The Sleeper of the Ages

by Hans Kneifel

  Again a few heat beams warmed the immediate surroundings. The ice on the table turned into droplets of water, which also fell from the corners of a binder in which were more sheets of paper. The edges of the sheets could be seen where they protruded from the edge of the binder's cover. They were white sheets, which had been frozen along with the covers under a thick layer of ice. On the front cover, under a coating of ice crystals, they discovered written characters. Rhodan wiped the surface with his fingers and the writing became a little clearer.

  "Read it," Shimon requested of the historian. "Or isn't it Akonian?"

  It was impossible to separate the sheets from each other with gloved fingers or to remove the binder from the table top. With the help of some low-intensity beamer discharges, it finally came loose without significant damage.

  Solina held the binder in the light. "Old Akonian and handwritten. Here it says, Written by an Ancient One and Dedicated to His Grandchildren. This frozen bundle will have to be thawed out and dried at some point. Only then can I get at the contents."

  "From an old man ... " Ameda said softly. "Or from someone who froze to death while he was writing. A will?"

  "Very possibly," Rhodan murmured.

  "Perhaps we'll find useful information in it?" Isaias suggested. He watched as Solina opened a compartment in her spacesuit's backpack and carefully shoved the icy block inside. "Useful for us and the stranded Lemurians."

  "Any information is not only of great historical importance ... " Rhodan started to say, and then was interrupted.

  There was a thundering crash outside of the tower followed by an ongoing tinkling and splintering. A portion of the icicles had come loose from the ceiling and rained down on the floor, breaking into shards with a ringing and a loud cracking. The tower room floor seemed to vibrate slightly.

  "We aren't alone!" Denetree exclaimed. "Or else the ice is collapsing right above us."

  "We'd better get out of here!" Rhodan urged. "Out into the open! We'll examine the writing in the Shift or on the Space-Jet. Let's move it, friends."

  Their uncertainty grew into a fear of having triggered hidden devices. It was possible that the Akonians had equipped their installations not only to protect them from the light spindles but also from other intruders.

  The team turned towards the stairs. The difficult and slippery descent down some 350 steps began.

  Suffering from lack of sleep but still alert and concentrating intently, Sharita Coho was perched in her contour seat. She seemed to have been staring constantly for hours at the surface of the planet shown in the control center's semi-circular holo. The ship's chronometer showed 0347 hours on April 23. Her thoughts ran through her various concerns: from the expectations of the PALENQUE's owners of valuable discoveries, to the mysterious but not life-threatening energy drain, and to that damned Akonian starship that followed a light-second behind in almost the same orbit as her own ship. The data that Omer Driscol had delivered to her an hour before—Omer, whose stoic calmness was driving her up the steel-plated wall!—showed that Crawler VIII, the Space-Jet, and the Akonian Shift stood unchanged and apparently immovable where they had landed. They remained near the two accumulations of dense matter beneath the ice at the edge of the polar cap.

  Paratron shield, HO shield, the impact shield—negative. it was impossible to divert the remaining power to the shields. There was still no com contact with the four craft just as before. The silence was so thick that she seemed to hear it as a roaring in her ears.

  "Still nothing, Alemaheyu?" she asked, although she believed she knew the answer already.

  "Nothing, Sharita," the com officer replied. "Even worse, absolutely nothing."

  What should they do, other than wait? They were literally powerless. It seemed as though the PALENQUE was not in any danger at the moment, since all the emergency systems were still running. Only the engines and communications with Mentack Nutai were dead in the water.

  —We have the strangers under control and are observing their every step.—

  —The occupants of the two spaceships do not appear to have any bad intentions.—

  —But ... how quickly could two hundred or two thousand spaceships appear above our home world once more?

