by Brian Ball
Blue and purple particles spun before him. There was a sense of darkness, of impossible distances and unimaginable speed. And then, slowly, a figure took shape. A man, thought Koenig. One from our future.
He was tall, as tall as Koenig, wide-shouldered and confident. Younger than me, thought Koenig, and this was strange too, for the man’s eyes were heavy with knowledge, experience, and power.
‘Welcome to Zenno, Commander,’ he said.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Gently, Commander,’ he warned. ‘Think. It is real, not a dream. This is a planet. I exist, just as you do.’
Koenig began to recover from his bewildered stupefaction as he put his right hand to his head. There had been a blow. The crash. That was it. Crashed, a concussion, and now hallucination.
The man shook his head.
‘No, Commander. This is a planet. Its existence won’t be suspected by your race for a hundred of your life-times. Perhaps never.’ The smile, thought Koenig, betrayed the man, arrogant.
‘I had a computer check on all the star-systems in this sector. Not one has a habitable planet.’
‘Commander, we can camouflage our existence from your archaic probes.’
Archaic, thought Koenig. He thinks we’re backward.
‘As you are, Commander,’ said the man. ‘And I should not toy with you.’ His voice changed, the smile disappeared, and his eyes blazed with something like exultation. ‘John Koenig, I am Raan, a citizen of Zenno. Look at Zenno City.’
He waved, and a dazzling panoramic view of the fantastic city Koenig had seen in the big screen of Main Mission Control unfolded and engulfed him. Its rearing towers climbed majestically into a violent purple sky. He was forced backwards. He felt dwarfed, a savage from the jungles of Earth suddenly adrift in a modern city complex.
‘You will adjust, John Koenig,’ said Raan. ‘But first you must know that I read your thoughts. And I understand your feelings of inadequacy. They are well based. It will be thousands of years before your race begins to be able to reach out to us and meet us on something like level terms.’
Koenig looked past the man. Purple was the predominant hue of Zenno. Purple sky, a violent purple sun that hung darkly over the shimmering city. Then Koenig looked back at the man who called himself Raan. Telepathic.
Raan nodded.
‘Try to adjust, Commander. It’s true. I read your mind. And I brought you here.’
‘And what of my ship?’ Koenig said bitterly. ‘And my command?’
‘Look.’
Raan’s strange eyes shimmered, and the purple sky-city dissolved into a glaring purple void. Koenig again had the sensation of immense distance. And then he saw himself.
He was looking down at the slow-breathing body of John Koenig as if he were one of the half-dozen people in the cabin of the wrecked Eagle. Carter was there, crowded by a pair of medical attendants. Bergman watched the unconscious body—watched him!—with a puzzled air of uncomprehending pity. And on Helena Russell’s beautiful face was the intent stare of a professional confronted by the inexplicable.
Koenig tensed as he saw the wound on his own forehead. It had been cleaned up, but the gash told of the gravity of the injury.
Helena Russell spoke crisply:
‘I can’t do anything for him here. He can be moved, Paul.’
Koenig glimpsed Paul Morrow’s worried features in the small screen. ‘I’ll send a Cargo Eagle, Dr Russell. Any reaction, anything at all?’
Koenig watched, fascinated, as Helena ran a finger over his white face. No one else saw the action. She didn’t look like a surgeon.
‘None,’ she said to the screen.
Koenig refused to believe what he saw.
‘Hallucination,’ said Koenig across the light-years. ‘I don’t know how I project you, but I’m still on a rock, out of control and lost. You’re an unreality.’
Raan waved a hand, and the brilliant purple sky-city formed.
‘I understand your incredulity, Commander John Koenig. I won’t attempt any further explanation, not yet, but you should know that you have been brought here for a purpose. Think of this, though, whilst you rest and eat. Why did your ship Eagle One search in that particular area?’
Koenig wondered whether he should answer. Answer the projections of one’s own mind? If he did that, then he became part of his own fantasy. If he didn’t answer, then—he paused—then how did he get to know the answer to the question?
