by Perry Rhodan
Lemonovich was stunned for a few seconds. He was aware of the danger which threatened the C-145 and a moment later realized the opportunity presented to him.
He jumped up to push the button activating the alarm sirens and shouted to the messenger: "Get me the gunners and their officer right away!"
The trapdoor slammed shut. Lemonovich bent over a large sheets of graph paper on which the position of each of his ships had been noted to a precise degree. The outline of the mountain had merely been roughed in according to vague estimates.
When the officer and his gunners came running through the trapdoor, Lemonovich had already
determined the target.
He pulled the officer by his arm to the map. "Here!" he panted. "This is the C-145. It has been attacked by Rhodan and his gang. Fire a salvo of at least five missiles at the C-145. We'll never have another chance like this. Shoot at a steep angle! I don't want the missile to get hung up on a mountain peak."
The officer nodded and gave his men the coordinates which he read from the map. The three non-coms proceeded to set the launchers.
The officer who had complied with Lemonovich's orders suddenly hesitated. "Is the C-145 already in Rhodan's hands sir?" he asked. "I mean, have all our men lost their lives?"
But Lemonovich yelled: "Now we've got a chance to get Rhodan and we're going to get him!"
The young officer shrugged his shoulders.
"Ready to fire!" one of the gunners reported.
And the officer, with a quick glance at Lemonovich, gave the command:
"Fire!"
• • •
The 40 men in the lower quarters surrendered at once. However they did not give themselves up without noise and the five men up in the cockpit were alarmed. They bolted the trapdoor and it took four psycho-beamers considerable time to penetrate through the solid metal and to break the opposition of the inmates.
The hatch was opened and Rhodan was in a great hurry to enter the cockpit. The five men stood around the trapdoor and looked as if they had expected Rhodan's visit for a long time.
Rhodan motioned the Japanese to come up. Son Okura scurried up in no time.
"Ask them," Rhodan ordered, "whether they have transmitted any radio messages."
Okura translated the question into Russian. Rhodan saw that one of the men nodded affirmatively. The man said a few words and Okura translated: "He has informed Maj. Gen. Lemonovich that their ship is under attack and that you are personally leading the offensive."
Rhodan whirled around and shouted through the hatch: "Leave ship immediately! Extreme danger!"
There was a great commotion. Only Rhodan's men knew that he meant it when he cried "extreme danger". The prisoners were less impressed by the urgency despite the hypnotic influence they were under and their captors had to drive them out with force.
"To the transporters!" Rhodan yelled from behind.
He pushed the five men out of the cockpit and down the ladder, following last with Okura. Okura was curious why they were in such a haste but he did not even have time to ask questions.
Once outside the ship Rhodan showed the prisoners the direction in which they had to go.
Son Okura translated: "Follow the path we've cleared and run like the devil if you value your lives!"
Rhodan and the Japanese ascended in their Arkonide transport suits and moved speedily over the treetops of the forest. They could see the other men down below. Rhodan had no illusions about the prisoners. He knew that—once they were outside the range of the psycho-beamer—they would rally and possibly make a counterattack. He was very anxious to warn them of the peril.
The transporters were ready to start when Rhodan and Okura reached the landing place. They went immediately aboard and rose up along the walls of the crater.
Rhodan finally took time to inform his men about their vulnerable situation. "Lemonovich, the new commander of the division," he said over the telecom, "is aware of our action. He even knows I'm part of it. So we'll have to expect him to try everything in his power—without regard to the safety of his own compatriots—to crush us. As we know the ships of the Eastern Bloc have...oh, here they come already!"
A tremendous pressure wave shook the transporters in a fraction of a second. Simultaneously the crashing boom of the detonations rolled in, deafening the ears of the men in the vehicles.
The crafts were equipped with automatic stabilization devices. They maintained their balance and utilized the waves of the explosions as uplift, which carried them higher and faster than their engines could have. They reached safety when they passed over the rim and there set down on the ground.
Rhodan went back to look down into the basin. He knew that he was exposing himself to a risk since the radioactive fallout from this medium-sized defense missile was considerable. His suit—so excellent as a means of propulsion—offered little protection against radiation.
There was no sign of the crew he had chased out of their ship. Rhodan had not expected more than one missile. Now that Lemonovich had fired four of them in his desperate effort to be on the safe side, it was questionable that any survivors were left from the C-145.
Nevertheless, he advised the Stardust and gave instructions to Bell to dispatch another transporter immediately with a crew in radiation-proof outfits to search for anyone still alive.
In the meantime, one of Lt. Tanner's men had observed that a fifth missile had exploded on the flank of a peak which bordered the basin on the west, where it had blown out a big crater.
