Space 1999 #1 - Breakaway

by E. C. Tubb

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Curtains. I woke up in here with Mathias bending over me.’ Carter shifted in the bed, wincing. ‘What happened to Jim?’

  ‘Crushed. His suit ripped open by the metal which smashed his chest. He didn’t have a chance.’

  A lie, the impact hadn’t killed him, the delay in reaching him had, but Koenig didn’t go into that. The man was dead, there was no need to elaborate.

  ‘He was a good man,’ said Carter, bleakly. ‘A friend. He was close to one of the girls, they’d talked about getting married, but that’s all over now.’ His hand tightened, closed into a fist. ‘If I get my hands on those!’

  ‘We’ll get them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m having an Eagle fitted with some new equipment,’ said Koenig. ‘Something which will give us a chance to penetrate their force field. Bergman’s working on it now.’

  ‘When it’s ready, Commander, I want to fly it.’

  ‘If you’re fit—maybe.’

  ‘I’m fit.’ Carter was grim. ‘And I’ve had experience. I know what to expect now. And, Commander!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Fit it with something so we can hit back.’

  Koenig rose from where he’d sat on the bed. ‘I’m ahead of you, Alan, that’s already been done.’

  Anderson was taking care of the conversion. He stood in the hangar, Bergman at his side, a mess of plans on the desk before them. Koenig heard his voice as he approached. The chief engineer was enthusiastic.

  ‘We’re adapting a passenger module to take the field generator, but that’s no real problem. The thing as I see it is to make sure the field totally encloses the Eagle. We have to put it right smack in the centre of gravity. But how about control? Once the field is established the ship will be in a separate universe.’

  ‘We’ll fit an interrupter switch,’ said Bergman patiently. ‘Here, on plan 37. One on, ten off, and we’re talking about milliseconds. We can override and maintain the shield without direct vision. It’s crude, I’ll admit, but it should work.’

  Koenig said, ‘And the missiles?’

  Neither had noticed his approach. Anderson turned.

  ‘Commander! How’s Alan?’

  ‘Counting his blessings,’ said Koenig dryly. ‘He wants to fly the Eagle when it’s ready. When will that be?’

  Anderson shrugged, ‘Hours, yet, maybe days. We have to make an almost total conversion. First the generator has to be finished and then fitted. I’m worried about the stress pattern, we don’t know just how great the strains will be. To play it safe we’ll have to reinforce all internal members and I’d like to strengthen the command module.’

  ‘The missiles?’

  ‘That’s the easy part. Three Mark IV signal probes fitted with nuclear warheads. I’ve fitted launching racks beneath the command module and you fire them from left to right.’ Anderson frowned. ‘You’ll have to be careful, though, there’ll be danger from the blast if you use them too close.’

  ‘Not if we establish the antigrav shield at the moment of firing,’ said Bergman. ‘It will give us complete protection.’

  ‘I guess we could incorporate a relay to take care of that.’ The chief engineer made a notation on his pad. ‘That seems to be about it, Professor.’

  A dismissal, the man of action wanting to get on with the job, and Bergman knew better than to argue. Later he would inspect the installation and make what tests he could, for now there was nothing to do but wait

  Bergman followed Koenig from the hangar, explaining as they went.

  ‘The shield is based on the fact that all phenomena are basically a variation of electromagnetic energy. We can heterodyne a sound or light by matching it with opposed wave-patterns which cancel out the original signal. We can establish a field which will cause hysterisis in any moving metallic object which cuts the lines of force. In that case the energy-release is stronger the faster the object travels. It will heat, fuse, vaporize and become relatively harmless. Gravity, as we now know, is akin to magnetism. What I have done is to create a field which sets up a total barrier to gravitation. Attraction is eliminated and, almost as a side effect, all radiation and material objects are halted. Once established the Eagle it contains will be safe from any interference.’

  Koenig said, ‘The ion build-up?’

  ‘Taken care of. John, if we had had this shield in the beginning none of our pilots would have died.’

