‘Hey! That’s no Tiranium deposit!’ he said in surprise.
Alan shook his head in bafflement. There was not enough revealed to tell what it was. Andy switched on again and began clearing the rock to either side. Eventually it was shaped into a large doorway, about seven feet high by five feet wide. Set back in it was something like a large cabinet, framed in shining metal but mostly made of a transparent material, coated with dust.
Alan moved closer and stared hard. ‘There’s something inside,’ he announced.
Andy shut off the machine and moved the lamp closer so it would throw more light directly into the cavity. More dust slid away from the front of the box and Alan swallowed hard.
‘There’s somebody inside!’ he moved a step closer. ‘It looks like a man and a young boy... like a couple of corpses.’
Andy was feeling very puzzled. ‘But that rock hasn’t been disturbed for millions of years!’
Alan nodded. ‘Yeah, I know, but...’ suddenly his head jerked up. ‘Hold it!’
‘What is it?’
‘I thought... just for a moment...’ Before he said what it was he thought he saw, he moved right up to the front window panel, looking carefully at the hazy outline of the man’s body inside. There was still too much dust to see clearly so he raised his hand and wiped away at the glass just over the face.
As his hand touched the glass it became bathed in a green, blinding light. Carter screamed in agony, his hand sealed against the glass as if by high voltage. He felt himself blacking out, then he began to fall, feeling nothing as he crashed to the ground.
‘Alan! Alan!’ Andy shouted as he rushed up and knelt down. He checked quickly to see if Carter was still breathing, which he was, but in sharp agonized gasps.
Glancing up at the glass where Alan’s hand had been trapped he could clearly see through the cleared glass. Underneath was a stark, angular face... and the deep, large eyes were coldly looking right at him.
In terror he scrambled to where he had dropped his commlock.
The Alpha Emergency Team went about their work with smooth efficiency. One of the technicians had moved the Sonarscope right up close to the mysterious cabinet and was very carefully clearing the rock away from either side under the guidance of Tony Verdeschi. He and the rest of the Team were taking every caution not to get too close or to touch the box’s sides.
Further back in the cavern Alan had been moved on a stretcher and Helena and Dr Ben Vincent were checking him over carefully. She passed a Bioscan over his chest and smiled to see that he was recovering nicely.
Dr Vincent saw that his help wouldn’t be needed and walked off to prepare the equipment to see if any readings could be taken off the beings in the cabinet. With added illumination and the glass front air-blasted, it could now be clearly seen that two people were inside; a man and a boy of about fourteen years. They were standing stiff and straight as statues, eyes firmly closed.
Alan Carter’s eyes, however, began to flicker open and he made out the details of Helena’s face as his vision adjusted to the light. She smiled and laid a pressure gun against his arm to inject a mild analgesic.
‘As our Search and Rescue Medical Team would say after they find one of our crashed astronauts who has been lying unconscious on a strange planet for two days with a broken arm, contusions, three cracked ribs and a fractured leg... Hey, are you all right?’
Since the pain-killer hadn’t quite started to take effect, Alan groaned as he sat up. ‘I feel like I’ve been slugged by a bleedin’ kangaroo.’
‘Only stunned a little is my medical diagnosis,’ grinned Helena.
Alan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have my head.’
Tony and Andy walked over to join them as Alan got to his feet. Alan nodded to them both that he was quickly recovering from his shock. Not altogether seriously, Tony chided Alan for coming into the tunnels in the first place.
‘I only wanted a little excitement,’ Alan protested, ‘and I guess I found it.’
Tony laughed. ‘Anybody got any theories about that thing yet?’
Helena and Andy both shook their heads. Alan frowned, then suggested, ‘Maybe it’s some kind of cryogenic, suspended animation set-up.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Helena and led the way over to where Dr Vincent was monitoring the medical sensors trained on the cabinet. The round face of the scope showed two straight and steady lines of light. She pressed a button and the lines disappeared and were replaced by the temperature reading of the cabinet’s interior. It read ‘Temp. 4°C’.
