by John Rankine
THEIR ONLY WORLD IS THE
MOON—WITHOUT THE EARTH!
A freak explosion blasts the moon out of orbit. And the men and women of Moonbase Alpha unwittingly become courageous travelers on man's first intergalactic odyssey.
Joy turns into terror when Alpha's first infant grows up in a matter of seconds . . . an alien "gift" transforms the barren moon into a sunny Eden . . . a deadly but primitive rocket from Earth makes Alpha the target for mass revenge . . . and the interstellar journey becomes a personal hell for the crew when they see how their lives might have been!
The nightmare confusion was straining her yet untested inner strength. Hands rigid against her trim thighs, her mouth was open in a scream that melded into the racket like a piccolo entry. She saw Helena and stumbled to her through the debris. As Helena took her hands to try to calm her, there was a dramatic change.
All sound died away. The frenzied light storm ebbed to a white calm.
They had reached the still dead center, a timeless no-man's land . . .
Books in the Space: 1999 Series
Breakaway
Moon Odyssey
Published by POCKET BOOKS
MOON ODYSSEY
Futura Publications edition published 1975
POCKET BOOK edition published September, 1975
This POCKET BOOK edition includes every word contained in the original edition. It is printed from brand-new plates made from completely reset, clear, easy-to-read type. POCKET BOOK editions are published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 630 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10020. Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.
Standard Book Number: 671-80185-6.
This POCKET BOOK edition is published by arrangement with Futura Publications Limited. Series format and television play scripts copyright, ©, 1975, by ATV Licensing Limited. This novelization copyright, ©, 1975, by Futura Publications Limited. All rights reserved. This book, or portions thereof, may not be reproduced by any means without permission of the original publisher: Futura Publications Limited, 49 Poland Street, London, England.
Printed in the U.S.A.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
CHAPTER ONE
Commander John Koenig stood looking out of the window of his executive suite and reckoned irritably that the fever which was affecting all personnel on Moonbase Alpha had finally gotten round to him. He could see into Main Mission and even without sound he could see every last one of the duty crew behaving like an expectant father in a vaudeville sketch. Anybody would think no woman had ever produced a child before and given the teeming millions on Earth planet it was plain ludicrous.
He saw his own face reflected on the glass and superimposed on the picture. Lines were deepening. Maybe he was just getting old and the recurring miracle of human birth no longer touched him? One thing was for sure, he was turning into a autocratic bastard. Any day now some hard pressed crewman would plant a pick in his skull. But he had to do it. He had to drive them. Keep a sense of purpose even if that purpose turned into a hatred of himself.
High forehead, square jaw, beak of a nose, black skull cap of hair, he should have been a hard case mate in the piping days of sail. The parallel ended there. At least on a windjammer the crew would know there was a landfall somewhere ahead. He was skipper of a rudderless hulk going nowhere at a mind-bending speed.
Red Alert klaxons sounded out through the complex and reflection cut off. Suddenly, he was as anxious as the next man to see Cynthia Crawford’s contribution to the life force. Koenig said, ‘That’s it,’ and whipped out his commlock to open the hatch to Mission Control.
Paul Morrow, sitting at the conference table lifted his head out of his hands and was only a pace behind his chief as they entered the big control spread.
The atmosphere had changed to instant celebration. It was clear that everybody had felt involved. Paul Morrow, chief executive of Main Mission wore a grin that threatened to split his sandy head as he said, ‘We made it!’ Sandra Benes swinging elegant legs as she turned in her operation’s chair said ‘I like that! Whatever did you do to help?’
Koenig was tuning the main scanner and brought in the medicentre with Helena Russell looking wide-eyed and more pleased than she had done for months. Still in a theatre gown with the face mask dropped round her neck, she announced the first Moonbase national, ‘It’s a boy. Mother and baby doing just fine. Crawford Junior came in at four pounds three ounces. Fair hair, blue eyes—he’s beautiful.’
Morrow said, ‘There you are, a boy. I knew it. I knew it.’ Koenig, warming to the holiday spirit that was clearly bursting out all over, looked ten years younger. But truth was truth, ‘You had a bet with me it’d be a girl.’
‘Never.’
In the medicentre itself Helena Russell had gone back to the bedside and was talking to her patient, ‘You have a fine son, Cynthia. Sleep now. I’ll let you see him later.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Cynthia Crawford was the only one not smiling. ‘I only wish Jack had been alive to see him.’
‘I know, I know. But life goes on. You’ve proved that for all of us. Get some sleep. That’s an order.’
Helena turned to her team. Bob Mathias was at the monitors and Paula carefully settled the new boy in his incubator, ‘Ready Bob?’
Mathias flipped switches and watched the screens put up a diagnostic check-out. He said ‘No complications.’
‘Well done both of you. But I think he should be under constant watch. You two take a spell. I’ll do first stint.’
Paula was off like a lissom rocket, but Mathias held back. She said again ‘Go on Bob. I’m not really tired. Anyway I don’t want to leave. This is a medical first.’
