Space 1999 - Earthfall Page 28

  “It hits so fast?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Lian Kikkido is a determined fool. She must have experienced pain but said nothing about it. She forced herself to work on when it would have been wiser and less selfish to have reported sick. Strong medications were found in her desk and it’s obvious she had been giving herself heavy doses.”

  “And?”

  “Doctor Gadya Olurus was the second.”

  He too was sleeping and his skin held the flush of fever, but his eyeballs were unswollen and his lips, while dry, were normal.

  “No hair-loss as yet,” commented Helena. “And no cracking of the epidermis. The nails too remain clear.”

  “Will he live?”

  “God knows, John.” Her voice held despair. “He isn’t responding to the antibiotics and we’re up against the unknown. It’s obvious the disease attacked Kikkido first and she could have passed it on to Olurus. He reported sick as soon as he felt discomfort which was a few days after we’d found Kikkido. The others followed; two at one time, then one, then another and now Alan.” Pausing she added, “All of them, in one way or another, were in direct contact with those alien corpses.”

  It was impossible for a man to contact a disease from an alien form of life; the metabolisms were too different, the life processes too alien to support the microbes and viruses which battened on another. Tobacco mosaic could wipe out a harvest and not harm a living thing. Wheat rust attacked only selected forms of grass, blights, rots, mildews, fungi—all were adapted to certain hosts. And no human could contact hard pad or distemper from a dog.

  And yet anthrax could kill men as well as cattle.

  Things Koenig considered as he stood in a room close to Medical. He had stripped off the envelope after it had been sprayed and was waiting for Helena to finish checking the latest progress in the search for the agent of the disease. Some youngsters interested in anthropology had been at work under the guidance of an adult, probably Marion Hasso who had done field-work among aborigines, and had constructed a model built on the reports of Lian Kikkido.

  An alien, reconstructed as it must have appeared when alive. Standing now before him, the face a pale rose, the eyes slanted insets of painted glass, the head towering far above his own.

  Two hundred and forty-five centimetres—eight feet in old measurement—and against it he felt dwarfed. The chest more than matched the height; a great barrel needed to hold the tremendous lungs. The skull, by comparison, looked small but the eyes were larger than normal and the peaked ears had a fan-like appearance. The arms and legs were long and seemed frail. The hands were delicate. The feet were splayed.

  A Martian?

  He blinked, wondering why he had made the association, then remembered the illustrations he had seen in old books cherished by a friend. Fantastic characters illustrating fantastic stories—but some of the things those stories had dealt with had become fact.

  Could the thing have been a Martian?

  Did it matter if it had?

  The creature was still alien, born and reared on a distant world, divorced of all association with Earth. Its superficial likeness must be a coincidence or the natural workings of nature searching for the most adaptable form of sentient life. Any disease it might have carried must be as alien as itself.

  But a dog could pass on rabies and was this thing more alien than a dog?

  Alpha was small, its population the same, forced to exist in close proximity.

  Vulnerable!

  Twenty-five million people had died during the influenza epidemic after the First World War. The Black Death had cost Europe a third of its population. Smallpox had wiped out the Mandans. Sailors had carried syphilis and measles to destroy the Polynesians.

  Had the aliens bodies waited to pass on the thing which had killed them?

  “There were giants in the earth in those days,” said Helena softly from where she had come to stand behind him.

  “Genesis, chapter six, verse four,” he said. “Do you think they came to visit us?”

  “They could have.”

  Ships like pearls which traversed space from world to world. Landing on earth and giving rise to legends; the Titans of Greek mythology, the creatures of the Egyptian pantheon, the “sons of God” who had found the daughters of men fair.

  Who had mated and produced offspring.

  “Something must have happened in the past,” said Helena. “It took more than simple evolution to lift men from all fours and teach them how to use tools. And it took something else to trigger the grey matter within their skulls and turn them from aborigines into the founders of great civilizations. Think of the time-scale, John. All civilization as we know it can be contained within a span of twenty thousand years. The whole history of mankind within two million. Why, if evolution is a natural occurrence, did it take so long from learning how to use a stone as a hammer to learning how to build a city? And where are the “missing links”? There aren’t any and yet if evolution is a steady climb up a ladder there should be life-forms on every rung.”

  Interference—for those who looked for it evidence of outside intrusion could be found in every sacred book. And what more natural than those who had given men the ability to reason and plan and build should be regarded as gods? And what else was legend but a message passed on through generations, emphasized by repetition, simplified for easy memorizing?

  “. . . the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bear children unto them, the same became mighty men . . .”

  Mighty? Big? Tall?

  To the peoples of that time they would have appeared giants—almost twice the normal height. And they would have passed on those characteristics together with the intelligence which was a part of their genetic pattern.

  But when?

  The cavern-ship had been buried for thousands of years, half a million at a guess. But had they been alone? Had their civilization died with them? Or had other vessels, the fragments of a dying race, perhaps, arrived much later to land on earth.

  “John?”

