‘Did he react?’ Maya asked earnestly. ‘Did he say anything?’
Helena shook her head as she drew one of Maya’s blankets around to keep herself warm. ‘Neither of us spoke. But he had to know I knew... he couldn’t think I didn’t feel...’ She tried hard to pull herself together. ‘Up to that point, I did trust him... I believed everything he said. I didn’t want to believe he could be... changed.’
Verdeschi put a comforting arm round her. ‘What do you believe now, Helena?’ he asked her gently.
She paused, looking up at him with deep, haunted eyes. ‘I believe something terrible is happening to John... and I’m afraid.’ She got Verdeschi’s real meaning though, and the thought of it jolted her back to her senses. Something, perhaps desperation, had made her think of the large sample of crystal that Koenig had brought back with him from the asteroid. It seemed logical to suppose that if John weren’t his real self, then that might be the cause of it – after all, he spent so much of his time with it and never let it out of his sight for long. ‘OK, you’ve got me,’ she told them unhappily. ‘I have to admit that John seems to have become unstable. But before I agree to your request, I want one more thing to be checked. I want that crystal sample looked at...’
They both nodded. She was surprised and relieved when Maya said, ‘That’s just what we’ve worked out. Before we take mutinous action we need some facts, to make absolutely certain we’re not making a terrible mistake.’ She turned to Verdeschi. ‘One thing. Do we bring Alan in on this?’
‘No, not yet. Not until we’re sure,’ Verdeschi replied. He looked at his watch. ‘You had better start then, and get it. We’ll look after things at this end.’
There was a tense moment while they all looked at each other; a moment of uncertainty and rapid re-appraisal before taking the plunge. Decisively, Maya rose from the bed. She stood solemnly before them, lines of deep concentration making her face. Her body went stiff and started to shake. It began to bend and waver, and slowly dissolved into a white spindle of high energy – a dissociation of her basic molecules. The spindle pulsed brightly a few times before its molecules joined together again, and a new being began to emerge. Helena and Verdeschi waited intently, wondering what form her amazing Psychon body chemistry had decided to take. All members of the dead race she once belonged to had this rare ability of molecular transformation, and the Moon Base were extremely lucky to find her. Already, she and her art had become indispensable, saving them from difficulties and destruction on more than one occasion.
The vague outlines solidified into features they could recognize, as the aura of bright light faded away.
‘Joanna!’ Helena exclaimed appraisingly. ‘The operative who has been working with John on the power transfer. That’s clever of you.’
Verdeschi nodded his approval. ‘Now all we’ve got to hope is that John isn’t expecting Maya to try something on.’
Maya/Joanna cautiously left the room and headed towards the lifts that would take her to the upper levels of the station. Fortunately the corridors were mostly deserted, as the Alphans were trying to keep warm in their quarters. The temperature, although still dropping, was not yet lethal provided people wrapped up well and kept moving. The humidity of the air helped too. It was fairly dry, although the moisture level was gradually rising and would soon make conditions intolerable.
When she had got close to the Observation Room, she paused and glanced warily down the corridor leading to it. A guard was positioned outside.
She raised her commlock and spoke softly into it. ‘I’m ready to go in... when I know where John and that little darling Joanna are.’
Helena’s voice whispered back to her. ‘John’s in the Command Centre. He must have moved back there soon after I left. Tony’s trying to keep him occupied as long as he can, but you’ll have to hurry.’
‘That makes my task easier,’ Maya breathed back. ‘Out.’ She clicked the set off. As she did so, the Observation Room door opened and the operative in question walked out. Maya noticed a closet nearby and slipped inside. It was going better than planned.
She waited until the original Joanna had moved past along the corridor, and then stepped out again. Quickly, she made her way back towards the room in full view of the guard who looked up inquiringly at her.
She pulled a ‘silly me’ face, and smiled at him. ‘Forgot something,’ she said.
