Verdeschi and Helena looked at him for a lead. The double shock to his system – firstly, the rude awakening from sleep and the nightmares, and now Sally’s brutal murder – began to have its effect, and he was unable to think clearly. He turned irritably to Helena. ‘So what killed her? You’re the doctor – you must have some idea.’
Helena winced. On any other occasion she would have been surprised and hurt by his brusqueness, but she was still trying to orientate herself and collect her thoughts together. ‘I’m sorry, John,’ she said distantly. ‘Not at this stage... I’ll need to conduct a full autopsy.’
‘Conduct it!’ Koenig told her, almost savagely. Part of him told him that his personnel needed treating roughly. They were too overcome by the incident. He turned to Verdeschi. ‘I want a complete dossier on the girl. Let me know when you’re ready. Do I have to spell everything out?’
Verdeschi looked taken back. ‘I just thought I’d better let you know...’
‘Know what?’ Koenig cut him off. ‘You know nothing. We’ll talk when you’ve some facts to discuss.’
‘Very good... Commander,’ the other snapped angrily. He stared querulously at Helena as Koenig departed quickly from the room, his jaw still set to steel himself against the horror on the floor.
Koenig’s roughness had worked.
‘What’s chewing on his nerve-ends?’ Verdeschi asked sourly. Helena shook her head. She didn’t seem helpless any mare. Her characteristic look of concern had returned – concern, and a harder, practical manner.
She pulled out her comlock and requested the presence of two of her orderlies to help her carry away the body. ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Verdeschi when she had finished. She looked thoughtful, remembering how difficult it had been to rouse the Commander.
Koenig strode airily into the Command Centre. He didn’t want to come down hard on people, but sometimes people needed to be shook up a little.
He glanced cursorily at the busy consoles and the Computer Operators who sat dutifully behind them. There was a tense-. ness in the Centre caused by the general knowledge of the Moon Base’s dire predicament regarding energy.
Koenig headed towards his Command Chair in front of the Big Screen, then spotted Maya’s puzzled face and changed direction. ‘Still getting malfunctions?’ he asked her as he came over.
The Psychon woman gazed studiously at her controls, as though not hearing his question. The frown on her brow crinkled all the more. It wasn’t a frown of perplexion. It was the frown of someone who knows she can work out all the answers but time is going to have to be expended doing so. At last she looked up, her computer-like mind working rapidly behind her attractive brown eyes. ‘Minor bugs, John,’ she told him. ‘false signals... “ghosts”.’
Koenig slammed his hand down on her console top in irritation. ‘Damn the “ghosts”. I’ve had my fair share...’ he began, but then thought better of it. The computers had been playing up for several hours, and no-one could fix them. It was as though they were suffering from a fluctuation in power levels, but the current that was being fed to them was consistent and as strong as they needed. He couldn’t understand it. ‘First people... now the machines,’ he said. ‘Just get rid of those bugs, OK?’
He was about to make his way once more towards his own console when Sandra Benes, one of the Operatives, called out to him. Her console was adjacent to Maya’s. ‘Commander? I think I may have found the problem.’
She was bent over her readings, deeply engrossed. Koenig sighed with relief. ‘At least someone’s found something,’ he said. He came and peered over her shoulder at the madly flashing lights and needles. Sahn stabbed at a button, and the Big Screen lit up. On it appeared a sea of brilliant stars too dense to count.
All eyes were riveted for a moment on the picture of empty space. Sandra herself looked distressed. ‘That’s funny...’ She looked down at her console again. ‘As far as I can tell, we seem to be in some kind of a gaseous zone.’
Koenig contained his impatience. After all, her readings might be correct. Just because a ‘Something’ existed out there in Space didn’t mean to say it was visible to the human eye.
Sandra told Maya her readings and the Psychon soon began picking them up herself. Maya’s frown disappeared and she looked more optimistic. ‘That would account for why I couldn’t pick them up before,’ she spoke aloud as sudden knowledge seemed to dawn on her. She looked back at the Big Screen, then at Koenig, who was watching her with renewed interest. ‘We appear to be surrounded with electrically charged particles of some kind,’ she said. She looked back at her console and moved certain controls. Lightening calculations took place in her head. ‘It’s the electricity that’s affecting the sensors. What we’re looking at is affecting the instruments we’re looking with.’
