by E. C. Tubb
The helpless victims of an alien’s sadistic greed for the sight of pain, object lessons to bring the base to its knees.
Morrow said, from where he sat at his Console, ‘He’s heading towards sector 9. How about if we set up a party with lasers to cut him into pieces?’
‘No.’ Lasers had been tried—the beams had burned but the alien had healed and those who used the weapons had suffered. ‘We can’t risk it, Paul. He’s about ready to tear the place apart. If he should decide to trigger the piles it’ll be curtains.’
‘But we’ve got to do something!’
‘We will, but we’ve got to wait until Balor heads in the right direction.’ Koenig looked at the illuminated plan of the base spread on a table next to the console. ‘Here!’ His finger tapped a point. ‘I’m going down now to make ready. Keep alert. We’re only going to get one chance so don’t waste it.’
‘Commander—’
‘You heard what I said,’ snapped Koenig. ‘When he’s in the right place hit the button. That’s all you have to think about. Just hit it when he’s set and never mind anything else.’
An order which might send him to his death, but one which had to be given. Koenig dismissed it from his mind as he moved down towards the lower levels and along a passage leading to an emergency air-lock. It took only a moment to remove the identifying symbols. To a stranger, an alien, the open door and the vestibule with the outer door closed would look like any other part of the complex.
How to kill an immortal?
It couldn’t be done.
How to get rid of him?
The answer lay beyond the door at the end of the vestibule.
‘Commander—here he comes!’
The voice from the commlock was thin, tense with excitement, a tension which Koenig shared. He stepped forward as Balor came into view along the passage.
‘Master!’
‘What?’ A smile broke the cold hostility of the handsome features. ‘You acknowledge me, that is well. I think we shall work in harmony, my friend. But what made you change your mind? The destruction? The little interludes of pleasure in which I have indulged? A pity your bodies are so soft and fragile, but that may be remedied one day. Well?’
Koenig said, ‘Among your people were you—unusual? Did you have senses and feelings which others regarded as vile? I ask only because I want to understand. If that was so then you will know why I am eager to help you.’
‘A kindred spirit?’ Balor’s eyes flickered. ‘Can it be possible?’
‘Baxter had a hobby,’ said Koenig quickly. ‘You saw his models. I also have a hobby. Paintings which may interest you. I keep them in a secluded compartment beyond that door.’ He moved casually towards the vestibule. ‘If you would care to see them I would be honoured.’
An invitation which he hoped the alien, bored, curious and contemptuous of the prowess of his inferiors, would readily accept.
Balor halted on the edge of the vestibule.
‘Beyond that door?’
‘Yes, Master.’ Koenig was already inside. He turned, smiling, extending his hand. ‘Will you follow me?’
‘I follow you?’ Balor’s smile held contempt. ‘You forget your place, Commander. It is I who lead.’
He stepped forward into the chamber.
Koenig dived back towards the door, hit the jamb, fell and rolled as he yelled.
‘Now, damn you! Now!’
Already they had hesitated too long, giving him a chance despite his orders. But the button had been pressed and the inner door closed even as the alien turned, recognizing his danger a fraction too late. Koenig had a glimpse of his face as the panel slammed, the eyes flaring, the mouth parted in a snarl—then it was over.
The outer door opened, air gusted out, expanding as it carried itself and the contents of the vestibule into the void.
Sending the body of the alien spinning high and far, to vanish into the dark immensities of space.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
John Koenig woke from a dream in which he was falling through a vast emptiness and looked at the ceiling of his cabin, saw the minute flecks and cracks it contained, the signs of wear and strain which affected the entire base and was reflected to some extent in the personnel. Now, small irritations grew large too quickly, tempers were short, answers, at times, were curt.
Tension held and maintained too long would cause such symptoms. Hope which had begun to fade would make its contribution to the general lowering of morale.
