7/ OF ROCKS & ROBOTS
Egg-Or did not get to bed.
Gen. Sutokk of the Arkonide fleet stationed on Ekhas did not think of sleeping at all.
Perry Rhodan and his 3 mutants were on their way through the night-lit metropolis of Ent-Than, buying clothes for the fugitive Terrans and obtaining a freight-transporting vehicle.
Maj. Clyde Ostal and his 32 men were on their way too.
They stood on the edge of a large clearing and saw over the treetops a greenish-lit moon. Over the right side of the clearing was another moon, 3 times larger than the first. It, too, reflected greenish light, so brightly that the opposite forest edge cast shadows and the men could see out over the broad, level expanse.
The forest of the planet Ekhas was silent. Its quiet was uncanny. No night animals called out, neither the birds flying through the darkness nor the mammals who fled at the approach of man.
Nor was there any wind.
But despite the lateness of the night, it was still oppressively humid. The atmosphere was supersaturated with moisture. Sweat gushed out of the pores of all 33 Terrans.
They had been standing under the trees at forest edge for some minutes. They were waiting for Maj. Ostal to give the order to march on. But not yet. Ostal was inquiring into the cases of 6 men with foot problems. Allan D. Mercant’s rugged training had taught them everything—everything except the art of going through a vast, trackless forest barefoot.
All craved water; the thirst had closed their mouths. Only those who absolutely had to speak said anything. They had given up muttering and cursing. But their morale was good.
Whatever they had not attained today would be theirs tomorrow or the next day. Clothes. Food. Water.
Suddenly the larger moon disappeared behind a cloud that had silently crept across the night sky of Ekhas Now more clouds came and the smaller half moon vanished as well. From a distant wall of black clouds the 33 men heard a thundering and soon after the first lightning was seen crashing to the ground. The thunder grew louder.
"A storm!" the Major cried. "A storm will bring water, men!"
He was promising water both to them and to himself.
But first came the storm and with its howling innumerable flashes of lightning blasted over the men.
Suddenly the clearing lay in the harsh light of the thundering forces of nature unleashed.
33 men saw the cabin—or the house—simultaneously. Maj. Ostal tried to shout above the chaos but only S. Seeger, who stood next to him, understood what he had said.
Lt. Seeger yelled into the ear of the next man. "Follow us! Pass the order on!"
A long chain of 33 men ran barefoot across the grassy meadow toward the building on the other side.
Then came the rain. It gushed out of the clouds as though from a waterfall.
Large puddles quickly formed on the ground. Even Maj. Ostal took advantage of them to still his thirst. The water was warm and smelled brackish: they only noticed it once they had drunk their fill and wiped their no longer cracked lips with their hands.
"Onwards!" came Ostal’s order, which was passed from man to man.
They ran, and the unchained energies in the sky above provided enough light that no one became separated from the rest.
The clearing was wider than they had first estimated in the unfamiliar light of the 2 moons.
And then the storm died just as suddenly as it had arisen.
They had still not reached the cabin or house on the other side of the clearing.
The 2 moons appeared in the sky once more.
All of a sudden the Major signalled with an outstretched arm for the 2 men following him to stop. The order was repeated and everyone in the group quickly came to a halt. No one saw anything; then Seeger and Sgt. Fip heard the Major’s order. "You 2 follow me! The others stay here!"
They had been wading by 3’s through large pools of water, which were already being slowly absorbed by the thirsty ground.
Ostal pointed the direction in which to go and Seeger and Fip silently followed.
Then Ostal held out his arms again and stopped the 2 men. At the same time he made a low hissing noise. He had seen something. Seeger and Fip tried to penetrate the darkness with their eyes.
Isn’t that a light? Seeger asked himself just as at his side Fip whispered: "I see a light!"
Against the black background of the forest’s edge showed the barely visible form of a low, flat building, lit at one place by the weak light source which the Major had discovered before Fip and Seeger.
Clyde Ostal slowly took cover on the ground. If there were alert observers in the building, then the Terrans, standing out in the full light of the 2 moons, had just been seen. Lt. Seeger and Sgt. Fip followed the example of their superior, then crawled on their stomachs to the right and to the left so that in case of attack the small party would not be wiped out by a single shot.
"Seeger, come with me!" Ostal ordered. "Fip, you try to get back to the men if anything happens to us. Under no circumstances are you to try to help us. It would be senseless in the situation we’re in now. Fip, I’m counting on you!"
Ostal and Seeger approached the building from the right running stooped and in a wide, curving path. In that fashion they reached the dark shadows of the forest’s edge and there dared to continue in an upright position.
