by E. C. Tubb
Koenig moved forward to stand behind Morrow, looking over his head at the screen.
‘Alan, we must detonate the nukes in two minutes. Can you make it?’
Carter was grim. ‘I’ll make it, Commander. All the way.’
If it could be done then he would do it, Koenig knew, but sometimes sheer determination and courage wasn’t enough. An accident, a freak which had caused the malfunction, the unknown factor which was always present in the affairs of men.
One which could cost Carter his life.
‘No,’ said Bergman as, turning from the screen, Koenig met his eyes. ‘We can’t abort Carter’s mission. That charge he’s carrying has to be placed in order to ensure the total volatization of the asteroid. We’re operating on a minimum as it is.’
As if to emphasize the situation Kano spoke quietly from his post.
‘We’re losing the time-line, Commander. Alan will need a minimum of a hundred and ten seconds to get clear of the asteroid before we detonate if he hopes to survive.’
The life on one man against that of hundreds, one Eagle against the entire base. The ship was nothing, but the man was not. He was a living, breathing creature, a comrade, a friend.
Koenig said flatly, ‘Delay the blast forty seconds.’
‘John we can’t do it!’ Bergman was adamant. ‘We must destroy the asteroid to avoid collision. Timing is vital to prevent us from being caught in the radiation cloud. There will be plasma stretching in all directions and we will still be in the direct line.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then—?’
‘Delay the blast forty seconds,’ repeated Koenig. ‘That is an order.’ He turned again to the screen. ‘Alan, don’t waste time on perfection. Get in and get out fast.’
A gamble, but one he had had to take. A valuable life against a few seconds of time, but there had been a minute safety factor and Koenig felt justified at having used it.
He heard Morrow sigh as the Eagle landed, his startled curse as the charge it carried remained attached to the grapnel as it rose.
‘Alan! The charge, man!’
‘It’s stuck!’ Carter’s voice was strained as it came from the speakers. ‘The release mechanism’s jammed.’
‘It’s got to be placed, Alan!’ Morrow was sweating, sympathizing with the distant pilot, sharing his dilemma. To run and save his life or to stay and ensure the success of the operation. To run was to kill them all, but to sit, waiting, for the bomb to explode . . .
Bergman said, sharply, ‘He’s leaving.’
‘No.’ Koenig had recognized what was happening. ‘He’s trying to jolt it loose. See?’
On the screen the Eagle was performing a strange series of gyrations. Up, down, halt to rise again. Twice, three times—and then the bomb fell clear.
‘She’s gone!’ yelled Carter. ‘I’m on my way back!’
Too late, they had lost the time-line, but Koenig had to be certain.
‘Compute!’
Kano said, evenly, ‘Blast in ten seconds, nine, eight . . .’
‘Delay ten!’
‘Commander?’
‘You heard me! Delay ten!’ Precious seconds to give a man a chance to live. ‘Paul, activate all radiation screens to maximum intensity. Red emergency alert. Seal for impact.’
Things which had already been done and Koenig realized that he was talking to avoid having to face the probable results of his impulsive decision. Seconds now, falling as they were counted.
‘Five, four, three, two, one—zero!’
Space filled, with a living, writhing gush of flame.
CHAPTER TWO
Flame expanded to spread and engulf the face of the moon, the base itself in a cloud of radiant particles. Matter had been transformed into energy by the synchronized detonation of the twelve nuclear devices, the main bulk of the asteroid turned into a plasmic, radioactive gas. But some fragments of solid material still remained and, like a rain of hail, scraps of debris gouged craters from the lunar plain, others flaring as they struck the protective shields of the base.
Tensely Koenig listened to the stream of reports which told of the result of his gamble. They had been fortunate, some minor cracks and distortions, a temporary loss of power to various parts of the installation, a roof collapsing in a lower cavern. A muscle jerked on his cheek as Medical Centre reported fourteen casualties.
‘Check that, Paul. Radiation?’
