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  Holly came over to her. “What kind of disturbance?”

  “Tremor of some sort. Registered three-point-six.”

  Holly thought for a second, then it struck her. “Quadrant-Four? Isn’t that where Dean and Ricky are working? Try to get them on the communicator.”

  Sharon opened the system, turned a dial to their frequency and spoke into the microphone. “Dean, Ricky. Are you all right? What happened? Please report on the tremor.”

  But there was nothing in the way of response from the men. Only static filled the airwaves.

  “Try again,” Holly commanded.

  Sharon did try again, but there was no answer.

  “Gotta get it checked out right away,” Holly said. “Get Mark and Gary down to Quadrant-Four. And tell Karl to stand by. We may have an emergency on our hands.”

  “Right,” Sharon acknowledged the order. She craved excitement. She needed the high it produced. That’s why she’d come along. Sharon didn’t care about danger to herself or to others, if it livened things up.

  Mark was the sub-commander. He and Gary were briefed and didn’t waste any time suiting up. They moved as fast as they could through the airlock into the atmosphere and across the planet’s surface to Quadrant-Four.

  Mark saw Ricky sprawled on the ground and rushed to his side.

  “Is he still alive?” Gary asked.

  “I think so, but I don’t see Dean.”

  “Must be buried inside,” Gary said.

  Mark shook his head. “What the hell were they doing, blasting in a confined space! I can’t believe that someone with as much mileage as Dean would try that.”

  Then Mark ripped his communicator from his belt and brought up the control room. “Code-One Emergency! This is Mark.”

  “Go ahead, Mark.” Holly was behind the console.

  “Rick is hurt and Dean is missing. We’re bringing Ricky in. I would advise getting a rescue team out here as soon as you can to begin the search for Dean. I’m afraid the doc’ll have his hands full today.”

  “We’ll be ready for Ricky when you arrive,” Holly promised.

  Mark and Gary slung Ricky’s arms around their shoulders and dragged his limp body to the complex. By the time they’d got through the airlock, Karl and his assistant, Sandy were waiting with the stretcher.

  With the alarm blaring, Karl worked as fast as he could to secure Ricky to the stretcher. Then he and Sandy pushed the rolling bed through the corridors to the infirmary. By the time they’d made it to the medical unit Ricky was just starting to return to the land of the living.

  “Let’s get his suit off,” Karl said.

  Sandy unzipped the one-piece garment and helped the doctor slip it off. Just then Holly charged through the portal.

  “How is he?” she asked. Sincere concern was apparent in her voice. “How’s Ricky?”

  The sound of his name seemed to affect him. Ricky tried to open his eyes and sit up but he was in pain. Karl placed his hand firmly on the injured man’s shoulder. “Take it easy. You’ve had a shock. How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  Holly saw he was able to communicate and came the few steps to where he lay. “Ricky, this is Holly. Do you feel up to some questions?”

  Ricky took a deep breath. His mouth was so dry he wondered if a herd of camels had crossed through it. “Water. Please. I need something to drink.”

  Sandy brought him a glass of the liquid and he gulped it down. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

  “What exactly happened out there?”

  Ricky shrugged. “I wish I knew. One minute it was so peaceful. The next—boom!”

  “Just like that? You didn’t set off a charge?” Holly asked. That had been her theory as well as Mark’s.

  Ricky shook his head. “Oh, that hurts. No charge inside the cave. Dean said it was too dangerous.”

  Holly moved even closer so Ricky wouldn’t have to strain to speak. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

  Rick related the events, leaving nothing out. When he was finished he asked the question he’d avoided till then. “How’s Dean? Is he all right?”

  Holly looked him straight in the eye. “He’s still out there. We’ve got a crew trying to dig him out but I don’t hold out much hope. That’s why it’s imperative that you tell me everything. We can’t make the same mistake again, and with what you found out there we must return.”

  “I’ve just told you everything.”

