by E. C. Tubb
At times she wondered what had happened to it.
She said, opening her eyes, ‘You’re a natural-born farmer, Connie. That’s why you don’t wear gloves when working with the soil—you like to feel it against your skin. And don’t forget to wash your face.’
‘Face?’
‘You’ve got dirt on your left cheek.’ Nancy smiled as the girl removed the dirt. Young, with a subtle but disturbing beauty, the girl would have to be careful if she wasn’t to break hearts. ‘Any news of Edward?’
‘He proposed last night’
‘And?’
‘I said that I’d think it over." Connie threw aside the towel. ‘Anything new in Eden?’
The name that Rural Area One had become known by Eden, a new world, a small one as yet, but It could grow. Her world, thought Nancy Coleman, a little smugly. One in which she was in charge. A good exchange for the estate she had lost.
Rising, she stepped to the door of the office and outside to stand in the light of the artificial sun. The cavern still held a spartan bleakness, but soon all that would change. Once the soil had been finally balanced, seeds would be sown, the loam turning green with new life, the air taking to itself the scent of growing things. We could have a wind machine, she thought, something to provide a gentle breeze that would rustle the leaves and add to the illusion already created. A sound to blend with that of the fountain.
She moved towards it, her stride lengthening as she recognised the figure of Bergman stooping over a plot of dirt in a far corner.
‘Anything as yet, Professor?’
‘What? I—’ He smiled and brushed soil from his hands. ‘Nancy, I didn’t hear you. No, nothing as yet, as far as I can determine.’
‘Let me take a look.’
Stooping, she uncovered one of the seeds and examined it. The surface looked as she remembered, the whorls perhaps a little less distinct, the diffusion of light not so pronounced. Lifting it, she held it to her cheek. Life, any form of life, was a manifestation of energy and change—both producing heat. With a seed so large it was barely possible she could distinguish a temperature rise. A test that failed. The skin remained as she remembered.
‘Nothing, Professor, but in botany you have to be patient. Do you know how long it took me to develop W-725?’
‘Fifteen years,’ he said. ‘And you ran over seven hundred tests on various strains of wheat. Even then you were lucky—the project could have lasted an entire lifetime.’
‘At times I think it did.’ She hefted the seed. ‘Do you want me to examine this for any signs of germination or should I just leave it in the ground?’
‘Leave it—I don’t want to take the chance of losing the only one that may grow.’
‘If it can, it will,’ she promised.
‘Perhaps.’ Bergman wasn’t as confident. ‘How do we know if the environment is right? It could be too warm or too wet, too cold or too dry. The loam may lack essential elements, or maybe it needs a stimulus I haven’t given it.’
And maybe it wasn’t a seed at all. Something Koenig mentioned when he met Bergman after he’d left the cavern.
He said without preamble, ‘Victor, it would be best for us to dispose of those seeds.’
‘Dispose of them?’ Bergman was incredulous. ‘Destroy them? John, you can’t be serious.’
‘I’m serious,’ said Koenig grimly. ‘We’ve taken something alien into Moonbase and we have no idea as to its potential danger. It’s associated with that creature we destroyed, and what do we really know about that?’
They were in Bergman’s quarters and, before answering, he moved to adjust a framed certificate hanging against a wall. It was one given to him for his work in protecting a form of life threatened with extinction.
Recognising the tension betrayed by the set of the man’s shoulders, the symbolism of touching the certificate, Koenig said quietly, ‘I’m being rational about this, Victor. My first concern is and must be the safety of Alpha. Nine men are dead and I don’t want to add to their number. So, on calculation—’
‘You choose to destroy rather than to understand.’ Bergman turned. ‘I’m going to fight you on this, John. I can appreciate your concern, but as yet you’ve not given me one reason why I should agree with your decision. You’ve not given a reason for your fears.’
‘I haven’t made a decision,’ reminded Koenig. ‘If I had, Victor, believe me, we wouldn’t be discussing the matter as we are now. I said it would be best for us to dispose of those seeds, and now I’ll tell you why. They came in the pod that carried the alien creature, right?’
