by Perry Rhodan
But he did not go mad. Instead, he realized what had actually happened.
The others had not grown.
Only he had changed.
He had shrunk to the size of a midget!
He did not ask himself how such a thing could happen. His tortured brain knew only one question: how could he quickly regain his normal size? If only he could understand the others! But their words sounded like the rumbling of a thunderstorm. Their faces were gigantic grimaces far above him.
He was now so small that he had fear of being trampled.
In the sand in front of him, he spotted a small hole. A cave! He ran toward it, between the legs of the men. He forced himself into the narrow opening. It grew dark and he had to switch on his lamp, which like everything else had also become smaller.
The shine of the light showed him very quickly that his flight had taken him straight into the arms of a new danger.
The burrow was inhabited!
A brown-furred monster attacked him.
Flashing canine teeth appeared in the glare of the light, then raced toward Bellinger. An angry growl could be heard even through the helmet. The lieutenant forgot his weapons. Desperately, he threw himself to the side. The bite of the burrow-dweller snapped on empty air. Even so, the impact of its body was enough to bowl Bellinger over. He fell with his back against a sharp stone that certainly would have seemed very tiny to a normal man. The pain broadened out from his back to his kidney region. But he had no time to think about it.
His enemy set to a renewed attack.
Bellinger rolled away over the ground. A claw raked his arm and ripped the spacesuit. The spotlight fell to the ground. Glass broke. It became dark. Bellinger's breath came in gasps. He quickly opened his helmet so that he could at least hear his adversary. He was able to determine his position more quickly than he would have liked.
The animal was directly behind the lieutenant
Bellinger knew that he had no time for another dodge. The creature sprang and knocked the man down. Bellinger's arms reached out in the darkness and grasped bristly fur. An angry hissing penetrated the open helmet. Bestial breath struck him.
Bellinger's gloved hands had reached that point on his opponent's body where he felt the neck should be. With all the strength left in his over-taxed body, he squeezed. Then he felt himself growing nauseous. Black circles danced in front of his eyes. Something lay on his chest, threatening to choke him.
It's all over, thought Bellinger. Then unconsciousness overtook him and wrapped him in oblivion.
• • •
Everson was the first to overcome his paralysis. The unbelievability of what had happened had left him almost in a trance. In front of every eye, Lt. Bellinger had shrunk until he was only 15 centimeters high; then he had vanished into the ground.
"Quick!" ordered the colonel. "Start digging up the sand. Careful—we don't want to injure him."
They fell to their knees and scooped the earth away with their gloves. Everson felt something soft under his hands. Gently he brushed the sand away. Then he had exposed it. His stomach turned.
"Oh my stars and little comets!" groaned Weiss, crouching next to him. "A rat!"
They looked at each other, and their faces were filled with an almost insane fear.
Everson threw the dead animal away.
"There, sir!" exclaimed a fear-struck voice.
Sternal helped him to his feet and pointed out in the desert 20 meters away lay a motionless figure.
It was. Lt. Edward Bellinger.
In normal size.
"Evil embodied!" shrieked Npln.
5/ WHIRLWIND SINISTER
In the Space Academy of Terrania, training was a rigorous business. And that was a good thing. Here, men—and more rarely, women—were prepared for life in outer space. They were shown with all vividness what was waiting for them out there. Only the toughest, bravest and strongest persons withstood the examinations. An individual had to learn to disengage himself from conventional modes of thinking, for the things that happened between the stars could not always be coped with when regarded in an Earthbound frame of mind. Only a flexible mind that could grapple with new ideas and concepts—negative or positive—could hold up.
The men who were now running through the desert towards Bellinger had only their training to thank that they could still form clear, reasonable decisions.
The lieutenant had opened his eyes and was trying to grin. His suit was torn in a number of places, hanging in shreds and tatters from his chest. The heavy uniform shirt beneath had remained undamaged.
Together with Dr. Morton, Everson raised the wounded man. Bellinger moaned softly. Sternal brought up an extra spacesuit.
"Bruises and scratches," said Dr. Morton after a brief examination. "Slight nervous shock."
"Nonsense," Bellinger puffed indignantly. "I'll be alright."
They helped him into the new suit. He refused to he carried on the stretcher next to Napoleon but when he stumbled after a few steps, he reluctantly allowed the robots to pick him up. The old Green did not seem especially enthusiastic about sharing his space and greeted Bellinger with some grudging remarks.
"Well," said Weiss after the lieutenant had been taken care of, what now?"
Everson instinctively raised his hand to wipe his brow. His fingertips collided with his helmet For a few moments he felt an urgent desire to pinch his arm to see if it were not all a dream. His mouth was dry and he felt a headache coming on.
