by Hans Kneifel
Far ahead of him and below, he saw a shuttle wrapped in the exhaust flames, smoke, and steam of its engines. Judging by its tigroid coloring, it must be the LEMCHA PYXAL, piloted by Ascelin from West-Blue. He followed it on a parallel course, hoping not to lose sight of it. He leaned forward to see what was happening with the main section of the ark.
The instrument readings showed that the shuttles and the Ship were entering the upper layers of the atmosphere. Small scraps and fragments that were now completely in the power of the planet's gravity and their own high entry speed were starting to heat up. They glowed at their leading edges and trailed thin streams of smoke behind them. The remains of the OVIR's ring, hardly more than a third of what it was originally, was rotating slowly. It was also showing the first blazing effects of frictional heat as it headed for the planet's surface in a stable, aerodynamically supported but ultimately fatal angle of descent. A second nuclear explosion flared in one of the sections hurtling out hundreds of kilometers into the solar system.
A confused thought flickered through Kalymel's mind. We didn't have to give Lumena and Cada a space burial. Amias and Loris have just turned to dust in their sealed plastic tubes. Damn! Stardust ...
"May the Keeper preserve us!" Rasturi cried out. She sobbed uncontrollably.
His space helmet closed, Macaire remained apparently calm and testingly manipulated the controls to check the shuttle's condition.
Kalymel yanked his helmet visor down, engaged the pressure seal, and activated the air supply with a couple of quick hand movements. It made his vision worse because the transparent plastic had yellowed.
"O Legendor!" Rasturi exclaimed. "We're all going to die! If we had still been on ... "
"We're still alive!" Kalymel snapped defiantly. The exclamation relieved his inner tension. "And we're going to make a safe landing. That goes for you in the passenger compartment, too."
He did not expect a reply.
The shuttle somehow flew parallel to the main section of the ark, but lower and a few kilometers ahead. Kalymel all but dislocated himself as he searched for what was left of the ring. The shuttle flying ahead and below was now wrapped in a cocoon of fire, as had been expected, but did not seem to be having any difficulties as a result.
The partial ring glowed at every projecting edge and at every piece of metal that had been twisted by the devastation. Now, nightmarish streams of sparks, flames, steam, burning objects, and everything flammable that had been shaken out of the gashes torn into the ark's hull, accompanied the fall, smoldering and glowing. Slowly a field of ionized gas formed in front of the leading edge.
Radio contact? Kalymel wondered. Impossible. Anyone who is still alive has more important things to do. And so do I.
The images of the terrible events would later pursue him through hours of tortured dreams. He continued to decelerate and saw the white, foaming surface of a circular swirl of clouds in the direction of his descent. The last thing he saw, before the shuttle's nearly streamlined metal body disappeared for several long minutes in the burning sheath of flames, gave him reason to hope.
One of the never revealed secrets of the Ship's designers was the question of whether the Commander had an additional rescue capsule at his disposal. Now Kalymel saw—as if it were really important any longer!—a short, stubby cylinder separate from the forward edge of the ring. It had probably been blasted from its shaft by a modest explosive charge, and was now wrapped in a system of balloons and stabilizing wings that had emerged immediately.
"Have a good flight, Atubur Nutai!" Kalymel murmured.
For nearly an hour, Kalymel struggled with the atmosphere, the handling of the bucking shuttle, the engines, and his lack of skill. He alternated between gliding and braking phases, and not even for a second had the feeling that he had really mastered it. But—without knowing or even seeing it, he circled the planet one and a half times. Still with a large quantity of fuel left, he managed to retract the landing struts and put the shuttle down at a nearly level angle on what appeared to be the shore of an ocean or a huge lake.
The shuttle struck the water with a terrific jolt, disappeared in a gigantic spray, and bounced off the surface three times. The engines spewed flame and smoke. Enormous fountains of water and a torrent of falling drops wrapped the EDANA. Finally, it slid jerking, rocking, and with a horrible cracking and screeching, several hundred further meters over a sandy beach to the edge of a forest.