‘Well?’ he heard himself say.
‘We interested you in the possibility of fuel materials, Commander. I had your deductive machines send you there. I wished to isolate you, Commander, put you in a stress situation.’
‘And risk killing me?’
Raan smiled, not pleasantly.
‘There was little risk. And here you are.’
Koenig looked down at his wrist.
The monitor was blank. Defunct. Life-functions at cessation level, as the computer put it.
‘Am I?’ he asked.
‘Let my daughter convince you,’ said Raan.
Koenig felt his emotions somersaulting when he saw her. It was the woman who had appeared momentarily and with such a stunning beauty at Main Mission Control. Her willowy body rippled under the red-gold gown, and her sheaf of pale hair swept her shoulders.
‘Your daughter!’ said Koenig. They could have been brother and sister. Both were at the age when the ease and strength of maturity replaces youth.
‘Tell Commander John Koenig something of life on Zenno, my dear. It will come easier from you. Yes, this is Vana, my daughter.’
The woman smiled.
‘Come, John Koenig. Let me show you to your quarters. There is food ready. Everything as you would wish. And trust me—I, too, am real.’
Koenig watched the man called Raan fade into a shimmering purple void. He hung, insubstantially, as the honey-bronze woman had done at Main Mission Control, then he was gone.
‘John?’ said Vana.
Koenig followed. A floor swimming with mosaics led to a hazy glowing shape; as Koenig walked, the shape took on solidity. And then it was a replica of his own quarters on Alpha, the furnishings an exact match for his comfortable private room. The table was laid for one. Koenig disliked eating alone, but the smell of prime steak cooking brought a wash of saliva to his mouth.
Koenig realized that Vana was looking at him as he might have regarded a novel species: with curiosity and amusement.
Koenig felt anger. He controlled it. One should not be afraid of one’s own illusions. Yet he had to respond to Vana’s half-smile.
‘How do you do it?’ he asked. He pointed to the table, the console of the food supply unit, the banks of music selectors, and the rows of well-handled books that had accompanied him from Earth. ‘You’ve got it right, down to my toothbrush.’
‘You still think you’re hallucinating, don’t you, John Koenig? I know. Raan told you that we could see into your mind. We have advanced far beyond your civilization, John. We gave up machines a million years ago. We abandoned intergalactic travel once we had explored where we wished. Our thoughts control the physical things around us—we create and change our lives to suit our moods. Zenno is insubstantial. It is the combined product of our wishes, John. And what you see around you—your living quarters—they are a projection, but they are real too. You see, there is a reality which you cannot yet conjecture, John.’ She paused and moved closer. ‘Did you imagine me?’
Koenig looked down into yellow-gold eyes.
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘The rest, but not you.’
‘And you trust me?’
She was very close now. Koenig thought, bewildered, the senses could betray one: her movement, the sheen of honey-gold skin, the bright shimmering material, the wide tawny eyes, and the soft voice. All made their separate and stunning impact. He reached towards her in a timeless moment and saw the response.
‘Good!’ said an authoritative voice. ‘Excellent, Vana—I knew you would be able
to convince our friend that we are as real as he is. Well, John Koenig, what is your opinion of Zenno now? Do we exist?’
Koenig made up his mind.
‘Tell me what has happened to my command and I’ll be able to let you know.’
Raan smiled. ‘As I hoped, John Koenig. Loyalty to the group is obviously one of your civilization’s motivating forces. Vana, will you reassure the Commander?’
Koenig saw the gladness go from her eyes. ‘Of course, Raan. John, please look at your communication screen.’
Koenig turned as the screen filled with life. It showed the interior of the crashed Eagle. Helena Russell was speaking:
‘There’s a fracture, Paul, but we can hold the loss of blood. I’ve stabilized that. How about the life-reading?’
‘Negative,’ said Paul Morrow.
Koenig saw his own inert body encased in a casualty pack. Helena Russell was the calm professional again. The momentary tenderness was quite gone.
