‘No.’
Another mystery — why cones on the Ad Astra and the planetoid and not on the Pinnace? The mass too small, perhaps? The object too near?
Questions which could wait — but one problem could not.
‘Saha, have you checked the rate of descent? How much time do we have before the Pinnace crashes?’
From where he stood beside the computer Nelson Saha said, ‘What’s on your mind, Professor? Rescue?’
‘Is it possible?’
Saha fed the problem into the computer and read the display.
Weight saw him frown. ‘What’s wrong, Nelson?’
‘A moment.’ Again Saha busied himself with the computer, made a check, looked up from the final result. ‘A new factor has been added,’ he said, bleakly. ‘The rate of orbital decay is accelerating faster than it should. Either something has slowed the Pinnace or it is being affected by a force from below.’
‘Well?’
‘At the present velocity and with the decay remaining as plotted we have time to reach the Pinnace and have approximately, ten minutes in which to effect an exchange and escape.’
Ten minutes!
It would have to be enough.
*
Douglas West sat in the pilot’s chair. He had heard the news and had risen from his hospital bed and had insisted on his right to command the rescue ship. A right backed by his unquestionable skill.
‘You’ll need the best,’ he said. ‘I’m the best. I’ve the training and the experience and if I can’t do it no one can. Not a boast, Professor, a fact and you know it.’
‘But are you fit?’
‘I’m fit.’ West had shrugged. ‘So I lost my breath for a while, but I’ve got it back now. I’ve had plenty of time to regain it and I’ll have more on the journey out. Nelson can pilot the Pinnace until we reach the Omphalos.’ He added, impatiently, ‘Let’s not argue about it — we haven’t time for that.’
But time had been found to install a few items of equipment Manton had selected. Time too for Claire Allard to bring aboard things of her own.
Like Douglas West, she had insisted on accompanying the rescue mission and, like West, she was not to be denied.
Now she busied herself in the passenger module, mixing fluids, sealing small containers, fastening them to pipes leading to masks which could be clipped over the mouth and nostrils. Standard equipment which Manton recognised as being parts of emergency resuscitation apparatus.
‘Here, Eric.’ She handed him one. ‘Loop this over your head and drop the container into your suit. Wear the mask or leave it to rest just below your mouth. There’s a valve here, see? Turn it if you feel odd in any way.’
‘Such as?’
‘Giddiness, detachment, disorientation.’
‘You expect such reactions?’
‘I don’t know what to expect, Eric, but I’m trying to anticipate. Carl wouldn’t just freeze unless he had no choice. The Pinnace is protected against most things and if the trouble is other than physical what I’ve built won’t help much. The flasks contain an anti-hallucinogen in liquid form under pressure. Turning the valve will release a fine spray which will turn into a vapour. It will do much as the capsules I made before we hit this space. If we are subjected to sensory distortion or cerebral stimulation, then the gas could help.’
‘How? As a depressant?’ Manton was interested. Adjusting the device, he twisted the valve and took a cautious sniff. ‘It smells like ammonia.’
‘A scent incorporated as a warning that the valve is open,’ she explained. ‘Also it serves to tighten the inner membranes and clear the nasal passages so as to allow an easy entry of the vapour into the lungs. The chemical formulae are complex, an extension of what I used before.’ She added, sombrely, ‘I hope that it can help.’
As Manton hoped that his own devices would work.
As Claire rose to carry other containers of the anti-hallucinogen to where Saha and West sat in the pilot’s seats of the Pinnace he stooped over the apparatus he had brought with him. It was a jumble of electronic circuits, radiant coils, batteries, vibrators, crystals and other assorted pieces of electronic equipment snatched from his laboratory. Now he connected parts to each other, fed power into the assembly, watched as dials kicked and registers glowed.
Returning Claire watched him, saw his frown, his irritable shake of the head.
‘Trouble, Eric?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something I’ve been working on. A compact form of a heterodyning apparatus that I intend to fit to the regular screen installations of the Pinnaces. As you know there are two ways at least of gaining protection from energies which may threaten to disrupt or damage life and equipment. We can prevent it reaching us — in other words set up a barrier of some kind which is stronger than the threatening energy, or we can diffuse it. Our present defence shield works on the former principle. We set up an umbrella of controlled energy, held and directed by powerful fields, which is strong enough to prevent the passage of inimical forces. It also helps to diffuse the energy by forcing it to spread its point of impact so that no one point is subjected to the total.’
