Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians (6 page)

Bergman looked down.

‘Can you hear me, John?’

Koenig mouthed ‘Yes.’ The effort was huge, the pain horrific. He knew, without asking, that the wide, deep gash was back.

‘Do you know where you’ve been?’

Koenig thought of the majestically eerie city. And then Vana.

‘Yes,’ he said in a voice so sad that Bergman was shocked.

‘John, I think I can guess at some of it. But I won’t. I’ll never mention it unless you do first. Is that what you want?’

Koenig breathed
‘Yes!’

Maybe time would dim the image of the gold-flecked eyes, the softly curved body, and the glorious promise of Zenno itself as a background to their love. Maybe the daily routine and the unremitting harshness of life at Alpha would help him forget Vana.

Koenig hoped so. Without really believing it.

‘There are one or two things I have to ask you about, John—’ began Paul Morrow. He stopped as Dr Russell pushed him aside. ‘—but not yet. They’ll keep. Just as long as you’re with us.’

Koenig closed his eyes.
I am,
he thought.
God help me, I’m with you. All the way.

But the sadness persisted. That, and the ache of loneliness.

The rock that was refuge, prison and space-ship for the Alphans hung poised to cross the great gulf between the island-universes. Koenig watched from his sick-bed. No one could remain unmoved by the sheer immensity of the gulf. No stars. Sable blackness, the end of the galaxy. Koenig knew what every last man and woman at Moonbase Alpha was thinking, there were no star maps now.

Paul Morrow called to him, ‘Watching, John? We’re leaving the galaxy.’

Koenig said, ‘There’s a lot of space out there. But we’ll make it.’

Morrow caught the tension in his voice. ‘How’s the head?’

‘I don’t feel a thing.’ He did. The migraine had been identified by Helena Russell. She was using a mixture of drugs and hypnosis to rid him of it. Without success.

‘Dr Russell wants to look in.’

‘Tell Helena I’m fine. I’ll read a book for a while and maybe come up to Main Mission later.’

Paul Morrow nodded and broke the contact.

‘How is he?’ asked David Kano.

‘You heard. The same old John, but hollow inside.’ Morrow watched the vast emptiness for a while. ‘She must have been some woman.’

‘He’s told you about her?’

‘Only that he and she talked. John isn’t one to discuss his relationships. But she’s left a gap in his life. Everyone knows it.’

‘He’s recovering,’ said Kano. ‘I talked to Helena. The fractures healed well, with no permanent damage. She could remove the scar if he’d let her. The headaches have no physical cause. When he forgets the Zennite woman, they’ll go.’

‘I wish he’d come out’

‘Give him time.’

Morrow looked out again. ‘We’ve had no trouble for weeks. It’s just as well. Morale’s been good, but the crew want to see him up and around.’

Koenig lay back on his bunk and reached for the battered book of poetry. The book fell open at a couplet he had chanced on:

‘All days are nights to see till I see thee

And nights bright days when dreams do

show me thee.’

Koenig read the lines and felt the thin knife-edge of agony burn into his brain.

Six storeys below Main Mission Control, an alarm buzzed in Technician Anton Zoref’s ear. He disregarded it, but his wife shook him:

‘Out, Anton—you’ve time to shave and eat before you go now.’

‘Can’t they programme us for duty shifts together?’ he yawned. ‘I hate to leave you in bed, Eva. Husband on duty, you turning over. It’s wrong. In any well-run establishment it would be declared immoral.’

He breakfasted quickly and reached his post in the maintenance area of Number Two Nuclear Generator two minutes early. He couldn’t know that a moonquake had rocked the foundations of the structure when the Moon was hurled free of Earth’s gravitational grasp. In the colossal explosion the small quake had never been recorded.

‘Any problems?’ he asked Mike Dominix, his opposite number and friend.

‘Oh, we had our moment of high drama. Small fuse gone about three a.m. I ok’d the maintenance programme. Eva still asleep?’ he grinned.

Zoref slung a shadow-punch at him, fast and hard. Dominix caught it in his big hand.

‘See you later, Anton. Don’t let the pot boil over!’

It was standard ribaldry of the nuclear generating fraternity. The pot was the sullenly-glowing core of the huge reactor, a frightful hell-brew of white hot metals.

‘I’ll let you know if it does,’ agreed Zoref.

Professor Bergman was the first to spot the pulsing record of energy from the gulf.

