Space 1999 - Earthfall

by E. C. Tubb

  He wanted to run but kept walking. Survival did not lie in running from danger and trying to find a place to hide. For rabbits, perhaps, but never for men. And, even in this alien universe, he was a man.

  Abruptly he stumbled and fell, the device falling from his hands, the awkward bulk of the launcher dragging at his shoulder and preventing him from regaining his balance. He saw the ground rise to meet him as he buckled his knees and spread wide his gloved palms to soften the impact. Even so dust smeared his faceplate and something hard jarred against his thigh. A fragment of rock which could have ruptured the fabric and released his precious air into the void. Dust which could have held a stone to smash the transparency to a million shards and leave his face naked to emptiness.

  This time he had been lucky and he lay for a moment, feeling sweat on his face, hearing the soft blur of static from his radio. Then, rising, he wiped the faceplate and, recovering the device, moved on, counting steps as he had done since leaving the base. Five hundred and he was where he wanted to be at the summit of a low dune. Setting down the device he checked the connections then retreated back the way he had come, unreeling the connecting wire until it was taut in his hands. He was now a part of the ring formed by himself and the others around the chosen point.

  Dropping to his knees he rested the launcher to one side and lifted the control box so as to see the face through his helmet. It was fitted with a pointer resting on a graduated dial, the first mark equal to the electronic activity of a flashlight. Without hesitation Koenig turned the pointer to the line past it and, lowering the box, looked at the darting shapes shining bright against the stars.

  If the electrical activity generated by Bergman’s device was high enough the aliens should dive down to destroy the instrument set in the centre of five watchful men. If nothing happened he would increase the power in stages until it did, waiting between each boost, but not waiting too long.

  The pointer moved under his hand.

  If his guess was correct they would learn the critical level of safe power-usage. Once known the base could begin to plan its defences and decide how to deal with the invader. Without knowledge they were helpless and they had already tasted the destructive capability of the graceful torpedoes.

  Koenig stared at them as the pointer moved beneath his hand. Three metres from nose to tail, long enough to hold a man lying full length but not wide enough for him to stand or to sit upright in comfort. But why need they hold men? Life took many forms and here, in this unfamiliar region, intelligence could take on a peculiar guise. Perhaps the sleek shapes were filled with water and operated by sentient octopods or crustaceans of some kind. Or small land-animals such as marmots or shrews. Even birds—the darting would be common to an avian race. Or . . .

  Watching, semi-hypnotized by the wheeling, colorful spindles, Koenig felt his thoughts slip into new realms of fantastic imagination, the shifting pattern catching his vision, tiring it, narrowing his concentration to the centre of the mass, the strange, barely seen loom of the thing behind and among it.

  “Commander!” It was Sinton again, his voice hard, brittle, jerking Koenig to full awareness. “They’re coming!”

  Death in the shape of brilliant torpedoes lancing down from the sky.

  C H A P T E R

  Thirteen

  A shape wheeled, darting, passing with a flash of scintillant brilliance to streak upwards, to turn, to hurtle down again with winks of ruby glowing at the pointed nose. Directed energies which created a response in the area holding the emission device where dust plumed and rock shattered in gouts of flame and flying droplets, the instrument itself turned into incandescent vapor. Another which added to the destruction. A third which followed a different path.

  “Commander!” Sinton yelled as he saw it, rising to turn and run, bounding awkwardly across the Lunar plain arms outstretched, dust rising from beneath his boots. “It’s after me! For God’s sake do something!”

  A moment and then it was over, the destruction he had attracted to himself by his use of the radio, his panic-stricken attempt to run, striking with cold, merciless precision. The life-support apparatus attached to the back of his suit vanished, the suit itself, the vulnerable flesh it protected, the muscle and sinew and bone and blood within, the brain and heart and internal organs all, as Koenig watched, turned and converted into a mass of red and oozing pulp which spread to fall, to dry into a thin film in the airless void.

