by John Rankine
There was a stifled, whining noise from the gear. Carter said, disgustedly. ‘It’s a wash out! Jammed solid!’
‘Try internal. See if we can contact any of the people on this ship.’
In the rumble, the supercargo were shrugging out of harness and moving about. Alan Carter was slamming round his console still trying to get a little joy. ‘It’s no good, Commander.’
Koenig tried his commlock. The small screen was streaked with white lines. Its only contribution was a savage burst of static. He replaced it in his belt and watched Carter work one more time round his control panel. Stabbing the release clip of his harness he said, ‘Well. We came on a goodwill mission. We’ve arrived. The question is can we get out again?’
There was no answer from the gaunt delapidated cavern of a hangar. The Eagle was isolated in a silent junk yard. Carter finally gave up. There was nothing he could, do. He said, ‘The beam’s a one way ticket, Commander. We’re trapped.’
Koenig saw his own hawk face on the windshield and looked through it to the desolation outside. If it was true that they were trapped, it was a poor way to go. They would be condemned by their own ethical code. They had answered a distress call in good faith. There had to be more to it than lingering death by starvation on a derelict.
Victor Bergman rummaged in the freight bay and brought out some of the diagnostic gear he had assembled. It was always amazing to watch him in action. Seemingly clumsy, his hands moved over the equipment with a sure, delicate touch. He had assumed there might be problems and had worked out a screening system for a sampling unit and a small, compact computer.
There was nothing outside to compete for interest and his five companions knelt, sat or stood around waiting for the good word. When the computer finally clattered into life and delivered a print-out there was a small drop in tension. They felt they were in business. Something worked.
Bergman studied the tape. Koenig said, ‘Well?’
‘Some good and some bad.’
Carter said, ‘Let’s have the good news first. It’ll make a change.’
‘Behind that hatch, there’s a breathable atmosphere. Slightly oxygen rich if anything. There’s a power source operating, but some way off. It’s an incredibly big and complex structure inside there. A thorough search could take weeks.’
Koenig cut in, ‘Do you have any idea what’s happened to our communications?’
‘That’s the bad news. Radiation distortion. As you saw, even the commlocks are affected.’
‘Radiation!’
‘The ship is saturated with atomic radiation.’
Helena Russell sat back on her heels and looked at Koenig. This was the nightmare hazard always lurking in the background at Moonbase Alpha. They had endless contingency plans and emergency drills to meet any one of a dozen possibilities of failure in the reactors that made life possible on their wandering platform. This was a purpose built, interstellar voyager and it had happened here. She said, ‘It’s the one thing they’d have no defence for. In spite of all the care they must have taken, it happened to them.’
Bergman said, ‘On these readings it’s very weak. Too weak to cause genetic damage except over a long period. There’s no immediate danger to us.’
‘What about the people, Victor?’ Koenig had gone to a direct vision port and was looking at the neglected and failing superstructure. If any were alive, they were clearly in no shape to keep the ship fully operational.
‘Life signs are confirmed. There is human type life somewhere aboard.’
Koenig came to a decision. There was nothing to be gained by hanging on inside the Eagle. Even if Main Mission sent out a search ship which Kano would eventually try, it was just as likely to end up enmeshed in the same web. He said grimly, ‘Okay. Let’s go find it.’
Carter and Lowry freed the hatch clips. Auto gear had done a good job. Pressure was equalised. The roomy airlock was like an ante room to the passenger module. As they walked in, a dusty panel glowed at the far end. The planners had assumed that visitors using the entrance might have a language problem and an animated cartoon strip of a humanoid stylised figure gave a clear mime of how to open the hatch.
Years of disuse and lack of maintenance had taken their toll. Carter and Lowry had to heave away to roll it aside. There was a twenty metre square reception area with a desk where a boarding officer would sit and two corridors running off in a ‘V’. Overhead light came from ceiling ports set every ten metres. Some had gone out giving areas of shadow.
