Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack (18 page)

As he ceased there was a buzz from the Communications Post and Mathias was on the screen looking anxious, ‘Doctor Russell, I need help.’

Before Koenig could pin her down, she was away at a lithe sprint, blonde hair in a swirl. He called, ‘Helena! Don’t go!’

He was ignored and Carter was claiming his attention with a damage signal, ‘Commander, sensors show a burst in the crew room on launch pad four.’

‘Anyone in the area?’

‘All clear.’

‘Seal it off.’

The tide was coming in, rolling over the sprawling base, burying section after section in a white, dense, sea.

Pressure in the intensive care unit was slowing all personnel. Kelly was suffering most and was gasping like a stranded fish. Melita, crying silently in personal pain and grief for him was holding his hand.

As Helena came in, Mathias was boosting life support systems. He said, ‘We can’t evacuate. If we disconnect him, he’ll die.’

White foam rose in a bank over direct vision ports. There was a sense that they would be smothered, crushed into the moondust. Alphans, irritated and in pain from the rising pressure, felt the psychological force of it as much as the direct discomfort. It was too much to bear. It was the last overwhelming thing to squeeze the last pip of hope out of them.

Helena disengaged Melita’s hands and drew her away. She signalled a nurse to get her below and turned back to Kelly.

In Main Mission all staff were in space gear. Koenig said grimly, ‘Switch to Emergency Services.’

Morrow shoved down a key and house lights dropped to a glimmer.

Helena Russell called on the communications post, ‘John, we have to have power . . .’

Koenig cut her short, angry with her, ‘For godsake! Get out of there!’

Clumsy in his suit, he lumbered out of Main Mission to reach her, shoving a way through the last Alphans who were coming in from the outlying areas. As he burst through the hatch into the medicentre, Mathias made a last check on the monitors. He said, ‘It’s no use, Helena, Kelly’s dead.’

Koenig was beside him, grabbed him and propelled him for the open door. At that moment there was a percussive crack and a white mass of antibodies thrust through a direct vision port in an obscene bulge.

Koenig gathered in Helena Russell who was stock still staring at it. ‘Helena! Get to Main Mission. Move.’

He called Morrow from the communications post. ‘Paul. We’ve got a burst in medical. Atmosphere pressure’s holding. Seal the bulkheads as soon as I’m clear.’

‘We still have men coming from the generator section, Commander.’

Koenig’s voice was a shout, ‘Re-route them to Main Mission.’

At the hatch, Koenig stopped and looked back. The foam had thrust forward and was spreading out. It had reached the foot of Kelly’s bed. Something about the scene bugged him and he remained, one hand on the architrave, staring at the broken port. Suddenly it dawned on him. There was a design behind it. Only one port had been breached. Thumping a balled fist on the post he said, ‘We have it wrong. We’re on the wrong tack.’

In the corridors, waves of foam were thrusting in every-whichway. He saw four crewmen stop in a panic and get engulfed in the flow. When he threw himself through the hatch into Main Mission, a tongue of foam was at his heels to follow him in. Helena and Mathias were already sealed up except for their visors and he saw the astonishment on their faces as he yelled for Morrow, ‘Paul. Open all air locks!’

Bergman speaking metallically through his external speaker queried it, ‘John?’

‘Wrong. We’ve been going the wrong way to work. If we
let
it come in, it can’t hurt us. Are we tight in the shelters?’

‘All sealed, Commander.’

‘Right then. Pressurise suits. Then let it in.’

Foam was everywhere. Moonbase Alpha was lost in a white cloud of unknowing. Unseen, beyond the blanket of antibodies the space sky had gone crazy. Wrapped in its dense shroud, the Moon sank into the heart of the pulsing fibres of the immense Brain. Discharges from synapse to synapse wracked and tore. Electronic discharges flared down to the craggy outcrops of moon rock.

Main Mission was vibrating in a monstrous rhythm. Anchoring himself and Helena to the pedestal of the commumcations post, Koenig saw his people overwhelmed by the foam. Sandra floundered and fell and Paul Morrow dived frantically to find her. Carter and Kano hanging on to their consoles went below the rising tide. It was like the last days of Pompeii. Grimly anchored to the commumcations post, John Koenig held on to Helena. As the foam engulfed them, he had a moment of intuition. In his mind’s eye, he could see the gigantic structures of the Brain fending the projectile Moon away from its living centre. It was being shunted off and given a new direction and an unimaginable velocity to send it on its way.

Whether she heard him or not, he could not know, but he said with conviction, ‘We’re changing course! The Brain’s rejecting us!’

Moonbase Alpha was a slum, from the wrecked Eagle on the shattered launch pad to the high deep foam covering the littered deck of Main Mission. But incredibly, the principal hardware was holding up and the big screen carried the velvet pad of a brand new starmap.

How far they had gone, it was impossible to say. The Moon was sailing on through a totally different quarter of space.

Koenig waded over to a direct vision port to join Victor Bergman.

‘Any points of reference, Victor?’

‘Who knows how many galaxies we’ve been hurled through?’

Helena Russell joined them, ‘I wonder what damage we did to the Brain?’

She unsealed her visor, tipped it away and shook out her blonde hair. Koenig watched her. It was an unconscious, feminine gesture that went to his heart. He said, ‘It still had the strength to reject us.’

‘And the antibodies cushioned us. When you get right down to it, there’s surprisingly little major damage to Alpha.’

Work parties were already clearing the remaining foam. Paul Morrow called, ‘Report from Section D, Commander. All structural faults have been repaired. The section is now resealed and re-pressurised with normal Alphan atmosphere.’

‘Thanks, Paul.’

Helena seemed reluctant to move. Koenig said, ‘You heard? That’s your sector. Get your duster out and go polish your stethoscope.’

But she wanted information, ‘John, only you know what the Brain was like. Was its rejection of us just a purely physical reaction?’

He knew what she was on about. She wanted to believe that it had looked at them and reckoned they were worth a little trouble to preserve. He said slowly, ‘It had no choice. It had to be done. But it booted us out with the touch of a gentle giant.’

He watched her go out of Main Mission. She at least was worth the trouble of preserving. There had to be a purpose in their long journeying. Sometime, somewhere, there had to be a homecoming. Surely they had worked their passage?

Meantime, there was work to do to keep Moonbase Alpha ticking over, ready to seize the opportunity when it came. At the hatch, she stopped and looked at him across the littered room. They were on the same frequency. That in itself was a minor miracle in the random universe. Rightly considered, it was all anybody wanted or had a right to expect.

As he zipped out of his bulky space suit, he found he was whistling ‘Greensleeves’.