The Security Chief rose quickly to his feet, and launched himself bodily at the alien, knocking its enraged form off-balance.
But it quickly regained its footing and raised its lance once more in Verdeschi’s direction.
Again, it thrust its arm forward with all of its inhuman strength. This time though, it was distracted by a fearsome growling sound at its side, and once again the lance was deflected from its intended target.
A large, gorilla-like creature bearing a horn on its head had appeared. It stalked aggressively towards Alien Transport, tall, powerful and menacing.
The alien backed away, evident fear now in its deranged eyes.
The two creatures faced each other for a moment, but then the squat alien decided that it would not fare well if it stayed, and, watched by the staggered Verdeschi, it began to shake away back into the vaporous world it had derived from.
‘Stop him!’ Verdeschi found his voice. ‘We must talk to him!’
But it was no use. The alien had vanished.
He turned and found Maya watching him. At first she looked amused, but then a look of alarm appeared in her eyes. ‘Hey! You’re hurt!’ she cried.
She ran forward and touched his shoulder.
Verdeschi winced in pain as he remembered having been struck. The lance had been deflected from his chest, but it had opened his shoulder instead. Blood stained his tunic, and the wound throbbed and stung, making him feel giddy.
‘Lie down,’ she commanded gravely.
He did as she bid, as she tore off more of the tunic and disappeared amongst the trees. A few moments later she appeared, carrying a ball of the cloth in her hands, dripping water.
He lay back gratefully as she applied the cooling poultice to his burning arm. He gazed admiringly at her profile as she worked, oblivious of his attention.
‘Well, we know the abilities the Judges gave to two of the aliens,’ he said with irony.
Maya nodded as she straightened her back, and sat on her haunches.
‘One, the strength to tear mountains apart... and my poor Tony,’ she added tenderly, bending forward to kiss him. ‘The other they made into a transport... what its name implied.’
‘Maya, you’re wonderful,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough.’ He held on to her and returned her kiss.
‘Nothing to thank me for,’ she said softly into his ear.
‘OK... then I thank the bird for its sharp eyesight, and the gorilla for its roar... ouch!’
‘Sorry, but I must stop the bleeding,’ she said, reverting to her role as nurse. ‘Listen!’
They both stopped talking. From the direction of the river they heard banging and cracking, followed by a resounding splash.
Verdeschi struggled to his feet.
‘Must see what they’re up to,’ he grimaced, as he felt blood pounding in his head.
He forced his way back through the foliage, followed worriedly by Maya.
They reached the swiftly-flowing river, and looked in both directions.
Up stream, the aliens were floating on something in the water, dipping huge boughs into the foaming torrents.
One look told them all they wanted to know, and they swiftly returned to the clearing.
Verdeschi stooped down weakly and reached for Alien Transport’s crystal lance.
‘That’s too heavy for you,’ Maya said, and picked it up herself. But she realized that it was far too heavy for her also.
‘Don’t waste time arguing,’ Verdeschi said. He took it back off her.
Together, they made their way through the trees.
Koenig stared tight-lipped at the Eagle Four screen in front of him.
The outline of the Moon hung in the starry, black heaven, and was receding by the moment.
‘Eagle Four to Command Centre,’ he called into the console intercom.
Yasko’s face replaced the picture of the moon.
‘Go ahead, John.’
‘I get no readings from my sensors.’
‘That was expected, wasn’t it?’ Helena’s voice sounded off-screen. It sounded annoyed.
‘How about yours?’ Koenig asked.
‘Still negative,’ she replied. ‘And I still think you’re out of your mind.’
But Koenig did not relent.
‘When I approach where I think the planet is, I’ll check in,’ he said.
Helena’s play-acting was unable to disguise her concern. ‘John, you should have taken a co-pilot...’
Koenig sighed heavily.
‘I told you, I can’t let anybody else share this risk.’
‘Then remember,’ she called back pleadingly. ‘You said you’d give yourself a good safety margin.’
‘What I’m remembering is that I told Tony and Maya I’d be right back for them,’ he replied — though he didn’t feel as tough as he sounded.
A rocky, scree-strewn slope fell away towards the tangled, overgrown vegetation and woodland below.
Verdeschi looked glassily down at the route they had climbed.
He could no longer feel the pain in his shoulder. Instead, his body had grown feverish. His vision was blurred and his head lolled leadenly, swimming with vertigo.
He clung to the lip of boulders that concealed them from view, desperately trying to make out the forms of their pursuers.
Maya pulled his protesting form from the tip, and laid him down behind it, away from the strong sun.
‘You rest. I’ll keep watch,’ she said.
She was exhausted after the long haul up the slope, and conserved her energy by not talking too much.
‘We better start moving again,’ Verdeschi muttered feverishly, struggling to rise once more.
‘You’re getting weaker,’ she said. ‘We can’t go.’
‘...We can’t stray too far from where we touched down. John said he’d come back,’ Verdeschi persisted.
‘We should make more weapons,’ he said. ‘That lance won’t be enough.’
‘Ssh!’ Maya called out suddenly from where she had positioned herself, peering over the ledge.
