by E. C. Tubb
“How high?” Regan was sharp. “We didn’t find all that many.”
“Eighty-seven to be exact,” said Boardman. “But many could have been scattered far beyond the region of the wreck and some must have fallen into the dust. In fact, in light of the carrying capacity of the pod, they must have done. With a more extensive search we shall find more.”
“Perhaps not, Professor.” Kanu touched the papers he had brought with him. “In fact the computer findings show they probably do not exist to find.”
“What?”
“I didn’t stop at just determining the different volumes. I determined the mass of one of the seeds then extrapolated what the total mass would be if the pod was filled to capacity.” Kanu paused then added, quietly, “I found a discrepancy. I had the computer check and re-check but there is no doubt as to the figures. They show that the pod could not have been carrying a full load of seeds.”
Regan said, “You’re certain as to that?”
“The figures prove it. If the pod had been filled then its mass would have been far greater than what we knew it was. Those seeds are heavy and there would have been a lot of them. To be precise there would have been room for twenty-five thousand six hundred and eighteen. Eighty-seven have been found and, even allowing for more yet to be discovered, there is a vast differential.”
“And the mass?” Boardman looked up from his microcomputer. “What is the differential between the actual and the assumed?” He pursed his lips as Kanu gave the answer. “You aren’t ignoring the surrounding tracery?”
“No. I’ve established a probable norm using the established system. The differential still exists.” He repeated, this time with greater emphasis, “That pod could not have been filled with seeds.”
Regan stepped to the communications post, hit the switch and said, “Get me Lucy Cochran. Immediately.” As he waited he said, to Kanu, “I’m not doubting you, Joshua, but I have to be sure. Lucy? A question. In your experience do any seed pods exist which are only barely full?”
“Commander?”
He repeated the question, amplifying it with, “Do any such pods use some form of cushion-mechanism, wadding or something like that. Gas, even, or something which vanishes when the pod breaks open.” Impatience edged his voice as she hesitated. “Hurry, please, this is urgent.”
“I was thinking, Commander. Botany covers a wide field and, in nature, almost anything is possible. Off-hand I’d say the answer to your question is no. Nature as well as being versatile is also extremely conservative in the sense that nothing goes to waste. A pod carries a certain number of seeds and usually always the same number. Safety is achieved by lightness and adhesion. In some cases by a form of suspension, such as a normal garden pea, which grows from a stem within the pod. Protection comes from the outer wrapping, such as brazil nuts which are found closely packed in a tough casing. And the coconut, despite its shell, carries a thick layer of fibre to cushion its impact with the ground. On the other hand—”
“So the answer is no,” said Regan. Left to herself the botanist would talk the ear off a mule.
“As far as my experience goes, Commander, that is correct.”
“Thank you.” Turning from the communications post Regan looked at the others. “Well?”
“There were no traces of any cushioning material within the pod,” said Boardman. “And no signs of any form of adhesion or suspension of the seeds. Until now I had assumed they had been carried closely packed. Joshua has shown that to have been impossible. Assuming the pod would not have been empty only one conclusion is left.”
Something had travelled inside.
*
Above Schemiel the Pinnace hovered like a moth above a flame, veering a little, lifting to fall to lift again, tiny movements almost indiscernible to the unaided eye but too much for Carver to tolerate.
“Give me the controls,” he snapped to Barclay. “Take over the monitor.”
The co-pilot obeyed, a dull flush staining his cheeks, knowing better than to complain at such a moment. He relaxed a little as Carver, startled, swore as the Pinnace fought his control.
“What the hell? Hal, was this Pinnace checked out?”
“One hundred per cent operational, Skipper.”
“Then what’s wrong? I can’t keep it level and the stability’s all to hell. Check the systems.”
Barclay threw back a cover and made a rapid test of the automatic maintenance circuits.
“All functioning, Skipper,” he reported. “Some increase in the ion level, but nothing above tolerance.”
