Again Atlan

by Perry Rhodan

  "Merciful heavens!" the dark-haired man exclaimed in mock desperation. "I feel a fever coming on. Where do they stick a thermometer into you?"

  The people behind us began to snicker noisily. The jokes and remarks about the investigating police became more acerbic the closer we got to the table they had temporarily set up.

  What disturbed me most was the portable X-ray machine before which all emigrants had to pass. A medical officer of the Solar Defense stood next to it. He made each of the colonists move on to the waiting bus by a wave of his hand. The pretense of checking the emigrants against a passenger list was obvious nonsense. All this had been taken care of earlier.

  They were looking only for an Arkonide admiral whose bone structure was known to be different from the Earthlings.

  I could feel my eyes become moist, a sign of my high state of excitement. If the physician at the X-ray machine was unusually observant, he could perhaps notice the minute differences in the changes incorporated in my organs.

  Keep calm, my extra-sense admonished me. At this moment I hated the logic sector of my brain.

  The man in line in front of me was a huge Terranian from the African Federation. He stepped in front of the X-ray machine with his legs far apart, pulled open his shirt over his chest with both hands and pointed his finger to his heart. "Right here, grenadiers!" he bellowed with a stentorian voice.

  He startled the medical officer and caused the lieutenant at the table to break out in a wide grin. I wondered if the black giant had ever heard of the 11 officers of Schill's regiment who had been shot in a summary court-martial by Napoleon's soldiers in the town of Wesel.

  The physician waved him on and the laughing African ambled over to the bus. Then it was my turn.

  "Vaccination papers, please," the weary security officer demanded. When he raised his eyes, he became at once alert. His hand quickly touched his service revolver.

  He gave me a penetrating look and the shadow of a doubt crossed his face as he turned around to his comrades. "Name?" he inquired sharply.

  I looked at him with a guileless smile. "Heinrich Volkmar, Lieutenant," I announced in a crisp tone, "son of Pieter Volkmar, the dike-warden."

  The young officer settled back in his chair again. Wordlessly he pointed his thumb to the screen although he was well aware that I had already been X-rayed.

  "Confounding resemblance, sir," I heard one of the soldiers quickly say under his breath.

  I faced the machine and this time the physician inspected the picture very closely. Then he stated with a motion of his hand. "Unmistakable ribs, Tom," and added with a dry throat: "Let's get it done, boys, before I get a heat stroke."

  It was a stroke of luck for me that the man suffered so much under the heat and therefore had failed to study my picture adequately.

  The lieutenant once more stared suspiciously at me but finally affixed his stamp of approval to the prescribed form with a sigh. "Here, take this and hang on to it. You look very much like somebody with whom we'd like to have a little talk. Go on. Next!"

  I waited for the short Mexican who, to his greatest relief, passed the inspection.

  The black Terranian greeted us at the bus and called out to me with a chuckle: "Hey, brother, what did they want of you? Come to my heart!" He embraced me cordially and pushed me into an empty seat. Miguel Hosta squeezed himself between us.

  Fine fellows!my extra-sense commented and this time I had to admit that it was right. Rhodan could well depend on them to build a new world in the stars.

  "I've got two bars of chocolate left in my pocket," I said. "Any takers? I've lost my appetite. They're trying to nail someone who looks like me."

  Miguel declined the candy in shocked horror but my newfound black friend took it with a grin. "Don't take it so hard, brother. Once we're on Venus we'll start a new life, anyway. Are you good in agronomy? What do you intend to plant first?"

  "That remains to be seen after I get there. I've learned something about agronomy, didn't you?"

  He made a grimace and a doubtful gesture.

  "Okay, let's become neighbors," I proposed. "I wish I knew a little more about soil chemistry, though. What do you know about that?"

  "That stuff I know. I can do the soil analysis and you can decide the best crop to plant. Okay?"

  I had to use plenty of muscle to withstand his powerful handshake and I wondered why I risked my life to return home.

  There was Arkonide blood running in this young human race. I myself had encouraged more than one marriage with Terranians among the Arkonide people under my command. Who could really tell where my home was now?

  6/ DESTINATION: WEAPON SHOP

  Port Venus was an ultra-modem city whose architecture was designed to adapt itself harmoniously to the hot stormy climate.

  Venus rotated only slowly about its polar axis. The vast twilight zones on the border between the day and night hemispheres were continually ravaged by horrible hurricanes. When the new towns of the population entered the stormy zone of the time change, the streets became compression funnels through which the wild forces of nature conducted a diabolical pipe organ concert.

  It was far from easy to live on this planet close to the sun and the existence of a settler was even more precarious. When the cloud decks of the second Sol world burst, they poured water down like bathtubs and the gushing floods could quickly inundate a man unless he could scramble to higher ground.

  Port Venus was situated on a high and wide rocky plateau at the precipitous shores of the equatorial ocean. It was in the same area where the mountain was located in which my people had built the great robot brain eons ago.

  Rhodan had taken possession of the gigantic installations and operated them for his purposes although he had no right to do so.

