Space 1999 - Mind-Breaks of Space

by Michael Butterworth

  Osgood strained to sit up. ‘When the fire comes, flee to the catacombs.’

  ‘The what?’ asked Ben.

  ‘The tunnels... the tunnels,’ Osgood ranted. ‘You’ll be safe there.’

  ‘There is no fire, Patrick,’ Tony said soothingly.

  ‘It is coming!’ Osgood shouted and struggled again to move off the stretcher.

  Helena held him firmly back and reached out for the bottle of antiseptic. She was anxious to clean up the wound and see just how much damage had been done. The penetration looked like it might have gone right down to the bone.

  Osgood seemed to calm momentarily. He kept still, then spoke in a very slow and sensible manner. ‘Doctor Russell. If you look closely under my coat... you’ll see I’ve wired myself with several packs of explosive. I have made myself a human bomb.’

  There was a sudden deathly silence and Helena’s hands stopped still over Osgood’s chest.

  ‘Patrick,’ chastized Tony, ‘this is no time for games.’

  Helena shook her head to warn him. ‘May I examine you?’ she asked Osgood.

  ‘Yes, but very carefully. Everyone else stay away.’

  Helena cut away the sleeve of the tunic first to check on the wound. Osgood was still losing blood profusely but it didn’t look like the bone had been damaged. She wiped the edges of the wound clean and stuck on some temporary sutures. Only then did she lift up the garment over the big heaving chest and look underneath. She could just see a thick vest of very expertly connected explosive charges.

  ‘He’s telling the truth,’ Helena told Tony, ‘it looks like he could blow up the entire hospital if he set himself off.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Tony protested.

  Helena’s frown reminded Tony that Osgood was not in his right mind. She said, ‘He just might, though. Personally I’m more worried right now about saving his arm than I am about explosives. Patrick, you’ve got to let me operate...’

  This time Osgood managed to push himself up and swing his legs off the stretcher. ‘I will let you quickly bandage my arm. But then you will take me to my wife.’

  ‘This wound needs extensive attention... you could do with a transfusion...’

  Osgood stopped Helena’s protests by simply raising his good hand. In it he held an electrical clip. The conducting teeth were open, held apart by the pressure of Osgood’s hand on the plastic handles. ‘I don’t want any arguments, just a quick bandage... and then I’m going.’

  Quietly, resentfully, Helena took the gauze pad and began to apply it over the injury. Tony and Ben stood well back, studying the grim determination in Osgood’s face.

  Osgood had trouble walking, but he managed it. Tony still wondered if he really would set off an explosion that would claim so many innocent lives. Somehow there seemed a greater risk that he would stumble and cause a catastrophe by accident. Still it was a bluff they couldn’t risk calling. They had to cooperate.

  Michelle Osgood was under mild sedation when they got to her room, but Patrick’s pleading voice was enough to rouse her. Helena argued and implored as he helped her from the bed.

  ‘Michelle is mine, not yours!’ Osgood shouted.

  ‘She’s not yours to kill,’ Helena insisted. ‘Only a new heart will save her life... and we’re building a new one right now. She’ll never survive if you take her away.’

  ‘How many hearts have you tried already?’ Osgood challenged with a cynical sneer. ‘Your medicine is useless. Now I will show you how my faith can really save life.’

  Helena wouldn’t give in... she couldn’t give in. ‘If I only had some Tiranium, I guarantee I could make a heart that worked. I will get some, Patrick. As soon as I can talk to John, I’ll make him understand how much it means and he’ll release enough for me to use.’

  Osgood didn’t feel like wasting any more time on conversation. He curled his arm around Michelle’s waist, the hand with the trigger mechanism resting on her hip. With loving care he guided her towards the door and the others moved out of his path.

  ‘It’s a long way, Michelle, but we’re going together,’ they heard him whisper as they moved past.

  Michelle was unsteady but kept walking. ‘I love you,’ she said, just as the door closed behind them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Even though they could still see nothing on the screen, Koenig could at least now understand why. They were moving through a vast plasma cloud. One moment they had been in the limitless darkness of empty night; then, without warning, they were inside the cloud. It was still darkness, but this time it was because the external sensors were muffled. Nothing in the audio-visual wavelengths of the spectrum could get through.

