by Perry Rhodan
"You very nearly crushed me to death," Deringhouse said with an embarrassed smile.
Rhodan gaped at him.
"I did...?"
Deringhouse was as much surprised as Rhodan.
"Didn't you give the vehicle a last push to make it topple over?"
"Not at all. On the contrary, I didn't do anything anymore. I stopped pulling to make sure that the thing would fall in the right direction. I thought you..."
Deringhouse's eyes popped out.
"The telekinetics...!" he groaned. "They're playing tricks on us. First they spin the vehicle around like a top and then they almost crush me to death by throwing it on me!"
They both agreed that there was no other explanation. They went back into the aero-car and Rhodan hastened to get out of the place as quickly as possible. Evidently even their Arkonide aero-car was no match for the alien foe without special precautionary measures.
After they had left behind the area with the strange identical hills, Deringhouse spoke.
"How about this whirling around? Do you believe it's a telekinetic effect?"
Rhodan laughed.
"We're racking our brains about the same things, aren't we? I was just thinking about it. I don't believe that the spinning was caused by telekinetic force. I don't think that telekinetic being has enough power to accomplish such a feat. After all, the aero-car is an enormous mass."
"What else could it have been?"
"I'd say a rotation field. I believe I could achieve the same effect if I'd alter one of our gravity generators to produce a rotation field."
Deringhouse muttered something. Then he said:
"Very advanced technology, wouldn't you say?"
Rhodan nodded.
A few minutes later they landed in the base camp. Rhodan had given a short report about the incident to Tanner via telecom shortly after starting his return flight and had not communicated with anyone since.
Rhodan got out. Tanner came running toward him. He looked very disturbed.
"Sir!" Tanner gasped. "Lloyd is gone!"
"Where?" Rhodan asked tersely.
Tanner regained his composure and gave a hasty report.
"After the two aero-cars returned, Lloyd showed up and asked me for one of the vehicles. I agreed to give him one under the condition that he would take at least one other man along. But he wanted to fly alone. I refused. He began to deride me and said that, first of all, I had no authority over him as a mutant and, secondly, he could accomplish more in one flight than we could in a thousand as long as we left him alone."
Tanner shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
"I objected," he continued, "but he simply got into one of the aero-cars and took off. After all, I really don't have any authority over the mutants."
Rhodan slapped him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, Tanner. I'll give him a good talking to when he returns.
"If he returns!" groaned Tanner. "We've been out of communication for ten minutes!"
Seconds later they were up in the air again.
Tanner knew the direction in which Lloyd had departed and from whence his last message had come. The second aero-car stayed behind Rhodan's machine. While Rhodan steered he gave his men a short but enlightening lecture about glittering spheres, rotation fields and overturned cars.
"This world isn't deserted," he concluded. "Looks are deceiving. If you don't keep your eyes open, you'll be guaranteed a very short life."
One man of the rescue party was assigned to call Fellmer Lloyd continuously on the telecom. But Fellmer Lloyd did not reply. Rhodan had no illusions. If Lloyd did not answer one could not exclude the possibility that he had met his death. There was hardly a loss which could have been more tragic for Rhodan. People like Fellmer Lloyd were worth ten times their weight in gold in the situations they faced.
Lloyd had taken a northerly direction from the start. The only hope Rhodan had was that Lloyd had followed the same direction on his flight. It was the only way to find him. Rhodan had no intention of interrupting his search for days, regardless of the importance of one man.
After half an hour's flight they found Lloyd's machine. It was lying, overturned, on its side and was apparently heavily damaged. Rhodan recognized charred spots on the vehicle's body.
Not far from the aero-car one of the mouse-beavers they had watched last night was lying motionlessly in the sand. The animal seemed to be dead. While Rhodan carefully set down his aero-car next to the damaged vehicle, he asked himself whether the mouse-beaver could have any connection with Fellmer Lloyd's accident.
They got out. Rhodan examined Lloyd's machine. He found it empty and so severely damaged as to immobilize it. The vehicle had apparently crashed from considerable height. The impact had, among other things, ruined the telecom so that Lloyd could not have used it even if he survived. They did not detect any blood. But there were imprints in the sand which could have been made by a man, considering that the wind had had more than an hour's time to blow them away.
They were leading away from the wreck up a hill and disappeared where the wind was blowing more strongly than in the protected hollow.
In the meantime Deringhouse examined the mouse-beaver.
"I'm no space-veterinarian," he said, "but in my opinion this fellow has broken his neck."
He lifted the animal's head and twisted it demonstratively in all directions.
Rhodan nodded. Right now he was not interested in mouse-beavers. Fellmer Lloyd had probably survived the crash and crawled away some place. Rhodan sent the five men of the second aero-car out in the direction of Lloyd's tracks to comb the neighborhood for the mutant.
Deringhouse's attention was still concentrated on the dead animal.
"The head is much too big," he said. "Don't you think so?"
Rhodan waved him away. "For all I care, it can have two heads. I want to know where Lloyd is!"