  Karl felt it was time to interrupt the conversation. “I think Ricky should relax now. I want to do tests on him and put him under the scanner just to make sure nothing’s broken or ruptured inside.”

  “When can I get back to work, Doc?”

  “If nothing turns up, tomorrow morning as usual. Just take it easy today.”

  A high-pitched signal came from Holly’s personal communicator. She brought it close to her lips. “Commander McKay here, go ahead.”

  It was Kate, calling from the site of the explosion. “We’ve located Dean. We’re digging him out now.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Just barely. He’s in pretty bad shape though.”

  Karl took over the communicator. “How long do you figure it’ll be before you make it back with him?”

  “Ten minutes at the most,” Kate reported.

  Karl handed the communicator back to Holly. He had preparations to complete before Dean was brought in.

  “Ricky, we’ll do the tests later. Do you feel up to moving under your own power? Or would you prefer it if you were wheeled to your cabin?”

  “I can make it myself, Doc. I’m okay. You take care of Dean. That’s the important thing right now. Don’t worry about me.”

  Karl smiled briefly. “Good man.” Then he turned his attention to the life-support machinery and the medical lasers.

  “What can I do?” Sandy asked.

  Karl looked around the room. “Get the stretcher down to the airlock. I’ve got to stay here. Can I count on you to get him here quickly?”

  “Of course.”

  Sandy was waiting when Dean was brought through the airlock. You didn’t have to be a medical expert to see that Dean was in bad shape. His suit was in shreds and his skull was crushed. He was laid on the stretcher and wheeled carefully to the infirmary. She held the oxygen mask tightly over his mouth. It looked as if he could use all the help he could get right then.

  Holly trailed right behind them. “Doesn’t look good,” she said to Kate, who’d just brought him in.

  Kate shook her head. “He’s lost a lot of blood and that head wound is downright ugly.”

  When Karl heard them approach he spun around. “Oh my God!” He knew at that moment there was very little he could do for Dean. He had been warned to expect the worst and one look at the bloodied man confirmed his fears. Even so, he was duty-bound to try to work a miracle. Karl kept the oxygen flowing while the appropriate tubes and wires of the life-support machine were attached to Dean. The doctor checked and rechecked his computer readings.

  He was about to get down to work when a high pitched tone wailed.

  “His heart’s stopped!” Karl shouted. Working feverishly, he pushed a thin needle into the stricken man’s chest and brought up the juice. The electrical current running through him caused Dean’s body to vibrate so violently he nearly jerked off the stretcher and on to the floor. The doctor and his assistant needed all their combined strength to hold him down.

  Karl checked his computer reading again and breathed a sigh of relief. The heart beat had returned. He cut the current and Dean once again lay still.

  “That was a close one,” he admitted. Then he took a good long look at the extensive injuries. He didn’t know where to begin. “The guy’s arm is nearly blown off and the back of his head looks like a steam roller ran over it.”

  “Any hope?” Holly asked.

  “Slim to none.”

  Holly had come to the point where she would have to make her firs
t life-and-death decision. She could allow Karl to operate and pray for that elusive miracle. Or she could put Dean on ice until they returned to the space station and hope that he survived the thawing-out process. Finally she said, “Freeze him.”

  Karl looked at her just to make sure he’d heard correctly.

  “Freeze him,” she repeated. “We don’t have the equipment here to do him much good. When we get back to the hospital, well, maybe something can be done.”

  Karl shook his head. “That’s a big maybe. But you’re the commander and I can’t give any guarantees.”

  “So you agree with me?” she asked.

  “I suppose so.”

  Sandy watched Karl for the signal to begin the freezing process. He nodded once and she began. The assistant removed a zippered bag from the supply cabinet and laid it next to the body. While she was doing this, Karl readied the chemical solution to be injected into the bloodstream. As soon as the solution had mixed in sufficient degree, the vital organs would chill, followed by a frosting of the blood supply. The chemical agent would last only long enough to get Dean zipped up and placed in the freezer compartment.

