by Perry Rhodan
"So what's all the fuss?" Gunter said, assuaged. "By the way, why were you in trouble down there? Marlis hasn't told me a thing." He pointed his thumb downward as if the Earth were directly below his feet.
"Nothing of importance," I said evasively.
"It's important to me. I'm really sticking my neck out if you've done something dirty. There's a limit to brotherly love, right? Marlis seems to be stuck on you. There was a new flicker of suspicion in his eyes.
"Where were you born?" I asked.
My worst fears were confirmed. Gunter Viesspahn was a native Venusian and I had told the inquisitive sergeant in accordance with his previous story that we had gone to school together on Earth.
I winced in desperation. Marlis—why didn't you use your head? Everything had been misunderstood and bungled. However I was careful not to antagonize my bearded companion since he would undoubtedly beat a fast retreat if he felt he was in serious trouble. I could not afford to lose my connection. My cautious reminder concerning our "old friendship" made him disdainfully shrug his shoulders. "So what? How should they know? You came with false papers, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course. But there are a few points which..."
"Nuts! We'll handle that. You're coming with me to my farm. It's at the Hondo River, eight miles upstream from the Marshall Falls where the river drops three miles deep and three miles wide. You can't miss it. It's good country, 114 miles north from Port Venus. You'll be safe there till Marlis finds the right spaceship for you."
When I heard him blurt out my plans I was about ready to drop the matter then and there. If she was so careless as to tell her half-brother about my intended trip to the Vega system, I might as well give up.
I changed my plan abruptly. Under the circumstances it was a senseless hope to find a hyperspacer to Vega but I had to get out of town as quickly as possible.
I fished one of my large pearls out of my pocket and his eyes lit up instantly. He knew that I held a treasure in the palm of my hand. "This is a real pearl. It's worth 5000 solars," I said with studied calm. "Now listen, my friend! Tell me exactly where Marlis is waiting for me. I want to go there alone. Meanwhile you can leave in your own machine. You've got a machine, haven't you?"
"Sure, everybody does."
"Very good. You'll fly some place where I can easily reach you and you'll wait for me. I don't want to be seen together with you and Marlis."
He tried to raise objections but the pearl tempted him too much. Finally he described a remote place at the edge of town where one of his friends owned a little tavern near the jungle. I would have no trouble finding him there.
Right now my main concern was to keep Gunter Viesspahn in the background so that I could contact him again if I needed him. In order to accomplish this I had to send him away and say goodbye to him in public, hoping that he could leave unmolested.
He gave me Marlis' address. She stayed with an old aunt whose deceased husband had opened a gun shop. The shop was still run by the very capable old lady. Marlis had been brought up by her ever since her parents had lost their lives in the jungle many years ago.
I paid for the drinks and we left. Outside the museum I looked prudently around. The pair of policemen was still there but apparently had received no other assistance. However this proved little since they could summon reinforcements on the spot by radio.
I said goodbye to my old friend in a loud but normal tone as it was now time for me to go back to the other immigrants.
He kept demurring until I hailed a taxi. The two policemen seemed to pay no attention to us.
I entered the cab, which was one of the more modern models. Before I closed the door I told the driver where to take me in a voice loud enough to be heard.
The car drove off and Gunter Viesspahn walked to the helicopter pad next to the museum.
As soon as we had rounded the next comer and were out of the guards' sight, I took action. It would have been stupid to leave my fate to good luck.
A touch on the switch of my light-deflector made me invisible and before the driver could suspect anything he was already under the influence of my psycho-beamers rays. His posture stiffened.
"Drive to the next corner and pull up to a quick stop. Make believe you're furious about the sudden disappearance of your passenger. Open all doors and ask people around you whether they saw somebody jump out of the cab."
"Yes sir," he replied tonelessly.
I opened the lock and let the door swing open. The driver promptly screeched to a halt at the next intersection and went into his act which could cost my neck.
He ran around his vehicle and looked into the empty inside, shouting to some laughing passerbys whether they had seen the crook who wanted to gyp him of his fare.
Meanwhile I slipped outside and noiselessly clambered to the roof of the taxi where I lay down flat.
Moments later, the very thing I had expected took place: a dark, highly modern vehicle with antigrav-drive instead of old-fashioned wheels stopped alongside the cab. Two men jumped out and flashed their identification badges to the driver.
Obviously I had been followed. Marlis' little ruse, which was meant so well but had been carried out so badly, proved to be too transparent. The Solar Defense was snapping at my heels again.
They asked the driver only a few quick questions and began to feel every corner of the seats and the floor with their hands, a convincing sign they were looking for an invisible man.
Then they drove away and simply left the excited cab owner standing in the street.
With a great feeling of relief I slipped back into the taxi and ordered the driver to take me to Tokyo Street in the old part of the town. When we approached my destination I instructed him to let me out and to go to the nearest taxi stand and to forget all about the incident.
Cloaked in my shield of invisibility I proceeded on my way to Mrs. Gentner, whose little gunshop could not be very far from here.
Don't be a fool! My extra-sense warned as usual when I was about to commit a blunder.
