by E. C. Tubb
As Morrow had died. As Carter and the girl.
Helena glanced towards her. Sandra was flushed, breathing deeply, her eyes bright as she looked at Morrow.
A woman in love, happy with her man.
‘Helena?’ Koenig touched her gently on the shoulder. ‘You look vague, lost somehow. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
He was not satisfied, she could tell, but how to explain? And already memories were becoming vague. Had she really been left all alone? Had the others really died? Had Lee actually reappeared? Had time, by some incredible magic or the application of a superior science really been reversed so that, impossible as it seemed, they had lived twice in the same period?
She said, slowly, ‘John, do you remember a laser exploding?’
‘No.’
‘The Eagle?’
‘Of course not.’ His voice held concern. ‘I don’t understand, Helena. What are you talking about?’
He had forgotten or, for him, it had never happened. For awhile, alone, she had lived in a strange region of time which now no longer existed. The things which had happened in it never actually taking place.
‘Nothing. Just a peculiar impression. I had. Maybe it was the fruit.’
‘Toxic? No, it couldn’t have been, but perhaps it contained a mild hallucinogen. Are you sure you feel all right now?’
‘I’m fine.’ she looked at the screen, the image of the world it contained. Already it looked small as it moved on and away. Paradise lost.
‘A mystery and one we’ll never fully understand,’ said Koenig. ‘But we could never have lived there. A pity, but we have to accept it.’
‘And?’
‘We go in,’ he said, dryly. ‘We’ve no choice.’
CHAPTER NINE
Paul Morrow moved through Main Mission, checking instruments, noting the findings. The new installations were working well, in the two weeks since they had left Terra Nova the base had been put on a near-military footing with back-up installations re-enforcing the original sensors. Yet a few bugs remained to be ironed out. Ted Clifford was seeing to it.
‘Paul, can you switch off outside circuits four and seven?’
‘Right away.’ Morrow moved to the main console and pressed the appropriate keys. ‘You’re clear, Ted.’
Clifford set to work. Opening a panel he began to check the complex circuits, grunting as he found a faulty component, changing it for a new one with trained dexterity. Closing the panel he rose, glancing up at the direct-vision section of the control room. Space was empty but for a blaze of stars, a breathtaking vista of the universe. He stood looking at it, then frowned.
‘Finished, Ted?’ Morrow frowned as Clifford made no answer. ‘Ted?’
Clifford ignored him. As if reaching a sudden decision he stepped quickly towards the computer and began to operate the highly complex machine. He moved quickly, hand dancing with amazing skill, his face expressionless as he stared at the screen.
‘What the hell?’ Kano came running. ‘Ted, get away from there!’
He gripped Clifford’s arm and was sent flying. Morrow dived in, another technician helping, both grabbing Clifford as he worked. It was like gripping an uncoiling spring. Both men followed Kano to sprawl on the floor.
Sandra hit the button of her commlock.
‘Commander, emergency in Main Mission. Hurry!’
Koenig was with Helena, both arrived in time to see the end. Clifford had turned into a wild beast, fighting, struggling to get back to the computer. Restrained he stiffened, his face contorting and then, with a final paroxism, he collapsed.
‘Helena?’
‘He’s dead, John.’ She looked up from where she knelt beside the body.
‘Cause?’
‘It looks as if he had some kind of a brain-storm, but I can’t tell you the reason.’
‘Find out,’ snapped Koenig. ‘Conduct an immediate autopsy. Paul, what the hell happened?’
Morrow explained as attendants removed the body.
‘So he made a check, closed the panel and then went crazy.’ Koenig frowned. ‘Nothing else?’
‘One thing, sir,’ said Sandra. ‘I happened to see it. Before he moved to the computer he stood looking into space. And he seemed deaf when Paul spoke to him. He simply didn’t answer.’
Space? Koenig moved to stand where Clifford had stood, looking up as he had done, seeing nothing but the familiar stars.
