Space 1999 #9 - Rogue Planet

by E. C. Tubb

  Paul Morrow scowled at his instruments, the expression accentuating the lines on his face, the fatigue. A deep, bone-nagging weariness aggravated by his frustration.

  ‘Nothing.’ He checked a row of instruments, fingers stabbing at buttons, cross-meshing circuits. From the consol, little lamps flared, tell-tales merging with illuminated dials and digital readouts, monitors which told him the condition of every sector of the base. ‘Nothing,’ he said again. ‘The Eagle’s dead.’

  ‘Keep trying.’ Victor Bergman studied the screens, the images they carried. ‘Keep trying, Paul.’

  ‘I’m sending out a continuous signal but there’s no answer. I’ve tried to use the override but there’s no response. Something is cancelling out the signals and I can’t gain remote control. Try, you say. I’ve tried everything I know.’ His voice rose a little, grew bitter. ‘Damn it, Professor! Do you think I’ve just been sitting here twiddling my thumbs?’

  ‘No, Paul, of course not.’ Fatigue bred short tempers, but, as Bergman knew, Morrow’s outburst was less due to weariness than to a stronger feeling. He, like all of them, was sick with worry and concern for the lone man in the distant Eagle.

  ‘He hasn’t landed,’ said Morrow quietly. ‘He’s orbiting the Omphalos but so close he must be skimming the edge of any force-field it might have. Field or atmosphere,’ he added bleakly. ‘God alone knows what he’s found out there.’

  ‘Sandra?’

  ‘No change, Professor. I’ve been monitoring the path of the Commander’s flight pattern and there is no discernible energy variation.’

  ‘Which means that he can hardly be cutting through a force-field if one should exist,’ mused Bergman. ‘If he was we’d surely spot a halation.’

  ‘Only if the situation out there followed a familiar electronic sequence.’ Sandra checked her instruments again. ‘Surface temperature still zero. No measurable radiation. No magnetic flux. There seems to be no reason why the Commander just can’t level orbit and head back to Alpha.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘His guidance systems could be frozen in some way. I’ve sent out checking signals and received no response but that could be due to a different cause.’ Morrow shook his head, baffled. ‘He’s out there. We know it and know just where to find him. As far as I can determine all systems are operational.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Either the Commander has deliberately cut the remotes, or they have failed to function because of some local effect. The Omphalos could be surrounded with a blanket of electronic distortion which traps all emissions. That could explain why I’m getting no personal contact.’

  ‘But surely the Commander would know that and return?’ Sandra Benes, well-versed in survival disciplines, knew the regular safety procedure. ‘He wouldn’t risk his life and an Eagle for nothing.’ Bergman said, ‘Perhaps he has no choice.’

  ‘Professor?’

  ‘He could be unconscious or hurt in some way. It is the only explanation for his continued radio silence, unless the Omphalos has a distortion field as Paul suggests. At this very moment the Commander could be calling on us for help.’ Bergman frowned at the screens. ‘Paul, is an energy-cone impinging on the Eagle?’

  ‘No.’

  Another mystery—why cones on the Moon and the planetoid and not on the Eagle? The mass too small perhaps? The object too near?

  Questions which could wait—but one problem could not.

  ‘Kano, have you checked the rate of descent? How much time do we have before the Eagle crashes?’

  From where he stood beside the computer, David Kano said, ‘What’s on your mind, Professor? Rescue?’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  Kano fed the problem into the machine and tore the slip from the readout.

  Morrow saw him frown. ‘What’s wrong, David?’

  ‘A moment.’ Again Kano busied himself with the computer, made a check, looked up from the final result. ‘A new factor has been added,’ he said bleakly. ‘The rate of orbital decay is accelerating faster than it should. Either something has slowed the Eagle or it is being affected by a force from below.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘At the present velocity and with the decay remaining as plotted, we have time to reach the Eagle and have approximately ten minutes in which to effect an exchange and escape.’

  Ten minutes!

  It would have to be enough.

  Alan Carter sat in the pilot’s chair. He had heard the news and had risen from his hospital bed and had insisted on his right to command the rescue ship. A right backed by his unquestioned skill.

