by John Rankine
He stopped. Facing Cydon, he asked, ‘What is your estimate of the time it will take to prepare Phoenix for countdown?’
‘When I was a young man, I was given instruction in the launch procedures. It was a long time ago. All the information you need is to be found in the control bunker at the silo. Fuelling alone, as I remember, takes a full twenty-four hours. But while that is going on, you can familiarise yourself with the other details.’
‘Will local power sources be enough for that?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Then we should start right away.’
‘I will direct you to the control bunker. You must excuse me if I stay here, but I will be available to give any help that is in my power.’
‘Do you have any idea of how we can reach the switchgear for the tidal generators?’
‘That is easy to say, but it will be far from easy to carry out. I do not even know whether the supply cable is still intact and, indeed, whether it can still be followed. But it runs in a deep conduit across the peninsula. There will be a power control centre below Caster. It is, you might say, the reason why the town was sited in that place. Detailed plans are available. It was always known that we would have to make the reconnection, if Phoenix should be launched. At one time there was an annual inspection. But not in my lifetime.’
Koenig recognised that a number of things must be done at the same time and he did not have the personnel to do it. The key to the operation lay at the power terminal. If he failed there, Phoenix would stay forever in her pit. That had to be right. In delegating jobs, one specialist picked himself. Victor Bergman was the only Alphan with the mathematical background to sort out the unfamiliar data of the Megaronian control systems.
He said, ‘Victor. Mission control falls to you. As soon as you like, get the fuel flowing in. Then run through prelaunch checks. I’d like Alan to be getting the feel of the navigation desk, but I can’t spare him. For you and me, Alan, it’s the long walk. We’ll start as soon as we’ve had a quick look at the ship.’
Carter said, ‘Check, Commander.’
Karl had been listening intently to the exchange, and after a quick look at Gelanor, said, ‘Commander. You do not know what problems you might meet. Another man at your back could be important. Allow me to come with you. I think I know where we are heading and there will be duty guards at the power centre.’
It was no time to refuse help. Koenig said, ‘I know you, Karl, and there’s nobody I would rather have on a mission. Thank you.’
To Cydon he said, ‘There’s one more thing. You said you could raise Alpha. I’d like to speak with the operations room there.’
Cydon inclined his head and walked slowly to a long, elaborate communications spread. His bony fingers flipped switches in a row and a large screen glowed with silver rain. As it cleared, a gaunt sphere filled the frame, pockmarked with craters and lava dykes. The Alphans had seen it often enough below the jacks of their hurrying Eagles. Helena said, ‘Our moon!’
It was no paradise to offer to an impressionable girl and Carter said defensively, ‘Think of it as a spacer in mid-passage. Moonbase Alpha is comfortable enough.’
Rhoda said, ‘Are you afraid that I can’t stand a few problems. The place is unimportant, if you like the company you are with.’
Sandra Benes’s patient voice sounded over. ‘This is Main Mission calling Commander Koenig. We think you are still within range. Come in Commander Koenig.’
Cydon beckoned and Koenig joined him. The Megaronian was tuning for magnification and the edges of the still were peeling away as the probes bore in. There was the silver glint of the domes and corridors of the sprawling base and then a last spurt, as though they had broken through the roof of Main Mission. The command island was there, with Sandra Benes looking at the big screen, dark eyes wide and incredulous as she stared at Koenig’s hawk face looking down at her.
They heard her quick intake of breath. She said, ‘Paul! Kano! It’s the commander!’
Koenig said, ‘It’s good to see you. We have a race on, against the clock. There’s an outside chance that we might get a spacer off the ground and catch up. Victor needs technical help. Keep the link open and have computer keyed in on remote.’
Paul Morrow said, ‘Check, Commander. Can we meet you?’
‘That might be necessary. But there’s a whole lot of maybe in the equation. We’ll keep in touch.’
Cydon blanked the screen. He said, ‘We must conserve power where we can. You will be able to communicate from the control bunker or from the command cabin of Phoenix.’
