A Touch of Eternity

by Perry Rhodan

  The Sherbourne , flying farther ahead, could be made out clearly. The Druuf ship also slowed its flight so that both units could push onward at the same velocity. So the Druufs were holding off; they were not attacking any more.

  Outside in the corridor he heard a humming sound, then something dragging or sliding. He made a single leap to one side and got behind the door. Was there someone on board after all—somebody who was not a robot?

  A massive figure filled the doorframe and Pucky saw out of the corner of an eye that this apparition couldn't possibly be one of the animated beach ball robots. This was something else.

  He ducked back farther in order not to be seen immediately. It was not particularly bright in the room; the Druuf appeared to come from a world that circled an ancient sun. But aside from all that, what did it have to do with the robots?

  The massive figure rolled into the room. Pucky knew that a robot did not necessarily have to walk or stroll in order to move itself forward. This one rolled on small wheels that had been installed under its torso or trunk. This trunk was almost rectangular in shape, having four limbs on each side and two more before and behind. It did not possess a head but in its place were two waving antennas with gold spheres at their tips which emitted a bluish glow. Pucky thought he felt something like a mild electric current that flowed through his body and caused a tingling sensation. Although this in itself was no direct danger, it undoubtedly gave warning of it.

  The thing was a robot despite the fact that its actual function was not apparent at the moment. Now Pucky wasn't so much in a hurry any more to make the ship crash. The robot interested him. How would it react when it became aware of him, Pucky?

  Right now the thing was not aware of his presence.

  The colossus rolled into the room and came to a stop in its center. There it remained stationery and played its antennas back and forth. Were these its sense organs by means of which it saw and heard? On what basis did they work?

  Pucky attempted to pick up some information from it by telepathic means but the results were as negative as they had been with the tin-plated Humpty Dumpties. So then he tried it by means of psychokinesis.

  His invisible mental currents reached for the unknown horror and held it tightly. Pucky could clearly sense that the robot was aware of the alien constraining force and that it was trying to move. But Pucky did not yield. At the same time he came out of hiding and padded slowly around the monster, ever ready to take flight but striving to find out where the thing's front side might be.

  It was not an easy thing to determine. A person is always tempted to look for a face no matter how strange another life form or creature may be. Even machines generally have some kind of a 'face' but this robot didn't happen to have one.

  The 12 arms of the thing gave no indication of their purpose. On the ends of the tentacles were little spherically shaped protrusions which could continuously change their shape with ease. Sometimes they looked like hands, sometimes like grasping tongs, then again like little spheres with stumpy outgrowths. Apparently the 'hands' were composed of a flexible material whose form and shape could be changed according to any desired purpose. This was an advanced technique that even the Arkonides didn't know about.

  Pucky attempted to influence or even restrict the incessant forming and changing of these surfaces but wasn't entirely successful. Consequently he was also not able to prevent the sudden extrusion of a curious object on the end of the next arm in front of him, the purpose of which was not immediately clear to him.

  It had a faint resemblance to a 4-pronged fork, the points of which were aimed at Pucky. The instrument did not look exactly like a weapon but it wasn't a plaything, either. Pucky dodged slightly to one side while holding the robot's arm tightly in his mutant's grasp. But even his telekinetic faculties were incapable of influencing the sequence of events within the monster because he didn't know how its mechanism functioned. So it was that the sudden electrical shock came somewhat as a surprise.

  Pucky felt the fiery discharge race through his nervous system and strike at his brain. The resulting paralysis instantly froze his parapsychic capabilities. The robot was free. It turned around, softly humming, and rolled over to the motionless mouse-beaver.

  Pucky couldn't move. With a flash of horror the only thing he knew was that he had made the inexcusable mistake of underestimating an enemy.

  Then he saw the 12 arms reach out and grasp him and he felt the hard pressure of imprisoning clamps.

  • • •

  Ras Tschubai was considerably more fortunate in his undertaking.

  When he materialized he was rewarded for having concentrated on the Command Central of the Druuf ship. He stood directly behind the three spherical robots and was in a position to destroy them with a single shot from his impulse beamer before they could move or become aware of his presence. Before Ras proceeded to systematically destroy the control room, he decided to make a tour through the ship.

  Accordingly, he went carefully about his work but did not discover anything new. The various machines and installations remained a riddle to him because in spite of his hypno-schooling he was no accomplished scientist.

  He was inspecting a room where the walls were covered with turning tape reels and was trying to figure out their purpose when he heard footsteps approaching. One of the now familiar spherical robots came into the chamber. It manipulated a number of control switches and spent awhile checking various connections, then turned about and went out again without having noticed Ras.

  As he penetrated more deeply into the inside of the ship, the rumbling of the propulsion and power machinery became heavier and more intense. Then, after a short teleport jump, he stood in the midst of the vibrating machinery in the engine room.

  He leaped quickly behind a tremendous, silvery-gleaming metal structure and looked carefully about. At first he thought that the great room was deserted and operated by remote controls but then he realized his error. Gliding almost soundlessly on some kind of rollers, huge shadows moved among the generators and the giant switch panels, adjusting levers here and there and hurrying onward.