  ‘You’ll need the best,’ he’d said. ‘I’m the best. I’ve the training and the experience and if I can’t do it no one can. Not a boast, Professor, a fact and you know it.’

  ‘But are you fit?’

  ‘I’m fit.’ Carter had shrugged. ‘So I lost my breath for a while but I’ve got it back now. I’ve had plenty of time to regain it and I’ll have more on the journey out. David can pilot the Eagle until we reach the Omphalos.’ He added impatiently, ‘Let’s not argue about it—we haven’t time for that.’

  But time had been found to install a few items of equipment Bergman had selected. Time, too, for Helena Russell to bring aboard things of her own.

  Like Alan Carter, she had insisted on accompanying the rescue mission and, like Carter, she was not to be denied.

  Now she busied herself in the passenger module, mixing fluids, sealing small containers, fastening them to pipes leading to masks which could be clipped over the mouth and nostrils. Standard equipment which Bergman recognised as being parts of emergency resuscitation apparatus.

  ‘Here, Victor.’ She handed him one. ‘Loop this over your head and drop the container into your suit. Wear the mask or leave it to rest just below your mouth. There’s a valve here, see? Turn it if you feel odd in any way.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Giddiness, detachment, disorientation.’

  ‘You expect such reactions?’

  ‘I don’t know what to expect, Victor, but I’m trying to anticipate. John wouldn’t just freeze unless he had no choice. The Eagle is protected against most things, and if the trouble is other than physical, what I’ve built won’t help much. The flasks contain an anti-hallucinogen in liquid form under pressure. Turning the valve will release a fine spray which will turn into a vapour. It will do as much as the capsules I made before we hit this space. If we are subjected to sensory distortion or cerebral stimulation, then the gas could help.’

  ‘How? As a depressant?’ Bergman was interested. Adjusting the device, he twisted the valve and took a cautious sniff. ‘It smells like ammonia.’

  ‘A scent incorporated as a warning that the valve is open,’ she explained. ‘Also it serves to tighten the inner membranes and clear the nasal passages so as to allow an easy entry of the vapour into the lungs. The chemical formula is complex, an extension of what I used before.’ She added sombrely, ‘I hope that it can help.’

  As Bergman hoped that his own devices would work.

  As Helena rose to carry other containers of the anti-hallucinogen to where Kano and Carter sat in the pilot’s seats of the Eagle, he stooped over the apparatus he had brought with him. It was a jumble of electronic circuits, radiant coils, batteries, vibrators, crystals and other assorted pieces of electronic equipment snatched from his laboratory. Now he connected parts to each other, fed power into the assembly, watched as dials kicked and registers glowed.

  Returning, Helena watched him, saw his frown, his irritable shake of the head.

  ‘Trouble, Victor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something I’ve been working on. A compact form of a heterodyning apparatus which I intended to fit to the regular screen installations of the Eagles. As you know, there are two ways at least of gaining protection from energies which may threaten to disrupt or damage life and equipment. We can prevent it reaching us—in other words, set up a barri
er of some kind which is stronger than the threatening energy—or we can diffuse it. Our present defence shield works on the former principle. We set up an umbrella of controlled energy, held and directed by powerful fields which are strong enough to prevent the passage of inimical forces. It also helps to diffuse the energy by forcing it to spread its point of impact, so that no one point is subjected to the total.’

  ‘Like a shield of steel fronted by a liter of fluid,’ she said. ‘The fluid spreads the impact and the steel stops it. I understand.’

  ‘Such a system requires weight and a plentiful supply of power.’ Bergman made another adjustment and grunted as a lamp flashed. ‘I’m trying to do something different.’

  ‘Heterodyning,’ she said. ‘Cancelling out. One force merging with and diminishing another. I remember an experiment conducted in the science lab when I was at school. Two different sounds which were blended to result in silence. Two lights the same. As I remember it, the crests of one wave-form had to match exactly with the valleys of another. By combining the two you ended with a total cancellation of both.’

