by Perry Rhodan
"They knew what kind of a spaceship they were up against," said Rhodan, gazing meditatively at the Titan.
How many days would it take, he thought, until this marvel of Arkonide technology had been reduced to a hollow wreck and left to decay in that graveyard at the pole?Down there marched the demolition commandos—soulless machines, immune to the bears' poison and immune to the emotional factors involved in eliminating 700 people!
"What if Pucky doesn't succeed, Perry?" Khrest pulled him from his thoughts.
Perry Rhodan pulled himself together. "It would be the first time that Pucky had failed us, Khrest. My only worry right now is this massive army of machines. It seems the disembarking phase is finished—or do you still see any robots coming out?"
"It's quieted down. If they'd sent out 10 more columns I think I would have said that any resistance is useless."
"Not I, my friend!" growled Rhodan. "Do you picture me standing by and watching soulless machines smash through 700 diseased and helpless humans, becoming their murderers?"
Khrest's cringing under this retort was mercifully concealed by his deflector shield. "Do you really think these robots will come as butchers among—"
"I know it! I dislike repeating in what condition Wuriu Sengu found those skeletons in the disemboweled ships. Those walking monsters down there carry in their memory banks a program for murder!"
The leading column of robots had put about one-third of the intervening distance behind them when Perry resumed the conversation. "I wonder why that alien spacer didn't land right next to the Titan? Why the intervening distance and this time-consuming march? Does that question have only one answer or several?"
"I believe we are looking at a strictly robot ship. The landing would be programmed for a safety distance factor. But I can't see that the question constitutes a problem."
Rhodan answered bitterly: "700 men may pay with their lives for my having overlooked some details before! 700 men on my conscience if they cannot be saved! I knew that Arkon had forbidden any landings here. If I was determined to land, I should at least have sought to determine where the danger lay. Khrest, our present troubles stem from just that—not asking enough questions. Do you understand my concern now about every detail?"
The situation brought out an embarrassing distinction between Arkonide decadence of logic and the aggressiveness of human thinking. Khrest avoided a straight answer and changed the subject.
"For me Pucky is the question. I think we should bury our hopes."
"Why?" asked Rhodan, bluntly. "The robots have not yet reached the ship. They are not yet inside it. They haven't flown it yet to the graveyard nor have they disemboweled it yet. Then only, Khrest, only when our ship has become a useless derelict, will I bury the last hope of repossessing it, of piloting it again and letting it soar out into the universe! At this moment my only concern is the 700 suffering and dying men. In all other respects I am calm—as cool as a cucumber."
The Arkonide took a long, deep breath. "Rhodan, I have known you now more than 13 years but in some situations I will never be able to fathom you completely. For instance now, I don't understand your apparent lack of concern for Pucky. What will happen if the little fellow isn't immune to the bear poison and also falls victim to it?"
"Once an Arkonide, always an Arkonide! Yes, we are as different as day and night in our emotional make-ups. Has a defeat never given you new strength? After suffering a defeat, have you never said,now more than ever? I've not only said it, I've tried to act accordingly. Now let's think logically. In his first considerable contact with the little Hono beasts, Pucky was not affected, so it is unlikely that a second contact with them will have any different result. And don't forget, Pucky isn't like us. Even though I'm reluctant to call him an animal, he is not humanoid like you and me. That makes a difference, Khrest. It not only strengthens the safety factor concerning infection or poison, but-uh—Khrest, look there!" Perry gripped Khrest's shoulder and shook him, repeating his name over and over and pointing below...
• • •
Pucky had materialized at the entrance to the arsenal deck. Hastily he pushed up the burdensome helmet and jumped out of the cumbersome, ill-fitting spacesuit. But he didn't leave the valuable suit on the floor. He pushed it out of sight into one of the wall lockers. "So long!" he yelled and threw the Arkonide marvel into a corner.