Of course Marlis must have been trailed for some time. She probably had already been investigated on Earth by a telepath from Rhodan's Mutant Corps who thus had found out that she had given me those special devices hidden by me.
Rhodan, who must have returned long ago, abstained from interfering with her and I could very well understand his clever reasoning.
Marlis didn't know when and how I would arrive on Venus. Now I was glad that I had not even known myself how I would go about it when I started my flight from Earth.
Therefore Rhodan simply waited. At this moment he might already have received the information that the fugitive vanished from a Venusian cab.
I paused in an archway and considered my situation. I concluded that it had not been such a bad move after all to come to Venus. It would be much easier for me to lay low on Venus than on the densely populated Earth with its tight net of communications and connections. The Venus jungle was enormously big and almost impenetrable. But I knew how to cope with the dangers lurking out there.
The assumption of my extra-brain, according to which Rhodan had refrained from apprehending me because he wanted to learn the identity of my co-conspirators, was false: it was precisely the other way around. He was already aware of Marlis Gentner's indiscretion and perhaps her half-brother was by now also undergoing an interrogation by the Mutant Corps.
Rhodan had only to wait till Marlis picked up my letter at the post office. Then the machinery for arresting me would be set in motion again.
Due to the fact that I had used a false name to write my letter, the Defense Agency had not been able to trace it immediately to the sender. Even the letter I had received from Gunter Viesspahn didn't arouse too much suspicion since there was nothing unusual about a newcomer receiving such mail.
I figured I would have sprung the trap then and there if I had been in Rhodan's place but on second thought it occurred to me that I could have been wrong about my conjecture that the s
ecurity officer at the Nevada Fields had reported my flight to Venus. Consequently I must have walked into the trap myself. Nobody really knew who had come to Venus under the disguise of Hinrich Volkmar. Only when I got in touch with Marlis' half-brother did the Solar Defense get on my track again.
If that rambunctious fellow was already under observation by Rhodan's men, it was all very simple for them. But the question why they had failed to nab me sooner still remained an unanswered puzzle.
I could merely assume that they must have been very certain I would not see so quickly through their shrewd game.
I began to feel more at ease again. A soft laugh startled me until I realized that I made the noise myself.
I would now have hated to be in the shoes of the local Defense Chief. If I knew Rhodan, he was already on his way to Venus.
I continued walking slowly and cautiously, taking pains to maintain my monoscreen against all telepathic probes. If I permitted an impulse of my thoughts to emanate from my mind, I could be spotted by a mutant.
This time they were liable to shoot to kill. Rhodan could not afford the risk of losing me in the Venus jungle. Their vigilance at the spaceport would be subject to occasional lapses and I would be there to try it again.
He knew this as well as I. That grey-eyed barbarian's mind was too sharp to overlook any loopholes.
It was utter folly to keep my rendezvous with Marlis. She was under surveillance as sure as my name was Atlan.
I mollified my growing fear for my survival by telling myself that it would be very unwise to go into the jungle without a powerful and deadly energy-weapon. The gigantic saurians of the Venusian forests could hardly be controlled by my shock-beamer and where could I find the necessary guns more conveniently than in a special shop?
Hence I kept walking until I saw the store sip in a little side street.
There was nobody hanging around the store in plain sight, which didn't surprise me. I felt a deep desire to see Marlis again, to catch a glimpse of her dark eyes and a smile from her bittersweet lips. She had shown wonderful courage and I could not blame her for committing serious mistakes. After all she was not a trained agent but an impulsive young girl with an enthusiastic spirit.
Undoubtedly she was totally unaware that her mind had been probed by the mutants and she was above reproach for thinking that my safety was assured. If she had not been firmly convinced of this, she would never have asked for my mail at the post office.
Too bad I had also lost my precious pearl since I could no longer avail myself of Gunter Viesspahn's help. Thus I found myself in a most unenviable position.
7/ UNSEEN EYES WATCHING
His sudden appearance came as a violent shock to me. I had racked my aching brain to come up with a satisfactory solution.
But now I felt an unknown force paralyzing the paths to my nerve centers. I was one of those people who could love and hate unsparingly and feel joy or melancholy as long as their mental balance was unshaken.
However Perry Rhodan's presence had the effect of an acid shower on me. I struggled to maintain my composure. An irritating sensation tingled the back of my neck and it took awhile before I mastered my moral defeat.
I stood behind a cluster of bushes which would have kept me out of his sight even if my light-deflector had not worked so perfectly. Nevertheless I could not get rid of the feeling that his grey eyes had scrutinized me icily."
It was not possible to locate me by the energy output of my deflector as the powerful energy-weapons of the team accompanying him and the flying machines he had brought in produced considerably stronger fields.
I had arrived only 10 minutes earlier. I had been fortunate to see Marlis Gentner when I had dared to enter the gun shop and found her at the office in the rear.
She had failed to notice that I came in after I had passed unseen through the staked out police forces of the Venusian Security Service keeping their eyes on the place.
She had no inkling that she had already been under surveillance on Earth. It disturbed me greatly that I kept this information from her but I had to observe the strictest silence to guard my safety.
