The Sleeper of the Ages

by Hans Kneifel

  A crudely made Beast/Halutian altar on the NETHACK ACHTON. A Halutian/Beast picture of, considerable artistic value on the LEMCHA OVIR. What did this mean? More than a work of art? The so-called Keeper? A depiction of a memory? Or perhaps someone's wild fantasy? From the corner of his eye he saw that Chibis-Nydele had silently entered.

  She stepped to his side. "A friend of Atubur's," she said. "He spoke with him in his dreams, he told me. I never saw him. No one had ever seen this three-eyed being. I don't know what the story behind the picture is. I'm sorry."

  Rhodan felt her fingers on his wrist and suddenly realized the charm Nydele had exercised on the ancient Commander. He followed her into a room of the living quarters furnished with a few well-chosen pieces of furniture. None appeared to be damaged or torn loose.

  After they had searched through the compartments, the crews of the Space-Jet and the Shift gathered in a large room furnished in a luxurious but archaic style. Each held a glass in their hand.

  Chibis-Nydele handed Rhodan his glass which, like the others, contained a liquid. "Nutai guarded it carefully," she said with a heart-rending smile. "He called it 'ark-wine.' The old men who made it are long dead. This is all that remains of it." Rhodan looked into her eyes and cautiously took a sip. "Let me remain here until I have decided what to do," she added.

  "We will respect your wish, Nydele." Rhodan decided that he had certainly drunk worse wine.

  As he took a second sip, the com unit on his multifunction wristband sounded. Rhodan put his wrist to his mouth, acknowledged the call, and adjusted the volume of the Picosyn to a higher level.

  "Crawler VIII here. We've flown over the piece of wreckage that melted its way into the polar ice. It looks like a spaceship wreck, all right. Still no contact with Mama ... er, Alemaheyu Kossa. Can we get support from you?"

  "Affirmative, Crawler VIII," Rhodan replied.

  Solina Tormas who, like Ameda Fayard, had up to now examined every piece of the room's furnishings with an expert eye, raised her hand. "We're going there, aren't we, Perry?"

  Rhodan nodded slowly and took another sip.

  "We're circling and continuing our investigation," the crawler reported. "We'll be waiting for you. Bloody cold out here."

  "We have your position. We're on our way." Rhodan emptied his glass. "We aren't forgetting about the problems of the ark inhabitants," he said to Nydele. "We'll probably find more pieces of the wreck. We're going out to search for them. We'll be back to pick you up in a few days."

  On the wall of the room, defective holograms flickered in antique Lemurian frames. They were pictures of the Commander in his younger years. Despite the spotty, two-dimensional depiction, the figure radiated conviction and determination. The Star Seeker had apparently been the right person for the office of Commander. The amulet with the cell activator could be plainly seen on his chest.

  Chibis-Nydele noticed Rhodan's gaze. "I can survive here for a long time, Terran Rhodan. Do not worry about me."

  Rhodan took a communicator out of his uniform pocket, selected a channel, and switched the device to standby. He gave a nod which turned into a bow. "You can reach us with this com unit. Call us if you need us."

  "I thank you, alien Terran. In his name as well." She indicated the picture.

  Rhodan looked into Nydele's large eyes for a long moment, then followed Denetree down the ramp to the Space-Jet.

  The snake-like roots and tendrils in the torn open dunes had faded to light gray and no longer moved. From openings in their undersides came tiny beetles that scrabbled towards the remains of the metal shades.

  For some time, the constantly growing swarm of Menttia had delighted in the ethereal emanations of those plants that grew in the area of the brackish ocean water that mixed with that of the river. The Menttia of the River Mouth Blossoms, to whom the flora and fauna of this world did not of course mean anything significant, were orientated to their location. Twice a year they danced their silent courtship dances over the broad delta of the river. After they had flown in from the ocean as one huge body and were circling over the delta, they saw the small aircraft take off. To them it resembled one of the creatures from the depths of the sea that were often washed up lifeless on the shore.

