by Brian Ball
‘Let the Guardian do the worrying now,’ said Bergman. ‘Relax! Take life easier—it’s the prime directive from now on.’
That phrase again: the prime directive. Koenig remembered Kano using it. A directive was an instruction. It was the Guardian’s command: relax, sleep, stop time, die! Yet how could he get Bergman to believe it?
He tried reason.
‘Victor,’ he said. ‘Just look at these read-outs.’
‘Well, John?’
Morrow busied himself monitoring the plans for the evacuation of the nuclear generating areas, the heart of Moonbase.
‘Victor, I reported that Piri was a dead .planet. The organitron showed no sign of life. There has been no living thing on Piri for millennia.’ Bergman stared back fixedly. He didn’t seem to have heard. Koenig went on, faster: ‘My orders were that we should not rely on computer. I believe it has been taken over by the Pirian machines that produced the Guardian. Victor, computer has been feeding us bogus information.’
Bergman nodded. ‘Sure, John. You’re right to stay sceptical. It wouldn’t be right to have a Garden of Eden without a doubter. But the Guardian will set your mind at rest. It’s the most civilized entity I could imagine.’
‘Civilized?’ Koenig shouted. ‘There’s a kind of civilization down there, but it’s one that reduces us to mindless apathy! Can’t you understand that there’s no such thing as perfection for us, Victor? Once we think that, we’re finished! Men aren’t docile! They’re not tractable! Victor, we’re born to struggle, and once we lose the will to fight, we all die!’
‘Ah, John,’ said Helena behind him. He had not heard her enter Main Mission Control. ‘You’re still getting memory-blank-offs from the crash at the crater. I think you should go into hypno-sleep until Operation Exodus is concluded. Just hold still, John.’
‘No!’ Koenig roared.
Morrow was moving towards him purposefully. And Morrow had the build of an ox. Koenig blindly staggered away. Under the anaesthetizing strappings, his ribs creaked painfully.
‘No, leave him, Paul!’ Bergman told Morrow. ‘And you, Helena, let him have his way. He’ll come to his senses soon. John,’ he said to Koenig, and he might have been a kindly father allowing a child to rebel and thus find his true strengths. ‘John, no one thinks you’re crazy.’
Koenig halted. In a situation like this, he must use every advantage offered. The three Alphans were willing to let him hold on to what they thought were his fantasies. He fingered the dead root which was his principal contact with the realities of dead Piri. Would it convince them too that Piri was an evil mirage?
‘Well, John, what is it you want to do?’ asked Bergman. Koenig hesitated. He pushed the root into his pocket. They would not accept it as anything more than a delusion on his part. Helena would probably give him the knock-out jab at once. Instead, he held out the computer read-outs:
‘I want to check the computer’s memory-banks directly to see if they agree with the reports from the auxiliary computers aboard the Eagles that went to Piri.’
Bergman was unimpressed, though he was determined to be fair:
‘Then you should go ahead, John. If it will clear your mind, my advice is to do just that. Eh, Helena?’
‘Reassurance therapy,’ agreed Helena Russell. ‘I suppose anyone who’s gone through what he has in the past months needs to be sure. But don’t be too long about it, John?’
They watched him enter the humming, dim-lit area which was Kano’s preserve. The memory-banks of the computer filled the huge space. There was little sign that the computer was functioning, but Koenig knew that billion upon billion of impulses raced through each grey unit every second. Without the computer, the survival of Moonbase Alpha was problematical. With computer subverted by the technology of the ancient Pirians, the survival of the Alphans themselves was in danger.
He was glad he had not shown them the dead root.
Bergman waited until the door of the computer memory store slid silently into place.
‘It’s my opinion that we should complete the evacuation now!’ he said. ‘John can be left for a while to get rid of his doubts. A few days of solitude and reflection should do the trick.’
Morrow questioned Helena Russell with a look. She shrugged: ‘John’s quite capable of looking after himself. Diagnostic Unit will provide emergency treatment until he follows us. Yes, leave him, Victor.’
