RUNAWAY MOON!

Moonbase Alpha is Earth's supreme achievement. Self-sufficient and fully computerized, the fantastic lunar colony is Earth's global watchdog, silently guarding against sneak alien attack. The dark side of the moon—once so mysterious, so unattainable—now stores in its womb containers of smoldering radioactive waste, refuse from Earth.

Then, in the year of Our Lord 1999, the serene satellite is ripped apart by thermonuclear explosion. And the 311 inhabitants of Alpha whirl through space on a runaway moon—in an orbit of jarring adventure where survival is a game of chance with the life forces of the universe!

"Attention, all sections Alpha. This is Commander Koenig. Our moon has been blasted out of orbit and we have been cut off from Earth. There is no hope or possibility of return."

He paused a moment before continuing: "But we are not without hope. We have power, environment and, therefore, the possibility of survival. Meta is close and our path is carrying us toward it. There, perhaps, we shall find a new home.

"There, or somewhere . . ."

Books in the Space: 1999 Series

Breakaway

Moon Odyssey

Published by POCKET BOOKS

BREAKAWAY

Futura Publications edition published 1975

POCKET BOOK edition published September, 1975

This POCKET BOOK edition includes every word contained in the original edition. It is printed from brand-new plates made from completely reset, clear, easy-to-read type. POCKET BOOK editions are published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 630 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10020. Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.

Standard Book Number: 671-80184-8.

This POCKET BOOK edition is published by arrangement with Futura Publications Limited. Series format and television play scripts copyright, ©, 1975, by ATV Licensing Limited. This novelization copyright, ©, 1975, by Futura Publications Limited. All rights reserved. This book, or portions thereof, may not be reproduced by any means without permission of the original publisher: Futura Publications Limited, 49 Poland Street, London, England.

Printed in the U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

To Wilma Brandt

CHAPTER ONE

It had been a long day and John Koenig was tired. A fatigue born more of mental tension than accumulated muscular toxins; they, at least, could be eased as he sat in the comfortable chair in the passenger module of the Eagle which was taking him to Moonbase Alpha. The ship which was carrying him home.

Home!

An odd thought, home was, or should be, the place where he’d been born and raised, but the moon was a long way from Earth, a quarter million miles of emptiness lying between, and yet he thought of it as the place where he belonged. A birthday of a kind, he thought with wry amusement. A day to be remembered. September 9th, 1999—the day he resumed command.

Command, basically, of a garbage heap.

On the dark side of the moon were stacked the sealed containers containing the radioactive wastes of the atomic piles which now maintained Earth’s economy. An ever-growing mass of unwanted and potentially dangerous material, buried deep in the Luna rock, watched, monitored, carefully guarded. The major reason for the existence of Moonbase Alpha which hugged the edge of Tycho. From it Earth could be seen—from the dumping grounds nothing but the cold light of the eternal stars.

A touch and the screen set into the rear of the seat before him sprang to life. A television broadcast from a station on Earth. The newscaster was young, professionally intent.

‘It was announced today that the two probe astronauts of the Meta mission, Frank Warren and Eric Sparkman, have contracted a mild virus infection during training. Luna Commissioner Gerald Simmonds assures us, however, that the mission will be delayed for no longer than forty-eight hours. In a few moments the Commissioner will talk to you direct. In the meantime our sponsors . . .’

Koenig glanced up from the screen aware that he was not alone. The stewardess had entered the module and stood studying the lone passenger it contained.

He made, she thought, a fine figure of a man. Not young, yet far from old, neatly trim in his uniform with the one black sleeve of command. His face was intense, sombrely handsome, the mouth sensitive, the eyes dark, enigmatic. A man of controlled passions and, she suspected, a lonely one. Lonely with the isolation of command, the responsibility it carried.

She carried a tray of refreshments. Offering them she said, ‘Commander, touchdown at Moonbase Alpha will be at 23.35 Luna time.’

Thirty minutes yet to go. Koenig accepted a drink. He was too tense to eat and Simmonds didn’t help.

Simmonds came on to the screen, hair and beard dark, eyes and mouth hard. A politician who believed that words were deeds. Now he was bland as the newscaster introduced him.

‘Commissioner, will you explain the purpose of the Meta mission to our viewers, please?’

‘Certainly.’ His face grew large as the cameras scanned close. ‘Meta is a celestial object which is approaching our own solar system from somewhere in space. We know that it is planet-sized and has roughly the mass of Earth. Perhaps it is a world which has broken free of its own primary—or it may even have come from beyond our own galaxy—as yet we simply do not know. One thing is certain, however, our technicians have received signals which seem to originate on Meta itself. Signals which could be an attempt at communication in which case it is fair to assume that the world could contain a high form of life. From Earth’s Space Research Centre at Moonbase Alpha we are going to explore that world using a specially designed probe. The virus infection, previously reported, will cause a slight delay, but . . .’

Disenchanted, Koenig switched off the screen. Words, palliatives for the masses, empty sounds which meant little or nothing, but which provided a screen to hide the ugly truth.

On the moon men were dying—it was his job to find out why.

The Eagle landed, the ship settling lightly on the pad beside the complex of the base. From the entry dome the travel-tube telescoped out towards the door of the passenger module and locked firm. Rising Koenig moved towards the port and entered the car beyond. Bergman was waiting to greet him.

‘John!’

‘Victor!’ Koenig felt a genuine pleasure at the sight of the familiar face. ‘So you’re still here.’

‘Where else would I go?’ Bergman was on the wrong side of middle-age, his uniform devoid of a colour-coded sleeve. A visiting scientist who had stayed on year after year, a man who occupied a unique position at the base, busy on projects impossible to conduct on Earth. His health too had played a factor—he lived only because of a mechanical heart. Handing Koenig a commlock he said, ‘Things are far more serious here than I suspect you’ve been told.’

Koenig clipped the commlock to his belt. A useful tool it comprised a video-transceiver and an electronic key to operate all doors in the complex. As the car accelerated down its tube he said, ‘I never listen to rumours, Victor. You know that. I’m only interested in facts. Right now I’d like some.’

‘People are dying up here, John.’

‘I know that. I also know the reason given. A virus infection. Is it true?’

‘No.’

As Koenig had suspected, but there was no time to pursue the matter now. The car had halted, the door opening to reveal the interior of Main Mission, the heart of the base. It was just as busy as he remembered, technicians at their posts, screens showing a variety of external scenes, the disposal area, the Eagle he had just left, men working on an electronic barrier. Routine monitoring of the complex and all life-support systems.

Rising from his console Paul Morrow, the Main Mission Controller, extended his hand with the familiarity of old acquaintance. His left sleeve was flame-coloured.

‘Welcome back, Commander!’

‘Glad to be back, Paul!’

The truth, already Koenig felt himself slip into the environment, taking up his position as if he had donned an old and comfortable jacket. His office, though, was not exactly as he remembered it, the previous commander had made small changes, things which Koenig would put right within hours. The photograph which Gorski had forgotten, the position of a chair, small things which obtruded his personality.

Koenig turned, looking back into the busy activity of the control room. Aiming his commlock he activated the doors which swept across the opening. As they sealed his face lost the mask of geniality.

Men had died and he needed answers. Doctor Helena Russell was, perhaps the one to give them to him.

He thought about her as he walked towards the medical section, mentally reviewing her file. Once married, husband died five years ago. A skilled practitioner of space medicine who had taken up a position at the base after he’d left. That she was clever he had no doubt. That she was beautiful he hadn’t suspected.

Beautiful.

Not pretty, not just pleasant to look at, but beautiful.

She was a little younger than himself, no shallow girl, but a fully mature woman. Her hair was short-cut above her shoulders, blonde, the deep, natural colour of sun-ripened wheat, a lock falling in a loose curve over her right eye. Her face, almost Slavic in appearance, had high, prominent cheekbones, the cheeks themselves concave. The jaw was finely pointed. The eyes, wide-spaced, were a vivid blue. The mouth was tender, generous, betraying her sensitivity, her passion.

She watched him from behind her desk as he entered the compartment, the left arm of her uniform a stark white—the colour-code of the Medical Section. A uniform which was taut over the swell of her breasts.

Conscious that he had been staring Koenig glanced around the room, his face lighting as he saw an old microscope standing on a pedestal. Moving towards it he touched the gleaming brass, the archaic adjustments.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘A mid-nineteenth century instrument. One which could have been used by Pasteur.’

‘It’s a replica,’ she said. ‘An award.’ Her voice was strong, musical. ‘What can I do for you, Commander?’

‘You can tell me about the trouble here.’ Koenig was deliberately abrupt. Leaving the microscope he moved to stand before her desk, his eyes holding her own. ‘Those men who died and the others who are ill. Are you going to tell me that a virus is the cause?’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘In my opinion a radiation-induced form of cerebral cancer.’

‘I want facts, Doctor, not opinions!’

‘Facts!’ She rose, her voice as hard as his own had been. ‘Commander, there have been eleven cases so far. Nine of them were workers at Nuclear Disposal Area One. Three of them suffered disorientation which led to fatal accidents while another five died in here. The ninth died less than an hour ago. Apparently he went insane and tried to break through the electronic barrier. Thrown back he fell and smashed his face-plate. I saw it all on the monitors—it wasn’t a pleasant sight.’

‘You saw it—why?’

‘I was monitoring his physical condition. There was a sudden disruption of his brain-wave pattern and—does it matter?’

‘For now, no. The astronauts?’

‘This is where the consistency ends,’ she admitted. ‘From all reports they could not have been exposed to radiation—certainly they didn’t work at the disposal area, yet they are displaying the same symptoms. Let me illustrate.’

A med-computer stood to one side, the screen lighting as the woman touched a switch. A second touch and the depiction of a human brain showed in a mass of vivid colour.

‘This is from Sparkman, but it is typical of them all. You can see the hot spot where the malignancy is making massive demands on the blood supply. The growth is also impinging on the motor faculties and causing disorientation. And there are other effects which are unusual such as—’

Koenig didn’t let her finish. He said, sharply, ‘Doctor, I can’t go along with your theory that radiation is responsible. How could it be when the astronauts have not been exposed?

‘Thermographic X-rays aren’t theory.’

‘They only show the damage, not what caused it. Have you made tests?’

‘All standard procedures have been carried out, Commander. As regards normal radiation sickness the findings are negative.’

‘And the growths themselves?’

‘Also negative.’

‘And yet you hold to the opinion that radiation is the cause. An inconsistency, Doctor. How do you explain it?’

She said, flatly, ‘I have no explanation, Commander.’

The only answer Koenig was going to get and he knew it. Grimly he said, ‘I want to see the sick men.’

They lay in a small ward looking like corpses beyond a transparent screen. A likeness accentuated by the flood of blue-tinted ultra-violet light which bathed the area. Monitoring equipment covered them from the chest down, tiny lights winking to signal the functioning of the life-support apparatus. Monitors whose findings were repeated on a large screen set into the console before the partition.

They looked barely human. Their faces were pale, one side shrunken, distorted as if wax had run beneath intense heat to set in grotesque patterns. Travesties of what human faces should be.

Koenig swallowed, shaken despite himself, yet unable to look away. These men were to have manned the Meta probe, but that was something they would never do. They were dying, already dead, kept alive only by machines. Killed by the mysterious something which haunted the dark face of the moon. It was a relief to rejoin the living, to hear the small sounds made by busy humanity, the hum and click of active machines. To stand with Captain Alan Carter of Reconnaissance, his left sleeve a vivid orange, to look at his command, the great bulk of meta probe where it hung in orbit.

The Meta probe and the space station to which it was attached, a cluster of Eagles looking small by comparison.

Koenig said, ‘Is it all ready to go?’

‘We can start the countdown whenever you give the word, Commander. That is as soon as the crew is fit enough to leave.’ His voice held a question.

‘Assuming they won’t be fit in the time how long to train another crew?’

‘Too long.’ Carter was positive. ‘We can’t afford to wait if we hope to reach Meta, investigate and return. Commander, just how bad are they? Every time I ask I get evasive answers.’

‘Can you leave without them?’

‘Not if I can avoid it. Eric and Frank are special. They’re trained and experienced—and they’re all we’ve got.’

A fault, one Gorski should answer for. The previous commander had failed to provide the essential back-up crew for emergency replacement. Cost was the reason, of course, and Simmonds would have been behind the decision. A saving which now would cost dear.

And Koenig realized he had, in taking on the project, put his own head in a noose. He was now the commander, his would be the failure—Simmonds had provided both himself and Gorski with a scapegoat.

A hum from his commlock and Koenig glanced at the screen.

On it the operator said, ‘Commander Koenig there’s an Earth call for you on scrambler. Commissioner Simmonds.’

‘Right. I’ll take it in my office.’

Simmonds was eager to please, a Judas fattening up a sacrifice, an important friend to keep if, by some magic, Koenig should clear up the mess he had tried to hide.

Smiling he said, ‘Settled in yet, John? I just called to wish you well and to get your first impression of the situation.’

‘There was another death just before I arrived—did you know that?’

‘I heard. John. Nordstrom, a good man, a pity.’

Koenig added, ‘Doctor Russell thinks the trouble here could be caused by radiation.’

A touchy subject. Simmond’s face hardened.

‘I’ve heard about all that from Gorski. Don’t pay too much attention to her, John. She might be competent when it comes to space medicine, but she’s wrong when she talks about radiation. As a matter of fact I’m sending you a team of top medical advisers to—’

‘Forget it, Commissioner,’ interrupted Koenig. ‘I want to be certain that there was absolutely no radiation leakage at that disposal area. I don’t need extra medics for that.’

‘The two astronauts never went near it!’

‘Maybe not, but nine men have died and I intend to find out what killed them. Until I do I want you to stop sending up anymore atomic waste.’

‘You know I can’t do that! It’s one of the biggest problems of our time!’

Koenig said, flatly, ‘Commissioner, you assigned me here to clear up this mess and that’s what I’m going to do. The dead men and other things—I don’t think I need go into detail. After your little talk on television you can hardly admit the lack of back-up crew now, can you?’ He gave the other no chance to answer, knowing the value of compromise. ‘A trade, Commissioner. You stop sending up the waste and I’ll get your Meta probe launched.’

A deal and one Simmonds was in no position to refuse.

Reluctantly he said, ‘A temporary delay is the best I can do, John. If that’s what you need?’

‘It’s all I need.’ Koenig stared at the bearded face, his own impassive. ‘Simmonds, why did you lie to me?’

‘They’re no better?’

‘They’re never going to be better. You know that. Those astronauts are as good as dead.’

‘We have to hold that story in, John,’ said Simmonds quickly. ‘The International Lunar-Finance Committee meets on the fifteenth and you know how they are on approbations. Any increase depends on the Meta probe. Any hint of failure and they will chop us dead. Everyone will suffer.’ Hesitating, he added, ‘But, John, if the astronauts can’t man the probe—?’

‘I’ll find a way.’

Volunteers, Carter would accept them if there was no other way. Enthusiastic he would take a chance and, if Koenig had guessed right, he would have men already selected as potential replacements in case of emergency.

‘Good.’ Simmonds was relieved. ‘But remember, John, we’re in this together. Together, you understand?’

The last word—somehow Simmonds always managed to get it, but now it made no difference. The real problem wasn’t the launching of the probe, but what had killed the men.

Koenig activated his commlock.

‘I want an Eagle ready to leave within twenty minutes,’ he ordered. ‘Have Professor Bergman meet me on the pad.’

‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’

‘A rescue ship to stand by over Disposal Area One. And I want a crew briefed to make a complete radiation check. Two men—and ask for volunteers.’

CHAPTER TWO

Even though the scene was familiar it still held a strange eerieness and, looking at the screen, Koenig felt that, as if by some peculiar magic, he had been transported in space and time. That he was not sitting in the passenger module of an Eagle with Bergman at his side, but was somewhere on Earth back in ancient times when great obelisks had reared to the sky, grim and awful in the pale light of the stars.

Then the mood passed and he was himself again, watching the flare of the guiding beacon, the redtopped mounds, the electronic fence surrounding the empty expanse of Disposal Area One.

‘It’s like a graveyard,’ said Bergman, musingly. ‘Have you ever visited Egypt, John? Flown over the pyramids? This always reminds me of that. The mounds aren’t as large, of course, thirty feet as against hundreds, but the perspective is as awesome.’

A graveyard, a good analogy.

Koenig said, ‘How long was it used after I left?’

‘Not long. They use Area Two now, this one’s been closed for five years.’

Five years, a long time, and Koenig wondered what sleeping demons might be stirring in the sealed cans packed too tightly below. Like a trapped genie in a bottle, barely understood energies, melting, changing, growing, new elements forming, perhaps tensing . . .

He shook his head to rid it of fantasies, speculations which served no purpose at this time.

‘We had no synthocrete covers then,’ he said. ‘How’s it holding up?’

‘All right according to the reports,’ said Bergman. ‘It’s constantly being monitored.’

Watched for tell-tale signs of radiation increase which would warn of an emergency. An elementary precaution which had become routine. But nine men had died who had worked on the site. Men who, logically, should still be alive.

The depot was as he expected it to be, clean, bright, smoothly functional. A security guard stood by the door leading to the main compartment, his sleeve purple, a stun-gun holstered at his waist. He snapped to attention as Koenig appeared, Bergman at his side, Collins, the pilot, suited and carrying his helmet. Together they entered the room.

‘Right.’ Koenig switched on the main screen. ‘Let’s get on with it. Rescue ship on stand-by? Fine.’

A clear window faced on the area, but Koenig ignored it, concentrating on the screen. The scene, relayed from scanners, was clear, the suited figures of two men looking grotesque as they climbed from their buggy and set to work.

As Nordstrom had set to work before he died, helmet smashed, lungs ruptured, eyes glazed as they stared at the void.

If radiation hadn’t killed them—then what?

Outside the men worked with trained speed, climbing the mounds, checking, reporting.

‘Point twelve check complete. Radiation normal. No leakage. Proceeding to point thirteen.’

Koenig acknowledged and did his best to relax. There was nothing he could do now, but wait. Bergman, watching the individual physical-monitors of the men outside had at least something to occupy his mind. Collins had nothing at all.

He moved restlessly about the compartment, one hand lifting to touch his face, his eyes, the heavy helmet swinging from his wrist. He crossed to the window and stood looking outside, staring at the stars, the rescue ship which hovered close and low.

‘Point forty-eight check complete.’ The voice from the speaker sounded relieved. ‘Radiation normal. No leakage. That’s it, Commander. All tight out here.’

‘Good, thanks. That will be all.’ Koenig pressed a key as the suited figures piled into their buggy. ‘Rescue ship—stand down. Return to base.’

On the screen the Eagle swooped up and away.

Bergman said, ‘Well, this proves beyond doubt that the radiation count here is within safe limits.’

‘Which doesn’t help Doctor Russell’s theory. Whatever killed those nine men and affected the astronauts it wasn’t radiation.’

‘At least not radiation as we know it,’ said Bergman quietly.

A defence? It was possible—Victor and the doctor must have grown close over the years. And even though negative the findings had been of value. Even, thought Koenig sourly, if it put him right back on square one.

From where he stood before the window Collins said, ‘Commander, I’ve got to get out of here.’

‘In a few minutes.’ Koenig turned back to the screen, not seeing Collins as he turned from the window. He was sweating and his eyes were filmed, almost opaque.

‘Now!’ he screamed. ‘Now! Now!’

He spun, face distorted, a man suddenly berserk. He threw Bergman to one side as if he were a rag doll, snatching up a tradition counter, lifting it to hurl it at the window. Koenig sprang towards him and gripped the raised arm, was thrown back to land with a crash against the wall, the thrown counter smashing just above his head.

Running to the window Collins lifted his helmet and slammed it against the pane.

‘Stop him!’

The guard heard Bergman’s shout. He opened the door and entered, stun-gun in hand. Koenig, on his feet, blocked the line of fire and the guard weaved, waiting for an opening. Again the helmet crashed against the window, the glass yielding to become webbed with fine lines, fracture stresses which could give at any moment.

Koenig, thrown back by a swinging arm, cannoned into the guard, snatched up the fallen stun-gun, lifted it, fired without hesitation. Collins fell as he was about to hit the window for the third time.

‘Get him! Victor!’

Working with desperate haste they dragged the limp figure from the room, Koenig flashing his commlock at the door as they cleared the port.

As it closed the window finally gave and air, splinters of glass, every loose object in the room gusted into the void.

The computer had a female voice, warmly human, almost as if the machine had, somehow, acquired a personality of its own. A ridiculous concept, of course, the vocal accompaniment to the printed data thrown on the screen was an aid to busy workers, no more, the voice itself the result of language broken down into its essential components, fed into the memory banks to be correlated according to need.

Yet, even so, it sounded regretful as the words appeared.

STAGE FIVE CELL MUTATION COMPLETE. ALL BRAIN ACTIVITY TERMINATED. CONCLUSION: ASTRONAUT ERIC SPARKMAN DECEASED.

Frank Warren had preceded him by an hour.

Helena Russell felt her shoulders sag with defeat. For how long had she struggled to keep the man alive? For how many hours, days, fighting against her own conviction that he was doomed, hoping, perhaps, for a miracle. Yet no miracle had come. Stepping towards the console she looked at the face, the monitoring equipment, the tiny lights still active, winking like a host of distant stars.

Turning she aimed her commlock at the computer screen.

‘Kano?’

He was dark, with crisp hair like wool, his eyes large, luminously ebon. His left sleeve was the colour of rust, the code of the Technical Section.

‘Doctor?’

‘The computer says that Sparkman is dead, but there are cases on record where brain activity has resumed from the same apparent state. Check the factual basis of its assumption.’

A moment and a caption appeared on the screen:

CELL LIFE SUSTAINED BY MECHANICAL LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM ONLY.

Stubbornly Helena lifted her commlock and said, ‘There are many definitions of death, Kano. Which one is the computer using?’

Another caption:

DEFINITION OF DEATH PROGRAMMED 12 JAN 1999

BY DR H. RUSSELL.

She said, bleakly, ‘Would you say the computer was telling me to switch off the life-support system, Kano?’

His voice held a shrug. ‘The computer tells you only the facts, Doctor.’

Facts which she knew too well—why had she hesitated to accept them? Again she looked at the figure beyond the partition, the distorted face, the corpse-like appearance. No, not an appearance, the lights on the monitor showed only a mockery of life. A mockery which must continue no longer.

