‘Results break down into three groups. One showed no increase at all. The middle group, the largest, showed significant increase over a wide range... John?’
‘I’m all right... go on,’ Koenig told her with irritation.
‘The really exciting ones are the third group – the ones I call the Sensitives. So far I’ve found three: Carolyn Powell, Carl Renton and Pete Garforth. Their powers go right off the scale...’ She broke off, realizing that she wasn’t getting through. She produced a packet of pills from her pocket. ‘John, I’ve been worried about you. I brought you some sleeping pills...’
‘No!’ Koenig exploded. His drawn features made him look manic.
‘John!’ she explained, taken, aback by his abrupt manner.
Koenig relented, overcome by pressures too much to bear. He said more gently, ‘Helena... I can’t sleep.’
‘That’s why I want you to take...’
‘I’m afraid to sleep...!’ he interrupted, more urgently. A weary despair came over him, and she laid down her papers in alarm and put her arm round him. ‘John... tell me.’
Koenig began the long, slow, laborious explanation – laborious and slow because he didn’t really want to have to admit that he was affected by the attack. ‘I told you part of it...’ he began. ‘A long time ago... when I was an astronaut cadet; we had to abandon some scientists on a Venus space station...’
Helena remembered, and helped him along. ‘You said they’d caught some Venusian disease, something there was no known antidote for. You couldn’t risk bringing them back to Earth...’
Koenig nodded painfully. ‘By the time the disease was discovered, two of our crew were already on the space station. They were an advance party. Sam and Tessa...’ He shuddered in her embrace. ‘We left them to die with the others. Now, every time I close my eyes I see them there, accusing me...’
‘It’s a dream, John,’ Helena told him, convincingly. ‘Just a recurring dream.’
Koenig didn’t seem to have heard her. He continued his confession in abject misery. ‘Sam was my best friend. We went through Astronaut School together. He and Tessa were going to be married...’
‘John, stop punishing yourself,’ she told him firmly. ‘You did what you had to and at least they were together...’ Now she didn’t sound so convincing.
‘I tell myself that...’ Koenig replied, ‘all the time. It doesn’t make any difference.’
‘You can’t go on without sleep, you’ll be hallucinating... you’ll break down completely.’
Koenig tensed. ‘And if I do sleep, I’ll go mad.’ He broke away from her clasp and smiled sardonically. ‘It’s an interesting point isn’t it, Doctor Russell? How do I command Alpha when I’m losing my mind?’
Almost immediately he regretted being so sarcastic; but she hadn’t heeded him. With compassion, she took him back in her arms and kissed him tenderly on the forehead.
The cryptic, starry pattern of Space was still frozen on the Big Screen. There was no visible movement on it. To all intents and purposes it was a quite uneventful picture of Space, with no indication of life at all – yet according to Alphan instrumentation ‘life’ was what the elusive substance that lay out there was becoming more and more closely to resemble.
The white points of light moving across the oscilloscope had increased, and they danced more lively. The rapid bleeping sound they made filled the Command Centre with a shrill, insistent warning of an escalation in Lambda Wave emanations.
In the Medical Centre Maya worked busily at Helena’s request, erecting a screen which they hoped would act as a barrier to the ubiquitous Waves.
On Psychon, the planet of her origin, psychic phenomena had been no rarity. They had been an everyday occurrence and had been used and exploited openly by her fellow men and women. Maya was not a psychic herself, but she could become one if she so chose, simply by re-arranging her molecular chemistry. Psychon and her youth had long since gone, destroyed when her despotic father had tried ruthlessly to recreate her people in their former glory. But the knowledge, the experiences and the memories were not. These she would treasure for ever – and now she used them to help the Alphans in their plight.
The ‘screen’ was less of a screen and more of a cubicle. The idea was to step inside it and so cancel out the psi effect. Next to the screen, monitors and an oscilloscope were mounted, receiving the readings that were being made in the Command Centre.
Verdeschi entered the Centre and watched her. ‘What are you doing... running a carnival?’ he asked.
Without looking up, Maya told him.
