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deeper furrow marks, and although the light was too pale to show where they ended they led away in an almost straight line, out of the clearing circled by the crags.
    Ian was down on one knee, staring more closely at them.
    ‘What kind of thing could have made those?’
    Doctor Who shrugged. ‘... Interesting, isn’t it?’ he said.
    ‘Interesting! Doctor, the ship has gone -- and the girls with it!’
    He straightened and faced the absent old man.
    ‘Doctor Who, where are we ? What is this place? Have you no idea at all?’
    Doctor Who was looking through and beyond him, staring into a remoteness of his own.
    ‘It can’t be,’ he murmured. ‘Yet it must be. These rock formations... silica... the planet... it’s Vortis, surely...’
    ‘Vortis? What’s that?’
    ‘But strangely... different from what one would expect.
    And these creatures... they could be... Zarbi. I wonder...’
    Doctor Who collected himself. ‘Forgive me — I’m only guessing, really.’
    ‘Then let’s get on! Whatever these things are, they’ve got the ship!’
    ‘M’yes... almost certainly...’
    ‘Let’s follow these tracks! Come on...!’
    Stooping, peering to left and right, Ian led the way ahead, following the multitude of tracks.
    ‘Carefully, Chesterton. Keep your eyes open.’
    Ian nodded impatiently. ‘This way... over here...’ They went on, tracking the numberless imprints in the glittering sand.
    The crags closed around Barbara as she walked slowly on into a winding shadowy pass between them, where the humming and the echoes boomed and soared.
    The glowing eyes of the creature on the crag which had guided her around the acid pools and onward, now turned to follow her progress as Barbara stepped further into the pass. The shadows from the peaks around it began to enclose her.
    She blinked a little now, as if something within her was awakening and resisting the impulse to go on. She paused and looked about her, her eyes clearing faintly, and stepped more hesitantly forward.
    As she rounded a tumble of rocks at the base of the silica cliffs a figure stepped out from the shadows behind her. It lunged and threw its winged arms around her throat.
    Barbara gasped and struggled wildly but the enveloping arms choked off the terrified scream which rose in her throat...
    Though it seemed like a nightmarish dream not happening to herself, she fought weakly to wrench herself free. Her resistance was leaden and without will. A shaft of pale light illuminated her attacker and its threshing, glistening wings, its strange ribbed body markings, its furry face with its small glittering eyes and its grim slash of a mouth.
    The creature was lithe and quick. It clamped a leaf-shaped hand across her mouth and dragged her, writhing feebly, onwards towards an opening in the rock.
    It was pulling her into a cave among the cliff-like crags.
    It relaxed its hold on her mouth, and another winged shape swooped from the darkness to join them, seizing her arm, dragging her further inward.
    In her strange half-awake state she knew only a dull helpless fear and could summon no will of her own to fight. Only the weird force which had drawn her forth from the ship and brought her this far still pulled her on –
    against the attempts of these winged shadows wrenching at her, dragging her further into the cave under the towering rocks.
    Dimly she saw the vile, misty pools that dotted the cave floor, and the small slender stalagmites which speared upward all around them towards the roof.
    The faces of two more creatures, lurking in the cave shadows, loomed out of the darkness to peer at Barbara as she was pushed into a sitting position on a rock. One of the tall bat-like creatures held her there. The other three crowded closer, inspecting her, their small shiny eyes alive in furry faces, their leaf-shaped hands gripping brittle pointed sticks of stalagmite, like spears.
    They stared at her wordlessly and looked towards the creature which held her. One