5/ TRAITORS’ FATES
On 13 Oct. 2042 the Terrania Times reported:
We have occasion once more to carefully scrutinize a report concerning the concentration of the Terranian Fleet near the centre of the galaxy, which has been officially described as a manoeuvre only. Now, however, our sources inform us that an Arkonide fleet has also appeared in that same sector of space. All indications are that no mere manoeuvre is involved but rather a joint expedition against a common enemy. The strength of the participating forces leads us to suspect that this is no ordinary local skirmish. It appears that a threat of considerable magnitude has emerged in that area of the Milky Way—danger that is of equal concern to both galactic empires—the Arkonides’ and our own.
We should like to assume that the current flood of official news releases covering these distant events is an attempt on the part of the Ministry of Information to maintain the public status quo of calm, comfort and complacency. But as we have often pointed out and will reiterate again today, if the cool-headed and battle-ready support of Terranians is to be counted on provision must be made for keeping us informed of all important developments.
* * * *
One’s last thought is held so tenaciously by the consciousness that it is the first part of perception when one awakens from the unconscious state.
When Chellish came to, he wondered that he was still alive. The soundless, blinding explosion, the weightless drifting through glowing and formless emptines—all that had appeared to be death, resulting from Lauer’s thermogun. But suddenly there was neither light nor weightlessness nor floating. It was dark and he lay on something hard and a searing pain gnawed at his right side.
He raised up slowly. The pain was so severe that he couldn’t keep his eyes from watering.
He wondered why it was so dark. Then he remembered that Lauer had shot the main panel to pieces. At that time there had still been bright daylight outside and since the viewscreens hadn’t been attached to the main panel the light had flooded from them as though through wide windows. Now it was night. There was only a barely perceptible greyish glimmer marking the location of the panoramic screen.
He knew what had happened to him but it was some time before he could remember events prior to that. He recalled that Suttney, Lauer and Roane were about to leave the ship but a few minutes passed before it came to him why they had this in mind.
Danger! Disaster threatened! The first Earthship to detect the Gazelle would destroy it without hesitation.
This brought him fully to his senses. While trying to forget the raging pain in his hip, he brought his wrist-watch close to his eyes so that he could see the luminous dial. He knew that when Lauer had shot him it had been 8:40 Earth time. Now it was 9:15. He had lain here unconscious for more than half an hour. It was high time to get clear of the ship.
The control room door was open. After Lauer’s demolition of the switch panel there had been no power to close the sliding hatch. It occurred to him that in such a case the two airlock doors must also be open. So he must be breathing the air of Tantalus. Strange: he had not noticed any difference, nor did it seem to be especially hot.
No wonder, he thought in the next moment. Tantalus must have its extremes of temperature and climate. At night it probably became as bitterly cold as it was intolerably hot in the daytime.
He got up and staggered out of the room into the corridor, where he located the spacesuit locker. It was empty. The remaining suits were strewn out on the deck a few yards beyond it but when Chellish checked them over he didn’t find one of them that was intact. They all had holes in them big enough to stick his head through. They had left him no chance for survival.
He was filled with a choking anger as he staggered onward to the open airlock. The outer hatch opening was only a few feet above the ground. He jumped out and then took a tumble because his right leg was not able to take the impact of the landing. He sprawled face first into the sand. Then he put his weight on his left leg and got up again.
The sand was still warm because it had not yet radiated all of the heat it had absorbed from the sun during the day. It would probably act as a heat reservoir for a few more hours but there was little doubt that toward morning it would be very cold.
Chellish looked about him. The sky emitted a milky glow which permitted his eyes to become oriented to the surrounding terrain. He tried to inspect his hip wound which turned out to be a hardened, brittle conglomeration of melted plastic, singed clothing material and burned flesh. Lauer’s shot appeared to have only grazed him. The pain was excruciating but he could bear it. He had to.
He searched the ground and soon discovered the footprints of Suttney and his cohorts. He sensed some satisfaction when he saw that the trail led on into the ravine.
They apparently planned to hide in the hills where there would be protective cover.
As he followed their tracks he favoured his right leg as much as possible but he soon found that this was over-taxing his left side, which also began to pain him. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to make much headway, at least not as much as Suttney, Lauer and Roane.
But meanwhile his rage had reached a stage where it blinded him to the dictates of reason. All he knew was that he had to overtake the three of them, no matter how long it took.