‘Hmm. It’s cool in there, but well above the cryogenic temperature range.’
Helena tried another button and the steady, unbroken lines returned. Dr Vincent shrugged. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘No sign of life at any level. No brain activity... no heart beat... no respiration.’
‘Some form of burial then?’ proposed Tony.
Helena frowned. ‘A bit elaborate for a tomb, don’t you think? Surrounded by a strong forcefield. Who are they being protected from?’
‘Us?’
Andy had been debating with himself about whether to interrupt. Suddenly he felt he couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself any longer. ‘I’ve got news for you. That’s no tomb.’ They all looked at him. ‘You don’t bury people until they’re dead, and the big guk in there, he’s alive.’
‘Our sensor doesn’t agree with you, Andy,’ said Helena.
Andy was adamant, remembering with a shudder the sight of those watching eyes. ‘Your sensor didn’t see what I saw. Just after Alan fell I looked up and saw him staring at me.’
Helena turned to Alan. ‘Did you see anything like that?’
‘Wait a minute,’ Andy cut in, ‘you think I flipped out or something?’
‘You were under a strain,’ explained Helena, ‘you thought Alan had been killed. In moments of stress the mind can play strange tricks.’
Andy wheeled about in irritation and marched across to the front of the cabinet. They all followed him, looking up as he did at the lifeless forms.
‘I saw him!’ Andy almost shouted. ‘His eyes were wide open!’
Tony looked towards the top of the cabinet and his eyes were attracted to a kind of design on the metal frame. He nudged Helena and pointed to it. From a globe-like base it curved upwards, flame-like, to a pointed top.
‘What do you suppose that means?’ she asked.
Alan looked up too. ‘I bet it means that whoever touches this box gets clobbered.’
Andy didn’t think the idea was very funny. ‘From the look in that guy’s eyes, it should mean that whoever touches that box gets killed. There was murder in...’
‘Helena!’ Dr Vincent shouted over from the medical monitor.
They all turned, caught by the note of urgency in his voice.
‘Just then... I picked up a heartbeat,’ he explained.
Helena glanced again at the cabinet but the figures inside had not changed. Tony suddenly sensed that Andy hadn’t been mistaken, that he had seen the man’s eyes open.
‘But only one heartbeat,’ he said wonderingly, ‘in all the time we’ve been here.’
Helena had another thought. ‘Check the volume of air in the lungs... see if it has changed at all since you started monitoring.’
The question clicked through the monitor and the reply flashed back on the scope screen for Dr Vincent to read off to them. ‘Increase of 2.5 millimetres in just over seven minutes.’
‘He’s breathing,’ gasped Helena, wondering at the slowness.
The cabinet captured their attention with new interest. The most important question had been resolved, and the mystery had deepened.
‘How do we get them out?’ asked Helena.
Tony bent down and picked up a small chip of rock from the ground. He aimed and flicked it at the cabinet with his thumb, and there was a flash of green and a loud snap as the force field shattered it.
‘Very carefully,’ he replied.
The Technician who was operating the Sonarscope had nearly cleared away all the rock along one side, so that the depth of the box could be seen. A large chunk of Moonrock tumbled down and revealed that a small black box was fixed to the cabinet near the back.
‘Mr Verdeschi!’ the technician shouted, ‘look at this.’
Tony crowded past him into the opening and looked at the small rectangle which protruded about an inch from the side. On its front were a series of dials and buttons labelled in a code that meant absolutely nothing to him.
Alan and Helena moved in beside him after the excited technician had pulled the Sonarscope back out of the way. In his own curiosity to see what was happening he tilted the scope tube so that it pointed upwards to the cave roof, but forgot to turn it off.
‘It must be the power source,’ said Tony.
Alan nodded. ‘And the control panel. Do you think you can operate it?’
Tony picked up another rock chip and tossed it at the box. It hit the front and bounced off undamaged. ‘Well, I can touch it anyway,’ said Tony, ‘but the problem is figuring out which button does what.’