‘Yes, but what are we looking at?’ Koenig stared blankly at the endless stars on the Big Screen. He realized that the answer to his question was still unknown. He turned back to Maya. ‘Assessment of danger?’
The Psychon shrugged. ‘I assume we’ll keep on getting the malfunctions as we pass through this... whatever it is. We’ll pass out the other side and things will go back to normal...’ She studied her controls again. ‘There’s no way yet of telling how big the field of particles is.’
‘You assume?’ Koenig barked. He knew that he had no cause to get at Maya, but he couldn’t shake off his mood.
Maya ignored his rough manner. She indicated the oscilloscope on her console instead, forcing Koenig’s unwilling attention to it. The green, phosphorescent tube showed a series of white dots pulsing across. The dots followed a complex up-and-down pattern. ‘The electrical charge is pulsing on a fairly low level,’ Maya told him. ‘It’s too slight to harm anyone.’
‘Another assumption?’ Koenig countered coldly.
As well as her phenomenal mathematical abilities, Maya was renowned for her coolness and presence of mind. It took a lot to ruffle her. But she was unused to being dealt with in so insensitive a fashion by Koenig. ‘I can only go by the instruments, John,’ she retorted. She looked searchingly at him. ‘I assume they are less fallible in their read-outs than humans.’
‘Yes,’ Koenig snapped back at her. ‘They are less fallible.’ His jaw tightened. ‘But in this instance, the human element doesn’t have an option to prove itself.’
As though from a great distance, he heard himself announcing the news of Sally Martin’s death. He watched the shocked faces behind the consoles mouthing their exclamations of dismay.
CHAPTER TWO
Mentally, Harry Garth was an average man. Physically, he was a giant. He had a large, ruddy face and a brown, hairy beard that stuck out wildly all around his face. He was scrupulously clean, but he always managed to keep an unkempt appearance, perhaps because he preferred it that way. Because of his tendency to flare up when things weren’t going his way, most Alphans kept out of his way. But he had an appealing, conspiratorial manner about him that attracted some fatalistic people. To these few Harry Garth couldn’t put a foot wrong. The strong, rough and ready personality he cultivated, mixed with redeeming amounts of roguish charm and cunning, held them spell-bound. It did more than that. It captivated their less-effective minds and as a result he was surrounded by these few ‘cronies’ and henchmen.
For all his strength of mind, Harry Garth had a set of weaknesses that, since time immemorial, had brought many a stronger man than he, even, crashing to their doom. He loved women. He loved drink. And he loved to play dice.
Off-duty, he and a number of other Alphans were relaxing in the large lounge in the Recreation Centre. They were fresh up from their shifts in the mines and had another shift to go before their overworked bodies would be able to stretch out and gain a few miserly hours of sleep. Harry Garth and Carl Renton, a skinny, bespectacled youth normally too nervous to open his mouth, were playing Harry’s favourite game. On the table in front of them was a large pile of assorted postage stamps and match-boxes – parts of the collecti
ons belonging to the two men, acquired from their earlier days on Earth. Round the low table was an interested collection of men and women who were watching the play.
Harry Garth wore a scowl of bad temper.
Carl Renton looked more than usually unhappy. In front of him was a large pile of Garth’s rare match-boxes, as well as most of his own stamp collection. He was physically trembling with dismay as he watched Garth shaking the dice... dismay at winning. His acutely sensitive nervous system told him that his large playmate was near to exploding point.
‘Beat that!’ Garth growled, throwing the dice across the table-top aggressively. The dice tumbled on the smooth surface and all heads craned intently forward to see what had been thrown.
A six and a five.
Renton gulped, knowing that he would beat it. For some weird reason, he didn’t seem able to throw a hand lower than double six... yet he had never before won a game in his life, and was usually bullied into playing. As though to increase his misery, he felt a deep down well of satisfaction at the thought of his success. He tried desperately not to let it show on his face, knowing that if Garth caught even a trace of his real feelings, his miserable life wouldn’t be worth living.
