by Leo Lukas
"There's still another problem, Boryk. You're carrying the germs of a dangerous disease within your body. You won't become ill yourself, but you could infect others."
"You mean ... the plague? But I was around so many people ... in the villages, in the huge ball-playing bowl, on the world of the giant children ... Do you mean I ... " His voice failed him.
Rhodan nodded. "You couldn't help it, but you infected thousands, and because of the Akonian teleporter system the plague is spreading rapidly across the empire's planets."
Now he knew what had caused the death of the friendly giant woman. "Have many died?"
"Unfortunately, yes, and there are more every hour. As of the time we left, there still wasn't any hope of a cure."
Boryk wished the floor would swallow him up. His guilt was many times greater than he had thought! Was there ever a more horrible—or stupider—monster than him? Oh, if only they had thrown him into the Abyss of Elimination as soon as he was born!
Maffan Perry looked at him sympathetically. He seemed to have an idea of what was going on inside of Boryk. "You really want to atone, right? Do something that will benefit others? cleanse at least some of the shame, even if it is putting yourself in the service of another cause?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm ... We'll have to wear isolating spacesuits anyway because we don't know what is waiting for us on Gorbas IV. If we can find one that we can quickly adapt for you, I'll take you along. But," Rhodan added before Boryk could effusively thank him, "you must promise not to open it no matter what and also to obey my instructions without question."
Boryk promised faithfully.
Solina Tormas was astonished when Perry Rhodan appeared with the mutant in his wake. Boryk was wearing a spacesuit that drooped around his body like the skin folds of some puppies. His helmet seemed to be two sizes too small for him.
"I'll explain later," Rhodan said. "Let's go over to the HALUTE."
Besides the Resident, the Lemurian, and herself, the team of volunteers consisted of three Terrans. Hartich van Kuespert, the hyper-physicist, had been an exchange hostage on board the LAS-TOOR, and despite a certain tendency to long-winded lectures, he had quickly made friends there. He was very tolerant, a friendly, outgoing sort, and at the same time a genius in his particular field. As to why he was flying around on a dirty prospector ship instead of being at a respected Terran university, he explained it by saying that the stars had always fascinated him. He wanted to, as he put it, "feel the solar wind blowing in my face and not, God knows, waste away in some dreary learning institution." At some point, when he was older and wanted a quieter life, he could always pass on his knowledge. For example, he could write programs for virtual-reality hypno-training. Solina liked the stocky man of seventy-six with the thinning hair, perhaps not least because as a Terran-history enthusiast he also had a weakness for past eras.
Isaias Shimon, the exo-biologist, had proven himself in action on Mentack Nutai. He was thirty-five and of normal height, although at 180 centimeters somewhat shorter than the average Akonian. He had thick, curly hair and a dark blond walrus mustache. A mystery surrounded his origins. At the age of five, he was, as far as could be proved, left as a foundling in a Terran commercial outpost in the Large Magellanic Cloud. He claimed his parents had died in a spaceship accident when he was a few months old. Then he had been rescued and raised by an unknown, spider-like alien race. Many on board the two now allied starships believed Isaias. Others considered his story outrageous nonsense that he had made up just to make himself seem important. They mockingly called him names like "Spider-Tarzan," "Arachno-Mowgli," or 'the amazing Spider-Guy."
Shimon, who could dish it out but also take it, accepted the ribbing patiently. Whatever the truth, the story was a good explanation for why he had become an exo-biologist. Even so, he had changed schools repeatedly and never finished his studies with a doctorate. He was a restless spirit, apparently always in search of something that he perhaps would never find, and had never become truly close to anyone. Even Solina was ambivalent towards him on a personal level.
She simply couldn't stand the third member of the team. And she wasn't the only one.
