by Perry Rhodan
Rhodan didn't answer him. The little diversion had been pleasant but he had now other problems. Behind a transparent partition sat the excellently trained radio-technicians of the battleship's range-finder section. They had learned by hypno-training.
Rhodan raised the micro-sender on his left wrist to his lips. His voice was heard, loud and clear, over the loudspeaker behind the partition. "Deringhouse, did you get anything?" A tall man, who could be seen sitting 50 yards away, turned his head. He could survey a part of the command center from his place.
"Nothing, sir," his soft voice came over the miniature set. "This space sector seems to be swept clean."
"Didn't the mass-sensors register anything?"
"They show nothing at all. I'm bound to get an echo if there's something around within a light-month. There's only the usual micro-matter. A lonely atom once in a great while. A planet should be a little bigger than that."
"Thank you for the lecture, Major," Rhodan replied icily.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I forgot again that I have nerves.
The final evaluation of the positronic brain came in. Rhodan leaned forward. The transition was successful, so was the co-ordinating operation and flight correction.
Slowly he reclined again. Stardust II was crawling at a ridiculous 10 miles per second through space, which indeed appeared to be empty in this sector. Not even a measly meteor could be spotted by the best range-finder of all times, and they would have spotted it if it measured only one-thousandth of an inch.
It was a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. Rhodan slowly turned around and noticed Thora.
"A sour face, reproachful eyes and arrogant attitude in perfect combination, that's you," Rhodan remarked facetiously.
"We could have been in Arkon by this time," Thora said excitedly. "But you won't listen, Perry! You'll never solve the last riddle, never! Take me and Khrest home at last as you have promised us long ago. Khrest doesn't insist on pursuing the secret of biological cell conservation. You have no right to risk our lives, Perry!"
"Aren't you forgetting the exploding Vega? Besides, our calculations are correct. The planet we're looking for is close by. Because it doesn't circle around a sun and emits no light of its own, we can't see it. But we have other means of detecting it."
"You're heroic and dramatic!" the Arkonide woman mocked him. "You'll probably detect nothing. Your calculations are inadequate. This planet could be a 100 light-years away, assuming of course that it exists at all which I doubt very much. You better turn back."
Bell's wrinkled forehead hid his thoughts till he spoke up in a miffed tone:
"We're not turning back. I've a sinking sensation that somebody is leading us by the nose ad absurdum. I've got a good idea. Would you like to hear it, Perry?"
Rhodan sat down in a contour chair.
"If it's a good one we can talk about it."
"The Unknown or, if you will, the Unknowns have played some rough games with us. It's only logical that every step we take becomes more difficult. Now we've the hardest nut of all to crack."
"What else is new?"
"The planet is shielded from our direction finders, that's all. We ought to check out whether they function properly. Why don't you launch a small spacefighter and test how the instruments register the craft. That way we'll eliminate a very fundamental doubt." "That's an excellent idea," Rhodan agreed after a pause. "Major Nyssen...!" The shouted call went to all departments. Nyssen's craggy face appeared on the videoscreen.
"Here I am, sir!" he croaked. "At my post in the hangar." "You don't say!" Rhodan snapped. "Guess, why I want you! Jump into your pursuit ship. Blast-off in exactly five minutes, whether you're in your crate or not. Hurry up!"
Nyssen cursed horribly. The could still hear him after his craggy face had disappeared from the screen.
Marshall, the telepath, was aroused and disturbed. "If you knew what he's thinking—!" he whispered. "It makes me, shudder."
"Forget it," Rhodan grinned. "We've freedom of thought on this ship. Major Deringhouse!"
"Sir?" The tall figure with the freckled face detached itself from its seat behind the transparent wall. "You heard what we're planning to do. You won't believe it but Mr. Reginald Bell had an idea. Switch on your range-finder three minutes after Nyssen has shoved off at full thrust. I want to see what your instruments will do. Nyssen, do you still hear me?"