"No one is going to say we've all been suffering from a hallucination," he began lowly. "Edward's condition is clear enough. Each of us was able to see how this man rapidly shrank within a matter of seconds. The shrinking proceeded in a proportional manner, which is to say that each part of the body was affected in the same way. Even Bellinger's equipment was affected. The stability of a molecular structure is constant but only in a relative sense. A molecular arrangement can be compressed or pulled apart but the system will remain the same. Perhaps it can best be explained by comparing it to photography. You can take a tiny picture of a man and blow it up into an enlargement that shows the figure in the same material substance." He smiled weakly. "I have gigantic size. And yet both photos show the same body, the same material substance." He smiled weakly. "I have no intention of trying to explain this unbelievable event. Every man who witnessed Mataars abilities on the guppy some time ago will agree with me that a molecular transformite isn't hindered in the least by the stability of a molecular structure. These beings are able to alter or reform any arrangement of molecules as they desire. This power would seem to be practically unlimited, except that we can assume with certainty that even a molecular transformite has his limits."
"So you think that such beings are around here somewhere, sir?" asked Landi, the communicator.
"All the signs point to it," Everson answered. "My guess is that Mataars compatriots are trying to make their presence known by way of what happened. Perhaps it was a warning. Who knows? None of us has been killed so far; while that doesn't guarantee that their intentions are peaceful, it does show that they are willing to accept our presence to a certain extent Let's hope we'll soon find out more about them."
He waved and the column started off once more. Napoleon pointed out the direction in which they were to go. Goldstein had stated that he could not perceive any alien thought-patterns.
In the evening Everson had the group make a halt Sternal suggested that they swallow Nova Vivo tablets and march on but Everson turned the request down. They had to budget their strength and an artificial stimulation now might have deleterious effects later. Landi made contact with the Mexico. Scoobey reported that the repair work was underway at full speed and was already showing results. More Greens had appeared in the afternoon and settled down near the ship. Dr. Lewellyn said that in his opinion they feared the wrath of the desert demons and were searching for protection by going to the strangers. Murgut, who had been given a flashlight as a gift, had remained inside the
ship. Everson decided not to tell Scoobey what had happened to Bellinger. He did not want to disturb the First Officer and thus draw him away from his work.
After they had eaten, Everson had the tents put up. They were made of feather-light plastic and were all but impossible to tear.
Napoleon refused to sleep in a tent. He dug a hole in the sand, grumbling and swearing at the robots. The robots, however, had not been programmed for conversing with Greens and did not reply. Shortly thereafter, Napoleon curled up in his hole and went to sleep.
That night a hurricane blew up of such proportions that any Terran meteorologist faced with it would have either gone mad or at least have decided to request an early retirement.
• • •
At first it was only a whisper, no louder than the gentle spray of bubbles in a freshly-poured glass of wine. Then it sounded like the pattering of uncountable naked children's feet across a stone floor. Finally it was a rustle, as though someone in the distance were stirring up a half-extinguished fire.
Everson came out of bis semi-slumber with a jolt. He reached for his lamp and switched it on. Weiss and Goldstein, who were spending the night with him, were sound asleep. The colonel looked at his watch arid saw that the night had begun only two hours before. They had laid their helmets aside because the evening air had been refreshing in spite of its poverty in oxygen. It had reminded Everson of his trips to the mountains during his youth. Now, although the sun had long set, the air was humid and oppressive.
Everson opened the tent window and looked out. A flood of hot air struck him in the face. Fine grains of sand pricked his skin. Now he knew the source of the rustling noise. The wind was blowing sand along with it and it was striking the tent wall.
The commander shook the other men. "Something seems to be brewing up out there," he said. "It'd be best if we prepared ourselves for it."
The unsuspecting colonel could not know that any preparation would be useless in the midst of nature unleashed.
They awakened all the sleeping men. Everson instructed them to double the tent anchoring and put their spacesuits back on.
The only difficulty was with Napoleon. The native had been half-buried by sand in his sleeping hole, and Weiss, who had gone out to inform him of the new situation, nearly stumbled over him. The Green rewarded the biologist with curses, shook himself like a dog corning out of the water and finally followed Weiss back to the tents, cursing all the while.
"There seems to be a sandstorm coming on," Everson said into his helmet microphone when Napoleon stood before him. The old native did not react. Everson rearranged the hopeless confusion of microphones and loudspeakers around the bird-creature's neck, tapped out the sand and tried again.
"Of course it's a sandstorm," said Napoleon, irritated. He raised his withered basket-head testingly to the wind.
"What should we do?" asked the spaceman.
The native clicked his beak contemptuously. "Wait," he said categorically. "what else?"
Everson shrugged. Even the crankiest old Terran would be a kindly senior citizen next to this withered, ancient alien. Either Napoleon suffered from an excess of bile or he had a hopeless case of hardening of the arteries. In any event, the Green was at the moment no more than a quarrelsome, thin old bag of bones from which no useful advice could be expected.
"Everybody back in the tents," Everson ordered. "Perhaps it won't be as bad as we fear."
The wind had already reached a considerable strength and was stubbornly shaking the simple shelters. The plastic of the tents bulged and strained against the wind. The lights of the spacemen flashed in the darkness.
Weiss and Goldstein were already in the tent when Everson crawled back to his sleeping place.
"I hope the fastenings hold," said the mutant. "I just opened my helmet and the rattling of the tent walls sounds like pistol shots."
Everson crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at the peaked ceiling. A lamp offered an irregular light.
