And if the thing were sleeping and should wake — what then?
The concept chilled her then she shook herself, aware of her flight into fantasy, the sudden flurry of an undisciplined imagination. It was a relief to listen to what Manton was saying.
‘Carl, you said that to the Omphalos we were little more than a source of energy. That is a source of food. Do you imply that we could be even more?’
A moment in which Maddox remained silent, looking ahead with haunted eyes, aware of the trap into which his private knowledge had led him. The impression he had gained of something into which other sentient creatures could and had been assimilated. Of a plethora of minds aware and helplessly entrammelled. Of the ghostly echoes of screams.
‘Perhaps,’ he said at last. And then, to change the subject, ‘Did you manage to measure the rate of attrition on the planetoid?’
‘Not to the precision I would like, Carl, but we took some rough measurements. It is slow, as I anticipated. We seem to be dealing with a total conversion of matter into energy and there must be a limiting factor to the amount which can be stored and utilised.’ He added, grimly. ‘But there’s no danger of the thing going hungry for a long time yet. The mass of our ship and its atomic engines will keep it supplied for quite a while.’
The people too, but Maddox didn’t want to think of that.
Claire pressed him back in the seat as he attempted to rise.
‘Take it easy, Carl. There’s nothing for you to do now.’
‘I want to see if we can contact the ship.’
‘Why?’ She frowned as he made no answer. ‘The defence shield? Frank kept it on as you ordered. Anything else?’
‘The metal we found,’ he said. ‘The olive stuff lining the tunnels and chamber of the aliens. Did you find out what it was, Eric?’
‘Basically some form of non-ferrous alloy aligned to long-chain polymers of a silicone structure. They must have found a way to blend the various materials into a flux which they spread and let harden as we do with an epoxy glue. Once set it’s difficult to cut and impossible to rework.’
‘Can we duplicate it?’
‘Not at the moment and I doubt if we will ever be able to match it exactly.’ Manton rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. ‘I didn’t have much time to work on it myself, but Demetriov is doing his best. He knows metals and plastics better than any, Carl. If there’s an answer to be found, then he’ll find it.’
Maddox nodded, remembering the man, a solemn, middle-aged product of the Ukraine, a person who rarely smiled but had never, to his knowledge, displayed anger.
Claire said, ‘Why the interest, Carl? What importance can the alien metal have for us?’
‘Those creatures used it for protection,’ he explained. ‘They lined their tunnels and chamber with it.’
‘Naturally, so as to seal them against air-loss.’ She saw his eyes, his expression. ‘But you think there was something else, Carl. A protection against what?’ Her mind leapt to the answer. ‘The aging element of the energy-beam? Is that it?’
‘I don’t know. It was only a possibility.’
‘We could make a test.’ Claire frowned, thinking. ‘Culture plates,’ she decided. ‘Ted is already working with them and Demetriov could shield them with some of the alien metal and see if there is any change in the catabolic rate.’
‘See if the radio is working. If it is, give the orders.’
Maddox tried to relax as she left, knowing there was nothing more he could do for the present. If contact could be established, then everything possible for the moment would have been done.
In the meantime, it was good just to sit, to know that he was safe among his fellows, that the ghastly isolation he had known when orbiting the Omphalos was a thing of the past.
Something to be forgotten — if such a thing could ever be that.
‘Carl!’ He started and opened his eyes aware that he must have dozed. Claire was beside him.
‘Did you get through?’
‘Finally, yes.’
‘And?’
She said, flatly, ‘Demetriov is dead.’
He had died as Alan Guthrie had died, falling to lie in his suit, suffering from terminal senility, dead of old age before he could be rescued from the exterior hull of the ship on which he had chosen to carry out tests.
‘I warned him,’ said Bain. ‘I told him of the danger and begged him to use remote control apparatus but he wouldn’t listen.’ He added, as if in explanation, ‘He left a wife and two young children back on Earth.’
Maddox said, ‘Was he on the right track? Can the alien metal give protection?’
‘No.’ Bain picked up a folder and checked the notations. ‘Do you want the details? Over a grand total of twenty-three tests the figures are —’
‘Never mind the figures, Ted. In your opinion to continue working with the metal for that object is to waste time. Right?’