  “God!” The voice echoed its sickness. “You saw that? Sinton—the poor bastard didn’t stand a chance!”

  As none of them would stand a chance unless they slammed shut the trap so painstakingly built.

  “Now!” Koenig snatched up the rocket-launcher and rammed it hard against his shoulder. “Fire, damn you! Fire!”

  His own weapon spat a missile as a needle of flame rose from where a man lay to one side, the shot missing as his own blasted in a shower of sparkles against the shimmering side of a torpedo. The alien thing jerked, colors fading, to brighten, to fade again as, twisting and turning, it fell to one side.

  One down but two yet to go. Koenig swung the launcher as the other two men brought their weapons into action; machine rifles firing twelve millimetre explosive bullets, the flares of the striking missiles adding to the haze of color limning the targets. One turned as another rocket missile lanced towards it, diving, ruby winks wreathing its nose and Koenig felt the pulse and jar of detonations from the ground beneath his feet, heard the yell over the radio, the savage, bitter cursing which suddenly ended in a bleak silence.

  “Commander! Deray’s been hit!”

  Hit and turned into stained molecules, flesh mingled with metal and plastic and pulverized stone, sent to coat a few square metres of Lunar surface, to add his richness to the sterile dust.

  Koenig dropped as the other launcher fired again, a final time, the last missile guided by prayer and hope searing into the brilliant hull and taking a swift revenge.

  “Got it!” The voice held triumph. “Got the bastard!”

  A voice which turned into a scream as the remaining torpedo dived, ruby winking, flesh and bone bursting into an obscene parody of the human form. The remaining man rose, yielding to panic, the machine rifle hanging loose in his hands.

  “Commander! We haven’t got a chance!”

  “Shut up and keep firing! Fight, damn you! Fight!”

  Fight or die! Kill or be killed. In one thing, at least, this universe was the same as the one he had known. Koenig aimed the launcher, waited, pressed the release and thinned his lips as he missed. Again and the missile barely touched the torpedo as it twisted, darting to where the remaining man lifted his machine rifle, turning as the numbed fingers failed to press the release. A fact Koenig subconsciously noted, storing it away in his mind as the slanted shape hunted, questing, lifting to turn and dart again at the now running shape below.

  “Drop, you fool!” yelled Koenig. “Drop!”

  Drop and remain still and pretend to be dead. Fall and cut your power and blend in with the rock and stone. Become inert and save yourself as the base itself had found a way to survive.

  Obey, damn you—and live!

  Koenig slammed his jaw hard against the inner control panel set beneath the faceplate, boosting the output of his radio, yelling as he did so, making nothing but wordless sounds as he sprang up and down where he stood, one arm waving, dust rising from beneath his boots. A target too obvious to ignore, too easy to miss. A decoy which, with luck, would save the running man.

  For a moment the torpedo seemed to hesitate then, with a glitter of brightness, it swung up and over and was heading directly to where Koenig stood.

  He settled, the launcher at his shoulder, eyes staring through the awkwardly placed sights. One shot left and unless it hit and destroyed the alien he was dead. There was no time to run back to the base, nowhere he could hide, no chance, even, to pray. He had to fire before ruby light winked from the nose, hit a vulnerable part and bring the torpedo down or
he would join those who had already died.

  A moment of tense decision—too soon and he would give the thing time to dodge, too late and it would fire first. Aim incorrectly and the missile would glance from the body instead of driving through. One chance only and his very life was at stake.

  A gamble he couldn’t afford to lose.

  Koenig lifted the launcher a trifle, closed his finger harder on the release—then winced as his radio suddenly emitted a raucous blare of noise. A rasping drone tore at his ears and nerves and jarred his vision so that the oncoming threat was blurred as were the sights, the thread of flame which spat from the muzzle of his weapon, the sudden gush of flame which spouted from the torpedo which dropped and spun and fell to the accompaniment of a scream which was just another fragment of the thrumming blast of noise.

