by Perry Rhodan
"Good heavens, Sherwood!" he exclaimed. "I thought I'd never see you again, you old war-horse! Where have you been?"
"Everywhere," laughed Atlan. "I was here and there, in Turkey, in France, in Russia..."
"What journeys you must have had!" Llandrindod pointed at the Gazelle. "And is that something you've brought back from those far places?"
"Yes," Atlan answered. "It can fly through the air."
"Through the air!"
"That's right. There exists a mighty force inside which enables it to fly through the air like a bird. But now the force is gone and it can no longer lift itself from the ground."
Llandrindod began to laugh. He laughed heartily, as though at a good joke. Then a thought seemed to suddenly occur to him and he stopped laughing. He looked at Atlan, bewildered. "A mysterious force, did you say?"
"That's correct, my friend."
Llandrindod scratched his head. "I've seen your force, Sherwood." he said.
Atlan was astounded. "You saw the force? But it's invisible!"
"So I thought. It wasn't very plain to see; but may the devil himself take me, I saw it. It was floating over the meadows. At first it looked like a thin cloud. It could be seen only if you looked at it for awhile. Then it seemed to discover me. It began to ball itself up and suddenly it had taken on the shape of me astride my horse. It galloped toward me. I was not caught napping—I raised my shield and couched my lance and sprang forward to meet it. It didn't strike me but I struck it... or tried to. But it was for naught. The lance went right on through, as though cleaving empty air, and came out the other side. When I drew my horse to a stop and looked around, the stranger had vanished as utterly as though the devil fetched him away. Could that mayhap have been your force?"
Atlan considered. It was possible that Llandrindod had encountered some other of the beings that It had used to populate its planet, like Llandrindod himself, but more probable was that he had crossed Nathan's path.
"We have to capture it again, Guye!" he exclaimed. "Where did you see it?"
Llandrindod pointed behind him. "Back there, no further than a good hour's ride from here, half way to Llandrindod Castle."
He sized up Atlan closely and a little mistrustfully. His face showed how little he liked the matter of the mysterious force.
"Say, Sherwood," he began hesitantly, "have you gotten tangled up in something that may be the devil's own business?"
Atlan shook his head. "I'll explain it to you some other time, Llandrindod, but I'll say this much: far to the East where the Russians, Turks, Persians and other peoples live, there are more things than we dream of. These things have nothing to do with the devil and we can make good use of them. Will you do me a favor?"
Llandrindod seemed reassured. He nodded. "Certainly."
"Ride back to where you saw the force. We'll follow you as fast as we can to capture it. Will you wait for us?"
Llandrindod nodded again. He turned, went back to his horse and mounted. "I'll wait!" he called to the Arkonide. "And when we've captured it again, then you'll show me how your flying house works! And after that we'll celebrate with a banquet! Not in your house—too unholy for my tastes!—but in Llandrindod Castle!"
With these words he turned his horse and trotted off. Atlan stepped thoughtfully back into the hatchway. He saw Rhodan standing by the inner hatch and gave a start.
"It was Llandrindod," Atlan said, still not quite back to reality and seeming a little self-conscious. "An old warrior, half-English and half-Welsh. He helped King Edward I conquer Wales. I saw him last in the year 1305."
He looked past Rhodan and Rhodan saw how powerful the urge in him must be to tell the whole story of the conquest of Wales and his role as the Earl of Sherwood. The urge drove him to disclose everything his photographic memory had recorded and let another chapter of Terran history come to life for the ears of his listeners. He was driven by some strange power to tell his story each time some keyword out of history reminded him of something he had experienced long ago. Up to now he had not been able to resist the urge but there had also been no reason why he should resist it. Now, however, the situation was different: they could not lose any more time, no matter how interesting the story of the Earl of Sherwood might be.
Perry Rhodan took the Arkonide by the arm and led him through the main corridor back to the control room.
"Did he know something important?" Rhodan asked, hoping to divert the center of Atlan's attention.
Atlan woke up from his trance. "Oh yes," he answered. "He saw something that could very well be Nathan's disembodied form right here in the area, possibly five or six kilometers away. I sent him off to keep an eye out for Nathan and told him that we'd follow."
"I think," said Rhodan, "that at the moment we'd better pay more attention to the motors than to Nathan."
They entered the control room at the same moment that John Marshall, the telepath, made an astounding discovery on the vidscreen. He saw something coming from the south that at first looked like a man. At least it had the same size as a man. Then Marshall saw that it was a rather long figure, caught in the process of stretching out. It came from the south and Marshall could not see where it started; and it was, as he saw it for the first time several kilometers long. It was growing at a rate of about five meters a second.
Marshall could not figure out what it was in reality. It looked like a long pole someone was shoving north. Nothing was known of the pole's length but it was 1.8 meters high and about 80 centimeters wide.
Yet its cross section was not angular or otherwise geometrically regular, though there was a certain symmetry to it.