Far below her she saw the three aliens.
They had emerged from the forest and were looking up at the mountainside.
The thin, match-stick like Alien Invisible darted nimbly forward and picked something up off the ground.
It was a piece of Verdeschi’s blood-stained tunic. Maya gasped in alarm, silently cursing herself for the oversight.
The trio hunted around until they found the trail of blood spore. Then one of them pointed up towards Maya, and they set out determinedly up the mountainside, quickly disappearing from view behind a rocky bluff.
She withdrew from her vantage point, and crawled beside Verdeschi.
He had managed to haul himself to a sitting position, and draw the heavy crystal lance towards him.
He gazed drunkenly at her, but she could see that despite his physical condition, his sharp mind was operating clearly.
‘See where they are,’ he said thickly. ‘I’ll rest.’
He twisted himself round, and sat wih his back to the ledge. He pulled the lance on to his lap.
She nodded understandingly.
Wearily, she closed her eyes, and once more she became the soaring falcon, light of wing and free of care.
She plummeted from the high ledge, the scree slope flashing past below her in a grey blur.
She followed a trail that lay to the side of the scree, where she expected to find the aliens.
Her sharp, bird-bright eyes eventually spotted one of them. It was Alien Invisible. He was alone, his wiry, emaciated form making its way uphill with long, spider-like strides.
In its hand it hefted one of the lances.
Puzzled, she flew past him, and noticed that the other two aliens were making their way back downhill.
She turned about again and caught up with Alien Invisible.
A huge, bright red flower, its petals open mouth-like, grew in a crack, uphill from the alien, a
nd she flew towards it.
She alighted on its lip, intending to observe the alien’s behaviour. But as she rested, a heady scent emanated from the flower and she grew drowsy. Forewarned, she flew up with a screech, as the deceptive petals snapped shut.
Alien Invisible looked up at the bird, attracted by its distress call.
Unseen by Maya, a broad grin cracked across its skull-like face. Its form, like its macabre companion’s, began to shimmer and disappear into thin air.
Further up the slope, out of sight of the lone white bird that still searched for it, Alien Invisible materialized again.
Inexorably, and undetected, it continued its climb towards the ledge.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Through a haze of fatigue and sweat Verdeschi laboured with a sharp stone, cutting his wide leather tunic belt into strips.
In front of him lay a small pile of stones that he had gathered from around him.
‘You were supposed to rest,’ Maya said chastisingly as she transformed in front of him.
‘As soon as I finish this...’ He said determinedly. ‘I feel a bit better.’
But he didn’t look better.
He looked fevered and close to total collapse.
‘I couldn’t find where the aliens went to,’ she told him anxiously. She explained what she had seen.
‘So Alien Invisible is on his way up here...’ Verdeschi grunted, making the final cut in the belt with the crude implement that passed for a knife.
‘I don’t know... I lost him,’ she complained. ‘He disappeared.’
‘Maybe...’ The world pulsated momentarily in front of Verdeschi and he shook his head. ‘...maybe invisibility’s his ability...’
‘If we can’t see him then we better listen instead,’ Maya said nervously, glancing over the lip of the rocky ledge. She pulled a face. ‘He can’t have got this far yet.’
She turned back to him.
‘What are you making?’
‘A bolas... South American jungle natives on Earth invented it... Very effective, against visible opponents at any rate.’
Clumsily he began tying the stones he had collected to the strips of leather.
Maya took one of the strips to her look-out position and helped.
At last they had the bolas ready.
But Verdeschi had collapsed back against the wall, his eyes closed in pain. Blood from the wound had spread down one side of his tattered tunic. He was bleeding more slowly now, but he had already lost a lot.
Maya knelt down in alarm.
She bent over him and cradled his head in her arms.
‘All right now?’ she asked gently.
‘It only hurts when I laugh,’ he mumbled.
But he got a frozen reaction from her.
‘An old Earth joke,’ he explained.
Maya looked perturbed.
‘It’s not funny,’ she said.
‘It was on Earth,’ Verdeschi replied half-heartedly
‘Fifty years ago,’ Maya reminded him.
Verdeschi fell silent.
They listened tensely for the slightest sound that might denote that their aggressor was close by.
‘Tell me some old Psychon jokes, Maya,’ Verdeschi said as he lay with his head in her lap. He felt stronger like this, and opened his eyes to look at her.
She looked away pensively, and he realized he had upset her again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I didn’t want to bring back sad memories. Just trying to keep cheerful...’
‘The memories aren’t sad...’ Maya corrected. ‘Except at the end. Psychon was a happy place. That’s why most of us wouldn’t leave it even when we knew we faced disaster.’
She lay his head down on the ground and rose to her feet.
She looked at the hostile, broken terrain below her for sign of anything unusual. The scree slope fell away towards a steep precipice dropping far below them.
‘Your brother left,’ Verdeschi prompted.
She nodded.
‘My brother, like Mentor my father, was on Psychon. He knew there was no hope when our planet began to boil. My brother and a thousand others went off into unchartered space — preferring to take their chances than face sure death.’
‘Did they find another planet?’
She shrugged.
