Space 1999 - Mind-Breaks of Space

by Michael Butterworth

  INTERPLANETARY PERILS

  As Moon Base Alpha is drawn inexorably off course by an intense and inexplicable gravitational force, the Alphans are compelled to contend with hazards that menace their survival as much as the ever-diminishing supply of Tiranium, essential to their life-support system.

  An uninhibited, glib-talking computer seeking immortality...

  Two members of an ancient stellar travelling race afflicted with the dreaded Mark of Archanon...

  A fanatic prone to prescient visions who foresees the imminent destruction of the Moon Base...

  A race of rebellious androids who want to provoke the Alphans to hate and murder, so they can be programmed to do it themselves...

  SPACE 1999

  Mind-Breaks of Space

  A Star Original

  ‘Across the Big Screen they watched the Eagle ships lift and soar towards some possibility of survival. It was a gesture rather like dropping lifeboats down in the middle of the ocean back on Earth, only there they could hope for reaching an island or rescue by a passing vessel. In the deep of space, the Eagle ships would have slim hope of either.

  ‘Then as they watched, they noticed a tiny point of light which somehow stood out against all the sparkles in space.

  ‘It was a glassy, sinister, pulsating light.

  ‘“Focus and magnify!”’ Koenig ordered, starting forward.

  ‘The light shifted to the centre of the screen and grew startlingly in size as the telescopic lens zoomed on it. It became a glowing ball masked with a swathe or orange cloud...’

  Michael Butterworth

  and J. Jeff Jones

  SPACE 1999

  MIND-BREAKS OF SPACE

  Based on the successful TV series

  A STAR BOOK

  published by

  The Paperback Division of W. H. ALLEN & Co. Ltd.

  A Star Book

  Published in 1977

  by Wyndham Publications Ltd.

  A Howard and Wyndham Company

  123, King Street, London W6 9JG

  Copyright © ITC – Incorporated Television Company Ltd.

  this novelization copyright ©

  Michael Butterworth & J. Jeff Jones, 1977

  Jacket and inside illustrations by courtesy of ITC

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham

  ISBN 0 352 39665 2

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  AUTHORS’ NOTE

  We wish to make it clear that the characters in this book are totally fictitious and bear no relation whatsoever to the real lives of the actors and actresses who play the roles of these characters in the TV performances.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It hit them from out of nowhere.

  The moment was so unexpected and so sudden that even Commander John Koenig himself was stunned into inaction. He could only stand and stare in amazement with the rest of the Command Centre personnel as the warning letters flashed up on the Big Screen:

  CHANGE OF HORIZON

  and as the slow, certain flicking of the digits below told the progress of the alarming event:

  0.01°, 0.02°, 0.03°, 0.04° ...

  ‘John:’ questioned Tony Verdeschi urgently. ‘What in God’s name...? We’re changing course!’

  The Security Chief’s words broke the spell of shock and Koenig stirred himself into action. ‘I see it, Tony,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand it, but I see it.’ He glanced urgently over his shoulder. ‘Yasko,’ he ordered, ‘show me the horizon.’

  The attractive Japanese computer operator punched a new set of instructions for the computer.

  Abruptly, the grey blankness against which the coded computer data of the past three years had been flashing – all that had been collected since the Moon had blasted free of its Earth orbit – began to clear.

  The Moon Base had been taking advantage of a peaceful and uneventful month, to transfer the valuable information it had gleaned during its unwilling and hazardous flight through space, into the Main Computer Memory – a long-postponed operation that would greatly increase their chances of survival. But the operation had been abruptly halted by the arrival of the unexpected information. The mood of momentary calm, almost holiday-like, had been shattered in seconds.

  An instrument display of the horizon flashed on the screen just above where it now said, CHANGE OF HORIZON 2.00°, and Koenig felt an ice chill of dread as the points of the gyroscopic gauge rolled slowly and steadily to the right from the constant zero.

  Some stupendous force was acting on the Moon, drawing it inexorably towards... towards what?

