Renegades of the Future

by Perry Rhodan

  They all had names in Arkonide spheres of influence. Chellish read Galtha, Oone, Sophrun, Lowaun, Hayireko, Minnit and a number of others he had never heard of before. He fell to daydreaming, wondering what the planets of these suns might look like and what kind of creatures might he living there.

  But as he continued to turn the selector on the terminal board the magnified readout section wandered upward and beyond the yellow-hued part of the microfilmed catalog sheet. Here the star names were less frequent. Outside their own area of responsibility the Arkonides had not taken the trouble to name the stars. Chellish read: Naaiwoon, Joplat, Hoshan, then a nameless stretch for several centimeters, followed by: Latin-Oor.

  It startled him. Latin-Oor. This name he had heard mentioned once and not too long ago. In what connection was it?

  Latin-Oor. He brainstormed, pushing his memory for a clue. The name had sounded like 'Latin ore' when he first heard it. He traced this back in his thoughts. Ore. He remembered having wondered if there really were any 'ore' on Latin-Oor, although of course the Arkonide name bore no relationship to Chellish's translation. He had thought that if there were any valuable minerals on Latin-Oor it could be made into a military base, if only... if...

  That was it! If only the Arkonide robot fleet didn't turn the planet into a blazing Inferno—because that's where they were headed!

  Suddenly the picture came to him clearly. He had attended a training class with a number of other officers and had learned through the internal Fleet news service that Maj. Clyde Ostal had succeeded in planting a false clue with the Arkonide Robot Brain which had led the enemy to believe that the Earth was to be found somewhere in the center of the galaxy. Latin-Oor was the sun containing in its system the planet which was playing the role of Earth, per Ostal's falsified information. According to the catalog, Latin-Oor possessed two Earth-like worlds, both of which, however, were uninhabited. The robot Regent must suspect that one of them was the Earth.

  So Clyde Ostal's operation had worked out as planned. The Regent had swallowed the bait and dispatched a huge fleet Chellish couldn't recall which of the two planets the information furnished by Ostal had pinpointed, whether Latin-Oor 3 or Latin-Oor 4, but he was sure that the robot fleet would surround one of them and demand of its inhabitants an unconditional surrender. In the officer class at the time they had all laughed heartily when they imagined the Arkonide fleet making a landing after receiving no response to their demands and finding out that there was no intelligent life on either Latin-Oor 3 or 4; and they had wondered whether or not the shock might be enough to blow a few tubes and fuses in the robot Regent's innards.

  And now? As to the robot fleet heading for Latin-Oor, what did it have to do with him and his present situation?

  Chellish went back in the catalog and compared the data pertaining to Ronson Lauer's star with those related to Latin-Oor. Lauer's chosen destination, by extrapolation, lay just above the plane of the microfilm, whereas Latin-Oor was elevated over its own film plane to such an extent that it almost reached into the previous sheet's area. Lauer's target star was in an angular area of Theta 89:50 to 90:00. An intervening sheet inclosed the area of Theta 90:00 to 90:10, and next to this came the Latin-Oor sheet, embracing the angular area, Theta 90:10 to 90:20. The vertical distance between the two suns was not greater than 10 light-years. Since the horizontal or Phi values were at some variance, the total distance amounted to something like 16 light-years, or five parsecs.

  Suddenly, scales seemed to fall away from Chellish's eyes. He remembered what Lauer had answered to his question, as to whether or not they had any definite goal in mind:

  "...Main thing is, don't put us in a hotspot. Give any Earth spaceships a wide berth..."

  That was it. Earth spaceships were to be avoided. He should have realized sooner that Lauer had emphasized the word.

  On the other hand, Arkonide ships would not be objectionable. On the contrary, Lauer had studied the catalog beforehand and was aware of the fact that his target star was only 16 light-years away from Latin-Oor. This is why he had chosen it, because he wanted Arkonide ships nearby when Suttney was ready to carry out his intentions.

  There could be no further doubt as to what those intentions were. Suttney was looking for an Arkonide contact. On the other hand the Arkonides wouldn't want anything to do with him—for fear of complication—unless he brought them something that would make the risk worthwhile.

  The position of the Earth!

  Gunther Chellish needed no intercom now to tell him where Lauer and Suttney were at the moment or what they were doing there. They were in the computer bank room and were no doubt raking through the data stored there in order to figure out the galactic coordinates for the Earth. That was not a simple task. As a result of security measures, the Earth's position data were not retained in any such memory registers. Even in the Galacticatalogue there was no sun to be found anywhere designated as Sol. But of course it was possible to arrive at Earth's location by making use of coordinates related to neighboring stars. For that, however, a very complete knowledge of astronomy was necessary. Chellish didn't doubt that Lauer had such knowledge but he was not skilled in the interpolation of position data and even if he himself were armed with all figures and factors affecting Earth's neighboring stars he would still need several hours in which to work out a program for the positronicon.

  Chellish began to figure out how much time he had. An hour and a half maybe for them to get their data and still another three hours for the program to be set up. The rest would run off in a few seconds; the computer handled such items swiftly.

