no, we will use the engines to drive our world on a new orbit 53:50.060 --> 53:57.780 out of your sky, and then we will destroy them and seal them off. 53:57.780 --> 54:06.500 It is not given to creatures to do what Sábi Supremo was trying to do. 54:06.500 --> 54:11.300 I heartily agree, said Dr. Who enthusiastically. 54:11.300 --> 54:17.340 Now you men must realize that this planet belongs to the Manaptra and the Sábi, so 54:17.340 --> 54:20.380 long as they keep their places, of course. 54:20.380 --> 54:25.780 There must be no thought of using the powers that creature developed to dominate other 54:25.780 --> 54:26.780 beings. 54:26.780 --> 54:30.820 Oh, you crazy old man, said the other coldly. 54:30.820 --> 54:35.100 And what in thunder do you think we're doing exploring the universe? 54:35.100 --> 54:41.620 We're looking for just such set-ups as this, inhabited by weak and unintelligent creatures. 54:41.620 --> 54:46.660 The natural resources of this world alone, even without the power that the big bug down 54:46.660 --> 54:52.700 there developed, will put us technology millions of years into the future. 54:52.700 --> 54:57.700 There was a stirring of Manaptra wings, and the crewman drew his revolver. 54:57.700 --> 55:02.780 The doctor was glad to see that the others hung back, while Gordon remained at his father's 55:02.780 --> 55:05.460 side in the globular spaceship. 55:05.460 --> 55:12.220 He lifted an arm, and felt himself clasped by a pair of tiny, furry, claw-like hands. 55:12.220 --> 55:18.440 He was lifted into the air, and he saw that all the Manaptra were rising, those wingless 55:18.440 --> 55:22.380 ones being lifted by their flying fellows. 55:22.380 --> 55:23.940 He looked down. 55:23.940 --> 55:30.460 Angrily, the man was firing his empty revolver up at them, and then the scene faded from 55:30.460 --> 55:32.460 his sight. 55:32.460 --> 55:38.020 Gently and easily, they dropped him beside his TARDIS. 55:38.020 --> 55:47.780 We have legends in our world, said one of the Manaptra, of you and your strange vessel. 55:47.780 --> 55:55.460 We know we have nothing to fear from you, strange, immortal human, who can flit in and 55:55.460 --> 55:58.220 out of all the ages. 55:58.220 --> 56:05.740 We will watch those others, and will ensure that they bring no harm to us. 56:05.740 --> 56:14.060 It was good that you came to our rescue, for how else could Zabi Supremo have been toppled 56:14.060 --> 56:17.500 from his lofty height?" 56:17.500 --> 56:21.420 The doctor beamed at them. 56:21.420 --> 56:29.020 Mere human ingenuity and refusal to admit defeat had won again, he thought, as he turned 56:29.020 --> 56:32.540 and went through the great doorway. 56:32.540 --> 56:39.900 Activating the controls that would close it, he wondered just what would be the future 56:39.900 --> 56:54.460 of the strange world of Fortis.