‘I should have brought chocolates,’ he said. ‘Sweets to the sweet, but they’d just sold the last box.’

  ‘Just as well,’ she said, entering into the spirit of the fantasy. ‘They’d only put on extra inches. Well, Commander, are we ready?’

  With a flourish he extended his arm. ‘Yes, my lady, let us now go to witness the trials and tribulations of a most unhappy prince of Denmark.’

  And to witness just what Sonia Bowman had managed to accomplish.

  As far as Maddox could see the woman couldn’t be faulted. As he guided Claire to her seat in the auditorium he studied the ceiling and walls. The metal walls had been covered with plastic simulating plaster, panels set up together with lights and decorations so that the area was reminiscent of the great theatres of Europe. Naturally there were differences, no Royal Box for one and no serried tiers, no orchestra pit either and no heavy proscenium, but the general atmosphere had been captured and held. Here was a place in which make-believe would find a home. A shrine dedicated to the art of mime and gesture, of, words and song, of graceful shapes and monsters moving through the intricacies of an artificial world.

  Habit made Maddox reach for his communicator. ‘Frank?’

  Weight’s face looked from the tiny screen. He, along with others, remained on duty; a skeleton staff which maintained observation. ‘Commander?’

  ‘All well?’

  ‘Everything is under control,’ Weight assured. ‘Space is as empty as far as we can scan. All systems functioning on optimum level. Don’t worry, Commander. Relax and enjoy yourself.’

  And don’t keep bothering me, thought Maddox, adding the unspoken comment. Unfairly, perhaps, but he could guess how the other felt and knew that he had made a mistake in making the check. Unless subordinates were shown they were trusted they would become unfitted for trust.

  ‘Carl?’ Claire smiled at him as he took his place at her side. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘No, just making a routine check. How is your section?’

  ‘Ted can handle it,’ she said, firmly. ‘This is the first play I’ve had the chance to see since we left Earth and I’m not going to spoil it. Now relax, Carl, and forget duty for a while.’

  Something he could never do, but for a few hours at least he could push it deep into the back of his mind. And the atmosphere of the theatre helped. At the chime of a bell the lights began to lower and a blur of light and shadow drifted across the curtain. Music filled the air, soft, the throb and pulse of tambours and sackbuts, of flutes and horns. Music that augmented the illusion of being carried back in time to another world, another place.

  The curtains opened and they looked at Elsinore. It was magic, thought Maddox. The art of the illusionist, scenes created from light and shadow, props, plaster, paint and suggestion. Eric Manton, the expedition’s Chief Scientist, had helped and would even now be behind the scenes busy with his electronic wizardry, but the setting, the atmosphere, the choice of the men who now appeared in costume, all were a tribute to the skill and dedication of Sonia Bowman who had taken words and directions and had made them come alive and real.

  The genius of William Shakespeare presented by the most unusual travelling company of players ever to have trod a board.

  With a contented sigh Maddox relaxed and sank into the illusive and famous world of the Bard.

  There had, he knew, been better productions of the play but he doubted if any had been more eagerly received by an audience, which surely was the most receptive there could be. The actors too, a little rough perhaps, but gaining confidence as the minutes passed, their roughness adding to rather than detracting from their roles. Francisco, Bernardo, Horatio and Marcellus. The King was a giant, his Queen a mature accompaniment, Hamlet himself a tall figure of incipient madness, flashes of paranoia merged with the bitter necessity of acceptance, the frustration of thwarted desire.

  ‘Clever,’ whispered Claire at his side. ‘Sonia was shrewd to illuminate the incestuous desire of the son for the mother and to be able to bring it across so soon.’

  ‘Hamlet for Gertrude? The Oedipus Complex?’