  Sandy and Karl worked well together. They knew instinctively what the other wanted and it was rare that verbal instructions had to be given. The transfer from the stretcher to the bag was made quickly and Dean was wheeled to the freezer. Karl went in alone, leaving Sandy waiting at the portal. As he lowered the stiffening body into the glass case, he looked at Dean’s eyes for a brief second. The sudden change in temperature had caused the bag to steam up and small icicles formed on Dean’s face.

  Karl left the freezer, shutting the heavy door behind him. The fresh warmth felt good on his bare arms and face.

  “What now?” Sandy asked.

  “Now, we get back to Ricky and make sure he’s okay.”

  “I’ll get him down to the infirmary,” she offered.

  Sandy moved quickly through the corridors to Ricky’s cabin. She’d surprised herself by how unemotionally she handled the crisis. She was determined to be strong and professional, especially so because she’d always been typecast as the dumb, helpless blonde. She deeply resented that label because it was so far from the truth. Yeah, she was a knock-out. Long silky blonde hair, soft white skin, firm breasts and a shapely ass, but hell, it wasn’t her fault. Was she supposed to get fat so people would take her seriously? Screw ’em!

  It wasn’t her fault either that she had a finely tuned mind. But she was going to use that advantage to its fullest potential, even if her appearance was a drawback in her job.

  Sandy had finished in the top ten per cent of her class at the Academy. She’d taken high honours in medicine; her field of specialisation was transplants. After graduating she was offered a teaching post but she’d turned it down for a chance to work in the field. “What good is a teacher who’s never been tested in a crisis?” she asked the Board of Regents in rejecting their offer. “How could students respect such a teacher?” Especially one they considered a dumb blonde.

  She didn’t even mind being Karl’s second. Sandy knew she’d learn more about the practical side of intergalactic medicine from the likes of him than from any amount of classroom study.

  When she reached Rick’s cabin, she rapped lightly on the door.

  “Come in.”

  “Karl would like you down in the infirmary. He wants to do the tests now.”

  “If you want to do the tests, we can stay right here. I have a bed and I’d enjoy it a lot more if you took my pulse rather than Karl.”

  That was just the kind of bullshit that Sandy couldn’t get away from. “Karl’s waiting for you. Don’t make him wait too long.”

  Ricky had stripped to his underwear and was sitting on the examining table. He was the youngest member of the crew and the most inexperienced. But without a doubt, he was in the finest shape. He worked out in the gym every morning and afternoon to keep his strong muscular body in top-notch condition. Even Sandy found herself admiring his bulging forearms and solid thighs. Not to mention a certain other bulging part of his anatomy. As much as she tried to be professional, she was still very much a woman.

  Karl was studying something else. A reddish sore had appeared on Ricky’s arm. Karl held the wound up to the light for a better look. “Seems to be a burn. A bad burn.”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Ricky said.

  Karl was surprised. “No?” The doctor applied pressure to the area around the injury. “How about this? Any pain?”

  Ricky shook his head. “Can’t feel a thing.”

  “Only numbness?”

  “That’s right, Doc. I wouldn’t worry about it though. It’ll be fine.”

  Karl wasn’t so sure. He didn’t like the look of it. “Very unusual.” The doctor rested a finger directly on the open sore but even that didn’t produce a response from Ricky, other than a weak smile and a shrug.

  “Only thing I can figure,” Karl said, “is that you’ve suffered some nerve damage. I’m giving you a cream to apply to the affected area twice a day until it’s healed. Now, let me look at your head.” Karl felt at the back of Ricky’s skull. “You’ve got a bump the size of a grapefruit.”

  “Hey, Doc, I’m all right. I swear to you,” Ricky protested.

  Karl was sceptical. “Maybe yes. Maybe no.” He reached for a camera-like device attached to the computerised medical scanner and told Ricky to remain still. He positioned the machine at the back of Ricky’s skull and pushed a button. Immediately, a picture of Ricky’s brain was printed by the computer. Karl lifted it from the tray and held it under the light. “Well, at least that’s all it seems to be.”