Maj. Clyde Ostal was about 6 meters ahead of his lieutenant. Before him the outlines of the flat building became ever sharper. It was not a simple cabin but a building made of plastic, the plastic Arkonides had used for construction of houses for millenniums.
Suddenly Ostal stopped as though rooted to the spot. Next to the left corner of the building, the one turned to the clearing, he saw the outline of a robot. "Back, Seeger!" was all he could say before a powerful hypnobeam struck him and he lost consciousness.
Lt. S. Seeger was not a victim of panic. The word did not exist in Allan D. Mercant’s training. He reacted unbelievably fast. He watched as the robot strode out of the shadowed side of the building, went to its victim, bent down and picked him up—then he watched as the robot carried Maj. Ostal to the low building.
During his observation Seeger had crawled back into the shadows of the woods. He did not understand why the mechanical man had not detected him and put him out of action, too.
As carefully and cautiously as he could, Seeger made his way back to Sgt. Fip. When he saw the lieutenant was alone, Fip whispered: "What happened to the major?"
"Robots back there!" was the lieutenant’s reply and Fip did not need to inquire any further.
When they returned to the waiting group, Lt. Seeger took over the leadership. They marched onward across the clearing, avoiding the building by going far to the left of it, reached the forest and continued from there.
In Terran measurements, a full day on Ekhas lasted 38 hours, They had fought through the night and forest for 10 hours, and 9 hours of darkness still stretched before them. They were too realistic to have any hope of coming to a settlement by daybreak. The day before they had seen no human communities from the airtaxi high above the forest. So it struck them as a completely unexpected surprise when they spotted some dozen unmoving lights shining through the trees ahead.
"Sgt. Fip!" Lt. Seeger said, calling the man to him. "The 2 of us will…!"
The night stillness was torn by the typical thunder of spaceship engines.
"On to the forest edge!" Seeger ordered.
But they did not reach any forest’s edge. The forest simply petered out into a down-sloping terrain covered by tall bushes. In front of them, lit by the greenish radiance of the 2 moons, stretched a kilometre-wide band of tangled shrubs and creeping vines that at first steeply then gradually descended to merge into the plain below.
"No wonder we didn’t see that from the airtaxi," said Lt. Peter H. Hasting, looking out across to the distant lights, and listening, like all the others, to the increasing roar of engines. "But that out there can’t possibly be the spaceport of Ent-Than." Then he noticed something about his own body: the arm he had extended for pointing across the plain had been broken—now it was healed!
The claims of the Ekhonide prison doctors had been proven true. The new Ara treatment, a serum that had been injected into his arm, had accomplished the healing process in less than 20 hours. The preparations used up to now in the Great Imperium, also known and used in Perry Rhodan’s Solar Imperium, required 50 to 60 hours to take full effect.
Lt. Hasting wanted to bring it to the attention of his comrades but at that moment a cylindrical spaceship took off, silhouetted against the once more clear night sky. At first it rose almost straight up but at 500 meters levelled off for horizontal flight that would take it directly over the Terrans’ heads.
Engines roaring, it sped past them and for half a minute thereafter a ringing, distant thunder was the last to be heard from it.
"The lights…" Lt. Seeger exclaimed and pointed in the distance.
One light after another went out. Then the brushland before them lay as though it were virgin, untouched wilderness.
"And our major…!" It could not be determined who said that but it was said and the words had the effect of an exploding bomb. 32 men were suddenly ashamed. They had left Ostal to his fate without even lifting a finger to help him.
Seeger whirled around. "I don’t care to know who just said that but I must remind you just what sort of situation we’re now in." His voice had a sharp edge to it. "We have not deserted the major. He ordered us not to do anything if something happened to him or me or both of us. And we can do something to find and help him only when we have the means to do it. I think we can find those means where the Springer ship took off from, there where the lights were burning. We have to get there before daylight. We must do it, men!"
They did it but not before daybreak.
Seeger, Hasting and Fip stood before the last bushes and cautiously drew the branches aside.
50 feet ahead, 3 Springer robots stood like steel monuments. The light from yellow star Naral reflected off their optical lenses. It did not bother the robots: positronic systems are not so easily blinded.
Now one of the robots turned in the direction of the Terrans. Fip was last to let go of the branch he was holding. The men stood unmoving. They knew that Springer robots were not as sensitive or as perceptive as Arkonide robots. All their hope rested in that fact.
5 long minutes ticked by. There was neither the hollow tread of an approaching robot nor the low hissing of a thermobeam slicing into their hiding place.
"We can’t stand here forever!" Peter Hasting whispered. "How can I go talk to a Springer without being blasted by a robot in the attempt?"