Trembling uncontrollably, his long, bony fingers picked up the dice and pressed them inside the shaker. Garth glared challengingly at him and the onlookers wore deadly silent masks of apprehension.
With a shake that was scarcely detectable from the mass of shakes that convulsed him, the reluctant Renton threw his dice. He tossed them away from him as though they were untouchable lumps of excrement and averted his eyes from the tell-tale black spots.
A low, rumbling growl escaped Garth’s lips and the on lookers gasped. Almost whimpering, Renton realized without looking that the worst had come true.
‘You did it again!’ Garth shouted, wrathfully. He heaved his heavy bulk out of his seat, tipping the table and all their stakes on the floor.
Renton got to his feet, a mumbling, jangling wreck, and backed away as Garth bore down on him. ‘J... Just luck, Harry. Let’s call it a day...’ he said, gulping.
Garth brought up a ham-sized hand and squeezed Renton’s shoulder painfully. ‘Siddown!’ he roared.
Renton sat.
In front of him he was aware of the big man’s red face. Garth was crouching down, staring at him with bulging, bloodshot eyes and smothering him with rancid breath.
‘That makes seventeen games, Carl...’ he said threateningly.
‘Just a lucky streak...’ Renton gasped. ‘I c-can’t understand it...’
Pacified slightly by the submissive condition of the unfortunate man, a glint of reasoning returned to Garth’s eyes. He let go of Renton’s shoulder, but he kept his gaze on him. ‘This is a game of chance, right?’ he growled.
Renton nodded rapidly, hoping thdt the large miner would be swayed by agreeableness and leave him alone.
‘Like, I win some, you win some?’ Garth continued ominously as his meaning was beginning to sink in. ‘Only mostly I win, on account of I’m a lucky gambler. How come I never win any more, Carl?’
Renton shrugged desperately. ‘I-I’d just as soon stop right now,’ he pleaded in a small voice. ‘You can have all the winnings... due back on my shift soon...’
The unkempt giant shook his head and roared. ‘Oh no! I want to know about this lucky streak of yours... I want to see how long it goes on.’
‘Harry, please...’ Renton blurted out. A tear began to trickle down his anguished face, but either Garth was too mad to care or he was too mad to notice.
‘Roll ’em!’ he demanded menacingly. He reached out long arms and collected the dice and the shaker off the floor. He pressed them firmly in Renton’s hands. Then he righted the table and yanked the skinny miner back on his feet.
Renton lurched towards the table as though he were going to be sick and sat back down in the chair. Garth stood behind him and watched over his shoulder. He glared suspiciously at Renton’s hands, watching the thrower’s every move.
Gulping uncontrollably, Renton threw the dice. As he threw, that wishful something – the part of Renton that longed to triumph over other men but which had been imprisoned tim. idly inside him for as long as he could remember – bubbled up and, he felt, guided the throw for him. He was unable to prevent the feeling spreading to his face, and his features cracked in an insane grin of delight.
Garth sensed the brief grin, and he noted the way the dice had fallen.
He exploded. ‘That does it, you crumb!’
He reached down and hauled Renton back on his feet. He shook him furiously, violently shrugging off the efforts of the other miners to break the scuffle up:
‘That really does it!’ he howled, enraged. Renton was gibbering. He dragged him over to the wall and began banging him against it with an insane determination.
Verdeschi, wearing a grim expression on his face, burst into the lounge. The noise of the body being hammered against the wall had caught his attention. He took in the scene – the disarrayed gaming table and the crowd of shouting miners – and marched angrily over. He broke his way through them and grabbed at one of Garth’s heaving shoulders.
‘Break it up!’ he yelled harshly at him.
‘Get lost, Verdeschi!’ Garth yelled back, and mercilessly continued his unwarranted attack on Renton.
Verdeschi, himself no saint so far as his temper was concerned, increased his pressure on the giant’s shoulder until he held it in a painful, vice-like grip.
