Blazing Sun

by Perry Rhodan

  When Rhodan pulled the switch, the flasks vanished.

  Instantly, they would be aboard the Ship of Ancestors.

  Armed with a gas mask, Pucky haunted the overcrowded rooms and corridors of the spacesphere, convincing himself of the success of the operation. Everywhere lay Arkonides on the floor, to some extent neatly piled up. They were no longer cold nor hungry. For two days they would sleep. But then, when they awoke...

  Better not think about it. Two days were a long time and had to suffice for making the awakening a happy surprise for the Arkonides.

  Rhodan listened to Pucky's report and was about to breathe more easily when the intercom shrilled.

  "Bell here! Rhodan wanted in the control room! Bell here! Attention! Rhodan wanted in the control room..."

  "Take me there!" said Rhodan.

  Pucky took his arm and sprang. Bell was still standing at the intercom unit, giving his call. Sikerman was staring at the controls. His face was earnest.

  "Very well, Bell. Here I am."

  Bell whirled around and stared at Rhodan, shocked. When he saw Pucky, the light went on. He switched off the intercom.

  "The positronicon has just finished its calculations, sir," said Sikerman. "I'm sorry, but we won't be able to attempt any hypertransitions. The mass of the two ships is too much. We would be caught in fifth-dimensional hyperspace. What that would mean, sir, I don't have to tell you."

  No, Sikerman really did not have to.

  Fifth dimensional space—hyperspace. There was no way out of it once it had caught something firmly. Perhaps one would not even sense his own existence any longer, for neither time nor matter existed there. One would simply 'stay there'.

  "Well, continue the towing, Colonel. The technicians in the Ship of Ancestors will shortly set more engine motors into operation for reinforcement. Kyser and his cruiser will help, too. That way we'll manage to escape the gravitational field of Magno. Everything else..." He grew silent.

  Pucky nodded. "Yeah, that would be best, chief."

  He had once again read Rhodan's thoughts, much to Bell's dismay. "What's the best?"

  "Informing Atlan," Rhodan told his friend. "I'll do that myself."

  He went over to the com center and made a connection to Arkon over the hypercom. It took nearly an hour.

  Meanwhile, Magno had wandered off the screen to one side. Three stern engines of the Ship of Ancestors had been set into operation and were reinforcing the Drusus. The braking front engines had been shut down. Now they would have only hindered the flight.

  Pucky had just returned from an inspection spring and was reporting that everything was going according to plan on the great emigrants' ship when Lt. Stern announced the connection with Arkon.

  Atlan looked down at Rhodan from the vidscreen. "I hope you have only good things to report, Perry. I'm almost afraid of what you might have to tell me."

  "We've found the ship, Atlan," Rhodan reassured him, "but the sleepers are awake. The situation on board is simply unbelievable. We were able to restore order with knockout gas. Now they're asleep again. Some technicians were given masks so their work would not be interrupted. Unfortunately, the hyperdrive has been damaged. Some motors are working. We were able to pull the ship out of the gravity field of a small, heavy star. That's the situation now."

  Atlan's relief was quite evident. "The ship is saved! Thank you. And you can't bring it to Arkon?"

  "Impossible!"

  "What should I do? Can't you have the sleepers brought on board the Drusus?"

  "More than 100,000 Arkonides? That's just as impossible, Atlan. You have to send me some transports. I'll give you the position of the white dwarf. Then we'll load them aboard the transports. By the time the sleepers awake again, they could be on Arkon. That's the only possibility."

  Atlan considered for only a moment, then agreed. "Very well. I'll send you five ships. That should be enough."

  "The leadership staff of the ancestors' ship has gas masks. I'll have Commodore Ceshal and his officers brought aboard the Drusus."

  A thoughtful expression crossed Atlan's face. "Ceshal...? If I only knew in what connection I've heard that name before. It must have been when we were defending Atlantis against the invaders. An expedition...? I don't know any longer..."

  "You will have a very interesting conversation with Ceshal," Rhodan predicted with a smile. "You're both about the same age. With this the old rulers of Arkon will be back in power. Is it really only a matter of chance?"

  "In any case—assuming it was planned, the originator of the plan was a genius. But his name must have long been forgotten"

  "Machines don't forget, Atlan. Perhaps the Robot Brain can tell you. Anyway, you now have tens of thousands of undegenerate Arkonides at your disposal. Of the oldest blood, like yours, Atlan."

  Then Rhodan told him the position of Magno.

  Later, Rhodan, Bell, Ras Tschubai and Pucky went on board the Ship of Ancestors. The gas had dissipated and they no longer needed gas masks. Everywhere lay sleepers, looking as though exhaustion had suddenly surprised them. It was unbelievable how much space was now suddenly available.