  ‘Well, Commander,’ observed Frazer, ‘now we know, why we didn’t know. The question is, exactly what’s on the other side of this cloud?’

  ‘There’s only two ways to find that out, Bill,’ Koenig said dryly. ‘We can go back to Alpha and wait for whatever it is to come through to us... or we can go on through in the Eagle and see in advance. But then we’ll have to hope we can still get back with the information.’

  Frazer grunted and settled back deeper in his seat as he made the ship accelerate forward. ‘We’ll get back, Commander.’

  Along the line of their travel the plasma cloud was less thick than it was deep... so very suddenly they shot out the other side into empty space. At least it registered as empty on all the monitors, but according to the picture on the screens they could have just as likely plunged into the heart of a cool orange sun. The deep, ominous colour was all around them, a bright ochreous hue that swirled with flares of combustion.

  ‘Look! There!’ yelled Koenig. ‘There’s our heat wave.’

  Far out ahead of them they could see the cause of the light. The orange sky was simply an illusion aided by the plasma cloud. In fact the light was a weak advance projection of a wave of twisting, licking and snaking hydrogen fire that stretched across thousands of miles of space. It was a fire storm; the first they had ever seen so grimly near. And it was getting closer every second.

  ‘We’re going to have to outrun it and warn Alpha. What’s the estimated speed of the thing?’ Koenig asked.

  Frazer coded the question for the Eagle’s computer and the answering digits popped up on the screen for them both to see. ‘Hmm,’ Koenig said, doing a quick calculation of his own. ‘Just under two hours until Alpha and the storm cross paths. Let’s get back through this cloud and let them know.’

  The gap between the Eagle and the storm had narrowed dramatically even in the moments they had been speaking. Deceptive tentacles raced out far ahead of the inferno’s main body and would soon be slashing at the Eagle if they didn’t move quickly. Frazer threw the ship into a banked hairpin turn, diving back into the cloud and picking up speed every second.

  They came belting out the other side at maximum thrust and as soon as the transmitters snapped back on Koenig was signalling top priority to the Moon Base.

  ‘This is Eagle One to Moon Base Alpha,’ he announced. ‘Code, Red Alert. I repeat, Red Alert!’

  As the Eagle dived for home Koenig clicked the buttons under his screen to have a look at the rear view with the camera mounted on the craft’s roof. A long tuber of scarlet heat was already through the cloud, slithering out like a fast-growing devil’s weed.

  Frazer had identified Verdeschi and gave him the official facts. ‘Hydrogen fire storm moving towards fifteen degree diagonal collision with Moon Base Alpha. Estimated time of arrival, eleven hundred hours. Computer estimates on lunar surface area to be affected... fifty miles width across full Moon face. Impact variables between one and five megatons.’ For the last segments of information, Frazer dropped the cool, official jargon. ‘And man, is it going to get hot!’

  Koenig cut in. ‘Tony, activate the plan to move to the lower levels right away. We hope to get back just before the storm hits, so don’t lock the door on us.’

  ‘Right, Commander,’ acknowledged Tony. ‘We’ll leave
a key under the mat.’

  ‘Say, Tony,’ Frazer said, ‘how about having a nice cool beer waiting for us when we get back? Never mind the scale of one to ten... just brew up your usual suds and put it on ice.’

  Tony tried hard not to take offence at the slur against his brewing talents. Then he reckoned that he’d have the last laugh anyway, since there wasn’t sufficient refrigeration left in Alpha to make an ice cube at the high heat levels.

  ‘Is Helena there, Tony?’ Koenig asked.

  In fact she was standing by waiting for a chance to speak. Ready to plead the case for Michelle’s heart for all she was worth... and to tell Koenig what had happened to the Osgoods. With this new information about the approaching danger to the Moon Base, she imagined her task would be harder than ever.

  ‘I’m here, John,’ she said.

  ‘Helena, we can’t predict how well the base will come through this storm. We may all get blown to hell. But I think you can help yourself to a little Tiranium to make a new heart for that young lady... if there’s still time.’

