The Ark in Space

by Marter, Ian

Sarah glanced at Harry for some explanation, but he was staring blankly at Vira as she approached them, shaking with anger. ‘What have you done with Technop Dune?’ she repeated. ‘Answer me.’ Sarah leaned heavily on Harry’s arm, faint and disorientated. Her face was white, and she was trembling all over. At that moment, Noah’s voice rang out over the intercom in the Access Chamber.

  ‘Hear me, Vira… I am in Central Control. I discovered the third Regressive attempting to sabotage the Solar Power Systems. He has been dealt with.’

  ‘That means the Doctor,’ Harry whispered as Vira hurried through into the Access Chamber.

  ‘Commander, hear me,’ they heard her say into the intercom. ‘Technop Dune is missing; there is no explanation.’

  ‘The explanation,’ Noah hissed, ‘is that the Regressives have taken him. Proceed with Revivification. I shall inspect the Solar Chamber…’

  Vira turned to see Harry and Sarah lingering uncertainly ‘The Commander will interrogate you when he returns,’ she said, brushing past them and resuming her Medtech duties.

  Harry started as Sarah suddenly gripped his arm.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered. Harry looked at her in astonishment. ‘We must find the Doctor,’ she said urgently.

  ‘Well… yes, but are you sure you’re… you’re…’ Harry stammered.

  Sarah smiled broadly. ‘Are you all right, Harry?’ she asked. ‘You look a little pale.’

  Harry was speechless. He shook his head in admiration at Sarah’s remarkable recovery. ‘You really are amazing, old girl,’ he chuckled.

  With a glance to check that Vira was occupied, Sarah ran lightly across the Access Chamber to the panel leading to the tunnel. ‘Do you know the way to Central Control?’ she whispered.

  Harry pulled himself together. ‘I think so…’ he muttered.

  Sarah beckoned impatiently. ‘Then show me how to open this thing, and let’s go,’ she said.

  Noah opened the Radiation Shield and entered the Solar Chamber. His movements were slow and clumsy, hampered by the heavy protective suit he now wore. At first, the thick transparent helmet muffled the vicious crackling sounds echoing round the chamber, but as Noah advanced further in, they rose to a crescendo. Noah faltered and stopped. Through the vizor he glimpsed something whipping towards his face. Restricted by the suit, he had no chance of twisting aside in time. Something caught the sleeve of his suit and gouged a deep, scorching tear. Confined inside the helmet, Noah was deafened by his own scream.

  He staggered backwards down the metal ladder, the torch-shaped weapon sparking in his hand. His forearm burned beneath the gashed sleeve. He backed clumsily towards the open Shield, blinded with sweat and barely conscious. There was a hideous sensation in his injured arm, as if a column of stinging ants was forcing its way through the veins. He squeezed through the opening into the access tunnel and dragged the Shield shut. He leaned against it, gasping for breath, and tried to remove the glove from his damaged hand, but the helmet had steamed up and he could not see properly. Whimpering with pain, he fought to remove the helmet, his spasmodic breathing echoing inside it. At last the helmet came free and smashed on the tunnel floor. Noah dropped to his knees, and then slowly keeled over on his side.

  His eyes bulging with terror, he brought the injured arm across in front of his face; the deep tear in the sleeve was filled with a greenish bubbling pus which, as he watched, seemed to be absorbed into his arm so that only the blackened gash in the sleeve remained. With a harsh cry Noah rolled over on to his back, the injured arm grotesquely fixed in the air. His whole body went rigid. His arm lost all sensation and he blacked out. A wisp of acrid smoke curled up from the scorched slit.

  As they warily found their way to the Control Centre where Noah had reported his encounter with the Doctor, Harry did his best to explain to Sarah about the Satellite being a kind of ‘Noah’s Ark’ bearing survivors from Earth, and how she had somehow become caught up in the works. For her part, Sarah could remember very little about her experience in the Cryogenic Suspension System, but she told Harry as much as she could.

  Harry was relieved to discover that the bulkhead panels seemed to be designed to operate on a straightforward ‘electric eye’ mechanism when approached from the direction of the Cryogenic Chamber, and that they opened automatically.