  Koenig ignored it as he ignored the fallen torpedo. He dropped, the launcher falling from his hands as he hit the dust, to sprawl, his chin slamming against the inner controls and bringing a blessed silence. In it, locked in the cocoon of his suit, he stared at the incredible thing taking place in the sky.

  Simon Lansing rose, stretching, wishing that nature had incorporated a hinge in his back or, at least, had given him muscles which did not ache. Around him in the dimly lit room the air was heavy with the stink of burning fat and the acrid stench of dust. Rock, fused with plastic, had crumbled and had to be cleared away. Fallen equipment needed to be lifted, cleaned, set back into place. Goods had to be salvaged from the debris and placed to one side. Work done to the flickering glow of primitive candles which threw distorted shadows on the walls.

  One of them belonged to Monica Harvey. As Lansing stretched she said, “Getting lazy?”

  “Getting tired. And you?”

  “Just angry.” She slammed a heap of items into a corner. “I keep thinking of Brian.”

  “Teal?” Lansing shrugged. “A nut. He’s better off dead.”

  “Is that what you think he was? Just a nut?”

  “What else?”

  “A martyr.” She threw more goods into the corner then stood looking at her companion with speculative eyes. “He tried to do something. To assert himself as an individual force. To regain his pride and self-respect and to walk tall as a man. He would have killed himself to do it.”

  “And taken us with him.” Lansing shook his head. “The guy was crazy. He must have been. If Teal had blown that reactor as he threatened we’d all be slag by now.”

  “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees!”

  “Crap!” Lansing snorted his annoyance. “Don’t feed me that bullshit!”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Her expression softened a little. “You were in hospital most of the time, Simon, and you had no way of knowing how they drove us. They never let up for a minute. It was always ‘do this!’ and ‘do that!’ and ‘get that done’. Orders all the time until we grew sick of them. Raoul saw the way things were going and did something about it.”

  “Another nut.”

  “A man who tried to help. One who gave a voice to those who were denied the right to speak. Volochek murdered him.” Her face darkened as she thought about it. “He choked Raoul to death with his bare hands. Killed him as you’d kill a mad dog.”

  “That’s over now.” Lansing didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t want the woman to waste time talking about it either. They were alone together in the compartment and there were better things to do. “It’s all over.”

  “You think so?” Thick curls flew as she shook her head. “Just because we’ve an external problem doesn’t mean that the one we’ve got inside has ceased to exist. Koenig and the rest are still giving the orders. We are still the serfs. You like to be a serf, Simon? You know what a serf is?”

  “Something like a slave. I’m not ignorant.”

  “Did I ever say you were?” She smiled through the dust coating her face, “You’re smart, Simon, and I’ve always liked you.”

  “And me you, Monica.”

  His injuries had healed, the stitches removed and the bromides he’d been fed had lost their effect. Coupled with his long bed-rest Lansing felt ready for anything. Even the leg caused no trouble, the Stader splints holding the bone made it as good as new, but he wasn’t concerned about his leg. And, in the dancing light of the crude candle, Monica Harvey looked all woman.

  He reached for her as, turning, she stooped over a pile of rubble. As his hands touched her hips she stiffened then, without rising, relaxed. Her face, hidden by the fall of her hair, was hidden from his view so that the tenseness of the mouth and the narrowed eyes remained a secret. As his hands moved forward over the taut fabric of her uniform to pass over the soft swell of her stomach, to slip upwards to the twin promintories of her breasts she straightened. As his fingers began to knead the mature fullness she lifted her own hands to grip his fingers.

  Without turning she said, “You’re a clever man, Simon. I’ve often wondered why you didn’t join up with Raoul. Didn’t he ever approach you?”

  “Once.” His face was buried in her hair, his voice muffled. “I told him where to get off.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t trust the creep.” His teeth found and nibbled at her ear. “To hell with Anoux!”

  “No!” Monica twisted, turning so as to face him, her eyes holding his own. “I’m really interested, darling. Why didn’t you trust him?”

