The Tigris Leaps

by Perry Rhodan

  Maj. Clyde Ostal glanced at the small sidedoor. It was still open and the old Ekhonide was still standing in the doorway. The tiny bit of cloudless blue Ekhonide sky was still visible, too.

  And wasn't that the typical noise of an Arkonide airtaxi starting up, coming through the open doorway?

  Maj. Ostal felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Seeger, who was saying to him in a muted voice: "Hasting is here with us but..."

  The small side door closed. The old Ekhonide crossed the large anteroom and disappeared behind a transparent door, through which was visible a room with a large number of flashing devices inside.

  "Men!" Clyde Ostal's sharp but muted call drew their attention. "Keep it down but go on as before... keep on talking but listen to me!"

  "Over on the left, that small sidedoor leads up to a flight deck on the roof! When I say the word Tigris, make sure that no Ekhonide has a chance to cry out. It won't hurt to be safe and it won't cost more than three seconds time. Then leave by the sidedoor. A rollband leads up to the roof. What we'll run into up there, I don't know..." Here the major saw that there were only three Ekhonides with them in the spacious anteroom.

  He gave the signal. "Tigris." Even though all the Terrans were stark naked, they were dangerous and ready for anything. It was not for nothing that the Chief of Solar Defense, Allan D. Mercant, had a reputation of always being on the lookout for new methods of teaching his men better ways in which to cope with the dangers they met almost daily while in service for the Solar Imperium.

  Three unsuspecting Ekhonides, doctors in service for the justice Department of Ekhas, suddenly saw naked Terrans in front of them—then they saw only shadowy fists flying at them and after that they saw and heard nothing more. They felt nothing more for they lay unconscious on the floor while 33 pairs of naked feet hurried towards the small sidedoor. Maj. Clyde Ostal had opened it by laying his left hand on the rosette in the middle of the door.

  Once on the rollband which carried him swiftly upwards to the flightdeck on the roof, he turned around. In perfect order, as though on the way to an exercise field, his men left the large anteroom.

  They came out one after another and stepped onto the rollband, which appeared perfectly capable of bearing the steadily increasing weight.

  Clyde Ostal reached the roof in four seconds. The brilliant light of the yellowish shining sun of Naral blinded him. Squinting against the glare, he glanced from right to left. He had expected heavily armed guards waiting at the end of the rollband and he was astounded that there were none.

  "Everybody's out, Major!" someone called from below.

  In four seconds the last of his men would have reached the roof. He stepped aside to give them room.

  From the left came a shout!

  On the left travelers were leaving an airtaxi that had just brought them here from the spaceport.

  But on the right, not 20 paces away, stood an identical airtaxi with an extended but motionless rollband.

  "Let them yell...!" Maj. Clyde Ostal called over his shoulder to his men, who were coming up to the roof two by two on the rollband. "Head for the taxi there on the right!"

  Three seconds had gone by. Eight of his men were still on the rollband. With 24 of his men behind him, he ran for the taxi. "Seeger!" he exclaimed and got a reply from the right instantly. "Seeger, come with me—the others go in the passenger cabin!"

  Clyde Ostal made a running leap towards the airtaxi, grabbed the handholds projecting from the sides and pulled himself up into the pilot's chamber.

  Lt. Seeger followed immediately after, closing the door quickly behind him. "The last ones are coming, Major... but, good heavens! Those Ekhonides on the roof will never forget us! "

  From the passenger cabin came the shout: "All here, Major!" At the same time the broad cabin door closed with a hollow thud and the rollband was drawn in up under the taxi's hull.

  Ostal, who had immediately turned on the engines, did not worry about whether he could take off so soon with such a heavy load or not.

  The engines roared. The airtaxi lifted from the flightdeck and climbed 20 meters straight up. Then Clyde Ostal turned the airtaxi in the direction of that dark stripe in the north far beyond Ent-Than which he had recognized as a forest area during the landing manoeuvres of the Tigris. He gave the airtaxi full thrust.

  Seeger sat in front of the radio. In spite of the roaring engines, Ostal listened too. As yet none of the wavelengths Seeger had tuned to carried any word of their escape.

