Space 1999 - The Psychomorph

by Michael Butterworth

  ‘Cause?’ Koenig asked her, still as brusque as he had been since she had woken him.

  ‘As near as I can determine – a force.’

  Maya was standing out of Verdeschi’s line of sight. He heard her voice. ‘A human force, Helena...?’ she asked.

  Helena hesitated, her attention taken by the Italian.

  ‘I have Mark Sanders and Carolyn Powell outside,’ Verdeschi announced when he had captured their attention.

  Koenig nodded appreciatively. ‘One at a time,’ he instructed. ‘Sanders first.’

  Verdeschi disappeared and re-emerged a moment later with Sanders.

  As he entered, Helena excused herself. ‘John... if you don’t need me, I’d like to check these findings with the lab,’ she said.

  Koenig nodded consent, and she walked away. He eyed Sanders. ‘Sit down, Mark.’

  Sanders looked at him nervously. Despite his mourning, he held his hands awkwardly behind his back. ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather stand,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty shook over what’s happened.’

  ‘All of us are,’ Koenig told him levelly. As he spoke he searched Sanders’ eyes.

  ‘Whatever I can do to help...’ Sanders began, uncertainly.

  ‘You and Sally were pretty friendly,’ Koenig cut him off. When Sanders nodded Koenig continued. ‘There was talk about you getting married.’ Again Sanders nodded. ‘Then, recently... there were rumours you two had split up...’

  ‘What we want to know is... why?’ Verdeschi interrupted. Sanders’ head swivelled round to the Italian. He flared.

  ‘That’s a little personal, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m not thinking, I’m asking,’ Verdeschi told him. His manner had changed to one of an interrogator, and it was designed to knock Sanders off his guard – if he had a guard to be dislodged from.

  Sanders looked to Koenig for support.

  Koenig obligingly waved Verdeschi down, and turned back to the distraught man. ‘Where were you when Sally was in the Medical Chemical Store?’ he asked.

  ‘I was with Carolyn in her quarters.’ For Verdeschi’s benefit Sanders added as coolly as he could, ‘I was with Carolyn because... let’s say Sally and I had our differences.’

  Verdeschi’s face hardened. ‘And you and Carolyn picked up where you left off with Sally!’

  ‘That’s still my personal business!’ Sanders reddened angrily.

  ‘And security on Alpha is my personal business,’ the Italian countered toughly. ‘Word was that Sally went around saying a lot of unladylike things about you after you broke up.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me I killed Sally? To shut her up?’ Sanders wheeled on the Security Chief, eyes blazing.

  Verdeschi nodded knowingly. ‘You said that, I didn’t...’

  Sanders went speechless. Before he could react further, Koenig intervened.

  ‘All right, you can go now,’ he said. ‘Wait outside.’ He turned to Verdeschi. ‘Bring in Carolyn.’

  Sanders shook off Verdeschi’s helping arm, and stomped out. A moment later, Carolyn Powell was brought in. She seemed reserved and haughty and spoke before Koenig could commence questioning her. ‘Let me spell it out to you, Commander...’ she began. ‘I’ll make it really easy before you start accusing me of killing Sally.’

  Koenig let her continue.

  ‘I’ll admit I was always jealous of Sally, but I did nothing to get Mark away from her. Then when she and Mark broke up and he began seeing me, Sally became furious and moved out of the quarters we’d been sharing...’

  Verdeschi interrupted her. ‘She thought it was your fault... the break-up?’

  ‘I tried to explain it to her, that I’d played it “hands off”,’ Carolyn replied. ‘She wouldn’t listen. We had a terrible fight over it.’

  ‘We picked up rumours that you hated Sally,’ Koenig informed her strongly. He had taken in instant dislike to the woman’s seeming indifference to Sally Martin’s death and her own boyfriend’s feelings.

  The woman before him paused and reflected. ‘I didn’t hate her... but there were times I kept wishing she were dead... so Mark would be free.’ She appeared to be gripped by a powerful feeling of some kind, and for a moment she looked distressed – but not over the death. It was hard to tell what she was bothered about. She shook off the feeling and turned imploringly to Koenig. ‘But I didn’t kill her, Commander, and I don’t know who did.’