  ‘Maya!’ he called out, keeping his eyes on the baffling figures. ‘What’s pulling at us?’

  Maya’s Psychon eyes tensed with the seriousness of the moment. She let her fingers dance like lightning over the keyboard of her computer link. The small screen of the console in front of her immediately responded with a pearl-bright string of unhelpful zeros. That was the sensor’s way of saying that no news may not be good news, but for the moment that was all it had in stock.

  ‘I have no reading, John,’ Maya reported worriedly.

  ‘Yasko,’ Koenig ordered, ‘find something on the screen. Let’s see what it looks like.’

  Yasko responded, and the puzzling information on the Big Screen vanished to be replaced by the black velvet of space and the cast diamonds across it of millions of stars. Vainly, all eyes in the Command Centre searched for any single significant point that would explain the mysterious force.

  Tony Verdeschi felt his quick-fired Italian blood rage with impatience. He could deal with problems, but when their causes refused to come out and show themselves, he saw red. ‘It looks just the same as it always does!’ he snapped.

  Koenig reserved his judgment.

  ‘What factor could be involved in a change of course that we couldn’t read?’ he asked Maya.

  ‘Just one. A gravity pull from space,’ she replied.

  Koenig nodded, tight-lipped, and then directed: ‘See if you can locate the source.’

  Immediately Maya and Yasko leaned across their consoles and began to send out directions to the intricate sensory monitors that formed the complex system of the Alpha Base’s ‘eyes and ears’.

  Coded lights danced across the cathode tubes.

  ‘Predicted position of gravity source,’ Maya reported to Koenig and the rest of the waiting crew, ‘no prediction...’ Her brow crinkled in astonishment.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Tony commented, verifying the computer’s message on the ribbon of tape which chattered from the print-out. He shook his head with annoyance.

  Koenig considered the situation for a moment, then ordered: ‘Give me a three-sixty degree visual scan.’

  As he spoke, the powerful lens on the Moon’s surface above the Command Centre was brought into action. It swivelled slowly round, and took in the complete dome of the galaxy ahead of them. Still nothing appeared that had the slightest significance to the mysterious grip of gravity that had captured them.

  The horizon reading slipped noisily from 9.00° to 10.00° to 11.00°.

  ‘John,’ Tony said tensely, stepping close to the Commander and keeping his voice down, ‘What if it’s a black dwarf?’

  Dr Helena Russell was standing near enough to hear the question. She had placed herself instinctively close to Koenig
when the emergency began, but to one side so as not to distract from his handling of the situation. Only when she heard Tony’s suggestion she reached out and gripped his arm.

  ‘If we’re going to collide with a black dwarf...’ she began, frightened but also keeping her voice low so as not to spread alarm.

  Koenig looked at her, sending a message of comfort and regret with his eyes. He turned back to face Tony.

  ‘Evacuation procedure!’ he ordered firmly. ‘And fast!’

  Tony leapt to the big red switch and clicked it home. Instantly the scream of the alert klaxon began to fill the corridors of the entire Moon Base complex. Tony leaned down to the microphone and connected himself to the speakers in the pilot’s quarters. ‘All Eagles prepare to evacuate... prepare to evacuate!’

  Helena switched herself through to the Medical Section. ‘Medical Section prepare to evacuate,’ she ordered, confirming the signal that would be flashing through the hospital already.

  Koenig watched the monitor carefully to assess the rate of course change, wondering just how much time they had left. At last the carefully chosen few among all the personnel who could be taken off by the limited Eagle fleet were ready for the final order.

  CHANGE OF HORIZON, 17.00°, the Big Screen flashed.

  ‘Rate of change still constant...’ Maya reported. But suddenly she leant forward in alarm. She stared at the figures. ‘But the rate of close is accelerating!’

  Tony confirmed the bad news. ‘We’re getting closer to whatever it is that’s pulling us. We don’t have much time.’