Nyssen reported from the cockpit of his fighter. He had managed to climb into his machine within a few moments. "You're free to fly anywhere. Choose your own course but make sure to watch your automatic direction finder all the time. Don't go any father unless you keep the Stardust right on the sensor beam. You'd never find us again."
"I've got air, water and food for a month," Nyssen muttered. "Okay, sir, I'll watch it."
When the five minutes were up, the spaceship was slightly jolted. A fire-spitting phantom shot out of the gaping airlock above the bulging ring. Nyssen's ultrafast single fightercraft zoomed into dark space. The lowing point was quickly out of sight. "Nyssen to Commander," the loudspeaker intoned. "Automatic sensors work perfectly. Stardust is on beam I won't lose you. Watch my dust! Over and out." Nyssen switched off the radio's microphone. The faster-than-light telecom took its place. Ordinary communication was no longer adequate. His craft became an utterly forlorn speck groping in the endless depths of the universe. The Stardust was no longer visible. All Nyssen could hear was the droning of his impulse drive-engines. He hurtled at 300 miles per second into the void, leaving the mothership farther and farther behind. After three minutes ship time he cut off the power. The wild howling became a gentle hum.
The tiny pursuitship remained in free fall at 55,000 miles per second. Nyssen looked around. He already knew the the feeling of unlimited loneliness. The missions in Vegan system had probably been far more hazardous.
The thought gave him some comfort until he painfully realized that there was a little difference between the absolute void and a system crammed full of planets. There he could have landed anytime in an emergency, whereas here he had only the Stardust within reach. If it should vanish he would be lost forever.
Drops of sweat began to stand out on his forehead. He stared anxiously at the dial of the range-finder bathed in green light. The battleship was still clearly reflected as a blip.
Nyssen gripped the direction control lever of the energy impulse jet. Then he waited. The efficient range-finder of the Stardust should already have found him.
After another minute the seconds became suspenseful eternities. Finally, he jammed the lever for the field reversal into the notch while pulling the step-switch for the drive-engines all the way up with his left hand.
A violet glow shot forward from the braking jets of the needle-nosed fighter, checking his speed abruptly.
A weak noise was audible as his machine roared. The telecom clicked.
"Deringhouse to Nyssen. Return at once. Very urgent. Come back, do you hear me? Confirm order."
Nyssen had a sinking feeling that something had gone awry. He shouted at the top of his voice that he got the message but the Stardust did not seem to hear him.
"Major Nyssen, confirm order! Return right away. Danger! Nyssen, report immediately!"
Thus the spacefighter pilot came to realize that his flight had precipitated a crisis. He slowly leaned back in his seat. His eyes searched for a tiny yellowish speck of light in the ocean of stars. One of these little points in the Galaxy was the terrestrial sun. Nyssen's thought began to blur. He vaguely felt that his life was coming to an end.
The engines of his pursuitship kept running.
200 ADVENTURES FROM NOW watch out forTeleporter—Watch Out!
5/ "YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND"
"It wasn't such a good idea after all," Bell fretted, as a sudden jerk tossed him to the floor where he remained to listen. Rhodan grabbed the armrests of the chair in front of the computer console. The first shock was followed by a second, even more violent one. Nevertheless,
all observation screens remained blank. There was nothing to indicate the possibility that an energy beam or anything similar had been aimed in their direction.
There was no sign of what could have caused the huge mass of the super-battleship to move, let alone set such violent vibrations into motion. Next door Deringhouse shouted to get the spacefighter back that they had just launched. Nyssen's start had triggered something but nobody knew exactly what it was.
There was no panic on board the ship. They were accustomed to worse incidents since their first encounter with the puzzling antagonist in the Galaxy.
Rhodan put file microphone to his lips just as the fourth shock hit the spherical hull like a pressure wave. "Commander to Energy Control Center!" His voice was heard in all departments. "Please, keep calm! Garand, restore gravitational field, start with magnitude two. Check if the next shock hits with the same force."
