Caves of the Druufs

by Perry Rhodan

  Therefore he had been taken prisoner by the Druufs. Where could a Terranian spaceship ever have fallen into the hands of the Druufs? Which members of the Terranian fleet were missing?

  Capt. Rous did not presume that he would have been informed if some ordinary soldier had somewhere gone astray. While that could be the case, Rous did not think that an ordinary soldier would be in the position to employ a gravity generator to send Morse signals.

  There were four people, however, who had been missed by mankind for 10 days now and whom they had been convinced were dead—taken by surprise by Arkonide bombs in the attack on Grautier. Was it possible that those four had escaped from Grautier and fallen into the hands of the Druufs?

  Capt. Rous examined his conscience. Had desire bred this thought? No. After all, as yet there was no proof that Perry Rhodan was really dead.

  3/ DESPERATE SEARCH

  The space sector in which the California emerged after a long transition through more than 6,000 light-years was swarming with the traces of alien spaceships. In the little ionization chambers which were affixed to the hull of the California to detect smallest particles, the residue of plasma fuel was producing a virtual avalanche of impulses. The crystal detectors, set for the characteristic emission wavelengths of plasma propulsion units, registered one flash of light after the other. The flashes were between 10 and 100 million kilometers distant from the California . For the time being, the ships whose propulsion units were emitting the flashed posed no threat to the Terranian cruiser.

  But this could change. To a space vehicle that effortlessly achieved an acceleration of 50,000-normal, 10 or even 100 million kilometers was merely a lark. However, from a distance of 1,000,000 kilometers the California would appear as a tiny plot of light on the viewscreen of the enemy proximity sensor. From that moment on their chances of getting away unscathed would be more than slim.

  The Arkonide blockade fleet that was to prevent any Druuf ship from advancing through the overlap zone into the Einstein Universe consisted of 30,000 units. It would be no hardship for the Arkonides to deploy a few hundred of these to pursue one single Terranian cruiser. The California was indeed swift and manoeuvrable but, for all that, relatively lightly armed.

  Conrad Deringhouse had placed command of the ship in the hands of Maj. Ostal. Clyde Ostal was what was called in fleet lingo 'an old salt'. He knew what to look out for on this mission. He had experience with the combat techniques of Arkonide robot ships and his hyperjump from Earth to the overlap zone, where two time planes meet, was a masterpiece of galactonautics.

  Deringhouse's taskforce was ready for action. It was made up of three men, if one didn't take the word 'man' too literally. Deringhouse himself, the teleport Ras Tschubai and the mouse-beaver Pucky, the most capable mutant of the Fleet.

  The three had put on their safety suits and were waiting for the California to reach the point from which they could jump directly to Hades with the help of the transmitter. The California was equipped for this undertaking, three transmitters resembling wire cages left just enough space in the Command Room for Maj. Ostal and his three highest officers to barely move about. For lack of any other place to sit, Deringhouse and his companions were already occupying the transmitters, watching the large panorama viewscreen through the open grid doors.

  The gigantic overlap front presented an awesome spectacle. From the position of the California , it could be viewed in its entirety. It looked like a thin cloud of glowing red gas that stretched straight across the firmament absorbing the shimmer of the stars. It seemed like a menacing monster that had set out to devour the universe.

  The red glow stemmed from the circular openings of countless funnels through which the energy difference between the Einstein and the Druuf Universe was discharging—simultaneously creating a bridge for transition between the two space planes. These discharge funnels were the only avenue for a jump into the time plane of the Druufs. Maj. Ostal's hypertransition into, the vicinity of the overlap zone had been masterful indeed but the California was still more than 15 million kilometers from the next discharge funnel and no one intended to jump straight into the unknown from a distance of that magnitude.

  Those were the deliberations that came to Maj. Ostal at times like these. Concerned and pensive, he scrutinized the readings of the tracking equipment. He knew that the California would be attacked if he were to start the propulsion unit even once. The Arkonides had not come to picnic in that area. They had their eyes open to prevent even one Druuf ship from escaping their attention and with those same alert eyes they would spot the propulsion glow of the Terranian cruiser. For the time being, the unpropelled California was moving through space parallel to the overlap front with the moderate residual speed remaining from the transition.

  Clyde Ostal swiveled around in his chair and looked at Gen. Deringhouse, who was patiently sitting in a transmitter.

  "We only have two alternatives, sir," he stated. "Either we accelerate with field propulsion or we bring the ship up close to the front with a short transition."

  Deringhouse saw the uninterrupted flickering on the projection surface of the crystal detectors.

  "Both alternatives are equally miserable," he answered disgruntled. "If we use field propulsion they will eventually position us, although it would enable us to watch what was going on around us. If we make a short transition they will not be able to position us but neither will we know what sort of hurly-burly we will get into. So as far as I am concerned we can flip a coin, Major."

  Ostal frowned. "I like to decide on the basis of logical considerations," he stated, "but this time there really don't seem to be any."

  Deringhouse stood up and emerged from his transmitter. He squeezed past another cage and almost had to lean on Ostal's shoulders to see what the detectors were recording. The optical recording worked on the same principle as a radar screen, the closer to the edge of the blip flashes appeared, the farther away they were from the California .

