by E. C. Tubb
‘Which proves what?’
‘Perhaps nothing. Or perhaps the machine was at fault. It could have been affected by some external source and given a jumbled reading.’
‘In which case the girl isn’t really ill at all,’ he said dryly. ‘She only thinks that she is because the machine tells her so. Am I making sense, Helena?’
‘Yes, if she had seen the machine and knew just what the record signified. Stranger things have happened, John, especially to susceptible people. But she didn’t see the records, so your theory can’t apply. In any case, her symptoms aren’t appropriate to a self-induced state of hysterical mania. Do you want to see her?’
She looked very small as she lay on the bed, her knees drawn up a little, her shoulders curved in a near-foetal position. On her cheeks her eyelashes rested like ebon moths and her hair, neatly arranged, framed the contours of her face as if it were a painting done by an artist of the pre-Raphaelite school. An angel, Koenig thought, but, at times, all men thought women were angels. Most later changed their minds.
‘Lynne?’ Helena touched the smooth curve of the girl’s cheek. ‘Lynne?’ She looked up as Mathias came toward them. ‘Is she still under sedation?’
‘It should be passing now.’ He glanced at his watch, then at the clipped papers at the foot of the bed. ‘Yes, another dose about due.’
Koenig said, ‘Does she have to be under continual sedation?’
‘We’ve tried letting her come out of it and we had to use restraints,’ explained Helena. ‘When she began to show signs of muscular hypertension, we had to take action. She would have wound up by breaking her own bones,’ she explained. ‘Like a person poisoned with strychnine—the muscular convulsions override the mental safety factor. It’s kinder to keep her under sedation.’
‘For how long?’
‘Until we can find the cause of her trouble and eliminate it. Are you ready, Doctor?’
Mathias nodded and checked his hypodermic syringe. As the girl stirred on the bed, Koenig said sharply, ‘Wait!’
‘John?’
‘I want to see what happens. Let her come out of it.’ He leaned over the bed. ‘Lynne? Can you hear me? Wake up, Lynne. Wake up!’
‘Commander!’ She smiled like a sleepy child, soft, warm, comfortable. ‘John Koenig. I’m in love with you, John, did you know that? I’ve always been in love with you.’ She turned and lifted her arms to embrace him, holding him fast about the neck as she pulled his head down towards her own. ‘But I’m so hungry, John,’ she continued in a thin whining tone. ‘So very hungry. Feed me, John. Feed me! Feed me!’ Her arms became circlets of steel, her mouth, open, a ruby-tinted cavern in which shone the whiteness of her teeth—teeth that tore at his throat, breaking the skin, freeing blood that stained her lips, her chin, ran to dapple the smooth roundness of her shoulders.
‘Lynne!’ Helena’s hand moved, flattened, the palm rammed over the gaping mouth, fingers and thumb upcurved safe from the snapping teeth. ‘Bob! Quickly!’
Mathias needed no urging. He stooped, the hypodermic syringe in his hand darting towards the column of the girl’s throat, his finger triggering the mechanism that shot the drug into her bloodstream. A moment and then the arms that had been locked around Koenig’s neck fell away as, sighing, the girl lapsed into sedated rest.
To Alan Carter an Eagle was an extension of his being; its engines a supplement to his own physical power, its armament a strengthening of his muscles, the computer maintaining its efficiency an actual part of his brain. Once in the control chair he became one with the machine, an attribute that had made him the finest pilot of his time and that had made him the head of his section. As the chief pilot of Reconnaissance, he was aware of his duties and responsibility.
As he was a part of the Eagle he flew, so also was he an extension of Alpha. Its long-range eyes and hands and brain. An essential part of the complex that kept them all alive. And, if sometimes his duties were routine, well, they had to be done. And, always, for him it was a pleasure to be handling an Eagle, even on such a minor task as this.
Beside him Chad Bailey said, ‘A milk run, Alan. A collection job.’
‘It could be worse.’