* * * *
At 8:55 ship time the tracking station on board the battleship Barbarossa detected that a small shuttlecraft had been launched from a nearby Arkonide ship. It was seen to penetrate the blockade zone that Perry Rhodan had established and head downward toward the planet with the obvious intention of either searching the surface areas or landing there.
The Barbarossa was under command of Gen. Deringhouse, who did not hesitate one second in exacting the penalty the Arkonides had been told they would have to pay if they were to cast Perry Rhodan’s warning to the winds. When the small craft was slightly more than 40,000 miles away, the gun hatches of the Barbarossa opened and a beam of ravening energy reached out toward the vessel. Within 10 seconds a hit occurred. The tiny ship disappeared in a bright, soundless explosion. The Barbarossa’s gun turrets became silent again. But its crewmen sat at the hypercom receivers and watched for any reaction from the Arkonides. Nothing happened.
A half hour after this incident, when it was seen that the Arkonides were not taking any further action, Perry Rhodan himself took off from the Drusus in a fully manned Gazelle. Gen. Deringhouse took over top command of the entire fleet, including the flagship.
* * * *
At first it appeared that the back wall of the deep ravine formed a blind alley for them. Ronson Lauer played the wide beam of his lamp across the rocks and just as he was about to give up he discovered a narrow fissure. It was 8 or 9 feet off the ground and seemed to lead into the clifflike wall. Upon closer inspection he found that the floor of the fissure led gently upward, apparently offering a passage up to the plateau.
He looked at Suttney questioningly. Suttney beckoned to Roane. Roane was the first to climb into the cleft. Then he turned and helped Suttney up because of his extra burden of the film case. Lauer followed them. In spite of the micro-transceiver he had hung around his neck he was fairly agile. Once inside the crevice he again led the way with his heavy duty flashlight.
As he climbed up through the narrow gully he heard the air-conditioning system in his suit click to a new setting. He looked at his sleeve thermometer and saw that the outer temperature had now lowered to, 105° Fahrenheit. He became pensive as he put one foot in front of the other, instinctively watching for any dangerous animals or insects—although he had consciously rejected the idea that any life at all existed in this world. The question that dominated his thoughts was whether or not they’d been wise to leave the Gazelle. He agreed more or less with Suttney that any Earth spaceship would destroy the ship if it found it. But could there really be any Earth ships in the area at all? How could they know of their present location? When Suttney sent his message to the Arkonides, it was so improbable that any units of the Terra Fleet would have been within even 100 light-years of the place that he had not even taken it into account. Naturally Suttney’s transmission would have been intercepted by the Terranians but at such a remote distance that it would take them days to even search out the system where the Gazelle had taken refuge.
So why had they run away from the ship? It would have been much more comfortable to sit in an upholstered chair and wait for the arrival of the Arkonides.
He stopped and turned around, prepared to suggest to Suttney that they return—but just then something happened overhead in the heavens. At first all he saw was a brilliant flash, which illuminated the gully. He stared skyward and observed a rain of glittering light sparks which seemed to emanate from a spot close to the zenith and then spew out in all directions as they hurtled toward the ground.
He forgot what he had started to say and instead began to run. Puffing desperately, he chased through the gully toward the top without bothering about Suttney or Roane, and finally he reached the plateau where he had a clear view.
The shower of light sparks had come nearer in the meantime. But then something came whistling suddenly through the air and hit the plateau with a dull thud, several hundred yards away. In the twilight Lauer saw a dust cloud swirl upward and then drift back toward the ground. The impact had transmitted a powerful jolt through the rocky terrain where he was standing.
When he looked up again the rain of fiery particles had subsided. They had probably fallen to the surface elsewhere. He heard rapid breathing and panting behind him.
He did not even turn to see if it was Suttney or Roane but instead broke into a sprint, racing toward the thing that had ploughed into the ground nearby.
The plateau was completely flat so that the crater caused by the impact could not be missed. Lauer saw that it was perfectly round and had a diameter of 12 or 13 feet. It was also just about as deep but he could not discover whatever it was that had fallen here. Apparently it had bored its way beneath the floor of the crater itself.
Lauer climbed down into it, finally slipping and sliding his way to the bottom in a great cloud of dust. He tore the micro-tran from him and tossed it heedlessly to one side. Then he began to shovel the sand away with his gloved hands.