  Helena could only nod, her eyes welling with tears. The screen went blank as the Eagle cut off communication. They had enough to think about then, just getting back to the base.

  Tony moved purposefully over to the control panel, seeing with comfort that the rest of the centre staff were already initiating emergency procedures. He placed his hand over the red button and pressed it down. Instantly the entire complex shivered with the sound of the red alert klaxons going off.

  To the general hubbub was added the echo of the intercom system, instructions being passed on to the fire-fighting crew, the engineers and the hospital staff. Tony dialled himself through to the Power Plant. ‘I want all non-essential machinery and equipment shut down... right now! And I mean all.’

  Looking around he could see Helena waiting anxiously for a chance to speak to him. He could guess what she wanted.

  ‘Go on, Helena,’ he said quickly. ‘I believe you’ve got an important job to do. I think your medical crew can handle all the evacuation routine without you.’

  Helena smiled gratefully and rushed out to collect the small amount of Tiranium she would require and to get it safely back to the lab. The new prosthetic heart was already assembled... all she had to do was coat the valves and then they could test it.

  When Maya had finished putting the instruction for the nature of the emergency status into the computer, she looked up and saw Tony’s friendly smile.

  ‘Well, you lovely Psychon witch,’ he said, ‘it looks like it’s up to you and me to find Patrick. We’ve got about half an hour before they’ll have to start moving people below. We’ve got to make sure he isn’t waiting down there to blow us all up when we arrive.’

  Maya signalled her understanding with a quick lift of the chin. ‘Tony,’ she wondered fleetingly. ‘Do you think he really did have a vision?’

  Verdeschi couldn’t answer her. All he knew was that when he looked up to the big screen now he could make out a faraway wave of barbed fire. It had come through the plasma cloud and was getting quickly bigger. The next destination on its route was Alpha.

  Deep in the blackness of the catacombs Patrick and Michelle were resting and Patrick could see a fire of his own. It rippled in the dark, destroying Alpha Moon Base and all the non-believing fools inside it. The faithless would perish and only he and Michelle would survive. He could even see the bed... the brass bed of conjugal bliss sitting innocently on the Moon sands. A ball of flame crashed into it, but Osgood smiled with knowing triumph. The flame could not claim the life of Michelle. He could feel her sitting on the cave floor... just beside him. Her breath panted with weariness and her failing heart fluttered under his touch... but she would live. They had beaten the fire together and now his faith would support and revive her.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said comfortingly to her.

  ‘I’m not afraid when I’m with you. I know you love me.’ Her voice caught with hesitation. ‘But... but, Patrick, wasn’t there any hope for me at the hospital?’

  ‘None at all,’ he answered adamantly.

  ‘Doctor Russell tried very hard.’

  Patrick caressed the fine silk of his wife’s hair. ‘She failed utterly. But I will not. Can you walk now?’

  ‘Just another minute. Perhaps you could sing for me... the way you used to.’

  In the darkness, Osgood’s deep, vibrant voice began to softly intone a beautiful and haunting Gregorian chant. He let the song grow in volume until it resounded through the very fibre of the cave walls. Michelle sighed and relaxed even more against him, feeling enormously comforted by the sound. Her eyes were closed, so she didn’t see, as Patrick did, the distant glimmer of a torch beam. It shook as the person carrying it walked towards them.

  Patrick ceased his singing and said with easy firmness, ‘And now we really must go.’

  ‘Thank you, Patrick,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, I will try now.’

  Osgood rushed her as much as he could but even he could sense the limit of her resources. He only wished he had two good arms so he could carry her. Anxiously he looked back and could see the search was rapidly gaining on them. His belief that they had found their salvation and were safe had been shattered; they were still threatened with being dragged back up to die with the rest of the fools. He knew, however, he could and would blow them all to bits rather than give in.

  The tunnel curved and twisted so he managed to keep them out of the beam of the light. Whoever it was, was relentless however, and he could tell by occasional snatches of voice that they were still catching up. He couldn’t risk using his own torch, but moved through the catacombs with a long refined miner’s instinct. But, after five minutes of a steady pace, Michelle’s legs collapsed under her.

