by Perry Rhodan
Nobody knew better than Rhodan that the probability for his success was no more than sixty percent. This was the evaluation he had obtained from the positronic computer.
That he decided nevertheless to undertake this expedition was based on his belief that it was better to attempt something moderately promising than do nothing at all. Moreover he hoped to divert the danger from the irreplaceable Stardust by his tactics.
They set up the equipment they had brought in the neighborhood of the camp Lieutenant Tanner had occupied till the last minute. Rhodan made a point of taking along only such machinery and weapons as required extremely complicated operating methods.
They were in unanimous agreement with Rhodan that the mysterious individual tried his hand like a child, starting to play with simple toys and gradually mastering more complicated games. At this stage it would have been no challenge for him to pick up a telecom or something similar and throw it into the sand.
Rhodan was still as convinced as ever that the unknown opponent was at home here in the hills and that he amused himself with the objects on board the Stardust because there was nothing better to do around here.
Rhodan's theory was to offer him some entertainment close to home in the hope that he would be distracted from the Stardust. If he could be lured to play with the gadgets displayed, they might—with luck—be able to capture him.
The camp was expanded to accommodate all personnel. A massive hill was located between the camp and the place where they had set up their hardware. Guards were posted near the ridge of the hill where they were safe in case the stranger started to tinker with the weapons.
Rhodan espoused his theories to the men about the appearance of the adversary:
"To begin with we've got to assume," he explained, "that the enemy—just as the Arkonides did in the past and the human race will do in the future—has created his robots in his own image. What we can expect, therefore, is a being without a head, an ellipsoid shaped torso, two legs without feet and a ring with twelve arms. The whole creature is no taller than twenty inches.
"If you notice anything like that, try to capture it regardless of whether it's a robot or an organic being. You won't be able to tell the difference at first sight anyway.
"And watch out for the glittering spheres! They've got diabolical weapons and don't know the meaning of a friendly gesture."
Then they settled down to wait.
A few crazy incidents occurred but they failed to detect the perpetrator. A medium-size impulse-cannon started to fire and to circle wildly around. It burned deep furrows in the slopes of the neighboring hills before it came to rest again.
The technicians on board the Stardust reported that the scratches on the pocket telecom stolen from Rhodan's tent before it blew up had been traced to the hands of a robot.
This was interesting as Rhodan had thus far assumed that the bomb had been planted by an organic being who had also stolen the telecom. What the technicians had discovered was proof that the attempt on his life was also carried out by robots.
Furthermore, the technicians had conducted a C14 analysis to ascertain the age of the robots. As a result they had determined eight C14 half-life values corresponding to an age of at least forty-five thousand years. This came as a great surprise. The robots even preceded the Arkonide culture.
Rhodan had some doubts about it. He kept it to himself since he could not prove his suspicions. These mental reservations, however, did not change his strategy. For his search for the world of cell rejuvenation it was immaterial what sort of beings held the information he was seeking. During the night Fellmer Lloyd came running from his tent and screamed so loudly that he woke up the entire camp.
"They're coming!" he shouted. "I can feel it! They're going to attack us!"
Rhodan was the first one at his side. He did not doubt that Lloyd was right but he jabbed him in the ribs to bring him back to his senses before he made everybody hysterical.
"Get a hold of yourself, man!" Rhodan chided him. "What's the matter?"
"Hate!" Lloyd gasped. "Incredible hate! It woke me up and my head's still spinning. I can hardly hear you anymore."
Rhodan ran up the hill. Lloyd thought that the enemy was coming from the north. The two guards on the ridge had not yet noticed anything. Rhodan called more men to come up and to man the cannons which had been positioned on the hill. It baffled Fellmer Lloyd that he did not feel the childlike urge to play which he had described as the second characteristic of the alien race.
"Nothing but hate!" he muttered.
Rhodan gave his instructions.
"We'll hold our fire as long as it can be reconciled with our safety. We'll use the psycho-beamer and try to paralyze their will."
He did not really believe that the psycho-beamer would be effective. Robots could not be hypnotized.
A few more minutes elapsed. Fellmer Lloyd seemed to suffer more and more under the hate of the aliens. He was lying next to Rhodan, moaning, his helmeted head pressed to the ground.
Then they came! Five iridescent spheres! They leaped spiritedly over the top of the opposite hill and went down into the valley where Rhodan had laid out his equipment.
Glittering in the dark, they radiated a diffuse light. They seemed to know their goal exactly, since they did not linger in the valley but came directly up the hill. The psycho-beamers began to work—without success. The distance shrank and they all knew what would happen to them if the spheres managed to get over the top.
"Fire!" Rhodan bellowed.
None of the defenders could foretell the effect of the Stardust's weapons on the spheres. Nonetheless they hoped to be able to parry the onslaught. Nobody had anticipated the next turn of events.
The decrystallizing field of the disintegrator on the left flank hit the sphere in the front. At the same instant there was a blinding and thunderous explosion. When they were able to see again, the struck sphere had completely vanished and the others were drifting helplessly and aimlessly down the slope.