  ‘Yes — it’s obvious when you have the clue and Sonia’s managed to leave it in no doubt. Remember Hamlet hates his uncle but as yet has no knowledge of his guilt as a murderer. The hate, as such, is illogical unless we accept the strong sexual motivation which drives it. Once that is accepted all the rest falls into place. The revelations of the ghost simply provide an excuse and justification for revenge.’ Her hand closed tightly on his arm. ‘Hush, now. Here it comes.’

  The curtains parted for Scene V and the prince’s communication with the ghost of his murdered father. Mist trailed across the platform, dimming the appearance of detail, the distant figures barely observed of waiting attendants. Hamlet was in the foreground, a cunningly aimed spotlight illuminating his features with a pale, nacreous glow, not too dim to take the attention from the disturbingly frightening appearance of the apparition he faced.

  Somewhere in Maddox’s brain a connection was made and, suddenly, he was a boy again, sitting in a classroom, mouthing words by rote; taking the part of the ghost.

  ‘I am thy father’s spirit;

  Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,

  And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,

  Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

  Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid

  To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

  I could a tale unfold…’

  A spirit condemned to eternal suffering for the sake of sins unshriven, a relic of a time when men believed in the punishment which waited after death to sear and corrode all who had not kept the Faith.

  Maddox blinked, narrowing his eyes as he watched the ghost. Manton’s magic was superb. The thing seemed almost transparent, the gleam of a subdued torch showing through the rotting shroud. The voice itself, booming, sepulchral, grated on ears and nerves and sent little chills running up his spine. A voice augmented by the use of subsonics, he guessed, bolstered by a selection of vibratory frequencies designed to activate the fear-centres of the brain.

  Turning he whispered, ‘Claire —’

  ‘Hush!’ Her tone was savage. ‘Listen, Carl. Listen!’

  The ghost again.

  ‘O Hamlet! What a falling-off was there;

  From me, whose love was of that dignity

  That it went hand in hand even with the vow

  I made to her in marriage; and to decline

  Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

  To those of mine!’

  Claire was entranced as were all in the auditorium. Glancing around Maddox could see the rapt faces and unwinking eyes, feeling the strained tension as if it were a tangible thing, almost tasting the sheer concentration directed at the stage. They were enamoured, entrapped, caught in the illusion of the play. Sonia Bowman could have received no better accolade. From the stage the eerie voice continued, lifting, throbbing, demanding full attention. A grim voice, chill in its condemnation, ruthlessly twisting a nature already warped. The hand of the dead reaching out to ruin the lives of those left behind.

  ‘Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,

  Of life, or crown, of queen, at once dispatched,

  Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

  Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,

  No reckoning made, but sent to my account

  With all my imperfections on my head;

  O, horrible! O, horrible!

  Move not ahead on this thy present path to ruin,

  But retreat! Withdraw! Return!

  Yield unto the necessity of the time,

  Go! Leave! Move not into peril!

  Turn back! Back! Back!’

  Words never written by the Bard and which never should have been uttered in such a context. Maddox felt Claire stiffen at his side, heard the sudden hum from the audience. Some, a very few, unfamiliar with the play had spotted nothing amiss. Others had.

  ‘Those words!’ Claire looked at Maddox. ‘They don’t belong. Carl, what is Eric playing at?’

  ‘Maybe the ghost got out of hand?’ Maddox glanced at the stage. ‘Look! It’s changing!’

  The scabrous image of rotting shroud and leprous flesh dissolved into something tall and regal. One arm lifted and the face, wreathed by a full, white beard, tilted, illuminated by an inward light.

  ‘Halt! Take warning! You are about to enter a region of space containing extreme danger. Retreat while you are able. Nothing but fear and destruction lies ahead. You will know only devastation and death. Retreat! Return! Withdraw! You have been warned!’

  The figure swelled, dissolving, emitting a wave of almost tangible dread, an emotion which caused men to cry out and women to scream as they cowered in their seats hiding their eyes, their ears.

  Victims of the panic which ruled the entire ship.