  However, there was a tense moment when he and Sarah passed through the shutter leading into the Control Centre Access Tunnel. Harry had passed through first and the shutter had closed before Sarah could join him. He waited a few moments for her to operate the photo-electric cell, but the panel remained tightly closed. Harry struggled in vain to open it by resting his forehead against the little copper plate and thinking about something complicated – just as the Doctor had done – but he did not seem able to generate the correct brain-waves. Meanwhile, Sarah had approached the ‘electric eye’ on the other side of the shutter, and had been startled by a sharp crackling sound behind her which made her spin round; a wobbling cluster of greenish bubbles was bursting through a grilled vent in the floor a few metres from her feet, and forming itself into threatening serpent shapes. With a shriek she had thrown herself against the panel, and as it opened, toppled white-faced into Harry’s arms.

  In a few seconds they reached the Control Centre. The Doctor stood smiling at them, his hand raised in greeting. ‘Doctor… you’re safe,’ Sarah cried, rushing over to hug him. She recoiled in horror when she realised that something was badly wrong. Harry examined the Doctor’s rigid fingers. ‘What’s the matter with him…?’ whispered Sarah.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Harry, trying to bend the Doctor’s arm.

  ‘Well you’re a doctor. Do something,’ she cried anxiously.

  Harry frowned. ‘It’s just as if rigor mortis… but it can’t be…’ he muttered. He put his ear to the Doctor’s chest, first to the left then to the right side. ‘His hearts are beating,’ he said at last with relief.

  Feeling very faint, Sarah sank down on the corner of the couch beside which the Doctor stood like a statue. She immediately sprang to her feet again, recollecting her earlier experience with the Matter Transmitter. But as she leaped up she lost her balance, grabbed Harry’s arm to save herself and they both collided with the Doctor, so that he fell sideways on to the couch. As he fell, his forehead touched part of the exposed electronic circuitry in the base of the couch. There was a bright flash and a popping sound. The Doctor sprang to his feet, clutching his singed forelocks.

  ‘Ah, Sarah. How nice to see you. Splendid,’ he cried. ‘Where’s Noah?’

  ‘Doctor, don’t you think you should sit down for a moment?’ said Harry with concern.

  ‘Sit down?’ the Doctor exclaimed, staring incredulously at Harry. ‘At a time like this?’ He winced, and clutched his temples. ‘I detest paralysators. Highly unreliable.’ He looked around him. ‘Where’s Noah?’ he repeated.

  ‘He said he was going to examine the Solar Systems,’ began Harry…

  ‘Quick,’ cried the Doctor, striding out of the chamber. ‘There might still be time to save him.’

  Totally bewildered, Sarah and Harry followed. They hurried along the Cincture Structure Gallery, on their guard against the crackling, bubbling alien organism whose tracks became more and more evident.

  ‘Strange how they’ve given us the run of the ship,’ Harry remarked. ‘Why didn’t Vira try to stop us?’

  ‘Not her function, Harry,’ called the Doctor over his shoulder. ‘By the Thirtieth Century, human society has become highly specialised. Vira is a Med-tech; we, I suspect, are an Executive problem.’

  ‘Correct, Doctor, but not a difficult one. You can be easily eliminated.’ The snarling voice seemed to come from nowhere. They stopped in their tracks as Noah, still clad in the radiation suit, emerged without warning from an alcove in the gallery and barred their way. His left hand was held behind him, in his right he brandished the paralysator gun.

  ‘I am delighted to see you again, Noah,’ smiled the Doctor, rais
ing his hat. ‘I suggest that without more ado we put our heads together and devise a prompt solution to what is undoubtedly your most serious problem… Unless we destroy the organism in the Solar Chamber it will…’

  Noah gestured sharply with the paralysator. ‘We will return to the Cryogenic Section,’ he ordered. Harry and Sarah looked at the Doctor, uncertain how he would handle this impasse. Suddenly the Doctor turned on his heel and set off along the curving gallery at a furious pace.

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he called. ‘There’s not a moment to lose.’

  As they entered the Cryogenic Chamber, closely followed by Noah with the paralysator still levelled at their backs, Vira was assisting a tall, blond young man out of his pallet. As soon as he saw Noah he threw up his arms in front of his face and cowered back into the alcove.

  ‘No… No,’ he screamed, his face contorted in panic. ‘Keep away… Keep back.’

  ‘What is wrong?’ demanded Noah in a hollow voice. The young man hid his face, trembling and whimpering. Vira looked shocked.

  ‘I do not understand, Commander,’ she murmured. ‘His responses were normal.’ She turned to the terrified youth. ‘Libri… it is the Commander. Commander Noah… do you not remember?’ The young man relaxed a little, and then lowered his arms.