  Time meant little in the lives of beings that drank starlight and bathed in the particle streams of the sun. Thoughts, even from uncountably many individuals, did not become pictorial images, sculptures, or written works, but remained in the realm of circling electrons. Intelligence arose in ancient times—when the progenitor of all Menttia combined out of solar wind and stardust and for the first time realized that it existed and thought. Intelligence and memory were subject to the law of entropy just as much as the nearby star and all within its influence.

  During the long period that followed the mating of the first two Menttia and the appearance of a third, intelligence and memory changed. With each division, the memory diminished by a tiny quantum of energy while intelligence grew. Menttia built no cities and sowed and harvested no plants. They observed, drew conclusions, compared, and spent their lives in philosophical serenity and ease. They spread around their world, and were carried along in the solar wind and streams of charged particles.

  Through patient observation, deduction, comparison, and extrapolation, they gained an insight into the nature of the universe. At the end of an individual existence, they dissolved, turning into ether that the other ether-beings drank and in which they bathed without grief. Waiting, the various swarms of the spindles observed the great ships that circled their world. The watched the many survivors of the crash, and the small groups of strangers that explored portions of the planet.

  —They have entered the city in the valley. We cannot discern what they are doing or what is happening to them.—

  —If they survive, they will return to their space vessels.—

  On board the PALENQUE, more than an hour went by in complete inactivity. Harriett Hewes brought fresh, strong coffee and handed out the cups.

  A second hour ticked by just as gloomily. Nothing changed, except for the fact that the coffee gave the commander heartburn.

  Thirty-one minutes ...

  "A signal!" Alemaheyu exclaimed. "The LAS-TOOR, Sharita. It's their first officer, the Ma-Techten ... "

  Sharita raised her hand and gestured to the com officer. "Put him on," she said. "Let's see if the Akonians are in any better shape than we are."

  The holo formed and showed the First Officer, whose black eyes flashed at Sharita as though he was waiting to pounce.

  "Ah! Echkal cer Lethir. What can I do for you, Ma-Techten?" Sharita asked the question in an almost casual tone. "How is the situation with you? Are you paralyzed like us?"

  The Akonian did not respond to her question. "Commander, I am about to take over command of the LAS-TOOR."

  "How so? Has something happened to Jere von Baloy?" The Terran commander and her Akonian counterpart had some violent verbal duels behind them. Out of these had grown a reluctant but not openly expressed respect.

  "Discipline, which has always been only casually observed on the LAS-TOOR, is close to collapse. I cannot allow that. A ship needs clear lines of authority, otherwise it is in danger."

  "I quite agree with you about latter," Sharita Coho replied. She looked the Akonian in the eye. "Therefore we should discuss this question commander to commander."

  "The Maphan is not available at present."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Internal matters aboard our ship are not intended for the ears and eyes of Terrans!"

  Sharita did not care for the emphasis with which Echkal cer Lethir had pronounced the word Terrans. "What are you getting at? Do you still distrust us? On Maahkora ... "

  "Maahkora is light-years back."

  "We've kept our part of our agreement down to the last comma," Sharita exclaimed indignantly.

  "Oh really?" came the reply from the unusually short Akonian. "Then why is the LAS-TOOR drifting helplessly in orbit whil
e your prospecting scrap pile ... "

  "Our 'scrap pile' is called the PALENQUE, and we're just as helpless as you are. We can't even activate our defense-shield projectors. There's no contact with down below, no power for the engines ... All that's left is our ability to talk with you—and that's a dubious pleasure!"

  The Akonian did not respond to Sharita's jab. Had she crossed a line in her anger? She studied Lethir's face in an attempt to deduce what was motivating him. Distrust—certainly. In contrast to the majority of his crew, he did not trust the Terrans. Neither their motives nor recent developments in which the conflict between Akon and Terra had lessened. Lessened but not disappeared.

  Cer Lethir swallowed hard. "That is what you claim. What if all this was merely an ingenious deception on the part of you Terrans ... "

  Alemaheyu Kossa cut in and said loudly, "Connection lost, Sharita!"

  "Lost or broken off on the Akonian side?"

