There was an uncomfortable pause, during which Varda’s guards stiffened to attention. When Varda remained silent, the figure behind them paced forward into full view. He now addressed the guards. “Kill them. Your Archon commands it.”
“Ask Malic, Varda!” Koenig shouted tensely at the Consul, whose mind was now obviously deeply split by a confiict going on inside her. “Ask him who killed the old Archon.”
Malic’s calm, oily surface began to break. He thrust his head at Varda. “Consul, the penalty for disobedience is death.”
“He killed Archon!” Koenig shouted wildly at her, trying to convince her.
Varda stepped warily backward. Her eyes flashed accusation. “Malic...”
Malic was beside himself with sudden, uncontrollable fury. The veins swelled perilously out on his neck as he screamed at the guards to carry out his command.
“Imbecile!” Varda shrieked again, lurching out at him. She realized that his refusal to defend himself had been an admission of guilt. “What have you done?”
He shook her off and stepped hastily backward. In his eyes was the possessed, terrified look of one who had just been attacked not by a fellow mortal, but by a demon or a snake. “Disarm her!” he spluttered at the guards.
Prodded at last into action, after battling with their own loyalties, the guards stepped forward and took her weapon.
“You’re insane!” Varda shouted hysterically.
Now Malic withdrew one of the guards’ hand guns. He raised it, intending to stun her and the Alphans and deal with them in his own time, when Varda suddenly spun around and dived at the meson transportar console. Malic fired at her, but not before she had time to hit one of the switches. It was a red switch and it was set well apart from the others.
“The shield!” Malic gaped in fear as it dawned on him what she had done. The meson shield protecting the deadly antimatter energizing force inside the transporter had been lifted. In order to have accomplished such an operation in one flick of a switch the Consul must have had it all carefully arranged beforehand—anticipating his treachery, perhaps?
“You stupid loyalist!” he blurted out accusingly, empty words flashing unbidden into his crumbling mind.
The decks of the ship began heaving and bucking, throwing them to the floor. The guards scrambled to their feet in fear and fled. Malic struggled to reach the console. But it was too late.
The glow around the transportcr had strengthened, threateningly. A weird, unearthly whining sound now came from its ungainly coils and condensers as the atoms and molecules that composed it—and indeed the whole ship—struggled to retain their dominance over the negative-matter forces.
“Transport, quick!” Koenig shouted to Maya over the rising din of buckling walls and distant, rumbling explosions. He helped her crawl and slide across the seesawing floor toward the transporter. Its transporting chamber, set ready to carry Koenig back to the Moon Base, was open and waiting for them. Clinging onto its door ledge with their fingertips, they managed to haul themselves inside, praying that before it exploded completely it would first carry out its programmed task...
They spun down a crazy, spiralling corridor of light. Their bodies seemed to plow on endlessly through space and time, through planets and stars. Gradually, the falling sensation ceased. They came to rest on a firm, hard surface.
The blinding whiteness faded away and through raw, smarting eyes they gradually discerned the familiar aspects of the Command Center.
“John... Maya...!” Verdeschi cried out, running forward to help them. He was accompanied by Helena and others who, until that moment, had been viewing the great Dorcon ship on the Big Screen with frustration and alarm as it began to disintegrate. Now they wore overjoyed expressions on their faces, the more so at seeing Maya, for they had expected to find, if anyone at all, only Koenig.
Koenig and Maya clambered thankfully to their feet, then, before allowing themselves to recover properly, they turned and faced the screen.
By far the greater drama now was the doomed Dorcon ship.
Ragged, jagged holes were appearing in its hull and sides. It was gradually dissolving away in patches, as though stricken with a cancer that had entered its final stages. It was halating wildly, glowing with the same fierce magnesium brilliance that they had grown accustomed to.
Koenig stared at it in awed silence, thinking of the mad dictator aboard it.
“Malic finally got what he wanted,” Maya commented, reading his thoughts.