  ‘I… I am sorry, Commander,’ he said. ‘For an instant I saw… you were… I saw something.’

  The Doctor stepped eagerly forward. ‘What did you see?’ he asked.

  ‘Silence,’ Noah hissed, threatening the Doctor with the paralysator, his left hand still concealed behind him.

  The Doctor looked hard at Noah. ‘What have you done to your hand?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘No further warnings,’ shrieked Noah hoarsely. He beckoned Libri to him. Hesitantly Libri obeyed. Noah handed him the paralysator. ‘Take these Regressives to an Abeyance Unit,’ he ordered. ‘They will remain there until the Council has convened. If they are disruptive, eliminate them.’

  Everyone stared at Noah. His harsh manner and hoarse voice contrasted violently with the restrained dignity of Vira and Libri. Vira moved towards Noah. ‘Commander,’ she began, ‘we should not…’ but Noah ignored her.

  ‘The Systems must be closed down. Revivification must cease at once.’

  Vira and Libri exchanged shocked glances. ‘Why, Commander?’ said Vira in disbelief.

  ‘It is my instruction,’ Noah shrieked, his voice breaking. ‘The Programme is revised. I am Commander.’

  Vira gestured round the shadowy, echoing chamber. ‘Commander, the First Phase has hardly begun; we have no Technops to operate the Systems.’

  ‘I shall operate the Systems,’ snarled Noah, shuddering as some kind of spasm passed through him.

  ‘Without First Technop Dune we cannot hope to succeed,’ said Vira firmly.

  ‘Who?’ whispered Noah, trembling.

  ‘Commander, I reported to you; Dune is missing.’ Vira indicated the vacant pallet.

  ‘You are mistaken, Vira. Dune is here.’ Noah’s whisper rasped and echoed around them. They stared at him. ‘I am Dune,’ he croaked, his face clouding as if something within him was struggling to emerge, and his conscious mind was fighting it back.

  Vira suddenly moved towards him, but he backed away. ‘Commander, you are injured,’ she cried. ‘You are unwell.’

  ‘Yes… No… I… Hear me…’ Noah faltered, his face glistening with perspiration. His body seemed twisted slightly inside the cumbersome radiation suit. ‘Revivification must be discontinued now… now…’ He backed awkwardly towards the Access Chamber, mumbling and whispering unintelligibly. All at once, with a gasp of agony, he turned his back to them. He seemed to be tearing at his injured arm. As he stumbled away through the Access Chamber he cried out, as if uttering a curse, ‘No more aliens…’

  The Doctor looked straight into Libri’s eyes. ‘Noah must be stopped,’ he said. ‘There was a systems fault during his Revivification – his brain is damaged.’

  Vira went over and spoke to the young Medtech in an urgent whisper. ‘Libri, there is no procedure for arresting Revivification. It would be fatal.’

  Libri met their gaze calmly. ‘Noah is our Commander,’ he said.

  The Doctor edged towards him. ‘Can you be sure of that, Libri?’ he asked. Libri flourished the paralysator at him. The Doctor stepped a little closer; Sarah caught Harry’s sleeve in apprehension. The Doctor slowly took a large pocket watch from his jacket. He let it swing gently on the end of its chain in front of Libri’s face. He spoke in a soft, rhythmic voice. ‘Libri… when you first saw Noah… you had a subconscious impression… of something horrible… That was not your Commander… was it?’

  Libri gazed at the glittering watch, mesmerised. Then, when the Doctor finished speaking, he looked up into the Doctor’s huge, piercing eyes. ‘Noah must be stopped,’ he cried, and rushed out of the Cryogenic Chamber in pursuit.

  At once the Doctor darted across to Technop Dune’s empty pallet and began poking about with the telescopic probe. Almost immediately, he took out the magnifying glass and peered through it at the end of the extended rod. ‘Of course… of course. Why didn’t it occur to me before?’ He strode across the chamber towards the gigantic corpse lying on the far side of the adjacent bay.

  Vira swiftly overtook him, and stood in his path. ‘It is not advisable for you to leave,’ she warned.

  The Doctor handed her the magnifier, and held up the point of the probe to examine. Impaled on it was a fragment of colourless, rubbery membrane. ‘Perhaps this will convince you that we are not your enemy,’ he said.

  Vira stared at the fragment of tissue. ‘What is it?’ The Doctor knelt down, and probed about in the collapsed abdomen of the monstrous creature. ‘It is almost too horrible to contemplate,’ he murmured.

