by Perry Rhodan
Meanwhile the police had been able to put one of the power plants in operation. Some lights were on; their effect was seen in the feeble glow that lay over the southwestern suburbs.
In spite of this, Rous, Lloyd and their female psychologist companion sat in the dark, each one immersed in their own thoughts.
"Of course we will," Rous answered confidently.
"What makes you so sure?"
"The mere fact that I'm a Terranian," Rous answered simply. "Over the past 60 years we've had a whole big rash of riddles to contend with and there's not one of them that hasn't been solved."
Rosita sighed. "I wish I could share your optimism."
"Wait till the next attack," put in Lloyd. "Each attack brings us a step farther, as you can see by the fact that we've only been on Mirsal 2 just ten days and we already know plenty!"
"And what it all adds up to," retorted Rosita, "is that we still haven't the faintest idea of what to make out of this invisible opponent and his objectives or intentions. I'm of the opinion that what we've been referring to as attacks aren't actually attacks at all. The zones where they hit, the configuration of such regions, the number of people and animals there who disappear... it's all such a random phenomenon—I mean, it's whole sampling curve is a purely statistical average and it's impossible to find any deliberate planning in it at all."
Rous pondered over this for awhile and then answered her. "You may be overlooking one thing: if the enemy only wants to cause alarm and confusion, then he could very well be resorting to the random and accidental patterns that are occurring here."
"That might be," admitted Rosita. "But why go to such efforts merely to create confusion?"
"Nobody knows... But why don't you tell us what you think it is that we're dealing with?"
"I don't have the faintest idea. My only assertion is that we're dealing with accidental events rather than something that is planned and aimed at a specific objective."
"One should never underestimate a woman's intuition. She often grasps in a second what a man's reason requires hours of thought to arrive at. But in this case I think you're getting onto the wrong track. I'm certain that we'll find out what's behind all this and discover the reason for these strange goings on," said Rous.
Rosita got up. "Well, I hope so," she laughed. "But meanwhile let's not lose any sleep over it, right?
Good night, gentlemen!"
"What I've been thinking about all this time," Lloyd began suddenly, "is whether or not—" He interrupted himself in mid sentence. "What was that?"
Rous had jumped up. "Somebody yelled! Listen... now everything is quiet downstairs! Come on!"
They rushed out of the room and down the stairs. On the second floor, Flaring's policemen were in platoon-like formation in the hallway and were looking at their commissioner who moved toward the rear area of the hall with his head down like a bloodhound following a scent.
This back part was empty although a contingency of police had just been assigned to it and should have noted the cry and the following stillness as well as anyone else.
"Flaring!" shouted Rous. "What's happened?"
Flaring straightened up and halted. "10 of my men have disappeared!" he answered.
"Disappeared...?"
Flaring raised his hand. "Yes. One of them saw one of the others just as he was about to go through this doorway, he saw him suddenly turn transparent and then disappear. He shouted in his fright, which is what you no doubt just heard."
"And what are you doing there?" Flaring crooked his index finger. "I'm trying to determine whether or not the danger is still here."
"Wait!" Rous passed by the waiting line of excited men and went down the hall to the end where another stairway led down to the ground floor. Then he came back. "Have you already looked inside the rooms?"
"Yes."
"Out of which rooms did your people disappear?"
Flaring pointed to three doors.
"And to the left of them?"
"No men were quartered in there."
"But to the right?"
"That's just it," complained Flaring. "From there on I had all rooms covered—including the offices that's 14 of them. The first three are completely empty now but in the remaining 11 rooms nothing happened."
Rous opened one of the rooms where men had disappeared. It was temporarily furnished with four beds, two of which had not been used. "These two were on leave," explained Flaring. "The others must have disappeared out of their beds."
Rous examined the room. Before Flaring had moved in here with his staff it had probably looked no different than any other room in the floors above. Directly above this room was...
He was struck by a terrible thought. He ran out into the hall. "Lloyd!" he shouted. "Upstairs! We have to check on Rosita!"
They charged up the stairs and sprinted along the hall until they got to Rosita's door. Rous knocked on it while Lloyd probed his inner senses, listening. There was no answer from inside.
Lloyd shook his head. "She isn't there!" he asserted.
Rous dispensed with formalities. The door wasn't locked. He swung it open and dashed into the room, turning on the light.
Rosita was nowhere to be seen. The bed was untouched. Rous also searched the two adjacent rooms, Lloyd's and his own. Nothing had changed there except that there was no trace anywhere of Rosita.
He cried out her name in the whole place but Rosita did not give a sign of herself. Flaring's men hadn't seen her either. There was no doubt that Rosita had disappeared.
The enemy had struck for the fourth time and this time a Terranian had also become a victim!
This attack differed from the three previous ones in many ways. The most striking difference lay in the size of the affected area this time. In addition to Rosita, only ten men of Flaring's group were missing—for the simple reason that these ten men and the girl psychologist were the only humans occupying the zone beyond a line of demarcation which lay between rooms 14 and 15.