The left hand corridor was drab but clear. The right hand one had suffered more from neglect and sheets of cladding leaned out askew partly blocking the way ahead.
Koenig said, ‘One way or another these corridors must connect up with the main areas of the ship.’
He walked round the desk looking for some ‘You are here’ route diagram; but there was nothing. He debated about splitting his small party and decided that with the area of search they had to tackle, it was the obvious way. He was conscious that Helena Russell was watching him and he knew for a fact she was not going to like what he had to say.
Unconsciously standing behind the desk to give more official weight to the briefing, he said, ‘This is the way we do it. Paul, you and Alan go left at the fork. Watch yourselves. Take no chances. I’ll go right with Victor. Helena, you and Lowry stay here close to the Eagle. If there’s any trouble with the natives get back inside sharpish and use the ship’s armament. If we can’t make contact with the Darians, we’ll rendezvous back here at 1600 hours. Then it’ll be a question of searching round for some local switchgear to override that docking beam. You can be thinking about that one Helena.’
‘I’d rather be with you.’
‘I want somebody at base and it’s you.’
She knew argument would get her nowhere, but there was no comfort in it. Intuition on a different wave length from Bergman’s computer was scenting an undefinable menace more dangerous to them than a radiation hazard. She shivered and moved away to the airlock hatch.
Carter said, ‘If they give trouble?’
‘Let’s hope they understand the purity of our motives. Ready, Victor?’
The two pairs moved off. Bill Lowry joined Helena. ‘They’ll be all right, doctor. They can look after themselves.’
‘I hope so.’
Koenig and Bergman were soon out of sight hidden by the leaning panels. Progress was easier than they expected. On the whole the floor area was free and the damage was more through lack of regular maintenance than from structural failure. The corridor had once been a smooth tube and there was evidence that a monorail transport system had once been used to ferry the Darians about the hive. Where lighting ports were broken there was a mass of charred circuitry behind the translucent panel.
Koenig said, ‘What do you make of it, Victor?’
‘It’s difficult. Some mechanical failure caused overload. But then it was not a complete blow out. There’s certainly a power source operating now and the ship’s on a course, whether by design or accident who can say? The survivors may be too few to keep outlying areas up to scratch. But the shell’s still sound. It still works.’
‘Auto trouble shooters would see to that.’
‘There is life. The signs were positive. Human life.’
They had reached a bend in the corridor and Koenig stopped. Ahead, the way was clearer and the eye could travel on through an exercise in perspective to a far distant pin point.
‘We’re in for a long walk.’
‘True, John, but a ship like this is a small city. It’s a technical marvel that ranks with the pyramids. It ought to be worth the trouble.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
After a fair start Paul Morrow and Carter were meeting an area of general destruction. It was a case of picking a slow path through and over mounds of debris. Whole sections of cladding had peeled from the walls and lay at crazy angles over the path. Alan Carter said, ‘If it means anything I’d say it is getting worse. There can’
t be anything this way.’
‘Maybe not, but we might as well check it out.’
‘I don’t like it. We should be trying to get Eagle One out of the well.’
‘One thing at a time. Just get on.’
Carter shrugged and heaved away at a panel that had lodged chest high from wall to wall. Morrow flung himself forward and shouldered the pilot aside. A sliding rumble shook the ground at their feet and lights flipped out for fifty metres. The air filled with choking dust and Carter picked himself up in sudden twilight. As the murk cleared, it was plain there was no further progress to be made. The way ahead was jammed solid.
Carter said, ‘That’s it, then. Thanks a lot. Next time you can be trail breaker. What now?’
‘Back to base.’
Filling in time, Helena Russell had been examining the walls of the area near the airlock. A darker line, like a hair crack, running from a pile of rubble caught her eye and she went close to inspect it.
She called, ‘Bill, what do you think about this?’
