Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians Read online

  A RUNAWAY MOON IS THEIR SPACE-

  SHIP, THEIR REFUGE, THEIR PRISON!

  Blasting through the cosmos on a collision course with adventure, the 311 inhabitants of Alpha travel to mysterious, uncharted regions of the galaxy. Each day is a game of survival with the merciless universe.

  On Alpha, Commander Koenig is still breathing. His soul has been stolen by a dazzling woman in a purple city that exists in the realm of thought only. And blood runs cold when an alien force transforms a crewman into an icy, energy-consuming monster—who won't stop till Alpha freezes over!

  "Anton!" she screamed above the noise.

  He turned, the great grey-black mass of his head pivoting. Painfully slow sounds came from what had once been his mouth.

  "E–va!" Two syllables.

  "What's happened to you?" she cried, appalled. Eva could see his head now, the metallic body, the tree-like limbs gleaming in the half-light of fission

  And Commander Koenig heard the terrible agony of the thing that had once been Anton Zoref. It crawled now, huge and horrible, dragging itself closer and closer to the controls of the massive nuclear generator . . .

  Books in the Space: 1999 Series

  Breakaway

  Moon Odyssey

  The Space Guardians

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  THE SPACE GUARDIANS

  Futura Publications edition published 1975

  POCKET BOOK edition published November, 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: 671-80198-8.

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dr Helena Russell looked out over the bleak pinnacles of volcanic rock. She shivered. The reaches of space were so vast, so empty. A star, brighter than most, flared briefly. She turned away. Then she remembered Koenig’s advice: ‘When it gets bad, Helena, go out and look at it close. The rock. The ash. And the craters. And then look up to the stars. When you do that ask yourself, Are we really alone out here? Try it, Helena. Try it.’

  She had. Koenig’s quiet, reassuring words could soothe her fears most times, but not now. She remembered why. Koenig was away, checking on a reading from the computer. Moonbase Alpha was a different place without John Koenig.

  The routine of Medical Centre claimed her attention. A badly-burned crewman needed dressings. Dr Russell was guiltily glad of the chance to lose herself in professional attentions, to forget for a while that they were on a barren rock and heading, out of control, into regions where the star-maps ended.

  A hundred miles away, Commander Koenig was thinking along similar lines. Since the nuclear cataclysm which had blown the Moon clear of Earth and into its giddying flight through unchartered space, he had become accustomed to the distances and the emptiness. And the danger. He could accept the tragedies incidental to keeping Moonbase Alpha a going concern.

  Nearing a new star system that might hold intelligent life no longer stirred him, for all they had sighted had so far proved to be barren.

  Accidents, disappointments, these were constants on Alpha. They could be borne with. But what Koenig could never accept was the glaring truth of their complete and final severance from Earth.

  It was a life sentence.

  Always to live on the grey ash and dust and rock: always to need machines to survive. It was unthinkable. There had to be a way back. He suppressed a sigh that turned into a yawn. Carter, pilot of the exploratory Eagle, noticed:

  ‘Tired, John?’ he asked the Moonbase Commander. All the Eagle’s crew were tired. ‘You look it. I hate to say it, but it’s another useless trip. Ten hours looking for a lode of mineral deposits we can use and nothing to show for our time.’

  ‘Anything, Sandra?’ called Koenig.

  Koenig wouldn’t show what he felt. The technician, Sandra Benes, answered from the passenger module: ‘No show, Commander. I’ve treble-checked the bearing the computer gave us, but there’s no sign of the indicated deposits.’

  Koenig looked at her, a slim, dark-haired girl who radiated efficiency. If she said her monitors gave a no-show, he believed her.

  ‘The computer was certain,’ put in Professor Bergman. ‘Strange. We’ve quartered the co-ordinates for hours.’ His thin face looked remote. ‘It shouldn’t be wrong. John, there was a radiation effect. See.’

  Carter looked at the clipboard with its shadowy lines. Bergman pressed switches, and the screen reproduced the hazy bluish smear which had got the computer as near excitement as it ever could.

  ‘Here it is, Commander,’ said Sandra Benes. She tore off a read-out from the Eagle’s computer link. Bergman was still troubled.

  ‘There was an effect. It had a cause. John, how about a freak radiation—’

  ‘Search complete,’ called Sandra Benes. Then she noticed that Bergman was talking. ‘Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting, Professor.’

  ‘It’s nothing, nothing, Sandra.’

  ‘Well, Victor?’ said Koenig.

  ‘A stray thought—nothing firm, John.’

  ‘Head for Moonbase, Commander?’ asked Carter.

  Koenig still looked at the thin, ascetic face. But Bergman shook his head. ‘I’ll check it out when we’re back,’ he said. ‘We’re wasting time here. I could use some sleep myself.’

  ‘Alan, head for home,’ Koenig ordered. ‘Eagle One to Alpha.’ The screen in front of him blipped and then showed the round face of Paul Morrow at Main Mission Control. ‘There’s nothing but dust and rock again, Paul.’ Koenig hid his disappointment. ‘We’re heading back.’

