by E. C. Tubb
Boardman said, “Every living thing needs a source of energy in order to survive. Even that creature needs to eat.”
“And where, aside from Moonbase, can it hope to feed?” Regan didn’t wait for an answer. Rising he strode to where Versin sat at his consol. “Pierre, I want a complete scan of the area between Moonbase and Schemiel. If anything is spotted moving I want to know exactly where it is. Set up observation scanners and hook them to a movement detector. Amanda, maintain a constant check on all vibratory and energy levels. Kanu, have the computer determine all possible routes from Schemiel to Moonbase working on the basis of easy mobility.”
“What kind of mobility, Commander?”
A good question—how did the thing move? “Assume that it crawls,” snapped Regan. “You’ve an idea as to its size and so some routes would be more suitable than others. Plot and search them. Once we know where it is we can send Pinnaces against it.”
To blast it with a hail of nuclear explosives. To hold it fast with grapnels and hurl it into space. To get rid of it one way or another. To destroy it—before it destroyed them.
*
Technician Boris Zamiatin shone the bright circle of his flashlight on the roof of the narrow cavern and squinted at the sudden gleam of reflected light. A mineral deposit of some kind or a strata rich in silicone—later it would be checked for potential value, but for now it was enough to report the find.
“New?” The squad-commander was notorious for his attention to minute detail. “How new?”
Zamiatin sighed into his radio. “New, sir. It wasn’t visible the last time I looked. The blast could have opened a crack as it caused debris to fall.”
“Your position?” The leader grunted as Zamiatin gave it. “You’re pushing too far ahead. This isn’t an exploratory mission but just a general surveillance patrol. Return to point twelve and wait.”
It was Zamiatin’s turn to grunt. Draper was no coward but at times he carried caution to an extreme. Surely there could be no harm in finishing his examination of the area? As he remembered there was a long gallery a little further on with scintillant crystals imbedded in the roof. The blast could have jarred some loose and, if he took some back with him, Sophia would be grateful. He felt a warm glow as he thought of the girl. Tall, blonde, with a good figure and, more important as far as he was concerned, she seemed to like him. As a chemist she would be interested in anything he found and, as a woman, she would more than appreciate the gift of unusual stones, which could be turned into jewellery.
“Boris, you hear me?” Draper was impatient. “Return to rendezvous and wait. I want no heroics and we’re far enough from Moonbase for anything but a major fissuring to be unimportant.”
“I hear you, sir.”
“Then acknowledge. End examination and make for point twelve. Understand?”
“Message understood, sir. Am on my way to rendezvous.”
The truth—Draper hadn’t specified which direction he should take and the gallery wasn’t far. A few minutes would make no difference and, if Draper turned awkward, he could always claim to have spotted an unusual deposit. And Sophia was worth the risk.
The cavern narrowed as he approached the far end, the walls closing to a mere crack but still one large enough to pass him without any danger of snagging his suit. The floor was thick with debris and once he stumbled as his foot turned on a shattered mass of loose stone. A turn and he squeezed around an adamantine column of basalt, which by some geological freak stood among the softer material. Another hundred yards and he had entered the gallery.
In the gleam of his flashlight it shone with an eye-catching brilliance.
Minerals, twisted, distorted, confined beneath tremendous pressure and heat, fusing to adopt new and exotic structures to form gemstones of superb beauty.
The floor was littered with them, heaps jarred from their ancient resting place on the roof high above. It would only take a moment to stoop, collect a few and be on his way.
But there was too much choice.
Zamiatin moved from one heap to another, picking, selecting, seeing in his mind’s eye the polished stones adorning Sophia’s body. These for a necklace, and over there what could become a pendant, and a little deeper into the gallery for matching stones to grace shell-like ears. And it was important to take a variety, not just for their visual attraction, but because of their potential worth to Moonbase. There could be diamonds or stones even harder than that particular form of crystallised carbon. Despite all their examinations and tests the Moon remained a place of unexpected mysteries.
Then, as Zamiatin stooped to pick up a large stone, he felt it.
A vibration that came from the floor to travel up his fingers, to tingle his feet and send quivers up his legs. A shaking which could portend a shifting of the Lunar crust, a fall, a new fissure suddenly gaping beneath his feet. A result of the blast, of course, it had to be. A fading seismological shock from the blast which had fused Schemiel, rendered frightening only because he was deep below the surface in a gallery that acted as a sounding board.
But, suddenly, he no longer wanted to be alone.
Zamiatin straightened, turned, the circle of light thrown from his flashlight dancing over the walls and floor. He was standing close to a wall that suddenly split to send a shower of debris towards and around him. Shattered particles drifted around him, clouding his faceplate and turning the beam of his flashlight into a visible cone. A cone that danced and skittered over something that moved.
*
“External sector 17,” said Versin. “Level 9. That’s way down deep, Commander.”
A gallery buried far below the surface, away from the stars and the emptiness of space—a fitting place for a tomb.
Regan looked at the schematic diagram, a muscle twitching high on one cheek. The designated point was a long way from Schemiel and far too close to Moonbase for comfort. And the battle had opened with an advantage to the enemy. Boris Zamiatin was dead and, somewhere in the base, a woman grieved.