She drew up a chair and looked at the baby, chin on hand, wide spaced eyes dreamy. It was a good thing to have done. The best. Skill used to create rather than mend the pieces. Behind her, the wave patterns on the scopes began to increase. Far away, outside the confines of the quiet room and not yet picked up by receptors in Mission Control a distant green speck was pulsing to the same tempo.
Helena crossed to Cynthia Crawford, picked her wrist from the coverlet and did a check with her time disk. Old fashioned medicine, but it was very satisfying. She was still following that line in her head, when the monitors whipped over the threshold of attention with a succession of urgent blips.
She looked first at the incubator and the whole sand castle of euphoria crumbled around her. Hand to her mouth, suddenly sick with shock she could only back away until she felt the cold wall of the bulkhead against her shoulders. Only Cynthia Crawford’s urgent repeated screams broke the numb circle of horror and drove her forward to pull a screen round the transparent bubble. But the image was etched forever in her mind.
The body in the incubator had gone into explosive growth. The face and body were pressed grotesquely against the glass. It was no longer a tiny helpless baby. It was a boy, a five-year-old at the least.
John Koenig reckoned bitterly that they should have known better than to expect anything good to come their way. He was more sorry for Helena than for anybody. She had been so proud of her skill and so deeply happy. She deserved better. In the medicentre Nurse Paula was fussing round the boy who seemed docile, almost serene who looked steadily at him as he put an arm on Helena’s shoulders, and he asked quietly, ‘Is there any explanation, anything at all that occurs to you?’
Helena Russell shook her head miserably, ‘How can there be
? In normal terms he’s physically about five years old. And it happened in a matter of seconds. Cell growth accelerated beyond belief.’
‘But how? What are the cells composed of? He’s taken no food. How can he grow without protein? Without vitamins?’
‘Not only that. There’s motor control. Even a simple thing like sitting erect is the result of a learning process. Co-ordination comes by experience. How can he have had that experience? How can he be as normal as he appears? There can be no rational explanation.’
‘Irrational, then?’
‘John, don’t rush me. I’m just trying to come to terms with something outside our terms of reference.’
Koenig tried a personal approach, crossed to the cot that Paula had set up and tried to make his voice sound natural. ‘Hello, young fella.’ He reached out and touched the child’s hand, remembering that physical contact spoke clearer than words. It produced a quick smile and he found himself smiling back. Maybe after the initial teething troubles, if that was the right phrase, the kid would be okay? He gave the hand another pat to signal that only friendship was intended and then rejoined Helena looking thoughtful.
‘Helena it’s impossible.’
‘We knew there might be problems but . . .’ she trailed off, unable to find words for the trick fate had played them.
‘Jack Crawford’s death made it seem like a good idea.’
‘It was good. It was right. But now it’s all come out wrong. I’ll do every test I know, but I can’t say what to expect, what to look for.’
Koenig cut in, ‘Jack Crawford, the father. You never went along with the theory that he died of cell mutation.’
‘I don’t know why he died. At times we have to accept the unknown. But I can positively say it was not cell mutation.’
‘All the same I’ll take another look at the Nuclear Generating Plant.’
‘I’ll work on those tests.’
At the plant, technician Joan Conway, a neat, supple figure in a rust brown inner suit was immediately suspicious—
‘But Jack Crawford died seven months ago, Commander. What is it? Is there something wrong with our baby?’
‘I’m afraid there is. And I’m trying to find out what caused it. Jack Crawford spent most of his working life in here.’
‘But they pulled this place apart when he died. There was no radiation leakage.’ Kohl rimmed eyes opened wide, ‘Is it mutation?’
‘Of a kind.’
Any reply was lost in a buzz from the communications post and Helena’s face appeared on the scanner.
‘John?’
‘Here.’
‘Tests show he’s normal. A normal five-year-old child.’
Simultaneously screened in Main Mission it caused a shocked silence. Carter the chief pilot expressed a general feeling when he said bitterly, ‘Maybe we had no right to expect anything else.’
Sandra Benes said, ‘You mean we can never expect to have normal children?’
‘This crazy kind of life we lead. No-one really knows how it’s affecting us physically—or in the long term.’
Paul Morrow could see morale taking a plunge. He said, ‘Come on. Life here’s not that abnormal. We eat, drink, sleep, breathe air of a kind. Maybe it’s some specific cause in this case.’
Carter said, ‘Like Crawford’s death?’
At the computer spread, Kano called over, ‘They’re asking for data on the Nuclear Generating Plant. Looks like the Commander’s re-opening the enquiry.’
Carter gave it a cynical twist, ‘Like the command manual says—always do something. I guess he has to go through the motions.’
In the medical unit Helena Russell was unconsciously following the same precept. When Koenig appeared through the hatch, she had the prodigy in a diagnostic chair and was busy peeling off the sensors which had been planted on his limbs and temples.
Mathias looked worried and was checking his note pad. ‘Brain activity is no more and certainly no less than you’d expect in a five-year-old human male.’
‘That means he’s thinking.’
‘But not communicating.’
