Space 1999 - Earthfall

by E. C. Tubb

  Koenig opened his eyes.

  He had turned so that the faceplate was free of the dust and he wiped it seeing through the transparency the massed glitter of stars, the silver radiance which shone on the hand he lifted, the arm, the ground which lay all about. The stars and nothing else. The darting torpedo-like things had gone as had the nightmarish loom they had shielded, the thing which had grown to expand and fill the sky.

  Slowly he climbed to his feet, switching on the suit radio, listening to the deep drone of throbbing noise, the sharp, machine-gun-like blips. On the far horizon he caught a glimpse of color, a flash which vanished to be followed by another, a darting flood as if sparks caught by a wind were rising from a glowing fire. But no sparks could have held such a chameleon shift of variegated hues and no fire have lived for a moment in the void and, certainly, there could have been no wind.

  The aliens had settled and were now hovering over a crater, covering it with their restless motion. It and what it contained.

  Koenig drew in his breath, trying to judge time and distance, feeling impatience as his mind refused to handle the complex equations. The launcher lay to one side and he picked up the empty weapon before walking to where the thing he had shot had come to final rest. Looking at it he remembered the scream he had heard at the last, the human sound lost in the alien sussuration. The man who had made it would never scream again.

  He lay supine, the helmet still intact, the faceplate clear aside from the spray of blood which had misted it from within. The face was distorted, the eyes bulging, the mouth open, fringed with crimson; the blood which had erupted from the burst lungs to fog the interior of the suit. The hips would have been crushed, the thighs broken, the spine severed and the stomach mashed into a greasy pulp from the smashing impact of the torpedo which had hit and come to rest lying across the prostrate body.

  Dying the thing had taken a final revenge.

  Koenig kicked it, feeling the impact of his boot, noting the dull finish, the hole his missile had made. It was edged and crusted with a pale green substance which broke like crystallized sugar as he scraped it with his boot. As he watched fresh green ichor oozed to re-seal the opening. When he threw his weight against the torpedo it rolled from the corpse to come to rest a metre distant.

  Koenig froze as the droning from his radio gained in volume and vivid flashes etched themselves against the stars. As they settled and the droning faded he dropped the launcher and, moving to where the spindle rested, began to roll it like an ungainly barrel towards the base.

  It took a long time. When Koenig finally reached the open outer door of the air-lock he was staggering, drenched with perspiration, every muscle a jarring node of agony. The spindle had been heavier than he’d thought, the ground rougher than he remembered. The thing had slewed from side to side, doubling the distance covered and he had overestimated his stamina.

  “Commander!” Volochek came to meet him. “I was worried. You were out so long, but your orders were specific, I was not to interfere.” His eyes moved from the strained face revealed within the opened helmet. “The others?”

  “Dead.”

  “All of them?” Volochek sucked at his cheeks as Koenig made no answer. “Well, I hope it was worth it.”

  “Yes,” said Koenig. “I hope so too. But I don’t want anyone going out after them, Chief. Is that understood?”

  Volochek nodded, “Later, perhaps, Commander? It would do no harm to promise that. Men can be sensitive about such things.”

  A lie, but a small one, and perhaps not a lie at all. And, at least, one of the fallen could possibly be given a decent burial.

  “They didn’t die for nothing,” said Koenig. “They helped me get the thing I brought back with me. Have a couple of men suit up and bring it inside. I want it put in an empty and secure compartment for examination. While you’re taking care of it I’ll warn Victor to get ready.” He frowned at the other’s expression. “Something wrong?”

  “You couldn’t have known,” said Volochek. “It’s Professor Bergman. He collapsed an hour ago. His heart. He isn’t expected to live.”

  C H A P T E R

  Fourteen

  He looked very old and frail lying in the bed, the pipes and attachments of the life support apparatus wreathing his upper torso. His hands lay to either side of his body, palms upwards, the fingers lax and slightly curved as if, already, he was greeting death. The lights were dead, only the tell-tales operating and only the minimum of power used to operate the machine which maintained his life. Crude candles stood to either side, an anachronism in this place of sterile perfection, and it must have been their acrid smoke which stung his eyes and filled them with tears. Moisture which Koenig blinked away as he forced himself to smile.

