SATELLITE OF DEATH

There were five aboard the orbiting wheel in the sky—an American, a Russian, a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Indian. Their job was to keep watch—over each other. The Wheel held enough fission-fusion bombs to blast all of Earth but the five watchdogs saw to it that those bombs remained stored, a potential threat and no more to aggressors below.

And then Gregson and Lal discovered the alien spaceship moored outside Supplementary Airlock One.

It looked like no spaceship they had ever set eyes on before. Gregson, the American, said, "You see that thing out there?"

The Indian, Lal, nodded and rubbed his aquiline nose reflectively. "I see it—but what is it?"

"Spaceship of some kind," said Gregson. "Damndest-looking spaceship I've ever seen, though. Looks like it's moored near the airlock. Wonder if we have visitors?"

He peered at the ship. It had little in common with the unstreamlined dumbbells Earth used for spaceflight; it was slim and tapering, with no visible rocket orifices; it was made of some strange iridescent metal that glimmered in the moonlight.

"Let's investigate," Gregson said.

"We should call the others," said Lal. "All five should be on hand."

"You're right." Gregson touched his belt-stud, giving the signal that called all five crewmen to hand. They appeared quickly—Lasseux, Beveridge, Golovunoff. Silently, Gregson pointed through the view-plate at the newcomer.

After a long look Beveridge shook his head. "That didn't come from Earth," the Englishman said. "Not unless they've developed an entirely new drive principle. And look at the design...."

"That's an alien spaceship, all right," Lasseux said.

"From the stars," added Golovunoff. A cold chill seemed to sweep through the space satellite as he spoke the words.

Quietly Gregson said, "We'd better go out there and see what's inside. Since Lal and I saw the ship first, we'll be the ones to go look."

"No," said Golovunoff. "I wish to go also."

"I'd rather like to get first look too," said Beveridge.

"I think we'd all better go," Lasseux suggested. "The station can operate without us for a while. And we'll never agree on who's to go, eh?"

Five figures in spacesuits clustered about the alien ship. At close range its iridescent skin looked other-worldly and vaguely frightening, gleaming purple and green and dull-bronze by moonlight. A quartz window gave a view of the ship's interior.

"I don't see anyone in there," said Gregson. "You?"

"Looks empty to me," commented Beveridge.

"Empty! Impossible!" said Lasseux vehemently. "Empty spaceships do not pilot themselves across the void to Earth. Empty spaceships do not complicatedly moor themselves outside a space satellite's airlock. Empty spaceships...."

"That's enough, Lasseux," growled the Russian. "Whether it makes sense or no, that spaceship's empty."

"Let's find the hatch," suggested Lal. "Perhaps there's someone injured inside, out of the line of sight."

The five Earthmen covered the surface of the ship, looking for an exterior hatch control. Beveridge found it first—a narrow lever extruding a few inches from the skin of the alien vessel. He called to the others, then yanked down on the lever. The hatch pivoted back, opening into an airlock.

There was the usual moment of Alphonse-Gaston as the five crewmen jockeyed for position, none willing to let any of the others get ahead of him on anything. Then Lasseux slipped through and into the alien spaceship, followed by Gregson and Beveridge almost simultaneously, and then Golovunoff and Lal.

The ship was empty.

There was not the slightest sign of life. The five men roamed through the vessel, noting the utterly alien control-panel, the strange furnishings, the peculiar fixtures and appurtenances. But the ship was void of life.

Finally they returned to the Wheel and, puzzled, discussed the situation.

"It makes no sense," objected Lasseux. The small Frenchman was plainly obsessed with the inconsistency of the thing. "The ship crosses the interstellar void ... alone? Can remote control extend so far?"

"Looks like it did," said Gregson.

"Impossible!" Lasseux sputtered.

"In any case," said Beveridge, "we have a prize—a gift from the stars. An alien spaceship, free and without strings of any kind. We should notify Earth of our find."

"Do you suppose," said Lal, "that the pilot of that ship may be around yet?"

