by John Rankine
In Main Mission Sandra Benes gave the latest range figure, ‘Fifteen thousand.’ But there was another claim to attention. Paul Morrow had seen a move from Voyager’s pad and called urgently, ‘Commander. Voyager One. She’s taking off.’
It was true. They could now stop looking for Linden.
Koenig said, ‘Linden!’ and brought in the picture of the long silver ship lifting its nose from its temporary resting place. He called on the communications net. ‘Linden. This is John Koenig. Do you read me Linden?’ There was no response. Rocket motors flaring, Voyager One was jacking herself back into the element she had made her own. Koenig muttered furiously, ‘What the hell is he up to . . .?’ and stopped, knowing the answer. It was Ernst Queller at the controls and he was gambling with the Queller Drive.
Sandra, as though hypnotised by the data she was getting went right on relaying it. ‘Range ten thousand.’
Morrow said, ‘I have a signal from Voyager One!’
‘Range eight thousand.’
Koenig said, ‘Linden!’ and this time had a reply.
Infinitely tired but firm Linden said, ‘Commander Koenig, activate all Alpha defence screens to maximum.’
‘Are you crazy? We have no protection that can stand against that drive.’
‘Recall all your Eagles.’
‘They’re all we have between us and the Sidons.’
‘Do as I say and you might have a chance.’
The carrier shut off and Paul Morrow stated the obvious, ‘He’s broken the link.’
Bergman said, ‘Do what he asks, John.’
Sandra chimed in with ‘Range five thousand,’ and the Eagle Leader said, ‘All weapons locked, preparing to fire.’
Probabilities raced through Koenig’s head but the decision was made out of conscious thought. He. said sharply, ‘Activate screens. Recall Eagles.’
‘Range two thousand.’
Carter tried to reason, ‘But Commander . . .’ Koenig’s voice lashed out, ‘Do it!’
Carter called, ‘Eagles Six, Nine, Ten. Return to Base.’
Eagle Leader was incredulous, ‘But we have the range.’
‘Return to base.’
On the big screen, there was a change, though nothing for the better. Aarchon’s face was filling it from edge to edge, grim and foreboding. He said without preamble, ‘John Koenig. You are wise to recall your primitive fighting craft. The manner of your destruction shall in return be merciful.’
Another voice answered him. It was Linden calling from his lonely post in Voyager One.
‘Aarchon. Listen to me.’
Sandra split the screen and pulled him in so that Main Mission had a picture for the voice. Linden went on, ‘This is Ernst Queller. I am the creator of the craft known as Voyager One.’
Aarchon said, ‘What is the purpose of this, John Koenig?’
‘Ernst Queller is acting outside my authority.’
Linden spoke again, ‘Listen to me Aarchon. Your people have suffered grievous harm. But the blame is mine. Punish me. Do not condemn an entire world for the mistake of one man. My purpose was to unite a divided world, to reach out and follow a higher destiny into the infinity of space, to seek out other worlds and offer the hand of friendship.’
Aarchon was not impressed. He said coldly, ‘There can be no discussion, Ernst Queller.’
‘Hear me, Aarchon. Pride blinded me. Arrogance narrowed my vision. I and I alone was responsible for what my ship did. These other people are innocent.’
There was no change in Aarchon’s face. Not even a pause as he said, ‘Your plea is dismissed. John Koenig prepare to witness the judgement of Sidon.’
Linden was hunched over his console. With infinite sadness in his face and voice he said, ‘Then you, Aarchon are no more worthy of life than I am.’
He looked up at the three names, put his hand to a lever and heaved it down. Voyager One’s rocket motors cut out, she shuddered along her length and sprang forward with unbelievable acceleration into the path of the Sidon squadron.
Main Mission was vibrating to its foundations. Aarchon’s face on the scanner was distorted, whatever he was saying was unintelligible mush.
Morrow jerked out, ‘The screens are holding!’
Bergman said, ‘The Queller Drive. Linden’s using it in short bursts. Look what it’s doing to the Sidons.’