  “Lying down on the job, Victor?”

  “John!” One of the hands lifted to close fingers around Koenig’s own. “I’m so glad! I was hoping—but you came in time.”

  “Time to give you the latest news about our alien friends, Victor.” Deliberately Koenig misunderstood. “Your device worked as you predicted. We are safe up to the eleventh degree of power emission which means we can maintain some degree of operation in Main Mission and ease the environment as long as we don’t allow too many power sources to operate too close to each other. I’d like your advice on that later, but for now we have something of greater importance. I’ve brought back one of the alien torpedoes. Vladimir has put it into one of the external labs and technicians are making a preliminary survey. They’ll be letting you have their reports but I want you to make the actual examination.”

  He felt the fingers tighten a little, saw the twitch of a smile, the minute shake of the head.

  “I can’t, John. I can’t.”

  “You must.” Koenig forced assurance into his voice. “It’s the chance of a lifetime, man! The opportunity to study an actual, alien artifact. You’ll be the first man ever to have done so. It’s worth a monument, Victor, or another Nobel Prize. And think of the challenge!”

  From where she stood at the far side of the bed Helena shook her head in soundless warning.

  “Victor? You hear me?”

  “It’s my heart which is failing, John. Not my ears.”

  A touch of humor and with it came hope. A man who could make a joke wasn’t ready to die. If his resolve could be strengthened, his will to survive emphasized, he could yet be saved. Then, looking at the pale face drawn and tense with strain, the cyanotic tinge, Koenig knew that things weren’t as simple as that. Within the chest the blood was being forced through arteries narrowed through arteriosclerosis, pain induced by pressure, the weakened organ faltering, failing, robbing the brain of essential oxygen. Will alone would not be enough. Bergman was dead—only the machine attached to his body was keeping him alive, the artificial heart-lung surrogate which had been brought into use just in time.

  “Victor, hang on! Don’t give up. You’ll—” This time Koenig did not ignore Helena’s mute warning. Gently he removed his hand from the weak grasp of the fingers. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “Just rest easy. I’ll be back.”

  To Helena as she joined him in a shadowed corner he said, bluntly, “What are his chances?”

  “As things are, none.” She met his eyes, her own bright with unshed tears. “Under normal conditions with drugs and medications coupled with a stringent regime he could have managed to last for years. As it is—”

  Her shrug finished the sentence. Limited drugs, hard work, tremendous strain, luck of a fantastic degree which had enabled him to last as long as he had. Luck which had now run out.

  “We need him,” said Koenig. “Damn it, Helena, we need him now more than ever before.”

  “The aliens?”

  “If we’re to survive we need a genius and he’s the only one we have. We’ve got to pull him through. Is there no way?” Then, as she made no answer, he snapped, “Think, for God’s sake, woman! Can we keep him hooked to the machine? Will it allow him to be active—no, of cours
e not. What then? A vein transplant? Artificial valves? What?”

  She said, flatly, “A mechanical heart.”

  “A pacesetter?”

  “No, not a pacesetter. Victor is suffering from more than fibrillation and needs more than electronic stimulus to govern the heart-beat. He needs an entire new organ.”

  “Have you one?”

  “An experimental transplant only. It was supplied by the Barnard Clinic and is the latest in artificial organs; self-contained, self-powered, automatically governed by attachment to the central nervous system—it’s a work of genius.”

  “Good, Use it.”

  “John, how can I? It is an experimental artiforg and has yet to be tested. It was sent to me for my opinion and, I suspect, the chance that I might use it if some accident made it imperative. If so it would have been used on a young and active man. Victor is old and, well, John, I would never recommend the extensive surgery necessary to graft the artiforg.”

  “Have we any choice?” Koenig didn’t wait for an answer. “Victor is dying, is as good as dead and will go under for keeps unless we do something. Unless you do something, Helena. You’ve got to take the chance.”

