by Perry Rhodan
At first Lauer blinked at him in astonishment but when he realized Chellish was being sarcastic at his expense, his face reddened in anger.
Chellish made a project out of laying out his gear while unobtrusively taking note of where Lauer located himself. He had shoved the oscilloscope and signal generator a yard or so along the floor ahead of him and was now squatting on the deck plates with weapon in hand.
Chellish's first strategic move was to expose a red insulated main power line. He worked with a safety stripper and put on such an air of nonchalance that Lauer could not suspect he was fooling with a high tension line. He was satisfied with the results. He had stripped bare about three inches of finger-thick cable so that at the right moment all he would have to do would be to snip it in two with an insulated pair of cable cutters and bring the hot end of it in contact with a spot where the high voltage would be conducted to Lauer.
Then he busied himself with actual repair of the distributor circuit card. Once he had the signal generator and the oscilloscope connected up, he perceived the trouble immediately. He couldn't raise a pulse at any of the test points nor was there any voltage supply coming through. When the coil had burned out the distributor circuit had shut down, operating as its own safety cutoff. Three solder points were shorted and one of the integrated circuit elements seemed to be out also. He had a supply kit for the repairs; he set to work. He repaired the solder points and replaced the inactive circuit element with a small resistance, for test purposes. Then he ran a new check with his instruments and discovered that the distributor was still not functioning. He had no other recourse than to fault isolate the card point by point, which was a tedious procedure.
The time dragged on. Chellish turned several times to glance at Lauer, who didn't appear to be especially comfortable. He noticed that the latter moved his head several times to look around him restlessly. Then invariably he would collect himself with a start and return his attention to Chellish, as if he were convinced he didn't dare let him out of his sight for a second. But at no time did he do what Chellish was waiting for: there was no place where his bare skin came in contact with metal.
Chellish had observed, however, that close to Lauer there was a single vent tube for the air-conditioning that ran vertically down the shaft. It was made of uninsulated plastic metal, which was an excellent conductor. If Lauer were to grip the tube just once in order to brace himself... There was a metal cross-brace which held the vent to the wall. It projected over to him just above the card drawer.
He began to become impatient. Three quarters of an hour had gone by already. He decided that if Lauer didn't touch the vent tube within another half hour he'd have to think of another plan. Meanwhile he kept on working with the distributor circuit. His incessant thought was that this would be his last chance. If he didn't make use of it he was a goner. And what was much worse: there'd be nobody left to prevent the galactic war that would result from the Robot Regent of Arkon knowing the actual location of the Earth.
He broke Out in sweat and started to mentally curse Lauer. He glanced at him so often that the latter finally noticed it.
"Keep your nose in your work!" Lauer snapped at him. "We're running out of time. You turn your head this way once more and I'll let you have it!"
"Oh yeah?" retorted Chellish angrily. "So you could melt down a couple of heavy high tension lines, right? Then you'll see where that gets you!"
Stirred by new suspicion, Lauer responded immediately. "Is that what you're banking on?" he snarled in a vicious rage. "You think I don't trust myself to shoot for fear of fouling something up? Alright, you just wait and I'll show you what I can do!"
Suddenly here it was—the one chance! Ronson Lauer stood up. He held the thermo-gun with the barrel lowered and looked for a position from which he could fire it without damaging the conduits anywhere. In the cramped quarters, standing up wasn't so easy. Lauer finally grasped the air vent tube to help him get up and he did not let go of it after he was on his feet.
Chellish cried out, "Don't shoot!"
Actually his voice rang with triumph more than fear. While Lauer braced himself for a shot, Chellish ducked to one side and quickly snipped the high tension line at the uninsulated section with his safety cutters. Grasping the cable where it was insulated he bent it inward under cover of the card drawer. Lauer was momentarily confused. His gun was well aimed but now the card drawer was in the way. However wild his fit of rage at the moment, he knew that it would be his own neck if his shot caused damage to any important equipment.
He hesitated—and that was Gunther Chellish's great moment!
Swiftly but with care he shoved the live end of the power cable toward the cross-brace and finally made contact. Simultaneously, Lauer let out a yell of unbridled terror. He kept on yelling until Chellish removed the end of the wire from the metal strap. For a full second, Lauer had been unable to release his grip from the vent tube but now his hand fell limp and he dropped unconscious to the deck.
Chellish didn't delay more than half a second. With a sure hand he brought the cable back to its original position. Then he got busy with the frequency absorber.
He disconnected the input and output leads from their contact points and connected them with another piece of wire. Cutting this new wire in two, he inserted a resistance unit between the ends, calculating that it would be equal to the resistance of the absorber's internal circuits. Then he lifted this arrangement above the absorber and concealed it against the wall behind it.
For this he had needed hardly a minute. When be had finished he straightened up and listened. He had figured that Lauer's outcry would have been heard in the control room and that Suttney would appear almost at once at the hatch opening. But so far this had not occurred. He looked sceptically at Lauer and listened again. Everything was quiet up above.
