Space 1999 - Earthfall

by E. C. Tubb

  “It could kill you, Man.”

  “So it could kill me—what have I to lose?”

  Nothing, and if he should die there would be other volunteers, but none would be as good or so positive in the results. If Alan’s body held xetal then no further time need be wasted if removing it caused a deterioration in his condition.

  “Bob?”

  “Ready, Helena.”

  “Let’s begin.” Carter sighed as again the sleep-inducer came into operation and she wondered what might be the nature of his dreams. Pleasant fantasies or ghastly nightmares, it was impossible to tell. Difficult even to tell if he dreamed at all despite the rapid eye movements discernible beneath his lids. Dreams, if they occurred, and it seemed obvious they must, were rarely remembered and then only as vague impressions. “Drain tubes attached. Commence pumping.”

  A low purr and like a busy vampire a compact machine began to drain the blood from Carter’s body. It would be passed through a complex series of filters, separators, fractionating elements and pulverizers. It would be totally destroyed in the process but other blood would replace it, washing the entire system to be treated in turn, checked and tested for the xetal it might contain.

  “We’ve adapted the normal blood-wash techniques as applied to radioactive decontamination,” explained Helena to Koenig once the process was well under way. “But this time we’re really draining the system with pressure injection and force-suction withdrawal. If anything is adhering to the walls of the veins and arteries we want to get it.”

  “How about the lungs?”

  “The bronchi and alveoli? The stuff must have been inhaled as Carter said and so would have entered the tubes of the lungs and entered the oxygenating chambers, but there has been more than enough time for it to have been passed through the membranes and into the body proper. No, if it’s to be found at all it’ll be in the blood. The danger is that we might try too hard, weaken him too much and recognize the deterioration too late to reverse it.”

  A gamble, but Carter was accustomed to taking them, and he was a winner as his continued existence showed. And yet even the most lucky gambler could run out of luck.

  Victor was waiting outside the operating theatre and Koenig paused a moment before joining him, studying the rounded shoulders, the dome of the skull, the seamed face which had lost its youthful texture to betray the footsteps of decades.

  Had age softened the brain and given rise to error?

  The demonstration had been impressive enough, Koenig could see the patterns thrown by the machine, feel the tension, the anticipation, the sudden relief when Bergman’s prediction had turned out to be correct. But he had not thought of the possibility of xetal being a poison and that was worrying. All factors had to be taken into consideration and it was unlike Bergman to overlook a single item.

  Or had he overlooked it?

  If all those now afflicted by the plague should die—killed mercifully by xetal, wouldn’t that solve the problem facing Alpha?

  Was it, to the cold, scientific mind beneath that domed skull, a “heads we win, tails you lose” situation? That “we” being the colony. The “you” being the individual.

  “John?” He had turned and was rising, his eyes betraying his anxiety, and Koenig felt a repulsion at his thoughts. This was no monster but a trained scientist doing his best. Not a potential mass-eliminator but a dedicated worker in the battle against ignorance and the unknown. “Alan?”

  “They’re working on him now. Is this the solution?”

  Bergman nodded, lifting the flask he had brought with him, holding it so the light created splinters of brilliance from the motes drifting in an amber fluid.

  “They have more inside but this was the first sample batch to determine the quantity of xetal which could be held in suspension. It is surprisingly large. A moderate quantity should be enough to provide an effective treatment if my calculations are correct.”

  “A single dose?”

  “Yes, so there is more than enough for everyone. In fact we have enough to treat the inhabitants of a small nation and we can make more. The impurity I discerned gave the key. It—but never mind. Now our first concern must be Alan.”

  “Or Alpha.”

  “What?”

  Koenig looked down at his hands, not answering, not even aware he had made the vocal comment. If the xetal didn’t work then what was he to do? Had his subconscious already supplied the answer, disguising it as a suspicion directed against Bergman? Logically there was no choice but to eliminate those affected and to eliminate those who yet might fall sick.

  Yet, if it came to it, could he condemn his son to death? Could he allow another? Would he be given any choice?

  C H A P T E R

  Twenty-Eight

  Mathias said, “That’s the twelfth change, Helena. We should have something for Victor to find by now.”

  “Give it a little more. Bob.”

  “How much more?” He blinked when she answered. “Fifteen complete changes under pressure and suction is a hell of a strain, Helena. And Alan’s not in the best condition.”

  “So?” She glared her impatience, giving him no time to answer. “You heard what he said. Are you going to spoil his sacrifice by getting squeamish? It’s your daughter’s life at stake. Bob. Will Rita thank you for not doing your best to save it?”

  “That’s unfair and you know it?”

  “So I’m being unfair but I’ll be honest too. I don’t care if Alan dies if the rest can be saved. Does that shock you? How often have you been forced to make a decision during surgery? To remove the limb in order to save the life—for a runner or dancer isn’t that equal to death? The tumor I had to remove from Jumoke’s brain—the finest artist this century has ever known—and yet in order to save his life I had to destroy his vision. You think that was an easy choice?”