  There was a short pause, then Verdeschi turned a new angle.

  ‘Aren’t you working on something in the labs...?’ he asked her searchingly.

  ‘That’s right,’ Carolyn nodded.

  Koenig looked puzzled by the new line of questioning, and Verdeschi explained. ‘We all know Carolyn is a brilliant research engineer...’

  ‘What’s that to do with Sally Martin’s death?’ Koenig asked.

  ‘The device Carolyn is working on is some sort of pressure machine,’ Verdeschi replied. ‘I checked with the Science Board...’ He turned back to Carolyn. ‘You haven’t made any report on it yet.’

  Carolyn faced him squarely. ‘I have an open-ended priority on research. You know that I don’t have to appear before the Science Board with anything before I’m ready.’

  Koenig knew her side of the argument was sound, but he was interested. ‘Just exactly what results are you hoping for, Carolyn?’ he asked her.

  The woman shrugged. ‘Frankly, I don’t know. I’m just conducting experiments at the moment.’ She paused, realizing that her reply had brought fresh doubts. It was highly unprofessional to conduct experiments purely for their own sake. Only amateurs with no proper knowledge of what they were doing did that. But she rode over the doubts. ‘Now, Commander, if the harassment is complete, may I go?’

  Koenig nodded thoughtfully. She swirled out of the Centre, glaring at Verdeschi as she went.

  After she had gone, Koenig turned to the Psychon. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, concealing signs of the evident weariness that was now creeping up on him again after his short rest.

  Maya replied slowly. ‘I don’t think she’ll have any happiness with Mark Sanders...’

  ‘Anything to base that on?’

  ‘A feeling. Women sometimes have strange feelings about these things...’

  Verdeschi interrupted with a , sardonic grin. ‘You mean women from Psychon have strange feelings.’

  Maya turned proudly on him, like a victorious feline. ‘And what does the great, compassionate Man From Earth feel?’ she purred.

  Verdeschi pulled a rattled face at her. ‘The Tech Boys feel that Carolyn’s working on some kind of force machine – makes anything from sonic waves to apple pie.’

  Koenig interrupted sharply. ‘You’re letting suspicions cloud your reasoning, Tony.’

  ‘Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with my being Head of Security, John,’ Verdeschi replied as he felt the other’s sting.

  Non-plussed, Koenig turned to leave. As he did so, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded report. He handed it to Verdeschi. ‘While you’re at it, check this out,’ he said gravely. ‘A report from Alan Carter. Over three-quarters of his Eagles are non-operational.’

  Verdeschi opened the report and glanced hurriedly at it. His eyebrows raised themselves questioningly and he looked up at the Commander. ‘Sabotage?’

  Koenig gave him a parting gaze. As he left the Centre, he said: ‘To quote Tony Verdeschi – “Suspicions go hand-in-hand with being Head of Security...”’

  A growing tension mounted in the Space Station. None of the several hundred inhabitants were panicking; or very few of them, at any rate, Verdeschi thought to himself as he remembered the big miner. But they were on the edge of disaster, only managing to keep impending destruction at bay by the skin of their teeth. More traces of Tiranium had been discovered, but it was slim news indeed and would extend their life only by hours. Still, if sufficient could be found to keep them going on a day to day basis, they stood an even chance of pulling through.

/>   It would have been more productive of the big miner to gamble on the chances of their survival, the Italian muttered angrily as he set off to see Pete Garforth in the Engineering Workshop.

  Garforth was the Chief Engineer, a dedicated, bespectacled man with freckled skin and a shock of unruly red hair. He would help to explain the malfunctions that the report said were occuring in the Eagle Ships.

  Verdeschi entered the huge, vault-like Workshop filled with the massive, dismantled engines of the Alphan space ships and other machinery that needed constant overhauling. Garforth was at work testing a small motor on a test-bench. The motor was connected to a power console by a heavy cable and the engineer was in the process of starting the motor up when he saw Verdeschi. He knew why the visit was being paid.

  The Security Chief walked over to him, a grim expression on his face. ‘I’m not accusing you, Pete,’ he said. ‘But in this sort of business, we look for a common denominator – and you’re it!’