  How could they know that at that moment the doctors in the Virospectroscopic Dept. assumed the Terrans were being tested in G8, while their colleagues in G8 thought they were still being examined by the Viroanalyzers?

  No one had yet noticed the three senseless doctors lying together in a corner of the anteroom, covered with their own soft, green doctors' jackets.

  The airtaxi went faster and faster. The vast sea of houses of Ent-Than slid past them below and soon the suburban settlements appeared in front of them.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal's sharply profiled face looked to the distant forest edge approaching at an impossibly slow speed. He was still not quite convinced of the success of his desperate undertaking. The sensation they had unwillingly caused by their unclad appearance on the flightdeck of Ent-Than's largest hotel must certainly have its consequences.

  "Nothing on the radio about us yet," remarked Seeger, grinning like a boy who has just pulled off an improbable prank with unexpectedly great success. "Major, I wonder if the hotel guests are unaware that the upper fifth of the Star of Arkon is a prison and took us for some odd race of savages on our way to our home planet?"

  "Oh, cut the kidding!" Ostal told him. "You'd do better to keep your ear glued to that radio and keep watch over all channels! Is there another ship following us yet?"

  The major could not know that the lieutenant's conjecture matched the truth perfectly. In that moment the administration of the hotel was under fire with complaints from all sides. Outraged tourists and guests of the Star Of Arkon, Ent-Than's most exclusive hotel, were demanding to know why quarters had been given to naked savages and why they had been allowed to take off in full view from a public flight deck.

  The administration along with its robots was completely at a loss. Their statements that they knew nothing of any of this and certainly had nothing to do with those mysterious events were not believed. But no one connected the happenings with the prison in the building's upper fifth and so the authorities were not immediately notified. The prison had been located there for 208 years and in all that time not one prisoner had ever succeeded in escaping.

  "Still nothing?" Ostal asked for the eighth time.

  "No, Major!" Lt. Seeger could not remember ever being so pleased about answering a question.

  The forest edge shot towards them and then it was suddenly behind them. The sea of trees beneath the airtaxi grew thicker and thicker. Now a small clearing appeared. The roaring of the overheated engines suddenly stopped. The braking equipment screeched loudly but it was enough to slow the airtaxi's fall.

  It landed as gently as a feather.

  The rollband slid rattling out from its slot under the rear of the airtaxi. Hissing, the automatic equipment opened the broad cabin door. 31 Terrans hastily left the airtaxi and sought cover under the first trees at the clearing's edge. Even Lt. Seeger sprang out. Maj. Clyde Ostal still had something to do: he had to somehow dispose of the airtaxi whose presence would otherwise betray the Terrans' location.

  It was a daring manoeuvre but the major did not hesitate for even a second.

  The engines began to roar again, though muted. Ostal's right hand lay on the switch that would supply full power to the machinery. Calmly but not slowly he checked over the robot-steering one more time. Set on an easterly course, the airtaxi would suddenly fall and crash from an altitude of 3,000 meters after an eight-minute flight, assuming that no Ekhonide policeship had discovered by that time the airtaxi carried neither pilot nor passengers and ca
ptured it.

  "Ok..." said Ostal to himself. He half stood up, turned to the open doorway of the pilot's cabin and then with his right hand threw the power supply switch.

  Then Maj. Clyde Ostal jumped the two meters to the ground. Above him the mistreated engines roared in protest, shaking the airtaxi down to its last nuts and bolts.

  Soft grass absorbed Ostal's fall. A shadow from above slid past him, slipped just above the tops of the first trees and then, still in the range of vision, turned to the east and climbed at a 15° angle into the sky.

  A minute later the clearing was as still as it had been before the landing of the airtaxi. The roaring of the engines could no longer be heard but then a voice called out: "I'm curious to see how all this turns out!"

  Maj. Ostal replied severely to the speaker: "Sgt. Brack, I can understand that this affair would have you wondering—but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it! We won't be able to accomplish anything by just talking."

  Egg-Or, head of the planetary defense for Ekhas, felt rather the same way. After a lightning trip from the headquarters of the Arkonide fleet back to his own offices, he was being briefed on the new developments in the case.

