The Sleeper of the Ages

by Hans Kneifel

  He stopped, lowered his head, and could only think, There's a disaster waiting out there that will destroy us!

  4

  The Landing of the LEMCHA OVIR

  Harriett Hewes had left the cabin just half a minute before. Denetree sat on the edge of the couch, staring from half-closed eyes at the smooth-worn door where a just as used-looking space helmet hung on a hook. Music played softly from invisible speakers; Harriett had explained to Denetree how pieces of music could be called up from memory storage units. After what seemed like an eternity, she stood up and, as though she were peeling individual layers of reality away, became aware of her surroundings piece by piece. It suddenly struck her that she had already slept here for several nights.

  With dreamlike movements, she went into the cube-shaped shower stall, loosened the strands of her pigtail, undressed, and tapped without thinking on the symbols behind the glassite panel.

  To Denetree's surprise and dismay, the subsyntron responded by running everything in its personal-care program, including blowing scent-drenched warm air, hot and cold showers, oil massages, skin treatment with creams and oils, hair washing and drying ... It took her the better part of the next hour to thoroughly scrub the variously squirted creams, oils, and shampoos off the stall's sides while a robot—another surprise of her new life—cleaned the rest of the cabin.

  Half-uncomprehending, Denetree stared at herself in the mirror as its surface cleared itself. Once more the completely unfamiliar luxury surprised and depressed her; the strange sounds laid harmony on top of her mood like a warm cloth. In a slow rhythm she braided her drying hair, which had acquired some unknown fragrance from the shower-stall system, into a loose pigtail.

  "Don't carry on like this, Denetree," she told herself as she slipped into the light, freshly cleaned casual coveralls that were commonly worn on board the ship. "You didn't invent this sort of misery. The Terrans call it melancholy. Every day, more of your dreams will come true!"

  She really was in a different world! Her surroundings were more attractive, brighter, lighter. The more effort she made to conduct herself without rubbing-up people the wrong way, the more she learned about the rules and unspoken conventions of this unfamiliar society. The memory of the ark remained just as present as that of her brother, Venron. She even thought of her bicycle now and then. But in the quiet and isolation of her tiny cabin, she could sort things out, and she thought she could sense the first paper-thin layer of fading memory settle over the events—something like a milky sheet.

  "Everything is so ... confusing. So very different." Denetree hunched her head between her shoulders. As she thought of the ark, of her dead brother, and the loss of the solid moorings of life on board the NETHACK ACHTON, she fell back into the dark world of her loneliness. Although the prospectors were helpful and friendly, she was very much alone in a bewildering world—but even so, she was closer to the stars—magnificent, boundless space with all its wonders—than ever before. She rested her head in her hands and felt her helplessness as a kind of lingering illness.

  There was a large holo-display and a device with a surface of dull metal that dispensed a choice of two hot and three cold drinks in attractively shaped plastic cups. She chose the sweeter, less hot drink.

  Within the last few days, she had learned the languages people used on board. She wanted to learn; she thought of the stars and planets.

  She suddenly felt hungry. Up to now, Harriett had brought her food. In the meantime, Denetree had learned the way to the ship's mess. She slipped on the boots that Harriett had left her, carefully closed the cabin door, and went through empty corridors to one of the tubes, a vertical shaft she had heard called an "antigrav lift." She stopped uncertainly, hands on the handles, and swayed back and forth. Then she overcame her fear, closed her eyes tightly, and let herself fall. The field within the shaft gently caught her and let her float downwards, as light as a Hummer. Growing braver, she swung herself out when she recognized the worn floor covering. She exhaled in relief.

  She slowly opened the door to the mess. Light, food odors, and the buzz of voices met her as she went in. Several curious and seemingly kindly expressions greeted her. She recognized their meaning and forced herself to smile. At one table sat Harriett Hewes, Perry Rhodan, and the amazingly beautiful Akonian. In front of them were half-empty plates and glasses.

  Harriett waved and pointed with a smile to an empty seat. "Sit with us, Denetree," she said.

