by Perry Rhodan
Perry Rhodan
Atlan And Arkon #64
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The Ambassadors From Aurigel
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1/ MISSION: PEEP
"I'm worried," Wee-Nii emphasized with his high-pitched squeaky voice. "Why did the ship stop reporting?"
Wee-Nii was almost two and a half meters tall and very thin. His appearance indicated that he belonged to the privileged class of the nobility. Only for noblemen who had never performed physical work was it possible to grow so tall and slim. Those others who had to toil were never permitted by nature to grow taller than two meters and had to keep their girth under 60 centimeters.
The man with whom Wee-Nii talked was of the same stature: Fij-Gul, Airfleet Officer of his Excellency the President-King. He was rather young and apparently little inclined to share Wee-Nii's concern. "What could've happened?" asked Fij-Gul somewhat derisively. "The transmitter could've broken down or something like that. I don't believe there's any cause for apprehension."
Wee-Nii made an uncertain gesture with the spidery fingers of his hands. "Believing isn't good enough," he objected. "We've got to know! And knowledge is precisely what we lack. Capt. Sey-Wuun has given us only very scanty hints about the inhabitants of that planet. He considered them to be completely harmless. He even told us that it is fairly easy to find traitors among them who are willing to collaborate with us for their own advantage; but otherwise we don't know very much."
"Except that we depend on them to deliver grain to us," Fij-Gul added.
The admiral agreed with an emphatic gesture. "Yes indeed! His Excellency must have valid reasons for limiting the rations of the Airfleet so drastically. If Sey-Wuun doesn't come back within 10 days we'll have to ask His Excellency for an advance delivery because our men'll no longer have anything to eat."
Fij-Gul walked over to the window and looked out at the city with its high-pointed towers and deep gorges of streets. "Sey-Wuun'll come back, you may be sure of that," he tried to calm his superior. "There's nothing those primitive people can do to him."
We-Nii spread his fingers again. "We don't even know if they're really so primitive," he argued. "Sey-Wuun has sighted the wreck of a large vehicle lying in the vicinity of their town. The agent he has won over assured him it was a spaceship in which the strangers had come to Weelie-Wee. Sey-Wuun gave orders to inspect it but his men didn't seem to understand much about it. They demolished some equipment to prevent the aliens from ever using it again but... well, I don't know. In any case, I'd be glad to hear again from Sey-Wuun."
Fij-Gul thought for a moment. "And if we don't hear from him," he asked, "what are we going to do?"
Wee-Nii looked at him, distraught. "I'm asking myself the same question. The wing of our Airfleet which serves in outer space consists of only three vessels which are in a class with Sey-Wuun's ship. If he has suffered an accident and doesn't come back with his ship, we have only two spaceships left. Would it be wise to send one of them to Weelie-Wee and run the risk that the aliens destroy or capture it too or whatever else they've done?"
Fij-Gul demurred. "I don't think we should assume that the aliens are responsible if Sey-Wuun fails to return. I've heard his report. In his opinion there are only a few thousand poor fools living on Weelie-Wee who've got trouble to keep themselves alive. If anything happened to his ship, it must have occurred during the flight. Perhaps it collided with a meteor or something like that. If these were the true circumstances, we would undoubtedly send a second vessel to Weelie-Wee. Don't you think?"
Wee-Nii heaved a sigh. "I hope you're right, Fij," he replied, "but I'm afraid you indulge in wishful thinking. You'd like to get your own command of a long-distance ship, wouldn't you?"
If Fij-Gul was embarrassed he didn't show a sign of it. "I don't deny," he said, "that I'm very anxious to obtain such a command. But regardless of this, I've good reasons to think that my judgment is objective. According to all the facts we know about the aliens, they're in no position to attack a heavily-armed and fully-manned spaceship of His Excellency's Airfleet, let alone destroy it."