‘Like a shield of steel fronted by a layer of fluid,’ she said. ‘The fluid spreads the impact and the steel stops it. I understand.’
‘Such a system requires weight and a plentiful supply of power.’ Manton made another adjustment and grunted as a lamp flashed. ‘I’m trying to do something different.’
‘Heterodyning,’ she said. ‘Cancelling out. One force merging with and diminishing another. I remember an experiment conducted in the science lab when I was at school. Two different sounds which were blended to result in silence. Two lamps the same. As I remember it the crests of one waveform had to match exactly with the valleys of another. By combining the two you ended with a total cancellation of both.’
‘Yes.’ Manton moved a connection. ‘What I hope to do is to build a field, even a minor one will do, around this Pinnace so that whatever force is affecting Carl’s vessel won’t affect us.’
‘You think it important?’
He said, flatly, ‘Carl is no fool, Claire. He isn’t maintaining radio silence because he wants to. And his controls aren’t jammed from choice. He’s trapped and something has trapped him. Both of us have recognised that.’
And recognised, too, that they in turn could be rendered as helpless as the commander. Doomed, as Maddox was doomed, to circle the Omphalos until their Pinnace crashed to destructive ruin.
And, for them, there would be no rescue.
From his chair Saha said, ‘We’re getting close. You want to take over now?’
‘Not yet, Nelson.’ Douglas West stared through the forward vision ports, narrowing his eyes against the green glow of the Omphalos, trying to see the minute shape of the Pinnace against the convoluted mass. Before him an instrument clicked, clicked again, took up a repetitious buzzing.
‘Got it!’ Saha stared at his own bank of instruments. ‘The tracer has hooked on to the Commander’s Pinnace. Distance…velocity…direction…’ He read out the figures even as he was turning their own machine into a complementary path to the other. ‘If you’re ready I’ll —’ He broke off, blinking. ‘What’s that? What the hell is it?’
Something huge, monstrous, rising on wings of lambent flame, eyes like mirrors of ice, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow them whole.
‘The laser! Quick!’ Saha cried out as the thing engulfed them, seeing darkness as his senses swam and a giddiness turned his limbs to water. Dead, swallowed, made one with the great flying beast — the creature from nightmare. Why hadn’t West fired? Why had he let them be killed?
‘Nelson!’ He heard the voice as from a great distance. ‘Nelson! Get hold of yourself, man! Nelson!’
Saha shuddered, seeing again the terrible shape of the Mbolnga bird, the frightful avenger which came to tear the living hearts from the guilty, to gulp down those who had run from battle and hold them in its stomach there to be pulped to a living, screaming jelly. Old tales whispered to his great great grandfather in the flickering light of camp fires, murmurs from reeded kralls, hints given by the witch doctors with their devil masks and mysterious powers.
How deep ran the racial heritage of mankind!
‘Nelson!’ West was anxious, his voice betraying his rising anger. ‘Nelson, for God’s sake, man!’
Saha said, dully, ‘Didn’t you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘A great bird. It came from nothing and —’ He broke off, realising that it was useless to explain. The thing had vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Are we still tracking?’
‘Yes.’ West checked the instruments with a practiced sweep of his eyes. ‘That bird you thought you saw. Was it —?’
‘Not thought,’ said Saha. ‘I did see it. To me, at least, it was real.’
‘Alright. That bird you saw. Did it…’ Douglas blinked. In the co-pilot’s seat a skeleton sat, grinning at him, hollow sockets controls, taking over from his co-pilot, the terrible figure which moved as the head turned, the fleshless jaws gaping in the ghastly parody of a smile.
Death as his companion.
Death in the Pinnace.
Death at his side!
Tell-tales flared and alarms sounded as West tore at the controls, taking over from his co-pilot, the terrible figure which sat in menace at his side. Around him swirled a thin, green mist, blurring details, softening harsh outlines, seeming to cling to hands and head, face and hair, filling his lungs, thickening, solidifying, clogging…clogging…
And, abruptly, he was back in the sealed chamber where the aliens had died. His suit closed, the air gone, the enclosed space filled with the taint of his own vomit. He felt again the sickening heaving of his lungs and stomach, the desperate need for air, to breathe, to escape.
