“We are always interested in peaceful cooperation,” Koenig told her.
She sensed his reticence. Her smile vanished, and she stiffened. “I represent the Imperial Archon, Supreme Leader of the Federated Worlds of Dorcon.”
Maya strained violently forward in her seat, knocking aside Verdeschi’s restraining arm. “Dorcons!” She almost spat at the face. It was not an exclamation of surprise, but one of scorn, for she already knew full well who their visitors were.
“That is correct,” Varda spoke frozenly. There was an element of loathing in her voice now.
Koenig tensed, remembering the word that Maya had moaned out in her pain. “How can we help you, Consul?”
“Our scanners have dctected an alien female among your people... a Psychon.” She pronounced the word with distaste. “Is that correct?”
Verdeschi stepped forward hotly. “What do you want with her?”
“We must ask you to hand her over.”
“We’ll do nothing of the kind,” Koenig retorted indignantly.
There was a pause, then the winsome smile crept back on the alien woman’s face. “Commander, we’ve scanned your base. Your people are in need of technical assistance.” Again she paused and this time there was a strong element of suggestiveness in her manner. “We can help you.”
There was no pause while Verdeschi shouted out, “No deal!”
Koenig nodded in agreement, and there was a general murmur of protest at the Consul’s loathsome bargain. Varda flared angrily.
“Refuse and we’ll take her—by force!”
“You came in peace, remember!” Koenig reminded her. He turned abruptly to Verdeschi. “Activate surface lasers.” To Carter he said. “Combat Eagle alert.”
While the two moved to carry out his orders, Varda decried his decision in no uncertain terms. “Stupid, primitive man. You have condemned your people to death!”
“Goodbye, Consul,” Koenig said firmly. He extended his arm to depress the button that would cut her off. But before he could do so, Maya cried out, “No, John! She’ll do it. The Dorcons can and will destroy Alpha.”
“Listen to her, Commander,” Varda hissed at him. “Heed her advice.”
But Koenig did not need to heed. He knew full well where his duties lay. He was suficiently clever not to fall for a bluff, and the Dorcons had tried once already to frighten them with their dramatic tactics. Even if they did prove to be superior in warfare, as Maya had assured him—and he had no reason to doubt her word—he would still never allow himself to be cajoled into submission by words.
Impassively, he hit the cut-out switch, banishing Consul Varda’s face from the screen. He continued with his preparations for Red Alert.
“We can rule out a full-scale attack,” an appreciative Maya told him. She had recovered from her ordeal and worked intently at her console, carrying out his orders as well as any of the others. His support had boosted her spirits. “They need me alive, John.”
“They’ll have to come and get you,” he told her grimly. He wondered why they needed her.
“What makes you so sure they’ll come?”
“Wouldn’t you, if the price was immortality?” she asked him.
He stared blankly at her. “What do you mean?”
“They want the Psychon brain stem, John.”
“Brain stem?” He and Verdeschi almost stopped working. They glanced sharply at one another.
“Yes—mine,” she continued bitterly. “Once grafted to a Dorcon brain, the result is immortality.” She paused, remembering. “Psychon and Dorcon were nearly always at war. In the days when our society was strong, they hunted down many of us and killed us.” She looked half-fearfully, half-guiltily, at them. “I honestly thought they would have given up now that I’m probably the last Psychon alive... except for Dorzak, of course.” She shuddered, remembering the despotic Dorzak who had almost destroyed the Moon Base in his ruthless attempts at tyranny. When they had defeated him, he had been taken away by the Crotons and imprisoned.
Verdeschi slammed his hand down on his console. “It’s obscene!”
“And quite simple,” she added. “A precise surgical transfer.”
Verdeschi moved angrily toward her. “That’s enough!”
Again, Maya seemed worried for her friends, the Alphans. She turned in an appeal to Koenig. “Let me go, John. There’s still time for you.”
Verdeschi grabbed her violently. “Shut up, Maya!”
Koenig reached out a restraining hand and placed it on the Security Chief’s shoulder. “Easy Tony... she’s not going anywhere.”