Whose tolerance was a matter of opinion but it wasn’t Carver’s. For him only perfection was good enough and if the automatics couldn’t supply it then he’d do without them.
“Stand by for manual override.” He moved a lever. “Manual engaged. I’m taking over, Pierre.”
Seated at his console in the Control Room Pierre Versin shrugged.
“It’s your decision, Adam, but keep that Pinnace level. I want to take as accurate reading as possible of the surface dust in Schemiel. What was wrong, anyway?”
“Electrical build-up in the guidance systems which caused overcompensation. We seem to be picking up a charge from somewhere.” He added, grimly, “If it isn’t that then someone in Maintenance will have some questions to answer and, if he can’t do it to my satisfaction, Medical will have a new customer.”
“You and whose army, Adam?”
“Just me. When my neck’s at stake I don’t need an army to back me up when talking to the crumb who skipped his job.”
“If someone did skip it.” Versin was serious. “I think you know better than that. You’d better have Barclay run a separate, continual check on all potentials in the Pinnace.”
“Agreed.” Carver nodded to his co-pilot. “Get with it, Hal and, if you’ve still got a burn, I apologise. It wasn’t your fault and I jumped too hard and too soon. Now let’s get on with it.”
*
The Pinnace dropped lower to hover just above the dust at a carefully determined point. Lower and its blast would catch the fine powder and send it swirling up and over the area. Too high and the inverse-square law would reduce any weak signal to a level impossible to distinguish against the normal background level of radioactive ‘noise’. And it would be a weak signal, Regan was sure of that.
He stood at the edge of the crater, other suited figures set at regular intervals in a wide arc to either side. All were roped to each other and all were armed with heavy-duty lasers. A second Pinnace, grounded, stood well to the rear but ready to lift at a moment’s warning. It too was armed with missiles primed and ready to go, its laser warmed, its crew on battle-alert.
“Pierre?”
“Nothing yet, Commander.” Versin’s voice was clear over the radio. “Background radiation a little high but general.”
“That’s to be expected, Mark,” said Boardman from where he waited in the Control Room. “The wreck would have contaminated the ground when it touched. Its radioactive level was higher than Lunar normal.”
“I know, Trevor. Lovisi!” A man lifted his arm at the end of the left-hand arc. “You’re too close to the edge. Back off a little.”
Regan leaned back as the Pinnace came towards him, to turn, to make another crossing of the crater. Carver was handling it well and if there was anything for his instruments to find, they would find it.
If anything was to be found at all.
Regan looked back at the crater. The walls were peaked, jagged, fretted with fissure lines most old but some, especially those at close hand, new. The gap made by the wreck marred the rim-wall as a missing tooth marred an otherwise attractive mouth. The surface of the dust was barely marked now, the fine powder settling under the influence of the low gravity.
Soon it would be the smooth expanse it had been before the alien visitor had crashed on the Moon.
The pod and what it must have contained.
Logic had determined that the thing must have he
ld more than seeds and the same logic had pointed to where the passenger, whatever it was, must be hiding. Unless it was a master of perfect camouflage it would be beneath the surface of the dust, hiding like a fish in water, safely invisible to any normal search.
A lair from which it had risen to kill two men. To kill them and, somehow, dispose of their bodies. To later dispose of the debris of the pod.
But why?
And how?
Logic, thought Regan, grimly. The mental tool which could be used like a razor. Eliminate the impossible and what remained, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.
But what could be more improbable than that an unknown form of life could both live in an airless void and kill and dispose of creatures that must be as alien to it as it was to them?
“Pierre?”
“Still not positive readings, Commander.”
“Why not fire into the crater?” said a man. “If anything’s there it’ll stir it up.”
A reaction he might not enjoy. Regan remembered the volume of the interior of the pod, the thing which had occupied it could have the bulk of a Pinnace. Yet it was a way to solve the impasse—obviously they couldn’t stand guard forever.
“Adam!”
“Commander?”
“Lift and fire at the far side of the crater. Use your laser and remember we’re standing close.”