Rhoda said, ‘I like your people, Alan. Particularly the fair one who spoke. What is he called? Paul, did you say?’
‘You don’t think I’m going to let you talk to people, do you? You’ll be locked in my cabin and only allowed out under my personal direction. Very likely on a short length of silver chain.’
Cydon moved slowly and positioned himself deep in the recess of a horseshoe console. He said, ‘You are anxious to make a start, Commander. I can no longer make the journey into the silo. But I will lead you.’
For a moment, Koenig believed that senility had won the day and that perhaps the whole of Cydon’s offer had come from an unhinged mind. Then the old man was bathed in a shaft of brilliant light. When his voice came again, it was from an archway almost opposite to the one through which they had entered. All eyes tracked from the illuminated man to his doppelgänger, which stood in the arch, looking the more solid of the two.
‘This way, my friends. After all these years, the plan of the sanctuary is as vivid to my mind as the palm of my own hand.’
Certainly, there was no hesitation as Cydon projected himself through a maze of corridors, moving firmly at a good pace. Rounding a long, circular gallery, he explained, ‘There are three silos. Phoenix is in the centre one. We are passing the first. The ship here is unfinished. She is a small military craft, started when the intercontinental conflict became inevitable.’
Koenig said, ‘And the third silo?’
‘A missile. Against the wishes of the scientists, the government of the day insisted that the facilities of the base should be used for the war effort. Launching it would have brought swift reprisal. The people here contrived to delay, until the government was swept aside in the public upheaval. It was disarmed and made safe.’
At the centre silo, Cydon stopped and indicated a massive hatch, sealed by wheel gear. He said, ‘Through there, you will be in more familiar territory than I am. I shall be ready to answer any questions you may ask.’ One second, he was there in full flower; the next, he was gone and they were alone.
Koenig spun the release wheels; a motor whined on load and slowly opened the hatch, which was a full metre thick. They stepped over the coaming to a gantry and the immense scale of the undertaking silenced all hands.
They had seen Phoenix scaled down, as a model to wonder at, in Cydon’s lounge. Seeing her at close quarters, brilliantly lit along her shining length, she was a triumph of the human mind. Untold years of evolution had produced the race which had produced this marvel to carry them to the stars.
Both hands on the rail, Koenig looked up and down the sleek hull. He said, ‘Let no one say that man is insignificant. One way or another, he will make his mark and the universe will have to reckon with him.’
Helena Russell said, ‘They could do this and yet they could not work out their personal relationships. Why is that?’
It was the ultimate question. Victor Bergman, from bitter experience, could say, ‘And not only here, Helena. Earth Planet has the same unbelievable problem. Science is ahead of the techniques of government. When we build the new Alpha, we shall have to do more to keep them in phase.’
They clattered down a spiral staircase to a lower gantry and found the entrance to the control bunker. It was, as Cydon had said, a straightforward layout. Victor Bergman, excited as a schoolboy, went from console to console, identifying control systems and already making racin
g calculations on how they could be manned.
Controls were labelled in a language which was not familiar to the Outfarers; but, in addition, there was a pictograph system, which was plain enough to an experienced space scientist. He settled himself at the command desk and after a concentrated scan, picked out the start sequence for the fuelling system.
As though inspired by the spirit of the long-gone Megaronian controller, he went along the instrument spread, selecting switches. From the depths of the silo, there was the hum of machinery starting up. A stylised flow chart glowed on a monitor. They were in business. Phoenix was taking a transfusion of life blood.
Koenig left him to it. He and Carter dropped down two more gantries to reach the waist. Opening below the brilliant flames of the ship’s emblem, the main hatch was reached by a broad ramp that lipped into the reception area. A central trunk with a hoist ladder, that could be a walkway when the ship was in flight, led to all sectors.