  The pilots and ships which had been destroyed in the tremendous blast which had wrenched the moon from its orbit. But without the information gained then Bergman would never have perfected his shield. If he had perfected it—the acid test was yet to come. Koenig halted as they entered Main Mission. Morrow was on duty at the main console, Sandra to one side, others busy as they checked and monitored the running of the base.

  Kano, at the computer, said, ‘Commander, I’ve made a thorough check and nothing seems to be wrong. Clifford only scanned the data from one memory bank.’

  ‘No erasure?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Can you make sure that none will take place?’

  ‘Erasure?’ Kano nodded. ‘I can eliminate the relay governing that part of the computer.’

  ‘Then do it.’

  A precaution, as far as they knew no one could be taken over while the aliens maintained their screen, but Koenig wanted to take no chances. Which was why no security men stood on guard with stun-guns ready to shoot down anyone who acted as Clifford had done. There was no surety that they themselves wouldn’t be taken over, and an armed and berserk man would be able to wreck the entire control room.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘No change, Commander.’ Morrow checked his monitors then stared at the screen filled now with the enigmatic orange sphere. ‘Distance maintained, intensity of light the same.’ He added, grimly, ‘I keep getting the impression the damned thing’s watching us. That it’s a tremendous eye just hanging in space studying us as if we were bugs.’

  A good analogy. A true one as far as they knew. Something which had come from the darkest reaches of the void, to latch on to the moon, to probe, to investigate, to . . .

  Koenig glanced down as he felt a touch on his arm. His hands were clenched, the knuckles white, the nails indenting his palms. The hand on his arm belonged to Bergman. He said, quietly, ‘You’re thinking of Helena, John.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We can’t do anything about her now. She’s been taken, held as a hostage, perhaps.’

  A hostage—or a specimen.

  Koenig sucked in his breath, fighting a series of mental pictures. Helena, stripped, spread on a table, knives falling to touch her flesh, to cut into her body, to expose her inner organs to the scrutiny of alien eyes. Vivisected as men had examined rats. Tissue removed, tested, bones scraped, nerves tormented beyond endurance, her very brain, perhaps, removed to remain alive and aware in a crystal jar.

  ‘John!’

  He gulped air again, conscious that he was trembling, fear and hatred gaining control. A mistake and a dangerous one to make. Helena was one person—he had more than three hundred lives to take care of. If one had to be sacrificed to the majority then he would make the decision.

  Bergman said, ‘I’ve been thinking, John. If all else fails we could use missiles against the sphere. They will have to be adapted, of course, but I could design small field generators and a time-switch—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It could be done, John.’

  ‘We’re already doing it. I don’t want to take men and material away from the Eagle. When we hit that thing I want to be sure there’s no mistake. We’ll only get the one chance.’

  And he would take it, using the Eagle as a weapon, driving into the light, penetrating it, seeking out the core. Three atomic warheads should do it and, if he died delivering the blow, then it would be a fair exchange.

  One man to safeguard Alpha. One man—Carter would be left behind.

  ‘Commander!�
�� Morrow’s voice was high, excited. ‘The sphere! Look!’

  A ball of orange light had come from it, a flick which grew as it darted across space, to slow to hover as it reached the pad outside. The image on the screen changed as Morrow followed it, his hands tense as he pressed the buttons.

  ‘It’s like what happened before,’ he said. ‘When—’

  He broke off as the orange glow vanished, snuffed out like the blown flame of a candle, a glow which disappeared to reveal a suited figure.

  Helena!

  She looked pale, tired, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Mathias finished his check and stepped back, frowning.

  She said, ‘I feel fine, Bob, really I do.’

  ‘I know, but I'd like a couple of cranial scans. It’ll only take a moment.’

  A moment which tested Koenig’s patience, already strained. But questions could wait, first he had to be sure the woman was unharmed.

  The mental imagery, he thought, the pictures of vivisection. The relief he had felt when she had reappeared had been like a physical blow.