It was an arduous task, especially since the sand was quite hot. After a half hour, Lauer’s hands were heat-blistered in spite of his gloves but he finally came to a place where the sand had been melted into a hard lump. He struggled with this until he had shoved it to one side. Beneath this a piece of plastic material came to view which was flanged out and bent but was in the shape of a sharp point.
Carefully, Lauer grasped it, hoping to pull it out of the ground but he had hardly touched it before he let out a yell of pain. The metal plastic was still very hot—close to 1000° Fahrenheit.
Lauer stepped back and turned on the spotlight. Then he brought it within inches of the metal spike and examined the latter carefully. It reminded him of something. He was sure that he’d recognize what it was immediately if he could see it in its original form and not all bent out of shape by the fall and the heat.
Suddenly he heard Suttney’s voice in his helmet phones.
It sounded hopeless and dejected. "That’s the control pedestal from an Arkonide flying disc."
Lauer knew at once that Suttney was right. A control pedestal—that was it! He recalled the complete configuration from his hypno-schooling: a tube-shaped extrusion made of plastic metal from which various control protuberances extended for operating the Arkonide auxiliary craft. The protuberances were missing now because they’d been melted away. Even what was left had been distorted almost beyond recognition. But Suttney was right.
Lauer moved out of the hole, retrieving the micro-transceiver in the process. He was nonplussed. He had no idea why the control pedestal of an Arkonide shuttlecraft should have fallen to the surface of the desert planet.
Walter Suttney stood on the upper rim of the funnel-shaped depression. Roane had not arrived yet but Lauer saw him approaching across the plateau.
"So they came after all," said Suttney in such an undertone that seemed he was talking to himself.
"Who?" asked Lauer. "The Arkonides?"
"They got here, too, but I mean the Terranians."
Lauer caught his breath sharply. "You mean… they may have shot down an Arkonide ship?"
"What else?"
Lauer stared incredulously back into the crater. Then he looked up into the sky as though he could see the Earthly and Arkonide ships somewhere.
Suddenly, Suttney cried out, "Make the micro-tran ready for sending!"
Lauer whirled around to look at him. "What for?" he asked. "You’re not going to…"
"Come on!" insisted Suttney. "We don’t have any time to lose. In a couple of hours our own people will have found us."
Lauer became angry. "And what the devil am I supposed to do with the micro-com?" he yelled.
"We’re going to tell the Arkonides what we know about the Earth’s position—before it’s too late."
For a moment Lauer was speechless. Even Roane drew his breath sharply at this.
"Have you lost your marbles, Walter?" Lauer finally blurted out. "If this transmitter lets one peep out of it, they’ll locate us and 3 minutes later we’ll be dead!"
Suttney was in deadly earnest. "Three minutes is enough to tell the Arkonides where they can find the Earth."
"And we? What do we get out of it if Rhodan hits us with a bomb?"
Suttney’s tone of voice was suddenly scornful and derisive. "But Ronson, you are still a revolutionary, aren’t you? You have sworn to destroy Perry Rhodan… cost what it might. Very well, then. Perry Rhodan is destroyed as soon as the Arkonides find the Earth. So what are you hesitating about? Is your miserable life worth more than the good of Mankind?"
Lauer gasped. "Leave me out of it!" he snarled.
Suttney held the microfilm case under his left arm. He remained motionless when he answered. "Ronson, you agreed to follow my instructions and that’s exactly what you’re going to do now. Get that transmitter on the air and give it to me!"
"No!" shouted Lauer.
"Do what I say or…"
"Or… ?"
Suttney misjudged the situation. He thought he had time enough to place the film case carefully on the ground and draw his weapon. Which only made it easier for Lauer, who had his gun in hand and ready before Suttney had half straightened up again.
Lauer’s eyes narrowed. His voice was calm. "You poor, frizzle-brained fool!"
He fired twice, one shot after the other.
* * * *
From a position that was still some 200 yards from the back wall of the canyon, Gunther Chellish observed the explosion in the sky. He interpreted it correctly and the knowledge that Terranian ships had finally shown up gave him new strength for continuing his painful march.