Rising to wash and dress Koenig decided that changes would have to be made. Duties could be rotated on a wider basis and some new sports could be devised with teams picked to create a harmless spirit of rivalry. There could be more socializing and new areas could be fashioned to offer extended recreational facilities. Life was not all work and food and endless dedication. Fun had its place and so did romance.
And, he thought later as he sat in the dining area, something needed to be done about the food.
Emil Kranz shrugged when Koenig mentioned it.
‘We can’t perform miracles, John. To get sugar we’ve got to provide facilities to grow beets, which means we have to cut down on cereals. And we need sugar to feed the yeast which provides the basic materials for surrogate milk, bread, butter, compotes of fruit, meat and scrambled eggs. The algae is more economical, but that needs plenty of light, which means a larger share of power, which means less for—’
‘I know, Emil,’ said Koenig. ‘But we’re not short of power.’
‘—digging new caverns, crushing stone and treating it so that it becomes soil, sterilizing the working areas and converting lunar deposits into water and useful chemicals.’ Kranz paused for breath. ‘And power alone isn’t enough, Commander. We also need manpower. We still haven’t got a surplus of labour over and above that needed for essential maintenance. Do you realize how many man-hours it takes to develop a new strain of yeast, to flavour it, gain the correct consistency appropriate to, say, steak or fish, and then to get it into full-scale production?’
‘Too many,’ said Koenig. ‘And it always takes too long. I’m not grumbling, Emil, just requesting. That coffee was pretty grim and the butter had a tang which reminded me of old boots.’
‘A bad batch,’ admitted Kranz. ‘A strain became contaminated and we had either to use it or restrict the menu to basic pabulum. I figured that the personnel would rather have food which looked familiar than live on porridge for a few weeks. But don’t worry about the taste, we’ve developed a salt which will take care of that. Kranz hesitated. ‘Any chance of us striking it lucky soon, John?’
Koenig was honest. ‘I doubt it, Emil, but we can always hope.’
Hope which was far from strong, as, later, he looked at the screens in Main Mission. The planet they depicted shone like a ball of polished ice which, as the sensors reported, was practically what it was. A frozen orb of snow and ice and frigid cold. A bleak world set far from its sun and turning endlessly in space; the last chance they would have of finding a habitable place before they left this solar system and went journeying again among the stars.
‘Paul?’
‘Nothing, Commander,’ said Morrow from his console. ‘I’ve covered all bands but can only get a blur of static.’
‘Sandra?’
‘Surface temperature is hard to get because of the shielding layer of mist, but I’m getting extremes of twenty below freezing during the day and up to a hundred lower during the night. If anyone wants a deep-freeze planet, this is it.’
Confirmation of what he already knew, but life was stubborn and so was hope. Kano did little to encourage it.
‘Theoretically, Commander, life could exist under those conditions, but its metabolism would be slow and the construction vegetative by nature. Simple lichens, some fungi, small herbivores.’
‘We have penguins in the Antarctic, David. Does the computer know that?’
A feeble joke—the computer knew everything known to the race which had built it. Kano did
not smile.
‘The circumstances are not the same, Commander. The climate for one thing and—’
‘I know, David. Just put it down to my inability to accept fully the idea that a machine knows more than all of us put together.’ Privately Koenig thought that, at times, Kano was getting too much like a machine himself. ‘Well Paul, we may as well—’ Koenig frowned as light flashed on the panel. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘The automatic reception signal!’ Morrow sent his hands flying over the switches. ‘Commander, someone is trying to make contact!’
The voice was thin, blurred, the words torn by washes of static. But it was a human voice.
And it could be understood.
‘Hello. Hello. Calling Earth’s moon! Calling Alpha Moonbase. Can you read me? Reply if you can read me. Hello. Hello. Calling—’
As the voice dissolved in a blur of crackling and electronic noise Koenig said, sharply. ‘Respond, Paul. And get a fix on that transmitter.’
‘Am doing, Commander.’ Morrow’s voice rose as he spoke into a microphone. ‘Calling Ice Planet. Alpha calling Ice Planet. Maintain contact! Keep transmitting!’