Deeply upset, Maya shook her head. “Then prepare to die.” She looked around her through the tears. “I mean it. All of you.”
“They refused?” Archon queried of Varda dryly. He did not seem to be upset.
“I knew it!” Malic exploded.
Varda ignored the incensed star ship commander. “They are deeply loyal to the Psychon.”
“How noble!” Malic spat, scathingly.
“You promised you’d get her, Varda,” Archon murmured in a soft, threatening voice that made Varda’s insides turn to jelly.
“So I shall,” the Consul put in hastily. “But I need time, Archon.”
“Time to waste more time!” Malic scoffed harshly.
Archon’s wrinkles stopped moving. He looked as though he had died. “Consul Varda,” he said abruptly, making her jump, “do they realize we have the power to destroy them?”
“Yes, Archon, but—”
“Then demonstrate that we have the will to use it!” His voice rose from a murmur to the level of normal conversation. It was the loudest he had spoken for several months, and Varda quivered in fear as she bowed and scraped her way out of his sacred room of state.
Maya stared grimly at the indicators on her console. They were flashing warningly.
“John! Energy build-up!”
The attack had commenced.
“Source?” Koenig asked, perhaps unnecessarily.
“The Dorcon ship.”
The big black vessel had been brought back on the screen again. After it broke through their defense shields not many moments ago and then bombarded them with the white death light, it had come to a halt, scarcely a hundred miles from the lunar surface. Now it was holding itself there as if by magic, defying the Moon’s gravity. As Maya announced her readings, ports in its massive, black hull began glowing ominously.
“This is it,” Verdeschi told them.
Koenig stabbed at a button and put out a last command. “Damage crews—stand by for action.” In the Moon Base a group of Alphans with fire-fighting equipment and wearing protective fire suits rushed to key points in the corridors.
They were as ready as they could possibly be. Lethal batteries of lasers on the Moon’s surface were raised for firing. Eagle war ships had been positioned ready for launching. Medical and all other emergency crews had been put on standby for immediate action.
“Stand by, non combatants,” Koenig broadcast reassuringly to the two hundred and fifty-plus Alphans on the base. “Remain in protective areas until further notice.”
As he spoke, the ports on the black Dorcon craft let loose a sudden, rapid stream of energy bolts. The bolts struck them almost instantaneously, and they were rocked gently by a distant explosion. A winking light on a diagrammatic map of the Base told them that an outlying storage building on the surface had been struck and completely demolished.
“We’re under attack. Retaliate!” Koenig commanded savagely.
Carter, who was installed at the weaponry console, obeyed instantly. They watched with gratification as several dense clusters of laser beams lanced up from the surface guns. They were the most powerful lasers mankind had been able to devise, and when they hit something they usually vaporized it...
But the beams were reflected harmlessly off the monstrous hull, causing the Command Center personnel to gape with incredulity. They cried out in fear as another volley of energy bo
lts left the glowing war ports and destroyed one of their laser batteries. A third volley effortlessly demolished a second battery, and a third.
“Lasers knocked out!” Carter shouted, aghast. “Perimeter Areas Four, Nine, and Six destroyed!” Verdeschi cried.
Koenig had gone white. “Alan, launch the Eagles.”
One by one, the proud Eagle ships burned upward in an attempt to blast the enemy from the skies. Now, surely, Koenig thought privately to himself, we must fight them off.
But his hopes were quickly dashed. Hardly had their leading ship had a chance to rise much above the severe, craggy mountain peaks lining the lunar horizon than it was mercilessly picked off. Before their eyes it was rent asunder, becoming a ball of raging, fiercely burning fire.
Appalled, they watched as another Eagle, more gallant than the others, drew closer to the Dorcon craft and fired at its underbelly with her laser cannons. Her beams of destructive light energy bounced off the ugly, impossible carcass.
Quick to realize their position, Koenig recalled them. The brave fleet peeled away, firing their booster rockets, and began their descent. As they descended, more energy bolts chased them, and several more of the craft were destroyed, erupting in flame.