But Rous hastened to get a few aging analysis run through and a number of tested objects showed signs of having aged about 3000 years more than after the main attack on Fillinan. In this manner the area of the fourth attack was marked out, and it had a somewhat cubical shape. The height of the cube was 20 yards and reached from the hotel cellar to the third floor. The breadth and width were both ten yards, which figures were convertible into the breadth of two rooms and the depth of 3. Within this roughly cubical area the three rooms that had been occupied by the police were included, in addition to Lloyd and Rosita's rooms.
When Lloyd found this out he scratched his head and mumbled: "It was lucky that I just happened to be with you!"
Rous was not satisfied with the purely superficial investigations he had made so far and went on with the research. He knew that no Terranian should be affected by an enemy attack on Mirsal 2 under normal circumstances. After all, they had come through three other attacks unscathed. So why was it that this time Rosita had to be taken?
The more clinical investigation disclosed some interesting data. Rosita's room was more or less at the center of the cubical zone in which the attack occurred. It was determined that the same degree of aging was discernible on all sides of the attack zone—in other words, a consistent 3000 years—so that at first glance one might conclude that the aging process was equal throughout. However, in Rosita's room there were a number of articles which exhibited a much greater degree of aging. The test on a wooden strip from an armchair finally yielded a result that said all traces of carbon-14 had disappeared. But inasmuch as the analysts were certain that they might still show one ten-millionth part of the original C-14 quantity, this meant that the aging amount exceeded 130,000 years. Rous immediately ordered the further analysis of the fractional amount and the age of the armchair turned out to be in the neighborhood of 3,000,000 years.
With this information Rous considered the puzzle to be solved. The aging of objects inside any attack zone was evidently a measure
of the force with which the attack was carried out. In all previous cases the highest age readings had been in a range of 100,000 years but in the last instance the upper limit had shot up to 30 times that much. Apparently this range of intensity was sufficient to also cause a Terranian to disappear.
All of which brought up a new set of problems. After the first attack on Mirsal 2, Rous had been convinced that he and his companions were more or less immune to the disappearing effect. He had thought that they could move around anywhere and make their investigations unhindered in the very areas where a Mirsalese was in danger of disappearing in the next moment.
All that was now a thing of the past. The enemy had energy reserves at his disposal which could also endanger a Terranian.
Rous knew what he had to do. "We're through waiting around!" he announced to Lloyd. "Now we have to take the initiative ourselves!"
Lloyd was in agreement. "Do you remember I was just about to tell you about an idea when Ms. Perez disappeared?"
"Yes. What kind of an idea?"
"I've figured out in the meantime that our defense screen generator can handle up to 20 megawatts of power. If we could somehow manage to conduct that much power to it..."
"...then maybe we might also be able to convert our lens system into a means of transportation, is that what you mean?"
Lloyd nodded.
"We'll give it a try," Rous decided. "Flaring will have to put his power plant at our disposal."
Flaring and his chief were quite willing to help. Three more power plants in the city of Fillinan were set into operation and Marcel Rous got his 20 megawatts. The necessary connections to the field generator were made by Lloyd and Rous within very few hours. Then they were in a position to deliver the small apparatus more than 100 times its normal power requirement. If their conclusions were correct, this hundred-fold increase would also strengthen the effects of the forcefield lenses by an equal amount. It had been Lloyd's idea that perhaps something a good deal more than just light could be passed through such a powerful lens.
Flaring was the only witness present when Lloyd and Rous started their decisive experiment. Prior to this they had briefed him with a short explanation. Lloyd had made his setup at the table where the generator was located, whereas Rous stood behind the ring of light that still formed itself more or less in the middle of the room and he peered through it. "Increase the power slowly!" he ordered.
Lloyd complied. Current began to flow through the generator from the city power supply cables. Lloyd had connected a heavy' power meter into the circuit and now its needle began to climb.
However there was no change in the image that Rous could see through the light ring.
"More!" he ordered. When Lloyd exceeded the level of one megawatt, the image began to fade out. Rous made Lloyd hold
off and he made some adjustments. This process happened a number of times. The increase of power also changed the focal length of both lenses so that from time to time it was necessary to reposition them. Finally all the power that was being furnished from the power plants was streaming through the generator. The last notch of output was reached.
Lloyd leaned back in his chair and sighed: "So far so good—now we can begin!"
Rous threw off the head towels he had been using up to this point for masking out peripheral light. He went to a second table where he had piled various experimental objects of different sizes. The first and the smallest was a palmbook again like the one he had used a few days before in an unsuccessful test.
Lloyd had turned around and was observing the light circle from the window side.
"Watch out!" said Rous. "Here goes!" Within half a yard of the circle of light he raised his hand and threw the minibook. From where he was standing he had the impression that the small case hesitated in the ring as though meeting a resistance. Just for the tiniest fraction of a second an invisible force seemed to be supporting it. Then it disappeared.
On the other side of the light circle Lloyd emitted a sound of astonishment. "Nothing...!" he shouted. "The book has disappeared!"
