Space 1999 - Planets of Peril Read online

  JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN

  Having passed through a space warp, the Breakaway Moon is plunged ever deeper into the unknown, distantly removed in time and space from its home planet Earth. With their life support system in danger, Moon Base Alpha personnel mount a desperate search for Tiranium, the precious mineral essential to their survival.

  Their search takes them to the planet Psychon where they fall into the ruthless hands of its despotic ruler, Mentor. Then at last release comes from an unexpected quarter — Mentor’s beautiful and rebellious daughter, Maya. Her phenomenal grasp of mental arithmetic and her ability to change shape at will make her a valuable addition to the Alphan team. And on their return to Moon Base Alpha, she soon encounters the first of the constant hazards that threaten Alphan life...

  SPACE 1999

  PLANETS OF PERIL

  A Star Original

  ‘Koenig still sat, frozenly gazing at the screen.

  ‘He was a physically big man and his mind was far from weak, but he had gone through enough lately to test his powers of leadership to the limit.

  ‘He had trained as a pilot, in the early days of space exploration before the Moon Base had been blasted away from Earth. He had been one of the first astronauts to fly in space, and now he felt for the two pilots they had just lost contact with. He knew what unknown terrors they must be facing... if they were still alive...

  ‘Koenig listened to the voices of his staff as they carried out his orders. Already Moon Base Alpha had become a potential death planet, its armoury bristling out all over. If there was any sign of attack from the mystery planet, that would be the end for it, he thought grimly.

  ‘But they couldn’t blow it up — not with Fraser and Torens up there... Not if they were alive.’

  Michael Butterworth

  SPACE 1999

  PLANETS OF PERIL

  Based on the successful TV series

  A STAR BOOK

  published by

  the Paperback Division of

  W. H. ALLEN & Co. Ltd.

  A Star Book

  Published in 1977

  by Wyndham Publications Ltd.

  A Howard and Wyndham Company

  123, King Street, London W6 9JG

  Copyright © ITC — Incorporated Television Company Ltd.

  This novelization copyright © Michael Butterworth 1977

  Jacket and inside illustrations by courtesy of ITC

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham.

  ISBN 0 352 39666 0

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Contents

  Author's Note

  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

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I wish to make it clear that the characters in this book are totally fictitious and bear no relation whatsoever to the actors and actresses who play the roles of these characters in the TV performance.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a weird, alien landscape of sullen, smoking volcanoes and buckled folds of igneous rock.

  Once, millennia ago, its surface teemed with life. Where now lurid, polychromatic veins twisted and turned in the frozen rock faces there had once existed the softer, warmer colours of trees and flowers and blue skies... in a world of plenty and happiness.

  Commander Koenig, Doctor Helena Russell, Simon Hays and other Command Centre personnel sat watching the emotive scene in stunned silence as it was broadcast to them over the Big Screen. Its strange colours played over their faces and bathed them in a beautiful aura.

  As they watched, the camera in the Eagle ship zoomed in over the tortured, magical landscape, enabling them to share the experiences of the two Eagle pilots, Bill Fraser and Ray Torens.

  In close-up, the planet’s surface features held a magnetic attraction that the silent observers found disconcerting and inexplicable. But they did not try to understand the mystery, hoping only that the Eagle ship would succeed on its mission to find Tiranium — the precious and universally rare mineral that they so desperately needed to repair damaged life support systems.

  Helena Russell ran her hand distraughtly across her forehead, pushing back her attractive platinum hair that had fallen out of place. She was still shaky from the effects of the space warp. Without warning the Moon had plunged into one of the unstable doorways through time. It and Moon Base Alpha had been whisked hundreds of light-years from their previous position in space. It was the second warp they had entered in as many years, and they were now deeper in space than they had ever been before, impossibly lost in an unknown and totally uncharted part of the universe.

  They had no idea how far away from Earth they were. Much of their equipment had been severely damaged in the warp. The health and lives of the 297 Alphans was at stake. If they were to be helped, if Moon Base Alpha were to survive — then the Tiranium must be found.

  It was of crucial importance.

  She stood at the side of a medical monitor which had the names Fraser and Torens printed on its screen. She kept a constant watch on the medical condition of the two brave pilots as they travelled many tens of thousands of miles away in space above the surface of this new and bizarre planet. If anything went wrong with them, she would immediately advise John Koenig that they should return.

  ‘We are in close visual contact with the planet,’ Bill Fraser’s reassuring voice came over the Big Screen’s speakers. As his words were spoken a shower of rock pieces and dust filled the screen. Tongues of flame licked behind billows of thick, outpouring smoke. The curtains of blackness parted, revealing the glowing vent of a volcano staring ominously up at them. It seemed to lie in the room.

  The lava bubbled and heaved inside it. A second bolt of flame belched forth from its depths and the molten fluid rock erupted and spilled down the mountainside.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed about that,’ the pilot’s voice sounded again good humouredly. ‘Just the Eagle’s special effects department. We’re still a few hundred miles away from the surface.’