‘Sure, we could be down there grubbing in the dust for those things Bergman says are seeds. Seeds!’ His snort was indicative of his feelings in the matter. ‘They look more like ball bearings to me. Say, how about that? Maybe that’s what they really are. Some joke, eh? The professor trying to grow ball bearing trees.’
Alan smiled. The joke was poor, but he’d heard worse, and Chad, while a little unthinking, knew his job. If he hadn’t, he would never have been allowed to occupy the chair he did. Only the best could be trusted with an Eagle.
‘Take over, Chad.’ Relinquishing the controls. Carter contacted the base. ‘Paul? Alan here. Eagle One now close to impact point. Any change in the orders?’
‘No. Just pick up any of the spheres that may have been found and bring them back to Moonbase.’
‘The men, too?’
‘Yes. Later we’ll arrange to collect the wreckage and move it closer, but for now it’ll do no harm where it is. How long will you be?’
‘A few minutes. We’re not hurrying. I’m taking a routine sweep over the area to spot any new fissures. As yet, nothing. I guess the impact was as soft as it seemed.’
On the screen Morrow nodded. ‘Just as well for all of us. Things like that I can do without. Chess later on?’
‘Sure, Paul. Care to bet?’
‘What’s the point? You always lose.’
‘Not this time. I’ve been—’ Carter broke off as Morrow’s face tensed. ‘Paul! Something wrong?’
‘I’m not sure. I—Alan! Listen to this!’
It came from the speakers in a gargling rush, voices trying to speak, to scream, to relay information, the whole lost in a sussurating blur of static. A background roar that blasted from the speakers like the rush of surf.
‘It’s coming from the impact site!’ yelled Morrow. ‘Alan! Get there—fast!’
A few miles, the Eagle responding to his touch like a living thing, vapour blasting from the tubes, more streaming from the retro-rockets as the velocity was cut and the Eagle set to hover as both pilots searched the scarred terrain below.
‘Nothing,’ said Chad. ‘I can’t see a thing.’
‘Keep looking.’ Alan lowered the Eagle. ‘Those men have to be somewhere.’
The roar from the speakers had died, replaced by a brooding silence, against which Morrow’s voice rasped with mounting urgency.
‘Harmond! Chagny! Answer. If you read me, answer. Harmond! Chagny!’
Two men, neither responding, neither to be seen. As Carter swept the Eagle over the impact area, Chad drew in his breath, then almost immediately shook his head.
‘Nothing. I thought I saw a hint of movement, but I guess it was our shadow passing over some rocks.’
‘Where?’ Carter sent the Eagle to hover over the place. Shadows were possible, patches of dimness against the starlit rocks, but it would take extraordinary eyes to spot the difference. ‘See anything?’
‘No.’
Imagination, then, the most likely explanation. But there was none to account for the missing men.
‘The dust,’ suggested Bailey. ‘Maybe they fell into the dust.’
‘Both of them?’
‘One could have slipped and the other tried to save him. An outcrop of rock could have yielded and cost him his balance. Both could have been swallowed in a fraction of time.’ Pausing, he added, ‘Radios don’t work when deep under the dust.’
A logical explanation, but Carter wasn’t happy with it. Both men had been experienced surface workers and would have known better than to venture too close to any patch of dust unless having first taken all precautions. And if they had and one had slipped, the other would have been able to save him. Certainly he would have had time to make a report.
‘Alan?’ Morrow looked from the screen. ‘Any luck
?’
‘No. Both men have vanished. Bailey thinks they fell into the dust.’
‘He could be right.’
‘Shall we land and search?’
‘No!’ Koenig replaced Morrow on the screen. ‘Don’t land on any account. Return and pick up a search party.’
‘But those men, Commander. They could be hurt, maybe dying.’
‘If so I don’t want you to join them.’ Koenig’s, voice matched the hardness of his face. ‘Do as I order. Return immediately and pick up a search party. I’ll have it waiting.’
He was suited and with a dozen others on the loading dock when the Eagle arrived. Without wasting time they thronged into the passenger module, Koenig moving forward as the Eagle lifted and headed back the way it had come.
