by Perry Rhodan
• • •
After several hours of waiting, the Drusus at Gen. Deringhouse's order returned to the assembly point of the Terran Fleet.
The waiting had been in vain. Grautier was lost and Perry Rhodan was dead. Zero Hour—the moment when the attack on Arkon was supposed to begin—was already six hours past. Deringhouse had his plans ready when he returned to the waiting fleet. An attack on Arkon was now out of the question.
Gen. Deringhouse ordered a withdrawal. The units of the fleet were instructed to reassemble in the Vega Sector, just 30 light-years from Earth.
In groups of two and three or one by one, the ships started off on their way. Ten hours after Deringhouse's order, the sector in which Terra's concentrated might had been readying for the assault on Arkon was empty and deserted.
No more than three ships, a battleship and two heavy cruisers, had been shunted away from the rest of the fleet by Deringhouse for the purpose of maintaining contact with the base on Hades in the other time-plane without being noticed by the Arkonides.
• • •
The robot took note of their names and then was never seen again, although the three guards asserted that it was stationed nearby. Of course, they had given false names. Rhodan called himself George Barrimore, Reginald Bell was Frederick O'Lannigan, Fellmer Lloyd had rechristened himself Walter Highman, and TalanNuur was the new name for Atlan. The robot had noted the alien sounds as impulse signs on a registration card and with that the requests of the ship's administration had been fulfilled.
The prisoners had been allotted three connecting cabins. One served as sleeping quarters, the second as a livingroom and the third as a combination bath and gymnastic setup. They had nothing to complain about in the way of lacking comfort, although the comfort was more of a symbolic sort: they had no idea how they were to make use of all these advantages of Ekhonide living culture in the 20 hours the commander had said the flight would last.
They very quickly determined that the livingroom and sleeping room very probably did not contain any listening devices.
However, in order to eliminate all risk they conversed only in muted tones so that any microphones that might exist would transmit only an indistinct murmur... Suddenly Lloyd lost consciousness. A doctor was called for, who hurried in and gave him two injections against Gamma Fever... Atlan spoke regarding the new situation. "We must do something. I don't think any of us have any doubt that the Ekhonides are bringing us by the quickest way to Arkon. The travel time confirms this suspicion. From Grautier to Arkon, a normal ship needs between 15 and 25 hours. But once we're on Arkon, there'll be no more hope for us. The Regent will make sure its prisoners won't be able to escape."
The answer was a silent nodding. Rhodan knew just as well as Bell that Atlan was not exaggerating. Landing on Arkon meant the end. If something was to happen to rescue them, it would have to happen here and now aboard the Ekhonide ship.
Whatever thoughts might come to them in the next minutes or hours, it seemed hopeless to fight for freedom against the ship's crew burdened with a bedsick companion. There was, however, one advantage Rhodan believed lay on the Terrans' side: the desire of the Regent on Arkon to have the prisoners delivered to it alive. For the man contemplating a large undertaking, the expectation that he will probably come out alive even if it fails is in itself an encouraging assurance.
• • •
Thousands of light-years away, almost exactly in the geometric center of Globular Cluster M-13, the Regent of Arkon was at that time occupied with analyzing the information obtained from questioning the 134 Terran prisoners. The Regent had not hesitated to interrogate the prisoners with the most modern methods of psychophysics—wisely realizing that a Terran would be unlikely to betray important secrets unless he were under pressure.
In spite of the modern methods, the results were scanty. The Regent found that far-reaching precautions had been taken on the opposing side in case of just such a catastrophe as this one putting a large number of prisoners in Arkon's hands. In fact the only thing the Regent could learn with any certainty was the fact that the destroyed planet was not Terra, homeworld of the Terrans, as it had first calculated, but only a forward base. Even this information was of little value for the Regent possessed it even before the interrogation of the prisoners. Shortly before the beginning of the attack, the Arkonide robot ships had taken pictures of the planet's surface and no signs of intelligent life outside the immediate area of the base could be seen. Since no one could believe that the Terrans had built all of their cities without exception underground, that was proof enough that this world and Terra were not one and the same.