  Grimly, Koenig gave the only order he could, the one that might be his last. ‘Evacuate,’ he said tonelessly.

  Across the Big Screen they watched the Eagle ships lift and soar towards some possibility of survival. It was a gesture rather like dropping lifeboats down in the middle of the ocean back on Earth, only there they could hope for reaching an island or rescue by a passing vessel. In the deep of space, the Eagle ships would have slim hope of either.

  Then, as they watched, they noticed a tiny point of light which somehow stood out against all the sparkles in space.

  It was a glassy, sinister, pulsating light.

  ‘Focus and magnify!’ Koenig ordered, starting forward.

  The light shifted to the centre of the screen and grew startlingly in size as the telescopic lens zoomed on it. It became a glowing hall masked with a swathe of orange cloud.

  ‘Identify!’ he requested.

  He was perplexed as Maya replied: ‘Estimates only.’

  ‘Estimates only?’ he repeated, incredulously. ‘Why isn’t our computer dealing with that?’

  Tony provided the answer from his own circuit check. ‘It seems to have slowed up,’ he said, clenching his teeth.

  Maya and Koenig both exchanged astounded glances. But it was a problem that would have to be gone into later, if there was a later. Koenig returned his attention to the planet ahead of them.

  ‘Is that what’s pulling us off-course?’ he asked.

  ‘No, John,’ said Maya. ‘I calculate it’s a small planet with no more gravity pull than we have.’

  Koenig’s perplexity increased a hundredfold as suddenly into view on the screen flashed an unknown space ship.

  ‘What in...?’ Tony gasped.

  Koenig’s surprise was compounded by the strange sensation he had seen the space ship, or one like it before. It was certainly no Eagle, being smaller and sleeker, but there were certain touches that were oddly familiar. He put aside the thought for the moment and ordered: ‘Intercept the ship!’

  Tony punched channels through to the Eagle flight and instructed Eagles One and Two to break off from the evacuation formation.

  A moment later the amplified voice of the Eagle One pilot came back over the speakers. ‘Eagle One to Moon Base. We now have visual contact.’

  Koenig switched himself through to the pilot on his own monitor. ‘Command Centre to Eagle One,’ he identified. ‘Are you having any abnormal gravity from that spaceship?’

  ‘No, John. Gravity is normal.’

  Koenig settled back thoughtfully, shaking his head. He listened as the Eagles manoeuvred into interception positions. They had no difficulty since the alien space ship continued imperturbably along its course towards the Moon, taking no evasive action. He watched Eagle One abruptly swerve in towards the ship with a blast of thrust rockets to close on it.

  ‘Eagle One to spaceship,’ the pilot’s voice sounded across the speakers as he tried to make contact. ‘Eagle One to spaceship. Can you receive me?’ There was silence while everyone listened with bated breath. ‘We are friendly,’ the Eagle pilot added as an afterthought.

  They waited tensely, half assuming the ship to carry no life. Out of the grave-like stillness came a reply. It was a ringing, youthful voice and it surprised them all.

  ‘Hello Eagle One!’ it greeted. ‘Am I glad to hear you! Eagles from Planet Earth, good old merry terry firma! WAOW! And is that, or is that not, the dear old Moony-moon-moon?’

  The Eagle pilot was just as dumbfounded as the Command Centre personnel. It almost seemed like some incredible practical joke. He hesitated just on that point, not wanting to be made the butt of a prank. Then he thought again, and knew that what he had just heard was real enough and it was his responsibility to return the communication.

  ‘Eagle One to Spaceship. That is the Moon.’ He took a deep breath and added the standard request. ‘Please identify yourself.’

  ‘Hello, Eagle!’ the voice seemed not to have heard them. It had its own version of communications routine. ‘How are ya? My spaceship is a Swift, also originating from Earth.’

  Of course, thought Koenig as soon as he heard it. The Swift was an earlier model of the Eagle ships, especially designed for deep space exploration. But it couldn’t have come this far from Earth by itself. Swifts were support vessels for larger, mother ships.