"Huh?" From Gregson and Beveridge at the same time.

"What I mean is, suppose that pilot is not like you and me—suppose, that is, that he is invisible? Perhaps he is still aboard his ship, and we passed over him unknowing? Or perhaps he has come right in here with us and listens to our very words?"

Gregson shuddered. "You've got a wild imagination, Lal. But we have enough problems on our hands without worrying about ghosts from outer space."

"I said not ghosts—"

"Enough," boomed Golovunoff. "We can continue this silly quarrel indefinitely. Let us assume, since we see no one and nothing aboard the ship, that it arrived empty. And therefore that it is ours for study."

"Do empty ships moor themselves to airlock hatches?" asked the Frenchman sarcastically. "I tell you Lal's right—there must have been intelligence guiding that ship!"

Gregson shook his head. "No. Listen to me, will you? We built this satellite station jointly, as a global watch-station. But does that mean that everything the satellite discovers is to be shared equally?"

"Of course," said Beveridge.

"Then how do we divide that spaceship into five equal parts? Whose country gets it?"

There was a moment's silence. Then Lal said, "We'll turn it over to the United Nations. They can let all nations examine it freely."

For once there was general agreement. "Good idea," Gregson said approvingly, and then the five went back to their tasks aboard the satellite.

The satellite had been in space less than a year. The development of spaceflight had put an end to the possibility of war on Earth by bringing into being a watchdog for the uneasy planet.

Put a satellite in the sky. Arm it with enough fission-fusion bombs to blast any country to flinders. Man it with a squad chosen from the leading countries of the world and let them keep watch over one another. Any threat of aggression on the mother planet could easily be squashed by the more potent threat of blazing vengeance from the skies. The satellite was the guardian of the world's peace.

The five men chosen to be the first crew were almost ideal for the job—sensitive, intelligent men, skilled in the techniques of spaceflight, loyal to the countries of their birth. There wouldn't be any chance of collusion among them, of a conspiracy against one country or against Earth itself, as some feared.

Their tasks for the hours immediately after the discovery of the strange spaceship were mostly routine; Lal dictated a comprehensive report on the spaceship and beamed it to United Nations Headquarters on Earth, while Beveridge and Golovunoff, spacesuited, filmed the alien ship from every conceivable angle, inside and out. Lasseux and Gregson tended to the workings of the satellite, overseeing the cybernetic governors which had the actual responsibility of operating the big wheel in the sky.

Lasseux was cook that night, according to the strict rotation that had been set up. The men ate a strange meal; their spirits seemed oddly dampened by the spaceship that had so unpredictably come into their midst. Lal's words preyed on them despite themselves. Suppose there had been an invisible alien aboard that ship? Suppose he lurked aboard the wheel this very moment?

"Suppose," said Beveridge suddenly, "that alien ship was an invasion scout."

"What's that?" Gregson asked.

"What I mean is, the advance guard of an invasion force. The alien finds the satellite and, being telepathic, parks here a while to see what's going on." He giggled self-consciously. "I'm speaking imaginatively, of course. The alien moors here and reads our minds; finds out we have a load of bombs here that can blow up the works down there. So he comes drifting out of the ship and takes over someone of us here. When no one else is looking—poof!—Earth is destroyed like that!" Again Beveridge giggled.

Gregson looked at him sourly. "You better leave those crazy magazines alone, Beveridge."

But Lasseux interjected, "We should devote careful attention to what he has said. There may be a grain of truth in it. After all, who moored the spaceship?"

A moment's silence. Then the Russian said, "Assuming one of us is an alien—not that I believe Beveridge's fanciful story—how would we know? Until Earth is destroyed, that is?"

"That's just it," said Lal gloomily. "We wouldn't know. Not until it was too late."

What began as Beveridge's dinner-table joke soon became an earnestly-held belief. Perhaps it was the strain of life aboard the satellite, 10,000 miles above the Earth's surface. Perhaps the tensions of a year's isolation from the rest of humanity were taking their toll. But, from a dinner-table jest, the concept soon became a source of serious discussion. And tension.