  “John, I can’t!”

  “You must!” He gripped her shoulders, his face close to her own, his mouth suddenly cruel. “I don’t care what it costs you in terms of soul-searching or other self-indulgences. I need Victor alive and well and sane. I need him active. I need his brain, his skill, his genius. I need what he can give me to save the base and, by God, you’re going to give it to me!”

  Alan Carter swore as, beneath his hands, the drill became an inert mass of metal whining into silence. At the same time the light which had thrown a cone of brilliance over the work snapped out and only the guttering flames of crude candles threw a fitful light over the interior of the hangar. In it the bulk of Eagles looked like crouching beasts of prey; insects waiting for a victim, their forward vision ports the goggles of facetted eyes, their command modules the equivalent of antennaed heads.

  Insects now fitted with stings; powerful lasers which could send shafts of searing destruction, missiles waiting for atomic warheads, others which could spread a hell of chemical flame.

  “Alan?” Oliver Roache of Engineering came through the dimness. “You’d better quit for now,” he said as Carter showed his head. “All power is off until further notice.”

  “Damn it. I could use a hand drill.”

  “You could,” agreed Roache. “If you’ve a week or two to spare, the muscles of an ape and the patience of a saint. That alloy is tough.”

  “So we wait.” Carter wriggled from the cramped confines of the space in which he’d been working. “How many still to go?”

  “A third are as good as they’ll ever be. Half the rest are within a few hours of completion.”

  “And the others?”

  “A week given power.” Roache shrugged at Carter’s scowl. “We can’t perform miracles—only the impossible. Let’s go see how they’re getting on with the doors.”

  A gang of men were working by candlelight, crouched around the harsh, blue-white flame of an oxy-hydrogen burner. That, at least, was safe to use with its chemical flame. As Carter watched the metal it touched fused, ran in molten droplets, parted with glowing ends which grew dark as a man threw water over the heated metal.

  “Right, lads,” he said. “Let’s try it now.”

  A lever fell into position and a jack was rammed beneath the bar and the wall. Hydraulic pressure expanded it, forcing the cut metal away from the wall and clear of the panel. A shift, more pressure, and the twisted guide was forced free of its fastening, a shower of dust and powdered stone rising to fog the air and catch at nostrils and lungs.

  “Now,” snapped Carter as the coughing died. “See if it’s clear.”

  The Eagles were useless unless they could get into space and the jammed doors had held them captive for too long. He waited, feeling sweat mingle with the dust and turn it into a thin film of gritty mud as men heaved on the metal controls, turning the capstan which by-passed the electronic hoists to lift the inner doors up and open.

  “Hurry, blast you! Put some weight into it.”

  “We’re trying!”

  “Then try harder!” Carter pushed a man aside and took his place. Muscles bunched beneath his uniform as he applied strength to the capstan. It moved, stuck, moved again with a grating judder to stick once more.

  “Jammed!” A man cursed as he spat dust from his mouth. “The guides still aren’t wholly clear.”

  “Then get working on the bloody thing!”

  “Steady!” Roache dropped his hand on Carter’s shoulder and jerked his head in a signal to leave the men. “They know what to do.”

  “Then why the hell don’t they do it?”

  “They are and will.” Roache led the way into the shadowed darkness. “But they don’t want a bloody Aussie ordering them about. Would you want me to tell you how to handle an Eagle?”

  “No,” admitted Carter. “I guess I was wrong.”

  “Just impatient and tired like the rest of us.” Roache turned, his raised voice echoing from the massed Eagles, the lowering walls. “Take fifteen. Coffee and rest. Then back to work boys and show that damned door who the hell is the boss around here.” To Carter he added, “We’ll take ours in my office.”

  It was a place which had seen better days. The prim neatness was gone now, the neatly enveloped schematics dogeared and marked with a variety of stains, the desk littered with designs, plans, diagrams. Rubble made the floor uneven and dust still clung to the chairs. A box of blunted drills stood in a corner and a partly dismantled servo-mechanism lay like a ravaged switch-point against the door.