Her eyes were shining.
Koenig made for the auxiliary console, which could be operated manually.
‘Voice-to-voice contact,’ he ordered, punching in a programme.
‘You have it, Commander,’ a thin electronic voice told him.
‘I want an evaluation of the facts I present now. First, analyse this root,’ He placed it in a hopper. ‘Second, estimate life-expectancy for Alphans on the planet Piri. Third, evaluate your own motivation.’
The root lay undisturbed. Koenig waited impatiently.
‘Analyse this root!’ he repeated.
‘Regrets, Commander. This system has no facilities for analysis. In answer to your second question, I refer you to the computer. As for the third—’
‘Stop!’
‘—Yes, Commander.’ The machine waited.
‘You said, “I refer you to the computer”?’
‘Affirmative, Commander.’
‘Then what am I talking to?’
‘This is a low-grade auxiliary system, Commander.’ Koenig dreaded the answer to his next question, but nevertheless he had to ask it:
‘Where is computer control now?’
‘Computer control has removed to Piri, Commander.’
Koenig let his breath out slowly. It was part of a consistent pattern. Infiltration, then a complete takeover.
Aloud, he said: ‘So if I want the answers, I have to go down to Piri for them.’
‘That is your choice, Commander.’
Koenig picked up a heavy steel chair and threw it at the auxiliary console. It ricocheted noisily the length of the huge room. He accomplished nothing but an aggravation of his chest injuries. The auxiliary did not comment on his violent action.
When he returned to Main Mission Control, he knew that the Moonbase Alpha was deserted. He crossed to the forward con and looked out. The remaining Eagles were streaming toward Piri in a perfect formation. Koenig put his hands to his head. He was the last free Alphan.
‘You need rest, John Koenig,’ a sweet voice declared.
Koenig knew her.
‘Sleep!’ the Pirian girl said.
It would be his last sleep, Koenig knew. He had to keep awake.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He kept awake by using stimulants.
The first day he spent his time trying to hook the computer’s ancillary systems into a net. The low-grade calculators remained in their metal cabinets, but the directing intelligence had gone.
‘I want an analytical system capable of discovering ways to run this Base,’ he told the machines.
They took some time to digest the information.
‘More data needed, Commander,’ a reedy electronic voice told him. ‘This is a directive for computer, sir.’
Lying, treacherous computer, thought Koenig. But, again, how could it be? A machine could no more tell a lie than utter a thought or hold an opinion. It had done exactly what was required of it: given data, it calculated; and, confronted by a superior machine, it had obeyed.
And the Guardian was infinitely superior.
Koenig gave up the attempts after a twenty-hour slog. He left a network of trailing leads and shattered circuits. It would need someone of the calibre of David Kano to make a computer out of the machines.
The second day passed more slowly.
Koenig deliberately forced himself to check the navigational equipment of Moonbase Alpha. It was an intellectual exercise only, yet one he could enjoy. He had a talent for astral navigation second only to that of Paul Morrow. It was mathematical drudgery, but it kept his mind clear
of the subtle infection from the planet below.
If he should sleep, he would dream of peace and the deadly green of Piri. One last, long, endless sleep . . .
She came the second day, glowing with delight and sympathy.
‘John Koenig, you’re wrecking your health! And in such useless pursuits! No one man could put together a computer in the time you have left. But I truly admire your determination, as does the Guardian, John. The Guardian will give you your reward—you will be the leader of your people once more, but in a finer life! Come, John!’
Koenig swallowed tablets and resumed the delicate work of aligning the star-ranging scanners. Then, he could ignore her.
She was more subtle the next time.
Koenig had revised a list of maintenance schedules for the orbital scanners when she stepped delicately into the forward con of Main Mission Control.
‘Just how long do you think you can resist the Guardian?’ she asked. ‘Another day?’ She inspected his haggard face, Koenig resisted the temptation to drive his fist into the sweet face. ‘Two more days? Give it up, John. Please? Your friends want it too. You see, in your weakened state, you’ll soon begin hallucinating, and it will take a good deal of careful medication to get you back to normal. And if you leave it too long . . .’
