Lifeforce Read Free Page A

people all sitting in front of the televisions, waiting for news. Can I send an interim report?”
    “Wait ten minutes. We’re getting close to this light. I’d like to find out what it is.”
    Now at least he could see that it was pouring up from a chasm in the floor. The greeny-blue quality reminded him of moonlight on fields. He experienced a surge of exultancy that made him kick himself powerfully downwards. Ives said: “Hey, Skip, not too fast.” He felt like a swallow skimming and gliding towards the earth. The edge of the gulf lay a quarter of a mile below him, and he could see the full extent of the immense rectangular hole that was like a cloud-filled valley among mountains. The Geiger counter had now passed the danger point, but the insulation of the suit would protect him for some time yet.
    The hole into which they were plunging was about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. The walls were covered with the same designs as the outer chamber. The light seemed to be coming from the floor and from an immense column in the centre of the space. He heard Murchison say: “What in hell’s that? A monument?” Then Craigie said: “It’s made of glass.” Carlsen stretched out his hands to cushion his impact against the floor, rolled over like a parachutist, then bounced for a hundred yards. When he succeeded in standing upright, he found himself at the base of a pedestal that supported the transparent column.
    Like most things on this ship, it was bigger than it looked from a distance. Carlsen judged its diameter to be at least fifty yards. Inside, immense dim shapes were suspended. In the phosphorescent light, they looked like black octopuses. Carlsen propelled himself upwards until he was opposite one of them, and then shone his searchlight on it. In the dazzling beam, he could see that it was not black, but orange. At close quarters, it looked less like an octopus, more like a bundle of fungoid creepers joined together at one end.
    Close beside him, Ives said: “What do you make of that?”
    Carlsen knew what he was thinking. “I don’t think these things built this ship.”
    Murchison pressed the glass of his space helmet against the column. “What do you suppose they are? Vegetable? Or some kind of squid?”
    “Perhaps neither. They may be some completely alien life form.”
    Murchison said: “My God!”
    The fear in his voice made Carlsen’s heart pound. When he spoke, his own voice was choked. “What in God’s name is it?”
    Something was moving behind the squidlike shapes. Craigie’s voice said: “It’s me.”
    “What the hell are you playing at?” The shock had made Carlsen angry.
    “I’m inside this tube. It’s hollow. And I can see something down below.”
    Cautiously, Carlsen propelled himself upwards, braking himself by pressing his gloved hands against the glass of the column. He was sweating heavily, although the temperature of the spacesuit was controlled. He floated past the top of the column, made a twist in the air and managed to land. He could then see that, as Craigie had said, it was hollow. The walls containing the squidlike creatures were no more than ten feet thick. And when he looked into the space down the centre, he noticed that the blue glow was far stronger there. It was streaming up from below the floor. “Donald? Where are you?”
    Craigie’s voice said: “I’m down below. I think this must be the living quarters.”
    Carlsen reached out to grab Murchison, who had propelled himself too fast and was about to float past him. Without speaking, both launched themselves headfirst into the hollow core. Since space-walking had become second nature, they had lost their normal inhibitions about this position. They descended gently towards the blue-green light. A moment later they were floating through the hole into a sea of blue that reminded Carlsen of a grotto he had once seen on Capri. Looking up, he realised that the ceiling — the floor of the room they had