Bill Lowry, a massive, barrel chested man, looked up and down the seam and then shifted some of the debris from the deck. The crack was vertical from floor to ceiling. Balling a fist like a mallet, he gave it a shrewd thump in the best technical tradition. There was a subdued click as a holding spring disengaged and the faint crack widened to a handsbreadth gap. They took a side each and heaved away.
The two leaves ran soundlessly on a track. Behind the door was a short lighted corridor that turned off abruptly round a corner.
Helena was through and it was left to Lowry to be cautious, ‘Shouldn’t we wait until the Commander comes back?’
‘We should, but we don’t have to go far. Just a look round the corner.’
Two steps inside the hatch and there was the first direct evidence of independent life aboard Daria. Stopped dead in their tracks they heard a rapid tattoo of quick, light footsteps.
To Helena it sounded like the patter of children’s feet. Lowry said, ‘Two. At least two,’ and drew his laser.
In a sense both were right. The noise increased. There was a panic urgency in it. The two creatures who flung themselves round the corner, eyes wild with fear were small enough to be children. But they were not children. A male and a female, hairless and bird frail, nude as needles, they could have ran from the cover of the trees in a primitive jungle sequence. They were midgets, pigmy people.
Helena Russell felt her skin crawling with disgust. In the sophisticated setting of a deep space craft, they were obscene anachronisms. Then she remembered Bergman’s radiation check. Mutation? Had the Darians come to this?
There was another factor to shove the frontiers of revulsion a little farther back. Mouths opening and closing soundlessly, eyes bulging in their skull-like heads, they seemed incapable of making any vocal noises. They were small, mobile symbols of fear and defencelessness made flesh.
Helena began, ‘Are you . . . ?’
The male mutant pointed to his mouth and shook his head.
He understood, which was amazing in itself and added another small dimension of the pity of it. She said, ‘Can you speak?’
There was an emphatic shake from both heads. Then they were still and listening, heads cocked.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
Hearing certainly was keen enough, it was another two seconds before Helena picked up the beat of distant running feet. There was a chase on. They were one jump ahead of a posse.
The female mute whimpered suddenly and made a dash for Lowry. Before he could move, she had thrown herself to the deck at his feet, arms outstretched, fingertips touching the soles of his boots. Submission and appeal could go no further. Her companion looked wildly around and then ran for the open door towards the air lock.
The pursuit was closing in. Before Helena could speak the newcomers had hurled themselves in a body round the bend in the corridor and were coming to a ragged halt as they took in the scene.
There were six and in some ways they were more likely contenders for the honour of ownership. Physically the scale was right. They could have been a random selection of Alphans. But their appearance was barbaric. It gave the lie to any suggestion that Daria was in business as a working ship. These were survivors, living off the land and making do with anything they could find. Clothes were a rag bag, roughly made up from some kind of metal cloth and thonging. Makeshift belts carried weapons fashioned from what looked like duralumin ribs. Faces were fierce and bearded. It was a hunting party.
The leading hand, taller and more bizarre than the rest had a white, circular disc on his tunic to identify him. It said HADIN.
Lowry’s mute was shivering uncontrollably and edging closer to his feet. There was no doubt that she knew what to expect. There was a moment of balance, neither side wanting to break. Lowry said quietly, ‘Doctor, move back slowly . . . then break for it. Get to the Eagle.’
Hadin’s fierce gaze was centred on Helena as she stepped back. Lowry moved. The mute wriggled after him trying to keep her hands on his feet.
Lowry’s laser roamed over the massed target. But they were spread out and he could not watch every move. Hidden behind the press, an arm went back for a throw and a short heavy club whipped across the space. The large end thumped home between Lowry’s eyes and he was out on his feet before Hadin had jumped in for the pay off.
Lowry was down, stretched out beside the quivering mute. Helena Russell, hands at her sides, could only stand in the centre of a menacing ring and watch Hadin as he walked deliberately towards her. Koenig’s attempt to keep her out of the action had misfired and she could only recognise bitterly that it was her own fault. Now she had added another complication for him. She wondered where he was and if the nudge of a sixth sense would let him know.