After awhile he reached the wall and discovered the crevice. Of course he couldn’t be certain that Roane, Suttney and Lauer had used the narrow passage but since their tracks led nowhere else he took it for granted. He drew himself up into the gully but it was such a strain on him, and his hip flamed with such renewed pain, that he had to lie on the ground for several minutes to recuperate.
When he could finally bring his breathing under control, he listened for any sounds ahead of him in the darkness. Naturally the other three could have left him far behind by now if they had continued without interruption. But they could also have stopped somewhere up ahead in the gully to wait for him.
However, he couldn’t hear anything, so he pulled himself to his feet and went onward. It was stifling hot in the gully. Only after a few steps the sweat was running down his face. He tried resting himself against the cliff wall beside him but the stone surface was hotter than the air. He trudged onward and looked up along the fissure in the hope that it would open again into a clear area.
Suddenly, he heard a humming and whistling sound behind him. It came as such a surprise yet was so familiar to him that he lost his footing in a transport of pain and delight, all at once, and fell to the heated ground. The sound grew mightily, causing the ground to tremble. Chellish started to shout with joy and in the vain hope that he could attract attention but his voice was drowned in the loud hissing that suddenly mixed in with the swish of the propulsion units. Seconds later the gully was bathed in a brilliant blue-white light and shortly afterwards the thunder of a tremendous explosion swept over Chellish and away into the night.
Chellish could not make out the phantom shape of the Gazelle as it streaked low over the plateau because he was blinded. The glaring explosion of his ship, in which he’d been lying unconscious only an hour before, raised a spangle of brightly coloured dancing lights in front of his eyes. He groped around and found a small rocky projection which he used to help pull himself up on. Reeling and staggering, filled with disillusionment, he pushed onward up the incline.
As expected, they had destroyed the spacecraft. It filled him with bitterness that they had shown no consideration for himself. If Lauer had tied him to anything in the control room he would not be among the living now.
But then—they would naturally have to disregard him. The Earth itself was at stake, so what was just one human life? Maybe they had also figured on his being smart enough to get away somewhere to safety in time.
At any rate, they were here! They had flown by close overhead and if he’d been carrying a transmitter he could have drawn their attention to him.
They’d be landing here somewhere in the area in an attempt to find out if Suttney, Lauer and Roane had left the Gazelle prior to the explosion. If he were lucky he’d be able to spot their ship early in the morning, as soon as it became light.
With his heart pounding, he pushed onward in a mixture of happiness and remorse. In a few hours he would be safe—in a bed, being cared for by a friendly doctor. Just a few hours more—
When he reached the plateau he considered whether it would be better to sit there in the sand or to follow the trail of Suttney, Lauer and Roane. The upper plain lay clearly before him under the glittering stars. He could see the footprints ahead of him for at least a quarter of a mile.
Finally he decided to follow them. Perhaps the Gazelle crew wouldn’t have any idea of where the 3 deserters were located. But if they were to discover him, instead, he’d be able to guide them.
A few minutes later, several shapes emerged out of the gloom—a large one and a small one. The large shadow evolved into a crater and the small shadow was Suttney. There was a deep, ugly wound in his chest and he stared up through his faceplate into the night sky with wide, lifeless eyes.
Chellish was not able to imagine what had happened here but of course he didn’t put it past Ronson Lauer to be able to kill either one of his companions if it seemed to serve his purpose; but he couldn’t quite figure what the purpose behind killing Suttney might have been.
He shoved Suttney’s lifeless body to the edge of the crater and let it slide down into it. At least the crater might serve as a grave for him after the wind had blown enough sand into the depression.
After that he continued on the trail of the others.
* * * *
Suddenly the night was swarming with elliptical Gazelle shapes. After discovering the lost ship and destroying it, Perry Rhodan had ordered them to join him.
The tracking job had not been difficult. Suttney’s Gazelle was more or less the only significant mass of metal on the surface of the planet. There, where the micro-wave tracer had shown its first reaction, Rhodan had shot downward and discovered what he was looking for.
However he was certain that Suttney had been shrewd enough to get clear of the ship in time and it was very probable that he had not come out of the danger zone with empty hands. All information concerning the galactic position of the Earth could be easily contained in a cubical case that measured 4 inches on each side. Suttney had no doubt kept the microfilm package in readiness and had taken it with him. At least that’s what would have to be surmised.