Rhodan's men vented their pent-up anger. Before he could countermand his orders, as it seemed likely that they could retrieve the remaining spheres harmlessly, salvo upon salvo had been fired from the guns.
The battle at 'Game Hill' lasted only a few minutes. The five glistening spheres were destroyed and Fellmer Lloyd heaved a sigh of relief as the bane of the overwhelming hate subsided.
"When did you notice that the hate ceased?" Rhodan asked. "I mean, after which one of the spheres was destroyed?"
Lloyd shook his head.
"No, sir. It isn't the way you think. You assume that most of the balls were occupied by robots and that a live leader was in one of them. Not at all, sir. The hate diminished step by step with the elimination of each sphere and it completely disappeared when the last one was destroyed."
This caused Rhodan to reconsider his conclusions. It upset his theory that this entire civilization was comprised of an army of robots and that only one or two organic beings had survived. Rhodan wondered whether it was advisable to wait any longer. The enemy had been defeated and would probably not dare to attack their hill position again. The question remained, however, how to seize the foe.
He was certain that the situation in this vicinity would remain quiet from now on and he reproached the guard for reporting the next morning that one of the oscillographs placed on the other hill had registered a colorful pattern on its screen. Yet as Fellmer Lloyd awoke from a long sleep, recovering from the vicissitudes of the night, he also registered instantly the emissions of an alien brain that had— as he described it—a passion for playing.
Rhodan went to the guard he had ridiculed and apologized. Then he marched up the hill and joined the guards. He remained there until he had seen with his own eyes three more incidents. A shooting neutron-beamer, a working calculator and a refrigerating machine spouting liquid air by the bucket.
Although it gave him satisfaction that the opponents were attracted the same as before to the toys he p
resented to them, Rhodan was highly vexed by the events.
Not only because Lloyd now claimed that the playing instinct was free of hate, whereas he had previously maintained that they existed simultaneously, but also because the behavior of the enemies could not be understood unless considered to be schizophrenic.
He did not get very far with assessing the implications. One of the guards called over the helmet radio and his voice sounded quite agitated.
"Something's moving in the valley, sir! Could you come up and look at it?"
Rhodan climbed up the hill for the second time that morning. He was curious as to what kind of a movement it was that the sentry could not clearly identify from a distance of only one hundred feet, but now he saw for himself. Something was at work under the sand. It looked as if a mole was digging an exit.
It took a few more minutes until a hole appeared in the ground. Something brown pointed out for a second, then retreated. The sand was stirred up once more and circulated around the little hole like water flowing down a drain.
Soon the hole was five times as large. Once more the pointed brown digger protruded but found the hole still too small. The work continued and just as the observers had reached the peak of suspense, the hole was big enough to allow the brown animal with the pointed nose to came to the surface. It was a mouse-beaver and it behaved in a very peculiar fashion. The animal hobbled from one of the machines to the other and showed its curiosity by sniffing at them down the line.
The little refrigeration machine—the same one which had been set into operation an hour earlier—particularly attracted its attention. The mouse-beaver sat on its hindlegs before the machine and awkwardly touched its plastic surface with its underdeveloped forelegs. Sitting upright the animal measured about three feet. The refrigeration box was a cube half as high.
The mouse-beaver limped a few feet back, turned around and stared at the box. Then the most unbelievable thing happened. The box left its base and levitated in the air. The mouse-beaver sat motionlessly regarding, the object.
Then the machine turned on its side and started to move toward the mouse-beaver. When it had approached within eighteen inches, the animal moved out of the way. The box kept moving in the same direction and came to a halt above the hole dug by the animal. It hovered a few seconds and slowly descended into the opening.
The mouse-beaver had turned around following the machine with its eyes. Then the animal, too, hobbled to the hole and disappeared inside.
Seconds later the scene looked the same as before, except for the new hole and the vanished refrigeration machine.
Rhodan got up. His head was swimming and half subconsciously he questioned whether to trust his eyes. He heard one of the guards breathe very hard. The men looked at him and demanded an explanation.
"Come with me!" he said in a brittle tone. "Pack provisions for five days and carry handguns. We'll crawl into this hole where the machine has been taken."
The episode was reported to the Stardust where everyone awaited a further comment from Rhodan. But he wisely refused to speculate on the ramifications of the matter.
"I don't know any more about it than you do," he replied rather brusquely to Reginald Bell. "I'll know more after we get into the hole."
They started out and left Lieutenant Tanner and five men behind in the camp. Rhodan told Lieutenant Tanner to insist on strict vigilance and reassured him by reminding him that the weapons of the Stardust had proved to be far superior to the adversary.
The hole dug by the mouse-beaver was large enough to allow easy passage for the animal with its fat hind-quarters. Since that was about equal to the circumference of a human torso, Rhodan and his men had no trouble getting through.
The hole led down into a shaft five feet deep. Then it took a right angle turn into a long tunnel. Rhodan, who was first in line, illuminated it with his searchlight as well as he could. The searchlight reached over half a mile but he was unable to see the end of of the tunnel.