"According to all we know," Wee-Nii repeated thoughtfully, mocking Fij-Gul a little at the same time. "If I knew for sure you were right I'd have no objections to giving you a ship and letting you fly to Weelie-Wee. The trouble is that I don't have the facts."
• • •
"Of course it's a donkish name," Chellish admitted, "but it's logical to call the Whistlers' home Peep. Right?" He crawled out from under the switchbox and wiped the oil, which had dripped on him while he worked underneath, from his face with his hand.
"I don't really care what you call it," O'Bannon muttered. "I only thought it would look funny if they ever list the name Peep in a star catalog."
From beneath the switchbox Chellish said, "I'm almost done."
"Done?" O'Bannon asked incredulously. "Do you mean to say this crate is ready to fly again?"
"It'll be as good as new," Chellish assured him. "We'll be able to fly to Peep and whop the Whistlers on the head."
"You're a rascal," O'Bannon said admiringly.
"Not I," Chellish retorted. "But the Whistlers are real donks."
"Why?"
"They just took some hammers and started banging away," Chellish replied emerging once more. "They had no idea which the essential components of the machinery are. They must be totally ignorant of this type of propulsion. They knocked a few holes and made some dents but caused no serious damage. That's why I was able to fix it so quickly."
"Hm!" O'Bannon grunted.
• • •
Mullon had parked the helicopter in the big cargo-hatch of the Adventurous. The hatch-door was one of the few parts of the wreck which still functioned after the explosion of the atom bomb had rocked the ship again.
There was no dangerous radiation inside the wreck. Mullon and Chellish had checked over the vessel with a radiation counter before they undertook the task of repairing the auxiliary ship of the Adventurous. They had found that it was not necessary to wear anti-radiation suits to protect them
Already after the first cursory inspection Chellish had claimed that the damage caused by the Whistlers was minor and could be remedied in less than 10 days. Now it was the eighth day and Chellish had promised to finish the job today.
Inside the cavernous hatch there was little light because the outer door had to be kept closed due to the radioactive dust whirled around by the wind outside. Chellish had hung up a portable lamp near the entrance in order to facilitate the manoeuvre of the helicopter. The shine of the lamp was barely enough to recognize the spherical hull of the auxiliary ship berthed in the rear of the hatch on sliding rails. All Mullon could see from the helicopter was a huge dark shadow which looked very eerie.
As Mullon waited for Chellish's and O'Bannon's return his mind dwelled once again on the opinion stated by Capt. Blailey who was standing by in a long-distance reconnaissance ship of the Gazelle type up in the mountains with orders from the Terranian Spacefleet to watch over the colonists and to save their necks if they were threatened by a crippling disaster.
"I consider your plan very reckless," Blailey had declared, mincing no words. "On the other hand, your entire existence is in jeopardy and in such a case it is quite understandable why you think up schemes that would give you goose-pimples under normal conditions. Nevertheless, you might get away with it if you're clever, but don't expect any support from Terra. If you run into tough luck on the planet of the Whistlers, you'll be strictly on your own. Terra wants to establish a base for our Spacefleet on their planet and one of these days the Terranian spaceships will visit the
m but I doubt that this will be at the same time that you need help to get out of trouble."
Mullon was rather glad to hear Blailey's words two weeks earlier. It had bothered him that Capt. Blailey waited in his Gazelle in the background and expected to extricate the colonists if they got themselves into a mess.
The mission against the Whistlers was their own business and they wanted nobody to intervene, regardless of how well meaning they were. Confound it!
Mullon realized that this was a rather puerile attitude but he felt that everybody-including Chellish-shared his mood and therefore had no qualms. He was quite satisfied with Blailey's admonishments and his announcement that the Gazelle had no intention of interfering with their trip to Peep. At worst it would imperil the lives of 10 or 15 men; this was all who were going to participate in the venture and they would take their own chances in the game.
