by K. H. Scheer
Rhodan exhaled the compressed air in his lungs with a whistle. It felt like a sneeze of relief. He wanted to shout, laugh or do anything to vent his excitement.
He regained his lucidity. The engines performed in a faultless manner as was to be expected from the superior products of the Arkonides.
Brutal forces of formidable strength opposed each other. On one side the incredible energy of the Unknown and here the might of machines.
Bell stretched his limbs. Khrest and Thora were still unconscious and the physicians Haggard and Manoli rushed to their aid. The two Arkonides were the weakest persons on board. Even Pucky proved to be hardier.
"Absorbed, thank goodness," Bell gasped. "Oh, it’s getting stronger again. We’re losing the little bit of counter-thrust we gained against the repulsion radiation. Brother, it’s going to be our neck this time."
Bell grinned wryly. He no longer moved a finger. The faces of the officers appeared on the videoscreens. The mutant Tanaka Seiko still raged violently in spite of the anaesthetic administered by Dr. Haggard. His extraordinary brain must have registered the unknown energy units with painful reaction.
Rhodan concentrated his thoughts. His mind was working feverishly. A vague concept began to form in his brain. The tachometer was going down to zero from the 1.5 miles per second headway they had made against the opposing force. They were nearing the end. The neutralizers became overloaded.
Rhodan racked his brains. He ceased to hear the infernal noise around him. Then a revelation struck him like lightning.
"What did you say just now?" he shouted. Bell spun around as Rhodan gripped his shoulder.
"What is it? How did you call the field?"
"Field? I didn’t say anything about a field. Do you mean repulsion radiation?"
Rhodan’s reaction was not confined to a sigh of relief. His body surged across the instrument board up to the extreme right hand corner of the inclined panel where the main control of the energy screens was located.
His fist struck the lever. Foot-long sparks flashed from the circuit-breakers as he shut off the current to the energy-screen projectors.
His men screamed in terror. Had their commander gone mad?
Bell was the first to grasp the meaning. The white-hot G-screen collapsed like a soap bubble blown away. It was as if its awesome power had never existed. The shrill howling of the generators and transformers died down. Only the drive-engines kept roaring at full capacity.
The Stardust—whose velocity had been so far incalculable—automatically reversed its direction at full speed and went where it had come from.
"Dammit!" Marshall exclaimed. "It was our gravity field! They somehow used it as a pole to repulse us. Whatever made you think of that, sir?"
Rhodan laughed out loud. With undiminished attention he kept staring at the instrument panel. The mysterious interference had definitely been eliminated.
"Hello, old friend!" he called for the second time with a defiant grin on his lips. "We won against what comes next?"
This time Bell did not question Rhodan’s sanity any more; he leaned back exhausted.
In the wide open space ahead of them the planet Wanderer followed its course through the Galaxy.
Khrest finally regained consciousness. He was appealing for help.
"It’s all right now," Rhodan said soothingly. "Bell mentioned something about a repulsion field which gave me the idea."
"Repulsion radiation," Bell corrected. "Honestly, I don’t know why, it just slipped out."
"In that case let’s have a little more slippage like that."
Rhodan coughed. His lungs were still hurting. "It was a little rough," he commented. "Be that as it may, the Unknown wields stupendous power. This has been the hardest test. Apparently he has no intention of surrendering his secret unless it is to somebody who knows how to safeguard it I hope we don’t weaken at the last moment."
"Do you still dare to go on?" Thora cried horrified.
Rhodan looked sternly at her.
"Vega is burning up, keep that in mind! Bell, take over the controls! I’ve got some work to do at the computer."
"You’re out of your mind, I’m sure of that," Thora declared utterly amazed.
As the tall man walked past her with stooped shoulders, she glanced at him, bewildered and fascinated.
Klein winked at Bell who began to grimace and to whistle, a sure way to make Thora beat a hasty retreat.
"Stupid!" Thora put him down. "You’ll never learn, you ape! When we get to Arkon I’ll have you put on the nearest tree."
Tall and erect she swept past him to her seat. Bell stared at her flabbergasted.
Before Bell could let loose with his own pithy vernacular, the Unknown interrupted him again with a vengeance.
300 ADVENTURES FROM NOW
you’ll shiver to the
The Phantom Transmitter
6/ WORLD OF THE UNKNOWN
"Turn it-off!" Rhodan bellowed, beside himself. "Cut off the electric power for the protective screen! Shunt the current or short-circuit it. Do something! My controls are out of commission."
"So are mine," Garand replied cheerfully as if he were playing games with some children. However Garand’s cheerfulness was a mask for deep concern. It was peculiar how much this man differed from most others.
Rhodan bit his tongue to suppress a derogatory epithet. Desperate and furious, he looked around:
"Any ideas, anybody? The engine controls are blocked. We’ve got to shut the engines off. If we don’t brake within five minutes we’re going to slam into something we can’t even see."
Khrest threw up his hands and returned to his seat in resignation. Klein nervously fingered his weapon controls and suggested:
"I could fire some Arkonide bombs or perhaps trigger gravity-bombs of the fifth dimension into the space-continuum. if there’s anything ahead of us, it would be swept away.