Garth spun round, his face mad with wrath, and launched himself at the Italian. He aimed a massive blow with his fist, which, if it had found its mark would have put Verdeschi out cold for several hours. But Verdeschi side-stepped, and aimed two short, chopping blows at Garth’s straining biceps. The big miner yelled like a child and clutched his arm. The stinging pain brought him back to his senses and he backed respectfully away from Verdeschi.
‘What’s all the noise about?’ Verdeschi asked him angrily.
‘My losing eighteen games in a row!’ Garth yelled at him, rubbing his muscles. ‘That’s what it’s about!’
Renton climbed slowly to his feet from where he had fallen when Garth had let go of him. He looked sheet-white, and as if he now really did need to be sick. Verdeschi’s presence reassured him, however. ‘Not my fault...’ he gasped. ‘I wasn’t cheating, if that’s what he means.’ He shook his head and burst into tears. ‘I-I don’t seem able to lose... something’s gone wrong...’ He brought his hand up to his forehead and began pressing his head, as though there were some inexplicable demon inside him that needed to be ousted.
Verdeschi shook his head, baffled at the sheer stupidity of their argument. His anger was quelled by Renton’s obvious distress, and he led the unfortunate miner over to the couch and sat him down. ‘You’d better stay out of games of chance,’ he told him. ‘You seem to be too lucky for your own good.’ He turned to Garth, and addressed him more forcibly. ‘Now you get lost, Garth. If you can’t take losing – don’t play.’
Garth grumbled. Giving them both a parting glare, he shambled ungraciously out of the room.
Verdeschi gazed after him. He scratched his head and shook it. It was the Moon Base that was going horribly ‘wrong’. First Sally Martin. Now, a serious case of personnel trouble; and these two incidents on top of a spate of other minor ones. He pursed his lips and turned to face the Alphans who were supposed to be relaxing.
Carolyn Powell, a dark, intense woman was among them. She was not conventionally beautiful, as the late Sally Martin was, he thought, but she was curiously attractive in her own way. She had a kind of smouldering sensuality. Next to her was Mark Sanders, a tall, handsome man, vain and basically weak-charactered despite his masculine good looks. He and Carolyn were the only two in the room who were seated. They were sitting together on one of the divan seats. Sanders was holding the woman in such a way as to indicate that they had been communicating intimacies to one another. Their love game had been arres
ted by the disturbance, and now they were both looking towards Verdeschi.
The Security Chief strode over. He smiled grimly. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said.
‘Hi, Tony,’ Sanders greeted him cheerfully. ‘Good job you came in just then. What can we do for you?’
Verdeschi’s smile vanished, and he looked upset. ‘I hate to lay it on you this way,’ he said to him. ‘I came to tell you that... Sally Martin is dead...’
There was a stunned silence from Sanders. He let go of Carolyn and rose to his feet.
‘Sally... dead?’ he asked, dazed.
The silence in the room increased as the other Alphans heard the news.
On the low seat that Sanders had vacated, Carolyn Powell pretended to be upset. She lowered her face in her hands. ‘Oh, no...’ she said. She looked unconvincingly up at Verdeschi, and for a moment, Verdeschi found himself damning her.
‘We’d heard there’d been some kind of an accident...’ she said. ‘But no-one could tell us the story...’
‘No-one knows the full story – yet,’ Verdeschi told her. He turned to Sanders, who was genuinely grieved. ‘The Commander would like to ask you both a few questions. Maybe you can help us come up with some answers to this.’
Sanders nodded looking as though he had been stricken. ‘Sure... anything...’
‘How did she die, Mr Verdeschi...?’ Carolyn asked from where she still sat.
‘Come on... you’ll see,’ Verdeschi said. He gestured for her to follow them. He led the way through the stupified assembly and out into the corridor.
He took them to the Medical Centre where Helena was performing her autopsy on the body of the Technician. Koenig was with her, impatiently waiting for Verdeschi to arrive.
‘... no cuts, no bruises, no blast burns. No sign that any weapon was used,’ Helena was telling him as Verdeschi entered. He had left Sanders and the woman outside. He watched the doctor pulling off her gloves. ‘But her body was shattered...’ she continued, staring at Verdeschi.
Space 1999 - The Psychomorph Page 2