  “Nothing. I was thinking.” Speculations which could serve no useful purpose. But if there was the remotest possibility of metabolic similarity there was only one thing he could do. The alien disease had to be contained. Lifting his commlock Koenig snapped, “Paul? Medical Red Alert! Operation dispersal—now!”

  C H A P T E R

  Twenty-Six

  Kwang Yew hated the patrol. It was bad enough to sit and wait in the office but there, at least, he had the company of others and each could help the other but here, walking the passages alone, stifled in the envelope there was nothing to occupy his thoughts. Nothing to do but walk and watch and check and think of the stillness, the grave-like atmosphere which now pervaded Alpha.

  He reached a door, the light outside, thank God, showing green, but still he had to check. The button sank beneath his thumb as he spoke into the grill.

  “Everything all right in there?”

  “Who is asking?” The voice grunted as he gave his name. “No need to sweat, we’re all fine aside from being bored. Any news?”

  “No.”

  The usual answer and he moved on. Behind the door was a party of six, all oldsters, technicians who would be relieved by others who would take their places and stay isolated in turn. Once out of the compartments they would wear envelopes similar to his own and live each in his own world until their shift had ended.

  All over the expanse of Alpha were other small groups, some larger than others, none more than a dozen. The nearest they could be to total isolation of each individual—the dispersal which, if the plague continued to run wild, gave them some measure of protection.

  Another door, the check, the reassurance, and again the moving on. So far he’d been lucky and he hoped it would stay that way. And then, as he turned a corner, he saw the red light.

  “Thank God you’ve come!” The voice was high, tense with strain and verging on the edge of hysteria. “It’s Blaine! He’s sick
!”

  “How long?”

  “What does that matter? Get some help!”

  It was already on its way, the message had been sent as he pressed the alarm button, his talk now was only to soothe the woman’s fears. He kept talking as he checked the door. The lock was sealed.

  “You out there! Gan you hear me?”

  “Now just keep calm, Sarah. Blaine will be all right. He sneezed, you say, then what happened?”

  “He’d been complaining of headaches and chills. I gave him some tablets—those Medical issued, but they did him no good. Then he fell asleep.”

  “And?”

  “He didn’t wake up! I shook him and slapped his face but he just lies there. His skin’s burning and he doesn’t move. It’s it, isn’t it? The plague. The damned plague! It’s got him and it’ll get me too!”

  Her and perhaps the others within the compartments who were now probably staying as far from the sick man as they could. They might even be wearing their suits but eventually they would have to remove them so the precaution was wasted. It was too late if Blaine did have the disease, but there could be other reasons for his condition. He said so but the woman refused to be convinced.

  “He just lies there! He won’t wake up! He just won’t wake up!”

  The tablets could have caused that; a powerful sedative had been combined with a wide-spectrum antibiotic and strong drugs to lift the pain-level. She had probably given the sick man an overdose or he had taken extra tablets unobserved. A bad sign if that was what had happened.

  The leader of the medical squad agreed.

  “It happens all the time. The patient takes a couple, his friends feed him more, then he adds to the number. When he does it’s because he’s in real pain. A bad appendix could cause it or a perforated ulcer but then there’d be blood. Was any reported? No? Then it’s ten to one he’s got it. Well, open up and let’s get him out of there.”

  Those inside had pushed the sick man close to the panel. As he was lifted out a man said, “You just going to leave us?”

  “Are you sick?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then you stay!” The medical leader was curt. “There’s nothing anyone can do for you, anyway.”

  “Medical—”

  “Is full and overflowing. Just take things easy. Eat a little, sleep if you can, do some work to pass the time. You’ve got work?” He glanced, at a heap of small components waiting to be assembled. “Good. Just get on with it and quit worrying.”

  “Are you crazy!” The man moved forward, big, his face scarred, angry. “What kind of talk is that? I’ve been caught in an epidemic before. The European rabies outbreak in the eighties. You know how many died then?”

  “This isn’t the same.”

  “You’re damned right it isn’t! Then I could run and did. Where the hell can I run to here? Cooped up with a sick man, breathing the same air, touching the things he did—what chance do I have?”

  None—if the sick man had the disease then all the others in the compartments would have it too. And the recovery rate, so far, was nil.

  “Fantastic!” Bergman looked at the opened ovoid and what it contained. “You’ve done well, Oliver. Damage?”

  “Some, maybe,” admitted Roache. “But nothing I can spot as being too serious. That connection there has sheared and I had to burn through that bar but we can analyze the alloy and replace it. The rest, as far as I know, is how the builders left it.”

  A combination of glittering units carefully set in what was obviously a mathematically precise relationship. A clear transparency engulfed them, a plastic medium which had to be electromagnetically “clear” and which turned the unit into a true “solid state” construction.

  “No moving parts,” commented Roache. “Nothing to wear out. Just keep it supplied with energy and it will work until the universe runs down.”

  “Did you locate the power-source?”

