by Leo Lukas
Since she had instructions to keep the connection open even though it ate up a tremendous amount of power, she put off queries from other sectors until later. At present, Takhan tan Taklir was giving the Lemurians top priority. It was no wonder that the media had been celebrating him for days as the "Admiral of the Arks."
There was constant traffic in the Fleet base's teleporter center. Uniformed men and women stepped out of one light-arch only to disappear into another seconds later. These were permanently set devices. "Transferring" once or twice in order to reach the desired destination saved time and energy in the long run rather than individually programming every jump. Overseeing the connections was the Syntron's responsibility. Vilgu didn't actually have much to do.
Unfortunately.
I shouldn't have just thrown those two and his stinking socks out of the apartment, I should have set the individual separation so they'd be fried together when they rematerialized. Then they would've had each other for all eternity.
Someone else came over the remote connection. Vilgu was shocked to her marrow. She leaped up and ran to the archway, thinking first of an accident, a rematerialization error. The staggering figure was just a meter tall, of which the pear-shaped head was almost a third. The face was a perfect example of what the psychologists called "Neoteny," appealing characteristics associated with children that inspired adults to protect and take care of them. Large, round, bluish black shining eyes stared at her. Terrible pain lay within them.
But also terrible power.
Something reached for Vilgu, seized her, enveloped her.
"Are you a healer?"
"No," she answered. She would have been unable to lie.
"Very well," replied the being with the childlike appearance that seemed so much in need of protection. "Take me to a place where no one can find us. Quickly."
Never before had Vilgu Deponar left her post without permission. She was a good soldier and had been for more than half a century. To simply leave a position of trust like that in the teleporter center was tantamount to desertion for her. Still, she obeyed without even twitching an eyelash. A cold fever had gripped her and held her fast as though in a mental vise. Gave her support. Held her up. Following orders was what being a soldier was all about, even if they contradicted ones given earlier—who was she to argue against it? A higher will had taken the responsibility from her. She gladly, almost eagerly, submitted herself to it.
A place where no one can find us ...
Vilgu's fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. One of the smaller teleporters was reprogrammed in a flash. She took the dwarf, her new lord and master who stank worse than an organic recycling bin whose contents hadn't been teleported away for a week, by his waxy doll-hand and pulled him into the dematerialization field.
"How could something like this happen?" Mechtan tan Taklir thundered. "Damn it all, we knew there was danger of contamination! The crew of the LAS-TOOR reported the plague that had raged in the LEMCHA OVIR. That's why we put you in those suits even though no remaining germs had been found in the OVIR. But we were aware of the risk! And then you send this troll here who spreads the infection with every breath like a tri-vid star blows kisses?"
"We didn't send him," Jars tan Aburrir said meekly. "We can't even remember him."
"Care for another look at what the security cameras in our teleporter center recorded? All right, fine! Here it comes."
Mechtan waved to the operator. The elf with the oversized head appeared in the holo-column, stumbling out of the remote teleporter and towards the technician on duty. "Are you a healer?" he asked.
"No."
"Very well. Take me to a place where no one can find us. Quickly."
And then they disappeared through one of the local teleportation units.
"Heroth Deponar activated a privacy filter that makes the destination coordinates unreadable," Mechtan added. "We can still extract that information, but it'll take us days. In the meantime, this freak could be infecting half the system!"
"He apparently has psi-powers," Achab said slowly. Speaking and thinking were difficult for him. His head felt as though it was wrapped in cotton. "I know Vilgu Deponar. She is an extremely reliable and duty-conscious woman. She never would have joined him as an accomplice without being para-psychically influenced. He must have overpowered us the same way."
"There had been mutations in the LEMCHA OVIR as well," Solina Tormas said. "The cosmic radiation that wasn't completely shielded ... "
"Yes, right, but I don't care just now where the nasty little troll got his talent," Mechtan snapped. "I want to know what we can do about this!"
Achab remembered the PsIso-Nets that the Terrans and Arkonides had used for defense against the mental influence of SOULSOURCE. What had helped against a Superintelligence should also protect against the Lemurian mutant's suggestive powers, he thought. Gnashing his teeth, Mechtan gave him the order to ask the Perry Rhodan for the largest number possible of the insulating head coverings from Terra as soon as possible.
Achab left the crisis meeting to carry out the assignment. From a nearby communications center, he held a conference with Rhodan who was on board the PALENQUE and evaluating data from the arks. The Resident promised him quick assistance. Then one of the com operators called Achab's attention to a message that had just come in for him. The ship from his squadron that he had sent to the Gorbas System had arrived. At the moment, there was nothing out of the ordinary to report, aside from the fact that a Terran Space-Jet had been detected. However, it was apparently limiting itself to observing the system and the Akonian ship. No other activities by Terrans or other races could be determined. As before, there was no contact with the Howalgonium mining facilities on Gorbas IV. Without giving it too much thought, Achab gave the order to fly by the planet while exercising extreme caution, not least because of the Space-Jet. Then he hurried back into the conference room.