Suddenly Everson saw the tent roof beginning to turn. There seemed to be two giant hands at work that seemingly wanted to twist the tent like a wet rag. The colonel was on his feet at once.
"Hold tight," he called. In the light of the lamp he saw that the men were sitting up. Then the beginning hurricane had so deformed the tent that it closed in on Everson from all sides. He felt the force of the wind threatening to demolish him. He grew confused in the folds of the plastic. And then the three of them had dug their way free of the tent. The storm blew everything with it. Everson's hands, feeling for different objects, grasped emptiness.
"Stay together!" ordered the colonel, who had grown grey in many years of service.
The air blew with such force that it pressed the spacesuit fabric against the skin wherever it struck the body fully. Everson switched on his lamp. The light was virtually entirely absorbed by the blowing sand, reaching no more than two or three meters. Two sudden gusts in rapid succession threw Everson down. He didn't dare try to stand up again. Instead he crawled along on his knees. It seemed to him that the ground was vibrating under his hands. Weiss crawled next to him. The telepath had vanished, evidently blown some distance away by the gusts of wind. A tent came flying through the air, hitting Everson's helmet and almost ripping it away from his head. A stabbing pain bored into his neck. Any further movement would be useless. He pressed himself flat into the sand and dug for a handhold.
"Everyone stay where he is," he called into the microphone. That would certainly not be so simple for some men but the order would prevent everyone from wandering around senselessly in the darkness, looking for a safe place.
The pain ran like a blazing fire along Everson's back. He had the feeling of lying on a huge, rotating disc. Involuntarily he let out a cry. He realized with growing terror that his feeling had not been a simple case of imagination.
The ground was moving!
The colonel had no time to ponder the meaning of the phenomenon. He had his hands full trying to hold himself fast and resist the storm.
"Glord!" someone shouted. "The ground's starting to spin!"
The increasing speed of the rotation produced a centrifugal force that together with the raging wind was enough to send Everson sliding over the sand as if it were a sheet of ice. Desperately he struggled to find a handhold. A separated piece of the desert was whirling about like a top and on its surface 30 men slid around like insects and feared they were staring death in the face. Everson had the thought that his position was halfway between the imaginary middle axis and the outer edges of the top. Sooner or later the raging elements would inevitably push him farther and farther 'outwards'. Terrified, the commander of the Mexico thought of the possibility that there might be a suction force involved, forming a cone in the earth and carrying everything with it. That would mean that they were no longer on the surface of a disc but on the inner wall of a cone. Everson knew that such manifestations were possible on stormy seas but the conditions for such things did not exist here. Or did they? Couldn't the same forces that had played the grim game with Bellinger be at work here too? Were the invisible beings now finally striking to destroy the audacious Earthmen?
He would find no answer in this howling chaos. He would have already choked to death without his spacesuit. If he were really on the inner wall of a sand cone, then he would be drawn in slow spirals towards the bottom, middle core of the section and then expelled. His body was now bathing in sand. The pain in his neck had subsided to a dull pressure which increased to a stabbing violence at regular intervals. Although he was no more than a helpless plaything of nature unleashed, he fought on unflaggingly against its superior force. He lost all sense of time. There was a rushing in his ears, sounding as though be were standing under a waterfall. His teeth were so tightly clenched that they hurt. A hard object struck against his shoulder. He reached for it and succeeded in taking hold of the thing. It was probably part of the equipment and had been swept across the ground by the wind until it hit him. Everson w
as no longer a young man and the uninterrupted exertion was tiring him out considerably. He clutched the angular box as though he could obtain strength from it. Then, unexpectedly, something struck his helmet. Colored flashes blitzed in front of his eyes. His hands opened. He noticed that he was being driven on ever faster, then he fell into a bottomless blackness.
• • •
A buxom woman was busy folding white washcloths.
She did it with great care and her hands were continually smoothing out the fabric.
"He's coming to," said a voice.
Marcus Everson opened his eyes. A bright light blinded him. The woman changed into Dr. Morton, who was busy preparing bandages and meanwhile was ungently prodding the colonel. After several tries, Everson accustomed himself to the sun and could hold his eyes open.
He was lying in the sand. Around him were standing, lying or sitting the other members of the expedition. Their spacesuits made a shabby impression. Everson told himself that he probably did not look much better. He raised his head, then checked the movement at once because a penetrating pain ran through his neck. Slowly, his memory returned.
Once more, this time with greater care, Everson sat up.
The expedition or rather, what was left of it—found itself in a basin-shaped depression in the middle of the desert.
"Is everybody OK?" he asked with effort.
"Except for the injured, yes," answered Dr. Morton. "The tents and a large share of the equipment are gone."
He rolled a bandage up. The viewplate of his helmet was so dirty that his bearded face was difficult to see.
"Almost all the medications are gone, too," he added.
Everson found himself thinking of someone complaining of losing a tooth filling in the middle of an atomic explosion.
"Where is Napoleon?" he asked.
Morton looked at him sadly. "He's gone, too," he said morosely. "Sternal and Weiss have been looking for him but so far they haven't been able to find him."