  Deringhouse observed for a few minutes. Then he pointed to the place on the screen where he had seen the least blips. "There doesn't seem to be much going on there," he commented to Ostal. "We might be best off to jump in there."

  "Unless," Ostal added, "an entire convoy of Arkonide ships is waiting there, unpropelled and motionless."

  "Right." Deringhouse agreed. "But we do have to incur some sort of risk whatever we do and this seems to me the lesser."

  Conscientiously Clyde Ostal began to recite the data on the projection screen. "25 million kilometers from our present position," he ascertained, "but only 80,000 from the discharge funnel front."

  "That is exactly what we need," Deringhouse said eagerly. "What are we waiting for?"

  Clyde Ostal hastily made all necessary preparations. The data was fed to automatic steering and the hyper-propulsion section was again made ready for takeoff. The men at the few firing positions were admonished to keep their eyes wide open during the following moments and the three advance troop participants in the grid cages of the transmitters made themselves as comfortable as possible to withstand the shock of transition without injury.

  The pains of distortion were brief and bearable. The picture on the panorama screen had changed in one fell swoop. The red glow had become less brilliant and darker and the mouth of a gigantic discharge funnel gave the impression of the jaws of a monster about to devour the small California . Glowing and quavering, the sinister mass was drifting towards the ship, its red walls pulsating in the equalizing flow of energy. Far in the distance the mouth narrowed to a brightly gleaming dot. The light in which the dot gleamed came from another world. The dot was the border between both universes. Whoever advanced beyond the dot would find himself in the time plane of the Druufs.

  Conrad Deringhouse leaned forward, got hold of the transmitter door and closed it. Pucky and Ras Tschubai followed his lead. The click of the locks was the only sound in the tense silence of the Command Room. Deringhouse bolted the helmet of his spacesuit.
His hand slid over the small control panel near his seat and with one Rick of the button the signal was given that alerted the transmitter at the other end of the jump route, in the cave base on Hades, of the imminent jump. Deringhouse knew that the transmitters on Hades were under constant surveillance. It could only take a couple of seconds for the return signal to arrive and to indicate the reception readiness of the other transmitters.

  Those few seconds almost sufficed to cause the failure of the venture.

  Clyde Ostal's voice and the alarm sirens howled at the same moment. Across the green surface of the large tracking screen the trace of a gleaming dot that had started at the edge of the screen was heading straight towards the center. Other dots appeared in the lower left, also moving towards the middle. The California was surrounded by Arkonide ships. The Arkonides had positioned the ship as soon as it appeared and were proceeding to investigate the cause of the reflex in their tracking devices. Since their devices normally had a range of 1,000,000 kilometers, the Arkonides could not have been any farther away than when he had positioned the California . That meant that he would be arriving in a few moments.

  Clyde Ostal interrupted the screeching of the sirens to make himself understood. Tersely, precisely, he issued orders. The gunners of the California received the command "Ready to fire", the operating personnel was instructed to be prepared for a renewed transition.

  Meanwhile, Conrad Deringhouse sat in his transmitter and waited for the green signal of the return device. His hand was on the switch that would actuate the hyperjump as soon as the way was clear. Through the grid door of the cage he saw that Ras Tschubai and Pucky were just as tensely awaiting the decisive moment as he was.

  Where was that signal?

  The California opened fire.

  The antigrav promptly absorbed the shock of acceleration which resulted from the impulse of firing. A bystander would not have believed that any shots had been fired at all: the only proof was supplied by a little bright white dot that suddenly lit up in the blackness of the room. One of the Arkonide ships had been hit.

  "If we don't get any signal within 10 seconds," Deringhouse shouted, "then take off!"

  Clyde Ostal nodded without turning to look at Deringhouse. His eyes were trained on the green tracking screen on which the reflexes of new Arkonide ships continued to appear.

  ... five... six... seven...

  Deringhouse took his hand away from the switch. The signal would not arrive in time, before the California's situation became critical. A single enemy shot glanced off the protective energy screen of the Terranian cruiser, causing it to light up.

  At the same instant the green signal flashed on.

  Deringhouse held his hand no farther than a few centimeters away from the switch. He let it drop forward and shouted: "We're off!"

  Then he depressed it. The switch gave way with a click and instantaneously the Command Central of the California disappeared for Conrad Deringhouse.

  • • •

  The room was pitch dark and cold. Perry Rhodan awoke with unfriendly thoughts about what the Druufs called their 'hospitality'.

  He straightened up and discovered that he had managed it effortlessly. At least the medication had kept the Druufs' promise: he felt no after-effects.

  Rhodan stretched out his arms and groped his way about, trying to feel the outlines of his prison. That was easy. The room proved to be almost square with a side length of about four meters. He could not reach the ceiling by jumping, which meant that it was three or more meters high.

  There seemed to be a door along one of the walls. Rhodan could feel two parallel joints. Moreover, there was an artificial gravity field, for the gravity inside the room was not above the normal level on Earth. Rhodan wondered about that. Since the Druufs imprisoned him in a cold, dark cell that contained nothing but himself, it was astonishing that they took the trouble to ease his situation with an artificial gravity field.

