by Perry Rhodan
"How's that for a chain reaction?" Bell looked fretfully at Deringhouse.
"It's impossible that we could have been the carriers of the infection!" protested Deringhouse as he looked sullenly at his hands. "Dammit!" he exclaimed, which was unusual since he seldom used harsh language. "The spots keep getting bigger! Now my left shoulder is itching already!"
"I'm itching clear to the soles of my feet," grumbled Bell and he turned to the journalist. "So where's it hitting you, buddy?"
"You just said it, Mr. Bell. Everywhere! I've never experienced anything like this before in my life."
Meanwhile Dr. Haenning issued orders which placed medi-ship 3, the Nile and Springer ship UG DVI under quarantine. To this he added a proviso that startled all four men in Rhodan's office. The Quarantine Chief restricted the three spaceships from flying to any planet.
"I think you'd better explain that order, Doctor," said Rhodan a bit sharply. "I insist that you tell me everything, without considering my own infection."
Dr. Haenning's features hardened. "Sir, the present case is unprecedented in the history of the Solar Imperium. Three of my colleagues were working on this
infection while observing the most stringent safety regulations but they contracted it also. And now I, too, am beginning to itch!"
"Doctor—I suddenly have a suspicion of what this uncanny epidemic is all about," said Rhodan. "Can you conceive of robots also becoming infected with it?"
The physician stared at the Administrator as though completely stupefied. "Robots?" he repeated. "Robots pick up an infection, when they're made of metal? No, sir, that I can't conceive of! There's no such thing in medical experience. But how did you get that idea?"
"Only a suspicion, doctor. I'll go into it later. Issue a quarantine order immediately for Terra! No ship may leave, no ship may land! Any ships that took off after the Drusus landed must return at once to Earth. But if any ships in that category have landed anywhere else by now, strap the whole planet down the same as Earth!"
"Sir!" exclaimed Dr. Haenning. "What in the world is it you fear?"
Perry Rhodan's sudden calm now had an almost hypnotic effect. "I'll tell you that when I have the first results of the investigation."
He cut off both the hypercom and telecom connections, after which he inspected his hands with new interest. The pinpoint spots had changed to freckle-sized markings. Their swift propagation was frightening. For the moment the sharpness of the itching began to subside somewhat as the spots widened out.
"We've brought the death kiss of the Akons back to Earth! Yes, we, gentlemen. An insidious present—like a cobra by special delivery. They weren't just playing around when they set up that transmitter station on #7!"
"But what did they hand us through that damned thing?" raged Bell. "We didn't see a thing and even our robotechs didn't detect anything!"
"Which is not any proof, however, that something didn't come through the transmitter. Bell, don't forget the second shockwave with those camouflaged modulations. Doesn't it all make sense to you now? The Akons figured we could detect and analyze spacewarps of this nature—up to a point. They were also relying on us to operate in an irresponsible manner, which we did! And now..."
The telecom buzzed again. It was the Solar Health Authority asking for Rhodan. The gist of the message was that within one and a half hours after the landing of the Drusus five major areas of contamination by the unknown infection had been identified.
In the middle of this conversation, Rhodan suddenly tensed. "Bell, we've forgotten the transmitter station on the Moon! See to it at once..."
"Sir," interrupted the Health Authority official, "that precaution is too late. We are just now receiving a report from the Moon that's talking about a mysterious breakout of an infection which is causing violent itching of the skin."
It was then that Deringhouse groaned aloud.
• • •
Even the worst announcements of disaster tend to have a diminishing effect over the course of time if every message is simply more of the same. Twelve hours after the landing of the Drusus it became known that 21 million humans had been afflicted by the puzzling infection, on the Moon as well as on Earth. Places which were completely isolated from the environment and which evidently had no contact with any possible disease carrier had nevertheless reported breakouts of the infection.