With steady hands she pressed a series of buttons, watching as the lights died one after the other. Eric Sparkman was dead—let him rest in peace.

Let him join his companion, not on a flight to Meta in the probe, but on the final voyage of discovery all men must take.

As Lee had taken it years ago—the husband she had loved and lost.

When she spoke into her commlock her voice was a little unsteady.

‘Doctor Mathias, the last astronaut has just died. I would appreciate your help on the autopsy—the Commander will be impatient to know what we find.’

The noise was weird, a stream of clicks and pips, squeaks and hums, signals from Meta which seemed to hover on the very brink of words.

Or perhaps, thought Koenig, it was his own fatigue which made him invent associations, to hear a voice in the blur of sound, whispering, crying, pleading, warning . . . Irritably he punched a button and killed the relayed signals.

There was work to be done and he had no time to sit and dream.

Plans lay on his desk, the lay-out of Area One, and he studied the disposition of the waste. Forty-eight mounds covering pits sunk deep into the Luna rock, each pit filled with sealed cans. The contents were, theoretically, harmless aside from the danger of pollution. Radioactive sludge with a long half-life but with no danger of ever reaching critical mass.

According, that was, to the dictates of present scientific knowledge.

But some had rested there for decades and the moon was, in many ways, an alien world. The possibility of the unknown could not be dismissed.

A buzz and he looked at his commlock, recognizing Helena’s face on the tiny screen. She entered the office as he activated the door, a file of papers in her hands, her face composed. It was always composed, he thought, a mask she had set against the world.

‘Commander, here are the autopsy reports on the astronauts. We found nothing unexpected. The brain damage was less acute but finally as severe.’

‘And Collins?’

‘The same as the other workers.’

Koenig nodded, leaning back, looking thoughtfully at her eyes, her hair.

‘Collins went mad,’ he said. ‘Totally and completely insane in a matter of seconds. How, medically, could that happen?’

‘It couldn’t.’

‘I was there. I saw it.’

‘You saw a man in terminal convulsion,’ she corrected. ‘That growth in his skull didn’t just suddenly appear full-blown. It was there before, growing, affecting his motor functions. You saw him reach the critical point but it could have happened earlier. While you were in flight, for example.’

If it had there would have been three dead men instead of one. He and Bergman would have joined Collins in the wreck of the Eagle.

He said, ‘You run routine physicals on all pilots, right?’ At her nod he continued. ‘And nothing was seen at Collins’s last examination? No? When was that?’

‘Eighteen days ago. They have one a month.’

‘So during the past eighteen days something triggered that growth. Fast, Doctor?’

‘Yes, but not unusual. If the stimulation caused the affected cells to commence division the growth would be in geometrical progression. Two—four—eight—sixteen—’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Koenig said dryly, ‘I understand the term.’ Frowning he continued, ‘The astronauts—if their initial stimulation had been relatively small it could account for the prolonged state of their illness. I think I may owe you an apology. On the basis of available evidence it does seem a classic case of radiation-induced cerebral cancer—but how and when could they have been exposed?’

‘Commander, there has to be a connection between the workers, the astronauts and the shuttle pilot.’

‘I agree and I’m working on it. Or rather the computer is. I’m having it checked for any common factor.’ He reached for his commlock. ‘Kano? Have you anything to report yet?’

‘Yes, Commander. I think so.’

‘Coming.’

Koenig left the office and entered Main Mission, Helena close behind. The Computer Chief was studying an involved pattern of lines on a screen. He gestured to them as Koenig approached.

‘The flight record of Collins’s flight of twelve days ago. It’ll happen in a moment.’ He grunted as the pattern of lines broke into a jumbled mess of electronic ‘noise’. ‘See? Everything working perfectly and then this.’

‘Have you plotted the exact location?’

‘Yes, sir. It happened while he was traversing Area One.’

‘Correlation?’

‘Both the astronauts conducted training flights over the same area working dual controls. One of their flight records shows similar interference. We didn’t spot it before because there was no reason to check. No flight was ever in danger and, as you can see, the disturbance is momentary. A solar flare could have caused it, a magnetic eddy, anything.’

‘The training flights were at a relatively high altitude compared to the shuttle?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thank you, David, you’ve done well.’

As Kano returned to his duties Koenig said to Helena: ‘Consider that apology confirmed, Doctor. You were right all the time.’

‘Despite the lack of detectable radioactivity?’

‘Yes.’

‘But—’

‘Scintillation,’ said Koenig. ‘You’ve looked at the radium dial of a watch under a lens? Then you’ve seen what happened. A sudden spurt of energy of a far higher intensity than the normal level. A particle ejected which quickly dies. Something like that must have happened at Area One. Those men were just unlucky. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.’

She was still doubtful. ‘Particles, Commander? But surely such energy-release would have shown on the monitors.’

He nodded, thinking, reforming his initial hasty theory. It was barely possible that tiny particles which had a half-life of seconds could have done the damage—but would they have blanked out the flight recorders? The effects of any such particle would be strictly local, and yet—

He snapped his fingers.

‘A bad analogy, Doctor. Think, not of a radium dial, but of a condenser. It’s just a coil of wire which holds a charge—and loses it immediately. Now, suppose a field-effect was generated at the area, a pulse which peaked then fell. If it was, for example, strongly magnetic no increase of radiation would have been spotted. But why should it affect the brain?’

‘The cerebrum has an electric potential which differs from normal cells,’ she explained. ‘And, unlike the rest of the body, it cannot repair itself. Damage is aggravated and the tendency to cancerous growths is high. There are cases of radiographers suffering brain tumours caused by their badly shielded equipment. Commander, if what you suspect is true, then we have the answer.’

‘We’ve got more than that,’ he said tightly. ‘Energy doesn’t come from nowhere. The stuff dumped in those pits should be inert—my guess is that, somehow, it has changed.’

‘Commander?’

‘Scintillation. Sparks thrown by a flint and steel. They die and leave something, the field, behind them. But if they should catch, start a chain reaction—’ He broke off, watching her face, the dawning comprehension in her eyes. ‘That’s right—if it does we’ll have one hell of a big crater on the moon!’

CHAPTER THREE

Another crater, the moon was covered with them, Tycho, Copernicus, Kelper—the list was long. Great hollows scooped in the Luna rock, most of them filled with impalpable dust, the result of meteor impact or volcanic activity which had torn the surface of the moon in ages past. An inner fury which, so some thought, still remained in uneasy quiescence.

Paul Morrow stretched, relaxing as he sat at his console, his eyes drifting over the screens, the monitors, the ranked instruments which kept him in touch with the entire complex. There was little secrecy in Alpha, the personnel was too closely involved, and rumours were not encouraged. The truth was far less dangerous.

Such as the mysterious sickness which had, at one time, been thought to have originated in some space virus, the result of working the void and even, ridiculous though it was, as the product of acceleration strain. Rumour was now dissipated. Area One was the cause and now no one would be at risk. Koenig had isolated it and, if it should blow, then it blew. The map of the terrain would have to be altered and that was all.

Or, at least, so most people thought.

Morrow wasn’t one of them. If the waste had changed the energy it contained need bear no relation to what they knew and, even if it reached normal fission, the explosion would be tremendous. But a lot of garbage had been dumped into those pits.

A signal, lamp flashed, Carter’s face appearing on a screen.

‘Paul, did you contact Parks and Bannion?’

‘They’re working over at Area Two. They’ll report to you direct when they return to base.’

‘Can’t you recall them?’

‘Without official orders, no.’ Morrow was firm. ‘Sorry, Alan, but I’ll tell them to waste no time.’

He smiled as Carter, frowning, broke the connection. The two men were his unofficial back-up crew—he was still hoping the Meta probe would be launched. His smile widened as he caught a flash of yellow from an approaching sleeve.

Sandra Benes, young, slightly built, dark haired and with a petal-like skin—a girl for whom he had a great regard.

‘Sandra?’

‘Trouble.’ She handed him a print out. ‘Heat levels rising at Area One. Now at 1873 Celsius.’

Above the melting point of iron!

‘Radiation?’

‘Rising. Paul—’

‘Back to your post, Sandra.’

Morrow hit buttons and checked a row of meters. The heat was rising at an incredible rate. Already the alloy containers would be softening, yielding to the internal pressures within, the waste vaporizing, molecular activity accelerated by the heat. And pressure would be building beneath the sealed mounds, growing, a potential bomb which could blow at any moment.

The alarm blared as he sounded the general alert. From speakers a taped voice echoed above the harsh noise, sounding louder as it ceased.

‘All personnel to alert-stations! All personnel to alert-stations! Interconnecting doors to be sealed, exits contained, external workers to enter the base immediately!’

Bergman, breathing hard, ran to stand beside Morrow.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Area One, Professor. I think it’s about to blow.’ Morrow gestured at the screen, his instruments. ‘The heat level is now well into the red. At 4,500 celsius and rising. High enough to fuse rock and vaporize steel.’ He grunted as a screen flashed and died. ‘One of the scanners has burned out. All hell must be breaking loose out there. The Commander—’

‘Isn’t here,’ said Bergman thickly. ‘We developed some new monitoring instruments and he’s taken an Eagle to check the area. Morrow, get him back before it’s too late!’

It had been a crazy thing to do and Koenig admitted it, but the temptation had been too great. It was good to sit at the controls again, to feel the pulse and throb of the engines, to become a living extension of the Eagle in which he rode. And he could justify the indulgence—he had no moral right to send a man into danger unless there was no alternative.

Yet Area One had to be checked, his theory put to the test.

He flew high, the globe of Earth falling behind, dropping beneath the horizon as he pushed on towards the dark side. Ahead he could see the tiny glow of the beacon and he slowed, circling, one hand hitting a series of switches as he activated the external instruments hastily fitted to his instruction. Field sensors, Geiger counters, monitors which would record the electro-magnetic flux—others which Bergman had produced and which he barely understood.

He was well protected too. Thick metallic padding rode beneath his suit. His helmet was overlaid with layers of foil, wound with a coil of wire which carried a variable current—a heterodying barrier to any known stress field. A small box, another of Bergman’s products, rested on the co-pilot’s seat. From it streamed an invisible force which caused small vibrations to come from the metal of the hull. An ultrasonic projector—another line of defence should it be needed.

But his best defence was luck and height. Luck to avoid the pulse should it come, height to minimize its effect if it did.

It was the one thing which saved his life.

Had there been an atmosphere he would have died, crushed in his ship by the shock wave, as it was he saw the glare, a savage burst of light which filled the cabin and threw all detail around the area into sharp clarity. The glare and then the initial results of the explosion which ripped open the mounds, tore great masses of stone from the ground and sent them together with a rain of molten droplets high above the Luna surface.

‘Commander!’ Morrow’s voice was strained. ‘Commander we’ve a general alert. Return to base immediately. Something’s happened at Area One—’

‘I know.’

‘—all scanners and sensors are—’ Morrow’s voice changed. ‘You know? Commander, where are you?’

‘Where it’s happening. Victor, get those readings!’

‘John!’

Koenig was too busy to answer. Beneath his hands the Eagle jerked, a gout of fire missing it by inches, the hull ringing to the impact of molten stone. The controls felt sluggish, the ship slow to respond, and he thinned his lips as a second glare followed the first.

The secondary blast, he thought. Paper to light wood to light coal. A bad analogy, and perhaps not even a true one, but it seemed to fit. Particles firing vapour which, in turn, would trigger the fission of the bulk of the waste. The waste and, perhaps, something more. The fusion of the rock itself. If that should happen . . .

‘Commander?’ Morrow was anxious. ‘What is your situation?’

Damned bad, but Koenig didn’t say so. The habits of official communication died hard.

‘Am leaving area and heading towards base. Eagle slow to respond. Condition yellow.’

Yellow moving to red as the Eagle slewed, turning and veering, now hopelessly out of control, just a dead mass of metal which began to fall to the jagged peaks of the ground below.

A slow fall, with gravity only one sixth Earth normal, there was time to check the fastenings and make himself firm. Time to regain a little control, not much, just enough to win a blast from the motor, to turn the dive into a glide, to aim the nose at the edge of a crater. Time to hope. And to pray.

If he hit the nearside of the crater rim he was dead but if the Eagle managed to clear it there was a chance—it would hit the slope and skid down to rock, its final impact cushioned by the dust.

The difference between possible survival and certain death was a matter of feet.

And all he could do was to wait.

Wait until he hit and slid and fell into an engulfing darkness.

Once, when Koenig had been small, he had fallen from a tree, cracking his head on the way down and knocking himself out—becoming aware only when in the hospital with a nurse fussing over him and his mother’s worried face large in his field of vision.

Now, for a moment, it seemed that he had time-jumped and was reliving the experience, catching the same smells, hearing the same noises. An odd moment which quickly passed. The person fussing over him was not a nurse but Doctor Mathias. And it wasn’t his mother who stared at him with concern but Helena.

She said, ‘He’s conscious, Doctor.’

‘Naturally.’ Mathias plucked away more of the sensor pads which were held by an adhesive gel. ‘I’ve broken the micro-current circuit to the sleep-centre. How do you feel, Commander?’

‘Fine.’ Koenig drew in his breath, conscious of a sharp pain, an ache. ‘I guess I’m lucky to be alive.’

‘Yes,’ said Mathias dryly. ‘I would say that you are. The rescue crew never thought you’d make it. It just shows how wrong some experts can be.’ He removed the last of the pads. ‘All right, Helena, he’s all yours.’

He left the room as Koenig rose from the couch. He wore a new uniform and could feel the constriction of dressings around his chest. He winced as he stood upright.

‘One cracked rib,’ said Helena, flatly. ‘Extensive bruising and some metabolic shock, but that’s about all. We can’t find anything else—so far.’

He had been terribly lucky, more than he deserved, perhaps, but something in her tone irritated him. It held a note of condemnation.

‘You disapprove?’

She held him with her eyes, her voice hard, accusing. ‘Commander, you knew that area was dangerous. You’d put it out of bounds for all personnel—and yet you went right out there yourself. Do you honestly think that we need heroes?’

‘We need answers,’ he snapped. ‘Information. I was trying to get it.’

‘And you almost got yourself killed!’

‘Yes.’ he admitted then added, dryly, ‘You know, Doctor, I didn’t think you cared.’

‘I—’

‘You had better come with me,’ Koenig interrupted. ‘Let’s see what Victor has found.’

Bergman joined them in the office loaded with papers, graphs and print-outs. Dumping them on the desk he said, ‘I’ve had these processed by the—Sorry, John. How do you feel?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. Well, I checked out your Eagle, the rescue team brought it in, and I think we’ve found what we were looking for. As you suspected the accumulated waste was generating a magnetic pulse-field which—’

‘Slow down, Victor. I didn’t say anything about a magnetic field.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ admitted Bergman. ‘But that, primarily is what it was. Just as well for you, the protection we devised gave you full protection.’

‘I hope you can be certain of that,’ said Helena bleakly. ‘But I still want the Commander to report each twelve hours for cerebral checks.’

‘Later.’ Koenig turned to Bergman. ‘ You were saying?’

‘The pulse-field. John, it’s incredible! The magnitude was tremendous—far more dense than anything we have ever known before. Localized, of course, it seemed to spread in a funnel-formation from the centre of Area One and in that appears to follow the attributes of light. A paradox—magnetism, as far as we know cannot be beamed or projected. I’ve had the computers run some equations based on the figures we obtained and the results are more than promising. In fact the implications are—’

‘Please, Victor!’ Bergman, consumed by scientific interest, was entranced by the potential discoveries the findings promised. ‘Did you find anything peculiar to the site? Any geological oddity?’

‘A mass of ferrous-bearing lunite—but you know that, John. It was the reason the site was chosen in the first place. Lunite is hard yet easily worked, has a high tensile strength and forms a good barrier to atomic particle-emission. We only moved to Area Two because—’ He broke off then said, slowly, ‘Area Two!’

‘Also based on a mass of ferrous-bearing lunite,’ said Koenig. ‘And what has happened once could happen again.’

‘Another explosion?’ Helena looked from one to the other. ‘Is it possible?’

‘You’ve studied chemistry,’ said Koenig. ‘You know what happens when you mix various compounds. Permangate and glycerine, for example. You generate heat and combustion. No matter how often you do it you always get the same result.’

‘That is true,’ she admitted, ‘but—’

‘The mix has to be right, I agree.’ Koenig looked at Bergman. ‘That’s the next job, Victor. I want to know exactly what is in those cans as regards quantities and constituents. We’ll have to make a cross-reference to Area One. If there’s a correlation—’

He didn’t have to finish—Area Two held almost a hundred and fifty times the amounts dumped at Area One.

It was a quiet room, a compartment which held the imprint of a strong personality, plans and drawings fastened to the walls, a mobile suspended from the ceiling, a framed award, a shelf of well-thumbed books; classics standing beside the latest works of modern technology: Bergman’s laboratory in which he spent a great deal of his time. A retreat, perhaps, a world of his own.

He sat at his desk busy with a computer terminal, fingers dancing over the keys as he fed equations into the machine, pausing as he studied the answers, moving again with a skilled grace.

He was, thought Helena watching from where she stood in the open door, almost a part of the mechanism. A man dedicated to science, the terminal an extension of himself—or himself an extension of the terminal.

Without turning or glancing towards her Bergman said, quietly, ‘No, Helena, I’m not a machine.’

‘Did I say you were?’

‘You thought it. A lot of people do and, sometimes, I think it myself.’ He turned, rising. ‘Where does it begin? With a set of artificial teeth? An electronic ear? A plastic larynx? A mechanical heart?’ His hand rose to touch his chest. ‘Sometimes I think we should all be fitted with these things at birth. Then no more adrenalin-induced anger, no hatred, no passion, no—’

‘Fear?’

‘I was going to say love.’

She moved deeper into the room, looking at the framed testimonial of his Nobel Prize won for his work in physics. A sheaf of plans lay on a bench and she touched a drawing studying its complexity. The plan of a proposed photon drive. Another held the design of a antigravity shield and force screen. A third was a fantastic contruction of a self-contained space city. A fourth was the plan of a house drawn with painstaking care. An old plan, the paper cracked, the corners frayed. An old plan and a simple house.

‘It was never built,’ said Bergman quietly. ‘She died.’

‘Your wife?’

‘The woman I was to have married. The only woman I could ever have married. Sometimes, sitting here, I wonder what would have happened had she lived. The house would have been built and I’d have taken a job with some big corporation and—who knows?’

‘You would have been happy.’

‘Happy?’ Again his hand lifted to his chest, the buried mechanism which kept him alive. ‘Perhaps, but at least we would have been together. They did me no favour when—but never mind. That was long ago now.’

She said, bleakly, ‘We all bear our scars.’

‘Yes.’ He touched the plan she still held. ‘You like it?’

‘Very much. If things had been different I could have had one like it. Lee—’

She broke off, not wanting to remember. The plans they had made, the long hours of talk when he had lain at her side, passion spent, replaced by the warm glow of shared intimacy. Bold plans, forward-looking, a dream of a home and a garden, children—plans which had crumbled into the wasted years.

He said, quietly, as if guessing her thoughts, ‘You still have time, Helena. Don’t throw it away.’

‘Advice?’

‘Good sense. Time passes too quickly—I know. Before you are aware of it the chances have gone and there is nothing left but work. Do you want to spend the rest of your life at Alpha?’

‘There are worse places.’

‘True—but there are many better. John realized that and—’

‘He came back.’

‘Because he was needed and, perhaps, like you, he wanted somewhere to hide.’

Dropping the old plan she turned to face him, her eyes questioning. ‘Have you known him long?’

‘For most of his life, Helena. He was orphaned in his early teens and had to make his way alone. For him it wasn’t easy. Money was short and he had to fight every step of the way. He won, but he paid for it, that black sleeve didn’t come cheap. And I’m not talking about money. As you said, Helena—we all bear our scars.’

Scars which, in Koenig’s case, were buried deep, hidden away from casual eyes. Yet she remembered his face when he had lain on the couch, the expression on wakening, the empty yearning quickly masked. Almost she had touched him then, enfolding him in her arms, giving what comfort she could. Tempted to respond to something which had woken inside of her—an impulse resisted only because of the sense of betrayal.

Quickly, to break the mood of the moment, she said, ‘Have you completed your investigations?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

Bergman shook his head. ‘Trouble, Helena. The mix is the same. It’s only a matter of time before—’

He broke off as his commlock buzzed. As he lifted it from his belt the operator spoke from the screen.

‘Professor Bergman, the Commander has asked me to inform you that Commissioner Simmonds is on his way from Earth. Estimated time of arrival thirteen minutes.’

CHAPTER FOUR

He was cold, his eyes hostile, the touch of his hand a mere formality. As Koenig led him towards his office he said, ‘I am most disturbed, John. The Meta probe is overdue and your demand for classified information was highly irregular.’

‘I needed to know the contents of the waste cans.’

‘Even so you should have cleared it with me first. Should the news leak out there could be serious repercussions. Coupled with the delay in launching the Meta probe it places me in an awkward situation. In fact I’ve had to rescind the halt on waste disposal. Normal operations will recommence in three days.’

‘No!’

Simmond’s lips tightened but he said nothing, waiting until Koenig had closed the doors of his office, cutting out the curious eyes and flapping ears. Quickly Koenig said, ‘We can’t take anymore waste, Commissioner. Not in the Disposal Area at least. If you want to dump it elsewhere that’s up to you.’

‘I can’t agree to that. The Committee—’

‘Can go to hell. They aren’t in charge up here, I am.’

For now, thought Simmonds, but not for much longer. Yet with the diplomacy won over years of political haggling he kept the thought to himself. Time enough to use the axe when he had achieved as much as he could. The blame for any mistakes made now would be shifted to Koenig then.

And, perhaps, something could still be saved.

‘The probe, John. You promised me that you would get it launched. We made a deal—’

‘Which you’ve broken.’

‘I had no choice.’

‘And neither had I.’ Koenig felt relief that he now had no cause to send men to their deaths. Despite Carter’s willingness to take a chance the odds were against him. ‘We’ve had other things to worry about—or haven’t you heard what happened to Area One?’

‘The explosion?’ Simmonds shrugged. ‘An accident, John. A freak occurrence. Unfortunate, but I’m sure that it’s an isolated incident. My technicians assure me that it is impossible for an area to detonate. The waste cannot reach critical mass.’

The man was a fool and a dangerous one. Koenig snapped into his commlock.

‘Operator, have Professor Bergman and Doctor Russell report to me immediately.’

