by Perry Rhodan
Perry Rhodan
Posbis #120
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KILLERS FROM HYPERSPACE
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1/ FINDERS WEEPERS
If Vicheline had been of humanoid abstraction he might have rubbed his hands satisfaction. However, since he was a Trox, as thin and as a transparent as a spiderweb, he expressed himself with a low sing-song noise that was somewhere just above his quintuple stomach. By the standards of his own race, Vicheline was an aristocrat, whereas a Terran might have called him a thief or a pirate.
The Springers on board Tus II saw in him a valuable support for their more or less legitimate enterprise.
At the moment, Vicheline's frail form hung from the ceiling like a delicate soap bubble that the slightest gust of wind might have have blown away.
"There it is!" shouted Tusnetze excitedly, and he gave his son a resound whack on the shoulder.
Although the patriarch was advanced in years he still possessed a considerable physical strength. In recent times, however, his clan had fallen upon misfortune, having failed to do business while losing one ship after another.
The Tus II was the pitiful remainder of a once proud squadron consisting of a dozen magnificent longships. The vessel was even older than the patriarch himself and whenever it labored its way from transition to transition it creaked and groaned and produced other sounds which often brought the sweat to the worried brows of Tusnetze's people. It had been three years since the Tus I had been lost. Tusnetze's elder nephew had taken off with it along with irreplaceable trade goods and the patriarch's youngest daughter, Tringars.
Tusnetze raved about it for weeks, he had suffered a nervous breakdown, thrashed his wife four times a day, and had shaved off his beard, swearing that he would only let it grow out again when his clan broke its evil streak of misfortune.
As for the remaining clansmen on board the Tus II, they could lay claim to a rugged set of nerves because in addition to putting up with the patriarch's black moods they had to live through the constant fear of a final collapse of the almost derelict ship. So it was no wonder that this reduced remnant of Tusnetze's forces was prepared to do anything to put an end to this shameful situation. Aside from Tusnetze himself they were chiefly egged on to a solution by Farosto the head mechanic. This may have been due to the fact that Farosto was in the best position to judge the state of deterioration of the cylindrical ship, and it caused him to urgently stress the importance of transacting a good piece of business somehow. In the mean time he had been thrown out of the Control Central at least six times by Tusnetze, who said that he'd kill anybody with his bare hands who dared to disturb his accustomed routine.
The only one who was spared from Tusnetze's fits of temper was Vicheline, the Trox. Ever since this pitiful-looking creature been on board, Tusnetze had seemed to be hoping for a miracle. The Trox had promised to lead the Springer to a place where he might take over an unmanned robot ship that had once been under control of the now destroyed Regent. Like every other Galactic Trader, Tusnetze knew that there were still a few thousand of these ships adrift in free fall or plying unknown courses through the galaxy, which were only waiting to be discovered by the right man.
Tusnetze considered himself to be that man, and when Vicheline presented him with the simple plan he had adopted it immediately. The Trox had met Tusnetze at the trading post on Vallord where the patriarch had been thrown out of a bar in a drunken stupor and had landed right in front of Vicheline's spindly legs.
"Help me up!" Tusnetze had stammered.
Since the Trox hardly weighed much more than 10 pounds against Tusnetze's more than 250 pounds, his efforts to bring the Springer up from the muck of the street were doomed to failure from the start. So Vicheline had squatted down beside him. He began in his soft sing-song voice to say something but finally waited until Tusnetze was capable of muttering more than unintelligible syllables.
Actually it was several hours before the Springer stood up. He was getting ready to turn his wobbling legs toward the bar again, where he said he wanted to drink over a deal. But at that moment Vicheline had turned his single red eye toward him and wore such a forlorn expression that the patriarch was momentarily sobered by it.
"What the devil do you want?" he asked.
The Trox, not having a firm balance because of a lack of backbone, kept bobbing up and down in front of him. "I want to leave Vallord, big man. Take me with you!" he pleaded.
