4/ TANTALUS

 

Under dateline of 10 Oct. 2042 the Terrania Daily News announced:

Effectively the entire Terranian Space Fleet is presently engaged in large-scale manoeuvres in an area which is close to the centre of the galaxy. The objective of the massive exercise is to test our defence readiness capability. In the opinion of the Fleet Admiralty, the greatest importance is attached to the undertaking since it is the first manoeuvre of its kind to involve the entire fleet. The war game plan is designed principally to test the effectiveness of coordination between fighting and supply units. We are standing by to keep our readers informed as to the further development of these manoeuvres.

And a few days later the Terrania Times was heard from:

Instead of reporting on the progress of the current fleet manoeuvres, which have little meaning for the man in the street, the Ministry of Information and Public. Opinion should be able by now to tell us something about the stolen Gazelle and the 3 deserters. It is understandable why the Fleet itself may have abandoned this chase in the mean-time—reasonable decision in view of its relative unimportance. But this does not justify using the greater event for placing a veil of secrecy over the lesser one.

 

* * * *

 

Everything had gone smoothly. They got back to Ronson Lauer just as he was regaining consciousness. Fortunately, he was unable to recall what had happened just before he passed out. Naturally he went to every extreme to shove the blame onto Chellish for his mishap. But Chellish reported, accurately enough, that Lauer had attempted to shoot him and that he had gone for cover. Suttney appeared to give more credence to his report than to Lauer’s raving accusations; or at least he took no note of the latter. As a result of his experience, Lauer was ill. Suttney and Chellish worked together to get him out of the shaft and bring him to a cabin, where they put him to bed.

Then under Suttney’s supervision Chellish went back to his regular tasks and completed them within 15 minutes. Suttney was quite satisfied. Of course he had done some snooping down below to see if there were any signs pointing to Chellish’s guilt in the matter of Lauer’s accident but Chellish had repaired the high tension line so well that he did not discover anything. He didn’t even ask a single question.

When Chellish made a second checkout of the control board, all signal lamps responded properly. He then turned to the appropriate controls and took the ship into its second transition. It lasted longer than the first one and was fairly unpleasant in its effects. Chellish was only half conscious by the time the dematerialisation ended and the pains of distortion faded away. But when he looked around he saw that it had gone much worse for Suttney and Roane. Suttney was just slowly coming to and from appearances Roane would still be unconscious for awhile.

On the viewscreen the light-point that Lauer had selected from the catalogue now stood out in shining prominence. The Gazelle was still 25 astronomical units distant from it, or about 2.5 billion miles, and was now approaching it with a residual velocity of about 125 miles per second. When he gave these figures to Suttney he was ordered to increase his speed. According to this star’s spectrum classification there was a high probability that it possessed planets, and Suttney was evidently intending to land on one of them in order to carry out his plans from a safe location.

By the time Chellish had brought the ship up to Suttney’s specified velocity of 1250 miles per second, Oliver Roane finally regained consciousness—which Suttney had apparently been waiting for. He didn’t give him a chance to collect his wits about him but instead grasped him by the shoulder and shook him while shouting at him. "Come on, you stupid ox! Wake up and grab your gun. You have to keep an eye on Chellish!"

It came as a surprise to Chellish. Up to now he hadn’t noticed Suttney’s new state of agitation. His voice sounded strained and irritable. He acted as though he was afraid of missing his schedule if he could not get Roane onto his feet as quickly as possible. In all he seemed to be extremely high strung and Chellish noted that his hands were actually trembling when he let go of Roane. Something had triggered him suddenly to this new mood but it had come on so swiftly that Chellish hadn’t yet figured out the possible reason for it.

Roane got up sluggishly. His swollen eyes peered out from his bandages as though they were incapable of recognizing his surroundings. It was obvious that Roane was not quite himself. He stood weakly on his two legs and looked dubiously at the weapon that Suttney had pressed into his hand.

Suttney shoved him around so that Chellish was in his range of vision. "There! Chellish—get it? Watch him!"

Roane grumbled something that could be taken for a grunt of anger just as well as for a sign of acquiescence. But now he stood there more solidly and held the weapon aimed at Chellish, who didn’t feel very comfortable about it. As long as Roane was still not in full possession of his diminutive reasoning faculties he could possibly press the trigger without intending to.