  When the control room door opened and Commodore Ceshal walked in to meet Rhodan, surprise showed in the features of the 'old' young Arkonide. He suppressed his curiosity and extended his hand to the Terran. Rhodan shook it.

  The resemblance this being bore to Atlan was unmistakable. The Arkonides must truly have been a magnificent people—noble, brave, but also a bit arrogant.

  "I believe," said Ceshal after greeting Bell, "that we owe you our lives. Without your help we would have been lost."

  "We did it for our friend, Gonozal VIII, the Imperator of Arkon," answered Rhodan. "He has already sent some transporters to pick you up. Your ship must be given a general overhaul. It is no longer fit for a flight to Arkon. May I invite you to come with me? You'll be flying with me at the wish of the Imperator. Well also take Ekral and his men along."

  Ceshal bowed slightly to Rhodan. "Your wish is my command," he said politely. "Especially when at the same time it's also the wish of the Imperator." His forehead suddenly wrinkled. "What is he now called...?"

  "Gonozal VIII."

  Commodore Ceshal gave his officers a strange glance, then commented: The Gonozals are one of the best-known families on Arkon. So they haven't died out in the course of millenniums but have maintained themselves, That is astounding, after what I've learned. We were underway for 10,000 years..."

  Rhodan did not explain any further about Atlan and his origin. The future would clear that up—if there was anything at all to be cleared up. It was not improbable that a Gonozal was around when Ceshal took off 10,000 years before. Possibly one of Atlan's many relatives.

  They picked up Ekral, Tunuter and Alos.

  "I think we would have been able to make the ship spaceworthy again if we'd had the time," the scientist said, not without pride. "We would have been able to repair even the hyperdrive, although I'm afraid we were lacking some important spare parts."

  "The future has great things in store for you," Rhodan told him, smiling. "Arkon needs scientists and technicians like you. It needs active and dynamic leaders, The Imperium withstood a dangerous crisis but now it again has an Imperator. He awaits Arkonides who will help him defend the realm against its enemies."

  Ekral bowed to Rhodan, who could not shake himself of a strange feeling. They, the proud Arkonides, who were at the height of their power when mankind was still living in caves, were showing him, a Terran, their respect. Their humility showed their true greatness.

  A shrill buzzing emanated from Rhodan's wrist.

  Sikerman!

  Rhodan switched on the wristor. "What is it, Colonel?"

  "We're out, sir! I'm towing the Ship of Ancestors at only half power. Should we link up the main hatches of the two ships?"

  "I'd be thankful to you if you did. Let me know when you've done it."

  The Arkonides had not understood a word, for Rhodan an
d Sikerman had spoken English. Somewhat disconcerted, Ceshal spoke. "The robots took away our wrist communicators way back then. It was the hour of our greatest humiliation. Fortunately, they changed nothing about the original plan but they gave it a different purpose."

  "Yes, we know that now. They wanted to land on an inhabitable planet and build up a robot civilization. They would have succeeded, I think. Men would have been slaves and after awhile would not have known that things were once different. It was fortunate that their plan failed."

  They walked through various corridors and finally reached the hatch entrance. While they waited, standing around in small groups, Pucky rummaged through the adjoining room. It seemed to him that he had picked up a familiar thought impulse. Somewhat distorted, admittedly. It probably came from one of the sleepers, who would soon awake. But somehow...

  In any case, Pucky told himself, I've met the man once before. He took another mental sounding and sprang. Thirty or 40 meters away he materialized in a pressure chamber. He did not know what purpose the room served but he saw at once why the sleeper in the little room did not sleep as deeply as the others.

  The Arkonide was naked. The blanket he had used to cover himself had fallen away. In the room stood a row of pressurized tanks filled with liquid air. Pucky looked up. Naturally there was the usual ventilator shaft here, too, but the Arkonide must have grown suspicious in time. He had still had the strength and presence of mind to open one of the tanks. The sleeping gas had been accordingly thinned out.

  Now the restless sleeper turned over on his other side.

  Pucky stared into the strange face. No, he had never seen the man before in his life but he knew the thought impulses. It was possible only to a practiced telepath to catalog thought impulses. Each person thought in a very definite pattern which could be recognized. Pucky compared it to fingerprints, although the analogy was not perfect.

  The Arkonide awoke and began to think more clearly.

  In the same moment Pucky realized who he was.

  Now he knew where he had sensed the thought pattern before. He had sensed it only once before, in a moment of uttermost danger for the Arkonide—at the time when T-39 believed the robots were going to throw him into the atomic converter.

