Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians
Read Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians Online
Authors: Brian Ball
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.
CHAPTER ONEDr 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.