  Fraser’s smiling face appeared on the TV monitor below the big screen.

  Koenig and Helena looked visibly relieved.

  ‘I keep telling you to stop doing things like that, Bill,’ Koenig joked.

  Behind him he heard Lew Picard speaking.

  ‘Atmosphere’s breathable, Carbon’s nine point two. Hydrogen’s four point two. Nitrogen’s eight point seven. But the surface temperature is way up — a hundred and eighty degrees...’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, Lew,’ Koenig replied. ‘Bill? Any signs of life?’

  The pilot’s face on the screen disappeared. A few seconds later his voice came over the speakers again.

  ‘Nothing, John. No settlements, no life.’

  Ominous rumbling sounds came over with his voice.

  ‘Just volcanoes! Is Anne there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here Bill,’ his wife, Annette Fraser replied — she was one of the Command Centre Technicians and she s
tood in front of her console at the rear of the room, her gaze riveted to the screen.

  ‘Don’t be long, lover,’ she called. ‘I’m thinking of you.’

  ‘Then I’m sure to return safely,’ the pilot replied. His face appeared again on the screen and he grinned.

  ‘Scan for mineral composition, Bill,’ Koenig told him, ‘and keep your mind on the job.’

  ‘Scanner active. Stand by to lock into main computer.’

  There was a sharp clicking sound as Picard hit one of his switches.

  The atmosphere on the screen cleared and a series of symbols and words flashed across it: Manganese trisilicate, magnesium phosphate, lithium sulphate... tiranium.

  ‘Bill, you’ve done it!’ Helena cried out with joy. ‘You’ve just located a big tiranium deposit!’

  ‘Just what the doctor ordered!’ Koenig proclaimed. He spoke to Fraser. ‘Eagle One — return to base!’

  Everyone at the Command Centre beamed happily. Fraser’s face appeared on the screen and smiled. But suddenly his expression changed to one of alarm.

  They heard Toren’s urgent voice calling him in the background.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he told the Command Centre.

  His image vanished again. The symbols and words on the screen cleared, and the planet’s surface appeared once more. It looked even more angry and belligerent than it had done be. fore, as though it were on the verge of blowing itself to pieces.

  The Command Centre personnel stared in puzzlement at the chaotic scene, searching it for clues. The panorama vanished and was replaced by a close-up picture of a large rock sitting on the planet’s floor.

  As they watched it, the rock began to glow fiercely.

  It glowed a pale, though intense turquoise green. The outlines of the rock disappeared and the pulsating shape assumed the proportions of a vast, airy ball of light which began rising slowly and evenly into the smoky air.

  ‘Long shot,’ Koenig ordered, sitting bolt upright in his seat and staring at the screen.

  The screen had entirely filled with the bluish-green light.

  Sandra Benes at the Communication’s Console hit a button.

  A new image of the planet’s surface snapped into view on the screen.

  The huge ball of light was seen veering upward towards them. Once again it filled the screen. Then, rapidly, it disappeared from view.

  ‘Bill... there’s a weird light on your tail!’ Koenig yelled. ‘For Chrisake get out of there!’

  He sat helplessly in his seat.

  From the back of the room, Annette screamed. Simon Hays shouted out into his microphone.

  ‘Security alert. All standby crews to position.’

  ‘Evasive action, Bill... evasive action!’ Koenig ordered ‘... Evasive action!’

  The words grated over the speakers inside the Eagle ship’s Pilot Section.

  Torens wished he were giving them out and not receiving them. He was young, about twenty six, and he didn’t want to die yet.

  His hands moved dexterously over the control panel in front of him. Lights and numbers flashed wildly up on the screens of the powerful ship. He swallowed, trying to control his feeling.

  He tried to remember his training and tried to lose himself in his work.

  The onboard computer worked calmly and logically, aiding him at his task.

  The ship’s engines revved and its colossal body bucked and heaved as it underwent evasive contortions.

  ‘It’s no use, Ray. We ain’t shifting it,’ Fraser told him calmly. He was older, about thirty-six, and strongly built, and he worked more efficiently at the controls.

  He stared at the monitor screen in front of them. The ball seemed to hang effortlessly on their tail against the black backdrop of space. It looked transparent. He could see through it.

  ‘We can’t make it, Alpha,’ he called into his commlock. ‘It’s locked on to us.’

  ‘Come on, Fraser...! Come on!’ Koenig’s voice crackled distantly to him across tens of thousands of miles of space.

  ‘Bill... Bill...’ his wife whispered to him, sobbing gently. Her voice sounded loud, as though in the room.

  Fraser turned to Torens. He clenched his jaw muscles.

  ‘We’ll have to keep trying,’ he told the junior.

  They both went back to the controls and took their ship into a steep dive.