  Bergman looked out of the forward con. A star-system hung delicately above the rearing jagged horizon ahead. His eyes narrowed. ‘Unless—’

  And then he gasped in sudden shock as the ship bucked in a tight turn. Carter yelled hoarsely as he was slammed back in his seat. Sandra Benes hurtled towards a bank of monitors and crashed in a shattered heap. Bergman’s wiry strength kept him from harm; Carter was in his restraint harness, as regulations demanded.

  Koenig saw blank black space as the ship again switch-backed violently.

  ‘Eagle One to Alpha!’ he gasped. ‘Emergency! Losing control—’

  Koenig fastened one strap of the restraint harness. He glimpsed the screen. Blank. The thrust of the ship was too much to allow him to move, but he could see no life in the intercom screen. Then the ship dived in a bewildering, bone-jarring rush.

  Bergman was trying
to reach the still body of Sandra Benes when the ship dived. His motion continued, sickeningly fast until he lurched into a bulkhead. Then he too crumpled into unconsciousness.

  ‘Power!’ Koenig yelled to the pilot. He couldn’t reach the dual controls. ‘Pull her out, Alan—hold her!’

  Ahead, downwards, the grey rocks waited. Koenig heard his own voice and that of Carter. Somewhere behind, the dull sound of bone and flesh thudding on metal.

  ‘It’s responding!’ Carter croaked. ‘She’s coming round—’

  Koenig was driven back by the forces surging from the Eagle’s two engines. He cartwheeled as the ship slid past a mammoth outcrop of black tooth-edged rock. His last memories were of a jolting that shook every plate of the ship; of the jangling sound of metal ripping; of a great well of blackness encompassing the Eagle; and the harness giving and a thrust that propelled him the length of the command module, to slam into the forward con, thinking, ‘It shouldn’t end like this, not on a grey-black surface—’ Then an appalling blow on his head. And that was all: pain and regret, red-blackness, nothing.

  The alarm system whined into silence.

  ‘Eagle One! Eagle One!’ rapped out the Duty Officer. He knew he was wasting his time. The scanners showed nothing. Eagle One was a wreck: no, Eagle One was a total wreck, with barely enough residual power to show its location.

  Paul Morrow assumed command as he was contacting Helena Russell.

  ‘Where? How bad?’ he asked tensely.

  The Duty Officer pointed to the screen:

  ‘We’ve got them in a big crater a hundred miles from Alpha, Paul. Weak emissions of power. Their main propulsion unit is out. It was a bad crash—erratic flight, then a cut off. There’ll be casualties.’

  Kano joined Paul Morrow.

  Helena’s face appeared on the screen. Morrow saw the piercingly blue eyes full of anguish.

  ‘How bad?’ he asked. ‘Do you get a reading?’

  ‘I know three are alive, one weak. But Commander Koenig’s medical monitor doesn’t register, Paul!’

  ‘John!’ whispered Kano.

  They all had the same thought. Koenig had held them together in the first terrible moments of space-wreck. His sometimes icy detachment had persuaded terrified men and women that they could still hope in spite of the cataclysm which had blotted out all thought of normal life. His essential humanity radiated throughout Moonbase Alpha, a visible life-line for the weak and a constant source of reassurance for the strong.

  ‘Not John,’ said Morrow. ‘Not John Koenig!’ He remembered his duty. ‘Dr Russell, prepare a medical team and get over to Launch Pad Seven. I want you on the way in five minutes.’

  She felt like running, but she remained calm. Heart racing, she detailed her team. And then she checked the vital life-readings. Three registered. One gave no reading at all.

  As the Rescue Eagle soared away from the Moonbase complex, the word filtered throughout its miles of corridors, penetrating to the furthest recess in the deep underground laboratories, store-rooms and workshops. Commander Koenig bad. No one dared to name the unspoken thought.

  Paul Morrow realized that he was gripping the supports of the command chair too hard. Kano’s technicians watched his broad face for a hint of news. He forced himself to remain calm. He must not show panic. Minutes dragged by.

  ‘They must be there!’ growled someone irritably.

  As if in response, a misty image filled the screen. It showed the rearing pinnacles of black rock and the deep shadows of a gigantic crater.

  ‘I see them!’ called the pilot of the Rescue Eagle.

  ‘How’s the Commander?’ asked Morrow levelly. ‘Helena? Dr Russell? What do you have?’

  ‘Still no life-reading,’ she said. ‘Nothing, Paul. We’re going down now.’

  Morrow and Kano exchanged glances. It took very little time. The seconds thudded away like strokes from an axe. Then:

  ‘He’s alive,’ with wonder and relief from Helena Russell. ‘He’s badly hurt, but he’s alive.’

  ‘Thank God,’ whispered Morrow. He would have said more, but Helena Russell’s voice cut in again:

  ‘We’ve two casualties, Professor Bergman and Sandra Benes. They’re not too bad. But I’m worried about the Commander—will you get David Kano to check with computer?’

  ‘Check what, Dr Russell?’ said Kano.