The Gazelle had been hidden in a deep ravine or canyon of some kind that cut into the hills slightly more than a mile. If Suttney and his companions had left the craft they would have gone eastward or deeper into the hills. To the east of the canyon was a wide, clearly visible plateau where the fugitives would not be able to conceal themselves very readily. They had either crossed it already or had turned northward or southward along its rim.
In order to block off this part of the mountain ridge, Rhodan had called in a squadron of Gazelles and instructed them to land at the foot of the hills. He took his own Gazelle into a hiding place on the eastern edge of the plateau. The entire manoeuvre stretched out until the first light of dawn. By then it seemed certain that Suttney, Lauer and Roane would fall into the trap—dead or alive.
Rhodan started to seek radio contact with Suttney: "This is Rhodan, Suttney, come in!" His call went out uninterruptedly from sunrise on.
* * * *
"Down here!" panted Lauer. "Dammit, snap into it!" Roane’s ponderously slow gait had whipped him to a blind fury. He shoved the other in the back, pushing the heavy man more rapidly than he had intended so that he slid down into the rocky depression and lay there groaning.
Lauer followed him with agile steps. In addition to the micro-com he also carried the microfilm case but in spite of this he moved with lightfooted sureness.
They had seen the glare of the explosion that had signified the end of the Gazelle. From a safe spot on the eastern edge of the plateau they had seen Rhodan’s ship pass over and a few minutes later they observed the squadron of Gazelles as they plunged downward out of the night sky and disappeared beyond the tops of the hills.
Ronson Lauer had interpreted the situation correctly: they sat in the middle of a trap. From the eastern rim of the upper plain a steep rocky slope dropped into a broad, sandy valley. The slanting rock wall offered innumerable places of concealment. Lauer knew that there was no further use in remaining on the march.
So now they sat there watching the sky gradually brighten. Rhodan’s crewmen would soon be starting their search. They would come searching here where the rocks formed multiple hiding places and they would keep at it if it took them 3 days to find him and Roane.
So this was it. The trail ended on a dry dusty planet that didn’t even have a name.
Lauer’s anger welled up anew within him. Those damnable fools, the Arkonides! Why had they not come sooner? Then he and Roane would be sitting now in a comfortable cabin and enjoying deferential treatment while presenting to some Arkonide commander the secret that they had stolen from Rhodan. Instead, here they were sitting between two yellowish brown boulders waiting for the sun to come up so that Rhodan’s men would be able to find them.
Unless—He suddenly had an idea. Right in front of him was the case containing the microfilm. There would be no further opportunity for handing it over to the Arkonides. But he could do what Suttney had intended to do: over the micro-com he could tell the enemy that Earth’s solar system was so far away from this point and that they should look for it in such and such a direction. Of course it wouldn’t be a complete set of directions but it would be sufficient for the Arkonides to be able to find the Earth in at least a couple of years.
Not that he actually intended to let the Arkonides get hold of such information just yet. But he could threaten Rhodan with it!
* * * *
For an hour now, no one had responded. Perry Rhodan began to wonder. He had been certain that Suttney and his henchmen must have gotten out of the Gazelle before it was exploded by the disintegrator shot. But now this silence on the wavebands seemed to contradict his assumption. If Walter Suttney were still alive he couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to think he had a chance.
Rhodan did not know that Ronson Lauer was even then in the process of formulating his answer.
It wasn’t until an hour after sunrise, at 20 hours ship time, that Rhodan’s receiver came to life and a nervous voice spoke swiftly to him:
"You’re talking to Ronson Lauer, Rhodan. Suttney is dead. I’ve taken over in his place and I want to make a deal with you…"
* * * *
By sunrise, Chellish had crossed about half of the plateau area. During the past several hours it had been terribly cold but once the sun lifted a hand’s breadth over the horizon the heat swung to the other extreme and he was already fondly wishing for the cool of the night.
In spite of his efforts it seemed that he approached the crags and rocky outcroppings of the eastern rim with an unbearable slowness. He kept stopping repeatedly to wipe the sweat from his brow. He had an impression that he was walking on a treadmill in one spot without actually making any headway at all.
The footprints left by Lauer and Roane led straight as an arrow across the yellow sand. Chellish could even see where the tracks ended on the rim of the high plain but it was still more than a mile away—a hot and dusty stretch which was much too far for a man who couldn’t stand for even a second on his right leg and who had not had anything to drink for at least an eternity.