  More than that, he was also reprimanding his chief of police. "Do-Man, have you notified all the clothing stores that they might be broken into tonight?... No? May I be so bold as to inquire when you're going to do so? This concerns all stores within a radius of 500 drans (1 dran = 1.47 kilometers). While you're at it, warn all the weapons merchants and the food vendors and anyone else it may occur to you to notify. That's all, Do-Man!"

  Dragging his steps, Do-Man left the gathering. His six colleagues, who were not allowed to go yet, envied him. He had the worst behind him; for them it was yet to come.

  But Egg-Or was a man who could do more than just upbraid his staff. Hardly had the door dropped down behind Do-Man then Egg-Or's face relaxed and he made himself more comfortable in his seat.

  "We have 33 Terrans to capture again, men," he said. "We've been broadcasting their faces over the television channels for the last hour without stopping. If they weren't Terrans, they'd be no problem at all to apprehend. Yes, I—" Without warning the vidscreen in front of Egg-Or lit, showing the excited face of Exwin, chief of traffic control at the Ent-Than spaceport.

  "Yes?" asked Egg-Or tersely, sitting up straight. He knew that a surprise was in the offing, only he could not say whether it was going to be a pleasant or an unpleasant one.

  "Egg-Or, just an hour ago the Mab 1, first ship of the Springer clan Mabdan, landed here. Our check of its papers and cargo—a cargo being shipped to Ent-Than and so labeled—disclosed no discrepancies but, a chance visit to the Com Center gleaned the knowledge that the Mab 1 had a second hypercom unit aboard, destroyed during the flight to Ekhas."

  "Egg-Or, I wouldn't have called you had the investigation of our officials relative to the second hypercom and its destruction turned up a satisfactory explanation. But no member of the Springer crew could explain the purpose of the second unit or why it was destroyed.

  "Thereupon the Mab 1 was put under close watch. We learned thereby that at least four persons more, if not six, were on board than were carried in the crew lists. Further, Mabdan 1 was missing. The crew could give no information about the present whereabouts of the Springer patriarch and knew nothing of the presence of extra persons aboard the ship. They were all certain, however, that at the beginning of the voyage to the Naral System, Mabdan 1 had been aboard.

  "Accordingly I put the Mab 1 under quarantine. The Springer ship is being searched again at this time and I've brought in four specialists to give the positronicon aboard the Mab 1 a thorough examination."

  The longer Exwin spoke, the greater grew Egg-Or's excitement. More out of instinct than reason he saw connections between the captured Tigris and the just landed Mab 1.

  "Thank you for this information, Exwin," said Egg-Or with a slightly hoarse voice. "Interrogate all the Springers intensively and separately. Put three or four men on the investigation of the ship's positronicon. Have you contacted the Mab 1's port of origin yet?"

  "No," came Exwin's answer from the spaceport.

  "Then do so immediately. Call me when you've learned anything new, no matter what time of day or night it is!"

  Egg-Or switched off. He glanced almost absentmindedly at his staff. They didn't dare speak to him. Each man knew that often in the past their chief had solved problems sitting at his desk, which the entire alerted defense ministry had not been able to handle.

  Egg-Or was one of those lucky individuals whose reason and intuition were equally developed. He was one of the few who often followed his hunches and set his reasoning aside.

  "Now..." he said, sounding like someone who had just awakened from a light sleep with a start. "You know yourselves what has to be done. Set in motion every means at your disposal so that we can have those 33 Terrans back in our hands by tomorrow. If I'm not here in headquarters, I'll leave a message in any case telling where I am."

  The staff left the chief somewhat confused. They had thought the meeting would proceed not a little differently and they could not shake off the feeling that the abrupt end of the conference had something to do with Exwin's call from the spaceport.

  They were right. Egg-Or flew to the spaceport and entered the planetary defense department offices just as a hypercom exchange with Soral, 4.7 light-years away, was ending.

  Exwin, an unusually tall Ekhonide, gave the impression to the entering Egg-Or that he was on the verge of a breakdown. He was alone with Egg-Or in the room. With an exhausted motion he switched off the microphone. "Egg-Or, did you hear who I was talking to?"