  Garforth looked upset. ‘I’ve worked with Eagles all my life. I’d sooner cut my granny’s throat...’

  Verdeschi tapped a file he held in his hands. ‘It’s on record. Every time a job goes through your hands, there’s a malfunction.’

  The red-haired engineer gestured helplessly. ‘I’d be risking my own neck – I’m an Eagle test-pilot as well as an engineer. Who do you think takes those babies up as soon as they’re fixed?’

  ‘Weren’t you grounded after your crash?’ Verdeschi asked him sternly, hating himself for re-opening a wound in the process of healing.

  The other flinched uncomfortably. ‘Ah, that was nothing. I’ve been cleared by Doctor Russell... I’m fully operational again...’

  It was hard not to be impressed by the man’s obvious sincerity. Nevertheless, Verdeschi had to do his job. ‘Then if it isn’t you – who, or what is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I swear to you I don’t know,’ the man implored. ‘Look at this.’ He indicated the engine on the bench. ‘Starboard booster motor, in one hundred per cent perfect condition.’ His voice sounded exasperated as he went on: ‘On the bench she runs like a dream. In the Eagle – she’s dead. I take her out of the Eagle and put her back on the bench and test her – there’s nothing wrong.’ He threw up his hands and shook his head slowly in despair. ‘You tell me what’s happening?’

  Equally frustrated, Verdeschi decided that the man was telling the truth. It was true – he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by sabotaging the ships. They were interrupted by a bleep coming from the monitor on the console. Garforth touched a button and the worried face of one of the Maintenance Engineers appeared on the screen.

  ‘Chief Engineer Garforth to Maintenance Section, please. Urgent!’ the man said.

  Garforth looked at Verdeschi. ‘They’re playing my song, Tony. I’ve gotta go.’

  ‘OK,’ Verdeschi said to him. ‘I’m due to meet the Commander in a few minutes, anyway. Mind if I take a quick look around?’

  ‘Sure...’ the Chief Engineer replied, hesitantly. ‘Only you won’t touch anything?’ He nodded towards the motor. ‘I’ve disconnected the safety-regulator on that baby.’

  Verdeschi smiled dryly. ‘Don’t worry. Even I know enough not to fiddle with a potential Tiranium bomb.’

  The engineer acknowledged the call and hurried out.

  A bomb was what it potentially is, too, Verdeschi thought after he had gone. He stared respectfully at the motor and walked past it on his inspection tour round the shop.

  Much of the machinery scattered all around him on the floor, hanging from overhead cranes and gantries, lying dismantled on tables, was a mystery to him. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, and after a while he shook his head and tapped his file again. Without Garforth he wasn’t making any headway. Just my luck, he scowled bad-temperedly.

  He was about to turn and leave when he heard the sound cf the doors leading into the corridor sliding shut. They were normally kept shut for safety reasons, as all doors were on the Moon Base. He didn’t think anything unusual about them until he fired his comlock and tried to open them. They wouldn’t.

  Impatiently, he examined his comlock. Then, from the test bench behind him came the throb of the motor starting up.

  He almost dropped the comlock in alarm. Reholstering it, he ran over to the controlling power console and searched the flashing panels. He found the right control and tried to operate it. To his consternation, he found that it wouldn’t work. It appeared to have jammed.

  He ran back to the doors and tried vainly to open them again, but to no avail. The throb of the motor increased in his ears, until it became an all-consuming, roaring, screaming sound. He dropped the comlock and protected his ears. He looked wildly around for some tool to lever open the doors.

  He spied a large crow-bar lying next to the power console and ran to pick it up. As he did so, he noticed the warning- needles on the console swinging into the red danger zone of their casements.

  The motor was overheating – and soon the small radioactive Tiranium core inside it would melt. He had only moments before half the Moon Base went up. Abandoning the crow-bar, he leapt at the heavy cable that connected the console to the motor and tried to pull it out with his bare hands. But the cable plug would not extricate itself. It was as if some strange, invisible power were holding the cable, the control switch and the Workshop doors firmly in place.

  The light-years of stars and the deep, black infinity of Space in which they shone still visually occupied the Big Screen. The picture was a mystery. By all rights they ought to be seeing some sign of the field of energy that, according to their instruments, was all around them.

