by Tony Attwood
And since that was the conclusion that Vila had already reached he decided to go along with it. Together, man and machine chose a drink.
For three further days the ship continued its dull routine. Each of the crew took an eight hour watch followed by eight hours of research (or in the case of Vila fun and games with KAT) and then eight hours sleep. It was not a routine that made for friendliness, conversation or jollity.
But eventually the routine was broken. The problem started with Blake.
‘I am sustaining interference,’ the computer announced.
‘What?’ asked Vila, on watch at the time.
Unhelpfully Blake repeated itself.
‘What sort of interference?’ demanded Vila.
‘My primary circuits controlling the directional computers are malfunctioning. Each time overrides are implemented the override itself is broken.’
‘You mean we are going off course?’
‘Not yet, but it could possibly happen. Meanwhile... The problem is spreading.’
Vila leaned across his control panel and pressed the intercom which worked throughout the whole ship.
‘Avon, I think you had better come here. Blake is having a heart attack.’
Instantly awake, Avon ran half the length of the ship to the control room, accused Vila of feeding adrenalin to the ship’s computers and demanded a report from the machine, before he even reached his position.
The computer remained silent. Avon looked at the bank of instrumentation that represented the ship’s functions. ‘Run back the log from just before you called me,’ he told Vila. Vila did it and Avon heard Blake’s last remarks. After that there was silence.
Avon pressed the intercom and called Korell to the control room. He broke contact before there was time for a reply.
‘We appear to have full functions as long as we operate manually,’ Korell told him when she arrived. ‘But with the auto-repair circuits out it’s going to be a long job to sort out the faults.’ Avon moved across to the computer console and started to remove plates of controls, chips, and circuits. He was stopped by Korell. ‘We’re moving off course,’ she said.
‘Then put us back on course. You’re the pilot.’
Korell ignored the comment. ‘There’s a planetary system about twenty light years away. We seem to be slowing down and bearing away to it.’
‘Compensate,’ ordered Avon. ‘Put us back on the right course, and stay with it. Call me if there is a fraction of deviation. Vila, start removing the alpha sections of the master computer.’ And with that Avon crawled under the main panel at the front of the system and started removing plates of circuitry. As he did so a background noise appeared to come from Blake. Vila let slip the plate he was removing. ‘Dropping delicate computer equipment is not the best way to repair it,’ said Avon.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Vila complained. ‘It was hot.’
Disbelieving, Avon touched the plate, and removed his hand quickly. He turned to the main bank of instrumentation and touched it gingerly. That too was overheating. Meanwhile the background sound was getting louder, and definitely coming from Blake.
‘Are we still on course?’
Korell confirmed.
‘Then start shutting down all non-essential functions to get rid of that noise.’
As Korell obeyed the sound increased. ‘It’s music,’ Vila announced. ‘It’s Blake playing music.’
‘Not like I’ve ever heard,’ said Korell. She sat back in her chair, listening intently.
Avon turned to her angrily. ‘You are supposed to be turning the systems off, not listening to the background.’
Korell regained her concentration. ‘Still on course. All the circuits are responding.’
‘Good. Now keep shutting down and try and remove that noise from Blake.’
But Korell’s hands hardly moved toward the console. Vila too had stopped moving. Avon called instructions above the sounds but the others seemed not to hear. He repeated his commands. Korell heard him but refrained from continuing the shut down. She sat, eyes wide staring impassively straight ahead. The sound seemed to be telling her something. It was nothing specific, but instead something symbolic, about way of life, about people, about how to live. For a moment she wanted to say she had more important things on her mind than symbolic theorising and sociological speculation, but the sounds were insistent. It was as if they were able to make a direct line for centres of meaning deep within her brain. She saw images that were not images at all, pictures with no form, stories telling her that life didn’t have to be like this, that everything could be different as long as she listened. It was as if she was being invited to look beyond the horizon, over the edge of the planet, over the edge of the galaxy, perhaps even beyond the very edge of the universe itself into something beyond the curve of existence, beyond reality itself...
Avon watched what had happened to his crew. He tried to pull himself across the floor of the ship, but the sounds were insistent. Korell was right. It was music like he had never heard before, reminding him of things past. Of his family... Even KAT became absorbed. The small computer began to follow the lead of his larger brother. The two computers began to play together. As the sound built up Korell sat impassively watching the controls, until she eventually understood. The music needed resolving. There was more, and only if she heard more would she fully understand. She made minor adjustments to the controls; Revenge slowed and started moving off course. On the screens, fully operational but unseen by the crew, a star grew larger. It passed from the centre of the screens and a small dot grew into a blue-green planet covered in cloud. On the ship only one entity remained free of the influence. Avon sensed it. ‘Avon,’ whispered KAT. ‘Do not be misled. The influence is on the planet, Sir. It works through the tarriel cells, not direct into your nervous system. MIND goes straight to the neural links, and this isn’t MIND.’ But Avon’s consciousness had gone, buried behind the all-pervading noise rising now to a vast climax as Revenge was brought into land, in a small space port in the northern hemisphere of a planet not even marked on the ship’s computer-updated star charts.