  “It’s enclosed as I suspected. There’s a slug set into the lower hemisphere. It’s dead now, all we found was a hundred grammes of barely radioactive heavy metal, but it must have been the fuel.” He anticipated Bergman’s next question. “Maybe, Victor. With luck and some of your skill we may be able to feed power into the thing. But a lot of work lies ahead before we can reach that point.”

  “Of course. You’ve made records?”

  “Sure.” Roache sneezed then turned as light streamed through the opening, bright against the inner glow from suspended bulbs. “What is it?”

  “Routine check, Chief.” The guard was young, an adult aware of his responsibilities. “Do you all feel well?”

  “Of course. What the hell are you doing here, anyway? This is a restricted work-area.”

  “I’m just doing my duty. Professor?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “But you aren’t wearing a suit. Neither of you. Surely you know the rules?”

  Roache said, with barely restrained impatience, “I told you this was a designated work-area. I don’t have to wear a suit within it and I can’t work wearing gloves. I’ll put the damned thing on when I leave. Satisfied?”

  “The others—”

  “Wear suits all the time by my order. Call me a freak if you like but it’s what I decided. And I’m in charge of this sector. Now run along and leave me to work in peace.”

  “You were hard on him,” said Bergman, mildly, as the young guard moved away. “He was only doing his duty.”

  “There are ways of doing it. Vladimir, now, he would have understood.” Roache shook his head. “A good man, Victor. I miss him.”

  A man who, like himself, went by the book, but Volochek was dead as so many others were dead. Bergman sat back on his heels, thinking, remembering old faces, old friends. How many would be left after this was over?

  Roache sneezed again. “Damn! It must be the dust!”

  Dust which had been carefully collected and which could no longer contaminate the cavern-ship. Bergman rose, conscious of an ache in his joints, a little stiffness which passed as he walked down the compartment. He paused by the side of the coffin-like box, touching the secret place and watching as the lid rose to open like a flower. It, like the box itself, was made of some close-grained material similar to wood. Inside it was smooth, the bottom carefully moulded into an elaborate pattern of concavities and convexities as if something had been placed on it while it was still soft. Something which had left its impression.

  The body Carter had seen?

  Bergman moved around it, studying it, his eyes thoughtful. The light was above and threw his shadow into the interior as he stooped closer and he rose calling to Roache.

  “Oliver, have you a spare flashlight?”

  “I’ve three. Take your pick.” The engineer was busy probing at the dismantled machine. “Found anything?”

  “No, just checking.”

  The light was powerful and threw a sharp circle of brilliance into the container. Bergman moved it, studying each square centimetre, finding nothing but clean and empty smoothness. Then, as he was about to turn away, he saw it.

  A tiny flash gone as soon as seen.

  A minute gleam which came to life again as he moved the light.

  “Oliver!”

  “What is it?”

  “Come over here. Bring a probe with you, something slender, a needle if you have it. I’ve found something interesting.” A scrap of metallic substance caught in the grain which flashed like a mirror as it reflected the light. “Hurry!”

  The scrap of stone held a smooth polish, the features finely delineated with eyes, mouth and nostrils grotesquely exaggerated in a cunning depiction of primitive art. An amulet similar to the one he wore around his neck and which he had made as a gift to his son. One which could even be handed down to later generations.

  A fancy and Kano knew it. The young weren’t interested in old superstitions but it had pleased him to make it and, at least, it gave his hands something to do while off-duty. Now, sitting at his statio
n in Main Mission, he rested it on his desk. Against the computer terminal it looked an anachronism and Paul Morrow said so.

  Kano shrugged, “Maybe, but it can do no harm and we can use all the luck we can get.”

  A vaccine would have been better but Paul didn’t say so. Instead he checked his console, seeing the array of tiny lights, the dials and digital readouts, the health of Alpha relayed to his board. It wasn’t good. Too many compartments had been sealed and too many sectors were operating at reduced efficiency. Even with the last person fallen and unable to work the installations would continue to function for a time, but automatic machinery could only be trusted for so long. A slight alteration in the atmospheric composition, an aberration in a sensor and the carbon dioxide content could rise, numbing the mental awareness, bringing sleep and merciful death.

  A temptation—why had he even thought of it?

  Was he God to decide when to end suffering?

  “Paul?” Sandra had noticed his tension and he forced himself to smile. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “No headaches?”

  “No, and I haven’t sneezed,” he said. “And as far as I know I am perfectly healthy and will stay that way.”

  A boast—how many others had made the same expression of intent only to fall later, to be collected and carried away and placed in an isolation ward filled with others who lay and moaned and burned with a fever nothing could quell?

  A question answered by a sudden shift on his panels, a winking of the tell-tales, an increase in those which shone red.

  “Three more,” he said, dully, “Two men and a woman.”

  “Young or old?”

  “Two young one old. How many does that make, David?”

  Kano was already at work.

  “To date forty-two per cent of the entire personnel are stricken. The breakdown shows that of that number eighty-one per cent are adults of eighteen or over. The children have, so far, been spared any great attrition. After the first wave they were kept in total isolation and no personal contact of any kind was made by those who had been in any association with the early victims.”