  So it would be four and a half hours altogether—that is if Suttney decided to send out the position data at random instead of first making contact with the Arkonide ships. If he were going to wait for the arrival of the Arkonides, another couple of hours would be involved. Perhaps four or five hours.

  Taken altogether, this was quite a bit of time, but in spite of it Chellish began to get nervous. He had to figure out something he could do to thwart Suttney's plans. He had to let the men on Grautier know where the stolen Gazelle was located but he didn't know how he might contrive to do it. Four and a half hours or still more hours were not much time in which to come up with a really effective idea.

  He turned to look at Roane. Oliver Roane still sat in the same position as though the gun had taken root in his hand and he stared at him somewhat stupidly. Chellish smiled but Roane's face remained unchanged.

  "Aren't you afraid, Roane?" he asked.

  His thoughts were not organized yet. He had to think of something that would throw a monkey wrench into Suttney's calculations and he had the curious impression that his mind would work better if he had somebody to talk to in the process.

  "Of you, maybe?" growled Roane.

  "No. Of being caught and shot."

  There was a troubled expression on Roane's face when he registered what Chellish meant.

  "Don't be an idiot!" he answered gruffly. "Nobody's going to catch us."

  The theory worked. Chellish felt his wits revving up swiftly. "Do you think it's right, what Suttney has in mind?" he asked while his grey matter began belaboring a new idea.

  In his slow-witted way, Roane laughed suspiciously. "Don't poke around, Chellish. You're just pumping me for information. You don't know a thing about what Suttney has in mind."

  Lord!—thought Chellish. He's slow as an ox! "Why of course I know what he plans to do!" he insisted.

  Roane guffawed somewhat ponderously.

  Chellish kept a straight face while acting extremely serious. "I'll tell you what he's planning," he said. "He plans to set us down on an unknown planet and subjugate the primitive people there. What else would he be thinking of?"

  Roane's heavy-lidded eyes opened wide, fairly threatening to pop out of his head. He leaned forward and stared at Chellish incredulously. It took him a few seconds to register what Chellish had said, during which Chellish figured that if his idea wasn't exactly ingeni
ous it was at least worth a try.

  Oliver Roane started to laugh then. He fairly shook with laughter over Chellish's apparent stupidity and the control room rang with the booming echoes. Chellish grasped the opportunity by swinging about in his seat and swiftly manipulating two closely-spaced controls nearby.

  Roane caught the swift movement. He interrupted his laughter abruptly and narrowed an eye at Chellish suspiciously. He came to his feet. "What did you do just then?"

  "Nothing special," Chellish answered casually. "I just turned up the air-conditioning slightly. It's getting a bit too hot in here for me."

  • • •

  In the ship's computer, circuit card 225 was the impulse distributor for control stage 17. This was a part of the standard circuitry connecting the hyper-compensator with the hyper-drive section of the propulsion units. The integrated circuit board was normally designed for handling precisely formed triangular pulses having a three-volt positive amplitude and a base time ranging from five to 100 microseconds. It could only process this kind of input, which consisted of classification sorting and distributing the outputs through the 20 output channels which it served.

  There was just one exception built into the circuit logic whereby another type of impulse could be processed. It would also accept a sequence of square-wave pulses having a 10-volt positive amplitude and durations of 10 microseconds. This was the so-called emergency-pulse signal which became memory-stored rather than broken down and distributed and thus caused all 20 output channels to be blocked. But in order for card 225 to be able to receive an emergency pulse train of this nature it was necessary for a change of potential to open a special threshold-gate on the input side.

  In this instance the emergency pulses arrived at the input without the necessary voltage change in the gating circuit. Distributor card 225 refused to accept it, obeying its built-in safety logic against operational errors, which could be electronically dangerous. During a short timespan of fractions of a second the threshold-gate finally received its required potential change and so the distributor circuit had no other recourse than to accept the high-tension jolt internally. Unfortunately, this was a reverse sequence of events for which it was not designed. It had no time to block off the 20 output channels. The built-up square-wave impulses raced into these channels before circuit 225 could react.

  Some of the equipment connected to the 20 output leads remained unaffected by the impulses since the latter had been somewhat attenuated. For example, when they reached the control mechanism of the hyper-compensator they were virtually in a 'dead' circuit because the compensator had been safety-blocked by another security gate. However, there were a few places where some chaotic reactions could occur—especially in highly inductive circuits. In spite of attenuation through the output distribution, the impulses were still five times in excess of what the standard circuit channels were designed for and thus five times the normal self-induction was generated. As a result, a certain coil mounted on plastic foil became partially melted down.

  From there on the control connection was interrupted. Of course this was only in one particular location but since this circuit was at a highly critical point the break was sufficient to put the entire control stage 17 out of commission.

  • • •

  Oliver Roane was suspicious. Chellish observed that he was struggling mentally over what he should do in this case.

  "No kidding—just the air-conditioner?" he asked almost stupidly.

  Chellish nodded.

  Roane still couldn't make up his mind. It was obvious to him that he should report the incident to Suttney but in that case he'd have to leave the control room since the intercom had been disconnected.