  Ras recognized them at first glance as being work robots. Their hands were multiple and varied in shape and application, enabling them to service and operate the machines. They possessed such a wide assortment of grasping equipment that it was not necessary for them to pull their arms into their body structure before shoving another arm out, as was the case with the smaller robots. There was, however, not the slightest trace of any of the actual Druufs—whoever and whatever they might be.

  Ras continued to crouch in his hiding place. Before proceeding with his destructive work he wanted to observe as much as possible. Any and all information was vital and could possibly be a matter of life or death.

  It occurred to him that his video-transmitter equipment would work here, now that the matching of the two time-planes had been completed. He turned it on with the touch of a button switch and spoke into it softly: "This is Ras Tschubai. Come in, please!"

  The answer came only seconds later. It was Rhodan himself. "This is the Sherbourne . What's going on?"

  "I'm presently located in the Druuf ship's engine room. Just robots around, not a single living creature here. I'll hold my pickup camera in a position so that you can see everything."

  "Wait just 10 seconds," ordered Rhodan. "Let me cut in the photographic pickup so that we'll have a record of this later. Our technicians will need time for studying the alien machines."

  Ras waited; then he turned on his camera. It was located under the tiny apparatus that he carried on a bracelet-like armband and wasn't any larger than a pocket watch. Very slowly, he swung his arm around for the camera to cover the scene.

  While so doing, he gave a short, running commentary: "These are still another kind of robots. It almost seems as though the Druufs have separately designed work machines for every purpose. The spherical ones are the officers because they seem to be very versatile. Also they c
arry weapons. I don't yet know, sir, what the Druufs look like. There's not the slightest clue here. Maybe Pucky is having more luck."

  "We don't have communication with Pucky. He does not answer our calls. Even telepathic contacts have failed, so far."

  Ras didn't answer. He raised up a bit in an attempt to aim the micro-camera into the most distant corner of the room. In so doing he made a small noise which was almost inaudible because of the machinery.

  Or was it?

  The normal movements of the nearest robot suddenly ceased. Its arm sank downward slowly. Then it rolled toward the African's hiding place.

  "They've spotted me!" Ras whispered urgently. "I'd better start blasting..."

  "No, wait!" Rhodan commanded sharply. "Teleport into some other room and return to the machine room later. We still need some more photographs. Leave your transmitter running. It won't be necessary to run a trace on it."

  Ras didn't have time to answer. The robot had rolled very close to his position and was reaching out with four of its arms as though to grasp an invisible enemy.

  And it did grasp—but only emptiness...

  Ras materialized inside a hall that was two levels up. The ceiling of the room was curiously dome-shaped. It was composed of some sort of milky white material across which a number of blurry streaks of color darted back and forth. Even while Ras watched them, the lines and streaks began to take on form.

  They evolved into a clearly discernible picture.

  In his brain he sensed a gentle pressure, to which he yielded involuntarily. Although he wasn't a telepath, he seemed suddenly to be able to read thoughts, because he was aware of a voice in his consciousness which spoke clearly and understandably to him:

  What you see before you, stranger, was reality.

  Almost simultaneously, Rhodan asked: "What's happening, Ras? Where are you now? Our picture here is blurred. Focus your camera..."

  Ras whispered: "Someone has spoken to me, sir. Inside my brain—telepathically. What shall I do?"

  Rhodan did not answer immediately. Then his instructions came through: "Be careful! It may be a trap. I'm not going to bother you now because I don't want to distract you. Keep on transmitting."

  The transmitting did not divert his attention. It was as though he had nothing more to do with the whole procedure. The voice inside his mind repeated its first and only sentence. Above him the picture became plainer. A planet whirled swiftly on its axis and orbited visibly around a yellow white sun. The whole thing gave Ras the impression that he was floating light-hours away from the planet, out in space, and as though he were watching pictures in fast motion.

  Then the image on the ceiling became larger and clearer. The point of view rushed toward the planet, which appeared to turn on its axis once every second. It required perhaps five or six minutes to complete an orbit about the sun.

  The planet became larger. Ras could make out continents and seas. Their shape was strangely familiar. Then the African experienced a sudden shock of recognition. The planet was the Earth! Ras Tschubai stared in horror. The Druufs knew of the Earth! They knew where Rhodan came from! The Earth's motions were accelerated 72,000 times. He, Ras Tschubai, was looking at it from the point of view of the Druufs. As to the time ratio, he himself had virtually become a Druuf. He as well as all the others who had come with Rhodan.

  And then he noticed something. At first he thought it might be an optical illusion but then—with each second of the Earth's rotation—he became aware that he was seeing correctly. While following the planetary movements, his eyes could clearly make out the continents—Africa, America, with the Atlantic Ocean between them.

  And there in the middle of the Atlantic was a smaller continent which no longer existed on the face of the Earth.

  Atlantis!

  Simultaneously he heard the alien voice again in his brain.

  That which you see, stranger, was a reality. It existed long ago but by your own reckoning you would call it but the fraction of a year.