She was built in modules: a power pack with its control cabin; a well-found ward room; the command cabin with four desks on a command island; a dormitory module; a hydroponic tank section; and a communications outpost in the cone. The problems of space flight were the problems of space flight for any people at any time and the Megaronian designers had come up with solutions that both the Alphans had seen before. But there was no doubt about the quality of the craft. She was a superb piece of engineering.
Koenig said, ‘What do you think, Captain?’
‘She’ll go and we can fly her, Commander.’
‘So all we have to do is open the gate.’
‘That’s all.’
‘Let’s do that thing, then.’
CHAPTER NINE
Helena Russell knelt by the manhold and watched Koenig’s disappearing head like an Eskimo by a fishing hold and feeling as numb. The undertaking swayed between the extreme poles of being too easy and too hard. Against all rational hope, they had been given a second chance. Watching Victor Bergman, working like a living extension of the hardware, and looking at the sheer splendour of Phoenix, she could believe that the fantastic was no more than sober fact. But it all hinged on the human factors of three men, with all the odds against them.
She called down, ‘John!’
He stopped his downward climb and looked up, seeing her head circled in an aureole of light. ‘What is it?’
‘Take care.’
‘I’ll take care.’
‘Look. It’s important, but it isn’t the end of the world. I’d rather live here with you, than reach Alpha without you.’
‘Believe it, we’ll reach Alpha, you and I, both.’
‘Good luck.’
The shaft led to a sub-station, lit by a ceiling port, with flow diagrams on the walls and a control desk for two operators. Koenig checked round. It was plain enough. Once the cable was live, power could be channelled to the opening gear for the silo.
Carter found the hatch for the cable conduit and he and Karl heaved it open. A metre below the coaming, the massive conductor went away into darkness, a black snake in a black pit. Hanging from the roof of the tunnel, hooked by pulleys to a monorail, was a flat tray with a seesaw lever mounted on a central pivot. Carter stepped onto it and gave an experimental push to the bar. He was two metres off and picking up speed, before he realised what he had found.
Karl said, ‘It’s a maintenance trolley, commander. They’d send a crew along to inspect the cable. I’ve seen them before in the tunnels. It’s going to make a lot of difference to the time.’
It had been designed for two operators. The third man had every chance of being minced by the moving parts, but it was still a whole lot better than balance walking along the top of the cable. Carter and Karl stood at either end, pumping the lever, and Koenig stood on a handsbreadth ledge of clear deck, hanging on to a crossbeam between the two support stanchions.
The tunnel was dust dry and their passage raised a swirling grey mist behind them. Ahead, the view was always the same: as far as the beams of their lamps could go, there was grey, gunmetal cladding curving down to the endless ribbon of black cable. From visual clues, they could have been standing still below the same metre of monorail. But Carter’s white coverall, blackened with sweat, was a silent testimony to the power he was putting into the pumping handle.
After a half hour, Koenig called a halt and shifted over to take Karl’s place. The Megaronian said, ‘How far have we come, Commander?’
‘It’s hard to judge distances. Perhaps a third of the way.’
They went on, falling into a tireless rhythm, a foretaste of limbo and the journey to the underworld. Karl relieved Carter at the leading end. It was hypnotic, mind bending. For Koenig’s money, they could have been anywhere, leagues under the sea or a branch line circling the equator. When the character of the tunnel changed, he was slow to react, and they had gone a hundred metres into a white, tiled section on a gradual upward slope before he called, ‘Karl. Hold it!’ and brought the swaying trolley to a halt.
They dropped to the top of the cable, glad to be moving on their own feet. After the draught of their passage, the air seemed stifling and hot. Up ahead, the slope levelled again and the tunnel opened into an oblong chamber. The cable humped, lifting itself in a curve. It disappeared into the roof for ten metres, then reappeared, to plunge on into the ongoing conduit. Whether it was the one they were looking for or not, they had gotten to a take-off point. Overhead was some kind of district sub-station. A line of rungs, set in the left-hand wall, led to a circular trap.