  Roane looked around uncertainly, trying to see if he could detect a change in the air-conditioning. But it was still just as warm in the room as ever.

  Meanwhile, Chellish had turned back again to the console with his back to Roane, apparently unconcerned. Roane finally shrugged, thinking that he'd simply have to report it to Suttney when he returned.

  But Chellish was staring at the little back-lighted instruction plate under two colored switch buttons. It blinked at him with the following message:

  ERROR—DISTR H-COMP SECTION—SHUTDOWN REQUIRED—SIMULTANEOUS ACTIVATION BOTH SWITCHES

  This he had not done. He had activated the one on the left first and then the one on the right. He knew there was a circuit failure in the indicated area of the control system but he still didn't know what the effect of his erroneous operation of the buttons might be.

  • • •

  The Terranian fleet was under way. The major vessels formed a widely deployed net but the space between them was tightened up by the Gazelles and Guppy-type auxiliary craft belonging to the larger ships. Gen. Deringhouse, a rejuvenated veteran from the beginning days of the Solar Empire, led the massive manoeuvre from his command station on board the Barbarossa, a super battleship of the Empire class. There was only one ship that was not subject to Deringhouse's commands. This was the Drusus, a late model ship of the same class, which was the flagship of the fleet under command of Perry Rhodan himself.

  The plan governing the search action had been worked out by the mathematicians. It involved a series of possibilities and variables on the basis of which the first trace of the lost Gazelle might be discovered. A 24-hour schedule of uninterrupted operation was assigned to all equipment which was capable of any kind of detection: visual observation, electronic search, detection of energy sources, fuel residue tracing and analysis, and detection of any space warpages in the Einstein continuum.

  One thing seemed to be impossible: that the missing scoutship would ever be detectable as a result of a transition space warp. Each transition produced an energy shock-wave. Although the energy thus released was of a complex nature in itself, its propagation followed the relatively simple laws of the 5th-dimensional continuum. Hypersensor equipment was capable of detecting such emanations at almost any distance from the area of the transition. Unless, of course, the hyper-transiting spacecraft possessed a hyper-compensator, which trapped the shock-wave energy in a specially generated 'cavity' where it expended itself in such a manner that nothing—or at least almost nothing—could escape into normal space. In which case there was nothing left for the tracking sensors but the residual fields, which were about 10,000 times weaker than the actual shock-wave itself.

  Nevertheless, these residual vibrations combined with resonant factors of a compensator served to propagate a pattern of faint energy which was unique to each individual vessel, known as the resonance frequency. The only equipment that could detect these faint residual fields were the high-precision sensors developed by the Swoon, the race of micro-technologists. However, a spaceship in transition could also render these residual fields ineffective if it also possessed a frequency absorber, also known as a 'damper'. This equipment was capable of absorbing even the residual field energies so that not the slightest trace of the transition was left for sensing equipment located anywhere in normal space.

  The Gazelle in question happened to have both of these pieces of equipment: the hyper-compensator and the frequency absorber. If anybody hoped to detect any space warpages or transition shock-waves generated by the stolen scoutship they would have to believe in miracles.

  But there was the glimmer of just such a hope in the mind of Perry Rhodan. Because if first Lt. Chellish were still alive there was a chance of things happening for which there was no accounting in the normal, predictable course of the search.

  3/ THE LONGEST VIGIL

  The following article appeared in the Terrania Times under dateline of 8 October 2042:

  It appears that our report of Oct. 5 concerning the disappearance of a Gazelle scoutship from the new Fleet base on Myrtha 7, coupled with our remarks aimed at the Information Ministry's somewhat irresponsible attitude toward an open Press policy, has occasioned considerable uneasiness, which to some extent is difficult to understand.

  Certain
ly the incident is more serious than the Ministry cared to admit. Certainly the public deserves to be better informed than this at a time of danger. But on the other hand it would be foolish to believe that the loss of one Gazelle could cause the outbreak of a deadly war somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy or that the sudden departure of major Fleet units from the planets of the solar system has any connection with the mere defection of three servicemen. Some simple arithmetic should make this self-evident. A Gazelle costs the Government about 45 million solars. That's just about how much they would have to write off the books if such a spacecraft were lost, for whatever reason. However, to this hour the current Fleet manoeuvre has already cost 1000 times that much, or about 50 billion solars.

  Like many of our fellow citizens, we are of the opinion that the ministries of this capital are not particularly infallible but we do believe that we shouldn't accuse them of shortcomings in the commercial area of straight economics. Neither a fool nor a madman would institute a manoeuvre representing possibly a total cost of 100 billion solars just to recover an object costing at the most only 45 million.

  According to reliable sources, the present large-scale manoeuvre of the Fleet is a precautionary move designed to bolster our defense preparedness, which will be routinely continued in the course of years to come. There may be some variance of opinion concerning the additional cost of such measures to the general public but certainly this is not something to start people running for the hills nor should anyone give credence to nonsensical, trouble-making rumors.

  • • •

  "Anything special happen while I was gone?" asked Suttney as he entered the control room.