Hayden Norwell was of average height and powerful, even hulking. He was considered hot-tempered, someone who would gladly make a Dolan out of a Swoon (a metaphor that Perry Rhodan would have understood from his younger days as being equivalent to making a mountain out of a molehill). There was always a faint shadow under his dark eyes, as though he hadn't had enough sleep. His smooth black hair hung in greasy strands down the back of his neck. The pale, greasy, puffy face was not exactly a sign of a healthy, let alone athletic lifestyle. His right eyebrow had been pushed outward, which gave him a somewhat demonic look, and the skin there was scarred. The eyebrow had apparently been torn away at some time and had not grown back perfectly. At the time of the injury, no medical treatment must have been available. The bridge of his nose had clearly been broken more than once. Both injuries fit with the speculations about Hayden's wild past. On the PALENQUE, he occupied the position of a simple prospector and belonged to the crew of Crawler XII. How his two partners could stand him in the cramped confines of the mobile analysis laboratory, Solina couldn't imagine. Nor what actually qualified him for this occupation. It couldn't be his aptitude for teamwork or his manners. He came from some Terran colonial world but deliberately avoided saying which one. Possibly there was a dark period in his past. According to Alamaheyu Kossa, certain rumors were floating around that claimed there was more behind Norwell than he outwardly presented. But Solina didn't care about that, as she much preferred to just avoid the grim-looking man. For Rhodan to include an experienced prospector on the team made sense on a mining planet. But did it absolutely have to be Hayden Norwell?
Icho Tolot, who rounded out the team, had made a simple, practical living quarters for them out of the HALUTE's variable passenger area using shaped energy. Only Rhodan would been allowed to join him in the control center, but he politely declined because he wanted to stay with Boryk. The little mutant crouched in the badly fitting spacesuit like a pile of misery in a corner. He yammered in a low voice something in Lemurian to Rhodan. Hartich van Kuespert stood in front of a holoscreen and followed the data streams and schematic diagrams that Tolot had arranged to have continuously displayed for him from the incoming hyper-detector readings. There wasn't any other means of exterior observation because no one had asked for any. Isaias Shimon and Hayden Norwell sprawled in their seats, their boots on the table. Perhaps they were having some entertainment program projected on the interior surfaces of their helmets by their suits' Syntrons.
Solina looked forward to what was coming with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the scholar within her was overjoyed that now Beasts as well as Lemurians had appeared, apparently originating from the same long-vanished era. A genuine, utterly incredible sensation! If someone had predicted this to her a few months before, she would have called him insane. To be able to study both of the warring sides who had figured in one of the most important if tragic segments of Galactic history, practically "live" ... she would have given an arm and a leg for the opportunity.
On the other hand, it lay within the realm of possibility that exactly that, or even worse, could happen to her. The "Beasts" had not been given that name for nothing. Everyone knew and loved Icho Tolot and it was hard to imagine those of his kind as the enemy. Solina's underwear clung to her body despite the automatic temperature regulation by the picosyn.
Anticipation and anxiety were thus balanced on the scales, adding up to an unpleasant mix of emotions. Solina trembled inside, as though she had swallowed an overdose of that ghastly coffee that was brewed on the PALENQUE.
We have Tolot, she tried to reassure herself, and the HALUTE, which is clearly superior to the Beasts' ships. And we also have Perry Rhodan with his immense experience. He's always come back from everything up to now.
Well, he has, she added to herself a moment later in reply. B
ut does that also apply to those with him?
"Now that's interesting," Hartich murmured.
"What?"
"It won't be long now before we reach Gorbas IV, and I notice that the radiation intensity there has been increasing for weeks in the form of a geometric curve. In the last few hours, it's bent steeply upwards. The emissions are coming from the planetary interior. Removing our suits would not be advisable, people."
"Too bad—I would've enjoyed a little sunbathing with our Solina here." Hayden Norwell laughed nastily.
Solina wanted to snap back at him that while she welcomed the two crews having closer relations, she did not mean him in particular. Just then though, a slight vibration ran through the floor and walls, like the first tremor of an oncoming earthquake.
At the same time, Hartich exclaimed, "We're being attacked!"