The voice again.
‘. . . long life here, a long life which you could share if . . .’
Another voice, fainter but unmistakable.
‘. . . lane and no turning. Lost and with no final end. Be warned and yield not to temptation. Suffer . . .’
‘Shut up, Tanner!’ The first voice sounded irate. ‘You crazy fool, this is the only chance we may ever get. Hello, Alpha. Come and join us. Ultima Thule is a paradise. Come and share it.’
‘Stay away! Stay away!’
The voices blurred, faded, became empty sounds without form or meaning. Morrow shook his head as he worked at the console.
‘Nothing, Commander.’
‘There was a sudden eddy of mist just about then,’ reported Sandra. ‘It is highly charged and could be creating the static. They must have beamed through a temporary gap. which has now closed.’ Pausing she added, wonderingly, ‘Those were Earth people talking, Commander. They knew who we were. They invited us to join them—at least one did. The other warned us to stay away. But why should he do that? Surely they must want to be rescued.’
‘We were asked to share in a paradise,’ said Kano. He looked at the bleak world which they were passing. ‘That? A paradise?’
It was the innermost hell of Dante’s inferno, the seventh to which the most evil souls were sent to suffer the worst torments. A place of ice, not fire, of cold, not heat. Koenig studied it in the screens of the Eagle which carried him down.
At his side in the pilot’s chair Carter said, ‘It’s like flying into cotton wool. I’ve flown blind before and in some of the worst smog on record, but this is beyond a joke. Are they still transmitting?’
‘Paul doesn’t know,’ said Koenig, ‘But we assume they are. Not that it makes any difference, the computer plotted the source-point and is guiding us down towards it.’
‘Which cheers me up no end,’ said Carter. ‘To be controlled every inch of the way by a machine back on Alpha. I don’t have David’s trust in that thing. It could make a mistake and, at a time like this, one would be one too many.’
He was talking to ease his nerves, Koenig knew, a little irritable at not being in full control, and he could sympathize with the pilot. Leaning forward he checked the flight-instruments but they told him nothing. Back in the passenger compartment Helena and Bergman would have more information from their on-board sensors.
In answer to his question Bergman said, ‘We’re mostly getting verification, John. There’s a storm blowing down there, but we should land well to one side of the main force. The atmosphere is breathable and has a high percentage of oxygen which would be favourable to the support of any native life form. We’ve also spotted wide bands of temperature variation which are sweeping around the planet at a fairly high level. The variation is quite marked and it’s almost as if heated jet-currents were orbiting the planet.’
‘Heated?’
‘An analogy,’ said Bergman. ‘They are simply much warmer in relation to the rest of the atmosphere. The temperature differential would lead to the generation of violent winds and the thick mist we have observed. It could also account for the tremendously high electronic noise we are picking up. Clear radio transmission can probably be made during periods of atmospheric tranquillity.’
‘Which means that we are already cut off from contact with the base,’ said Helena. ‘We’re operating on the flight extrapolations fed into the ship computer memory banks by the main instrument on Alpha.’
‘Time of landing?’
‘Ten minutes plus or minus two.’
It was plus and the landing was a hard one. Carter grunted as he released his safety harness. ‘How far was it out, Commander?’
‘Very little.’ Koenig glanced at the instrument in his hands. ‘The signal-source lies due west of here at a distance of approximately half a mile. To try and get closer in the Eagle could be to waste time. The reading is only an extrapolation and we could wind up further away than we are now. We’ll have to walk.’
‘In this?’ Carter glanced at the screens which depicted the scene outside. Mist rolled like thick smoke over a plain of rugged ice.
‘We’ll wear survival gear and carry packs. The commlocks will guide us back to the Eagle if we should get separated—but we must make sure that doesn’t happen.’ Koenig put aside the locator as he began to slip into his suit.