The next moment he stood all by himself in the arsenal doorway. He took his bearings. His immediate target was about 1200 feet farther west. He was at the wrong entrance. He concentrated once more and teleported. Almost in the same moment he rematerialized at the western gate of the arsenal. He was facing five laughing, staggering crew members that were playing with their little bears like happy children.
A man with fiery red hair welcomed him joyfully. "Little brother mouse baby!" he shouted. "C'mere, let me hug you! Shortly, why haven't we seen you around for such a long time?"
A haggard man next to him offered his little bear to Pucky. "You want me to make a present of him to you, little mutt? You're not much bigger than he is but I'll give him to you. Here—Emperor, give the guy a little kiss!"
Pucky smelled the odor and backed slowly away from the approaching men. Suddenly the haggard man jumped forward and tossed the bear straight at him. But Pucky was faster and instantly employed his power of telekinesis. The bear was stopped in mid-flight by an invisible force. It twisted in midair and landed back in the arms of its owner. Pucky didn't enjoy 'playing' with these sick, insanely laughing men who looked more and more physically depleted.
On his mind was one task—to get them out of his way. They enjoyed the sensation of floating. Their boisterous exultation developed into more insane bursts of laughter as they were thrown by the telekinetic forces toward the antigrav elevators in the center of the ship.
Just then Pucky saw a group coming out of the elevator—seven or eight of them. He figured he'd keep them busy so he used the five floating men like a ram and pushed them into the approaching group. He had expected to see a free-for-all fight develop but instead a dozen people got up from the floor and played Gaston & Alphonse! He shook his head, watching them brush each other off and, with the politest of smiles, hand each other their lost bears.
"Now I see," Pucky muttered to himself. "They really are all crazy and now I know what this 'euphoria' is. In hell you die of laughter."
This incident had consumed two minutes but now he could concentrate on his mission again. He took another teleport leap and landed exactly in front of the mighty steel door, behind which the fighting robots were stored. Perry had explained to him how to unlock the door. The big steel plate slid noiselessly back into the wall, leaving the entrance wide open.
Row upon row stood the most modem and formidable Arkonide automaton fighting machines but Pucky wasn't impressed. He had always called the robots 'tin soldiers.' He went to the first of them to begin the task of activating and programming them.
Rhodan had given him precise instructions what to do, what program had to be switched on, and so forth, and also to make certain that no machine would start marching alone. "And watch especially," Rhodan had carefully admonished him, "that not a single member of the crew gets out of the ship. Pucky, it'll be the end of a long friendship if one single man succeeds in sneaking out!"
The mouse-beaver worked frantically in his solo task. The fighting robots stood very close to each other and he had to go into gymnastics to reach all the program levers and switches. The first 100 were activated. As he turned to the next robot, 100 activated machines started to move at the same time. All at once the heavy metal tread of ultra-modern gladiators reverberated through the ship. In rows of five, 100 Arkonide robots stamped out of the great arsenal hall, clattered along the main passageway and marched toward the central antigravitor.
Simultaneously, Pucky activated his time-perception sensitivity. He had to make sure that he didn't miss the precise second when this unit would pass through the airlock and walk down the ramp to
take up the defensive battle with the approaching enemy robots. He did not know then that 300 fighting units were on their way to the Titan from the alien cylindrical spacer. But it would have made little difference to Pucky if there had been twice this amount. After all, he himself counted for something in this conflict and he had few inhibitions concerning his own self-estimation.
He slaved ceaselessly on the remaining units. He was only three feet tall and the access panels to the robots' program selectors were six feet off the deck. He climbed around the bizarre jungle of angular limbs and metal joints like a squirrel. His grip became more practiced, the switching surer and faster. He was not even delayed by a mob of crazed crew members who pushed into the armory. He expedited them outside through use of his telekinetic power.
One of this group was especially insistent and was trying now for the third time to stagger into the arsenal. And in the same moment the 'bell' rang in Pucky's mental time-perceptor. The first hundred-robot unit was near the outer airlock, ready to leave the Titan.