Rhodan and his detachment of 50 men took off again a few minutes later, partly to escape the area of increasing radioactivity and partly to follow up his first charge as quickly as possible with a second one. Rhodan did not delude himself about the growing difficulties he had to face. Lemonovich had been warned. Unless he was firmly convinced that Rhodan had perished in the bombardment, he was bound to pass on the warning to his officers.
For the time being Rhodan was satisfied that the marauders had one ship less.
The count was down to 78.
• • •
At 110:000 o'clock local time, Tomisenkov came to a spot in the jungle where he believed he recognized a path beaten by his own men. He could have been mistaken. The incredible growth of the Venus plants could make any track disappear within an hour. But the new growth consisted mainly of young, thin shoots.
Tomisenkov made a closer inspection and found that he was right. His soldiers must have marched through here and if he followed the trail he could soon be able to join them at the end of his trek.
In the hours that passed—days on the Terrestrial time scale—Tomisenkov had changed greatly. He had become stooped and his hair had turned white.
He had killed two of the monster bears that wanted to eat him, slain a snake with his hands and shot perhaps 15 more. He had escaped another of the polyps that were also prowling around on land hunting for food in addition to their traps. Climbing up on a tree, he jumped like a monkey through the branches. He moved so fast that the mollusc could not follow him. At the end of his trip through the trees he was caught in a spiderweb of enormous dimensions with threads as thick as his fingers. He was dangerously close to the ugliest spider—much bigger than he—when he finally succeeded in tearing the tough net by setting it into rhythmic motion. He spent the next two hours ridding himself of the sticky threads and until he had regained his freedom of movement he had been utterly defenseless.
At 115:00 o'clock he took a long rest, ate what food he had been able to collect on the way and slept in the forked branches high on a tree. In the meantime he had learned that life in the jungle varied on four different levels. The lowest was the world of polyp traps and horny creatures living in symbiosis with large white worms. The mean of this level was about 15 feet under ground. The second level was the ground itself with all its ferocious animals, the saurians foremost among them, although Tomisenkov had not yet encountered them. The predatory bears were also a species of saurians, as
Tomisenkov later found out, but of a different variety.
The third level was in the treetops of the smaller woods, about 30 feet above the ground. This was the habitat of the spiders of which there were a great deal more present than Tomisenkov first suspected. The reason was that there nets were camouflaged so skilfully that they were difficult to detect if one did not know where to look for them.
The fourth level between 60 and 120 feet was in the higher treetops with less animal life. There were small flying lizards the size of sparrows and pigeons and a few strange but harmless animals which appeared to Tomisenkov to belong to an intermediate stage between lizards and the lowest warm-blooded species. In any case, here it was possible to exist without being eaten up on the spot and Tomisenkov had learned to take advantage of this. At first it bothered him to be waked up from deep sleep by the curious flying lizards that landed on his face but then he got used to the fact that even the most comfortable place on Venus was worse than spending a night in the open on the Siberian taiga.
However he had to be careful to stay away from the uppermost plane of the trees. Above the trees was what might be called the fifth level, the region of the big flying reptiles of the type that had snatched away his aide Trevuchin.
As long as he remained under cover in the foliage, he did not have to be afraid of them.
Around noon Tomisenkov resumed his trek. Five hours sleep had sufficed to refresh him. The jungle was steaming under the hot sun and the ground temperature rose to 120?F. Tomisenkov had gradually become more acclimatized.
He followed the trail which had been broken by his men, pushing the thin newly-grown shoots and vines out of the way with his arms.
After two hours he noticed that the ground began to rise. A few minutes later the grade had become quite steep and the sweat was dripping from Tomisenkov's forehead.
When he came to a gap in the leaves of the trees, he saw the high peaks of the mountains almost vertically above him. He had reached the mountains! He had made it! Tomisenkov was confident that he would meet the first of his countrymen before the day was over.
His path, which hitherto had run in a straight line through the jungle, began to twist in curves. Rocks of all sizes were embedded in the forest and at times it was so steep that Tomisenkov was compelled to advance on all fours.
He became very impatient. He rushed forward and disregarded everything, concentrating on his way in the wild hope that he would run into his people around the next turn.
It wasn't the next turn nor the one after that. It was 10 hours since his last rest when he arrived at a narrow ravine which was the entrance to a deep valley running almost exactly north between the mountain wails. Tomisenkov was very surprised to see that the floor of the valley was nearly bare of vegetation—the first such place he had come across on Venus. Volcanic steam might have been responsible for this uncharacteristic feature, as Tomisenkov noticed plumes of vapors drifting along the walls.
The high mountains enclosing the gorge kept so much of the dim light out of the valley that the visibility was limited to 300 feet. Since it was manifest that his people had entered the valley, Tomisenkov did not hesitate to do the same.
