by John Rankine
She spoke to his reflection in the polished panelling, ‘Cell growth has accelerated beyond the capacity of our instruments to measure.’
‘But still increasing?’
She nodded miserably, fair hair waving and Koenig was sidetracked by the perfect proportions of her face, its high cheekbones, the long smooth curve to the jaw, the line of the eyebrows. She was the best reason there was for finding a way out for them all. With an effort, he forced his mind to the problem. ‘What do we expect this time? It’s too much of a coincidence. The spacers home in, now this.’
‘You think they had something to do with Jackie from the beginning?’
‘I don’t think it’s going to help any of us to go on thinking of this,’ he nodded to the figure behind the screen, ‘as Jackie Crawford. There is some kind of alien presence amongst us and sooner or later we may have to destroy it.’
Helena Russell twisted round to take a square look at the owner of the reflection, not sure that she was reading facial clues aright. ‘But John. What are you saying? It’s a human being!’
‘Is it?’ Koenig’s hands cupped her head as he said slowly, ‘It has a human form. That’s all we know. We’re wide open. Time’s run out for waiting to see what happens.’
‘You remember the reasons for your first decision about Jackie? They still hold. We still don’t know any more—good or bad. We’re just more afraid, more desperate. It’s a subjective judgement.’
Koenig’s fingers felt the smooth pad of silky hair and he bent his arms to pull her towards him. For him it was crystal clear. He said, ‘At this moment, Jackie Crawford or whatever he has become is a threat to our existence.’
Over his shoulder, Helena had a long view out through a direct vision port. One of the spacers was menacingly close. Gently but firmly she disengaged his hands and crossed to the window to make her. point. ‘Then the reasons for not destroying him are even stronger. As you say, we’re wide open. If he’s their instrument how do you think they’ll react if we kill him?’
Koenig’s answer was oblique, but she knew he had seen the force of her argument. He spoke harshly into his commlock. ‘Paul. Command Conference. Now.’
She watched his erect figure out through the hatch and hated herself for adding to his problems. When the door closed she joined Mathias and they both watched the monitor’s insane chattering.
Koenig looked round the table at Kano, Paul Morrow and Carter and concluded his situation report. ‘So, reluctantly, I have to agree with Dr Russell. At this moment in time, as far as Jackie Crawford is concerned, our hands are tied.’
Alan Carter said, ‘That leaves the spacers themselves. As they’re placed we wouldn’t even get an Eagle up on the pad.’
‘We couldn’t be sure of an effective strike if we did.’
The pilot shifted uneasily in his chair. He knew what Koenig was getting at. Koenig left him in no doubt, ‘I’m not sure you could handle it, Alan. You loused up that attack. But I don’t happen to believe you’d make that kind of error in your right mind.’
‘It was the computer.’
‘Was it?’
‘What are you saying, Commander?’
‘Believe me, I’m not fixing the blame. I think you were got at by Jackie.’
Carter was bitter, ‘Yeah, well. We’re all awake to him now Commander.’
‘Like I said, I’m not blaming you. As I see it we can only hope that they’ll hold on fast on their green ray transmissions. If and when that happens we can go to work.’
‘Doing what?’
‘This may be primitive and we’ll need darkness. But I suggest a small party on foot. Four men. Each equipped with hand held armour piercing, lasers. They move into position, one below each ship. Time it to a second and fire simultaneously.’
Kano whistled, ‘You said it was primitive!’
Morrow put it in perspective, ‘What else can we do?’
Koenig made the decision, ‘Right. All that remains is to set it up. There are four of us here.’
As if on cue, Sandra Benes buzzed on the communications post and spoke quietly. ‘Commander the green lights have stopped.’
It was true. Checking from the vision ports, Koenig could see the huge spacers hovering North, West, South and East like containing cliffs. Their domes were still flushed with a weird green glow but the pulsations had stopped.
Koenig said, ‘This is it. There may be no other chance. We go now. Alan, West. Kano, South. Paul, East. I’ll take North. Count down from my commlock. Good luck.’