“And had it blow up in his face.”
He turned away, not wishing to watch more. He sat himself down in his console seat instead and rested his head wearily in his hands.
His body craved rest. But it could not have it—not just yet.
They were still hurtling onward, on their own path toward destruction.
A shadow came and stood beside him. It was Helena. He looked up and smiled. She slipped her arm around him comfortingly.
“Maybe some good news to report,” she murmured in his ear. “At last.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, for one, you’re back—I thought I’d lost you this time!” She shuddered. “For two, that star you asked Carter to keep eye on—the last one in the Galaxy. Our computers tell us that we’re heading very close. There’s a chance—just a chance—that we’ll be taken into orbit around it. Then,” she nibbled at his ear lobe affectionately, “if there’s a decent planet around it, we may be able to get off this dreadful lump of rock at last.”
His smile broadened, and he shook his head. “No, Helena. You’re always dreaming up things like that. It’s never happened to us before. It won’t now.”
“You don’t know!” she scolded playfully. “You have to have faith—what’s the use of living if you don’t have that?”
“I do have faith,” he told her, suddenly fierce, “only in myself. In my own being, and in my own abilities to survive.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “I don’t believe in miracles.”
She turned away. This last had unintentionally hurt a little, and he drew her back to him. “But I do believe in optimism. You’re right—we must have hope...” Hiding the bleak despair he felt inside, he added, “That data Carter picked up. Patch me in on it, will you?”
“Happy to oblige.” She arose. Thoughtfully, he followed behind her.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Real sunlight beamed down, warming the small clearing in front of the cave mouth where they had chosen to pitch their first base.
There were no impenetrable brown clouds or crippling gravity effects; there were no fierce tribes to carry them away.
The lone outworld had proved a highly desirable place to live—though somewhat mysteriously, it appeared to be uninhabited. But their instruments had detected a large structure of some kind not far to the west of where they had landed.
Koenig, Carter, and Yuri Salkov, their burly Pioneer Officer, picked their way carefully through the lush vegetation as they started out from the busy little base camp into the forest interior to try to solve the puzzle.
At length they found what they were after. It was a large, faceted, golf-ball-shaped structure towering above them. It lay like a huge primeval egg beneath overgrowing creepers and mosses.
Koenig walked forward and tapped one of the panels experimentally. “Check it for life signs, Yuri,” he commanded. He turned to Verdeschi, still running his fingers over the panel. “These look like solar panels for trapping sunlight.”
Salkov slung his instrument carrier to the ground and bent down to open it. He soon stood up, clutching a portable life form sensor. Turning around to face the dome, he pointed the implement at it. He activated it and observed the indicator dials intently. He frowned.
“The molecular bonding is pretty sophisticated, Commander. Sensor beams just bounce off it.”
They walked around the large golf ball, fighting their way through the tall plants and creepers. They were looking for a way in, but there w
as none.
“There has to be a way in,” Koenig told them. Sweat streamed down his face, and he wiped it away in exasperation. “We can’t set up base with this thing here without knowing anything about it.”
They had arrived at the point on the ball’s circumference where they had set out. He decided at least to report back to Base and called Verdeschi and Joe Lustig on his comlock. Joe Lustig, one of the Moon Base engineers, had set out with the Security Chief on a similar survey of their own—to check the lie of the land and hunt for possible dangers.
“Tony...” he began when the other responded, perhaps some few hundred yards distant. He was cut off by enthusiastic patter.
“I was just about to call you, John,” Verdeschi’s tiny face spoke to him ou the comlock’s screen. “You should see this place... a valley. It’s perfect for us.”
“Hate to spoil the flow,” Koenig told him, “but we’ve discovered signs of civilization here... some kind of sealed living area. Tony, head back immediately. I’d like everyone in close until we check it out.”
“Sure,” Verdeschi replied more soberly. There was a trace of disappointment in his voice.
