Pucky's Grestest Hour

by Perry Rhodan

  “He’s an optimist, that Marshall,” muttered Bell. “Those ships will be in space in 10 minutes. Perry, you have a devilishly clever son. Thomas seems to know you better than I do. No, I’m not betting now that Thomas is behind all the rush that’s seized the entire Cokaze clan.”

  Yes, it was true. Perry Rhodan’s timetable had really been completely ruined!

  Rhodan now seemed rather worried.

  Then there was a knock.

  Rhodan’s team of four legal experts came in. They were the best specialists Earth had in Arkonide law. Their knowledge in that area was more encompassing than that possessed by all the positronicons on Earth.

  “Please,” said Rhodan, “make it brief, gentlemen!”

  It seldom happened that he failed to offer seats to his visitors. But now was such a case.

  They had in fact little to say and the little they did say offered Rhodan little cheer.

  It concerned the answer to the question whether or not the positronicon on Arkon, still ruling as Regent, was able to order in no uncertain terms the Cokaze clan to leave the solar system and in the future trouble it no more with any demands.

  The legal staff said no!

  “...If Admiral Atlan as Imperator of the Arkonide Empire does not want to be found out too soon, then he must give the patriarch Cokaze an entirely free hand. The laws force the Positronicon to do so, and Atlan with it, and logic demands that...”

  Then Rhodan dismissed the experts. Bell had been standing in silence at the window and had not expressed himself on the subject. Then, when the legal staff had closed the door after going out, he said: “Now we’ve got one hope less! I’m sick! Perry, why were you so quick with your five-hour ultimatum? If my thumb had...”

  “Will you shut up about your thumb!” Perry shouted at his friend, banging his fist on the desk.

  For Rhodan, such a primitive outburst of emotion was an extremely rare event. He, the otherwise always so self-controlled man, had lost the war against his nerves but the real reason lay in the fact that he had boxed himself in by his ultimatum and now had no way at all to win time.

  Then from Mars came the report that—

  “Galactic Traders taking off!”

  Two minutes later, a hypercom message from Venus came in:

  “Springer Fleet has taken off!”

  Bell noted sarcastically: “And our iron broom can’t get here before another three hours have gone by to sweep this corner of space clear of Springers. Ye stars and little comets, why has the year 2044 been so bad for us?”

  Then the hypercom loudly reported: “After undecipherable hypercom message exchange, Springer fleet has suddenly stopped between 3000 and 15000 kilometers above Venus!”

  Before Bell could say anything, the agent headquarters on Mars also called in. There too Cokaze’s spacers had suddenly come to a stop at the edge of space alter a lightning takeoff.

  Rhodan and Bell looked at each other questioningly. The red-haired, stockily-built Bell shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “If only our telepaths could read Cokaze’s mind...”

  “Have you forgotten or are you trying to forget that our people have so far not found out where Cokaze and Thomas Cardif have been hiding out since their emergency landing on Venus?”

  “Neither,” Bell answered with conspicuous calm. “They aren’t in space; that’s as good as certain. They couldn’t be running around on Venus or they would long since been located. We should get over the idea as fast as possible that Thomas Cardif is only a deserter. The little devil is your son, Perry, and I don’t think you’ve ever been accused of being stupid. So your boy and Cokaze might have taken a spacer underwater and are holing up a few thousand meters down on the bottom of an ocean. Where else could they be relatively safe from our mutants?”

  “That still doesn’t explain why the Springer fleet suddenly aborted its takeoff over Mars and Venus!”

  “I’d like to know myself, Perry,” answered Bell, once more shrugging his shoulders in helplessness.

  * * * *

  Eyes flashing a little, Cokaze had received Rhodan’s five-hour ultimatum. He looked around in a circle. His gaze hung longest on Thomas Cardif, who was the only one to say anything with Cokaze’s eyes on him.

  “Occupy the Earth now, Springer! Attack immediately! I know Rhodan’s time-winning ploys all too well. He’s only trying to win time with this ultimatum. Springer, you won’t have any chance left once this ultimatum runs out. That I can foresee. It’s now or never!”