  But the ball of light outside in space followed them.

  If anything, it was closer when they next looked. But then the pale green sphere seemed to tire of the game.

  Its surface swelled out rapidly towards the Eagle ship’s screen.

  Fraser realized sardonically that it was actually speeding towards them at an immense rate. He knew that it would be impossible to evade. The Eagle engines just couldn’t take it.

  ‘Keep up your good work,’ he told the younger Torens, who was still busy and had not seen the screen.

  The Big Screen at the Command Centre went white. It blazed with a fierce whiteness that blinded the Alphans. They raised their hands to their eyes to ward it off.

  The screen cleared again, and they saw the sphere of light speeding away down to the Planet’s surface.

  Over the rich powerful speakers of the screen came the plaintive cry of Fraser.

  Now his voice was hysterical, and it brought them rising from their seats, terrified by the implications of the event that occurred.

  They had managed to piece most of it together, but good though their probes and sensors were, they could not tell them what was now happening to the two pilots. They could not tell them the Unknown.

  And it was the Unknown — and the Unknown wastes and hazards of Space in particular — that terrified.

  ‘Anne’s fainted...’ Helena called out. She was the first to come to her senses. Her mind went instinctively to her charges, and she ran to help the unfortunate technician.

  ‘Medical crew... Command Centre,’ she called into her commlock.

  Koenig’s mind pounded into action a split second later.

  But he remained motionless for a moment, gazing severely at the blank screen. His hands gripped the armrest of his chair, and his knuckles turned bone white as he went over a detailed plan of action that had formed inside his head.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Koenig still sat, frozenly gazing at the screen.

  He was a physically big man and his mind was far from weak, but he had gone through enough lately to test his powers of leadership to the limit.

  He had trained as a pilot, in the early days of space exploration before the Moon Base had been blasted away from Earth. He had been one of the first astronauts to fly in space; and now he felt strongly for the two pilots they had just lost contact with. He knew what unknown terrors they must be facing... if they were still alive.

  ‘Laser Battery One, active,’ Jameson announced from the Main Unit on the lunar surface.

  ‘Combat Eagle Five in position,’ a pilot’s voice came over from the launch pad.

  ‘Combat Eagle Six in position,’ the voice of another pilot sounded.

  Koenig listened to the voices of his staff as they carried out his orders. Already Moon Base Alpha had become a potential death planet, its armoury bristling out all over. If there was any sign of attack from the mystery planet, that would be the end for it, he thought grimly.

  But they couldn’t blow it up — not with Fraser and Torens up there... Not if they were alive.

  But he had to assume they were alive, he told himself savagely.

  ‘Defence shields up. Surface laser ready to repel attack... combat Eagles ready to take off,’ Simon Hays’ voice sounded from beside him.

  ‘I’m not risking any more men until I know what we’re up against,’ the Commander told him. He climbed out of his seat and walked over to Picard.

  ‘There must be life on that planet!’

  ‘I’ve checked and double-checked, John. No signs of life on the surface.’

  ‘How about below the surface?’


  ‘The planet’s an environmental hell... no life, as we know it, could exist down there!’

  ‘Commander Koenig!’

  A warm, friendly voice boomed out into the Command Centre. It came from the screen and they spun round to face it.

  The picture of a distinguished, intelligent-looking humanoid of about fifty filled the screen. He had dark, piercing eyes, made shrewd from years of experience, and was well built, perhaps a bit flabby. He wore a dark brown cowl with a silvery, velvet-like collar. He had a fierce, neatly-trimmed brown beard. Elsewhere his hair was silver and closely-cropped. A red cock’s crest of hair grew from the top of his head.

  He smiled paternally at them. But behind the friendliness they detected an air of arrogance... perhaps of some psychosis, and they were wary.

  ‘You know who I am... who are you?’ Koenig immediately took the offensive, refusing to register surprise.

  The figure seemed to exude a supreme power as it replied.

  ‘I am Mentor, of the planet Psychon.’

  ‘Why did you attack our ship? We came in peace.’

  The figure pretended surprise. Its eyebrows raised.

  ‘You send an armed ship to our planet and talk of peace?’

  Mentor turned aside. As he did so, a dias supporting a colourful, futuristic array of tubes came into view beside him. Inside the tubes the meniscus of liquids rose and fell, each emanating a coloured light. The liquids bubbled, bathing Koenig and Hays in a warm psychedelic glow.

  The camera, of which Mentor seemed to have total control, panned around inside his room.

  A row of gleaming metal-like tables came into view.

  The tables supported large transparent domes filled with delicate brain-like material floating in liquid nutrients and pulsating with energy. Conduits filled with rushing fluids connected up, and ran off into a massed array of nutrient banks.

  The big alien had moved to the centre of the circle of domes. Now he seated himself at a light-filled control console. Koenig’s face appeared on a screen above his head.