The area round the squadron was in a shimmer. Voyager One was streaking through like an arrow. Main Mission was vibrating again. Sandra had a confused picture on the screen. They could make out Linden using his last gramme of strength to punch a signal on his DESTRUCT panel.
Momentarily the picture held then it whited out into an asterisk of eye aching light. Voyager One and the Sidon squadron had vaporized as though they had never been. The rumbling and the vibration in Main Mission died away.
Jim Haines walked into the empty lab and stood by the work bench. The control circuit was dead, so much electronic junk. Balling a fist, he struck down at the flimsy structure, saw it shatter and missed the quiet step behind him that had brought Koenig to his back.
Koenig said, ‘It did its work, Jim.’
Haines whirled round. ‘What makes people tick, Commander?’
‘Good question.’
‘You work with a man. You think you know him. You come to respect him and suddenly you don’t know him at all.’
‘All that changed was the name. The man was the same.’
Haines stood digesting it and Koenig went on, ‘Listen. His sacrifice gave us a future. His knowledge gave us hope. Someone has to carry on his work.’ He took the black box which he was carrying under his arm and held it out. ‘If you respected the man make sure his sacrifice wasn’t wasted. Here you are. Get to it.’
Haines watched him go. Then methodically he began to clear the bench.
CHAPTER SEVEN
John Koenig sat at his desk in the command office. It was one thing to have a unique file of useful information, it was quite another to have some way of manoeuvering their wandering Moon platform to some place where it would do good.
He checked himself. He was inviting trouble. Normality, when they had it was good enough. Through his observation window, he could see the orderly activity in Main Mission. Sandra Benes was doing a training session with a new recruit to the headquarter staff. Regina Kesslann looked as though she would be good. She was sensitive and quick to learn. That was something he had to think about. There was no foreseeable end to their journey. All personnel in senior posts should have a trained stand-in.
He saw Sandra look at the Main Scanner and take personal charge for a delicate piece of tuning. Their Moon was ploughing its furrow in an empty quarter. By some freak of chance that had to come up once in a while the scanner was a black velvet blankness, an empty slate for a cosmic figure to draw on. Even as he watched, he saw what had alerted Sandra begin to assemble itself out of nothing. Blackness was folding on blackness creating a spiralling mass that defied definition. It was the moment of creation over again. Where there had been nothing there was a primeval chaos, a spiralling mass that swirled at incredible speed and was suddenly alive with colour as tongues of incandescent gas spat from its spinning centre.
Red Alert klaxons sounded out through Moonbase Alpha and the hurrying moon seemed to side step in space. Loose gear slipped everywhichway and personnel caught off balance were flung to the deck. By the time Koenig had hauled himself into Main Mission it looked like a disaster area.
Helena Russell followed him in with Bergman only seconds behind her. Carter had a full set of executives for his report, ‘Velocity increasing, Commander.’
Main Scanner had gone wildly out of focus and Koenig said sharply, ‘Sandra?’
She was picking herself off the deck and took her seat at the console without a word. When the big screen steadied down there was a shocked silence. Edge to edge the frame was crowded with the most terrifying phenomenon they had seen. It was a churning vortex, shot with streamers of brillia
nt fire.
Paul Morrow said, ‘Intense gravitational forces, Commander.’
‘Computer analysis?’
Kano did his best, but the sensors were being overwhelmed. The computer made a start, but its overloaded circuits even failed to drop protection relays. There was a percussive crack and a thin plume of acrid smoke rose from between his hands. Hardly believing it, he said, ‘Sensor relays gone.’
Carter was facing the same problem. He said urgently, ‘Commander, velocity readings off the clock!’ His console was pouring smoke as circuitry glowed cherry red. Sandra’s desk was on the blink and Morrow reported again, ‘All sensor equipment non op.’
The moon was accelerating, hurling itself forward into the unknown forces ahead. The outriders were already on them. Direct vision ports were suddenly flushed with colour, as tiny particles of exploding gas lashed them in polychrome rain. The whole fabric of Main Mission was creaking and groaning with stress like the timbers of a wooden ship in a hurricane wind.