Suttney remained a few more seconds beside Roane but when he believed that Roane was aware of what he wanted of him he went straight across the control room to the hyper-transmitter console.

Suddenly Chellish knew what he planned to do. He wanted to advise the Arkonide fleet near Latin-Oor that he wished to be picked up and that he was in possession of vital information. Chellish shuddered inwardly although he had long realized that Suttney was intending to betray the Earth.

This was the moment in which the great act of treason was to be perpetrated.

Anything subsequent to this was of secondary importance. It was now that Suttney was going to tell the Arkonides his purpose—that he had come here to tell them where the home planet of the Terranians was located and perhaps to also advise them as to approach points of highest vulnerability.

Suttney turned on the transmitter. He operated the controls with a swift certainty as though he had often practiced it in preparation for the present moment. When the equipment began to hum, he paused to look across at Chellish.

Chellish could restrain his scorn no longer. "You lousy traitor!" he yelled at him. "Where is it going to get you?"

Suttney didn’t answer. He turned away swiftly as though he were unable to look Chellish straight in the face. At the same time, Roane took a step closer with threatening intent. Chellish shut up and turned back to the flight console.

Come on!—he prayed, his mind on the Terranian Fleet. Shoot us out of the blasted ether before Suttney…

He braced his elbows on the console and put his head in his hands. He closed his eyes and heard Suttney flip the microphone switch. There was a rattle of paper. Suttney had written out his message.

Chellish heard him clear his throat and draw a deep breath before he began. "To all Arkonide ships! This is Walter Suttney speaking, a fugitive from Terra!" His Arkonese sounded awful but the Arkonides would be able to understand him. "I have an announcement for you—an important announcement that has to do with the position of the planet Terra. You will have to hurry if you wish to obtain this information. This message is also being picked up by Terranian ships and they will try to kill me before I can transfer the data to you. As soon as I land I will give you my bearings. I repeat: To all Arkonide ships! This is Walter Suttney speaking…"

Altogether he sent out the message 5 times. Then he fell silent but he was panting as though he had just been through a heavy exertion.

Chellish knew exactly what Suttney was thinking about now. He knew that the Arkonide ships were only 16 light-years away—a distance that a hyper-transmitter could bridge without any time lapse. Moreover, across 16 light-years the location of the transmitter could be pinned down within far less than a mile. Those Arkonide ships were robot units. They would react with the typical swiftness which was characteristic of automatons and would set out instantly to find him.

Everything was in order—as long as Earth ships were not in closer proximity than the Arkonides. Suttney was depending on this but he couldn’t be sure of it. His calculations depended on any Earth fighting units being at least 100 light-years distant. Over 100 light-years it was proportionately more difficult to get the bearings of a comparatively weak transmitter such as the Gazelle was equipped with. First of all, the signal intensity fell off exponentially so that the results of a bearing fix would be 5 or 6% erroneous at such a distance. This meant a variance of 5 or 6 light-years. So an Earth ship picking up the transmission would not be able to tell with any degree of certainty whether the transmitter were located in one or another of several different solar systems.

Walter Suttney was depending upon that margin of error. The Terranian ships had to arrive too late. Otherwise he was lost.

For awhile he stared at the deckplates under his feet as though now he were ashamed to look anybody in the eye. Then he got up and approached Roane but he was startled when Chellish spoke to him hoarsely.

"Why did you do it, Suttney? What good is it going to do you?"

Suttney came to a stop. It was apparent that the question had taken him by surprise.

"What good?" he asked in bewilderment. "None at all, naturally. I’m not doing this for personal advantage. You know what I think of the present form of government in the Solar Empire. That regime must be abolished, so if we can’t do it on our own we have to call in some alien assistance."

"And you aren’t concerned about how many besides yourself hold this view? I mean—doesn’t it mean anything to you that you’re just about the only one left who believes such nonsense?"

Suttney smiled thoughtfully. "Of course not. Something that’s true and correct doesn’t depend on a maximum of believers. Don’t forget Galileo…"

"Leave Galileo out of this!" retorted Chellish in bristling anger. "That’s something else. You can’t betray the Earth to the Arkonides just because you don’t happen to agree with Rhodan’s method of government!"

"But I can!" The discussion seemed to be helping him to recover his self-confidence. "You see that I’m already doing it!"