"Very smart," Rhodan sneered. "Your G-bombs are no faster than light and, therefore, no faster than we’re moving. You’ll have to think of something better than that. Who’s got an idea? I can’t think straight any more. Isn’t there anybody else who can come up with an idea?"
Rhodan calmed down again. At first it seemed to have been only a trifling matter that had gone wrong with the Stardust.
With engines running at full speed the Stardust had in the meantime recovered the distance lost by the earlier repulsion. They had first come to a standstill and then shot forward again along the predetermined trajectory.
The engines had propelled the spaceship for about 10 minutes when Khrest announced—after consulting the positronic brain—that it was time to slow down the craft in order to reach their previous position and velocity. Rhodan manipulated the controls in order to obtain a state of free fall and, subsequently, to brake their speed, but the racing engines failed to respond in a normal manner and continued completely out of control.
This was the situation they found themselves in. Something had jammed all controls. Apparently there was more to it than simple blocking. It drove Rhodan to desperation that he was unable to put his finger on it.
He looked around once more. None of his aides offered any advice, including those visible on the television screens.
A squeaky voice began to chirp behind the commander’s seat. With a sudden intuition Rhodan swivelled around, grabbed Pucky firmly by the neck and jerked him forward. The furry animal yelped pitifully. The anger in his bright eyes waned as soon as Rhodan imploringly panted:
Pucky, my little friend, now you can go into your first action. I’ll let you play a little. Listen, you may play with all the engine controls the way you did once before. You know the big machinery hall where those red metal blocks are? They are the field-projectors for the protective screens. When they fail, the thermo-transformers and impulse converters are knocked out as well. Concentrate on the red metal blocks. Something is wrong with them. Stop the machines!"
"I know, I know!" Pucky exclaimed, bubbling over
in exhilaration. "I’ve played with those back home. Did I get a bang out of them!"
"Go ahead! Let it rip!"
The mutants excitedly watched the most accomplished telekinetic being of all times. Not even little Betty Toufry had such faculties at her command. Betty jumped up and offered her hand to Pucky. His tiny paw disappeared in her hand.
"Will you help me? Please, come with me, but let me!"
Rhodan kept a watchful eye on the videoscreen showing the power-transformer station in the machinery hall. It was an attempt fraught with danger which, however, could very well be crowned with success.
The yowl of the engines continued unabatedly for a while until they began to sputter. A shower of sparks streaked from the transformer shields. A terrible crash made the Stardust quiver.
Suddenly it was all over. The engines were silent and the bright glow of the impulse currents disappeared from the observation screen.
Betty Toufry collapsed without a sound. Anne Sloane picked her up and bedded her down on a contour couch. Pucky rested his furry head on Klein’s knee. He was trembling all over and moaning softly.
"Well done, shorty, you were great!" Capt. Klein stammered, stroking the silky fur. "Everything is going to be just fine."
Rhodan began to operate his switches. He did not know which connections the two telekinetics had broken with their extraordinary psychic power. In any case, all installations functioned properly. However, the automatic navigation control was a few seconds late when it warned:
"Emergency! Garand, prepare for energy requirements at 350 miles per second."
This time all orders were quickly executed. The force field was automatically restored in an exemplary manner.
Minutes later the high velocity of the vessel was reduced to practically nil.
Then Tanaka Seiko began to have another fit of violent madness. He drew himself up despite his drugged state, stared ahead with frightened eyes and screamed incoherently, although there was nothing to see on the observation screens except empty space. The range-finder did not register anything either.
Rhodan activated the override emergency switch. The hatches slammed shut and the magnetic harnesses popped out to hold the men securely in their seats.
At this moment a terrible crash shook the entire spaceship. Notwithstanding that the absorbers were operating at full strength, they were shoved forward into their safety harnesses. The belts cut into their bodies with excruciating pain. Instruments clattered and broke into thousands of pieces in the aftermath of a 50 G-shock which burst without restraint through the absorber field.
A harrowing picture began to unfold on the observation screen. The mighty Stardust had come to a grinding halt in an instant. The engines continued to run and shed some light on a half energy, half material substance which arched far and wide in all directions.
Rhodan stopped the engines. The more sensitive instruments had been shattered under the impact. The intercom was greatly impaired.
The gigantic sphere of the super-battleship had bored itself into a resilient object which it had hit with incredible force.
When Rhodan came out of his initial shock he grimly surveyed the situation and mutterer:
"This landing wasn’t exactly according to the book. Unusually messy, I’d say. What next? What are we up against now?"
He didn’t have long to wait for an answer. A sun lit up, becoming brighter and brighter until it blinded their eyes.
It revealed far below a landscape which looked unreal. They had not landed on its surface but were suspended way up in a transparent dome. The Stardust had been stopped like a bullet in an impenetrable barrier. Then they heard an uproarious Homeric laughter. Somebody howled with such pleasure that it threatened to split their ears, although they listened to it subconsciously. Evidently it was a telepathic feat of most impressive proportions.