  Thomas Cardif’s manner of speaking both fascinated and terrified. He had spoken without showing any sign of emotion. His tone had not been urgent—more calm and unnaturally quiet; But his voice had rung like ice. This young man knew only one goal. destroying the man he thought had murdered his mother!

  He was interested in nothing else. It was all the same to him if he became administrator of this new Arkonide colony himself after Rhodan’s destruction or not. His Political ambition had not yet been awakened. In that respect, he did not fully know himself.

  He calmly endured the sharp, penetrating gaze of the patriarch. After his brief demands were made, he wrapped himself in silence. He did not suspect what the other Springers were thinking.

  They thought they saw the young Perry Rhodan sitting among them! The son had never before been as much like his great father as now.

  “Springer, have you forgotten that Rhodan has meted out one defeat after the other to the Springers and the Aras right up to the present? You were always the stronger ones; Rhodan has never been strong and you know yourself how powerful his spacefleet is now but he always manages to outwit you every time. And again today, Cokaze!”

  Thomas Cardif’s Arkonide eyes looked at the patriarch with all the arrogance of an Arkonide of noble descent.

  “Good,” said Cokaze heavily after awhile. “I’m going to give the signal to all my ships for takeoff. But you, Terran...” And in his eyes was a threatening gleam, “you will experience all the tortures of bell until you draw your last breath if it turns out Rhodan sent you to me as a secret agent!”

  “You old fool!” Thomas Cardif exclaimed, ignoring the shocked gasps of the other Springers. He stood up slowly. He drew his two beamers and threw them on the table. “Now are you at least half-way content, Springer?” he asked, his voice filled with biting irony and a thin smile playing at his mouth. “Go on with the conference without me. You all seem to know everything better than I do. For my part, I want to interrogate the two Terrans you were able to rescue from the destroyer you shot down!”

  He strode across the main deck and took an antigrav lift three decks lower down. A combat robot stood in front of the cabin door behind which the two captured men from the Solar Spacefleet were confined. Thomas Cardif identified himself and the robot allowed him to go into the room.

  “Sir...” A young man sitting on his bed had leaped up with a surprised cry. Only then did he realize that it was not Perry Rhodan who had come in but his son.

  The second Terran, also clad in the unornamented spacefleet uniform, stood behind the simple table and had only a contemptuous smile for Cardif.

  “Gentlemen,” began Cardif. But he got no further.

  The young man who had leaped up at his entrance, Val Douglas, interrupted him sharply. “We won’t talk to any deserters! Make tracks, you traitor!”

  Thomas Cardif was not at all fazed and his glance went from man to man.

  “Go away, you son of a...” snarled the other contemptuously.

  Cardif did not let him finish. His reddish eyes began to flash. “For that you two will be the first to be forced by the Robot Regent to follow my orders and...”

  “The Robot Regent!” Val Douglas laughed aloud. “That thing is happy that it still exists. Atlan will turn you over to the Chief as a traitor!”

  As fate would have it, that young man had been one of the 150 who had been involved with Rhodan, Atlan and Bell in the operation on Arkon 2 against the Regent.

  Tho
mas Cardif not only resembled his father outwardly but also in personal characteristics. He did not let his boundless surprise show. “Atlan cannot act against the will of the Positronicon,” he declared boldly.

  The young man of the Terran spacefleet did not realize the purpose of Cardif’s statement was to lure him into giving more explanation. Now he laughed hollowly. “Atlan will show us what he can and can’t do, just wait. Traitors like you’ll be especially impressed. The Positronicon has nothing more to say. It went click when we were on Arkon and that was it for the Robot Regent! And I can guarantee you this, deserter, that Atlan will take care of you but good!”

  Thomas Cardif’s thoughts raced. Without a word he turned and left the cabin on his way to his own quarters. He was not yet ready to share this astonishing bit of news with Cokaze. He had to mull it over first.

  Meanwhile, Cokaze had sent out two hypercom signal’s from the Cokaz 2 at the bottom of the Venusian ocean. They would be the sign for the spacers waiting on Mars and Venus to take off. It was also the order for the main part of the fleet to attack the Earth while a detachment of about 2000 ships engaged the Solar Fleet in space and kept it occupied.