"Do you know what will come from this? The Arkonides will attack the Earth. The Earth will defend itself. There’ll be a war the likes of which the galaxy has never experienced. It won’t matter who comes out of it the victor: the misery and destruction will be immeasurable!"

"But freedom will reign again on the Earth!" retorted Suttney with a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

Chellish sighed wearily. "What a marble-brained fool you are! You’re just sick in the head, that’s all. Think of what will happen if the Arkonides subjugate the Earth. Would you rather be a subject of the Robot Regent?"

"From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t take away anybody’s personal freedom," Suttney answered calmly.

Chellish waved his hands in a helpless gesture and turned back to his work. He knew there could be no purpose in talking to Suttney about things that he had held as the Gospel truth for 5 years or more. He hadn’t opened the discussion with any hope of dissuading Suttney at the last moment but only because he had been overcome with anger.

He read the indications on the matter tracker and noted that in the meantime 3 planets had been detected. They moved at orbital distances of 0.6, 2.8 and 10.3 astronomical units from their central sun. It was some satisfaction to Chellish that none of them could be similar to the Earth. Since this alien star had about the same radiation intensity as Earth’s sun, the innermost world would be a molten ball, much hotter than Venus or Mercury; and the two outer ones, on the other hand, would be colder than Mars.

In this system there was not one place that invited a landing. And the longer the Gazelle remained in outer space the greater would be the chance of their being overtaken by Terranian ships before Suttney could complete his act of treason.

 

* * * *

 

The Terranian Fleet went into formation.

Three minutes after Mullon’s discovery the transition point was located from which the second resonance-frequency field had been propagated. Nobody knew so far what the identity of the ship was that had been detected but the fact that only the compensator tracker had responded and not the hypersensor was a clear indication that an Earth ship was involved, because the Arkonides did not have resonant-frequency absorbers.

This single clue was sufficient to plunge the entire search fleet into feverish activity. Through a blanket telecom broadcast, Perry Rhodan declared a condition of top alert and ordered the ships’ commanders to push onward to the destination point as swiftly as possible.

The Drusus itself did not take time to take its auxiliary craft on board. It took off immediately. The Gazelles were instructed to follow by the fastest means. A separate order affecting the guppies told them to stay where they were and wait for the return of the mother ship.

Within about a quarter of an hour after the first bearings were taken on Mullon’s signal, the Drusus emerged out of hyperspace at a distance of 10 light-minutes from the coördinates obtained. This occurred precisely in time to register the broadcast that Walter Suttney was sending out to the Arkonide robot fleet in the vicinity of Latin-Oor. Within only a few seconds the residual speed of the giant ship was absorbed by its mighty retro units. The Drusus hovered almost motionlessly in space, moved only by the gravitational pull of the yellow sun.

Feverish excitement pervaded the entire ship. Rhodan had announced that the arrival of an Arkonide fleet was to be expected at any moment.

The other Earth ships appeared one after another, surrounding the targeted area. They reported their positions by short-pulsed signals which would have meant nothing to Suttney or his accomplices even if they had accidentally left their hyper-receiver open.

The stolen Gazelle itself could not be located at present. Its approximate position was known as of the time Suttney sent his message but the direction the ship had then taken was not known. It was too small an object to be detected by the matter trackers. The gravity fields emanating from the alien star and its planets completely jammed out the Gazelle’s small field.

Perry Rhodan was relying on Walter Suttney to send out his locator signal, as he had announced he would, as soon as the Gazelle landed somewhere to wait for the enemy. Of course he would probably radio beam his coördinates because he had undoubtedly chosen this area in view of its only being 16 light-years removed from Latin-Oor and the Arkonide fleet. But all beamed transmissions generated peripheral and dispersion fields which could be detected by sensitive equipment at great distances, also making it possible to get a bearing on the location of the sender.

The ships of the Earth fleet were deployed in such an arrangement that the Arkonides would find themselves surrounded by Terranians no matter where they emerged from in the general area. Rhodan considered this to be the optimum strategic formation because he knew that the Arkonide fleet consisted of about 4000 fighting units. This gave the enemy an advantage over the Earth fleet’s fighting force in a ratio of 4 to 3. One did not wait for a superior enemy in random positions. It was more prudent to establish a formation in which the opponent’s superiority could at least be equalized during the first moments of the engagement.