  "Of course—with Soral. Did the Mab 1 come from that planet?"

  "Yes, Egg-Or," Exwin replied, nodding, and trying to regain his composure. However, the beads of sweat he wiped from his forehead testified to a considerable shock. "But it took off from Soral for Ekhas with a gravely ill Mabdan 1 on board; and because a cylinder spacer has to have a capable captain, Mabdan 3 was put in his place although the clan was neither asked nor advised about the move. Egg-Or, now I'm asking you a question: where are Mabdan 1 and 3? Why is it that no Springer knew if one or the other was on board?"

  "Have the galactic traders been asked how many transitions it took them to make the trip to Ekhas?"

  "Yes. They all said five, and the ship's positronicon confirms it..."

  The loudspeaker interrupted with a question. "May Sassas see you, sir?"

  Exwin spoke into the microphone. "Send Sassas in!" And to Egg-Or he said: "Sassas was one of those investigating the Mab 1's positronicon."

  An old and bent Ekhonide entered. His face promised nothing good and neither did the sheaf of papers he held in his hand.

  "Take a seat," Exwin told him. His voice sounded impatient.

  The specialist sat down and handed the papers to Exwin. "Here," he said, greatly excited and pointing to the confusion of coordinates and figures covering the eight sheets. Seen as a whole, the diagrams made an impressive flight curve. "Here is where the Mab 1 reentered our universe after the fourth spring. Point of entry: Restricted Zone 0674 B-00001..."

  "00001?" exclaimed Egg-Or in surprise while Exwin tried to understand it. "00001, Sassas, isn't that...?"

  "Yes, it definitely is the Starhell! And as Starhell it's listed in the catalog of restricted areas under the number 0674 B00001."

  "Sassas, you must be mistaken," Egg-Or said firmly.

  I can make mistakes but a positronicon never does. I obtained these coordinates from the Mab 1's positronicon. But not only did the Springer ship search out the area of the four hellstars in the middle of the Milky Way for transition but it also cruised here and there in that region for over three hours, seemingly with no destination in mind at all, until it received a hypercom message consisting of just one word: 'Arkon'..."

  "Just a moment," Egg-Or broke in, looking at Exwin and Sassas in surprise. "What does the star catalog say about
the Starhell area? Doesn't it say that hyper-communication is impossible there and that the same goes for any astronavigation? Something isn't right, Sassas!"

  "I'm only telling you what we found in the positronicon," said Sassas obstinately. "But isn't it noteworthy that the Mab 1 reached our system from the starhell in one transition... and as I heard, thanks to our interrogators, even without a captain!"

  Egg-Or turned to Exwin. "Call Soral again. This change of command in the Mab 1 seems mysterious to me in a way. Every Arkonide administration is reluctant to even attempt to meddle with the customs of the Galactic Traders but has the port authority on Soral gone so far as to step in directly and interfere with the all but holy order of Springer rank? I can believe all the rest butthat I won't! Quick, Exwin, call Soral, but don't ask for the spaceport—get the Arkonide administration."

  But a hyper-communication was not yet in the cards.

  Gen. Sutokk called from his headquarters. His face, which had not struck Maj. Clyde Ostal as a particularly delightful one on the Tigris vidscreen, now gave the Ekhonide Egg-Or a somewhat unpleasant feeling as well.

  "Ah, so your office has informed me correctly for once, Egg-Or," said the general mockingly when Egg-Or's face appeared on the headquarters vidscreen. "I'm calling because I've heard some odd things concerning a Springer ship. Has it ever occurred to you that this merchant clan could be in league with Perry Rhodan? Leave the Springer crew to me for a few hours and my fleet officers will be able to give you the most eloquent confessions without any contradictions! Then well know, both of us, the whereabouts of these four or six persons who secretly came to Ekhas aboard the Mab 1!"

  "Brainlashing, General?" asked Egg-Or sharply.

  "Naturally..."

  "Good," said Egg-Or. "I still have some business to finish, important business. When I'm done with that I'll call and tell you my decision."