Ark of the Stars
Page 26
Which was impossible.
Completely impossible.
Hypercom was five-dimensional technology. The ark's technical level was centuries, if not millennia away from that.
The signal couldn't have come from the ark.
Alemaheyu only peripherally realized that they had reached the edge of Meklaran. A shaped energy dome vaulted over the district, creating a tolerable atmosphere inside for oxygen breathers.
The prospectors took off their protective suits and left them behind in the monitored storage locker area, revealing widely idiosyncratic and colorful casual clothes. Air saturated with sweet fragrances, the lures of widely diverse establishments, filled the comm officer's nose. Alemaheyu loved this aroma, but this evening he was too entangled in the whirl of his thoughts to enjoy it.
Assuming that the comm signal really had come from the ark, then what did it mean? Was it a distress call? Or an invitation?
Perhaps that was it. An invitation that the Akonian fleet had answered.
You couldn't put anything past the Akonians.
Perhaps that also applied to artistic taste? Alemaheyu would find out this evening.
Sharita took the lead of the prospectors and navigated confidently to The Drunken Sailor. Was she familiar with the location of their destination? Or following directions from her picosyn? After just two thousand years in business, The Drunken Sailor wasn't Meklaran's oldest night spot, nor was it the most famous or the most notorious—nor, as Alemaheyu discovered when they entered its dim interior, was it the most clean. It was simply a very typical run-down bar in a very typical run-down pleasure quarter.
In other words, The Drunken Sailor was the ideal place for what they had in mind.
Tables for about a hundred people had been set up in the main room, the chairs arranged to face the raised stage. Just the sight of them made Alemaheyu forget all thoughts of mysterious hypercom signals.
Just half an hour more and ... .
The doors at the other end of the room slid open and the crew of the Las-Toór streamed into The Drunken Sailor. For several long seconds, the Terrans and the Akonians eyed each other, silent and uncertain, then the bar owner took pity on them and laid down a carpet of Maahkish music over the uncomfortable scene—a clever choice, since no non-Maahk could stand such so-called music. Sharing their disgust at the abrasive noise, the Terrans and Akonians found places at the tables.
The Terrans sat to the left of the center aisle and the Akonians to the right. The Akonian commander made an effort to approach his Terran colleague, but Sharita sent him back to his chair with an icy look.
The bar robots swarmed out. Both sides ordered as if there were no tomorrow, glad to have something to do, and soon the tables were piled high with bowls and glasses. Both sides shot more frequent covert looks across the aisle, but still no one dared to invade enemy territory.
The show program began with the inevitable duo of an Ertrusian (humanoid, copper-colored, two and a half meters tall, with Mohawk-style hair) and a Siganesian (humanoid, lime green, eleven centimeters tall). Terrans and Akonians alike applauded courteously. Maahkora was out in the boondocks, and as long as something was happening on stage, no one was inclined to be too critical.
Alemaheyu hardly paid any attention to the unmatched pair on the stage. He looked around and found Eniva ta Drorar. The Akonian woman gave him a friendly wave, pointed to the stage, and grinned encouragingly.
The Terran wished he could be as uninhibited as Eniva. He would have liked nothing better than to stand up and run away. Or pour so much beer into himself that couldn't even stagger to the stage. But there was no turning back.
And besides, someone had to break the ice.
Then it was time. While a shape-shifting Morphing Willie attempted to break through the audience's inhibitions by making himself into living caricatures of prominent politicians—among them Rhodan who, unrecognized in the audience, laughed louder than anyone else—the bar owner came to Alemaheyu's table and said quietly, "Okay, you're next."
Alemaheyu stood up and made his way through the tables to the side entrance to the stage. He felt as though thousands of eyes were boring into his back, and his sweat-drenched shirt stuck to his body. One of The Drunken Sailor's employees approached him. "Nervous, eh? Don't worry. I'll get you a new one!"
"A new what?" Alemaheyu asked, confused.
"Shirt. Yours is—"
The comm officer shook his head. "That's all right. It fits with what I have in mind."
The assistant shrugged. "It's up to you."
Alemaheyu tested The Drunken Sailor's syntron while the Morphing Willie finished its performance with an impersonation of the Arkonide Imperator Bostich stumbling over his ceremonial rapier during one of his beloved military parades.
The syntron checked out. The software he needed had been correctly initialized. Now there was only one risk factor remaining: Alemaheyu Kossa himself.
The polite applause for the Morphing Willie died out. Alemaheyu took a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage. The spotlight blinded him, making it impossible to see his audience. Eniva waved to him from the other side of the stage.
The comm officer unbuttoned his sweat-damp shirt, took it off, and rolled it up. Then he tied it around his forehead to keep his mane of hair out of his eyes.
