by Perry Rhodan
"It’s still harmless!" Drakont told them with a touch of sarcasm. "Here!" He picked it up and pointed to the safety setting as he smirked at each of them. "A pretty little Terran impulse beamer, don’t you think?"
The other three could see nothing pretty about it.
Drakont placed the weapon back on the table. He reached into his other pocket an pulled out a flat, encapsulated instrument case. On its surface were two circular areas, each the size of a thumbnail. One was green; the other was fiery red. "This is the remote control. Maximum range, one-thousandth of a light-second."
"What about the bomb inside the gun?" asked Mith. He had composed himself again but still regarded the impulse blaster distrustfully.
"In a three-km area it won’t leave one stone on top of another. But you don’t have to tell that to your uncle, Tro-lugo..."
Tro-lugo turned pale. Now that his uncle’s life was actually threatened, it came to him for the first time how monstrous their plans were. With inhuman callousness Drakont had suggested that he sacrifice his uncle in cold blood.
Drakont attempted to calm him down. "Everything has its price, Tro-lugo. Unfortunately the elimination of Gonozal will take a few innocent people down with him in the destruction but we mustn’t let that stand in our way. The existence of the Imperium is involved. It is vital for the rightful ruler to take the destiny of the Greater Empire in his hands."
This piece of fervent rhetoric failed to make an impression on the Ekhonide. "I don’t see why our plan to get rid of Imperator Gonozal has been changed. The original idea merely involved a demolition charge, so how did this miniature atom bomb come into the picture, Drakont?"
The yellowish eyes of the older Arkonide suddenly gleamed coldly. He leaned toward Tro-lugo and spoke in an icy tone." Because Carba, the future Imperator, has ordered it! Now if that isn’t enough for you, Tro-lugo, must I remind you of what you swore when you joined us?"
Mith had also been regarding the Ekhonide steadily and knew what he must be feeling at this moment. He tried to minimize the harshness of Drakont’s words. "Tro-lugo, you know we’ve all sworn to give our lives to this cause if necessary. When you consider that fact, your uncle’s death may not seem to be so terrible."
"But he’s not one of us!" objected Tro-lugo.
"Yes he is!" retorted Mith sharply. "He’s one of us even if he hasn’t sworn the oath. He has declared himself ready to remove the impulse blaster from the holster of this Terran John Marshall and exchange it for this one here on the table. Now am I right or am I wrong?"
"No—that’s right but..."
Mith interrupted him. "Has your uncle been on a leave of absence for some weeks now to be trained in the art of lightning-swift weapons switching or has he not?"
"Well, yes..."
"Does your uncle know that this Terran, Marshall, is a thought reader, or doesn’t he know it? Does he know that in attempting to arm the Terran with our specially-prepared weapon he will be placing himself in deadly danger or doesn’t he?"
"He knows these things, Mith..."
"So what more do you want? A few minutes after the exchange of weapons, Marshall will be standing in front of Gonozal, and with our remote control we will detonate the mini-bomb that will be in the blaster. But the fate your uncle will suffer then is no different from the one he has declared himself ready to face, in case Marshall detects him at the moment of the switch. In either case he’ll be dead. Are you still going to tell me that what I have explained to you goes against logic?"
"But isn’t it inhuman to show gratitude to someone for risking his life to help us—by letting him die?"
"If you give me this argument, Tro-lugo, I’ll have to remind you that your uncle is willing to murder Gonozal VIII..."
"But Gonozal is an Arkonide who has used the help of the Terrans to make him Imperator over the Greater Empire. This fact alone is enough to justify his death, Mith!"
"I agree, Tro-lugo, but where is the official court of justice that has sentenced Gonozal to death for this crime? We in the Thekus coalition are not yet in power. We may only act in an official capacity when Carba is sitting on the throne and ruling the Arkon Imperium. So we’re still in the wrong, where all revolutionaries have had to be—even when fighting for a good cause as we are. And the insurrection must always be atoned for if it fails. A true and honorable revolutionary must be prepared to give his life without hesitation but he must be equally prepared to sacrifice another."