  ‘Yes.’ Bergman moved a connection. ‘What I hope to do is to build a field—even a minor one will do—around this Eagle, so that whatever force is affecting John’s vessel won’t affect us.’

  ‘You think it important?’

  He said flatly, ‘John is no fool, Helena. He isn’t maintaining radio silence because he wants to. And his controls aren’t jammed from choice. He’s trapped and something has trapped him. Both of us have recognised that.’

  And recognised, too, that they in turn could be rendered as helpless as the commander. Doomed, as Koenig was doomed, to circle the Omphalos until their Eagle crashed to destructive ruin.

  And for them there would be no rescue.

  From his chair Kano said, ‘We’re getting close. You want to take over now?’

  ‘Not yet, David.’ Alan Carter stared through the forward vision ports, narrowing his eyes against the green glow of the Omphalos, trying to see the minute shape of the Eagle against the convoluted mass. Before him an instrument clicked, clicked again, took up a repetitious buzzing.

  ‘Got it!’ Kano stared at his own bank of instruments. ‘The tracer has hooked on to the Commander’s Eagle. Distance . . . velocity . . . direction . . .’ He read out the figures even as he was turning their own machine into a complementary path to the other. ‘If you’re ready I’ll—’ He broke off, blinking. ‘What’s that? What the hell is it?’

  Something huge, monstrous, rising on wings of lambent flame, eyes like mirrors of ice, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow them whole.

  ‘The laser! Quick!’ Kano cried out as the thing engulfed them, seeing darkness as his senses swam and a giddiness turned his limbs to water. Dead, swallowed, made one with the great flying beast—the creature from nightmare. Why hadn’t Carter fired? Why had he let them be killed?

  ‘David!’ He heard the voice as from a great distance. ‘David! Get hold of yourself, man! David!’

  Kano shuddered, seeing again the terrible shape of the Mbolnga bird, the frightful avenger which came to tear the living hearts from the guilty, to gulp down those who had run from battle and hold them in its stomach, there to be pulped to a living, screaming jelly. Old tales whispered to his great-grandfather in the flickering light of campfires, murmurs from reeded kralls, hints given by the witch doctors with their devils’ masks and mysterious powers.

  How deep ran the racial heritage of mankind! ‘David!’ Carter was anxious, his voice betraying his rising anger. ‘David, for God’s sake, man!’

  Kano said dully, ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘A great bird. It came from nothing and—’ He broke off, realising that it was useless to explain. The thing had vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Are we still tracking?’

  ‘Yes.’ Carter checked the instruments with a practiced sweep of his eyes. ‘That bird you thought you saw. Was it—’

  ‘Not thought,’ said Kano. ‘I did see it. To me, at least, it was real.’

  ‘All right. That bird you saw. Did it . . .’ Alan blinked. In the co-pilot’s seat a skeleton sat, grinning at him, hollow sockets for eyes, skeletal hands resting on the controls. Hands which moved as the head turned, the fleshless jaws gaping in the ghastly parody of a smile.

  Death as his companion.

  Death in the Eagle.

  Death at his side!

  Tell-tales flared and alarms sounded as Carter tore at the controls, taking over from his co-pilot, the terrible figure which sat in menace at his side. Around him swirled a thin, green mist, blurring details, softening harsh outlines, seeming to cling to hands and head, face and hair, filling his lungs, thickening, solidifying, clogging . . . clogging . . .

  And, abruptly, he was back in the sealed chamber where the aliens had died. His suit closed, the air gone, the enclosed space filled with the taint of his own vomit. He felt again the sickening heaving of his lungs and stomach, the desperate need for air, to breathe, to escape.

  And death, as before, was waiting.

  Death with its quiet and subtle peace.

  The warm and gentle darkness into which he could sink and rest . . . and rest . . . and rest . . .

  As Kano fought for their lives.

  Carter had taken over full control and then had seemingly gone to sleep. Kano slapped at the switches, overrode the master control and regained command. Beneath his hands the Eagle was a horse running wild, a ship in a storm, a leaf riding a whirlpool. Lamps flashed their signals of overstrained systems, guidance mechanisms fought opposing impulses, the stabilisers were at war with themselves, the engines were blasting against a reverse thrust, even the life-support systems were flashing in the red.