Thus the question now was of learning where the Terrans' homeworld really was. The prisoners were asked the distance between Terra and the destroyed base. At first they refused to answer anything at all, then as the torture was applied they named figures from 40,000 light-years all the way down to 10 light-years. The psychodetector showed that the figures were named without connection with any act of remembering, in other words, they were made up on the spot. The Robot Regent had to face the startling realization that Rhodan's men on Grautier had not known how far they were from their home planet.
They could say even less about the direction to it. They were technicians, the ground personnel needed at any fleet base. None of them knew even the slightest bit about galactic navigation or star positions or anything else of significance. So not one of them could give the angular coordinates from which the vector of the radius from Grautier to Terra could be determined.
The last question of the interrogation aimed at details of the Terran solar system. In spite of its previous failures, the Robot Regent was convinced it could locate Terra if, for example, the Terran system was a giant system of more than 100 planets or if Terra itself followed an extremely eccentric orbit around its sun. Such outstanding characteristics and oddities were specially noted in the galactic catalogs and Terra could easily be located on that basis. Unfortunately, judging from what the prisoners said, the Terran system seemed to be a textbook example of a typical solar system. Moreover, the prisoners contradicted each other about the system's size and other details. Their astronomical knowledge was extremely faulty and the Regent concluded that his opponent Rhodan had purposely kept them ignorant. The single success the Regent attained with the last question was the information that one of the system's planets—though the prisoners did not agree whether it was the fifth, sixth, seventh or even the eighth planet—had a ring around if. But even this success was only relative. It reduced the number of possible systems from several billion to several hundred million. About every 10th solar system boasted a ringed planet.
The first attempt to learn something of the galactic position of the enemy world had thus ended in failure for the Regent.
But the Regent had not yet played its best card. Perry Rhodan himself was on the way to Arkon as a prisoner. But while even the Regent doubted that Rhodan—of all Terrans—would reveal the position of his homeworld of his own accord, he would at least, if he were given a certain amount of freedom on Arkon, get in touch with his men. In doing so he would give the Regent some valuable clues.
With that the Regent succeeded in convincing itself that it was perfectly in control of the situation.
• • •
The Ekhonide apparently intended to cross the distance to Arkon in several transitions. That had to be assumed when one considered the size of the ship but it was made a certainty by first the distortion pain and then by the operation of the engines accelerating once more for another transition, all of which could be observed on the vidscreens.
The prisoners were aware that something could be attempted only during the pauses between transitions. Once the ship had its last hytrans behind it, the situation would be hopeless.
Rhodan estimated the distance of the transition at between five and seven thousand light-years, judging from the duration and the intensity of the distortion pain, and Atlan concurred with hi
m. Since the distance between Grautier and Arkon was around 37,000 light-years and the place where they had transferred from the LanZour to the Ekhonide ship was only a few light-minutes away from Grautier, it could be calculated that the flight to Arkon would be made in five to eight transitions.
In accord with the power of the engines, there was an acceleration phase lasting 40 minutes between each two transitions. So it had to take place during one of those 40 minute pauses...
• • •
Zachan cursed service in spaceship travel in general and ennui aboard the Keenial in particular. Zachan was one of the three guards watching over the four Terran prisoners. At the same time, Zachan was the only one who wondered why one of the Terrans looked exactly like an Arkonide. Zachan pondered the matter and most of all wondered why no one else aboard the Keenial took an interest in such an amazing coincidence.
Zachan walked up and down the corridor. He carried his long-barreled shock weapon on a strap over his shoulder. He had pushed it over on his back, holding onto the barrel with his hands, because that was the easiest way to walk.