Tusnetze's roar of laughter caused the Trox to back away in alarm. But then from a safe distance he revealed that he had gotten the course coordinates of the robot ship from a secret source. Since Tusnetze's latest debauch had brought him closer than ever to the brink of financial ruin, he was ready to grasp at straws such as this one that was offered to him now, and so he had taken the Trox on board the longship with him. To the astonishment of the crew he had treated his strange guest with the most preferential courtesy. In fact, Vicheline often crouched on the patriarch's shoulder, howling his senseless song while gazing about at the shabby equipment of the Control Central with his perpetually red eye.
At present the Tus II was poking its way about on the outer fringes of star cluster M-13 and its search for the robot ship had come to an end.
"There it is!" shouted Tusnetze again.
There was an awed silence in the Control Central because nobody could actually believe that the clan's streak of bad luck had ended. And yet such viewscreens of the space surveillance system as were working revealed a clear image of the spherical vessel. The Arkonide ship hovered there in the empty void, alone and deserted.
"You were right, Vicheline," said Tusnetze in a grateful undertone. "We've found the robot ship!" The Trox interrupted his singsong humming and drifted slowly to the floor.
"It is yours, big man," he whispered. "You only have to take it." The patriarch watched almost devoutly as the longship in this critical moment was guided closer to the robot ship by Farosto, who was serving as the pilot.
The bad luck had ended! The value of the Arkonide vessel was tremendous. The sale price would be enough to obtain two or three longships with first-class equipment. Tusnetze secretly hoped that his sons, nephews and daughters who had left him would return penitently to him now when they heard of this unprecedented windfall.
But Tusnetze was more of a businessman than a dreamer and visionary. When he analyzed his possibilities he had to confess that he'd face a number of problems before he sold the robot ship. The main difficulty was that the Terrans had their agents everywhere and they considered themselves to be the rightful heirs to the Regent's missing ships. However, he was confident that he could avoid such snags once he had hooked this spherical spacer.
The rising murmur of conversation in the room was suddenly silenced as Farosto heaved a sigh of frustration. The chief mechanic scratched his beard desperately but at this moment not even Tusnetze dared to distract him with a question. The answer would have been nothing but a bombardment of complaints over the condition of the Tus II. Farosto's feet scraped restlessly on the deck as he bent over the controls and audibly gnashed his teeth. It was inconceivable that the Tus II should finally fail them at a time like this. Tusnetze simply refused to think of such a possibility.
He watched the Trox thoughtfully as the creature weaved back and forth like a weed in the wind. The Arkonide ship was a heavy cruiser which according to the Trox was registered by the name, Hat-Lete.
Farosto ventured a low-voiced suggestion. "It would be better first to send over a prize crew in one of the shuttle boats," he said. "I think it's too risky to try the magnetic cables." With a disgruntled expression, Tusnetze turned
on the ship's intercom system and made contact with the hangar. He glanced once more at his chief mechanic who looked back helplessly.
"Sayan, this is the Patriarch," Tusnetze called into the microphone. "How many of our smallboats are usable?" The loudspeaker made a garbled reproduction of Sayan's voice as the words were almost drowned in a continuous scratching of static.
"You know very well what condition we left Vallord in!" complained Sayan, and the defective speaker made him sound more woebegone than he was already.
Tusnetze frowned and his face reddened. "I asked you a question, Sayan," he reminded him threateningly.
The Springer's reply sounded crestfallen. "None of the lifeboats or shuttlecraft is exactly in shape enough to make anybody want to go for a spin in one of them, Patriarch."
"Shut up!" rumbled Tusnetze. He growled so menacingly that Vicheline moved back from him in fright. "I'm not talking about a joy-ride, Sayan. Is it possible to repair any of them so that it could carry five men a short distance in outer space?" Farosto waved his arms like a madman to convince the leader that he should give a more realistic description of the distance between the Tus II and the robot ship.