  Completely mystified, Harry and Sarah watched over his shoulder. After a few moments, the Doctor stood up. ‘As I suspected, the egg-tube is empty,’ he announced. ‘Egg-tube?’ gasped Vira.

  The Doctor gazed down at the corpse. ‘The Queen Coloniser… the Progenitor,’ he said solemnly. They all stared at him. He looked round at them one by one. ‘Have you heard of the Eumenes?’ he asked in a hushed voice.

  ‘It’s a species of wasp,’ said Harry. ‘It paralyses caterpillars and lays its eggs in their corpses. When the larvae emerge they have an immediate food…’ Harry’s voice trailed into silence. He looked at the Doctor in horror.

  Vira put her hands to her face, speechless. Sarah covered her mouth as if she were going to be sick. The Doctor walked round them, deep in thought. ‘Strange how the same life-patterns recur throughout the Galaxy…’ he mused. ‘Dune was Power Systems Technician, I imagine,’ he said, pausing beside Vira. She nodded. ‘The larvae went straight to the Solar Stacks,’ the Doctor continued. ‘They absorbed Dune’s knowledge, as well as his tissues.’

  Vira stared across at Dune’s pallet, then around the huge chamber at the thousands of sleeping humans. Suddenly she seemed to relax. ‘The Creature’s larvae will perish in the Solar Chamber,’ she said. ‘The radiation will destroy them.’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘The larval organisms are feeding on the Solar energy, and becoming more powerful every minute.’

  Libri entered the Control Centre seconds behind Noah. He stood transfixed in the entrance, watching his Commander staggering about the chambers, his breath rasping and rattling, eyes rolling and body contracted into a grotesque posture. His injured arm was held up across his face, and with his other hand Noah repeatedly tore at the glove. Suddenly he stopped. Shaking his head slowly from side to side he lowered the injured arm in front of him. With a sound of water dripped into boiling fat, green pus began to bubble out through the seams of the glove, the thick material splitting like paper.

  ‘Commander,’ gasped Libri, stepping forward.

  With a hideous, shrieking cry Noah reeled to face him. ‘Give me the paralysator,’ he croaked.

  Libri backed
away a pace. ‘You… you are not well, Commander,’ he stammered.

  Struggling to control his body, Noah advanced on him. ‘I order you…’ he cried.

  In his eyes Libri saw desperation and fear, and that made him hesitate for a fatal fraction of a second. Noah seized the weapon with his good hand and tried to twist it from Libri’s grasp. The young Medtech stared at his leader like a hypnotised animal. Then something flew through the air and cut him across the face. He fell back, screaming and clawing at the intense burning sensation in his eyes.

  Noah wrenched the paralysator from him, and pressed the trigger at point blank range. Libri’s body was hurled across the chamber in a succession of frozen shapes as pulse after pulse cracked into it. When the sparking ceased, Noah stared in terror at the smouldering body of the young man welded to the panelling. Then he dragged himself through into the inner chamber, the suppurating stump of his left hand raised like a club. He hovered grotesquely over the Cryogenic Systems Panel, moaning in anguish. His right hand clung fiercely to the sleeve of the injured arm, fighting to prevent it from touching the sensitive controls…

  The chambers and tunnels of the Satellite suddenly echoed with a clear, crystal-toned chime which was followed immediately by a calm female voice. ‘Greetings to the Terra Nova… You have slept for longer than the recorded history of Humanity… you awaken now in the dawn of a New Era…’ Noah stood immobilised in a twisted posture, his face betraying recognition of the High Minister’s voice, and the shock of the returning memory of his own humanity. The voice echoed on… ‘You will return to an Earth that we cannot imagine… a world that is dead… You must make it flourish and live again…’

  Noah’s body twisted this way and that as the human and the alien fought for supremacy within him. His mind was filled with the great purpose about which the High Minister was speaking, yet he felt himself inexorably overwhelmed by the destructive alien consciousness that was steadily possessing his mind and body. One moment he found himself listening to the High Minister’s words with hope and longing for the green Earth again; then he would be seized with a dizzying sensation of dark emptiness and a fierce hate for all humans. His upright posture suddenly seemed unnatural; he stumbled forward to his knees as the voice of the High Minister, recorded thousands of years earlier, rose to an impassioned climax. He began to beat the stump of his left arm against the edge of an instrument console. The heavy protective suit seemed to be crushing the breath out of his body; he felt something within him instinctively struggling to break out as if from a shell. His alien hand hissed and crackled…