Life Hunt
Page 7
"Rohun, I need my spacer! Who can bring it to Trulan. Otznam?"
The Springer captain's face twisted into a grimace. "Ixt," he warned, "give up your dangerous game with the Aras! What Egmon told me made me a hundred years older! And if it goes on like this, I'll end up on the Aras' list—and you know what that means!"
That meant—vanishing without a trace! Death! Destruction!
Marshall was unimpressed by Rohun's warning. I'd feel a lot better if I knew my spacecraft was here, Rohun! When can I figure on its arrival? Otznam is bringing it, right?"
"Yes, but don't use Otznam for any of your half-baked schemes," Rohun answered. "And when are you ever going to tell me what kind of nonsense went on in your shop when this Ara Huxul from the secret service came in with the two hiobargulloos and wanted to give them back? If I hadn't experienced something similar with this Huxul myself, I would have packed Otznam off to an Ara hospital to have his head examined!"
Marshall did not discuss the matter any further. He calmed the Springer captain. "I promise I won't give, Otznam anything to do. But can I still depend on your pledge of standing at my side with all your forces when I call upon your help?"
"I'm a Galactic Trader, Ixt!" Rohun thundered from 40 light-years away. "Not an Ara! I'm sending Otznam out with your craft immediately! Say... I was looking the thing over the other day and your spacecraft is a battleship pure and simple! Where do they build ships like that, Ixt?"
That, too, Marshall ignored. "Where's Tulin hiding, Rohun? I can't find him in Trulan."
"Here!" Rohun replied. "But he's flying back with Otznam because I have something for him to do. You can't use him for anything, either, Ixt!"
"Afraid?" asked John Marshall tersely.
"Better to be afraid than an Ara guinea pig."
Again the veiled references and this time Rohun the Springer captain had made them. The threat of being made an Ara guinea pig—and in spite of Arkon law!
"Over and out, Rohun!" said John Marshall to the Galactic Trader and switched off. Laury Marten's telepathic message had started to come in. Marshall listened to the voice that seemed to speak inside his mind.
An hour later, the second coded hypercom message went out to Hellgate, where Rhodan was waiting in the protection of the steel dome. In X-p Laury Marten had discovered a chamber in which a capsule of the life-prolonging serum was being stored for an experiment to be undertaken in the near future!
When Futgris entered his boss' office, Ixt sat reading the first report Kolex had sent him. In it, the creatures he had sold to the zoo were graded according to their intelligence levels. 21 different species, all varying wildly in their appearance, carried the mark of Intelligence Level A! Level A included the Arkonides, the Aras and the Galactic Traders!
When John Marshall looked up and recognized Futgris, he had first to detach himself from his horror. He felt like a man who had just committed a crime! Creatures, whose repulsive and horrible appearance had led him into thinking of them as beasts, had turned out to be highly intelligent—and he had made them into a zoo's showpieces, he had put them right into the Aras' hands—and Rohun's voice seemed to drone again in Marshall's ears: "Better to be afraid than an Ara guinea pig!"
Now he looked questioningly at Futgris.
The Ara, who admired his superior immensely, tried to hide the trembling in his voice. "Sir," he said, his eyes reflecting his fear, "three officers from the Secret Service want to talk to you!"
"So?" said John Marshall without allowing his disquiet to show. Slowly he shoved Kolex' report to one side. "Show the gentlemen in, Futgris! One should never keep officers of the Secret Service waiting!"
• • •
Agzt, the frogh, stood at the roadside and watched while Laury Marten drove her vehicle towards the path, braked and climbed out. She offered the frogh a small bag, which it greedily took into its claw-like hand and opened.
"Again only 50 tablets?" said the frogh, disappointed.
Laury, who had lost all her fear of the easily bribed serpent-monster, laid her hand on its neck. The frogh's skin felt like leather. She saw its euphoric state and admonished: "I'll bring you 50 tablets each time I visit, Agzt, but no more than that. I wouldn't like for this preparation, which is quite harmless for Arkonides and Aras, to make you sick or addicted. Ration out your supply, too, because it could happen that some days might go by between my visits."
