by Brian Ball
‘Technician N. Dominix,’ announced the eletronic voice that had soulessly reported so many tragedies. ‘Life-functions terminated.’
‘John,’ said Bergman, for he had seen reaction. ‘It’s Number Two Nuclear Generating Area. First Zoref. Now Dominix. Whatever’s hit Alpha is down there.’
CHAPTER NINE
Dr Helena Russell had finished her examination.
‘What happened?’ asked Bergman.
Two medical attendants wheeled in a trolley. Dominix looked as if he had been lying in a hard frost.
‘Death was instantaneous. The cause of death was a sudden decrease in body temperature. If I hadn’t known that he was alive four minutes ago, I’d say that he’d been dead for days. I’ll have to wait for an autopsy to tell you more. Please move him,’ she told the attendants.
‘You’ll let me have the results as soon as possible?’ said Bergman.
‘Of course, Victor.’
When she had gone, Bergman looked around the empty generating area. ‘It’s here, David. Whatever caused that huge drop in temperature is here.’
Zoref walked into his living quarters and sat in the swivel chair. He put his head to his hands, Eva Zoref was desperately worried.
‘Anton?’ she said softly.
He looked up.
‘Oh, you’re feeling better! I’m glad—’
‘Don’t come near me!’
She stopped, hurt and puzzled. Anton’s behaviour was increasingly strange. He was normally a placid and quietly-spoken man. She bit her lip.
‘What’s the trouble, darling?’
‘Please don’t come any nearer,’ Zoref said quietly.
She stared at him for a while. Her natural impulse was to comfort him. She put out her hand and might have moved forward but for the sudden announcement from the wall screen. Paul Morrow’s urgent tones filled the living-room:
‘Calling all personnel! Here is a special announcement, effective immediately. Access to Number Two Nuclear Generating Area is now restricted to those personnel with my direct authorization. Further information will be relayed as soon as possible.’
Eva Zoref looked scared: ‘Anton, that’s your station. What’s happened?’
‘Dominix died,’ he said flatly.
‘Mike Dominix dead! How? And how do you know?’
‘I was there.’
‘But what happened!’
‘Eva, please sit down. Over there,’
Eva Zoref began to protest, but Anton’s calmness stopped her.
‘There isn’t any—You’re not in trouble, Anton?’
Zoref shook his head. ‘No. It’s something I can’t explain right now.’
‘You are in trouble!’ Eva cried, rising.
‘Keep away from me!’
‘You’re not well—I’ll get Dr Russell, Anton!’
‘No, Eva! Sit down! You must trust me! Look Eva, something strange happened in the generating area. I’m not sure what. But you’re not to get involved. Now, promise me you’ll stay here—’
‘Why? Where are you going?’ She was ready to defy him.
‘I have to—I have to report to Dr Russell. I have some information for her. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Eva. Promise me you’ll stay?’
His words had a frightening lack of emotion that brought a tingle of fear trickling through Eva Zoref’s mind.
‘All right,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘I’ll wait. I promise.’
Bergman passed Koenig the plates.
‘David Kano found these recorded by an obsolete radiographic-response scanner from the early days of Alpha. It wasn’t hooked into the computer’s circuits, so we didn’t get a report.’
Koenig felt a jolt of interest. The blinding pain relaxed as he glanced at the radiographs.
‘The scanner was triggered twice. These plates show what happened,’ Bergman told him.
Koenig examined the first.
‘It corresponds with the configuration of the energy-source you advised Paul to destroy. Weaker, smaller, but with the same contours,’ he said slowly.
‘It was taken when Zoref hit the panic-button.’
Koenig held up the second plate.
Bergman explained:
‘The time corresponds with the report from computer that Technician Dominix’s life-functions had ceased.’
‘The same configuration!’
‘Yes, John. Whatever hit Zoref and then Dominix is part of the alien energy-source.’
‘It’s present when Zoref collapsed . . . it’s there again when Dominix dies. And it has the same structure as the energy-source from the gulf.’
‘Yes, John. We can’t escape the obvious conclusion,’ said Bergman. ‘An alien force is loose somewhere on Alpha.’