To Simmonds he said, ‘I’ve asked them both because they are equally involved. The position here is damned serious. Victor will tell you.’

Bergman had brought a bundle of papers with him, graphs and charts, a list of equations which he dropped on the desk.

‘The proof if you need it, Commissioner, but I can tell you what they say. Area Two is stacked with much the same waste material as was Area One, but with one important difference. Five years ago you sent up a far larger proportion of cesium and lithium in relation to the normal uranium-contaminated waste. There is also a high proportion of trans-uranic elements, some of which went into Area One, but most of which has been dumped in Area Two.’

‘So?’

‘To put it briefly there is a catalytic reaction. I’ve had very little time to make an investigation and none at all to conduct experiments, but it is my opinion that, this particular blend of waste affects the surrounding lunite in such a way that a magnetic field of incredible density is formed. This field, coupled with the induced reaction of the lunite, creates a feed-back cycle which inevitably results in fusion.’

‘Fission?’

‘Fusion, Commissioner.’ Bergman was grim. ‘There is probably an initial fission and that is what happened at Area One. With the far greater amounts involved at Area Two fusion will result with the formation of a plasma which will convert the surrounding lunite into almost total energy.’

No, he was exaggerating, trying to frighten him, Simmonds was sure of it. It couldn’t be true.

‘Assuming that what you say is the case, Professor, what will happen if and when the area detonates?’

A Lunar globe stood on the desk, the surface a pattern of craters. Bergman rested his finger on the edge of Tycho.

‘Here is the base.’ His finger moved to the dark side. ‘Here was Area One.’ Another movement, smaller, ‘Here is Area Two. If what we are sure will happen does—’ He hit the globe and sent it rolling.

More exaggeration, it had to be!

‘The area is on the side of the moon opposite to its orbital motion,’ said Bergman. ‘It is barely possible that the entire globe will be split, certainly a large portion of the surface will be vaporized. If the area was on the other side—’

‘It might check the orbital motion and send the moon crashing down to Earth.’ Simmonds was being sarcastic, not realizing how he betrayed his ignorance. If suddenly checked, the moon would swing into a closer orbit, breaking apart as it passed Roches Limit to shatter and form Saturn-like rings. ‘You paint a grim picture, Professor. Naturally you have a solution to the problem?’

Koenig said, ‘No.’

‘But—’

‘As I see it there are only two things we can do. We can evacuate the base—’

‘Impossible!’

‘—or we can try to dispose the accumulated mass of waste.’

‘Then do it.’ Simmonds was eager. There would be time later for argument and, if there was danger, then let Koenig do what he thought best. At worst it would provide a rope with which to hang him. ‘On the basis of the information I have been given I authorize you to take whatever steps you think necessary to safeguard the installations and the base.’

Koenig said, flatly, ‘It’s already being done.’

The Eagles had been converted, the passenger modules stripped and replaced by electro-magnets suspended on cables. Grabs which could be lowered, lifted at the touch of a control.

They watched from Main Mission, Helena fascinated by the dance of the machines. The mounds had been smashed open, their contents exposed, and the cluster of ships moved in, the grabs lowering, lifting with an attached container, moving up and away to drop it at a far distance.

Morrow’s voice made a quiet accompaniment to the complex weaving of the vessels as he directed the dispersal.

‘Paul?’

‘All smooth as yet, Commander. I’ve had to pull out a few Eagles for repair.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Minor collision impact—but they’ve got the hang of it now.’

Bergman said, quietly, ‘John, if Area Two goes it’ll happen fast. Those pilots won’t stand a chance.’

‘I know.’

‘Then—’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Koenig was harsh. ‘Call off the operation and just sit here waiting? You know better than that, Victor. We have to do what we can—but this I promise. If things look bad I’ll abort the mission. Until then we work.’

Work—he had dedicated his life to it and, watching him, Helena could sense his hidden strain. The conflict he fought with himself, the knowledge that he was risking men’s lives, the fear that his orders had sent them to their deaths. He was a commander with a conscience and, perhaps, too much imagination—a combination which gave him humanity but which tore him inside.

Simmonds said, ‘Commander, you don’t need me. I had better get back to Earth and—’

‘No chance, Commissioner.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve commandeered your Eagle. Carter’s taken it to maintain high-altitude observation. Sorry.’

‘Another ship then.’ Simmonds was nervous. ‘John, I really must get back.’

‘You can’t—every other Eagle is committed.’ Koenig glanced at Sandra. ‘Levels?’

‘Heat constant. Magnetic fields fluctuating.’

‘We’re holding.’ Bergman’s voice was heavy with relief. ‘Thank God for that. We might even make it in time.’

‘We’re on the edge if my figures are right. Didn’t you know?’

‘But everything’s all right?’

‘As yet, yes, but that fluctuation worries me. It could be a natural effect or a warning. If the heat had risen—’

‘That would be bad?’

‘Very bad.’

‘I see.’ Simmonds took a deep breath, controlling himself. ‘However, it looks as if everything is all right now. John, you’ll have to let me have a ship. I’ll have to get back and issue a communique. Something to allay anxiety and gain time for us to plan what needs to be done. You see—’

Koenig snapped, ‘All I can see at this moment, Simmonds, is men risking their lives to avert total disaster. And I’m not going to add to that risk by taking out a ship. Forget it.’

‘Commander—’ Sandra cried out, ‘The heat! It’s rising!’

‘Report!’

‘1192 celsius! 1834 . . . 2489 . . . 2993 . . .’

‘Paul! Abort the mission!’ Koenig glared at the screen. ‘Hurry, damn you! Get those men out of there!’

Like startled birds the Eagles dispersed, flying up and away as if from a flame, waste cans falling, others swinging at the end of cables, still clamped to the electromagnets, forgotten in the urgency of the moment.

One fell to smash against a pylon, to shatter, to fall into a reaching gout of blue. Flame which spat high, spreading, catching some of the vessels and burning them like moths. Fusing metal and charring flesh and bone. Within seconds the entire area was an inferno.

‘Heat still rising.’ Shaken, Sandra continued to report. ‘3485 . . . 3874 . . . 4284—Magnetic fields intense and fluctuating.’

The screen flared, turned into an eye-searing patch of brightness and then, abruptly died.

‘Burnt out,’ said Bergman. ‘John! It’s happened!. Area Two has—’

The shock-wave cut him short.

Koenig staggered, fell as the entire complex shook to a giant’s blow, heard screams and the crash of falling equipment. Rising he lunged toward the communicator, falling again before he could reach it, an invisible force slamming him hard against the floor, holding him there, piling a mounting pressure on his limbs, his torso.

‘Ten G,’ he thought, maybe more but call it ten. An acceleration of ten gravities. Three hundred and twenty feet per second. In one minute they would be travelling at a speed of almost 15,000 miles an hour. In one hour as many miles a minute. Add the moon’s own orbital velocity and they would achieve a velocity of close to 2,000,000 miles an hour that was seven minutes to Earth, forty-six hours to the Sun, half that to the orbit of Mars . . .

Unconsciousness came in a swirl of figures, equations dancing as if alive, spider-shapes lined in blazing light, retinal images which blurred and flashed to blur and fade, to fade and die.

‘Commander! Wake up! Commander!’

Koenig groaned. His mouth tasted of blood, his eyes ached, his head, every muscle of his body shrieked with pain. ‘Commander!’

It was Carter. He looked pale, blood dried on his mouth, his ears. He sucked in his breath as Koenig opened his eyes.

‘Thank God! For a minute there I thought you were all dead.’

‘What happened?’

‘All hell broke loose. I was lucky, I managed to land well away and then I had to sit it out.’ The captain rubbed at his nose, looked at the smears on his hand. ‘The Mare Cantabrium is gone. All of the Great Lunar Sea. All the Sura Mountains—I saw it go. The space station too and the probe. All gone.’ He added, grimly, ‘A lot of the Eagles too and their pilots. The poor devils had no chance.’

Koenig sat upright, wincing. The acceleration pressure had gone—later he would find out just how long it had lasted and the intensity, but that would have to wait.

‘Area Two?’

‘Turned into a rocket engine just as Victor said it might. I saw the plasma forming just before I landed—and I had hell’s own job to make it back. God knows where we are heading for now, but one thing’s certain—we’ll never make it back to Earth.’

‘Help me up.’ Koenig staggered a little as he rose to his feet. Bergman, breathing heavily, lay to one side. Morrow as conscious as were most of the others, Helena among them. Simmonds was dead.

He lay where he had fallen, his head at an ugly angle, a patch of blood bright beneath his temple. The fall had broken his skull and the acceleration pressure had done the rest. His face, beneath the beard, looked oddly peaceful.

‘Paul, check the base. All systems to be made fully operational—top priority.’

‘Commander! Men are hurt, dead!’

‘You heard what I said—ensure our environment.’ The injured would have to wait a little—the dead wouldn’t care. ‘Kano, get to the computer. Find out where we are in relation to Earth and where we are heading. Full data.’

Koenig blinked, fighting the darkness which edged his vision, the pain which lacerated his chest each time he breathed. His ears held a high-pitched ringing which dulled the blurr of voices reporting from various sections of the base.

Morrow’s voice rose above the rest. He had been busy and he almost shouted as a screen came to life beneath his hands.

‘Commander! I’m getting a long range video picture! I’m bouncing it off the Mars satellite!’

A picture which ended all doubt.

Earth and the moon were parting, the gap between them already wide and increasing as they watched. The tremendous explosion followed by the rocket-thrust of the fissioning material had robbed the planet of its satellite which was now hurtling into the empty vastness of space.

The moon and Alpha Base and all the men and women it contained.

Morrow said, quietly, ‘Commander, can we make it back to Earth?’

A question Koenig couldn’t answer. He lacked the essential data, but if he didn’t have it the computer would.

‘Kano?’

‘Ready, Commander.’

‘Tell me what it says. Punch it up on the big screen—it affects all of us here.’

Bleakly Koenig watched the captions as they appeared.

Carter had been right.

They could not return to Earth.

Too many Eagles had been destroyed. Their velocity was too high, the fuel capacity of the vessels too low, any ship attempting the journey would die to drift forever in the void. A coffin which could contain at best only a fraction of those in the base.

Facts tersely related by the captions on the screen. To be followed by another—the last.

HUMAN DECISION REQUIRED.

His decision and one he could not avoid. For a moment Koenig stood, thinking, then with an abrupt gesture closed the circuit which would carry his voice to every part of the base, to every man and woman under his command.

‘Attention, all sections Alpha. This is Commander Koenig. Our moon has been blasted out of orbit and we have been cut off from Earth. There is no hope or possibility of return. To try would be to fail so, in my judgement, we do not try.’

A pause while he allowed it to sink in, the harsh reality to be accepted.

Then he continued, quickly, ‘But we are not without hope. We have power, environment and, therefore, the possibility of survival. Meta is close and our path is carrying us towards it. There, perhaps, we shall find a new home. There or somewhere. That is all.’

Meta, the target of the probe, the mysterious world from which came the equally mysterious signals. Luck? Coincidence?

Necessity, rather—now that Earth was lost to them they would have to find a new home. A new world which they could call their own.

Meta, perhaps?

It would have to be Meta.

To Carter, standing at his side, Koenig said, dryly, ‘Well, Captain, it looks as if you’ve got your wish to go exploring—only now you’ve got every man and woman in Alpha as your crew.’

CHAPTER FIVE

They renamed it Terra Nova, wishful thinking, perhaps, but it looked good. Koenig listened to the reports from the reconnaissance team; both Parks and Bannion were enthusiastic.

‘It’s just like Earth! I’ve seen rivers and trees, lakes, mountains, valleys—it’s a paradise!’

‘Calm down Parks. Any signs of civilization, Bannion?’

‘None, Commmander, and that’s the beauty of it. The planet’s just waiting for us to take over.’

‘Any snow? Ice?’

‘A little at the poles.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Isn’t that enough, Commander?’ Bannion sounded cheerful, intoxicated with the thrill of discovery. ‘As Parks said—it’s just like Earth.’

Just like Earth, and that was wrong. Koenig frowned as he walked from the busy console, half-hearing Morrow giving orders, sending the reconnaissance Eagle on a new flight path and authorizing a landing. He, and the pilots, had overlooked the obvious.

Meta—Terra Nova—should have been a ball of ice.

It had come from somewhere deep in space, torn from its primary or sent wandering by some cosmic cataclysm, and for unknown years it must have drifted through the chill of the airless void.

Without a sun to warm it the air would have frozen, flakes of various gases, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, all drifting down as snow to pile on the frigid ice. If life had survived it would have been in subterranean caverns sealed against the outside hostility. Living as the personnel of Alpha lived, in a closed environment.

And there had to be life.

Someone or something must be behind the signals.

Sitting at his desk Koenig touched a button and listened to the blur of sound. Did the pips and squeaks, the hums and blips hold a new urgency? Had a note of desperation been added?

His own fears, he thought, someone else could hear a welcome in the sounds, a greeting—but anyone else would have been under less strain.

He moved a little, feeling the dull ache in his side. The rib had knitted, the internal lacerations healed, but some adhesion still remained. Later, when he had time, he would get Helena to look at it.

Or, no, not Helena. Doctor Mathias—there was no point in exacerbating her irritation, the cold hostility she had shown when, finally, he had allowed her to treat his injuries.

A woman who had been hurt, he thought. One who had opened a door a crack to have it slammed in her face. And yet there had been nothing else he could have done. She should have understood, but, woman-like, she had chosen to retreat into her shell of iron composure.

A pity, but now he had other things to worry about.

The moon had taken a path up and out, rising high above the plane of the ecliptic and moving away from the sun. The hope that it would take up a new orbit around the primary was gone—before them lay nothing but the empty darkness of interstellar space.

Chance had taken them close to Terra Nova and, with luck, they could be captured by the planet and taken into orbit around it.

A remote possibility, but it existed. The velocities were close and, if the world’s mass was high enough it could happen. Had to happen if they hoped to stay alive.

Koenig leaned back, listening to the signals, his mind filled with equations. Velocity, mass, direction, time—a host of variables. But, even if the hoped-for capture was not to be, they still had a chance.

They could evacuate to the new world.

Every man and woman in the base could be landed—if they began the operation in time.

Time—it always came back to that.

And, always, there seemed to be so little time.

Too little, for example, for Terra Nova to have been warmed by the sun. A mystery—and one which had to be solved.

To the communicator he said, ‘Morrow, have you any detail yet on the landing?’

‘Touchdown in two minutes, sir.’

‘Orders?’

‘As received. To land, to move no further than ten feet from the Eagle if the terrain permits. To take atmospheric samples, local radiation levels and then to return. Maximum permitted time three minutes.’

‘Suited?’

‘Naturally, Commander.’

Morrow sounded surprised and Koenig could guess why. He was repeating himself, acting as if demanding reassurance, as if he wished to be reminded of the orders he had given or, worse, as if he doubted the other man’s capability.

Mistakes to be avoided—morale was a delicate thing, more now than ever, and minor irritations must be prevented from growing into major angers.

He said, ‘Thank you, Paul. If you want me I’ll be with Professor Bergman.’ He chose to go through the recreation area, a section of the base which held a transparent roof, chairs, tables on which could be played games, a projector to show films and shows.

The interior was dark aside from starlight and he stood just within the door looking up at the roof, the glitter of stars beyond. Billions of stars, a shimmering mass of icy points overlaid with sheets and curtains of luminescence, the opaque clouds of interstellar dust, the fuzz of distant nebulae. Among them somewhere, was Earth already too small to see as a disc with the naked eye. The sun and Terra Nova were beyond the horizon—the explosion had kicked the moon a little on its axis, but later the planet would come into view.

At their closest point it would dominate the sky.

Koenig moved forward into the room a little, freezing as he heard a sigh, a rustle, the sound of gentle movement. Lovers taking advantage of off-duty hours to snatch a little privacy. Or perhaps they had come to watch the stars and had yielded to sudden impulse. He couldn’t blame them—life went on.

Turning he caught a glimpse of their faces in a beam of reflected light. Ted Clifford and Professor Aretha Robinson. A good man and a fine girl, young despite her achievement. Young enough, at least, to enjoy the pressure of loving arms, the warm intimacy of a kiss, the thrill of woken passion.

Quietly Koenig backed from the room, wondering at his sudden envy, half inclined to go back to Main Mission and take over the operation. An impulse he resisted. He had left for a reason, to give Morrow the confidence of authority, to return now would be to diminish the man a little. Himself too—a commander had to be able to delegate authority and to trust those beneath him.

Bergman was hard at work. A mess of apparatus littered his work-bench, wires, coils, a lattice of silvery strands surrounding a dark mass which was roughly-shaped like an Eagle. As Koenig watched the lattice glowed with a lambent fire and the mass rose a little.

‘Victor?’

‘John!’ Bergman turned, smiling. ‘You’re the first to see this.’

‘An honour, no doubt—if I knew just what it was.’

‘My antigrave force shield. John, I’ve got it! The data we won from the disposal areas finally gave me the clue. It’s based on heterodying, of course, a pattern of electromagnetic waves which actually cancel out the effects of gravity. I won’t go into the math now but, briefly, it creates a barrier and, at the same time, forms a shield which is proof against all forms of energy.’

‘Self-contained?’

‘Yes. Once I’ve ironed out the bugs we should be able to equip an Eagle with the device. It’ll extend the range enormously and give full protection against any external dangers.’

‘Such as Terra Nova?’

‘You think we’ll need protection?’ Bergman cut the power to his apparatus and frowned. ‘I heard the initial reports and the long-range scan was optimistic.’

‘Does nothing bother you? The lack of ice, for example?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Bergman. ‘Logically the world should be frozen—apparently logic is wrong. We’re basing our assumptions on known factors and they need not apply in other parts of the universe. For example, there could be a high level of internal heat which—’

‘Would have been noted,’ interrupted Koenig. ‘It wasn’t spotted.’

‘Radiation then which could be confined by the planet’s magnetic field. We know that it has a highly dense magnetic envelope. Or’—Bergman shrugged. ‘We’re speculating, John. The reconnaissance team will give us the answers soon enough. And you know the old saying?’

‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’

‘Especially when it’s the only one you’ve got.’

‘There’s another saying, Victor—don’t buy a pig in a poke. That’s what we’re doing. Everyone is sure that we’ve found a new home. That we’re going to move to Terra Nova and enjoy the paradise it seems to represent. The reports confirm it. Those pilots sounded as if they were on holiday.’

‘You can’t blame them, John.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘The personnel either—to them it must seem like a reprieve from certain death.’

A reprieve, but one which needn’t be all that it seemed. And Koenig couldn’t forget that an earlier paradise had contained a snake in the garden.

There could be a new snake on the new world—one which could bite.

He said, ‘Show me your apparatus, Victor. The quicker we get it installed the better I’ll like it.’

Helena Russell was restless. She moved with mounting impatience through the medical section, adjusting machines which needed no adjustment, checking cases which had been cleared, finally staring at the file belonging to Koenig.

A stubborn man, his inner lesions must cause pain and yet he had not come for the treatment which would eliminate it. At first, after his initial processing, there had been no time. There had been too many injured people, men and women with internal injuries which, in some cases had proved fatal. Others who had fallen awkwardly and had suffered broken bones, ripped muscles, torn sinews. But they had all been taken care of now.

Why didn’t he come?

She had been annoyed at first, she admitted it, but Koenig had been right. Perhaps she should tell him that, heal the breach between them, yet if she did would he take it as a sign of weakness? Of yielding to—

She frowned, shaking her head, irritated at the line her thoughts were taking.

The buzz of her commlock saved her from starting another.

‘Doctor Russell, emergency!’ Morrow’s face was anxious on the screen. ‘Please join the Commander and Professor Bergman on the pad.’

‘Details?’

‘Total failure of reconnaissance Eagle. I’m bringing it in on slave-control.’

Koenig filled her in on the rest. He waited, with Bergman, in the travel-tube, his face anxious.

‘Morrow reported as soon as it happened. The team had left Terra Nova and was returning with all systems go. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, everything went dead. Communications, monitors, the lot. It took Paul three minutes to establish control. Once he had the Eagle on its way he called you.’

‘Physical malfunction?’

‘As I said, everything went. We’ve no idea as yet what happened.’

‘A local life-form?’ She answered her own question. ‘No. If they followed the established landing procedure they would have been suited and all air in the command module evacuated when reaching space. Tanked air would be clean. In any case no virus would have knocked out the communications.’

As a signal light flashed Koenig said, ‘The Eagle’s landed. Let’s go.’

The tube had locked on the command module. He opened the outer port, swung it back then operated the inner door. Parks and Bannion sat slumped in their chairs, faces lax, eyes closed. They were suited, their helmets open.

‘They’re alive, at least,’ Helena reported. ‘But they show all the signs of having suffered a violent shock.’

‘Electrical?’

‘It could have been, but that’s ridiculous. There is no possibility of contact.’

‘An energy storm?’ Koenig frowned, thinking. ‘Any signs of burnt components, Victor? A quick check will do for now. Any possibility that static, for example, could have reached a flash-potential?’

‘No, John, but look at this.’ Bergman operated the switch of an emergency light. The bulb remained dark. Opening the case he checked the instrument. The bulb lit as he touched it to the terminals of an instrument he carried. ‘It has to be the battery. It’s completely drained.’

‘So?’

‘It could account for what happened. If the Eagle ran into a force-flux of some kind all the electrical energy could have been drained. Momentum would have carried it past the node and the engines would have restored navigational power.’

‘And the men?’

‘Such a drain could have affected the cerebral neurone flow,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Or the currents could have affected the sleep centre. It could have been a combination of both—I’ll know more when I have the chance to make a thorough examination. But Victor could be right, they show every sign of having been drained of life.’

Koenig looked thoughtfully about the command module. It contained nothing it shouldn’t, the atmospheric sample bottle was in its container, the radiation recorder in its clip. Its battery was dead but the graph it had made was intact. A high level, but within the limits of tolerance.

A door led to the passenger module and he opened it.

‘There’s no one in there,’ said Bergman. ‘The pilots were alone.’

Probably, but someone could have gone along for the ride despite his orders. Such things had happened and appeared to have happened again. Far back in the compartment he saw a slumped figure.

‘Doctor!’

She was already on her way. As she neared the figure she slowed.

There was something odd about it. The face was turned and the features unseen, but the uniform was strange. Not that worn by the base personnel and yet, at the same time, vaguely familiar. Helena felt a sudden quickening of her heart, a sense of something unusual tensing her stomach, her nerves.

