Space 1999 - The Psychomorph

by Michael Butterworth

  The haughty woman continued with her search, standing at the back of the crowd and peering into the midst of it. She looked distinctly puzzled.

  Another pan of the camera caught Ben Vincent. He was standing with a vivacious black girl. They were holding each other at arms length, gazing happily into one another’s eyes.

  ‘Louisa!’ he smiled, slowly shaking his head in wonder. ‘I’ve been a long time waiting, Baby.’

  Louisa agreed, squeezing his hands and gazing adoringly at him. ‘We took a left instead of a right.’

  He nodded. ‘Did you make that physiotherapy major?’

  ‘Absolutely did!’ she cried, her eyes alight with delight. A look of mock concern suddenly crossed her face and she let go of him and reached up towards his neck. ‘You got any knots you want cracking?’

  He nodded again, going along with the game. He placed her hand on his neck. ‘Just there,’ he said. ‘It’s been hurting me like hell.’

  They burst out laughing and began hugging one another tightly.

  Followed by too many admiring eyes, yet unbefriended as such, Maya walked hastily towards Verdeschi and grabbed his arm. Verdeschi smiled and introduced her to his brother. ‘Maya, this is my brother, Guido.’

  At once Guido became over-attentive. He took her casually-offered hand and bowed graciously low. ‘His younger brother and his smarter brother and his handsomer brother...’ he announced. ‘At your-disposal.’

  Verdeschi laughed. ‘In every way he’s a poor second!’

  Guido feigned hurt and straightened up. He opened his palm and held it in front of Verdeschi. ‘Put it there, old buddy.’

  Verdeschi’s eyebrows raised in a gesture of anguished resignation. He shrugged and complied. ‘Certainly, old buddy.’ They clasped right hands together and squeezed in an Indian-style wrestling hold. They strained and grunted. Finally, red-faced, they both let go, neither able to gain the advantage.

  Maya pretended amazement. Inwardly she was flattered by all the attention she was receiving. ‘Is it always like this between you?’ she asked.

  Guido grinned. ‘No. Usually I dominate him effortlessly.’

  ‘He has to have his little fantasies,’ Verdeschi replied. ‘It has to do with the fact that I always stole his girls.’

  ‘He could never get any of his own,’ the younger man cracked.

  ‘He’s a cab driver,’ Verdeschi countered.

  ‘I captain the Superswift that brought us here!’ Guido cried, turning to Maya to impress upon her this fact.

  ‘It’s a miracle anyone made it,’ Verdeschi grinned.

  Maya seemed to take this more seriously. ‘How did you make it?’ she asked Guido. ‘In the current state of Earth’s science, it’s impossible. That Superswift project had to be scrapped because it was too ambitious.’

  Guido tut-tutted. ‘You’ve all been away too long.’

  ‘I’ll second that!’ Verdeschi cried.

  ‘Little old Earth has progressed,’ his brother went on. ‘Physics came up with a new wrinkle; we can now make loops in the continuum.’

  The Security Chief snorted, still grinning wildly. ‘Don’t let him fool you, Maya. He hasn’t got the faintest idea what he’s talking about.’

  Helena and the tall, pipe-smoking figure of Dr Shaw parted from the mutual monopoly they held over each other’s professional attention. They let into their circle a shiny-eyed Sahn and her somewhat overcome boyfriend in tow behind her.

  ‘Dr Russell, this is Peter Rockwell,’ Sahn announced proudly. ‘He’s a pilot. We were going to be married when my tour of duty on Alpha ended.’

  Peter Rockwell caught up with her and hugged her affectionately. He looked up at the two doctors. ‘I thought I’d lost her for good.’

  Helena cocked her head and smiled knowingly at him. ‘Never under-estimate human inventiveness,’ she advised.

  Dr Shaw puffed on his pipe. ‘You always did take that view, Helena.’

  Rockwell looked from one to the other. ‘You two knew each other before?’

  ‘Dr Shaw was my tutor at Medical School,’ Helena informed him. ‘He taught me everything I know.’

  Her old tutor withdrew his pipe modestly from his mouth and gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that!’

  ‘Not the details,’ Helena smiled fondly at him. ‘I mean in the real sense. What it is to be a doctor and not a technician. What it means.’

  ‘You always were a dedicated young lady,’ Shaw puffed reflectively.

  His comment unintentionally made Helena feel depressed. ‘Dedication isn’t always enough,’ she murmured, turning her head imperceptibly aside.

  Sensing a sudden change in mood, Rockwell tugged at Sahn. He turned to Shaw and shook his hand. ‘Well, nice to meet you... and you too Doctor Russell.’ He shook her limp hand. Then he and Sahn drifted away into the mêlée, brushing past a small, talkative man with a hump on his back as they did so.

  The little man turned in annoyance and watched them disappear out of reach. He turned back to face Jack Bartlett, the nuclear-physicist who designed the Nuclear Waste Dumps. ‘Bloody kids... where was I? Oh, yes, Rhinehart made the breakthrough at Cambridge.’

  ‘Cambridge, England?’ Bartlett stuck his head forward and his eyes bulged with astonishment.

  The hunch-back waved his arms in a gesture of impatience. ‘No, Massachusetts.’ Bartlett grunted bad-temperedly as he went on: ‘It means we can go anywhere in the Universe now. The journey back to Earth – well, it’s practically a bus-ride in Earth time.’

  Bartlett allowed his temper to improve, caught once more by the enthusiasm which was sweeping through the Centre at the prospect of returning to the Mother Planet. But he didn’t want to sound over-enthusiastic to his colleague, so he nodded his head matter-of-factly. ‘It had to come, of course... Cambridge, Massachusetts, you say...?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hunter replied smugly, and launched into a further tirade of facts and discoveries before the other could stop him.

  The roving camera lens swung back to observe Helena and her developing situation. She and Dr Shaw were the only ones present who seemed in a low key. She looked deeply unhappy; he looked concerned, and faintly exasperated.

  He thrust the briar back into his mouth and clenched it between his teeth. He puffed wildly on it. ‘I really hoped you’d put all that nonsense behind you,’ he admonished.

  She hung her head. ‘I’ve had a great deal of time to analyze it,’ she explained in a low voice. ‘If I’d been a born doctor instead of a manufactured one I’d have had the right response.’

  Dr Shaw jerked his pipe out of his mouth and almost struck it in the ear of the man standing next to him. ‘Helena, you are a born doctor!’ he cried. ‘When your father had his coronary you were only a first year intern.’

  ‘I was there in the house when it happened,’ she went on dourly.

  ‘It was massive and without warning; how could you have hoped to have the answers?’ He drew closer to her and put his ascetically handsome face close to hers.

  Helena was still not convinced. ‘I haven’t lost many patients,’ she admitted, ‘but the first one had to be my father.’.

  ‘He wasn’t your patient, be told... and you weren’t qualified at the time.’ He drew his face away, and pursed his lips. He laid a hand on her arm. ‘You’re a doctor now.’

  She sighed heavily, and looked up at her former tutor. She smiled faintly, grateful for his reassurance.

  A few groups away, Guido’s ostentatious voice could be heard rising above the general babble. ‘We’re just the scouting party,’ he said to Verdeschi and Maya. ‘The big transporters will be along soon and then it’s good-bye Moon for everyone.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Verdeschi replied exaltedly. ‘How’s Momma?’

  ‘You know Momma – she’s making a mound of pasta the size of Vesuvius! And the sauce!’ He smacked his lips.

  His brother laughed. ‘I know; Everything in it but holy water!’ He looked seriously at Gui
do. ‘How did she take it when the news broke out – you know, that we’d blown away?’

  Guido gave a big shrug, displaying the palms of his hands. ‘Three days of weeping. Then two weeks of calling the White House to demand action.’

  Verdeschi burst out laughing again, well able to picture his mother angrily storming the presidential abode.

  ‘Then she finally decided simply not to believe it,’ Guido continued, a trifle sadly. ‘The scientists were talking out of their navels as usual and it was just a matter of time.’

  ‘And Poppa?’ Verdeschi asked zealously.

  ‘He went quiet. And got thin.’ The other now looked downcast.

  ‘Sure,’ Verdeschi nodded knowingly.

  The camera, propelled by Clive Kander, came into range and levelled itself at them. It broke the mounting sadness they were beginning to feel. ‘Always with the camera, huh, Clive?’ the Security Chief commented. ‘Is there anything you don’t get on tape?’

  ‘This is for the record!’ Kander’s voice issued enthusiastically from behind his weapon. ‘This little baby’s watching history being made.’

  ‘There’s only one thing, Clive,’ Guido told him, grinning broadly as the lens caught him.

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’ Kander asked casually, unperturbed.

  ‘You won’t get to be in the picture!’

  Kander smiled and moved off to another group. On his way he caught sight of the haughty woman who appeared to have given up her search and was standing still. He filmed her briefly before bumping into Helena and Dr Shaw again. They seemed less depressed now. They were talking shop again, and picking up.

  ‘We’ve learned a lot about ourselves in our limited little world up here,’ Helena spoke softly.

  Dr Shaw’s puffs had become more sedate. ‘In what way?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a kind of Earth-sickness; like home-sickness. It’s almost a physical craving.’

  ‘Some of the early astronauts mentioned it,’ Shaw nodded, holding his stem firmly and staring into space.

  ‘It’s like Antaeus, the Greek giant who was only strong when he was in contact with Earth.’

  ‘Hercules beat him by lifting him in the air.’

  ‘Some people here were like that. Without the Earth they just sickened and died. The rest of us adapted...’ She spied the haughty lady again, making her way towards them. She broke off the conversation. The other woman’s off-hand wave earlier on had brought back a series of none too appetizing memories.

  ‘Oh, oh...’ she warned.

  Dr Shaw, for all his apparent abstractness had spotted her coming too. He frowned distantly. ‘Trouble?’

  Helena nodded grimly. ‘She’s been looking for John ever since she came in. She knew John before I met him.’

  ‘Does that give her territorial rights?’ Shaw asked, suggestively, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Diana is like the Fifth Cavalry,’ Helena replied. ‘Wherever she plants her flag is home.’

  ‘Yes... well... I think I’ll leave you to it,’ Dr Shaw with drew his pipe and slipped it in his top pocket. He wandered off aloofly to see who else he knew.

  ‘Coward!’ Helena shouted after him. She turned abruptly, and changed her face in time to greet Diana the Predator.

  ‘Helena, darling!’ the dark-haired woman droned, embracing her hastily. ‘We haven’t had a proper little talk.’

  The two women fell apart. Helena recovered. ‘Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for that.’

  ‘You poor dear!’ Diana exclaimed, casting her eyes over Helena’s tousled hair, leaving no crease or piece of fluff unnoticed. ‘It must have been terrible here! I mean it’s obviously been awfully wearing.’

  Helena caught her meaning. ‘I think Space is hard on women generally. How long have you been Navigating Officer now?’

  Diana’s face registered the hit. ‘Still, there’s something to be said for a marooned society: it limits the men’s choices.’

  ‘And the women’s opportunities. Would you like that?’ Helena asked quickly.

  The other woman purred, undeterred. ‘I’ve always made my own opportunities.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed. Some of us prefer them to come to us.’

  ‘But then you always were a bit of a mouse.’

  ‘Whereas you were more like the trap.’

  The façade started to crack. Diana threw in an underhand insult. ‘I think it’s so clever of you to have kept your hair the same old colour. Tell me, where do you find the peroxide up here?’

  This one really did score, but Helena persevered with the childish patter for the sake of her standing with Koenig. ‘The peroxide comes from rocket fuel... I was just noticing your new nose.’

  The vamp laughed coarsely and confidently threw back her head. She allowed herself to be admired. ‘And?’

  ‘I hope you didn’t throw the old one away.’

  Diana reverted her head to its old position and smiled through her teeth. She seemed to lose interest in their conversation and her eyes pointedly roved the milling crowd again. ‘How do you get along with John Koenig?’

  Helena was waiting. ‘Well, you know... in a small community one has to get on with everyone.’

  ‘Cosy.’

  ‘Isn’t it.’

  ‘Do you... still like him?’ Diana asked with affected in souciance.

  ‘He’s everything you said he was,’ Helena replied with feigned sweetness.

  ‘I’m glad you can second my opinion.’

  ‘In fact he’s even more than you said he was,’ Helena continued, sensing that she had now scored the largest mark. ‘There are depths in him which you evidently missed.’

  ‘I must look for him at once.’ Diana’s face grew urgent.

  ‘I’ve got him on a brain machine,’ Helena told her honestly.

  ‘How very wise of you, darling.’

  She moved purposefully away, as though propelled by Helena’s uneasy stare.

  Deep in his dreamless limbo, Koenig’s life-impulses travelled on a desperate voyage of their own. They had not reached the end of their journey across the aeons of biologic existence back into the Light, but they were on the verge of doing so.

  Unaware even that he lived, or that there was any chance of salvation, his sightless, feelingless body lay in its cot attached to the masses of electronic life-lines.

  Unknowingly, at that moment his quiet body was being plundered by the nerveless fingers of a saboteur. Sandstrom, Medical Technician, was affected by the strengthening Psychic Waves that, unnoticed, had re-commenced their tidal invasion of the Moon Base.

  With mindless stealth, his blind, sightless eyes gazed at the wires and dials, and his fumbling fingers began feeling for the controls and began switching them off, one by one.

  While the festivities went on, Koenig went out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Louisa’s intent face gazed with admiration at a triumphant Ben Vincent. ‘It’s a good, rational set-up,’ she told him encouragingly.

  ‘We’ve refined it constantly,’ the Doctor went on. ‘Commander Koenig’s an easy man to please – all he asks for is perfection.’

  Louisa shook her head and flashed a wide-eyed smile. ‘I don’t remember you ever settling for less.’

  ‘Yeah... well...’ Vincent coloured slightly. He remembered the intensity of the relationship he had had with Louisa. She had deliberately reminded him of it, and he itched to resume it at the earliest possible opportunity. Changing the subject, he began pointing out the instrumentation in the Command Centre which he thought might interest her. ‘That’s the master computer which provides video links throughout the Base.’ He pointed to several imposing banks of hardware which covered the wall behind him. In the centre was a monitor, and beneath it the legend MEDICAL CENTRE RELAY. Koenig’s cot, attended by the Medical Orderly, could be seen on it in a continuous broadcast. ‘And this is the medical console. From here we can remote-monitor any patient in the... Great Scott!’

  He flung Louisa
aside as he noticed what the orderly was in fact doing to Koenig. He fought his way desperately across the crowded Centre, watched by an astonished Louisa, and raced out of the open doors where groups of chatting people had overspilled.

  The corridor leading to the Medical Centre was quiet – as was the rest of the Moon Base apart from the Command Centre. Only Verdeschi’s Security Guards and other personnel performing essential services were to be seen.

  Ben Vincent fired his comlock at the Medical Centre doors. They slid smoothly open and he burst inside. Sandstrom was still in the process of ‘switching off’ Koenig, and seemed not to notice the doctor. In fact, he was either deaf or inordinately engrossed in his work, Vincent thought. He landed a vicious karate chop on the back of the man’s neck and dragged the sagging body aside. He raced round the various medical control systems, switching them all back on. Most had been turned off, or had their leads unplugged, and Koenig seemed in a bad way.

  Helena ran breathlessly into the Centre. ‘Louisa told me...’ She noticed Sandstrom’s crumpled body on the floor and stopped short.

  Vincent looked grimly up at her from the face of one of the oscilloscopes registering Koenig’s heart rate. ‘Sandstrom was trying to kill the Commander,’ he said.

  ‘Is John all right?’ She ran towards Vincent and peered over his shoulder at the instrumentation. A weak pulse blipped across the tube.

  ‘He’s all right only because he was just about ready to wake up. If it had happened earlier...’ Vincent muttered, springing over to another panel and making some fine adjustments.

  ‘But why?’ Helena asked, perplexed.

  As though to answer her question, the body on the floor twitched. Sandstrom reared a dazed head. ‘W... What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘What happened?!’ Vincent exploded. ‘You just tried to kill John Koenig!’

  It was evident from the orderly’s increasing confusion that he remembered nothing of the incident. ‘Kill Koenig?’ He sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. He sat still for a moment. Then, as his memory returned, he transformed into a raging maniac. He leapt up and ran towards the Brain Impulse Machine.

  This time, Vincent was ready for him. He spun away from the controls and grabbed the frothing man in an armlock. ‘Kill Koenig!’ Sandstrom screamed, struggling violently. ‘I have to kill Koenig! He could destroy us all!’