“I’ll watch it,” promised the pilot. “I’ll give a ten-second preliminary warning then a five second…” His voice blurred “…on cue. Understood?”
“‘No!” In the Control Room Pierre Versin was anxious. “I didn’t get that. Please repeat. Understood? Please repeat. Your transmission was…”
Regan winced as a rush of grinding static came from his radio. Through his faceplate he could see others with hands lifted to their helmets, one running in small circles as if unable to stand the jarring noise. It grew, drowned what seemed to be words, caused his own to bounce back and add to the din.
“Retreat!” he yelled. “Back off, all of you! Back off! Pinnace Two! Lift! Lift and rescue!”
An order they couldn’t have heard and, not hearing, couldn’t obey. Regan waved his arms, gesturing, turning to face the crater busy with his emergency semaphoring.
And then he saw it.
And froze.
It was a thing from a nightmare, blurred, huge, rising from the centre of the crater, dust rising from flailing appendages, the starlight gleaming from something which looked like polished marble, striated, ebon mixed with pearl.
An opening that gaped.
Above the Pinnace came driving down, laser flaring, a beam of light so intense that it hurt the eyes and left dancing after-images followed by a temporary blindness as the visual purple in the eyes was bleached from the rods and cones.
Blinded, Regan stumbled and fell, remembering what he had seen in the glare; the small figure swept from its feet, lifted, spinning as it dropped into the gaping maw. How many others would follow? Men crushed and broken, suits torn, air lost, delicate tissues ruptured beneath the strain of explosive decompression?
What screams would he be hearing if there were no static?
His knees jarred against stone and he toppled to roll and catch his gloved hands on a shard of rock. Blinking, cursing the retinal images that painted his vision with lances of red and orange, yellow and amber, he stared towards the crater. It held a swirling mass of dust, powder flung high and hovering before it fell, almost motionless in the airless void. Then, in the dust, something moved and rock splintered inches before his face.
Shards that dashed against his faceplate, starring the transparency, rendering it opaque even as it fractured the tough material.
To the rushing blur of electronic noise was added another—that of the hiss of escaping air.
Regan was dying and knew it. Weakened, internal pressure would blow out the entire faceplate to expose his face to the emptiness of space. For a moment he would see it, feel the escaping air gush from his lungs, then his eyes would become immediately dehydrated, his blood would foam, his lungs shred as they yielded to internal stress.
His hands slapped at the emergency pouch on his thigh, found a cover-seal, ripped it free and lifted it to slap it over the fractured faceplate. Another followed, a third, more following as he added to the protection, praying that the adhesive would hold, that the seals would cover an area for which they had never been designed, that luck, which had kept him alive so far, would not desert him now.
He was still praying when another blow slammed against the rear of his helmet and threw him into oblivion.
CHAPTER 6
Regan was dead and in Hell and someone was calling his name. “Mark! Mark Regan! Commander!”
To move was to make too great an effort and the reality waiting was something he could do without.
“Mark! Mark, please!”
Elna? But what would an angel be doing in the Devil’s Domain? With an effort Regan opened his eyes and stared at a face wreathed with golden hair, at eyes that held anxiety, at a mouth that smiled.
“Good, you’ve decided to make the effort. I wondered how long it would be.”
Words which were a mask to cover trepidation; an attitude he recognised for being what it was. A form of self-defence that provided a barrier against a betrayal of emotion.
He said, flatly, “I expected to die.”
“You almost did.” Elna checked the monitor-case over his chest, uncoupled it and swung it aside. “Mark, if you’ve ever considered yourself unlucky, now is the time to change your mind. You should be dead. The others—” She broke off, biting her lip, then said again, “You were lucky.”
“And the others weren’t.” It wasn’t a question. “How many?”
“Eight. Six dead.”
Eight from a dozen, three others had survived aside from himself—if the remaining two should live.