Capt. Klein had crawled to his weapons control center. The continuing vibrations prevented normal walling. Garand reported back. The power reactors had started to hum again. He had lost no time in repairing the damaged installations and they now functioned properly just when they were needed.
The video screens began to light up with a faint blue. The strong gravity field surrounded the spaceship.
The vigorous shaking of the spaceship subsided immediately. Calm prevailed again with the return of self-stabilization. Reginald Bell slowly lifted himself off the floor. Rhodan whistled softly and off-key. His gaze seemed to penetrate the walls. "Hi, old friend!" he said as he raised his hand and began to wave. Bell looked around everywhere. He couldn't see anybody where Rhodan waved. He glanced imploringly at the physician on duty in the command center. It was Dr Eric Manoli who had been with them from the earliest days. Manoli shrugged his shoulders and shook his head silently.
"I hope you feel alright," Bell said solicitously. With a forced smile he gingerly approached his commander but he didn't get very close. Instead, he was bodily lifted up and not very gently deposited on his seat.
"Who did that?" he yelled, flushed with anger, to the group of mutants at the other end. Tama Yokida, one of the Hiroshima mutants, raised his hand. "I did," he whispered. "We have a rule against touching other people." Rhodan gave him a mildly disapproving look and got up. Quiet had once more returned to the Stardust; but it was the quiet before a storm. Rhodan took his seat in front of the main control panel. Everybody watched him as he pressed the release for the safety harness. Seconds later the alarm began to wail.
The voice of the commander sounded calm. He did not think it necessary to make long explanations. "Prepare for combat. Robot emergency commandos take their positions. Deringhouse, did you reach Nyssen?"
"He didn't call back," Deringhouse answered in a disturbed tone.
"Keep trying. Does his ship show on your screen?"
"Yes, sir, the echoes are excellent The instruments function perfectly."
"That's what we wanted to find out. Attention, everybody! A force field is, to all appearances, interfering with us. Its nature is so far undefined. Be ready for surprises. You're advised to remain at your battle stations for your own safety. Capt. Klein, fire a random beam shot from the gun at the upper pole. Deploy an impulse weapon. I want to see the beam."
"Shock waves are still coming," reported the energy control center. "They're now absorbed by the G-field." Bell had regained his composure.
"Who was that old friend you greeted?" he quickly asked. "Three guesses. Our mystery friend let us know that he's around. I bet my bottom dollar we're near the planet."
"We ought to be able to see it or locate it with the range-finder."
Rhodan's face looked skeptical. "We'll come to that too," he predicted. "The question is how."
"Nyssen is gaining speed, he's giving it all he's got," Deringhouse announced. "Shall I take over by remote control?"
"By all means, hurry up. If I know the Unknown, these shocks were only a little tidbit of his."
Deringhouse switched on his guidance system. Nyssen saw the red lamp light up above his head and then he knew that the mothership had taken him under its wings, regardless of whether his signals got through or not.
Nyssen stared ahead with burning eyes. The climate control of his spacesuit turned itself on as the humidity became excessive.
Finally, Rod Nyssen recognized the weak glimmer in the cluster of stars. The little flicker became more distinct until it disappeared again in the flames of his pursuit-ship. His flight was retarded by the Stardust. Next they would have to open the fatally dangerous gravitation screen to avoid a collision with the little fighter and to prevent its disintegration in a flash. It was always a test of nerves to approach the Stardust with enormous speed, knowing that it was enveloped in the most potent defense fields designed to repel all imaginable attacks.
Not that all types of defense screens were dangerous for materially stable objects but the G-field was one of those structures which incorporated the most lethal achievement of the Arkonide super-technology.
It was, so to speak, abnormal in terms of three-dimensional space, since it consisted of energy-units of a higher order in the fifth dimension. The Arkonides knew the nature of gravity whereas the scientists on Earth had only tentative theories.
Nyssen's craft was still a fantastically fast projectile spewing redhot flames into black space.
The Stardust was still far ahead but clearly visible now. Seconds later it grew to the size of a baseball which stood out against the background of stars.