This and many other instances made the situation all the more mysterious. Examination of the Drusus robots turned out to be as negative as with hundreds of other sick men. With the most modern means at its disposal, Medical Science kept running into a blank wall while the symptoms of the illness continued to change.
Why Dr. Koatu turned his hypno-gun on several songbirds he could not say and that the birds were also afflicted by the sickness was not a surprise to him. Since the city of Terrania had become completely infected by now, all restrictions on traffic and communication had been lifted so that Dr. Koatu was able to get to the Drusus without any difficulty. He was interested in the outer hull of the ship. His activities were reported to the Control Central, which passed the information on to the Chief.
"Connect me with Dr. Koatu!" Rhodan ordered.
But Poul Naya announced in a subdued tone: "Sir, he's left orders not to be disturbed by anyone."
In spite of the crisis situation, Rhodan managed to laugh. "I see. Well, my friend, it seems we've been given our notice. In the Solar Imperium the doctors are in charge now. Ask them to find the source of the infection soon, Naya!"
Encased in a spacesuit, Dr. Koatu moved across the hull of the Drusus at a height of some 300 meters. He was concentrating on the strange, smudge-like coating that had attacked the polished surface. So far he had not succeeded in even budging the smudge coating with his clinical scraper.
As he was about to float higher on his antigrav he noticed a place to his left that had a different appearance. It looked like a layer of scrambled gelatin. Having been long since infected, Koatu struggled to fight back the lethargy of his illness and finally he moved toward the strange substance with the irresistible zeal of the research scientist that he was. He immediately applied his scraper, only to draw back immediately in sudden fright.
Behind the transparency of his wideview helmet his features took on an expression of fear and horror. His eyes were unnaturally large and his lips trembled. As soon as he approached it with the scraper the mysterious layer of substance began to detach itself from the curving surface of the Drusus and started to alter its colloidal appearance. The material became clear as glass and seemed to be fluid, yet it was not affected by the vigorous winds at this altitude.
Koatu could not believe his eyes. This transformation of the 1-meter square area was a weird and unnatural process. What was much worse, the fluid glassy material seemed to be trying to deposit itself on Koatu's spacesuit! The research scientist had the impression that the layer of gelatinous smudge had sensed his presence.
When he switched his gaze from his spacesuit back to the steel surface of the hull, Koatu heard himself cry out. The smudge area was gone! Instead it had transferred to the outside of his suit, then it had reverted to its former appearance of scrambled gelatin—clinging to him in an uneven layer.
"It looks like plasma!" he heard himself groan aloud. He could feet his body trembling in horror, already weakened by the progress of his illness. A terrible suspicion began to rise within him.
Plasma: naked, slimy, formless yet endlessly forming; a viscous colloidal mixture of complicated endosperms and inorganic materials. Subliminally Koatu recapitulated all the medical experience that had become a part of his nature during a good decade of practice but the plasma clinging to his suit was different from all plasmoidal substances that he had ever observed.
A voice in his earphones suddenly jolted him out of his paroxysm of fear. "Hello, Doctor! Did you find something? You're breathing strangely!" It was Gentkirk, a colleague calling him from the clinic.
"Come and get me! The thing is
on my spacesuit! But come in a sealed spacesuit and bring a piece of bread with you!"
"Bread?" came the astonished query. "What thing are you talking about, Koatu? Is that sickness getting the better of you?"
"Come and get me—on the double, Gentkirk!" urged Koatu. "The monster is spread out all over the ship. But don't forget the bread!"
"He's flipped!" Koatu heard his colleague remark to someone else in the clinic as the connection cut off.
But a few minutes later the fastest aircar available raced toward the Drusus from the research department of the clinic. The two medicos in their spacesuits had brought along some bread. Koatu saw the grav-glider approaching as he still hovered there at 300 meters next to the curving hull of the Drusus. He hastily switched on his helmet transceiver.
"Don't land. Come straight to me up here and let me on board. Otherwise this monster will have us all! Too many men running around down there!"