The uniform—she had seen one like it before. Years ago when—

She stooped beside the figure, rested her hands on the head and turned it so as to see the face.

Koenig heard her sudden gasp, her shocked exclamation.

‘What is it?’ He ran towards her. ‘Doctor?’

He looked past her head at the face she held in her hands. A pale face, sensitive, the eyes closed.

The face of a total stranger.

‘It’s Lee,’ she said. ‘Lee—my husband!’

CHAPTER SIX

He looked very small lying in bed, the eyebrows like wings, the cheeks unlined, the lips like those of a sleeping boy. An illusion, Koenig knew, the man was of average height and weight, his age, his physical characteristics—all were a matter of historical record.

Lee Russell had died five years ago on the Astro Seven Mission to Jupiter.

Now here he was, alive, on Moonbase Alpha.

He—or something which looked exactly like him.

Helena had no doubt.

‘It’s Lee.’ She was positive. ‘I know it’s Lee.’

‘He died—’

‘He was presumed to have died,’ she interrupted fiercely. ‘Only presumed. Obviously that presumption was wrong.’

Koenig said, mildly, ‘Doctor, Jupiter was 500,000,000 miles from Earth at the time of the mission. We know Lee was there and that something went wrong with his ship. It simply isn’t possible that he could have survived. It was five years ago, remember. Five years!’

She didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to entertain the thought that the man could be other than what he seemed. And she could be right, thought Koenig bleakly. A woman should know her own husband. The contours of his body were an area she must have often explored. A map she carried in her mind. Each little blemish, every minor scar, all the little personal attributes—none would have been forgotten.

She had loved him very much—still loved him. The knuckles of her hand showed white as she gripped the lax fingers.

‘We have to know, Doctor.’

‘Know what?’

‘How he managed to survive. How he came to be in the Eagle. There are questions we must ask, answers we must have. Surely you can see that?’

She spoke without turning her eyes from the still face on the pillow.

‘Later.’

‘Now.’

‘No! He’s ill, hurt you can’t—’

‘I can and must.’ Koenig’s voice was hard. ‘The evacuation of Alpha will take days even if we can commence operations at the most favourable time. That will depend on whether or not Terra Nova is safe. We still have to make the preliminary landing now that we know the atmosphere is suitable to support life, and there could be unsuspected dangers. Lee might know something about them. We have to know.’

‘We will—when he recovers.’

‘We can’t wait.’ She was stubborn, but he was the commander. ‘I’ll tell Doctor Mathias to prepare an injection of metrazine.’

She rose and turned so quickly that he had no chance to step back, her body hitting his own, throwing him off balance so that he caught her arms to steady himself. A contact quickly broken, but the memory remained, the softness, the warmth.

‘Commander, do you want to kill him?’

An accusation disturbing in its implication. If the apparent man was a thing—then the answer could be in the affirmative. But, to her, he was Lee, her husband—and she would hate his murderer for the rest of her life.

Illusion, he thought, self-deception, and perhaps with womanly intuition she had sensed something which he was reluctant to admit. Jealousy?

He said, ‘I want Lee alive, Doctor. But we have to know.’

‘Then I’ll give the injection.’

‘No.’ That he would not allow—she at least, must be spared the potential guilt. ‘Mathias will do it. I insist.’

Metrazine was dangerous, in some circumstances a little could kill, in others it could trigger life in an apparent corpse. Always it was a gamble.

Koenig watched as the injection was made. For long moments nothing happened and then, suddenly, the man stirred in the bed, eyelids flickering, hands lifted.

‘Hel . . . Helena?’

Immediately she was at his side, her hands on his own. ‘I’m here, Lee. I’m here, darling.’

‘Helena!’

Koenig said, ‘Lee, listen, this is important to all of us. How did you get into the Eagle?’

‘I . . . can’t remember.’

‘Try. Were you on the planet?’

‘The planet . . . yes . . . where am I?’

Helena said, quickly, ‘It’s all right, darling. You’re perfectly safe now. We just want to know a few things. Please help.’

He looked at her, his eyes vacant, suddenly becoming filled with alarm.

‘Helena?’

‘I’m here, Lee. I’m right beside you.’ Turning she said to Koenig. ‘He’s suffering from disorientation. It would be best if we were left alone.’

‘The questions?’

‘I’ll ask them. He can’t correlate as yet. Just give him a little time.’ Her voice rose a little. ‘Give him time.’

Not just him—the pair of them. She would want to talk to him in privacy, mentioning little intimacies, use words of love which no stranger should hear. Use the magic of her body, perhaps, to reinforce the power of the drug, her nearness to soothe, to remind, to strengthen the will to live.

An old, old therapy and one of proven value.

Koenig had no choice but to agree.

The computer’s voice seemed to hold a trace of amusement as it accompanied the words flashed on the screen.

POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN SURVIVAL IN CIRCUMSTANCES GIVEN: NIL

The answer Koenig had expected and to probe deeper would be to compound the initial error in asking it at all.

No man could live for five years on the supplies carried by an astro-ship.

No man could have moved, unaided, from the region of Jupiter to where Terra Nova had been then. And, even admitting the impossible had happened, no man could have entered an Eagle while in flight. A man without a suit.

QED, Lee Russell could not be a man.

And yet, Helena was positive that not only was he a man but the husband she had loved.

Koenig scowled at the screen on his desk, the furnishings of his office. A mystery, and he hated mysteries, especially when they threatened the welfare of his command. A mistake now and more than three hundred men and women would lose their lives. People who, at this very moment, were busy making plans as to what they should do once they had landed on the new world.

He remembered the couple he had seen by starlight. They would be anticipating the future now, planning where to site their house, what crops to grow, how many children to have—dreams natural enough, but the food for cruel disappointment if he forbade the evacuation.

If he could forbid it.

A list lay to hand and he studied it, his eye running over remembered figures. The entire stocks of Alpha and, when they were gone, what then? Economy could only go so far and even with yeast vats already in operation the supplies would not last forever.

The supplies, power, water which could be recycled, material which could not be replaced—waste now was a crime against the entire community.

Bergman could have a part of the answer—his force shield would enable them to delve deep and tap the residual volcanic power left in the moon. Minerals could be mined, conversion process set up, food grown in underground chambers.

Food from the seeds held in the laboratories which had conducted irradiation experiments. A lucky chance which gave them a measure of hope. Soil could be made from lunar rock, chemicals obtained, parts of the base turned over to industrial complexes. It would take hard, unremitting work, but it could be done. But no one would think of doing it while a new world lay to hand. Who would choose to live in a bleak hell when they could have a paradise?

A touch and it was on the screen, a lambent globe, cloud drifting, contours hidden by distance, a world so much like distant Earth that it was easy to confuse the two.

But, still, an enigma.

A buzz broke his introspection. Mathias was on the commlock screen.

‘Commander, Doctor Russell was found unconscious in the care unit.’

‘Hurt?’

‘No. She is now in her quarters.’

They were touched with her personality, small things which betrayed her woman’s grace. Framed pictures, a fluffy ball of multi-coloured wool, a souvenir from some Alpine resort, a flower held in eternal bloom in a block of clear plastic. A music box yielded a tinkling chime which ceased as Koenig entered at her invitation. A prop to memory, perhaps, the reminder of happier days. Once he had kept such things.

‘Commander.’

‘How are you?’ He crossed quickly to the bed in which she sat upright. Her face was paler than usual, otherwise she appeared normal.

‘Fine.’

‘You were found unconscious. What happened?’

‘I guess I must have fainted.’ She lifted a hand to move the lock of hair from over her eye. ‘I’ve never done that before. And it was odd. One moment I was talking to Lee and then—’ She broke off, shrugging. ‘It must have been the strain.’

A reasonable explanation—how often did you meet the dead?

‘You were talking,’ said Koenig. ‘Did he tell you anything of value?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Try and remember. What was the last thing he said?’

‘Something about danger. He was worried about me. I had the impression that he thought we were in trouble of some kind.’

‘No details?’

‘None. It could have been a result of his disorientation. Maybe he imagined himself to be back in the astro-ship. We know the engines must have failed and if it fell into Jupiter’s gravity well—’

Death, and no way to stop it. A long, long drop through turbulent atmosphere, pressure mounting, the hull yielding, flattening—a hell of a way to die.

‘Did you mention Terra Nova to him at all?’

Another woman would, perhaps, have flushed a little, she did not. Meeting his eyes she said, steadily, ‘Yes, I did. I wanted to reassure him and spoke of plans we had made in the past. Hopes we had had. If you want the details?’

‘No.’ He could guess what they must have been. The fluffy ball, the music box—had she once knitted garments for babies which never came? ‘How was he then, calm?’

‘No, he—’ she paused, frowning. ‘I think he touched me,’ she said, slowly. ‘Lifted his hands to my shoulders and looked at me. I remember his eyes. That’s the last thing I remember, his eyes.’

‘And the Eagle?’

‘Nothing.’

A continuing lack of information. Koenig drew in his breath and said, ‘Doctor, are you certain, quite certain, that he is your husband?’

‘Of course—aren’t you?’

Bergman was waiting in the medical section. As Koenig joined him he lifted a sheaf of prints.

‘These might decide something, John. They are thermographic X-rays I took of Lee Russell. Normally they would have been passed to Helena for analysis, but Mathias decided they might disturb her. You’ll see why in a moment.’

He clipped one of the plates on an illuminated panel and Koenig studied it. It showed the various internal organs in a wide range of colour which covered the heat-spectrum.

‘It looks normal to me.’

‘Yes, but now look at this.’ Bergman placed another plate beside the first. It was flat, almost monochrome, sharp distinctions lost in a general yellowish overlay.

‘That isn’t a thermograph of a living man.’

‘Yet they both came from the same source.’

‘Russell?’

‘Yes, and now you know why we didn’t want Helena to see them. The sight of Russell upset her more than we know. A part of her knows that his presence is impossible, but another part wants him to be alive. The scientist versus the woman, John. I suggest we let the woman win.’

Koenig said, ‘These scans—were they both taken at the same time?’

‘No. This one,’ Bergman touchcd the first, ‘was taken shortly after they arrived. Helena was with him. The other was taken after she had fainted and was carried to her quarters.’

‘Yet Russell appears to be normal?’

‘Sleeping, but normal, yes, John. The question now seems to be whether he is alive or dead.’

‘And the answer?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bergman admitted. ‘My eyes tell me he’s alive and well and completely human. Logic tells me he can’t be. And yet there’s always a doubt. If, for example, he managed to reach Terra Nova and managed to live there for five years, he could be as we see him. As far as we know the planet could easily sustain life. The difference in his metabolism could be explained by the necessity to adapt to the new environment.’

Koenig said, impatiently, ‘You’re a scientist, Victor. You know that no human could change so much in a life-time let alone five years.’

‘On Earth, no, John, but we’re a long way from our little sector of space. We can’t begin to believe that we know it all. Odd things can happen and, perhaps, this is one of them.’

‘The astro-ship was monitored. It disintegrated in the atmosphere of Jupiter. As the computer says it would have been impossible for Russell to have survived let alone reach Terra Nova. And how did he enter the Eagle?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There’s too damn much we don’t know!’ Koenig stared at the plates. ‘This, for example. Why the change when Helena was absent? Is he sucking her life-force in some way? And what about the pilots? Any change in their condition as yet?’

‘No.’

‘Let’s do some imagining,’ said Koenig. ‘Let’s assume that something from Terra Nova managed to enter the ship. After it lifted it—grew. To do that it needed energy and drained the electronic systems. It also almost killed Parks and Bannion. And then what?’ He paused, remembering. ‘Helena was the first one to touch him. She turned his head and held it, right?’

Bergman nodded. ‘So?’

‘So before she turned that head and looked at that face—what did it look like?’

A question Bergman pondered then he said, slowly, ‘You’re thinking of an amorphous creature which can, somehow, adapt its shape to mental stimulus. An alien form of life which feeds on energy. It would account for the collapse of the pilots, life is basically electrical, and it is possible that such a thing could have a rudimentary form of telepathy. A clever theory, John, but it isn’t the answer.’

‘Why not?’

‘It doesn’t fit all the facts. You’re forgetting something. When we found Russell he was fully dressed and wearing the uniform of the Astro Seven Mission. Real clothes, we removed them.’

‘Damn!’ Koenig thought he’d had the solution. An alien form of life, no matter how strange, was something which could be understood and handled. Now he was back at the beginning and, if anything, the mystery was greater than before. He snatched impatiently at his commlock as it signalled.

‘What is it?’

‘Security, Commander. Lee Russell has gone berserk!’

CHAPTER SEVEN

He stood in the care unit among a litter of broken equipment, smashed glass, metal twisted and bent, a man lying supine against one wall, another attendant moaning as he nursed a broken arm.

Before him stood Mathias, a hypogun in his hand, ready to give a numbing injection should he get the chance. His voice was calm, soothing.

‘You should be resting Lee. Why don’t you just let me help you. We all want to help you.’

‘I want Helena!’

‘In a moment. First you must—’

‘I want my wife!’ A rack of instruments crashed to the floor as Russell slammed his hand against it, metal clasps ripping as if they had been made of paper. A display of insane strength. ‘I want Helena!’

Mathias stepped back and glanced at the security men who stood to either side. They were armed with stun-guns lifted ready to fire. One of them glanced at the doctor.

‘You’re not going to calm him down, sir. Shall we knock him out?’

‘No!’ Koenig had heard the question as he entered the compartment, Bergman at his heels. ‘Do that and he’ll be out for hours.’ He glanced at Mathias. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know, Commander. I left Russell apparently asleep and went to clear up some details on his file. I heard a crash and a yell. When I came in the place was as you see it. The attendants must have tried to restrain him. I called security and tried to talk him back to bed. I failed. All he seems to want is his wife.’

‘Get her.’

‘But—’

‘Get her!’

She arrived wearing pyjamas, her hair dishevelled, her face pale. Without hesitation she walked to where Russell stood, a nurse tending a patient, a mother soothing a child.

‘It’s all right, Lee. Everything is all right. No one is going to hurt you.’

‘Helena!’ He became abruptly calm. ‘I needed you and you came. You came.’

‘Yes, darling.’ Taking his hand she led him towards the bed, halting as Koenig stepped before her.

Looking at the man he said, flatly, ‘It’s time we had a talk.’

‘Commander!’

‘And we’re going to have it now.’ Koenig ignored the woman’s protest. ‘We’ll use your office, Mathias. Helena, you’d better leave us. Guards, watch him close.’

‘I’m not leaving.’ She was stubborn. ‘He needs me.’

The eternal appeal to any woman’s heart. For a moment Koenig hesitated, then decided not to argue. And her presence could be valuable in calming the man. Already he was docile, his previous rage dissipated. As Mathias went to tend the injured Koenig shrugged.

‘If you insist, Doctor. But on no account will you interfere.’

The office was small, compact, files at the walls, a table in the centre, chairs on which they sat. Russell faced Koenig, the two guards at his rear, Bergman to one side, Helena the other.

Without preamble Koenig said, ‘Russell, what are you doing here?’

‘I had to come.’

‘From where?’

‘The planet which you call Terra Nova. How I came isn’t important.’

‘Let me decide that. How did you get to Terra Nova in the first place?’

‘I don’t know.’ Russell looked from one to the other. ‘I just don’t know. I simply can’t remember.’

‘What happened out there near Jupiter?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How did you get to Terra Nova?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then what the hell do you know?’ Koenig made an effort to master his anger. Rage, now, would get him nowhere. ‘Listen,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve over three hundred men and women to take care of. We can live on that planet and we’ve got to start moving soon if we hope to evacuate the base. I need you to—’

‘No!’

‘No, what?’

‘You can’t live on that planet. You mustn’t go near it. Don’t you understand what I am saying? You mustn’t go near it.’

Something concrete at last. Bergman said, ‘Why not? Is it inhabited?’

‘No . . . yes . . . not in the way you think. I warn you to stay away.’

‘Why?’

‘There is danger. It will destroy you.’

‘What and how?’ snapped Koenig.

‘It is there. You must believe me.’

Fog again, words which meant nothing, vagueness which covered—what?

Koenig said, curtly, ‘You aren’t making sense. As far as we know the planet is suitable to support our kind of life. You are living proof of that if—’ He broke off, not adding the qualification, conscious of Helena and her watching eyes. If Russell, as he suspected was not human, then it would be cruel to break her illusion. Instead he ended, lamely, ‘we can believe the evidence of our eyes. Can we?’

‘You ask too much, Commander.’

‘Then I’ll make it simple. We intend to land on Terra Nova and start a new life. Can we survive?’

‘No.’

‘Explain why not.’

‘Explanations.’ Russell looked down at his hands where they rested on his lap. His eyes lifted, moved to Helena, back to Koenig. ‘What can I tell you? I have warned you—that is enough.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t believe me. You’ll go to Terra Nova no matter what I say.’ Russell looked at his hands again as if seeing them for the first time. ‘In that case there is nothing more I can do. But you have been warned—remember that.’

He slumped a little, his head falling back, his eyes turning to empty windows in a deserted house. The hands which had been lying in his lap fell to dangle limply at his sides.

‘Victor!’

Koenig knew the answer even before the man made his report.

Russell was dead.

He had gone like the flame of a blown-out candle, the spirit, the go, vanishing to leave nothing but an empty husk over which Mathias and Bergman would later work. Cutting, slicing, probing, examining, conducting an autopsy which could provide some answers.

Helena, to Koenig’s relief, took it well.

She had bathed and changed and tidied her hair and now sat in her quarters looking at a photograph of a man playing with a dog. Lee Russell with a pet now probably long dead but still alive in the trapped moment. As the man was alive. As, perhaps, he would never die.

‘Helena, I’m sorry.’ It was, he realized, the first time he had used her given name, but it seemed natural, the moment did not belong to the stiff formality of routine.

‘It’s all right,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been over it a dozen times. I don’t blame you for what happened. I can’t.’

‘The interrogation was essential, you know that, but if I’d waited a little, not been so impatient.’ Koenig glanced at the photograph. ‘It could have had something to do with it.’

‘Could, John, we simply don’t know. Maybe we shall never know. You did what you had to do. Lee . . . Lee just died. That’s all there is to it.’

‘The autopsy might tell us something.’

‘Perhaps. As a doctor I’m naturally interested, but as Lee’s wife, I want to forget the whole thing.’ She paused, looking at the man playing with the dog and then said, softly, ‘The first time I lost him I thought I’d never survive. We’d been so close, made so many plans, nothing mattered after they told me. I just wanted to go away and find a corner and creep inside it. To shut myself away from everything and everyone. The sound of laughter, couples, the smile a man gave to his companion—all was pain. That’s why I took up the position here. I had to get away.

That, at least, they had in common, but Koenig said nothing, waiting.

‘Now it’s happened again,’ she whispered. ‘And yet it isn’t the same. Now I feel numb. Disappointed, but numb. I suppose that I never really believed I had got him back. Not deep down inside.’

The womanly intuition which had warned her that the man had not been what he seemed. The instinctive rejection, overriden by her own need to find out what he had represented, love, affection, the intimacy of close association.

Koenig’s hand lifted, hovered an inch over the shining mass of her hair, lowered as he resisted the temptation to touch its enticing softness.

‘I’m glad, Helena,’ he said. ‘Glad that you aren’t suffering as much as you might.’

‘I’ve been through that, John. I’ve already learned to live without him.’ The photograph made a brittle sound as she placed it face-down on the table. ‘And we have work to do.’

Work, the universal anodyne, and there was much to do. Parks and Bannion had recovered, oddly at the same time Russell had died, but they could contribute little.

‘They felt a sudden drop in temperature,’ Bergman said. ‘Both experienced a retinal flash and that’s all they remember.’

‘The Eagle?’

‘Was sealed when they left it after landing. Nothing of any size could have entered the command module without them knowing it. And we found Russell in the passenger compartment, don’t forget. That was closed—you opened it yourself.’

Koenig nodded. ‘The autopsy?’

‘We haven’t started yet, but I’ve taken some external samples. The epidermis is most unusual. When Russell was alive it seemed to be normal, but now it’s undergoing a change. The texture is hardening as if some form of crystalization is taking place. And this is a reversal of polarity.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’m not sure yet.’ Bergman frowned as he moved about his laboratory. ‘Living tissue simply can’t act that way, but I remember some experiments conducted by Professor Feldon at the Deimos Laboratory. He found a vein of peculiar ore which was unstable in a peculiar manner. The application of intense magnetic fields coupled with a surge-pattern of electronic stress resulted in the formation of something close to anti-matter.’

Koenig frowned. He knew the theory of reversed atomic electronic charges—a state in which the proton held a negative, not positive charge as was usual in normal matter.

‘Anti-matter,’ he said. ‘If it comes into contact with ordinary matter the result would be an explosion of tremendous magnitude.’

‘Theoretically, yes,’ admitted Bergman. ‘But Feldon found there was an intermediate state in which there was a literal cancelling out. The energy released was high, but not in the anticipated order of magnitude which had been predicted. The things which worries me is that the samples I took from Russell seem to be following that pattern. It is almost as if the force which had held them in normal form are now dissipating and allowing them to revert. If the reversed polarity should progress to a point where it is in direct opposition to ordinary matter—John, could that be what he was trying to warn us about?’

‘Terra Nova made of anti-matter? Impossible.’

‘So is a dead man appearing within a closed ship,’ reminded Bergman.

‘Lee Russell wasn’t a man and we both know it.’ Koenig was impatient. ‘And the planet can’t be made of anti-matter or the Eagle which landed would have been immediately destroyed. It wasn’t. Parks and Bannion both went outside. They took samples. Be logical, Victor, could that have happened if what you suspect is true?’

‘No, John, I admit it couldn’t.’ Bergman moved around his laboratory, touching a piece of equipment, a plan. Without looking at Koenig he said, ‘Maybe you had better wait before sending down the preliminary team.’

‘Wait?’

‘Until we are certain nothing is wrong down there. Lee worried me and I’ll admit it. He—’

‘Lee Russell wasn’t a man.’

‘It then, does it matter?’ Bergman turned, his face serious. ‘Why did it appear, John? Let’s think about it. What did he do—let’s call it he, it’s easier. What purpose could there have been behind the whole incident?’

‘Life needs no purpose other than the need to survive.’

