Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians

by Brian Ball

  ‘But you’ll have time, John! Time, and the best instructors! We don’t live your brief span of years, John! Why, my father has lived for over five centuries in your terms, and he is still a young man. We have a dozen of your lifetimes ahead of us. And the stars, too! We can show you how to sail out far beyond any galaxy you knew—we can take you into parts of the Universe where life is still being created. Only say you’ll stay here on Zenno, and my father and I can stop trying to support that part of you which belongs to your planet. Say it, John!’

  Koenig felt the woman’s surge of love. It washed through and over him with a warmth he had not known since the first glow of emergent manhood. There had been women, and not a few either; Koenig had accepted life as it came to him. But nothing, no one, had stirred him as Vana did now.

  ‘I have to believe you,’ he said. ‘I have to believe that this is true. I know that I have your love, and I hope you do not doubt mine, Vana.’ His hand came up to his forehead. ‘When I think that I am here because of your father’s experiment, I find it ironic. You, Vana, in love with what to him is an ape-man.’

  Vana threw himself around him.

  ‘Ape-man, Earthman, space-man, star-man! You’ll stay—I know it!’

  Koenig held her close.

  ‘How could I leave you?’

  Raan was waiting when they returned to the brilliant apartment which Vana had summoned into being. Already, Koenig could begin to understand how a human mind could master the subtleties of the inner dimensions. The Zennites had advanced their minds, but they were humans. What they could do, so might he. Raan looked sombrely at them.

  ‘So you have made your decision, Commander?’

  Koenig was immediately alert. He might be two million years behind in intellect, but he knew when a man put out a challenge.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ he said. ‘I stay here, on Zenno.’

  ‘You surprise me, Commander.’

  ‘Why, Father?’ said Vana. ‘Is there any reason why John should not stay?’

  ‘He must judge for himself, Vana.’

  ‘But you’ve told me that you can’t sustain my life on Alpha—how can there be any choice?’ demanded Koenig. Raan’s cold grey eyes were full of an unreadable calculation. Not dislike, not challenge, thought Koenig. There was almost a look of pity there. And why pity now?

  Koenig felt a cold, uneasy sensation, ghosts plucked at the fringes of his mind. The Zennite purple was heavy, black-edged, suddenly menacing.

  Raan’s gaze cleared, as if he had solved his calculation.

  ‘Now I read your mind again, John Koenig,’ said Raan. ‘I know there is love for my daughter.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I have read of this emotion. You have the symptoms, and Vana too. It clouds your judgement.’

  ‘You’d better say what you mean,’ said Koenig in a level voice, with a coldness at his heart.

  ‘No!’ called Vana. ‘I know!’

  She glared at her father.

  ‘You want to take him back to that condemned base! You want him to waste his life on a bleak rock amongst those primitives. But he won’t! John, I’ll break the hold we have on you—I’ll release you from the constricting brief life. I need you more than they. John, you’ll be the finest of the Zennites!’

  When she stopped, Koenig said, ‘Well, Raan?’

  ‘I can keep the link for a little longer. Long enough for you to judge for yourself, John Koenig. And then you can tell me about the power of love.’

  Koenig braced himself as the Zennite harnessed the forces of his incredible intellect. He heard Vana call out, and then the mind-reeling purple void took him in its grip.

  Time hung still as the vivid haze formed. Space rushed away in a colossal tide. And then, about him, the bleak contours of Moonbase Alpha began to form.

  Koenig saw at once that a crisis had developed.

  He hurried through the long corridors. There was no echo as his shoes hit the floor. A hurrying technician would have walked into him had Koenig not sprung aside. Koenig realized that he was only a projection, a thing without substance. No one could see him. He was still a captive of the Zennite’s fantastic trickery. But why send him back? Why now, after he had seemed to be accepted on Zenno?

  He made for Main Mission Control and saw why.

  A technician was struggling in the grip of a red-faced security guard. Another of the big purple-uniformed men ran to help.

  ‘Watch him!’ bawled Paul Morrow. ‘He had a gun!’

  Koenig ran. No one noticed him.

  Kano bent to pick up the black-handled weapon which had slid from the technician’s paralysed hand.