  The hologram, still showing Echkal cer Lethir's upper body dissolved. "The Ma-Techten couldn't help it," Omer Driscol said. "It's the same effect as with the crawler and the Space-Jet. Somebody or something is playing with us." The hyperdetection officer leaned over his console. "Take a look at that," he went on. "The exterior cameras picked it up!"

  The holo flickered for a fraction of a second, showed a whirl of false color, and then stabilized again. In front of the background of stars and the arching planetary horizon, thousands upon thousands of sparks could be seen rising up from the planet, beginning to glow more brightly, and speeding towards the PALENQUE. Just before they reached the ship, they swung to the side and showed their true form. Spindle-shaped, gold-colored, and sun-bright shining things. Like excited young fish they merged into a new swarm and circled the ship at seemingly the speed of light. They needed only a few seconds to complete a circuit of the PALENQUE.

  "What is this? They came from the planet," Sharita said and stared spellbound at the beings. They radiated a menacing beauty.

  "They look like flying fish," Driscol replied, unmoved. "Space fish from Mentack Nutai. I'd consider them the true natives of the planet."

  "And what do they want?"

  Alemaheyu giggled nervously. "To take a picture of us? I know just as much as any of you. No idea."

  The floating cameras transmitted the new images to every operating vidscreen in the entire ship. Sharita thought briefly of her eight MVH sublight guns. Since the guns were getting just as little energy as the defense-shield projectors, she let the idea drop. She blinked the exterior landing spotlights a few times, but the creatures seemed unaffected and continued their circling.

  "Maybe a few of us should go outside in spacesuits and try to have a dialogue with them?" Alemaheyu said after a few minutes.

  "We don't have enough people on board who are tired of life," Sharita answered in resignation. "I was just thinking of making such an attempt. The risk strikes me as too great."

  "It was just a suggestion."

  "Very well. Let's just wait until anything changes."

  The skeleton crew on the bridge went back to looking at the holos and waited for something to happen even though they had no idea what. With each minute, fear grew of the glowing beings and their attack. They had something to do with the loss of power; that had become clear to everyone on board.

  9

  Thunder in the Towers of the Akonians

  Rhodan and his companions stopped in front of the exit on the lowest level of the tower. He looked outside and saw that a wide track led through the sharp fragments of icy stalactites. It cut straight across the plaza, as though a heavy vehicle had rolled over and through it, partly crushing the ice beneath.

  "We really aren't alone here!" he exclaimed. "Look at that trail."

  Fear mounted. The signs pointed to a large, heavy body. Rhodan and the others wondered if a vehicle or a robot had been activated when they entered the labyrinth of ice. Now though, silence reigned between the buildings, which looked as though they had been chiseled out of massive ice blocks. The lights, most behind thick ice layers, accentuated the feeling of danger.

  "Let's follow the track," Rhodan said after a moment's thought. "It might lead us into a part of the base where we'll learn more."

  For some minutes, the team members cautiously made their way more deeply into the installation. No insurmountable obstacles appeared in their path. A track that looked as though it had been made by a bulldozer came from the right. Kealil Ron swung his spotlight around and illuminated it.

  "I wouldn't be surprised if we have some serious competition here. One or more beings that the spindles have put pressure on just as much as they have on us." He went further along the track. A black wall could be seen behind a row of cube-shaped buildings that had once been covered with a common roof. In many places, the roof had collapsed, and bizarre configurations of ice that resembled pillars twisted beyond recognition, had pushed their way to the floor.

  "Then wouldn't the spindles have taken even the crash-landed Lemurians for the descendants of their enemies?" Denetree asked herself out loud. "But the people of the ark haven't seen anything of them."

  "Perhaps they're hard to see in broad daylight?" Rhodan answered. "Or they're mainly found in places where they take on nourishment? But what kind? Solar energy? I have no idea. The Lemurians of the OVIR should have been able to see the spindles without any trouble at night."

