by John Rankine
Gwent sensed the action to come, ‘Don’t . . . Please!’
‘Use your last energies in a paranoid’s frenzy. Destroy us, if you wish. In the end, you die.’ He smashed the rod across the open crate and fragments skidded away over the floor.
There was an element of pleading in Gwent’s tired tones, ‘I misjudged you. My experience . . . over all these years . . . travelling the universe alone . . . blind . . . dependent on Companion, has left me untrusting . . . suspicious. Cynical; perhaps, indeed, paranoid.’
There was enough pathos in it to move Helena. She said gently, ‘I’m very sorry.’
The tone had gone low key. Gwent had climbed down from his Olympian heights to a human stature. There was even emotional stress. ‘You see, having built this machine to preserve my personality, too late I discovered its inherent flaw. I need company. None of us exists except in relation to others. Alone, we cease to have identity. Isolation is annihilation. Do you understand?’
They did and they were moved by it. This was Companion speaking. But Koenig realised they must think first of their own survival.
Bergman said, ‘You were on the wrong tack from the beginning, dear Gwent. To wish to preserve oneself is the ultimate vanity.’
‘Yes . . . yes . . . you are right. It was vanity. The first and last of all the sins that flesh is heir to. I come to welcome my release; thank you.’
His voice was failing. Lights in the dome were going out one by one. Suddenly, Helena called out, ‘The oxygen is going . . .’
Koenig rushed for the door and hurled himself against it. There was no joy. It was locked tight. Back against the smooth surface he shouted, ‘Gwent! The door. Open the door. Let us out!’
There was no answer. Bitterly, Koenig said, ‘We’ve been too successful. He’s killed himself . . . and us with him.’
Breathing was a chore. They sat at a marble table hardly able to believe that success and defeat had been so close. Koenig opened his commlock and Morrow’s voice called urgently, ‘Commander. What’s happening in there?’
Tight lipped, Koenig said, ‘Gwent’s dead. We’re trapped in here.’
From Morrow’s angle it looked like hope, ‘I’ve sent an Eagle out.’
‘No good, Paul. You can’t get in.’
Bergman slowly fell forward over the table top. Helena Russell tried to reach him and the effort shoved her oxygen starved brain over the edge. She was out, arms outstretched, hair spread in a fan.
Koenig set his commlock on the table and dropped to the deck on all fours. Crawling painfully, he collected a fragment of fuel rod and drove himself to reach the charging port. Clumsily, he shoved the scrap into the hole and leaned his forehead on the wall. His voice was a croak, ‘Gwent . . . save us . . .’
No voice replied, but a scatter of overhead lights strengthened. Koenig saw them in double vision. He said, ‘No . . . oxygen . . . oxygen. Door . . . open . . . door . . .’
From somewhere there was a subdued hiss and Koenig gasped convulsively as the gas reached his labouring lungs. At a staggering, weaving run, he crossed the floor to reach Helena.
He heard and did not hear a rush of feet at his back. The great door had lifted a metre and Carter was in with his security team. Koenig lifted Helena himself and with Carter beside him carried her to the hatch. Hands lifted her through. Lights were going out one by one. The great chamber was almost entirely dark. Outside, a single light lit the corridor and outlined Koenig as a sharp silhouette. Gwent said, ‘Goodbye, dear friends.’
Main Mission put on a ticker tape welcome. Soberly, Koenig turned from the bright friendly faces and went to the observation platform. Morrow followed anxiously, ‘Sure you’re all right, Commander?’
‘I’m fine.’
On the horizon, the gaunt figure of Gwent was still holding station. Sandra Benes checking monitors said urgently, ‘It’s moving. It’s still alive.’
Laboriously, lurching from pod to pod, the machine was under way, tumbling towards Moonbase Alpha. Staff left their desks to see it in clear through direct vision ports. Alan Carter said, ‘It’s coming right towards us!’
They saw it gain a few metres of height, then touch down and rise again. The bounce that took it over the roof of Main Mission cleared the fabric by less than half a metre.
Koenig said, ‘Sandra! Get him on visual.’