"Sure, Koatu, we're coming!" Gentkirk assured him from the glider, while he looked significantly at his companion. Unlike the Chief Physician, they both figured that Koatu had lost his mind. Perhaps the sickness had already made greater progress with him than among the others.
Koatu came on board. "Where's the bread?" He was still speaking through the helmet radio.
Gentkirk pointed to his left where the bread was lying. "Do you see this stuff on my spacesuit? Take a good look at it! Soon the beast will... there, it's stirring already. It's sensed the presence of the bread! Look at that transparent plastic pseudopod reaching for the bread!" Koatu's voice cracked under the strain of excitement. He stood motionlessly on the spot and watched while the gelatinous smudge disappeared from his suit within 10 seconds.
But now Gentkirk and his colleague no longer thought that Koatu was insane. "And now?" asked Gentkirk, flabbergasted.
"So!" said Koatu as he pounced upon the bread that seemed to have absorbed the plasma. With his scalpel he shoved the bread into a special container that automatically closed and sealed itself. "Now it can't get away anymore!"
The doctor could not know that the creature was not without a name, for in the Blue System it was called Mal-Se...
• • •
Mal-Se was a protein creature or endospermic monster which was characterized by an insatiable voracity. It could actually detect and locate all protein-containing or albuminous compounds. When this occurred, an instinctive reaction in its billionfold colloidal essence caused the amorphous gelatinous thing to lift up and become transparent to the point of invisibility. Once arrived at this state it utilized its tracing sensors and moved with an uncanny swiftness to fall upon alien albuminous and other organic compounds.
"Sir," said Dr. Koatu, reporting to Perry Rhodan, "it is insensitive to vacuum, cold, gases and acids. It also withstands tremendous temperatures and cannot be destroyed with less than 24,000° Fahrenheit. In the short time we've had for our research on it, sir, we haven't been able to confirm this but it seems to be capable of traveling over its own hypothetical tracer impulses—a combination tracking and transport beam, if you will—at speeds up to 700 km per hour! Even at a distance of around 20 km this plasma can detect protein compounds.
"And, sir, it's a clear fact that this thing is the cause of the infection that's spreading over the Earth and the Moon. But there is not the slightest prospect of being able to contain it because the plasma increases itself at a rate of billions of times per second. We have calculated that it will take only 16 months till the Earth will be covered with a 1-meter-thick layer of plasma and no other life will exist!"
Rhodan, who had been marked by the infection like everyone else, could see by the disfiguring, clotted growths on Koatu's face that he was no better off than himself. The insidious, fungus-like blood-marks were spread all over their hands, arms and the body in general, providing nesting places for the plasma. Every second it ate its way deeper into the epidermis, thereby multiplying itself many times. This monstrous plague had only been rampant on Earth for 24 hours and yet a fifth of the planet's inhabitants had been stricken by the illness.
The Akons had indeed sent a deadly gift to Terra!
"They're trying to exterminate us like so many bugs!" exclaimed Bell at the end of the doctor's report. "Perry, they'll get away with it, too, unless there's a miracle!"
"The miracle can only come from Arkon, Reg. Now that we have the preliminary facts before us, I can call Atlan. He will have to question the robot Brain. But if there's no help for our own case here, then I'd say it will all be over within three months because our life expectancy with this infection can't be extended any farther than that. I'm calling Atlan now."
Using a special frequency channel that was reserved exclusively for instant contact between Rhodan and Atlan, Terrania's huge hypercom transmitter made contact with the Crystal Palace.
"Hello, Barbarian!" was Atlan's initial greeting but then he saw for the first time the disfiguring effects of the puffy blood spots on his friend's face. "Perry, what's happened!"
"All Terrans now need your help, Arkonide," replied Rhodan. "We have been attacked by an insatiable plasma life form. My face is an example of what the infected ones look like after 24 hours."
"How many have been afflicted?"
"A fifth of the Earth's population, my friend. And on the Moon it's the same situation. The only protection against infection is for a man to be wearing a sealed spacesuit."
