Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians (8 page)

He was distracted by the tap-tapping of a female medical orderly’s shoes. She saw him and recognized that he had received treatment.

‘How are you—’ she said, and then she was aware of the strange brightness about his eyes. Instinctively, she stopped and backed away.

Zoref advanced towards her. She began to walk away from him, too nervous to question him, too proud and confused to rationalize her actions. If she had dared, she would have run. She wasn’t frightened enough to scream, and she was too self-assured to admit that her fears might be justified.

Zoref’s teeth juddered as the bitter cold sat in his chest like a cancer. He didn’t know anything now but the cold.

The medical orderly saw a travel tube station open. Two men looked out. She ran, but the door had closed before they saw her. She screamed then.

About Zoref’s head a dim white halation formed. The girl felt the first chill as she battered against the doorway of the travel tube. She turned and saw his face glistening with frost.

He put out his hands.

The lights dimmed.

Helena Russell turned the torch from the frozen face.

‘The same as Dominix,’ she said to Bergman and Koenig. ‘She died instantly from shock as a result of rapid freezing.’

Koenig put a hand to Helena’s shoulder.

‘She’ll be the last. We’ll find what’s killing them. Get back to medical. I think you’ll be needed. David!’ he called into his wrist communicator. ‘Have you traced the power-fault?’

The lights above sprang into brightness as he spoke. ‘Power restored, Commander,’ crackled Kano’s voice from the speaker overhead.

‘Cause?’

‘The whole area suffered a sudden drainage of power. It simply leaked away. There’s a fault somewhere.’

Bergman looked down at the pitiful corpse. She had been a pleasant girl. He remembered that she had once treated him for a graze on his arm.

‘First Dominix and now this girl. What caused Dominix and this girl to die was total heat loss. And now we have the lights losing power.’ He burst out suddenly: ‘Of course! Lighting uses energy—and heat is energy!’

Koenig understood.

‘An energy-consuming alien entity. Is that what we have on Alpha?’ he asked.

‘It’s the only theory that fits the facts!’

‘Then let’s find it. David!’ he called to Kano, with a sudden return to his normal decisiveness. ‘Monitor all power levels throughout Alpha. Any fluctuation, I want to know immediately.’

‘Got it, Commander,’ said Kano.

‘Controller Morrow?’

‘Hooked in, Commander.’

‘Paul, I’m returning to Main Mission Control. Meanwhile station security patrols at every strategic location. Have all off-duty security personnel called out and ready to move on command.’

‘Sir!’

‘And you, Victor—set the theory up on a probability basis! I want the computer jerked out of its uncooperativeness!’

‘I’ll do that.’ Bergman smiled. ‘I think we’ll manage now, Commander.’

Eva Zoref hurried through the long corridors. She saw groups of Security guards racing purposefully toward the high-risk areas, power controls, generating and air-conditioning plant, weapons stations. Each man carried sidearms. She reached the Medical Centre minutes after Helena Russell returned.

‘Doctor Russell!’ she called.

Helena Russell was about to perform an autopsy on the dead medical orderly.

‘Not now,’ said the senior assistant. ‘I’m sorry, the Doctor’s too busy—’

‘Please! Doctor Russell, let me see him!’

Helena heard and entered the Unit. The senior assistant grabbed Eva Zoref’s arm.

‘It’s Eva Zoref, isn’t it?’ asked Helena Russell.

Eva broke free of the restraining grip.

‘Let me see him, Doctor! He was behaving so oddly!’

‘Who—of course, your husband! Technician Zoref, right?’

‘Yes! Let me see him, please!’

‘But he isn’t here—is he?’ Helena called.

‘No, Doctor,’ reported the chief medical assistant. ‘No visit by Technician A. Zoref. Not since we examined him earlier.’

‘But he said he was coming . . .’

‘What’s wrong?’ said Helena.

‘It’s Anton. I don’t know . . . he’s sick! He has been acting so strangely since his accident. And he won’t have me near him!’ She sobbed. ‘I think he’s going out of his mind since he saw Mike Dominix killed!’

‘Your husband? He was there when it happened? In Number Two Generating Area—can you answer to this, Eva?’

Eva Zoref stared helplessly at the older woman. She knew that she had said too much.

‘Commander Koenig!’ she heard Dr Russell call urgently. The screen above at the far end of the Centre sprang into life. ‘John!’

‘I’m busy, Dr Russell. Is it urgent?’ Koenig said. ‘Will it keep?’

