by Roland Starr
She collected the equipment she needed and they went into the corridor where the immobiliser was set up. Curran watched closely as Adah connected her testers and sensors to the immobiliser, and Vonner crowded closer as she began using the instruments. There was a tense silence about them, and Vonner narrowed his eyes, feeling his impatience wavering as he awaited her verdict.
But Adah was not to be drawn in front of the men, and she walked back to the sickbay, followed by both Vonner and Curran. When they were in the office she turned to face them, and for some moments she was unable to speak.
“Well?” Vonner pressed at length. “What have you discovered, Doc?”
“According to my equipment, Bardo is not breathing. His heart is not beating; his pulses are dormant.”
“That isn’t normal for a man under the effects of the immobiliser?” Vonner demanded.
“No! There should be some movement of heart and pulse! To all intents and purposes, Bardo is dead, Captain!”
“Has he died because of what happened at the communications storeroom?” Vonner demanded, his tones sharp and incisive.
“We hit him with the laser and disintegrated him!” Curran spoke moodily. “It wasn’t Bardo himself, but perhaps it was a part of him. Is it possible that he sent an image of himself out on the rampage? Was what we saw a galvanic image? When we destroyed that did we kill him?”
“Have you a record of Bardo’s heart functions prior to this test?” Vonner demanded, his voice still sharp.
“No!” Adah shook her head slowly. “I didn’t think it was necessary to monitor him! I wish now that I had done so.”
“But as far as is humanly possible, you believe that he is now dead!” Vonner looked at her without really seeing her as he asked the question. He was ranging through his mind, searching over the details, looking for the smallest straw to grasp.
“As far as we know life and death, he is dead,” she retorted.
“And can we now remove him from the ship and get rid
of the threat he has posed?” Curran kept his voice low, but there was an eagerness in his tones which Vonner noticed.
“I don’t know!” Adah shook her head. “I have had no experience of this condition before. I just don’t know what to advise. If we cut the power to the immobiliser and Bardo is still able to move then the ship will be lost.”
“Do you think that this thing Bardo has become is capable of movement — action, without a heart to control it?” Vonner kept the incredulity out of his voice, but his eyes were gleaming as he studied the doctor’s intent face.
“It is possible that he can move under the power he has absorbed from his surroundings,” she said evasively.
“I’m not happy with this!” Vonner shook his head. “What happened in the engine room could have been caused by Bardo influencing the crewmen there, but I saw something that was an image of Bardo. It was in the communications storeroom. It had welded the door to the bulkhead! It burned out the door as if it had been made of brown paper instead of the toughest metal in the world! Now until that is explained to me I can’t accept that Bardo is dead and no longer a threat, and I am not going to have the power to the immobiliser cut.”
“If Bardo died in that clash we had with him then we’re still worrying about nothing!” Curran said. “My men are operating under a terrible strain, Captain.”
“So what would you have me do, Philo?” Vonner permitted his steady gaze to hold the colonel’s hard gaze. “Are we to risk the ship by cutting the power and trying to eject Bardo?”
“We have to try and do it,” Curran retorted. “If we don’t, Bardo may make another attack upon us, and the next time it might not be just the communications storeroom. Next time it could be our life support systems!”
“I’m aware of the dangers!” Vonner shook his head. “I think we’ve got to be sure about anything we attempt to do. For the moment we’ll leave matters as they are. The guard on Bardo goes on, and we’ll maintain the power to the immobiliser. Monitor Bardo now, Doc! I want to know if there is any sign of life in his body between now and the time we make Uralis Digis orbit!”
“I think this is the wisest course to adopt,” she said slowly. “It is better to be safe than sorry.”
“At the moment we are in a grave situation.” Vonner permitted himself a thought to the communications shambles that had been effected by Bardo’s image. “Keep me posted of any developments down here, Philo. I’d better go check out the control room and try to ascertain the extent of the damage.”
“You’ll need to organise the crew to report any sightings of Bardo immediately,” Curran said. “I’ll post guards at strategic points with lasers. The laser seemed effective against Bardo!”