‘True, but in that he failed. He gave us a warning and then simply died. Died or went away or did what he had to do. The warning, John. Remember the warning.’

‘Stay away,’ snapped Koenig harshly. ‘That isn’t a warning, it’s a threat. Maybe whatever is down there doesn’t want visitors. They must have seen us and could have sent Lee to frighten us off.’

‘You can’t be sure of that.’

‘I’m only sure of one thing, Victor. Unless we make a move soon we’ll lose our chance of a new world. I don’t intend to lose that chance. The preliminary team is going down.’

‘But—’

‘Going down,’ repeated Koenig firmly. ‘I want to leave within the hour.’

Reconnaissance had been busy, the Eagle had been checked, loaded and was ready to go. Morrow approached Koenig as he came from his office.

‘Commander, you’ll need a crew.’

The least of his worries—everyone in the base was eager to get a first-hand glimpse of the new world. Koenig smiled, anticipating the request.

‘You’re booked, Paul. Carter will be the pilot. Who do you suggest we take as analyst?’

‘Sandra Benes, Commander.’

Sandra, naturally, and Koenig could guess why. For a moment he kept him waiting, then nodded.

‘See that she’s briefed. Doctor Russell will complete the team and I’ll be going with you. Check equipment and arms.’

‘Arms?’

‘Laser pistols—we don’t know what we may run into down there. Are you still sure you want to take Sandra?’

‘I’m sure—I mean, yes, sir.’

Helena was just as eager. She came in answer to him.

‘No, John, I’ll go. I’d like to see what’s down there. Lee—I’d just like to go.’

To see what he had seen, to walk where he could have walked, to breathe the same air, to catch the same smells. Despite her previous acceptance of his death memory lingered and, perhaps, a vestige of hope also.

It would die, Koenig was sure of it, but it would take a little time.

And time was running out.

‘Commander, you have ten minutes to lift-off.’ Kano’s face was anxious on the commlock screen. ‘And you won’t be able to stay long if you decide to evacuate. Operation Exodus is pretty tightly confirmed. In a few hours we’ll be moving away from Terra Nova.’

‘Understood.’

‘Yes, well . . . good luck, sir.’

Bergman made contact with less than a minute to go. His face looked from the screen facing the control chairs in the command module. A worried face, anxious, a little baffled.

‘John, something odd’s just happened. Russell’s body has vanished.’

‘What?’

‘Vanished, John, disappeared. Mathias was just getting down to the autopsy when it happened. He was flung across the room by some form of electrical discharge. That condition I spoke about, it could have peaked.’

From where he sat Carter said, flatly, ‘Sixteen seconds, Commander.’

‘John, abort the mission.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘You’re heading into the unknown. Russell’s warning could have been genuine. His condition—if there is anti-matter down there you’ll all be wiped out.’

‘Ten seconds, Commander.’

‘We’ve been through all that, Victor. I’ve made my decision.’

‘Three seconds, Commander. Do you want me to hold?’

‘No, Alan.’ Koenig glanced at the pilot. ‘Take us down.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

The planet was beautiful. A world of which men had dreamed and written and sung, setting the concept like a jewel in mighty sagas, placing it at the heart of religion, making it the stuff of legends. Paradise, Avalon, Hesperus, Arcadia, the Elysian Fields . . . the old yearning for a place in which there would be nothing but loveliness forever.

Terra Nova had answered that need.

Koenig stood before the open port of the Eagle and filled his lungs with air which held the scent of perfume, watching a bird with plumage like the fires of dawn, treading on grass which sank beneath his feet like a cushion.

Before him trees soared like the columns of a cathedral, their tops tufted with delicate fronds, the boles scaled and shimmering. On one side of the clearing in which they had landed rocks rose in smooth rotundity, backed by the haze of distant mountains. On the other topping a low crest a mass of shrubbery bore star-like flowers.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Helena stared around, her eyes entranced. ‘John! If we could only stay here!’

Koenig gestured towards the rocks, the distant mountains.

‘Paul, you and Sandra move in that direction. Don’t go too far, test what you see, take specimens and stay out of trouble. Immediate contact if you run into anything suspicious. Don’t use those lasers unless there is no alternative.’

‘I understand, sir, we don’t want to upset the natives.’

‘Not if there are any. Helena, we’ll move to the left.’

Carter would stay with the Eagle, maintaining contact with base and probably fuming at the necessity. Later, perhaps, his chance would come, for now he had to restrain his eargerness to explore.

‘This is superb, John.’ Helena plucked a leaf from a shrub and sealed it into a specimen case. ‘A subtropical temperature, fertile soil, a variety of vegetation—we couldn’t have asked for anything better.’

‘Let’s hope it’s as good as it looks.’

‘You think it isn’t?’

‘I don’t know, Helena. That’s what we’re here to find out.’

They walked on in silence, enjoying the sultry air, the scent of vegetation, welcome after the sterile conditions at Alpha. Enjoying too the privacy, the sense of space and solitude.

‘Water!’ Helena led the way to where a pool rested in a shallow valley surrounded by low, fruit-bearing trees. ‘And I must test those fruits.’

Both passed, the water tasting like nectar, crisp and cool despite the warmth of the air. The fruits were darkly yellow beneath a purple rinds, seedless, the juice thick and of the colour of honey.

‘It’s like a water-melon,’ said Helena, eating. ‘Or like pineapple and grape. Or—’ She broke off and then said, wonderingly, ‘An assortment of flavours. Think of one and you taste it. Here, John, try.’

He took the segment she offered him and filled his mouth with tantalizing memories. Apple pie heavy with cinnamon, apricots steeped in brandy, candied peaches, strawberries, lichees, the saline tang of olives, the meaty flavour of nuts—he could taste them all.

‘One fruit,’ said Helena. ‘And it’s anything you want it to be. Something agriculturists have dreamed about for millennia. One plant to provide all needs. What did they used to call it?’

‘The Tree of Life,’ said Koenig. ‘The perfect food which was all things to all men. Ambrosia, perhaps, I’m not strong on legend.’

‘The food of the gods,’ she murmured. ‘And we’ve found it. Perhaps here, John, we can start again. Build a new civilization with none of the mistakes of the old. A clean and decent place which will never know war or pollution.’ She cut another slice of fruit. ‘This could contain prophylactics and trace minerals as well as a high proportion of protein and the essential vitamins. If it does we won’t have to worry about crops and medicines. We’ll have everything right to hand.’

‘We’ll take some back with us for intensive analysis.’

‘Of course.’ She had, he realized, not intended to eat the slice she had cut. Instead she held it up and studied the formation of the pulp. ‘You know, John, this could be the result of hybridization. There are no discernible seeds so propagation must be by cutting. The same kind of thing we have on cultivated bananas.’

‘Which means that someone must have developed them?’

‘Yes, John. I suppose it does.’

Koenig had been sitting, now he rose, one hand falling to the butt of the laser. An automatic reflex to the possibility of danger.

‘John?’

‘There has to be life here, Helena, and a highly intelligent form at that. They would need a developed technology to have sent those signals we received and those plants are further proof if we need it.’

‘They could be harmless.’

‘Maybe.’ Koenig flipped the commlock from his belt. ‘Paul? How are you doing?’

‘Fine, Commander.’ Morrow looked relaxed, a little smug. ‘We found drinkable water and some fruits with the oddest collection of flavours.’

‘I know about the fruit. Anything else?’

‘Botanical specimens and I’ve taken samples of rock. It seems to have a high mineral content. There are traces of silver and iron. Sandra thought she saw something move, but she must have been mistaken.’

‘Details?’

‘She just thought she saw it, sir. A thing like a bear, she said. It must have been a trick of the light. I looked but couldn’t see a thing.’

Koenig said, ‘Start heading back to the ship. We’re getting low on time.’

‘Yes, sir. Are you going to start Operation Exodus?’

‘Just head back to the ship.’ Breaking the connection he said to Helena. ‘That goes for us too.’

‘You didn’t answer him, John. Are you going to commence evacuation?’

Carter called before Koenig could answer. He said, ‘Commander, I’m getting a temperature rise in the Eagle. Nothing serious as yet, but if it keeps rising we could be in trouble.’

‘Prepare for lift-off. I’m aborting the mission. As soon as we all get back we leave.’

‘Commander?’

‘Do it!’

Koenig clipped the commlock to his belt and began to retrace their steps, lengthening his stride so that the woman had almost to run to keep up with him. She saw his face, the taut expression.

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘I hope not.’

‘But you think there is?’

He said curtly, ‘I’m not sure, but Victor could have been right. If he was we’re racing against time.’

Carter called again before they had covered half the distance. He was worried.

‘The heat, sir, it’s getting worse. There is a high concentration in the electronic circuits and if it gets much worse there’ll be insulation-decay. It’s already close to the critical point.’

‘Can you maintain the level?’

‘I’m trying.’ Carter’s face was beaded with sweat. ‘I’ve used tanked air for expansion-cooling, but the conducted heat is making the air hard to breathe. How long will you be?’

‘Not long,’ Koenig hit a button. ‘Paul? If you’re not running start now. This is an emergency. Move!’

They were almost at the ship when the others came into sight. Morrow was in the lead, his left hand gripping the wrist of the girl, his right steadying the satchel which swung over his shoulder, the pouch close to the holstered laser.

The mineral specimens he had collected and which filled Koenig with a sudden dread.

‘The satchel!’ he shouted. ‘Get rid of it!’

‘What?’

‘Dump it! Throw it aside!’

Morrow hesitated, then releasing the girl lifted the satchel from his shoulder. As it swung it touched the laser.

The flash filled the sky.

A burst of sudden brilliance and then it was gone leaving Morrow sprawled on the ground, Sandra on her knees clutching at the bole of a tree.

‘His laser exploded—get rid of them.’ Koenig tore the gun from Helena’s belt, threw it aside, sending his own after it, the specimen cases they both carried. As she ran to the fallen man he headed for Sandra, throwing aside her laser, the things she carried.

‘John!’ Helena’s voice was shocked. ‘Paul—he’s dead.’

‘And Sandra?’

She hadn’t moved, remaining close to the tree, her face blank, her eyes wide, vacant.

As Helena touched her, lifting her to her feet she said, dully, ‘I can’t see.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t see.’ The dull voice broke, rose in a scream. ‘I can’t see! I’m blind! Blind!’

‘Get her to the ship.’ Koenig stooped, lifted Morrow, threw him over his shoulder. ‘Hurry, woman!’

His commlock signalled as he led the way to the Eagle. He snatched it from his belt, not looking at the screen.

‘Commander the—’

‘We’re on our way.’

‘It’s too late! The insulation’s gone. The circuits have fused. I can’t breathe in here—the smoke, the fumes—’

‘Abandon the Eagle! Get out of there, Carter, get out of there!’

Koenig saw the vessel as he topped the rise, Helena close behind, Sandra supported by her arms, stumbling, her feet dragging, tears running down her cheeks. Smoke fumed from the open port, a thick white cloud of acrid vapour, broken only by the shape of the man within. Carter lunging through the door—too late.

He lifted as the explosion caught him, rising high to fall in a mass of flying debris, lying still as the fragments of the Eagle rained all around. A lethal hail which sent Sandra to the dirt, which tore at Koenig’s skull and sent him sprawling, to turn, to stare at a sky oddly empty, to look at a woman’s face.

‘Helena,’ he said thickly. ‘Helena—we almost made it. We almost—’

And then she was gone, vanished into darkness, a darkness which swallowed the universe.

She was alone. Alone in a way she had never known before. Always there had been someone, in the next room, the next apartment, in the street, in the city, strangers, perhaps, uncaring, but people.

Now there was no one and she sat in the midst of devastation. The trees had gone, the shrubs, the misted hills. The grass had followed the Eagle, the birds, the things which had made the planet a place of dreams. Now there was nothing but naked rock crusted with rime, the dead, the cold. A transition too abrupt to wholly understand. And there was no need. She was alone and, soon, she would be dead.

There was nothing left but tears.

‘Helena!’

She heard the scuff of feet and something, an envelope of warmth surround her. An enclosing protecting bubble in which she rose, to turn, to look at the man who faced her.

‘Lee!’

He was as she had first seen him in the Eagle, the Astro Seven uniform neat and unsoiled, his eyes brilliant now with life and intelligence. But he was not, could not be, the husband she had known, the man who had been so much a part of her life.

‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘What are you? You can’t be human.’

‘Not in the way you know humanity.’

‘Then—’

‘Think of me as a projection—a messenger. I tried to warn, but no one would listen. We mean you no harm. The signal we sent—why couldn’t you understand?’

‘We?’

‘The ones who own this world, who live deep beneath the surface. You cannot live here. Our matter is not the same as yours.’

‘You should have explained.’ Her voice was dull, uncaring. What did it matter now? ‘We asked, you could have answered.’

‘I tried. There was difficulty. This is new—there were problems. And yet we tried. We tried.’

Tried and failed. She glanced at Koenig, his face pale beneath the blood which stained his temple, Morrow, the girl, Carter lying where he had fallen. And Alpha had gone. She could not understand.

‘We have moved our world away from yours, Helena. The danger was too great. Danger to us as well as to you. That is why we sent the warnings. You should have listened. The shape I now wear—to you it was important. One you had reason to trust.’

And one, perhaps, which they had been forced to adopt. As their planet had worn so fair an aspect. The yearning of more than three hundred minds altering what was, to what they wanted it to be. Her own need recognized and used.

She said, ‘Why are you here? To gloat?’

‘To help.’

‘How? What can you do? They are dead and—’

‘You know so little,’ he said. ‘Children thrown into the dark, afraid, facing forces and entities you cannot understand. And yet about you there is something commendable. A sensitivity, a concern—it must not be wasted.’ He stepped towards her, lifting his hands, placing them on her shoulders, luminous eyes searching her own. ‘Think,’ he urged. ‘Recall.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Time is a variable. There is an area of tolerance and we know how to manipulate it. But there must be a guide, a direction. And the area is small.’ His voice gained urgency. ‘Think, Helena. Remember. Quickly now, already we have stayed too long.’

We? Lee and herself, those now lying dead, the enigmatic beings who resided deep in this wandering planet? For a moment she suffered confusion and then, drawing in her breath, accepted what seemed to be. Lee—the person who stood before her was offering to help. She had nothing to lose.

‘Remember,’ he said again. ‘The power of the mind is infinite. You lack strength but it will be provided. Think back, Helena. Now!’

His eyes grew larger, dominating, filling her entire field of vision so that she seemed to sink into their depths. For a dragging moment there was nothing but the eyes, the impression of tremendous forces at work, straining, moving.

‘The satchel,’ shouted Koenig. ‘Get rid of it. Throw it aside!’

Morrow hesitated then, releasing the girl, he obeyed.

Helena watched the swing, tensing, but nothing happened. The satchel fell to the ground and that was all.

As they approached Morrow said, panting. ‘The ship?’

‘In trouble. Hurry!’

Helena followed Koenig as he led the way, consumed with an urgency which left no time for thought. The Eagle lay where they had left it, the port open, Carter standing in the opening waving them on. The door slammed as they piled in, Koenig locking it, the pilot already at the controls.

‘Stand by for lift-off.’

‘Move!’

Koenig caught at the back of the co-pilot’s chair to steady himself as Carter lifted the Eagle and sent it up and away into the safety of space. The others had gone into the passenger module and he followed them, dropping into a seat beside Helena.

‘We made it,’ he said. ‘Just.’

She didn’t answer and he stared at her, his face anxious. ‘Helena, is anything wrong?’

Her hand lifted to touch his unmarred temple, the fingers falling to trail gently over his cheek. He had died and was now alive again.

As Morrow had died. As Carter and the girl.

Helena glanced towards her. Sandra was flushed, breathing deeply, her eyes bright as she looked at Morrow.

A woman in love, happy with her man.

‘Helena?’ Koenig touched her gently on the shoulder. ‘You look vague, lost somehow. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

He was not satisfied, she could tell, but how to explain? And already memories were becoming vague. Had she really been left all alone? Had the others really died? Had Lee actually reappeared? Had time, by some incredible magic or the application of a superior science really been reversed so that, impossible as it seemed, they had lived twice in the same period?

She said, slowly, ‘John, do you remember a laser exploding?’

‘No.’

‘The Eagle?’

‘Of course not.’ His voice held concern. ‘I don’t understand, Helena. What are you talking about?’

He had forgotten or, for him, it had never happened. For awhile, alone, she had lived in a strange region of time which now no longer existed. The things which had happened in it never actually taking place.

‘Nothing. Just a peculiar impression. I had. Maybe it was the fruit.’

‘Toxic? No, it couldn’t have been, but perhaps it contained a mild hallucinogen. Are you sure you feel all right now?’

‘I’m fine.’ she looked at the screen, the image of the world it contained. Already it looked small as it moved on and away. Paradise lost.

‘A mystery and one we’ll never fully understand,’ said Koenig. ‘But we could never have lived there. A pity, but we have to accept it.’

‘And?’

‘We go in,’ he said, dryly. ‘We’ve no choice.’

CHAPTER NINE

Paul Morrow moved through Main Mission, checking instruments, noting the findings. The new installations were working well, in the two weeks since they had left Terra Nova the base had been put on a near-military footing with back-up installations re-enforcing the original sensors. Yet a few bugs remained to be ironed out. Ted Clifford was seeing to it.

‘Paul, can you switch off outside circuits four and seven?’

‘Right away.’ Morrow moved to the main console and pressed the appropriate keys. ‘You’re clear, Ted.’

Clifford set to work. Opening a panel he began to check the complex circuits, grunting as he found a faulty component, changing it for a new one with trained dexterity. Closing the panel he rose, glancing up at the direct-vision section of the control room. Space was empty but for a blaze of stars, a breathtaking vista of the universe. He stood looking at it, then frowned.

‘Finished, Ted?’ Morrow frowned as Clifford made no answer. ‘Ted?’

Clifford ignored him. As if reaching a sudden decision he stepped quickly towards the computer and began to operate the highly complex machine. He moved quickly, hand dancing with amazing skill, his face expressionless as he stared at the screen.

‘What the hell?’ Kano came running. ‘Ted, get away from there!’

He gripped Clifford’s arm and was sent flying. Morrow dived in, another technician helping, both grabbing Clifford as he worked. It was like gripping an uncoiling spring. Both men followed Kano to sprawl on the floor.

Sandra hit the button of her commlock.

‘Commander, emergency in Main Mission. Hurry!’

Koenig was with Helena, both arrived in time to see the end. Clifford had turned into a wild beast, fighting, struggling to get back to the computer. Restrained he stiffened, his face contorting and then, with a final paroxism, he collapsed.

‘Helena?’

‘He’s dead, John.’ She looked up from where she knelt beside the body.

‘Cause?’

‘It looks as if he had some kind of a brain-storm, but I can’t tell you the reason.’

‘Find out,’ snapped Koenig. ‘Conduct an immediate autopsy. Paul, what the hell happened?’

Morrow explained as attendants removed the body.

‘So he made a check, closed the panel and then went crazy.’ Koenig frowned. ‘Nothing else?’

‘One thing, sir,’ said Sandra. ‘I happened to see it. Before he moved to the computer he stood looking into space. And he seemed deaf when Paul spoke to him. He simply didn’t answer.’

Space? Koenig moved to stand where Clifford had stood, looking up as he had done, seeing nothing but the familiar stars.

And then, as he watched, one of them seemed to grow, to swell into a disc of orange light, a disc which became a globe.

‘Paul!’

Morrow was already at work. The main screen flared to life, amplification bringing the strange object into closer proximity. From her station Sandra made her report.

‘Unknown object moving on collision path with Alpha. Velocity in relation to the moon .05 C.’

Too fast for safety. If it should hit then the entire complex would be destroyed, the moon on which it rode shattered like a dropped egg.

‘Mass?’

‘Low, Commander.’ Sandra was puzzled. ‘It has no relation to the apparent size. Either it is very small or very tenuous.’

‘Temperature?’

‘Zero as far as I can make out. The instruments—’ She broke off, her voice rising. ‘Commander! It’s slowing!’

Something hit Alpha, a shock wave sending Koenig to his knees, filling the air with startled shouts, the creak of yielding structures. A moment then it was over, Morrow busy as he received reports from all sections. A smooth drilled routine which had been instilled during long hours of training dealing with simulated emergencies.

‘All secure, Commander—but what happened?’

Sandra had a part of the answer.

‘Unknown object now stationary in relation to Alpha. Still no surface temperature reading. Apparent size .0625.’

‘Of the moon?’

‘Yes, Commander.’

Which made it about 500 miles in diameter if it was solid. Koenig stared at the image in the screen, narrowing his eyes against the glare of orange, the nimbus of light which held mystery. A thick halo of light, it had to be that. Light or some unknown force of which the orange glow was the only visible sign.

‘Kano?’

‘The computer readings show that the object used us as a checking system, Commander. Some kind of force was projected and maintained.’

A tractor beam of some kind which had reached out to grip the moon, using the mass to absorb the object’s momentum and which now, probably, held it in relative immobility.

A captive on the end of an electronic line.

But who had caught whom?

A question which was answered in a flare of diffused light from the screen, a voice which echoed throughout the base, carried on every speaker, vibrating from the very walls.

A deep voice, alien, cold.

‘Earthmen—make no attempt to resist. You are captives of the planet Triton.’

It had to happen, thought Koenig bleakly. For millenia mankind had lived in total isolation, only recently hoping to be contacted by other intelligent races. Now it had happened and in the worst possible way. The aliens had come, not as friends, but as enemies. Not as partners, but as captors.

Captors and murderers—already, it seemed they had killed.

Helena gestured towards the complex microscope at which she sat.

‘I think I know what killed Clifford, John. A tremendous stimulation of the cortex which overrode his physical safety-limit. You know, of course, that no one exerts their full strength because if they did they would literally tear the muscles away from the bone. There is a mental check, a governor.’

‘Which can be surmounted.’

‘At times, yes,’ she agreed. ‘The so-called supreme effort which comes with panic or some other highly emotional condition. A type of insanity, for example, or beneath the effect of drugs such as strychnine. However, to return to Clifford, something affected his brain and caused the result we saw.’

‘Something? That isn’t a satisfactory answer, Helena. It’s too vague.’

‘I can give you an exact state of his physical condition, John, but I can’t be precise when it comes to dealing with the cause. Certainly it wasn’t drugs. My guess is that it was electronic in some way. A force—’ She broke off, shrugging.