  Within moments circuits would blow as feedback current fused resistances and jumped gaps never intended to handle such misapplied energies.

  ‘David, your mask!’ He heard Helena’s shout. ‘The mask. Both of you use the mask!’

  She was standing in the door leading back to the passenger module, her face pale, a smear of blood running over her chin from a bitten lip. A moment, then she had vanished, flung backwards by the abrupt movement of the Eagle, a sudden acceleration which drove Kano deep into his chair and sent sparks flashing before his eyes.

  Another illusion or reality?

  How could he tell?

  He groaned, fighting the pressure, tasting blood as his hand moved up towards the mask hanging below his mouth. The valve seemed to be stuck, the knob rejecting his fingers, and he groaned again as, with added desperation, he again attacked the metal. A year and the valve moved a little. A century and it opened a little more. A millenmum and he smelled the stink of ammonia which rose to burn in his nostrils, to tingle in his lungs.

  To wash his brain free of fantasy and to reveal the peril ahead.

  The Eagle was plunging to utter destruction.

  ‘Alan!’ Kano yelled as he fought the controls. He was a good pilot, trained, normally capable, but if the Eagle were to be saved now, they wanted not mere capability but a miracle. ‘Alan, for God’s sake!’

  Before his eyes the signal lamps flared like the dancing of dust flecks on a stove. In the forward vision ports, the bulk of the Omphalos shone with a hungry, green glow, filling the area, the shadowed convolutions taking on the likeness of a mask, a grinning face, a waiting skull.

  They were heading toward it too fast and at too steep an angle. Already they must be below the orbit followed by the other Eagle. If dangerous fields were present, they had already entered them, and to escape would require skills perfected beyond the hampering need of thought. Carter had them, Kano knew he did not.

  Freezing the controls, he lunged towards the other man, gripped the valve of his mask, opened it, fell back into his seat just in time to prevent the Eagle from going into a long-axis rotating spin.

  ‘What?’ Carter stirred. ‘What’s the matter? What happened—Kano!’

  ‘Take
over, man! You wanted to come. You said you were the best, and now’s your chance to prove it. Wake up, man!’

  ‘I’m awake.’

  ‘Then take over.’ Kano hit a switch and folded his arms. ‘Here! It’s all yours. Now show us how good you are!’

  There was nothing more he could do now but pray.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Once, when he had been very young, Victor Bergman had been taken by an uncle to a far land and there, at an ancient and holy place, had paid a coin to a fakir who had asked him what most he would like to be. The man had smiled when he had answered and had gently corrected the youthful aspirations. It was not enough, he said, to be rich and wise and famous. It was not even enough for a man to be clever. Above all a man, any man, needed to be lucky.

  Now, sitting in the Eagle, Bergman realised again that, not for the first time, his luck had saved his life.

  Against all odds Carter had managed to regain control. Against all logic the jumble of equipment he had assembled had, by sheer chance, formed connections which had produced the heterodyning field he had hoped would give protection. And Helena’s compound had saved them from mind-destroying hallucinations.

  Hunched in his seat he brooded over the stream of images, the false reality in which, for a space, he had been lost.

  A vision of plumed horses, of crepe and solemn black, of mournful faces and mutes and bearers and armbands and hats dressed with ebon ribbons. All the pomp and panoply of a Victorian funeral. The exaggerated respect paid to the dead with doffed caps and bowed heads, of whispering voices, of ceremonial meals.

  Of mourning extended.

  Of grief maintained.

  It was in his mind, all of it, memories and facts gathered when a boy, of the weight, of the customs of the time, of the heritage from which he had come. The mystique of death, caught, transported, used as a weapon against him, directed by his own subconscious to resemble a haven of peace.

  And Helena?

  She had been more wary than he, opening her valve before succumbing to the illusions, warned by her medical skill, sensitive to little signs of which he would have been unaware. A distortion of the light, perhaps, a slowness of thought or coordination.