Calm.
Stillness.
Silence.
Kalymel forced himself to activate the indicators and, with Macaire's help, compared the composition of the atmosphere with the air that they had been breathing since their births. Only then did he open his helmet, Rasturi's suit, and the shuttle's hatch.
"We're alive," he said. Then he pushed the hatch door aside and climbed down the ladder. He stood up to his knees in his own sweat. His entire body trembled, down to his fingertips. He looked around his new surroundings half blind, uncomprehending, unable to form a clear thought. Then he helped Rasturi, who seemed just as blankly unable to understand, down the ladder. When she stood next to him and started to speak, a muffled bang shook the air and the ground beneath their feet trembled slightly.
Kalymel looked over at the edge of the forest, which stood like a green wall. The occupants of the passenger compartment, smeared with vomit and their faces ash-gray, came shakily and confused down the ladders and stared at the battered and scorched hull of the shuttle.
"We've landed," Kalymel choked out, swaying on his feet. "And we will never, ever take off again from Mentack Nutai. Look around and do something that makes sense."
Icy weakness clutched his knees. He reached for a strut, slid slowly to the ground, and sat there, closer to death than to a new life, on the dry grass that grew in the thin sand. His first deliberate breath almost made him pass out. He yawned, fell over to one side, and did not even feel Rasturi's hands on his face.
Despairing screams pulled him upright.
The shuttle had emptied out in the meantime. The occupants stood unsteadily in the burned grass and stared up into the sky. Kalymel and Rasturi lifted their heads and saw long, glowing white trails of smoke that shot down from the blue sky and the clouds, thread-thin and slightly bent. There were some thick trails where Kalymel thought he saw dark points at the leading edges. They shot through the bright, vast speckled blue with the smoking signs of final destruction. Kalymel murmured despairingly, "That's the debris of our Ship ... "
He leaned back against the soot-covered side of the shuttle, whose metal was crackling as it cooled off. Every face that stared at him was full of fear, terror, and helplessness. Kalymel gathered all his self-control and attempted to express some rational thoughts.
All the passengers had left the shuttle. They stood in the grass and between low bushes, staring with hollow eyes into the blue of the sky and watched with uncomprehending looks as the clouds formed and flowed. Low, rustling sounds came from the tangle of plants, twittering and more rustling came out of the forest. No one spoke, some wept, others looked out at the distant surf or the nearby forest. They breathed the strange air blankly and without thinking, or sat around helplessly, as though they were waiting for some new catastrophe. Several women had thrown themselves to the ground and buried their faces in their arms. Their bodies were shaken by soundless sobbing. A group of men with pale faces stood as though paralyzed. The seeming endlessness of the landscape and the sky confused them, smashed the conceptions of the way things should be that they had held all their lives. This, at least for a short time, had driven away the terror of the OVIR's destruction.
Kalymel gathered his thoughts as best he could, stood up, and went to Rasturi. She stood unmoving in the trampled grass and looked at him as though he were a stranger. He took her hand, embraced her, and felt her tremble. Suddenly she threw her arms around him, pressed him close to her, and began to sob.
He stroked her hair helplessly. "We're alive, darling," he murmured.
"We'll manage it. I know ... everything is terribly strange. Don't be afraid—I'm with you."
Once more he could not believe his own words. He slowly drew Rasturi into the shadow of the shuttle, whose metal still crackled as it cooled.
The sun drifted between crystal-white clouds. A swarm of strange creatures with long wings flew towards the sea. Are these those so-called 'birds'?" Gigantic Hummers? Time seemed to stretch out into endlessness as a warm wind carrying unknown odors with it blew from out of the forest and moved the tips of the grass as though an invisible, giant hand gently stroked it.