"Stay calm, my little ones," Tolot's voice spoke from the intercom system and Solina's earphones. "A camouflaged orbital fort has taken aim at us. Our defensive shield should easily ... "
There were three brief cracking sounds right after one another, then the earthquake struck.
They were thrown around like dolls. Curses and cries of pain mixed with the muffled rumbling that filled the room. Solina fell to the floor, managing to avoid the edge of the table in the last second. The vibrations didn't die down but instead grew even stronger.
Oh no, Solina thought. When an impact penetrates as strong as this all the way to the passenger section in a modern ship like the HALUTE, we really got hit!
Strangely, she felt less fear than before. She was too occupied with dodging the debris flying around the room and not injuring herself as she hurtled from one corner to the other.
"There's more than one orbital fort!" Hartich van Kuespert exclaimed, hanging on to the holo-projector. "They've got us in a crossfire. If my interpretation of the data is correct, they're using contra-field beamers along with everything else."
Solina's mind immediately focused, and she was rather glad to have something to think about other than how much longer she had to live. Contra-field beamers had been developed on the planet Scimor in the final phase of the Beast War. They were a Lemurian weapon that destabilized Paratron shields and opened the way for fire from other systems. If the Beasts on Gorbas IV were using them, it could only be technology they had looted. Which in turn was an indication that they originated at the earliest from about the time Lemur fell and the continent of Lemuria sank beneath the ocean.
"My little ones," Tolot announced over the com, "it would be best if you disembarked. Perry will take you down below in the lifeboat. It will be safer for you. The acceleration-force neutralizers are threatening to fail. I will attempt to make an emergency landing with the HALUTE. Rhodanos, we will meet at the crash site if at all possible. Good luck."
The furniture disappeared, the walls bent, and a long, drawn-out funnel tube appeared, through which Solina and the others slid down at an angle. Although down was a very relative term. As far as she knew, the disc stood on a hangar deck above the control center. "Yee-hah!" someone shouted, probably Hayden Norwell. Then they tumbled over each other, picked themselves up, and pushed their way into a cabin of an auxiliary craft about fifteen meters in diameter.
Without a word, Rhodan shoved Boryk in Solina's arms, ran forward, and took over the pilot's position. He had hardly settled into the oversized seat in front of the controls when they were catapulted out into open space.
17
Many Thanks for the Flowers
Icho Tolot communicated with the HALUTE's on-board computer by means of a multi-sensory connection that was on a level with Terran SERT technology. His overbrain had direct access to all data, including both internal and external readings. His ordinary brain could control the various systems of the ship just as fast as it could his bodily functions through his nervous system.
It was not always pleasant. At the moment, he felt as though someone had ripped off his skin, cut his right hip away with a circular saw, and was now jabbing inside with barbed lances. Virtual intestines hung out, affecting a number of internal organs.
The lifeboat had left the hangar and was plunging at a steep angle into the planet's upper atmospheric layers. The ground forts were shooting at it. They missed, but not by much. Rhodan had taken manual control of the small craft and was now betting his intuition against the overbrains and the gun batteries' computer programs. He had been successful, so far.
The small craft disappeared from the range of Tolot's instruments. He couldn't have helped it anyway. He had more than enough to do to avoid the barrage. At the same time, he attempted to stabilize the shields which kept collapsing for fractions of seconds. He managed to locate one of the space bastions, target it, and destroy it with his Transform cannons, but the remaining ones still had overwhelmingly superior firepower. Tolot would have to survive some difficult seconds until he was close enough to the planet to be out of range of the space forts. He sent the HALUTE plunging down further, tore it to one side so that an energy beam from one of the ground positions narrowly shot past him, then headed straight at the fort. The probability that his overbrain calculated for him to be able to knock the fort out before he was fatally hit himself was anything but encouraging. But he didn't have any other choice, only this one chance.
The seriously damaged HALUTE lurched, and could hardly be held on course as it flew into the atmosphere. Tolot's Transform salvo hit far to the side of the ground fort. The installation's deadly energy fingers would inevitably seize him in the next second.
Time for last words, he thought.
