Koenig watched himself speaking. Despite his anger, he couldn’t help admiring the alien. At the same time he knew that the man’s cleverness was something to guard against. He had the feeling that Mentor was going to prove to be a most powerful opponent.
‘The ship of ours you have just hi-jacked was a survey vessel, searching for minerals,’ Koenig told Mentor levelly. ‘We thought your world was uninhabited.’
Mentor looked up sharply at the screen with Koenig’s face on it.
‘A familiar argument, Commander... one which has caused the death of millions of our people. Other outsiders have used the same pretext to attack us in the past.’
Koenig ignored him.
‘What happened to my people?’ he demanded.
‘Your pilots are safe, Commander... but their Eagle is beyond repair.’
‘Return my men, Mentor, and we’ll go in peace. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Commander. Peace,’ Mentor replied. There was a sinister ambiguity about his words — something they couldn’t put their finger on.
Koenig decided that for the time being he would have to accept that it was part of the man’s character.
‘You have my solemn pledge that no hostile action will be taken by us,’ he told the alien.
‘And I accept your pledge,’ Mentor replied smoothly. ‘So let us arrange the return of your pilots.’
Koenig watched as more of Mentor’s room appeared on the screen, revealing a full-grown ocelot lying sensuously on a ledge. The large cat purred and licked its lips as it stared down adoringly at Mentor. Mentor reached up a robed hand and stroked it affectionately. The ocelot’s eyes glinted at him, almost knowingly.
‘That’s no ordinary animal, John,’ Hays whispered urgently.
Mentor looked up at Koenig’s face.
‘Send another Eagle and I’ll instruct you where to land.’
Hays shook his head. ‘Don’t trust him. John...’
Koenig faced the screen.
‘No. That might lead to further misunderstanding. Why not rendezvous with us in space instead?’
‘It seems you trust us as little as we trust you, Commander.’
‘In our past history, we’ve been betrayed too, Mentor,’ Hays told him.
‘Let us meet in space then, Commander...’ Mentor looked thoughtful. ‘You say you need minerals? Very well. Send a scientific officer to discuss the technical requirements and you shall have them.’
Koenig frowned. He and Hays exchanged glances.
He looked up at the screen again.
‘You’re very generous... Thank you.’
The Big Screen filled with the homely features of the cryptic Mentor once more, and despite their misgivings Koenig and Hays couldn’t help feeling beguiled.
He was a rogue.
‘It is a small price to pay for peace,’ Mentor declared. Astonishingly, all trace of malignance had vanished from his features or his voice. He seemed the perfect friend. ‘Incidentally, one of your pilots suffered minor injuries... perhaps you could also bring along a medical officer.’
‘It will be done, Mentor,’ Koenig told him.
‘I look forward to meeting you, Commander.’
Mentor’s features gradually faded away, and the screen went blank again. Hays and the Commander looked at one another thoughtfully.
‘I don’t like his friendliness, John,’ Hays stated.
‘Nor do I,’ Koenig replied. He turned to Mark Macinlock, their Eagle Chief Pilot.
‘Fit out Eagle Four with additional booster units, and get it on to the pads.’
‘Right!’
The Chief Pilot walked smartly out of the Command Centre.
Hays looked at Koenig quizzically.
‘Booster units? You’re in a hurry to get there, aren’t you?’
Koenig allowed a thin sliver of a smile to cross his fixed features.
‘I may be in a hurry to get back.’
The other nodded knowingly.
The pure white ocelot stretched its claws. It raised its head and yawned widely.
The robed figure of Mentor walked graciously forward towards it from the cubicle where he had been speaking to the Commander. He reached out his jewelled hand and stroked the big cat.
Obligingly, it rose to its legs and arched its back.
‘Well, what do you think of these Alphans, Maya?’ he asked it.
The cat looked knowingly at him and then leaped to the floor.
Almost before it had reached the floor it began glowing. An opaque field of energy surrounded it and the shimmering figure of a young and very beautiful brunette, about twenty-one years of age, appeared.
The figure’s outlines grew more stable. Eventually she completed her molecular transformation, an art over which she had complete mastery — watched by the smiling Mentor.
‘You look radiant, my dear!’
He held out his arms towards her in greeting.
She wore a stunning lace gown, vibrant skin-pink in colour, with brilliant metallic sequins which gleamed and flashed as she walked. Her rich brown hair was done up behind her head. Her eyebrows were unusually pointed and swept back, lending her fine, feminine features the faint semblance of a lynx.
She allowed her father to clasp her lightly, and peck her affectionately on the cheek.
‘I like the Alphans father. They’re attractive, aren’t they? Quite unlike any of the others.’
She looked beautiful. But she also looked innocent — almost painfully so.
Her father looked protectively at her.
‘They obviously come from a culture similar to ours... not so advanced, of course.’
His daughter laughed gaily, and he wondered what she was thinking. Her form flickered, and she turned into a replica of the Commander. It was precise in every detail.
‘Would I make a good Alphan, father?’
‘Stop it, Maya!’ he chided her sternly.