  Suddenly the idea came to mind that had originally occurred to him just as the injection had rendered him unconscious. He squatted on the ground and began to concentrate. He tried to imagine Fellmer Lloyd and after a few seconds he succeeded. Out of the darkness Lloyd's face appeared before him in a circle of pale light and smiled at him.

  "Where are you?" Rhodan thought.

  "In a dark cell," Lloyd promptly answered. "Four by four meters, pretty high, no furniture, cold, with a tightly shut door and a horrible stench."

  "Ammonia," Rhodan explained. He spoke the word out loud, as he knew that thoughts are formulated more precisely with the spoken word. He also heard Fellmer Lloyd's words as if they were spoken aloud but that was a sensory illusion. It was Lloyd's telepathic gift which called forth some semblance of resonance in his brain cells.

  Perry Rhodan was no born telepath. That is, although he had always possessed telepathic abilities, they were recessive. It had required hard training and the tutorship of an experienced telepath to awaken these abilities and to enable Perry Rhodan to put them to use. He was still a weak telepath who could receive messages only under very favorable conditions but his ability sufficed to communicate with another telepath.

  "Listen to me," he said to Lloyd. "There must be a way to open the door. The Druufs have no reason to lock us in all of a sudden. They know that we would never go out into the poisonous air on our own."

  Lloyd seemed to nod.

  "That sounds reasonable," he admitted, "but the thing has neither a knob nor a button."

  "Think of the table!" Perry Rhodan admonished. "You only had to step on a certain spot and it shot up in the air."

  "Oh, you think I only need to place my hand on a certain spot... then the door would open?"

  "Exactly. The Druufs probably don't even intend any secrecy about it. That is presumably their usual way of opening doors."

  "It could be, though," Lloyd interposed, "that the spot is higher than we can reach. The Druufs are three meters tall!"

  "We must try," Rhodan decided. "We can't sit around idly and wait for the Druufs to come up with something new. We've got to get out!"

  He sensed Fellmer Lloyd's quandary following his last remark. Anticipating Lloyd's question, he himself

  asked: "How long can you hold your breath?"

  Lloyd was startled. "I beg your pardon?"

  "I mean—how long can you last without breathing?"

  Lloyd got the picture. "I don't know exactly," he answered. "Maybe a minute or so."

  "Don't forget that you will have work to do at the same time," Rhodan reminded. "Still, that's a lot of time. Now pay attention. I'm going to detail my plan and you repeat each sentence so I know that the transference is functioning."

  • • •

  Terranians would have called the Druuf a 'Tommy'. His actual name consisted of a series of supersonic sounds which were inaudible to human ears and unpronounceable for human tongues.

  That he was a high-ranking dignitary was evident by the outfit he wore, which was designed for working in, for ray protection and for space travel, all in one. The Druufs considered dark grey the most magnificent color of all. Consequently a whole row of dark grey stripes were prominently displayed on the almost black suit of the Druuf to identify his rank.

  As different as the Druufs might be from humans, their thoughts ran along almost identical lines. This Druuf, for example, sat behind a monster of a table on which he had some work or other, applying most of his attention to figuring out how long he would still have to bear the inhospitable halls of the cavern base on the methane planet until he would be relieved.

  He had taken on the office of Commander of the support base because it would net him a promotion upon his return to Druufon. To this end, it had been necessary for him to spend half a Druufon year in the caverns. Now there were just a few Druufon days left to that half-year. His successor could be counted on to arrive at any second.

  The Tommy thought about how the proper confinement of the four prisoners and the prevention of an attem
pted escape—which was how he regarded the prisoners' efforts with the antigrav device—would favorably influence the assessment of his accomplishments as Commander of the support base.

  His four faceted eyes were glistening as he returned to the work lying before him on the table. A commission of high officials had announced their impending visit. They were to arrive in the methane world within a few Druufon days and it was not definite whether they would arrive during his term of office or during his successor's. The thought of having to attend to the needs of 10 or 12 inquisitive officials in a fashion suitable to their station was repugnant to the Tommy.

  But the notification also presented him with a puzzle. The officials were coming to question the prisoners. Listed among those scheduled to arrive were some names belonging to the highest aristocracy of Druufon. Why should such people go to the trouble of an uncomfortable trip to a poisonous planet—instead of having the prisoners brought to Druufon and questioning them there?

  The Tommy did not know who the prisoners were he had in his charge. They were turned over to him by a spaceship with the instructions that they were Terranians—or whatever the corresponding word was in the Druuf language—and that he must on no account allow them to escape. No one else seemed to know just who they were either. And the fact that the official commission had decided to come there for questioning indicated that on Druufon they not only wanted to keep the identity of the prisoners secret but the capture as such.

  The Tommy studied the list of officials for the second time. This gave him the feeling that he would have to discuss the problem with one of his subordinates. He reached for the small picture intercom standing in front of him on the table and pressed a button. The screen lit up and the com tone could be heard, a high whispering sound.