And then, as he watched, one of them seemed to grow, to swell into a disc of orange light, a disc which became a globe.
‘Paul!’
Morrow was already at work. The main screen flared to life, amplification bringing the strange object into closer proximity. From her station Sandra made her report.
‘Unknown object moving on collision path with Alpha. Velocity in relation to the moon .05 C.’
Too fast for safety. If it should hit then the entire complex would be destroyed, the moon on which it rode shattered like a dropped egg.
‘Mass?’
‘Low, Commander.’ Sandra was puzzled. ‘It has no relation to the apparent size. Either it is very small or very tenuous.’
‘Temperature?’
‘Zero as far as I can make out. The instruments—’ She broke off, her voice rising. ‘Commander! It’s slowing!’
Something hit Alpha, a shock wave sending Koenig to his knees, filling the air with startled shouts, the creak of yielding structures. A moment then it was over, Morrow busy as he received reports from all sections. A smooth drilled routine which had been instilled during long hours of training dealing with simulated emergencies.
‘All secure, Commander—but what happened?’
Sandra had a part of the answer.
‘Unknown object now stationary in relation to Alpha. Still no surface temperature reading. Apparent size .0625.’
‘Of the moon?’
‘Yes, Commander.’
Which made it about 500 miles in diameter if it was solid. Koenig stared at the image in the screen, narrowing his eyes against the glare of orange, the nimbus of light which held mystery. A thick halo of light, it had to be that. Light or some unknown force of which the orange glow was the only visible sign.
‘Kano?’
‘The computer readings show that the object used us as a checking system, Commander. Some kind of force was projected and maintained.’
A tractor beam of some kind which had reached out to grip the moon, using the mass to absorb the object’s momentum and which now, probably, held it in relative immobility.
A captive on the end of an electronic line.
But who had caught whom?
A question which was answered in a flare of diffused light from the screen, a voice which echoed throughout the base, carried on every speaker, vibrating from the very walls.
A deep voice, alien, cold.
‘Earthmen—make no attempt to resist. You are captives of the planet Triton.’
It had to happen, thought Koenig bleakly. For millenia mankind had lived in total isolation, only recently hoping to be contacted by other intelligent races. Now it had happened and in the worst possible way. The aliens had come, not as friends, but as enemies. Not as partners, but as captors.
Captors and murderers—already, it seemed they had killed.
Helena gestured towards the complex microscope at which she sat.
‘I think I know what killed Clifford, John. A tremendous stimulation of the cortex which overrode his physical safety-limit. You know, of course, that no one exerts their full strength because if they did they would literally tear the muscles away from the bone. There is a mental check, a governor.’
‘Which can be surmounted.’
‘At times, yes,’ she agreed. ‘The so-called supreme effort which comes with panic or some other highly emotional condition. A type of insanity, for example, or beneath the effect of drugs such as strychnine. However, to return to Clifford, something affected his brain and cau
sed the result we saw.’
‘Something? That isn’t a satisfactory answer, Helena. It’s too vague.’
‘I can give you an exact state of his physical condition, John, but I can’t be precise when it comes to dealing with the cause. Certainly it wasn’t drugs. My guess is that it was electronic in some way. A force—’ She broke off, shrugging.
Koenig said, ‘All right. We specify some kind of unknown force which stimulated his brain. But why?’ he frowned, thinking. ‘He was driven in some way to use the direct scan, no voice accompaniment. He also had it working at maximum speed. Does that make sense?’
Mathias edged forward from where he’d been standing.
‘Normally, Commander, no. The human receptive mechanisms cannot operate above a certain level of speed. Sound, transmitted too fast, becomes a high-pitched shrill. Visual images, flashed too quickly, cannot consciously be identified.’ He paused then repeated, meaningfully, ‘Consciously. I think that could be the answer.’
‘Explain.’