  Koenig and Maya studied the stars minutely for signs of an impediment blocking, slowing down or bending their light –but they searched in vain.

  ‘Well, whatever it is, it’s increasing... it’s getting “thicker”, if that’s the right word, as we get deeper into it...’ Maya commented from her console. ‘The electrical pulse is stronger now.’

  ‘Computer read-out?’ Koenig asked tensely. There had to be some respite for them somewhere... some end or solution to one or another of their seemingly compound problems.

  ‘I’ve checked the memory banks,’ Maya replied. ‘Nothing like it has ever been recorded.’

  A sudden thought occurred to Koenig. ‘You don’t think it could be alive, do you?’

  ‘Who knows? It affects the sensors so much they can’t give up proper readings...’

  ‘If it is throwing out your instruments, it could be affecting the Eagles, too.’ He stabbed at a button on the Command Console. The monitor in front of him, which ought to have come to life, stayed dead. ‘That’s funny... I can’t get Engineering...’ He stabbed at another button. Maintenance came on the screen. It was in fact the face of Pete Garforth, the person whom he had first tried to contact.

  ‘Engineering,’ Garforth announced.

  ‘Is Verdeschi there?’ Koenig asked, still puzzled.

  ‘I left him in my workshop... said he was coming over to you...’ Garforth was frowning too. ‘Didn’t he get there?’

  ‘No.’ Koenig’s worry mounted. ‘Thanks, Pete.’ He turned to Maya. ‘If that stuff, whatever it is out there, is affecting our sensors, and affecting the controls of the Eagles... it might have had something to do with what happened to Sally and... Verdeschi!’

  As sudden realization dawned, he ran quickly out of the Centre, shouting at Maya to follow.

  Together they made their way towards the Engineering Workshops, some good few minutes away. As they reached the Workshop doors, a sudden sharp drop in the temperature became noticeable.

  ‘What the... it’s like ice!’ Koenig shivered uncontrollably. His teeth began to chatter as he whipped out his comlock and fired it at the doors without success.

  His suspicion that Verdeschi was trapped inside grew to certainty, and he pressed his face against the strongly-built window and stared inside.

  He saw the figure of the Ita
lian desperately trying to lever a cable plug out of the power console. In seconds, Koenig’s quick eyes noticed what was happening and he grew even more determined to get into the room. But the doors were made especially strong to withstand a possible blast from the interior. The ironic thing was, if the motor inside the workshop blew up it would make no difference whether the door had been built ten metres or ten centimetres thick.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘No, John,’ Maya warned Koenig as he thoughtlessly brought out his laser and aimed it at the door.

  She pulled his arm away. ‘The heat from the laser might boost the temperature inside – the whole place will blow!’

  Although the air had gone suddenly cold out in the corridor, there was no saying what the temperature was inside the Workshop. The melting motor was doubtless giving out inordinate amounts of heat.

  Through the window they could see the Workshop filling with smoke as the power console began to burn out. Verdeschi staggered around inside it, coughing and spluttering. He noticed their faces and made his way towards them. He held his hands over his ears to protect himself from the noise. As the decibels rose even higher, Koenig and Maya began to hear the sound filtering faintly through the heavily-insulated doors.

  Uncaring of her own safety, the phenominal Psychon woman prepared to demonstrate her powers of molecular transformation. She realized that it was the last hope that they had of rescuing Verdeschi – and saving the Moon Base. At Koenig’s side she began converting her body to its elemental components. A fierce spindle of light emanated from her as she dissociated; for a moment pulsating madly. Then the black, solid outlines of some immense creature began to appear out of the light. As the light died away altogether, Koenig saw with satisfaction that she had converted herself into a very large, and very powerful-looking mountain gorilla.

  The gorilla took one look at the obstinate doors and with a snarl of anger it threw itself on them. They bent open with ease and the gorilla bounded through them, squashing them flat with its weight. Koenig followed thankfully behind and while the gorilla occupied itself wrenching up the cable and pulling away a whole section of the burning console in its successful attempt to unplug it, he dragged the spluttering Verdeschi out into the corridor to recover.