The Merchandise Guide
Annual 1975

feet, to open a chasm in the ground below them! Koenig and the doctor had had on sickening moment of fear as they fell, and then they landed with shattering force in some kind of underground chamber!    As luck had it, Koenig had landed on top--and thus was Helena Russell crushed into unconscious- ness, to lie inert at his feet!    There had been a passage behind them--a passage lit by chinks of light from the broken roof above. Koenig had lifted his companion across his shoulders and, dirt-smeared and shaken, had scrambled some five hundred yards away from the chamber--into which he knew his technicians-turned-killers would soon be looking. "Helena! Are you okay? How do you feel?" The doctor's eyes had flickered open. She was coming round. "What--what happened, John . . .?"    "I don't know. I can't even guess at what's hap- pened to our boys. All I know is that if they find us, we're done for. If I could find a way out of here, we might be able to get around back of them and take stunning snap-shots at them. But I can't leave you alone here . . ."    Helena Russell grimaced. She tried to sit up. Failed. "My ankle," she gritted, the pain in her eyes striking chill into Koenig's bones. "Not broken. But badly twisted. I can't move fast!"    Koenig swore softly. He looked down at his

communicator, bitterly. "I'll have to try and repair it. Maybe I could do it--if I had time!"    "What do you think they'll do on Moonbase? They must be pretty agitated, now they're lost con- tact with us!"    "They'll rely on the computer. It'll probably tell them to abandon the whole project and leave us. Oh sure--there'll be big arguments about it. But you know how it is. The computer's always right!"    Helena Russell bit her lip, and Koenig saw her fists clench involuntarily. "It'll tell them the un- known danger down here's too great to risk. John . . . what is the danger? What has made our men go crazy? And why hasn't the same thing happened to us ?    Koenig shook his head. "Dumaine said somthing about the Green Light. Remember . . .?" The Com- mander bent his head and began to strip the outer casing off his Comlock . . . On Moonbase, as Commander John Koenig had predicted, argument had raged. Tempers had run riot, with Kano and his fellow scientists adamant in supporting the decision of the computer to write off all aspects of the exploration and jeopardise no further man-power in any sort of rescue attempt.    But Professor Victor Bergman had remained calm.    "Wait!" Bergman's voice rang out sharply, stilling the quarrelsome people around him. "I've asked the computer to theorise. Working on details like the two classes of skeletons the survey team found on the planet. Giants and midgets. And that green light. The answer's coming up now . . ."    "Acting on the surmise that the pygmies were the original inhabitants of the planet," intoned the computer, "it is logical to suppose that the giants were enemies. Possibly from another world. Size of buildings would suggest this, for the buildings were not of the giant size."    "How does this help?" Paul Morrow scowled and gestured irritably. "Be quiet, and listen!" Bergman was in no mood for interruption.    The computer droned on. "Carbon dating of the pygmy skeletons reveals a higher concentration of Gamma rays than in the bones of the giants. I sub- mit that the pygmies were aware of their annihila- tion. Aware that it was inevitable that they would be exterminated by their giant invaders. Accordingly, they may have left a device--a booby trap--to deal with the giants when they landed in force to take over the planet."    Now Main Mission was silent. All eyes were on the computer, and it was as though everyone present had been struck by a feeling of truth underlying the flat, metallic syllables of Kano's electronic pet.    It went on. "A device. Sure to be found by the invaders. A ray device capable of destroying their reason. Forcing them to attack each other. So that nobody would inherit the conquered land."

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