Action cleared his head. As he stepped out of the North lock, a bulky anonymous figure in full space gear, carrying a heavy manual laser, he felt that at last the initiative had shifted to the Alpha party. Using his commlock, he watched the others make their exits and moved off to position himself under the huge belly of the spacer hovering a hundred metres over the North quadrant.
In the Intensive Care Unit, Helena Russell and Bob Mathias rounded the screen to take a closer look at the body in the life support tent. Helena wheeled back the covers, forcing herself to treat the problem in medical terms and stopped, hands falling to her sides, eyes suddenly enormous. Instead of Jackie Crawford, they had gotten a grown man, aged, if that had any meaning, about the middle forties, fair-haired and opening piercingly intelligent eyes as she and Mathias backed off in shock.
He sat up, cleared away the rest of the gear and stood up, using the sheet as a robe. Before they could reach the door, he spoke in a firm authoritative voice, ‘My name is Jarak. For as long as you shall know me I shall retain this form. I require to know what has been happening during my period of growth.’
Helena found her voice, ‘There are many things we’d like to know also.’
Jarak walked towards her, ‘Has any action been taken against my space ships?’
Too quickly Helena said, ‘None.’
‘I know the truth when I hear it.’
‘There’s nothing we can do.’
Jarak reached her. Watching his eyes Helena felt resolution draining out of her. He took her wrists and his eyes seemed to be filling her mind. His voice seemed to be speaking from inside her head. ‘Dr Russell, you will tell me.’
Mathias had come to her side and Jarak dropped her wrists, looking grim faced from one to the other. Slowly her hands lifted, crawled to the collar of Mathias’s tunic, clamped definitively round his throat. Her face white with a struggle she could not resolve, she began to strangle him, with Mathias unable to move to help himself. Locked in horror she could only jerk out, ‘Stop. I will tell you.’ But the grip was tightening. Mathias was falling. Jarak said, ‘Quickly or he dies.’
Helena was shouting in despair. ‘Four men. Outside now. Stop.’
Her hands fell away and she looked at them in disbelief, hair hanging over her face.
Outside, Koenig was set and had his commlock on the count. Kano, Morrow and Carter had the repeat. Each looked up to the lowering underbelly of a spacer. Digits whipped through the panels 32. 31. 30.
Jarak shrugged into an Alpha medicentre jacket and said coldly, ‘And now you will stop them.’
‘One life against three hundred, that’s no deal.’
But her body had already sold the pass. Her hands had the commlock from her belt.
Mathias tried. Forcing himself to move her he reached out to grab it from her, but Jarak was between them taking his wrists and forcing him to meet his eyes. As Mathias fell, Helena was raising her commlock to speak.
Koenig saw digits flip down from 6 to 5. He put his commlock between his feet, raised his laser and had first pressure on the stud when an urgent blip had him lowering the aim and scooping up the communicator. Helena’s frantic face on the miniature screen said, ‘Stop, John, or Alpha will be destroyed.’
‘Helena? Helena?’
But the screen had blanked. Moving fast, he sent out a general call. ‘Hold it. Hold your fire.’
It was the bitterest moment he had ever had. He could imagine Carter�
��s reaction, saw them in his mind’s eye turning away from a sitting target. Paul Morrow called in ‘What’s the problem, Commander?’
Koenig was already moving, ‘Return to base.’
Alan Carter said, ‘Come all over peaceful again have they, Commander?’
He could not see Jarak’s humourless smile or he would have had his answer.
But Jarak was at least using a polite form of words. He said to Helena, ‘You have my thanks. Now I require to see Cynthia Crawford.’
Medical concern steadied her, ‘She’s not well enough to receive visitors.’
Jarak said patiently, ‘Doctor, as a child you cared for me, even gave me human love. Believe me, I do not like to have to treat Alphans this way.’ Helena still hesitated and his tone hardened, ‘Now take me to her.’
Life support monitors showed that Moonbase Alpha’s first mother was losing her lonely battle to stay alive. Against all expectation her eyes opened wide as they approached the bed and fixed fearfully on Jarak’s face.
Mathias jerked out, ‘Doctor, she’s dying.’ As they watched, the scopes faltered and the lines flattened. Helena Russell said, ‘You’ve killed her.’
