Space 1999 - Planets of Peril

by Michael Butterworth

  He watched Annette Fraser rush over from the back of the room and stand by their side.

  ‘John!’ Verdeschi exclaimed in surprise. ‘We’d given up on you...’

  Koenig looked sharply at Mentor who had retreated to one side, off set. A moment of indecision returned to him.

  ‘Commander, what’s happening?’ Verdeschi asked worriedly.

  At length, Koenig spoke. His face looked placid, but there was a slight tautness about it that Verdeschi picked up on.

  ‘Tony, we’ve made contact with the people down here,’ he said. ‘Our sensors misinformed us about this planet. We’ve discovered huge subterranean areas which are habitable...’

  He watched the reaction on their faces. Annette and Sandra were beaming happily.

  ‘We have been given permission to settle here...’ He paused tersely. ‘Evacuate Moon Base Alpha as soon as possible.’

  Verdeschi’s face creased in alarm.

  ‘Evacuate...?’

  ‘Yes. I want you to ship our people down her in phased relays.’

  Verdeschi gave a horrified laugh.

  ‘Just like that... no study, no research... just pack up and go down?’

  The figure of Annette ran forward towards Verdeschi. Sandra’s figure ran after her, and caught her.

  ‘Why is he resisting?’ he heard Annette ask the other woman angrily.

  Sandra pulled the girl back to her console.

  Koenig stared stonily at the screen.

  ‘Are you disputing my order?’ he asked in a severe tone of voice.

  Verdeschi spoke hastily.

  ‘Not disputing, John... just wondering...’

  ‘Directive Four,’ Koenig snapped. ‘It empowers the Commander to act in a situation like this. You will do as you are ordered. The evacuation procedure is all laid down... so signal when you’re ready to land the first wave.’

  The screen went blank.

  Koenig looked drained of energy. Distantly he noticed that the door to the Brain Transfer Section was open and Helena and the others were on their feet, staring incredulously at him.

  Mentor walked up to him.

  ‘Thank you, Koenig. You may join your crew now.’

  Koenig looked uncertainly inside the Transfer room, not relishing what he saw. Nevertheless, he went and joined them.

  ‘Traitor!’ Macinlock spat at him. The Eagle Chief’s face was a mask of bitterness and loathing. Unable to control himself, he launched himself at his commander. But before his outstretched hands could reach him, a thin beam of blue light from an Overseer struck him in the chest, and he collapsed at Koenig’s feet, unconscious.

  Koenig stared down at him impassively, before looking up at Helena’s angry face.

  ‘It was the only way out,’ Koenig told her emotionlessly.

  Mentor’s voice came from the Grove.

  ‘You owe him your lives. You should be grateful,’ he said to them.

  Helena ignored the Psychon, and turned to Koenig.

  ‘But the price is too high,’ she complained.

  ‘Our survival,’ Koenig said, grating his teeth. He longed to take Helena in his arms and explain to her, but he couldn’t.

  ‘...but what about the hundreds up on Alpha?’ she demanded.

  ‘What about them, Commander?’ Fraser asked him challengingly.

  ‘You can end up like the ones in the pit. Not me,’ Koenig replied levelly. He started to walk away, but Helena grasped his shoulder.

  ‘John... listen...’

  Koenig shrugged her off and walked away.

  She stared after him, angry and puzzled.

  Tony Verdeschi stared, desperately unhappily, at the Big Screen in Command Centre. The older, wiser, more experienced and knowledgeable face of Professor Victor Bergman came to his mind. He would know what to do, and he wished that he could go to him for council now.

  The Professor had guided Moon Base Alpha in the first years of its isolation away from Earth.

  He had been a familiar and loved figure, but now he was dead, killed by a faulty space suit, and could offer his advice no more.

  The Command Centre was quiet. Only Annette Fraser seemed truly happy.

  Behind Verdeschi, Sandra Benes worked at her console, pressing buttons. The screen lit up suddenly with a slash of words.

  DIRECTIVE FOUR

  SECURITY CLASSIFIED DATA

  ACCESS DENIED. REFER TO

  COMMANDER, MOON BASE ALPHA.