“Unless he gets even stronger!” Vonner paused and considered for a moment, then went on his way.
He hurried to the control room, and was appalled at the sight of the damage done to the communications console. Farrell had not exaggerated in any way. The equipment was completely unserviceable. Farrell was standing by the wrecked console, staring disconsolately at it, and when Vonner paused at his side the young officer looked up into his face with an expression of incredulity still showing in his gaze.
“There’s nothing I can do, Captain!” he said softly. “Not a damn thing! I can’t salvage anything from the storeroom. Bardo certainly knew where to hit us where it hurts. We’re out of contact with the rest of the universe. That ship could be calling us now and we wouldn’t know
it. We can’t send those messages to Earth.”
“Don’t despair, Howie,” Vonner replied. “You’ve got a workshop on the lower level. With your crew you could make some kind of a primitive receiver/transmitter.”
“Not without the spare parts in that wrecked storeroom!” Farrell shook his head. “It would be a waste of time trying.”
“Well we’ll be in orbit tomorrow!” Vonner glanced at the forward scanner screen, recognising the giant globe suspended in black space before them. “There is a ship already in orbit around Uralis Digis, and if it is a back-up vessel sent out by Space Force then we’ll be able to get spares from her.”
“If Bardo doesn’t come out on the rampage again!” Farrell commented harshly. “He should really be restrained, Captain!”
“He’s under the effects of an immobiliser that is working under boosted power!” Vonner’s voice was harsh. “I’m calling a conference of all officers as soon as I can, in order to explain the situation. But with the communications out of order your crew will have to act as runners, Howie!”
“I’ve already got them standing by!” Farrell retorted. “It will be a poor substitute for what we had, but I’m more concerned with external communications. We could be in trouble if a Space Force ship challenged us and we made no reply.”
“Have a man standing by with a visual signaller in the airlock on the starboard side,” Vonner suggested. “When we do go into orbit tomorrow we’ve got to make contact with that ship already there.”
Farrell nodded and turned away, and Vonner went to Hanton’s side. The First Officer was at the control console, and his face was haggard, filled with shock. He looked up at Vonner, shrugging his shoulders as he did so.
“I’ll take over here,” Vonner said. “Anything to report?”
“Nothing else that has occurred.” Hanton shook his head. “Is Bardo under restriction again, Captain?”
“He’s been under restriction ever since the ship left Omina orbit!”
“Then how — ?” Hanton frowned as his voice trailed off. He narrowed his dark eyes as he stared into Vonner’s set features. “I doubt if your explanation will make me believe anything!” he commented.
“There is no explanation at the moment,” Vonner said. “I wish there was! But I don’t know what happened, and there’s no way of getting at the truth. We’re facing the unknown. Bardo is dead, to all intents and purposes, and whether he was in that condition before his image appeared in the communications store-room or
not I don’t know.”
“Have you thought of a way of ejecting him from the ship?”
Vonner shook his head. “I was about to discuss that with Dalus when Bardo was spotted. Send a runner for the Chief Engineer, Hanton, and I’ll try and get something settled. If Bardo is not dead and comes out on the rampage again we may lose something even more vital than communications, although, Heavens knows, that was vital enough!”
Hanton nodded and departed, and minutes later Dalus Wayland came into the control room. Vonner watched the Chief Engineer, and saw Wayland stop in surprise at sight of the wrecked communications console. Then Wayland came across to confront him.
“This is the hell of a problem, Captain,” he observed. “I got back to the storeroom after it had all happened. Perhaps you can tell me how Bardo burned through that door in the space of a few seconds, when it would have taken me a couple of hours using the most powerful disintegrator aboard ship!”
“I don’t have any answers, Dalus.” Vonner spoke slowly, considering his words. “But you’ll have to come up with something. Can you rig some kind of a force field around Bardo to hold him down until we reach orbit tomorrow, and when we do get into orbit, how can we get him out of the ship without removing the power influencing him?”