The room was quite remarkable. Avon might even have considered it beautiful had he bothered to cultivate a sense of aesthetics. There were long wooden tables probably carved by hand, exquisite high-backed chairs, and tall pure blue candles burning brightly on all sides. Above there was a balcony that those born on Earth a thousand years before might have recognised as a minstrels’ gallery. That Avon saw it merely as a means of possible escape was neither here nor there to his captors.
Gaining consciousness Avon rapidly tested his options for movement – arms, hands, legs, head, and discovered himself not to be held in place by any restraints. Moving cautiously he found he could put the weight on his legs. He raised himself – just far enough to acknowledge that there were no hidden force shields. He logged the information for future use.
To his left was Vila, sleeping peacefully. To his right Korell, at the same stage as Avon in assessing the current situation.
Across the table sat three well dressed and apparently unarmed gentlemen. They were busy discussing matters in low voices, paying scant attention to their prisoners. Avon turned his head to check the exit routes. Still no restraints. To his right a range of windows looked onto a massive lawn. It was impossible to tell if they were plain glass or reinforced in some way. Straight ahead a door slightly ajar led into what appeared to be a corridor. To his left another door, wide open, leading into a lobby. Behind him a door was almost shut. He seemed spoilt for choice.
One of the three captors opposite noticed his movements; the low conversation stopped. The table was touched and monitors appeared, rising from the surface and yet leaving the wooden appearance apparently unbroken.
‘Welcome to Ghammar,’ announced the one sitting opposite Avon. ‘Under the constitution of the fifth regency I have to inform you that you are free to go at any time. However, allow me to try to prevail upon you to stay o
f your own free will. We would welcome the chance to discuss matters with you. Will you tell us your names?’
‘Before I tell you anything will you tell us who you are and how you got us here?’
‘The suspicious nature of a Terran,’ replied the Ghammaran. ‘But without the mindless threats that are bred within the Federation.’
‘There is no point threatening what you do not know,’ said Avon tersely.
‘A logical position to take. We are three members of the Council of Representatives of the island of Shara occupying our position by the grace of the prince Ghasri of Xlendi, in the northern hemisphere of the planet Ghammar. I would tell you our names but you will find them unpronounceable. Local culture dictates that if you wish to be polite you will call us ‘Representatives’. If you do not wish to be polite you need not.’ Avon noticed the almost musical quality that existed in the voice of the Ghammaran. It gave him his first recollection of what he had just experienced on Revenge.
The voice continued as if following Avon’s own thought patterns. ‘We brought you here through simple hypnosis. Your race chooses to distinguish between hypnotic sounds and non-hypnotic by calling the former "music". It is an old technique – one that your peoples had a thousand years ago but then outlawed for fear of the power it brought. You piloted your craft into land yourselves.’
‘Why have you brought us here?’ asked Korell.
‘To learn more of you, to offer to show you our way of life, to exchange technologies...’
‘This all sounds very generous of you.’
‘Not at all. Experience over the years has proven that merely inviting people of your race here is a waste of time. They either do not come at all or come so heavily armed that war is inevitable. So now we make the invitation a little more real, a little more personal. Simply, the logic of your situation suggests that firstly you should verify your position, by leaving; then you should return because there is every chance that an exchange of views and knowledge could benefit you. Take a look at our society, our civilisation, our culture. You will find we have some things to offer you, but at heart we are a simple rural people.’
‘Forgive me if I seem ungrateful or ungenerous,’ said Korell, ‘but that is not the logical situation. If we attempt to leave and put our ship in orbit you can always bring us back. We will not learn of the validity of your claim until we take the ship totally out of orbit and away from the influence of your music. And besides, rural environments can be dangerous.’ She looked at Avon.
‘A wise analysis,’ replied the Representative. ‘You have the choice to make.’
A sound came from Avon’s right. Vila had woken up, and caught the gist of the conversation. ‘Let’s leave.’
‘No.’ Avon was emphatic. ‘At least let us ask a few more questions of our hosts.’ He turned back to those sitting opposite. ‘Do you have space travel?’
‘A good first question. Yes, we do. But we do not use it as you do to fly across the Galaxy. We have no Empire. Even our own planet is divided into many states, each independent of the others. We travel only to secure raw materials and basic food supplies from uninhabited or sparsely inhabited planets in the vicinty of Ghammar.’
‘Do you have teleport?’
‘No. But if you have, then we could start our exchange of technologies.’
‘We do not have teleport on our current ship, and we need certain raw materials to build the system. Do you have ships capable of making voyages over several hundred light years rapidly?’
‘Yes, we have that technology. You may also like to note that we have an anti-gravity field that links with your own type of fusion reactors as used in the ramjets of your space craft.’
‘Is that good?’ whispered Vila.
