Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack by John Rankine Page B

and set out his beacons in a square with Mateo at the diagonal cross.
    The last piece of equipment was a small control console and Bergman slotted in his prepared cassette.
    He said quietly, ‘I’m ready.’
    Helena looked at Koenig for the signal.
    ‘Go ahead.’
    She went to her desk, picked up a hypo gun, checked the contents and approached the chair. ‘Bob, the straps.’
    Mathias buckled restraining bands round Mateo’s waist and arms.
    Mateo made no move.
    Helena applied the hypo gun to his left arm and shot in the charge.
    Koenig snapped, ‘Get back.’
    Helena and Mathias joined him outside the square where he stood with Bergman.
    Victor Bergman shoved down a stud and a slight crackle, like static was heard. He pointed to his square. ‘The area between those four beacons is lethal. Whatever happens stay outside.’
    He switched off and the crackle died away. In the centre of the square, Mateo was responding to the powerful stimulant. The glazed look had gone from his eyes. He had become aware of his surroundings. Looking down he saw the restraining straps and his voice was clear and harsh, ‘What is this?’
    It was a good question but nobody answered. He looked at them, Koenig and then Helena, ‘Let me go, Commander—Doctor—do you hear?’
    Helena’s face was all compassion and she looked appealingly at Koenig, but his face was set and stony.
    When he responded it was only to ask a technical question, ‘Will those straps hold?’
    ‘Yes, but . . .’
    ‘We have no other choice.’
    Mateo was straining against his bonds, shouting now, ‘Do you hear—let me go!’
    He screamed with frustration, writhing and twisting to break free, glaring like a madman at the watching Alphans. ‘You will pay for this, all of you!’
    Rightly, he picked on Koenig as the prime mover against him and glared redly at him, ‘Let me out!’
    A slight wind ruffled Helena’s hair and her hand went out to find Koenig. He touched her hand and leapt away, circling to the far side. A slight shimmer like a heat haze had grown round Mateo.
    Bergman said tensely, ‘It’s working.’
    A shadow grew beside Mateo. His spirit doppelgänger had come to serve his need.
    Mateo, twisting to keep Koenig in vision, ground out. ‘I’ll kill you, Koenig.’
    It was an order, a directive to his familiar and the grotesque figure picked it up, lurching forwards towards Koenig. As it reached the notional perimeter of the square, Bergman hit a switch and energy crackled between the beacons.
    It tried to break through but the field was too strong. It recoiled and then hurled itself forward again. This time it was longer in the field before it was beaten back.
    Mateo was staring at his struggling alter ego, face terrified, madness growing. His continuing scream seemed to urge the monster on and at the third rush it was almost through, holding on in a welter of crackling energy which ought to have destroyed it.
    Bergman called out, ‘John! It’s not holding.’
    Insane strength came to Mateo. The straps were fraying, started to burst. The spirit form rushed the force field boundary again, stood its ground, seemed to be gaining strength as it absorbed energy.
    The four Alphans were backing away. Eyes on the figure, they did not see Mateo make a final heave and break free from his bonds.
    In three frenzied strides, Mateo was in the field, grabbing for his zombie’s throat and bathed as it was itself in a blinding sheet of crackling energy.
    Buffeted by the electric storm the two figures, locked together, wheeled and swayed. The watchers, held rigid, saw Mateo’s contorted face begin to take on the same form as the thing he fought. Then the two were coalescing, merging, becoming one and in a last blinding spasm of light, before the field collapsed and the room went still, there seemed only to be one madly gyrating figure in the dance of death.
    As the moment of shock passed they saw clearly that only Mateo was lying there crumpled face down on