‘Who is she?’ asked Vana.
‘A colleague,’ said Koenig. ‘A friend.’
‘A lover?’
Koenig smiled. ‘Read my mind.’
Raan looked curiously at Vana. Koenig caught the small frown of puzzlement. It cleared.
‘Well, Commander John Koenig? Are you ready to tell us that you believe we exist?’
Koenig knew with an overwhelming certainty that he had been transported on to a far and utterly sophisticated planet.
‘It makes no sense at all if you were my own fantasy. Zenno exists,’ he said. ‘But why should you interest yourself in me?’
‘Vana should have explained,’ said Raan.
‘My father is Zenno’s leading anthropologist—’ she began, conscious of her lapse.
Raan held up his hand.
‘No, my dear. I think the Commander would like to hear it from me.’ Koenig saw the man’s subdued excitement. ‘On Earth, you study the last of your savages, Commander. I know from you that there are still remote communities which you protect from the effects of your civilization. You protect them, because they remind you of your primitive past. They are your link with your origins.’ Raan laughed. ‘And even they get some satisfaction from observing the behaviour of still more primitive forms of life.’
Koenig had a sudden memory of a film he had seen: a pygmy watching a baboon in a rain-forest glade.
‘Yes, Commander! Exactly. Their link with the primeval past!’
The laughter was sustained and harsh. Koenig, listening, suddenly knew his role. Vana was staring at him, her yellow-gold eyes glistening.
‘Raan—’ she said in alarm.
‘No! John Koenig must be told! Commander, do you know what you are? I see you do! Why have we brought you here? You know! You see now that you are our missing link!’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘You’ve been unconscious for two days, John,’ said Victor Bergman.
Koenig opened his eyes fully and recognized the bleak walls and the diffused lighting. He had been too many times in the Diagnostic Unit at Medical Centre to mistake it. Too many lives had slipped away; too many good men and women lost in the unending struggle for survival on the harsh rock.
‘Victor!’ Koenig remembered. ‘I was hallucinating—but, good God, it was so, so intense!’ He looked around and caught the movement of an orderly, a woman dressed in the white of the Medical teams, slim and sweet-looking, but not a Vana, all honey-bronze under the shimmering gown. Bergman said:
‘We’ve been worried about you, John. How’s the head?’
Koenig pushed aside the memories.
‘The others—and yourself, Victor?’
Bergman shrugged. ‘A couple of ribs cracked. They’ll mend. But Sandra Benes is dead, John.’
‘Dead!’
‘Helena tried. But Sandra seemed to give up.’
‘But she wasn’t badly hurt!’
‘She saw her death and accepted it.’
Koenig pushed down the all-too-familiar angry grief. Bergman must be suffering from the shock of the technician’s death. ‘We have to take casualties, Victor.’
‘Yes!’ There was an odd certainty in Bergman’s tone of voice and a strange glitter in his eyes. ‘More and more casualties, John—don’t you see, we’ve no way of avoiding becoming casualties ourselves! The personnel of Moonbase Alpha isn’t limitless. The more that die, the more strain and responsibility it throws on the rest of us. The work doesn’t lessen though we do! Eventually, there won’t be enough of us to operate Alpha.’ He was breathing fast now. ‘John, would you like to be the last man alive on this useless chunk of rock? I wouldn’t! I’d like to be free of it! John, you and I can’t sacrifice ourselves to the rest!’
Koenig was aware of a tenseness in himself now. Bergman was unnaturally excited. The ascetic features were flushed, the aquiline nose seemed hooked and predatory.
‘Victor, you sure you’ve got over the crash?’ he said carefully. ‘Did Helena give you a final check?’
‘Why play big man now!’ snarled Bergman. ‘We could be live cowards if we took the only correct choice! There’s the possibility of escape for a few of us, Koenig. Life’s waiting for us out there. Stop worrying about—’
Koenig leaned forward and grabbed the thin, hard shoulder:
‘Hold it, Victor!’