He was startled from his thoughts when he saw Chellish and O'Bannon emerge from the shadow of the auxiliary ship. As they approached the helicopter with quick steps, O'Bannon called from afar: "Got anything to whet our whistle, Horace? We're thirsty!"
"Oh yeah?" Mullon replied good-humorously. "I bet you didn't even lift a finger."
He looked at Chellish after they had joined him and noticed that he appeared to be pleased although he could barely see his face, so smeared by dirty oil it was. "Is the ship alright?" he asked O'Bannon.
"It's fine," Chellish confirmed. "We can get aboard and take off."
Mullon raised his hand and warned: "Not yet; first we've got to get those makeshift bombs ready."
Chellish laughed. "I've got all the confidence in the world in Wolley and his men. They've made very good progress during these last days."
• • •
Wolley cursed profusely. "We're lucky that we don't have any newspapers on Grautier. People would laugh if somebody tried to tell them this is supposed to be a rocket with an atomic warhead."
Chellish and Mullon were amused by his angry outburst.
"I'm a first-class mechanic; at least that's what people always told me on Earth," Wolley claimed. "But this blasted thing here... I'd just as soon have nothing to do with it."
The thing had indeed not the slightest resemblance to the rocket which it was supposed to be. Instead of looking like a sleek, torpedo-shaped missile, it resembled a garbage can more than anything else. There were no stubwings or stabilizing fins. The container holding the bomb on top of the contraption looked like a bucket somebody had thrown away. The other end was open and inside a battery-driven electric motor could be seen and a gadget similar to a ventilator.
"What matters is that the gyroscope functions properly." Chellish patted Wolley on the shoulder, trying to calm him a little. "You don't have to worry much about the rest. This thing is going to be used only in empty space where you can forget all about aerodynamic contours.
"Oh, shucks!" Wolley muttered scratching his head.
The next man Chellish and Mullon went to see after coming back from the wreck of the Adventurous was Dr. Ashbury, a physician who now had become a chemist by force of circumstances. Ashbury was entrusted with the task of making enough oxyhydrogen gas to propel Wolley's garbage can rocket with reasonable speed.
To produce oxyhydrogen gas was not too difficult. Ashbury broke down water into its chemical components and filled separate containers with the oxygen and hydrogen. It would be far trickier to put the gases into Wolley's rocket and to put them under pressure.
After their visit at Ashbury's, Mullon invited Chellish to have dinner at his house, where they could find out what progress the 'commando team' had made. When they reached Mullon's house they saw Freddy, Mullon's wife, through the window, walking up and down the room gesticulating her arms; and when they entered the door of the house they could hear her pleading voice: "Expressions of belief, ignorance, doubt and so forth are followed by the subjunctive form of conjugation! Subjunctive! When are you going to get this through your thick skulls, gentlemen?"
Mullon opened the door leading into her room and was astounded to see nobody in the room except Freddy.
Chellish grinned. "You must have dressed down your students once too often. They preferred to leave."
"Oh no," she replied, annoyed. "I'm only practicing. These donkheads always make mistakes and I don't have the heart to reprimand them. So I've got to practice being stem like a teacher in school."
Mullon slouched in a chair. "Is it that bad?"
Freddy dismissed it with a gesture of her hand. "Not really. They've learned more in two weeks than pupils on Earth in two years. They're quite enthusiastic about it. Of course, nobody can learn to speak perfect French in only four weeks."
"But it won't be necessary to speak flawlessly," Chellish replied. "As long as the Whistlers hear another language than the one they already know. In most cases it'll be sufficient if only two or three men talk. My pronunciation leaves something to be desired but my grammar isn't too bad."
Freddy looked at him critically and changed the subject. "Are you going to freeload again here tonight?" she asked gruffly.
Chellish nodded. "Yes. I'm a poor devil who's got to mooch where he can."
"Did you do any good today?"
"Of course. I fixed a whole spaceship."
"So that it can fly again?"
"Exactly," Chellish replied.