‘First we need to know which one turns off the forcefield,’ Helena observed. ‘If only Maya were here, she’d figure it out in a second. Maybe we should wait and ask her to come down...’
Suddenly from overhead there came an ominous cracking sound and a small shower of pebbles trickled down on them. They all looked up and saw a deep crack spreading rapidly along the cavern’s ceiling.
‘Blimey!’ yelled Alan, ‘The scope cutter is still on!’
The fissures of the main crack began to race away, spreading out like lightning. There was a frightful groan as the supporting dynamics of the vaulted ceiling began to fail. A giant slab of rock just above them edged downwards with a creak.
Alan turned the scope off but the splitting of the ceiling went on regardless. Tony waved the rest of the crew back towards the gap that led into the tunnel. Green sparks began to fly as the hail of stones popped against the forcefield.
‘Back!’ ordered Tony. ‘Everybody back!’
Helena resisted his insistent pulling. ‘Tony, we can’t just leave them!’
‘Get away, Helena!’
‘But they’re alive!’ she still resisted. ‘We can’t let them die!’
Tony hesitated, then dashed into the space beside the box. He looked desperately at the control panel’s face, wondering which button would stop the forcefield and what might happen if he chose the wrong one. More and more stone was falling, larger pieces which were disintegrating with louder explosions.
One of the buttons was coloured red and seemed somehow more likely than any of the others. Tony gritted his teeth and pressed it down. Suddenly the rocks stopped exploding and began to bounce off the cabinet’s glass with clicks and thuds. He had made the right choice, but he knew they still had the problem of getting the thing open.
He was preparing to try another button when a great jagged piece of the main roof slab broke off and plummeted down. With no forcefield to deflect it, the boulder crashed into the front plate at an angle and the glass shattered with a dull thump of released pressure. The older man inside toppled forward and rolled over just in front of Helena.
Tony jumped over to help her and Alan drag the man back towards the safer part of the cavern. Heavy rocks were crashing all around them as the slab above shifted once more.
‘The boy!’ Alan shouted abruptly, spinning around.
Tony tried to grab his arm as he sprinted back through the haze of dust towards the cabinet. ‘It’ll go any second!’ he shouted after him.
The boy was slumped down inside, his legs covered by a pile of small rocks and shattered glass. Alan tugged him out of it and lifted him easily up into his arms. As he turned to run back another big chunk fell and bounced on to his foot, pinning it against the cabinet. Looking up he saw the slab slipping towards its last support and with one enormous effort he yanked his foot free and dashed for the back of the cave.
The ceiling suddenly gave way with a roar like cannons, the slab smashing straight on to the cabinet and bringing after it tons and tons of rock. The jolt of impact made the cave floor bounce and Alan tripped to the ground, sheltering the boy’s body from flying debris.
As the rumbles died away and the dust began to settle he looked up to see that everyone was safe. He let the boy down easily and brushed the dirt off his face as Tony knelt down next to him.
‘You were really pushing your luck that time,’ he said.
Alan looked at him. ‘He’s just a kid. I couldn’t leave him there.’
Helena was already working deftly on the man, trying to discern if he had any injuries. Dr Vincent joined her with the Bioscan and held it above the man’s chest.
‘Heartbeat!’ he announced tersely. He turned the dial, and added, ‘And there’s a brain pulse! It’s increasing.’
Soon the man’s mouth began to move. He didn’t really have any lips, but a colourless, severe line that weakly opened. In a strained, rumbling voice, he said, ‘Etrec! Etrec!’
‘He must mean the boy,’ said Dr Vincent.
Helena gestured. ‘Take the monitor over to him.’
As Vincent took the equipment over Helena tried to comfort the man. ‘Take it easy,’ she said soothingly. ‘You’ll be all right.’
The man’s mouth continued to form the same word, over and over again. Then his hand moved, instinctively edging towards where the boy was lying. Helena touched his chest as a sign to be still and moved over to join the group around the boy.