They were now forced to concede defeat and lick their wounds. But Koenig hesitated, knowing that if they surrendered, they would have to hand over Maya.
“Emergency crews Perimeter Six immediately...”
“Medical Crew to Perimeter Nine...”
“Fire Units to Perimeter Two...”
Frantic orders were flashed across the Moon Base from section to section. The rain of Dorcon fire did not let up, and the Base itself was quaking almost to destruction.
“They’re tearing us apart!” Verdeschi yelled.
The scene in the Command Center had grown desperate, with many of the operatives calling out openly to Koenig to deliver Maya to her aggressors.
“She stays!” Verdeschi screamed.
Koenig thought wildly. Eventually he said, “Sahn, contact the ship.”
Sobbing, the operative got the alien Consul back on the screen. Her beauteous image was flickering, owing to the effects of the disruptive energy bolts still streaming down on the base. But a distinct look of triumph marked her features. “You’ll give us the Psychon?” she asked.
“We want to negotiate,” Koenig told her. “Call off the attack.”
“Negotiate?” Verdeschi’s strained, disbelieving voice sounded.
“Consul, I said call off the attack!”
“You know our terms, Commander. No negotiating.”
Koenig bounded from his console and grabbed Maya. He wrenched her from her seat. “All right. Here she is.” He looked up at.the screen. “Look at her, Varda, she’s the last living Psychon.” He pulled out his hand laser. “Call off the attack—or I’ll kill her.”
The look of triumph faded from the Consul’s face. There was a long pause while the destruction went on and the Moon Base rumbled. Koenig looked like a desperate man, and she watched him raise the nozzle of his laser closer to the Psychon’s head.
With a small, sideways glance at someone off-screen, she said, “Cease bombardment,” and after a few long moments more, the ominous quaking stopped.
CHAPTER
TEN
“Kill the Psychon?” Archon’s dried, trembling lips queried in a voice not much above that of a whisper. His wrinkles had set in sudden fury. Purple blotches spread like a rash across his wasted cheeks. “Do they think we are fools?”
“They are desperate, Archon.” Varda bowed fearfully before the enraged tyrant.
“It’s intolerable!” Archon gasped, almost dying of an apoplexy.
Malic, who had been standing by observing his uncle’s demeanor and hoping that the threatened heart attack would finally claim him before they managed to abduct the Psychon, stepped boldly forward. “Let me deal with them, Uncle,” he offered.
“Silence!” Archon’s throat rasped in a futile attempt at savagery.
“It is my wish to serve you, Uncle” Malic persisted, starting to seethe again.
“You wish my death, boy,” Archon corrected, unexpectedly regaining his composure. As Malic’s wrath turned to fear at this disclosure, he continued, “But I won’t die—will I, Consul?”
“You have earned your immortality, Archon,” Varda assured him diplomatically.
“Then get the Psychon... or your life is forfeit!” the sick ruler told her. His bony hands made a sudden snatch at the folds of material around his heart, and his face contorted with pain.
Varda departed with a bow. This time she was followed by Malic.
“Consul Varda,” he called her by her title coldly as he hurried after her reluctant figure. “My uncle is a difficult man to serve.”
“He is Archon,” Varda told him matter-of-factly, knowing what he was about to propose to her.
“And I am the heir to the throne,” he persisted guilefully.
“Which you will remain, it seems.”
“Precisely. Do you think it right, Consul?”
She halted and turned on him. “Archon has given our people peace and stability—”
“I promise them greatness,” he interrupted. His eyes flashed wildly with a selfish idealism.
“If you become Archon...”
“When I become Archon.”
“That’s treason, Malic. I’ll have no part in it.”
He nodded, smiling mysteriously. “Suit yourself. As for its being treason, whether it is or it isn’t depends on who is Archon—him or me.”
He turned arrogantly on his heels and marched away.