“One has a chance,” said Elna when he asked the question. “Both legs broken and some ribs, extensive bruising and a bad case of concussion. The other lost air and had massive internal haemorrhaging. I’ve put him in intensive care.”
“Name?”
“Paul House.”
Regan closed his eyes remembering a young, intense face, a pair of burning blue eyes, hair which had graced a high, smooth forehead. A technician with a brain and application above normal.
“He has a chance, Mark,” said Elna, quietly. “Not much of a chance but, at least, he isn’t dead.”
She didn’t add ‘not yet’ but she didn’t have to. Regan did it for her. Mentally, but he did it just the same.
“And me?”
“Bruises and mild concussion. You managed to seal your helmet in time and the blow that knocked you out flattened you with your faceplate in the dust. It provided a barrier against the internal pressure. Someone on Pinnace Two had sense enough to realise something was wrong. They lifted and came to the rescue while Adam did his best to distract whatever it was you found in the crater. What was it, Mark?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“I’ve been busy and so has he. Trevor ordered a constant watch maintained over Schemiel with Pinnaces set close for instant action if needed.” Pausing she said, again, “What was it, Mark?”
“A thing. A nightmare.”
“Tell me. I insist!”
Looking at her he realized it was no idle question, no desire to pander to curiosity. The physician was foremost and with the physician was the psychiatrist and with them both the neurosurgeon and the—he frowned, trying to remember all her achievements, her degrees.
“Mark?”
“Ask the others.”
“I did, they weren’t any help. Dust rose and, in it, something moved. Some force broke the rope attaching them to the others and that same force threw them back over the rim-wall.”
“Too bad,” he said. “That they can’t tell you, I mean.”
“I’m not just being curious, Mark,” she said, quietly. “You saw something out the
re which almost killed you, but it did more than just knock you unconscious. You were raving when they brought you in. Screaming, fighting, like a man in delirium, a man who had seen something which had made him want to run, to hide. We had to straighten you from the foetal position. And, in case you think you’re normal now, you’re not. I’ve pumped you full of drugs—nothing to worry about, just a heavy dose of tranquilisers with a mild depressant. Now, Mark, look at me and tell me what you saw—if you dare.”
A challenge he was reluctant to meet, but one which he knew, she would not let him avoid. He had to remember—had to!
Closing his eyes he was back on the rim-wall of Schemiel, turning to watch the plunging dust, hearing the grating noise from the radio, seeing the thing which lifted and…and…
“Steady, Mark!” He felt the touch of something cool on his forehead and, opening his eyes, saw Elna’s face close to his own, her eyes misted with more than anxiety. “You’re safe now,” she soothed. “Quite safe.”
He said, wonderingly, “I saw it, Elna. I’m sure I saw it, and yet I can’t describe it. I don’t even want to think about it. Each time I attempt to visualise the thing something happens. The images blur and I get afraid. I want to run and at the same time, I want to hide. To drop and curl up into a ball. To bury my head in my arms and close out the world. Why?”
She said, obliquely, “Was it large, Mark? One of the others said he caught a glimpse of what he thought of as a whale.”
“Yes, it was big.”
“And had a mouth?”
“A maw—yes, I guess you could call it a mouth.”
“And things like arms? Tentacles, perhaps?”
Or pincers or claws or scrabbling limbs or suckers or ropes or furry spines or…
“All right, Mark.” He heard the soft hiss of a hypodermic as it blasted drugs into his bloodstream. His throat was sore and he had a dim memory of someone screaming. Himself? Had he screamed? Elna nodded when he asked. “You went into the initial stages of hysterical withdrawal. You’ll be all right now.”
“No!” He forced himself to sit upright on the bed. The lights bore little haloes; miniature rainbows like those he had seen around the stars when he had first examined the heavens with a cheap telescope. The result of using non-achromatic lenses and which had made his initial investigations almost useless. Now, he guessed, they were a by-product of the drugs he’d been given. “Don’t humour me, Elna. I’ve got to know—I saw that thing so why can’t I remember it?”