“I can’t do anything about a force field,” Wayland retorted without hesitation. “But getting him off the ship!” He shook his head slowly. “I assume you’ll eject him in a capsule, or throw him out the airlock door. That would be simple enough, if we could get him into the airlock. All we’d have to do is put him in the airlock, seal the inner door and open the outer one without decompressing the airlock. He’d be blown out without trouble!”
“I’m aware of that, and it’s not the problem. Our trouble is getting him into the airlock!” Vonner spoke through clenched teeth, and his mind almost cringed at the thought of what lay ahead. He gnawed his bottom lip. “Bardo is dead, you know, Dalus. He has no heartbeat, no pulse, and no other signs of life. The trouble is, we don’t know if the image he projected into the storeroom was destroyed by the laser shot we got at him, or if his apparent lifelessness is just another symptom of his changed condition. If we remove the power of the immobiliser from him and he comes to, then nothing will save the ship. Now can we rig up a mobile immobiliser to get him from the observation room to the airlock?”
“It would be a simple matter to accomplish,” Wayland replied without hesitation, “but the trouble is getting men to move him. Anyone stepping within the area of operation of the immobiliser will immediately fall victim to its powers.”
“And we dare not switch off to allow Curran to blast Bardo with lasers,” Vonner mused.
“You must be careful how lasers are used aboard the ship, Captain!” Wayland’s voice was grim. “If one of those beams happen to strike a vital piece of equipment a great deal of damage will result, and might even destroy the ship.”
“Well think about the problem,” Vonner suggested. “You are aware of the urgency in this, so don’t waste any time, Dalus.”
Wayland nodded and departed, and Vonner sighed heavily and tried to relax as he sat at the control console and watched the forward scanner screen. Fifteen minutes later Aaron Marr approached him, his lined face looking ten years older than the last time Vonner had seen him.
“Captain, we’ve just got the blip of that ship in orbit around Uralis Digis,” the Astrogator reported. “It’s following the same path as on the first sighting. It’s in parking orbit all right, and following a normal course. Our deceleration angle will put us into orbit on the wrong side of the planet for us to make immediate contact, but we can adjust our velocity to gain on the craft.”
“We’ll need to make visual contact with it,” Vonner said. He glanced towards the wrecked communications console. “With any luck we’ll get equipment from that unknown ship.”
“The least we’ll be able to do is use their communications,” Marr said. “And they’ll be able to give us the course back to Earth.”
“It’s about time something went our way,” Vonner commented.
Marr nodded and went back to his console, and Vonner tried to relax a little. He sent a runner regularly to the sickbay to get a report on Bardo, but Curran had nothing to report, and the hours passed in a tense manner. Vonner spoke to each Head of Department separately, informing them of the true situation regarding Bardo and ordering word to be passed to the entire crew in the various departments that any sightings of Bardo were to be reported immediately to the control room. There was nothing else he could do to ensure the safety of the ship. Curran had posted some of his most trusted men at strategic points throughout the ship with orders to use their lasers on Bardo if the man’s image was seen. But knowledge of that particular situation caused Vonner alarm instead of a sense of greater security. The action was an extreme one, and there was every probability of serious damage being caused if the lasers had to be used.
When he went off duty Vonner took with him the knowledge that within a few hours they would be swinging into orbit around Uralis Digis. He was relieved at the knowledge, but underlying that emotion was the more serious thought that when they were in orbit his real troubles would begin.
As he left the control room Curran appeared before him, accompanied by a security guard. One look at Curran’s face warned Vonner that there had been a development, and he caught his breath as he awaited a report.
“Captain, Bellamy here cut down one of the crew with his laser. He insists it was Bardo, but the dead man is Engine Room Technician Askew!”
Vonner turned cold inside as he stared at Bellamy, who was a tall, heavily built and most dependable security man.
