Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians (7 page)

Commander John Koenig heard the alarm. He moved his head slightly and groaned.

‘I didn’t want you wakened, John,’ said Helena Russell. ‘How is it?’

‘Bearable. Why the panic?’

Morrow burst into the room.

‘John? You’ll have to snap out of it—can you make Main Mission Control on your own feet? I want the crew to see you there, John!’

‘What happened?’

‘Some kind of emergency in Number Two NGA. But Bergman’s worried about the disappearance of an alien energy source. I nearly had it blasted with the main armament, but it vanished before the launch. John?’

‘He’s still slightly narcotized,’ said Helena.

‘Get him on his feet!’

‘It’s too soon!’

‘I’ll make it,’ said Koenig. He dragged on his tunic. ‘Get back to Control,’ he told Morrow.

Morrow was startled. It was the first direct order he had received since Koenig’s accident.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said hesitantly.

Koenig refused Helena Russell’s help.

‘It seems I’ve got a base to run,’ he said. The pain had begun again. He tried not to wince. ‘No pills,’ he told Helena. ‘They’re getting to be a habit.’

Back in Main Control Koenig rapidly assessed the situation.

‘The energy-source we’ll worry about later,’ he said. ‘Do as Professor Bergman recommends. Even the manual monitors—check every possible recording device. And put out a request for any—repeat
any
—unusual occurrence.’

‘Where are you going, John?’ asked David Kano.

‘You’re coming too,’ said Koenig. ‘I want to see this technician.’

Zoref’s call had brought his opposite number on the night shift back from his bed. Mike Dominix looked puzzled. The section chief looked frankly incredulous about his story.

‘Tell me,’ said Koenig. ‘You hit the panic-button. You must have had good reason.’

Zoref swallowed. He looked worried.

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘No faults, no radiation leaks. I don’t remember activating the alarm.’

‘It was this circuit,’ said the section chief. ‘I checked, sir. Zoref was alone here. Right, Dominix?’

Dominix’s face was creased with concern.

‘It’s right, isn’t it, Anton?’

‘Right,’ Zoref said, the word choking him.

‘We can’t afford chances in this area,’ said Kano. ‘I’ll check it over myself, if you like, Commander.’

‘Do that,’ said Koenig. The pain was bad. Nothing useful had been accomplished by his intervention. ‘Go off duty, Zoref,’ he said. ‘Maybe you need some rest.’

‘But, Commander, I have to look after a lot of maintenance units—’

‘You heard the Commander,’ said Kano, as Koenig walked away. ‘Get a medical check-up before you return to quarters.

Dominix watched his friend walk away. Zoref was one of the steadiest men he had ever met. He frowned. Even Anton could get Alpha-jitters, it seemed. At least it proved he was human.

He watched David Kano working methodically from monitor to monitor. The section chief noted recordings and passed on information to the computer. It was a double check on the automatic maintenance systems. Then Dominix saw Kano stop for several seconds, his small compact body stiff. When he spoke, Kano’s voice held a partially-suppressed note of worry:

‘Get Professor Bergman,’ he said. And: ‘Victor—I’ve found a massive energy discharge down here.’

‘A fault in the screens?’

‘No. Just a massive energy-loss. Apparently straight from the conversion units. It’s recorded by local sensors, but there’s been a cut-out so it didn’t show on the main circuits.’

‘Was Zoref affected?’

‘I’ll ask Dr Russell.’ Both men waited until their communicators hooked into the Diagnostic Unit. ‘Dr Russell—have you examined Technician Zoref?’ asked Kano.

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘He’s fatigued, unusually so. There’s some difficulty in answering questions, and a feeling of lassitude. Nothing a day or two off duty wouldn’t cure.’

‘I was thinking of something else.’

‘Such as?’

‘Radiation sickness.’

Helena Russell was quite positive. ‘That was the first thing we checked. I ran a sensor over him straight way. Zoref hasn’t been exposed to direct radiation. There’s no residual radiation in his body.’

Kano frowned.

‘He’s fine, David,’ insisted Helena Russell.

‘I’m glad to hear it. Thanks, Helena.’

He cut off the connection.

‘Well, David?’ asked Bergman from the screen.

‘I’ll re-check, Victor. There must be a lead
somewhere.’

Zoref’s return startled his wife. She jumped out of bed and saw him in the living-room.