The guard grinned at her confidentially. ‘I’ll never tell,’ he said. His eyes followed her sensuously as she opened the door and closed it behind her.
The glinting diamond lay motionlessly under its dome, alive with a cryptic, winking fire. She moved over to it and removed the transparent cover. Working rapidly, she withdrew her hand-laser and blasted a small chunk of the crystal away. She replaced the dome and safely pocketed the tiny, but ample fragment. Heaving a deep sigh of relief she ran softly back to the door, stopping briefly to observe one of the large energy reflectors through the window. The construction crewmen had departed now, and the ominous dish stood on its own, like the others that had been erected, waiting for the Moon Base’s last and largest reserve of energy to be beamed from it.
She left the room, winking secretively at the guard as she went. Hoping that she hadn’t let the unfortunate Joanna into a compromising situation, she set off down the corridor. The worst part of her unpleasant task was over. Now all she had to do was to get safely back to her quarters and examine the crystal before John Koenig intervened. As she rounded the corner towards the lift shaft however, her heart sank with dismay as she saw the tense figure of Koenig striding towards her.
Her heart banged, but she kept her outward expression. natural. He slowed down as he saw her, a wondering expression on his face, and she prayed that he hadn’t already seen the original Joanna.
‘Mrs Craven,’ he said sharply, stopping.
She jumped and came to a halt, forcing a querying expression to her face. ‘Yes, Commander?’ she asked, as neatly as she could.
‘Did you program the main power plant for transfer of power to all energy reflector units as I asked?’
She heaved an inward sigh of relief. ‘Your orders have been carried out, sir.’
She turned and continued on her way, hoping that he wouldn’t pursue her further. As she went, she felt his cold, alien gaze fall on her, and every cell in her transformed body prickled.
She hurried thankfully back to her room, where she found Helena peering down one of the Medical Section’s microscopes. The optical instrument was mounted on a trolley which also contained provision for slide making. Maya took out the sample and began to flake off a thin sliver with the special geological cutting implements. The material was not as hard as diamond, and it seemed strangely pliable by comparison.
Helena looked more relaxed, and helped Maya mount the slide. There was no room for sentiment now, no matter how strongly-rooted, and they both knew it. She moved back and allowed Maya to examine the slide sample though the powerful lenses. The Psychon studied it for a few moments, then, still looking through the eye-piece, she gave an exclamation. ‘It’s incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it before!’ she gasped.
Verdeschi came in at that moment and stood expectantly by Helena as Maya looked up with a solemn, awed expression on her face. ‘This is no crystal,’ she declared. ‘It is an unbelievably dense, complex type of living matter from which all energy has been drawn. But it is not dead. Only dormant. Like a seed.’
The other two stared at her incredulously and fearfully as a hint of the implications began to dawn on them.
‘It is almost impossible to calculate the effects such a substance could have on a human being,’ Maya continued in response to their unanswered question.
Helena looked the most worried. ‘How do we help him survive – to combat it?’ she asked pensively.
Maya looked at them in horror. It was almost as if she had not heard Helena’s question, but was continuing on with her own explanation. ‘We have to face the pos
sibility that John Koenig is no longer flesh and blood.’
CHAPTER THREE
He was surrounded by the wavy, dark abyss of space. Slowly, he was moving through it, though now there were no stars and he did not have a ship. His body was exposed to the cold and the vacuum and he expected that he must have died. But he kept on moving... he kept on thinking. Inexplicably, he kept on living.
He awoke from his nightmare to find himself again in the bright cave of mirrors. They pulsated somewhere on the edge of his memory. The rough, bulging facets of crystal resolved steadily into focus, and unwillingly, he picked himself up. As more of the past came back to him he felt for his commlock, but it had gone. He felt the reassurance of his laser, and held it shakily in front of him.
The high-pitched feed-back noise came again, and his stomach rocked nauseously. ‘Christ!’ He held his head, but the sound cut through. He spun round to alleviate the noise and watched a multitude of reflections of himself.