Nyssen's little machine gradually slowed down. He sighed hopefully and as he finally disengaged the manual steering, he saw with horror that one half of the battleship had suddenly become a fire-spitting furnace. Nyssen managed to yell his observation into the telecom. Close before him the energy screen split open. Magnetic forces of enormous magnitude seized his craft and pulled it into the open hatch of the airlock.
It happened much too fast and rough. He kicked the pedal for the shock compensator almost at the instant that he was pushed onto the launching tracks with forbidding force and hurled into the magnetic retention field.
The little spacefighter slammed through the magnetic barrier and was smashed against the solid walls of Arkonide steel at the end of the hangar.
Before Nyssen lost consciousness he perceived the tumultuous uproar in the Stardust. After a long period of waiting things had perked up on the battleship.
• • •
It would have been too much to expect that Nyssen—in his condition—understood the reasons for his precarious landing manoeuvre. At present it was not so important how he got on board. What mattered was that he made it.
The two mutants in the command center, Son Okura and Tanaka Seiko, reacted almost simultaneously. Okura, the frequency-seer, received only an indistinct wave pattern. Nevertheless, he was able to pinpoint the spot where the entirely unfamiliar emission originated. It was located in the red sector at about 32 degrees. In the vertical plane it was at 4 degrees. He reported his findings at once. However the other mutant, Tanaka Seiko, had suffered violent repercussions. Anne Sloane and Tama Yokida restrained the frantic mutant by telekinetic force. It was impossible to get accurate information. Tanaka's wretched condition had evidently been brought on by a severe shock.
It also quickly became superfluous to obtain the result of his directional probing. The Stardust had abruptly become the victim of over powering forces. Weeks of laborious calculations and intricate manoeuvres were in danger of being negated within moments. An unseen mailed fist struck at the same time as Nyssen's pursuitship landed in the airlock. Rhodan had already switched over to automatic control when the first relatively mild strikes occurred.
He feared that he would be in no position to counteract sudden surprises in time. The way it looked now, this seemed to have been a very appropriate move. Stardust II was soon reduced to a creaking spherical shell whose cavernous volume was not conducive to retaining the necessary stability.
It
was as if all joints and braces expanded and contracted although some reinforcements were armor plate a yard thick. At the same time the spaceship's velocity increased spontaneously to such a degree that Rhodan's attention was primarily concentrated on listening to the power reactors instead of the distortion effects.
"Maximum load," Bell shouted above the noise. Rhodan looked at the widened eyes of his friend. This was as much as Bell reacted to panic. He was one of those enviable men without nerves in times of danger.
The alarm went off again. Bright-red warning lamps blinked in all departments of the ship. "Oh no, not this!" Khrest moaned as he was squashed into his seat. Rhodan, too, could feel the mounting pressure. The mighty Stardust II was driven by ever-increasing accelerating forces with which the thrust neutralizers could cope no longer. Their capacity was 360 miles per second which could be exceeded in emergencies only for a very limited time if all power reactors worked together.
Rhodan began to look worried. Something was happening now which had not occurred on board a modern Arkonide spaceship in at least 20,000 years—the effect of the moment of inertia took over. They felt the impact of the thrust breaking without transition through the neutralizing field and they realized that the Unknown was deadly serious this time.
The automatic controls still functioned satisfactorily. So far only the men were hampered by the cruel forces.
Khrest's unusually young face became grotesquely distorted. He suddenly looked ancient, dilapidated and lifeless. The Arkonide was almost unable to breathe while Rhodan still functioned and made decisions.
The more high-pitched sound of the drive-engines running at full speed insinuated itself into the predominant noise of the power reactors. The engines produced about four million tons of thrust by terrestrial standards.
Rhodan exhaled the compressed air in his lungs with a whistle. It felt like a sneeze of relief. He wanted to shout, laugh or do anything to vent his excitement.
He regained his lucidity. The engines performed in a faultless manner as was to be expected from the superior products of the Arkonides.