Koenig said, ‘All right. We specify some kind of unknown force which stimulated his brain. But why?’ he frowned, thinking. ‘He was driven in some way to use the direct scan, no voice accompaniment. He also had it working at maximum speed. Does that make sense?’

Mathias edged forward from where he’d been standing.

‘Normally, Commander, no. The human receptive mechanisms cannot operate above a certain level of speed. Sound, transmitted too fast, becomes a high-pitched shrill. Visual images, flashed too quickly, cannot consciously be identified.’ He paused then repeated, meaningfully, ‘Consciously. I think that could be the answer.’

‘Explain.’

‘In many ways the human brain is a computer mechanism. Data is received, stored, produced when needed. Much of the information we receive is transmitted on a subconscious level to the memory cells. For example, when you entered this room your five senses recorded everything of which they were capable, yet you, consciously, operated on a basis of selection. The picture on the walls, the nature of each piece of equipment, the texture of the floor—to you none was of sufficient importance to demand your conscious attention, yet the information, stored, is there should you need it.’

‘So?’

‘I’m guessing now, Commander,’ admitted Mathias. ‘But I could be right. Suppose our friends out there,’ his head jerked to the ceiling, ‘wanted to know all about us? What better way than by making contact with a member of our race and absorbing all the information in his brain?’

Koenig said, ‘Assuming they could do it, none. But why involve the computer?’

‘For extra information. The memory banks are full of data. Once activated Clifford could relay it all to whoever had contacted him. He wouldn’t need to understand it. All he had to do was to watch.’

‘A relay station, you mean?’ Koenig pursed his lips as Mathias nodded. As the man had said, the theory made sense, but the power behind what had been done was frightening.

‘Did Kano find out what information Clifford gained from the computer?’ Helena nodded. ‘The data on our life-support apparatus. It fits, John. And there’s something else. Tell him, Bob.’

Mathias cleared his throat.

‘This you’ll have to take on trust, Commander. I can’t show you any proof though Helena saw it too. A nodule of violet light which we found deep in Clifford’s cerebellum. A nimbus which was fading as we found it.’

‘The control?’

‘Perhaps, it could have been, certainly something took over Clifford and made him do what he did.’

And what could take over one man could take over another.

Bergman frowned as he considered the problem.

‘Without knowing the exact nature of the forces used, John, it’s impossible to build any sort of an efficient defence. I’ll do what I can, though. A current fed through the metal of the structure will create an electronic stress field, not strong, but it may do some good. It could even be that the danger is no longer imminent. I’ve picked up readings from the external sensors, we seem to be enclosed in a field of some kind. And by we I mean the entire moon. It’s barely possible that the aliens can’t take over any organism enfolded in it. Clifford was affected before we even made visual contact, remember.’

A possibility, but one Koenig wasn’t going to rely on. As yet the aliens had done nothing since giving their warning—one he did not intend to obey.

‘I’m fitting an Eagle with sensors, Victor. I want to investigate that sphere. The more we know about the aliens the better and I think it time we paid them a visit.’

Carter was in command, Donovan his co-pilot, a big, smiling man with an easy grace of movement and who relished the opportunity to make the investigation. His voice came clearly over the speakers, a mutted accompaniment to Carter’s own.

‘All systems go, Alan.’

‘Eagle Three to Alpha. Can you still read me?’

‘Loud and clear,’ said Koenig. ‘How close are you?’

‘It’s hard to tell. We’re in the nimbus but I can’t get a reading on anything solid.’

Donovan, ‘Range closing. Some disruption in navigation. Ion build-up nearing the red.’

‘Watch it, Alan.’

‘I’m watching.’

As were Koenig, Morrow, everyone on duty in Main Mission. They were tense as they followed the progress of the Eagle in the screens. It was now a tiny fleck almost lost in the glare of orange. On a jury-rigged panel the needles of dials trembled and jerked as the sensors relayed their findings, pens quivering over a sheet of moving paper as sensitive differentials were amplified and converted to visual imagery.

‘Anything yet, Victor?’

‘A strong magnetic field and divergent electronic stresses,’ reported Bergman. ‘The signals are similar to those recorded during a solar flare. I’m concerned about the ion build-up, however. It could affect the pilot’s mental stability.’

‘Helena’s watching that.’ Koenig glanced to where she sat before screens monitoring the physical condition of the two men.

Carter said, abruptly, ‘Something odd. A glare of light, stronger than the rest. It’s hit us like the beam of a search-light.’

‘Increased ionic activity,’ said Bergman. ‘Static charge accumulating in the command module.’

‘Helena?’

‘Disorientation. A change in the encephalographic pattern.’ A moment then she added, ‘Abort the mission! Both men are unconscious!’

‘Paul!’

Morrow hadn’t needed the order. He threw the Eagle over to slave-control and turned it, his lips thinned, hands gentle on the controls. Frowning he made a series of checks than said, ‘Trouble. The navigational system’s shot and the ship isn’t responding as it should. I’ll do my best, but if I can bring it close that’s all I can manage.’

‘A crash?’

Koenig turned at Morrow’s nod. ‘Get suited Helena. Sandra, summon a crash crew. Do your best, Paul, I don’t want to lose either of those men.’

Suited, waiting on the pad, Koenig watched as the Eagle came from the sky. Morrow was good, the ship was levelling out, veering a little but compensating, the nose lifting as the velocity dropped.

Lifting a little too far and too soon.

Over the suit-radio Koenig heard Helena’s hiss of indrawn breath, and a man’s curse.

‘Damn it! If she drops now she’ll smash open.’

Morrow could have heard him. The Eagle spun, regained level flight, slewed as it fell, dust rising in a cloud as it hit the lunar soil.

As it touched Koenig was running.

Helena came close behind, leaping with trained skill over the rough terrain, catching him up as they left the environs of the base.

‘About half a mile, John. To the north-east.’

‘I saw it.’

‘A bad place. The hull could be ripped and the module smashed. If their suits have been ruptured—’

Koenig raced on, not answering, knowing that no answer was necessary. If the hull had split and the suits ruptured then both men would be dead. But if the leak was small and they could get there in time to stop the flow of escaping air there would be a chance.

Assuming the men were still alive. That the force which had affected the ship had not turned their unconsciousness into death.

‘Commander!’ The voice in his helmet was from one of the crash-crew, strained, incredulous. ‘Behind you! Look!’

Koenig halted and turned, seeing an incandescent ball of orange light which hovered high above the ground like a will-of-the-wisp. It fell a little as he watched, about ten feet across, pulsing, throbbing as if with an inner life.

Helena stood a little to one side of it. She had halted like the rest and, as it fell to hover inches above the ground, she began to walk towards it.

‘Helena! Stop!’ Koenig began to run towards her. ‘Helena!’

If she heard she paid no attention. As he came near she stepped into the nimbus of light, was limned against it, had entered it to be swallowed by the orange glow.

‘Helena!’

Koenig felt a sharp tingle, a pressure which forced him back and away and then, abruptly, the ball of orange light had vanished.

Gone as abruptly as it had come.

And, with it, had gone the woman.

CHAPTER TEN

Carter had been lucky, Donovan had not. Koenig stared down at him as he lay on the slab, a ruff of dried blood around his mouth, his eyes bulging, internal organs ruptured as his blood had boiled in the vacuum. A minute more perhaps, and he could have been saved. But the aliens had not given them that precious minute.

Carter sat upright as Koenig entered the care unit. He was pale, a mottled patch on one cheek, a bruise which reached almost to the temple. More bruises were hidden by his pyjama jacket.

‘Jim?’

‘Dead.’ Koenig sat on the edge of the bed. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Fine. I guess I’m lucky to be alive. What happened?’

‘You blanked out and Morrow brought you in on slave-control.’ Koenig added, grimly, ‘They got Helena.’

‘The aliens?’

‘They sent a ball of light which swallowed her up. The light vanished and she was gone. Alan, what was it like? What happened?’

‘It was like heading into an orange fog,’ said the pilot. ‘We couldn’t see a thing but the universal glare. Up, down, all were the same, we had to rely on the instruments. Then that searchbeam hit us—I told you about that?’

‘Yes.’

‘After that everything went haywire. My head felt as if it was going to burst. I couldn’t see clearly. The Eagle acted as if it had a life of its own. Sorry, but that’s how it was.’

‘And then?’

‘Curtains. I woke up in here with Mathias bending over me.’ Carter shifted in the bed, wincing. ‘What happened to Jim?’

‘Crushed. His suit ripped open by the metal which smashed his chest. He didn’t have a chance.’

A lie, the impact hadn’t killed him, the delay in reaching him had, but Koenig didn’t go into that. The man was dead, there was no need to elaborate.

‘He was a good man,’ said Carter, bleakly. ‘A friend. He was close to one of the girls, they’d talked about getting married, but that’s all over now.’ His hand tightened, closed into a fist. ‘If I get my hands on those!’

‘We’ll get them.’

‘How?’

‘I’m having an Eagle fitted with some new equipment,’ said Koenig. ‘Something which will give us a chance to penetrate their force field. Bergman’s working on it now.’

‘When it’s ready, Commander, I want to fly it.’

‘If you’re fit—maybe.’

‘I’m fit.’ Carter was grim. ‘And I’ve had experience. I know what to expect now. And, Commander!’

‘Yes?’

‘Fit it with something so we can hit back.’

Koenig rose from where he’d sat on the bed. ‘I’m ahead of you, Alan, that’s already been done.’

Anderson was taking care of the conversion. He stood in the hangar, Bergman at his side, a mess of plans on the desk before them. Koenig heard his voice as he approached. The chief engineer was enthusiastic.

‘We’re adapting a passenger module to take the field generator, but that’s no real problem. The thing as I see it is to make sure the field totally encloses the Eagle. We have to put it right smack in the centre of gravity. But how about control? Once the field is established the ship will be in a separate universe.’

‘We’ll fit an interrupter switch,’ said Bergman patiently. ‘Here, on plan 37. One on, ten off, and we’re talking about milliseconds. We can override and maintain the shield without direct vision. It’s crude, I’ll admit, but it should work.’

Koenig said, ‘And the missiles?’

Neither had noticed his approach. Anderson turned.

‘Commander! How’s Alan?’

‘Counting his blessings,’ said Koenig dryly. ‘He wants to fly the Eagle when it’s ready. When will that be?’

Anderson shrugged, ‘Hours, yet, maybe days. We have to make an almost total conversion. First the generator has to be finished and then fitted. I’m worried about the stress pattern, we don’t know just how great the strains will be. To play it safe we’ll have to reinforce all internal members and I’d like to strengthen the command module.’

‘The missiles?’

‘That’s the easy part. Three Mark IV signal probes fitted with nuclear warheads. I’ve fitted launching racks beneath the command module and you fire them from left to right.’ Anderson frowned. ‘You’ll have to be careful, though, there’ll be danger from the blast if you use them too close.’

‘Not if we establish the antigrav shield at the moment of firing,’ said Bergman. ‘It will give us complete protection.’

‘I guess we could incorporate a relay to take care of that.’ The chief engineer made a notation on his pad. ‘That seems to be about it, Professor.’

A dismissal, the man of action wanting to get on with the job, and Bergman knew better than to argue. Later he would inspect the installation and make what tests he could, for now there was nothing to do but wait

Bergman followed Koenig from the hangar, explaining as they went.

‘The shield is based on the fact that all phenomena are basically a variation of electromagnetic energy. We can heterodyne a sound or light by matching it with opposed wave-patterns which cancel out the original signal. We can establish a field which will cause hysterisis in any moving metallic object which cuts the lines of force. In that case the energy-release is stronger the faster the object travels. It will heat, fuse, vaporize and become relatively harmless. Gravity, as we now know, is akin to magnetism. What I have done is to create a field which sets up a total barrier to gravitation. Attraction is eliminated and, almost as a side effect, all radiation and material objects are halted. Once established the Eagle it contains will be safe from any interference.’

Koenig said, ‘The ion build-up?’

‘Taken care of. John, if we had had this shield in the beginning none of our pilots would have died.’

The pilots and ships which had been destroyed in the tremendous blast which had wrenched the moon from its orbit. But without the information gained then Bergman would never have perfected his shield. If he had perfected it—the acid test was yet to come. Koenig halted as they entered Main Mission. Morrow was on duty at the main console, Sandra to one side, others busy as they checked and monitored the running of the base.

Kano, at the computer, said, ‘Commander, I’ve made a thorough check and nothing seems to be wrong. Clifford only scanned the data from one memory bank.’

‘No erasure?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Can you make sure that none will take place?’

‘Erasure?’ Kano nodded. ‘I can eliminate the relay governing that part of the computer.’

‘Then do it.’

A precaution, as far as they knew no one could be taken over while the aliens maintained their screen, but Koenig wanted to take no chances. Which was why no security men stood on guard with stun-guns ready to shoot down anyone who acted as Clifford had done. There was no surety that they themselves wouldn’t be taken over, and an armed and berserk man would be able to wreck the entire control room.

‘Paul?’

‘No change, Commander.’ Morrow checked his monitors then stared at the screen filled now with the enigmatic orange sphere. ‘Distance maintained, intensity of light the same.’ He added, grimly, ‘I keep getting the impression the damned thing’s watching us. That it’s a tremendous eye just hanging in space studying us as if we were bugs.’

A good analogy. A true one as far as they knew. Something which had come from the darkest reaches of the void, to latch on to the moon, to probe, to investigate, to . . .

Koenig glanced down as he felt a touch on his arm. His hands were clenched, the knuckles white, the nails indenting his palms. The hand on his arm belonged to Bergman. He said, quietly, ‘You’re thinking of Helena, John.’

‘Yes.’

‘We can’t do anything about her now. She’s been taken, held as a hostage, perhaps.’

A hostage—or a specimen.

Koenig sucked in his breath, fighting a series of mental pictures. Helena, stripped, spread on a table, knives falling to touch her flesh, to cut into her body, to expose her inner organs to the scrutiny of alien eyes. Vivisected as men had examined rats. Tissue removed, tested, bones scraped, nerves tormented beyond endurance, her very brain, perhaps, removed to remain alive and aware in a crystal jar.

‘John!’

He gulped air again, conscious that he was trembling, fear and hatred gaining control. A mistake and a dangerous one to make. Helena was one person—he had more than three hundred lives to take care of. If one had to be sacrificed to the majority then he would make the decision.

Bergman said, ‘I’ve been thinking, John. If all else fails we could use missiles against the sphere. They will have to be adapted, of course, but I could design small field generators and a time-switch—’

‘No.’

‘It could be done, John.’

‘We’re already doing it. I don’t want to take men and material away from the Eagle. When we hit that thing I want to be sure there’s no mistake. We’ll only get the one chance.’

And he would take it, using the Eagle as a weapon, driving into the light, penetrating it, seeking out the core. Three atomic warheads should do it and, if he died delivering the blow, then it would be a fair exchange.

One man to safeguard Alpha. One man—Carter would be left behind.

‘Commander!’ Morrow’s voice was high, excited. ‘The sphere! Look!’

A ball of orange light had come from it, a flick which grew as it darted across space, to slow to hover as it reached the pad outside. The image on the screen changed as Morrow followed it, his hands tense as he pressed the buttons.

‘It’s like what happened before,’ he said. ‘When—’

He broke off as the orange glow vanished, snuffed out like the blown flame of a candle, a glow which disappeared to reveal a suited figure.

Helena!

She looked pale, tired, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Mathias finished his check and stepped back, frowning.

She said, ‘I feel fine, Bob, really I do.’

‘I know, but I'd like a couple of cranial scans. It’ll only take a moment.’

A moment which tested Koenig’s patience, already strained. But questions could wait, first he had to be sure the woman was unharmed.

The mental imagery, he thought, the pictures of vivisection. The relief he had felt when she had reappeared had been like a physical blow.

As Mathias finished he said, ‘What happened?’

‘I was following you to the crashed Eagle. I heard a shout and turned and saw the light. It seemed to draw me in some way and I—’

‘Went into it,’ he interrupted. ‘And then?’

‘I was somewhere,’ she said slowly, thinking. ‘A room, very large and totally dark. At least it was at first. Then there was light, a pale glow, and I could see ranks of instruments—or things which could have been instruments.’

Bergman said, ‘This light, Helena, did it have a source?’

‘No. It just seemed to be there. A glow as if everything were shining.’

‘And the instruments?’

‘They were like panels, screens ringed with lights, swirls of colour as if they were tanks containing water or heavy gases, and I had the impression of something watching. The odd thing is that I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t feel any sense of terror or trepidation. In fact I seemed to have no emotions at all. Not even when they spoke.’

‘They?’

‘It, one voice, but it seemed to hold echoes as if many voices were incorporated into one.’ She smiled at Koenig. ‘I’m sorry, John, but that’s the best way I can describe it.’

Alien impressions received by her normal senses, translated into terms she could accept and understand. The room, the instruments, the voice itself, all could have been different to what she reported.

‘The voice,’ he urged. ‘What did it say?’

‘Very little.’ She frowned, remembering, then said, ‘It told me not to be afraid and it knew my name. I asked it who it was and it said that it, we, were from Triton. I told it that we meant no harm and needed help. It said that, no, we were the ones who would give help. That I would help them. And that was all.’

‘All?’ Koenig frowned. ‘They reached out and took you just for that? Nothing else? No tests, no other interrogation?’

‘No, John. Nothing.’

Koenig glanced at Bergman, found his own puzzlement reflected in the other man’s eyes. She had been gone too long for such a simple interview. The questions and answers would have taken no longer than a few minutes at the most. And the conversation, if it could be called that, had been banal to the extreme. A cover for something else, perhaps?

‘When you stepped into the orange light,’ said Bergman, ‘did you have any impression of movement?’

‘None.’

‘And your return?’

‘I didn’t know. We talked and then, suddenly, I was standing on the pad.’ She added, slowly, ‘I don’t remember any orange light. I was in the room, just standing there, and then suddenly, I was back. John, the whole thing seems pointless. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Not as you tell it,’ he agreed. ‘But something else could have happened. Something you can’t remember or know nothing about. Triton,’ he mused. ‘What do we know about it, Victor?’

‘Very little. It used to be a moon of Neptune, but a little over a year ago it vanished.’ Bergman nodded at Koenig’s expression. ‘That’s right, John, it just vanished. It could have fallen too close to its primary and broken up or it could have been destroyed in some other way. We simply don’t know. It’s too far for a probe to investigate, Neptune lies 2,793 million miles from the sun. Not that it matters, these aliens might not have come from there at all.’

‘Assuming they did?’

‘In that case the sphere could be some kind of a roving scout. An interstellar probe, perhaps, manning a long-range investigation. It also answers some puzzling questions—the UFO incidents for one. Other scouts, smaller, could have investigated the inner planets of the solar system, our own among them. In which case the Tritonians would know something of our people, how to gain control—’ He broke off. ‘John, look at her! Helena.’

She had risen from the table and now stood, eyes blank, face expressionless. A living robot of flesh and blood which turned and walked to the door, the passage beyond, to pass into the bustle of Main Mission, to head directly towards the computer.

‘Doctor?’ Kano moved towards her, checking at Koenig’s sharp order.

‘Don’t touch her!’

Morrow rose from his chair. ‘Commander?’

‘Leave her, Paul! All of you, don’t touch her!’

Koenig watched as she halted before the instrument, entranced, dominated, and began to work with baffling speed, eyes fastened on the computer screen, unblinking, glazed. Working as Clifford had worked.

To die. perhaps, as he had died.

An unwilling tool of the Tritonians.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mathias came in at a run, a hypogun in his hand, the instrument loaded with a strong sedative. Koenig checked him as he stepped towards Helena.

‘How long could she continue working like that?’

‘Until she collapsed?’ Mathias shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Commander, but not for very long. She’s in a hyper-active condition, burning herself out. Any physical opposition could accelerate final collapse as it did with Clifford, though I suspect there was another reason for his death. This will slow her down.’ He lifted the hypogun. ‘A compound based on curare. It will paralyse all muscular activity and ensure total relaxation. She will have to be given artificial respiration for a while, but there shouldn’t be any complications.’

‘You have the respirator?’

‘Standing by.’ Mathias nodded towards a pair of attendants, a stretcher, the compact bulk of a machine. ‘When you’re ready, sir.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Koenig took the instrument from the doctor’s hand. ‘Get ready to move when she falls.’

He was being over-cautious and knew it, once the drug took effect they would have a few minutes of grace before oxygen-starvation induced cerebral damage, but his own concern dictated haste. A deep and personal concern—no harm must come to the woman if he could avoid it. No harm would come.

She didn’t turn as he approached and, in the screen, he could see the reflected image of her face. It rode on a blur of light, carried on the data which flashed in an accelerated stream, too fast for him to see let alone to follow. Facts, details, fragments of information culled over the years and incorporated into the memory banks. More information than could be contained in a dozen libraries among it everything appertaining to the base. Once the aliens had it, what then? A blast of energy which would leave nothing but fused metal and charred bodies? A missile which would destroy the moon?

Koenig took another step, lifted the hypogun and clamped his finger on the release. Air blasted from the muzzle carrying with it the drug, driving it through the material of her uniform, through the skin and fat beneath, sending it directly into the bloodstream.

A dose which would have felled a horse but which, for a moment, seemed to have no effect.

Then, abruptly, she slumped to be caught and cradled in his arms.

‘Mathias!’

He was already moving, easing the limp figure to the stretcher, adjusting the respirator, checking to see that all was well.

Waving on the attendants he said, ‘She’ll be all right for now, Commander.’

‘For now?’

‘There’s something else. I had to check before I was certain.’

Bergman said, ‘Those cranial scans you took?’

‘Yes.’ Mathias looked grim. ‘I think you’d better come and see what I found.’

It was a blur on the plates, a patch which clung to the lower part of the cerebellum. Mathias pointed to it, slipped another plate into position. The same skull taken from a different position.

‘I can’t be certain without cutting into her, but Helena has the same symptoms I spotted in Clifford. That patch is caused by some form of energy which is riding in her brain.’

Put there by the Tritonians. They had taken her, questioned her, then sent her back. But why the questions?

‘They could have wanted to be sure that she retained muscular control,’ said Bergman when he asked. ‘A test of a kind. Obviously Helena knows nothing of what really must have happened. Even the room she thought she was in, the instruments, even the light could have been an induced illusion. We still don’t know what lies in the centre of that orange light.’