‘What about the tests you and Helena ran?’
‘Nothing definitive’, Maya replied. She straightened up. With an engrossed look on her face she moved towards the instruments and depressed a button. A monitor which had been set up inside the booth began bleeping, showing the typical Lambda Wave formation. She turned a second control. ‘This one should operate the force field around the screen,’ she said.
As she had predicted, the force field came into existence, effectively blocking the Psi Waves. The bleeping monitor inside the screen died.
Verdeschi grinned. ‘The Space Creature isn’t gonna like that.’
‘The feeling is mutual,’ Maya told him, well pleased with her success. ‘Now, we better get back to our posts.’
She turned off the equipment, and they both left the Centre.
Carolyn Powell flung herself about the deserted Lounge. She was in a state of extreme agitation. She had remained behind after the others returned to their various posts of work and now, on her own, she was faced with her inner struggle again.
The intruding presence that possessed and controlled her was supremely powerful. More than once it had conquered her desperate attempts to oust it from her. But she was on the losing side. She was in such a bad way it wouldn’t take much to tip the scales on the side of Evil... and she would be the slave of the Devil forever.
The Lounge doors slid open and Mark Sanders walked inside. He looked unhappy, although she didn’t sense this straight away. He had come to her at a crucial moment, like a shining light in the satanic Darkness that was engulfing her. He would save her from her fate.
‘Mark!’ She ran to him, her arms extended to embrace him. She hugged him and rested her face on his chest and burst into tears of relief. ‘Oh Mark... I need you so badly. Why didn’t you listen to me before?’
Sanders stood stiffly in her embrace. His arms dangled limply by his sides, uncaressing. She caught his reluctance and withdrew from him in bewilderment. She noticed the grim look on his face and a shade of fear entered her voice. ‘What is it, Mark... what is the matter?’
He turned away from her, better able to say what he had to say from this position. With awful awareness of the truth, she gazed at his back, knowing what was on his mind. She waited tremulously for him to speak.
‘There’s something I must say to you, Carolyn,’ he began. ‘I’ve been thinking... about us... ever since... Sally... died...’
A cold, mask like expression formed on Carolyn’s face. He was giving her the shove... just like he had done with Sally. ‘What about... ever since Sally... died?’ she asked. The Dark forces inside her pulsed triumphantly. They grew, spreading throughout her being like a delicious cancer delivering her from the horrors of Life.
Sanders’ body clenched involuntarily at her tone of voice. ‘I’ve got a feeling I can’t shake that you had something to do with it,’ he said numbly.
‘How can you say that?’ she retorted, though not as angrily as she meant to.
‘Easy,’ Sanders replied, still with his back to her. ‘You lied when you said you didn’t do anything active to get me away from Sally.’
‘I lied because I love you... everything I do is because I love you.’ A pang of grief creased her face again as the good side of her nature was stirred by these words and made a last attempt to throw off its aggressor.
‘It isn’t going to work,’ Sanders commented savagely. ‘We aren�
�t going to work.’
‘I thought you loved me. You said so...’
Sanders sighed heavily. ‘I’m confused about a lot of things, but one thing I’m not confused about is my feeling for you.’ He sensed that she was about to touch him again, and moved away from her.
‘What if I said I needed you – that I needed you now?’ Carolyn pleaded despairingly after him.
Abruptly, Sanders turned and stared into her eyes. There was a strange, twisted expression on his face. ‘You’ve changed, Carolyn... something’s different about you. I don’t know what...’ He searched deeply into her eyes for a sign. He saw it; malign, hateful and cold, and he shuddered.
‘Mark..?’ she started, as though electrified.
He turned away from her, ignoring her outstretched arm. ‘I’m sorry, Carolyn...’ not knowing that it symbolized her last desperate attempt to hold on to the side of her that was still human.
‘I won’t let you go...’ she muttered, almost under her breath.
He left her, almost paralyzed with grief himself, not knowing whether she meant that she would try to prevent him leaving the room but was unable to bring herself to do so, or whether she meant that she would work on him slowly and try to bring back his old feelings for her.