  “I’ve seen his kind before. Thin face, cold eyes, the whole works. All brain and no guts. The kind of guy who’d pull the wings off flies so as to stop them getting away. If you think he wanted to save you then you’re nuts. That character would have locked a collar around your neck so tightly you’d have found it hard to breathe. Freedom? He didn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “You’re wrong!”

  “Like hell I am! Anoux was a poseur. He was a self-opinionated intellectual with the brains of a louse and the inclinations of a black widow spider. He was a muck-raking heap of high-grade shit! He—” Lansing broke off, breathing deeply. “He was no damned good, honey, take my word for it.”

  “You can’t say that,” she protested. “The things he said made a lot of sense.”

  “The things that type say always do,” he snapped. “Especially if you’re a moron without a brain in your head to call your own. They find a sore and pick at it until it bleeds then tell you to look at it and at nothing else. So things are tough here—what the hell else could they be? So we have to work damned hard—since when has life been easy? So someone gives the orders—is that new? Would that creep have been better at it than Koenig? Would he have been smarter? Would he have had more guts?”

  “Koenig!” Her face darkened. “He lied! The bastard lied! He would have promised anything to get Brian out of the reactor room. Done anything to get him away from where he could do damage. He had the whole thing planned from the beginning and Volochek was in on it. The guns were useless. He had agents planted among us.”

  “So?”

  “He lied, Simon. The halo-wearing, God-given, holier-than-thou-bastard lied all along the line. He lied!”

  “So what?” Lansing smiled into her face. “What else did you expect him to do? He was fighting a war, honey, and he won. That’s what a war is all about. You fight it to win and it doesn’t matter a damn how you win as long as you do.” His arms closed around her. “Now let’s forget all these crummy politics and start enjoying ourselves. How about it?”

  “Maybe, Simon, if you see things my way.”

  “You selling?”

  “I’m looking for friends.”

  “To side with you against Koenig?” Lansing shook his head. “Forget it. Now cuddle up, kitten, and let’s have fun.”

  She spat in his face.

  For a moment he stood looking at her, his smile gone, his urge to copulate the same, only the desire to slam his hand against her mouth remaining. Then, lowering his arm, he drew in his breath.

  “All right,” he said, quietl
y. “Let’s play it your way. Now, forgetting the smiles and the soft words and loving crap. Forgetting the fact you’ve a pair of tits and legs and what lies between them. Forgetting you’re a woman and all that implies—just tell me why I should side with you against Koenig. And, while you’re thinking about it, remember this. While you’re safe in here acting the whore he’s out there risking his neck to save us all.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Sure,” said Lansing. “I love you too.”

  It had been the figment of a dream which had edged into nightmare and stunned by an admixture of incredulity and horror both existing only in the mind. Lying on the Lunar plain Koenig thought about it, conscious of the touch of the cool air on his face, the artificial breeze accompanied with its soft sussuration, seeing again the riot of shifting colors against the inside of his closed lids. Retinal images which blossomed and faded to drift and return as the blazing scintillation in space had bloomed and changed and altered into grotesque horror from the warmly familiar to shift into bizarre patterns of warped and incomprehensible dimensions.

  Madness.

  A strain which the mind could not fathom and which turned the inexplicable into a similitude of the known.

  An orifice which pulsed, an egg, a glowing nimbus dotted with the fleece of rainbow clouds, a feathery mass of luminous fronds, an eye, a head . . .

  A shape?

  A thing!

  He had closed his eyes then, sealing them with a conscious pressure of the lids, afraid the savage burst of radiance would blind him even through the opaqued filters, that the radiation would penetrate even the closed lids to sear the corneas and char the retinas and leave him to stumble in an endless dark.

  A fear which had been a part of another, greater terror so that he had lain grovelling in the dust, faceplate pressed into the fine, talc-like powder, careless of the danger of buried stones.

  A terror which had passed now to be followed by a cautious extension of his senses towards the harsh reality which lay beyond the confines of his suit.