  At this stage I was inclined to give him my belated permission in view of the admirable transformation of the jungle he had already accomplished.

  About 800 meters below the plateau began the steaming fever-infested primordial forest. It was no wonder at all that the Cosmic Institute for Infectious Diseases occupied the biggest and most prominent building in the city. There the tough and tenacious battle against the cruel and pervasive scourges of nature was carried on unrelentingly.

  Nearly every week new and hitherto unknown afflictions were discovered. The immigrants who had come with me had already received more than 30 vaccinations on Terra.

  I had achieved perfect immunity myself since I was well provided with Arkonide serum.

  Five days ago the little spaceship Gloria had descended into the dense atmosphere of Venus with fire-spitting engines. The landing field of Port Venus was located only 50 meters above sea level and we received our first lesson on the atrocious Venusian climate the moment we touched down.

  Embros Tscheda, who wanted to be the first man to leave the ship, was almost drowned by the sheets of water raining down from the heavens and turning the vast spaceport into a raging sea.

  We were barely able to grab him before the swirling masses of water tossed him into the glowing particle stream of a starting spaceship.

  This had been our very first impression but 10 minutes later the sky was as 'clear' again as was typical for Venus. The unbroken ceiling of clouds seldom allowed a peek at the sun.

  Stifling hot water vapors steamed up from the armorplast ground and it looked as if we had landed in an outsized laundry room.

  The temperature was 128°. When we disembarked through the door batch two women fainted although our group consisted of the healthiest individuals who had passed the most thorough tests. The heat was not unbearable but the excessive humidity made the climate murderous.

  The primordial forest spread on the horizon. I was familiar with its hazards from previous journeys and didn't suffer the illusions still held by the pioneers.

  2 hours later we were taken by powerful helicopters to Port Venus. The city was 850 meters above sea level but the rocky plain on which it was built didn't have room enough for the huge
spaceport.

  However the climate was more tolerable at the higher altitude and for this reason the newcomers were housed up here.

  Now the Venusian authorities were busy with the distribution of land to the new settlers and I had to join my companions lest I provoked their amazement and suspicion.

  The inspection of our immigration documents was a dreary ritual. High officials and seasoned jungle experts had made either pompous or tough speeches which were liberally sprinkled with menacing words like diseases, jungle beasts, poisonous reptiles, clearing of virgin soil and so forth. My friends of the old Gloria faced a bleaker future than they had visualized.

  • • •

  Today I was given my first furlough. After my arrival I had immediately dashed off a few lines to Marlis Gentner and mailed them through the well-functioning Venus post office.

  As a precaution I addressed the letter to General Delivery. If Marlis Gentner had arrived in the meantime she was sure to inquire every day at the post office.

  My 'good old friend' Gunter Viesspahn, who had arrived on Venus long before me, had invited me for a jaunt through town.

  When I picked up the letter at the mail call, the sergeant of the Security Police questioned me about our connection.

  I showed him the letter and my explanation that he was an old school chum satisfied him. Why shouldn't I know somebody on Venus who had lived here for some time?

  Now I sat in the monorail car which connected the upper administration building with the center of town. Although the vehicle was air-conditioned I began to perspire. My skin-tight bioplast skeleton prevented my pores from breathing. It was time to take off that disguise manufactured in my robot shop. So far I had not been X-rayed again on Venus.

  My extra-sense kept insisting on warning me about the nosy police sergeant. Why was he so interested in a harmless letter?

  I had to find out as soon as possible if the search for me also extended to Venus. It was possible that the control officer at the Nevada Spaceport had second thoughts about me after my departure. Perhaps he had radioed a warning to his colleagues on Venus.

  I put aside my gnawing apprehensions. If Marlis had done her job I needn't worry. I could go into the jungle like a settler and simply wait until an opportunity for the escape from Venus in a spaceship presented itself. Maybe I would be lucky enough to find a super light-speed Gazelle to take me from Venus straight to the Arkon system. The latest model of this spaceship had a range which was limited only by the requirement of a periodic overhaul of its engines.

  I got off the train at the subway station and went up on the escalator. The street was crowded with people. I had seldom seen so many differently dressed Terranians together in one spot.

  The center of town was named Tomisenkow Square after the Russian division commander who had tried to conquer Venus for his own country.

  The spacious and solidly built government edifices surrounded the square. A thoroughfare named New York Street, where big stores offered the products of all nations in the Solar system for sale, cut the modern city practically in two halves.

  Contrary to the long held belief that this hot world contained no oxygen in its atmosphere, one could breathe easily on Venus, which seemed to hide itself from its central star in a permanent cloud.

  An altercation had broken out outside the subway station. two bearded pale-skinned fellows who had not seen a ray of sun in years fiercely traded punches over some trivial matter.

  Police rushed in and sternly broke up their fisticuffs. They threatened the brawlers with their electric shock guns and fire two shots into the air, quickly bringing the two hotheads to their senses.

  These pioneers seemed to be a rough bunch who knew how to handle weapons. I saw many settlers walk in the streets with energy-beamers slung over their shoulders. When I thought of the ferocious beasts that roamed the wild forests beginning at the outskirts of the city, I could very well understand why these visitors from the jungle were so heavily armed.

