by Perry Rhodan
This was also startling to Ron. "You mean—the man at the dispatch station also took part in the attack?"
"Of course! How else would I have been able to recognize him again?"
Ron paused in momentary puzzlement. "Wait a minute!" he said finally. "I don't understand. How would you have been able... ?"
"I wasn't present, myself, at the moment of the attack," the voice interrupted. "But my Mokokis were swimming back and forth at the window. They saw the intruders and all I needed afterwards was to look at the faces they simulated for me in order to get a clear picture of each one of the attackers. Naturally there were four faces involved. I didn't know which of them belonged to the right man. So I drove to the station and watched for a while. I have a very good memory. The rest wasn't difficult."
As Ron remained thoughtfully silent, the voice continued. "Anyway, that's what I wanted to tell you. But your Mokoki also saw the attackers. In one of the drawers of his container you will find a packet of food marked Aa-ki. Give him some of that once every 15 minutes if you want him to perform. He will begin to mimic all of the faces he has seen in the last 10 days. Perhaps that may help you further in your search."
"Thank you," answered Ron distractedly. "That's really a good thing to know. By the way..."
"Yes?"
"I still don't understand why you killed the man?"
"Wouldn't it be enough for you to know that he was responsible for kidnapping an admiral and that he made an attempt on your life?"
"If you mean me personally, yes," Ron admitted. "But whose life are you referring to—yours?"
"Yes, so that was another reason for my action. He was the one who took a blind shot at the aquarium glass. He didn't care in the least what danger he was exposing me to."
Abruptly the red glow of the viewscreen vanished. Ron had another question on the tip of his tongue but it was too late. Evidently the Laurelian didn't care to reveal any more of his secrets.
5/ THE "FACE" OF THE ENEMY
Corvette K-3605 was equipped with every device necessary for Nike Quinto's pursuit of the robot Thekus. In fact Thekus was heard from again within a half hour of their takeoff when they were 200,000 km out from Arkon 2.
The situation seemed unchanged, other than the fact that Thekus' location was now stationary. His abductors had taken him from the spaceport to a place of safety. Quinto had ordered a preliminary trace on him and found out that the hiding place was somewhere in the northern hemisphere of the planet, in fact in sector 01-01110. To start with, this narrowed down the search area to less than five million square km, which wasn't more than a 128th part of the planetary surface. Moreover, Quinto could set his tracking equipment in operation as often as he pleased and narrow down the circle.
In the meantime Nike Quinto had changed his plans slightly. Shortly after his takeoff from Arkon 1 he had given the corvette's positronicomputer a few problems to work on and meanwhile the results had been delivered. The computer had combined the enemy ship's course and velocity with various other observational data and had concluded that the enemy must be very restricted in its movements.
At first glance this information seemed trivial. The people who had murdered the real Thekus and kidnapped the false one were obviously members of an underground movement. But it was only proper, one might say, for an underground movement to be restricted in its movements. However, not so trivial at all was the fact that the positronicon had revealed that the assailants had next to no support at all on Arkon 2. The computer had reached this conclusion because of the cautious manner in which the other ship had approached the planet. Apparently there was no one on Arkon 2 with sufficient revolutionary inclinations to "overlook" an incriminating blip on a tracking screen. The opposition's ship had been moving along in the stream of robot vessels and had peeled off when it was within 1000 km of the great robot landing field of Tourhathon. The enemy had gambled everything on the chance of not being spotted by any tracker.
On the basis of this information it had been easy to figure out what the enemy would probably be doing in the next few hours. He wouldn't remain at the spot where he had first landed. That would have been too dangerous for him. He would leave his ship and hide out nearby for awhile. If nothing happened after a certain length of time, he would continue his journey, this time by land, in some sort of simple vehicle. Probably he would interrupt his progress repeatedly to make sure that nobody was on his trail. Only then would he go directly to his own hideout and start interrogating or examining the prisoner.
Nike Quinto was convinced that until then quite a few hours would pass. He himself would have operated in the same way and he knew that Arkonide logic followed the same rules as Terran logic. In his calculations there was actually only one uncertainty factor: that was the possibility of one of the assailants being non-Arkonide—and therefore one who might make decisions on the basis of an alien logic.
The K-3605 landed at an alternate field which was auxiliary to the main spaceport of Tourhathon. In fact it was 50 km distant from the vast takeoff and landing center for the robot freight ships, yet when they disembarked and even during their ride in the glide car, Quinto and his men could hear the incessant roaring and thundering of the ships' engines. The night sky was as bright as day from the fiery display of the ionic propulsion systems.
The auxiliary port known as Tourhathon-North had its own administration area. It consisted of a series of long, rambling buildings in which offices had been installed. The people who worked in these offices had the task of keeping records on all shipping traffic in and out of Tourhathon-North. This was important because Tourhathon-North was a port for the Arkonide warfleet—even though hardly anyone knew this.
The automatic glider car seemed to know its destination exactly. It set down its passengers before one of the buildings under the glaring lights of the solar lamps out in front and Nike Quinto had hardly swung out of his seat before the wide portal of the barracks-like structure opened and a tall man in the uniform of an Arkonide rear-admiral stepped out and came in his direction. Colonel Quinto gave him a military salute but the Arkonide reached out his hand in the Terran manner and smiled at him.