‘Commander!’ Carter handed the controls over to Bailey. ‘Your orders?’
‘None until I know what’s happened. Did you see anything? Anything at all?’
‘No. Bailey thought he saw something move, but it must have been a shadow. We looked but saw nothing.’
‘Where was this?’
‘By some rocks close to Schemiel.’
‘Any marks on the dust?’
‘Nothing new that I could see. The marks of the wreck’s passage are filling in, and anything smaller would have smoothed out almost at once. You know how that stuff acts. It’s like water.’ Carter added, ‘Would they have gone so close to the dust? Harmond was pretty cautious and Chagny never liked to take chances if he could help it.’
The reason both had been picked. Koenig said, ‘If you’re wondering why I didn’t want you to land, it was for two reasons. One, I didn’t want you ruining any tracks there might be; the other reason you know. I—What’s the matter, Bailey?’
The Eagle yawed a little, steadied as Carter took over the controls, levelling the craft and lifting it. In the co-pilot’s chair Bailey blinked and shook his head.
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I could have sworn we were over Schemiel.’
‘We are.’ Carter was curt. ‘What’s the matter, Chad, can’t you read instruments anymore?’
‘I can read them,’ snapped Bailey, ‘If they register correctly. Ours must be all haywire. This can’t be Schemiel.’
‘Don’t be a fool, man!’
‘All right.’ Bailey was stubborn. ‘If this is Schemiel, where is the wreck?’
It had vanished. All of It. Below lay nothing but the crater, the broken rim-wall, the dust and starlit stone. The twisted remnants of the pod and tracery—all had gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bergman said, ‘When faced with the incredible, first eliminate the impossible and then what is left, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.’
‘Occams Razor,’ said Koenig sourly. ‘Or something like it.’
‘Actually I think it is a quotation attributed to Sherlock Holmes,’ said Bergman mildly. ‘Not that it matters. The advice is still good.’
Koenig rose from his chair and strode across the floor of his office. Beyond the partition, now closed, Main Mission hummed with its usual activity, but here was an oasis of seclusion that he could change at any time to become one with Moonbase.
‘Victor, it is impossible that the wreckage could have vanished without cause.’
‘Agreed.’ Bergman, sitting, toyed with a slide rule. ‘There has to be a cause, but what? A natural volatisation? Could the effect of impact have triggered some ingrained chemical combination that resulted in an abrupt vapourisation of the substance?’
‘You think it possible?’
‘John, I hardly know what to think. The thing was alien and therefore, by definition, beyond our experience. I suppose that such a change in apparently adamantine material is possible, but only remotely so. I’d put it in the order of things that could happen, but only because in a universe composed of an infinity of possibilities nothing is or can be impossible.’ Then, seeing Koenig’s expression, he added, ‘I’m sorry. You aren’t in the mood for philosophy.’
‘Not with two men dead, Victor.’
‘There is no doubt?’
‘None.’ Koenig halted his pacing. ‘I knew that before I ordered the Eagle not to land. Helena had reported that their life-monitors had ceased to function. In any case, there isn’t the remotest chance of their being alive after all this time.’
For days the entire area around Schemiel had been searched inch by inch by teams of men roped together and guarded by others. Koenig had been among them and his reddened eyes and haggard features told of his fatigue.
‘Nothing!’ The fist of one hand slammed into the palm of the other. ‘No traces, no signs, nothing but rock and dust. Something must have caused that wreckage to vanish, and something must have killed those men.’ He added bitterly, ‘Aside from myself, of course, but if it hadn’t been for me, they would still be alive.’
‘You mean if I hadn’t persuaded you not to volatise the object,’ said Bergman. ‘If it hadn’t been diverted those men would be alive now—is that what you’re thinking?’
‘Isn’t it true?’
‘Yes, it’s true enough, John, but why blame yourself? I was responsible, not you. They were collecting seeds on my orders, not yours.’ Bergman looked at the rule in his hands and let it fall. It landed on the desk with a brittle clatter. ‘Blame,’ he said bitterly. ‘Always we must take the blame. But is it our fault if we are unable to see Into the future? Must ignorance always carry the burden of guilt?’