He quickly installed the new coil in the distributor card and checked it out. When it was in working order he snapped it into its slot in the card drawer and closed the drawer. Then, carefully but swiftly, he repaired the high tension cable break with a length of flexible plastic metal. After that he pulled the insulation sleeving back down over the uncovered section and sealed it tight. When he had finished he inspected his work and was satisfied that nobody would detect anything wrong here unless he knew precisely where to look-which was unlikely.
Lauer was still unconscious.
He stepped over the motionless body and climbed up the ladder. At the top he set up a hue and cry of alarm. "Hey... Suttney! Roane! Lauer's fallen unconscious!"
Nobody heard him. He crawled through the hatchway into the main corridor and ran forward to the control room while still shouting. The door was closed but it opened automatically as he came within a few yards of it. Inside, Suttney was busy applying fresh bandages to Roane's face.
"For cripes sake are all of you deaf in here?" blurted out Chellish breathlessly. "Lauer's passed out down below. He must have touched a high voltage lead somewhere—so give me a hand with him!"
Suttney stiffened with suspicion as he stared at him. "Are you sure," he asked, "that you didn't monkey around with the power cables long enough to be able to give him a shock?"
Chellish gave a polished performance, appearing to be dumbfounded. "That would have been impossible," he answered, still panting hard. "How could I get away with a thing like that? Just tell Lauer to be a good sport and put his finger on the nice hot wire?"
Without wasting any more words, Suttney strode past Chellish into the outer corridor. Chellish followed him.
• • •
Horace O. Mullon had fallen into a trance-like routine. His movements were no longer monitored by his conscious mind. He manipulated the controls unconsciously, moving each switch or dial according to training habit, without deliberation.
By now it was four days since he had slept, excluding the five hours at the start of his duty; nor had he eaten very much. His physical body was animated by the last dregs of his energy reserves. It was ea
sy to see that it would only take a few hours at the most before Mullon broke down and became a candidate for hospital treatment.
Still, they let him have his way. It was his own choice and wish to stay at his post.
He worked the compensator tracker whose leisurely rotating antenna covered the 360° sweep of space every quarter of an hour. He was fully familiar with the working principle of the antenna as a result of previous training sessions, and the operation theory now seemed to voice itself in his head like a dull catechism in an echo-chamber: Owing to the 5th dimensional nature of the resonant frequency energy fields, the antenna did not function like ordinary tracking sweeps. At a position of reception that was 180° out of phase with an incoming signal, normal intensity was about 30% and of course when the antenna pointed directly at the source of propagation the intensity was 100%. The operator was expected to immediately turn the antenna in the correct direction after receiving a low-percent signal so that the following signal, resulting from a ship's emergence from transition, would then be picked up at full intensity on the tracking screen, causing the positional data to be captured with a maximum exactitude.
Mullon had sat at this particular screen for 10 hours without detecting the slightest blip. The dark green fluorescent screen raster with its complex coordinate grids stared back at him with blank obstinacy. All he noticed on it was a lightning dot or flicker of light every few minutes which lingered briefly with a faint afterglow, only to fade. Mullon knew that these were simply interference blips caused by cosmic rays.
But when a brilliant spike of a partial wave-form suddenly glared at him from the screen, he knew it was an unequivocal signal. Instantly, Mullon broke from his automaton stupor. He noticed that the wave-spike rose only partway toward the maximum scale on the screen and he reacted without looking, activating the switch that would orient the antenna to maximum reception. The beautiful spike paled and disappeared, as expected, but a few seconds later it came back in full glory, in fact brighter than before, and its amplitude exceeded the top of the scale.
"Got it!" he yelled, and his voice cracked in the process. "Position spike on the C-tracker! We've got 'em!"
After which he sank limply away from the console, fell out of his seat and lay motionlessly on the deck.
4/ TANTALUS
Under dateline of 10 Oct. 2042 the Terrania Daily News announced:
Effectively the entire Terranian Space Fleet is presently engaged in large-scale manoeuvres in an area which is close to the center of the galaxy. The objective of the massive exercise is to test our defense readiness capability. In the opinion of the Fleet Admiralty, the greatest importance is attached to the undertaking since it is the first manoeuvre of its kind to involve the entire fleet. The war game plan is designed principally to test the effectiveness of coordination between fighting and supply units. We are standing by to keep our readers informed as to the further development of these manoeuvres.
And a few days later the Terrania Times was heard from:
Instead of reporting on the progress of the current fleet manoeuvres, which have little meaning for the man in the street, the Ministry of Information and Public. Opinion should be able by now to tell us something about the stolen Gazelle and the three deserters. It is understandable why the Fleet itself may have abandoned this chase in the mean-time—reasonable decision in view of its relative unimportance. But this does not justify using the greater event for placing a veil of secrecy over the lesser one.
• • •
Everything had gone smoothly. They got back to Ronson Lauer just as he was regaining consciousness. Fortunately, he was unable to recall what had happened just before he passed out. Naturally he went to every extreme to shove the blame onto Chellish for his mishap. But Chellish reported, accurately enough, that Lauer had attempted to shoot him and that he had gone for cover. Suttney appeared to give more credence to his report than to Lauer's raving accusations; or at least he took no note of the latter. As a result of his experience, Lauer was ill. Suttney and Chellish worked together to get him out of the shaft and bring him to a cabin, where they put him to bed.