Alemaheyu bowed. "Dear ... " He faltered. Dear what? Friends? Allies? Ex-archenemies? Rivals? He left the salutation unfinished. "This is a piece that some of you may already be familiar with. An old Terran folk song called 'All Along the Watchtower'."
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his fingertips. He had to feel the guitar in his hands.
Shouts came from the Terran side. "Show us, Alemaheyu! Give us your air guitar!"
Alemaheyu gave it to them.
His fingers, which up to now had only felt the air, now felt the strings of the air guitar as though they existed as physical objects. He drove the first tones screeching into The Drunken Sailor's main room.
Alemaheyu opened his eyes. The bar owner had dimmed the spotlight, so Alemaheyu could see the audience. The Terran half was already out of its seats. And the Akonians? Alemaheyu thought he could see some of them covertly tapping their feet in time with the music.
Good, they're getting warmed up. And now ... he gave Eniva the signal.
The Akonian walked slowly out on stage. Tiny antigrav projectors kept her styled hair in constant, snakelike motion. She bowed, opened her mouth, and soundlessly moved her lips.
The syntron caught her movements and converted them into song. Alemaheyu heard "Watchtower" as he had never heard it before. As a wonderfully rich, husky song. Overpoweringly feminine, overpoweringly passionate. The Akonian audience couldn't stay in its seats a moment longer. Men and women leaped up, spurring Eniva on, calling louder and louder, "Plejbek! Plejbek! Plejbek!"
Frenetic applause washed over Alemaheyu and Eniva. The Terrans clapped and howled while the Akonians stamped and howled.
"Encore! Encore! Encore!" came from all sides as they finished their first number.
It was an unnecessary request. Alemaheyu had no intention whatsoever of stopping. Not now. They alternated between Akonian and Terran songs, and eventually they began letting them flow together.
Terrans and Akonians danced everywhere: on the floor, on the tables, on the bar and a few who had brought their antigravs on the ceiling.
Only one area remained clear: the central aisle, the boundary between the two crews. No one dared to dance there, let alone cross it.
Alemaheyu, who after more than a dozen songs could barely stay upright, was beginning to think it would stay that way when something happened that astonished him more than the appearance of an entire fleet of Lemurian generation ships: Sharita stood up, unbuttoned her uniform jacket and hung it carefully over her chair. She took a few steps back, then ran forward and leapt onto the stage shouting a word that Alemaheyu couldn't quite understand: "Karaoke!"
Alemaheyu would learn wh
at it meant that evening, which became a very long night. He and the crews of the Palenque and the Las-Toór staggered back to their ships in the gray dawn in small groups and pairs, bellowing the words to songs or engaged in quieter pursuits.
The comm officer was the last to return on board the Palenque, more exhausted but more mellow than he had ever felt before in his life, not least because of the kiss that Eniva had brushed against his lips before disappearing into her cabin on the Palenque. Alemaheyu took it as the promise of a most pleasant future.
As he staggered through the Palenque's hangar, he pinched his arm to reassure himself that he hadn't dreamed the past few hours—and banged his head against a metal wall.
The comm officer stumbled back.
"Watch out, Alemaheyu—that thing is harder than your head!" came an amused voice from one side. The comm officer turned his head and thought he could make out Hayden Norwell, who had voluntarily stayed behind on the ship.
"Uh ... what thing?"
When his vision focused again, he saw it: in the Palenque's hangar stood a brand-new space-jet, the auxiliary craft for which they had been waiting in vain for years.
"That ... that's ... "
" ... a space-jet!" Norwell finished happily.
"How did it get here?"
"Oh, I thought we could use one. So I got in touch with the ship's owners, talked to them very reasonably, and ... well, you can see the result."
Alemaheyu nodded. "Yes, I do see."
A ship full of Lemurians; the prospect of further discoveries that would make them all rich; people who cheered him; Akonians who weren't really so bad, and in one case not bad at all; Sharita relaxing in front of the crew; Perry Rhodan, who treated him like an old buddy—and now a space-jet for the Palenque, provided by the cheapskate owners.
Nothing was impossible.
Want to know how things are going to develop?
#2 The Sleeper of the Ages by Hans Kneifel will be available from November 5, 2015
Imprint
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© 2015 Pabel-Moewig Verlag KG, PERRY RHODAN digital, Rastatt
Editorship: Klaus N. Frick
Translation: Dwight R. Decker
Cover Artwork: Oliver Scholl
ISBN: 978-3-8453-3374-8
Original Title: Die Sternenarche
Original Edition: © Pabel-Moewig Verlag KG, Rastatt
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Cover
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About Perry Rhodan
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Epilogue
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