Space 1999 #4 - Collision Course Page 7

  Chase her. Hold her. Bring her back.

  Orders some of the men rose to obey.

  The mist was a roiling wall across the path, thick, enigmatic, the silence within it eerie, foreboding. Bergman halted, staring at it, catching Carter by the arm as he made to push past.

  ‘Steady, Alan.’

  ‘More delay, Victor?’ Carter was impatient. ‘And for what this time? It’s only mist.’

  ‘Is it?’ Bergman frowned. ‘The original party could have walked into a cloud like that and we know for certain the rescue team did. They entered it and they stopped communicating. A coincidence, perhaps, but there could be a connection.’

  ‘Sure there is—the savages jumped them under cover of the mist.’ Carter was certain he had the answer; Kano wasn’t so convinced.

  ‘How long does it take to send an alarm, Alan? No, if the teams had been attacked we’d have known of it. I think that Victor is right to be cautious. A gas, professor?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Carter pulled at his arm. ‘If the teams had died we’d have found their bodies. We didn’t so the mist must be harmless. Now for God’s sake let’s hurry! A minute could save Sandra’s life.’

  ‘And rushing things could make her death certain.’ If she wasn’t already dead, thought Bergman grimly, but he kept the thought to himself. ‘There could be pits and other traps and a primitive spear can kill just as effectively as a laser. We’ll do this my way, Alan.’

  ‘But Sandra—’

  ‘Is just one of many. There’s the Commander and Helena and all the others, don’t forget. The savages must have taken them too.’ Bergman lifted the commlock from his belt. ‘Attention all units. Under no circumstances enter the mist. Stay well clear and retreat if you have to. I repeat—stay clear of the mist. Now report your positions.’

  He nodded his satisfaction as the voices came from the instrument. Sonic aerial scans had shown a cavern close to the east and now men surrounded the area. From all available evidence the savages were Stone Age trogdolytes—cave dwellers, and that was where they would be found.

  ‘Right,’ he said as the last report was made. ‘Let’s go!’

  The path wound between soaring trees, between lumpish boulders and over a mass of lichened stone. Bergman frowned as he examined the minute growths, straightening to look at the trees and shrubs, watching the darting flight of a bird. Carter had no eyes for the scenery. He walked tense and alert, gun in hand, feet probing the ground before he trusted it with his weight.

  Kano said, ‘What are your plans, Victor?’

  ‘Vague,’ admitted Bergman. ‘We don’t know how many savages we’re up against so we’ll have to play it by ear. Once we’ve found the entrance we’ll go in and try to spot Sandra and the others. We might be able to get them free, in which case we’ll leave and the men can take care of any chase after us.’

  ‘Why don’t we just go in and shoot hell out of them?’ said Carter. He didn’t look at the others as he spoke.

  ‘We’re not after revenge, Alan,’ said Bergman quietly. ‘That can come later if necessary, but our main objective now is to save the others. If we attack by storm they could be killed by accident or from reasons of fear. With our fire-power we can hold back the savages and release their prisoners without taking more risks than we have to.’ He added, flatly, ‘We’ve no time for making mistakes.’

  No time and no inclination, Bergman, coldly scientific, judged the problem without emotion. Time and effort expended to achieve a certain objective. The minimum of expenditure to gain the maximum result.

  He slowed as a sloping wall of boulder-strewn rock rose before them. Mist veiled its flanks but the part before them was clear. In it gaped a ragged opening.

  ‘In!’

  He led the rush, losing ground only towards the end when Carter passed him to vanish into the orifice. Kano, more cautious, halted at the mouth of the cavern, staring inside. As Bergman joined him he said, ‘It’ll be best to separate, Victor, and each cover the other, right?’

  ‘Right, but not too far apart.’

  Beyond the opening lay a winding passage, the floor rough, the walls bulging and stained with mineral deposits. Bergman led the way, hearing the clatter of Carter’s boots as he ran ahead, the pilot invisible beyond a turn.

  ‘Sandra!’ Bergman heard the shout, the answering cry.

  ‘Alan! Thank God you’ve found me!’