Deringhouse got up and walked away from the mouse-beaver. The animal had left rather distinct tracks and a struggle seemed to have taken place where it was now lying. The ground was dug up and Deringhouse could not figure out who the other fighter might have been.
The track of the mouse-beaver stretched out over a great distance. Deringhouse followed it. When he had moved so far. away that he had lost sight of Rhodan and the three vehicles, he pulled his weapon.
The track led around the side of a knoll and disappeared in a hollow between two hills. Deringhouse followed cautiously and came to a hole which entered the ground in an inclined direction. The track came from the hole.
Disappointed, Deringhouse turned around and walked back. A mousehole, a little larger than usual on Earth, but still only a mousehole.
What else did he expect?
When he came back between the hills, he glimpsed something on the opposite slope. At first he did not recognize the significance of the sight, but when his memory returned, he scurried over.
"I found something!" he shouted into his helmet's microphone. "Over here!" Flailing his arms, he ran up the slope with grotesque, twelve foot long leaps and reached the thing in a few seconds.
It was half buried in the sand. The sand formed a ring-shaped wall around the object as if an irresistible force had pressed the thing—into the ground.
Deringhouse extricated it. It seemed to be a fairly thin metal foil and it glittered, although it was less iridescent than an hour and half ago when he had seen it for the first time.
It was anything now but a sphere. The same force that pushed it into the ground had transformed it into a shapeless glob of sheet metal. But there was no doubt that it had been the same sphere, or the same type of sphere, they had encountered on their flight to the east.
Perry Rhodan concurred in his opinion after he had studied the piece of metal thoroughly. The thing was fairly light since the metal was so thin. They had no trouble carrying it over and loading it into one of the aero-cars.
Deringhouse returned to the spot where he had unearthed the thin
g. Rhodan warned him:
If this sphere was occupied by anyone, he must be still alive! There's nothing left in this piece of metal. Keep your eyes open!" he admonished him.
He reached the spot without hindrance. It was just below the top of the knoll. He climbed up to the top and looked around. He was about to turn away when he saw, against the shine of the quickly setting sun, a dark line which stretched across the slope on the other side of the hill.
It took three wide jumps for him to get there. It looked exactly as he had expected. Two rows of small holes, ten inch intervals between the holes and the length of a hand's span between rows.
The track started at the place where he stood and ended about sixty feet down the hill.
One hour later they located Fellmer Lloyd. The sun had set in the meantime and they had to find their way with portable searchlights.
Lloyd was completely exhausted. He was put into one of the vehicles and Rhodan postponed, for the time being, questioning him and giving him a lecture.
Meanwhile Lloyd's machine had been stripped of all usable equipment. Without further delay they started on their way back. They reached the base camp a short time later and Lieutenant Tanner breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the two aero-cars land.
Lloyd was bedded down and treated. Rhodan gave a detailed report to the Stardust to which Bell replied:
"I'd have preferred if Lloyd had picked some other day for his escapade. I wish he were here right now. Things are pretty topsy-turvy around here."
He told Rhodan about a number of mishaps. Somebody had left open the outer hatch of a loading lock and the inner hatch was left open at the same time despite the electrical control which normally prevented it. The result was that the Stardust had lost thousands of cubic yards of breathable air. Fortunately, there had been nobody in the storage room at the time and the automatically operated safety hatches had closed up so that nothing serious occurred.
Bell had ordered the crew to wear spacesuits inside the ship and to keep them closed at all times.
"I'll send Lloyd over as soon as I've interrogated him," promised Rhodan. "But I think we'll get closer to our goal if we keep him here instead of letting him search the whole vessel again."
Since Fellmer Lloyd was in no condition to be questioned by the time it was midnight, Rhodan tried to catch some sleep for a few hours. He had been awake for twenty-five nerve-wracking hours. Although he had various Arkonide tablets available which made sleep unnecessary without undesirable side effects, he preferred a healthy, natural rest.
However, his thoughts made it difficult for him to fall asleep. He now shared a tent with Tanner and Deringhouse. The two officers slept quietly and, it seemed, untroubled.
By contrast, Rhodan mulled over the recent events and the more he pondered them, the more he realized that the position of the Stardust had become nearly untenable in this world.
The alien adversary had at first begun to try out his telekinetic powers on simple things, such as switches which had only two positions, or light objects which were not tied down. Then he proceeded with aimed actions. A stone had struck Rhodan's aero-car and the pilot of another vehicle was nearly killed.
Now in the third stage of this peculiar altercation, his enemy obviously specialized in more complicated activities. Rhodan tried to picture in his mind how difficult it would be to manipulate by telekinetic methods the complicated electronic switch arrangement to keep the inner and outer hatches of the airlock open simultaneously. He was unable to grasp it clearly since he had no such telekinetic capabilities.
He could guess the outcome of further developments. When the enemy had learned to operate telekinetically the weapons of the Stardust, the battle would be as good as lost.
There were only two alternatives. Retreat or surprise attack. The enemy must be destroyed quickly in order to prevent a serious disaster.
However, the obvious difficulty he confronted was that the enemy could not simply be destroyed as soon as apprehended. He possessed the knowledge for the sake of which the Stardust had come to this planet. If the foe was annihilated, this knowledge probably would be lost with him.