"Forget that, my friend," he said. "I am not your superior and you are not my subordinate."
Quinto took the proffered hand and shook it. Meanwhile his companions had gotten out behind him. With a quiet hum the glider rose into the air and disappeared into the darkness. The admiral invited his guests into his office and received a report from Nike Quinto concerning what had occurred on Arkon 1. During the account his red Arkonide eyes often revealed a gleam of interest.
"It all sounds so fantastic," he finally confessed, "that it's almost too much to believe. To think that a Lord Admiral could be murdered at the heart and center of the Arkonide Imperium!" He waved his hands in a helpless gesture. "Here on Arkon 2 we first learned about it through rumors...and we've seen no signs whatsoever of any underground activity."
Quinto leaned forward. "Are you speaking of Arkon 2 in general, Excellence... ?"
"Of course." The rear-admiral smiled. "I myself have long since received my instructions. Your intervention resulted in my having been honored by a personal call from the Imperator himself. I was given the task of keeping a tight surveillance of all space traffic over the entire planet.
"And... ?" said Quinto pointedly.
The admiral clapped his hands together in a gesture of finality. "Nothing! Absolutely nothing. The traffic is completely normal. Not a single unannounced flight has been reported."
Quinto leaned slowly back in his chair. He tried not to show his great disappointment. "The conspirators are extremely cautious about their movements," he admitted. "Probably they can't be detected at all with regulation equipment."
The Arkonide gratefully took note of the mitigating remark. Then Quinto tried to explain why he had appeared with only three companions instead of four, as he had announced. He requested that after Ron Landry had arrived and properly identified h
imself he should be provided with a suitable ship and given further instructions.
"I don't know yet where we'll be by then," he added with a slightly helpless smile. "But in any case, Excellence, we'll keep you informed."
"Please do," answered the admiral.
Quinto still had a few questions he wanted to ask but he didn't get that far. Among other things he had wanted to inquire about sector 01-01110 to which Thekus had been traced. However the unexpected intervened.
A strange, high-pitched humming sound filled the air. Nike Quinto jumped up and stared at Meech Hannigan. At the same time, Larry Randall and Lofty Patterson also leapt out of their chairs. The Arkonide looked at them in amazement. "What was that?" he asked.
"We have to get underway, Excellence," answered Quinto, while avoiding the question. "If we could have an aircar..."
"Why of course," interrupted the admiral, very willing to be of help. He leaned over and pressed a button on the edge of his desk. "The car will be ready for you when you get out there."
Nike Quinto hastily spoke a few polite words while his men left the room. Before the admiral knew what was happening, he finally turned himself, and went out. The car was there as the admiral had promised. Larry Randall, Meech Hannigan and Lofty Patterson were already seated inside when Quinto swung into the front seat. He had hardly closed the door before the vehicle started out. One of the team had already given the address of the K-3605 before he arrived.
"Damn!" cried the colonel, furiously. "I didn't think they'd start working on Thekus so soon!"
• • •
Eleven minutes before takeoff, Ron Landry and the Mokoki were on board the ship that was to take him to Arkon 2. So far Landry hadn't had any call from Nike Quinto. It meant that the situation on Arkon 2 hadn't become dangerous—at least not yet.
The ship Ron was using was a government courier vessel. It was being piloted by a robot. Ron assumed that the robot wouldn't have any objections to his spending the time of the flight in the control room. Until now he had not had much opportunity to observe a robot pilot at work. Outside of experimental craft, there were no robotships in the Terran spacefleet. Ron was fascinated by the soft clicking of relays, the mysterious humming and buzzing of instruments and the ghostly racing and dancing of the colored indicator lamps. The flight console and the control room in general were so arranged that a human or humanoid crew could take over. The switchover from automatic to manual control was made remotely from the ground station. Only in case of a ground station failure could an actual crew attempt a manual override.
The ship took off and accelerated swiftly. Ron made himself comfortable in one of the seats. For awhile he observed the mysterious operations of the roboti-controls; then he turned his attention to the Mokoki. As if the creature were aware of being noticed by somebody, it swam close to the glass wall of its container. When it saw Ron it transformed its shape into a simulation of his face. Ron waited patiently while the Mokoki maintained this configuration for several minutes. Then the face dissolved and the animal resumed its ball shape once more. It revealed no inclination to imitate any other faces.
Ron checked the seven little drawers on one side of the container until he found the one marked Aa-ki. The drawer contained a grey, odorless powder. According to instructions he filled a small measuring cup with the powder and placed it in the feeding slot on the cover of the container. A few seconds after he closed the outer slot lock an inner one opened and the powder sank down into the glowing red liquid.
The Mokoki became active at once. It swam back and forth a few times through the falling powder shower. It was hard to determine if it had a mouth or anything similar with which to assimilate its food but when it finally retired to a bottom corner of the aquarium there was no more of the powder to be seen.