  She was in Carter’s arms when the others joined him. The pilot held his gun aimed towards a group of savages which edged close. Bergman knocked up his arm as he fired, the beam lancing towards the roof and sending a shower of broken stone falling to rattle on the floor.

  ‘No killing, Alan!’

  ‘They had Sandra!’

  ‘And could still have the others.’ Bergman glanced at the sobbing, near-hysterical girl. ‘Get her out of here and take her back to the Eagles. Stay clear of the mist. When you get out order the units to close in.’ He glanced at the dim vastness of the cavern, the running shapes, men and women frightened by the blast of the weapon, the falling stone. ‘Ask her if she saw any of the others.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘David and I will look around.’

  It was a journey back into time, to a period which men had once known but had long since forgotten. A harsh and brutal era when strength was all and each day brought a new challenge.

  Bergman moved slowly across the cavern, noting the fires, discarded bones, sticks and heaps of skins and pelts. His voice was that of a professor lecturing a class of attentive students.

  ‘They already have the beginnings of intelligence, David. They are conserving food and fuel and have learned to prepare skins for comfort and clothing. Those daubs on that wall are the first beginnings of primitive artistry and, yes, see how someone was fashioning a club.’ He picked up a thick branch split at one end. A flat stone lay beside it next to a pile of strips of hide. ‘Flake the edges and you would have a workable axe.’

  Kano said, tensely, ‘Victor! Over by that wall. That opening surrounded by skulls.’

  Something moved in the light of a fire, a tall, shambling figure with blood on its head and unsteady feet. Next to it, daubing it with a red pigment, stood a woman. A low keening came from between her lips as she circled the man, touching him, sprinkling a red dust over his head, his shoulders.

  ‘A death-rite,’ said Bergman calmly. ‘Such customs are common among primitive peoples. A man is sick and they sense he will die. They consider that he is already dead and will mourn his passing and decorate his body with magical powders and liquids so as to ensure his safe passage into another world before putting him into a grave or on a pyre.’

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘Physically, perhaps, but if he can’t save himself then he isn’t worth saving. Cultures such as this cannot afford to maintain the weak. The difference between life and death is small. An hour or two, a day even, what difference does it make?’ Bergman narrowed his eyes as he stared, at the couple. The light was poor, but there was something about the man’s face which attracted his attention. ‘David, doesn’t he remind you of the commander?’

  ‘A coincidence.’

  ‘Perhaps, but—’ Bergman broke off, frowning. ‘Let’s take a closer look.’

  The woman ran off, screeching, as they neared the spot. A heap of sticks lay beside a fire and Bergman lifted a few, lighting the ends and whipping them through the air to gain a flame. Holding up the torch he stepped close to the man and stared into his face.

  ‘David! It’s John!’

  ‘Impossible!’ Kano’s voice reflected his incredulity. ‘John Koenig a savage? Turned into a Stone Age man in a matter of hours? Victor, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘A lot of what’s been happening doesn’t make sense,’ snapped Bergman. ‘Contact Carter and get him to ask Sandra if she saw any of the others in this cavern. Quickly!’ He lifted the torch again as Kano obeyed, his voice changing tone to become soft and soothing. ‘John, it’s me, Vic
tor, your friend. If you recognize me say something. Just nod if you can’t talk. David?’

  ‘No, Sandra saw none of the others.’ Kano hesitated. ‘She did say that a couple reminded her of John and Helena, but she said that it was just a coincidence.’ He turned as he caught a glimpse of movement. ‘Victor! Watch out!’

  A spear came lancing through the air to shatter on the ground a foot to one side. An axe followed, a hail of stones. Kano fired, triggering his gun in repeated blasts which sent molten rock dripping from the roof, aiming to scare, not to hurt or kill.

  Bergman grunted as an arm swept through the air, a clenched hand slamming against his chest and knocking him to one side. As the stained and shambling figure broke into a run towards the mouth of the cavern he said, sharply, ‘Don’t fire, David. Warn all units not to fire. We must follow and catch him.’