  As Mathias finished he said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was following you to the crashed Eagle. I heard a shout and turned and saw the light. It seemed to draw me in some way and I—’

  ‘Went into it,’ he interrupted. ‘And then?’

  ‘I was somewhere,’ she said slowly, thinking. ‘A room, very large and totally dark. At least it was at first. Then there was light, a pale glow, and I could see ranks of instruments—or things which could have been instruments.’

  Bergman said, ‘This light, Helena, did it have a source?’

  ‘No. It just seemed to be there. A glow as if everything were shining.’

  ‘And the instruments?’

  ‘They were like panels, screens ringed with lights, swirls of colour as if they were tanks containing water or heavy gases, and I had the impression of something watching. The odd thing is that I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t feel any sense of terror or trepidation. In fact I seemed to have no emotions at all. Not even when they spoke.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘It, one voice, but it seemed to hold echoes as if many voices were incorporated into one.’ She smiled at Koenig. ‘I’m sorry, John, but that’s the best way I can describe it.’

  Alien impressions received by her normal senses, translated into terms she could accept and understand. The room, the instruments, the voice itself, all could have been different to what she reported.

  ‘The voice,’ he urged. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Very little.’ She frowned, remembering, then said, ‘It told me not to be afraid and it knew my name. I asked it who it was and it said that it, we, were from Triton. I told it that we meant no harm and needed help. It said that, no, we were the ones who would give help. That I would help them. And that was all.’

  ‘All?’ Koenig frowned. ‘They reached out and took you just for that? Nothing else? No tests, no other interrogation?’

  ‘No, John. Nothing.’

  Koenig glanced at Bergman, found his own puzzlement reflected in the other man’s eyes. She had been gone too long for such a simple interview. The questions and answers would have taken no longer than a few minutes at the most. And the conversation, if it could be called that, had been banal to the extreme. A cover for something else, perhaps?

  ‘When you stepped into the orange light,’ said Bergman, ‘did you have any impression of movement?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And your return?’

  ‘I didn’t know. We talked and then, suddenly, I was standing on the pad.’ She added, slowly, ‘I don’t remember any orange light. I was in the room, just standing there, and then suddenly, I was back. John, the whole thing seems pointless. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Not as you tell it,’ he agreed. ‘But something else could have happened. Something you can’t remember or know nothing about. Triton,’ he mused. ‘What do we know about it, Victor?’

  ‘Very little. It used to be a moon of Neptune, but a little over a year ago it vanished.’ Bergman nodded at Koenig’s expression. ‘That’s right, John, it just vanished. It could have fallen too close to its primary and broken up or it could have been destroyed in some other way. We simply don’t know. It’s too far for a probe to investigate, Neptune lies 2,793 million miles from the sun. Not that it matters, these aliens might not have come from there at all.’

  ‘Assuming they did?’

  ‘In that case the sphere could be some kind of a roving scout. An interstellar probe, perhaps, manning a long-range investigation. It also answers some puzzling questions—the UFO incidents for one. Other scouts, smaller, could have investigated the inner planets of the solar system, our own among them. In which case the Tritonians would know something of our people, how to gain control—’ He broke off. ‘John, look at her! Helena.’

  She had risen from the table and now stood, eyes blank, face expressionless. A living robot of flesh and blood which turned and walked to the door, the passage beyond, to pass into the bustle of Main Mission, to head directly towards the computer.

  ‘Doctor?’ Kano moved towards her, checking at Koenig’s sharp order.

  ‘Don’t touch her!’

  Morrow rose from his chair. ‘Commander?’

  ‘Leave her, Paul! All of you, don’t touch her!’

  Koenig watched as she halted before the instrument, entranced, dominated, and began to work with baffling speed, eyes fastened on the computer screen, unblinking, glazed. Working as Clifford had worked.

  To die. perhaps, as he had died.

  An unwilling tool of the Tritonians.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mathias came in at a run, a hypogun in his hand, the instrument loaded with a strong sedative. Koenig checked him as he stepped towards Helena.