  Technician T-39 sat up and saw Pucky. His first thought was to defend himself from the attacker but then he saw that no one was trying to attack him. But the strange being remained. It was no hallucination.

  "Who are you?" he asked, moaning. He had a headache.

  Pucky bent down and helped T-39 onto his still weakened legs.

  "I'll explain everything to you, T-39. But now come with me. The commander is anxious to meet you. After all, the entire expedition has you to thank for its survival. If I hadn't picked up your cry for help, I never would have discovered the Ship of Ancestors. And if I hadn't done that... oh, it's a long and crazy story. But however it went, it all begins with you."

  "I don't understand a word," murmured T-39 and staggered out of the room. Uncomprehending, he saw sleepers lying everywhere in the corridors. He began to suspect that he had been lucky again. Once more, death had slipped past him. "Expedition?"

  "Wait a bit," Pucky told him. "Then you'll find out everything."

  T-39 was told but it was probably more than a normal man could absorb. The technician nodded constantly and acted as though he understood but Pucky could see that there was nothing in his head but confusion.

  Rhodan's telecom sounded.

  "Link-up made, sir," announced Sikerman. "You can open up."

  The Arkonide technicians went to work. Normally such a hatch would be activated mechanically from the control room but in cases of emergency like this one the manual control had to be used.

  The Arkonides entered the Drusus, Rhodan's flagship.

  With a single step, they crossed a span of 10,000 years.

  Later, Rhodan expressed it like this when he sat with Bell, Pucky and some friends in his cabin and set the Drusus into its first transition towards Arkon: "This Ceshal is perhaps 50 years old, relatively young. He slept through the high-water mark and the decline in his empire. Now he's awakened in time to help in its reconstruction—so he really hasn't missed anything. Even the generations born in the ship after him and put into deep-sleep haven't degenerated. They have remained fresh and active. We can trust Atlan: he's our friend. But I think we’ll have to trust him. Because by giving him the ancestors we're putting power into his hands that we don't dare underestimate, ever. Arkon can become again what it once was."

  "And all that," Pucky mused, "because I picked up the mental call for help from T-39 awhile back. What would have happened if I had been sleeping just then?"

  Rhodan smiled and stroked Pucky's fur. "Well, little fellow, what would have happened...? It can be easily figured out. There are always two possibilities. A revolt was even then brewing, so perhaps it might have succeeded, or perhaps not. There was always the star Magno. It lay in their direction of flight. The ship would have been caught by its gravitational field in around 30 or 40 years. But Magno doesn't have any planets. The sleepers would have awakened..."

  They were silent. There was nothing else to say.

  Pucky sighed. "You can say what you want," he decided. "It can turn out well when a fellow does some spying now and then. And if that funny cadet Briggs hadn't given me the shriveled carrot back then on Lund's ship..."

  Rhodan's hand was still stroking Pucky's fur. "I think," he murmured, "that two possibilities is underestimating things considerably. Each situation is the departure point for millions of possibilities. But only one of them becomes reality. When you rightly consider that, chance takes on a new meaning—if it has a meaning."

  "If!" chirped Pucky, curling up in Rhodan's lap. "I propose that the little word 'if' be expelled from the vocabularies of all intelligent races. It's been misused too often! For example, if..."

  "Ha!" exclaimed Bell triumphantly. "You said if...!"

  But Pucky had already gone to sleep. Or at least he pretended he had.

  BLAZING SUN

  Copyright © 1976 Ace Books

  by arrangement with Arthur Moewig Verlag

  All Rights Reserved

  THE SHIP OF THINGS TO COME

  INVISIBLE INVADERS!

  THEIR HOME GALAXY hung close to the horizon. If one were to consider it as the sun it would be possible to say that here it was late afternoon. Its spiral arms appeared to be slowly turning but of course that was merely an illusion. The other island universes were cold, dim light flecks of not much apparent significance. Barkon was a planet without light and now it was apparently a world without hope.

  Rhodan looked down at the ground.

  Somewhere below the Barkonides must be residing if they still lived. He had witnessed their preparations for burrowing into the planet. It had appeared to them to be the only way of surviving the long journey through emptiness.

  "The ship!"

  Pucky's frightened voice was the only sound they had heard in their helmets since they had stepped onto Barkon. Rhodan whirled about. What he saw filled him with amazement—or rather it was what he failed to see.

  The ship had vanished.

  • • •

  This is but one of the many startling sequences in next month's terrific tale of—

  THE STARLESS REALM

  by Clark Darlton