  CHAPTER 2

  Professor Eric Manton was an old man who had lost his wife at an early age. Thereafter he had completely immersed himself in his scientific career and research and, so some hinted, had robbed himself of all human emotion. A lie as Maddox well knew, the tragedy had simply driven Manton to become one of the Space Fleet’s greatest scientists, but brilliant as he was, he now found himself baffled.

  ‘I don’t understand it, Carl. All the scanners report only negative results. There was certainly no massive electromagnetic energy field which affected our life-support systems. If the evidence wasn’t against it, I’d say that it was the result of a simple mass-hysteria caused by a careless use of sonic stimulators.’

  ‘And it isn’t?’

  ‘No, Carl.’ Manton shook his head to emphasise the point. ‘Their range was strictly limited. In any case the projection would never have been able to penetrate the metal bulkheads surrounding the auditorium and, as we know, the panic was one which encompassed the ship.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘It was a feeling, Carl,’ she reported. ‘A wave of sudden, inexplicable terror which momentarily disorganised the entire personnel of the ship. All agree on certain points; the desire to run, to hide, to withdraw. Fortunately, it didn’t last long enough to endanger anyone.’

  ‘No visual stimuli?’

  For a moment she hesitated then said, ‘Not that anyone will admit to. As far as it goes those in the auditorium are the only ones who actually saw anything unusual. And not everyone will admit to that now.’

  A self-protective refusal to accept the evidence of their own senses and a natural one. Hallucinations were always worrisome and no one would be willing to admit they suffered from them. And yet Maddox had no doubt as to what he had seen and heard.

  Neither had Claire but Manton, oddly, had less certainty.

  ‘I was in the projection booth,’ he explained. ‘As you know the ghost was a hologram projected on a cloud of controlled vapour — we used a gas with a high metallic content and managed to shape and move it by the use of powerful magnetic fields. Rather effective, do you agree?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Maddox dryly. ‘But the voice?’

  ‘Projected through electronic filters. The sonic emitters were set facing the auditorium, of course. The strength of projection was two degrees above the lower level of conscious awareness. An application of subliminal influence, you understand.’ He broke off, coughing, suddenly aware that he had been rambling. ‘I’m sorry to be a poor witness, Carl, but if we caused what happened then I am totally unaware of how it was done. The energies involved simply don’t lend themselves to such a conclusion.’

  ‘What you are saying is that what happened could not have been caused by any actions of our own. Is that it?’

  Manton drew in his breath. ‘Yes, Carl. That is what I’m saying.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘I’ve checked Eric’s figures as far as I’m able and I must agree with him,’ she said. ‘Certainly the sonic projectors could never have affected the entire ship and we do know that all personnel experienced the sudden emotional panic though in a greater or lesser degree. The node seems to have been the auditorium. It was also the point of greatest visual derangement — at least more people were willing to admit they saw something there than anywhere else.’

  ‘And the words?’ Maddox stared from one to the other as neither made comment. ‘I take it that we did hear the words?’

  ‘We did, Carl, yes,’ admitted Claire.

  ‘We? You mean you and I? How about the others? Eric?’ Maddox frowned as Manton shook his head. They had met in his office, the wide doors leading to Mission Control now closed. Rising from behind his desk he crossed the floor with short, impatient strides. The lines of his face were deep, the contours set in rigid planes.

  He said, curtly, ‘There’s a mystery here and I want to solve it. A fictional ghost turns into a bearded prophet and —’

  ‘Bearded?’ Claire looked startled. ‘Carl, that figure didn’t have a beard. It was clean-shaven and wore a dress suit with a decoration of some kind.’

  ‘It was bearded,’ said Maddox. ‘At least the thing I saw had a beard and a robe of some kind. You say it wasn’t — which means?’

  ‘If the both of you looked at the same thing and each saw a different image then there is only one thing it can mean.’ Manton was positive. ‘What you saw was subjective, not objective. In other words, it wasn’t really there, you only imagined it was.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘I agree with Eric. It is the only way to explain the differing reports I’ve received. Even accounting for hysteria and natural diversity in recounting a traumatic experience there is too much divergence. Some are too vague to be even logical; others mention octopod and polypoidal creatures as if they were recounting the stuff of nightmare. Nonsense, of course, but illuminating.’