Carolyn was left on her own once more. The Dark, hellish cancer increased its hold. The deserted Lounge grew colder. Her eyes widened, and she went into a kind of maddened trance.
Sanders slouched miserably along the corridor on his way back to his post. He despised himself for what he had done to Carolyn, though he was inwardly relieved that it was all over. She would come round, eventually, he thought. When her feelings for him had changed.
He had almost reached the Hydroponics Centre when a chill, hard wind began blowing from behind him. At first he thought it was the air-conditioning system malfunctioning, and he looked up at the grilles along the top of the walls. But he quickly realized that they could not be responsible... the wind was too harsh.
Fearfully, he glanced behind him. The well-lighted corridor was strangely deserted, revealing no sign of the cause.
The wind increased in its intensity, and grew icy cold. He shivered and hugged himself with his arms to keep warm. A look of horror crossed his face as he realized what the answer was. It was the only answer that could be logically deduced. The Moon Base had been holed by an explosion or by an abnormally large meteor. Their precious air was being sucked out into the vacuum of Space.
Wildly, he raced towards the Hydroponics Centre’s main doors to secure himself inside and to warn Koenig on the monitor. But he got no further along the corridor. His body, paralyzed with the intense cold, collapsed against the wall. He lay on his back, staring upwards in terror.
The wind howled and shrieked. The air grew misty, and in the mist appeared the sinister form of Carolyn Powell.
‘I’m not letting you go!’ she shrieked, her hideous face a mass of ill-formed lines and blotches. ‘I’m taking you back!’
He screamed, unable to move away as the hating face of the creature that he had once loved came... to devour him forever.
CHAPTER FOUR
No trace of the rushing wind, or any other clue to Sanders’ horrific death was left in the corridor. Only the body and the fact of the kind of his death remained.
‘Ugh!’ Helena winced at the gruesome sight of mutilated flesh that was only vaguely recognizable as Sanders. He had been pulped and his bones filleted. The bloodied skeleton was scattered about the corridor.
Koenig, who had again been called from his quarters, stood weakly nearby, surveying the scene with a shocked, stupified expression. ‘Just like Sally... only worse,’ he murmured weakly.
Verdeschi spoke next: ‘That Space Field; did it do this?’
‘Maya’s instruments recorded a tremendous surge of energy just before this happened...’ Koenig observed grimly.
Verdeschi looked doubtful. ‘My vote still goes to the human element.’ He paused reflectively. ‘To one of Helena’s Super Sensitives, to be exact.’
‘Carolyn...?’ The world was out of Helena’s mouth before she could prevent it.
‘First Sally, now Mark – you name a better suspect,’ Verdeschi told her grimly. ‘I’d like to bring her in for further questioning.’
With difficulty, Helena collected her thoughts together. ‘Tony – would you hold off please – until after the next set of tests? We have three suspects. Let me have one more try and then maybe we can pinpoint it down to one.’
Tony nodded sickly, staring at the orderlies who had the unpleasant task of gathering up the bits and pieces of the dismembered corpse. ‘One more try...’
Koenig turned his pale, drawn face towards him. ‘Keep a squad nearby all the time,’ he ordered.
Verdeschi grunted and watched Koenig depart unsteadily. He and Helena exchanged worried glances, then got down to the grisly business of supervizing the orderlies and searching for clues.
As soon as she could, Helena got away for a pre-arranged appointment with Maya in the Medical Centre.
The two women found the Lambda Wave shield exactly as Maya had left it not long ago. They set to on the controls, activating it.
The booth began to emit an orange light, indicating the force field that surrounded it. Helena damped some of the switches. ‘If the shield blocks the Lambda Waves, then we know that some force has been coming from the Space Field –affecting the behavioural pattern of the mind...’
Carl Renton announced himself at the door.
‘Our first subject... come in!’ Helena called.
Renton entered, and sheepishly allowed himself to be led into the booth.