  ‘I haven’t any more strength,’ she protested.

  He tried to lift her up. ‘We’re almost safe now... please, just a little farther.’

  ‘Nono, I must rest.’

  Osgood looked frantically back to see if their pursuers had come into view. ‘You must go on!’ he pleaded.

  Michelle only slumped down further, momentarily blacking out. Osgood stretched himself out beside her and realized that loss of blood and tension was taking its toll of his strength as well.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he whispered in her ear.

  Michelle responded to the beloved voice, saying ‘Don’t worry, Patrick. I’m not afraid to die.’

  The sentence brought a new surge of power to Patrick. He could not bear to hear her talk of dying... it shook him right down to his soul. ‘You will never die!’ he said. ‘I will not let you go. You are being and breath... and you will never be destroyed! Trust me... trust me.’

  They were still fifty yards away when Verdeschi’s light caught the two bodies lying side by side on the tunnel floor. Tony felt sure that Michelle must be finished by then and that Osgood was probably in pretty bad shape himself.

  Maya’s vision was keener, however, and she detected movement from both the people they were seeking. ‘There. There, look !’

  Patrick Osgood powered himself up to his feet, swaying but teeth gritted to continue the chase. He reached down his hand, and unbelievably, Michelle rose up from the ground, her face beaming at his. Together they walked swiftly and smoothly away, out of sight around another twist in the labyrinth.

  Tony and Maya, with two Security Guards right behind, hurried after them. They had just about reached the point where they had seen the Osgoods lying, when Tony’s commlock buzzed for his attention.

  ‘Verdeschi,’ he spoke into it, still moving forward.

  He recognized Helena’s voice. ‘Tony, we’ve just run a complete range of tests...’ she could hardly contain her excitement, ‘and it’s working! It’s working perfectly. You’ve got to find her and bring her back.’

  ‘All right, Helena,’ he replied. ‘We’ve almost caught up with them...’

  Suddenly the entire Moon rumbled with the sound of a mighty explosion. Th
e floor underfoot swayed and there was a deep roll like kettle drums. Tony looked up and saw dust and rock chips floating from the tunnel ceiling.

  ‘Tony,’ questioned Helena, ‘what was that?’

  ‘I think it must be the advance wave of the fire storm. It’s going to be a rough ride from now on.’

  Desperately, Helena urged, ‘You must get her, Tony. We can’t lose her now!’

  ‘We’ll get her,’ he said with firm reassurance. He only wished he felt as confident as he sounded, bracing himself against the wall as he heard another shock wave racing towards them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Frazer brought the Eagle down towards the Moon surface in a landing pattern, they could see that the streamers of fire that had whipped past them in space had already caused some damage to the above-ground Moon Base. Several buildings were on fire, but all of them had been vacated by the move underground months before.

  As they scanned the terrain for further signs of destruction they caught sight of a fairly large fire-ball striking the rim of a crater about five miles away. In a perfect imitation of eruption the cavity gushed with flame and the smoke of scattered dust. Frazer estimated the force of it would have been enough to knock a man off his feet right on the other side of luna.

  Koenig called down to the Command Centre to check on the situation and to clear their landing.

  ‘Sahn here, Commander,’ answered the Senior Operations Supervisor.

  ‘We’re making our landing approach, Sahn. Is the flight deck still all right?’

  Sahn grinned into the monitor. ‘Affirmative, Commander. We’re ready for you. As soon as you touch down I’ll get the travel tube on the air-lock. I don’t recommend that you hang around for a post-flight instrument check... get inside and underground as fast as you can. The main body of the firestorm will be hitting us very soon.’

  ‘Right, Sahn. What’s the situation so far?’

  The man’s usually imperturbable face became just a little uneasy. ‘There’s a lot of topside damage, sir, but we’re not suffering much down here. A few minor casualties so far, but nothing serious. The evacuation to the lower tunnels is under way but we’re being slowed down by Mr Verdeschi’s orders not to use bottom level until he says it’s all right.’