Other considerations occurred to Rhodan. The glittering ball, for example, and the bomb that blew up his tent. Why, if he was such a proficient telekinetic manipulator, did his adversary choose to employ other means?
How could the behavior of the sphere be explained? Was the rotation field spinning around the aero-car a warning, an attack, or what?
Was the...
The green lamp at the door of the airlock lit up. Rhodan touched the button on the table at his side. The door opened and one of Tanner's men entered. His helmet was open and flipped back.
"Lloyd has come to, sir," the man said softly.
Rhodan got up.
"Okay. I'm coming."
Quietly, so the other two would not be awakened, he closed his spacesuit, donned his helmet and left the tent with the messenger. Lloyd had been put up in a storage tent which Rhodan carried along in case he took prisoners who could not be housed together with humans-or for wounded men who required care in separate quarters.
Lloyd had been made comfortable. When Rhodan entered, Lloyd stood in the middle of the tent.
"How do you feel?" Rhodan inquired.
"Thank you, I'm all right again," Lloyd answered.
Rhodan sat down on the edge of his cot.
"Where did you get that crazy idea?"
Lloyd shrugged his shoulders.
"I had the impression that I could do a lot more for our cause if I were left alone. That's why I requisitioned the aero-car and flew away."
"You almost flew too far for your own good," Rhodan chided him.
Lloyd turned away and started to walk around in the tent.
"That's right. Luckily everything turned out well."
"Listen, Lloyd!" Rhodan began in earnest. "We've got to make one thing clear once and for all. Hey, what are you doing? Are you listening?"
Lloyd had kept walking. Now he stood at the other end of the tent, turning his back on Rhodan, where the light which was close to Rhodan barely reached.
Something at the back of the man's head attracted Rhodan's attention and startled him.
But suddenly there was no more time to think. At the same moment Rhodan jumped up from the cot to take cover behind a table, Lloyd whirled around. He held a thermo-blaster in his hand and the beam, fine as a needle, shot accurately at the spot where Rhodan had sat one-tenth of a second ago.
The table behind which Rhodan had sought cover rattled and fell over. Rhodan shot from behind the table-top. The beam of light from his impulse-ray gun hit Lloyd squarely in the chest. Lloyd managed to raise his arm once more but he could not trigger his weapon again. He crashed noisily to the floor. Rhodan waited a little before he came out from behind the table. Then he stepped over the body of the dead man, left the tent and called a guard.
One of Tanner's men doubled as a physician. He had been a medic before he joined Rhodan and knew a lot about medicine although he was not trained to handle complicated cases. Rhodan told him to examine the body.
In the meantime the entire camp had been aroused. The men did not talk much. They were shaken in horror because one of their own people had dared to shoot at their commander. Rhodan and Deringhouse were present as the medic examined the body.
"You've given him an injection, haven't you?" Rhodan asked.
"One?" answered the medic. "He was so knocked out that he needed five of them before he even remembered his own name."
He took Lloyd's clothes off and placed him on a long narrow table.
"Cut him up!" ordered Rhodan.
The medic jumped. "What? I can't do that!"
"Go ahead! It's an order."
The medic gulped. "Very well, sir!"
Deringhouse gave Rhodan a furtive glance.
"Do you expect something in particular?" Rhodan nodded.
"Have you ever looked at Lloyd from the back?" he aske
d.
Deringhouse could not figure out the purpose of the question.
"No," he replied hesitantly.
"That's regrettable. Lloyd had a bald spot on the back of his head-about the size of a half dollar. It was odd, because he had a lot of hair growing on his head."
Deringhouse narrowed his eyes.
"So..."
Rhodan pointed to the body.
"This Lloyd has no bald spot. He's got hair all over his head!"
The medic had begun to work on the body. Rhodan had never seen a face as pale as his.
"No blood, sir!" the man choked. "Not a single drop!"
Rhodan went to the table and picked up the amputated leg. The cut section did not look like a leg at all. About two inches of a plastic mass resembling skin formed a ring about a bone which reflected the light where it was cut.
"Metal!" exclaimed Deringhouse.
Rhodan nodded.
"This beast is a perfect android!"
4/ THE MAD BOMB
After that nobody doubted that Lloyd had met some horrible fate and was no longer alive.
Somebody had captured him and used him to create a robot in his image in an incredibly short time. A robot who could be relied on to kill the leader of the intruders before he was unmasked.
Despite all these suppositions, Fellmer Lloyd came staggering down one of the hills in the north shortly after sunrise next morning. His legs were so weak that he simply dropped when he saw that he had attracted someone's attention.
Ormsby, the medic who had so much trouble the night before with the android Lloyd, got busy again. But this Lloyd had a bald spot on his head and when Ormsby examined his bones with a fine probe, he obtained real calcium.
Rhodan waited impatiently until he was able to question Lloyd. Reginald Bell's appeals for help from the Stardust were getting more urgent all the time. Their opponent had activated one of the lighter impulse-beamers and burned a long furrow into the sand before they had discovered it and switched it off.