Ron checked his watch. In 15 minutes he would give the Mokoki his 2d ration. It occurred to him that the Laurelian had not said anything about the total quantity to feed the animal. Perhaps until it started to form faces? That seemed to him the most reasonable procedure.
During the flight to Arkon 2 he gave the Mokoki seven more feedings but with no results. The animal seemed to become more sluggish as a consequence of taking in so much nourishment. The only apparent reaction was that it was satiated.
Then there was an interruption of Ron's attention to the Mokoki because of the landing and the trip to the administration buildings at Tourhathon-North and his preliminary conversations with the Arkonide rear-admiral. He forgot to feed it again. Instead he had to concentrate on a replay of a tape of the meeting between Nike Quinto and the Arkonide.
He knew that he could trust this admiral. Gonozal VIII himself had directed Quinto to him. Moreover, he had no time to lose. He had to get in contact with the colonel right there on the spot. There was no time to wait until he was alone and undisturbed.
So he excused himself for a moment while still in the company of the Arkonide in his office. By depressing a button he activated the micro-transceiver on his arm, which operated on the hypercom principle. Both receiver and transmitter were set to the frequency that Nike Quinto had reserved for rapid voice-com with his men. Therefore it was not surprising that Quinto's high-pitched voice was heard as soon as Ron removed his finger from the activator button.
"Red hen to chick one," squeaked the receiver. "Come in, chick one."
"Chick one here," Ron answered. "Requesting instructions."
"Make a note: zero one, zero one one one zero; one dash one dash zero dash one dash zero. I repeat..."
"Thanks, I have it," Ron interrupted. "Confirmed as..." He read off the numbers from a note pad and Quinto found no errors in the repetition.
"I'll expect you as soon as possible," the colonel concluded. "Over and out."
Ron regarded what he had noted down: 01 011101-1-0-1-0. According to what he knew of the system of dividing up the surface of Arkon 2 into squares, the first 2 number groups combined with 4 numbers of the dash-linked group designated a region of about 500,000 square km. The final 0 meant that the area he sought was in the northern half of the square sector. It was still a stretch of 250,000 square km. Nike Quinto couldn't expect him to trace him down in an area as large as the former Great Britain.
He puzzled over the figures. "Excellence, I have a request. Can I find out in a hurry where this area..."
He did not finish the sentence because the Arkonide uttered a choking sound. Ron glanced at him quickly and was startled to see his eyes staring in fear at something. He was looking at the container that held the Mokoki.
The animal had begun to make faces.
• • •
"But—but that isn't possible!" cried the admiral, horrified. "Such a perfect likeness! Where did it ever see him before?"
Ron turned to look at the Mokoki. The face it was simulating was that of a typical Arkonide—lean and with a high, intelligent forehead. He couldn't recall ever having seen this face before.
"Who is it?" he asked the admiral.
The latter took a while to compose himself. "Carba!" he finally stammered. "Carba, of the House of Minterol!"
6/ WHEN THE ROBOT FAINTED
A half hour later the Mokoki was dead. Carba's face was the only one it had reproduced. Ron reproached himself very much for this. Apparently he had misfed the animal for otherwise it might have furnished many valuable clues. Of course there was also the possibility that the Laurelian hadn't wanted to get too much involved in Arkonide politics. For whatever reason, he had done Ron a favor, but that was the end of it. He had arranged to have the Mokoki die before it could reveal too much.
For Ron the question emerged as to whether or not this Carba of the family of Minterol had really taken part in the attack at the Laurelian's aquarium. It seemed incredible that a member of one of the most respected families of the Imperium could lend himself to such a thing.
In spite of Nike Quinto's urging that he should hurry, Ron didn't leave before taking the opportunity to pick up some information ab
out Carba. The most fertile source of such data was the admiral himself. Although he knew nothing of Carba's whereabouts, it was a simple matter for him to put in a call to Arkon 1 and to casually inquire of one of his acquaintances if he had recently heard any news about Carba. The answer was quite informative. It proved that the Mokoki must have seen Carba at the Laurelian establishment. For it was generally known on Arkon 1 that Carba, the scion of the wealthy family Minterol, had been on a round trip for some weeks now in far depths of the galaxy.
• • •
01 01110 1-1-0-1-0 turned out to be a rectangular area that was 360 km wide by 720 km long. By far the greater part of the rectangle was taken up by the largest spaceport on Arkon 2, embracing the takeoff and landing fields of Farthor. All that was left was merely a tip of the region, which was occupied by one storage shed on top of another.
The K-3605 lay at the northern edge of the port, not more than 40 km from the storage shed area. The choice of such a location for the ship was disconcerting to Ron. It was close enough to be more or less a skip and a hop from the Corvette to the sheds yet it was just far enough away so that if their quarry happened to be in that area they wouldn't be alerted.
Ron was convinced that Nike Quinto's attention was presently being focused on the storage shed complex. Had the opposition set up a hideout here? It wouldn't have been a bad idea on his part. If he assumed that somebody was on his trail he could expect his pursuers to look for him in remoter regions, although on Arkon 2 of all places there was hardly an area that could be called remote. So in this case it would be a smart chess move to take refuge in the heart of the busiest location of all.