by Perry Rhodan
"Yes!" he called out.
The door sprang open and Carba stood at the threshold with the wind rippling his wide cape. There was a faint smile on his face. "Here I am," he said, and he came slowly into the room.
"Who is this?" asked Porante suspiciously.
Atlan placed a hand on the colonist’s shoulder. "Lasan, I have to ask you to leave us alone," he said firmly, and Porante unwillingly left the office. When the latter was out of hearing range, he said grimly: "I had hoped that you were no longer alive."
"We have shared this deceptive hope for years," retorted Carba. Atlan felt a great weariness pervading his body although now he had to be more alert than ever before.
"So what’s your procedure this time?" he asked bitterly. The two of them had gotten older, he thought. Older and more experienced. But they were still following the same line of endeavor which made them enemies.
Carba carefully closed the door. "This town is being swallowed up by the sand. Sooner or later it will cease to be. Now you have a chance to make it possible for all remaining colonists to emigrate in a Company ship. It can all go off very smoothly."
"What happens if I refuse?" asked Atlan.
Carba stepped to the window and looked outside. His lean back seemed to be slightly bent. "Then I’ll have to give a speech—to the whole town," he announced. "You know by now how persuasive I can be."
"You will never persuade me, however," Atlan assured him. "In the meantime, I’ve received a promise from the Hasantians. They will help us."
"The Hasantians are a pack of thieves." Carba turned back and stared candidly at Atlan. "They’ll help you alright, and later they’ll come to cash in the colony."
"I don’t believe that," countered Atlan. "They’re sending a ship with vital equipment and sand vehicles—all of which we’d never have gotten from the Company."
"You underestimate the Company. If it’s going to exist it has to operate on the basis of material gain. It can’t invest fortunes in this colony without being paid for it later." Atlan laughed derisively. "When it was first founded the Company was of public benefit but since then it’s become nothing more than a greedy Moloch."
His anger was too outworn to have any effectiveness anymore. For years he had lived with his hatred of the Company although he was one of its employees. Gradually his sense of revulsion had given way to resignation.
"From the inception you’ve built up 14 colonies," Carba recalled. "Five were successful and the others had to be shut down. Compared to other men you still came off with the score in your favor."
"In the meantime you’ve folded more than 50 colonies," answered Atlan bitterly, "and you always scored!"
"You chose your line of work—I chose mine."
"Alright, Carba, let’s wind this up in a hurry. I refuse to voluntarily close out this colony and I’ll remind you again that a Hasantian ship is on its way that will help us." Carba went to the door and turned around for the last time. "I hope you’ll come tonight to hear my address," he said.
Atlan pulled a small raygun from his belt and aimed,it at the Company’s representative. "I could stop you with this," he suggested. "It would be years before our principals would send a new man here. By then the whole matter would be overgrown with grass."
Carba nodded. "You have a point there—but of course you’re forgetting that you never could shoot a man in the back—not you, Atlan."
With that he turned and left the office. The wind made the door swing back and forth. Atlan replaced his weapon. As his gaze returned to Porante’s drawing he snatched it to him in desperation and tore it to bits.
• • •
The news of a stranger in town spread among the colonists like lightning. The younger Dolanty told everybody who cared to listen that Carba had arrived in a spaceship. Within a short time it was known that Carba wanted to make a speech in the community hall.
Toward evening the colonists gathered in the large room and waited to hear what the tall stranger had to say. Everybody came because they were always glad to have an interruption of their monotonous existence. Carba spoke to them for more than an hour. His voice reached the farthest corners of the hall and he was not interrupted with dissenting comments. In a logical progression of the argument he destroyed the hope of the colonists that they could hold on to their town. Meanwhile he kept referring to his ship which was able to take them all on board and fly them off to a happier future.
"Every minute you spend in this desert is only time wasted," he concluded. "Do you want to just sit here and wait for the ship of the Hasantians, which may never arrive?" He wouldn’t have needed these last words to convince the colonists. Standing near the speaker’s podium, Atlan watched them. He saw the shining eyes of the bearded men and noted the restless hands of the women who often nervously smoothed back their dry and brittle hair. He knew the mentality of these people. They wanted to work and build but they were thinking: why shouldn’t they do it in a place that was more suitable instead of on this world of dust and sand? Carba had promised that the spaceship would bring each of them to a place that would seem like a Paradise in comparison to their present conditions.
It would be futile to attempt to tell them that the Company would only take them to another hostile environment as an experiment to see if it could be colonized. There were few planets that could really satisfy the Company’s needs and for those they didn’t need the kind of people they were coming after here—hard men who were ready to fight and struggle for every inch of arable ground.
"Now Atlan will speak to you," said Carba, and he stepped aside. A confused murmuring pervaded the hall, a sound that already expressed the decision of the colonists. Atlan spoke very briefly. "Each of you may only bring a limited amount of your possessions on board the ship, as the weight must be controlled. You must take care that you do not exceed the baggage allowance. Effective as of now, Carba is in charge of this operation." He turned abruptly and left the hall through a rear exit but he heard somebody following him.