If anyone had asked Perry Rhodan at this time whether or not he anticipated a battle for the possession of the Gazelle and the secret of the Earth’s position, he would not have been able to answer. He did not know just how much value the Robot Regent of Arkon placed upon the data concerning Terra’s location. It could well be that he was so hot to get it that he would not shy away from an attack on the Terranian Fleet.

In any case it was well to be armed and ready.

During all the commotion that filled the vast interior of the Drusus, no one had paid any attention to Horace Mullon, at least initially. He lay near his console chair, flat out on the deck in a state of unconsciousness due to utter exhaustion, having given every reserve of strength remaining to him. It was only after the Drusus had come to a hovering position that a team of medical orderlies brought him to the ship’s hospital bay. There they gave him an injection which served to bring his energy system back out of shock, and finally his state of unconsciousness was converted to one of deep and healing sleep.

At about this time the first series of shock waves produced by the Arkonide ships was registered on the hypersensors. The disturbances originated 16 light-years away but their cracklings had hardly faded from the consoles before the second series came through-this time in the immediate vicinity—which produced a ‘furioso’ cacophony of sound that was like a sudden tropical storm. Each shock-wave of energy hit the sensors with a thundering amplification until finally the tracking section had to activate the acoustic suppressors to keep everybody from being incapacitated by all the roaring and thundering and crackling that was going on.

After 20 minutes the noise subsided. A total of 4115 individual hyper-shocks had been counted, which indicated the exact number of units in the Arkonide robot fleet. They had reacted promptly to Suttney’s call.

A few yellow-gleaming light points appeared on the Drusus’ viewscreens out of the glittering sea of stars in the background. These represented those ships of the Arkonide fleet which were closest to Perry Rhodan’s superbattleship.

The same picture must have presented itself on the telescopic viewscreens of the Arkonide vessels. For the robot crews or any allied troop personnel from the Arkon-subjugated alien races who may have been on board, it was no doubt a great shock of surprise to emerge in the midst of a battle-ready Terranian fleet.

Would they now construe Suttney’s call as having been a trap?

A tense period of waiting now began on board the Terranian ships, while Horace O. Mullon lay recuperating in his sleep of exhaustion.

 

* * * *

 

Following Suttney’s orders, Chellish had increased the Gazelle’s velocity 5 times over its original pace. At more than 60,000 miles per second they approached the innermost planet of the system, which Suttney had selected as a landing place. Chellish had informed him that they’d find a fairly unpleasant environment there since its mean daily temperature exceeded 155° Fahrenheit. But Suttney knew as well as Chellish that the outer void was a very unsatisfactory hiding place for a spaceship. He would rather land on a boiling hot planet than take the chance of being captured by Terranian ships.

Chellish had taken it upon himself to give names to the system and the particular planet they were concerned with. He had said nothing about it to Suttney because the latter was in no mood to be receptive to suggestions from his prisoner concerning any dubbing ceremonies. But from then on, to Chellish the alien sun was Caligula and the hot inner planet was Tantalus. He had no inner qualms about relating Caligula to Ronson Lauer, who seemed to share many traits of character in common with the tyrannical Roman emperor, although his imagination was a bit more primitive. As for the name Tantalus, it was nothing more than the expression of a hope that the modern version of Caligula, who now lay in his cabin nursing his wounds, might meet no better fate in the future than that mythological betrayer of the gods.

Ever since Chellish had argued with him over his reasons for his act, Suttney had fallen into a curious, staring funk. But Chellish did hot dare hope that the result of his broodings would be a decision to abandon his traitorous plan. Suttney seemed to be in the position of a man who has determined to commit murder but finds himself repelled at the last moment by the sheer monstrousness of the deed. Nevertheless, he would murder—or translating the analogy to the actual case: he was still going to betray the Earth.

Oliver Roane was equally as silent as Suttney but in his case it had nothing to do with mental preoccupations. He had meagre equipment for meditating. His most pleasurable occupation seemed to be to merely sit there and do nothing.

The quiet spell was welcome to Chellish. Nobody seemed concerned about the tracking instruments. The hypersensor was shut off and was therefore a blank as far as what was going on in surrounding space was concerned. Otherwise the indicators might have stirred a suspicion in Suttney’s mind that a few ships other than Arkonide vessels could be snooping around in the area.