Zoref’s physique seemed to have altered. Normally upright, he now lumbered along with a shambling step. His shoulders were rounded, and his arms held at chest-level as though he clasped a great pain. He looked forward from hooded glittering eyes, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. He paused at the doorway leading to the Diagnostic Unit. Dimly, he knew he needed help.
He was distracted by the tap-tapping of a female medical orderly’s shoes. She saw him and recognized that he had received treatment.
‘How are you—’ she said, and then she was aware of the strange brightness about his eyes. Instinctively, she stopped and backed away.
Zoref advanced towards her. She began to walk away from him, too nervous to question him, too proud and confused to rationalize her actions. If she had dared, she would have run. She wasn’t frightened enough to scream, and she was too self-assured to admit that her fears might be justified.
Zoref’s teeth juddered as the bitter cold sat in his chest like a cancer. He didn’t know anything now but the cold.
The medical orderly saw a travel tube station open. Two men looked out. She ran, but the door had closed before they saw her. She screamed then.
About Zoref’s head a dim white halation formed. The girl felt the first chill as she battered against the doorway of the travel tube. She turned and saw his face glistening with frost.
He put out his hands.
The lights dimmed.
Helena Russell turned the torch from the frozen face.
‘The same as Dominix,’ she said to Bergman and Koenig. ‘She died instantly from shock as a result of rapid freezing.’
Koenig put a hand to Helena’s shoulder.
‘She’ll be the last. We’ll find what’s killing them. Get back to medical. I think you’ll be needed. David!’ he called into his wrist communicator. ‘Have you traced the power-fault?’
The lights above sprang into brightness as he spoke. ‘Power restored, Commander,’ crackled Kano’s voice from the speaker overhead.
‘Cause?’
‘The whole area suffered a sudden drainage of power. It simply leaked away. There’s a fault somewhere.’
Bergman looked down at the pitiful corpse. She had been a pleasant girl. He remembered that she had once treated him for a graze on his arm.
‘First Dominix and now this girl. What caused Dominix and this girl to die was total heat loss. And now we have the lights losing power.’ He burst out suddenly: ‘Of course! Lighting uses energy—and heat is energy!’
Koenig understood.
‘An energy-consuming alien entity. Is that what we have on Alpha?’ he asked.
‘It’s the only theory that fits the facts!’
‘Then let’s find it. David!’ he called to Kano, with a sudden return to his normal decisiveness. ‘Monitor all power levels throughout Alpha. Any fluctuation, I want to know immediately.’
‘Got it, Commander,’ said Kano.
‘Controller Morrow?’
‘Hooked in, Commander.’
‘Paul, I’m returning to Main Mission Control. Meanwhile station security patrols at every strategic location. Have all off-duty security personnel called out and ready to move on command.’
‘Sir!’
&
nbsp; ‘And you, Victor—set the theory up on a probability basis! I want the computer jerked out of its uncooperativeness!’
‘I’ll do that.’ Bergman smiled. ‘I think we’ll manage now, Commander.’
Eva Zoref hurried through the long corridors. She saw groups of Security guards racing purposefully toward the high-risk areas, power controls, generating and air-conditioning plant, weapons stations. Each man carried sidearms. She reached the Medical Centre minutes after Helena Russell returned.
‘Doctor Russell!’ she called.
Helena Russell was about to perform an autopsy on the dead medical orderly.
‘Not now,’ said the senior assistant. ‘I’m sorry, the Doctor’s too busy—’
‘Please! Doctor Russell, let me see him!’
Helena heard and entered the Unit. The senior assistant grabbed Eva Zoref’s arm.
‘It’s Eva Zoref, isn’t it?’ asked Helena Russell.
Eva broke free of the restraining grip.
‘Let me see him, Doctor! He was behaving so oddly!’
‘Who—of course, your husband! Technician Zoref, right?’
‘Yes! Let me see him, please!’
‘But he isn’t here—is he?’ Helena called.
‘No, Doctor,’ reported the chief medical assistant. ‘No visit by Technician A. Zoref. Not since we examined him earlier.’
