| robot bomb almost as soon as it was launched. Would explode with fury at the attempted treach- ery! It happened. His face a mask of anger, Mentor contemptuously released the ray that blasted the Eagle to bits in mid flight. "Now Commander! Now - your Moon! You shall watch it disintegrate!" "No," said Koenig. "Let's nego- tiate." It was Maya who spoke, her voice thick with revulsion. "Negotiate? With a liar? We wel- come you here as friends, and you plot to kill us!" Evenly, Koenig said, "Waht are we supposed to do? Stand by and let Mentor destroy us?" "My father needs your help," the girl snapped. "Without it, he can't transform this planet! Others helped him!" "Yes - and what happened to them? Go down to the mines! See for yourself!" "I can't go down there! It's a radioactive zone!" Koenig smiled viciously. "Who told you that? Your father?" Mentor stood with his mouth agape. He seemed incapable of movement. Maya, her eyes full of tears, spun on her heel and ran from the room, and Koenig threw himself at the bearded man to stop him following. To stop him bringing her back! |
Mentor possessed immense strength. Koenig felt his senses swimming as they rolled to- gether on the floor, bony fingers locked into his throat! And then the shattering crash of glass as their flailing legs came into con- tact with one of the multi-cylinder structures of Psyche! Blue liquid sprayed out - drenched them. . . With a strangled cry, Mentor released his grip on the Com- mander and staggered to his feet, his eyes starting from their sockets. "You fool! You fool!" Now the Psychonian was babbling, his hands cut and bleeding as he tried in vain to re- stack the smashed equipment. "Release Psyche's energy and it will destroy the planet!" Koenig had picked up a chair. Now he threw it through the glass screen that separated him from Helena and the others. They raced out to join him, their guard im- mobile as Psyche's confusion left him without means of control. And then Maya returned, her face ashen. "This way! Come on!" Mentor cowered back. "Maya! What are you doing! Kill them! Annihilate them!" "I saw, father! I saw!" There was anguish in the girl's voice. The memories of that dreadful mine were still stamped on her mind! "Come with us, father! It's over!" Psyche bubbled and boiled. |
Now flashes of energy began to race from terminal to terminal. Minor explosions rocked the whole structure and shattered fresh columns. . .unleashed more and more power! Mentor col- lapsed, buried under a deluge of crushing masonry that fell from above him! They were running. Down through the mine. Over the shaking, pounding rock. Past the witless zombies who continued to chip and hew as though nothing was happening. . . "Torens! Fraser!" Helena was screaming. "Where are they?" "Beyond our help, Helena! We could never return them their minds!" Koenig grabbed her wrist and dragged her headlong. . . The Eagle lifted away from the volcano's crater, its engines at full thrust. It left behind it a planet in its death-throes. A planet doomed to utter destruction, because of the ruthless ambition of one man. . . And with it, it carried the sole survivor of the Psychonian race. A girl called Maya. A girl whose shattered faith in her own father. might have taken her beyond the brink of sanity. And yet she would recover. Would adjust and adapt. To become a new and valued colleague of Commander John Koenig and the castaway people of Moonbase Alpha. . . |
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