In order not to be completely blind in this regard, Chellish sought to discern any possible changes in the viewscreens. He was finally successful, just as he started his retro manoeuvres within 30 million miles of Tantalus. It took a practiced eye to recognize the little dots of light that suddenly appeared and to differentiate them from the ordinary stars. Even Chellish found this difficult but he was certain that some of those dots out there were ships. whether of Earthly or Arkonide origin he couldn’t tell yet.

He noted that they seemed to hover almost motionlessly in space, which led him to believe that they had not yet detected the comparatively tiny Gazelle. Locating such a small object in interplanetary space was a difficult chore because of all the interference factors involved. Those ships out there, whatever their origin, would have to wait for Suttney’s location signal if they wanted to find him.

Altogether, Chellish could make out 35 light points which were definitely not distant stars. These would be ships within a range of 1 million miles from the Gazelle and which were also in such a position as to reflect the light of Caligula. There must be many more than just these 35—behind him, in front of him, close in, above and below. It was an eerie experience to be flying through such a mighty formation of vessels without seeing more than 35 of them.

Tantalus emerged into the field of vision. Under the effects of a high velocity approach it was fascinating to see the planet change within a few minutes from a point of light to a disc, from a disc to a ball and from a ball to a great yellowish-grey mass, which moments later expanded beyond the edges of the screen.

The colour of the planetary surface gave Chellish some food for thought. From a distance, any planet ordinarily reflected the light that came to it from its sun. If the sun was yellow, then the light from the planet would appear to be yellow. However, at close proximity it should begin to take on characteristic colour tones of its own. For example, at this distance the Earth would have appeared to be greenish blue in colour. That the surface of Tantalus was still yellow, interspersed with a dirty grey, indicated that the planet did not have much in common with the Earth as far as the surface was concerned.

Chellish dropped the ship into the upper layers of the atmosphere. Then he changed course and dove toward the surface at a steep angle. Meanwhile he observed what lay beneath him, noting that Tantalus did not seem to have any diversity of markings. Beneath him everything was the same yellowish grey, from one horizon to the other. In some places the grey predominated and in others the yellow tones were accented but Chellish couldn’t yet determine the significance of it. During the first 10 minutes of his observations at a lower altitude he only once made out a variation, which was a straight black line running a few hundred miles across his field of vision—probably a flat mountain ridge.

Suddenly someone was standing beside him: Walter Suttney. He had not heard him approach. Like Chellish, he stared at the screen, his eyes reflecting his dejection.

"Desert!" he muttered. "A wilderness waste!"

Chellish agreed. There was no other explanation for the monotonous surface colouration. Tantalus was one giant desert—a colossal sea of sand with the air above it boiling from heat.

Meanwhile the automatic analytical instruments had registered what else there was to know about Tantalus. It had a diameter of almost exactly 6200 miles, which made it somewhat smaller than the Earth; it turned on its axis once every 21 hours and 5 minutes; and its orbital velocity was just under 24 miles per second. The readout on the atmospheric composition was 68% nitrogen, 29% oxygen, 2.3% Argon, 0.7% carbon-dioxide, water and helium. So the air was breathable but whether or not the lungs could withstand the temperatures at which the relentless sun maintained the atmosphere was another question. As the Gazelle moved along above the surface, the thermocouple revealed that the sand of Tantalus stood at a temperature of over 200° Fahrenheit.

"There!" said Suttney abruptly. "Land there!"

A second black streak or strip had appeared on the viewscreen. The Gazelle’s present altitude was approximately 18 miles. It was now fairly discernible that the streak consisted of a strung out grouping of mountains-fairly low in contour. It was one of the few places on Tantalus where there were any shadows cast at all.

Chellish noted one other fact: the oncoming edge of night was only about 120 miles away from the mountains. In less than an hour it would be dark down below.

He took the ship into a wide curve and then approached the low mountain chain from the West. At a steep glide angle he lowered to an altitude of 500 yards, at the same time ascertaining the fact that this was the maximum height of any of the hills. He reduced speed to a minimum and waited for Suttney to select a landing spot.

"No difference," muttered Suttney. "Might as well go into that canyon there."