The loudly jubilant sick man stood behind him, watching and laughing as the mouse-beaver activated another robot. Suddenly no time was left for Pucky to take care of his uninvited guest. He 'ported' to the steel door, closed it and locked the sick one inside. Then he made a more critical teleport jump to airlock #5, which the robot contingent had been programmed to select for their exit from the great spherical spacer.
When he landed near the exit gate he was confronted with a sight that made him pound his forehead with both little paws and draw from memory all the most useful cusswords that Bell had ever taught him. He was facing at least 50 insanely dancing men in front of the gate. The metallic reverberation of the steel gladiators thundered louder by the moment. 100 pairs of Arkonide steel legs stamped closer with insistent cadence. Pucky felt gripped from all sides, pulled in all directions at once. He was forced to breathe in the stink of the bears, which gave him an urge to regurgitate. He was merrily requested to give all these deadly little beasties a kiss. Suddenly he was aware that a 200-pound man was standing on his beaver tail.
Never having approved of this kind of intimacy, he gave a sudden squeak. However, the euphoric hilarity around him drowned the wailing complaints of the little lieutenant. Finally he had to fall back on borrowed human characteristics: he got mad. The next moment he had the whole dancing mob of 50 suspended from the ceiling. The entire half hundred men with their struggling little bears were glued there, unable to go anywhere, while beneath them the hundred-unit robot contingent marched solemnly past toward the great airlock gate. It opened up and the path to the outside was clear.
Pucky saw the 'Approved Ones' sitting insensibly between the towering landing struts of the Titan. As soon as the last robot had cleared the ramp, the gate closed and the ramp retracted automatically into the ship.
Now you can come down again, thought Pucky, referring to the mad mob on the ceiling, whose insane laughing and shouting was breaking his eardrums. He let them sink gently to the floor, then instantly teleported himself back to the main door of the armory. He almost got himself killed under the metal foot of a marching robot. He jumped desperately around between the fighting machines which stamped along the main passageway, until he was squeezed and pressed against the wall and watched with horrified eyes as the hundred-unit contingent passed.
What had happened? How had their programs been activated? It was a catastrophe!
As the last of the group marched past him, Pucky jumped on its back in desperation. Rhodan had explained that the programming of these monsters made it impossible for them to attack any crew member of their own ship but Pucky was not too reassured by this, particularly since a crazily gyrating mouse-beaver might not be in their program for recognition!
In virtual defiance of death, he clung to the cold steel neck joint of the robot and with acrobatic dexterity managed to check out the thing's program setting. Amazingly, it was correct! With a startled gasp, he jumped ahead to the next one and dangled precariously, checking out the switches. Again correct!
Then he remembered the sick crewman he had locked up in the arsenal room.
If only it works!—he thought and made a jump back into the great armory hall. The place looked much depleted after the discharge of 200 giant fighting machines. The insane man heard his arrival and looked at him laughingly as he chose a robot at random to switch on its program.
"Oh man!" exclaimed Pucky in a piping squeak of consternation. He sent the laughing man to the ceiling and proceeded to check the programming work the other had performed. By some weird clarity or perversity of the insane, each panel was precisely programmed as intended.
A minute later Pucky and his human companion were programming together. Somehow it had become a fun game to the afflicted man. Pucky even resigned himself to the stink of the little bear. He tried to ignore the man's raucous laughter.
"Don't you think I'm being nice to you, little brother?" the man asked for the tenth time. Occasionally he'd attempt to divert Pucky's attention from the work, inviting him to dance. "Come on, laugh once in a while, little one! Aren't you happy that I'm happy? Because I can be so nice to you and I can help you like this?"
"I'll join you right away, old buddy!" promised Pucky. "Yes-siree, you betcha!" But instead he teleported himself to the airlock.
The second hundred-unit contingent of robots was ready to leave the ship and he was under the strictest orders not to let a single crewman get out.
• • •
"Rhodan, do you grasp what this, means? There's the third unit of a hundred of our robots marching out of the Titan!"