‘No, Commander,’ said Morrow after a few moments. ‘Only conventional injuries have been reported as yet.’
A cause for relief and yet it was early for symptoms to show. Later, when cells were dying and mutations had resulted in wild cancerous growths, there could be a different story. But, for now, first things had to come first.
‘Have you made contact with Eagle One yet?’
‘No. I’ve been transmitting on automatic but as yet there has been no response.’
‘Keep trying. Maybe he can’t transmit for some reason, but it may help him to know that we survived.’ Koenig moved to stand beside Sandra Benes at her post. ‘I want a total scan of the immediate surround. That Eagle is up there somewhere and we should be able to spot it.’ He noticed her expression. ‘Something wrong?’
‘It’s the plasma field, Commander. Nothing can get through it. We’re enveloped in an electronic fog as well as being visually blind. Alan, could be up there if his shields held and he wasn’t destroyed, but we can’t spot him.’
Not for the present at least and later might be far too late. Carter could be hurt, unconscious even, his ship drifting, carried on the blast of the explosion in which case he would be completely lost in the void by the time any of the base scanners could function.
‘We’ll have to go and look for him,’ said Koenig. ‘Once we’re free of the plasma field it should be possible to establish contact. Paul, have an Eagle made ready. If Alan is out there I intend to find him.’
Bergman looked up from where he stood studying a flowing line of figures on an illuminated plate; the radiation counts and energy levels recorded by sensors set in and around the base, others situated far beyond the protective shield.
‘I wouldn’t advise it, John,’ he said flatly. ‘Can you guess what it’s like out there?’
‘Bad.’
‘It’s a radioactive nightmare. Even the instruments seem to have been affected by the release of unusual forces. My opinion is that you should wait until the electronic storm has diminished to tolerable levels.’
‘We have shields,’ reminded Koenig.
‘Shields which may not be effective, against the energies I have registered. The intensity is fantastic. The nuclear devices seem to have triggered off the very constituents of the asteroid itself so that, in effect, we created a miniature sun. The duration was fortunately brief but residual forces remain. Not only that but space is still filled with debris. Some of it is bombarding Alpha.’
‘Without Alan it wouldn’t be debris,’ reminded Koenig. ‘We’d have the shattered bulk of the asteroid in our laps. And we wouldn’t be standing here arguing about it. We’d all be dead, Victor. Dead!’
‘As Carter might be at this very moment, John. You gave him every chance you could, but the possibility of his managing to survive is very small. The initial blast—only a freak combination of circumstances could have saved him. Surely you must realize that.’
‘Luck,’ said Koenig quietly. ‘Maybe we’re getting used to it, Victor. Or maybe it’s a simple thing called faith. But luck or faith makes no difference. I have to look for him. I have to know. Can you understand that?’
‘Must you go yourself, John? Alan is a good friend, I know, but you are responsible for the base. Your first duty must be to the lives in your keeping.’
‘It is. I can’t order anyone to go out there and search for the Eagle. You’re in command until I return. Paul, get that ship on the pad and ready to leave and see if you can find an idiot to come with me.’
‘You’ve got him, Comma
nder.’ Morrow rose from his consol. ‘I’m worried about Alan too.’
The explosion had been a hammer which had sent echoes from the hull, sounds to ring and reverberate in his skull, a tremendous force which had flung him hard against the restraints, which had drained the blood from his brain to throw him into a dark oblivion.
Alan Carter stirred, conscious of a blur of noise, a voice like the thrust of a stabbing knife.
‘Wake! Wake and attend your vessel!’
Words in his mind, a ghost voice, disembodied, coming from no normal throat. Yet the words made sense. Light burned his eyes as he parted the lids to look at massed dials, warning flashes, dancing needles. Sound roared from the engines, a jarring thunder of uncontrolled power and slowly his hand lifted to fall on a lever.
To fall and press, the sound dying as the control responded.
Another voice, harsher, more urgent.