The opening between two low hills was more like a deep, narrow ravine. Its opening was just wide enough to admit the passage of the Gazelle. Chellish was pleased to note that the locality favoured his own chances. Suttney knew from what direction the Arkonide ships would be coming and would send out his bearing data over the radio beam, trusting that this would reduce risks to a minimum. On the contrary, however, the walls of the ravine would serve to cross-multiply the residual effects, thus making the beam more traceable than would have been the case normally. And this was important in case any Terranian ships were already in the area.

Chellish let the ship glide into the ravine about 200 yards before he lowered it carefully for a landing. As was his habit, he set it down without the slightest jolt.

Suttney turned around. "Roane!" he called out sharply. "Keep an eye on him!"

Roane got up and drew his weapon again.

For the second time, Suttney went over to the hypercom console and fired up the transmitter.

 

* * * *

 

It was determined that the Arkonide fleet had emerged from hyperspace in a compact formation. The more than 4000 warships in such close proximity to each other actually created a new centre of gravitational force, so great was their combined mass. The swiftly processed calculations of the positronicon soon revealed that this fleet was made up of typical Arkonide units and groupings which flew in a spherical formation whose diameter was not over 120,000 miles. Under normal conditions it might have been a favourable formation but here where the units of the Terranian fleet were widely deployed waiting for them it was not quite so practical.

The Arkonides had ended their transition at a distance of 6 astronomical units from the central star of the system. From that point on the alien fleet proceeded toward the yellow sun at a speed of only about 6 miles per second. It was easy to observe that they were in a state of bewilderment because they obviously didn’t know what was happening around them. Each enemy ship could detect the tracking blips of Terranian ships on its screens as easily as the Terrans could see the light points representing Arkonide vessels but so far they’d had no chance to estimate the size and strength of the opposing fleet. The Terranian ships were too widely deployed to generate a discernible gravity field and every attempt to send out a hyper-tracer resulted in the entrapment of the search beam in the Earth warships’ energy-absorbing anti-detection screens.

Two hours went by without any decisive move being made by either side. Rhodan considered it an appropriate tactic to keep the Arkonides guessing. It served to spread confusion throughout the enemy fleet and it also gave the leading robot commander no information as a basis for reevaluating his position or making new plans.

The complete radio silence that reigned out there for two hours in that small universe of opposed fighting ships was almost eerie. The Terranian ships were held to silence in order to prevent any disclosure to the enemy as to the strength of the Earth fleet. On the Arkonide side, such a waiting lull was of no consequence to the robot crews because they had nothing to say to each other. They were mechanical receivers of commands—from the ‘Leader’ down to the lowest soldier.

After more than two hours of waiting, the silence was finally interrupted when Suttney began to send out his location bearings. A wave of relief swept through the radio com stations of all Earth ships. But not only there. The fact that Suttney was beaming his signal was an indication that he knew nothing yet concerning the presence of the Terranian fleet. Otherwise he would have waited if possible for a more favourable time. He would not have betrayed his position. So this made Perry Rhodan’s task much easier. He didn’t have to get involved in an uncertain waiting game, at least not any longer. So he, too, gave a great sigh of relief.

He gave the Fleet a prearranged signal, whereupon the widely deployed units got under way again and regrouped themselves around the central portion of the system. The location of Suttney’s transmitter had been determined to be the innermost planet, which revolved about the central star at a mean distance of 0.6 AU or about 36 million miles.

On all telescopic viewscreens the general picture changed with a startling abruptness. Now at the decisive moment, Perry Rhodan was not at all averse to demonstrating his strength to the enemy. The ship’s engines emitted high-speed quantum particles. Gleaming fountains of light shot out of the mighty jets, bringing the giant fleet into motion. The sharp brilliance of the particle exhausts caused thousands of glittering light points to appear on all viewscreens.

The Arkonides began to stir. Their vast spherical formation dissolved into a wide, flat configuration of squadrons which also thrust forward toward the innermost planet of the system.

Rhodan let them carry on, to a point. But when the Drusus came within 6 million miles of its destination and the lead ship of the Arkonide fleet was only 10 million miles from the planet, Perry hailed the alien commander by radio. He was certain that there was a living, organic commander, even though in reality he might have nothing to command, receiving his orders as he must from a robot.