"Not everyone in the Star of Hope will be dead," Kalymel finally said to the others in the group, after a small eternity of numbness and amazement that he was alive and the environment around him had not begun to kill him. "Let's first try to live through the next few days. I suggest that we get everything that's useful out of the EDANA. Maybe it will be able to take off again. Don't just stand around—let's get started!"
"What should we do?" asked a Kebroid.
"Where should we start?" Macaire took off his spacesuit and looked around. "And with what? Fire? Get water? Something to eat ... ?"
"I'm not the Commander," Kalymel said with the last of his strength. "We'll search for other survivors later."
He let Rasturi help him out of his spacesuit and wondered what fruits they would find and how they would go about hunting animals—going after living, fleeing, or attacking meat. They did not even have a large pot in which to boil water.
A second, larger swarm of birds with sickle-shaped wings circled low over the crash site. Majestically, slowly, hundreds of white bodies with red-black wings flew above the strip of land between the low surf, the stretch of swamp, and the nearby forest. The sight calmed Kalymel only slightly; he still did not have any eye for the beauty of the world on which he and Rasturi had been stranded. Later he remembered the radio and climbed into the cockpit to call Ascelin, the pilot of the PYXAL.
Thousands of Menttia, who had been gamboling in swarms in the highest levels of the sunlight-filled gas shell, heard the subsonic rumbling with which disaster announced its coming. Strangers never known before, energy never absorbed before, came from the edges of the solar system towards the planet. A colossus from the depths of space that could injure the planet, was reaching out towards the home world. Excitement seized the energy beings.
They glided and buzzed, long drawn-out spindles, like fish of the air, through the gas shell. They made their way to the planet's hemisphere towards which the mass of the leviathan in the ecliptic of the eleven worlds was heading. They crowded more closely together on their way downwards through calm and turbulent layers of air. A kind of energy osmosis took place in which the beings melted together into a collective intelligence.
Their thoughts, perceptions, and actions took place like those of a single, autonomous being, increased by the abilities of thousands of reasoning cells. Their senses and cognitive faculties were sharpened by the experiences of centuries.
—The gigantic metal body is filled with living creatures. They wanted to land on our world, but the asteroids have torn the space vehicle apart, and killed many beings.—
The collective entity followed the flight paths of the three largest fragments, from which more debris separated during the blazing finale. The Menttia remembered their world's first visitors. Many individual beings still lived who had been alive during that terrible time; some exuded their memories of a ghastly, long, drawn-out struggle. The vast swarm, virtually invisible in the glaring sunlight, sank down towards the planet's surface. Other physical information flashed through the mass intelligence and was transformed into abstract thought patterns.
—The enemies from the past have remembered our world and what they left behind. First we will observe them. Then perhaps we will feel ourselves obligated to act accordingly.—
The sun was the mother who nursed them and the shining source of their strength. They could feed on large portions of the solar radiation spectrum that reached the planet, along with much of the radiation that came from beyond the sun. Invisible, with the sun behind them, they followed the long trails of smoke, steam, and debris that accompanied the crash, and began to circle the crater that marked the point of impact. The destruction of the metal ring lessened the fear that they felt as a consequence of the memories—these were not armed enemies who had attacked their world, but apparently the pathetic victims of an accident.
—We will watch what the strangers do. They come from the depths of space and possibly bring with them, neither knowingly nor intentionally, malignant germs to our world.—
The Menttia of the Sand Surf, several million flame-shaped individual beings, floated in the air in which they were born and in which they reproduced. They knew that they were visible above the surface of the planet, but almost never on a sun-bright day like this. Those newly arrived visitors, confused and distraught as they were, would perhaps make out ghostly, transparent beings in lightning-fast movements, but nothing more.
—Wait. Bide our time. Observe. And react cautiously.—
Above the startled flocks of birds that circled over the main crash site, a gigantic swarm of transparent energy beings spun like a slow, silent, and invisible tornado.