The reflections were laughing at him, and he stopped and stared at them in groggy disbelief. They were mocking, malevolent, and they were silent. Only the faces and lips moved in soundless expressions of comedy.
He turned and began to run, following his basic instincts. He blundered about, but before he could reach the end of the cave the shrill noise intensified to an even greater pitch. Before its effect became almost fatal to him, it stopped. In its place came a melodic, sing-song voice, which for all its beauty seemed to be as hateful as the noise.
‘Commander Koenig...’ it sang sweetly.
Koenig whirled around, but he could see nothing.
‘This is the voice of Kalthon,’ the voice continued. ‘There is no escape for you... you are shut off from your people.’
Koenig battled with his overloaded senses, and tried to collect his thoughts together. ‘Why am I being held here?’ he demanded. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘You were a fortunate accident, Commander... coming into our sector of space.’
Koenig shouted angrily at the crystal, ‘I ask you again, what do you want from us?’
‘We need your stores of energy. At this very moment your people are aiding us to that end.’
‘You said “we”...’
‘My people,’ Kalthon sang possessively. A note of sorrow crept into its voice and overpowering feelings of grief began to wash from the walls and over Koenig. He struggled to remain detached while he listened to the tale. ‘A black sun once appeared in our galaxy. It began to absorb all our energy. Our technology was powerless against it, but we managed to survive total extinction. Our scientists created a seed... endowed it with the remnants of our energy and launched it into space...’
‘A seed?’ Koenig asked, a puzzled tone in his voice. He aimed to gather as much information as he could.
More light began to pulsate out of the jewel. It shone extra brightly from behind him and he turned toward the blank end of the hall. There, a brilliant, moving light source had appeared. It hung in mid-air, pulsing with a magic that gripped him with involuntary awe.
‘The Heart of Kalthon, Commander...’ the voice sang proudly. ‘A whole civilization. Everything is contained here: cities, peoples, animal and vegetable life. All in microcosm, all in a state of suspended life... about to be reborn.’
Koenig felt his anger rising again at the voice’s temerity. ‘So you’d drain all the energy from our world, destroy us – so yours can be reborn. What sort of uncivilized beings are you to commit such a crime?’ he cried bitterly.
The Heart of Kalthon billowed outward in a resplendent show of prismatic colours and light and the voice continued with its narration. ‘The process is about to begin. The seed about to be regenerated. The seed is programmed only for survival and resurrection. It cannot make moral choices or decisions.’
The Heart faded, collapsing in a rush of light to a central point that vanished in the air.
The voice ceased and the unbearable high-pitched sound commenced again. Koenig stared wildly around him, looking for the tunnel entrance that would take him out to the surface. The subterranean hall had become a prison of mirrors. They flashed and reflected everywhere, so that it was impossible to tell where the exit was. He raised his laser, fired at the nearest glass to him and watched it shatter into a thousand shards of brightly turning glass. Behind it lay a dark passage. He smiled grimly and, with one last look around him, stepped inside it.
Contrary to the freedom he expected to find, though, the darkness converted back into glass. It enveloped his body and froze it into a permanent, sculptured reflection that gazed out in anguish and horror.
‘It works. The ultra-frequency sound seems to split the molecules into particles of atoms which bombard the crystal.’ Maya rose from the sonar machine that had been brought into her quarters to further her research into the crystal.
Verdeschi stood next to her, looking grimly on. By his side, Carter stood, his face turning white. Verdeschi had decided that the time was right to bring him in, but the normally cheerful and loyal Australian was having a hard time being convinced.
‘Alan, we’ve got to get to that asteroid and knock out the rest of this stuff,’ Verdeschi told him intently.
‘I’m trying to understand, Tony, but I still can’t buy it. You and Helena are selling theories. You can’t prove anything.’ Carter looked frightened. There was no conviction in his voice, but he clung grimly to his sense of loyalty to Koenig.