Marshall studied its shape for awhile, which was not difficult since he was looking at it almost straight on, and came to the surprising conclusion that it was shaped like a man, at least from the front. There was a head, two arms which were held somewhat away from the body so that one could see past them, and two legs that were spread somewhat apart. Marshall thought at first that it was simply a matter of a man at the front end of a pole—what he was doing there was a good question; but after all, this was Wanderer and not a normal world. But then Marshall suddenly picked up some thoughts. They came from the 'pole' and were oddly slow, yet easily understood. Above all, they were so characteristic of one person that John Marshall knew instantly who they were coming from.
As Perry Rhodan and the Arkonide entered the control room, Marshall turned to them. "I have something to report, sir," he said to Rhodan in a strained voice and pointed to the vidscreen. "Mr. Bell is coming towards us in a most extraordinary shape."
• • •
Reginald Bell had to quickly realize that the contraction of an entire planet is in no way without danger for someone who is not involved with it. He had previously not even thought about the matter but he became aware of it when he noticed the first mountain coming towards him.
Bell was standing in front of the spaceboat to see how things were developing. In the last few minutes the foreshortening ratio had been rapidly increasing. It was easy to see the surface of the planet shrinking—if only in one direction: the width and height of objects remained unaffected and only their length was shortened into grotesquely slight measurements. The air pressure did not increase as Bell had at first suspected it would. He had thought it would grow in the same proportion as the distortion factor but when the distortion ratio had reached about 1:10,000, the air pressure was only 20 atmospheres. The small forcefield generators, which Mike Tompetch had prepared, were not needed yet.
With a distortion of 1:10,000, the south coast of the northern ocean was now only 250 meters away. The coast of the equatorial ocean, according to the map about 20 kilometers south of the Gazelle, had been shoved within two meters. Reginald Bell realized uncomfortably that to any inhabitants of Wanderer he must now seem like a shapeless monster five kilometers long. Seen from the front he would look normal but from the side... He called himself a 'Pole Man'. Just his boots, 40 centimeters long to his own ey
es, were four kilometers long in the dimensions of this shrinking world, although their height and width were still the same.
When the distortion ratio had climbed to 1:100,000, the northern sea was only 25 meters away and the toes of Reginald Bell's boots had long stretched out over the coast of the equatorial ocean.
Bell turned around. His interest lay in the north, not in the south. He felt how the thickening air cramped his movements. The air pressure was now 50 atmospheres and the air itself behaved as though it were liquid. Bell had to use all his strength in making the turn. He felt nothing himself as his bodily proportions changed. The boots which had stuck out over the ocean shore shortened to normal size as Bell had made half the turn, then began to grow again as he proceeded to the second half. Bell's shoulders grew and shrank in the same manner and if he had laid himself down on the ground in a straight north to south direction he would have been 180 kilometers long.
He stood looking to the north and watched the northern sea shrink to a small puddle. He saw the coast of the northern continent appear out of the red twilight, and the buildings of the great city, standing on the rocks above the coast, rise over the horizon. He saw the red-glowing water of a river plunge over a falls and into the sea. He saw it all, even though according to the map it was 4,000 kilometers away.
He noticed that the city buildings were beginning to become transparent as he watched and he feared that they would disappear completely if the foreshortening ratio increased much more.
When the air pressure had climbed to 100 atmospheres and the distance to the city was only a few more meters, a warning device inside his spacesuit sounded an alarm. He called to Tompetch, telling him to bring out the forcefield generators. Just as Tompetch answered, Bell saw that the mountain on the northern sea's south coast, which he had observed previously, would not 'shrink past' him but rather would strike him with its eastern flank. The mountain was not huge by any means but its gently descending eastern flank was wide enough to rob Bell of all hope that he could still get out of its way. He remained where he was, fascinated by the sight of a mountain coming at him, and waited to see what would happen. He could see the reddish light radiating from the sky even through the mountain's mass. The mountain might have been some kilometers thick in its natural form but now with a foreshortening factor of 1:1,000,000 it had shrunk to an equal number of millimeters. Bell was startled to suddenly realize that the shrinking process in which Wanderer had fallen might not necessarily have an effect on the molecular forces of matter and that the mountain side, though not only a few millimeters thick, might be just as hard to break through as before.
But he had no more time to move out of the way. He looked around and found Lt. Tompetch climbing out of the hatch. Tompetch had both small generators affixed to his belt and moved easily and without difficulty under the protection of the forcefield. Bell, on the other hand, had the feeling of turning his head inside a bowl of pudding. Pudding more or less described the increased air density, he thought. He called to Tompetch: "Look out for the mountain! It's coming right at us!"
He saw Tompetch focus on the unexpected obstacle, then turned once more to face his destiny eye to eye as a man should.
The mountain had approached within a few centimeters—a flat facade of rock, a hair-thin wall. In reality, the mountain was not coming towards Reginald Bell but rather Bell was growing towards the mountain.
Bell bent forward to catch the impact on his shoulder.
He felt a stabbing pain in his right shoulder. For a moment he believed the collision could crush his bones but then he triumphantly discovered a rent in the stone wall. He bent back again, cursing the viscous air that prevented him from moving with any speed, then threw himself forward once more. This time the pain of impact was less. Bell heard a sound that seemed like the whimpering of a dog. At the same moment the tear in the wall widened and spread and the wall was ripped in two and began to fall. The pieces of rubble were so flat that Bell could hardly recognize them as such any more. All that remained of the mountain flank was a glowing dust that quickly settled to the ground.