‘Please go,’ said Koenig levelly.
The thought of the lotus-life on Piri had never seemed so attractive. And wasn’t it man’s dream from earliest times? There had been a hero of antiquity who had discovered just such a way of life . . . Who was he?
‘No more tablets, John Koenig,’ said the girl. ‘You’re using a dream-state to blot out the reality of Piri. Why not choose the Pirian way? Your friends have—look at them, John!’
She had been programmed well, thought Koenig. The hours of isolation in the echoing complex of Moonbase Alpha were undermining his will. The tablets did no more than induce a waking coma, as the girl had said; the real danger was the lack of human contact.
Koenig had often been an outsider. It was the nature of a commander’s function, the aloneness. Yet he had never kept himself isolated from human interchange and contact. He found himself yearning for the small rewards of civilized exchanges. Bergman’s sometimes irritating pontifications and his shining intellect. Kano’s delight in solving problems. Morrow’s big-framed clumsiness. And Helena Russell’s promise of another kind of release from the loneliness.
‘Your friends, John,’ the girl said softly.
Koenig had to look.
The big screen glowed into life. Piri’s green rolling hills gave way to closer images. Helena Russell looked around and waved gaily. Bergman looked more relaxed than Koenig had ever seen him. They were seated at an ornate table, with glasses of amber liquid before them. They wore the long, flowing robes of the Pirian girl. Slightly bronzed and fit-looking, they both joined in the gestures of invitation.
Yet both had the slightly manic gleam of excitement that had manifested itself when the second Eagle survey vessel had begun its descent. Bergman and Helena exhibited an odd absence of emotion in their eyes. It shocked Koenig to see that blankness.
The girl smiled at him:
‘They are relaxed, John. The struggle is over. There can be a Paradise—it isn’t a fallacious human dream. Join them!’
Koenig closed his eyes and felt the tiredness seeping through him. The drugs fought back, but the insidious sweetness of surrender began to defeat the chemicals. He felt panic give way to the peace of resignation. Arguments coasted through his mind. Why struggle against the inevitable? Why not admit that it was the ambition of the human race to do what the ancient Pirians had done—to leave control to an all-powerful machine?
‘You are learning, John!’ the girl cried. ‘Yes, why not accept the Guardian’s kindness?’
He could not.
One fragment of insight remained. It was his gift from the incomparable Vana. She had taken him beyond the fabric of the immortal city of the Zennites and shown him the difference between reality and dream—intermixed though they were, there was a point where falseness began. And it was here, right here in the evil glamour of the girl, the messenger of the Guardian!
‘Get out!’ Koenig roared. ‘Out!’
He found he was sobbing for breath. The straggle had drained him. A memory came back, one that had almost vanished from his thoughts. Zenno’s strange shadowy purple towers hung before him, their pinnacles soaring into the deep purple of the night sky. He could almost see through them to the ethereal fabric of which they were composed.
Almost, he could begin to build with the Zennites.
He knew afresh what he had lost when he made his choice. When the Pirian girl came on the third day of his lonely vigil, he found fresh strength from the knowledge of what he had given up on Zenno.
‘Look,’ Koenig said to the blank-eyed girl, ‘why us? I know that we of Moonbase Alpha have been seduced by the machine you call the Guardian, but why take us—a race that cannot begin to compare in sophistication with the Pirians?’
She might have been a machine herself, for she spoke without looking at him in a toneless voice: ‘By your presence in the space between the stars, you have violated the peace of ancient Piri!’
‘But we didn’t set the course! Our satellite is out of control! We can only go where the Moon takes us!’
He could argue now, fight if he had to.
‘But,’ she said, and her voice was sweet as honey now, ‘we have to make you perfect so that you are fit for life on the planet of peace! That is the Guardian’s directive, John.’