“Anything else?” Koenig turned back to Salkov, who had re-commenced his analysis of the golf ball.
“Nothing yet,” the bearded officer replied. “We’ll just have to keep trying—cut a way in, maybe?”
Koenig nodded unhappily.
The first phase of the colonization program was already completed. Survey shelters had been erected. Food and instruments had been ferried down from the speeding Moon by Eagle carrier and Eagle surveyor. The two ships had been launched well in advance of the Moon’s actual passing of the planet—in the hope that by the time the Moon and the planet were at their closest, the survey team would have given the okay for the second phase to commence. This phase involved the evacuation of the largest part of the Moon Base equipment and personnel and wouldn’t take place until Koenig and Helena were one hundred percent certain of the planet’s safety. After the second phase had been mounted, only a skeleton crew would be left behind on the Moon—to help organize an immediate re-boarding program should any dangers arise. The abandonment of the Moon Base completely would constitute the third and final phase. It would take place at the last possible moment, after the Moon had reached the point on its trajectory where to go farther would take the skeleton crew’s getaway Eagle ship out of range.
The first phase of the program had been completed many times in the past, so they had had plenty of practice mounting it. But they rarely had the opportunity of mounting the second phase—and none at all of the third phase, for they had never yet been able actually to colonize anywhere.
“Food... water... minerals... that planet is wonderful!” Maya cried, translating the rapid data signals as they appeared on the telemetry scanner screen.
“Raw data, Maya,” Helena commented wryly. “We usually wait until the computer has processed it.”
“The computer’s so slow!” the Psychon complained.
“Only to a Psychon mind!” the doctor retorted.
Maya looked wistfully at the Big Screen where the First Base was being erected. It depicted the rocky cave mouth and the lucky Alphan crew scurrying about their business. “I wish we were with them.” She shook her head longingly.
“How do you think I feel?” Helena asked her. “It was I who felt so strongly about this planet in the first place. It just isn’t fair that the men should have all the fun. But we’ve no need to worry,” she patted Maya on the hand, “because I’m still getting hunches about this place. Mark my words, we’re about to acquire ourselves a new home.”
Tall, strange trees with twisted barks and brightly flowering heads rose around Verdeschi and Lustig as they made their way back from the panoramic valley they had seen from the cliff edge.
They moved quite fast back to the Base, forcing their way through the tangled undergrowth at the base of the trees. Verdeschi was in the lead and paced on, oblivious of the fact that Lustig had stopped and was listening to something.
“Hey, Tony,” the engineer called, but Verdeschi failed to hear him.
A faint humming sound was in the air. It sounded like the angry swarming of bees, which was odd, as they had so far detected no insect or animal life.
The noise seemed to emanate from a thicket of bushes bearing large, juicy-looking red berries, and Lustig made his way toward them. He pushed through their branches, eventually emerging into a small clearing almost choked with the encumbrance of one of the flowering trees which had toppled across it.
The sound was at its loudest here, yet he was at a loss to see where it came from. He glanced nervously about to see where Verdeschi had got to in the wilderness of plant growths, but he couldn’t see him. Suddenly afraid, he started tearing frantically at the bushes in order to force his way back to him. But the buzzing sound grew intense. It cut through his mind, paralyzing him with its numbing vibrations.
Slowly, he relinquished mental control, unable to prevent the alien woodland force from entering him and taking him over.
The scream of stark terror that was sent ringing through the woodland chilled Verdeschi to the core. He turned to see where it had come from, realizing in sudden alarm that he had lost the little engineer. He ran back the way he had walked to find him.
The scream had originated from a direction slightly off the route they had taken and he made his way toward where he thought he had heard it. He waded through the waist-high bushes bearing the red berries. As he did so he became aware for the first time of the deep buzzing sound.
He broke through into the clearing in time to see Lustig swaying erectly before him. The engineer’s face was beaded with sweat, and his face was contorted in agony. But more startling and horrifying still was the ball of swirling, streaming colors that hung in mid-air by his side. it seemed to be controlling him in some way, and even as he watched, Lustig raised his arm toward him, pointing a laser gun at him.