Bain nodded. ‘Yes, Commander. If the aliens used it to block the aging process, then their metabolism must have been far different from our own.’
Claire said, ‘Are there any other casualties, Ted?’
‘Two, neither fatal.’ He gestured towards the intensive care unit. ‘Lang Ki and Stuart Allen. Both outside workers.’
‘Treatment?’
‘Complete blood-changes, massive injections of hormones, drips of saline and glucose, marrow-implants to restore red-corpuscle production, anti-calcium treatment and wide-range antibiotics injected at frequent intervals.’ Bain made a helpless gesture. ‘I don’t think anything we can try will work. If it did we’d have made an advance in geriatrics. The most we can hope for is to stave off the inevitable.’
To give a little more life, a greater extension which needn’t be the benefit it seemed. Had Lang Ki also left a wife and children? Had Stuart Allen? Were they, like Demetriov, the victims of an unconscious urge to commit suicide?
Or were they no more than the victims of carelessness?
‘There is to be no further work outside in space,’ said Maddox. ‘All personnel restricted to ship and all unessential workers to be kept confined to the lower levels. Those working close to the outside to be rotated at frequent intervals.’ He snatched the communicator from his belt. ‘Eric?’
Manton stared from the tiny screen.
‘What is it, Carl?’
‘An emergency conference in my office in ten minutes. Bring all available data on the present situation with special emphasis on the rate of energy flow from targets to main body.’ Maddox pressed a button. ‘Bronson?’
‘Here, Commander.’
‘Adjust all atomic piles to the maximum production of plutonium.’
‘All?’ The atomic engineer looked startled. ‘Remember the storage problems, Commander.’
‘All,’ said Maddox. ‘Use automatics and take risks with the non-essential equipment if you must, but I want top-production.’
As he pressed another button Claire said, ‘What’s in your mind, Carl?’
‘Survival.’
‘By producing plutonium?’ She blinked as, ignoring the question, he relayed a stream of orders to other sections of the ship. ‘Carl! What are you doing?’
‘Come to the conference,’ he snapped. ‘And find out.’
It was a meeting dominated by one man and she realised that, subconsciously, he had made his decision long before taking his place behind his wide desk. The doors were closed but, beyond, in Mission Control, the instruments were watching their common enemy. The green, brain-like mass of the Omphalos. The enigmatic thing that held them trapped, was sucking away energy and life, which had to be destroyed.
As Maddox emphasised the point she realised that she had expected it. Had even accepted it.
Manton alone was dubious.
‘If, as you say, it has rudimentary awareness, Carl, then destroying it without regard would be in the nature of an immoral act. Have we the right to use violence? Must life always be gained at the expense of another’s?’
Maddox said, slowly, ‘Eric, we have no choice. Men are dead and dying because of it. The aliens were wiped out. No one knows how many other life forms and races that thing has destroyed. It is killing us and, to save ourselves, we must render it harmless. I am willing to listen to any other feasible alternative. You have one?’
‘Can we communicate with it in some way?’ Bronson of atomics ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘Have we tried?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without success?’
‘I’ve been in touch with it as close as I believe any intelligent creature can be.’ Maddox’s face hardened as he remembered the seeming eternity of loneliness, the numbing pressure of all things associated with death, the deaths he had mentally experienced, the hunger he had sensed, the ferocity. ‘I don’t know if we can call it alive as we use the term, perhaps it is nothing more than a reactive device, the result of an experiment, perhaps, something which lies beyond our knowledge and previous experience. But I do know, and know it with every fibre of my being, that unless we destroy it, it will destroy us. To me the choice is simple. Eric?’
‘As you say, Carl.’
‘Claire?’
‘I agree.’
Bronson said, before he was asked. ‘The safety of the ship comes first, Commander — but can we destroy it? Can we even hurt it?’
‘I think we can.’ Maddox glanced at Manton. ‘You have the figures, Eric. We know the energy potential available to us. If we use it correctly we have a chance.’ He ended, bleakly, ‘It’s the only one we have.’