It was Sowan Dolanty, trembling with anger. "Do you mean that’s all you’re going to say about that idiotic nonsense?" he demanded.
"That’s about it, I believe," replied Atlan.
Sowan’s eyes were moist with emotion. "You—you coward!" he shouted, and then he walked away from him in an obvious rage.
"That kid’s a hot head," said somebody behind Atlan. It was Carba. "When I first got here he handed me an insult." He had come out of the building and since Atlan had stopped, Carba came up and faced him.
"Get out of my way," Atlan told him threateningly.
Carba stroked the back of his neck reflectively. "You’re not much different than he is," he commented amiably. "Only a bit older and more experienced. I imagine that in your youth you were guilty of similar stupidities."
"Get out of here in that damned ship of yours!" retorted Atlan.
"But of course you’re coming with me?"
"No!"
Carba frowned. The colonists were streaming out of the front of the hall and were returning to their homes to start packing their belongings. Atlan knew that more than half of their luggage would be disallowed when they got to the ship.
"What do you want to do actually?" asked Carba. "Do you want to stay here alone in this town until the sand eats you up?"
"Why not?"
"As soon as all of the colonists are on board the ship, Atlan, I’ll come to get you—if necessary, with force!" said Carba sharply.
"Will you come alone or will you bring your troops with you?"
"I’ll be alone."
Atlan looked pensively at the houses around him. The tensions and pressures between himself and Carba had been building up for too long a time and nothing had contributed to easing the situation. So now the time had come to let the sparks fly.
"I’ll be waiting for you, Carba," he answered grimly.
• • •
From a strategic point of view the town was easy, to attack from any side.
A lone defender could not be in all places at once to guard against an enemy’s penetration. Atlan thought over the situation that had been created by the desertion of the colony by its inhabitants. At the moment he was the only living being in the town and he would remain so until Carba appeared to fetch him. He thought of the colonists who had crammed themselves into the narrow cargo hold of the ship and were hopefully looking forward to the new world that Carba had depicted for them. Atlan harbored no resentment against these people. He had not even been disappointed in them because their actions reflected their mentality. They were always in search of the Promised Land which could never be but nevertheless existed in their dreams and seemed to be attainable. This fixation had been unscrupulously exploited by the Company for its own purposes.
But this was no longer his problem. He would have to prepare for Carba’s return. This man must not be underestimated. He calmly checked his weapon. He had no idea of how the Company agent would proceed but he wanted to be ready for any possibility.
He set himself up in the sturdily-built house that the colonists had jokingly referred to as the government headquarters. From the main windows he had a good view of the single street that ran through the town. The wind blew the elder bushes across the open spaces. They would catch on the corners of the houses until a gust came along to uproot them again. The colony had died and now the only sound to be heard in the town was the wailing and whistling of the wind. Now and again one might hear the banging of a loose board or the slamming of a door that someone had forgotten to close.
The sun had gone down and night was approaching. Carba would not show up until morning because he couldn’t hope to find his quarry in darkness. Atlan lay down on the narrow cot and drew the covers over him. His thoughts were occupied with the forthcoming encounter. After it had become completely dark outside he began to doze off, but suddenly a cry awakened him.
"Atlan!"
Startled, he sat up and tried to look around. It was so dark that he could hardly see the windows. Had he been mistaken or had somebody down below called out his name? The discordant song of the wind could have deceived him.
"Atlan!"
He sprang from the cot and drew his weapon. So Carba had come in the night, after all! He was down there somewhere between the houses and was looking for him. Atlan cranked down the attic ladder and climbed it. He groped cautiously around until he found the tie-hook, with which he fastened the ladder in its elevated position. This way nobody would be able to follow him from below. He quietly opened the roof transom and looked outside. Even at this level the wind swept particles of sand against his face. He raised himself onto the transom ledge and crawled out onto the roof catwalk. The roof was not especially steep but it was overgrown with moss and was slippery. He turned and closed the transom behind him and then crouched on the catwalk, listening. Here on the roof was the safest place. In the darkness Carba would not be able to locate him up here unless he had brought along the necessary sensor equipment from the ship. But that was unlikely because Carba’s pride wouldn’t allow him to stoop to such measures.
Atlan attempted to place himself in the shoes of his antagonist. He asked himself what he would do if he were in his place. He tried to think as Carba would think in order to imagine what his first step would be. If he were the Company agent now he would probably be lying in wait in the garden behind Dolanty’s house because there he would have a clear view of the street from one end to the other. It would be vital to secure that position during the darkness because when daylight returned it would offer unequaled advantages.
"That’s it!" said Atlan to himself. "He’s in Dolanty’s truck garden." Then he began to crawl along the roof on all fours.
• • •
Carba leaned against the useless windbreak that the youngster had been repairing when he first arrived. He was sure that Atlan had heard his shouting and that he was probably trying to do something about it by now.
Probably Atlan hadn’t expected him to venture back into the town at night. From this it could be deduced that the colony’s erstwhile leader was still in the so called "government" building. Carba reasoned that only a fool would attempt to leave the house through the front door. Since Atlan was not such a fool, and if there were no rear exit to the place, he would have to try some other escape route. He concentrated on trying to figure out what he might do if he were in Atlan’s place.
