The Merchandise GuideAnnual 1975
The Merchandise Guide
| from accidental entry! Too late, Steiner jumps after his friend . . . too late, the order is barked for shut-down of the field! A violent blast flings Nordstrom backwards, and the crack of his helmet's visor against the bedrock is terrible and final! The date--September 9, 1999. The moment--the first disaster in a chain of events that will change the entire destiny of every man and woman on Moonbase Alpha! With two astronauts already in the base hospital with unaccount- able brain-damage that looks radiation-induced, but can't be. Doctor Helena Russell and her assistants have their hands full. The general opinion on Moon- base, and one held by the supreme chief of operations there, Com- mander Koenig, is that some unknown influence is being exer- ted by the approach of a wandering asteroid, blundering its way across the Solar System. With the major mission on Moonbase being to prepare long-range Eagle craft for |
investigation of this asteroid, it could be that some intelligent life- form on the wanderer is trying to stop them! Beyond help, the sick astronauts die, but then comes the beginning of a crisis terrifying in its danger! Instruments in Main Mission indi- cate and ever-increasing build-up of heat within the packed burial holes of the Nuclear Waste Dis- posal Areas . . . a build-up of heat that nevertheless produces no in- crease in radiation! Neither the brilliant minds of Moonbase Al- pha's key personnel nor even the incredible calculating knowledge of the giant computer can suggest any sort of explanation! As the heat-registration needles swing right off their dials, the whole of Moonbase begins to shudder! One by one, the caps and plugs blast from the tubes of Disposal Area 1, and roaring columns of white-hot flame belch skywards! There is nothing that can be done to stop it. Comman- der Koenig and his colleagues can |
only crouch and wait--perhaps for oblivion as the whole complex goes up! Main Mission rocks and vi- brates as though seized by some giant hand! Hands--their knuckles white--grip for any pos- sible hand-hold! Fear-filled eyes stare--yet see nothing! But the fearful inferno burns itself out! Moonbase Alpha has been granted a breathing-space . . . the further perial of Disposal Area Two, already well on the way to the critical level of destructive heat. And Disposal Area Two is larger, much, larger than its burned-out brother! "All available Eagles will make ready to open the tubes and with- draw the waste!" The order goes out from Commander Koenig, who well knows the awful risk he's asking his men to take! Desperately, the craft, rigged with trailing grapples, hover in the intense heat above the Dis- posal Area and begin their night- |