  ‘How long could she continue working like that?’

  ‘Until she collapsed?’ Mathias shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Commander, but not for very long. She’s in a hyper-active condition, burning herself out. Any physical opposition could accelerate final collapse as it did with Clifford, though I suspect there was another reason for his death. This will slow her down.’ He lifted the hypogun. ‘A compound based on curare. It will paralyse all muscular activity and ensure total relaxation. She will have to be given artificial respiration for a while, but there shouldn’t be any complications.’

  ‘You have the respirator?’

  ‘Standing by.’ Mathias nodded towards a pair of attendants, a stretcher, the compact bulk of a machine. ‘When you’re ready, sir.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Koenig took the instrument from the doctor’s hand. ‘Get ready to move when she falls.’

  He was being over-cautious and knew it, once the drug took effect they would have a few minutes of grace before oxygen-starvation induced cerebral damage, but his own concern dictated haste. A deep and personal concern—no harm must come to the woman if he could avoid it. No harm would come.

  She didn’t turn as he approached and, in the screen, he could see the reflected image of her face. It rode on a blur of light, carried on the data which flashed in an accelerated stream, too fast for him to see let alone to follow. Facts, details, fragments of information culled over the years and incorporated into the memory banks. More information than could be contained in a dozen libraries among it everything appertaining to the base. Once the aliens had it, what then? A blast of energy which would leave nothing but fused metal and charred bodies? A missile which would destroy the moon?

  Koenig took another step, lifted the hypogun and clamped his finger on the release. Air blasted from the muzzle carrying with it the drug, driving it through the material of her uniform, through the skin and fat beneath, sending it directly into the bloodstream.

  A dose which would have felled a horse but which, for a moment, seemed to have no effect.

  Then, abruptly, she slumped to be caught and cradled in his arms.

  ‘Mathias!’

  He was already
moving, easing the limp figure to the stretcher, adjusting the respirator, checking to see that all was well.

  Waving on the attendants he said, ‘She’ll be all right for now, Commander.’

  ‘For now?’

  ‘There’s something else. I had to check before I was certain.’

  Bergman said, ‘Those cranial scans you took?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mathias looked grim. ‘I think you’d better come and see what I found.’

  It was a blur on the plates, a patch which clung to the lower part of the cerebellum. Mathias pointed to it, slipped another plate into position. The same skull taken from a different position.

  ‘I can’t be certain without cutting into her, but Helena has the same symptoms I spotted in Clifford. That patch is caused by some form of energy which is riding in her brain.’

  Put there by the Tritonians. They had taken her, questioned her, then sent her back. But why the questions?

  ‘They could have wanted to be sure that she retained muscular control,’ said Bergman when he asked. ‘A test of a kind. Obviously Helena knows nothing of what really must have happened. Even the room she thought she was in, the instruments, even the light could have been an induced illusion. We still don’t know what lies in the centre of that orange light.’

  ‘We don’t know, but we can guess,’ said Koenig. ‘If it is a scout there would have to be sensors and recording machines. If manned there would have to be living quarters and supplies. That force field has to be generated and maintained which means there must be generators and some form of power supply. What we see is really a gigantic ship of some kind surrounded by a protective barrier. An enemy vessel which has chosen to attack.’

  ‘We can’t be certain of that, John.’

  ‘We have two dead men to prove it.’

  ‘Accidents, perhaps.’ Bergman was still dubious. ‘They could, in some way, have overloaded Clifford and Donovan was the victim of a crash. They might need our help as they said.’

  ‘If so they’ve chosen a peculiar way to ask for it.’ Koenig shook his head. ‘No, Victor, we have to treat them as enemies and dangerous ones. I haven’t forgotten their warning. And I don’t underestimate their strength. They manipulate forces as we would handle a pair of tongs. How else did they move Helena? They took her, moved her, sent her back. They needed no ship to do it. How long will it be before they take someone else?’