There, in his absence, it had been decided to quarantine the entire fleet base and order the wearing of protective suits. They would wait, though, before initiating a large-scale manhunt. For one thing, they didn't want to plunge the entire system in to panic. For another, it was hoped that the ongoing questioning of Vilgu Deponar's friends, relatives, and co-workers might provide clues to where she had taken the mutant.
As for the germs that had been found in the samples from the NEANN OCIS, the first analysis results were now available. "It's a case of an extremely aggressive disease, unknown before now, that can infect all Lemurian descendants," the head of the bio-lab explained. "The germs spread in the air where they can unfortunately be inhaled. The incubation time seems to be several hours. Not everyone who is infected will become ill, but for those who do, the symptoms are severe. According to our epidemiologists' simulations, the internal organs are attacked, leading to sudden changes and uncontrolled growth in cell tissue."
"Life-threatening?"
"Acutely. We here in the hospital can probably treat the symptoms using a variety of methods which will slow the progress of the disease and eventually stop it. We'll know for sure only when we have actual cases of infected persons to examine. As for a cure for the disease itself, we don't have one. It is, as I said, completely unknown and of exotic origin. There's nothing comparable in our archives. Except ... it's too much of a stretch and simply impossible ... "
"Out with it!" Mechtan roared.
"Well ... the data concerning the only remotely similar germs stems from the time of the Beast War. Back then, it was suspected of being a Halutian biological weapon."
"A weapon of the Beasts? All we need is for them to turn up again! Wait—I didn't say that! We have enough problems already."
When his Takhan said those words, why did Achab think of the suddenly silent mining planet? Something cold ran down his spine. A slight dizziness caught him, and he felt twinges of nausea. Probably after-effects of the para-psychic influence. Although no one could have anticipated the abilities of the little Lemurian, Ach
ab was very much ashamed that he had failed and brought on this crisis. He reproached himself, seriously worried about what the repercussions might be.
Mechtan tan Taklir soon ended the conference, but not before emphasizing once more that all conceivable efforts must be undertaken to apprehend the fleeing ark inhabitant. Achab then found a restroom where he threw up. Afterwards he felt better.
Sometimes you have bad luck and you're in the wrong place at the wrong time ... Vilgu cursed all the vegetable slicers in the universe. Just a few hours before, the world had been in perfect order for her. Now not only was her marriage in ruins, but she was probably number one on the military police's wanted list.
But they won't find us ...
The dwarf, who had more or less kidnapped her and taken her as a hostage, lay whimpering lowly on a couch. He had ordered Vilgu to watch over him and not leave his side until his attack of weakness subsided.
That had been an hour before and it didn't look as though his condition would improve. "Are you sick? What's happening to you?" Vilgu asked yet again. The dwarf didn't answer. She wasn't certain if he even heard her.
She didn't feel well herself. A migraine throbbed in her forehead and temples, squeezing her skull together like a steel clamp. She was tired and hyper-nervous at the same time. Her skin itched while her muscles twitched uncontrollably.
At the same time, her thoughts tormented her. She should have been trying to figure how she could free herself from the para-psychic claws of her kidnapper or least send a position report to the Fleet. But nothing occurred to her. She didn't have a communicator and she wore only internal duty clothing. The dwarf carried several objects with him that made the pockets of his trousers bulge, but he had forbidden her to touch them.
She was a prisoner.
Her mind kept replaying the scene in her bedroom. What had she done so wrong that her man had betrayed her? Had she driven him to other women? They had gotten along together very well, and had had several wonderful years. There had been occasional disagreements, yes, but their arguments had never escalated, had never left scars that weren't soon healed. And her so-called best friend ... How could she do that to her? She wished her "friend" would drop dead!
Vilgu had never dreamed that she would have to live through such a horror. But it would get worse, much worse. The stench emanating from the dwarf was growing worse and was becoming unbearable.
It's like his living body is rotting.
And it was doing exactly that.
She had to look twice, not believing her eyes. Dark spots appeared on the skin of the little man with the big head. Gangrenous, festering sores. Within a few minutes they had spread across the entire surface of his skin. The dwarf lay in a pool of dark red, almost black blood and slimy, yellowish gray pus. Now the decay gripped his flesh and muscles, and under them bones appeared in many places. The sight of the decomposing skull gently collapsing in on itself practically made Vilgu lose her mind. She screamed, shrieked at the top of her lungs in horror, wanted to turn away and run, but she couldn't. The master's order held her where she was. The master who in front of her eyes literally decomposed, decayed, and dissolved into a nausea-inducing mass. A gelatinous pile of cells on which, the sleeves grotesquely folded, his clothes floated along with an egg-shaped amulet.
Vilgu Deponar sat there for hours and watched while she gradually went insane. She laughed, laughed tears over how a vegetable slicer had destroyed her life. She would never be able to recover from what she had experienced here. No psychiatrist in the universe could give her back her mental health.
She grew ill physically as well. She developed a fever and had trouble breathing, as though an itching, tickling, corrosive dust had settled in her lungs. Her heat beat irregularly. Her limbs trembled. Suddenly Vilgu knew that she would die.