‘Yes, John.’
‘So how did it get into it? Was it a cocoon spun for protection while the thing underwent a metamorphosis? In that case, those spheres we found can’t be seeds. Was it a parasite living in the pod and feeding off of it? If so, there is still a doubt.’
‘John?’
‘You’re overlooking the obvious, Victor. You want those things to be seeds so much that you can’t recognise the alternatives. As I see it, those spheres could be either of three things. If that creature belonged in the pod, they could be droppings. If it was a parasite that had somehow managed to enter the pod and then to feed on its interior as it grew, then they could be seeds. They could have been like those of a watermelon, resting imbedded in the pulp. Those possibilities don’t worry me. The third one does.’
Bergman said slowly, ‘John, I think you’re wrong, but I know what you’re getting at. You think those spheres could be—’
‘Eggs, Victor,’ said Koenig harshly. ‘You could have planted a nest of serpents in Eden!’
Doctor Mathias dropped a slim sheaf of papers to the desk and, leaning against it with the easy casualness of long familiarity, said, ‘We’ll have to make a decision soon, Doctor. Lynne Saffery can’t be kept under constant sedation for much longer.’
‘I know, Bob.’
‘Already she is showing traces of fluid accumulation in both lungs, and her muscle tone shows signs of deterioration.’ He tapped the papers with the tip of a brown finger. ‘I’ve run a series of general physical checks and, unless she get’s up and around soon, we could have complications.’
Too many and too soon. Helena stared at the papers, frowning as she read the data, facts and figures that led to an inescapable conclusion.
She said thoughtfully, ‘This doesn’t make sense, Bob. She hasn’t been bedridden long enough for all this deterioration. Psychosomatic?’
‘A possibility,’ he admitted. ‘But if so, then the circumstances are new to me. A girl, apparently insane, who has created her own deterioration by mental directives. I don’t like it. Doctor.’
‘Neither do I.’ Helena triggered her commlock. ‘John? I’m going to attempt to revive Lynne Saffery. I thought you might be interested. Why?’ She smiled at his question. ‘Well, she did try to eat you, John—or have you forgotten?’
The sore spot on his throat would have reminded him if he had. He touched it as he made his way to Medical Centre, the skin torn by snapping teeth, the wound healing beneath a scrap of transparent plastic. How long ago now? Days? A week? So much had happened since the girl had held him locked in her arms.
He paused as a squad of men moved along the corridor. Technicians on their way to the exterior to be suited and then lowered into nearby fissures, there to check if any threatening damage had been caused by the recent atomic blast.
A precaution and a part of normal maintenance procedure, but to ignore or forget it was to invite disaster. On the Moon eternal vigilance was the price of survival.
‘John!’ Helena smiled as Koenig entered Medical. ‘We’re just about to begin.’
‘Is she cured?’
‘We don’t know.’ She anticipated his next question. ‘We can’t leave her, John. I’m aware that natural sleep is the best healer there is, but we’ve kept her under sedation too long as it is. There are odd and disturbing complications. No girl as young as she is and in such good physical condition sho
uld display her symptoms.’
He said, ‘Could they be a by-product of what caused her illness in the first place?’
‘You’re thinking of the possibility of a virus infection?’ She shook her head as he nodded. ‘No, John, we’ve eliminated all possibility of danger from that source. If we had found something, it would have been easy to decide the cause of her breakdown; as it is, we can only guess and hope that she has made a natural recovery.’ She glanced to where Mathias stood beside the bed. ‘Ready, Bob?’
‘When you give the word, Doctor.’
‘Go ahead.’
The encephalogram, Koenig noticed, had been connected and he studied the pattern of wavy lines as Mathias injected the stimulant. They flickered, steadied, flickered again.
‘Normal,’ commented Helena from where she stood at his side. ‘See how the pattern changes as she begins to regain consciousness? Now we have to hope that the previous distortion doesn’t appear.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
‘We can hope for a cure. At least her mental condition will be as it should be. That alien pattern—’ she drew in her breath as the screen flared to a jumble of lines, then released it as it steadied again. ‘Thank God for that. Bob?’