"Well, there still ought to be some way of warning my uncle. After he switches the weapons he should have a chance to get himself to safety, Mith." Tro-lugo the conspirator was now begging for the life of his uncle, to whom he owed everything. The man had become a father image to him and had given him an expensive education.
Drakont had listened in amazement to Mith’s clever rebuttal and only realized now how shrewd the young Arkonide was. He came hack into the discussion, this time with a note of sympathy in his voice. "Tro-lugo, your uncle must not be warned. And we cannot make any plans for bringing him to safety in a fast aircar. The weapons switch is complicated enough without adding any more factors of risk. Each additional manipulation in the area of the Crystal Palace only creates additional security setups. Too many assassination attempts against Gonozal have been tried already and failed. So your uncle must be sacrificed. If we try to help him we are all endangered. Have you forgotten your three children, Tro-lugo?"
Mith was seeing something here that filled him with dismay. He realized that the Ekhonide was only half-heartedly dedicated to their common objective of over throwing and eliminating Gonozal VIII. He spoke to him now in a conspiratorial tone. "Tro-lugo, I don’t think we have to discuss the fate of your uncle any longer. In spite of everything, however, we’ll try to find a way to give him a fighting chance if..."
He got no farther because Drakont interrupted angrily. "Why make a promise you can’t keep, Mith?"
The young Arkonide stared at Drakont almost with open hostility. The pause between question and answer was one thought too long. The highly charged moment said more plainly than words that the three men were now facing each other with three different points of view.
Mith clenched his fists. "Drakont, I’m accustomed to keeping my promises and I’ll even make it clear to Carba that the pledge I make now will be kept!"
"But it’s insanity to try making an illegal approach to even the vicinity of the Crystal Palace with an air-car!" shouted Drakont.
Mith chuckled patronizingly. "When Tro-lugo’s uncle reports to the administration of the Crystal Palace that he is returning from his leave, how can he arouse suspicion among the robot guards and the Terrans if he happens to park a fast aircar in the security zone?"
"This John Marshall is a telepath! By the gods of our ancestors, Mith, do you still want to overlook that? In the past few months that mind-reading mutant has kept us on edge continuously and has caused us to move from one hiding place to another. Is it by choice that we’re sitting here now on this forsaken planet? And don’t forget how clever these Solar agents were in laying a trap for us with that Thekus robot! Even we who knew Thekus most intimately were taken in by their ruse and it goes without saying that Carba only escaped disaster by the skin of his teeth. So now you dare to endanger Operation Imperator with additional risk factors? Mith, you’re wrong. Carba will not go for it!"
Mith straightened up stiffly. "I trust Carba much more than I ever did Admiral Thekus, who was too snobbish and aloof."
Drakont was showing signs of weariness. Mith knew what was happening to him. He signaled to the two Ekhonides to leave the room but he got up with them and out into the hall. They left Drakont staring into space.
Mith spoke to Tro-lugo in a tone of slight apprehension. "Are you prepared to leave here in the next half hour and fly to ‘Zero’ in order to present the case of your uncle to Carba?"
"What ship do I use?"
"The one that Drakont came in."
The Ekhonide nodded.
The Arkonide waved a hand in negation. He nodded toward the room where Drakont sat daydreaming. "I can use you here better than Tro-lugo could, Haan. Drakont’s conscious will has not regenerated in the past few days. We can thank our gods that at least the House of Minterol has not yet been afflicted by these effects of degeneration. But if Tro-lugo is going to leave in half an hour I have things to do. Tro-lugo, you are not to leave without a message from me to Carba. My report,will help you to preserve the life of your uncle on Arkon 1."
"Thank you," said the Ekhonide with a sigh of relief. "When I’ve made myself ready for the trip I'll report back to you, Mith."
When he left he failed to hear Mith’s next remark to the other Ekhonide. "Let’s hope his arguments don’t rub Carba the wrong way."
Haan was thinking of something else. "And let’s hope that we’ll soon find out who murdered Jukan—and how much he told that Sol agent during his first contact. I have to concentrate on that mysterious assassination."