‘But he said he was coming . . .’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Helena.
‘It’s Anton. I don’t know . . . he’s sick! He has been acting so strangely since his accident. And he won’t have me near him!’ She sobbed. ‘I think he’s going out of his mind since he saw Mike Dominix killed!’
‘Your husband? He was there when it happened? In Number Two Generating Area—can you answer to this, Eva?’
Eva Zoref stared helplessly at the older woman. She knew that she had said too much.
‘Commander Koenig!’ she heard Dr Russell call urgently. The screen above at the far end of the Centre sprang into life. ‘John!’
‘I’m busy, Dr Russell. Is it urgent?’ Koenig said. ‘Will it keep?’
‘No! I’ve got Eva Zoref here! She’s just told me that Technician Anton Zoref was present in Number Two Generating Area when Technician Dominix died!’
Koenig put a hand to the scar on his forehead. Helena Russell knew the effort it took him to speak.
‘I’ll have Professor Bergman interview her—send her to Main Mission.’ Koenig stared at Helena Russell for a while. ‘And thanks, Helena. It might be the break we need.’
CHAPTER TEN
Bergman’s probing questions soon elicited the few facts from Eva Zoref. She was too stunned by the rapidity of events to try to conceal what she knew.
‘For Anton’s sake, we have to know what happened,’ he said. ‘We must find him before he comes to further harm. You’d better report to your duty post, Eva. It will give you something to do.’
‘I’d rather stay at Main Mission Control.’
‘She can stay,’ said Koenig. ‘Well, Victor?’
‘I’ve just got a read-out from the computer. It confirms what Eva Zoref says. Technician Anton Zoref was in the Maintenance Area of Number Two Generator Nuclear Generator when his colleague Technician Dominix died.’
‘Find him, Paul!’ snapped Koenig to Morrow. ‘Make that the first priority.’
Morrow began to relay instructions.
Zoref was altering. His narrow body was so heavy that he could hardly drag it about. His spine seemed to curve of its own volition. His head was longer, flatter. At times, he would support himself on hands as well as feet. His body was continually wracked by a deep shuddering. Ice crackled from his nose and lips. He moaned in a low, keening voice. But he had cunning.
When the two guards clumped to their station beside an ancillary air-conditioning plant, he turned into the solarium. The warmth stopped the shuddering, and he walked in upright, almost like a man.
The solarium was skilfully designed to simulate conditions on a calm, semi-tropical beach. Windows usually brought in some light from the stars, but not now that they were in the deep gulfs. The heat and light came from large sun-lamps. Groups of benches and reclining chairs alternated with shaded areas around a swimming-pool. Two women and one man lay on couches, eyes shaded against the brilliant radiation lamps.
The man rolled on to his back, murmured contentedly, and got to his feet. He started to walk in the direction of a shower; Zoref stumbled past him blindly.
‘You crazy!’ called the man. ‘Where’s your radiation glasses?’
Zoref was staring directly into the flooding light. His shuddering became a violent spasm of relief. The man, an electronics expert, felt the chill spreading from Zoref. He shivered.
Zoref reached upwards.
Overhead, the powerful lamps wavered, dimmed, and died. The chill hit the two sleeping women. They awoke to semi-darkness and saw the grey-black figure of Zoref, poised like a diver with his arms high above them. He was producing grating sounds that had no relationship to human speech.
The electronics expert forced himself to take a step nearer. Behind him, the two women hugged their robes about them. One panicked and screamed. The man backed away from the wall of freezing air.
‘Solarium!’ he yelled into his wrist communicator. ‘We’ve got power trouble—Johnson of electronics speaking! Get a power maintenance crew up here!’
‘Commander,’ said a female technician to Koenig. ‘Urgent. Power fluctuations reported.’
Kano rapidly scanned the readings.
‘It’s the solarium, John!’
Paul Morrow was already deploying a force of Security men. ‘I’ll go!’ he called to Koenig.
‘You stay here!’ ordered Koenig. ‘I’m going up!’
‘Take this!’ yelled Morrow.