‘She’s waking up.’ Mathias stepped back, the hypodermic syringe ready. ‘If she goes crazy, I’ll have to sedate her again.’
‘On my order only.’ Helena stooped over the bed. ‘Lynne! Lynne, my dear, wake up! Wake up, Lynne!’
The girl turned and smiled and opened her eyes.
‘Doctor! What a wonderful rest I’ve had. Did I fall asleep? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil the test. Did I spoil it?’
‘No,’ said Helena quickly. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Relaxed.’ The girl stretched out like a cat as she lay supine on the bed, arms uplifted, the muscles of her thighs clear beneath the skin, breasts prominent against the cage of her ribs.
Koenig said dryly, ‘Not hungry?’
‘No . . . well, a little,’ she amended. ‘And that’s odd; I ate just before reporting for the test session.’
Days ago now—and she remembered nothing of what had happened. Koenig met Helena’s eyes and she answered the jerk of his head. Standing at the far side of the ward, he said quietly, ‘Would you say she is cured?’
‘No.’
‘Her mind—’
‘Seems clear enough at the moment,’ she interrupted, ‘but don’t forget the amnesia. That isn’t normal to begin with. And I can’t understand how her encephalogram became so distorted. Hunger,’ she mused. ‘Bob said the pattern reminded him of a hunger line he’d once seen. And she tried to eat you, John. Given the chance, she would have torn out your throat. But why? Why? What made her do it?’
From where he stood beyond the head of the bed, Mathias said sharply, ‘Dr Russell! Please!’
They looked at an animal.
The contrast was too great, the change too revolting and Koenig felt his stomach contract as he looked at what moments before had been a young and lovely girl.
The creature was still a female and still young, but there the similarity ended. Lynne Saffery was no longer lovely and, he thought, no longer human.
‘The encephalograph,’ said Helena. ‘Look at the screen!’
It writhed with the hatefully familiar jumble of lines he had seen before.
As her voice carried a hatefully familiar whine.
‘Food! I need food! I must have food! Feed me! Feed me!’
‘Doctor?’ Mathias lifted his hypodermic syringe.
‘No.’ Helena shook her head. ‘Not yet. John, help me to restrain her.’
‘No!’ He looked at the girl. She was writhing on the bed in a peculiarly constricted motion, ripples running from head to foot as she inched along the couch. ‘Why don’t you get her something to eat?’ he suggested. ‘Feed her as she asks.’
‘Assuage her longing?’ Mathias looked thoughtful. ‘She doesn’t seem to be as violent as before, Doctor. It could be that the commander has a point. And if she will eat naturally, it will help to bolster her constitution.’
She ate like the animal she had become, grabbing food and thrusting it into her mouth regardless of mixed textures and flavours, unheeding of the scraps that fell from her hands and mouth to spatter her garment. A day’s rations, two, and still she wanted more.
Even when restrained, she writhed and mewed and slavered, chewing at the pillow, the sheets, biting her lips until blood ran down her chin. Only when drugs had been injected into her bloodstream did she finally relax to fall into an artificial sleep.
‘Food,’ said Koenig. ‘She seems to be obsessed with the desire to eat. Is there a disease that can cause such a condition?’
‘A few, but they are rare and she has none of them.’ Helena was definite. ‘More common is the psychological desire that drives people to overeat—boredom, emotional instability, ingrained habit patterns, things like that. Again, as far as I can tell, Lynne has no problem of that nature.’
Koenig looked at where she lay, knees updrawn, her face almost buried in the pillow. Thoughtfully he touched the dressing over the small wound.
Coincidence?
‘Helena, when Lynne bit me, did you make a note of the time?’
‘I did, Commander,’ said Mathias. ‘I had to sedate her, remember? And a note is always made of the time of any injection.’ He lifted the clipboard from the end of the bed. ‘Here it is. See?’
‘And the initial distortion of her brain wave pattern? You have that, too?’
‘Naturally.’
Helena said, ‘What’s on your mind, John? What bearing could this have on her condition?’
