Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack by John Rankine Read Free Book Online Page B

department.’
    Koenig lifted a hand for peace, ‘Calm down . . . Now I simply want to know what happened here.’
    ‘Commander, I told Doctor Mateo these experiments were dangerous . . .’
    ‘Dangerous. In what way?’
    ‘The justification is clear in what happened to Doctor Mateo.’
    It took the explanation no further and Koenig had the feeling it was not his day. Even Laura made no sense when she added, ‘Something happened. Dan went into some kind of trance state.’
    Warren said quickly, ‘You see what I mean, Commander . . . I warned him. I warned him repeatedly.’ They were off for a second round and Koenig thought enough was enough. He put a dismissive edge on his voice, ‘All right, Warren. I’ll talk to you again.’
    Warren looked at him, recognised that he was not wanted, spun on his heel and walked off.
    Even Laura Adams got the treatment. Koenig’s voice was loaded with scepticism, ‘A trance you say?’
    ‘It was a scientific enquiry . . .’
    A bleep on the communications post sidetracked Koenig. It was Paul Morrow with a piece of hard fact, ‘Commander. There’s been a momentary temperature drop recorded in all Alpha sections.’
    ‘Have you traced the cause?’
    ‘No information, Commander. Point of origin seems to have been in the Hydroponic Section.’
    Koenig turned to the three remaining experimenters and spoke to Laura. ‘All right. I want a full report on everything that happened here. You can start as of now.’
    ‘Yes, Commander.’
    As they went off to their desks, Bergman lifted the device clear of the table and carried it over, ‘John . . .’ he nodded to the hatch, clearly wanting a private conference.
    Outside, he stopped and held up the small console. ‘What’s going on, John? There’s nothing sinister about this gadget. There’s nothing here that could cause a temperature drop.’
    ‘That’s all I need, Victor. An unsolved mystery. Something caused it. It began here. Let’s just keep looking. Right?’
    ‘Right.’
    In the medicentre, Dan Mateo came back to the world of sense in a crisis of panic fear. Helena Russell who had put in a long vigil was there to see and could only guess at the mental turmoil that lay behind it.
    Jacking himself up to a sitting position against her restraining hand, he said thickly, ‘How long have I been out?’
    ‘A while. Do you remember what happened?’
    He dropped back to the pillow and turned his head away as though by the physical act he could avoid the question.
    If there was a thread to lead through the maze, Koenig reckoned it would have one free end in the Hydroponic Unit and he took Bergman with him to argue it out. The reports were a starting point. He leaned on a tank and looked at a bland array of foliage. ‘Look, Victor, let’s suppose that Mateo believes we have some innate affinity with plants—maybe even—at a long shot—some power to communicate . . .’
    ‘We both have nervous systems. We respond to pain, happiness, hunger—it isn’t outside possibility. Yes, his theory is based on sound scientific principles.’
    ‘Okay. He discovers that certain wave patterns in the human brain correspond precisely to the wave patterns plants send out. Where do you go from there?’
    ‘The wave patterns Mateo uses are found in the intuitive area of the brain . . . That’s the same area where psychic powers, all the paranormal forces originate. In the experiment tonight, Mateo attempted to tap that wave pattern at its source, boost it by using the pooled mental resources of his group, project it, make a quantitative measure of the results. His ultimate goal was communication between plants and humans.’
    ‘So what went wrong? Could that experiment have triggered what happened on Alpha?’
    ‘I don’t see how.’
    ‘One thing’s plain. The computer didn’t imagine that drop in temperature.’
    Helena Russell was getting closer to the problem by talking to the man himself. After a long silence, Dan Mateo was