"Number three could possibly make such a flight," replied Sayan hesitantly.
Tusnetze's face broke into a wide grin. The Trox hovered like a feather over the map table and his red eye gleamed with excitement. "Good!" said the patriarch. "Farosto and four men will fly over to the Hat-Lete." Farosto cut in the auto-pilot and got up from the flight controls, his eyes aflame with protest. "Nobody can ask me to do that!" he exclaimed. "That junkheap can die on me at any moment and then we'd be sitting in the soup! The Tus II is dangerous enough for me without sticking my neck out farther!" Tusnetze appeared not to have heard him at all. "One of the men to go with you will naturally be myself," he announced. "I'd like to see this fish at close range because after all it's our chance for a new beginning." If Farosto continued to refuse now he would have been expelled from the clan as a coward. "I always hoped that as an old man I'd die on board a fine longship, surrounded by my clansmen," he said woefully. "Instead of that I'll be ending my days in a lousy shuttle tub." Tusnetze did not seem to be moved by the pathos of the other. He knew that only Farosto could manage to operate the crippled smallboat. As a pilot the chief mechanic's skill was unexcelled except that his negative outlook and fearfulness got in the way of his capabilities.
But Tusnetze was not about to spoil his one chance in a lifetime because of the fears of one man. The patriarch knew he was up to his neck. He would really lose face now if this deal went wrong. He congratulated himself, however, for knowing this foolish Trox who hadn't once demanded any monies for being a partner in the venture.
Tusnetze smiled quietly to himself. Now he had disproved the contention of the clansmen who had left him, that he was cursed with bad luck and that he had gotten old and decrepit, incapable of accomplishing anything. Well, they'd soon be coming back to get a slice of the fat catch that he would be landing in not too long a time.
He pushed the past from his mind. Now he would think only of the future. He was so busy building his air castles that he was only vaguely aware of the orders Farosto issued to the hangar. It was only when the pilot shook his arm that his thoughts came back to the present.
"It's all set," said Farosto sourly. "Who's going with us?"
"Beschan, Gensor and Vicheline," Tusnetze decided.
Farosto stared at him incredulously. "The Trox?"
"Maybe you know somebody else on board with that name?" said Tusnetze angrily. "Or do you have another one of your ridiculous objections to make?
"Since the Trox has been with us we've been lucky. You can't argue the fact we might need an extra bit of luck to get back here on board again."
"Alright, Patriarch take your talisman with you," said Farosto resignedly.
"After all it makes no difference who gets to die with us." Tusnetze snapped his finger and Vicheline glided over to him. "You will stay by me," said the patriarch.
The red eye half closed confidently and a thin voice whispered: "We'll make it yet, big man…" When the Springer was first sighted by the Frisco's scanners, Maj. Reja Teluf decided to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed. After all the Trader ship was operating alone in this sector and besides it didn't appear to be a very up-to-date model. Teluf proposed to make a kind of sport of his chase after the Galactic Trader, a game where of course he drove the opponent into a corner but would not destroy him.
The Springer's target was undoubtedly the Hat-Lete, the robot ship that the Terrans had also tracked down. Teluf could well imagine that the patriarch on board the longship was already counting his profits he would be able to get from this illegal action. Politically or in terms of galactic jurisdiction, the robot ship belonged to Atlan's fleet but like everybody else Teluf knew that the Imperator would never be the complete master of his hereditary possessions. The giant brain had been destroyed, and without its assistance it was impossible to encompass the endless reaches of the galaxy.
The Frisco was a light cruiser of the City class which was only distinguished from the fast cruisers of the State class by its linear spacedrive and its heavier armaments. Under protection of its libration zone the Terran ship could make an unobserved approach to the Springer, whose attention was most likely focused on the robot ship anyway.