But all he could think of was: Thank you, that's it.
Then stabbing down from the sky at an insane speed came a flattened disc fifteen meters thick and thirty-five in diameter. A Terran Space-Jet of the latest model, barely detectable due to its stealth covering, armed with a Transform cannon and two MVH guns. All of which it discharged simultaneously—and where the fort had been was now a gaping crater a hundred meters deep.
The Space-Jet made a hairpin turn and sped swiftly away over the range of hills. Without a doubt, its pilot had saved his life.
"Thank you," Icho Tolot said over the com.
"You're welcome," Icho Tolot replied.
He didn't dare get excited. Without question they had experienced certain setbacks. But that didn't mean that the project as a whole was seriously threatened. They in particular wouldn't have been selected for this special mission if they couldn't quickly overcome such mishaps.
Even if there were only sixteen of them left.
Soon there would be 250,016 of them.
Over the com they honored their comrades in the destroyed forts who had just fallen. After this memorial second, Garm Hesset turned back to his primary task.
The Construction had been hidden in one of the arsenal planet's highest mountains, beneath soil, gravel, and perpetual ice. Garm's robots had freed it with disintegrator and tractor beams. He had closely supervised its assembly from individually packaged components. The main elements consisted of two funnels five meters high. They were two and a half meters in diameter at ground level, and double that at the upper end. The funnels had to be situated so they were precisely 110 centimeters apart at the top. That meant they were 360 centimeters apart at their bases.
From the center of each funnel—seen from above, there was a shallow depression within—rose three slender, sharply pointed cones. Each of the two outer cones was one and a half meters high. The center cone stood 220 centimeters above the top of the funnel and was surrounded by a transparent spiral not quite the thickness of a thumb. The three cones on top of each funnel stood in a row, precisely opposite the corresponding cones on the other funnel. They were dull gray, while the exterior of the funnels looked like heavily crinkled silver foil.
The inner structure of the Construction was extremely complex and consisted of densely packed, micro-miniaturized modules. However, Garm Hesset didn't have to stop and think for a single secon
d as he assembled the individual parts. All the knowledge that he required had been fed into his overbrain during the revival process. He had the robots transport four enormous energy storage units from the enclave on antigrav sleds and then set them up. He installed the connections himself in the lower thirds of the funnels. In addition, following the plans in his mind, he installed an apparatus for wireless energy transmission.
The work took several days, and during that time it had occurred to Garm that the Construction was not at all new. Instead, it showed obvious signs of use. Some modules even gave the impression of having had to be repaired before being sealed. That didn't concern him. Even his own body showed signs of wear. He estimated the length of his first life, which he didn't remember, at about 2000 years. Garm didn't doubt that that life had mainly consisted of battle and the preparations for it.
Just before the Construction's first test run, he had to break off his work in order to strengthen the space defenses. On his return, he found the shipment of STC-Howalgonium he had requested. He examined the hyper-crystals with utmost care. What his scanning instruments found satisfied him. His comrades in the mines and refineries had done excellent work, which of course was to be expected. Garm inserted the containers with the oscillating quartz in the places provided in the funnels. Then he raised a Paratron shield over the entire installation and activated the energy supply. With that, he had all but completed his mission.
A com message came in. The Righteous responsible for monitoring planetary airspace informed him that the small, alien flying object, which had suddenly appeared and bombed the ground station, had disappeared from the scanners again. The larger, pseudo-Halutian space-sphere had taken another hit and then crashed. The sphere's point of impact was somewhere in the foothills of the same mountain range where Garm and the Construction were located, though more than 100 kilometers away. So there was no immediate reason for concern even if someone had survived the crash—which even for beings of Halutian build would have been highly improbable. Still, they agreed in a brief com conference that eight other Righteous would protect the Construction and the surrounding area. Three of them on heavy battle-gliders. The other seven would continue to see to the hangars, rearing centers, and other industrial operations along with near and remote observation. Since all were equipped with portable teleporters, their forces could be quickly moved in case of a crisis.