Koenig and Bergman were a good two kilometres away and approaching an intersection in the long service corridor. There was evidence that here at least the ship was in better repair.
Koenig stopped suddenly and Bergman’s face asked his question. Before Koenig could answer, a sound of footsteps could be heard from round the corner. It was enough to explain why Koenig had stopped. For his part, he reckoned he must have picked it up subconsciously before it passed the threshold of attention. Drawing his laser, he went on, keeping close to the wall and then whipping smartly out of cover into the left hand branch of the new passageway.
Two beams of light dropped in bright pools at their feet and they stopped, staring down the empty passage. The noise of footsteps was still approaching. The light beams shifted to the walls and then suddenly flicked over to centre in a dazzling glare on their faces.
Arm over his eyes, Koenig struggled to see out into the corridor. Echoing footsteps were closer. Then he could see and he could only believe that the two bulky figures had side-stepped out of some parallel tunnel.
Bergman, ever one to define a thing for the record, said, ‘Radiation suits. They’re still working protective drills. Reception party?’
Both figures carried a torch in one hand and a bulbous nosed blaster in the other. Clearly they were taking no chances. Both parties were still, each watching the other.
Koenig, as the visitor, reckoned it was up to him to show good intentions. Raising his left hand in a mime of greeting, he lowered his laser.
Reaction time for the two Barians was lightning fast. The muzzle of Koenig’s gun had barely shifted off target, when they had lifted their blasters and fired as one.
Energy beams flared over the gap. John Koenig and Victor Bergman were out on their feet, waiting for simple mechanical laws to decide which way they fell.
The two suited figures walked slowly forward and stared down at them as though they could not fully understand who the victims might be.
CHAPTER FOUR
Alan Carter was a puzzled man. He called again, ‘Lowry! Dr. Russell!’ There was only an echo to answer him.
Paul Morrow had gone to look along the second tunnel. There was nothing to be see
n. He followed Carter through the air lock into the Eagle’s passenger module. They checked the command cabin and the freight bay. Nothing.
Suddenly Carter lifted his hand. A small sound of movement was repeated and appeared to come from the deck under one of the transverse squabs in the passenger cabin. Unclipping his laser, he knelt down to check. The terrified face of the male mutant stared out at him.
At precisely the same moment of time, in another part of the metal city, John Koenig’s eyes were bringing him a blurred and fragmentary picture of his situation. The flat surface at his back was clearly some kind of slab or table top. Clips at ankle, thigh and chest were holding him flat. His eyes opened, closed, opened again as his conscious mind went in and out of circuit.
Focussing was a problem. Nothing was hard edged. Faces had no precise definition and the room he was in could have been a hangar or a narrow cell. He was only half aware of himself as an observer. It was a dream sequence, as though it was all happening to somebody else. Lightning seemed to flare bright and then dim at the rate of his pulse. Bringing every atom of will to bear, he tried to concentrate and for a moment believed he had it clear. There were only two figures watching him and the suits were familiar. They were the two Barians that he and Bergman had met in the corridor.
That was a small toehold on reality and he tried to build on it. Bergman? That would be Victor Bergman. Where was he then. And Helena? What would happen at Eagle One when he failed to show up? Straining against the clips, he tried to sit up. The effort was too much. Black night filled his eyes and he was off on another trip in the cloud of unknowing.
Helena Russell had no difficulty in knowing where she was, and it was not good. Like all captives through the millennia she was being led into the settlement of the tribe.
She could recognise what it had once been. The spaceborn city had needed a vast hydroponic spread to feed its people and without the care of a trained labour force, vegetation had run amuck. Underfoot, the floor was springy as turf with accumulations of fallen leaves; cycads and exotics towered around in dense groves reaching up to a distant domed ceiling which gave constant sunlight. There was a dank smell of vegetation. They could have walked into a clearing in an Amazonian jungle.