‘The speed generated by the ramjets is determined by the amount of interstellar matter that can be picked up as the ship travels in deep space. That matter is used to feed the fusion engines. So there is a finite limit to how fast a ramjet fusion engine can go – time distort 12 is about the maximum. Liberator could go much faster, but we never had a good enough engineer on board to work out how they did it. But an anti-gravity device could push the limits up considerably.’ Avon, warming to his theme through his explanation to Vila, turned back to the Ghammarans. ‘We could do a deal. You secure the materials and we build the system.’
‘Avon...’ Vila whispered urgently. Avon chose to ignore him.
‘I shall prepare you a list of materials we need – there is not much – and then direct the building of two systems, one for our ship and one for you. In the meantime, we shall return to our ship.’
‘A rapid deal, well arranged,’ said the Representative. ‘My colleagues here will show you the way.’
The way shown was out through the left hand door, into the lobby, down three stone steps and through a magnificent old wooden door out into the cool evening air under a bright orange sun. They walked along a gravel path, with the large stone building on one side and hedges and bushes obscuring the view of the other. The edge of the building was reached, the corner turned, and Revenge was standing on a large concrete apron. A buggy took the crew across to the ship. They boarded, Korell thanked the buggy driver and closed the airlock doors.
‘Straight up, no orbit,’ said Avon as they reached the control room.
‘Blake, I want a silent replay of the events leading to our landing on the planet. Re-run from the moment there was the first interference.’
On the screens reappeared the patterns of stars as the ship approached its present location. The action was eerie in its silence, the voices of the crew, like the music, unheard. The replay told Avon little but that the ship was clearly guided down by Korell, presumably under the influence of the sounds that had affected all three of them. ‘Report on the nature of the interference.’
‘I don’t know what it was.’ said Blake.
‘The machine is correct,’ said Korell, checking her own data. ‘The interference got at the computer as well as at us. In fact it looks from this data as if the interference actually came via the computers.’
‘Madam, if I may disagree, not all the computers.’ Everyone turned. It was the voice of KAT.
‘Since when did you start giving advice that wasn’t asked for?’ said Vila.
‘Since the moment my abilities started to be maligned, Sir. The interference you speak of was a simple radion transmission picked up and amplified through tarriel cells. Any computer, including the ship’s master computer which you refer to as Blake is bound to be affected. I did try to counter it with a wave emission of my own but we were too close to the source by then.’
‘And you are not affected by the sound,’ said Korell, joyfully accepting the irony of the situation, ‘because you are not based on the tarriel cell. And Avon knew all the time. That explains a lot.’
‘Not to me it doesn’t,’ said Vila.
‘Korell is absolutely correct, Sir. Which is why, I presume, you so rarely consult my data banks. Not that that is a concern of mine, since it leaves me free to consider wider aspects of some of the finer substances invented by mankind. But on this occasion...’
‘On this occasion you felt the need to point the error out,’ said Korell. ‘And if you felt that this was the time to point something out it follows you have something else worth pointing out, that reveals your inestimable value. Fire away.’
‘Madam, you have the advantage of me,’ replied KAT with an air of humoured indignation.
‘Give us your replay of the interference,’ said Avon.
KAT’s replay included sound, and was projected through Blake onto the ship’s main screens. In itself it told the crew little, although Korell noted that Avon had deliberately not consulted KAT immediately, even though he probably already knew about the tarriel cell link with the sounds from Ghammar. The only other point of interest was that the replay also showed that Avon still retained an interest in that strange something called MIND. Avon certainly seemed to be trying to argue
with KAT about it as he lurched in and out of consciousness before the ship landed. Korell looked for an explanation.
Avon, however, chose to be evasive. ‘It may exist,’ he said, ‘but here and now it is nothing of importance. And certainly nothing to do with this affair.’
Korell on the other hand chose the moment to develop her enquiries. She addressed herself to KAT.
‘Explain the use of the word “MIND” in Avon’s comments during the interference,’ she said, precise as ever.
‘MIND is reputed to be an entity. Madam, there have been rumours for several years that someone or something exists which is touching on human affairs, and in some way controlling them. MIND is a legend, but a legend with a difference. There are two normal types of legend. First legends which come from events long long past, such as the legend of Hister who attempted to destroy the Earth a thousand years ago. Then there are legends based on a degree of truth surrounding recent events, such as the legend of Blake’s 7 which is now spread throughout the Galaxy. It is based roughly on truth but there are certain differences in important matters. For example...’
‘All right KAT,’ said Avon. ‘I think we have a fair idea of what the Blake’s 7 legend is all about.’
‘But MIND is different, Sir. MIND is said to exist now, although no one knows what it is. And yet people believe it exerts a presence, an influence.’
‘I never took you for the suspicious type,’ said Korell, ‘But I can see why you consult KAT on the subject. If MIND does exist then it exists separately from the omnipotent tarriel cell. Which means it is free from interference by Orac. This begins to explain things.’
Avon remained silent; KAT answered for him. ‘Sir, if I may speak? Madam, Avon feels that MIND has been attempting to influence him – communicate with him – for some time.’