"Jukan’s death is also very much on my mind, Haan. But what can we do from here to get any explanation for it? We’re more than 6000 light-years from Trum where Jukan was wiped out. We can do nothing more than wait—and hope the gods of Arkon will not desert us."
"Hm-m..." muttered Haan. "You’re always ready with your gods when you want something from them. That’s the only time you Arkonides speak of them. I don’t know whether or not that’s the right way to live but anyway I’ll join you in hoping they won’t destroy Carba’s plan."
• • •
The hypercom receiver emitted a very short "pip". It would have gone unnoticed by an inexperienced ear but as a communications specialist for the Terran ambassador Julian Tifflor, Mike Inderwood noticed it.
He calmly swung around in his swivel chair to the vocoder. This was an ultra-modern device which could perform encoding or decoding processes on hypercom messages in a matter of seconds. The "pip" he had just heard over the speaker was no less than a highly compressed pulse-burst message which he’d been expecting for the past three hours.
The dispatch came from Venus where a huge positronic brain was located that was second in the galaxy only to the giant Brain on Arkon 3. The vocoder operated soundlessly. The many thousands of relays and registers beneath the case cover were a miracle product of Swoon technology, capable of decoding with incredible precision in a few seconds. By reading the line counter, Sgt. Inderwood could determine the length of the message.
"Galloping galaxies!" he groaned. "That’s a whole novel! 418 lines!"
With his right hand he had unconsciously pressed the alert button. This signaled to his three colleagues on the floor beneath him to get up to the Com Central on the double. To Inderwood’s right the positronicon started to work. Having been fed the decoded text of the message, it had started to evaluate its contents while simultaneously depositing it in its memory bank. The first strip of output tape was still warm from the light press as it fell into Inderwood’s hands. To Inderwood the positronic symbols were as familiar as handwriting.
Urgent, to the Chief—he read.
The Chief, of course, was Perry Rhodan.
Rhodan was on board his flagship somewhere among the stars of cluster M-13. The only one who knew of the Chief’s actual location was Solar Marshal Julian Tifflor, Terran Ambassador to the Court of Imperator Gonozal VIII on Arkon I. It would have been a simple matter for Sgt. Inderwood to call the Administrator on a certain frequency band but ever since the emergence in the Arkon Imperium of formidable resistance groups intent on overthrowing Atlan, it was only in the highest order of emergency that the Chief could be contacted directly, thus bypassing official channels.
But by the time Inderwood took the third output tape from the receiver tray and read it he had broken into a cold sweat. He activated a switch that established direct contact with Marshal Tifflor, regardless of his location on Arkon I. The small viewscreen above the vocoder flickered to life and the picture stabilized. Julian Tifflor appeared there and stared directly at his communications sergeant.
Mike Inderwood did not know whether or not the ambassador was alone. "Marshal," he announced cautiously, "it’s a Q-3." Q-3 was the latest code designation for a top alert condition.
"You may speak, Sergeant," replied Tifflor.
"Sir, we have a message from the Venusian positronic brain—urgent, to the Chief. The text is 418 lines."
While Inderwood was delivering this information he managed to compose himself again. He did not turn around when he heard the door open behind him and his three colleagues stormed into the room.
"Send the message through to me, Sergeant," ordered Ambassador Tifflor calmly. "I also want to be advised immediately concerning the evaluation results from the computer. Thank you." The screen flickered and the picture vanished.
Inderwood turned to his assistants. "Urgent message for the Chief, men—from the Venus positronicon. So get with it! The Marshal doesn’t like to be kept waiting."
The men turned to their tasks without any sign of nervousness. There were no superfluous questions. Each technician calmly took his place and fell to work. Once the redhead known as Blackard let out a whistle as he handed Inderwood a long narrow tape strip. It was one of the evaluation outputs. Action zone: Blue System of the Akons. Sub-division: Political reliability of the Ruling Council.