"I would try to get up onto the roof," he muttered to himself. The "government" building was located just about in the center of the town whereas Dolanty’s house was at one end of it. Carba tried to recall how far apart the house roofs were from each other. An agile man could easily jump from one roof to another and thus change his location whenever it was necessary. Carba let out a low whistle. But in the middle of the night this wouldn’t help Atlan, he reasoned, because he didn’t know where his opponent would be. Or wouldn’t he? Carba straightened up, suddenly uneasy. It had been a mistake to choose the best position. With a little shrewd reasoning Atlan could get the idea that his enemy could be found in the vicinity of Dolanty’s house. He would be able to stealthily approach over the rooftops and light up the dark with his first wild shot, only to strike home with the next. With a half-audible curse, Carba ducked down and hurried from the garden. He knew he must not follow any logical plan because Atlan was shrewd enough to foresee all such moves. He would have to play it by instinct.
He quickly left Dolanty’s house behind him and moved with swift, silent steps toward the center of town. Suddenly he was forced to smile. No doubt Atlan was already up there on the roofs somewhere on the other side of the street. He would work his way along to the end of the row of houses and come to a stop right over Dolanty’s place. That’s when he would shoot. Carba would have to wait for that moment to open his own fire, of course from a completely different location than the one Atlan would presume. Carba entered one of the houses through an open door and groped through the dark rooms until he found the stairs leading to the upper level. He shoved the short-barreled thermo-gun into a pocket of his cape and climbed the staircase. After wandering about in the upper rooms for several minutes he located a rope ladder that was fastened to a wall. Releasing it, he tested its strength. It was fastened at the upper end to the ceiling and no doubt led to the roof. Effortlessly he swung himself upward until his head bumped against a wooden surface. While holding on with one hand he pressed with the other against the obstruction. As he had suspected he was suspended underneath a trapdoor which finally yielded to a sturdy thrust. Moments later he was standing on the roof, trying to survey his surroundings, but in the darkness there was nothing to he seen. He thought he heard a slight tapping sound on the other side of the street but it could have been his imagination.
He ripped a chunk of moss from the roof and then felt his way to the edge. He tossed the soft mass a few meters away from him and was satisfied to hear it strike the adjacent rooftop. So the roofs were not as far apart as he had thought. He backed up, took a short run and jumped. In midair he thought he might have miscalculated and a chill ran down his back. But almost in the same instant his feet hit solid support and he went into a crouch in order to take up the impact of landing. He hoped that the wind had drowned the noise of his arrival.
In this manner he worked his way across 4 houses until he was only about 50 meters from Dolanty’s spread. He smiled with satisfaction. It was only a matter of time until Atlan would reach the rooftop on the other side and attempt to fire off a shot toward Dolanty’s garden patch. In doing so he would dig his own grave. Carba shook his head in self-admiration. For an intelligent man everything was so simple if he took the trouble to use his head.
• • •
On his last jump, Atlan almost took a fall. He had lost his footing and slid down the roof but his fingers had gripped into the moss in time to brake his progress. He pulled himself slowly back to the center of the roof and stopped there to catch his breath. He had reached his goal. In spite of the darkness he was
fairly certain of the spot that would be his target. Naturally he wouldn’t be able to hit his opponent on the first shot but the energy discharge would illuminate the area brilliantly. While Carba was recovering from his surprise, Atlan would be able to fire a second time and put an end to the matter. He kneeled down and aimed his weapon toward Dolanty’s garden. His hands trembled and he had to lower the gun for a moment. It all seemed so easy—in fact too easy. He bit his lip, realizing he could have almost made a mistake. How could he think that Carba would choose the very spot that any amateur would have selected? Carba was no dummy. He wouldn’t pick out the most obvious position in town.
Suddenly Atlan was certain that his shot would have accomplished no more than to reveal his own location. He replaced the weapon and squatted down on the roof to reflect on the situation. Just as he had sought to put himself in Carba’s place the latter would have tried to figure out his own strategy in advance. It wouldn’t be too much of a mental effort on Carba’s part to deduce that Atlan would come hunting for him here. So what would the other one do? He would clear out of the danger area. Even a man with less imagination than Carba could figure out that his antagonist would attempt to attack from the rooftops.
Atlan frowned as be realized that he had gotten himself into a fairly bad fix. In this darkness his opponent could be practically any where in the town. In fact it was even possible that be was standing only a few meters away down below.
He crept to the lower part of the roof at the rear of the house and jumped into the garden. His landing made a dull thudding sound which might have been heard at a distance of at least 20 meters or so. Without stopping he moved away from the spot, thankful that no sudden shot glared out in the night. But he bumped against a fence and bruised his hip. He knew their must be a water reservoir close by because be sensed its telltale dampness in the wind. At present be was behind Tastat’s house, which was one of the smaller structures in the town. He pressed through a small opening in the fence and groped his way along the house wall to the street.