  The Security Chief knew before the words appeared what they would say.

  But Sandra sounded perplexed.

  ‘Computer refusing access to directive four... I’ll need the security code,’ she complained.

  ‘I know what directive four is...’ Verdeschi told her grimly, without turning.

  Sandra had left her seat, and was walking over to him. She did not like the sound of his voice.

  ‘What is directive four?’ she asked.

  Verdeschi turned and scowled. He looked over Sandra’s shoulder at Annette to check that the operator was out of earshot. Then he spoke confidently to the technician.

  ‘It’s a coded signal. A clear instruction to destroy the place it originated from.’

  The woman looked horrified.

  ‘Destroy the planet...? They’re still down there.’

  Verdeschi heaved a heavy sigh of resignation.

  ‘It’s mandatory.’

  Sandra looked at him incredulously.

  ‘And you’ll carry it out?’

  They both looked at one another, appalled by the implications. For a moment Verdeschi did not answer her. Then his jaw set, and became harder.

  ‘Return to your station,’ he said slowly.

  The technician backed away from him, as she would from one carrying a contageous disease.

  He turned abruptly, and walked towards the Commander’s chair. He sat down and called Jameson.

  The Computer’s print out on the screen disappeared, and the tired face of the Defence Chief appeared in the weapons section.

  ‘Yes, Tony?’ he asked. ‘Any developments?’

  ‘Prepare Robot Eagle...’ Verdeschi said, ignoring the question.

  Jameson looked faintly surprised.

  ‘Robot Eagle ready to launch... I always keep her ready. You know that.’

  ‘Then give the estimated time of arrival at attack position P-AD6 SS-2:8...’

  Jameson shrugged. ‘You’ll have to give me a moment,’ he said.

  The screen went blank. A few moments later Jameson’s face appeared on it again. His tiredness had disappeared. This time he looked positively electric.

  ‘Hey, that co-ordinate... it’s...’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Verdeschi tried to shut him up. ‘Just let me know the time of arrival, will you?’

  Jameson breathed in deeply and swallowed.

  ‘OK... If we launch her now... she’ll arrive at attack position at 1520.’

  ‘Thanks...’

  ‘Attack position...?’ Annette picked up the words from her console. She looked suddenly alarmed.

  Sandra looked at her with commiseration.

  Verdeschi kept his eyes on the screen. He could not bear looking at her. He didn’t want her to create a scene.

  ‘Maximum destruction power?’ he asked Jameson.

  ‘Tony, you can’t be serious!’ Jameson exploded. ‘When that Eagle hits Psychon there won’t be enough left of the planet to make a pebble.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Annette cried with shock. She left her console and ran over to Verdeschi. She looked at him in a dazed way.

  Verdeschi gritted his teeth.

  ‘Obeying orders...’

  ‘You can’t. Bill is down there,’ she shouted in anguish.

  ‘So is the Commander and Dr Russell and...’

  ‘You’re going to destroy the planet!’ she screamed. She looked totally out of control.

  ‘Directive four cannot be countermanded,’ Verdeschi continued stonily. But he did not feel l
ike stone. Inside, he felt like a weak, sloppy mess.

  ‘Why don’t we double check?’ Sandra asked in a pleading tone of voice. She could see that Annette was close to break down, and she was trying to help her round it. ‘I could try to raise the Commander, get clarification.’

  But Verdeschi shook his head.

  ‘No, Sandra. We haven’t time. John wouldn’t give the order unless this base and all the people on it faced destruction... the research block could have been a taste of what’s to come.’ He turned to Jameson. ‘Launch Robot Eagle.’

  Annette fell on Verdeschi. She began pounding on his chest with both hands and screaming.

  ‘No... no...’ she screamed. ‘No... no... No...!’

  But Verdeschi did not try to stop her. He stared instead through tears of his own at the screen.

  The film had changed to a shot of the launch pad and he watched the Robot Eagle rising out of the ground on its platform. He watched the rapid spill of fire from her exhausts, and the quiver of power that ran through her monstrous body. Then he watched her rising, burning into the black airless sky against the millions of burning stars.