‘Paul, do you read this?’ he called from Main Mission Control. A grey-black blotch showed on the screen.

Paul Morrow was with Koenig trying to get him to take an interest in a modification of the Eagle’s navigational aids which had been suggested by a bright young female technician. Koenig had been politely remote. Bergman sounded concerned but not worried.

‘I was talking to John,’ Morrow said. He hesitated. ‘All right, John, I’ll leave you in peace. I’ll check the sighting with Victor.’

Koenig nodded. ‘Let me know if it’s important.’

‘Controller Morrow!’ called a crewman. It was urgent now. ‘Professor Bergman indicates a state of alert!’

‘On my way!’ yelled Morrow.

His place was in Main Mission Control. Koenig watched him go. The migraine almost blinded him.
An emergency,
he registered.
Not serious. A sighting of an energy-source. What is it?

He had surprised himself by his own response. For the first time in nearly a month, he had taken an interest in Moonbase Alpha and its headlong dive into deep space.

Then he remembered the woman, and pain began.

‘Paul can handle it,’ he said. He reached for the tablets which would bring peace.

‘What do you think?’ asked Morrow tightly.

‘It’s an energy source,’ said Bergman. ‘It has to be. Our scanners give it that shape and that strength’—he indicated the grey-black pulsing blotch on the screen—‘but computer says it can only approximate the thing.’ He turned to Kano. ‘What’s your view?’

Kano shrugged.

‘What the computer can’t read, it can’t tell us. It’s a so-far unobserved form of radiation. And it’s altogether too complex in nature for the computer to unscramble. The trouble is, it’s changing so rapidly. Almost as if—’

‘—as if it were alive,’ finished Bergman.

‘And it came from
there,’
said Morrow. He pointed towards the deeps of space. They all looked out of the forward con.

‘Sighting references eight-zero-beta approaching Moonbase Alpha, range between twenty and twenty-five thousand kilometres,’ called a crewman. ‘Closing fast.’

Bergman watched the grey-black shape swirling in the electronic haze of the screen. ‘Get John!’ he called. ‘Get the Commander!’

Commander Koenig to Main Mission Control!’ immediately called a crewman. ‘Commander to Control!’

‘I think we should intercept,’ said Bergman.

‘With what?’ said Morrow.

‘Anything we can launch!’ Bergman answered. ‘It’s too fast and too active—can’t we stop it?’

‘Use main armament?’ said Kano. ‘The fission bombs? They’ve never been used offensively, Victor! We’d need authorization—’ He stopped himself. He meant to say that only a World Government directive could unleash the fury of the fission bombs. ‘We could,’ he went on rapidly. There was no government to refer to now.

‘Commander Koenig should authorize their use,’ Morrow said, responding to the urgency of the two men and his own evaluation of the threatening blotch from the gulf. ‘Where is he?’

Koenig was dreaming of purple towers and gold-flecked eyes.

‘Sighting reference eight-zero-beta slowing,’ said the same crewman. ‘Rapid deceleration. Range, eighteen thousand kilometres.’

‘Commander Koenig’s in a narcotized sleep!’ reported another crewman. ‘I can’t rouse him, Controller!’

Morrow’s face showed annoyance and indecision. Then he made up his mind.

‘Arm main launchers one to six,’ he said. ‘I want twelve one-megaton warheads for close-proximity interception.’ He noticed Bergman’s relief. ‘I think you’re right Victor. Well neutralize it.’

‘Can’t Dr Russell counteract the narcotic?’ asked Kano.

‘No time,’ said Morrow. ‘Range?’ he snapped to the crewman on the intercept ranger.

‘Still constant at eighteen thousand kilometres—no, sir, it’s moving again!’

‘Main launchers one through six armed!’ called a young ballistics engineer in a voice that quavered with tension. The launchers had never been used. They were part of
a
deterrent force that had so far justified its name.

‘It’s changing,’ said Bergman.

Confirming his reading of the thing from the gulf, an electronic voice cut in:

‘Sighting reference eight-zero-beta now has new structure. Unidentifiable, but with some organic characteristics.’ It paused. ‘Detailed read-out follows—’

‘No details!’ said Morrow. ‘I want a multiple launch. Box the—the
thing
—with simultaneous detonations. On my word—ready?’

‘Ready, Controller,’ said the young ballistics engineer.

There was a deep silence in Main Mission Control. Bergman wondered if they were going to blast out of existence an alien life-force. A wonderful thing. Or something of great potential harm.