Verdeschi was incensed. He waved wildly around him to indicate Alpha. ‘How can you be such a dumb, blind kangaroo! Can’t you see what’s happening?’
‘He’s trying to break us all loose,’ Carter replied stubbornly. ‘It’s made him uptight. Besides, all Eagles have been grounded, and the launch pads sealed off.’
Now Maya turned on him with an imploring, desperate look in her eyes. ‘Alan, you have got to help us get to an Eagle!’
‘By help, you mean steal,’ Carter’s face set. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Alan, come on, we’re...’
‘It’s against all training, all instinct...’ Carter was almost crying.
‘Instinct! Training!’ Maya flared up. ‘You’re hiding behind words.’
‘They may be just words – to a Psychon,’ Carter replied hotly and more cruelly than he intended. ‘But to me they add up to something else. Loyalty... and duty. And my duty is to John Koenig.’
Maya calmed herself and she spoke evenly to him. ‘If your duty is to John Koenig, then you’d try to help him!’
But Carter wasn’t listening. He addressed both of them with finality. ‘In my book, Cobber, your kind of help is... mutiny.’ He turned and strode angrily out of the room.
Before they could react, a bleep sounded from the monitor and the image of Koenig came on the screen. It looked as though it were made of steel.
‘This is the Commander,’ the Replica’s voice issued out. Now it scarcely compared with Koenig’s real voice. ‘All Alpha personnel will remain at their posts or in their quarters during the transfer of power to the energy beam.’
Helena and Doctor Ben Vincent stared in dismay at the image of their Commander. They knew now that it was only his image, and that it either covered a usurper or was somehow controlled by one. But they were powerless to convince the rest of the Moon Base staff and avert the tragedy that was finally coming to its conclusion.
‘Deactivate main circuits,’ they heard the cold, crisp voice saying.
The lights in the Medical Centre flickered and dimmed as the Life Support core struggled to regain power when the sudden drain hit it. Helena and Vincent both glanced at the Life Support Systems Indicator in alarm. It showed a frightening drop.
‘Helena – support system three is cutting out!’ Vincent exclaimed, aghast. ‘We must stop him!’
‘Effect transfer,’ the power-drunk, impossible voice continued.
In the Command Centre where the Replica was, Yasko punched buttons and pulled levers on her console, reluctantly carrying o
ut the instructions. She could do nothing to stop herself. Unlike the more senior members of the personnel, she had less power to argue back, and she had to do as she had been trained... as she was told.
A beam of light sprang from the three energy reflectors on the roofs of the outbuildings. They were beams of Life... and Death, and they cut through space towards the greedy recipient of their favours. They covered the distance in a split second. Thousands of miles away, through the cave of darkness, the brilliant, rotating jewel – the compressed Planet of Kalthon – began to shine a faint, green colour as the inexplicable revival processes inside it began in earnest.
‘Now Support System six is fading!’ Vincent gasped, back in the Medical Centre.
Helena stabbed at a button, enraged. ‘Med. Centre to Commander!’
The Replica’s face appeared again on the screen. As the moments went by his composure slipped and he looked and behaved less and less like the Commander he had pretended to be. He looked elated and euphoric, but also irritated by Helena’s intrusion. ‘Dr Russell – I have no time for conversation.’
‘Well I have!’ Helena’s green eyes flashed with anger. ‘I’m losing Life Support Systems three and six. If you take away any more power from me – some people may die!’
‘Some people...’ the voice faltered, ‘are not all people, Doctor...’
The monitor went blank, and Helena stormed out of the room.
Above her, above the Moon Base, the energy beams glowed even more strongly as more of their precious power was fed away. The asteroid’s colour had now become a rich green, and it had begun to swell.
In sympathy with it, the crystal fragment that Maya had procured, began to glow green too. Whether this was in harmony with the rest of its parent, or because of the escape of stray energy waves from the beams, would never be known.
Space 1999 - The Space-Jackers Page 4