  Roache had collected two cups of coffee from the bucket kept near to boiling over a cut down flame from an oxy-hydo burner. It was strong, harsh, lacking sweetness and devoid of cream but holding the caffeine-kick of a mule.

  “I’ll be sorry when this is gone,” mused Roache. “It’s odd what you can get used to.”

  “There’ll be a substitute.”

  “Sure, Ajwani’s already working on it. That man’s a genius. I swear he could take a heap of cow-dung and turn it into a five-course dinner. Steak, French Fries, peas, all the trimmings with peaches in brandy to follow and pistachio ice-cream. You ever miss the old life, Alan?”

  “The girls? The food? I guess so, don’t we all?”

  “I don’t know. For some, I guess, we’re better off as we are. No loneliness for one thing,” he explained. “I’ve seen guys so crippled with it they damn near burst into tears if you as much as gave them a kind word. That was back home, of course, down on Earth. People living in little boxes, women shopping three times a day just to get the chance to see someone, talking to the cashier for the sake of hearing a human voice. Others, old, staring out of windows twenty stories above the street, too lame to get downstairs and too weak to climb up again if they did what with the vandals wrecking the elevators. Dying and lying dead for months at a time until found by someone looking for the rent. Civilization!” His hand closed hard around the cup. “For me you can shove it!”

  “We’ve got to move on,” said Carter, mildly. “That’s progress.”

  “Balls!” Roache lifted himself from the desk and walked to the wall and turned and walked back again heedless of the hot coffee which spilled on his hand. “If progress is people doping themselves to death then you can stuff it down the can and pull the chain. And you can shove all those snot-nosed bastards who regard people as “units” rather than human beings after it. You know the trouble with civilization? Too many idle, no-good shits riding on the back of those who do the real work. Too many silver spoons, too much privilege, too much covering up to hide idiotic inefficiency. And too many damned victims. My old man was one of them. He—well, never mind.”

  “You’re a Communist.”

  “That’s just a word. I’m someone who thinks those who work should share in the gravy. Who th
inks that merit is the only real qualification. That’s why I like engineering. You either do the job or you get the hell out and no excuses. You can’t cover a botched job and you can’t shed the blame. Not in my shop, you can’t. Not now not ever!”

  “Hey, man, take it easy!”

  “Sure.” Roache stared down at his stained hand, the skin was red beneath the dried coffee. “Sorry. I guess I was preaching.”

  “We all preach at times,” said Carter then added, quickly, “And complain too. Damn it, I come from ancestors who did little else.”

  “They had reason, chained, transported, dumped in a new land. They had to be tough to survive.”

  “That’s right,” said Carter. “Like us in a way.”

  “Like us,” Roache looked up, relaxed after his outburst, smiling as he lifted his cup. “I owe you one, Alan. You ever want to sound off just let me know. I’ll even try to provide a bottle.”

  “I’ll sound off if you don’t get those blasted doors open.”

  “They’ll be open when you need them to be.” Roache looked at his coffee then added, as if to himself, “I hope to hell Victor makes it.”

  He had died and had been resurrected and his name should now be Lazarus but he wasn’t the first to have died nor the first to have been revived, any surgeon of any experience had, at times, acted the role of God. But she didn’t feel divine and neither, she thought, did Mathias who radiated the same fatigue which numbed her bones and muscles with a dragging ache. Even so he managed to smile.

  “My congratulations, Doctor, you performed a magnificent piece of work.”

  “With your help, Doctor.” And those of the nurses who had hovered like attendant angels, the medical technicians who had maintained the life-support systems, the Service Personnel who had supplied the lights and power for the ultraviolet bulbs sterilizing the atmosphere and surround, all the others who had donated blood, given time and skill and, if nothing else, their forebearance and, perhaps, their prayers. A lot of prayers to a variety of gods and one of them, at least, had been kind. “We were lucky, Bob,” she said, dropping the stilted formality which belonged to another time, another place. “Damned lucky.”