  ‘Put it down!’ Morrow ordered.

  Kano looked at Paul Morrow in incredulous amazement.

  ‘No one handles weapons except Security!’ Morrow snapped. ‘And that includes you, Kano!’

  ‘You didn’t think I—’

  ‘He’s one of your men isn’t he?’ snapped Morrow. ‘How do I know who’s in this madness? First the fist-fights, then this—bring him here!’ he ordered.

  ‘It’s Devereaux, sir,’ said the security guard. ‘First-class Technician.’

  ‘How did you get the gun?’ said Morrow.

  Deveraux’s lips were badly cut. Blood dripped down his jacket. ‘I’m saying nothing.’

  Morrow’s big hands bunched.

  ‘Then tell me why you’re here—what do you want, man! Don’t you know that this craziness is wrecking Alpha? What’s got into you?’

  Devereaux was not a young man. His slight body seemed too weak for the fight he had put up. Now, his will cracked. Defeated, he said:

  ‘We know Commander Koenig isn’t dead. And what you want to do! It isn’t any good, Controller! We heard Commander Koenig could be saved. He’d have a chance if you left him on the machines—but you’ve given the order to disconnect them!’

  Morrow turned to Kano,

  ‘Who started that rumour? Someone did! Sergeant,’ he said to the security guard, ‘take Devereaux away and find out where it began! And report any similar incidents!’

  The big screen on the forward con jangled an electronic warning.

  ‘This is Johnson, Security,’ said a hard-faced guard. ‘Trouble in the Diagnostic Unit, sir! I’m keeping a bunch of crewmen out—they’ve heard the rumour too!’

  He turned away, and the screen filled with flying bodies. A nurse screamed, and a tray of instruments crashed on to the floor. Koenig did not stay to hear more.

  ‘I’ve seen enough. Vana, get me out of here,’ he called. ‘Raan! RAAN!’

  Moonbase Alpha was falling apart. After all, he was the pivot on which so many lives balanced. In any normal situation, no man was indispensable. By the nature of social organization, another leader should have emerged to take over. But the Alphans were not in a normal situation. Extended by the demands of keeping alive, living through crises almost daily, they identified one man with survival—John Koenig.

  Helena Russell had told him as much, and he had denied it. But it was true. Until the overwrought Alphans could adjust to the harshness of their lives, they would pin their hopes, project their fears, on him.

  ‘Raan!’ he yelled, desperately.

  Raan and Vana plucked him through the shouts of the Alphans, guided him amongst the eerie purple shades, and waited until his disrupted nerves had settled.

  Vana was weeping.

  ‘I read your mind now, John Koenig,’ said Raan. ‘Will you believe me when I say I am sorry?’

  Koenig took a step towards Vana. Her splendid gold-flecked eyes swam with misery. He reached out and ran a hand down her cheek. The skin was warm and vital. Koenig looked beyond her. Zenno had changed subtly. The towers were rounded, softer now. With a desperate longing Koenig had a moment of insight into the ways in which it was possible to structure such shapes. An Earthman could learn.

  ‘Stay, John!’ whispered Vana.

  ‘I can’t. However much I want to. You saw what was happening at Alpha. Your father is right—
we are a primitive society still, with the shortcomings and the superstitions of the tribe. We haven’t yet learned to dispense with emotion, and our emotions can still wreck us.’ He sighed. ‘I can no more stay here than you, Vana, could come back with me to Alpha.’

  ‘I’ll come!’

  ‘No. It would be the worst kind of imprisonment for you, Vana. However much we meant to each other, the day would soon come when your mind ranged out into regions where our narrow intellects could not follow, and you would be alone. I am bound to my people, you must not be.’

  Raan detached Vana’s hand from Koenig’s arm.

  ‘I brought you here as an experiment, John Koenig,’ he said. ‘I have learned more than I dared hope. You awakened in Vana’s heart something that I thought dead in the souls of the Zennites—and perhaps more of us might rediscover what we have lost.’ He looked past Koenig, and the Alphan saw in the keen stare something like awe. ‘I think we could respond to danger, John Koenig. And I hope we would have your courage when it came.’

