Space 1999 - Mind-Breaks of Space by Michael Butterworth

Author:Michael Butterworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Star Books
Published: 1977-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Patrick Osgood stood in the centre of the tunnel and in his white coverall suit looked more like a larger-than-life statue of a man than a real one. Everything about him had a stone-like hardness, a monolithic rigidity in his nature that made him both respected and feared among the men who worked with him.

A team of these stood nearby, about ten yards back in the tunnel from Osgood. There was only emergency lighting at this level... the lowest of all the man-made tunnel systems beneath Alpha Moon Base. With the assistance of small lamps on their helmets, the team was checking their position on a map.

Some of the geological surveys had led mining teams farther afield to explore the Moon’s own natural caverns in the search for Tiranium. Osgood had elected to lead his team straight down... knowing that the closer to the Moon’s core they could get, the greater was the likelihood of locating the precious element.

Most of the tunnels through which they had explored had been planned to eventually house a greatly expanded Alpha, Moon Base, back in the times before the fateful day that Luna broke away from Earth orbit. Now only the topmost levels were in use. On Koenig’s orders most of the Moon Base sections had been transferred just below the surface for added protection from the dangers of deep space.

Osgood turned and walked back to his crew, his own doubts about the next step in the search resolved.

His face was dark with heavy brows and a thickly woven beard. Intense, ebony eyes burned out from either side of a nobly-shaped, though broken, nose.

‘I want some more charges...’ his deep voice reverberated in the tunnel as he reached out a big hand and stabbed locations on the map, ‘placed here, here, here and here.’

Several of the men shook their heads doubtfully, frowning with concern. Osgood looked resolutely at each of them, seeking their confidence with only the firmness of his expression.

‘I know we’ll find it this time,’ he said. ‘I have faith!’

Osgood’s first assistant felt very reluctant to question the plan, understanding how much finding Tiranium meant to the big man personally... but he couldn’t ignore his professional responsibility.

‘Isn’t it a bit risky, Chief? You put that many charges along that line there and...’

‘Our job is to find Tiranium in these catacombs,’ Osgood interrupted.

‘We’ve already weakened the roof,’ the man persisted. ‘It’s a pretty treacherous rock formation just there.’

Osgood laid a fatherly hand on the assistant’s shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. ‘Every rock formation we’ve come across in the Moon has been tricky. We must take risks in order to succeed... and this time we will. We must!’

They all knew there was no arguing with him and turned away to prepare the charges. Osgood took a deep breath and put away the map. He knew that this attempt had to bear fruit or else they would have to give up the search. They didn’t have the right kind of equipment to go any deeper.

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