‘No! I’ve got Eva Zoref here! She’s just told me that Technician Anton Zoref was present in Number Two Generating Area when Technician Dominix died!’

Koenig put a hand to the scar on his forehead. Helena Russell knew the effort it took him to speak.

‘I’ll have Professor Bergman interview her—send her to Main Mission.’ Koenig stared at Helena Russell for a while. ‘And thanks, Helena. It might be the break we need.’

Bergman’s probing questions soon elicited the few facts from Eva Zoref. She was too stunned by the rapidity of events to try to conceal what she knew.

‘For Anton’s sake, we have to know what happened,’ he said. ‘We must find him before he comes to further harm. You’d better report to your duty post, Eva. It will give you something to do.’

‘I’d rather stay at Main Mission Control.’

‘She can stay,’ said Koenig. ‘Well, Victor?’

‘I’ve just got a read-out from the computer. It confirms what Eva Zoref says. Technician Anton Zoref was in the Maintenance Area of Number Two Generator Nuclear Generator when his colleague Technician Dominix died.’

‘Find him, Paul!’ snapped Koenig to Morrow. ‘Make that the first priority.’

Morrow began to relay instructions.

Zoref was altering. His narrow body was so heavy that he could hardly drag it about. His spine seemed to curve of its own volition. His head was longer, flatter. At times, he would support himself on hands as well as feet. His body was continually wracked by a deep shuddering. Ice crackled from his nose and lips. He moaned in a low, keening voice. But he had cunning.

When the two guards clumped to their station beside an ancillary air-conditioning plant, he turned into the solarium. The warmth stopped the shuddering, and he walked in upright, almost like a man.

The solarium was skilfully designed to simulate conditions on a calm, semi-tropical beach. Windows usually brought in some light from the stars, but not now that they were in the deep gulfs. The heat and light came from large sun-lamps. Groups of benches and reclining chairs alternated with shaded areas around a swimming-pool. Two women and one man lay on couches, eyes shaded against the brilliant radiation lamps.

The man rolled on to his back, murmured contentedly, and got to his feet. He started to walk in the direction of a shower; Zoref stumbled past him blindly.

‘You crazy!’ called the man. ‘Where’s your radiation glasses?’

Zoref was staring directly into the flooding light. His shuddering became a violent spasm of relief. The man, an electronics expert, felt the chill spreading from Zoref. He shivered.

Zoref reached upwards.

Overhead, the powerful lamps wavered, dimmed, and died. The chill hit the two sleeping women. They awoke to semi-darkness and saw the grey-black figure of Zoref, poised like a diver with his arms high above them. He was producing grating sounds that had no relationship to human speech.

The electronics expert forced himself to take a step nearer. Behind him, the two women hugged their robes about them. One panicked and screamed. The man backed away from the wall of freezing air.

‘Solarium!’ he yelled into his wrist communicator. ‘We’ve got power trouble—Johnson of electronics speaking! Get a power maintenance crew up here!’

‘Commander,’ said a female technician to Koenig. ‘Urgent. Power fluctuations reported.’

Kano rapidly scanned the readings.

‘It’s the solarium, John!’

Paul Morrow was already deploying a force of Security men. ‘I’ll go!’ he called to Koenig.

‘You stay here!’ ordered Koenig. ‘I’m going up!’

‘Take this!’ yelled Morrow.

Koenig turned. The stubby weapon was altogether out of keeping with the situation. Nevertheless, he took the laser-beam projector.

‘Thanks, Paul. I hope it won’t be necessary.’

Zoref turned blind eyes towards the screaming women. The women’s bodies radiated fear. And heat.

He advanced towards them, arms outstretched.

Then the Security guards burst in, hand-guns drawn.

‘Hold it, Zoref!’ a sergeant yelled. ‘Zoref, don’t move!’

Johnson grabbed the two women, who had seemed unable to move. He pushed them roughly towards the entrance.

Zoref waited.

‘Don’t shoot him!’ yelled Koenig, bursting through the group of Security men as the radiation lamps glowed dimly into life.

Zoref stared towards the light-source, puzzlement showing in his thin face. He reached up again. A guard couldn’t control his shaking hands, and a laser jet scoured the wall behind Zoref. Koenig kicked out and the hand-gun shot into the air. It clattered to the ground, spinning.

‘Blast the radiation lamps!’ Koenig yelled.