  He shivered with concentration, staring into the brilliant purple void. ‘You must hurry!’ he said. ‘My power to hold you at such a distance is failing. Go now, John Koenig, and remember Zenno!’

  ‘And think of me, John?’ whispered Vana. ‘In the days when you see a new star-system for the first time, think of me?’

  Koenig’s self-control was at an end. He pulled the woman to him:

  ‘Think of me too, Vana!’

  ‘Go!’ she whispered fiercely. ‘Go, before I let that other Koenig slip away and keep you here forever!’

  Raan’s eyes blazed. The purple void began to shadow Koenig’s mind. Through it, he saw the slim body of the woman he loved. The last he saw of her was her hand, raised in a hopeless gesture of farewell.

  Orderlies were still clearing up the shattered instruments and containers. Dr Russell’s hands paused over the controls.

  ‘I think he’s gone,’ she said. ‘You’re right, Paul. We’re keeping a shell functioning. John Koenig is dead.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Bergman. ‘Yet we have the evidence before us. Nothing on the screen. No sign of life.’

  The recording lines were at zero.

  ‘Yes?’ said Helena Russell.

  ‘I take the responsibility,’ said Paul Morrow. ‘Let him go.’

  Helena Russell switched off the life-support system. No delicate pulsor pumped blood through Commander Koenig’s veins. No heat-unit stabilized his body-temperature. His chest filled once with air and his mouth showed the slight movement of air sighing out. And then he was still.

  The slight mutter of liquids was gone.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Kano.

  ‘Then we’re finished too,’ said Helena Russell.

  Only Bergman said nothing. He looked closer. His lips were trembling. A weird purple haze seemed to close about Koenig’s head.

  ‘Look!’ he said. Look!’

  Koenig’s eyes opened. His lips moved. Then, unbelievably, the life-lines mounted the recording tubes. Heart, lungs, endocrinal systems registered. The central nervous system showed life.

  ‘But he died!’ said an orderly, aghast.

  ‘He’s breathing strongly—he’s alive!’ cried Helena.

  Alive!

  Throughout the great base the news spread, quicker than any of the grim rumours that had sparked off so much bitterness and violence. The Commander was alive!

  Life filled the body.

  Koenig focused on Helena Russell’s face. He saw the tender concern and wondered why he felt so sad. Then he remembered Vana.

  ‘Welcome back, John,’ said Dr Russell. ‘We thought we’d lost you—no, don’t try to talk! With that split in your head, you need a few weeks of minimal effort. But we’ll get you well, John, we’re all sure of it!’

  Bergman looked down.

  ‘Can you hear me, John?’

  Koenig mouthed ‘Yes.’ The effort was huge, the pain horrific. He knew, without asking, that the wide, deep gash was back.

  ‘Do you know where you’ve been?’

  Koenig thought of the majestically eerie city. And then Vana.

  ‘Yes,’ he said in a voice so sad that Bergman was shocked.

  ‘John, I think I can guess at some of it. But I won’t. I’ll never mention it unless you do first. Is that what you want?’

  Koenig breathed ‘Yes!’

  Maybe time would dim the image of the gold-flecked eyes, the softly curved body, and the glorious promise of Zenno itself as a background to their love. Maybe the daily routine and the unremitting harshness of life at Alpha would help him forget Vana.

  Koenig hoped so. Without really believing it.

  ‘There are one or two things I have to ask you about, John—’ began Paul Morrow. He stopped as Dr Russell pushed him aside. ‘—but not yet. They’ll keep. Just as long as you’re with us.’

  Koenig closed his eyes. I am, he thought. God help me, I’m with you. All the way.

  But the sadness persisted. That, and the ache of loneliness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The rock that was refuge, prison and space-ship for the Alphans hung poised to cross the great gulf between the island-universes. Koenig watched from his sick-bed. No one could remain unmoved by the sheer immensity of the gulf. No stars. Sable blackness, the end of the galaxy. Koenig knew what every last man and woman at Moonbase Alpha was thinking, there were no star maps now.

  Paul Morrow called to him, ‘Watching, John? We’re leaving the galaxy.’

  Koenig said, ‘There’s a lot of space out there. But we’ll make it.’

  Morrow caught the tension in his voice. ‘How’s the head?’