  —The strangers have been examining our world!—

  —It started that way before, when ...—

  Silent, excited communication. The craft climbed at a steep angle towards the clouds and increased its speed. The Menttia of the River Mouth Blossoms estimated the small size and the slight danger. They compared it with that of those clumsy small cousins, the twittering and screeching creatures of the air.

  —They are returning to their great ship. We should not have allowed them to come back.—

  —We will see to that. Let them fly—we must not let them crash and extinguish their lives.—

  —We are in control. We can wait.—

  Sun and dust, scent molecules of different sorts, moons and storms were indispensable parts of the universe and were just as indispensable for the Menttia. The many hundreds of thousands of spindles of intelligent energy saw that their place of courtship was not touched. The strangers had left no traces behind. A part of the swarm followed them up into space, where they neared one of the two large ships and vanished within.

  The Space-Jet and the Shift took off almost at the same time and without any difficulties. Rhodan looked at all the power gauges on the control panel with suspicion, but there was no sign of the invisible force striking again.

  "The Commander wore a cell activator like the Naahk of the NETHACK ACHTON, didn't he?" Denetree said suddenly.

  Rhodan nodded.

  They saw that the Shift had caught up with them and was racing just ahead at a lower altitude towards the agreed destination. The landscape passed by, green and brown beneath the almost vertically shining sunlight. There were vast forests, small savannahs, gently rounded hills, and an old mountain range eroded to many triangular cones of rubble. Some long-extinct volcanoes appeared. Lakes filled some of the calderas; most were completely overgrown.

  "Why did you leave the activator with him? He was dead. He couldn't do anything more with it."

  "He was supposedly an immortal," Mahal put in. "In the end he died like all of us. Almost all. Pardon me." Rhodan's expression made him smile sheepishly.

  Rhodan considered withholding an explanation, then decided he owed it to the others. "It would have broken Chibis-Nydele's heart," he said without taking his eyes away from the controls. "His death was already a heavy blow. To take away something so precious from her beloved at the moment of his death would have probably destroyed her. Besides, I believe the activator is useless."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "His unit must have been defective."

  "Why?" Isaias asked. "It allowed him to live for centuries."

  "We don't know at what cost," Rhodan said. "And I suspect that he had to pay a high price. An unbearably high one. And what makes me think so? The injuries that he suffered. An activator carrier should have been able to survive them. Isn't that right, Hyman?"

  "Very likely. I'm not so well informed about the exact workings of cell activators. But with the proper medical help, the Commander would have survived. He needed to be treated by medical equipment that could have stabilized his metabolism."

  "Which is one of the functions of an activator," Rhodan said. "By definition."

  Denetree shook her head in admiration. "You know so much. You know everything. Is there anything you don't know, Perry Rhodan?"

  Rhodan grinned wryly. "A few million things, Denetree."

  His thoughts whirled. Both Naahks that he knew of had carried cell activators. His head reeled at the thought that every commander of a Lemurian ark carried one of these—probably—imperfect devices. There could be hundreds, even thousands of arks, as many Star Seekers, and just as many thousands of cell activators. Again he wondered who had been capable 50,000 years ago—other than IT, the Immortal Unknow
n—of manufacturing cell activators. Even if they only worked for 500 years and were defective and life-threatening in the bargain.

  He looked into Denetree's eyes. "Things that go far beyond the problems we're facing now. I wish I could give you a better answer." He took a deep breath and concentrated on flying the Space-Jet. "I know that the history of the Lemurians is ancient," he went on. "The arks were probably built more than 50,000 years ago." He deliberately did not mention the Beasts and their war against the Lemurians' Great Tamanium. "It's an ungodly long story, almost as long as that of IT, who gave me my own cell activator. When we have time for it, I'll tell you about the Halutians—we've been friends with them for a long time. Solina Tormas surely knows all the historical connections as well as I do." He grinned. "Or better."

  He looked at the numbers on the syntronic compass readout. They were flying at 335 degrees. Anyway, he told himself, a Halutian seemed to have played an important role on board the NETHACK ACHTON; perhaps even as just an image or a sculpture on an altar? The expression of complete incomprehension on Denetree's face showed him that he could not learn anything from her; she did not know anything. At least not anything substantial.