"Hasting," said Seeger, "how do you hope to find a Springer to talk to when we don’t even see a single building here? Only the robots are any kind of hint that there’s something here… What can you make of that?"
"Everything, Seeger. Whoever sneaks into this wilderness is attempting to hide something from the Ekhonides. And whoever has something to hide is not necessarily our enemy. And if we warn the Springers that we were… He gave a start and asked hastily: "Could the low building with the weak light and the robot guard belong to the same Springer clan? Seeger, Fip… what do you think?"
Seeger shook his head. "The low building stood unbidden on the edge of the clearing. It can be clearly seen from above. But here there seems to be hidden an actual landing place for spaceships. I don’t see any connection between this place and the building where the major was taken prisoner."
"If that’s true, it reinforces my position," said Hasting without further comment on the matter. "Seeger, 3 or 4 men have to take some risks now. We have only stones at our disposal. I need men who are good at throwing stones and hitting their targets… Allan D. Mercant, that’s something you never taught us in your commando school: throwing stones at positronic robots!"
Lt. Seeger laid his hand on his comrade’s shoulder. "And what will you be doing while the robots are distracted by the hail of stones?" he asked, his expression sharply suspicious.
Peter Hasting replied: "Well, one of us has to try it. When the robots are distracted, I’ll make a break for it."
"No!" Seeger exclaimed energetically. "That’d be suicide!"
"Do you know any other solution, Seeger?" asked Hasting calmly.
"Let me go in your place, Lt. Hasting!" offered Sgt. Fip.
"It’s 2 against 1," said Hasting with a grateful glance at Fip. "The sergeant also sees that my plan has a chance. Will you give the orders for it? Once the first stones fall and the robots take a closer look, I’ll make my dash. But see to it that I have the most possible freedom of movement on the right side. The bushes are thickest there. Well…?"
Lt. Seeger was still not happy with his comrade’s plan and had he known that Hasting himself reckoned the chance of success at 3%, he would never have relented.
Reluctantly he nodded his agreement and silently disappeared behind the thick 4-meter high bushes.
Peter Hasting Jay poised, ready to spring. By now, he figured, Lt. Seeger must have finished with his preparations.
Then he saw on the right 6, 7 or 8 fist-sized rocks flying soundlessly through the air. Just above him a 2nd flight of stones whizzed towards the robot standing in the middle.
The stones thudded into the ground near where the robot stood. Through a narrow gap in the protective bushes Hasting saw the middle and rightward robots turn around, and the ponderous step of the robots mixed with the thudding of fist-sized stones.
The men Seeger had put on this operation threw their stones almost unceasingly.
Then the rightmost robot reacted with its deadly weaponry.
3 beams hissed in the bright morning light and annihilated a portion of the on-flying rocks. The robot Hasting had been standing precisely in front of reacted the same way, having moved somewhat to the left.
The moment had come for Hasting to make his break!
The optical lens systems of the robots stared at the rock swarms coming at them. Hasting knew that the robots could not ‘see’ behind themselves. But he also knew that the robots would find out in a few seconds the place from which the stones were coming and train all their ray weapons on it, not letting up with their fire until the ground was bubbling lava.
The gap between the 2 robots on the right and in front of him was not even 100 meters. Peter Hasting ran like he had never run before. He constantly looked in both directions. The 2 battle machines were about ¾ths turned away from him but only a slight turn would be enough to bring him into their field of vision.
Instinctively he threw himself under a bush at, a full run but he did not remain where he was. He crawled farther, like an Indian, and managed not to touch a single one of the low-hanging branches.
Then he heard 2 sharp impacts in rapid succession.
2 stones had struck a robot about to turn in his direction.
Hasting considered with forceful logic.
Positronic brains were unfeeling. Being hit with stones did not bother them but the impact was only the beginning of an attack and therefore the robot must react to it and turn back to where it was.
Hasting sprang up again, threw himself between 2 bushes, losing the robots from view in the process, and then was shocked to see a ray hit the ground 3 meters in front of him. The ground began to melt.
The robot on the left had spotted him!
Hasting turned, wanting to run back in his first reaction, then through a gap in the branches he saw 2 Springers running toward him, summoned out of their quietude by the robot alarm.
Hands raised above his head, Peter H. Hasting ran towards them.
Behind his back, a new impulse beam was fired by one of the robots and this time only missed him by a hair. The heat from the bushes and earth blasted into gas struck him all over the surface of his back.
2 uncomprehending Springers let their weapons sink!
The naked man running towards them with his hands raised could be judged harmless with one glance.