The tiny bag lay closed in the large grasping hand. The frogh capered about on its many legs and assured her over and over that it was not ungrateful. As she had done on her previous visits, Laury told the creature to keep a lookout and warn her immediately if another vehicle should approach this part of the zoo. Then she stepped through the energy barrier as though it did not exist and ran from there.
From the ridge she could see the Aztec palace. As always, Rodrigo stood waiting for her in the great doorway but today he did not wave to her with his plumed hat. Even when they stood face to face, he looked at her dumbly.
"Darling, has something happened?" she asked. Rodrigo de Berceo stood rigid before her. His gaze wandered off into the distance. His mouth was no more than a tight line and his eyes blazed in indignation. Laury threw her arms around him and implored him to say something.
"Tomorrow," he said, "I must go to the Aras!" For her, that had the same meaning as the destruction of all Tolimon. "Rodrigo, no! That can't be so! No, no Her desperation was like a lump in her throat. She was shaken by a racking sob.
Then she caught hold of herself. As she calmed down, her power of clear thinking returned. And then she had her plan! "Rodrigo, when will the Aras pick you up?" she asked quickly.
"Tomorrow, but fear not for my life...! Duke—?"
"When tomorrow? Tomorrow morning? At what time?" Even though Duke Rodrigo de Berceo spoke Intercosmo and Arkonese fluently, he had only a hazy idea of how to tell time. Only after much cross-questioning could Laury determine about when Rodrigo would be taken away for testing. "Listen to me," she said, her eyes bright with triumph. "When the Aras come tomorrow, they'll find the whole enclosure empty! I'll flee with the four of you! Come—let's tell the others so they can get ready!"
Laury Marten did not realize that in that moment she had just thrown her entire training as an agent in the Mutant Corps overboard. Her plan was not only amateurish, it was dangerous. It would force John Marshall into taking measures he would otherwise have never considered.
Alf Tornsten, the Swedish farmer, gave her the first refusal. Nara, the old Mongolian woman, did not understand at all what the young girl wanted and laughed crazily. Mtumbo, the Kaffir, only swore at her and left her standing in the middle of the enclosure.
Rodrigo had expected as much but when he commented, "I've never felt comfortable in the presence of these louts," Laury rebuked him for the first time with icy sharpness.
"Would you please get it through your head that 400 years have gone by on Earth! A Duke is worth no more than the poorest man now! Rodrigo, you've got to bridge these four centuries! Please let me help you—please forget that you are Duke de Berceo! Start right now and then...
Again his charm, his smile and his love conquered her. His kiss closed her mouth. She felt safe and protected in his arms until the terrible reality reminded her once more of tomorrow.
"Rodrigo, the Aras will never find you here again, tomorrow!" With that promise she broke from him, and minutes later, was racing in her vehicle back towards X-p.
On the way she communicated telepathically with John Marshall.
Don't disturb me! was the reply she got from him. Laury Marten was so concerned with Rodrigo's fate that she simply failed to notice Marshall's wild excitement.
As though in a trance, she entered X-p and was again disinfected by the beams of light. She went to her office and sat down at her desk. She looked about in desperation and her eyes met those of the Ara physician Azza.
"What's wrong, Arga?" His question frightened her.
"A headache," she said�
�and then realized she had just pronounced her own death sentence!
On the worlds of the Arkonide Imperium—no matter whether inhabited by Springers, Aras or
Arkonides, no one had headaches! The affliction was unknown to those three closely related races!
But in that instant Laury Marten had also become Perry Rhodan's agent once more!
She did not lose her self-control. She cold-bloodedly penetrated Azza's mind with her telepathic power and examined the contents.
He had ransacked her office while she was gone!
He had sent spies after her for the second time to report back what she was doing in the zoo so often!
He did not trust her in the least!