  Atlantis—only a few months ago...? Tensely, Ras stared at the whirling planet and the flitting image of Atlantis which was visible each time around for only the fraction of a second. Each second was a day! But each day signified 200 orbits of the sun—more than six generations. Ras felt an attack of giddiness coming on. When—in their own time—had the Druufs taken these pictures? 10,000 years ago when the 2 time-planes intersected for the first time. Suddenly he realized what the fate of the expedition would be unless a miracle happened. If they only stayed a week in the time-sphere of the Druufs, more than 1000 years would pass in their own universe! There would be no more Solar Empire, no mighty realm of the Arkonides—and no Perry Rhodan.

  All would be gone and forgotten.

  In a sudden wave of despair, Ras Tschubai aimed his raygun upward and sent the destroying finger of energy directly into the center of the image of the swiftly circling Earth. The picture dimmed and died.

  In the circular hall, anywhere from 10 to 20 doors must have opened simultaneously. Colossal rectangular figures stepped forth, which would have been quite familiar to Pucky. Their antennas aimed at Ras and the gold spheres on their ends began to brighten with a bluish fire...

  But Ras was quick enough.

  Just before the paralyzing shockwaves reached him, he teleported back into the machine room. He stood squarely in the center of the room and opened fire on the switchboards, the rows of instruments and all the maintenance robots present there.

  Molten metal dropped to the deck. As insulators broke down into a smear of wreckage, blinding streaks of lightning jumped from one machine to the other. From somewhere came the sound of a detonation. Ras lost his balance and would have fallen if he had not supported himself against the shell of a generator.

  The ship nosed downward and raced toward the surface of the planet.

  "Don't lose any time!" shouted Rhodan. "You're going to crash!"

  Ras nodded grimly. "I know," he answered. He took one last look at the surrounding chaos and then concentrated for a jump.

  He caught a glimpse of an oval door opening in the background and two or three rectangular robots pressing through. He just caught a trace of the first shockwaves from their unknown weapons but the counter-attack came too late. They could no longer break his concentration.

  He jumped.

  The black ship hurtled irresistibly toward the rocky ground, where its sharp bow bored deep into the mountain, only to be torn to pieces a second later by a flaming explosion.

  Ras Tschubai materialized close to Rhodan in the Command Central of the Sherbourne.

  He was about to heave a sigh of relief but held it when he saw Rhodan's face. "Returned from assignment, sir," he announced matter-of-factly and he sought to determine by Khrest's and Sikerman's expressions what had happened.

  Rhodan nodded to him. "Pucky's ship has veered from its course. It's increasing speed and heading for a point that's outside the local solar system. Pucky has not answered us." He looked at Ras. "What could have happened?"

  Ras thought instinctively of the rectangular robots with their paralyzing shockwaves. Maybe the mouse-beaver had allowed himself to be taken by surprise. It wasn't like him to do that but perhaps he had underestimated the danger and relied too heavily on his amazing faculties.

  "The Druufs have fighting robots that don't use conventional weapons, sir. They produce shockwaves of some unknown force. Perhaps..."

  "Highly probable!" interrupted Rhodan swiftly, as he surmised what Ras was about to say. "They've caught Pucky." He turned to Sikerman. "Follow that ship. We have to find out where they intend to take Pucky."

  Ras fought against his fears. "Don't think I should try..."

  "No!" retorted Rhodan, refusing to let him go. "If Pucky is dead, your trip would be too late anyway. If he's still alive then he'll know how to help himself. In any case we'll remain in the vessel's vicinity so that he can make a jump—as soon as he's able to. And besides, this may finally put us onto the trail
of the actual Druufs."

  John Marshall stood off a bit to one side, close to Atlan. Until now he had remained silent. But suddenly he cried out, straining to listen to something inside his mind. Then he announced: "That was Pucky—just a short impulse. It was as if he had awakened out of a sleep and then lost consciousness again. It wasn't a clear thought message. It was simply—fear! Horrible fear!" Marshall looked worriedly at Rhodan. "I wouldn't want to be in Pucky's skin just now!"

  "Nor I," admitted Rhodan.

  His gaze wavered uncertainly for a moment, then steadied. He looked at the viewscreen. The black ship of the Druufs had become smaller but the Sherbourne was already picking up speed. The Crystal World dropped away beneath them and also became smaller. "Nothing is going to happen to our little friend out there. If the Druufs are actually capable of reading our thoughts, they are going to think twice before laying a hand on him or seriously harming him—because then they will also have to realize that I'll not rest or cease until I've swept their entire time-plane out of the universe—even if I go out with it!"

  Ras remained silent. Everyone was speechless.

  They sensed how deadly serious Rhodan was in his threat.

  5/ CHRONO-CATASTROPHE

  The Druuf in the giant ship said: "Repeat that report!"

  "We have caught one of the aliens, Master. He looks different than the others. Perhaps he is a servant. We don't know how he was able to get into our ship."

  The Druuf waited a few long moments before he gave his command: "Bring the prisoner to my ship. Quickly!"

  He switched off the connection, then remained unmoving in his seat for several minutes. After which he proceeded to make all necessary preparations for receiving the prisoner.