For walking was all the work that Zachan and the other two were doing. It was ridiculous to assume that the Terrans would attempt to struggle against their fate.
Zachan took 20 steps, then made a rapid about-face. For three hours his only pastime had been making quick and precise about-faces. On the way back one of the other guards passed by, also on the 20-pace march that finished at each end with an about-face and began all over again. Grinning, Zachan threw an insult at him, which did not go unreturned.
The third man, Olthaur, sat on a chair farther along the corridor where it was intersected by another passageway.
Zachan passed the door leading to the prisoners' cabins at the same time that the second guard made his about-face behind him. Zachan looked backwards to see if the other man had mastered the turnabout as well as he had. As he turned his head around again, he noticed that the door had opened a tiny crack. About halfway up the crack protruded a shining sheet of paperfoil. Zachan was at the door in two quick steps. He ripped the sheet away and through the crack saw the tall figure of the Terran who resembled an Arkonide. "Hurry!" the Terran whispered. "And don't let the other three notice anything!"
Zachan gave a start. The other three! There were two out here. He puzzled over it for a bit, then came to the conclusion that the Terran who looked like an Arkonide must have meant the other three prisoners.
In the meantime the door had closed again. Zachan stood before it with the sheet in his hand. The second guard had become attentive and even Olthaur bent somewhat forward from his comfortable chair to see what was going on.
Zachan opened the sheet and saw four rows of letters written on it. The letters were Arkonese and since Ekhonide writing used the same symbols, Zachan could read it without difficulty.
"Have important information for the commander. Must speak with him privately. Top secret. The Terrans must notice nothing of this. TalanNuur."
The second guard was looking over Zachan's shoulder. "Report this at once!" he hissed. "This thing looks important!"
Zachan was less gullible. This could also be a trick. He showed Olthaur the sheet. Olthaur studied it suspiciously.
"I'll report this anyway," Zachan suddenly declared.
"That would be the best thing to do," Olthaur agreed.
An intercom unit was located a few meters down the corridor. While Olthaur remained sitting in his chair and the second guard, visibly nervous, took up the march once more. Zachan spoke with the control room. He muffled his voice so nothing of it could be heard in the prisoners' cabin. To Zachan's surprise, his report was considered so important in the control room that he was connected with Command Chollar himself. Chollar listened to what Zachan had to say. Then he promised to send an officer to pick up TalanNuur and bring him topside.
Zachan was satisfied with his success.
The officer appeared a few minutes later. He was a very young man, younger then Zachan, and was unarmed. "Bring TalanNuur out!" he ordered. "He is to accompany me to the control room. You'll come with me, I don't have any weapons."
How thoughtless, Zachan thought. I'll have to watch out for him.
Then he opened the door to the prisoners' cabins and called in: "The commander wishes to speak to TalanNuur!"
None of the aliens were in the frontmost room. At Zachan's call all of them except for the sick one appeared at the door leading to the next room. Zachan repeated his request, mustering the prisoners carefully as he spoke. He could determine nothing suspicious about them. He was now really convinced that TalanNuur had something important to say against his fellow prisoners.
Meanwhile the officer had enjoined Olthaur and the other guard to be especially watchful during Zachan's absence. Zachan would soon return, he explained.
Then they started off for the control room. The officer went ahead, TalanNuur in the middle, and Zachan brought up the rear.
The prisoners' cabins lay off a side corridor which after a few meters opened up on a rollband-equipped main corridor.
It was at this intersection that the confusion began so suddenly that Zachan did not understand what was going on for much too long.
The officer disappeared around the corner and TalanNuur followed him. Zachan made an effort to close up the ranks as quickly as possible so as not to lose sight of the prisoner for a single second. Just as he was about to turn the corner, however, there was a loud noise in the corridor behind him. Zachan stopped and looked around in surprise. The door to the prisoners' cabins had been opened. The largest of the Terrans stood in the doorway, gesticulating frantically. Olthaur and the second guard surrounded him, their weapons trained on him. The Terran seemed to be little disturbed.