There was no sign now of all the Gazelles whose engines had filled the night with their hummings and roarings for more than half an hour. Apparently they had not considered the sandy plain to be a good place to land.
Chellish dragged his way along but he had begun to doubt that he would ever reach the eastern rim. He was governed by fear now and it took every last shred of his strength of reason to keep him from simply lying down in the sand and giving up.
* * * *
"There are only two methods you can use, Rhodan," said Lauer hurriedly. "You can communicate with your men either by Telecom or by Normal radio and I can receive both. I assure you that the instant you start using your transmitters for any purpose other than talking to me I’ll start passing my information on to the Arkonides. You keep that in mind while you’re thinking over my proposition."
Rhodan knew that Lauer meant what he said. He would begin reporting the galactic position of the Earth to the Arkonides as soon as anyone attempted to take a bearing on his own position or utilize it for directing the Gazelles to where they should drop their bombs.
Rhodan and Lauer found themselves in a situation where each was confronted with but one alternative. Each only had one move to make. Any other choice, for either of them, would lead to ruin—end of the game!
Lauer had declared that he would keep his strategic information to himself in return for having a Gazelle placed at his disposal, in which he would be allowed to take off after the departure of the Fleet. Naturally such a proposition was unacceptable because Lauer would then simply fly to Arkon and make his treason complete.
The traitor had given a 3-hour time limit. If by the end of that period his proposition had not been accepted, he would begin to broadcast his data. And Perry Rhodan’s hands were tied. He could not move in any direction without paying the ultimate price—the Earth.
The yellow sun raised its blazing face higher into the bluish white glare of the sky. On board the Gazelles anyone would have given his kingdom for just a good idea.
* * * *
…left foot… right foot… left foot… now drag the right!
Don’t look at the sun. Don’t think of water. Here is the trail.
In Gunther Chellish’s eyes the sand was glaring white and the foot prints in front of him seemed to be black holes. A colourless world of black and white and merciless heat.
He no longer knew how far he had to go before he would reach the shade of the rocks. He didn’t trust himself to raise his head because then he would have to look at the sun. He didn’t want to look at that swollen orb of Hellish Heat.
Nor did he look up when he heard a howling sound behind him. It made no difference to him what it might be. It grew louder and swept nearer to him but he did not stop and he refused to turn for fear that he would never get started again once he came to a standstill.
He noted that the tracks before him were suddenly erased. They blurred before his vision and then were there no more. He blinked his burning eyes to get rid of the hallucination but the footprints were gone. In front of him was nothing but trackless sand, which some inexplicable force drove to the north in long, rippling streamers.
He finally came to a stop and looked about him when a darkness came over the area. But there was nothing more that he could see. He was enveloped in a murky brown cloud. Sand flew into his eyes and into his nose and mouth. The howling he had heard was that of a sand storm.
He raised his arms in front of his face and pushed onward. He thought he knew in what direction the footprints had led before they disappeared. With an automatic sort of logic he realized that if he wasn’t careful he’d be making a curve to his left because of favouring his wounded right leg all the time. So he compensated by keeping to his right, and he let the wind drive him along.
He couldn’t even see two steps ahead at a time. Whenever he clenched his teeth, he felt and heard the grittiness of the sand. But it was all the same to him whether he chewed sand or cooked in the heat. One thing was as bad as the other. He stumbled along without any sense of time. His brain sent automatic commands to his legs… left… drag the right… left… drag the right. Chellish wasn’t even aware of the process anymore. He was like a machine that kept on going for the simple reason that somebody had forgotten to turn him off.
Suddenly he stumbled over something. It could have been his own feet that tripped him. In which case he would have fallen into soft sand but this was no soft landing. His head struck something hard and it brought him to his senses. He looked up and saw before him a rock that was about as tall as a man. At first he could not believe his eyes but when he ran his hands over the rough surface he tore his fingers and drew blood. It was the blood that convinced him. He had made it. He had reached the rim of the plain. When the storm died down and the sun came out again, he would find protective shade behind this boulder.
He crawled around it and pressed himself against the stone in the lee of the wind. He noted that the ground sank rapidly away within several steps of his present position. His tired brain signalled the possibility that there might be a valley somewhere below.
He pressed his hand to his mouth and drew in air between his torn fingers. He needed air—even if it was as hot and dusty as this.