He paused, unsure of himself now that he had stopped the tirade. There should be pain. Pain from the head injury. And sorrow for Sandra Benes. But he felt nothing. Only the absence of emotion.
‘You’re not well,’ he told Bergman. ‘You’re in shock.’
‘In shock?’ snarled Bergman. ‘Me?’ He grabbed Koenig’s arm. ‘Come and see what we found at the scene of the crash!’
Koenig pulled away. Bergman was acting out of character.
His normally articulate speech was more that of a lower-deck Controller accustomed to giving terse orders. There was a hectic excitement about him that belied his ordered, logical mind. Nevertheless, Koenig was impressed by his enthusiasm, however uncharacteristic it might be.
‘It’s your party, Victor,’ he said. ‘But no one’s mentioned any discovery at the crater.’
‘On my instructions!’ said Bergman. ‘John, it’s too important to spread—I ordered a total security clampdown.’
Koenig was unpleasantly affected by the scientist’s enthusiasm.
‘Well, Victor, what is it? Mineral deposits—something we can use as fissile materials?’
‘No—there were never any natural deposits in that area! Our computer misread the indications.’
‘Misread them? Then what should the computer have suggested?’
‘Not here,’ said Bergman. ‘I’ll tell you in your office—and make sure the intercoms are dead. This is just for you, John!’
‘It’s so important?’
‘I told you there was a way out for us!’
Koenig checked the intercom on his wrist. Despite his dislike of secrecy, he made sure that no electronic scribe could relay or record their conversation.
‘I think you’d better explain, Victor,’ he said.
Bergman would not sit down. Restlessly, he paced about the room for a few seconds. Then he burst out:
‘There is good reason for the computer’s readout—it’s fissile material all right, John. But the computer didn’t take into account one alternative possibility.’
‘Well?’
‘That the fissile material came from the power unit of another space-craft!’
‘What!’
‘It’s out there, John, under guard—it deceived the computer and it drew our Eagle to the crater!’
Koenig felt a chill spread slowly along his spine.
‘You’re telling me that there’s a space-craft on the Moon?’
‘Yes!’
‘And it’s not one of ours?’
‘It’s no surface-hopper—John, it’s a deep-space vessel! It’s got a drive that makes our big burners look like toys. I’d guess it’s already covered thousands
of light-years.’
‘And it showed up as a computer read-out for a load of radioactive metals!’
‘That’s what it is, so far as the computer is concerned!’
‘But if there was life aboard it, the computer would have given us a reading!’
Bergman smiled grimly, ‘You’re right, John.’
Koenig let the implication of Bergman’s information filter through his mind. It brought a fresh chill along his spine. ‘So any occupants that might have travelled in it—’
‘—are dust. Little heaps of dust.’
Koenig thought of the loneliness they had all endured. And now to be told that there was an alien craft on the Moon!
‘How much have you seen?’ he asked Bergman.
‘Enough to know that they were a species similar to our own. And a whole era of technology in advance of us.’
‘And they’re dead?’
‘Dead for well over a thousand years.’
‘And their ship’s been here all the time?’
‘It’s been here since the last days of the Roman Empire.’
Koenig questioned himself. It was too much to hope for. Nevertheless, he said:
‘A superior ship to our craft, you say, Victor?’
Bergman answered the unspoken question, and Koenig knew the reason for the secrecy he had insisted on.
‘Far better. And in good order.’
‘And it landed here—why?’
‘You should know that its destination wasn’t the moon, John. That was only a stopover.’
‘Yes?’
‘They would watch, from the satellite. From the Moon, they’d watch Earth. That was the intention, anyway.’
‘And then?’
‘Their computer would check the life-forms. And if they were able to blend in with us—with our ancestors of the Dark Ages—they would make the final flight.’
‘To Earth?’
‘Yes, John.’ Bergman went on calmly enough, but with a yearning that was painful to see: ‘And both engine and computer were in perfect working order. Both waiting for the orders that never came.’