And death, as before, was waiting.
Death with its quiet and subtle peace. The warm and gentle darkness into which he could sink and rest…and rest…and rest…
As Saha fought for their lives.
West had taken over full control and then had seemingly gone to sleep. Saha slapped at the switches, overrode the master control and regained command. Beneath his hands the Pinnace was a horse running wild, a ship in a storm, a leaf riding a whirlpool. Lamps flashed their signals of overstrained systems; guidance mechanisms fought opposing impulses, the stabilizers were at war with themselves, the engines were blasting against a reverse thrust, even the life-support systems were flashing in the red.
Within moments circuits would blow as feedback current fused resistances and jumped gaps never intended to handle such misapplied energies.
‘Nelson, your mask!’ He heard Claire shout. ‘The mask. Both of you use the mask!’
She was standing in the door leading back to the passenger module, her face pale, a smear of blood running over her chin from a bitten lip. A moment, then she had vanished, flung backwards by the abrupt movement of the Pinnace; a sudden acceleration which drove Saha deep into his chair and sent sparks flashing before his eyes.
Another illusion or reality?
How could he tell?
He groaned, fighting the pressure, tasting blood as his hand moved up towards the mask hanging below his mouth. The valve seemed to be stuck, the knob rejecting his fingers and he groaned again as, with added desperation, he again attacked the metal. A year and the valve moved a little. A century and it opened a little more. A millennium and he smelt the stink of ammonia which rose to burn in his nostrils, to tingle in his lungs.
To wash his brain free of fantasy and to reveal the peril ahead.
The Pinnace was plunging to utter destruction.
‘Douglas!’ Saha yelled as he fought the controls. He was a good pilot, trained, normally capable, but if the Pinnace were to be saved now they wanted not mere capability but a miracle. ‘Douglas, for God’s sake!’
Before his eyes the signal lamps flared like the dancing of dust flecks on a stove. In the forward vision ports, the bulk of the Omphalos shone with a hungry, green glow, filling the area, the shadowed convolutions taking on the likeness of a mask, a grinning face, a waiting skull.
They were heading towards it too fast and at too steep an angle. Already they must be below the orbit followed by the other Pinnace. If dangerous fields were present they had already entered them, to escape, would require skills perfected beyond the hampering need of thought. West had them, Saha knew he did not.
Freezing the controls, he lunged towards the other man, gripped the valve of his mask, opened it, fell back into his seat just in time to prevent the Pinnace going into a long-axis rotating spin.
‘What?’ West stirred. ‘What’s the matter? What happened — Saha!’
‘Take over, man! You wanted to come. You said you were the best and, now’s your chance to prove it. Wake up, man!’
‘I’m awake.’
‘Then take over.’ Saha hit a switch and folded his arms. ‘Here! It’s all yours. Now show us how good you are!’
There was nothing more he could do now but pray.
Once, when he had been very young, Eric Manton had been taken by an uncle to a far land and there, at an ancient and holy place, had paid a coin to a fakir who had asked him what most he wanted to be. The man had smiled when he had answered and had gently corrected the youthful aspirations. It was not enough, he said, to be rich and wise and famous. It was not even enough for a man to be clever. Above all a man, any man, needed to be lucky.
Now, sitting in the Pinnace, Manton realised again that, not for the first time, his luck had saved his life.
Against all odds West had managed to regain control. Against all logic the jumble of equipment he had assembled had, by sheer chance, formed connections which had produced the heterodyning field he had hoped would give protection. And Claire’s compound had saved them from mind-destroying hallucinations.
Hunched in his seat, he brooded over the stream of images, the false reality in which, for a space, he had been lost.
A vision of plumed horses, of crepe and solemn black, of mournful faces and mutes and bearers and armbands and hats dressed with ebon ribbons. All the pomp and panoply of a Victorian funeral. The exaggerated respect paid to the dead with doffed caps and bowed heads, of whispering voices, of ceremonial meals.