Space 1999 #3 - The Space Guardians Read Online Free

us, Koenig. Life’s waiting for us out there. Stop worrying about—’
    Koenig leaned forward and grabbed the thin, hard shoulder:
    ‘Hold it, Victor!’
    He paused, unsure of himself now that he had stopped the tirade. There should be pain. Pain from the head injury. And sorrow for Sandra Benes. But he felt nothing. Only the absence of emotion.
    ‘You’re not well,’ he told Bergman. ‘You’re in shock.’
    ‘In shock?’ snarled Bergman. ‘Me?’ He grabbed Koenig’s arm. ‘Come and see what we found at the scene of the crash!’
    Koenig pulled away. Bergman was acting out of character.
    His normally articulate speech was more that of a lower-deck Controller accustomed to giving terse orders. There was a hectic excitement about him that belied his ordered, logical mind. Nevertheless, Koenig was impressed by his enthusiasm, however uncharacteristic it might be.
    ‘It’s your party, Victor,’ he said. ‘But no one’s mentioned any discovery at the crater.’
    ‘On my instructions!’ said Bergman. ‘John, it’s too important to spread—I ordered a total security clampdown.’
    Koenig was unpleasantly affected by the scientist’s enthusiasm.
    ‘Well, Victor, what is it? Mineral deposits—something we can use as fissile materials?’
    ‘No—there were never any natural deposits in that area! Our computer misread the indications.’
    ‘Misread them? Then what should the computer have suggested?’
    ‘Not here,’ said Bergman. ‘I’ll tell you in your office—and make sure the intercoms are dead. This is just for you, John!’
    ‘It’s so important?’
    ‘I told you there was a way out for us!’
    Koenig checked the intercom on his wrist. Despite his dislike of secrecy, he made sure that no electronic scribe could relay or record their conversation.
    ‘I think you’d better explain, Victor,’ he said.
    Bergman would not sit down. Restlessly, he paced about the room for a few seconds. Then he burst out:
    ‘There is good reason for the computer’s readout—it’s fissile material all right, John. But the computer didn’t take into account one alternative possibility.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘That the fissile material came from the power unit of another space-craft!’
    ‘What!’
    ‘It’s out there, John, under guard—it deceived the computer and it drew our Eagle to the crater!’
    Koenig felt a chill spread slowly along his spine.
    ‘You’re telling me that there’s a space-craft on the Moon?’
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘And it’s not one of ours?’
    ‘It’s no surface-hopper—John, it’s a deep-space vessel! It’s got a drive that makes our big burners look like toys. I’d guess it’s already covered thousands of light-years.’
    ‘And it showed up as a computer read-out for a load of radioactive metals!’
    ‘That’s what it is, so far as the computer is concerned!’
    ‘But if there was life aboard it, the computer would have given us a reading!’
    Bergman smiled grimly, ‘You’re right, John.’
    Koenig let the implication of Bergman’s information filter through his mind. It brought a fresh chill along his spine. ‘So any occupants that might have travelled in it—’
    ‘—are dust. Little heaps of dust.’
    Koenig thought of the loneliness they had all endured. And now to be told that there was an alien craft on the Moon!
    ‘How much have you seen?’ he asked Bergman.
    ‘Enough to know that they were a species similar to our own. And a whole era of technology in advance of us.’
    ‘And they’re dead?’
    ‘Dead for well over a thousand years.’
    ‘And their ship’s been here all the time?’
    ‘It’s been here since the last days of the Roman Empire.’
    Koenig questioned himself. It was too much to hope for. Nevertheless, he said:
    ‘A superior ship to our craft, you say, Victor?’
    Bergman answered the unspoken question, and Koenig knew the reason for the secrecy he had insisted on.
    ‘Far better. And in good order.’
    ‘And it landed