‘We don’t know, but we can guess,’ said Koenig. ‘If it is a scout there would have to be sensors and recording machines. If manned there would have to be living quarters and supplies. That force field has to be generated and maintained which means there must be generators and some form of power supply. What we see is really a gigantic ship of some kind surrounded by a protective barrier. An enemy vessel which has chosen to attack.’

‘We can’t be certain of that, John.’

‘We have two dead men to prove it.’

‘Accidents, perhaps.’ Bergman was still dubious. ‘They could, in some way, have overloaded Clifford and Donovan was the victim of a crash. They might need our help as they said.’

‘If so they’ve chosen a peculiar way to ask for it.’ Koenig shook his head. ‘No, Victor, we have to treat them as enemies and dangerous ones. I haven’t forgotten their warning. And I don’t underestimate their strength. They manipulate forces as we would handle a pair of tongs. How else did they move Helena? They took her, moved her, sent her back. They needed no ship to do it. How long will it be before they take someone else?’

Mathias said, ‘They still have Helena.’

Something which Koenig had not forgotten. He remembered how she looked when carried away on the stretcher, how she still looked with the mask of the respirator clamped to her face, the mechanical pump maintaining her life.

When the effect of the drug had passed, what then? Would the thing who controlled her send her back to the computer to relay still more information? Working her like a helpless beast until she died?

Koenig dropped his hand to his belt, lifted the commlock. To the operator he said, ‘Get me Anderson.’

‘Commander?’ The Chief Engineer looked from the screen.

‘How long before that Eagle’s ready?’

‘Six hours at least.’

‘Make it five, less if you can. Cut the reinforcing if you have to, but get it ready. This is an emergency.’

‘The tests—’

‘Will be made in flight.’ Lowering the commlock Koenig said, ‘Doctor, can you keep Helena relaxed under curare for that long?’

‘As long as we maintain respiration, yes.’

‘Good. I don’t want that thing riding her to get back in control. I don’t want them to know what we intend.’

‘And that is?’ Bergman frowned as he read Koenig’s expression. ‘John! You can’t! The ship isn’t ready, the field generator needs to be tested. The missiles—anything could go wrong.’

‘We can’t wait, Victor. As soon as that Eagle is ready we attack!’

It was Mankind’s ancient solution to any threat—kill before being killed. A system which had led to mistakes but which had enabled them to survive. What had proved to be a workable philosophy on Earth could apply equally as well now they were among the stars. And the aliens had struck first, if Koenig needed justification that was enough.

‘Systems checked and all go, Commander.’ Carter had insisted on coming. He sat in the pilot’s chair hands dancing over the controls, eyes reading the meters. ‘Can’t tell about the generator, yet.’

‘We’ll test that once we lift.’ Koenig glanced at the screen, now filled with Bergman’s face. ‘Is everything ready, Victor?’

‘Five long-range missiles fitted with nuclear warheads aimed and ready to go. If you don’t come back, John—’

‘Then you take over full command. Use those missiles to blast the sphere. You might be lucky.’

And, if he wasn’t, he, Helena, all of them could die.

Bergman’s face vanished to be replaced by Morrow’s.

‘Monitoring, Commander. Lift-off on three . . . two . . . one . . . go!’

The Eagle rose, the pad falling beneath it as it gained altitude, the complex of the base taking on a toy-like appearance. In the ports the sphere steadied, grew larger as Carter fed power to the engines.

‘No sweat as yet,’ he commented. ‘We rode easy until we reckoned there must be strong eddy currents setting up drifting vortices. Jim touched the outer nimbus and then the trouble started.’ He paused, then said grimly, ‘Jim—I owe something for that.’

‘They needn’t be human, Alan.’

‘Men, machines or jelly in a jar—they’re going to pay. Not just for Jim, he took his chances, but what about Clifford?’

Clifford and Helena, now lying comatose, aware but unable to use a muscle, needing forced respiration in order to stay alive.

From the screen Morrow said, ‘External forces building. Ion level increasing. Watch your monitors.’

An unnecessary reminder. Koenig had kept his eye on the dials. Now he dropped his hand to an added control.

‘Time to test Victor’s brainchild, Alan. You ready?’

‘Anytime you are, Commander.’

‘Paul, I’m going to start the generator. If it works we’ll be out of communication.’

‘And if it doesn’t?’

‘We’ll worry about that when it happens. Check your instruments. Now!’

The control moved beneath Koenig’s hand. From the passenger module at his rear came a thin whine which rose higher, higher, jarring the bones of his skull before it lifted into ultra-sonic vibration beyond the limits of audibility.

Carter released his breath in a gusting sigh. ‘It works. Commander, it works!’

Around the Eagle shimmered a veil of light, a coruscation of broken rainbows, scintillating, shifting, a screen of lambent brilliance as if ten billion fish scales had joined in a composite whole. A veil which cut them off from the normal universe, which protected them against anything the aliens might send their way. In theory—but one yet to be fully tested.

Carter grunted as he watched his meters. ‘Nothing registers, sir. We’re flying blind.’

‘I can fix that.’ Koenig adjusted the control. Before him the ports flared to life, filled with orange, radiation which had seeped through the screen, persistency of vision giving it the appearance of a stable image. It was an optical illusion, the antigrav shield was flickering, on nine tenths of the time, the minute fraction of time it was off allowing the sensors to relay their information. A danger, electro-magnetic energy travelled at the speed of light, but one which had to be accepted if they were to maintain their course.

And, already, they were veering far to one side.

Carter quickly made the correction. ‘This is what happened before, Commander. We compensated them and just kept going. That’s when they projected that beam of light.’

‘Aim dead centre and lock controls.’ The shield would nullify further external forces, the automatic pilot take them where they wanted to go. Koenig locked the shield solid as he saw a sudden gust of brilliance. ‘Here it comes.’

He was a fraction late, no muscle could work as fast as light, no brain think at the speed of moving electrons. He felt a sudden dizziness, a momentary vertigo, then it was over, the vibration of the hull increasing so that it quivered beneath his hand, sympathetic resonances building so that the very metal sang in muted harmony.

‘Commander, if this thing has a solid core we must be close.’

Koenig’s hand tensed on the shield control. Remove it too soon and they would be exposed to danger, too late—he didn’t know what would happen then. Nothing, perhaps, the shield would protect them from impact, but this was no time to find out.

He moved the control, blinked at what he saw, thrust it hard into its slot. The shield died, dimming out as the whine resounded, falling into a drone, to fade into a quivering whisper. Below them a smooth ball of rock, above them an orange sky.

It rippled like water as seen below the surface, a shimmering expanse of clouded light, eye-bright, glowing. The ball was vast, yet small in comparison to the external size of the sphere. This was the solid core Koenig had guessed must exist.

As he watched a portion opened like an iris, revealing a dark tunnel. Streamers of light sprang from the opening, gripped the Eagle and drew it downwards. Light which had lifted like a reaching hand to imprison a fly, to carry the ship down into a region of utter darkness, to set it down and to withdraw. Light when diffused into a pale glow revealing a colossal chamber lined with instruments. And a panel which held a brain.

It had to be a brain, but one which had never originated in any human skull. The size for one thing, it was all of fifty feet across, the eye for another, a single orb which stared with unblinking steadiness. A living thing encased in crystal and metal—an entity which spoke.

‘Commander John Koenig. Captain Alan Carter. You may leave your vessel.’

Words which thrummed from the metal of the hull, the diaphragms of the speakers, the tympani of their ears. Words carried on a shaft of light which had sprung from below the encased brain and which now illuminated the nose of the Eagle.

Words and names learned from Clifford and, perhaps, Helena.

Again came the invitation.

‘You may leave your vessel. You have nothing to fear.’

‘Come into my parlour,’ said Carter dryly. ‘Well, sir, do we go?’

‘I go, you stay. If anything goes wrong blast that thing with the missiles. Use the shield-switch, you know what to do.’ Koenig unstrapped himself from the chair. Like Carter he was suited and slammed down his helmet as he stepped towards the air-lock. ‘And, if you have to fire don’t hang around. Make full speed back to base. That’s an order.’

And, perhaps, the last one he would give, thought Koenig as he stepped from the port.

The Eagle rested on something smooth and flat, metal or polished stone, it could have been either. Looking up and around he could see no sign of the tunnel down which they had been drawn. If it had been a tunnel. If the science of these aliens hadn’t enabled them to pass matter through matter, the impression of a tunnel only an illusion.

As the brain itself could have been the depiction of something totally strange, made familiar only because of his need to fit alien symbols into a familiar pattern.

A beam of light touched his helmet and, with it, came the familiar voice.

‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

‘Release. You have killed two of our number and are controlling a third. This I take to be a hostile act.’

‘A necessary one.’

‘Necessary for whom? You? Are we so dangerous that you had to take the actions you have?’

‘Dangerous? No.’

‘Then what is your reason?’

‘Investigations must be made. The death of any entity is to be deplored, but information must be collected and collated. It is the purpose of my being.’

‘Are you a living thing or a machine?’

‘The terms are synonymous.’

‘Not to us.’ Koenig turned, stepped to one side, a step which took him closer to the Eagle. The shaft of light followed, a communication channel, obviously, and Carter would be hearing what was said over the suit radio. ‘Where are you from?’

‘A great distance.’

Koenig rephrased the question. ‘From where did you originate? Triton?’

‘You have been told that.’

‘A satelite of Neptune? The eighth planet of the sun?’

‘That is so.’

‘And how long is it since you left?’

‘More than a revolution of our primary about the sun. I have travelled far, seeking, learning, discovered potential enemies. You are such an enemy. You, your race, has advanced too quickly. This I have learned as I will learn more. When all has been assimilated then you will be destroyed. So it has been ordered.’

‘By whom? Your creators?’

‘Those who instructed me.’

A machine then, a thing built for a purpose, a probe-scout as he had surmised. A thing built of a combination of living tissue and electronic components sent on a roving commission. And one out of touch with recent events.

Not surprising, Neptune took almost 168 years to orbit the sun. The probe had left about two centuries ago and was now on its way back to report. It would have no idea as yet that its world had vanished.

A chance and one which Koenig took.

He said, ‘Your orders have been nullified. Those whom you serve no longer exist.’

‘You lie.’

‘Check and find out. You can check?’

‘I . . . you lie!’

‘Our computer holds reliable information. Everything we know and have learned resides in the memory banks. There you will find I speak the truth. Allow us to communicate to our fellows and I will prove it. You agree?’

‘My control—’

‘Helena? She no longer operates. I know. It will be restored for as long as necessary.’ Koenig’s voice grew harsh. ‘You will accept the truth and release her. If not I will destroy you.’

‘You cannot. You lack the power.’

‘Shall we put it to the test?’

‘You lack the power. Your vessel is unarmed. No Eagle of your command carries offensive weaponry. This I know.’

From Clifford and Helena, but the missiles had been fitted after the death of one and before the return of the other. Neither had known and, not knowing, could not tell.

Turning Koenig dived into the port.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It slammed behind him as the chamber filled with light, thick ropes of luminescence coiling, lashing like the thongs of whips, wreathing the Eagle in a tightening embrace.

Metal creaked as Koenig flung himself towards the control chair, and the shield-lever falling beneath his hand, the thin whine mounting, rising, jarring ears and teeth, rising to ultra-sonic silence.

The creaking stopped, the ropes of light sliced off as if with a knife. In the sudden silence Carter’s voice sounded unnaturally loud.

‘What the hell’s happening, Commander?’

‘The thing made a mistake and it’s just realized it. It didn’t know we were armed. Now it’s trying to destroy us before we hit it where it hurts.’

‘The missiles? We can’t fire them with the shield up.’

An impasse, but one which wouldn’t last long. If the shield held they were safe and the thing must know it. Once it admitted failure then communication could be restored.

Koenig waited, then gently moved the shield control. Light flashed on the ports, a solid beam of radiance, yellow turning to orange as he watched.

In the glow writhed the naked brain, the single glowing eye.

Koenig said, ‘You cannot harm us. We penetrated your force screen. We can destroy you if we wish. Are you willing to come to an agreement?’

‘Your base is in my power.’

‘True, but what good would it do you to destroy it? Your mission is to learn. I am willing to teach. Will you accept the truth? If your planet no longer exists then you have no reason to threaten us. Agreed?’

‘That is so.’

‘Then open a channel.’ Koenig dropped the shield. ‘Our missiles are on automatic release. Attempt to damage us and they will fire. Mutual destruction will gain neither of us an advantage.’

Logic which a man might not accept but a machine would. Carter sighed his relief as Morrow’s face appeared on the screen.

‘Contact, Commander. You think you can trust that thing?’

‘It’s worth a try.’ Koenig turned to the Main Mission Controller. ‘Paul, get Mathias. Hurry!’ To the doctor he said. ‘Revive Helena. She’ll head for the computer but don’t try to stop her. Have Kano set it to give full astronomical information. Just that and nothing else. He can fit a stop-relay.’

‘And Helena?’

‘If I’m right she’ll snap out of it as soon as the computer stops. If not treat her as before. If possible let me know and from then on take orders from Victor. I might not be coming back.’

‘Neither of us will be going back,’ said Carter as Koenig leaned back in the chair. ‘Unless that thing works the tunnel gimmick we’ll never get out of here. We’ll all end in a cloud of radioactive glory.’

A chance they had accepted from the first.

Helena appeared on the screen, looking dazed, pale, her eyes glazed as she moved towards the computer. Flashing light illuminated her face, the highspeed stream of relevant information. As she fell the screen went dark.

‘Man—you did not lie.’

The deep, vibrating tones held a peculiar note. Sorrow? If a machine could feel emotion then it could have been that. Sorrow or regret or perhaps the realization that it no longer had a reason for existing.

A construction, sent to perform a task, returning to find its creators vanished. The world it had known and called its own gone as if it had never been.

Koenig said, ‘Do you acknowledge that Triton no longer exists?’

‘On the basis of available evidence—I acknowledge.’

‘Then your function is negated. Neutralize your force screen.’

‘I . . . do . . . not . . . know’

‘Think!’

‘I . . . data . . . inconsistent . . .’ A pause and then the alien voice resumed with added firmness. ‘Investigation proves the correctness of your information. Plus C emergency signal sent and no response received.’

‘So?’

‘You have logic on your side. It is inconceivable that you could present a threat to beings who no longer exist. Therefore I will do as you say.’

Koenig fought the desire to sag with relief.

‘You will neutralize your screen, allow us to leave and release the base?’

‘That is so. I have considered the possiblity of a mistake, but in any case no harm will have been done. You will not survive for long.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘The path you are following will lead you to certain destruction.’

‘Explain!’

The naked brain pulsed, the single eye stared, unblinking, emotionless.

‘A dark area. You cannot avoid it. A black sun which will destroy you. Now—’

‘When?’ Koenig leaned forward, glaring at the single eye. ‘When will we reach it?’

‘—you must go.’

A blaze of light replaced the naked brain, orange coruscations which swirled, writhing, scintillating, ropes and streamers of strange forces projected from a dozen hidden sources.

The Eagle lifted, moved, was suddenly in space gliding over smooth rock beneath a flaming sky. A sky which abruptly vanished.

‘Full power, Alan!’

The ports filled with an image as Carter fed power to the engines. The rugged, pock-marked face of the moon, the rays of Tycho, the glowing beacon of Alpha.

‘It kept its word,’ said Carter. ‘It let us go—but where is it?’

The enigmatic sphere had gone, vanishing from sight as quickly as it had appeared, a tiny mote which was lost among the stars.

Bergman met them as they left the Eagle. He smiled as he gripped Koenig’s hand. ‘Good to see you back, John. And you too, Alan.’

‘Thanks to your screen. I’d better go and report to Anderson, if I don’t he’ll be coming after me with a wrench.’

As the pilot left Koenig said, ‘Helena?’

‘She’s fine. No sign of anything wrong. Mathias is rechecking her now.’

She smiled as Koenig entered the diagnostic unit, extending her hands, their touch soft and warm. ‘John. It’s over now?’

‘Over.’ He glanced at Mathias. The doctor pointed to a cranial scan he had set on the illuminated panel.

‘Look for yourself, Commander. Not a trace of that energy-nodule she carried. She’s fine, not a thing to worry about.’ He sobered as he saw Koenig’s expression. ‘No?’

‘I’m not sure. That thing told me something before it went. A threat or a warning, I’m not sure which. But it said that we were all heading for certain destruction.’

‘A bluff?’

‘It was a machine, Victor. Machines don’t bluff and they don’t lie. I think it was trying to justify its action in letting us go. The logic of a machine—save itself at no real cost. Obey its orders in a fashion and yet make the best of a situation. It must have had a survival drive built into it otherwise my threats wouldn’t have worked.’

‘Just what did it say, John?’

Koenig frowned, thinking, remembering. He said, slowly, ‘We are taking a path which will lead us to certain destruction. A dark area which we cannot avoid. A black sun—’

‘A black sun.’ Bergman looked thoughtful. ‘But one so close to the solar system? Did it say just when we would meet it?’

‘No.’

‘Which means that it could be months from now, or years.’

‘Or days.’

‘No, John, not days. A black sun would have a tremendous mass. It would affect the orbits of the system if it were too close and we would have spotted it years ago. We should have seen it occlude the stars if nothing else. The galactic drift—’ He broke off, musing. ‘A black sun,’ he murmured. ‘Most stars have planets so where would they have gone? There is an inconsistency here. John, are you certain the thing said a black sun?’

‘That’s what it told me.’

‘Does it make any difference?’ Helena looked from one to the other. ‘If it’s there and we’re heading towards it the end will be the same no matter what it is. Complete and utter destruction. The gravity will be enormous, we’ll be crushed to slime, the base, the entire moon, all will shatter into dust.’

Mathias said, ‘If it’s there. We can’t be sure about that and, as Victor said, it could be years away, decades. Time for us to find an escape, perhaps.’ The doctor was optimistic, a false emotion, perhaps, but one he was determined to maintain. ‘We’ve found one new world and there could be others. Why talk about dying before we actually see the grave?’

A good point and one Koenig encouraged. Morale had to be kept high.

‘You’re right, Bob. I’m jumping at shadows. That thing operated on a cycle different from ours. A year much longer, for example. Soon, to it, could be centuries to us. And it didn’t say soon. It just said that it would happen. Victor, let’s go and check that shield.’

Anderson was incredulous.

‘It worked,’ he said. ‘It operated just as you predicted. I’ve checked as far as I can and there’s no sign of crystalization or stress fractures in any part of the structure. A little impact-damage on the hull, but Alan tells me that wasn’t due to the shield.’

‘No,’ said Koenig, dryly. ‘It wasn’t.’

‘Light which acted like a grab,’ said the engineer. ‘Radiation which acted as if it were solid.’ He shook his head, baffled. ‘How the hell did they manage it? I’d give ten years of my life to have had the chance to inspect their generators.’

Generators which, perhaps, had broken loose on the home world, energies released in a ravening fury, spacial strains which had snapped like a rubber band to hurl Triton into some unknown region.

They would never know.

Koenig said, ‘Victor, could your shield be extended to cover a larger area?’

‘I guess so. The trouble is that we’re up against spherical projection. Double the distance and you need far more than twice the power. It’s a matter of surface area.’

‘I know, but could you do it?’

‘Given time, yes. It’s a matter of design—why, John? Are you thinking of building a larger Eagle?’

‘No.’

Bergman, apparently, had not heard.

‘It’s a possibility,’ he mused. ‘We’d need to strip the base of all metallic elements and set up foundries, and then we’d have to arrange facilities for storage and recycling. Power too, that would have to be based on both drive-needs and life-supports systems.’ His hands twitched as if he felt an imaginary slide-rule. ‘I’d have to do a lot of figuring as to logistics and design. Three hundred people take a lot of room.’

‘Too much,’ said Koenig impatiently. ‘I’m not talking about building a ship to evacuate the base. We can’t do it as yet and we may never be able to do it. No, I’m talking about shielding Alpha. Could it be done?’

Anderson said, ‘Shield the base? That’s crazy!’

‘That’s no answer. Could it be done?’

‘I guess so if the professor could work out the design. My boys can build anything given time. Time and materials. We can’t produce alloys from thin air, Commander.’

‘We can cannibalize.’

‘Sure we can.’ Anderson looked hurt. ‘But to build what? We need a plan before we can start.’

‘You’ll get your plan,’ said Koenig. ‘Just start gathering material. Check on every item and set aside all duplicates and spares. Find out what can be taken without loss of safety. Make a list.’

In his laboratory Bergman said, ‘John, what’s on your mind?’

‘A shield for the base.’

‘So you said, but why?’

‘Call it an umbrella,’ said Koenig dryly. ‘To keep out the rain. The important thing is can it be done?’

‘I don’t know.’ Bergman ruffled his hair, looking a little like a bedraggled lion. ‘It’s the math,’ he complained. ‘This thing is new, John, barely tested. I’ll have to work out effective ranges, overlaps, power-needs, compensators, insulation—a total new scientific approach. The computer will help naturally, but it can only do the donkey work.’

‘And you will provide the intuitive genius.’ Koenig crossed the room to stand looking at the framed award of the Nobel Prize. He said flatly, ‘Victor, what do you know about a black hole?’

‘You mean a black sun.’

‘Call it that if you like, but we both know it’s a misnomer. A star, a sun, can be relatively dark. It’s even been theorized that it can be dead, a burned out cinder, but if one exists we’ve never found it and probably never will. Suns don’t act that way. The atomic reactions which cause them to radiate light and heat are understood; the Phoenix reaction which creates helium and uses the excess energy so obtained to maintain the high temperatures associated with any star. So—tell me about a black hole.’

Bergman said, as if addressing a class of students, ‘A star, basically, is a fusion engine in which hydrogen is converted into helium aided by the catalytic action of carbon and nitrogen. The internal temperatures are immense and the distance of the outer layer from the core is maintained by the sheer volume of radiation produced by the thermonuclear reaction. Now, when a smallish star uses up its nuclear fuel not enough radiation is produced to maintain that distance. The star then collapses into a smaller bulk and becomes what we know as a white dwarf. A star much smaller than the original and hot because of condensed energy. A larger star, one about half as large again as our own sun, will collapse into itself until it winds up as a mass of neutronium. Neutronium is the most dense matter which can exist in our universe. It is composed of neutrons packed as tight as they can get and the bulk of such a star will end as a ball of neutronium about six miles across.’

‘And a larger star?’