And in the mountain yawned a hole that was at least three times wider than Bell himself. Bell stared up at the wall which in spite of its thinness towered more than 200 meters into the air and he was satisfied with his work. The wall had been split into two parts and under normal circumstances Bell would have been fatally crushed under the falling rocks and debris. But rocks and debris that were only thousandths of millimeters thick instead of the original meters could not affect him.
He looked back at Tompetch again. Mike stood still. He had not needed to take any risks. His forcefield did for him what Bell had needed his shoulder to do. At the moment of impact Tompetch threw himself forward—and then there were two holes in the rock wall.
Minutes later the mountain reached the spaceboat. Bell had no apprehensions: the Gazelle was a million times more stable than he was. The mountain broke apart when it hit the craft.
Bell tried to imagine what was happening at that moment on Wanderer itself—there where the shadowy inhabitants of this world were a part of the shrinking and thus did not notice it. They would see three shapeless figures: poles kilometers long that were actually two men, and a figure several 100 kilometers long which was a Gazelle-type scout. These figures were in swift and constant growth, running through whatever stood in their way: trees, shrubs, buildings and, finally, even mountains. At that moment chaos had to be reigning on Wanderer. Each movement of the three monsters must call forth a storm of gigantic proportions. Trees, which they had not already knocked over, would be uprooted by the storms and blown away. If there were people here, they too would be carried off. The sea began to boil.
And they themselves, the three monsters, noticed nothing of it. For them a tree, for example, with a span of 10 meters, was a figure 100th of a millimeter deep. Be it however broad or high, for them it was no more than a shadowy figure which they did not even feel as they went through it.
Reginald Bell stood motionless for a few moments. The thought of what destruction he was wreaking struck him for the first time It relieved him only a little to remember that most of the creatures on Wanderer were shadow-beings which It, the master of Wanderer, could recreate as he chose. Nothing was lost if they were hit with a tree or a rock fall, for their lives were just as much shadows as their bodily existence.
Mike Tompetch's calm voice pulled him out of his brooding. "Your generator, sir. The air pressure has gone up to 120 atmospheres."
Bell tried to turn but he was barely able to complete the movement. Tompetch noticed his difficulties and came closer. Frightened Bell realized that within a few more minutes he might not have been able even to stretch out his hand to seize the offered generator. The air was more viscous than ever.
He laboriously fastened the generator to his belt and turned it on. At that moment a heavy burden which had piled up on his shoulders unnoticed seemed to fall away. He moved his right-arm as a test and found he no longer had any difficulties with it.
Meanwhile, behind the mountain the northern sea had come into view. The tips of Reginald Bell's boots extended past the coastline. On the other side of the small pool which the sea had become, reared the steep cliffs of the northern continent. The city was now only a flat shadow. Bell was convinced that he would no longer even be able to see it when the shrinking had increased to the point he could cross the northern sea with a single step.
He had just started to consider how he could cross over without damaging the city when he heard someone calling him. Surprised, he whirled around and looked at Tompetch who was standing quietly by and looking out across the narrow sea. Moreover, Bell remembered that it had not been Tompetch's voice which he had heard. "What the—" he muttered in irritation.
At that moment he heard the voice for a second time. "John Marshall here! Can you hear me, Mr. Bell?"
Bell suddenly began to laugh. He turned his head as though he could see Marshall somewhere and answ
ered: "It's about time you guys showed up!"
• • •
Along with the monster growing out of the south were two others. one of the latter pair looked just like the thing radiating Reginald Bell's thoughts; and as it came close enough, Marshall saw that it was Mike Tompetch. The third thing did not think at all. Although its original form could no longer be made out, Marshall did not doubt that it was the Gazelle with which Bell and Tompetch had arrived on Wanderer.
That which had so greatly shaken John Marshall was accepted with astonishing calmness by the others. Atlan the Arkonide only cleared his throat and commented: "Well, yes, we had to figure on something like that happening, didn't we? This planet is turning through an area of instability where the coordinate axes of its space are variously subject to foreshortening. Someone living in that zone naturally notices nothing of the phenomenon. Evidently going through the teletransmitter to get here made us a part of this semispace. Wanderer looks normal to us. We don't notice the fact that it has no more contact with the normal universe.
"It's different for Bell and Tompetch. They have landed on a part of Wanderer that at the time of their landing had reentered normal space. They have remained a part of normal space and are experiencing the full effect of the strange phenomena on Wanderer. And through them we can see what is really happening on Wanderer." He looked at Perry Rhodan. "It would be good, I think, if we could transmit some instructions to Bell. He's clever enough to get the idea that in a few minutes or so—half an hour or less, anyway—he'll need to take only I step to reach Its city. If he isn't already there, that is. I think he should then—"
Perry Rhodan interrupted him in the middle of a sentence with a sudden burst of activity. "How is the connection, Marshall?" he asked. "Can you read his thoughts clearly?"
"Pretty well, sir," Marshall answered. "But he thinks somewhat more slowly."