And now he no longer believed she was even an Arkonide! He let his memory run free—once more he thought of Perry Rhodan, of Aras and the physician world of Aralon, of the moon Laros—yes, and then came the destruction of Rhodan's home world, Earth, and Rhodan's complete disappearance with the gigantic Titan .
Azza suddenly realized that his suspicion of this young woman as an agent for Perry Rhodan was silly—but headaches?
Who was this young woman?
All this she found out in a matter of seconds and with that in mind, Laury Marten attacked! She secretly switched on the videophone and said: "I'm going to tell Man Regg that you ransacked my office while I was gone, Azza!"
It was a dangerous risk she took but it paid off!
Without thinking, the Ara cried out. "How do you know? Who betrayed me?" He stopped and regained his self-control.
"Thanks," said Laury Marten, smiling at him and pointing to the activated v'phone. A hundred Aras had certainly overheard the brief exchange. Laury needed no more witnesses than that. Calmly she stood up. "I know I don't have your sympathy, Azza, but I do have some good friends. Should I tell you where I was in the zoo today? It will spare you the bother of sending spies out after me for a third time tomorrow..."
She laughed as he pushed his way out of the room. His face was white as a scheedt (An albino animal worlds-famous for its intensely white far), and he was mumbling something she could not understand with her ears. But she read his thoughts—they were a confusion of fear that the Arkonide girl would carry out her threat of reporting the situation to Man Regg.
Man Regg already knew about it, thanks to the open videophone circuit. Half an hour later he sent a robot out of Azza, who was ordered to leave X-p immediately and report for duty on the planet Durrha.
Durrha was the world carrying the most warning notations in the Arkon Star Catalog. On Durrha, the Aras studied incurable diseases—most of them contagious. No one who once set foot on that world ever left it again!
Accompanied by two robots, Azza was driven to the Trulan spaceport. The robots remained at his side until he had entered the assigned spaceship and stood guard in front of the ship until it had taken off.
• • •
John Marshall had seen the three men from the Secret Service come and now he saw them go again.
Like Huxul and many others, they had fallen victim to his combination of telepathy and psychobeamer but Marshall did not, let himself be deceived into believing that the danger was over.
The opposite was true. Once the hypnotic effect on them had worn off, the danger would be Eke an avalanche. Yet, the visit of the three Aras did have its advantages: he finally knew why the Ara Secret Service was so hot on his trail.
These three Aras had come only to examine his business affairs for the second time. They had requested his papers for examination and had intended to record a sample of his brainwave pattern, although they did not get around to the latter. They left three hours later in the best of spirits. By noon of the next day at the latest, the hypnotic effect would wear off and they would realize that something inexplicable had taken place during their call on Ixt.
Marshall knew that the growing number of inexplicable events would have to arouse the greatest alarm in the Ara Secret Service and when somebody put all the evidence together the Secret Service would strike ruthlessly!
In the middle of his reflections, the v'phone signaled. The caller was Otznam, who was at the spaceport. He had just landed a few minutes before in John Marshall's small spacecraft. The mutant wanted to ask the Springer a question but Otznam broke the connection too soon.
"Alright, I won't ask you," he said to himself. Marshall concentrated on trying to call Laury Marten. She had wanted to contact him for some reason when he was busy putting the Aras in his office under the power of his Will.
Laury Marten did not reply!
He tried again, increasing his concentration, and this time he found her. But now she told him not to bother her!
Marshall immediately broke off and tried to determine just what he had learned during his brief exchange with Laury Marten.
What was she looking for in X-p? Her telepathic strength had struck him like an electric shock but she was not using it to pick up his thoughts. She had been trying to fight them off.
8/ DANGER IN THE DESERT
There was no idleness in X-p.
The very nature of the place demanded activity and the Aras willingly did their utmost to be active. They worked as though possessed; a fire burned within them, driving them on to uncover the final secrets of life. They had often thought they were standing on the verge of attaining their goal but just as often they had found their research had only raised more questions than it answered.