The big screen gave Gwent the full treatment as he strode erratically over the moonscape, trying and failing to gain sea room. Dead ahead, a low range of hills came into the shot.
Kano said, ‘It’s not lifting.’
Gwent rolled on. Koenig was willing him to lift and get clear and end as he had begun in the wastes of the outback which he had made his own. But the mooncliffs loomed ahead like a wall. Gwent seemed to accelerate and rush to his destruction. Then the screen whited out and a second later the foundations of Main Mission picked up the shock wave in a tremor that knocked personnel off their feet.
When the screen cleared, Gwent was gone. Dust and rubble marked the spot. They felt the pity and the waste of it. He had been a seeker as they were themselves.
Koenig walked slowly to his command office. Helena Russell had seen his face and knew the mood. She found him sitting at his desk, head in his hands. More to himself than to her, he said, ‘A lonely, blind, thinking creature looking for his death.’
She pulled up a chair and sat facing him across the desk. A good MO’s task was never done. Clearly she had a case for treatment.
CHAPTER THREE
Victor Bergman reckoned that even Gwent might have shown some interest in the set up of the experimental lab which he had made his own in the Technical Section of Moonbase Alpha. The remnants of many projects were littered around. Some had been practical matters, designed to solve problems that had come up as time made it necessary to find alternatives to keep the base viable without shipments from workshops on Planet Earth. Some looked ahead, recognising that Science had a duty to seek for advances; even if there was no immediate application.
One success had been a reclaim process for polyurethane foam. He had devised a sealed system where the scrap was heated to 400 Celsius with a water additive. After distillation the residue was a factory fresh product which could be reused by Maintenance for the many repair jobs needed to stop the base turning to a high grade slum.
His pride and joy was a small prototype engine. If and when the Alphans made a landfall, he wanted them starting as high or higher on the technological scale as the civilisation they had left.
Koenig found the lab a sure fire cure for pessimism. It chimed with his own thinking. His worst nightmare was one where he and his staff slowly regressed until they were eking out a savage, subsistence economy in the sprawling base, without the will or discipline to keep themselves ahead.
Bergman, hunched over a work bench was glad of a break. ‘Problems, John. Problems. But I believe I have it licked.’
‘What’s this one, then?’
‘Conventional engines are notoriously inefficient. Anything using heat. Hardly ever better than forty percent effective, sometimes as low as ten.’
‘Eagle motors?’
‘Right. I don’t say we can manufacture anything on that scale yet. But sometime, who knows?’
Koenig knew the signs. ‘You want to tell me and I want to listen. Go ahead.’
‘The question I ask myself is why can’t we turn chemical energy directly into movement as a muscle does?’
‘What answer do you give yourself?’
‘It’s a matter of the mode of combustion. I want to impart a directional velocity to the molecules instead of the random turbulence of thermal agitation.’
‘A lot of people have wanted to do that.’
‘I’ve had some help from our chemists. They’ve managed to grow some splendid TNT crystals. Absolutely regular. No thermal disorder. Now I’ve tried cooling them to near absolute zero in a vacuum and detonating them. What do I find?’
‘Tell me.’
> ‘A parallel beam of fast cold particles. A turbine in that stream would convert better than ninety per cent of the explosive force.’
‘It sounds good.’
‘It is good John. Think of it! A completely cold, super efficient propulsion unit. The applications would be endless. For instance . . .’
His example was never given. The communications post flipped a red tell-tale and Koenig spoke into the communicator. ‘Commander.’
Paul Morrow’s face appeared on the screen. ‘We have a signal, Commander.’
‘Source?’
‘Sandra’s working on it’
‘I’ll be there.’
Bergman had left his bench and was beside him. They exchanged sober glances. Experience told them it could be bad or it could be good. Koenig said, ‘There has to be somebody else out there. Maybe it’s a customer for your engine.’
Main Mission was pulsing with suppressed excitement. The big screen was holding the picture of a spacer still far distant, but clearly of great size. It was a conglomerate, never launched from the gravity well of a planet surface, but obviously built in space for an interstellar odyssey. Repeaters were throwing up the drone of a repeated electronic signal.