  ‘Nightmare,’ said Maddox. He looked at his left hand, the fingers were clenched and, deliberately, he forced himself to spread them, flexing them, easing the tension, masking the fear they had betrayed. ‘We each saw something, a creature of authority or nightmare which could, psychologically, mean the same thing. Most of us, in our time, have been scared by authority so it is merely a transference of symbols. Never mind that for the moment. Let’s take a look at what we have. Something, some external force, caused a form of mass hallucination. Right?’

  ‘Until we have a better explanation, Carl, that will serve as a working hypothesis,’ said Manton. ‘Claire?’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘The next question,’ said Maddox, grimly, ‘is just what the hell caused it. And how?’

  ‘What I don’t know,’ said Claire. ‘But I can take a guess as to how. I think it was done, or caused, by direct stimulation of the brain. Normally we see something and the image is carried via the optic nerve to the brain where it is resolved into a recognisable shape and subject. Now, if we stimulate the correct centres of the brain the reverse can happen. A subject can be made to see something which isn’t actually there. The same applies to hearing, of course. In fact, I can produce exactly those results in my laboratory.’

  ‘By hypnotism?’ Manton was interested.

  ‘That is one method, but I was thinking of electrical cortical stimulation with the use of probes.’

  ‘Hypnotism,’ said Maddox. Returning to the desk he leaned on it, resting the flats of both hands on the surface. ‘We were entranced, enamoured, concentrating on the play. Everyone was. The ghost was a shifting, flickering image, exactly what would lead to a hypnotic trance-condition. Am I making sense?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Claire. ‘Our concentration would have made us vulnerable to group suggestion and equally so to response to cortical stimulation, but we can rule out simple hypnotism. There would have had to be a director or directive of some kind. A prompter to tell us what to see. And you are forgetting the words.’

  The warning. Maddox straightened and glanced towards the closed doors. Beyond them, he knew, sensitive instruments were sending their findings to digital readouts, to dials, to shifting graphs all to be studied and correlated by skilled personnel and the mammoth abilities of the main computer. Yet despite all their skill and technology, they had found nothing.

  ‘Halt,’ he said, thickly. ‘Retreat. Withdraw. Return. Death and devastation lie ahead. Did you all get it?’

  ‘In one form or another, yes.’ Claire touched the fullness of her lower lip with the tip of her tongue as if even thinking of the episode had dried the natural saliva. ‘It could be a natural accompaniment to the hallucination. We are afraid of what could lie ahead and we would all like to return, to go back, to be safe.’

  An answer, but not a good one; the mystery remained and with it the fear and anxiety. Maddox didn’t believe in natural happenings, for each event there had to be a reason and to find explanations in the realm of philosophical abstractions was to dodge the issue. At times such dodging was of no importance — on Earth, for example, odd accounts of strange sightings and inexplicable events had been dismissed or ignored without apparent detriment. But they were not on Earth. They had little or no reserves. A mistake, any mistake, could be the last they would make.

  On the Ad Astra there was simply no room for the unknown.

  ‘Eric, run that projection again and repeat the sequence up and down forward and back with varying strengths of sonic projection. Ask for volunteers. I want to check there was no possibility that the occurrence wasn’t of our own doing.’

  ‘I’ve already checked, Carl.’

  ‘Then do it again!’ Maddox made no attempt to soften his tone. ‘Claire, you do the same. Tests on all together with cross-questioning. Hypnotic recall if you think it necessary. With enough information we might come up with the true answer.’

  ‘We may already have it,’ she said, bleakly. ‘We received a warning, remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, harshly. ‘To halt. To return. To withdraw. To go back. Now tell me how the hell we can possibly obey it!’