  “For you, yes.” His eyes met her own and she was back in time again, facing him over a similar installation, arguing ethics and morality as a man died. “Your duty was simple, to save a life. It is still simple. You must not put Alan to such a risk that he is placed in danger.”

  “He is already in danger.”

  “Agreed—but it must be minimized.”

  “And Selima? And Michael? And Sardia? Urusula? Tanya? All the rest? The children and babies—what of them? Aren’t their lives worth that of a single man? Isn’t Alpha?”

  “Fifteen changes,” he said, coldly. “As you order, Doctor.”

  “Bob!”

  “But, if I may make a suggestion? It would be wise to have saline and glucose at hand together with full blood and plasma and adrenalin and—”

  “A heart-stimulator fixed and ready to go,” she interrupted. “Bob! For God’s sake! At a time like this must we quarrel?”

  “I—” He gulped and looked at the lights, the instruments, the purring machine. His eyes were wild, rims of white clear around the irises, tears dewing the corners. Sweat glistened on his face and his hands shook as if with the ague.

  A man shaken by conflicting nervous impulses. Before he could shatter like brittle glass Helena said, softly, “The blue vial at the end of the medical tray, Bob. Take three tablets.” Her voice hardened a little as he hesitated. “Take them now!”

  As he turned she stepped forward, lifting a hypodermic from where it lay, aiming it and pressing the trigger, the air-blast driving the drugs it contained into his bloodstream through the skin, fat and muscle of his throat.

  “Helena!” He spun to face her, the blue vial falling from his hand. “You—? What did you give me?”

  “Something to straighten you out. You’ve been taking too many stimulants for too long. I’m not criticizing or blaming you, but as a doctor you know the risk. What drug was it?” She nodded as he told her. “And something to clear the brain?”

  “Yes. What did you give me?”

  “A neutralizer for both. Later you’ll sleep like a dead man, but not yet. Not until we’ve found what answer Alan can give.” S
he listened to the pinging coming from the screen depicting his heart-beat with a mote of light, “It’s slowing, tending to be erratic. How is the respiration?”

  “Labored.” Mathias spoke as he checked. “Labored and liquid.”

  “We may have to drain the lungs. If so we’ll do it after the changes are complete.”

  Deftly she checked the machine, noting the speed of flow, frowning at the accumulation of fibroid tissue. Abuse of the blood-change machine, as Mathias had warned, could cause serious internal damage and she wondered if she had gone too far. A lack of confidence caused by strain and fatigue as Mathias had lost his co-ordination from the jarring impact of drugs. Neither were wholly to blame.

  “Helena!” Mathias voiced his anxiety. “Alan’s deteriorating fast!”

  An understatement—he was dying.

  Even as she watched his skin changed, burning with a febrile glow, hives mounding, a sickly ooze forced from the broken skin. His breathing was a liquid rasp which fell silent as his heart ceased to function.

  “Whole blood! Quickly!”

  He had been drained too dry, placed under too great a strain for too long, muscles and nerves disorganized and falling victim to the destructive invaders. As Mathias fed rich, new blood into the arteries Helena reached for a specialized hypodermic, thrust the needle into the heart and injected a heavy dose of adrenalin. Still the oscilloscope emitted its empty, lifeless whine, the running line on the screen unbroken by any trace of a beat.

  “The stimulator!”

  Needles kicked as electrical impulses jarred the body and nerves. Shock treatment to sting them back into natural function. One, which failed.

  “Pulse the flow!” Helena made another injection, this time with an air-blast which forced drugs into the throat, then dropped both hands to a point below the rib cage and, with a convulsive effort, thrust with the full power of her back and arms.

  A blow, aimed at the heart, forcing it to contract, to pump as it should. Again, again, effort continued until the room began to spin and the lights to blur, blood droning in her ears as, mentally she counted the passing seconds.

  A minute and still no response.

  Two and she felt the beginning of despair.

  “The solution, Bob. Inject it! Throat and spleen. Abdomen and liver.”

  “An overdose—”

  “Who knows? And what does it matter? Hurry!”

  Move as her arms kept pounding. Inject as she mentally counted the passage of time. Two minutes gone and the third dying. Without oxygen the brain began to deteriorate after that period and the damage was irreparable. Leave it too long and, even though life returned, the patient would be a shambling vegetable.

  Alan! Unable to handle an Eagle! Unable to wash himself or dress himself! Unable, even, to recognize those around him!

  But it would never come to that.

  She would never allow it to come to that.

  A doctor had means of making certain.

  Two minutes seventy-five . . . eighty . . . ninety . . .

  “Bob!”

  Again the stimulator, the electric jarring stinging the muscle to action, accentuating her own efforts. Again, a third time, once more and the thin whine from the oscillator changed.

  “He’s going to make it!” Mathias shouted as the pinging resumed, the flickering mote which measured the beat. “He’s going to live!”

  The music was more than a hundred years old but the sonorous chords still retained their magic and would until the end of time. Leaning back Koenig closed his eyes, merging with the genius of a master, seeing again the graceful figures on the stage as they danced the immortal ballet. Swan Lake—had Tchaikovsky ever dreamed that, one day, his work would be played and enjoyed in so remote a place?