Tension wrapped cold fingers around them as the days passed. They agreed to operate in teams, never to let one out of another's sight, always to keep constant watch ... for there was no way of telling which of them harbored in his body or his mind Earth's potential destroyer.

Two days passed this way, and a third. Then Lal went for a walk in space—without a suit.

"He cracked," Gregson said, staring at the Indian's corpse. "This crazy alien business—it just broke him apart."

"Yes," Lasseux said moodily. "The tension ... the looking and spying ... he couldn't take it any more. Our first casualty. But not the last, I fear."

Beveridge and Gregson brought Lal's body in—it was orbiting around the Wheel—and a brief funeral service was conducted. The Indian's body was fed to the atomic converters that ran the station and consumed in an instant's blaze of light.

Lasseux radioed Earth and gave them a full account of the tragedy. He was told that a replacement for Lal would be on his way within a week or two.

"Now there are just four of us," he said, turning from the radio. "It will make keeping watch easier. I will team with Golovunoff for the rest of the day; you two English-speakers can work together."

They did. It was a cold, cheerless day. The little Indian had everyone's spirits.

Then Beveridge suggested, "Perhaps Lal was the one carrying the alien. When he discovered the truth he ran out into space, killing himself and the alien...?"

"No," Gregson said. "Why would he wait so long? Lal was the type to do such a thing the moment he found out. Besides, the alien wouldn't be bothered by space if it has no body."

"Damn; you're right. Just trying to cheer things, old man. Just trying...."

Suddenly the sound of a pistol-shot echoed through the chambers of the space satellite. The crewmen always carried pistols as safeguards against one another.

"You hear that?" Gregson said.

Beveridge nodded.

Moments later Lasseux came running into the chamber, muttering excitedly and incoherently to himself in French. He carried a smoking gun in his hand. Gregson and Beveridge immediately drew but Lasseux raised his other hand and dropped the gun.

"Calm yourself!" Gregson ordered, shaking Lasseux roughly. "Calm down! What happened!"

The flow of French finally ceased. Lasseux made a visible effort to master himself and said. "Golovunoff—the Russian—he was the alien!"[1]

"What?"

"I saw him change shape," Lasseux gasped. "He seemed to waver for a moment when he thought I wasn't looking. The edges of his body blurred. It was awful! Then he saw me—and I shot him!"

"Is he dead?"

"Yes! Yes! I sealed off the chamber, so the alien couldn't escape if it's still alive." Lasseux was trembling violently. Beveridge and Gregson, pale, stared at him.

"Two men dead," Gregson said. "And we don't know if we've killed the creature yet. Or if there really is a creature," he added more silently to himself.

Then—"Great God! Lasseux!"

Gregson gaped. The Frenchman was ... wavering. It was the only way to describe it. He seemed to be blurring and shifting mistily, but only for an instant.

An instant was long enough. Gregson had his gun out and pumped three shots into Lasseux's body. The Frenchman looked incredulously at him a moment, then crumpled.

Gregson took four steps back and let the gun drop from his nerveless fingers. "It was a trick," he said in a half-whisper. "He killed the Russian and made up the story about him—but he couldn't control his own wavering! Lucky thing I got him first, wasn't it?" He turned to Beveridge for confirmation, but the Englishman was gazing at him sternly, coldly, almost angrily.

"He was wavering, wasn't he?" Gregson asked. "You saw it too—that sort of blurring?" The American knotted his hands tensely. "Well, now the alien's dead—unless it's taken a new host. You don't think that's possible, do you, Beveridge? I mean, if you shoot the body it's in, can it hop to the next person like that? Do you think...."

"Yes," said the Englishman. "I think so."

He was wavering.

But he held the gun.

Gregson yelled once and charged madly toward Beveridge. The bullet caught him in mid-run and sent him spinning back toward the crumpled corpse of Lasseux. Coldly, Beveridge fired twice more, then stopped wavering.

Ten minutes later, the rain of bombs began to shower down on Earth.