The Incredible Melting Man (17 page)

He heard voices on the lower deck. A searchlight scoured the black interior of the hall. Shocked whispers greeted the discovery of the Captain’s charred remains. Anxious shouts floated up to his tired brain. He was too shattered and dispirited to answer.

He awoke to the glare of lights and a look of consternation on the face that peered down on him. As the soldier helped him to his feet, pain stabbed through his ankle and memory flooded back, bitter as guilt.

“Where is he?” he asked. “Where’s Steve?”

“I’m afraid we’ve lost him, sir,” replied the soldier quietly. “It was the power failure.”

Outside in the yard the soldiers stood around. News of their captain’s death had filtered through to them. A young NCO had taken command and the plant was still surrounded. But the men seemed disheartened and confused. They had not been trained to fight against enemies whom bullets couldn’t harm.

With the lights restored they began a search of the plant. They combed it from top to bottom without success. In the negative mood of despair that had seized him when the Captain was killed, Nelson began to feel half glad that they hadn’t found him. Perhaps somewhere in the quiet shadows of the vast plant Steve had been allowed to die with the dignity that his last few hours of hunted terror had denied. He’d killed mercilessly, Nelson knew, but he also knew that Steve himself was without blame. He had not deserved to be hunted like a rabid dog, only the alien killer that had usurped his flesh deserved that.

Nelson turned to leave. A cool breeze had blown up as the darkness sensed the dawn. The moon had set and the fleeing clouds had raked the brilliant star clusters back into the sky. The faintest glimmer of daylight lit the eastern horizon.

Dimly silhouetted against the high roof of the turbine room a shapeless figure stared out at the stars.

Nelson saw him and a new hope was born. He dashed back into the plant, ordering the engineer to show him how to get up to the roof. Despite his aching ankle he climbed the service ladder that rose high above the generators. There would be no soldiers this time, no reporters, just him and Steve.

He pushed open the door that led out on to the roof. The sky was magnificently clear, the full glory of the Milky Way spun like silk across the heavens. Far away on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the side like a child on a bridge enraptured by the view, sat what had been Steve. He looked so shrunken and small, so pathetic, naked in the cold night.

Nelson crept towards him.

“Steve,” he called. “Steve.”

But there was no response this time, no turning of the head.

Nelson stepped closer, repeating the name.

It was no use. The red light had burnt out and his collapsed body was glazed with transparent liquid like a silver chrysalis. Another liquid, just as bright, shone in the empty eyes which still looked out, following the flight of the frightened and bewildered soul to the stars.

PROLOGUE
TWO

M
ISSION
C
ONTROL
erupted with applause and cries of congratulation. Cigars were passed around and champagne corks flew. The pictures were coming through beautifully clear and the excited voices of the astronauts were relaying their first impressions of the planet’s surface.

Prometheus Two had landed safely on Mars.

“It’s beautiful,” came the voice of the commander. “Brilliantly clear. There’s not a— Wait a minute!”

There was a crackle of interference and the entire staff of mission control fell silent.

The voice resumed, fainter, through a welter of static.

“There’s something moving. A sort of haze. It’s a dust storm, I think. Moving in our direction, incredibly fast. I’ve never—”

The radio went dead.