‘Maybe none, but it needs to be checked out. Bob, get on to Kano. Give him all times and durations you have of the progression of Lynne’s trouble. Have him check them against anything recorded in the computer. Anything at all. I don’t care if a man burped in the dining hall at the time I was bitten—I want to know about it. Have him find correlations.’
‘You’ve thought of something,’ said Helena as the doctor moved over to the communications post. ‘An association of some kind. What is it, John?’
‘Madness, perhaps.’ Again he touched his throat. ‘When you first sedated Lynne you were running experiments in telepathy, right?’
‘In extrasensory perception,’ she corrected. ‘I was trying to narrow the field to determine in which area her talent was to be found. I’d eliminated clairvoyance and precognition.’
‘Which left telepathy?’
‘It had to be that. I arrived at the conclusion that Lynne Saffery, in order to gain the high scores she did on the test cards, had to be reading my mind. I intended to enhance her sensitivity by hypnotic suggestion and see if her performance could be improved. Theoretically she could have achieved a one-hundred-percent success rate each and every time once she managed to handle her talent. Other advantages are obvious. But you gave the Yellow Alert and ended the experiment.’
Koenig glanced at the bed, at the slim figure lying on the mattress, remembering his own fears, the sickness that had overwhelmed him when trying to remember details of the alien visitor. Remembering, too, the distortion of her brain wave pattern, her ravening hunger.
It all fitted, but he hoped he was wrong.
A hope that died as Mathias returned with the data from Main Mission.
‘Kano ran the problem through the computer and came up with certain related incidents. These he feels are the most appropriate and the only ones that fall into a common pattern.’ The doctor glanced at his papers. ‘According to the computer, Lynne’s brain wave pattern showed an abrupt and violent distortion a few seconds after the atomic missile used to divert the pod was detonated. The distortion continued in varying intensity until, at the time the pod landed, there is an abrupt enhancing of the alien characteristics.’
Something jarred to full awareness by the impact of the nuclear blast. Something shocked by the force of the crash when the
pod had split and a new and hostile environment had to be faced.
‘And when I was bitten?’
‘That coincides with the time when the first two men died.’ Mathias looked up from his papers. ‘Commander, I can’t believe it. It’s incredible!’
‘Telepathy,’ whispered Helena. ‘It has to be that. Somehow a mental link was established between Lynne and that creature from space. She was receiving the echoes of its mind. Its hunger drove her. Its ferocity made her act like a savage animal. Its domination even affected her basic metabolism. But, John, the thing was destroyed!’
Koenig said bitterly, ‘Was it?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Alive?’ Bergman shook his head, baffled. ‘But how? Nothing can withstand the fury of an atomic explosion, and the bomb we detonated swept Schemiel clean. The rock was fused, unbroken. The dust and whatever else the crater contained were blasted into space in a column of incandescent vapour. No creature, no matter how alien, could have survived.’
‘An atomic blast, no.’
‘Then how—’
‘Protective mimicry.’ Koenig was savage. A small depiction of one of the first interplanetary rocket probes toppled and fell as his hand slammed hard on the surface of his desk. ‘You mentioned it yourself, Victor—that pearl and ebon striation you spotted on the photograph. And it had time to leave the crater, don’t forget. After the rescue when Alan was hovering on guard and the other Eagle collected the injured and dead. Dust, you said, thick enough to cover the entire area—thick enough to cover movement, too.’ His hand slapped at a button. ‘Sandra. Get me photographs of Schemiel taken before we blasted it, some just after and some taken recently. If you haven’t any on file, send out to get them.’
‘We have them, Commander.’ Her face, on the screen, was bland. ‘The ones taken after the detonation are not very good. The dust—’
‘I know about the dust. Send them into my office. No, never mind. I’ll come out.’
The doors opened as he aimed and activated his commlock and Koenig swept into Main Mission. Morrow glanced curiously at him from his position at the console, an expression matched by Kano and Benes herself. She said, ‘On the auxilliary screens, Commander. You want me to run a comparison?’