Apparently the Arkonide had been waiting for such a call because the swiftness of his response was almost instantaneous. Rhodan’s hunch turned out to be correct in that the Arkonide ships did carry Arkon-subjugated aliens as an organic supplement to the robot crews. A few seconds after he had signalled he saw on his viewscreen the upper portion of a giant Naat, one of the 3-eyed creatures from the 5th world of the Arkon system. The Naat’s triple gaze held balefully on Perry Rhodan. Its round, hairless head glistened in the fluorescents and its wide, thin-lipped mouth appeared to be drawn into a fixed grin. But Rhodan knew that it was not a grin at all. As far as being able to read the creature’s emotional state by its expression was concerned, he might as well have been looking at a polar bear.

Since the Naat waited for him to speak first, Rhodan began, using an informal, colloquial form of Arkonese:

"Naturally I can’t forbid you to bring your fleet into this particular system but I wish to draw to your attention the fact that 3 deserters from my own forces have landed on the innermost planet in a stolen spaceship. And I’m expecting you to keep your fingers out of this."

The Naat looked down off screen involuntarily, observing something that was not within Rhodan’s range of vision. ‘Keep your fingers out’ was as acceptable an expression in Arkonese as it was in English. But the Naat was no doubt regarding his own hands, which had claws instead of fingers. Rhodan understood the inferiority complexes that the Arkon-subjugated races often suffered. For example, if they said, "My hair is standing on end," they would only do so because forced to speak the language of their rulers, even though they had no hair.

After the Naat had observed his hands for awhile, he answered: "We are here in response to a distress call. We always come to the aid of those who ask for help."

The reply was given in desperation because obviously the Naat had not yet received any instructions from his robot superior.

"Alright, you can stop the double talk," Rhodan told him gruffly. "I picked up that so-called distress call myself. It was beamed out by the 3 deserters. What I want to know is whether or not you are going to stay out of this affair."

The Naat looked down a second time. Although Rhodan could not see what he was looking at, he was certain that an instruction card had popped out of some kind of ejection slot, transmitting to him what the robot wanted him to reply.

"We will take measures according to the situation," said the Naat.

"Fine," retorted Rhodan menacingly. "Then let me clarify your situation for you. If any of your ships approach the innermost planet within a perimeter of 60,000 miles, we will commence firing. I trust that is plain enough for you. We have no intention of letting you mix in the internal affairs of our fleet. Over and out!" He broke off the connection before the Naat could say anything.

The Terranian ships drew in closer to their destination. Rhodan ordered his commanders to guard the line of limitation which he had prescribed for the Arkonides. So at a distance of 60,000 miles from the desert world a huge cloud of ships began to form, both Terranian and Arkonide.

A new period of waiting began. Walter Suttney’s bearing signals had ceased. On board the Drusus a Gazelle was made ready for flight. It had been assigned the task of going down to the planet’s surface and searching for the 3 deserters and 1st Lt. Chellish.

 

* * * *

 

During the one hour period in which Suttney transmitted his coördinates to the enemy, Chellish fairly trembled with mounting excitement. At any moment he hoped to see a Terranian spaceship drop from the sky and land at the entrance to the ravine.

Then he rechecked his figures and came to the conclusion that such a fast response was quite impossible. If the Earth ships had picked up and analysed their resonance frequency during the Gazelle’s last transition, and if the fleet were say 5000 light-years away at the time, without question it would be led to the alien solar system that the deserters had selected but it would still be a long while before they knew where the Gazelle was located within that system. When dealing with distances of hundreds and even thousands of light-years, one often overlooked the fact that a spatial plane of ‘only’ 60 billion square miles, represented by even as small a system as this one, was an almost endless region in which a ship like the Gazelle could hide at will. When the Earth ships arrived in the Caligula System they would still be faced with a large-scale search operation. And even if they picked up Suttney’s bearing coördinates it would require some time before they could manoeuvre in around Tantalus and prepare for a landing.

No, it was still too early to hope for a rescue. And this was quite aside from the fact that if Terranian ships were here at all they would certainly be hindered by the presence of an Arkonide fleet, since the enemy would not likely give up this rare opportunity to learn something about the galactic position of the Earth.

Which brought Chellish to another idea. What would happen if the Earth rescue ships saw they were outnumbered by the Arkonides? What action would they take in order to prevent the sacred secret from falling into the enemy’s hands in spite of the latter’s fighting superiority?