"We'll try it, anyway!" Rhodan decided.
Half an hour after Rhodan had entered the hole with his men, Lieutenant Tanner received a call from the Stardust. Bell was at the other end of the line and, to judge from his face, he was more than excited.
"The chief has already left," Tanner said.
"Then relay the call to him!"
Tanner shrugged his shoulders.
"The chief has ordered strict radio silence. It can be broken only by himself."
Bell hit the table with his fist so that he made the telecom jump.
"Take down what I tell you!" he ordered. "Disregard his instructions and pass the message on. He's got to know this!"
"I'm listening, sir!"
He flicked the switch for the automatic recording set.
"The technicians have disassembled and examined the robots. Although their bodies are mechanical structures their brains are of organic growth with infinitely lasting life. The mental processes of the robots are, therefore, on a par with other organic beings."
"By any comparison they excel in a complicated memory bank. We have so far succeeded in deciphering two items."
"First: robots received orders to attack immediately any alien invading this world and to annihilate same by any and all means."
"Second: there exists a total of twenty robots on this world. The last data about organically grown beings go back forty thousand Vagabond years, corresponding to thirty-five thousand Terrestrial years."
And in a less official tone Bell added:
"I hope, Lieutenant, that you realize the importance of this information."
Tanner hastened to assure Bell that he was fully aware of its significance. They finished their conversation and Tanner tried to get in touch with Rhodan and his companions. After a while he succeeded in contacting Rhodan, who responded exactly as Tanner had feared.
"Who's the fool calling me? I've given strict orders to maintain radio silence!"
Tanner apologized and cited Bell's insistence that his instructions be followed through.
"All right," Rhodan relented. "But make it short!"
Tanner repeated the message he had received a few minutes earlier.
"You can tell Bell," Rhodan replied, "that this isn't news to me!"
Rhodan signed off abruptly, leaving Tanner— utterly astonished—to report back to the Stardust. It must have taken the mouse-beavers many days to burrow this tunnel, mused Rhodan. He estimated that they had crawled about three miles from the entrance hole in the last three hours. Still the end of the tunnel was not yet in sight within the maximum range of his searchlight.
Rhodan tested the air from time to time through the valve in his helmet and determined that it remained fresh, leading to the conclusion that the tunnel must be vented at both ends. Rhodan also used a lighter flame to check the movement of the air. The tiny light, barely sustained by the low oxygen content of the atmosphere, gave no indication of any airflow.
This caused him to deduce that a large air reservoir was located between their present position and the other exit to the surface. A cave, for instance, would prevent the flow of air. The thought gratified him because he had a very clear idea of what was in store for them farther ahead in the tunnel.
On the other hand, he did not have much reason to be satisfied with the developing situation. He had entered the tunnel with thirty men. Of course, it was not very appealing to crawl through the tunnel, which was so low that it permitted nothing else except lying prone on the belly and inching forward with the elbows.
The result was understandable: claustrophobia. The men became nervous. They bandied words despite Rhodan's orders to remain quiet at all times. Rhodan exhorted and cajoled them alternately. However, their irritation became more and more aggravated. The subterranean sojourn would have to be ended soon.
But it took three more hours. The sun outside must already have set long ago, Rhodan guessed. He now estimated the distance from their starting point to be five or six miles. The men had be
come extremely restless. They began to ask Rhodan with increasing frequency to break off the effort despite the probability that it would now take more time to crawl back than to continue forward, and that they would have to do it backward since there was no possibility of turning around in the narrow space.
"Take it easy, boys! We'll soon be there!" Rhodan kept encouraging them.
He hated to mouth such phrases but he thereby regularly restored silence, at least for a few minutes. Finally they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. At first Rhodan believed that it was a reflex of his strained eyes. He remained lying still, closed his eyes for a while and opened them again.
The glimmer of light was still there.
He switched his searchlight on again and tried to recognize what was ahead. The light beam revealed nothing. Whatever was up front was still too far away to be made out. But Rhodan spurred his men on.
"Let's go, boys! We made it!"
They moved forward at a faster rate than before. Rhodan observed that the tunnel was not shored up in any way. It was excavated in firm sand and appeared to be safe, but the inner surface was left uncovered.
Another forty-five minutes and the tunnel widened a little. Rhodan stopped and turned off his searchlight once more. The mysterious light was now close by, perhaps one hundred fifty feet away, but he still was unable to identify its source.
"Careful now!" he warned.
They advanced slowly and cautiously, trying to avoid any noise. After thirty more feet the passage was big enough to let them get up on their knees.
Then the tunnel ended suddenly.
The walls receded left and right at almost 90° and they faced a cavern. A brightly shining plate was suspended in its center high above the ground.
Rhodan scanned the cavern with his light. It was empty except for the plate and the little refrigerator lying on the floor not far from the exit of the tunnel. Rhodan rose up and stepped out of the tunnel. He ran quickly over to the shining plate and investigated it.