Helena Russell joined Koenig and Bergman, eyes shining as she looked up at the scanner. ‘What do you think, John?’
‘I’d say it was a huge transporter. Not a military craft. But that’s not to say it doesn’t carry armament.’
Bergman had been using grid references and making rapid calculations. His voice was flat with disbelief, ‘Fifty kilometres long. Two kilometres diameter. What kind of transporter is that?’
Koenig said, ‘A hundred square kilometres. It’s a city state!’
Computer clattered urgently and extruded a print-out. Kano tore it from the outfall and swivelled on his chair to face Koenig.
‘I have a decode.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
Kano punched a line of buttons and Computer sorted the data for verba! delivery. The calm voice was at odds with the content, ‘EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. THIS IS THE COMMANDER OF THE SPACESHIP DARIA . . .’
There was a mixed response round the listening circle. Maybe it was not a passing liner able to pick up drifters from a raft, but a fellow derelict. The ongoing signal confirmed it. ‘A MAJOR CATASTROPHE HAS OCCURRED. LARGE AREAS OF OUR SHIP ARE DEVASTATED. THOUSANDS OF OUR PEOPLE ARE DEAD. HUNDREDS SICK AND DYING. WE WHO SURVIVE WILL PERISH WITHOUT URGENT MEDICAL AND MATERIAL AID. PLEASE HELP US. OUR LIFE TYPE CONFORMS TO 45 OX 294 H . . . EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. THIS IS THE COMMANDER OF SPACESHIP DARIA.’
The Mayday call was on a loop. Kano cut it. The tireless pulsing electronic signal took over on the repeaters. It fell into a pool of silence. The situation was too near home for comfort. Every member of Main Mission staff could imagine their hurrying Moon platform probing ever deeper into the outback of space with a similar signal going out from the transmitters.
A bleeper on Morrow’s command console had him checking new data. He said, ‘We’re picking up life signs, Commander.’
Koenig leaned over Sandra’s shoulder and helped himself to the magnification toggle. On the big screen, there was a rush of silver rain and the alien ship reformed in close-up.
The distant monster ship was turning with a slow roll that brought all its structural features into vision. Alan Carter said, ‘It may not be too late, Commander.’
If Koenig heard, he did not answer. He was staring intently at the superstructure of the lumbering giant. It was answering no questions. Set on the black velvet pad of the starmap like a gleaming jewel, it was intact and functional. Whatever crisis triggered the continuing signal, it was internal. The bland face of the spacer concealed all. For that matter, it would have to be so. Any torn, gaping holes in the shell would mean destruction and no intelligent life left to ask for aid.
Helena Russell asked quietly, ‘What do you think?’
Koenig straightened up. He had come to a decision. They had a duty as spacefarers. If they were ever to expect help, they had to be prepared to give it. He said, ‘It’s a team mission. I’d like you along, Paul, to make assessment of material damage; Victor, scientific advice; Helena, medical judgement. One security man for this preliminary trip. Lowry in that slot. Alan, have Eagle One brought up for immediate launch.’
Carter’s ‘Check, Commander,’ showed he was pleased to have a change. Before anybody could raise a counter argument, he was striding away for the hatch.
Koenig went on, ‘Tanya, Sandra, keep all communication frequencies wide open . . . any response from that ship, relay it through to Eagle One.’
There was no doubt that, with Paul Morrow on the expedition, Sandra would not miss any relevant blip. Her, ‘Check, Commander,’ was instantaneous.
Flanked by Helena and Victor Bergman, Koenig made for the hatch. At the foot of the small flight of stairs that led out of the operations well, he paused and turned round, ‘Kano . . .’
‘Commander?’
‘Take charge of the shop. Don’t sell unless you get a good offer.’
Main Mission settled for a watching brief. Kano sat thoughtfully at his Computer console, leaving the command desk empty. Sandra Benes tuned for a distant view of the great spacer so that she could follow Eagle One from its launch pad. Signal noise continued as a backdrop. There was no change in the message. When Kano hit a button to have it in clear, Computer said, ‘. . . DEAD HUNDREDS SICK AND DYING WE WHO SURVIVE . . .’ He cut back to the pulse note. There was nothing fresh.