On the viewscreen it was apparent that Atlan's reddish Arkonide eyes began to flash with alarm. "What do you know of this plague? Do you know where it came from?"
"It's a form of plasma that pounces on any kind of albumin compound or protein like a starving carnivore and it's capable of sensing food sources and is able to move toward them at speeds up to 700 km per hour. I must have brought this horrible thing with me from the Orion Sector on board the Drusus. Thanks to a lucky circumstance and the knowledge of one of our doctors, we have been aware, as of an hour ago, of what we're dealing with. But beyond that we know nothing more. Now do you understand why I've called you, Arkonide?"
Rhodan still refrained from telling the Arkon Imperator anything concerning the donators of this death gift or how the plasma creature had gotten from the Blue System into the Drusus.
"Perry, you are almost unrecognizable and you say that these symptoms develop within just 24 hours?"
"Yes. It starts with little pinpoint red markings on the skin. They itch very badly during the first few hours but then the spots begin to spread out. But instead of giving you these non-professional explanations I'd better transmit to you the results of our preliminary findings over the pulse-burst scrambler."
"Send it directly to the positronic robot on Arkon 3, Perry. I'll instruct it to ascertain whether or not any similar case is known to us. But what were you saying? Something about a death gift?"
Rhodan did not reveal his surprise. He knew very well that he had only thought in such terms but that he had not expressed the matter verbally. But before the question made him become suspicious he remembered his facial disfiguration.
Perhaps this was what had caused Atlan to make the remark.
"Atlan, whoever is attacked by this plasma has three months to live at the most."
In the course of the past 10,000 years the Arkonide had outlived all humans during his long sojourn on Earth and so he had followed their varied destinies from their beginnings until now. In the present moment he revealed the depths of his consternation. "Three months, Perry? Friend, depend on me—whatever I can do shall be done. By the gods, where did this devilish plasma pestilence come from?"
"From the seventh planet of the Betelgeuse System, Atlan, a world of methane gas." Rhodan spoke very carefully, seeking to avoid an actual falsehood, yet manipulating his story so that Atlan would be satisfied with the minimum of information.
"And what's with your mutants, Perry?"
Rhodan made a helpless gesture. "They look as bad as I do, Arkonide."
• • •
&nbs
p; In the meantime the Earth had suffered four waves of panic. Everybody remembered when the Black Plague had raged throughout Europe during the Dark Ages, causing fear-driven people to move begging through the land in large groups, which had only served to spread the epidemic more swiftly. All news and TV media urged Terrans to remain calm and to continue their work as far as their ailment permitted.
It was soon evident that the populace could be handled much more easily by straightforward explanations than it could by recourse to vague promises. During the first 24-hour period the southern hemisphere seemed to have been spared but then even that area began to report that the infection was making a sweeping inroad upon them.
Nor was Allan D. Mercant spared from the sickness but like Perry Rhodan, he continued to carry on with the responsibilities of his office. Before Mercant lay an astonishing report. The plasma entity had attacked the virus of the enteric paralysis sickness. Apparently absorbing the culture like a delicacy it had then proceeded to distribute its bio-genes in its place and so to multiply itself. The plasma monster's relationship to the other plague was reminiscent of the proverb that the Devil could only be driven away with Beelzebub. In other words, the cure was worse than the ailment.
Mercant contacted the hypercom station. He spoke to the Chief Physician on medi-ship 3. The latter vessel along with the Nile and the long-hulled UG DVI were still located in the same position in the depths of space. The viewscreen revealed Prof. Degen, who looked no better than Mercant. His face was also disfigured by the plasma infection.
"Just one inquiry, Professor," began Mercant. "What's the status of the enteric paralysis on board the Springer ship?"
"Mercant, how can you ask that, of all questions?" asked Prof. Degen. On board the clinic ship he must have leaned far forward as he spoke because on Mercant's screen his face overfilled the frame.