  "That's all speculation, Perry," Solina said. "Not certainty."

  "That's why we're continuing to look, Solina."

  The base in the valley was oval, about one by two kilometers, and the team had barely penetrated 500 meters of it. The entrances of the angular buildings were impassable; ice in billowing cloud-like shapes flowed out of them like solidified lava. A hundred steps further on began a ramp of the same black stone as the rock. The ramp's upper surface was ice-free. Another mystery. The ten-meter wide ramp ascended towards the black rectangular wall and ended half-way up in an open entrance. At the uppermost point dark forms lay on the stone, parts of which glistened in the spotlight beams. To the left and right, the wall seemed to blend in with the ice.

  "Should we risk it?" Isaias asked.

  "Of course," Ameda replied without reflecting.

  Do the spindles have a collective consciousness? Rhodan wondered. Then over a long time span, they would have certainly stored many memories, which had perhaps been changed and distorted.

  He also thought it was just as possible that it was a matter of not only the energy-controlling air beings, but of other population groups. Young and old. Wise. Intelligent and not? Were they organized like ants and bees? Highly intelligent microbes? But, whatever the case might be, not a single spindle had followed them down here under the ice.

  The team had ascended half the incline and looked around. Everywhere stretched incredible structures of ice. Some were split apart by crevices which looked as though they had recently been shaped by the effects of intense heat. But there was no dripping meltwater anywhere. The cold forced the team members to take their gloves off or open their helmets as little as possible; a few minutes were the maximum. A hole with a diameter of ten meters gaped in a sheer ice wall that was like a frozen waterfall. Except for an occasional crackling, it continued to be as still as the bottom of the ocean.

  They went on silently until Ameda Fayard stumbled on the first discovery. "This could have been an Akonian robot," she said, turning her spotlight on it.

  They counted a total of seven smashed machines that lay on the way to the entrance. Each was composed of cylindrical sections and cubes and with mechanical arms. They were battered and crushed, with steel limbs torn away and the internal machinery laid bare.

  "Something smashed these things as though they were toys," Shimon commented. "Maybe it was a suddenly activated machine striking out in blind fury with enormous force?" He went up the ramp in a snaking path between the debris. "Or did they fight with each other?"

  "But who was fighting whom?" Mahal wanted to kn
ow.

  No one answered.

  Instead, they went on. Their thoughts whirled with strange ideas and unclear expectations about what lay ahead.

  Then a brighter light struck them from the building on the other side of the entrance. They came through the doorway without projectors discharging or force fields forming. The ramp led horizontally onwards, then forked into two directions. One was a wide path leading down to the floor of a gigantic hall. The other formed a gallery that lost itself on the opposite wall of the hall, which lay in half darkness.

  "This has to be it," Rhodan said in surprise. "The center of the installation. And it's huge—when the Akonians decided to build a base on this planet, they didn't hold back."

  Powerful spotlights shone on the undamaged ceiling of the building complex. It was approximately one kilometer long and 300 meters wide. Many of the lights no longer operated, so some areas stood out clearly and brightly while others were shrouded in darkness.

  "Something on this planet must have been damned important for you Akonians," Hyman Mahal muttered. "If you built something like this. What was it? An atomic factory? Or a beam projector for blasting planets out of their orbits?"

  "I don't know," Ameda and Solina answered almost simultaneously. Ameda continued: "That's what we'll try to find out when we examine the buildings and the equipment."

  "Let's split up," Rhodan suggested. "One group per side."

  "All right," Ameda said.

  The helmet radios had been operating without any interference since they entered the complex. That implied that there was a powerful barrier against the glowing spindles' energy drain.

  Rhodan tested his multi-purpose wristband. ERROR FUNCTION appeared on the Picosyn's display. The floor of the hall was as ice-free as the ramp, or so it seemed. Box-like, windowless buildings of different colored metal were scattered across the hall without any apparent plan. The roofs of the small buildings were on a level with the elevated walkway.