‘Alan, answer. Do you read me. Koenig here. Answer if you hear me. Come in Eagle One. Eagle One answer . . .’
Too harsh and too urgent. Carter closed his eyes and sank back into a place of entrancing delight, a misty world in which nothing bad could possibly happen and, like a child, he wandered through brightening passages to where in a hall of enigmatic shapes a figure waited.
‘Mother?’ He was running. ‘Is that you, Mother?’
‘No.’
A flicker and he was no longer a child but a man, his outlook and mind changing as if a page had been turned in a book.
‘Clarise? It’s, you, I know it is. Why did you leave me at the party and hide?’ He looked at the strange room in which she sat, his eyes disturbed by lines and planes which refused to retain recognizable form. ‘Clarise?’
‘No.’
‘Who then?’
‘A friend. You may call me Arra.’
‘Arra?’ Carter frowned, thinking, trying to remember. ‘I don’t know you. We’ve never met before.’
‘That is unimportant. Now you will come a little closer, that’s right, more now, more. Sit and rest your hands . . . so. Lean back and place your head . . . so.’
It was a dream, it could be nothing else. The weird chamber, the enigmatic figure dressed all in black, the face veiled, the hands covered, the voice—what was so odd about the voice?
There was something imperious about it and yet something sad. A musical resonance which held an indefinable yearning. The voice of an angel or of a woman lovely beyond imagination. The quintessence of feminity now sitting before him in a chamber composed of alien forms and indescribable colours.
A voice which sang and whispered in his mind, comforting, reassuring, soothing, commanding, ordering him to sit on a puff of vapour, to rest his hands on spindled shapes, to lean back and surely to fall. But he did not fall and the vapour became the familiar contours of a chair, the spindles the well-known array of controls, the winking eyes set about the mysterious chamber the dials of instruments.
And the voice had changed.
‘Eagle One. Carter, answer if you can. Come in Eagle One. Give position and condition. Alan, this is Koenig. Paul is with me. We’re looking for you. Activate location beacon at full intensity if you receive me.’
Koenig and Morrow? John and good old Paul coming to get him? But where was he and what was he doing? Carter looked blearily at the controls, the instruments. He was dreaming again. He must have fallen asleep in the mysterious chamber—no, that was a dream too, so he must be in bed at the base and all this was the product of a nightmare.
‘Wake, and take control!’
He jerked to the mental impact of the voice, no longer soothing, no longer kind. It held a savage ruthlessness, the snap of command. The tone of one accustomed to being obeyed.
A thought occurred to him, a scrap of memory from the distant past. A road busy with a stream of cars. A group of children himself among them. A man giving a warning.
‘You have the right to cross the road at this point and all traffic is supposed to stop for you. But remember this, you putting up your hand doesn’t stop the car. The man inside does that. Sometimes he’s too slow or he may not see you or the brakes may fail. So never make the mistake of thinking that because you give an order or a signal, that order or signal, by itself, does anything.’
One of the boys had forgotten and had later been killed.
‘I understand. Relax and do not resist in any form. Open your mind.’
The voice, again soothing, comforting, the tone of a mother who had recognized her impatience, the fact that she had asked too much.
Carter felt his hands move in a pattern learned and impressed on his brain over long and arduous years of training. He knew what to do—something or someone now gave him the strength to do it, was using his body as his mind sank blissfully into an ebon cloud.
‘Paul!’ Koenig’s voice was sharp. ‘The signal!’ Carter’s activated the beacon!’
He sat hunched forward in his chair, the discomfort of his suit forgotten, the danger all around dismissed in the flush of potential success. For too long they had driven through the radioactive cloud, the shields at maximum intensity, the tell-tales edging higher and higher towards and into the red.
‘Paul?’
‘I’m getting a fix,’ said Morrow. As Koenig took over the controls the pilot busied himself with delicate verniers, judging time and distance, making allowances for external distortions, using skill and knowledge to augment a calculated guess. ‘Bear fifteen degrees right, twenty-two up.’