The nightmare confusion was straining Regina Kesslann’s yet untested inner strength. Hands rigid to her trim thighs, her mouth was open in a scream that melded into the racket like a piccolo entry. She saw Helena Russell and stumbled to her through the debris. As Helena took her hands trying 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 centre, a timeless no-man’s land.
John Koenig saw Bergman turning towards him in slow time as if in a dream sequence. His mouth was moving but only a distorted echoing sound was coming out. He saw Carter, also in slow time, the image wavering, soft focused, splitting slowly into two Carters. Panning round the control area, he could see the phenomenon repeated, Sandra and Paul Morrow were a wavering quartet, all four strained and pain wracked, holding their heads in intolerable agony.
Helena had taken the girl aside to a direct vision port. Outside, the moonscape was in a shimmer, wavering, splitting away, separating itself into two spheres that were sliding apart. She tried to alert Koenig and horror piled on horror. She had a choice. There were two Koenigs, both holding their heads.
Bergman was the same. Close beside her Regina was screaming again and wavering, fattening, sliding apart into two agonised duplicates. Then one peeled away and was gone, as her own agony built to a crescendo and she herself was tearing into a new creation. She saw Koenig’s doppelgänger wink out and leaned, sick and shaken against the glass, seeing and not seeing the duplicate moon accelerating away, hearing and not hearing Regina’s ongoing scream.
Helena pushed off from the curving bulkhead like a swimmer making a turn and tried to cross the floor towards Koenig in a slow undulating run, hair streaming in a fair pennant.
Two steps from him, hand stretched out to him, she was gone in a white blank that spread until the whole of Main Mission was gone. Regina, running in panic fear from the exit was gone, Koenig was gone, Moon, space, time, all were gone.
There was no-one to see the Moon reform as a bright centre and the sky darken to velvet and the stars take up their station. It was all there unchanged and unchangeable as Koenig took charge of the cleaning up to get his station back on an operational footing.
Regina was the only one still unconscious and Helena, still shaky was working on her. Koenig looked questioningly at Mathias for a medical opinion.
‘It’s shock, Commander. We have six in the same state.’
‘No other symptoms?’
‘I can’t be sure until they’ve been properly examined.’
Stretcher parties were moving in and Mathias went to superintend the operation.
Paul Morrow said, ‘Internal systems seem to be in order, Commander.’
Koenig went on to the computer desk. Kano said, ‘Sensor equipment took a beating, Commander. Every relay blown.’
‘Take personal charge of repairs.’
Victor Bergman, still looking sick and shaken followed him on the tour and Koenig asked, ‘What do you make of it, Victor?’
‘I have no idea.’
On the scanner they could see that their moon had developed a comet tail of fine blue particles that gradually thinned out as they voyaged on over the star map. Koenig watched it for a moment then went on, completing his tour and finally moving out to check the state of the game in the medicentre.
Regina Kesslann was still unconscious, but what dreams she was having in the deep recesses of her head were not giving her any pleasure. Her young face was showing strain and a kind of terror.
Sitting on an adjacent bed, Helena said wearily, ‘She doesn’t seem to be responding to treatment John, have you any idea what happened to us?’
‘Cause? None. Effects, well we all experienced them. Apart from some lingering shock and some memories of acute double vision and mental pain, there’s only one real piece of evidence. We’re in a totally different part of space.’
‘It was all so . . . real.’
Koenig stroked her hair, ‘Take some rest. Life goes on. We have a whole new set of possibilities.’
Back in Main Mission, he found Sandra Benes had a captive audience for the scan she was bringing up on the big screen.
She said incredulously, ‘It’s a solar system.’
Bergman said, ‘Seems we’ve done a bit of travelling, John.’
Carter said, ‘Some travelling Professor. Millions of kilometres in as many seconds.’
Koenig watched the star map vaguely troubled by it. He asked. ‘How are the sensor repairs coming along, Victor?’