Freddy suddenly was serious. "I know I should be happy about it but I can't make myself feel elated. How do I know that all this will end well?"
Mullon got up and put his arms around her shoulders. "Wait and see," he comforted her. "We'll be back in two months after raising so much hell among the Whistlers that they'll lose all desire to ever come back to Grautier."
• • •
Three months had elapsed since the explosion of the atom bomb had destroyed the spaceship of the Whistlers and now the expedition was ready to take off with 13 men.
A great deal of preparation had gone into the expedition. The repair of the auxiliary ship, which had been given the name Fair Lady; Wolley's trouble with the garbage can rockets, of which he had built two; and Ashbury's concern with the infusion of the oxyhydrogen mixture were only some of the problems that had to be solved before the start.
The settlers of Greenwich on the Green River now had two atom bombs available. They were made with the fissionable material taken from the reactors of the agricultural multipurpose machines furnished by the Whistlers. The nuclear material of four more reactors had to be stripped for the construction of Wolley's rockets to be taken aboard the Fair Lady.
A permanent radio connection with Capt. Blailey's Gazelle up in the mountains had been established so that Blailey could be kept informed during the time of Lt. Chellish's absence on Peep. Neither Blailey nor Greenwich would have any contact with Chellish on his mission but Blailey would still be in a position to come to the aid of the town in case of an attack.
A new script was developed as Chellish assumed that the Whistlers had not only learned something about their language but also a little about the writing and printing of the colonists. He didn't want to arouse their suspicion by using the same letters for the name of the spaceship on its spherical hull. All members of the team were instructed to write in the new style whenever they had to put down something in writing.
During the last days after Dr. Ashbury had overcome the difficulties of filling the fuel tanks of the rocket bomb with oxygen and hydrogen he became involved in many more requests by Chellish who wished to take a great number of other chemical concoctions on his trip. His demands as to quality, quantity and efficacy were far from modest.
It was a remarkable feat that all these preparations could be accomplished in three months. What helped to do the trick was the adequate amount of technological equipment the colonists still had available after some of the cargo aboard the Adventurous had been destroyed or rendered useless by its crash landing. But even with the best of tools the preparation for the start of the Fair Lady would have taken cons
iderably more time if the people of Greenwich had not been so dedicated to their cause. Few of them seemed to realize the risk they ran by virtually declaring war on a neighboring planet and thereby a whole alien race. They were swayed by their outrage against the humiliation they had suffered at the hands of the Whistlers who had believed they could degrade 8,000 Terrans as slaves.
However, despite the hurry with which they worked on the preparations, nothing was overlooked and everything was put in its proper place. All technical aspects were treated with such meticulous care that by all human standards a failure of the expedition was quite improbable.
The evening before the start Chellish and his friends Mullon, O'Bannon and Milligan went over again every detail of their mission. Each one had been assigned a special task for outfitting the ship and the other preliminaries for the enterprise and each gave an account of the work he had accomplished. After the last one had finished his report it seemed that nothing had been forgotten.
The Fair Lady lifted off early the next morning on the 16th of August of the new Grautier era.
2/ ARRIVAL ON HEENINNIY
Uju-Riel was the first to see the alien spaceship. He noticed a tiny fast-moving blip on his radar screen which he first took for some kind of a freak reflex because in his opinion it was impossible for a vessel to move as rapidly as the blip indicated.
Such interference reflexes usually quickly disappeared but the, point wandered across the upper area of the screen and moved out to the left edge. Uju-Riel was startled and he tried to compute the velocity of the object. The radar had picked it up at an altitude of 300 kilometers and the blip had taken about six seconds to get across the width of the screen. Therefore he figured that the object moved at a speed of approximately 20 kilometers per second.
The only ships which could travel that fast were the interplanetaries. Yet of the three such vessels that existed in their world he knew that one was at this time on a trip to Weelie-Wee under the command of Capt. Sey-Wuun and the other two were confined to their starting pads at Sielij and Heejii.