Koenig’s hands froze on the controls as he was about to follow the directions.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not? The beacon—’
‘What you’re picking up is a reflection. If we chase it we’ll lose the Eagle and Alan for certain.’ He moved the controls, sending the Eagle through the plasmic cloud on a path at variance with the directions given by Morrow. We’ll find Alan in this area, I’m sure of it’
‘How?’
‘How, what?’
‘How can you be sure, John? All the instruments say different. You’re running blind and operating on hope. If we—’ Morrow broke off, staring at a lamp which flashed on the panel. ‘The responder! It’s the other Eagle, Commander! We’ve found it!’
It looked like a thing long dead, the hull scarred, blistered, the bare metal seared despite the protection of the shields. If Carter was alive he gave no sign and, after the third attempt to make contact, Koenig gave up.
‘We’ll have to dock and arrange an exchange,’ he decided. ‘Take us close, Paul, and I’ll couple the air-locks.’
‘In this?’ Morrow’s gesture at the cloud outside was expressive. Tiny flashes of light, glowing winks of fire, a turmoil of cooling vapour, the whole laden with radioactivity as if it were an illuminated, lethal mist.
Within the ship the protective shields would save them, outside only the metal and fabric of the suits would stave off imminent death.
‘Make contact, energize the magnetic grapnels and head towards the edge of the cloud,’ decided Koenig. ‘As soon as we’re in the clear I’ll make the exchange.’
Morrow was an excellent pilot, the jar as the two hulls touched was barely noticeable, and with deft touches of the controls he kept the vessels firmly joined as he guided them in a direct line which would carry them beyond the turmoil of the cloud.
As the swirling vapour began to thin, gases travelling at high velocities and cooling as they expanded to form a diffused scatter of minute debris, Koenig moved through the ship towards the airlock. Sealing the inner port he fastened himself to the bulkhead with clips attached to straps; a precaution, if the outer door had been damaged and should open too quickly, the expelled air from the vestibule would take him with it and hurl him into space.
‘Paul?’
‘When you’re ready, Commander.’ Morrow’s voice came clearing over the helmet radio. ‘Area relatively clear and I’m holding a steady velocity.’
‘Commencing exchange procedure—now!’
Unclipping the restraints Koenig stepped to the edge of the portal.
Before him the other Eagle filled the sky, apparently motionless as it rode beside his own vessel. The air-locks were not aligned closely enough for a communication tube to be established, but that was unimportant. A kick and Koenig had crossed the gap, gloved hands catching at the port-holds. The external control was set beneath a plate held by a simple catch. Heat had fused the metal and he grunted as he slammed the heel of his palm against the control.
Trouble, Commander?’ Morrow had heard his breathing over the radio, his muttered curse. ‘Need help?’
‘No. The catch is jammed, but I can free it.’ A final blow and it yielded. ‘I’m about to go inside.’
Seconds dragged as the outer door closed and air gushed from within the ship to replace the vacuum. As the pressures equalized the lamp flashed green and, impatiently, Koenig thrust open the inner door.
At first he thought Carter was dead.
The pilot was lying back in his chair, his face pale and strained beneath the visor of his helmet, a thin trickle of blood showing at the corner of his mouth. Koenig checked the pressure, found it acceptable and freed the pilot’s helmet from his suit. A geiger counter fastened to the wrist of his suit registered high, but Koenig wasn’t interested in the duration of his exposure to radiation. Holding the polished metal to Carter’s lips he sighed with relief as it misted.
‘Commander?’
‘He’s alive, Paul. Unconscious, but alive.’
‘Thank God for that! Hurt?’
‘I can’t tell. No sign of external injuries but there could be internal damage. When the charges blew he must have been subjected to a tremendous shock.’ Koenig looked at the controls and instruments. ‘The panel’s in a mess too. We’ll have to go in together. I’ll stay here and do what I can.’ He frowned as Morrow made no reply. ‘Paul?’