  ‘In ten minutes it will all be over,’ he whispered weakly, as Annette slid to the floor at his feet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘How primitive... and how disgusting that the Commander should descend to such deception!’ Maya stormed as she and her father stood reading a flashing console in the Grove.

  Mentor looked darkly at her.

  ‘No life forms... it’s a robot device... programmed to destroy Psychon,’ he said.

  Maya turned angrily, intending to confront the Commander, but her father restrained her. A calculating look had appeared on his face.

  ‘Don’t confront him yet, Maya. Let him think he has deceived us.’

  But Maya was relentless. She did not mind much about her own feelings, but she hated the thought that someone had hurt her father’s. In her eyes, Mentor was kindly and tolerant, the kind of person who might be made the focus of ridicule by others of a more materialistic and scheming nature.

  ‘I don’t have your tolerance, father,’ she fumed.

  She pulled herself away from his grip and stalked out.

  She ran down the corridor, a thousand thoughts on her mind. Most of all she wanted to speak to that Commander. She wanted to tell him what she thought of him...

  ‘How could he be so two-faced?’ She talked to herself as she ran. ‘He came to help us... it was just a cheap trick, a cheap trick!’

  She rounded a corner and came to the cell where they had left the Alphans. It seemed strange to her that the Alphans should have been imprisoned, but she did not question her father’s ways. Although she didn’t understand his work fully, or the way he worked, she knew that he could not be wrong. What he did, was for the good of Psychon.

  When she arrived, Mentor was already speaking to the Alphans over the communications screen, and she stood and waited by the forcefield. She realized that he must have decided to talk to them after all.

  The woman doctor and the other two Alphans were lying and sitting about the cell. The Commander had risen to his feet.

  ‘Now, who is the betrayer, Commander?’ her father asked in a severe tone of voice. ‘Did you think your childish trick would go undetected?’

  ‘We live in hope,’ the Commander replied. He looked bitterly upset. But the other Alphans began to exchange puzzled glances at each other behind his back.

  ‘Sending a Robot Eagle to destroy this planet. You self-sacrificing fool...’ Mentor continued.

  ‘John...’ Helena began tenderly. She rose to her feet and began to walk towards him, her arm outstretched to touch him.

  Koenig looked at her with a mixture of bitterness and guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry I had to put you through a ringer,’ he said.

  Macinlock and Hays rose to their feet, wearing deeply strained expressions.

  ‘Commander... I’m sorry... I should have known...’ Macinlock began. He ignored Mentor. He didn’t know where to put himself.

  ‘I couldn’t take the chance of telling you,’ Koenig said. ‘It was no-one’s fault. Don’t blame yourself, Mark.’

  Mentor’s face on the screen looked enraged.

  ‘Your Robot Eagle will be destroyed first... then your Moon, Commander.’

  Koenig looked up sharply.

  ‘That way we both lose. Let’s negotiate.’

  ‘Negotiate...! With a liar!’ Maya shouted, shrill with anger and indignation. She stepped closer to the deadly forcefield that sealed off the cell, revealing her presence. Abruptly, her father’s face disappeared from the screen. The Alphans spun round, startled.

  ‘You disgust me. We welcome you as friends and you plot to kill us!’ she spat at them coldly.

  Koenig grew angry.

  ‘What are we supposed to do?’ he asked. ‘Stand by and let Mentor destroy us?’

  Maya felt her blood boil. She still found difficulty accepting the Commander as an enemy, and she was as much angry with herself as she was with him.

  ‘My father is an honourable man!’ she declared.

  The Commander’s flat face looked at her strangely, as though scrutinizing her thoughts, and she shrank inside herself. His voice changed.

  ‘Why do you think he wants us here?’ he asked her.

  ‘You know why?’ Maya retorted hotly. ‘Without help he can’t transform this planet. Other people have helped him...’

  ‘And what happened to them?’ Koenig demanded.

  She hesitated, and found herself flushing.