  Fear had made the savage agile. He reached the mouth of the cavern, passed through it and was near the end of the twisting tunnel before they could catch up with him. Beyond the ground sloped to the path, mist lying thickly to one side. It moved with a sluggish life of its own, crawling over the ground like a giant amoeba, strands of fog reaching out as if they had been blind tentacles. Bergman came to a halt as he saw it.

  ‘David, order an aerial reconnaissance of this entire area. I want all patches of mist plotted as to recent concentration and movement. Photographic record.’ He reached for his own commlock. ‘Attention all units. Double precautions against being engulfed in the mist. Units to the east activate sonic probes and maintain strict surveillance. No Stone Age man to be allowed to escape. Units to north and south close in as far as is safe.’

  Kano nodded as he lowered the instrument.

  ‘Paul acknowledges, Victor. He also warned that time is passing.’ He glanced down the slope. ‘Look at our friend move!’

  The savage was loping over the ground, skins flapping, feet pounding at the rocky loam. He saw a man standing to one side, a member of the surrounding units and, turning, headed for the mist.

  It closed, over him like a shroud.

  Closed and roiled and lifted to withdraw, revealing a limp figure on the ground.

  ‘Victor!’ Kano’s yell echoed from the slope, the trees, the very mist itself. ‘That’s the commander!’

  John Koenig, lying still, his face pale, his head bloodied with wounds.

  Bergman reached him, felt his heart, the great arteries in the throat and expelled his breath with a gasp of relief.

  ‘He’s alive, David, but he needs treatment.’

  ‘But where did he come from?’ Kano shook his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t understand this. That savage ran into the mist, it lifted and we found the commander. What’s happening here?’

  ‘The proof of my suspicions. The mist—it has to be the mist.’ Bergman lifted his commlock. ‘Attention all units. Move into the cavern and clear it of all human life. Use stun-guns if you have to but under no circumstances fire to hurt or kill. I repeat—you must not hurt or kill. Get those men and women outside and head them into the mist.’

  ‘Victor?’

  ‘Don’t you understand, David?’ Bergman lowered his commlock and gestured to two men to lift Koenig and carry him to the waiting Eagles. ‘There aren’t any real savages. There never were. Those Stone Age people we saw, the ones which took Sandra—they are all members of the missing teams!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mathias grunted as he made the final check and slapped Koenig on the shoulder.

  ‘You’ll have a sore head for a while, John, but that’s about all. No signs of regression or any other physical abnormality. The rest are the same, all as good as new.’ He sobered a little. ‘All but one.’

  Sandos, who had ridden up with the Eagle and had been found dead.

  Koenig shook his head as he thought about it. He had seen the films and studied the records, but even now the whole episode seemed incredible. As the last of the men and women who had been examined left the Medical Centre Koenig moved towards the desk, fitted a spool into the replaying machine and switched it on.

  The viewpoint was from above; the film had been taken from an Eagle, so the depicted figures were foreshortened and oddly distorted. Even so there was no mistaking their savagery.

  A bunch of Stone Age trogdolytes, herded from the cavern and driven into a writhing cloud of mist by wary security units. A mist which had embraced them and then had lifted to move on, leaving the ground littered with unconscious figures. The men and women who had formed the investigation teams.

  Eagles had lifted them back to Alpha, where they had been examined and tested and, now, rechecked for any latent abnormalities.

  ‘Still puzzled, John?’ Bergman had come to stand beside Koenig at the desk.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so am I.’ Helena joined the group. ‘I can remember what happened. We walked into the mist and then, suddenly, we were on an Eagle being lifted back to base. What happened in between is a mystery. I’ve tried to remember, but all I get are vague impressions of what seem to be dreams.’

  ‘The mist,’ said Koenig. ‘You were right, Victor, the mist was to blame. But what made you suspect it?’

  ‘It didn’t act right, for one thing.’ Bergman reached out and changed the spool in the machine, fitting another. ‘This is a speeded up photographic record taken with radio-sensitive film and using Altarve filters. Now watch.’ On the screen a luminescent blob moved with a rippling motion over the terrain around the site of the cavern. ‘Familiar, Helena?’