  Could anyone on the Moon ever hope to emulate his magic?

  Perhaps; young Ingrid showed promise with a penchant for composing and Neiras, Sharon’s boy, had given a concert with music holding the primitive stir of tribal drums somehow transposed to the throb of engines and the empty bleakness of space.

  A good piece and, one day, he would enjoy it again but now it was enough to relax and let the music of the long-dead master engulf him and take him back to that opera house in Moscow and the incredibly graceful girls who had seemed to defy gravity itself in the accomplishment of their art.

  Only when the piece had ended did he realize he was not alone.

  “Helena!” He sat upright, pushing the earphones from his head. “I didn’t know you were here. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Would you have heard me if I had?”

  “Of course. That is—” He broke off, smiling, feeling again the warm intimacy they shared, the commune which went beyond the use of words. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, thank God.” She sat beside him, leaning back to look at the transparent roof, the vista of stars. Always, in times of stress, she found comfort in spending a little time in the observation room and, when the time of stress was over, still it was good to come and sit in the silvered darkness, to lean back and let the vision rove incredible distances over the bowl of Heaven. “No relapses. No side-effects that I can discover. No more deaths.”

  And no more fear walking the passages or waiting, crouched like a ravening beast in the compartments; the invisible harbinger of disease and death.

  “It worked,” mused Koenig. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was incredible.”

  As the effect of penicillin had been. Relaxing Helena felt she knew now how Fleming must have felt when he watched a man on the verge of death recover before his eyes. A patient with killing meningitis, a terminal case, recovering as if by a miracle. Others, dying, given new life with a single injection.

  But, where penicillin had saved individuals, xetal had saved a world.

  In the ten days since she had fought and won the battle for Carter’s life Alpha had regained normality. Only empty chambers and missing faces told of those who had gone and, soon, the laughter of children would drive the last of the ghosts from the compartments and corridors.

  “John!” Her hand reached out to touch his own, her fingers closing, warm with their intimate association. “I was talking to Michael. He and Selima plan to have a child during the coming year.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t pretend to be so unmoved! Don’t you realize what that will make us? Grandparents, John. You’ll be a grandfather!”

  A further extension of his being and another prop to the only immortality Mankind could know. Another life fashioned after his image. His, and Helena’s and, of course, Michael’s and Selima’s and—where would it all end?

  David could tell him if he chose to ask. David and his computer which could take the basic facts and make the extrapolation based on present increase and tell him, to the day, when the population of Alpha would be too large for the installation to hold.

  And then there would be new extensions, new colonies, a pushing out and a building and, inevitably, a division as the pressures increased and minerals became harder to find. The Moon was large but could any barren ball of rock ever be big enough to hold a growing population? And there were other dangers.

  Helena frowned as he mentioned them.

  “We can adapt, John. People don’t miss what they’ve never had. We can extend and build and provide all the facilities we had back on Earth. And we aren’t plagued by the dangers.”

  A bad choice of word but it served his purpose.

  “Plague,” said Koenig. “We’ve had one—how long until we get another? And, when it hits, what then? The children aren’t building up any form of immunity. They have no need. In a couple of generations they’ll be easy victims for smallpox, measles, the common cold—all the rest of the rag-bag of illnesses we managed to survive.”

  “So?”

  “Helena, can we stay here?” He met her eyes and held them as he posed the question. “Can we really stay on the Moon? We can survive, that I agree, but how will we end? Michae
l and Paula are a little different to us, surely you’ve noticed, it? They are taller and finer built but I’m not just talking about physical characteristics. How about their mental processes? Sometimes, when I’m with the youngsters, I get the impression they belong to a different race. Their values aren’t the same. They haven’t shared the same roots. We haven’t known the same experiences. Damn it, Helena, we haven’t even shared the same world!”

  “John!”

  “I’m sorry.” He sat, breathing deeply, shaken by his sudden outburst. But, in itself, that very outburst served as an illustration. “Have you ever seen any of the youngsters get into such a stupid rage? No, of course you haven’t. It’s one of the things I was talking about. They’re different and will grow more different as time passes. The old family ties have vanished—will our grandchild know us for what we are or will he care? His loyalty will be to his contemporaries, to Alpha, not to his ancestors.”

  “Is that bad?” She smiled as he didn’t answer. “John, you remind me of my father when I told him I intended to become a medical student. He was old-fashioned and reacted as if I’d told him I was going to do something vile. He didn’t understand but he wasn’t to blame. It was just that he was old.”

  As he was old—where had all the years gone? What had happened to the dreams?

  Alpha, he thought, it’s taken my life. Twenty years of it—an entire generation. And yet there had been compensations and the best sat beside him now. His hand closed on her fingers.

  “Helena, I love you.”

  “I know,” she said. “John, darling, I know.”

  He was an exile coming home and for a long moment Carter did nothing but stand and look and smell the odors of the place. Then, as a man looked curiously towards him, he stepped out across the floor of the hangar to where the Eagle waited.