  Denetree approached, deliberately ignoring a grinning crawler team at another table. She sat down, nodded with a hesitant smile at Rhodan and the Akonian, and said, "Up to now, you've brought me my meals, Harriett. Now I'll try to do it myself. Over there, right?"

  She pointed to the half-robotic food dispenser and the racks with plates, bowls, and eating utensils.

  Rhodan stood up. "Come on. I'll show you everything. It's very simple. Even tastes good."

  In the background of the room, where some men expelled smoke from their mouths, Denetree saw three beings sitting at a table whose appearance puzzled her. The smoky haze that rose to the openings of the air circulation system prevented a clear view.

  Rhodan, who had followed her gaze, said reassuringly, "Those aren't Terrans. It's a crawler team. The ones with the round, flat heads are Blues. They're called that because of their skin color. The man with a mane and a face like a lion is a Gurrad. Nice fellows, experienced space travelers. You don't need to be frightened."

  "I understand," she replied although she did not understand anything. No, one thing she did understand: She would need a long time before she understood life among the stars that she had dreamed of for so long.

  After twenty-one days, the velocity of the LEMCHA OVIR had been reduced to less than half that of light. The inertial absorbers had slowed the colossus sixteen times by amounts of seven units of gravitational acceleration. Sixteen times the angular ring had vibrated, groaning and creaking in every one of its 1200 meters of total diameter and in every cubic meter of the five decks. Instead of an absolutely mathematical straight line, the flight path had changed to a section of an arc with a long radius that ended at the system of the red sun. The forward stars began to change their colors. The ship's water supply, carried along as ice in fifteen huge tanks, was almost completely melted. For reasons of stability and to some extent shielding, the tanks, evenly distributed, were on the outermost decks near the nuclear reactor.

  Atubur Nutai could be satisfied. But since the burial in space of Lumena and Cada from South-Green Quadrant, he had felt fear deep within him. It could still be controlled. But it would grow stronger. The Commander knew this agitation and that fear disturbed him because it could paralyze his power to make decisions. He lived in an environment that for half a millennium had been more familiar to him than his own life.

  He slowly sat up, exhausted by the passion of the past hour. Chibis-Nydele lay stretched out next to him. Perspiration that smelled of spikenard ointment glistened on the scaly skin along her backbone.

  "Only control ensures security!" Atubur Nutai muttered. He stood up with a suppressed groan and half-staggered across the deep-pile floor covering to the Huccar machine. Within his body, a horde of tiny beetles with red-hot jaws seemed to be eating away at his nerves. As he swallowed the hot nutritional drink, his gaze wandered over the depiction of the solar system on a display. The Net had used a large part of its diminished capacity for a detail enlargement.

  Between the orbits of the seventh and eighth planets stretched an enormous asteroid belt. In the depiction, both ends of the belt were lost in the dark background, but the main mass rose like inwardly bent ribbon high above the ecliptic of the eighth, seventh, fifth, and third planets; the orbital planes of the other worlds were sharply tipped.

  For planets nine, ten, and eleven, there were only indications of their positions; they were currently on the opposite side of the sun. Besides Mentack Nutai, the days and hours leading up to the landing would see the seventh and sixth planet
s, Ovir's Lighthouse and Lemcha's Island, in the nearer part of their orbits around Ichest.

  The Naahk noticed a blinking light on the screen. A few moments later, he realized that it was the reflection of the pulsating ornamental casing that held his cell activator. The frequency had increased. And now the fear in Nutai's heart increased as well. He closed his eyes and sank his head in surrender, then quickly recovered his composure.

  The course that the black ringship currently flew led high over the scattered stray rocks and planetoids on the fringes of the dense asteroid belt and towards the point in its orbit where the fifth planet would be in twenty-three days. When its entire capacity was not needed for calculations, the Net displayed continuous images to the four quadrants. The inhabitants gathered in front of the large display screen below the portrait of Legendor and saw the planets, the asteroid belt, and the brightly shining sun increase in size and become more striking.