‘Well on.’
Carter said, ‘Even sensors won’t tell us how we got here, Commander’
‘True. But they will tell us what is in that solar system.’
Morrow said, ‘Planets?’
‘Could be. And more important, whether we could live on them.’
Last to rejoin the world of sense, Regina Kesslann opened her eyes in the medicentre and was some seconds establishing where she was. Helena, sitting at her desk was a touchstone and a familiar face to look at when she turned to check out the movement from the bed.
Regina’s voice had its normal harmonics when she said, ‘I had a bad dream.’ But there was a change as she said, ‘It’s bright today, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
Regina sat up, breathing suddenly irregular as a new panic seized her, ‘Where am I? Please. I don’t know where I am.’
Helena was beside her, ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I was up there again. I saw it all. I saw two Moons. Alan was there. And the Commander. Everyone. You were there too. You were on that Moon. I saw you. It was a dream. Tell me it was a dream.’
‘You must rest, Regina.’
‘It was a dream. It couldn’t be Alan and the Commander. They’ll never come back. They’re dead. Isn’t the sun hot today?’ She fell back on the pillow and began to cry in a silent grief that was real enough to her.
Helena Russell took a hypogun from her belt and gave her a sedative shot. Then, she watched deep in thought, as the girl drifted into quiet sleep.
The repair work in Main Mission was ready for report. Koenig took it at his desk, as the executives put it on record.
Morrow said, ‘Artificial gravity link up positive.’
Carter said, ‘Velocity instrumentation okay.’
Kano called from his computer spread, ‘Data systems functioning.’
Sandra said, ‘Sensor relays repaired and checked.’
Carter was in again, ‘Meteorite screens operational and on automatic.’
Paul Morrow looked over at Bergman, ‘All output links-up completed.’
Bergman snapped shut a panel with an air of finality, ‘I’m ready.’
Morrow put in the last link, ‘Commander, all telemetric scanners are fully operational.’
‘Fine. Open up. Everything we’ve got on that solar system.’
He left them to it, calling Bergman and Helena Russell into the command office for a conference on the
more intimate problems of internal space. Maybe by this time they had some theory.
Victor Bergman leaned elbows on the table, spoke slowly, ‘It’s a familiar experience. Something we all know about. Déjà vu—the feeling that you’ve been this way before.’
‘It’s something more than that, Victor.’ Helena was positive. ‘In Regina’s mind, she’s actually living on a planet, in open air, with sun on her face.’
Koenig asked, ‘Does she know we’re in a new solar system?’
‘No. Her life here is somehow a bad dream to her—something she’s been forced to come back to from somewhere else. You and Alan—I suppose that must be Alan Carter—are both dead as far as she is concerned. Whatever happened in that traumatic space storm, has affected her more deeply than anyone else.’
‘We all shared the experience of seeing doubles of everything.’
‘What I’m searching for is some way in which our experience of that phenomenon can relate to Regina’s experience now.’
Bergman shifted irritably, not liking to be outside the limits of knowledge, ‘We travelled way beyond the speed of light. How far beyond we can’t tell. What happens to matter beyond the speed of light, we have no means of knowing.’
Koenig said, ‘That used to fascinate me—the thought that if I could travel faster than light, I’d get younger, catch up on myself. I’d be able to look back on the life I’d just lived and live it again.’
Helena Russell gave him a wide eyed look and waited for more but Kano was in through the hatch with a print-out, looking astonished, saying, ‘Commander!’
Koenig glanced at the text and was out of his chair in a smooth movement, racing for Main Mission with the others in his wake.
Carter was looking at the screen in disbelief, ‘It can’t be!’
Sandra Benes said, ‘We’ve checked and double checked. There’s no mistake.’
Trying to convince himself, Paul Morrow said slowly, ‘Everything confirms it. All eleven planets check out.’
Koenig broke in, ‘Paul. Use the long range scanner. Bring up the third planet. Kano. Get computer data on it.’