5
The Castaways
The muffled roaring of the ultra-light engines faded away. The blackness of normal space replaced the flickering of hyperspace. The PALENQUE and then the LAS-TOOR came out of the hyperjump near the red sun, high above the system's ecliptic. Omer Driscol and Sharita Coho worked until they were sweating. The braking engines began to roar as the PALENQUE gradually approached the fifth planet in direct sublight flight.
The hyperdetection routine for approaching a solar system was running. Eleven planets appeared one after the other in the hyperdetection holo. As more detailed information was received, the more attention was concentrated on the fifth planet.
"Distance twenty-five million kilometers," Driscol reported. The planet dominated the main holo: three airless moons circled it in the light of the large red sun. Between the orbits of the seventh and eighth planets stretched an unusually extensive asteroid belt. The density, frequency, and characteristics of the particle traces in a narrow gravitational corridor told another story. Within a few seconds, Perry Rhodan believed he knew what must have happened.
As the control center filled with crew members and the Akonian cruiser's hyperdetection confirmed the observations, Rhodan turned to the commander. Driscol busied himself with the close-range detection, his excitement growing.
"This position corresponds to the starting point of the hyperdetection impulses," Rhodan said. "But there are only traces, no sign of an ark."
Just then, a signal sounded. "Total collapse of the paratron defense shield!" Huang Lee exclaimed.
"What's the meaning of that?" Coho demanded.
Bent over his console, Lee did not reply. His fingers danced frantically over the controls, as though he could bring them back to life by sheer willpower.
The PALENQUE was on approach in a wide orbit. A moment later, the LAS-TOOR confirmed the same interference. The message had not finished when the braking engines stuttered and also shut down.
"Proton-beam impulse engines have no power!"
Coho sounded the alarm. Kurd Brodbeck, the chief engineer, looked up from his console. "Fifty percent of the power is being drained from the metagrav engines. I don't understand it—it's some outside influence! I can't detect any concentrated rays or a tapping beam. It's as though the energy is disappearing without a trace into a higher dimension!"
"Strange. Understood."
For a fraction of a second, some rows of display elements on almost all the consoles flickered. The Syntron attempted to analyze the interference.
"Then it's impossible for our ship to land on the planet for the time being," the commander concluded. "The situation is serious. An unknown force has paralyzed our ship. Try to determine the cause of the system failu
res. Unusual conditions apparently predominate in this nebula."
"Someone or something wants to keep us away," Rhodan said. "As long as we don't know what's paralyzing us, we're forced to remain passive. We've emerged from hyperspace into the middle of a mystery."
"I've got something!" Driscol exclaimed half a minute later. "Surface detection on the day side. Conspicuous metal concentrations that clearly stand out from their surroundings. Could be of artificial origin—or ore deposits?"
"Metal?" Sharita echoed. "This is a planet for the crawlers. Two teams could launch! In a few hours we'll have data collected about the size of the system and the planets. Do the metal concentrations have anything to do with our loss of energy?"
The emergency systems had been activated. The microcameras transmitted everything that was happening to all parts of the ship. There were no communications signals, nothing that stood out, and nothing that could explain the mysterious power drain. The planet in the main holo rotated unchanged, almost imperceptibly slowly, half-lit by sunlight.
"There's nothing in the metal concentrations that could steal our power," Driscol said after a few minutes. "They aren't structured. They aren't devoid of energy either, but our power is flowing somewhere else."
Rhodan shook his head. "Or did we fly into an interference zone in the Ochent Nebula again? Let's wait a little while—we should take a look at the planet with the Space-Jet anyway. Without running any risks. Just a small crew. Do you have any better readings on those metal masses, Omer? You're sure they aren't some kind of installations robbing us of our energy?"
"Quite sure. Nothing out of the ordinary. But no reading that corresponds to the size of a landed ark."
"Can you determine how long they've been there?"
"Not precisely. Ten days? A month? Probably no more than fifty days." The hyperdetection specialist shrugged.