  “What’s that?” Ricky asked.

  “A bump on the head. Take the rest of the day off. Sleep, relax, whatever you want.”

  “I’d really like to get back to work, though. I think we were close to something out there when the explosion hit.”

  “Holly is seeing to that. Get some rest. That’s an order!”

  Ricky finally gave in. “Sure, why not?” He jumped to the floor and put his clothes back on.

  Gail and Kate approached the scene of the explosion with caution, keeping command informed about their progress as they went. Holly had made it clear that constant communication was to be the rule, not the exception.

  Gail was bright and quietly aggressive. She had to be. She didn’t come from a family of professionals. In fact she was the only member of the exploration team who hadn’t attended the Academy or one of its affiliated institutions. While all her school friends had got married and made babies, Gail was busy spending her time in the library. When she thought she was ready, after years of self-study, she applied to take the Equivelency Exam. Only six out of 14,000 who attempted the test that year passed. She surprised everyone but herself by being one of that select group.

  She and Kate had been on a few missions together and had become fast friends. Kate was just Gail’s opposite. She had been born with that silver spoon in her mouth. She’d had anything and everything she’d wanted as a child. The world was hers on a platter but she woke up one morning very sick of it all. She knew she had to do something important on her own, something she couldn’t buy with her family’s money, and so she attended the Academy.

  When the two young women reached the entrance of the rocky mound, they radioed their position to Holly. She told them to proceed. They stepped inside the tomb-like structure and moved to where Dean had been dug out. Blocking their way was a large boulder. Gail reached out to move it but to her astonishment it crumbled into dust at her touch.

  “Don’t know your own strength,” Kate mused.

  “A comedian,” Gail replied.

  As they both learned shortly, it didn’t have anything to do with raw power, because every rock they handled crumbled the same way. Under the circumstances, they had no problem clearing the way to the inner chamber.

  “This is where Dean and Ricky were at the time of the explosion,” Kate commented.

&n
bsp; They exchanged glances and shone their lights into the darkness. They went into a low cave, so low that they were forced to keep their bodies bent to avoid hitting their helmets on the rocks protruding from above. They increased the power on the lanterns and surveyed their surroundings.

  “What’s that over there?” Kate asked. She pointed with her gloved hand to the wall directly opposite them.

  Gail moved closer and rested her lantern on the ground. Stacked in neat rows from the floor to the ceiling were hundreds of stone slabs, each measuring a foot square.

  Gail lifted one of them and brought the light on to it. There were engravings on it—a strange collection of marks, lines and squiggles she could not understand.

  “What do you think they are?” Kate asked, joining her colleague.

  Before replying, Gail attempted to shine her lantern past the rock slabs. The cave wasn’t small after all. In fact, the pile of tablets extended for as far as her beam would go.

  “I think we may have found the key to this civilisation. There’s no doubt that we’ve discovered something very important. I’d better advise Holly about the find.”

  Gail tried to raise the commander on her communicator but the signals didn’t seem to get through the tomb. She decided she’d better return to the planet’s surface to radio the message.

  “Stay put,” Holly told her. “And don’t touch anything. Mitch and I will be there in fifteen minutes.”

  And they were. Mitch didn’t waste a second getting into his suit and attaching a full supply of oxygen. He’d waited months, no, years, for a discovery of this magnitude and there was no holding him back at this point.

  Holly found it hard to keep up with him. The tall slender space-suited figure looked humorous leaping through the atmosphere to the excavation site. Holly appeared just as funny taking short quick steps to stay close behind.

  Once inside the tomb, they were led to the chamber with the tablets. Mitch resembled a man in an antique shop dusting off long-forgotten items of value. And there was no denying the authenticity of these antiques. Mitch kept his light glued to the slabs, nervously shaking his head back and forth in his excitement. “Never seen anything like it before!”