Morrow opened his mouth to give the order. It never came.

As the electronic circuitry cleared for the impulse that would send the rockets surging from Moonbase Alpha, the big screen cleared.

The grey-black blotch vanished.

‘Gone!’ breathed Kano. Bergman’s voice echoed his: ‘No readings!’

Almost in the same instant, the clamour of electronic and human reports filled Main Mission Control.

‘Sighting reference eight-zero-beta now had nil readings. Object sighted is not in the range of Moonbase Alpha scanners. Detailed read-out follows!’

‘Orders, sir?’ asked the young armaments technician.

Morrow realized that his mouth was still open. ‘Remain on alert,’ he said.

‘It’s gone,’ said Bergman.

‘Are we sure?’ Morrow asked.

‘What the scanners can’t sense, we can’t reach,’ said David Kano. ‘But it can’t just vanish!’

They looked at the screen. It showed a segment of deep black space. Where the grey-black blotch had writhed like a malignant tumour, there was nothing. Morrow breathed out slowly.

‘Launchers on instant readiness,’ he said. ‘Until my order rescinded. And get Dr Russell up here!’

Zoref had finished the routine checks. He thought he would put forward his projected scheme for random checks. It was his view that the monitors themselves should be stripped at random. That way, the unexpected might be spotted, whereas maintenance at fixed intervals could lead to over-reliance on the machines.

He looked at his watch.

Coffee time. He passed the high, thick wall of the main screen surrounding Nuclear Generator Two, the biggest on Moonbase. And the best-maintained, he thought. As always he could not resist a glance at the writhing coils deep in the heart of the reactor: scanners brought the image, but it was clear and sharp. Since school he had been awed by the temerity of mankind in taming and harnessing the might of nuclear fission; and Eva shared his feelings.

If they hadn’t been caught up in the giant nuclear catastrophe that blasted the Moon from his parent body, they would have been doing just the same kind of work. Zoref was one of the few Alphans who didn’t much regret their enforced voyage.

He smiled as he switched on the percolator. So much power behind the massive screens and it didn’t even keep the coffee warm against the generator.

He was very near the flaw in the skin of Moonbase Alpha now.

‘John,’ said Helena Russell. She turned his face and dabbed his forehead. He didn’t wake up. She opened one eye and saw the pupil at a pinpoint.

‘It couldn’t disappear,’ said Bergman.

‘At least it’s gone,’ pointed out Morrow. ‘No alien energy-source has been reported for the past hour.’

‘But energy just can’t lose itself!’ Bergman insisted. ‘It must disperse—there has to be
some
reading!’ He turned to David Kano. ‘Isn’t there anything at all from the computer?’

‘It’s turned sullen,’ said Kano. ‘It won’t admit the thing can vanish. And it won’t come up with a theory.’

Bergman frowned. ‘I don’t have any either. We haven’t any information for any kind of hypothesis. David, will you try something for me?’

Kano nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘See if there’s a record
anywhere—even
on one of the smaller sensors or scanners—anywhere in Alpha. Check the manual systems as well.’

‘The computer would have checked.’

‘But aren’t there some systems too minute, too unimportant, for the computer to consider?’

‘In theory, no.’

‘But it could happen?’

‘What’s the intention?’ asked Morrow.

‘It bothers me,’ said Bergman. ‘We’d have a sighting of the object if it reversed its course and went back into deep space. Similarly, if the energy was dispersed it should show up as a cloud. So it’s not gone back into deep space, and it isn’t out there,’ he said, pointing to the high forward con. ‘Where is it?’

‘That leaves only one place,’ said Kano, paling.

Morrow punched a button.

‘Get him awake!’ he snapped to Helena Russell.

‘I’m trying,’ she answered.

‘Try harder!’

The hidden flaw bent, buckled, gave way.

Zoref took the first sip, then sent the cup and the scalding liquid flying across the small recess. His yell rang around the great deserted Maintenance Area. Then he pitched forward, throwing a huge shadow over the floor.

He was aware of a swirling grey-blackness and a tearing, bitter cold that anaesthetized his senses even as he lost consciousness.

It said a good deal for his dedication to duty, and also his training, that he managed to hit the panic button. A screaming alarm filled the generating area as he pitched forward.

‘Technician Zoref—’ he gasped, as the grey-black shadow enveloped him. ‘Emergency, Number Two Nuclear Generating Area!’