The Merchandise Guide
Annual 1975

they? They'd no idea what he was or what he carried!    The glass of the dome dissolved in fragments as he fired . . . and he had a lightning impression of the wide, single eyes--the swiftly working beaks, twitter- ing their alarm! The barrel of a weapon swung towards him . . . he fired first! Chaos broke loose in the alien laboratory! Instinctively, almost, Alan Carter loosed off shots at the big, wall-mounted consoles, and ruptured wires and contacts burst asunder in cascasdes of flaring discharge!    Now he was running--back through the vast room, through the swirling smoke of electrical fire, past the flailing figures of the aliens who tottered backwards on their tripods of legs as his stun-gun cut through them! He didn't care whether he lived or died! There was only the probing, promptimg voice of Bergman, urging him on . . . on . . . on!    Feverishly, Carter reached his Eagle. As feverishly, he slammed home the emergency lever that by-passed the fusing circuits for initial and once-only boost! As feverishly, he triggered the laser-beam projector- system that opened the wall of the hangar chamber in front of him as easily as though it were a banana. His back thrust against his seat as his Eagle sped out towards the welcome, oh-so-welcome backdrop of starred velvet that was space! "His engines aren't burning! He's coming in fast! Too fast! Paul Morrow gritted hi

teeth, his eyes locked on the video screen in Main Mission. Again there was the atmosphere of taut tension as, as suddenly as it had appeared, Alan Carter's Eagle knifed its way down towards the Moon's surface!    "Rescue units to are six-seventy!" Koenig's voice, strangely calm, cut through the air like a knife. "Activate emergency missiles. Co-ordinates seven-two-seven, green. Five-five-zero red!"    In a blast of dirt and moonrock, Carter's craft slammed its way to a slithering halt on the pocked surface of home . . . and medics rushed from the screaming ambulance vehicles that had left the Moonbase airlocks only seconds before. And--in the emptiness of space, where there was the invisible alien ship, a flight of missiles found their target and blew it apart! The shock-waves rocked Main Mission to its very foundations!    But it was over. Carter, alive, shaken, suffering no more than any astronaut unlucky enough to make uncontrollable landfall and get away with it, was in the base hospital. And the Moon--its personnel watchful and wary, cruised on through space. In and out of the sector laid claim to by a mysterious alien race who watched and wondered, and knew fear. Alarmed by the closeness of this space-borne wanderer whose people had bested them, but which, even now, was passing on. On beyond to new and perhaps even more dangerous conflicts in the end- less odyssey throught the unknown . . .

NOW--MEET THE MAN! If the unexpected is sure to happen to Eagle pilot Alan Carter, scouting the unknown for his space- wanderer colleagues on Moonbase Alpha, it's a strange enough coincidence that the unexpected also has a habit of happening for Nick Tate--the actor who plays the part of the intrepid astronaut in the Space 1999 series.    One of many actors who went along to audition for the show, Nick didn't figure on being given a starring role--for the original script had specified Italian! However, the blond Australian took the fancy of producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and so--presto! The character was re-vamped. Carlo Catani became Alan Carter at the stroke of a pen!    Born in Sydney in 1942, Nick began acting as a child. He came to England, picked up roles in programmes like Sherlock Holmes and The Trouble- shooters, played in the Film The Battle of Britain, then returned to Australia for a stage production of The Canterbury Tales. He expected to be there eleven weeks--but stayed five years, working on TV after 'Tales' had an unprecendented eighteen month run.    And within days of returning to England again 'for a rest'--once more the unexpected! The role of Alan Carter in Space 1999!

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