“Anything from Draper?”
“No, Commander. He heard a static blur and when Zamiatin didn’t respond he went looking for him. He found a tunnel in the gallery and the marks of something which had cleared the debris from the floor.” He added, after a moment, “There was no body.”
That had gone, used as fuel to power the alien life of the creature that had come against them. One which could even now be pressing closer and closer to the heart of the installation; the atomic energy generators without which the entire base would perish.
Boardman said, “The creature is displaying intelligence, Mark. To go underground and to tunnel its way through rock towards the base must have been the result of a calculated decision.”
“So?”
“And there is more proof in the way it left the crater. No ordinary animal would have taken advantage of the dust as it did. Can’t you see that? To wait, to leave and to lie immobile until the area was clear. Then to find a fissure leading underground and in the direction of Moonbase—Mark, that alien could have a higher intelligence than a man!”
“Is that why it kills? An intelligent entity would surely anticipate a hostile reaction.”
“If it knew that it was killing, Mark.” Boardman elaborated the statement. “Each of the men who died was carrying some form of energy-using equipment; radios, lights, maintenance systems and the like. Their very brains transmitted a form of electronic impulses. For all we know that alien was simply trying to gain the energy it needed to survive and simply didn’t recognise the victims as independent entities. It absorbed energy as you might eat a grape. Would you know if the fruit was capable of feeling?”
And would he care if to refrain from eating was to die? A philosophical concept for which he had neither the time nor the inclination to pursue further. The base was threatened, to survive was the only thing which mattered, and Regan was determined that Moonbase should survive.
“Amanda?”
“Nothing, Com
mander.” She turned from her instruments. “No vibration and no energy nodes. The entire area around Moonbase is quiescent.”
And would remain so until the thing decided to make its move.
“It seems to be dormant each time it has ingested food,” said Boardman, thoughtfully. “If we could find it at such a time it could be relatively helpless. It might even be possible to communicate with it. Mark—”
“Forget it!” Regan was harsh. “We can’t afford the luxury of tolerance. Not to that thing. Our job is to kill it and fast. Pierre?”
“Technical Section reports that all is as you ordered, Commander. Security is standing by with mobile weapons.”
“Kanu?”
“Computer checks out probable effects of blast, Commander. There will be minor damage but all tolerable. A mile further out and a hundred yards deeper and there would be none.”
“That can’t be managed.” Regan drew in his breath, knowing that he had done all he could, anticipated every known danger and guarded against it.
Known danger—but always there was the possibility that he had overlooked something, that a certain combination of elements would produce, not an anticipated result, but something alien and frightening.
He said, quietly, “Take over, Trevor. If we fail you’ll have to use your own judgment. Pierre, tell Elna I’m on my way.”
She was waiting for him in Medical, looking very tense, her face betraying the conflict that he had engineered. A doctor’s first duty was to the patient, but Regan had demanded a higher loyalty.
“Mark, isn’t there any other way?”
“None that I can think of—can you?” Then, as she remained silent, he said, “I’ve no choice, Elna. We’re fighting the unknown and must use every weapon we have. Is she ready?”
“As ready as she’ll ever be.” She gestured to where Mandela stood beside Liz’s bed. “We’ve got her under twilight sedation. A blast of oxygen will snap her out of it. I’m not fond of the technique, but you insisted.”
And he was the Commander. Regan caught the note of accusation but ignored it. Later, if blame was to be apportioned, he would shoulder his responsibility and guilt.
The burden, perhaps, of a young girl’s life.
Joining Mandela he looked down at her. Her face was calm aside from the faint lines of tension that had appeared around the lips and eyes. The bone was more prominent than it should be, the skin a little too taut. A girl who, despite intravenous feeding, was displaying all the symptoms of one starving to death.
One he was going to use as bait.
*
The technicians had done well. Sprayed plastic had sealed the tunnel running from the base, more the cavern into which it led. A cavern too near for comfort but the best they could do in the time available. Security guards, suited, armed with heavy-weapons, stood beside the thick doors leading into the tunnel. More occupied various points against the walls. Beside them, carefully joined by snaking fuses, rested massed thermite together with conventional explosives and the dull bulk of a low-powered nuclear warhead.
Beside it stood a seismograph, crude but efficient and delicate enough to register any near vibration. And there was food.
Dishes bore heaps of succulent viands, smoking meats, synthetic but enticing, vegetables, fabrications from the yeast vats and cholera tanks, fruits from the hydroponic farms, precious sugars.
“Commander!” A technician came to meet Regan and his party as they entered the cavern. “Everything is in position as you ordered. The men have volunteered to remain.”
“Thank them, but I must refuse the offer. Security will handle what needs to be done.”
“But—”
“That is all. Withdraw your men and return to Moonbase. Stand by on red alert.”
Regan watched them go. At his side Elna said, “They mean well, Mark. We all want to see this work.”
The gamble he had devised, the trap he had set and prayed would snap shut with a successful conclusion. Again he looked over the area, at the massed thermite, the explosives, the warhead itself. Food surrounded it.