  "It's an ancient planet, Perry," Hyman Mahal said. "Freezing winds and snowstorms probably won't be unusual in the polar regions." He pointed to the right. On the holo appeared massive snow-white thunderheads and a gray wall of clouds that was moving from the west towards the sun.

  Rhodan looked out at the oncoming storm. "Perhaps the snow or the wind will slow us up, but we have all kinds of advanced equipment on this Space-Jet. We won't freeze to death."

  "I wasn't thinking of that at all," the exo-biologist said. "I can't stop thinking about what kind of fauna the marooned Lemurians will find here. I'd guess slow, weak creatures with a lot of meat and fat."

  Rhodan thought of the eight-legged ant-creatures but did not say anything. He gave the chronometer a quick glance: still nine minutes until arrival at their destination.

  Suddenly the continuous signal from Crawler VIII ceased.

  Half a second later, all the high-level connections with the Akonian Shift were broken off. Only the control lamps for voice com contact glowed unchanged.

  Two heartbeats later, a voice exclaimed: "Losing power! We've got to land!" The distress call had come from either Crawler VIII or the Shift. A glance at the controls showed Rhodan that the Space-Jet had so far been spared the power loss.

  "Well, friends," he said grimly, "now it's getting serious."

  The Space-Jet flew over a black-green tundra. A vague white expanse shimmered in the distance while the snow-heavy clouds threatened from the left. In the close-range scan holos, Rhodan and his team saw that the two crawlers and the Shift from the LAS-TOOR were going in to land. As their power faded they dropped down somewhere in the vicinity of the object that lay melted into the ice.

  The landscape changed over a period of five minutes. The tundra, probably a gigantic expanse of permafrost, came to an end. Within a few kilometers it turned a blackish, smudged green, then opened out into pure white. Layers of ice, completely flat or in long, dyke-like upswellings raced past one after the other. It was more to be sensed than seen that the layer of frozen ice grew thicker. Eventually the reflections of a crystal-white world in the early morning sun became dazzling in the Space-Jet's cockpit.

  "I was so sad when I met you," Denetree said lowly. "You know why. Since I left the Ship, I've experienced all the things I'd only dreamed of before then. Everything confuses me now, even this huge icefield. Each answer brings up a hundred new questions."

  "It may seem difficult, but this is how one grows up," the doctor said. "Trust me. That's the way it is."

  "Just wait, Denetree," Rhodan said in a reassuring, almost fatherly tone. "I have no doubt that there are more surprises to come. What we've discovered so far is just the beginning."

  "The beginning of what?" Shimon wanted to know.

  "Of an incredible story of cosmic proportions, I suspect. Halutians, Lemurians, the destruction of the Lemurian continent on Terra ... If we had a data storage unit from the OVIR, it would probably give precise information about that era of the past." Rhodan deactivated the autopilot and switched to manual flight.

  As the wall of clouds pushed in front of the sun a few minutes later, they saw the crawlers from the PALENQUE on the ground, but not the Shift. The crawlers had set down on a level stretch some 50 meters apart from each other and about 250 meters from the edge of the oval ice layer where the object had crashed. Rhodan pulled the Space-Jet up and studied the scanning holos. The Jet went into a circular course around the dark mass in the ice. As Rhodan looked for a place to land, Solina's voice came over the speakers.

  "Perry! We've got an energy reading. There are some massive artifacts under the ice. But we have to go down. We're being attacked from the air! They look like energy beings. Like burning spindles ... " Then contact was broken off, the control lamps flickered, and the excited voice came back.

  "We'll send you what we've detected with our last power. We've got to defend ourselves ... "

  "Damn!" Shimon exclaimed. "Energy beings! Are they the ones to blame for this power drain?"