Between Khrest and Rhodan, something stirred in that moment. The mouse-beaver became visible, wearing his own custom-tailored spacesuit. He tried to salute, reporting proudly, "Lt. Pucky, sir—back from first mission! 300 tin men brought into formation! Ready to go for second mission, sir!"
"Pucky...!"
But Pucky had already 'sprung' to his second mission.
"That little hellhound!" raged Perry, helplessly.
Very reserved, very much the aristocrat, Khrest asked, "Do you presume that Pucky knows that epithet?"
As Perry Rhodan sucked air angrily through his teeth and glared below, Khrest grinned silently.
• • •
Like a giant flaming torch the robot battle raged between the two spaceships. By mere chance the two mechanical armies were equally matched in numbers.
The inferno blazed hotly in the plain by the lake. Constant flashes and a rumbling of battle thunder filled the air. Mushroom clouds rose skyward, color-gashed by explosion flares. Rhodan and Khrest had to close their eyes repeatedly in spite of their glare shields, half-blinded by the ravening brilliance in spite of the intervening distance.
Each mushroom cloud indicated the disintegration of a fighting machine in that glowing oven of unharnessed atomic hells. The robots stood facing each other in close-packed confrontation, right up to the water's edge. The mass of machines spread all the way to the cliffs, all of them unleashing their terrible forces against each other. Soulless mechanisms, empty of human emotions, programmed to kill the enemy.
Energy shields popped like bubbles; energy beams of all-consuming power converted Arkon steel into gas. The metal legs of the robots stirred up a mist of dust that became glowing fumes and where the ray beams hit the water it evaporated into clouds of steam.
After awhile, Khrest and Rhodan were unable to distinguish between Titan robots and enemy machines. The battlefront was constantly changing. Now there seemed to be a breakthrough somewhere in the center. Rhodan and Khrest held their breaths. Which side was victorious? Suddenly, eight mushroom clouds spewed simultaneously into the sky and eight dazzling tongues of flames flared out of them and beyond. Beneath them the ground seemed to waver, converted to gas-like masses of fog. Seconds seemed to drag by once more, into eternity. Hell danced its Danse Macabre down there and it seemed to have devoured one living being: Pucky.
Khrest ventur
ed to ask about him but Rhodan kept silent. He wasn't able to detect any, telltale effect of Pucky's presence in the fray. The fighting machines down there were just so many weirdly moving dark spots, either starkly silhouetted by flaring riptides of destruction or engulfed in gases, smoke and thunderclouds. The explosion shockwaves echoed stronger and nearer to the observers' location on the mountain. The total sound effect became like a sustained roaring of mighty oceans in storm. But they could clearly see that the front moved steadily toward the cylindrical spacer.
"Perry! That must be Pucky!" yelled Khrest indecorously. "There on the right side of the big mushroom cloud! Do you make out those two robots that are airborne, coming at us like jets?"
He heard Rhodan's sudden chuckle of relief. He, too, had discovered the two flying automatons which were soaring directly toward their position. In fact they approached with an uncanny speed. All this could only be the work of the mouse-beaver, who was somewhere near the battle lines, grinning with his single incisor tooth and enjoying his promised 'play time'.
"Watch out!" Khrest warned but there was no danger.
The airborne robots landed 30 feet away from them. It could be seen at once that they'd been reduced to worthless junk. Their positronics had been destroyed. Rhodan and Khrest ran over to them and blended their voices in a simultaneous exclamation: "These are not Springer robots!"
Which brought them back to the question: who had built them?
The Arkonide remarked, "I wish I could answer that. I've never seen this particular make of robot nor have I ever heard of such a design."
"On the other hand, they reveal typical Arkonide qualities," said Rhodan. His eyes were also on the battle below and he was noting its progress. He radioed to Lt. Tifflor in the Gazelle.
The latter reported back but Rhodan cut him short with a command: "Tiff, launch an attack on the cylinder ship and make it a good one!"
From the radio-com's micro-speaker Tiff's voice returned like a distant trumpet: "Sir that's the only kind I deliver!"