‘We never heard from him again... or the others who built space ships after that and went... as Psychon’s temperature kept rising.’
A slight frown appeared on Verdeschi’s otherwise motionless, sweat-lined features.
‘If the planet’s break-up was inevitable, why didn’t Mentor leave?’
‘My father’s dream was to restore Psychon. To make it the beautiful world it once was. But nobody shared his dream... eventually they all left, preferring to face the unknown than certain disaster.’
Verdeschi still didn’t sound satisfied.
‘If every scientist on Psychon knew what was coming, why did Mentor remain so stubborn?’
Maya was quiet for a moment, deciding whether or not to tell him. She looked reflective and sad. Finally, in a soft, mournful voice, she said:
‘He was more than stubborn, Tony. He was in love... my mother’s crypt was on Psychon. He wouldn’t leave her.’
‘But what about you?’ Verdeschi sounded surprised. ‘Didn’t he think of you?’
‘He tried to get me to go,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘But I couldn’t... I couldn’t let him stay alone...’
She sounded upset, but Verdeschi didn’t seem to notice. Instead he sounded angry, and the frown on his face had become more rigid.
‘He should have made you go...!’ he told her. He gasped with sudden pain at the exertion of speaking.
‘No, you don’t understand!’ she whispered, jumping to her father’s defence. She spoke earnestly. ‘He really believed he could perform the miracle of restoring Psychon... and I got caught up in his dream. Mentor was a great scientist and he was my father. I knew he could do anything...’
A sudden rock-fall sounded from below, and Maya froze.
Verdeschi struggled to a sitting position and hauled himself painfully back to the lip.
‘I don’t see anything,’ Maya reported, peering around from her vantage point.
The grey scree and the rocks stretched lifelessly away downhill into the lush vegetation.
They looked at each other thoughtfully.
Verdeschi sank down again. He grasped the bolas and brought it to him. It was less heavy than the lance which he did not think he could lift now.
Silence fell again, and the humid heat and nectar-heavy air clung stiflingly around them, making it difficult for Verdeschi to breathe.
‘What about you, Tony?’ Maya asked after they had settled into an uneasy period of waiting again. ‘Do you have brothers?’
He nodded. ’A lot, but... whether I still have them or not is questionable.’
‘Did you have a...?’ she began slowly, but Verdeschi cut her off.
‘A wife? No.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Girl-friends... yes. There were no wars on Psychon?’ he changed the subject.
‘No. Unlike your planet, we were all of one race, one religion, one government. And Psychon was so rich in resources, there was no separation of classes...’
Verdeschi listened to her recalling her planet’s history. He felt prompted to explain something of his own.
‘As you say, we were a mixed people... our virtue and our downfall. In 1987 all the hatreds on Earth between races, classes and religions came to a head. The war was global and awful. It finally was a war to end all wars because the survivors realized that if there was another one it was the end of humanity...’
‘You mean people killed people just because they were different from each other?’
He nodded.
‘How disgusting!’ she exclaimed.
‘The one virtue of that war, if war can have a virtue, was that prejudice was wiped out. People realized that to survive... they had to work together, acc
ept each other for what they were. And we went on to create a new and wonderful civilization...’
Another rock-fall sounded, this time much closer, and he forced his pain-wracked body back up to the rocky ledge.
The noise had come from just below them where the rocks gave way to the scree.
Both Alphans watched the slope silent and motionless, but they could see or hear nothing.
An idea formed inside Verdeschi’s head.
He reached down and tore off another strip of his tunic, stretched up his body and held the strip aloft above the tops of the boulders. The wind caught it and blew it upslope towards the mountain peak.
‘Blowing in this direction,’ he gasped from the effort, sliding back down to the floor.
He looked pathetically up at Maya.
‘Pick up his scent...’
Maya looked both puzzled and distressed.
She caught on to what he meant and nodded unhappily.
Lines of concentration appeared on her face, and her beautiful form began transforming itself into a luminous spindle of energy. The spindle collapsed and in its place stood a great, black alsatian dog, its pink tongue hanging out and drops of saliva dripping from its ferocious teeth.
It shook its tail at Verdeschi and bounded off.
It sprang powerfully from the ledge on to a rock below and stood poised, perfectly still.
It raised its snout into the air and began sniffing with its sensitive nostrils.
Then it lowered its head. It bared its teeth aggressively and snarled, apparently at nothing.
Snarling and barking it began moving towards its invisible antagonist.
The thin, skeletal shape of Alien Invisible hefting the evil-looking lance behind its shoulders materialized in front of the dog.
The alien was poised ready to throw. But the dog was quicker. It ran swiftly forward and leapt up at the alien’s wizened throat, snapping and slavering with a primitive animal aggression which had taken over control.
The gnarled, spindly alien dropped the lance and tore frantically at the sleek black body of the dog.
Its grasp was strong and steel-like and it pulled the biting dog down. But fortunately it stumbled backwards and dog and alien began falling down the loose scree on their backs.
The alsation fought to regain its footing, and began running frantically up the moving surface of rock pieces.
Space 1999 - Planets of Peril Page 12