He felt the storm shake the very rock behind him.
* * * *
Ronson Lauer saw the brownish cloud of the sandstorm shoot out above him from the edge of the cliff and he heard the mournful howling of the wind. He felt uneasy. The storm offered Rhodan an excellent opportunity in which to sneak up on him unobserved.
They had to change their hiding place!
"Roane!" he shouted above the shriek of the wind. "Move it! Come on—over there!"
Roane didn’t understand why but he obeyed. They crept along the steep slope between the rocks. Lauer kept the micro-transceiver open but Perry Rhodan maintained a waiting silence.
One and a half hours had passed of the 3 hours allowed.
* * * *
The brown cloud began to fade as the howling of the wind subsided. Chellish looked into the sky, searching for the sun. It shone through the dust pall like a dim and dreary ball of light. From its present appearance it was difficult to believe that it could burn a man alive.
His field of vision broadened. He was now able to observe the steep declivity before him for a distance of several yards. But nothing presented itself there other than a greyish surface and a mottled covering of rocks. Nothing else worth looking at.
Then the storm ended suddenly, as swiftly as it had come. A ragged dust cloud moved away sluggishly to the east.
Suddenly Chellish heard sounds below him. He dropped to his side and pushed himself to the edge of the declivity. The storm had rattled him into a state of wakefulness.
And now he saw Ronson Lauer and Oliver Roane scrabbling along the steep slope between the boulders! They were about 30 yards to his left and were moving toward a spot beneath this present position.
Chellish drew back. He was afraid. He didn’t want Lauer to discover him. The man would shoot him on sight. He crept to the other side of the rock, which was necessary anyway because the shade was there.
In pressing hard against the boulder he suddenly felt it move slightly. Not being firmly anchored in the ground, it had leaned away from him. Chellish suddenly recalled how the wind had caused it to tremble.
A fascinating idea gripped his mind. Here was a wobbly boulder—and there was a very steep slope across which Lauer and Roane were struggling.
He shoved himself up the rock into a standing position and placed both hands against it, attempting to move it. A quick glance beyond its rim revealed that Lauer and Roane had come another 10 yards closer. He leaned his left shoulder against the stone. Using his right leg as a brace he strained against the weight of the boulder and the raging pain in his hip gave him additional strength.
He noticed that the rock began to lean farther toward the dropoff. He heard Lauer and Roane crawling across the face of the drop. The clank of metal against stone told him that they were exactly beneath his position. The fear of being too late gave him the last spurt of energy he needed in order to topple the stone. The man-sized chunk of rock plunged forward, slid to the edge and beyond it, kicked up its lower end and pounded down the slope.
Chellish crashed to the ground. He heard a wild cry of terror and used his elbows to pull himself forward to the edge.
Far below him he saw the boulder bounding toward the valley in a trail of dust. About halfway down the incline he made out two dark blue dots against the grey background of the mountain. Lauer and Roane. The falling rock had caught them both and had carried them a few hundred yards along its hurtling course.
But in Lauer’s first instant of terrorized shouting he had dropped the micro-com, which now lay only a few yards beneath the rim.
Chellish crawled toward it, oblivious now of the sun that was glaring down on him unrelentingly. It seemed to be hours before he reached the tiny instrument. It was still in operation and out of it came the confident tones of a human voice:
"Lauer, what we can suggest to you is the following: Amnesty plus your freedom but you will not be allowed to ever leave Earth again. I’m waiting for your answer, Lauer. This is my last offer."
As Chellish broke into a smile, tears ran unheeded down his face. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath-filling his lungs with the burning hot air of Tantalus—and then spoke into the microphone:
"This is… 1st Lt. Chellish, sir… I think… the danger is… it’s—it’s taken care of. I’d appreciate it… if you could… pick me up now."
Then he fell forward and shut off the micro-com as he did so.
* * * *
The Arkonide robot fleet finally withdrew and the Robot Regent perceived his double defeat: the Latin-Oor deception plus the fact that Perry Rhodan had beaten him to Tantalus. A day and a half later the following conversation took place on board the Drusus between Atlan and Rhodan:
"From now on we’re going to have to expect similar incidents at any moment," said Rhodan reflectively. "You know how it is, Admiral: Bad examples set the pattern… regardless of the outcome."