But Jarak was still staring into the blank open eyes. Without breaking the bond he said, ‘Does computer confirm the death of Cynthia Crawford?’
There was a two second pause before the computer answered for itself, ‘Cynthia Crawford, Deceased.’
Helena leaned over automatically and closed Cynthia’s eyes. Then she went on blindly to a vision port and looked out. Eyes filled with tears she could see a green light pulsing from the nearest spacer. It was the end of their high hopes. Jarak was a monster. She turned to face him, ready to accuse him and was sidetracked by Cynthia herself.
Cynthia Crawford was revitalised. Hair piled regally on top of her head, face made up like an exquisitely beautiful doll, she was stirring, sitting up, holding out her hands, saying ‘Jarak!’
‘Rena!’—he pulled her to her feet and held her close kissing her throat, her eyes and finally her pouting mouth.
Laser ready, John Koenig moved cautiously into the corridor leading to Alpha’s medicentre and checked that Morrow and his party were ready at the other intersection. He signalled to the two security details at his back and moved forward. The door of the medicentre sliced open and Helena Russell herself walked straight out.
Koenig ran forward. She turned like a zombie raising her right arm and he stopped. Her laser was aimed steadily at his head.
Morrow and his section were coming along like a train and she had to shout, ‘Stop, Paul or I shoot.’
Koenig held out his hand and moved slowly. ‘Helena, give me that.’
For a second, he thought she would respond then the laser shifted briefly off target and fired a single burst into a ceiling light over his head. There was a percussive crack and Koenig stopped motionless as the barrel came back to aim.
Helena said, ‘Put down your weapons. There, by the door.’
When it was done, the door slid open. Jarak and Rena stepped out side by side. Helena’s action was understandable, but not their transformation. Koenig was still staring in disbelief at Rena as Jarak walked up to him and took his commlock, then stooped and helped himself to a laser. ‘In Alpha we must do as the Alphans do.’
Rena walked in front of Helena, took the laser from her hand and stared into her eyes, ‘Thank you, Doctor Russell. You are released.’
Helena passed her hands over her face and was swaying on her feet. Koenig went forward, put his arm round her shoulders. Trying to get it right he said to Rena, ‘You’re not Cynthia Crawford?’
Jarak said, ‘No more than I am Jackie Crawford and no more than you are any longer Commander of Moonbase Alpha. We will all go along to the command office. Now, if you please.’
It was not until he was sitting at the command desk with Rena beside him and the staff of Main Mission disarmed and ready to listen that he was ready to speak again. John Koenig and Helena were at the foot of the steps, symbolically demoted. On the top step a pile of weapons sat under Jarak’s penetrating eyes.
He said, ‘Like you we are involuntary travellers through space. But unlike you we are looking not only for a place to live but also for a physical form to conceal our identity.’
Koenig said, ‘Why? Are you trying to escape from something?’
‘I appreciate the intuitive quality of your human mind, Commander. I also like your unpredictable human emotions. I like the differences that exist between you. On our planet, we faced extinction, because we were different. We are escaping from genetic conformity, ruthlessly imposed. We are happy to have found Alpha.’
He smiled, looking as though he expected everybody would be equally pleased but Koenig put him right, ‘But you can’t stay here. We cannot support your people. Our resources are precariously balanced. We can scarcely sustain ourselves.’
‘Be sure I appreciate the problem. The population of Alpha will not increase. We shall simply take over your bodies and make them our own. The moments of birth and death are ideally suited to this purpose. It was the birth of Jackie Crawford that gave me my chance.’
There was more to it than that and Helena Russell blurted it out.
‘But you killed Cynthia.’
Rena as the beneficiary answered that, ‘Doctor Russell. There will be no more births on Alpha. But sadly there will be many more deaths.’
It caused a stir in the audience but Jarak went on impassively, ‘I was happy with my birth. I was restricted in an incubator, but as a five year old you gave me free run of the base. You showed me all I needed to know. I am truly sorry to bite the hands that fed me.’