‘I slept through your duty session!’ she cried. ‘Damn it, I’ve missed half my shift!’ She failed to notice his preoccupation. ‘No, it’s only half past eight—and you’re back—what happened?’ She saw that he was swaying. ‘Anton?’

‘I didn’t feel too good. Oh, they checked me over. I’ll be fine.’

She watched as he shambled to the heating control. He turned the switch to ‘Full’.

‘But what happened?’

‘Nothing, Eva. But I felt so cold! Just as if I’d been out there’—he indicated the surface above—‘without a spacesuit.’

Eva Zoref shivered.

‘You think it’s cold in here, Anton? I’d say it’s stifling. I think I’ll dress.’ She went to the bedroom.

Zoref got to his feet. The glare of the living-room light held an odd fascination for him. He put out his hands. Within seconds, the lamp dimmed. Then it went blank.

‘Sitting in the dark?’ asked Eva Zoref, who was more worried than she cared to say. ‘Why not go to bed? You’ll be warmer, Anton. I’ll have a word with Dr Russell. Maybe there’s something I can do.’

Her words brought a flare of anger. ‘No! No, don’t go anywhere—stay here, Eva!’

He lurched to his feet.

‘But the doctor said you should rest, didn’t she? Come back, Anton!’

Zoref’s face in the semi-dark was a twisted mask of pain. ‘Stay here, Eva.
Here!’

Koenig wanted oblivion. They wouldn’t leave him alone.

‘Look, John,’ Bergman was saying. ‘Here’s the extreme ranging scan—just a blotch. Irregular, a shifting pattern of energies. Almost as if it’s in a state of change. Growth, if you like.’

‘He’s saying it’s alive,’ said David Kano.

‘Yes,’ agreed Koenig. They had observed aberrations in space before. Weird energy-sources. The debris of stars blown out ten million years before. So why get worked up over another?

‘John, there the other thing too,’ said Kano. ‘The technician who panicked.’

Morrow felt uncomfortable as he pointed out the facts to the Commander. It wasn’t like John to be so slow.

‘Look, Commander, you can see there’s another coincidental reading,’ he said. ‘I was going to blast the energy-source just as Technican Zoref pressed the panic button.’

‘Three things, John,’ said Bergman. ‘One, we lose contact with the energy-source. Two, Zoref sees or hears something that scares him so bad he panics. Three, we lose a chunk of energy from his station in Number Two NGA.’

‘It should be investigated,’ suggested Morrow.

‘So investigate,’ said Koenig, with an effort.

He tried not to notice the disappointment of the three men.

Dominix was surprised to see Zoref back in the Maintenance Area.

‘How are you feeling, Anton? They tell you what’s wrong?’

‘I’m all right now.’ He indicated the shields which held the ferocious radiation in check. ‘Did they find anything?’

‘An unexplained energy loss. They took all the monitoring tapes, right down to the manual scans. Kano’s working on them now.’

‘I hope they come up with something.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Anton! Look, if you’re sick, you should be off-duty. Why don’t you get the hell out of here and relax?’

‘I’m not good at relaxing.’

‘You’ve got a work-fixation, Anton, that’s your trouble.’

He walked to the panel and checked the readings. Dominix watched him, then called:

‘Want some coffee, Anton?’

Zoref didn’t seem to have heard, so Dominix crossed to the recess which housed the coffee-machine. He was more worried about his friend than he admitted to himself. Zoref had the abstraction of the man in shock. When he returned, a steaming cup in each hand, Zoref was shivering violently.

‘I’m cold,’ he whispered. ‘Like death . . .’

Dominix thrust the coffee towards Zoref.

‘Drink this. Then back to bed!’

Zoref reached out. He took the cup. Dominix saw what happened but didn’t believe it.

The coffee had solidified, frozen, as Zoref took it. Zoref cried out in horror. He dropped the cup. The ball of frozen coffee rolled out, glistening, frosted on the hard floor.

‘For God’s sake, Anton!’ said Dominix. He reached out to touch his friend’s shoulder to steady him. A freezing agony shot through his body. He stared at Zoref’s contorted face, but the words that formed remained unspoken.

Zoref backed away as Dominix’s body shuddered, then stiffened. The face was ghastly white. A white rime of frost covered the whole of the big, solid body. Then Dominix fell with a crash.

Zoref looked down. He saw the medical monitor on his friend’s wrist. It was flashing on and off, sending a report to the computer.

The information reached Main Mission Control within seconds. Bergman and Morrow looked towards Commander Koenig. There was a look of unutterable sadness on his lean face.