  "Keeper and Legendor," Atubur murmured without thinking that Chibis-Nydele was sleeping a dozen steps away from him, "be with me now. I need you. But you, too, vanished into the past."

  Chibis-Nydele stirred, yawned, murmured something, and rested on her elbows. Atubur met her sleepy gaze. "Your amulet is blinking faster, Naahk," she said lowly.

  "Don't worry about it," he replied with a gesture of reassurance. "It will soon settle back into its old rhythm."

  "Are you certain, Atubur?"

  He managed a brief laugh. "There won't be any certainty until after the landing."

  The Naahk brought a cup of Huccar drink to his beloved. They dressed slowly and silently. Atubur Nutai gradually realized that he had been able to repress his unease and fear with the bliss of passionate coupling for only a short time. The plan to go into orbit around the planet was perhaps beyond his capabilities; the remaining ability of a very old man who forgot some lines and paragraphs of his own story every twenty years was not enough.

  "But ... we will have a good landing, won't we?" Nydele asked in a whisper.

  "I'm seeing to it, and—a hundred and more Lemcharoys are doing nothing but planning and working for it."

  The Naahk emptied his cup, stroked Nydele's shoulders thoughtfully, and went down into the control center. He took his fear with him and closed the door behind him. He could concentrate his attention on every single movement, every single adjustment of the controls. Within the framework of the Ship, within the remnants of a hierarchical organization, genuine solidarity reigned. Resistance against a system of just one thousand individuals that found itself dissolving would have been grotesque; the pressure of social control made for a balanced way of life and for a sense that assigned tasks should not be neglected.

  In an hour, the inertial absorbers would be switched on once more and put into full operation. The Net constantly displayed an inset that counted down the remaining time.

  After the LEMCHA OVIR's next braking phase had been completed, Atubur Nutai had laboriously confirmed with the computer's help that the ship's course continued to lead them within range of the planet's gravitational field. He then returned to his quarters. He hated climbing steps, especially on the hard metal plates of the spiral staircase that caused pain in his joints with each step he took. He sat down at his desk, which was integrated with the metal structure of the wall. The desk was an ancient and magnificent piece of handcrafted art and an inheritance from his grandparents. It was made of some exotic wood with inlays of precious metals and the shells of deep-sea mussels. He pressed a few buttons within the secret drawer, then lifted up the desktop.

  He had hardly stretched out on the bed when Chibis-Nydele brought him a cup of Huccar. He drained it with small, careful swallows.

  He had worked too much and too long. Suddenly exhaustion and weariness settled on him like a heavy, wet cloth. He took his last look into Nydele's large eyes and her concerned face with him into a half-doze in which he thought he could control his dream. But this dream, in the course of which he would dig in the ashes of the past, would end in nightmarish terror.

  He felt as though he was lying in the warm fluid that filled Medrovir, connected to tubes and membranes, which within days would replace almost all of his bodily cells. He floated as though in his mother's body, alone with himself and the fading experiences of his long life. He was weightless in the fluid whose composition only the Legendor had known. Alone with his centuries as an "immortal." The effects of the cell activator and the nutritional and rejuvenating bath supplemented each other. Atubur Nutai remembered very clearly the dignified ceremony at which he, as one of a few chosen ones, was presented with the activator. It came with the camouflaging control ornament whose slow blinking was the only bright spot within the body-warm interior of the egg-shaped metal uterus.

  The memory of the Keeper was unclear. Nutai vaguely recalled having a semi-philosophical dialogue with a powerful, many-limbed being. A discussion about the future, the past, and the burden of the present. About mysteries, secrets, and forbidden things. Out of the darkness of the memory glowed three red eyes. Just as in the mysterious picture in his quarters. The Keeper, as the being called himself, would protect the ship in every way that was within his power.

  The Keeper and the Legendor, the protectors of the LEMCHA OVIR, seemed to have become as immaterial as Atubur's dreams. He drifted back and forth between wakefulness and memories while his body flushed away all the used-up cell remnants and with them many facts, bits of data, and certainties. The stay in Medrovir lasted ninety-six hours. Atubur Nutai found himself restored in small steps: younger, with tauter skin, full, black hair, bulging muscle tissue, newly grown teeth, new strength, faster reactions, and newly awakened sexual desire. Chibis-Nydele saw him as a younger self, as a version of a miraculous renewal, and she gave herself to him with greater passion than ever before.