  An antiquated taxi with a gas-turbine motor brought me to a quieter section of the city, away from the milling crowds. I memorized the layout of the streets till, we stopped at an impressive building housing the Terra Museum.

  Before leaving the taxi I checked the components of my special equipment. I now carried everything I had carefully hidden before on my person. If I were suddenly forced to flee I would have no time to return to the camp of the immigrants. But it was dangerous to carry weapons since I had not yet been issued a license.

  My life-giving activator hung on my chest. I put the light-wave deflector, now powered by a miniature generator, into the pocket of my plain jacket and slipped by psycho-beamer rod into my pants. The nerve-weapon had a range of two kilometers. This was all I was able to take with me.

  I paid my fare and left the taxi. I sauntered leisurely toward the wide armorplast doors where I was supposed to meet 'my old friend'.

  Many people were coming and leaving. I noticed a great number of settlers whose simple sturdy clothes were in marked contrast to the elegant duds worn by the government employees in the city.

  Two lackadaisical policemen lolled in front of the broad portals. Men I passed them I heard one of them chuckle: "Hey, greenhorn, are you already homesick for Earth?"

  I turned around and looked at the two men. They carried heavy shock-weapons and bulky radio-helmets. Evidently they were in constant communication with their central station.

  "Greenhorn," they had called me! This seemed to be the nickname for the newcomers.

  "Is it always so hot here?" I asked plaintively.

  They loudly laughed in glee. I went on without another word until I noticed a stocky dark-haired man with a flowing beard. He was dressed like a settler and lugged an awfully big energy-beamer around.

  He recognized me at once. A gaping hole opened between his wild whiskers and let out a rip-roaring laughter.

  I was taken aback! What kind of a mad fellow had Marlis sent me here?

  He gave me such a strong bear hug that I could still feel it days later and he shouted wishes of welcome and pet names into my ear that made me fear for my hearing. "I'm Gunter Viesspahn," he then announced under his breath. "We've got to leave here right away!"

  He took me by the arm and led me noisily to the entrance. "Comes a real man, you two good-for-nothing city loafers better make room!" my new friend bellowed at the policemen.

  They countered with a foul oath, typical of the coarse manner of speech prevailing in the outposts of young colonial planets.

  My hirsute pal dragged me into the museum and on to the basement where, he said, there was a fine cool restaurant. "Did they spot you?" he asked in a subdued tone.

  I don't know. They read your letter. I had no choice," I replied hastily.

  "That's bad, my boy. What did you tell those snoopers?"

  He appeared to be satisfied with my explanation. I had followed the coded instructions between the lines of his letter in which he had told me that he had landed two years ago on Venus and that we had first met on the Frisian island from which he came.

  The 'fine cool restaurant' in the basement turned out to be a dingy hangout crowded with colonists, who relished bragging with all sorts of fantastic tales. I felt out of place.

  "We'll drink a beer and get out. Quit looking around so suspiciously," Viesspahn advised me. "Everything is fine. Marlis is waiting for you. We were very careful."

  Of this I was not very much convinced. These two innocents were too unfamiliar with the methods of the Solar Defense. I inquired quickly: "Does anybody know you're connected with Marlis?"

  "Man," he chuckled, "she happens to be my half-sister!"

  I could visualize the maddening complications as I thought of the Computer Department on Terrania where the efficient members of the Solar Defense were at work compiling such information.

  Marlis was among the students who had attended my last lecture on the day of my escape. Undoubtedly the Defense had investigated who had
been near me in the jostling crowd. Marlis had been there that particular day and then broken off her studies and returned to Venus. She was known to be a protagonist of Venusian rights and had publicly declared in our discussions that she disapproved of my shameful imprisonment.

  This was a clue which could not be overlooked by Lt.-Gen. Kosnow.

  Subsequently a blond man had aroused some suspicion at the Nevada Fields although he proved to have a skeleton like Earthlings. And this same man had written a letter shortly after his arrival on Venus to which he had received an answer.

  If they checked whether the two settlers Volkmar and Viesspahn had known each other on Terra, the result had to be negative.

  To top it all, the half-brother of student Marlis Gentner had waited for me on Venus. It couldn't take them more than an hour to coordinate this information and take immediate action.

  My instinct told me that they already were waiting for me back at the immigrants' lodgings. My bioplast-skeleton could not stand a rigorous medical examination.

  I had to think of the policemen with the radio-helmets. Did the Venusian Defense Agency already know that I had met Viesspahn? Had they followed me on my ride to the museum? If so, why didn't they arrest me?

  They must first identify your connections, my extra-sense pointed out very logically. They want to keep them from helping you later on.

  I became more apprehensive every second and told Gunter I was anxious to leave at once.

  "Nonsense!" he growled. "When two old friends meet on Venus they first go to the nearest saloon. This is the Place where all settlers get together because they've developed the habit of visiting the Terra Museum once in awhile. They didn't tail you, did they?"

  He glanced at me warily. I shook my head and sipped my beer.