When I revealed my presence she paused abruptly at the small window and stood motionlessly. "Is it you?" she asked with a faint quiver of her lips, keeping her composure admirably without regard to the real danger to which she exposed herself. I could only hope I would be able to persuade Perry Rhodan to go easy on her and to spare her any punishment.
I had whispered to her that I had to flee into the jungle because I ran into some trouble and that it was out of the question that I could meet her half-brother again as I had the impression that he was being watched.
I added also that I planned to get in touch with one of my friends from the spaceship Gloria without mentioning a name. Let the wizards of the Solar Defense beat their brains out, I thought.
It was a deliberate manoeuvre on my part not to give her any information that would further implicate her and I told her only what I wanted the Defense Agency to learn. I didn't doubt that the telepaths kept watching her closely and therefore I could not allow her to become aware that I was wise to their scheme.
I had taken a serious chance when I entered the old house and my presence would have been immediately found out if a telepathic probe of the girl were in progress at this particular time.
But luck had been with me. She let me use her key to open the vault containing the heavy energy-beamers which were suitable for killing the dangerous behemoths on Venus. The weapons were sturdily constructed and emitted powerful directional fields from highly efficient nuclear fusion type micro-reactors. They fired beams which were hotter than the sun and easily brought down the most ferocious beasts.
I left unnoticed and Marlis was convinced that nobody else knew anything about my short visit.
Subsequently I proceeded to do exactly what I had denied to her I would: I went straight to the beer saloon on the outskirts of the city where Viesspahn said he would wait for me.
I had to change my course of action continually since I desired to keep my movements flexible and totally unpredictable to a logical and schematic pattern recognition process. Moreover I was titillated once again by the challenge of going into the lion's den.
I spotted Viesspahn the moment I came in. He leaned against the bar, chewing the fat with the grizzled settlers who had come to shop in the nearby jungle stores.
Viesspahn had not yet been arrested and he didn't have the faintest notion of what had taken place in the meantime.
I had the greatest respect for the intelligence of my opponents. Nevertheless I felt that I successfully led the Defense Agency to believe after my hasty departure from the museum without Viesspahn that I would never return to a friend whom they considered suspect.
It almost looked as if I had reckoned correctly. The Security Service didn't seem to bother my bearded crony and I harbored these pleasant illusions up to the moment a big helicopter of the Solar Defense appeared and landed. I was almost bowled over by the astonishment of seeing Perry Rhodan alight in person.
If he had taken over the search himself I had to be doubly careful. He was accompanied by a handful of men and acted as if he had no interest in Viesspahn.
He greeted the settlers and engaged in some friendly chitchat, pretending he happened to pass through and wanted to visit the neighborhood where he almost lost his life on his first trip to Venus.
He delighted the hardy pioneers with some fictitious story about lightning-fast snakes in the swamps.
My crafty adversary had given a convenient explanation for showing up in surprise. He soon left the bar again and stopped behind the building. One member of the crew had flown away in the helicopter. Everything looked very peaceful. The settlers remained in the bar. They were stunned in awe and respect. In my distress I kept standing behind the broad leaves of the bushes which I had sought out as cover before Rhodan had arrived. I didn't dare to move for fear that I might make an accidental noise. The jam-
packed tavern was more than 150 feet away. The laughter and singing of the inebriated jungle pioneers formed a muffled backdrop of noise and I was afraid to disturb it by a rustling of leaves. I was in a nasty spot since my invisible barrier was no deterrent to the swarms of insects who, in a quite literal sense, were bugging me!
These pesky swarms flew blindly into me and I became the bloody object of their vicious stingers. To increase my discomfort, the metallic tip of the exhaust ring at the end of my energy-beamer's fusion core chamber made my right shoulder blade extremely sore as I held it tightly pressed to my body.
I waited impatiently and hoped that I would not get caught in one of those furious Venusian storms.
However I got off the hook much quicker than I expected. But I came within a hair of betraying my presence as I could not have imagined a more astonishing sight: Only 15 feet away from me the moist air began to flicker and a creature took shape out of the void. I gazed at it with utter disbelief and mounting anxiety.
The animal resembled an outsized field mouse with an overgrown rear end and the broad tail of a Terrestrial beaver.
The strange creature stood on two short hindlegs that enabled it to walk erect like a human being.
The thin arms with the delicately formed prehensile extremities were folded over its chest. It wore some kind of a uniform. What kind of an animal was it?
The closer I looked at it the more, difficulty I had to make up my mind about this peculiar individual. Animals don't carry energy-beamers! The pointed head of the mouse with the cute spoon-shaped ears would normally have elicited my amused smile but instead the furry little being aroused terrible consternation in me.
Where did it come from? It took awhile before I could recall in my usually reliable memory that Rhodan's Mutant Corps boasted of such an extraordinary but very intelligent creature in its ranks. I had heard more than one rumor about it.
Rhodan called the furball, Pucky. The thinking animal must have come from a planet unknown to me and he seemed to be not only a whimsical little runt but also a teleporter. It was the only explanation I could think of for his sudden materialization.