*
Douglas West had been the first to volunteer. Now he sat at the controls of the Pinnace on the launching pad watching the brilliant display in his screens. The defence shield arching over him was a dome of scintillating rainbows, sparkling, coruscating, heart-stoppingly beautiful. It would, he hoped, protect him from becoming prematurely old. Manton had said that it would, that the balance of energies now achieved would, at least, stave off the fate suffered by Guthrie and Demetriov. That he would not end on a cot as Ki and Allen had done and now they too were dead and three others had taken their place. The last, he hoped and had justification. They had worked on the outside hull. Since the ban no other cases had been reported.
‘Ready, Douglas?’
Frank Weight talking from the screen. West nodded then said, ‘Ready when you are.’
‘Right. On five. Mark!’ His voice held no expression as he gave the count. ‘Zero. Now!’
The screen died and, as it did, the engines of the Pinnace flared to full power, the vessel rising to swing out and away from the danger of the cone, the defence shield glowing again as soon as the area was clear. A system designed to gain maximum protection and one, they all hoped, which would do just that.
On the planetoid Maddox watched as the Pinnace landed. He stood on the smooth, curved surface, some distance from the shaft they had found, the ground all around littered with stacked boxes and equipment. Two other Pinnaces were grounded to one side and, as West’s vessel landed, one of them lifted and headed back towards the Ad Astra.
‘Carey?’ Maddox spoke into his radio. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, Commander.’
‘Remember to hand over to Lomas when you arrive. You’ve done three flights and that’s enough.’
‘I can manage, Commander.’
‘You’ll do as I order!’ Maddox made no attempt to soften his tone. ‘If you want to gain fifty years in a few minutes that’s your concern; I’m worried about the Pinnace. If you want to be a hero, then do it without risking the ship. Understood?’
‘Commander, I —’
‘You’re a fool,’ Maddox interrupted. Then added, more softly, ‘And our mission needs all the fools like you it can get. I don’t want to waste one. You’ve served your stint, man. Get back, put Lomas in charge of the Pinnace and report to Medical for checking. No arguments, now. Do it!’
He turned as the Pinnace vanished from sight and stepped towards the head of the shaft. On all sides men were busy moving the crates, handling them with exaggerated care, never placing them too close to each other. At the head of the shaft technicians emptied the boxes and handed their contents down to others who moved them along the tunnels.
They had worked for hours like a horde of busy ants shifting scraps of leaves to form an underground farm. But these things they carried were not leaves and they would build no farm. Down in the chamber which held the dead aliens, buried deep beneath the surface and sealed by the stubborn metal, a tremendous bomb was in process of manufacture.
A fission bomb which would emulate the sun in its fury.
‘Carl?’ Manton climbed slowly from the shaft, rising up a metal ladder which had made progress easier than the original hoops. His voice was fatigued, the way he moved betrayed his tiredness, the way he stood.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Well, but —’
‘Follow me. Let’s get into Holt’s Pinnace and take a break. You could do with some coffee.’
‘I can manage.’
‘You too?’ Maddox grunted his irritation. ‘The place is swarming with crazy idiots who want to work themselves to death. Come and get some coffee, Eric. That’s an order.’
One Manton was glad to obey. Later, sitting in the Pinnace with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, he admitted that he was tired.
‘I’m not surprised.’ said Maddox. ‘How long has it been since you last slept?’
‘About as long as you’ve been awake, Carl.’
‘Which makes us two of a kind.’ Maddox took a sip of his own coffee. ‘How much longer will it be?’
He was talking of the bomb and Manton knew it. He said, ‘We’ve almost got everything into place down below. The initial fission device is set and now we’re arranging the rest. It’s a big charge, Carl.’
‘It needs to be.’
‘But not big enough to volatise this planetoid.’
Maddox said, impatiently, ‘I know that, Eric, but it doesn’t have to. You worked out the figures and decided on the megaton-scale necessary. It’s close but it will have to do.’
‘I’d like another two loads set in place just to make sure. There are too many variables which we haven’t been able to take into full account. The core, for example. It could be of unsuspected density.’
‘We’ll have to use what we’ve got, Eric.’
‘But, Carl —’
‘We have no choice. Did you know that three more have fallen from age-sickness?’
‘I know, but the defence shield will prevent further cases.’