He looked taken aback, though there was still a certain admiration left in his voice. He had to admit that her abilities were advanced. She was a natural at the art that he had taught her... the art of the dead Psychons which he had passed down to her. She was the last descendant of their race.
‘Sorry,’ Maya replied precociously. She looked hurt. The form of Koenig turned into a brightly-coloured tree instead, and her father frowned, though this time he did not look quite so severely at her.
‘I teach you the priceless art of molecular transformation, and see how you use it... foolish games!’ he remonstrated.
The tree changed back into his daughter. She smiled winsomely.
‘You taught me, father, because you knew I would eventually master the art myself.’
‘True. You are clever, Maya. One day we must find a better outlet for your gifts.’
‘I’d help with your work if you’d let me...’
‘There are many things about the work I do which you don’t understand... not yet...’ her father replied patiently.
‘And these Alphans? Will they help to restore our planet?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Maya... now run along...’
She kissed his cheek lightly again and walked away from him.
He watched her leave the room.
Some distance away, she turned and faced him. Once again, she smiled mischievously at him. Then, she converted her body back into the ocelot, and she bounded off, kicking her hind legs at him.
He shook his head and smiled. It was useless to reprimand her. She was still a child.
But out of her sight, he grew weary with the million thoughts that troubled him, and he passed a heavy hand over his brow.
Since the Commander’s ship had appeared on their screen and his scanners had discovered everything there was to know about the Eagle ship, the Alphans, and their Moon Base home, he felt deeply troubled.
It was not a new feeling.
He felt the same whenever visiting life forms passed in close proximity to his planet, obliging
him to carry out his damnable task. Inside his being there were vast stores of energy.
It was the energy of the universe which his unique, cellular structure — in common with all those of his doomed race —could tap at will. It ebbed and flowed freely inside him.
With its power he could destroy the universe.
He did not need to bargain with the Commander.
Yet he was a man of principle and honour. He was a man of mercy, and he did not like to be seen as a villain.
More especially, he did not like to be seen as anything but the loving and kindly father figure in the eyes of his dear daughter Maya.
Sometimes he longed for her maturity, so that he could explain to her the full burden of his responsibilities. But as it was, he had no-one to talk to.
He was totally alone on a dead planet.
Dismissively, he threw up his hands.
He turned back to his work. Calmly he pressed a button on the console in front of him. A screen lit up above his head and the face of a bald, pallid humanoid appeared. It looked wasted. Its eyes looked dead and lack-lustre. It gazed down at its master without life, mercy or compassion, or any feeling at all.
‘Prepare the Alphan pilots,’ Mentor told the Overseer.
The face nodded and vanished.
Hurriedly Mentor turned the set off.
He turned his attention to the tubes of coloured, bubbling liquids that radiated their precious, life-giving rays into the room instead. These tubes were what mattered. The promise that they held outshone everything else. They justified. everything.
He leant over the computer and dipped his hands in the changing, swirling bars of light — absorbing the healing energy into his being.
The communication’s screen flashed on again, breaking his dreams of the future. A picture of Eagle Four appeared, cruising towards the rendezvous point he had made with the Commander, and he rose to study it.
He looked pleased. ‘They come, Maya. They are men of honour,’ he murmured to his absent daughter.
The barren, hateful globe of Psychon hung in space in front of the Eagle.
The ship’s powerful motor thundered.
Atomic fission reactions exploded deep inside its fiery heart. They propelled it onward through the dark, empty, lifeless limbo on its mission of rescue.
The pensive eyes of Helena Russell stared out from inside the window of a space helmet. They watched the ominous, swelling planet on the TV monitor inside the Pilot Section of Eagle Four.
Time. How precious it was, she thought as the planet’s surface filled the tiny screen.
With their advanced technology they could make, and heal, and grow. Yet they were still at the mercy of the likes of Mentor. No amount of technology could save them from the randomness of life, life’s surprises and shocks.
No amount of technology could take away the pain that Annette, the technician had felt at being separated from her loved one.
Helena was clad in an orange-coloured space suit, as were the figures of Koenig, Picard and Macinlock, busily engaged on the control consoles in the front of the section.
They did not necessarily expect to be well treated, and they were leaving nothing to chance.
‘We’re in position, John,’ Macinlock, the Chief Pilot reported. His gloved hands moved about over the controls and he looked an extremely awkward navigator in his bulky suit. But he was used to performing with it on.
Koenig reached at his side and stabbed a switch.
‘Mentor, this is John Koenig.’
The monitor showed the interior of the Psychon room again, revealing Maya and Mentor watching them in readiness.
‘We’re at rendezvous point,’ Koenig added, ruffled by the uncanny knowledge they displayed of his intentions.
Mentor moved imperceptibly beneath his robes and smiled at his daughter.
‘My ship will shortly join you, Commander.’ He spoke courteously.
‘You’ll bring our pilots?’
‘Of course.’
He turned smoothly away, towards the console supporting the coloured tubes of the mysterious computer. He passed a jewelled hand across one of the tubes and the fluid inside it emitted a noise one might expect to hear from the powerful roaring of wind rising and falling in confined vents.
Koenig reacted quickly. He stabbed at another switch.
Instantly the screen blacked out and another, showing the planet’s surface took its place.