"Hello, old friend," Rhodan said for the third time. "We’ve arrived, haven’t we?"
The laughter ended as abruptly as it had begun. Stardust II started to descend. It fell faster and faster.
When they noticed the first noise of friction, doubtlessly indicating an atmosphere, the anti-grav field was activated.
After a short counter-thrust from the engines the spaceship was brought to a standstill five miles above the land.
They were enthralled by the sight on the observation screens. What they beheld was anything but a normal planet of the usual spherical shape with flattened poles.
What they confronted looked like a monumental agglomeration of strange architecture running the gamut from creations of genius to ugliness. The Unknown had built a world to suit his own imagination.
It was awesome and fantastic, confusing and reassuring at the same time. If this was the world of eternal life, it was aptly designed and named.
"Great Scot!" Rhodan said deeply moved, "I didn’t expect anything like this. This is only a flat horizonless disk covered with oceans, forests, mountains and prairies; a circular slab topped and screened by a dome of energy. If one approaches it from below, nothing can be seen of this immense slab without light and vegetation; just an oversize slab. It’s a world whose end can always be reached since it lacks curvature. Then you face the energy screen behind which empty space begins. It’s simply a round platform with a roof. Have I lost my mind or have we all died?"
He turned his head. His men looked white as sheets. Pucky was still whimpering. The Unknown had stopped laughing.
400 ADVENTURES FROM NOW
you’ll witness a
Conference of Ill Omen
7/ WORLD OF THE UNKNOWN
Approximately two minutes after passing through the most forbidding energy screen they had ever encountered, the hitherto transparent wall began to get clouded.
First it looked like muddy water, then milk, and finally opaque and solid. By the time Rhodan decided on a flight to explore the weird world, a part of the odd "sky" had turned black and numerous stars twinkled in it. None of the constellations looked familiar. The display of stars on the inside of the energy dome far above the spaceship was completely different from anything in the Milky Way. It was an alien galaxy which could provide the first conjecture as to where he had come from.
The Unknown was now simply referred to as he. He had created an artificial private world on a slice of land which paralleled some of the outdated theories of the ancient scientists on Earth, when they still believed that the Earth was a flat disk floating on water with a heaven above.
One of the first inquiries Rhodan made concerned the interesting possibility that there could be a connection between the artificial representations of this world and the earliest concepts of earthbound astronomy. He was led to believe that such a connection might exist by the fact that one of the focal points of the elliptical orbit traced by Wanderer coincided exactly with Terra. He programmed the positronic brain for this question although he was not very sure that it could be answered.
While the positronic computer tackled the problem, the crew of Stardust II faced another more serious dilemma.
The spaceship was suspended in the neutralizing antigrav field five miles above the ground. The eerie landscape posed numerous puzzles. Its mere existence was weighing heavily on their minds.
Rhodan returned to his pilot seat with the evaluation read-out from the computer. Stardust II was ready for battle action. Every man was at his station. A briefing over telecom had been called five minutes ago.
As Rhodan opened the briefing his face appeared in all departments on the screen. His voice was calm and sharply accentuated.
"This is your commander speaking," Rhodan stated the obvious. Bell noticed that Rhodan chose to speak formally. He was every inch the all-demanding authority.
"It has been confirmed that the data for our transition from Vega to our present position have been correctly calculated. This world is exclusively of artificial nature. Machines are providing everything—from necessary heat to keeping it on course—which occurs naturally
on other planets. We’ve to understand that whatever unusual happens here, is done intentionally and cannot be considered normal."
He glanced quickly at his notes.
"The artificial planet Wanderer can be described as a gigantic and completely self-sufficient space station. It consists of a sheet of land 350 miles thick on the average. The density is high, natural minerals are abundant. It must be assumed that the ground was formed from collected micro-matter. Therefore, it has been created in the same basic manner as natural planets developed. Please don’t ask me how he did it. The ground disk is very large; it measures close to 5000 miles in diameter and we have thus a considerable mass of land there below studded with mountains and oceans. The atmosphere is enclosed in the energy dome and the climate is regulated. The prevailing gravity is pegged at 0.9 G and is apparently mechanically produced although the very heavy mass of land is contributing its gravity. A world has been established here which consumes terrific amounts of energy from tremendous power sources. We’ve previously discovered that this planet circled Vega 10,000 years ago. Then it vanished from the system just as we left it in our little spaceship. Quite remarkable, I admit."
Rhodan listened with a faint smile to the audible breathing of his men.
"Remarkable, indeed! The atmosphere inside the air-tight energy dome is fit for us to breathe. It is clear that someone possessing incomparable technical resources has built a world where he assembled everything he deemed beautiful, desirable or interesting. Don’t jump to the conclusion that we’ve found God himself at work. We’re merely face to face with a living being whose technology, science and culture must be millions of years old. He has learned all the laws of nature by scientific methods. What looks like miracles are no more than very intricate phenomena engineered with the help of machines. Don’t let it mislead you!"