Teluf knew the trend of thinking of the Springer patriarch. He would regard the Hat-Lete as "cosmic flotsam" and feel he had clear rights of salvage. The Springer mentality had a way of stretching the meaning of "business" to include such unsavory activities as piracy, theft, smuggling, ambush and general corruption. In a Trader's vocabulary, "business" stood for anything that offered the promise of profit.
Reja Teluf was a fairly tolerant man, which was partially due to his own nature and partially to special training that he had taken in the Terran Space Academy. During his courses Teluf had been instructed in the customs and habits of other races and had been given as clear as possible an understanding of extraterrestrial mentalities. Teluf had been trained by top experts in their fields and had passed his examinations in cosmopsychology with honors. Now a major and commander in the Space Fleet, Teluf was a man of medium build with dark hair, a sense of humor and a generally jovial manner.
"They're sending out a boarding crew," announced Toss Galahad, who was the Frisco's first officer. "What shall we do, sir?" The small shuttlecraft appeared on the scanner screens as a tiny blip. The sensitive mass indicators quivered slightly in response.
Teluf held up his hand. "Let's wait a little longer, Toss," he said.
Galahad was a very nervous type. His left eyelid was always half closed as if he were short sighted in that one eye. In his cabin he kept a bottle of wine concealed, assuming that the crew knew nothing about it. But whenever he appeared in the Control Central with a flushed face everybody knew that Toss had "tossed one down" again. Even the major was aware of it but generously overlooked it since his First Officer was conscientious in his duties and was a man of extensive experience.
The distance between the Frisco and the Trader's longship lessened rapidly since the latter had matched its velocity to that of the robot ship.
Teluf called into a microphone: "Attention—fire control! Forward guns on standby. As soon as we come out of semi-space, open fire on the Trader ship."
"Brightman I hold you responsible. Keep the Springer's damages to a minimum. We want to give him a chance to escape."
"Very good, sir," replied Lt. Brightman over the intercom. "You can depend on us." A faint smile touched Teluf's lips. "All set, Toss. Drop us back into Einstein space and decelerate to relative zero." Galahad took over the main flight controls of the light cruiser.
It would be just a matter of moments now until the Springer would be driven off.
The first officer nodded to his commander and reached for certain keys on his panel. Three seconds later the Frisco broke out of its libration zone and the sound of the mighty converters
was stilled.
• • •
Vicheline was crouched behind Tusnetze's narrow seat and now and again he blinked anxiously ahead over the Springer's broad shoulder. Farosto was guiding the small spaceboat with a sure hand in spite of his steady stream of curses.
Beschan was sitting at the instrument panel although it was very doubtful that they were even operable. Only Gensor was idle, if one were to discount his activity of interlacing his fingers nervously. Gensor was afraid. He was more concerned with the danger of their situation than he would have admitted. After all, they were only separated from airless space by walls that were only centimeters in thickness.
"How are we getting on?" asked Tusnetze impatiently.
"Well, I could still give this coffin a worse beating," suggested the chief, mechanic grimly. "That will help to shorten our life expectancy…" Tusnetze felt it was best not to agitate Farosto just now. Anyway he was struggling as best he could.
"I feel sick," said Gensor.
"Just keep it in your gullet!" ordered the patriarch crossly. He turned to the Trox who had broken out with his monotonous sing-song humming. "Be still, Vicheline!" Vicheline's delicate little arms were around Tusnetze's neck and his one eye, which was disproportionately large for his body, seemed to flicker as if charged with electricity. Tusnetze growled his dissatisfaction and the Trox continued his low-toned humming.
The shuttlecraft gave a jerk and Farosto let out a warning cry. "Uneven power feed," he explained. "Let's hope that doesn't get worse!" Tusnetze had turned pale and he stared uncertainly at his pilot. A strange feeling was causing his stomach to churn and he began to wonder if after all they weren't taking too big a chance. He could have given an order to turn around but his pride wouldn't allow it. The small craft bucked again. Gensor's lips were two bloodless slits in a face flushed red with anxiety. Beschan just sat silently at the indicators and didn't let them out of his sight.