Zachan didn't know what was happening. He remembered that his duty was to bring a prisoner to the control room, not to keep an eye on Olthaur and the other guard. He gathered his wits about him and started to continue on his way.
• • •
This was the moment Atlan had been waiting for. In front of him the young officer stepped unsuspectingly. onto the slowest rollband, The guard behind him was still hidden by the corner, and in the side corner as previously arranged, Rhodan raised a loudly protesting uproar.
In the corridor wall, so close that Atlan needed only to stretch out his hand to touch it, lay the circular pressure hatch of the compressed air shaft. As Perry Rhodan's loud voice became audible, Atlan glided to the side. His skilled hands took no more than a second to unscrew the hatch and open it. The airshaft had been designed as an emergency exit and emergency exits had seals that were simple to operate.
As the hatch sprang open, it hissed loudly. The young officer, now some meters ahead on the rollband, became aware that something behind him was not what it should be. He looked around and saw the Arkonide bending over and climbing hastily into the airshaft. The officer was paralyzed with shock for an entire second and that second was enough for Atlan to disappear into the shaft and close the hatch behind him.
Dazzling light flamed on in the shaft. The long tube lay shining and smooth-walled before the Arkonide. No more sounds could be heard from outside. The hatch was airtight and soundproof. And above all, it could not be opened as long as someone was working its controls.
Atlan crouched on the round floor of the tube. It had been more than 10,000 years since he had last removed himself from the interior of a ship in this less than pleasant manner. For a long second he was struck with the memory of Tarth, that old warhorse, and how he had gotten away from him by way of the compressed air shaft on the stricken Tosoma when Atlantis went down.
Only for a second. Then he hit the luminous red button to the left in the shaft wall with his clenched fist. Noise began emanating from up ahead in the tube. Huge pumps sucked out the air, creating a lack of air along the tubular axis. Around the hatch it began to hiss. Compressed air streamed in and raised the pressure at the inner tube end. A howling storm raged around the Arko
nide, blowing his hair wildly around his head. The blood shot to his head as he was violently thrust forward, then receded once more as he hit the air pillow that the compressed air had meanwhile inflated at the other end of the tube.
The exit airlock hatch lay before him. Numbed, he got up and manipulated the opening mechanism.
Now came the decisive moment! At least five other airshafts coming from all possible directions opened onto this airlock. If the young officer had been quick enough, he had alarmed the ship and given the order to occupy the lock as fast as possible. If that were the case, then a few grim Ekhonides already stood behind the batch, waiting with ready weapons to receive him.
Nor was that all, If there were no spacesuits in the airlock, then even without the urging of ready weapons he might as well turn around and go tell Perry Rhodan his plan had fallen through. For it to succeed he needed a spacesuit.
Impatient and full of excitement, he watched the hatch slide to the side. The airlock chamber was brightly lit and empty but on the walls hung at least 12 spacesuits and other pieces of equipment.
Atlan put a suit on as fast as he could. The inner hatch of the airlock had closed automatically. Atlan opened the outer hatch and breathed more easily. As long as the outer hatch was open no one would be able to enter the airlock from the ship. Now he was safe. No one could hinder his plan now. He needed only to carry out the rest with same degree of skill, and freedom was as good as won.
He checked over the small reaction unit built into the spacesuit. It worked flawlessly. From the variety of equipment hanging on the walls he picked out a plastic rope whose length he estimated at 300 meters, and hooked it to his belt. The other end he fastened to a ring in the inner airlock wall that had been provided for that purpose.
Then, letting the rope slide through his hand, he stepped outside. The ship's artificial gravity field no longer affected him the moment he left the airlock. The acceleration seemed to rip the Keenial past him at a terrific speed but the reaction unit was in operation, the tiny antigrav made the pressure bearable and the rope was not burdened beyond its length.