‘Close up, John,’ Helena asked from behind him. ‘I want to see what’s happening on the surface.’
A new scene appeared.
It was the same, weird, Max Ernst landscape again, rock faces alive with swirling coloured streaks and patches, volcanoes still belching forth their insides.
Macinlock left his consoles, having put the Eagle safely into orbit, and helped Koenig.
The camera began panning across the rugged, deserted terrain, but there was no sign of any activity other than the planet’s natural mechanisms.
Then they saw what they were looking for.
It was a large, partly cylindrical object with a flat, circular tail rising rapidly from amongst the mountains.
‘Hold it there, Mark,’ Koenig called out. ‘That must be Mentor’s ship.’
But the flat, grey fish-like craft soon obliterated the monitor’s screen and they had to convert to a long shot again.
The ship’s ascent was so rapid that within moments it filled the screen once more.
‘Phew!’ the Chief Pilot gasped in astonishment. ‘That beats everything. It’s rising... about a hundred miles a second from zero acceleration! Against a gravity of...’ He checked dials on his console. ‘... just over one gee! That’s a colossal downward force acting on whoever’s inside... how can he live?’
Koenig stared gravely at the screen.
‘I dunno.’
Suddenly he looked shocked. ‘Fraser, Torens...! They’re on that ship as well!’
The screen flickered and went dead.
Koenig swore.
Sandra Benes’ face appeared on the screen. She looked worried.
The Commander looked enraged.
‘Sandra, why didn’t you use your commlock?’ he asked.
‘Sorry, John... I... we’ve been following that ship. My scanner’s giving some funny readings...’
‘Go on...’
‘Well, Mentor’s supposed to be on board, isn’t he?’ Koenig nodded frustratedly.
‘I register no sign of life...’
‘No sign of life?’ Helena stepped forward in her suit. ‘John...’ She stood behind him and gripped his shoulders in alarm.
Koenig stared grim-faced at the screen.
‘What kind of control system is it using?’ he asked the distraught technician.
‘My scanners say Automatic. Magnetic energy levels fluctuating wildly.’
‘We’ve been tricked...!’ Koenig said, ashen-faced. He stabbed at a switch, and the image of the alien space craft appeared again.
It had come to a stop now, and it had berthed alongside them.
They could see rows of dark portals in its forward hull. From its flat, sole-shaped body, silent propulsor rockets projected out.
It looked grey, lifeless, and sinister... a giant, blind fish seeing through unerring inner senses.
A cold feeling of dread rose inside the four watching members of the Eagle crew as they gazed at it.
Koenig reacted hesitantly, activating the intercommunication system.
‘Mentor, signal when you’re ready for link-up.’
He looked at his crew. ‘No answer...’ He turned back to the screen. ‘I repeat. Signal when you’re ready to dock.’
A bleep sounded and Hays’ worried face appeared on the TV monitor.
‘John... there are no life forms at all on that ship... Fraser, Torens... they’re not on it...’
Koenig stumbled to his feet in his bulky suit, not knowing now whether to be pleased or dismayed.
But he was too l
ate.
A series of shocks shook the Eagle, throwing them to the floor. They climbed to their feet, and they were thrown down again. Koenig and Macinlock crawled to the control console and managed to drag themselves into the pilot’s seats. They grappled with the controls.
‘We’re... picking... up... magnetic... disturbance... too, now...’ Koenig spoke brokenly.
‘Mentor’s ship, John... it’s... radiating... magnetic... energy...’ Macinlock croaked. ‘We’re... losing... al... ti... tude...’
‘FULL POWER!’ Koenig screamed.
Macinlock pushed his controls forward and the mighty engines of the Eagle thundered into life again, all firing at once.
Gradually, as their thrust cancelled out the alien force of the fish ship’s magnetic clutches, the shaking stopped.
‘We’re still continuing to drop slowly, John,’ Macinlock reported. ‘Our rate of descent’s increasing again...!’ He added fearfully. ‘It’s no use. Full power isn’t enough. What the hell’s in that thing?’
‘Boosters... half thrust,’ Koenig snapped.
‘Half thrust, John,’ Macinlock called out, pressing a button.
Another powerful wave shook the ship as the boosters flared into life. The shuddering increased violently.
The ship tilted and they clung to their seats as the floor went up in the air behind them.
Smoke and flames burst out from the controls in front of the pilots.
‘She won’t take it!’ Macinlock coughed, speaking with great difficulty through the smoke and the heat. ‘She’ll break up.’
Koenig began to feel his skin being pulled away from his body inside his suit — the result of the invisible fingers of the huge gravitational attraction produced by the shuddering movement of the ship trying to escape upward, and the dragging energy of the magnetic lassoo that had been thrown around them.
Semi-paralysed, he tried to reach across to the Booster button where Macinlock sat. But he was scarcely able to move. His muscles were paralysed with the load they had to bear. His being screamed with pain.
‘Full... thrust...’ he whispered.
He managed to jerk his finger on to the button and press it.
A terrific hammer blow hit the Eagle.
The emergency booster engines erupted into full power.
The cabin went white around him.
Space 1999 - Planets of Peril Page 2