  Driven on by a sense of disquiet such as he had never before felt, Cardif stormed into Cokaze’s cabin. While it had been quiet in the Cokaz 2 for many hours, now it was filled with the rumbling of transformers and running engines.

  The Cokaz 2 was preparing to leave its submarine hiding place.

  Thomas Cardif threw open the door to the patriarch’s cabin. Cokaze sat there with his nearest relatives at the hypercom receiver. They were listening to the incoming reports from Mars and Venus.

  Both parts of the fleet had just taken off!

  “What’s going on?” demanded Cokaze, turning around and looking into the agitated face of the deserted Solar Spacefleet lieutenant.

  Behind Cokaze was a free seat and Cardif sat down in it.

  “What is it, Terran?” the patriarch demanded once more, giving free rein to his unease.

  Thomas Cardif tossed his head disdainfully. He laughed restrainedly. His nervousness had suddenly vanished.

  “Springer, we’ve won! The Robot Regent on Arkon has been replaced by Admiral Atlan! The giant Positronicon is only outwardly continuing to play its old role and...”

  “You’re mad, Terran!” the old clan leader interrupted imperiously. He grabbed Cardif by the shoulders and shook him.

  “Then ask one of the captured Terrans! He was there when Atlan shut down the Robot Brain on Arkon 3!”

  Cokaze whirled around and shouted without restraint into the microphone that was fled in with the com center aboard the Cokaz 2. “To all ships! Abort takeoffs! Remain in standby positions until further orders are issued. But send that alarm message coded and scrambled!”

  Half an hour later, Val Douglas was under the influence of an Ara truth serum and was relating all that he had experienced on Arkon 3 with 150 Terrans and Atlan.

  More than 30 Springers listened breathlessly to the halting, often incoherent report of Val Douglas. Again and again Cokaze plied him with questions. It was becoming more and more clear what had happened when Atlan had disconnected the Robot Regent.

  None of the Springers paid any attention to the passage of time. But then Val Douglas collapsed under the fearful Ara drug with a shrill scream. The patriarch still had enough humanity to order the ship’s physician to look after the Terran and administer an antidote to him.

  And then Cokaze the patriarch realized how late it had become!

  With a curse he hurried back to his cabin.

  There Thomas Cardif was sitting at the hypercom.

  “Anything new?” Cokaze asked.

  “Nothing important, Springer. Your ships are waiting for your orders to move out. The Cokaz 2 is standing at an altitude of 10 kilometers over...”

  “That’s fine,” rumbled the old man and pushed Cardif out of his seat for Cardif hadn’t been getting up fast enough for him on his own. “You young fool!” he exclaimed, seemingly unmotivated. Cardif stirred, wanting to ask a question, but Cokaze spoke before he could say anything. “All of you see only as far as today— you never think of tomorrow!”

  “The Robot Regent is dead, so this Atlan believes he can make himself Imperator. O gods of space, the time of the Galactic Traders has come!” The old man had folded his hands as though in prayer; reached his arms up skyward and seemed in fact to be pronouncing a prayer of thanks.

  Thomas Cardif understood nothing.

  Cokaze observed the Terran’s lack of comprehension.

  “You young fool!” he crowed triumphantly once more. “Our day has dawned, the day of the Galactic Traders! What more do I care for this ridiculously small solar system and Perry Rhodan? Yes, I’ll let him have his peace. I’m withdrawing unconditionally to... well, what would you rather do, Terran? Do you think I’d keep on trying to obtain a simple little trade monopoly and pass up the chance to combine with my brothers and the Aras and conquer Arkon? Who is this Atlan, after all?”

  “Sire,” a voice rang from the communicator’s loudspeaker, “we’re registering uncountable structural disturbances. A gigantic fleet is emerging from hyperspace! We’ve already counted more than 2000 ships!”

  “Shut up!” roared the patriarch in an attempt to outshout his com-officer. “Send a message to Rhodan telling him that I’m accepting his ultimatum and order our ships to make a transition to 45 GH 32! Pull yourself together and don’t make any mistakes!”