  ‘Check his life-readings. And quickly!’

  ‘Immediately!’

  ‘Why, Dr Russell?’ asked Morrow. He kept the new apprehension from his voice.

  ‘Because there’s nothing showing on his personal monitor—it’s at zero, Paul!’

  ‘But he’s alive, Doctor! You said so!’

  ‘Run the check, please, Paul. John Koenig is breathing. Just. But there is no indication of life apart from that, not according to his body-sensors.’

  Paul Morrow knew what she meant. Sensors embedded at the vital areas measured all uses of energy. Now, none of them registered. It must be a technical fault. For life to go on, there had to be the use of energy.

  Kano returned.

  ‘Well, David?’

  ‘Computer says the sensors are a hundred per cent.’

  Morrow paled. Commander Koenig was breathing. But the computer said he was dead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It had been a long walk, but Koenig felt curiously refreshed. If he hadn’t known how absurd the idea to be, he could have been striding along a tree-lined road with the wind cutting across grassland and the sun warm on his face. The space-suit hardly worried him, the heavy headpiece rubbed only gently on his shoulders.

  He pushed a button and stepped through the airlock. They’d be surprised to see him. Curious that the Rescue Mission had been so long. But they probably had other things to attend to. It hadn’t been such a bad crash after all. Bergman and Service Technician Benes injured but not critically. Carter in good spirits even though he had not been able to raise Alpha. Someone had to make the long walk, so Koenig had ordered them to remain with the Eagle.

  Koenig pushed off his helmet. The travel tube accelerated and within a minute he was in the corridor which led to Main Mission Control. A sense of urgency filled him now, but also a feeling of well-being. He had survived. There were injuries, but it was not a disaster.

  ‘Paul?’ he called, as the door slid away.

  A low humming filled the room. Air-circulating fans: a subdued electronic whisper from screens: the sense of power units pumping life into Moonbase. All as it should be. Except that one never noticed the low insistent noise. There was always the sound of the human voice to hide it.

  ‘David!’ Koenig heard his own voice ring out into the near-silence.

  Main Mission Control was deserted. There was no sign of movement whatsoever. Puzzled, Koenig walked to his office. The door slid back at his touch.

  ‘Paul!’

  It was so strange as to be puzzling. Always, there was movement, life, the sounds of human activity. Decisions, questions, small jokes, the common courtesies of their lives. Suddenly, Koenig whirled.

  There had been movement. He glimpsed the woman.

  ‘What the devil—’ he began, too stunned to finish the expostulations, for the woman was a complete stranger to him and she was already fading in a strange purple haze as he stared open-mouthed at her.

  The woman had been there: she was gone.

  She was quite tall, slim, dressed in a long gown which shimmered with red and gold lights. It covered her body yet revealed its beauties. The form beneath had a graceful elegance, rounded and slender: honey-bronze and exquisite. And she had vanished in the moment he had looked at her.

  He passed a hand over his forehead. He looked down at the hand. No blood. There had been a cut . . .

  He looked at his wrist.

  He shivered. Without making a conscious decision, he turned back to his office and ordered a reading on the crew of Eagle One. ‘Life-reading,’ he said. ‘Carter, pilot. Professor Bergman. Technician Benes. He pause
d. ‘And Commander, Moonbase.’

  Silently he examined the readings. One normal. Two showed damage, not serious. One: nothing. ‘Recheck on Commander Koenig!’ he snapped, unable to keep the raw edge of tension from his voice.

  ‘Correct readings, sir,’ said a smooth electronic voice. There was no surprise in it, nothing but cold efficiency.

  Koenig looked down at the wrist which had attracted his attention when he tried to wipe off the blood which should have issued from the wound. The life-register indicators showed nothing: a nil reading.

  The computer confirmed the information.

  Koenig trembled. He felt panic begin to scream through his mind, and then he realized that he, of all people, could not abandon himself to despair. He forced himself to walk carefully through to Main Mission Control. There was a mystery here but it could be explained. Always, there had to be an explanation.

  But the silence? The deserted Control? The nil reading?

  He crossed to the big scanner.

  ‘General view,’ he said.

  The scanners in orbit over the Moon would show him Moonbase, pinpoint any aberrations and pick out the cause of the mystery. For there had to be cause. Something threatened Moonbase. They would read the signs and pick out the intertwining agency.

  The scanner blazed instantly, flooding with a deep violet-purple. And then images formed. Koenig reeled. The impact was tremendous. A city filled the screen. It could be nothing else. Human, undoubtedly made for people. But how could people make such things? Dazzling shapes, iridescent under a calm and brilliant purple sky, but shapes which changed as you looked at them—colours spangling and coruscating like living things, and then turning back into regular shapes as tiny craft darted in amongst them, to hang and then become absorbed.

  Koenig knew that, without question, he was looking into the future of his race. Even as he began to ask the dazed questions which sprang into his mind, the city (city? thought Koenig, but like that?) became part of a shifting, more subtle, panorama. Koenig reached for the console and strained against vertigo.