“Captain, I’m telling you it was Bardo!” There was a ragged note in Bellamy’s voice, mingled with disbelief. “I was on duty on ‘B’ Deck when I saw Bardo coming towards me. I challenged him before I used the laser, and he wouldn’t halt. I saw him plainly. He was wearing his
dress uniform, and his rank was clearly apparent. When he didn’t halt I shot him. He fell to the floor, and I went up to him. But when I checked him it wasn’t Bardo, it was Askew out of the engine room!”
“I was afraid this would happen!” Vonner said. “The guards are getting trigger happy!”
“Wait a minute, Captain!” Curran said sharply. “Bellamy is one of my best men. I’d trust him with my life. If he says he shot at Bardo then I believe him.”
“But it was Askew who was killed!” Vonner pulled his brows into a frown.
“Exactly!” Curran nodded quickly. “Perhaps this is another Bardo trick to cut down the crew. I think he’s appearing in the bodies of the crewmen, making them look like him, causing them to assume his appearance until they’re cut down.”
“That’s crazy, Philo!” Vonner shook his head. “I doubt if Bardo could go that far.”
“I’m telling you, Captain. It was Bardo I fired at, but he turned into Askew afterwards!” Bellamy spoke with a note of rising disbelief in his tones, and Vonner clenched his hands.
“If this is true then we’re in the devil of a spot!” Curran said. “I was on duty at the immobiliser, and there were no changes there at all.”
“Put Bellamy through the Mind Scanner and see what you come up with,” Vonner ordered. “We can verify his statement, and it must be done immediately.”
Curran nodded, and he and Bellamy turned away. Vonner glanced around, sighing heavily. His thoughts raced as he considered.
“Philo,” he called, and the colonel halted and turned to face him. “You’d better issue orders to your guards not to use those lasers unless Bardo attacks them. We can’t have innocent crewmen shot down by mistake.”
“I’ve already given orders to that effect. Captain,” Curran replied. “I’ll check with you as soon as Bellamy has been screened.”
Vonner nodded. He stood alone in the corridor after Curran and the guard had gone, and his mind refused to function normally. For some time he thought he was losing his reason. T
his business had a tinge of nightmare about it, and he began to think that the entire ship had entered a strange, incomprehensible world that was either a product of mass space mania amongst the crew or part of an unknown factor of Space Travel which had not before been made aware to the scientists or travellers.
But the dangers were real enough, he knew, and turned to go to his quarters. He was off duty now, and needed rest. When they reached Uralis Digis orbit he would be on duty until they had solved the problem of disposing of Bardo, and that might take days. He saw a figure appear from one of the elevators along the corridor, and a frown touched his brows as he narrowed his eyes. It looked like Bardo!
Catching his breathing, Vonner peered at the figure coming towards him, and he saw the insignia of rank upon the sleeves of the man’s uniform. He was wearing the rank of Lieutenant Commander! But it wasn’t Hanton! As they drew nearer to one another, Vonner recognised the man. It was Ed Bardo!
Vonner did not break his stride. He kept walking forward, determined to solve the mystery at last. He was within a dozen feet of Bardo when the man halted, and Vonner watched the face carefully, looking for any signs of trouble. But Bardo was smiling cheerfully, and lifted a hand in salute.
“It’s good to see you, Captain!” Bardo said. “I’m just going on duty.”
Vonner kept walking forward, his hands clenched. There was a trace of unknown fear in the back of his mind but he fought it down. Bardo was not going into the control room! That one thought forced Vonner to keep moving.
“You’re going back to the sickbay, Ed, where you belong!” Vonner rapped. “You can’t fool me!”
He started forward in a lunge, determined to get to grips with the man, but he was still several feet away when a tremendous force struck him. Vonner gasped and went sprawling backwards, feeling as if he had run into an invisible wall. The back of his head struck the solid steel floor of the corridor, and just as he lost his senses his wide, shocked gaze recorded the fact that Bardo shimmered and receded, and instead of the sick ex-First Officer there was Howie Farrell standing there, staring at him in shocked fear. Vonner dropped back into blackness and knew no more.