Koenig turned. The stubby weapon was altogether out of keeping with the situation. Nevertheless, he took the laser-beam projector.
‘Thanks, Paul. I hope it won’t be necessary.’
Zoref turned blind eyes towards the screaming women. The women’s bodies radiated fear. And heat.
He advanced towards them, arms outstretched.
Then the Security guards burst in, hand-guns drawn.
‘Hold it, Zoref!’ a sergeant yelled. ‘Zoref, don’t move!’
Johnson grabbed the two women, who had seemed unable to move. He pushed them roughly towards the entrance.
Zoref waited.
‘Don’t shoot him!’ yelled Koenig, bursting through the group of Security men as the radiation lamps glowed dimly into life.
Zoref stared towards the light-source, puzzlement showing in his thin face. He reached up again. A guard couldn’t control his shaking hands, and a laser jet scoured the wall behind Zoref. Koenig kicked out and the hand-gun shot into the air. It clattered to the ground, spinning.
‘Blast the radiation lamps!’ Koenig yelled.
He aimed the stubby weapon at the dim lights. A jet lanced out, blasting the heat-lamp into fragments. The guards understood. In seconds, the solarium was dark again.
Zoref groaned, then collapsed.
The two women pushed through the guards. Koenig patted Johnson on the arm but he did not speak to him. There was time for congratulations later.
‘Dr Russell to the solarium,’ he ordered. ‘We’ve found Zoref.’
The great hall was cold. Koenig looked out at the reaches of sable blackness beyond the windows. Alien, he thought, and Zoref’s coldness hit him too. Alien, hungry for energy. An entity from that deep emptiness. Was that what had possession of Zoref?
Helena Russell arrived within two minutes.
She carried a portable life-functions decoder. Its antennae quivered as she examined Zoref.
‘He’s alive,’ she said after a puzzled silence. ‘I don’t know what damage he’s suffered—look at his skull! And the radiation burns!’
‘He’s absorbed a huge amount of energy,’ said Koenig. He shone a torch over Z
oref’s thin features.
‘Careful!’ warned Helena Russell. ‘Don’t touch him—it could be lethal.’
Koenig looked at the beam of his torch. It was stable.
‘He’s not absorbing energy now. I want him moved for examination, Helena. I think he’s safe for the moment, but use robot grabs to move him to Diagnostic. I’m taking no chance with the orderlies. Two dead is enough. More than enough. And use a restraint harness on him—something he can’t get out of.’
‘I’ll be careful, John,’ said Helena Russell.
She was thinking that Koenig sounded like the old Commander of Moonbase Alpha once more. His eyes were steady and clear, his orders decisive. She pushed these thoughts from her mind and arranged for Zoref’s transfer with her normal controlled professionalism.
An hour later, she had completed her examination. She called Main Mission Control.
‘I have the plates ready,’ she said. ‘Technician Zoref is under observation. I’ve taken the precaution of having him strapped down, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.’
‘Let me see him,’ said Koenig.
The man appeared to be asleep. His face had not been bandaged, but a layer of some plastic dressing gave him a waxen appearance. A single blue light picked out the gaunt features. Steel bands held him at the shoulders, waist and thighs.
‘He’s losing heat all the time,’ said Helena Russell. ‘I’ve tried to maintain a constant body temperature, but his metabolism keeps altering. There’s something uncanny about it. As if he doesn’t want to stabilize at normal heat.’
Koenig waited until Bergman had examined the plates:
‘What do you make of it, Victor?’
Bergman passed the plates to Koenig.
‘There,’ he said. ‘See—these dark patches are Zoref’s bones and thicker tissue. See how the skull is massively reinforced. And now look inside the cranial cavity.’
Koenig peered closer. He saw a small grey-black blotch, hardly larger than a toe-nail.
‘Is that it?’
‘It has the configuration of the alien energy-source.’ Bergman could not keep the excitement from his voice. ‘It’s the force that killed Dominix and the girl. I haven’t compared it with the original scans for computer analysis—I’ll relay the plates now—but I’m sure of it.’