Outside the cold struck like a knife. Within minutes, despite the protective clothing, they were numbed, breath pluming from ice-covered mouths, eyes stinging, feet and hands devoid of feeling. The mist pressed around them, stronger, colder, the wind rising as they forced their way over an expanse of broken, cracked and ice-bound terrain.
‘The storm,’ gasped Bergman. ‘It must have shifted and is now heading towards us. Are we almost there, John?’
Koenig looked at the locator, holding it close and narrowing his eyes. The needles spun, settled, spun again as he triggered the mechanism.
‘We’re almost on top of the signal-source, assuming that the computer extrapolated correctly.’
‘And that the local interference isn’t affecting the pathfinder,’ said Carter. ‘If the transmitter is here why can’t we see it?’
‘It could be underground,’ suggested Helena. ‘Or over that way—or that.’ She stared helplessly at the mist which cut visibility to inches.
Koenig lifted his commlock. ‘Hello. Hello. If anyone can receive me please answer.’ He repeated the call and waited, holding the instrument close to his ear against the hum and wail of the strengthening wind.
The answer, when it came, was the distant cry of a ghost.
‘Men of Alpha do you hear me? Have you arrived yet? Why do you not . . .’
Static roared and drowned the thin voice. Irritably Koenig shook his head.
‘They know we are here, but standing around like this isn’t getting us anywhere. The best thing would be to return to the ship, rig up a visual signal and let them find us.’ He triggered the commlock and heard the homing signal. ‘You all receiving? Good. Let’s move!’
Three minutes later the locator signals died, the sound drowned by a gusting roar of static which heralded a blast of wind which tore them from their feet and sent them rolling over the ice like fallen ninepins.
A blast which sent mist swirling, thickening, closing in like an opaque curtain.
When Koenig finally managed to struggle to his feet he was alone.
The commlock gave only a susuration of formless sound, a directionless noise which meant, nothing. Far overhead one of the relatively warm currents must be passing and causing the ether to become an electronic cacophony. Even so he tried, calling the others one after the other, ceasing only when it became obvious he was wasting his time.
Shouting came next.
‘Helena! Alan! Victor!’
The mist c
aught the sound, reflected it, muffled even the echoes so that it was like shouting against an enveloping woollen blanket.
Alone and lost Koenig forced himself to be calm.
He could sit and wait for the electronic storm to pass and the locator to work again, but if he did that he would freeze. He could move around to gain some body-heat from exertion, but if he did that he would quickly tire and fall a victim to hypothermia. A bitter choice with death waiting no matter which path he chose if he failed to find the Eagle in time.
‘John! John!’
A voice an inch away or a mile? It came again and Koenig yelled back, listening, shouting again as he moved into the mist. Two steps and he saw the loom of something dark. Two more and Bergman stood before him.
‘John! Thank God I found you! Have you seen the others?’
‘No.’ Koenig tore at his equipment and loosened a long strap. He joined it to another he took from Bergman’s pack, tied one end of the make-shift rope to the other’s belt, the remaining end to his own. ‘Move out until this is taut between us, then keep moving until you’ve covered a circle.’
The rope wasn’t long enough, the area covered too small. Teeth chattering from his forced inactivity Koenig lengthened the rope with fabric ripped from his clothing, gaining a few precious feet. He took twenty steps to his right.
‘Right, Victor. Do it again.’
‘You. should be moving, John, if yon don’t you’ll freeze.’
‘Hurry!’
Helena could be out there, inches away, a foot at the most and yet as invisible as if she’d been on another world. Alan too, wandering, stumbling, perhaps, hands outstretched as if he were blind.
He was blind.
They were all blind.
An object a foot away beyond visual reach and a gust of wind could have blown them together now and Koenig felt he had used his entire quota in finding Bergman.
He pulled at the rope and the professor came towards him shaking his head.
‘Nothing, John. Perhaps if we spread out and both walked in the same direction we’d have better luck.’
A narrow search-path cut through the fog and the chance of it finding anyone was remote. But it would keep them both moving and anything was better than making no attempt at all.