The answer was so simple and obvious that anybody would see it, including whatever spaceship commander happened to be involved with such a decision. One of the Earth ships would attempt to get past the Arkonides. It would shoot down toward Tantalus with the object of locating and destroying the Gazelle.

As simple as that. One bomb or a disintegrator salvo—curtains!

Chellish could feel the sweat popping out on his forehead. He looked up involuntarily toward the ceiling of the control room as though he could see through the metal hull and observe the Earth spaceship as it prepared to lob in a bomb or perhaps dropped the hatch cover from one of its mighty disintegrator turrets.

No, it was still too early for that. There was still a small time-span of maybe one or two hours. But whoever hadn’t cleared out of the Gazelle by that time was a dead man.

While Chellish was thus preoccupied, Suttney had been unusually active. Since Chellish had heard the hum of the outer lock door he knew that the other had been outside somewhere. Now he came back with a plastic film case under his arm, which was recognizable as equipment from the data bank room. Chellish knew what it contained: microfilm data which would enable anyone to derive the galactic position of the Earth. In addition, Suttney had put on a protective spacesuit over his uniform. He was ready to leave the ship. Behind him came Ronson Lauer, who was also suited up.

"Go get yourself a spacesuit, Roane," Suttney growled.

Roane got up and left the room.

Chellish made an attempt to look surprised. "Are you going to leave the ship?" When Suttney only nodded, he asked, "Why?"

Lauer snorted sarcastically. "That’s a dumb question, Chellish. If any Earth ship happens to be around here anywhere, what would it probably do as soon as it finds us?"

Chellish shrugged.

"It would blow us to Hell!" snapped Lauer. "To shut us up! That’s why we’d prefer to go have a look around outside."

"So you’re getting your nerve back, eh?" Chellish asked scornfully.

Lauer’s face twisted into a mocking sneer. "I wasn’t under the impression I ever lost it, Chellish!" he retorted.

With a swift movement he drew his weapon. Chellish jumped away but then saw that the blast was not intended for him. Lauer made a dramatic, heel-clicking turn and directed the glowing white stream of energy at the main control panel across the room. The concentrated beam split the metal panel in two. The metal vaporized with a hissing sound and spewed in all directions to settle sluggishly on the walls and condense again. Glass panels shattered in a series of tinkling crashes and a wild flurry of short-circuits stormed through the internal wiring. The control room was filled with heat and the stench of burned insulation. Within a minute the main switchboard was so demolished that no one could ever repair it again.

Lauer turned to him with a grin. He appeared to be quite pleased with his accomplishment. The weapon was still in his hand. "That’s just in case you thought we’d let you make an easy getaway!" he laughed.

Chellish got the message. He looked at Suttney but the latter avoided his searching gaze. "You dirty coward!" Chellish exclaimed, disdainfully. Then he turned his attention to Lauer again.

"So this is the end of the line for you, Chellish," announced Lauer, apparently enjoying his part of the drama. "You’ve been enough trouble for us up till now. Now we’re through with all that. Oh don’t think I’m going to kill you—I’m leaving that little chore for your friends in the Fleet. I presume they’ll make a thorough job of it. You didn’t know you were going to stay here in the ship, did you? But you see I have to keep you from spying after us—you can understand that, can’t you?"

Chellish hardly listened to him. He knew what was to come and his brain was trying to sweat out a solution. There was nothing close by that he could use as a weapon. Suttney stood near the exit hatch and Lauer prudently maintained a 5-yard distance from him. Leisurely, the latter now raised the thermo-gun and aimed it at Chellish as though this were the moment he relished most of all.

Chellish held his breath and tensed his muscles. He saw that Lauer was aiming high at his shoulder. Just as he felt that the other was about to press the trigger, he made a broad jump sideways. The shot hissed past him and hit the wall. Lauer was confused for a second but it was enough time for Chellish to turn and spring at him. Perhaps a man of less experience than Lauer might have been overcome by this daring manoeuvre—but Ronson Lauer merely took a short step back and fired a second shot before Chellish could reach him.

Chellish saw a blinding flash of lightning, which he seemed to run into. He did not feel the slightest trace of any pain. Something seemed to raise him gently and waft him away into an endlessness filled with wondrous light.