‘In many ways the human brain is a computer mechanism. Data is received, stored, produced when needed. Much of the information we receive is transmitted on a subconscious level to the memory cells. For example, when you entered this room your five senses recorded everything of which they were capable, yet you, consciously, operated on a basis of selection. The picture on the walls, the nature of each piece of equipment, the texture of the floor—to you none was of sufficient importance to demand your conscious attention, yet the information, stored, is there should you need it.’
‘So?’
‘I’m guessing now, Commander,’ admitted Mathias. ‘But I could be right. Suppose our friends out there,’ his head jerked to the ceiling, ‘wanted to know all about us? What better way than by making contact with a member of our race and absorbing all the information in his brain?’
Koenig said, ‘Assuming they could do it, none. But why involve the computer?’
‘For extra information. The memory banks are full of data. Once activated Clifford could relay it all to whoever had contacted him. He wouldn’t need to understand it. All he had to do was to watch.’
‘A relay station, you mean?’ Koenig pursed his lips as Mathias nodded. As the man had said, the theory made sense, but the power behind what had been done was frightening.
‘Did Kano find out what information Clifford gained from the computer?’ Helena nodded. ‘The data on our life-support apparatus. It fits, John. And there’s something else. Tell him, Bob.’
Mathias cleared his throat.
‘This you’ll have to take on trust, Commander. I can’t show you any proof though Helena saw it too. A nodule of violet light which we found deep in Clifford’s cerebellum. A nimbus which was fading as we found it.’
‘The control?’
‘Perhaps, it could have been, certainly something took over Clifford and made him do what he did.’
And what could take over one man could take over another.
Bergman frowned as he considered the problem.
‘Without knowing the exact nature of the forces used, John, it’s impossible to build any sort of an efficient defence. I’ll do what I can, though. A current fed through the metal of the structure will create an electronic stress field, not strong, but it may do some good. It could even be that the danger is no longer imminent. I’ve picked up readings from the external sensors, we seem to be enclosed in a field of some kind. And by we I mean the entire moon. It’s barely possible that the aliens can’t take over any organism enfolded in it. Clifford was affected before we even made visual contact, remember.’
A possibility, but one Koenig wasn’t going to rely on. As yet the aliens had done nothing since giving their warning—one he did not intend to obey.
‘I’m fitting an Eagle with sensors, Victor. I want to investigate that sphere. The more we know about the aliens the better and I think it time we paid them a visit.’
Carter was in command, Donovan his co-pilot, a big, smiling man with an easy grace of movement and who relished the opportunity to make the investigation. His voice came clearly over the speakers, a mutted accompaniment to Carter’s own.
‘All systems go, Alan.’
‘Eagle Three to Alpha. Can you still read me?’
‘Loud and clear,’ said Koenig. ‘How close are you?’
‘It’s hard to tell. We’re in the nimbus but I can’t get a reading on anything solid.’
Donovan, ‘Range closing. Some disruption in navigation. Ion build-up nearing the red.’
‘Watch it, Alan.’
‘I’m watching.’
As were Koenig, Morrow, everyone on duty in Main Mission. They were tense as they followed the progress of the Eagle in the screens. It was now a tiny fleck almost lost in the glare of orange. On a jury-rigged panel the needles of dials trembled and jerked as the sensors relayed their findings, pens quivering over a sheet of moving paper as sensitive differentials were amplified and converted to visual imagery.
‘Anything yet, Victor?’
‘A strong magnetic field and divergent electronic stresses,’ reported Bergman. ‘The signals are similar to those recorded during a solar flare. I’m concerned about the ion build-up, however. It could affect the pilot’s mental stability.’
‘Helena’s watching that.’ Koenig glanced to where she sat before screens monitoring the physical condition of the two men.
Carter said, abruptly, ‘Something odd. A glare of light, stronger than the rest. It’s hit us like the beam of a search-light.’
‘Increased ionic activity,’ said Bergman. ‘Static charge accumulating in the command module.’