  ‘They... they attained happiness.’

  She realized from their looks, that she had not given a satisfactory answer. She searched her confused mind for answers. She had to make them see that her father was innocent... But innocent of what? Even as she found herself defending him, she found herself realizing that deep down, even she thought him guilty, and she was horrified at herself. Frantically, she pushed the unpleasant thoughts aside, and repeated one of her father’s maxims.

  ‘Rapport with Psyche benefits everyone!’

  ‘Not true!’ The Commander advanced towards the forcefield. He wore a brutal expression on his face. ‘That machine destroys people’s minds!’

  She found herself trying to close off her mind. She adopted a supercilious stance.

  ‘There’s no vile thing you won’t say against my father!’ she snapped.

  ‘Go down to the pits... see for yourself!’ Koenig’s face was now almost pressed up against the forcefield, without quite touching it, and she shrank away from it.

  It hovered in front of her, poking its way into the part of her mind she didn’t want to function.

  ‘Nobody’s allowed down there. They’re radioactive,’ she said, weakening.

  ‘Who says... Mentor?’

  The voice probed in her thoughts. She knew that it had beaten her with its logic. Deep down she knew that it was right, but she refused to acknowledge it.

  ‘There’s nobody down there, I tell you.’

  ‘We were down there Maya,’ Koenig told her. ‘Go down. See what we’ve seen. Mindless hulks destroyed by your father.’

  ‘No! It’s not true!’ she heard herself shouting.

  ‘Go down and see. Then let us out of here so we can stop him,’ the woman doctor spoke pleadingly to her. She had a desperate look on her face that did not look as though it could have harboured deceit.

  ‘No... no...’

  ‘Go and see!’ the Commander insisted earnestly.

  She found herself backing away from them. As she went she noticed that desperation was also beginning to appear behind the Commander’s iron mask.

  It didn’t make sense.

  ‘You’re lying... you’re lying!’

  She turned away from the hateful scene and ran off down the corridor.

  The corridor spun crazily in front of her as the insect doubts inside her mind gradually ate their way up to the surface. They were doubts and fears s
he had harboured for a long time and never allowed to grow.

  She had intended to run to her father.

  But she found herself running to the corridor leading to the pits instead.

  The forbidden, heavily-shielded door appeared in front of her.

  Her heart banged as her body countermanded the conditioning of a lifetime.

  Her hands reached hastily for the pendant that swung around her neck and touched one of the radiant golden spokes. The door opened, and beyond it she saw a steamy, vaporous tunnel that looked like the entrance to Hell.

  She braced herself to meet the radiation she knew must be in there. Then, destructively and recklessly, for she quested truth, she transformed herself into a bird, and she flew bravely and resolutely into the gaping hole.

  The tunnels were hot and damp.

  They were scarcely lit, and reminded her of her darkest thoughts. But she flew on, resisting the screaming urge to return, and eventually she came to one of the huge, underground pits.

  She alighted on a rock, and gazed at the tormented scene that met her eyes with horror.

  She recognized the many and weird life forms that had helped Psychon over the years. They were toiling in abject unknowing misery, hacking at the rock for the metal that Psyche needed. Even in their agony of after-death, they were suffering for her, and for her father’s sake. She saw Torens the Alphan. And the nerveless Overseers standing around like figures of death.

  Her being shimmered, unable to hold itself as a bird, and converted back into her true form.

  She felt a deep, numbing betrayal — a horror — a horror that her father could have done such a thing and done it in the face of her good faith.

  She felt raped.

  She felt the layers of innocence and youth peeling from her. Though she didn’t know — or care — as she turned to flee back up the tunnel, they peeled off a new, a more mature woman.

  The minutes seemed to pass like hours in the confined cell. Macinlock paced agitatedly up and down, while Koenig rested his chin on his hand and stared sullenly at the floor.

  Helena sat perfectly still next to Hays.

  No-one spoke.

  They did not know whether Maya would help them or not. She had left the cell looking so distraught that she might reasonably have been expected to do anything.

  Eventually the screen on the wall burst into life again.