Rous breathed a sigh of relief. The experiment had succeeded. He stepped to the light ring in order to see whether or not he could discover the case, but in this he failed—even when he covered himself with the cloths. This was puzzling. To his way of thinking the case should not have landed anywhere but in the area one could observe through the double forcefield lens system. But such was not the case. The book had actually disappeared.
"Remarkable," Rous murmured and he picked up a second and larger article. But with this it was no different from the first attempt, it disappeared and was to be seen no more.
"I don't like that!" Lloyd decided. "Under these circumstances it's a bit dangerous to personally..."
"Wait! I have an idea. Give me a hand!" In addition to the regular bed in Lloyd's room there was a sort of Hollywood daybed—a cot with no armrests or head supports. Since it was cut to Mirsalese body measurements it was just small enough so that it could be shoved through the light circle.
At first the couch seemed to resist going through.
"Let's take a run at it!" said Rous. "It has to go through!"
They supported the couch in their hands with the padded side down and the legs up. Then from the back of the room they took a run with it. Rous, who carried the front end, came to a stop close to the light ring and guided the piece of furniture through while Lloyd pushed energetically from behind.
The resistance was overcome. The couch glided through the light ring and disappeared.
Lloyd brushed his hands clean. "Now you have to be able to see that!" he insisted.
Rous stepped in front of the light ring, put the towels back on his head and peered through. At first glance it looked as though the image had not changed, but then...
"Lloyd, come here!" he said.
Lloyd joined him.
"Let's drape these towels so that both of us can look together." When Lloyd had complied, he asked,
"Has the picture changed any to you?"
"No," answered Lloyd disappointedly.
"Look very carefully!"
Lloyd took a second look, this time longer and more thoroughly. "No," he asserted. "The image has not changed."
"Do you see these tiny black dots?"
Lloyd squinted his eyes. "Do you think they mean anything?" he asked. "I've been taking them for image distortion effects."
"I have too," Rous nodded. "But a new dot has been added."
Lloyd looked at him wonderingly. "How do you know that?"
"I had noticed before that the dots I was taking for image distortions were collected around the edge of
the picture, whereas there were none at all in the middle, Now look into the center of the picture!"
Lloyd looked carefully. "Yes... now there's a dot there too! But do you mean to say you think that's our day couch?"
"Naturally. It can hardly be anything else."
"But that thing isn't any bigger than a speck of dust!" Lloyd cried out in amazement. "Why, that would mean..."
"...that we've grossly underestimated the size of the image, nothing more. Those machines you see there must be the size of skyscrapers!"
Lloyd stared at him. "And you want to go over there now.
"Yes. In fact, right now." Rous took off the towels. "I know it's no small gamble," he said calmly, "but I think we can keep the risk at a minimum by keeping the generator running without interruption from now on. Flaring will have to see to it that there'll be no fluctuations in the power source and above all that there is not a power failure. Just now I haven't the slightest idea of what the hole looks like from the other side that I'll be crawling through; but I don't have to tell you that the slightest change of setting in the generator controls here will make it impossible for me to find my way back."
"Alright," replied Lloyd with grim determination. "I'll keep an eye on it."
Rous turned to Flaring. "Have you understood everything that's going on
here?" he asked.
"As far as I'm concerned, yes," answered Flaring. "Are you really going across?"
Rous nodded. "Of course I am. There's no reason any more to sit back and let the enemy take the initiative."
"I wish you luck!" said Flaring.
Rous stepped to the side and examined the light ring. The under edge of the circle was almost five feet off the floor so that it was still an effort even to look into the aperture.
"I'm no decathlon champ," he mumbled, "so I'll need something to help me crawl into that hole."
Lloyd knew what to do. They took one of the dressers and laid it on its side, then shoved it up to the light ring. Rous got up on this and shoved himself toward the circle.
"I'll try to give you a signal from the other side," he told Lloyd, "so don't be startled if you see a flash of light somewhere. Give me the weapons!"
Lloyd handed him the psycho-beamer and a small disintegrator. Rous stuffed them both in his clothing and then began to shove himself through the circle of light.
Flaring stood nearby so that he was looking at the energy ring edge-on from the side. For him it was a breathtaking sight to see Rous stick his head into one side of the ring but not appear on the other side.
Rous didn't seem to encounter any difficulties. Within a half minute he had disappeared.
6/ FROZEN TIME
Rous had expected to encounter the same resistance as the palmbook and the daybed that had gone this way before him. Instead, the opposite happened. He had just stuck his head through the light ring and was looking ahead where the familiar image had been replaced by a vague, grey-white shimmering—then something like an undertow grasped him. It pulled him completely through the circle and let him drop.
Rous let out a startled cry, not having expected to fall after going through the lens system. He opened his eyes and saw that actually he was lying on solid ground. The falling sensation was just a trick played on him by his over-taut nerves.
He sat up. As a matter of habit he tried to test whether the gravity here was different from that of Earth or Mirsal 2, but he had no way of telling.