And while she died, the dwarf reawakened to new life.
It was unbelievable, absolutely incomprehensible. The decomposition process reversed itself. Extending outwards from the egg-shaped ornament, the mass of cells took on shape and consistence again. The dwarf's body reformed, at first raw and unfinished looking, then increasingly more defined. Vilgu wanted to scream, but no sound came from her mouth, only bloody spittle.
The large, round, bluish black shimmering eyes that had just formed stared at her.
They would be the last things Vilgu Deponar would ever see in her life.
12
Hot Pursuit Through the Blue System
He was filled with strength, all but bursting with energy. He felt wonderfully rested, thoroughly refreshed, as though newborn. Which, essentially, he was, and undoubtedly owed it to the sad goddess's amulet. Boryk looked down at himself, feeling his soft, freshly healed skin. Took stock of his body within: there were no signs of weakness. He enjoyed, as he slipped into his clothes and shoes, the vigor of his young body, that of someone who had just ripened into manhood.
His mind was confused, however. Panic suddenly overcame him as he remembered his flight from Heaven. And regret. He had left his people in the hour when they needed him more urgently than ever before. He had to get back home, no question about it.
"Take me back to the cave with the many green doorways to other worlds!" he wanted to say to the giant who lay next to his bed. But when he prodded her and turned her over, he realized that she was dead. He closed her eyes, shaken, since he suspected that he was responsible for her death even though he didn't know how.
Now what? How could he find his way back without help?
The world within the world beyond the world was strange to him, made for giants and not for people like him. The objects that the three Guardians had given him were of no help. A kind of control pad with many buttons that he didn't dare touch. A device from which one could unfold numerous various small tools. And something else, well-worn, from which a deep voice spoke as soon as he held it.
The little box at his waistband translated. "Vast and wide is the Universe, and for the most part horribly empty, but it is also filled with marvels ... "
Boryk listened for a while. Much he didn't understand. He had asked the giants for something like the Holy Writ, something written that gave information about how this world was arranged. But they had disappointed him. Their gifts were of no value to him. Perhaps the Guardians could orient themselves with them, but they weren't any help to him. He debated leaving the objects with the corpse. Then he put them back in his pockets, and as he did, the voice broke off again.
He looked around. Only very dimly did he remember the way they had come here. The giant had carried him like a small child through a forest at night. Then they had traveled in a boat that the giant rowed. Finally they had reached land at the edge of a lake over which a solid firmament spanned, much like that in Heaven or Hell. However, no heavenly bodies moved in their courses. Instead, stone icicles hung down, only vaguely discernible in the meager light from the boat lamp.
Splashing filled the grotto and distant, soft whispering. Boryk understood. Apparently pairs of lovers would slip in here when they wished to remain undiscovered. So the customs of the giants didn't differ all that much from those of human beings.
He pushed the boat into the chest-high water. Swam behind it, pulled himself up into it with some effort, and seized the oars. He had to stretch out his arms in order to use both at once, so he only made slow progress. Fortunately there was no current that he had to fight against. A channel led from the cavern lake into the open. A warm wind dried his body.
After a while, he found the place where the boat had been moored. A narrow path wound from the landing stage into the woods. Boryk followed it. At long intervals stood lanterns on poles that gave off a soft, orange light. Boryk gave a start as he heard voices in the trees several dozen meters ahead of him and the little box at his hip came on.
" ... it only occurred to her just this morning that Heroth Deponar had once told her about this secluded love grotto. Vilgu was never here herself, but her co-worker had described an amorou
s adventure to her ... Hey, be quiet for a second. Stop. Did you hear that?"
Boryk was on the point of tearing the little box away from his body and throwing it aside. But then he wouldn't have been able to make use of his power if he had to. If he only knew how to turn the box off and then on again when he needed it! But the giants hadn't shown him that.
"It sounded like a Translator, didn't it? Listen—there it is again! He must be close! Fan out!"
Glaringly bright searchlights cut through the night. Boryk threw himself into the bushes, then got up and ran for all his short legs were worth.
Levian Paronn raced. His diary, beloved beyond everything else!
Only now he'd found time and opportunity to make a new entry. But when reached into the pocket where he normally kept the diary, it turned out to be empty.
He refused to believe it. Ransacked his clothes, his spacesuit, all the containers. Turned the entire cabin upside down.
Nothing.
There was only a single explanation for where his most valuable possession—except for his Cell Activator—had gone missing: in the NEANN OCIS! During that time period for which he lacked any memory ... Under a pretext, Paronn contacted the other two who had been in the ark with him and overpowered by the little Lemurian. He casually asked if they were also missing any personal items. Indeed they were. Now that he mentioned it ... None were terribly important things: a Tefrodian officer's knife brought back as a souvenir from an intergalactic Dagor competition; and a small pulse transmitter that could automatically crack low level security codes—not entirely legal, but widely used in certain circles. They agreed to keep quiet about the embarrassing situation. Even if they had opened their protective spacesuits under the mutant's influence, nothing could have happened because they had been decontaminated immediately after their return.