  ‘It’s like an amoeba.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s alive.’ Bergman switched off the machine. ‘Alive in a way I can’t as yet even begin to understand, but it certainly is far from being a harmless mist. That strange element we discovered—I found it to be concentrated in the mist patches, and there were other abnormalities. Small things, but they made me suspicious; lichens of a type which didn’t belong in that environment, an oddity about the trees, a bird—’ He broke off, shrugging. ‘Call it an inspired guess. Perhaps I was just lucky, but the mist was the only thing which could account for the disappearances. Even at that I was slow—the evidence was before us all the time.’

  ‘Sandos?’ Koenig frowned. ‘The autopsy proved nothing other than that he had simply died of heart failure.’

  ‘But his presence in the Eagle proved a lot more.’ Bergman glanced from one to the other. ‘It was so obvious we just didn’t see it. Sandos was the duty pilot and he didn’t desert his post as we first thought. The mist engulfed the Eagle and he was changed. Afraid, he crouched between the seats. We called, sealed the vessel and lifted it back to base. Sandos, or the savage he had become, simply died of fright.’

  ‘Changed,’ said Helena. ‘Civilized people turning into Stone Age trogdolytes. How, Victor? How?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘And I doubt if we will ever know. All we can do is to guess and make crude analogies. Take a tuning fork, hit it, its vibrations will set up a sympathetic harmonic in another placed close by. Perhaps the mist was a time-warp constructor and provided an opening into the past. Those taken by it could have been exchanged with others from a different time. Or you could have been sent back, your civilized knowledge erased and only the genetic memory pattern of an earlier existence left to guide your actions. Certainly had you been killed as a savage, you would be dead and stuck in that time as Sandos was. Think yourself fortunate, John, that Sandra didn’t hit a little harder.’

  ‘And that you arrived in time to prevent Helena burying me.’ Koenig smiled as he touched her hands. ‘Why did you want to do that, Doctor?’

  Her eyes met his own, direct, serious.

  ‘I don’t know, John, but it could have been because I was jealous. Even in those days a woman must have wanted to be special to a man.’

  ‘As she is now,’ he said softly. ‘As she will always be.’ His fingers closed over her own. ‘Helena, I—’

  The commlock at his belt hummed its demand for attention.
It was Morrow. He said, without preamble, ‘Object spotted in the north-eastern quadrant, Commander. No danger—but you might find it interesting to come to Main Mission.’

  It wasn’t very large and its course would carry it clear, but Koenig was intrigued. The density of the object was high for one thing and the shape was oddly symmetrical, and ovoid a little like an egg, the long axis aimed in the direction of motion.

  ‘It’s on a transit orbit,’ said Morrow. ‘Probably caught in Retha’s gravitational field. It’s on an elliptical course with the planet as one focus and the other set way, way out. Something like a comet,’ he added. ‘But this thing is solid.’

  ‘The density is approximately that of lead,’ reported Sandra. ‘No radiation emission detected.’

  ‘None at all?’ Koenig frowned. That, in itself, was unusual. All matter had some residual radioactive electronic storms of space. ‘Albedo?’

  ‘Almost nil.’

  Matter which didn’t radiate and didn’t reflect light and was as dense as lead. The clinkered core of some long-dead planetoid, perhaps, or a fragment tossed from the exploding heart of a ruptured sun?

  Morrow said, ‘It could be valuable, Commander. It’s too big for us to bring down and the course is wrong for us to throw it into orbit, but maybe we could do some mining while it’s within range.’

  Koenig had already considered it. Heavy metals were valuable and in short supply on the moon. The nuclear charges previously used had to be replaced and, unless the sighted object was homogenous, portions of it would have to lie within the area of uranium-plus densities. Fuel for the atomic piles. A chance he couldn’t afford to miss.

  ‘Order an Eagle to be readied and set on the pad, Paul. Full mining gear and heavy-duty lasers. Victor and I will make a preliminary survey.’

  ‘Pilots?’

  ‘Carter has the right as head of reconnaissance. Who is next on the duty list? Baxter? Right, warn him to get ready and have Anderson stand by for refining any samples we bring back with us.’