‘When such a star collapses something odd happens and we aren’t sure exactly what. The gravity of the compacted mass increases until it becomes so great that it passes the Swartzchild radius. The Swartzchild radius is the point at which the gravity is so high that nothing can escape from it. Nothing at all. Solid matter, electromagnetic energy, light itself, all are held fast. The star is gone then but the mass remains as a kind of field. A warp in the normal space-time continuum. The latest theories suggest that it can form a door into somewhere.’

‘Somewhere?’

‘John, I don’t know into what or where,’ said Bergman, flatly. ‘No one does. No one will do until they go through and return to tell what they found. Maybe it’s impossible to pass through, as I say we simply don’t know.’

There was too much they didn’t know. Koenig turned from the framed award. ‘That machine talked about a black sun. If it was right, literally right, then we haven’t a hope in hell if we get dragged into its gravity field. We’ll end just as Helena said, crushed, pulped, everything smashed to dust. Even if the anti-grav shield protects the base the rest of the moon will be affected and we’ll be buried. But it it isn’t a black sun. If it is a black hole?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bergman slowly. ‘But if the shield can maintain our environment—John, I simply don’t know!’

Koenig paced, thinking hard. ‘Just think of it—a hole, warp in our own universe, a doorway leading into a different region. A pit of darkness into which everything attracted by the tremendous gravitation must fall. If the original mass has been transformed into an etheric field then normal laws needn’t apply. With the shield we might stand the smallest of chances. It’s a gamble, but one we might win. Victor, how long will it take to formulate the plans?’

‘Days, weeks, I don’t know.’ Bergman looked harassed. ‘Damn you, John, why dump this into my lap?’

‘Who else?’

‘But the time—’

‘We must assume the worse. It could be years or decades, but I don’t think so. The Tritonian machine was confident that we wouldn’t survive and too much could happen in that time.’ Koenig pushed a mass of papers at the other man, graphs, equations rough designs. ‘Think in terms of days, Victor. Hours, even. Use every resource of the base—but get that shield built. Get it working before we hit whatever is waiting for us—it’s the only chance we have.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sandra Benes saw it first. She was on duty, scanning space in all directions, but paying particular attention to what lay ahead. An instruction she had followed for days, now a routine which had become a habit.

‘Paul! There’s something odd.’

‘What is it?’ He operated his controls and looked at the big screen. The familiar glitter of stars filled it with distant beauty. ‘Where?’

‘I’m getting a high-mass reading from a point two degrees left, one degree up. Nothing solid visible.’

Morrow adjusted his screen, heightening the amplification. Sight-lines moved to centre on the designated position, steadied as he locked the scanner.

‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment. ‘Just a patch of darkness which—’ He broke off, hitting a button. ‘Commander! I think we’ve found it!’

Koenig came on the run to stand behind Morrow as he looked at the screen.

‘Where?’

‘There. At the centre of the sight-lines. See? Just a patch of darkness but watch the stars at the edges.’

They were moving in as if to be swallowed, but, no that was an illusion. They were occluded by something which was growing steadily larger with the passing of each second. Larger because of nearing proximity. A strange darkness which showed as a clearly defined disc edged with distant stars.

‘Distance?’

‘As far as I can tell, sir, about five days at our present rate of progress.’

A guess, and their progress would not remain constant. The nearer they got the faster they would travel, drawn by the incredible gravity of the black sun. Or the black hole. As yet it was impossible to be certain exactly which it was. It could even be a wandering planet of the size of Jupiter, a frozen ball of lifeless matter.

‘Sandra, maintain a check on selected stars. Read angles every hour.’

The differences would be minute, parallax measurement required a long baseline, but the computer could determine the differentials and provide some kind of an answer. At least they would know if their velocity had increased and from that determine the approximate mass.

Koenig lifted his commlock.

‘Carter? Get an Eagle on the pad. Who is the duty pilot? Ryan? Tell him to take things easy. Orders will be relayed.’ To Morrow he said, ‘Take him far to one side of the point, Paul. I want an angle for crossreference. Full sensor-scan, he’s not to take any chances.’

The Eagle lifted, vanished into the sky, the pilot reporting, his face cheerful on the monitor-screen.

‘Condition green, all systems go. Am moving at a thirty degree angle from base to point.’

‘Velocity?’

‘Maximum—I’m in a hurry to get this over with.’ Ryan smiled, winking from the screen. A favourite among the girls he had an easy, smiling manner and a gift of humour which made him welcome company.

Morrow said, ‘Keep your mind on the job, Mike.’

‘It’s a milk-run—still, it breaks the monotony.’

One boredom replaced by another. The confines of the command module for that of the base, but any action to a man of his temperament was better than none. As the hours passed he settled deeper into his chair, thinking, remembering.

A girl with hair like spun silk, another with a mane of fire, a third with a figure like a dream.

Girls, wonderful all of them.

He snapped alert to the chime of a bell.

He had travelled faster than he’d thought, moved too far from his flight path. The mysterious darkness lay to his right, no, to his front, and he frowned.

‘Alpha, Ryan reporting. No sensor readings.’

Back at the base Morrow said, sharply: ‘None at all?’

‘Nothing.’ Ryan was positive. ‘The board’s dead. All I’m reading is vacuum.’

‘Position?’

‘Heading direct.’

‘What? Your orders—’

‘Were followed. I must have veered. Am correcting now.’ A moment and then Ryan said, a little unsteadily, ‘No response. Systems read go, but the controls do not respond.’

Morrow stared at the screen, checked the monitors and frowned. Ryan was wrong, the controls were working, but the ship was maintaining its position and rapidly gaining velocity.

Standing behind him, watching, as he had watched all through the flight, Koenig said, ‘Take over, Paul. Use slave-control.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘Try to pull to one side. Give it all it’s got.’ Stepping to the monitor-screen he said, to the pilot, ‘Ryan, Koenig here. Keep your hands away from the controls. Do you understand? Don’t touch a thing.’

‘Understood, Commander.’ Ryan looked annoyed. ‘Do you think I’m suffering from hallucinations then? I can handle this crate with my eyes shut.’

‘Just do as I say.’ Koenig glanced at Morrow, saw the negative shake of the head. ‘You’re trapped in a gravity well, Ryan. The only chance now is to run into it, build velocity and hope to break loose.’

‘Head into that?’

‘We’ll get you out if we can.’

‘You got me into it.’

‘No!’ Koenig was sharp. ‘You were in control. You should have been more careful. Now just sit there and stay calm.’

Easy advice to give, hard to take, and he shouldn’t have reminded the man that it was his own fault. It was, but this was not the time to berate him.

‘Velocity mounting, Commander.’ Morrow was tense at the controls. ‘Am trying to bring him up.’ He sucked in his breath as the screen flickered, the dark area growing, an ebon pit swelling to blank out the circle of stars. ‘Commander! I can’t manage to—’

The screen went blank.

‘Ryan! Answer me!’

The speakers remained silent.

‘This is crazy.’ Morrow spun in his chair. ‘I had full contact and everything was green. Then all at once, nothing. Commander, what the hell is that thing?’

‘A black hole.’

‘What?’

Koenig shook his head, turning from the screen, his face bleak as he left the control area. The ship hadn’t died and Ryan could still, even now, be living, but they would never know it. Nothing could reach them from where he was. Light, radio, electronic impulses, all were held imprisoned in the gravity well into which the ship had driven. The pit from which it could never escape.

‘So it’s a black hole,’ said Bergman. ‘No doubt about it, John?’

‘None. How is the shield progressing?’

‘Better than could be expected. Anderson is working wonders. See?’ Bergman gestured to the model resting on the bench in his laboratory. ‘We’ve set a ring of seven towers around the base and they should provide a complete screen.’

‘Seven,’ said Helena. She had joined them. ‘A lucky number.’

‘There’s nothing esoteric about it,’ he said a little shortly. ‘Seven is the minimum we can get away with according to the computer. And that’s about all we have components for. We could have squeezed eight but,’ he glanced at Koenig, ‘some of the units were spoken for. Anyway, seven should be enough. The power-drain is the thing which worries me. It’ll take every erg we can produce.’

‘How long before testing?’

‘A few hours.’ Bergman picked up a schematic, compared it to a circuit diagram. ‘Before that, though, I have to re-route some of the circuits. Why don’t you children go and entertain yourselves while I get on with the job.’

‘Entertain?’

‘Sleep then. You look all in, John. Helena, tell him that flesh and blood isn’t made of iron. A man needs to rest and dream if he’s to stay in good condition.’ Pausing he added, meaningfully, ‘Women too. You can’t do it all alone, you know.’

A fact Koenig knew too well. He slumped at the desk as Bergman left, palming his eyes, conscious of his fatigue. He had hardly slept at all since Ryan had gone. Hadn’t rested aside from the times when he’d snatched a little food. For hours, days, he had worked to get the shield built, seeing to it that rumours did not get out of hand, explaining, at all times to keep morale high and the base on an operational level.

There had been failures; one woman had gone mad, another had slashed her wrists and died before aid could save her. A man had gone berserk, beating his hands and head against a wall, calming to look with child-like eyes as Mathias had tended him. The man, with luck, would recover. The woman would not.

Helena said, ‘John, have you ever seen this?’

She was holding the old plan of a house which Bergman had designed. Koenig dropped his hands and looked at it.

‘No. Victor’s?’

‘Yes, he told me about it. Did you know that he once intended to get married?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you? Did anyone ever mean that much to you?’

‘Once.’ He shook his head as if to clear it from an unpleasant memory. ‘A girl, young, beautiful, rich—the old story. I’d rather not talk about it.’

She recognized the barrier and accepted it, knowing that his scars, though unseen, ran deep. Knowing too the probable cause. A woman herself she had no illusions as to the potential cruelty of her sex.

Changing the subject she said, ‘How are you going to test the shield?’

‘The hard way.’ Koenig met her eyes, smiling. ‘It’ll be a public demonstration. As soon as Victor is ready we’ll begin. You can watch from Main Mission.’

She hadn’t guessed what they intended.

Carter had taken up an Eagle, one fitted with the atomic missiles. It rose high as Koenig and Bergman, suited, left the base to stand beside one of the towers.

Bergman gave the order.

‘Establish the shield, Anderson, and watch those meters!’

‘Will do, Professor. You heard, Carter? Come in when ready. Shield operational as from—now!’

It rose to cover the suited figures, the base, a coruscating shimmer of broken rainbows. Koenig looked at it, imagining the Eagle arrowing down, fire spitting from one of the tubes, nuclear flame blossoming from the impact-point of the missile.

He saw nothing but a dull glow which spread over a point on the shimmering screen, which clung to it for a moment, to fade and die leaving it unbroken.

‘It worked!’ Bergman’s voice echoed his pleasure. ‘It worked, John! It worked!’

Helena’s voice came over the radios, sharp with brittle anger.

‘You pair of fools! What if the shield had failed?’

‘Then we’d have had a small problem.’ Koenig was deliberately casual. ‘And we’d have had to try something else.’

The casualness was deliberate, she had missed the point of the demonstration, the importance of convincing everyone of his utter trust in the shield.

As it died he looked up into the sky. The glowing brilliance of the stars was blotched now by the disc of darkness at which they were headed. A gaping maw which would swallow the entire moon, the base, every soul it contained.

Koenig shivered and hurried after Bergman into the familiar surroundings of Alpha.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Helena was stubborn. She said, ‘No, Commander. I refuse and that is final!’

The formality betrayed her. Koenig said harshly, ‘I’m not arguing. I’ve given you an order and it will be obeyed. The same goes for the rest of you. Carter, Osgood, Fujita—you are the three men chosen by the computer to have the best chance of survival. You, Helena, Sandra Benes and you, Aretha Robinson, complete the team. The Eagle has been prepared and loaded. You will leave immediately.’

‘I insist—’

‘You will do as I order, Doctor Russell, or I will have you tied and dumped aboard.’ Koenig’s anger was genuine. ‘Six people have a chance of escaping and you are the ones. I want no further objections. Time is too limited for argument. I want no self-sacrifices, no mistaken heroism, nothing but your obedience. Is that clearly understood?’

He stared from one to the other as they sat at the desk in his office.

‘Good. Carter your best course will be to leave at right angles to the moon, take up an expanding orbit and hope to pull free.’

‘I—yes, Commander.’

‘I wish that I could have given you a better chance, but first we had to make sure the base-shield could be established and maintained without the components Eagle carries. Professor Bergman has strengthened the anti-grav shield and given you all the power the ship will contain. You have food and water. I suggest you ration both. I also suggest you establish the shield the moment you leave. This will mean we will not be able to make contact. So I wish you all the best of luck—now get on your way!’

It had been sudden, deliberately so. The anticipated arguments had been quashed by the sudden hope of reprieve, his own displayed hostility—a change which had startled at least two members of the team and had hurt one.

As the Eagle left he remembered Helena’s expression, the mask which had dropped to display an apparent composure.

Well, if she lived, she would get over it.

‘Commander?’ Morrow’s voice was flat. ‘Will they make it?’

Sandra and he had been close, it would have been nice had the computer kept them together.

‘They have a chance.’

‘A good one?’

‘No.’ Koenig was honest. ‘They might not be able to escape being drawn into the hole—but we have no hope at all. Would you have wanted to see her die?’

‘No.’ Morrow squared his shoulders. ‘No, of course not I—I guess I understand, Commander. We all have feelings.’

An extension of something, sympathy, perhaps, a common loss shared and so a mutual comradeship established? Two women gone, two men left, if Morrow believed that Koenig and Helena had been close then he had no cause for complaint.

Koenig said, ‘We’ll establish the field within three hours, Paul. I want everything shut down—we have to save all the power we can. Emergency lighting only.’

‘The sensors?’

‘Everything. We can’t use them anyway. When we hit that hole we go in blind.’ Koenig turned to where Kano stood by the computer. ‘That applies to you too, David. You’ll have to cut power to the banks.’

‘Total?’

‘Yes. You can freeze the data, can’t you?’

‘I can, but, Commander, it’s almost like killing a friend.’

The female voice which seemed to hold an individual personality. Working with the machine as he did Kano could easily have come to regard it as human.

‘You’re not killing it, David, just putting it to sleep,’ said Koenig, reassuringly. ‘Did you get the prediction of what we can expect?’

‘I did, but it’s all surmise, sir. No radiation will be able to reach us, no light leave, we’ll be in total darkness as far as external sources are concerned. The gravity—’

‘What about that,’ said Morrow, quickly. ‘Won’t we be crushed.’

‘No. Gravity won’t affect us while we’re falling. It’s only when we hit anything that we’ll be in trouble.’ Koenig recognized the misplaced humour. ‘Sorry, but you’ve been in free fall and you know what I mean.’

‘Victor was saying there needn’t be anything in the hole at all. Just mass—I can’t understand it.’

‘You and the rest of us, Paul. That’s the trouble, we just don’t know. There could be all kinds of danger, but with the shield we should be safe. At least it will contain our environment.’

‘So we stay alive until the moment we die.’ Morrow smiled, shrugging. ‘Sorry, Commander, but you started it. What do we do now?’

‘Shut down everything and wait.’

It was odd to see Main Mission empty, the screens dark, the stations empty of personnel. In the dim glow of the emergency lights the place had a ghostly appearance, familar shapes grown suddenly eerie. Only the clear windows held a touch of beauty, the shimmer of the shield, broken rainbows keeping out pressing darkness. A bowl of light that had faded and was continuing to fade.

Light obeying different laws—the power was constant and if the instruments could be believed the protection was all that could be gained.

Koenig took a deep breath, fighting his imagination, wishing that he, like others, had found things to occupy his mind.

Like Mathias and Kano locked in an endless game of chess. Morrow strumming a guitar and singing oddly mournful songs. Like the technicians playing poker for incredible stakes.

And like the woman he had seen quietly praying.

Of them all she was probably helping the most.

A divan stood in his office and Koenig sat, looking up as Bergman came through the door. He carried a bottle and two glasses, pursing his lips as he opened it and poured. His breath made a little cloud of vapour as he spoke.

‘This is sixty years old, John. Genuine brandy. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.’

‘A toast, Victor?’

‘Something to keep out the cold. Notice how the temperature has fallen? Half the personnel are wearing extra covers. I saw two women who looked like squaws and a bundle I didn’t know was alive until it moved. Elgar, you know him?’

‘From security?’

‘Yes.’ Bergman lifted his glass. ‘Here’s to us, John. All of us.’

The brandy was smooth, slipping over his tongue and down his throat to light little fires in the pit of his stomach. Warming fires which eased the chill, a coldness more severe than Koenig had realized.

Refilling the glasses Bergman said, ‘To absent friends.’

‘Helena?’

‘If you want to drink to her, John, why not? She’s a remarkable woman.’

‘A beautiful one.’

‘I wondered if you’d noticed. You never said.’

‘Was there any point?’ Koenig finished the last of his brandy. It seemed to take a long time for him to extend his glass for more and, startled, he glanced at the chronometer. The second hand crawled.

‘Time,’ said Bergman. ‘We can expect a variation. Do you realize, John, that we must be approaching the speed of light?’

‘Swartzchild’s radius?’

‘Yes. If the gravity pull is high enough to prevent light escaping then it must work in a converse direction—186,000 miles a second—how many Earth normal gravities is that? And it could be more. Much more. It has to be when you think of it. If light cannot escape then . . . the . . . gravity . . . pull . . .’

Bergman, Koenig, the hands of the clock, everything frozen. Time had stopped, hearts not beating, lungs empty of breath, a stasis in which only thought had progression.

An image of endless space littered with the dust of stars, each gleaming point a neurone in a gigantic brain. A brain so vast that a galaxy occupied no more room than a cell.

Sages walking, robed, conversing with means other than words.

Light stabbing, stimulating, a cosmic egg opening, scattering fragments of matter, whirlpools of gas, streams of vapour. Nebulae coalescing, suns forming, planets, satellites, moving, turning, dissolving into dust. Entropic death followed by a gathering, a compression, a time of quiescence, and again the stab of stimulating light.

Again the egg opening.

Again the picture of creation.

And more images, more concepts, a stream without number, flickering like the frames of a film thrown on the screen of his mind.

‘. . . must . . . be . . . greater than the speed of light itself. John! Did you?’

Koenig’s hand shook as he helped himself to brandy.

‘We’re through it,’ he said. ‘We passed through the centre. Time halted for a while—a while?’

‘An eon perhaps.’ Bergman’s voice was awed. ‘I saw—I thought I saw—’

‘Creation?’

‘Something. And there was a voice, talking, a child’s voice. John! If there were a god, a superior being, a Creator, and it spoke only a few words each thousand years—would there be anyone around to hear?’

‘I don’t know—maybe not.’ Koenig drank his brandy, his face thoughtful. Already the memory of flashing images was fading, replaced by a new urgency, a sudden understanding. ‘Victor! We’re through!’

The shield was down, the sky filled with stars, points of colour glistening in strange patterns, a host of suns and close, so very close.

‘A ball,’ whispered Bergman. ‘That’s what we were, John. A ball pulled through a hole in our own universe and thrown into some other region. Another universe, perhaps, one where the normal laws of time and motion no longer apply. Look at those stars. Think of the worlds which must circle them. An infinity of stars, John, an infinity of worlds.’

Koenig said nothing. It was enough just to stand and look, to hear the hum of activity all around, men and woman laughing, relieved, glad to be alive, filled with the wonder of what they saw, the knowledge of what had happened.

Another universe, Victor had said, and he could be right. A place in which they would wander, searching, looking for and perhaps finding a new home, another Earth.

‘Alice in Wonderland,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, Victor, just a thought.’ And yet it held a similarity. She too had passed through a door into strangeness. She too had found amazing adventure. And, she too, had survived.

As they would survive.

As they had to survive.

Morrow had taken his seat, activating his instruments, his screens. He was subdued, his face bearing an odd expression. He had lived while others had died; the woman who had gone mad, others who had been found resting in apparent sleep, dying with a peculiar expression on their faces as if they had found something of incredible joy . . . and Sandra.

‘All installations operating, Commander,’ he reported. ‘Condition green throughout.’

‘Kano?’

‘Computer now fully functional. Data being received and collated.’

Facts found and filed, distance calibrated, their velocity determined—details to ensure the maintenance of their environment. Like a well-oiled machine the base resumed optimum operation.

‘Commander!’ Morrow’s voice was sharp. ‘Something heading toward us. A ship, I think. A—’ His voice rose, became incredulous. ‘It’s the Eagle! It’s Sandra and the others.’

Sandra, naturally, he would think of her, but there was no delusion. The Eagle was real, growing larger, steadying to settle on the pad.

‘They must have been caught,’ said Bergman. ‘Drawn into the hole after us. John, they followed us through, their shield must have saved them as ours did the base.’

Luck or perhaps more than luck, later Koenig would compute the odds against the ship following the exact path, emerging from the hole with the same velocity. Now he had thought for only one person.

She looked very drawn as she stepped from the travel tube, the golden helmet of her hair a little dishevelled, her eyes haunted, composure like an iron mask.

A mask which broke as she saw him.

‘John!’

‘Helena!’

She was soft and warm and wonderfully human in the circle of his arms, her lips firm as they pressed his own, her hands gripping him as if she would never let him go.

A greeting as spontaneous as it was natural.

‘John, I—’

‘I had to let you go, Helena. You know that.’

The others had needed her and she had been chosen.

‘I know it,’ she admitted. ‘After we left I had time to think. To understand.’

To know and appreciate the loneliness of command, the rejection of personal desire for the common good, the setting of others above self. His way, the thing which made him what he was.

Her hand rose to gently touch his cheek.

Koenig said, quietly, ‘What was it like, Helena?’

‘At first terrifying. Alan did his best, but it was impossible to pull free. He lowered the shield and we saw the moon vanish. It seemed to stretch, to expand, and then, suddenly, it was gone. He followed, a chance he said, and one we all agreed to take. And then—’

Images and memories and a sudden flash of understanding which had provided the answers to questions which had plagued mankind since the dawn of time. Answers which had dissolved to leave only a haunting impression of a fantastic dream.

‘And then we were through,’ she said. ‘There was a time of cold and everything slowed and then we were through. Somehow we knew that. Alan lowered the shield and we saw the moon and Alpha. We saw it, John and knew that we were home.’

Home.

A place on a barren world hurtling into an unknown region in which the familiar could become strange. A wanderer among alien stars facing unguessed dangers and with limited resources. Torn from their own universe and flung into the unknown.

And yet she was right.

‘Home,’ he said, and dropped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Home.’

It would do until they found another.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

BREAKAWAY

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN