The Starless Realm

by Perry Rhodan

The Japanese also looked at the snow but Rhodan knew that his eyes could see farther than his own. Meter by meter, his gaze penetrated snow and ice and hard rock into the interior of the planet. How far actually? Rhodan had to confess that he did not know what Sengu's limitations were. He could only wait in silence.

  Finally Sengu raised his head to look at him. "Nothing, sir. I went down a thousand meters, and nothing."

  That still did not mean a thing. The planet's propulsion system, he knew, lay at a depth of 5000 meters. But before he had Sengu search farther he wanted to have a better look at the surface of Barkon. Especially now that their eyes had finally adjusted themselves to the twilight.

  "Pucky, let's do some jumps. Make them about 50 kilometers each as we go. Our direction is east."

  Pucky sighed and took each man by the hand. The physical contact made it possible for Rhodan and Sengu to accompany him through hyperspace when he teleported. Of course it required substantially more of his parapsychic energies to do this but he was able to continue such an operation for a certain length of time.

  When they materialized again they saw the landscape had not changed. The only difference they noted was that the home galaxy appeared to have lowered slightly toward the horizon.

  "Here it doesn't look much better," commented Pucky, and he jumped with them again.

  100 km... 1,000 km...

  Nothing changed. Valleys, mountains and plains—all were covered over with a thick snow pack, which was the crystallized precipitation of Barkon's atmosphere. Sengu was able to determine that in many places this frigid layer was as much as 50 meters thick whereas in other places it was often as shallow as only two or three meters. This meant, then, that previously there had been storms here but as the planet's gaseous envelope had dwindled they had gradually subsided and finally ceased.

  The snow was frozen hard except for a thin, loose layer on the surface which must have been precipitated in recent times. They had almost circumnavigated half the planet and Pucky was just getting set for another jump when Sengu cried out swiftly to them. "Energy-wave pulsations! The mechanical kind. I can sense them!"

  Rhodan had not been at all aware that Sengu could also detect radiations in the electromagnetic spectrum, other than light. When he asked him about it, Sengu explained that his mutated retinal nerves were sensitive to such sources, causing a telltale distortion of vision which enabled him to detect such impulses.

  "What do you mean by the mechanical kind?"

  "Machines—but they're not working any more. I'd say what I'm getting is the residual radiations from a shut-down atomic engine of some kind."

  Then it could not have been long since Barkon's installations had ceased to function. Could it be possible that a few Barkonides were still alive down there in those slowly chilling subterranean chambers...?

  Rhodan considered.

  Here they were standing isolated and alone on a dead world whose towns and cities had been buried under the snow. Nothing else could be discovered here on top. If there was still any life it would have to be somewhere in the bowels of the planet.

  Or the capital city...?

  Rhodan tried to remember. "Pucky, let's change our direction and spread out the jumps. Almost direct north, I'd say—3,000 kilometers."

  Still nothing. Sengu didn't even pick up any more machine radiations. Three more jumps. And then the metropolis!

  Rhodan recognized it immediately by its contours, which were clearly visible under the snow. Some of the highest buildings even still towered above the white shroud, giving the last testimony of the fact that this had once been the capital city of the Barkonides.

  On the whole, however, there was not as much snow here as elsewhere. Its average depth must have been about five meters and in some places perhaps 10. When standing in the streets it was possible to imagine that this, was one of America's gold rush settlements of 200 years before. The high drifts of snow and the individual lower types of buildings were reminiscent of old movies in the stereo films.

  "Pucky?"

  "Nothing. Absolutely zip! Nobody lives here any more."

  If the mouse-beaver was not receiving any thought impulses, then there was no one here, either. Not anyone capable of thinking. And every living creature thought, if it was halfway intelligent.

  The black void stretched over the dead city. Suddenly not only this city but the entire universe seemed to be dead. Rhodan had the impression that the only ones alive anywhere were Sengu, Pucky and himself.

  "Sengu?"

  "No impulses, sir."

  Rhodan sensed his first qualms of despair. For the time being he resisted the impulse to jump blindly with Pucky into the interior of the planet. Such a procedure held many hidden dangers. Naturally after any teleport jump they would only rematerialize where solid matter was present. But suppose they emerged out of hyperspace in a place where a yielding state of matter existed, such as in water or molten magma...?

  "About 500 kilometers to the west of here is the main entrance to the lower world. I was there once. From there a tunnel leads to the central control station for the propulsion machinery and other installations. The air-generating and food-producing centers should also be there."

  Pucky took a hand of each of the two men. "Let's give it a try. Here we sure haven't lost anything."

  Lost... that was the word. It seemed to Rhodan that Pucky had hit the nail on the head without knowing it. Barkon appeared to be lost—and the Barkonides along with it.

  The first jump brought them once more into a snowy wasteland that was devoid of any distinguishable features. It wasn't until the 4th jump that Rhodan paused. He gave his particular attention to the snow-covered peak of a nearby mountain which half obscured the home galaxy that had made a new appearance.

  "I believe it was here. Get us closer to the mountain, Pucky."

  They materialized at the foot of the solitary peak.

  "The tunnel is sunk into the mountain at a steep angle and drops to a depth of 5,000 meters. Any thought vibes, Pucky?"

  "Nope. Dead as a thorn nail!"

  "No—not quite!" Sengu was looking at the ground with wide, staring eyes. It was as though he were seeing something below.

  "Machine radiations?"

  "Barely perceptible, sir, but they are there. Like before. Radiations that have been dampened down, dying out. If there are machines down below they must have been shut off. It takes a long time for the residual nuclear energies to die down. We know that the fuel generating process keeps going until the last moment. If the machines are shut down, what's left has to expend itself—even if only in this way. That's the kind of stuff I'm getting."

  "And—other than that, what do you see?"

  "I haven't gone down far enough." The mutant reminded them that he could only progress visually from layer to layer. "Now—at about 2,000 meters... Darkened passages and tunnels. I can't see much because in spite of this faculty I still need at least reflected light."

  Rhodan could immediately perceive the difficulty. Without a real light source even the 'seer' would not be able to observe very much. "But couldn't you give Pucky the necessary coordinates for a teleport jump?"

  Sengu nodded without permitting himself to be distracted. "That would be possible. But..." He was suddenly interrupted.

  "Look out!" exclaimed Pucky. As a telepath he was the most sensitive of any of them. "Somebody's coming!"

  Rhodan whirled about and looked in the direction Pucky was pointing. He saw nothing. Only the snow desert and the distant horizon. Nor could he see anything moving when he looked in any other direction.

  "Where?"

  Uncertainly, Pucky finally lowered his arm. "Maybe I'm getting antsy or something. It sure seemed like somebody was there! I'm sure he was, because he was thinking! Whatever he thought I couldn't figure out. But he was thinking!"

  "As a telepath you're able to analyze every thought and perceive its basic meaning," said Rhodan, somewhat puzzled. "You mean you can't do it now?"
>
  "No—just thoughts without any particular message content. But they weren't the friendly kind. I guess I picked up that much without realizing it. There—it's happening again! Stronger and nearer! It's approaching us..."

  Rhodan was surprised to see the hair of Pucky's neck bristle up, which was a real signal for alarm. It was very seldom that Pucky genuinely experienced actual fear—but when it happened it was a sign of very grave danger.

  Sengu had given up trying to penetrate the planet's crust. He stepped close to Rhodan and was prepared to grasp Pucky's hand at the first signal from the Chief. But for the time being this did not seem to be the strategy. Rhodan was still staring in the direction indicated by Pucky. He still couldn't see anything.

  "It must be very close now," whispered Pucky somewhat hoarsely. "And it's thinking..."

  Now Rhodan also sensed it.

  Something was cautiously penetrating his thoughts, exerting a perceptible pressure. It was a thrust that slowly became painful. It was bearable but unpleasant because there seemed to be no way of fending it off. Somebody was trying to gain possession of his conscious mind. But who?

  The spotless sheet of snow stretched out before him empty. Yet the unknown presence must be standing there only a few meters away. Someone who was invisible.

  But there were no footprints. Any invisible person would have to leave footprints behind him in this white snow. Rhodan's eyes watered as he strained to see any sign of the interloper. The pain in his head increased steadily.

  "Try your telekinesis!" he called to Pucky.

  The mouse-beaver nodded. He concentrated on the invisible matter that was close before him—and he struck home.

  His mental blow went into emptiness. The pain remained.

  Rhodan felt for his energy-beamer but quickly realized the senselessness of it. He could not shoot at something he couldn't see. At least not yet.

  "It doesn't work!" said Pucky desperately. "But I think I can reach him—or It—telepathically. My thoughts are striking against some kind of resistance. The distance is maybe 10 meters but no more!"

  At least that was something. The direction and range could be determined. Nothing more, however. At least not at present.

  "Can you determine its size?"

  "All I can sense is the mental resistance, otherwise nothing. It's as if this unknown thing's thoughts were the closest to anything you could call material. Its body—well, it doesn't have any in our sense of the word."

  Rhodan had a sudden suspicion but he rejected it immediately. No, there was no way that this could be a Druuf. They were only invisible because they existed in another time-plane. Obviously this was not the case here.

  Now he also exerted his meager telepathic powers—and there was the resistance Pucky had mentioned. But he was unable to probe the thought impulses or to decipher them.

  Suddenly the pain inside his brain subsided.

  Pucky remained motionless where he was. "He's given up the mental attack. Looks like his reserves of strength are less than ours. He's flubbed his attempt to bring us under his control."

  "Is he just one—I mean, alone?"

  Pucky did not answer. He appeared not to have considered that there might be more than a single opponent. Although the bristling of hair at the back of his neck had smoothed out, there were still furrows of worry on his little brow.

  "No, now I can sense more of them. They're approaching us from all sides."

  There was still nothing to be seen, no shadowy outlines and, above all, no footprints. Rhodan nodded a signal to Sengu and grasped Pucky's hand. The Japanese took hold of the other.

  "As soon as there is another attack, let's jump."

  They waited. But not long.

  Abruptly a pale blue beam of energy darted out of emptiness and struck at the snow directly in front of them. The frozen surface immediately began to melt and vaporize. "Merk! (scram)" shouted Rhodan.

  Pucky had calculated his jump so that they rematerialized not two kilometers from their previous position.

  They were on a slight elevation of the gradually rising land, on the slope of the mountain, and they could clearly observe the spot where they had just been standing.

  They couldn't mistake it because it was marked now by a veritable fireworks display. The deadly raybeams came from all directions and transformed the snow into a small lake that was beginning to boil and vaporize. The steam that did not immediately precipitate again spread out and attenuated in all directions.

  "They've assumed that we also made ourselves invisible," guessed Rhodan. But he wasn't at all certain of his deductions. "They seem to be trying to destroy us."

  Just then the attack ceased. The energy beams died out as all apparent action halted. The small lake began to freeze over rapidly. From this distance it had the appearance of a glassy eye that someone had dropped into the snow.

  Pucky was 'listening' inwardly. "They're coming this way," he whispered. "I can't say definitely but I think there may be five or six of them. They're thinking again. And I'm afraid they've also picked up our own thought-waves. That's why they stopped making that useless attack."

  "Then they're also probably trying to figure out how we got here so fast." There was a trace of triumph in his voice. "How fast are they moving?"

  "They don't have much speed," replied Pucky. "A running man could overtake them."

  They all stared in the direction of the small frozen lake. They would be coming from there and could possibly reach their present location in two or three minutes. Yet nothing moved on the sloping plain. No tracks, no puffs of snow disturbed their passage. The attack of their pursuers remained invisible.

  Now Rhodan could sense the painful thought-impulses once more. "What kind of beings are they?" His question came like a whisper. "They are invisible and apparently disembodied. They are telepaths and yet they can't make out the meaning of our thoughts—otherwise they'd have realized by now that we made a teleport jump. They are thinking and yet we can't decipher their thoughts, either. They don't try to make contact but instead just ruthlessly attack on sight. Their objective is to kill us."

  "Whoever they may be," said Pucky angrily, "they sure rub me the wrong way! I ought to catch one of them—but how can you catch somebody who doesn't exist?"

  "Oh they exist alright," returned Rhodan with emphasis. "But in a form we aren't yet able to imagine. How far away are they now?"

  For answer, the attack started again.

  The first long-range energy shot missed them but before another one came, Pucky teleported. This time it was a full 10 kin jump that landed them on top of the mountain.

  They stood on a small, ice-encrusted plateau that was a good 4,000 meters above the plain. The vacuum surrounding them had one great advantage in that there was no wind to contend with. For Rhodan and his companions it made no difference whatsoever whether they stood on the plain or on the 4,000-meter peak.

  The small plateau measured about 20 square meters and was quite flat. If the invisible attackers were

  going to come here on foot, they had a strenuous task ahead of them. Or did they have airships and long-range weapons?

  "Can you still pick up their thought-waves, Pucky?"

  He did not receive an immediate answer. The mouse-beaver was striving to locate the alien impulses. Finally he shook his head. "They only have a small range. How is that possible?"

  Of course Rhodan had to admit that there was no answer to that question.

  At the edge of the plateau were a few larger rock outcroppings which were coated with ice. Actually they formed the real peak of the mountain. One of the stones had the appearance of a wide bench. Pucky couldn't resist it. He let go of the men's hands and sat down cautiously on the improvised seat.

  He sighed contentedly. "I hope the heater in my suit works just as well at the tail end of me. Well, here we are, sitting on top of a mountain and looking down at the world."

  Rhodan did not relax his state of wariness. The advent of th
e invisible foe had served to scrap all of his previous suppositions. At first he had secretly presumed that the Barkonides had fallen victims to some kind of a technological catastrophe. Their machines could have failed them. But now this was an entirely different situation. Somebody—or something —had emerged from the void and taken possession of the planet.

  From the void...? From where, actually?

  Could there be entities who had succeeded in conquering the mighty gulf of more than 100,000 light-years? Theoretically it was possible. Hypertransitions could reach as far as 30,000 light-years but so far nobody had ventured to make a thrust outward into the intergalactic space between island universes.

  So far!

  So now it must have happened.

  "Sengu, keep on trying to find something," Rhodan ordered.

  The Japanese was looking down toward the plain. He nodded but said nothing.

  Their view was unobstructed on all sides except where the rock formations towered upward to the final peak. The distant horizon was a barely perceptible shimmering line where the dimly lighted snow seemed to blend into the blackness of the outer abyss. But in between there was nothing that moved. Yet somewhere out there lurked this mysterious invisible menace.

  Sengu spoke in low tones. "I see some wide corridors that lead steeply downward into the depths. They are empty, completely deserted. There's no life to be seen. There are a few transport vehicles standing around as though they'd simply been forgotten. Now I can see a large chamber with an arched ceiling. There are passages leading away from it in all directions. Which one should I follow?"

  "Any of them that has rail tracks in it," replied Rhodan, recalling something from memory. "You do see one, don't you—one that has metal tracks?"

  "Yes, that's true." There was a note of admiration in the voice of the Japanese mutant.

  They all fell silent once more. That is, until Rhodan again sensed the pain boring into his brain. The first warning signal! The invisible ones were again making their advance.

  Pucky suddenly sprang up. He pointed eastward but not downward toward the plain. Instead, he pointed at a steep angle right into the black firmament.