He aimed the stubby weapon at the dim lights. A jet lanced out, blasting the heat-lamp into fragments. The guards understood. In seconds, the solarium was dark again.

Zoref groaned, then collapsed.

The two women pushed through the guards. Koenig patted Johnson on the arm but he did not speak to him. There was time for congratulations later.

‘Dr Russell to the solarium,’ he ordered. ‘We’ve found Zoref.’

The great hall was cold. Koenig looked out at the reaches of sable blackness beyond the windows.
Alien,
he thought, and Zoref’s coldness hit him too.
Alien, hungry for energy. An entity from that deep emptiness. Was that what had possession of Zoref?

Helena Russell arrived within two minutes.

She carried a portable life-functions decoder. Its antennae quivered as she examined Zoref.

‘He’s alive,’ she said after a puzzled silence. ‘I don’t know what damage he’s suffered—look at his skull! And the radiation burns!’

‘He’s absorbed a huge amount of energy,’ said Koenig. He shone a torch over Zoref’s thin features.

‘Careful!’ warned Helena Russell. ‘Don’t touch him—it could be lethal.’

Koenig looked at the beam of his torch. It was stable.

‘He’s not absorbing energy now. I want him moved for examination, Helena. I think he’s safe for the moment, but use robot grabs to move him to Diagnostic. I’m taking no chance with the orderlies. Two dead is enough. More than enough. And use a restraint harness on him—something he can’t get out of.’

‘I’ll be careful, John,’ said Helena Russell.

She was thinking that Koenig sounded like the old Commander of Moonbase Alpha once more. His eyes were steady and clear, his orders decisive. She pushed these thoughts from her mind and arranged for Zoref’s transfer with her normal controlled professionalism.

An hour later, she had completed her examination. She called Main Mission Control.

‘I have the plates ready,’ she said. ‘Technician Zoref is under observation. I’ve taken the precaution of having him strapped down, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.’

‘Let me see him,’ said Koenig.

The man appeared to be asleep. His face had not been bandaged, but a layer of some plastic dressing gave him a waxen appearance. A single blue light picked out the gaunt features. Steel bands held him at the shoulders, waist and thighs.

‘He’s losing heat all the time,’ said Helena Russell. ‘I’ve tried to maintain a constant body temperature, but his metabolism keeps altering. There’s something uncanny about it. As if he doesn’t want to stabilize at normal heat.’

Koenig waited until Bergman had examined the plates:

‘What do you make of it, Victor?’

Bergman passed the plates to Koenig.

‘There,’ he said. ‘See—these dark patches are Zoref’s bones and thicker tissue. See how the skull is massively reinforced. And now look inside the cranial cavity.’

Koenig peered closer. He saw a small grey-black blotch, hardly larger than a toe-nail.

‘Is that it?’

‘It has the configuration of the alien energy-source.’ Bergman could not keep the excitement from his voice. ‘It’s the force that killed Dominix and the girl. I haven’t compared it with the original scans for computer analysis—I’ll relay the plates now—but I’m sure of it.’

‘But why does it lodge there? Why in Zoref?’

‘Who knows? Maybe Zoref was a convenient host or the right kind of catalyst. At any rate, it seems to be dormant now, John. We’ll have a chance of studying—’

‘No! I want it rooted out of Zoref’s body! While we’ve got a chance of controlling it, we’ll destroy it—immediately.’

‘But John, we can’t do that! Not to an unexplained life-form—’

‘Have you forgotten your original advice? You were the one who wanted it blasted, Victor.’

‘I was, but then it threatened Alpha, or it seemed to.’ Bergman indicated the slack form. ‘Does
that
seem to be a threat to Moonbase Alpha?’

Koenig touched the scar on his forehead. The pain was near again. He refused to acknowledge its nearness:

‘Get Kano to set up a computer analysis of possible methods for destruction. I don’t want Zoref harmed, naturally. But I want that
thing
rooted out!’

Bergman stared back angrily for a moment. Then:

‘Yes, Command—’

He stopped, aghast. Zoref’s head seemed to glow with an eerie grey-black radiance.

‘Guards!’ Morrow was already calling.

Koenig shouted: ‘Lasers, full power!’ as Zoref’s arms stiffened against the steel bands. He opened his arms, and the bright steel flew back, shattered. He raised his legs, and the steel confining them shivered. At his waist, the powerful bands of metal held for a second or two, then they gave in a ringing spray of razor-edged fragments.