Dr Vincent looked up from the monitor. ‘I got a heartbeat,’ he announced.
Helena ordered, ‘Put him on pure oxygen.’
Reaching behind him Dr Vincent lifted the breathing mask around and fitted it over the boy’s face.
‘Now pump the chest,’ Helena advised.
While Vincent pressed regularly down on the small rib-cage to stimulate breathing, Helena ran a quick check for any other injuries. She was relieved that he seemed all right and even more pleased that a brain pulse and the heartbeat rate were starting to pick up for him too.
As they gathered around, watching anxiously to see if the lad would recover, the body of the man behind them began to stir. His eyes snapped open and he turned his head carefully to see where he was.
The first thing he could clearly make out was the backs of the people leaning over Etrec. His expression twisted slowly into a grimace of hatred and a light began to shine in the skin of his forehead. The glow became stronger and more horrific, as if the tortured metal of a furnace-blasted branding iron were trapped inside the flesh. It formed the distinctive, flamelike symbol that had been embossed over the top of the cabinet.
On the ground nearby his eyes caught sight of a gleaming long miner’s pick which had been dropped by one of the survey team. Agonizingly he reached out for it, his fingers clawing in desperation. The strain became too much and abruptly he sighed and fell back, unconscious.
Dr Vincent smiled around the circle of anxious faces. ‘Brain and heart picking up strongly,’ he reported.
‘Levels?’ asked Helena.
‘Brain seven seven three and rising. Heart... forty-four, forty-five, forty-six. Increasing steadily.’
Alan looked questioningly at Helena. ‘Is he safe?’
She nodded. ‘As safe as we all are.’ She stood up with a yawn to get the tension out of her face muscles. Looking over at the older man she could see he was still resting the way she had left him. Her eyes felt strained by all the dust still hanging around so she didn’t feel perturbed by the slight red glow that seemed to hover over his forehead and then fade away. It was so simply an optical illusion that she didn’t give it a second thought.
CHAPTER SIX
The two aliens lay side by side in the Medical Centre, resting quietly. In sleep their faces had the death-like blankness that they wore inside the cabinet. But now Helena only had to check the life systems monitor to be sure
they were safely alive. In fact, she could clearly see the deep, rhythmic rise and fall of their chests.
Tiredly she rubbed her eyes, wishing uselessly that John had not been called away to the emergency in the Blue Quadrant mining survey. She didn’t know what communications problems there might be when the two revived and she would feel more confident if he were there to help... or if Maya were, but she too had gone on the mission. Well, she would just have to make them as comfortable, and welcome, as possible.
She switched on the recorder on her desk to make her daily report. ‘Moon Base Alpha Medical Section. Dr Helena Russell recording. Special Incident Report. Excavation Discovery Supplementary... Medical. Both subjects resting quietly, cardiac stimuli no longer necessary.’ She paused as Dr Vincent came over to hand her some further readings from the tests they were running. She glanced through them and continued, ‘Monitoring of all physical functions is being maintained. Preliminary analysis indicates a cell structure and metabolism ninety-one point seven per cent of human norm. Minor differences in blood chemistry and brain pattern. Further investigations being carried out.’
Helena turned off the recorder and went around to join Dr Vincent and one of the orderlies who was assisting him.
‘How well are they sleeping?’ she asked.
The orderly looked at the EEG needles scratching their peaks and valleys on the recording graph. ‘They’re sleeping very deeply.’
‘Natural or sedated?’
‘Sedated,’ said Dr Vincent. ‘They’re still on Somnol.’
‘Take them off it,’ Helena instructed and the orderly moved around and pulled off the osmosis patches on each of the alien’s forearms.
Dr Vincent nodded. ‘All readings stable. Shall we get on with programming the computer for detailed functional analysis?’
Helena only wished she could take a few hours off and get some rest, but she knew there just wasn’t time. Dr Vincent would need her help and there were other patients to check up on as well.
Space 1999 - Mind-Breaks of Space Page 6