He had left the border of the jungle only a few yards behind him when the air began to change. He smelled sulphur and a few other malodorous scents. Tomisenkov stood still and sniffed a little. It did not seem to be dangerous. It only irritated his throat slightly, that was all.
He went on and after another half hour he wondered how long this valley would stretch, when he was challenged by a voice out of the darkness between some fallen rocks.
The call was in Russian. But Tomisenkov had not heard a human voice in such a long time that he was even startled by his own mother tongue. He dropped to the ground with the alacrity he had learned in the jungle and took cover behind a rock.
"Tomisenkov" he called back.
"Who's there?" A derisive laugh came from the dark.
"You'll have to tell that to somebody else! Tomisenkov is dead!" Tomisenkov was irate and jumped up. "Look, you fool!" he shouted. "Am I Tomisenkov or not?"
The guard answered imperturbably. "First drop your gun and then I'll take a look at you!" Tomisenkov obeyed.
"Alright. I'm coming." The soldier came out from his hiding place with a machine gun in his hands. He stopped six feet from Tomisenkov and scrutinized him. He was baffled by Tomisenkov's white hair and the beard he had grown in the meantime. To boot, the general had not had a chance or had not found it convenient to wash himself. Every square inch of his skin was covered with a crust of dirt.
Nevertheless, the guard recognized him. "The general...!" he gasped in amazement. "Really!" The guard turned around and pointed his hand into the valley. "Back there is the C-103. It's the last ship we've left!"
Tomisenkov was taken aback. He could not utter a sound. "No, that's not quite right," the sentry corrected himself. "We've got a few others, but they're down flat, or their fuel tanks have run out, or their reactors are burned up. I don't know what else is the damn matter with them. Whatever it is, the C-103 is the only one which can still get up." Tomisenkov did not harbor too many delusions during the absence but this exceeded his worst fears. It took him some time to get over the shock. "Take me to your post!" he ordered the guard.
9/ INVISIBLE MEN
Rhodan had proceeded systematically and with dispatch. The attack on the C-145 remained an isolated case. Subsequently Rhodan had directed his men to stake out several places simultaneously and ordered them to take no risks. They used the deflectors of their transport suits and closed in invisibly on the hostile spaceships. They placed explosives under the rear fins of the ships, which were powerful enough to make them topple over. They peppered the fuel tanks so that the precious liquid hydrogen evaporated rapidly or they damaged the drive reactors and incapacitated them permanently.
There were practically no untoward incidents during these actions. At noon there were only three enemy ships left, which Rhodan intended to knock out on his return trip. Two of them were destroyed at
125:00 o'clock and Rhodan prepared to stalk the remaining C-103 with special care because more than 2000 men of their 5000 survivors were posted there.
• • •
There was a good reason for this.
After the evacuation of their first camp, the great majority of the survivors were forced to march through the jungle and were denied all comfort.
when the troops reached the mountains, they arrived at the C-103, which had landed farthest to the east. Since most of the marchers were disinclined to walk farther than the 120 miles they already had done in order to get to the next ships, they preferred to stop here. Only a few of the toughest and most courageous soldiers and some of the slightly wounded continued on to seek shelter in the more distant ships.
The 2200 men Gen. Tomisenkov found in the camp near the C-103 expected Rhodan's forth coming attack any moment.
Tomisenkov realized at once that he had to stake everything on one card and he began to organize a reception for Rhodan. Meanwhile he had learned that only very few of the ships overwhelmed by Rhodan had maintained radio contact. They assumed that nobody had escaped death at the other places.
However, Tomisenkov corrected this opinion quickly and definitely.
"In all those cases," he explained, "where Rhodan put our rockets out of action by bringing them down on their sides, the fall must have demolished the radio transmitters as well and as soon as our technicians have repaired them we'll hear from them again."
The reports coming in from those ships whose radio stations had remained intact seemed more than confused to Tomisenkov. All agreed on one point though, namely that nobody had been able to observe the approach of the raiders despite the strictest surveillance in the ships' vicinity.
"Damn it!" Tomisenkov fumed. "Nobody can make himself invisible!"
Just the same, he was not so certain about it any more. Even more incredible was the fact that Rhodan—according
to the reports received—had inflicted no casualties whatsoever. This probably was not the case where the ships had been overturned. Surely there must have been some dead and wounded but everything in the reports indicated that Rhodan made every effort to conduct his operation in a bloodless manner.
"Why?"
First of all Tomisenkov had two launching ramps removed from their mountings in the C-103 and set up outside with a supply of projectiles. He did not want to be caught short without weapons if Rhodan succeeded in overthrowing his last ship.
The projectiles had a compact shell and contained a non-critical mass of plutonium. It became critical with a thick-walled reflector of beryllium oxide. The ignition worked on the principle of implosion. The missile including its propulsion mechanism was not much larger than the shell of a big cannon.