  ‘I don’t feel a thing.’ He did. The migraine had been identified by Helena Russell. She was using a mixture of drugs and hypnosis to rid him of it. Without success.

  ‘Dr Russell wants to look in.’

  ‘Tell Helena I’m fine. I’ll read a book for a while and maybe come up to Main Mission later.’

  Paul Morrow nodded and broke the contact.

  ‘How is he?’ asked David Kano.

  ‘You heard. The same old John, but hollow inside.’ Morrow watched the vast emptiness for a while. ‘She must have been some woman.’

  ‘He’s told you about her?’

  ‘Only that he and she talked. John isn’t one to discuss his relationships. But she’s left a gap in his life. Everyone knows it.’

  ‘He’s recovering,’ said Kano. ‘I talked to Helena. The fractures healed well, with no permanent damage. She could remove the scar if he’d let her. The headaches have no physical cause. When he forgets the Zennite woman, they’ll go.’

  ‘I wish he’d come out’

  ‘Give him time.’

  Morrow looked out again. ‘We’ve had no trouble for weeks. It’s just as well. Morale’s been good, but the crew want to see him up and around.’

  Koenig lay back on his bunk and reached for the battered book of poetry. The book fell open at a couplet he had chanced on:

  ‘All days are nights to see till I see thee

  And nights bright days when dreams do

  show me thee.’

  Koenig read the lines and felt the thin knife-edge of agony burn into his brain.

  Six storeys below Main Mission Control, an alarm buzzed in Technician Anton Zoref’s ear. He disregarded it, but his wife shook him:

  ‘Out, Anton—you’ve time to shave and eat before you go now.’

  ‘Can’t they programme us for duty shifts together?’ he yawned. ‘I hate to leave you in bed, Eva. Husband on duty, you turning over. It’s wrong. In any well-run establishment it would be declared immoral.’

  He breakfasted quickly and reached his post in the maintenance area of Number Two Nuclear Generator two minutes early. He couldn’t know that a moonquake had rocked the foundations of the structure when the Moon was hurled free of Earth’s gravitational grasp. In the colossal explosion the small quake had never been recorded.

 
; ‘Any problems?’ he asked Mike Dominix, his opposite number and friend.

  ‘Oh, we had our moment of high drama. Small fuse gone about three a.m. I ok’d the maintenance programme. Eva still asleep?’ he grinned.

  Zoref slung a shadow-punch at him, fast and hard. Dominix caught it in his big hand.

  ‘See you later, Anton. Don’t let the pot boil over!’

  It was standard ribaldry of the nuclear generating fraternity. The pot was the sullenly-glowing core of the huge reactor, a frightful hell-brew of white hot metals.

  ‘I’ll let you know if it does,’ agreed Zoref.

  Professor Bergman was the first to spot the pulsing record of energy from the gulf.

  ‘Paul, do you read this?’ he called from Main Mission Control. A grey-black blotch showed on the screen.

  Paul Morrow was with Koenig trying to get him to take an interest in a modification of the Eagle’s navigational aids which had been suggested by a bright young female technician. Koenig had been politely remote. Bergman sounded concerned but not worried.

  ‘I was talking to John,’ Morrow said. He hesitated. ‘All right, John, I’ll leave you in peace. I’ll check the sighting with Victor.’

  Koenig nodded. ‘Let me know if it’s important.’

  ‘Controller Morrow!’ called a crewman. It was urgent now. ‘Professor Bergman indicates a state of alert!’

  ‘On my way!’ yelled Morrow.

  His place was in Main Mission Control. Koenig watched him go. The migraine almost blinded him. An emergency, he registered. Not serious. A sighting of an energy-source. What is it?

  He had surprised himself by his own response. For the first time in nearly a month, he had taken an interest in Moonbase Alpha and its headlong dive into deep space.

  Then he remembered the woman, and pain began.

  ‘Paul can handle it,’ he said. He reached for the tablets which would bring peace.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Morrow tightly.

  ‘It’s an energy source,’ said Bergman. ‘It has to be. Our scanners give it that shape and that strength’—he indicated the grey-black pulsing blotch on the screen—‘but computer says it can only approximate the thing.’ He turned to Kano. ‘What’s your view?’