“All right, Elna. Wake Liz and then get back to Medical.”
“My place is here, Mark.”
“You’re needed more there.”
“Doctor Mandela can take charge and you know it. Liz Caffrey is my patient. I blame myself for her condition and no one is going to make me abandon her. I mean that, Mark.”
Her sudden fury had transformed her from the normal, quietly efficient, emotionless machine dedicated to the art of healing, into a woman resembling a tiger. One who would stop at nothing to gain her own way. One whose ancestors had ridden to war in open chariots ready to kill and die for the sake of their homes, their children, their men.
“As you wish, Elna. Brady?”
A security man turned from where he stood beside the seismograph. “Nothing as yet, Commander.”
The thing, then, was still dormant, but it could not be too far. The gallery where Zamiatin had met his death lay beyond and almost on a level, a matter of a few miles at most. And they were on a line from that point to where the great generators of Moonbase turned out their oceans of power.
“Commander!” Brady was looking at the seismograph. “Something’s happening!”
“Strong?”
“Yes. The needle’s off the scale. It must be close.”
“Abandon position! All to their stations! Elna wake the girl!”
She writhed on the stretcher on which she had been carried, throwing her legs over the side, dropping to move with a sinuous, snake-like motion towards the plates of food. Regan gripped her, felt her muscles contract beneath his hands as, firmly, he held her fast.
“Hungry,” she whined. “I’m so hungry! Let me eat! I must eat!”
“Look at that food,” said Regan. “Look at it. A mountain of food just for the taking. Here, get a little closer, see it, smell it, touch it, taste it. Life, girl, life. Come and eat. Come and be fed.”
Come and die if they had any luck at all. Respond to the bait and follow the urgings of the human brain that is registering your hungers. Telepathy was a reading of minds. A facility that Regan hoped would work both ways. If Liz could respond to the alien’s hunger then maybe it would respond to her pleasure at the sight of food.
And, responding, would be led through the fissures, the rock and stone, the crevasses into this cavern.
“Eat,” he urged as he let the struggling girl inch towards the food. “Eat. See all the food there is waiting for you. All the wonderful energy. Just take it. It’s waiting for you. Come and take it.”
And come soon! Soon!
A bell rang from the seismograph and the floor shook a little. A shower of particles rained from the roof and a man, standing before a wall, said, sharply. “It’s coming! I can feel it!”
“Eat, girl. Eat.” Regan waited as she snatched up a double handful of food and, as she thrust it into her mouth, swung her towards the tunnel. “Elna! Back to Moonbase. Move!”
“Liz—”
“Take her! Now get out of here! Everyone, get out!”
Trained, rehearsed, the guards knew what to do. Fire sparkled as fuses were lit and one man, running across the cavern, paused to jerk at something protruding from the atomic warhead. Another threw the contents of a flask over the device. A timing mechanism and some waste radioactives to enhance the central bait. Now all that remained was for the alien creature to follow the demands of its hunger-drive.
As the massive doors closed to seal the cavern from the tunnel Regan felt his stomach knot with tension.
Success depended on a narrow margin of time. First some of the thermite to create an area of radiant heat the rawest form of energy. Then the warhead, which he hoped would be swallowed, ingested, taken into the gaping maw he remembered. The conventional explosives that would bring down the walls and roof of the cavern, holding the thing fast and providing a barrier that would be fused solid by the rest of the thermite. And then the nucl
ear bomb itself, bursting with irresistible force, burning, searing, turning whatever the thing was made of into incandescent vapour, that vapour confined until the entire area would merge into a ball of plasma later to cool, to leave nothing but a spherical cavern coated with fused and glassy slag.
“Mark!” Elna turned as she ran, her face strained. “Liz, I can’t—”
Regan caught the girl as she stumbled, throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, taking Elna’s arm as they raced down the tunnel. Behind them came a dull boom as charges exploded to rip masses of rock to fill the opening. An added defence and a reinforcement to the doors.
More doors stood open ahead and they raced through and into a transport. As the capsule sealed and began to move Regan felt the first jar.
“The cavern,” he said. “The walls and roof should be down by now.”
“And the rest?”
The transport jerked in answer. A peculiar motion that seemed to take the vehicle and shake it before setting it down again. From all around came a deep rumbling as if a mighty organ was playing a bass note far away. A note that grew louder, to tear the air, to snarl like the anger of a giant, to roar in the fury of a god.
“The nuclear bomb,” whispered Elna. “Mark! Have we won?”
“I don’t know.” If the trap had worked the thing would be ash by now, gases that seethed in dying fury, its elemental atoms mixed with others, the whole rendered forever sterile.
But how to be sure?
“Commander?” Liz Caffrey blinked and strained against the pressure of his circling arm. He had automatically closed it around her when the shock had come; an instinctive gesture to protect the helpless. Now, looking up at him, she smiled.
“This is nice, Commander, but how did we get here? Not that it matters as long as we’re together.”
“Liz!”
“Doctor Mitchell!” She straightened, one hand lifting to touch her hair, blushing a little. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I didn’t see you.”
“How do you feel?”
“A little confused.” The girl glanced from one to the other.