‘So you admit it—your machine, this Guardian as you call it, sabotaged our computer and misled the Alphans into believing that Piri is a paradise?’
‘The Guardian gave instructions, John,’ she said. ‘They were obeyed by your primitive installations. It is right and proper that you should be brought to an understanding of the peace of Piri.’
‘The peace of Piri! But what happened to all the happy and contented Pirians? Where are they now?’
‘The Guardian gave them rest.’
‘But where are they!’
She smiled as sweet as death. Her lips were moist with a dew that sparkled. Vibrant and beautiful, she was venomous to Koenig.
‘The Guardian changed the Pirians.’
‘Just as we shall be changed!’
‘John,’ the girl said, and her tender smile mocked him by its youthful charm. ‘Come, John, Helena is waiting.’
Koenig groped for tablets. Three days without sleep. How much longer could he last? There were limits to a normal man’s bodily endurance. Freaks could manage without sleep; but the ordinary metabolism of a human body demanded regular deep sleep. Soon, the demands of the body would resist the drugs.
‘Helena is asking for you, John!’
As she said it, he thought of the mature beauty of the woman. Helena Russell’s brilliant blue eyes swam before him and he stumbled. The girl waited. Koenig grazed his knee against the console and the pain brought him back to full consciousness.
‘No!’ he gasped. ‘No!’
‘Come, John! Peace—rest and peace!’
‘The peace of death!’
‘Not for you and Helena, John.’
Helena. Koenig clung to the thought. He had been saved once before by a woman. Helena—what had she done for him in the past?
‘John?’ whispered the girl, sure now of him.
Koenig closed his mind. He blinked against the brilliant light of the empty deck. Helena—she had placed something over his heart. She had persisted when others might have abandoned him. There had been the brief agony of shock . . .
Koenig clamped down firmly on the rest of the memory. In some weird way, the machines of the planet below could affect the human mind with apparent ease. They may or may not have the ability to read his mind; he would take no chances. He looked down to the console, where a mathematical conundrum remained to be solved. He concentrated on the problems of astro-navigation.
The girl was still there, still with that tender concerned smile in place. She seemed to suspect nothing. ‘You are ready, John?’ she asked.
‘I am ready.’
‘The Eagle is waiting.’
‘The last of the Eagles.’
‘You will see your Alphans again. All of them. A completely new existence will be yours. All this primitive technology is now a thing of the past for you, John. Your Moon will stay in orbit around Piri, but you will forget—’
Koenig could not help his exclamation:
‘The Moon in orbit! Held here! But we’ll never be able to get away!’
‘Nor will you wish to, John.’
Koenig gritted his teeth. Now, more than ever, he must control himself and his thoughts. The Guardian had taken his crew, his ships and the base. Now, the Moon hung against the threat of the Guardian’s power.
And what could he do? The Guardian held all power sources, controlled all the decision-making apparatus of Moonbase Alpha. Despite himself, Koenig smiled at the thought. Whilst there was one man who could endure against the mind-bending deceptions of the Pirians’ machines, there was hope. And there were power supplies . . .
‘I shall bring a few small souvenirs with me,’ he told the watching girl.
‘They are not necessary.’
‘Nevertheless I shall bring them.’
‘If it pleases you. The Guardian will have no objections, John.’
Koenig spent a few minutes selecting the equipment he needed. The girl waited patiently. As he emerged from the Diagnostic Unit, she took his hand. Koenig shuddered. He felt like a tame animal reclaimed by its indulgent owner.
He checked the standard survival kit of his spacesuit at Flight Control. The huge deck echoed to the tramp of his metalled feet. Grotesquely large in the spacesuit, he watched his long shadow approach the last of the Eagles. The girl walked by his side, diaphanous robes swirling.
Koenig felt for the butt of the stun-gun. Its comforting bulk nestled in his hand.
It wasn’t much against the mysterious might of the Guardian of Piri.
‘Commander Koenig requesting flight-path to Piri,’ he said to the onboard computer console.