‘Helena?’
‘Disorientation. A change in the encephalographic pattern.’ A moment then she added, ‘Abort the mission! Both men are unconscious!’
‘Paul!’
Morrow hadn’t needed the order. He threw the Eagle over to slave-control and turned it, his lips thinned, hands gentle on the controls. Frowning he made a series of checks than said, ‘Trouble. The navigational system’s shot and the ship isn’t responding as it should. I’ll do my best, but if I can bring it close that’s all I can manage.’
‘A crash?’
Koenig turned at Morrow’s nod. ‘Get suited Helena. Sandra, summon a crash crew. Do your best, Paul, I don’t want to lose either of those men.’
Suited, waiting on the pad, Koenig watched as the Eagle came from the sky. Morrow was good, the ship was levelling out, veering a little but compensating, the nose lifting as the velocity dropped.
Lifting a little too far and too soon.
Over the suit-radio Koenig heard Helena’s hiss of indrawn breath, and a man’s curse.
‘Damn it! If she drops now she’ll smash open.’
Morrow could have heard him. The Eagle spun, regained level flight, slewed as it fell, dust rising in a cloud as it hit the lunar soil.
As it touched Koenig was running.
Helena came close behind, leaping with trained skill over the rough terrain, catching him up as they left the environs of the base.
‘About half a mile, John. To the north-east.’
‘I saw it.’
‘A bad place. The hull could be ripped and the module smashed. If their suits have been ruptured—’
Koenig raced on, not answering, knowing that no answer was necessary. If the hull had split and the suits ruptured then both men would be dead. But if the leak was small and they could get there in time to stop the flow of escaping air there would be a chance.
Assuming the men were still alive. That the force which had affected the ship had not turned their unconsciousness into death.
‘Commander!’ The voice in his helmet was from one of the crash-crew, strained, incredulous. ‘Behind you! Look!’
Koenig halted and turned, seeing an incandescent ball of orange light which hovered high above the ground like a will-of-the-wisp. It fell a little as he watched, about ten feet across, pulsing, throbbing as if with
an inner life.
Helena stood a little to one side of it. She had halted like the rest and, as it fell to hover inches above the ground, she began to walk towards it.
‘Helena! Stop!’ Koenig began to run towards her. ‘Helena!’
If she heard she paid no attention. As he came near she stepped into the nimbus of light, was limned against it, had entered it to be swallowed by the orange glow.
‘Helena!’
Koenig felt a sharp tingle, a pressure which forced him back and away and then, abruptly, the ball of orange light had vanished.
Gone as abruptly as it had come.
And, with it, had gone the woman.
CHAPTER TEN
Carter had been lucky, Donovan had not. Koenig stared down at him as he lay on the slab, a ruff of dried blood around his mouth, his eyes bulging, internal organs ruptured as his blood had boiled in the vacuum. A minute more perhaps, and he could have been saved. But the aliens had not given them that precious minute.
Carter sat upright as Koenig entered the care unit. He was pale, a mottled patch on one cheek, a bruise which reached almost to the temple. More bruises were hidden by his pyjama jacket.
‘Jim?’
‘Dead.’ Koenig sat on the edge of the bed. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine. I guess I’m lucky to be alive. What happened?’
‘You blanked out and Morrow brought you in on slave-control.’ Koenig added, grimly, ‘They got Helena.’
‘The aliens?’
‘They sent a ball of light which swallowed her up. The light vanished and she was gone. Alan, what was it like? What happened?’
‘It was like heading into an orange fog,’ said the pilot. ‘We couldn’t see a thing but the universal glare. Up, down, all were the same, we had to rely on the instruments. Then that searchbeam hit us—I told you about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘After that everything went haywire. My head felt as if it was going to burst. I couldn’t see clearly. The Eagle acted as if it had a life of its own. Sorry, but that’s how it was.’