‘You did very well with the ball bearing...’ Maya told him, positioning a small table in front of him. On the table was the same box with the same ball bearing in it. ‘Now we want you to try again, only...’ She motioned to Helena, ‘now we’re surrounding you with a force field.’
She stepped just outside the booth as it began to emanate its orange glow again. She kept her eyes on Renton. ‘Now, think,’ she told him. ‘Think and move the ball.’ From where she stood, she could see inside the box. Renton concentrated until his brow wrinkled tautly, but in vain. This time his powers of telekinesis were ineffective.
Helena turned off the field. ‘That’s fine, Carl. You can come out. Thank you for co-operating.’
Renton stepped out. He smiled shyly. ‘I only hope it helps,’ he said. He left, just as Pete Garforth entered.
‘You want me to do some more conjuring tricks, Doc?’ Gar-forth asked, taking in the scene with a cocky expression on his face.
‘That’s right, Pete,’ Maya said. ‘Just the way you did before; in the booth.’
They tried the same test on the engineer, substituting the ball-bearing for the Geller-effect metal-bending experiment. Conducted inside the booth, with the force field switched on, the results of his test were also negative. Tried with the booth switched off, they were positive.
They went through several more subjects. The results were conclusive; proving beyond doubt that the invisible field of power which had attached itself to the Moon was responsible for the sudden increase in the occurrence of psychic phenomenon.
Only one subject remained to be tested; Carolyn Powell. She had been called, but could not be found.
Helena and Maya were about to pack up when the missing research engineer entered. She looked unkempt and her eyes blazed a mixture of intense sorrow and hatred.
Helena tightened her grip on the sheaf of notes she had gathered up.
‘You wanted to see me, Doctor Russell?’ the woman asked coldly.
Helena forced a slight smile. ‘That’s right. I’d like you to help us with some more tests.’
Carolyn advanced. She appeared to be totally unruffled by the news of her lover’s death. She bore an aura of malice, causing Helena and Maya to step back in alarm.
‘Yes, of course,’ she told them. ‘What do you want me to do?’
&nbs
p; Helena showed her to a table outside the booth and began performing the card test with her. Each card was guessed accurately, with uncanny prescience.
‘That’s fine, Carolyn,’ Helena told her nervously after she had finished. ‘A perfect score, just like last time.’ Now came the important part of the experiment. Strictly speaking, it was not all experiment. Verdeschi and his security guards were hiding in the Centre at Koenig’s instructions. They were watching the number one suspect.
Helena remained calm. ‘Now, Carolyn, we’d like you to try the same tests inside the booth.’
A flicker of suspicion crossed the other woman’s hallowed face. Then she smiled her consent. It seemed to Helena as though she had perceived their intentions and for reasons of her own had decided to play their game.
Maya looked sharply at Carolyn as she seated herself inside the booth. ‘I don’t like it,’ she told Helena in a low voice. ‘She’s too clever. I should have changed myself...’
‘Wait,’ Helena told her. ‘Let’s see what happens first.’
She followed Carolyn inside the booth and began dealing the cards. Her subject scanned the hidden cards. An amused smile played on her lips as she guessed first one, then another, incorrectly. She ran through all the cards that Helena had dealt, and each time guessed incorrectly.
Outside the booth, Maya kept a careful surveillance over the instrumentation. An electroencephalogram registered no Lambda Waves – only the more common Alpha and Beta Waves.
Carolyn shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Russell. Nothing seems to be happening...’
Helena gave a sigh of relief. She rose from her seat and made a signal to Verdeschi. He and his men stepped out of cover.
The amused smile returned to Carolyn’s lips. She remained seated. ‘Still, let’s not give up,’ she said mockingly. ‘Let me try harder.’
As she spoke, Lambda Waves began registering on the oscilloscope. Maya gasped.
Helena and Verdeschi stayed their ground. They watched in alarm as the Medical Centre grew suddenly colder, and Carolyn began shuffling the cards with a sinister vigour. She stood up inside the booth, electrode wires trailing from her head to the instruments outside. One after another, she called out the cards before upturning them and throwing them out at their feet.
Space 1999 - The Psychomorph Page 5