‘Technician N. Dominix,’ announced the eletronic voice that had soulessly reported so many tragedies. ‘Life-functions terminated.’

‘John,’ said Bergman, for he had seen reaction. ‘It’s Number Two Nuclear Generating Area. First Zoref. Now Dominix. Whatever’s hit Alpha is down there.’

Dr Helena Russell had finished her examination.

‘What happened?’ asked Bergman.

Two medical attendants wheeled in a trolley. Dominix looked as if he had been lying in a hard frost.

‘Death was instantaneous. The cause of death was a sudden decrease in body temperature. If I hadn’t known that he was alive four minutes ago, I’d say that he’d been dead for days. I’ll have to wait for an autopsy to tell you more. Please move him,’ she told the attendants.

‘You’ll let me have the results as soon as possible?’ said Bergman.

‘Of course, Victor.’

When she had gone, Bergman looked around the empty generating area. ‘It’s here, David. Whatever caused that huge drop in temperature is
here.’

Zoref walked into his living quarters and sat in the swivel chair. He put his head to his hands, Eva Zoref was desperately worried.

‘Anton?’ she said softly.

He looked up.

‘Oh, you’re feeling better! I’m glad—’

‘Don’t come near me!’

She stopped, hurt and puzzled. Anton’s behaviour was increasingly strange. He was normally a placid and quietly-spoken man. She bit her lip.

‘What’s the trouble, darling?’

‘Please don’t come any nearer,’ Zoref said quietly.

She stared at him for a while. Her natural impulse was to comfort him. She put out her hand and might have moved forward but for the sudden announcement from the wall screen. Paul Morrow’s urgent tones filled the living-room:

‘Calling all personnel! Here is a special announcement, effective immediately. Access to Number Two Nuclear Generating Area is now restricted to those personnel with my direct authorization. Further information will be relayed as soon as possible.’

Eva Zoref looked scared: ‘Anton, that’s your station. What’s happened?’

‘Dominix died,’ he said flatly.

‘Mike Dominix dead! How? And how do you know?’

‘I was there.’

‘But what happened!’

‘Eva, please sit down. Over there,’

Eva Zoref began to protest, but Anton’s calmness stopped her.

‘There isn’t any—You’re not in trouble, Anton?’

Zoref shook his head. ‘No. It’s something I can’t explain right now.’

‘You are in trouble!’ Eva cried, rising.

‘Keep away from me!’

‘You’re not well—I’ll get Dr Russell, Anton!’

‘No, Eva! Sit down! You must trust me! Look Eva, something strange happened in the generating area. I’m not sure what. But you’re not to get involved. Now, promise me you’ll stay here—’

‘Why? Where are you going?’ She was ready to defy him.

‘I have to—I have to report to Dr Russell. I have some information for her. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Eva. Promise me you’ll stay?’

His words had a frightening lack of emotion that brought a tingle of fear trickling through Eva Zoref’s mind.

‘All right,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘I’ll wait. I promise.’

Bergman passed Koenig the plates.

‘David Kano found these recorded by an obsolete radiographic-response scanner from the early days of Alpha. It wasn’t hooked into the computer’s circuits, so we didn’t get a report.’

Koenig felt a jolt of interest. The blinding pain relaxed as he glanced at the radiographs.

‘The scanner was triggered twice. These plates show what happened,’ Bergman told him.

Koenig examined the first.

‘It corresponds with the configuration of the energy-source you advised Paul to destroy. Weaker, smaller, but with the same contours,’ he said slowly.

‘It was taken when Zoref hit the panic-button.’

Koenig held up the second plate.

Bergman explained:

‘The time corresponds with the report from computer that Technician Dominix’s life-functions had ceased.’

‘The same configuration!’

‘Yes, John. Whatever hit Zoref and then Dominix is part of the alien energy-source.’

‘It’s present when Zoref collapsed . . . it’s there again when Dominix dies. And it has the same structure as the energy-source from the gulf.’

‘Yes, John. We can’t escape the obvious conclusion,’ said Bergman. ‘An alien force is loose somewhere on Alpha.’

Zoref’s physique seemed to have altered. Normally upright, he now lumbered along with a shambling step. His shoulders were rounded, and his arms held at chest-level as though he clasped a great pain. He looked forward from hooded glittering eyes, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. He paused at the doorway leading to the Diagnostic Unit. Dimly, he knew he needed help.