‘John, it’s all right. Those people...’ Verdeschi told him, ‘they’re from Earth. You know some of them. They’ve come to take us home.’
‘What people?’ the Commander snapped. ‘Haven’t you seen what you’ve got out there? Are you blind?’
Helena moved over to him with the glass. She looked more purposeful. ‘Please, John, you’ve got to trust us...’
The glazed, demented look returned again to Koenig’s eyes. His brief period of lucidity was over and she sighed deeply in anguish.
‘I’ve got to get out of here... for your sakes!’ he screamed, straining to rise.
Verdeschi applied more pressure and he collapsed back on his bed in exhaustion. The Italian turned to Helena sadly. ‘I’d have said he was the last man who’d flip out.’
‘Do you hear me?’ Koenig spluttered. ‘I have to get out of here! Got to get out! There’s death and corruption all around you!’
With a feeling of betrayal that she couldn’t shake, Helena lifted Koenig’s head and pressed his lips to the tilted glass. ‘John, please. Everything’s all right. Just relax. Here, this may help. It clears perceptions.’
‘It won’t help.’ Koenig tried to push the glass away with his mouth. In the end, he relented and drank, forced back into sleep and numb ineffectuality.
Clive Kanders was a tall, well-built, young man with a cheerful if nerveless disposition and a mop of curly black hair. He wore a pair of medium-strength spectacles with thick, black frames for short-sightedness. He wasn’t a showy person, but one who preferred to devote his creativity to his work.
His department was the smallest in the Moon Base – but it was one of the most important. The Records Laboratory contained endless files of audio-visual documentation of the Base’s primary and important activities; all neatly compartmentalized in hoardes of small storage drawers and files which lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Apart from a bench or two of recording equipment and a small closet-like darkroom where he developed film (rarely nowadays), the laboratory consisted of no more than seven square metres.
Just recently, business had been hectic. Current events had been extreme indeed, disaster after disaster striking the Base. The return to a period of stability after the encounter with the Space Field, and the arrival of the Earth Party, had been welcome indeed. It was a fitting event to record – the final days of occupation of the Moon Base.
Contentedly, he took the video cassette from the camera he had been using to capture the reception party, and pressed it into a miniature play-back machine. He settled back in a chair and sat the machine on his knee, expecting to be thoroughly entertained. What he saw brought him standing to his feet with a loud exclamation of horror.
He grasped the play-back machine and peered at the screen to make doubly sure that he was seeing and hearing correctly, then deposited it, still working, on the bench and made for his communicator. Half-way across the laboratory though, he stopped abruptly.
A change of mind seemed to take him. A force beyond his control took charge. For a moment he babbled in terror. Woodenly, he changed direction and headed towards the doors. He fired his comlock at them and the internal bolts slammed firmly shut.
He giggled and moved unsteadily towards a cupboard marked, EMERGENCY OXYGEN SUPPLY UNIT. He swung open the doors and hefted out a large cylinder of the life-saving gas. Unfortunately, in neat, prolonged doses, it was a killer. Heedlessly, he turned on the tap and pushed his face into the gushing, hissing stream that resulted.
A look of euphoric joy crossed his face as the gas began to do its trick. He laughed quietly at first, then uproariously... deliciously insane.
Verdeschi scowled, remembering that he had once again forgotten to get a reading taken of the level of the Lambda Waves. For some reason, the point kept slipping his mind. Every time he went into the Command Centre to check, he forgot – soon overcome by the temptations to fraternize with their rescuers. Not only was he losing his grip on social occasions, he was not doing his job properly on the Moon Base. The fact that they were about to leave the Base for good, was beside the point. As long as he was there, and while Koenig was unavailable, he had a Commander’s duty to perform. He seethed with frustration at his sudden ineptness, for job shoddiness was not at all a characteristic of his.
He stared almost angrily at the bed in which Koenig’s sleeping form lay. He clenched his fists, turning to Helena, and said, ‘John’s mind – it was always so tough...’
Helena and Vincent had both retired mournfully from the bedside. There was nothing further they could do.
‘I might have damaged his brain...’ Helena replied distractedly. She cast a tearful eye at the Brain Impulse Machine. ‘I could have got the input wrong.’
Vincent stepped forward and put a comforting arm over her shoulder. ‘We both put him on the machine. We didn’t go against procedure.’
Verdeschi said uncomfortably, ‘He was acting crazy even before the crash – that’s why he crashed, remember?’ He had a sudden thought. ‘Ot it could have been that nut Sandstrom... how is Sandstrom, by the way?’ he asked Vincent.
‘He’s under deep sedation and he’s staying that way,’ the other replied emphatically.
The wall monitor bleeped and Maya’s urgent face appeared on it. ‘Tony, I’m at the Records Lab. You’d better get over here.’
Verdeschi swore bad-temperedly and stalked out of the room.
A small group of Security Guards and medical staff had gathered outside the Records Laboratory. Maya, Dr Shaw and Guido were at the centre of them, peering into the locked room through strong, transparent observation windows set in the doors.
The group parted to let Verdeschi in. He glanced through the window and saw Kander. One look was sufficient to tell him what had happened. ‘The emergency oxygen supply – he’s got it full on!’ He punched the correct frequency on his comlock and fired it vainly at the doors.
Maya nodded grimly. ‘Once it reaches a critical concentration the tiniest spark could blow a chunk out of the Moon Base. He’s jammed the lock on his side and the glass is unbreakable.’
‘It’s too risky to use a laser,’ Verdeschi muttered. ‘The damned fool!’ Red-faced, he stared at Kander through the glass. The manic photographer was staggering in purile delight about the lab, drunkenly yanking out drawers and unwinding reels of precious tape. By the open doors of the emergency oxygen supply cabinet stood a tall cylinder, the rubber tube from its pressure gauge jerking about directionlessly as the gas escaped. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ Verdeschi said. He turned to Maya. ‘I don’t need to tell you.’
The Psychon nodded. ‘You’re right.’ She eyed the gap under the door, judging it to be no more than a quarter inch or less high. ‘It’d have to be something small...’
Her face set in concentration. Slowly her bodily outline altered. It became a pulsating glow of warm light. The light increased in intensity, then shrank into a tiny, powerful ball of energy on the floor. It faded away and in its place appeared a shiny, red and black ladybird.
The spotted bug twitched its antennae at Verdeschi and then proceeded to walk rapidly on its legs towards the crack under the door. It disappeared beneath it and they waited apprehensively for the familiar outline of Maya to reappear again on the far side of the glass.
Instead of Maya, a large, weird space creature transformed itself out of the swirl of energy. It was powerfully-built and squat, with erect, green hair and a metallic blue face. It had brown, strangely doleful, saucer-shaped eyes, and long, unlikely looking, sloth-like claws which, for the moment, it kept tucked away.
It took its bearings with all the alertness of a bright young koala bear. Then, with a single swift movement, it gathered up the blabbering Kander and tucked him under its arm: With the other claw it deftly switched off the oxygen tank. Its task completed, it turned and charged wildly at the doors. Not built to withstand such weight, their locks snapped. They crumpled outward, ejecting the bizarre creature and its strugglin
g captive safely into the corridor.
Verdeschi and the group of Alphans and Earthmen only just managed to clamber out of the way. Guido and Dr Shaw picked themselves up. They looked strangely vexed and frustrated by what had happened. Begrudgingly they joined in the half-hearted cheer that rose from the Alphans.
The metallic-hued creature handed Kander to the Security Guards and transformed itself back into a weary Maya. She wiped a hand across her brow and smiled. ‘Is he all right?’ She indicated the photographer’s limp body.
The drunken, one-man orgy Kander had conducted for himself had finally proved too much. He was now unconscious and being lifted by the Guards on a stretcher trolley. One of the Medics examined him briefly.
‘He’s alive... just about. We must get him to the Medical Centre at once.’ He activated the trolley controls and, together with his colleagues, jumped on. Trolley, patient and passengers sped away down the corridor on their urgent mission and were soon lost from sight.
Maya turned to Verdeschi. She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’
The Security Chief shook his head, baffled and angry. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Not yet... how’s John?’
Again Verdeschi scowled. ‘Not good. Come on.’ They moved off, followed by Dr Shaw and Guido. Guido caught up with Verdeschi and smacked him on the back.
‘Never mind!’ he grinned. ‘Dr Shaw and I were talking plans – for getting you all home. We carry a pilot ship that’s going back to Earth first. There’d be room for three people on it. If there’s anyone you’d like to suggest...’
His older brother stared at him moodily. He was beginning to feel sceptical. Guido and the Earthmen had been talking of leaving for hours, but the promise seemed to be a long time materializing. At the rate people were inexplicably cracking-up, when it finally came, there would be no-one to rescue.
‘We should get to it as soon as possible, Tony,’ Guido’s hand crashed optimistically on his back again.
Verdeschi nodded. Gradually the banging was getting through. He couldn’t be angry for long when Guido was about. He grinned. ‘OK, buddy boy,’ he said, punching the other’s shoulder. ‘Lay off with the back-slapping and let’s pull some straws.’
They moved off more cheerfully to the Command Centre, all except for Maya, who hung behind at the back of the group. Psychon, and unvisited by close relatives and friends, she wasn’t quite so easily swayed by sentiment.
Far from abating, the party atmosphere of the reception seemed to have got more revelrous. Koenig’s mental breakdown had been forgotten and the drink was splashing down parched throats in ever-increasing quantities.
‘Roll up!’ Verdeschi shouted as he and the others entered. ‘Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour! Find out who the lucky three will be!’ He climbed behind his console, quickly surrounded by the gleaming faces of the crowd. He fished around inside one of the drawers and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen. He started to tear the paper into strips, then stopped. ‘Hey, this is going to take too long...’ He looked around the eager faces. ‘Have to be senior members only, I’m afraid.’ A groan went up, followed by a loud outbreak of booing.
Undeterred, he began listing the names of the top thirty, senior-most Alphans – discounting himself, Helena, Maya and Koenig – and began folding the strips up and placing them in a hat that someone had obligingly lent to him. He shook them about and offered the hat to Guido.
Bashfully, Guido closed his eyes and dipped his hand into the hat. He felt around and drew out three names. The room fell silent as he unfolded them and began reading the names. ‘Ehrlich!’ he cried, glancing to see where the physicist was. A beaming Ehrlich stepped forward and snatched at the paper. He read it. ‘Yippeee!’ he yelled.
‘Bartlett!’ Guido called out the second name. Another jubilant figure stepped forward and began pounding Ehrlich on the shoulders.
‘Alan... Carter!’ The Italian announced the last name as though in some surprise. The room was set murmuring as Carter stepped forward and joined the two physicists. Fate couldn’t have been better for the three. It seemed they were destined to travel everywhere together.
‘A drink to them!’ Verdeschi turned to the crowd and shouted.
‘Aye, aye!’ someone yelled out approvingly. Soon, the Command Centre was back to its uproarious self, with bottles gurgling, glasses chinking and the din of excited voices all talking at once.
After five years on board a virtual prison, away from the mother planet they had long since resigned themselves to dreaming about, they were going home.
Verdeschi and Guido crashed each other on the back and the former took his leave, remembering gravely that Koenig was still seriously ill.
In a somewhat better mood than when he had left the Medical Centre a short while ago, he returned, to find that Koenig had regained consciousness again. He was still under sedation, but he appeared alert and peculiarly rational. Again Verdeschi, like Helena, found something strangely disturbing about the condition.
Helena and Ben were taking readings off their instruments while Koenig acted as their assistant, helping them perform their job. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘are my eyes clear? Pulse rate normal?’
‘Y... ess,’ Helena reported back, checking two different dials.
‘Blood pressure down?’ he called to Vincent.
The doctor nodded. ‘Beautiful.’
‘Do I seem rational to you?’ he asked with an almost despairing tone of reasonableness in his voice.
‘Yes.’ Verdeschi stepped forward.
‘Fine.’ Koenig sat himself up in his bed once again. ‘Will you believe that when I look at our “friends” from Earth I don’t see what you see?’
The three round the bedside exchange disappointed glances; they had hoped he was on the road to recovery.
‘What do you see?’ Helena asked, mystified.
Koenig heaved a belaboured sigh as he realized that they still did not trust him. ‘Something monstrous... something obscene and hostile and deadly.’ He clenched his hands and shook them in front of himself. ‘You’ve got to listen to me!’ Their worried, sceptical stare angered him and he came close to losing control again. ‘You’ve got to let me out of here!’
He swore loudly and started heaving himself off the bed; at sight of Helena approaching with the hypodermic needle, he changed his mind. With supreme difficulty, he brought himself under control. ‘No...’ He said calmly yet firmly. ‘Don’t do that.’
He hung his head and stared at his feet to help neutralize the tension he felt inside. Very slowly, very purposefully and very rationally, he lifted his head and tried again. ‘Look, don’t you think it’s strange that so many of the personnel of the rescue ship are known to you all – personal friends and relatives? Aren’t the odds against that pretty high?’
‘Not really, John,’ Vincent warmed to the encouraging change in Koenig... the willingness to reason. ‘They’re all volunteers. They asked to come.’
‘OK... OK,’ the Commander replied, obviously under great mental strain, despite his seeming transformation. In actual fact he spoke to them as a despairing teacher would to very dim children. ‘OK, now about this pilot ship – drawing lots for who’s to go first?’
‘Yes, I organized that,’ Verdeschi informed him.
‘You said the winners were Ehrlich, Bartlett and Alan?’
‘That’s right.’ Verdeschi frowned. ‘What has all this to...’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ Koenig went on. ‘That the winners should just happen to be the three members of the radio-active monitoring team?’
Verdeschi looked as though he were on the verge of understanding, but something made him shake his head and laugh instead. ‘What’s it matter, John? We’ll all be home soon and there’ll be no more monitoring needed.’
Koenig clenched his jaws tightly. He raised his voice again. ‘Can’t you see you’re being manipulated? What happened to your instincts?’ He made balls out of his fists and banged them in anguish on h
is forehead. ‘There’s something evil here and you can’t feel it!’
A blip sounded on the door monitor and Dr Shaw’s face appeared on it. Helena let him in and ran eagerly back to Koenig’s bedside. ‘John, you remember how often I’ve talked about Dr Shaw – he’s the best doctor I know. Well... he’s here – I’ve asked him to have a look at you.’
Koenig’s body froze tautly. Without looking in the direction Helena indicated, he ordered vehemently: ‘Get that out of here! Get it out! Kill it! Crush it!’
He pressed his fists harder against his forehead, knowing that if he looked at the creature they called Dr Shaw he would have to be sedated again.
Worriedly, Helena ushered the tall figure of Dr Shaw out of the room. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to him, almost at the end of her tether. ‘It would be no use forcing it.’
Dr Shaw’s face looked full of concern for her. He rested a comforting arm on her shoulder while he puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her gently, ‘we’ll find an answer.’
‘Why can’t you understand?’ Koenig asked when she returned. ‘Why are you all so blind?’
She moved behind him and retrieved the hypodermic she had left on his bedside table. With trembling hands, she loaded it fully. She was about to go to him with it, when the wall monitor bleeped. This time it was Sahn, calling Verdeschi from the Command Centre. Streamers of coloured paper hung down from her hair and she looked disgustingly drunk... yet very, very happy. ‘Pilot ship’s about to leave, Tony, with Alan and the two physi... phyicistsss...’ she giggled. Someone pulled her away and for a while they had a glimpse of the party in motion. Then, a dark hand obscured the screen, and it went blank.
‘No...!’ Koenig sprang from his bed. He turned pleadingly to Verdeschi and Vincent. ‘Don’t let them go! If you value your lives... DON’T LET THEM GO!’
A cold jab of pain hit him in the arm. He just had time to turn accusingly to Helena, and started to go out again.
Space 1999 - The Psychomorph Page 11