Three beams of light centred on it as they looked up. Alan Carter, voice hardly more than a breath, said, ‘If there’s a duty detail up there, the first man through the hole will have to be quick.’
There was nothing to be gained by looking at it. Koenig mounted the ladder. The underside of the hatch had a plain rim, with no evidence that there was any locking mechanism. The hinge was set on the wall side. It was simply a plug to keep out the draughts and stop any absentminded engineer from falling through with his cocoa.
He tried to visualise the room above. Very likely, any load-bearing wall would be set directly above the wall below, so the hatch would open against it. He looked at the cable. That would feed directly to the control panels. An operator sitting there would either be facing him over the desk or have his back to him. It was a fifty-fifty chance.
He went up another rung, flattened his palms on the underside of the lid and pushed. There was resistance and then he felt it move a centimetre. Slowly, he settled it back. He said, ‘Up beside me, Alan. They can only be surprised once.’
As Carter climbed up, Koenig took his laser from its clip and fixed the lanyard to his right wrist. Carter levelled with him and he mobilised every gramme of energy in a thrust that lifted the heavy plate in a single, smooth swing. As he sensed it pass the point of balance, he was up after it, head and shoulders through the gap as it thudded to a stop against the wall.
A Megaronian was facing him. Four metres off. Hands flat on a desk top, half out of a swivel chair, mouth open as the unexpected jammed his computer with sudden queries. There were no answers. Koenig’s laser swept into aim and a stun beam filled his head with an instant cloud of unknowing.
Caked with dust and sweat, with the glaring eye of the lamp still fixed on his headband, the Alphan was no bonus to see at the end of a duty stint. A man and a girl walking towards a door in the wall behind the operator swung round to see what was happening to Alan Carter fairly hurled himself out of the trap.
Two one-eyed trogs, materialising out of the parquet, were two too many for the girl. Hands to her mouth, she was already buckling at the knees as Carter sprayed round with a wide angled beam.
There was no one else on the set. Leaving her black-uniformed companion to fall where nature’s laws directed, Carter caught her neatly before she reached the deck and sat her against a filing cabinet, knees bent, chin on her hands, eyes open and still full of horror.
There were two doors.
One led to a circular landing and an elevator trunk. This was the one the two had been making for. The other door was sealed and carried a legend which Karl read off: ‘No Entry, Spadec Directive One. Maximum Penalty.’
Koenig said, ‘Watch the door, Karl. There could be another one to come on duty.’
So far so good, but there was no obvious way to make the power switch. All the hardware in sight seemed to be for distributing the incoming power for local use. He crossed to the closed door and used his vibrator to sheer out a panel round the lock. When it was open, he knew he was home and dry. Massive switchgear on one wall was marked up with pictographs that showed a spacer in a silo.
The rest of the room was filled by a huge computer spread. Across its front panels was the acronym spelled out in full: Social, Political And Defence Executive Computer.
Outside, there was the noise of an elevator tripping its stop and then a scuffle of feet as Carter brought in a plump girl in a grey caftan to sit beside her compatriot.
Koenig appeared in his doorway. ‘Fix the elevator, Alan. Then jam the door. What do we have? Two hours? A duty tour would not be less. So we can be back before the chase gets under way. But how do we make sure they don’t reverse what we’ve done?
‘Does it matter, if we get the silo open?’
‘I’d like Victor’s opinion on that, but I’d say not.’
He would also have liked his scientific adviser to be, there present and looking at Spadec. How far had the executive computer gone solo and how far was it still responsive to suggestions from the top brass in Caster? Were they as trapped by the system as everybody else, or were they still able to make programme changes?
Standing still and letting his mind take a run at it, he came up with the view that Spadec was the oracle in the cave. Even if it did not initiate policy, it was the ultimate director. The council framed a question, Spadec came up with the answer in line with a detailed programme, which had been stored in its memory in the long-distant past. By this time, nobody could break out of the circle, and for many, the will to do so was long gone.
