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and searched about him. He spied and picked up a slender spar of fallen silica rock.
    ‘I thought I said it plainly enough. It’s not there, Chesterton. Not where we left it. It’s vanished!’
    The Doctor raised the thin spar of rock, gritted his teeth, swung and slashed at the great web around Ian with it. The strands parted under the impact.
    ‘Hold still, for goodness sake!’
    Doctor Who swung at the air above Ian’s head, cleaving through more of the stinging strands, until Ian burst from its weakening grip – and broke free, rubbing his smarting face and hands.
    Doctor Who had picked up a glistening thread of the web with the tip of the spar and was examining it gingerly.
    ‘Mm... no wonder it stung. Look – statically charged!’
    Sure enough, though Doctor Who waved the spar about, the severed strand clung to it like steel to a magnet.
    Ian leaned weakly against a rock, brushing off the remaining barbs of web which clung to him. The Doctor had become so absorbed in his find that he seemed to have forgotten all else.
    ‘This is no natural phenomenon,’ he murmured, mostly to himself. ‘It’s not a plant, nor a...’
    Ian interrupted him, terse and impatient.
    ‘All right – so somebody put it there! But what about Tardis ?’
    Doctor Who now stood back and surveyed the remains of the great web with an air of profound interest.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Something with a brain ! It makes those sounds. And it made... that!’
    ‘Doctor, for heaven’s sake, we’ve got to get back to where the ship was! Find out what’s happened to it!’
    Doctor Who roused himself. ‘Mm? Oh – yes...’
    With a last pensive look at the web, Doctor Who followed Ian. This time they both kept a wary look-out, halting to listen now and then for the source of the hum that rose and faded among the crags, keeping an eye open to avoid blundering into any such trap as the web which had caught Ian.
    As he hurried on, stumbling occasionally over loose rock, the thought came to Ian that the web he had run into had not been there on the journey outward. They had come this same way, through this same defile.
    Something must have drawn it, or spun it, between those two crags, while they were examining the acid pool.
    To bar their retreat?
    They emerged from the defile into the familiar clearing between the crags. Ian waited for Doctor Who to join him.
    The old man caught up, puffing and muttering at the pace the younger man had set.
    They stared around.
    Sure enough, the clearing was empty. The humming had receded to a point where they thought they could fix its direction.
    Behind the stalagmite shapes of a cluster of distant crags there was a faint glow, low in the sky. Ian touched Doctor Who’s arm and pointed.
    ‘It’s coming from over there — isn’t it? Is that a light?’
    Doctor Who studied the horizon. After a moment he shook his head.
    ‘No. Reflection of a satellite, I imagine. But I do agree, now that the echo has gone... it does seem to be coming from that quarter.’
    Doctor Who returned to musing over the disappearance of the Tardis , stroking his chin and shaking his head.
    ‘There must be a simple answer, Chesterton! They couldn’t have got it working, let alone operate it...’
    ‘Who — the girls, you mean?’ Ian muttered. He was inspecting the ground closely all around them. A furrow in the glassy sand caught his eye. He stooped and walked, tracing it a way. He straightened.
    ‘Doctor? Over here...!’
    Ian pointed downward and Doctor Who came up.
    ‘It’s been dragged away — look!’
    At this point beyond the reaching shadows of the crags there was a wide furrow in the ground between the scattered rock.
    ‘And tracks... see? There... and there... good Lord, there are dozens of them!’
    Doctor Who bent and peered. All around the furrow a multitude of strange imprints cast faint shadows in the dim, slanting light.
    The tracks were single, narrow and deep. They pitted the ground on either side of the