“Joe!” Verdeschi shouted in wild alarm. He leaped forward and caught the arm before its crazed owner had managed to shoot him.
The engineer fell backwards, cracking his head sharply against the trunk of the fallen tree. Apparently unshaken, he climbed back on his feet, and once more raised his gun. This time Verdeschi was more prepared, though, and came at him from the side. He tackled him expertly, getting him in a hold that he knew his small aggressor wouldn’t be able to break. As he did se he caught a momentary glimpse of his glazed, bulging eyes and realized that whatever Lustig had been moments ago, he was now mad. He was utterly insane. Suddenly a burst of extra strength came from the engineer. With quite inhuman strength he forced himself out of Verdeschi’s hold and brought his gun nozzle close to his head.
“Joe!” Verdeschi called out in choked horror.
Before Lustig could press the firing button they were both abruptly enveloped in a vivid green flash of light that darted out at them from the dancing ball of colors.
Verdeschi felt Lustig’s strength ebb away and his hold relax. A look of terror returned to the man’s eyes. Then he began sliding down. He fell to the turf at his feet.
The tongue of green light sprang back into the ball.
Appalled, Verdeschi reached for his comlock and snapped it on. But the buzzing sound increased in volume, preventing him. He felt it numbing his brain cells, taking over his body.
As his thoughts were forced out of his head he caught a brief, mental glimpse of a supremely powerful, invading mental force. Then he—his mind—could remember nothing more.
The buzzing noise subsided.
With blank, unseeing eyes, Verdeschi’s figure trembled rigidly as it adjusted itself to the new mind inside it and then ran fleet-footed from the clearing.
“Tony?” Koenig’s voice sounded urgently over the comlock in the figure’s belt. The figure withdrew it, stopping to see the tiny, alarmed face staring out at him from the screen.
“What’s holding you up?” the voic
e demanded. Uncomprehendingly, the figure held the communicator to its glistening, sweat-bathed face.
“Tony!” the face shouted desperately. “I can see you... you’re...”
A surge of power swept up from inside the figure. With it came a strong feeling of well-being. The figure felt happy and content with its power—but it felt a strong urge to put it to use.
With baby-like understanding in its eyes it gazed curiously at the bleeping instrument; then, tiring, and finding it a nuisance, it squeezed it in its terrifying grasp.
The plastic cracked and splintered, breaking into a thousand fragments of casement and circuitry, which it let drop to the ground.
Then it laughed maniacally with its newfound freedom and ran swiftly off into the trees.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Dr. Ben Vincent, the landing party’s medic, stared grimly down at Lustig’s burned body.
“Laser wounds? But it doesn’t add up,” Koenig told him in bewilderment.
“I’d say it adds up to a stupid accident,” the doctor told him. “They fell out. A weapon was pulled—”
“But why should Tony do that? Why should he take off like that?”
Vincent shrugged. “He’d just killed a man.”
Running feet sounded, and they turned. An Alphan guard appeared, holding something small in his hand. He ran breathlessly toward them and showed them the crushed remains of Verdeschi’s comlock. “Found it half a kilometer due west of here, sir.”
“West?” Koenig asked, more puzzled than ever, for he did not believe that his Security Chief had killed anyone. “Heading away from the base camp?”
“The state he’s in, he may not know where he’s headed,” Vincent commented. “I’ve asked Helena to check his mental records.”
Koenig frowned deeply. “Take care of Lustig. I’m going to try to find him.” So saying, he motioned to the guard to lead the way, and he and the guard vanished amongst the vegetation.
A beam of thin, intense light lanced down on an area of the golf-ball-shaped structure. Yuri Salkov played the laser over it, to no effect. Shaking lis head, he turned it off and laid the special cutter down amongst an assortment of other implements that he had tried —all in vain.
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