"Levian Paronn," Rhodan said slowly. "The man who founded the Project Exodus of the Star Arks all those millennia ago ... Somehow he managed to send me a message. His Chronicler had recorded everything. I know how the generation ships were built. I know the background of the project. Paronn, an Immortal ... He gave out Cell Activators to the arks' commanders."
Suddenly feeling dizzy, Rhodan supported himself with his hand. The connection with the Syntron still stood as before, and the doctor saw the readouts change.
"Your mind hasn't yet digested all the information that it received," Mahal said. "You lay in a kind of coma for nearly twenty hours. We were almost at the point of informing the LFT and requesting help."
"Twenty hours ... " Rhodan stood up. "I have to speak with Sharita."
Mahal grimaced. "There's a little problem with that. Sharita Coho has disappeared. Along with Echkal cer Lethir and some others, including Denetree and ... Icho Tolot."
Rhodan looked at the doctor with the unflappable composure of a man three thousand years old. "It sounds like a lot has happened while I was ... asleep. You can explain everything to me on the way to the bridge."
Pearl Laneaux had the command, and besides her only the com officer Alemaheyu Kossa and the hyperdetection specialist Omer Driscol were still in the control center. They seemed more than a little relieved when they saw Rhodan.
"Your awakening and good health are still more good news," the delicately built Laneaux told Rhodan. When she saw his questioning look, she added, "Sharita and the others are on their way here. On board Icho Tolot's ship. It sounds as though they have a great deal to report."
"And something else," Kossa said. "The Akonians on the LAS-TOOR are being very generous with information at the moment. They've informed us that an ark has been taken to Akon." The com operator pointed to the display screen on his console. "This one here."
Curious, Rhodan stepped closer, looked at images of the star ark, and gasped. A long, tube-shaped object with individual components, among them ring-like elements. There was no doubt about it.
"That's the ACHATI UMA," Rhodan said. "Levian Paronn's ship." He took a deep breath. "That settles it as far as our next destination is concerned. We have to go to Akon."
Epilogue
The Rift
26 April 1327 NGE
The Rift stretched as an abyss-like zone of darkness against the colorful glow of the galactic center. There the distances between the stars shrank, often to just a few light-months. It consisted of dozens of globules. Massively thick dark clouds that would someday develop into solar systems if they were not torn apart by passing stars. The freighter SAMARKAND plowed through the periphery of the Rift. Old Vincent watched the glowing of the navigation shields, admiring the subtle play of color in the friction and dissolution. He did not look up as Lola came out of the tubular passageway that connected the sphere with the ship's framework and the more than 100 freight modules and habitat cells, as well as with the engine section. She walked through the half-lit pilot sphere and sat down in the co-pilot's seat.
"There are so many beautiful things," Vincent said after a while, "and some of them don't cost anything." He pointed out through the pilot sphere's transparent aluminum into space.
Lola turned her head. At eighty-seven, she was just three years younger than Vincent, and wrinkles formed a complex pattern in her face. She weighed a few more kilos than in her youth and her black hair had lost its sheen, but for Vincent she was still as beautiful as she had been almost seventy years ago, when they first met. Lola's beauty was not on the outside, but on the inside, in her heart and soul. There were no wrinkles there. There she stayed forever young.
"Others, in contrast, are rather expensive," Lola replied. "For example, the freedom of independent carriers. Payments on the ship have to be made. And that can be done only when the freight reaches its destination on time." She leaned forward and looked at the readouts. "We're behind schedule already."
"With our course so close to the Rift, we'll save several days of flying time," Vincent said. "And look how beautiful it is." He gestured to the wavering and flickering at the navigation shields ahead of the SAMARKAND's bow. Rainbow-like color patterns appeared and shimmered in front of the background of the Rift.
Lola furrowed her brow. "Did you see that?"
"The silver sparks in the violet band?"
"No, in the Rift. Something flashed for a moment." Audio signals sounded from the two pilot consoles. Lola bent over. "The remote sensors are detecting an object emerging from the Rift."
Vincent's interest awoke. "Most ships' routes avoid the Rift by a wide margin. Who or what could be out here?"
Data processed by the ship's Syntron streamed through holographic display fields.
"A spaceship," Lola said. "Configuration unknown."
This piece of information was unusual in itself. "The spaceship can't be identified?" Vincent asked, surprised. "Can there still be unknown space faring races in this galaxy?"
"The Milky Way is rather large." Lola operated the controls. "The unknown ship is getting closer. It's heading straight towards us."
Vincent looked at the Rift as though he was capable of seeing the unidentified spaceship with the naked eye. And then he did see something: a flash against the dark background.
"Shockwaves," Lola said at his side. "It's an attack!"
"But who ... " Vincent started to exclaim.
They were his last words.
A gray something hurtled towards them and obliterated the SAMARKAND's pilot sphere. Just a fraction of a second later, the freighter's framework shattered, and the transport modules blew apart. The engines exploded, and the expanding shockwave sent debris flying in all directions.
The alien spaceship paused at a distance of several light-seconds while probe signals raced through space. After a while, the ship resumed its flight retracing its path back in the direction of the Rift. The time for concealment was not yet at an end.
Want to know how things are going to develop?
#4 The First Immortal by Leo Lukas will be available from January 7, 2016
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EPUB-version:
© 2015 Pabel-Moewig Verlag KG, PERRY RHODAN digital, Rastatt
Editorship: Klaus N. Frick
Translation: Dwight R. Decker
Cover Artwork: Oliver Scholl
ISBN: 978-3-8453-3376-2
Original Title: Exodus der Generationen
Original Edition: © Pabel-Moewig Verlag KG, Rastatt
E-Mail: [email protected]
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Exodus to the Stars Page 27