The feeling of nameless terror that had been slowly gathering inside her now showed its razor-sharp head. Malic was no longer a powerless malcontent; he was in sight of his coup d’état. Perhaps he saw the acquisition of this ultimate power as a solution to his ills—and, when he got to power, whoever had stood against him would have to be eliminated.
She strode stiffly into the operations area where two of the ship’s technicians were attending to the meson converter.
“Activate,” she commanded them.
The technicians obeyed her. Instantly, the spheroid, translucent machine that occupied the center of the room began to glow and pulsate.
“Pinpoint the area where they hold the Psychon.”
An electronic signal on the console they were working began bleeping furiously. “Located,” one of them called out.
“Lock into converter.”
“Locked.”
“Alert Commando Group One for immediate action,” she ordered finally. “I shall be waiting here for them.” She clenched her jaw aggressively.
This time she would make sure she got what she wanted.
The toll of dead and injured, destruction and damage mounted as Koenig sat ashen-faced at his console. He listened numbly as Verdeschi, Carter, and Maya reported the latest snippets of information as they were received. Gradually, the complete, horrifying picture was emerging—of a Moon Base badly crippled, its armory virtually knocked out, and its manpower severely demoralized. What was most difficult to swallow was that the Dorcons had only put on a display; had they made all-out war on them they would now not exist at all. Only Maya’s presence had saved them although, looked at from another angle, “only” Maya’s presence had gotten them into trouble in the first place.
“We’ve got every exit sealed and covered in case they try to board us,” Verdeschi told him from his console.
“Dorcons, Tony... sealed doors won’t stop them,” Koenig reminded him. “The meson converter you detected.” He turned to Maya, puzzled. “Why haven’t they beamed themselves down here already?”
She fell unexpectedly silent. A look of remorse crossed her features, and Verdeschi looked at her in alarm again.
“They’re scared, John,” she explained at length. “They have to play it cautiously, as they may not get to me in time.” She sighed. “My people have never allowed themselv
es to be taken alive.”
“No!” Verdeschi shouted, on his feet again. “I won’t take that!” He strode over to her and put his arms about her. “You mustn’t say that.”
“Tony, I have to—” she began, intending to explain to him the importance to her of her racial pride, but she was cut off by the sudden re-arrival in the Command Center of the white light.
The light throbbed and hung menacingly in the center of the room, causing them all to stop work. As though surveying them, it moved from console to console, eventually stopping close to Koenig’s. It hung motionlessly in the air, blinding them with its intensity.
Maya stiffened like a wild animal. She rose from her console, pushing Verdeschi’s possessive arm from around her shoulders. “They’ve come for me! I must...” She turned wildly to Verdeschi and attacked him. “Give me your gun!” She tried to wrestle his laser gun from him. The desperate look of a cornered beast was in her eyes.
“No! You’re... not... going... to...” Verdeschi told her firmly, trying to restrain her and defend himself at the same time.
As they fought, the globe of light decided that the moment was right, and it grew in brilliance, filling the room again with painful brightness. When it subsided, this time the silhouettes of four figures could be seen materializing out of its strange ether. The Alphans recognized Varda, who looked infinitely more desirable and stunning in the flesh. By her side stood three armed guards who instinctively backed toward each other as soon as they arrived and warily waved their guns around them.
The Command Center froze—Koenig caught half in and half out of his seat, on his face a hostile expression of surprise and antagonism; Maya and Verdeschi intertwined with each other like grotesque statues.
Finally, Varda smiled and moved toward Maya. She motioned to her blank-faced guards to follow her. They moved, crab-wise, after her.
“Commander, you have capitulated.” She spoke velvetly to Koenig without looking at him. “And, Psychon you’re mine.”
With a swift movement of her arm she withdrew a torch-like weapon from her belt. She was about to raise it and point it at Maya when an Alphan guard who had been about to enter the Command Center now did so—with his laser rifle raised to his shoulder. He fired before the Dorcon guards could respond, charring one of them to a solid black ash. But before he could pick off the other two, they responded and returned the fire. He collapsed with a sharp cry of pain.
Space 1999 - The Edge of the Infinite Page 10