  She was the only one who realized his deficiency. Each time when he reappeared rejuvenated, the older Lemcharoys admired him, but only Nydele experienced how he had to learn all over again how to bring the Ship under his control and to master it. And each time it was more difficult and took longer to become the knowledgeable, superior Star Seeker and Commander with all due authority.

  Despite the questionable "immortality," the day would come, far off in unknown space, unfathomably distant from Lemuria, in which the OVIR would have a strong and good-looking idiot as a Commander. And now that hour was close at hand. Now? He had to get out of Medrovir at once, interrupt the process of Minor Forgetting ... he woke up screaming from the doze, felt Nydele's hands on his neck and the edge of a cup at his dry lips.

  "You were dreaming again, Atubur," she whispered. "Wake up. I'm with you."

  He tasted the pungent sourness of the ice-cold Huccar on his tongue and abruptly opened his eyes.

  "Yes, dreaming," he muttered half-coherently. "Just a bad dream. It will probably be one of the last."

  He sat up and returned to the present, to a time without a Keeper or a Legendor, and with a 1000-person crew.

  Five days before the calculated time of the last braking maneuver, activity seemed to have reached its peak. All the neutrino para-guiders had done their best. The particle stream from the red sun had struck the LEMCHA OVIR hard, no less so than its gravitational field. Starting from a continuous running at one gravity, the absorbers had been accelerated to a maximum of eight gravities five times. Five times the gravity had changed: the walls had suddenly become the floor, and despite all the precautions, trees had been torn loose in the hydroponics and the troughs overturned. There was no more ice in the tanks. The pilots, co-pilots, and selected passengers for the four shuttles' were prepared. All the carbon dioxide tanks had been emptied and all the important oxygen and breathing air tanks had been filled to maximum pressure.

  The data from close-range scanning and visual observations appeared in real time. Led by the Tenoy, who had to answer a multitude of questions, all the inhabitants of the LEMCHA OVIR had prepared for the landing approach. Soon they would set foot in an environment
of which they had only theoretical ideas and no actual experience.

  Only when the Lemcharoys began bringing their baggage and the selected tools and items of equipment into the cargo hold of the OVIR EDANA did Kalymel again have an opportunity to slip into the empty, icy labyrinth again. He had three, perhaps four hours before his absence would be noticed. Even so, he moved without haste towards the sealed hatch and there managed to split the welding seam with a saw and cutting torch.

  It was forbidden on principle to cross from one quadrant to another in places other than those marked. Of course, leaving one's own area was not prohibited, but the blocked and sealed-off zones were taboo. The dangers of damaging the Ship were too great—as the Lemcharoys learned as early as their first classroom lessons. Still, rumors filtered through apparently impenetrable steel walls. Something is there that we don't know about. Slowly and so far undiscovered, Kalymel had dared make his way to the storage room in the metal labyrinth; he had been foiled by impenetrable obstacles perhaps seventy times.

  Now he seemed to be directly in front of his goal. And no one had discovered him yet.

  He set the saw down. The remnants of the welding seam in front of him smoked and gave off a stench. The spotlight beam tremblingly illuminated the open interior. The connections and few moving parts had been carefully clamped fast years before.

  Kalymel rested the spotlight on the floor so that its light illuminated his working area. With the help of the crowbar, he forced the two halves of the hatch apart. Warm air flowed into the roomy interior of the airlock designed for smaller containers and cargo.

  "Done!" Kalymel determined with satisfaction that the plans had been accurate: the upper half of the outer hatch door consisted of a glass sheet. Not only that, the special glass had remained astonishingly clean. He picked up the spotlight, stepped into the empty airlock, and pressed the light against the glass sheet. The beam lost itself in the darkness and the vacuum of the cargo hold.