  But to Cardif he spoke in a commanding voice: “Come with me!”

  They raced to the control room.

  The Cokaz 2 had left its undersea hiding place and now hovered 10 miles above the surface of Venus.

  The Springers at the structural sensor were pushed aside by their patriarch. Cardif looked over Cokaze’s shoulder at the screen. Its surface swarmed with diagrams. The number at the edge, which registered even simultaneous or overlapping structural disturbances separately, sprang from 2185 to 2318 even as they watched! That meant that in the last five minutes, from the first detected disturbance onwards, 2318 ships had emerged from hyperspace into the solar system!

  “That’s Atlan’s help for Rhodan!” Cardif hissed behind Cokaze’s back.

  The patriarch wiped the sweat from his brow. “O gods of space,” he said hoarsely, “for this I thank you! And you, too, Cardif!” He had whirled around and clapped the young man on the shoulder. “If you hadn’t had the idea of interrogating the two prisoners, we would have learned too late that there isn’t any Robot Regent anymore. We would have attacked Terra and then been wiped out to the last ship by this gigantic new fleet. Thank you, Terran, and you will never find the Clan of Cokaze ungrateful.”

  The number on the structure sensor had stopped at exactly 2500.

  2500 ships had appeared within a few minutes to stand by the Solar Fleet in defending the solar system.

  “Send out the two prisoners in a lifeboat!” That was Cokaze’s last order before the Cokaz 2 began to accelerate prior to going into transition out of the solar system along with the rest of the Springer fleet.

  About 4000 cylinder ships had only one goal: going into transition to 45 GH 32. And 45 GH 32 was a code that was not to be deciphered.

  One hour and 45 minutes before the ultimatum expired, space near the solar system was hit by an enormous disturbance into which Cokaze’s cylinder ships disappeared.

  * * * *

  100,000 trained men who had secretly left the Earth in five gigantic freighters and the Titan had returned with 1000 brand new Arkonide warships of all types and had also brought with them a fleet of 1500 robot-ships.

  It was the maximum of help that Atlan could extend to the Earth. But it was also a technical miracle that 100,000 men trained in spaceflight had nothing more to do on Arkon than climb into the new spacers and immediately start for Earth. The 100,000 had felt immediately at home in the 1000 ships and except for three almost meaningless incidents the transition to Terra ha
d taken place as a matter of routine.

  Their appearance had given the impression that Cokaze had changed his plans upon seeing them but Rhodan and Bell had not forgotten that the old Springer had aborted the takeoff of his ships long before the appearance of the new warships.

  “Perry,” said Bell, “my right thumb tip is itching. I think we have some more unpleasant surprises before us. I wish this year 2044 was over...”

  “Tell me why Cokaze stopped the takeoff of his ships instead, Reggie, and spare me hearing about your thumb,” Rhodan told him.

  “I’ve been thinking about that the whole time, Perry, and that reminds me—my thumb...”

  “Reggie,” Rhodan groaned, “we’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Naturally,” Bell replied, unsuspecting, “but I must say that your question was a bit...”

  Rhodan gestured quickly. “Then let us stay friends in the future, too, OK? Reggie, muffle yourself every time you think about talking about your thumb. Promise?”

  “Alright, but at the moment my thumb is itching something awful!”

  Perry Rhodan sighed and shook his head hopelessly.

  PUCKY'S GREATEST HOUR

  Copyright © Ace Books 1975

  Ace Publishing Corporation

  All Rights Reserved

  THE SHIP OF THINGS TO COME

  THOMAS CARDIF strikes again!

  The son of Rhodan, dangerous enemy of the Peacelord, lashes out in hatred against the Administrator of the Solar System. But his attack is one of indirection for on the surface the threat is to Atlan, the Immortal Arkonide, and the realm he now rules, replacing the Robot Regent. The Crystal Prince faces an unprecedented emergency and Thomas Cardif proves more powerful than before. When the stellar power keg explodes, the terrifying result is—

  ATLAN IN DANGER by Kurt Brand