‘How can you deny it? You—’ Koenig broke off, remembering how the man had lost his wife. Those with power must always carry the guilt—it was the price they paid for the authority they were given, but this was no time to open old wounds and to revive old pain. And Victor had not been to blame. Only in his mind could he consider himself guilty for the crash that had taken her and left him to mourn. In a more even tone he said, ‘What’s happened is past. Recriminations serve no purpose. Two men are dead. I want to know who or what killed them, and I’m not interested in philosophical abstractions. I want facts. Facts!’
They were too few: the recorded transcript of their last communication, Carter’s evidence, Bailey’s statement of a movement he’d spotted or thought he’d spotted. The mysterious vanishing of the wreckage.
The incredible.
Remove the impossible and what was left? And how to decide what was impossible?
‘Nothing came from space,’ said Bergman. ‘Even if it had been invisible and somehow lifted the wreckage, we would have spotted an energy nexus. So it has to be a local phenomenon.’
‘No Lunar disturbance was registered,’ said Koenig. ‘And if a fissure had opened to swallow the men and then closed and opened again to engulf the wreckage, there would have been traces. Eliminate that. Let’s listen to that recording again.’
It washed from the speakers, a sound now all too familiar by constant repetition, ghostly, somehow eerie, the words hopelessly distorted but carrying an unmistakable terror.
‘We can’t clear it,’ said Bergman as the recording came to an end. ‘I’ve been working on it together with others. It’s impossible to eliminate the background noise and isolate the words. If we could we might be able to break and blend them into some recognisable pattern.’
‘Conclusion?’
‘It wasn’t just noise. If it was, we could achieve separation. The static, for want of a better term, was inherent in the broadcast. Those men must have been surrounded by an intensely powerful electro-magnetic field that built resonance currents into their radios.’
‘A field that had to originate somewhere.’ Koenig frowned. ‘The dust?’
‘It does hamper radio transmission in a similar manner,’ admitted Bergman. ‘But it Is usually not so intense. And the broadcast was distorted from the beginning, don’t forget. If a man were falling, he’d have time to shout a few clear words, and certainly his companion would not have been affected—not unless both fell at exactly the same time.’
‘Not impossible, but high
ly improbable,’ said Koenig bitterly. ‘Victor, this is getting us nowhere. We’re just speculating and making wild guesses. It isn’t good enough. I’ve got to find out exactly what happened to those two men.’
The men and the wreckage—there was no place for such mysteries on the Moon.
David Kano wasn’t married to the computer, but even so, he took it to bed with him. A terminal had been installed in his room so that, even when relaxing, he was in close touch with the instrument that dominated his life.
Now, with Its aid, he was solving a problem.
‘More data will be needed before a correlation can be made and a conclusion delivered,’ said the machine. It had a soft and pleasing feminine voice, which he chose to use instead of the word-pictures thrown on a screen or the more customarily used read-outs. Each had their place, but for him the voice held a comfort.
A fantasy, as he would be the first to admit, but a harmless one. Warriors of all ages have named and personalised their weapons and steeds. Sportsmen did the same with their vehicles. Kano had done no more than they had. To think of the computer as a thing alive—well, who could say that it wasn’t?
No one—if they wanted to retain his friendship.
Now he gave the necessary figures, reading them from the lists compiled by the technicians who had measured the wreck. Data that provided a topological nightmare in its series of complex curves and that would have kept a skilled mathematician busy for weeks to achieve the essential exactitude.
Even the computer took a little time—a few seconds longer than it took Kano to read the data.
He noted the answer.
More figures, this time relatively simple, the answer coming immediately. An equation, a mathematical exercise, figures that he correlated on his pad.
‘Are you certain?’
‘I fail to understand the question.’ The voice, in his imagination, held a certain chill. ‘I am incapable of error.’
‘Sorry.’ The incongruity of apologising to a machine never occurred to him. ‘I meant that there is no possibility of an alternative solution?’