  He didn’t have to ask as the bubbly, informal voice explained, ‘I was on a star mission, with three other Swifts and a mother ship. We left Earth in nineteen ninety-six.’

  Instantly Koenig ordered a computer check. This time there didn’t seem to be any slowness in the response, and the answer flickered up brightly on Maya’s screen.

  ‘Star mission in nineteen ninety-six,’ she confirmed. ‘Mothership and four Swifts. Under the Command of a Captain Michael.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  Maya had the answer ready. ‘Communication break. Fate unknown.’

  Koenig considered this while he watched the Eagle manoeuvre closer to the Swift. In the meantime they had both, along with Eagle Two, drawn much closer to the Moon.

  ‘Say bird baby,’ the Swift’s mysterious voice quipped, ‘there used to be a base on the Moon. What was it... um, Alpha? Is it still there? Is it manned?’

  The Eagle pilot confirmed, ‘Moon Base Alpha is operational.’

  The words brought back the state of the crisis to Koenig. Logic told him that any unusual gravitational effects should have been overwhelmingly apparent to the Eagles and to the Swift that were in front of them. Yet they obviously weren’t aware of any.

  ‘We might be more operational if we knew more about that gravity pull.’ He shot a questioning glance at Maya, ‘Do we have any more data?’

  ‘No, sir. The force registering on the monitor seems to have stabilized. I’ll check and see if I can determine whether there is a real gravity threat, or if our computer has developed a fault.’

  Koenig started to ask the probability of such a thing happening when his attention was diverted by the voice from the Swift booming through the Command Centre speakers.

  ‘Swift to Alpha... hi big Alpha! Boy oh boy, listen you guys...’ Helena almost laughed at the familiarity. ‘I ain’t seen or heard no-one for so long I’d just about given up.’ Tony didn’t quite know how to take the informality, being still wrought up about the catastrophe that had seemed imminent only minutes before. ‘Hey there!’ the voice yelled. ‘Can
I come down and have lunch with you?’

  Koenig gave himself a moment to carefully consider, then put his microphone through to the open channel. ‘Moon Base Alpha to Swift. Come on down and have lunch with us.’ He carefully closed the channel before turning and giving Tony a meaningful nod.

  Tony tuned in a special frequency on his transmitter. ‘Weapons section,’ he said confidentially. ‘Lasers on standby. Target – incoming spaceship, Swift Class. Range – five hundred kilometres.’

  A steady, businesslike voice replied, ‘Weapons Section acknowledges Command Centre. Defence System activated and standing by.’

  Tony fed the Swift’s co-ordinates into the automatic tracking system for the lasers and pressed the ‘Armed’ button so that Koenig could see on his control board that everything was prepared. All the Commander had to do was press the Fire button and the Swift would be ripped to scrap metal.

  Both Eagles took up escort positions alongside the Swift as it dropped down towards Alpha, but maintained a reasonable distance from it. They knew full well what precautions Koenig would take. As the Swift swooped down to a landing pad and settled gently with its braking rockets, the Eagles hovered above, keeping a precautionary watchful eye.

  ‘Helena,’ Koenig said, moving towards the Command Centre doors, ‘would you like to join the reception committee?’

  Two Security guards met them at the entrance to the travel tube that had extended and secured itself to the airlock of the Swift. Both of them cradled stun-guns over one arm and looked purposefully serious. They both had wariness and nerveless professionalism drilled into them when they had attended the Flight Security School back on Earth. It was an occupational polish that Koenig had encouraged in them as well as in all the other skills and trades that were practised by the three hundred people on the Moon Base. He returned their familiar salute and led the way into the travel tube. It shot away towards the ship.

  He was only a stride away from the air-lock doors of the Swift when they slid open with a gentle gush of air. Inside he could see the mildly-lit and vaguely familiar design of the passenger section. There were not many differences between it and the Eagle interiors apart from the slightly overpowering lavender upholstery which immediately caught Helena’s eye.