John Koenig had heard enough. Deliberately he set himself to walk forward and went on although both Jarak and Rena raised lasers in warning. At point blank range, he stopped, ‘You need us Jarak. I don’t know what your people look like but I know they need us alive. You dare not kill us until you are ready.’
Jarak’s smile had set coldly, ‘We are ready.’
‘But how much use will I be with a laser burn through my heart?’ Koenig held out his hand, staring across the table into Jarak’s eyes.
Slowly Jarak transferred the laser to his free hand and offered it across the desk butt first, saying at the same time, ‘We are fighting to preserve our individuality, Commander. But no individual is more valuable than the community.’
It was a double edged comment and Helena realised what he intended as Koenig’s hand turned the laser against himself. She started forward in fear, ‘No, Jarak. Don’t make him do it.’
Rena met her, jamming her own laser into her chest, saying icily, ‘We will kill you all if we must.’
Koenig’s forefinger was on the stud, he could only wait like any spectator for the killing shot. An unarmed security man, forgotten by Jarak dived desperately to shove the barrel aside and Koenig’s finger tightened for a full due. Then, freed he looked round dazed and shaky, to see the man crumpling to the floor.
Completely composed, Jarak said, ‘As Commander here, you have a certain special value. It would be a needless waste to kill you before one of my people can make use of you. You must see your choice is between a future as one of us or no future at all.’ Using the command console he made an announcement, ‘Attention, all sections, Alpha. This is Jarak calling.’
His face appeared on every screen, mesmeric, compelling. As he continued to speak, the effect could be judged from the reaction in Main Mission. No eye could turn away. Power was being drained out of them. Men and women all over Moonbase Alpha began to collapse like puppets on a slackening string.
Jarak droned on, ‘The mission of the spaceships over Alpha is nearly completed. My people are preparing now to transfer to those of your dying bodies which have been designated.’
At the communications post in the medicentre, all eyes were fixed on Jarak. Paula slipped unconscious to the floor. No one moved to help her. In Main Mission, Sandra Benes fell and Kano slumped ac
ross his desk. Koenig, gripping the edge of his command console saw Helena drop to her knees.
Inexorably, Jarak went on, ‘When the transfer is complete, the space ships will lift off into space and self destruct. As far as our pursuer is concerned, we shall no longer exist. But we shall have begun our new life as inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha.’
Few heard him finish. Victor Bergman, arms sprawled across his desk was breathing in long shuddering gasps. Koenig, still hanging on to his desk felt consciousness ebbing away. He tried to concentrate on the green dome of the spacer he could dimly see through the direct vision ports of his command office. When it suddenly suffused with white flame, he believed his mind had finally blown.
Brilliant eye aching light flooded briefly through the complex. Rena, hand to her mouth turned in terror to Jarak. Her voice on a rising note of hysteria cut through the silent room, ‘They’ve found us.’
Thuds on the outer skin of the dome told of debris cascading down from the shattered spacer. Jarak hesitated, saw Koenig pulling himself erect, took Rena’s hand and ran with her into Main Mission.
Koenig hauled himself into his command chair, punched keys and saw the moon surface glow to life on the main scanner. Six new spacers in tight formation were arrowing in towards the moon. The three still in possession were leaving station, pulling away in a desperate bid to gain sea room.
There was a split in the racing squadron. Three fell away to come in from below. Tarak’s force was moving into the jaws of a closing trap.
Koenig drew deep quivering breaths, feeling strength build again in his body. The staff in Main Mission were also stirring. Helena, Morrow, Carter were shakily on their feet. Kano was kneeling beside Sandra holding her hands. Of Jarak and Rena there was no sign.
He hit the Red Alert button and the strident klaxons sounded out. Picking a laser out of the pile, he rounded up Morrow and Carter and all the security men who were on their feet and led them after Jarak. This time he would make sure.
High above the complex, Jarak’s leading spacer was hit by crossfire and disintegrated in white light. An attacker too keen and too close was shattered by a hail of debris and flared off in a wheeling arc of flame. It was a chance for the other two, who were through the gap and pulling away with the five remaining aggressors coming round to reform and pursue.