Then under Suttney's supervision Chellish went back to his regular tasks and completed them within 15 minutes. Suttney was quite satisfied. Of course he had done some snooping down below to see if there were any signs pointing to Chellish's guilt in the matter of Lauer's accident but Chellish had repaired the high tension line so well that he did not discover anything. He didn't even ask a single question.
When Chellish made a second checkout of the control board, all signal lamps responded properly. He then turned to the appropriate controls and took the ship into its second transition. It lasted longer than the first one and was fairly unpleasant in its effects. Chellish was only half conscious by the time the dematerialization ended and the pains of distortion faded away. But when he looked around he saw that it had gone much worse for Suttney and Roane. Suttney was just slowly coming to and from appearances Roane would still be unconscious for awhile.
On the viewscreen the light-point that Lauer had selected from the catalog now stood out in shining prominence. The Gazelle was still 25 astronomical units distant from it, or about 2.5 billion miles, and was now approaching it with a residual velocity of about 125 miles per second. When he gave these figures to Suttney he was ordered to increase his speed. According to this star's spectrum classification there was a high probability that it possessed planets, and Suttney was evidently intending to land on one of them in order to carry out his plans from a safe location.
By the time Chellish had brought the ship up to Suttney's specified velocity of 1,250 miles per second, Oliver Roane finally regained consciousness—which Suttney had apparently been waiting for. He didn't give him a chance to collect his wits about him but instead grasped him by the shoulder and shook him while shouting at him. "Come on, you stupid ox! Wake up and grab your gun. You have to keep an eye on Chellish!"
It came as a surprise to Chellish. Up to now he hadn't noticed Suttney's new state of agitation. His voice sounded strained and irritable. He acted as though he was afraid of missing his schedule if he could not get Roane onto his feet as quickly as possible. In all he seemed to be extremely high strung and Chellish noted that his hands were actually trembling when he let go of Roane. Something had triggered him suddenly to this new mood but it had come on so swiftly that Chellish hadn't yet figured out the possible reason for it.
Roane got up sluggishly. His swollen eyes peered out from his bandages as though they were incapable of recognizing his surroundings. It was obvious that Roane was not quite himself. He stood weakly on his two legs and looked dubiously at the weapon that Suttney had pressed into his hand.
Suttney shoved him around so that Chellish was in his range of vision. "There! Chellish—get it? Watch him!"
Roane grumbled something that could be taken for a grunt of anger just as well as for a sign of acquiescence. But now he stood there more solidly and held the weapon aimed at Chellish, who didn't feel very comfortable about it. As long as Roane was still not in full possession of his diminutive reasoning faculties he could possibly press the trigger without intending to.
Suttney remained a few more seconds beside Roane but when he believed that Roane was aware of what he wanted of him he went straight across the control room to the hyper-transmitter console.
Suddenly Chellish knew what he planned to do. He wanted to advise the Arkonide fleet near Latin-Oor that he wished to be picked up and that he was in possession of vital information. Chellish shuddered inwardly although he had long realized that Suttney was intending to betray the Earth.
This was the moment in which the great act of treason was to be perpetrated.
Anything subsequent to this was of secondary importance. It was now that Suttney was going to tell the Arkonides his purpose—that he had come here to tell them where the home planet of the Terranians was located and perhaps to also advise them as to approach points of highest vulnerability.
>
Suttney turned on the transmitter. He operated the controls with a swift certainty as though he had often practiced it in preparation for the present moment. When the equipment began to hum, he paused to look across at Chellish.
Chellish could restrain his scorn no longer. "You lousy traitor!" he yelled at him. "Where is it going to get you?"
Suttney didn't answer. He turned away swiftly as though he were unable to look Chellish straight in the face. At the same time, Roane took a step closer with threatening intent. Chellish shut up and turned back to the flight console.
Come on!—he prayed, his mind on the Terranian Fleet. Shoot us out of the blasted ether before Suttney...
He braced his elbows on the console and put his head in his hands. He closed his eyes and heard Suttney flip the microphone switch. There was a rattle of paper. Suttney had written out his message.
Chellish heard him clear his throat and draw a deep breath before he began. "To all Arkonide ships! This is Walter Suttney speaking, a fugitive from Terra!" His Arkonese sounded awful but the Arkonides would be able to understand him. "I have an announcement for you—an important announcement that has to do with the position of the planet Terra. You will have to hurry if you wish to obtain this information. This message is also being picked up by Terranian ships and they will try to kill me before I can transfer the data to you. As soon as I land I will give you my bearings. I repeat: To all Arkonide ships! This is Walter Suttney speaking..."
Altogether he sent out the message five times. Then he fell silent but he was panting as though he had just been through a heavy exertion.
Chellish knew exactly what Suttney was thinking about now. He knew that the Arkonide ships were only 16 light-years away—a distance that a hyper-transmitter could bridge without any time lapse. Moreover, across 16 light-years the location of the transmitter could be pinned down within far less than a mile. Those Arkonide ships were robot units. They would react with the typical swiftness which was characteristic of automatons and would set out instantly to find him.