  "Probably," Rhodan said and sent the Space-Jet sharply downwards. The braking engines operated at full capacity. Perhaps a soft landing could be managed because the energy beings were still holding back. Apparently the Akonians still had enough power on their craft to transmit their data. The Syntron worked with accustomed reliability. The Space-Jet descended under full control, and the ground quickly rose to meet it as the shadows of the clouds flitted across the expanse of the ice. With a hard jolt the Space-Jet set down amid a roar of engines.

  "We did it," Rhodan said. "Do you see those energy beings anywhere?"

  "Nothing in sight," Shimon replied.

  The Space-Jet's Syntron showed that the data transfer was complete and further contact with the Shift had been lost. Rhodan switched off all the Jet's subsystems that weren't required and called up a display of the scanning data. The holo over the pilot's console filled with the clear-cut images. In the foreground rose the black igloo of the wrecked ark section, which must have struck the ice with terrible impact. About 500 meters further to the north, long dark masses lay under the ice; faint pulses of energy could be detected coming from two of them, and Solina Tormas suspected that they had something to do with Lemurian descendents.

  "That's a new development," Rhodan said. "So the Shift landed there—possibly crashed. And in addition we have an ancient base that still gives off energy."

  "Just like the wreck section," Denetree added hesitantly. "No one is alive there now. Anyone who survived the crash froze to death afterwards."

  Rhodan leaned back. The cold of the snow-covered ice seemed to ooze upwards from the landing gear into the cabin.

  The doctor slowly shook his head. "That means this planet isn't as isolated and deserted as we thought." He pointed to the bar graphs and numbers overlaid on the holo. "The section has an unusual shape, like a sphere ... "

  "There! The alien beings!" Denetree exclaimed, suppressing her excitement, and pointed towards the sky outside. A multitude of tiny lights shone beneath the cloud deck.

  Meanwhile, the gray-white clouds lay over the entire expanse of ice. The view of the shadowless surroundings clutched at the Space-Jet's occupants like a cold hand. From high in the sky, as though out of nothing, shining spindle-shaped beings suddenly appeared, and rapidly swirled towards them. From a small group of individual beings grew a mass that moved in the air like a swarm of glowing fish in a warm sea. They blinked on and off in a flickering blur. The beings were half transparent, like flames, and the swarm grew by the second. They raced towards the Space-Jet. Their gold-shining bodies united into a huge ring that circled the Jet and bathed the interior into yellow-red light. The air-creatures seemed to be observing the occupants but not attacking. They behaved like golden fish that did not fear the shark they were surrounding. Inste
ad, they watched it distrustfully. On the consoles, there were no indications at all of any loss of energy.

  "So those are the actual inhabitants of Mentack Nutai," Denetree commented, fascinated and with clear admiration in her voice. "They look beautiful but dangerous. Will they kill us, Perry?"

  "Probably only if we make them angry or attack them. They are merely observing us, I think."

  "That they are, but very intently," Mahal said.

  They waited in breathless tension but saw only the swiftly whirling swarm that grew yet larger and radiating bright golden light.

  "If you ask me," Rhodan said after several minutes had passed, "we're possibly seeing the proof of a simple equation. The inhabitants of an area feel disturbed, perhaps even attacked, and so they defend themselves against the intruders. First the ark, then us. Apparently we've stepped into a taboo area or else we're about to."

  One swarm, the Menttia of the Snowmelt, approached the edge of the tundra. It slowly followed the discus-shaped intruder, which was apparently setting down for a landing.

  —They are entering the dangerous region!—

  —We should force them not to look any further!—

  —They must not communicate any more!—

  The single Menttia-individual counted for very little in a swarm of its fellows. First a hundred energy beings united their thinking. The combined impulse grew so large that thousands of their kind received it and moved the entire swarm into a common thought. The collective memory of the fire spindles reached back much further than 50 millennia. Now they saw that the strangers were approaching the region in which the true significance of that memory lay hidden. It was known to the Menttia, but not to the strangers.

  From the stratosphere, through the ozone layer and the tropopause, a second swarm whirled to the boundary between Cold and Warm Lands. It was the Menttia of the White Winds swarm.

  —Let them seek. Perhaps they will find what we do not know.—