Atlan agreed. "I’m surprised you’ve held onto your secret even this long," he said. "Any time somebody takes a notion to feather his nest, all he has to do is take a nice ride in a Gazelle and flit over to Arkon. I feel quite certain that my austere Lord and Imperator…" a mocking smile was on his face… "will demonstrate his gratitude with a generous clink of coins. He’s programmed humanly enough to do it. But by the way: how is it that Suttney didn’t go straight to Arkon or at least fly to Latin-Oor? That would have offered him greater security, don’t you think?"
Rhodan shook his head negatively. "No way! To get to Arkon he’d have to cover a stretch of some 30,000 light-years and a Gazelle can’t make such a hop in a single jump. Apparently Suttney was afraid of taking such a risk. Because with one jump, that’s one chance; but five jumps makes five times the gamble. Suttney knew very well that he couldn’t trust Chellish. Every second of additional time gained by Chellish would be an increase of the risk he was taking.
"And Latin-Oor was out of the question. What was there was simply a robot fleet. If a Terranian Gazelle had shown up there unexpectedly, the first reaction of the robots would have been to fry their hides. Suttney wouldn’t have even had a chance to deliver his little speech.
"No, his best route was to get off somewhere into an unknown system and then put out a call to the Arkonides. This way his proposition would have a chance to percolate with them so that they be more likely to make a deal than to merely cook his goose. Another thing Suttney was counting on was that when he sent out his contact message over the hypercom none of our ships would be within 100 light-years of him. On the other hand he knew the Arkonide fleet was only 16 light-years away, which made a big difference in the accuracy of tracking down his position, once he gave his bearings. His Achilles heel lay in not knowing what had happened to the resonance-frequency absorber. On his main hyperjump after that, we were able to spot him."
Atlan had been looking at the viewscreen. "Well," he said quietly, "the bottom line of it is that you are to be congratulated because of that first lieutenant of yours. Without him…"
"What first lieutenant?" Rhodan interrupted, appearing puzzled.
"I mean Chellish. What other first lieutenant was involved?"
"Oh, Chellish!" replied Rhodan. "He’s a captain now even though he doesn’t know it yet."
* * * *
Walter Suttney and Ronson Lauer were dead. Fate had spared Oliver Roane. When they found him, he was merely unconscious. The boulder had completely crushed his right leg and it had to be amputated. But Oliver Roane would live, to be tried and convicted back on Earth.
Gunther Chellish had been on the brink of death. The medicos on board the Drusus declared that they had never seen such a severe case of total exhaustion in their lives.
Three days went by before Chellish regained consciousness. By this time the Drusus had long since returned to Grautier. When he opened his eyes and turned his head to look around, he saw a very familiar face on the pillow of a cot adjacent to him.
"Mullon!" he murmured weakly. "What are you doing here? Were you in the Tantalus operation?"
Mullon laughed. "No. I guess I was a little too tired to get into the action. But they tell me you did all right on Tantalus—getting yourself the order of the Blue Comet and all. May I offer my highest respects, captain!"
* * * *
On the 15th of October, 2042, the Terrania Daily News added the following editorial comment to an exhaustive report on events in the Tantalus Sector:
Once again it has been demonstrated that there are different kinds and qualities of reporting. Any information obtained by a responsible journalist is not simply dumped upon the unsuspecting public without a proper predigestion. Such data are usually sorted out according to their importance and their possible public impact. Above all, the true journalist will not seek to invent stories which serve no other purpose than to confuse the issue, and certainly the professional newsman will not stoop to lending false credence to his reporting by alluding to his ‘informed source?’ without first naming those sources. These ‘informed sources’ are generally located in the back room behind the editor’s desk where they suck up ‘news items’ through their pencils and ballpoint pens.
Precisely the situation we have just reported on is a case in point, which clearly shows how the machinations of that ‘other’ kind of journalism can be foisted upon the public, either for personal gain or for the purpose of a larger circulation. It is our opinion, both now and in the past, that painstaking and responsible reporting is always to be preferred over that other practice which has deservedly earned the opprobrium of yellow journalism.
* * * *
It was anticipated in all Terrania that the Terrania Times would loudly demand equal space for a rebuttal, since the editorial was obviously a sharp criticism of their policies.
However, without showing the slightest reaction, the Terrania Times continued to carry on its daily business as usual.