Laury Marten's work was finished for the day. The episode with Azza, just three hours before, had already been forgotten. Instead, the proud young Mexican, Rodrigo de Berceo, claimed all of Laury Marten's thoughts even though she had to devote her attention to other things in order to concentrate on her plan.
Eyes closed and hands behind her head, she lay on her bed and searched with her telepathic power every room in X-p where she had even the slightest suspicion manufacture of the life-prolonging serum might take place.
Onward—to the next room: three Aras—their thoughts—nothing. On to the next room. Empty? No—but only robots here.
In spite of her concentration, she remembered Marshall's warning concerning the newly installed watch-robots.
To the next room.
The hours went by. The sun sank in the north and night settled over X-p and the continental zoo.
Laury Marten did not give up. She carried on to save Rodrigo—and to be able to stand before Perry Rhodan. She did not want to be the first mutant in his Corps who had failed in her mission because of love.
Nothing—nothing—nothing anywhere!
Nowhere was she able to find clues that indicated where the formula for the serum was to be found.
Midnight came and Laury Marten still lay in deepest concentration on her bunk, searching ever onwards—to no avail!
Finally, drenched in sweat, she got up. Should she contact Marshall now?
She decided not to. After showering and dressing, she left the apartment.
The antigravitor brought her to the fifth subterranean level. When she tried to open the door to enter the area, she found it locked. Locked doors certainly presented little problem to someone able to dissolve the molecular bonds of solid objects. No matter what their substance, even solid walls became as though misty clouds when Laury concentrated on them. After that, walking through was the easiest thing in the world.
Still in the lift, Laury brought her mental strength to bear on the door blocking her way. Then she simply stepped through it. Once she had passed, the door regained its solid nature.
Before her stretched the usual corridor. It looked like any other hall in any other part of X-p
She rendered two ray barriers inoperative. The alarm they would have set off was not sounded. The corridor lay empty and threatening in front of her but neither the emptiness nor the length of it disturbed her. Her telepathic sense of detection searched for Aras and found them sitting, bent over their work, behind the doors she passed. No one listened to her footsteps.
Suddenly, Thora—Perry Rhodan's wife—came to mind. Before Laury and John Marshall had been sent to Tolimon, Rhodan had openly and candidly explained the stakes for which they were playing. For the sake of Thora and Khrest, they had to find out at all costs if the vague rumors were true—if the Aras had in fact discovered a serum to prolong life.
And now, Laury Marten was on her way to the room where some of that same serum which the Arkonides needed so desperately was stored in a thick-walled capsule.
Far ahead of Laury, a door opened. An Ara came out into the hall and glanced in her direction without really noticing her. He started walking towards her but 10 paces before they would have met, he turned and entered a laboratory.
The girl mutant's pace had not slowed, nor were her steps any less certain. Rod-ri-go said her footsteps. The name, even by itself, gave her strength. And she needed it.
This section of X-p, buried five stories deep in the ground, was the most secret research center the Aras had! Everything else was at best only secondary. Here was life in capsules. Whoever received an injection of the serum lived on—anyone else had to die!
Laury Marten reached into her pocket.
The pocket was empty!
She had taken a shower and afterwards she had donned fresh clothes, forgetting to take the tuning fork out of her smock pocket. She had been too busy thinking about Rodrigo de Berceo!
Turn around?
Rod-ri-go said her footsteps. She did not turn around. She felt that she had gone too far already to turn back. It was now or never.
Only 30 more steps to got
Only 10 more...
Only 21 She stood at the door, probing ahead with her telepathic power. Perceiving no thoughts in the laboratory beyond, she decided it must be unoccupied.
The door lost its molecular binding, becoming as though nothing in the face of the girl mutant's disintegrative power. Laury stepped into the room. She knew where the capsule lay. The Ara who had put it there had been a careful person and had wondered if it would be safe there—and thoughts such as these had been like a beacon to Laury.