Sandra looked across at him. The same thought was in both their minds. There was no telling how long that signal had been blasting out into the interstellar wastes. It could be decades, centuries even. The situation might have changed. The ship could be a vast wandering hulk peopled by the dead, a necropolis of the space lanes.
Kano said, ‘The Commander knows what he’s doing. They’ll be all right.’
Eagle One was clawing out into the starmap. Onboard computers relayed course data. There was work for all hands. Sandra relaxed. A ship meant people. New faces. After their long lonely stint it would be wonderful to talk with other travellers. She concentrated on a refined tracking ploy that brought the distant craft closer as Eagle One ate up the space between them.
Koenig leaned forward against his harness as though by moving a few centimetres he could see through the blank hectares of cladding and unravel the mystery. Eagle One flew in, turned and ran the length of the spacer. The central structure was an immense cylinder which had clearly been assembled from ring sections. Subsidiary cylinders had been clewed on, bulking out the huge body. An elliptical dome area was lit more brightly than the rest. At intervals along either side stubby tubular members of some transparent material ended in mammoth torpedo shaped structures with blank, seemingly solid walls. Eagle One was scaled down to the size of a gnat roaming over a buffalo.
In the passenger module Helena, Bergman, Lowry and Paul Morrow watched from direct vision ports. The pile of medical and rescue equipment in the freight bay seemed suddenly a nonsense. If there was trouble aboard the monster it would need the resources of a major city to sort it out.
Seen close, there was an air of quiet menace about the craft. It was a modern Marie Célèste on a mind bending scale.
Carter said flatly, ‘No sign of a way in, Commander.’
‘Do another circuit, Alan.’
Carter’s face showed he doubted the wisdom. They had done their Samaritan bit by answering the signal, if nobody wanted to know, he reckoned they could get back to Moonbase Alpha and watch the derelict drift off.
He turned slowly and ran in again, taking Eagle One a steady hundred metres from the starboard flank of Leviathan. They passed one of the huge, blank pods and then another. At the third there was a change and Helena’s startled gasp from the passenger module came up on the intercom.
The pod changed colour. From dull gun metal it glowed silver and then white. Helena’s exclamation chimed with Carter’s
sudden burst of activity. Eagle One was shuddering along its axis and losing way.
Listeners in Main Mission heard Carter say, ‘Holy Cow. There’s no power. The motor’s gone dead.’
Koenig was checking the co-pilot spread. Dials had zeroed, but there was no damage report from the trouble shooter. ‘It’s a controlled shutdown.’
‘We’ve activated some kind of auto docking system.’
Bergman called through, ‘Can you override it?’
At the same time there was new data from the pod. Helena said, ‘It’s opening!’
Eagle One had stopped all forward motion. Slowly and firmly, she was shifting sideways to the open port. Carter said, ‘No dice, we’re being drawn inside. All Eagle Systems are smothered.’
Koenig snapped, ‘Break it, Alan.’
Carter tried. Using every trick in the manual, he worked at it to get a little life from his dead motors. He ended thumping his console with a balled fist. ‘Nothing. No use.’
Eagle One was on the threshold of a monumental hangar. Koenig hit a switch to bring in Main Mission. His monitor screen was bright with silver rain. He called, ‘Eagle One to Main Mission. Do you read me?’
There was no answer.
Kano was calling on his own account, ‘Come in Eagle One. Do you read me? Come in Eagle One.’ Hardly daring to look at Sandra, he watched the tiny Eagle slip inside the open port. Behind it, the great hatch slowly closed.
Inside the pod there was an eerie half light but enough to see that the whole Eagle fleet could have been docked. It was enough to see also that the internal structures were in disrepair. Overhead gantries were sagging. Cladding plates were peeling off and some had fallen neglected in random heaps on the deck.
Dotted around the walls, square features protruded into the hangar and Eagle One was slowly edged along until its main hatch was aligned to one. A tube extraded itself and clamped to the Eagle’s hatch coamings.
Bergman said, ‘An airlock system.’
Koenig was still trying for communication. ‘Emergency signal, Alan. Broad spectrum.’