‘How could he be? He’s had no chance to learn to speak. Yet he seems so alert—so responsive.’
Talking it out triggered a recall of a simple test she had seen in medical school. She picked up a flask and attracted the child’s attention. As she moved it his eyes followed it, trying to guess what she was at. Mathias picked up the cue and moved quietly behind the chair picking up a couple of kidney bowls on the way. Helena gave a nod and he threw them to the floor with a clang that made Paula skip like a Spring lamb. But the child was watching Helena’s flask and neither blinked nor turned away.
Koenig said, ‘Deaf mute?’
Helena was firm, ‘But he’s here. He exists. He’s our responsibility. Our first concern is how we aim to handle him.’
‘You’d be happy doing that?’
‘Surely. I’ll give Cynthia all the help she needs. We have to do the best we can for him. Later, we may or may not find out why it happened this way.’
‘So, as of now, we try to give him as normal a life as possible.’
‘However it happened, it happened. We’re left with an apparently normal child. A lovely child. You can see he’s going to be the spitting image of Jack. That should be a great thing for Cynthia, when she comes to accept it.’
‘If she comes to accept it.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Koenig looked apologetic, ‘Sorry. I just don’t know. I have a curious feeling about him that I can’t put a finger on.’
‘Well, it’s time he was introduced to company. The sooner everybody realises we haven’t produced a monster the better. Ignorance is fear.’
‘After all it’s his birthday.’
It earned him a burning look and he followed her through into Main Misson as she walked the child by the hand.
She was right on one count. The atmosphere was already tense. Every eye tracked them into a stunned silence. Only the ongoing electronic mush from the computer spread filled the background.
Carter broke it, working hard to be genial. The child pushed hard against Helena’s smooth thigh as the pilot came near and stared hard with simple fear as Carter gave him a friendly poke and asked, ‘What’s your name, youngster?’
There was no reply. Helena said, ‘We’ve called him Jackie.’
‘Hi then, Jackie. How’d you like to go for a flight? We’ll take an Eagle and soar around.’
He was doing his best, making flying mimes with both hands. Helena said quietly, ‘He can’t hear you, Alan.’
Alan Carter stopped dead. Then compassion took over, ‘No? The poor little devil. Then I’ll just have to show him. Come on Jackie. Away we go.’
Holding the boy over his head Carter did a circuit of Mission Control. Simple stuff and harking back in memory to many an apartment on Earth planet. Whether Jackie understood it or not, he was reassured by the warm physical contact. He was smiling and the likeness to Jack Crawford was obvious. It was infectious. Reservations melted. When Carter took him back to Helena there was a new feeling in the group.
Koenig had gone through into his office and was watching the dumb show and saw that it would turn out well. They were good people. They would do what they could for the boy. He saw Helena take Jackie over to Paul Morrow and the Main Mission Controller gave the boy his commlock and showed him the operating button. Between them they directed the beam to his own door and he went along with the game meeting them on the steps as Morrow said, ‘Commander. We have a visitor.’
Koenig and Helena led him between them and sat him in the command chair and Koenig called to Kano. ‘David. Give us something colourful to look at.’
Geometric patterns in blue and green and gold came up on the main scanner. Koenig altered it, using the controls on his own desk and Jackie watched intently, pressing another himself for a second change.
Helena said, ‘You see. There’s no doubt about his intell
igence.’
Jackie was absorbed and his face was serious with concentration as he checked over every control on the panel.
The doubt he could not quite suppress, rose again in Koenig’s head. His own face set in a stern mask and the child sensed it as disapproval. He stopped his play and tears welled in his eyes and he turned away to hide his face on Helena’s chest.
There was no doubt it made a difference having a youngster in the complex. All hands took a delight in showing him how things worked. Professor Bergman took time off from a piece of research he had lined up and tried speech training. With a large coloured spread of a buttercup from a natural history book in front of them, he touched Jackie’s face to draw attention from the page and then touched the boy’s lips and his own to make a visual bond. With elaborate lips movements he said, ‘Fl-ow-er. Fl-ow-er.’
He got some response. Jackie watched it through and smiled, but something had caught his eye. As Bergman searched for another easy picture, he was looking over his shoulder at the maze of scientific equipment and his eyes, if Bergman could have seen them, were anything but childlike. Even at the distance, he was working it out. He knew what was being done.
Helena took him about, letting him see every department of his new home. In the Nuclear Generating Plant, Joan Conway made him welcome, picking him up and sitting him on her shoulders for a tour of inspection. ‘Who’s his father’s son, then? My you’re doing fine, finding out all about your uncles and aunts. He’s a good solid weight.’
‘Thirty eight pounds. Absolutely normal.’
The eyes over their heads were ranging round the site with a look of uncanny interest and understanding.
Carter made him a model mock up of an Eagle and the boy took it all in with concentration and seriousness that was lost on the pilot as he got absorbed in his own game.
The only one who would have nothing at all to do with him was Cynthia Crawford. She had relapsed into a coma-like state, but any attempt to bring Jackie close to her produced a frenzy and agitation that could not be pacified until he was taken out.