Although Marshal Julian Tifflor was still busy reading the long hypercom report, the sergeant put through another call to him. "Sir, we have the first preliminary results. Subject: Blue System, Ruling Council. Another sample of their usual love and kisses!" The latter comment was not a part of the information, of course, but the facts that he could so express his private opinion was a demonstration of the close relationship that existed between the ambassador and his staff.
Inderwood held the tape up to the viewscreen so that Tifflor could read it. The evaluation figures showed a 90.2% probability that the ruling council of Akon was in sympathy with all resistance groups in the Arkon Imperium. There was also an indication that the official neutrality of the Ruling Council would continue as long as Imperator Gonozal VIII remained in power. Probability:
100%! This meant that if Atlan were to be overthrown as Imperator the Ruling Council of the Blue System would break all treaties with Arkon and the Earth.
Within about 10 minutes after reception of the hypercom message the 418 lines of text were completely evaluated by the team, with the help of various positronic devices. In previous centuries such a task would have required an entire staff of Scientists but now a few dozen pieces of ingenious equipment were able to handle the whole thing.
Julian Tifflor called back. "Inderwood, pulse code the report. It has to go to the Chief in 10 minutes at the latest!"
Mike Inderwood didn’t look up from his work. While sorting the various tape strips he answered: "Sir, I’m already in the process. I estimate that once we check it the message can go out in just a few minutes. I’ll call to confirm."
"Thanks, Inderwood. How long will the dispatch be?"
"120 to 150 lines. Most of it numbers, sir."
"Good. Send me a copy. This will be classified T-9."
With that, Tifflor cut off his connection with the Com Central. Inderwood made no comment concerning the ambassador’s order to classify the message as a T-9, but Blackard was not as reticent.
"T-8, T-9, T-10! That’s all we get nowadays. Nothing but top drawer stuff!"
Just then a clear-text message came in from Solar Intelligence on Arkon 3. In spite of its lack of transmission coding; however, the words were scrambled so that it would have been unintelligible to an enemy station. The unscrambled version, read:
Murder of Galactic Trader Jukan cleared up. Jukan the victim of a mixup. The dead instigator of the Subbu swindle probably was a courier for the Thekus group. Hoga vanished after Jukan’s death. He either left the planet or has gone under
mental screening by Antis.
Signed: 12374.
Mike Inderwood had listened with only half an ear. The preparation of the dispatch to the Chief was taking all his concentration. He ran the end results through the checkout, during which process the positronics double-checked the logic. It required about ½ second to handle the 123 lines of words and numbers. A green light flashed for clear. Inderwood pressed the transmission button. Instantly the hypercom transmitter sent out the report, pulse-coded and scrambled, on the Ironduke’s frequency band.
Mike Inderwood appeared to be very discontented. When Blackard asked him about it he looked up angrily.
"We get the main traffic here in secret and classified messages but has one of them yet come in that contains some actual facts? All we’ve seen so far is guesswork and presumptions. Our intelligence hasn’t yet figured out why Lord Admiral Thekus was killed by his own people. It doesn’t know where Thekus’ nephew, this Carba character, may be hiding. It doesn’t know the size of the Thekus group. And as for the radical bunch who want to destroy Atlan and the robot Brain, our great Solar Intelligence organization is groping completely in the dark. Not even the mutants are making a move. Anarchy seems to be ruling on Arkon!"
Blackard waved off his complaints. "Mike, you’ve turned into a doom prophet! Just remember the case of Rhodan’s son, Thomas Cardif. He even got to be the Administrator and had all the power in his hands while the Chief was being held prisoner somewhere by the Antis. And how did that turn out? That’s the way Rhodan is going to handle these revolutionaries. Maybe developments at the moment are even favorable. Maybe this is just the first step in making a ready ship here."
The other two men had been listening with interest but even they didn’t know what Blackard meant by a "ready ship".
"I’m no politician," said Inderwood, "I’m just a hypercom tech. But I can well imagine that there’s going to be still more turmoil in M-13. Then one day Atlan will see himself forced to ask the Solar Imperium for help officially..."