by Perry Rhodan
"Maj. Nyssen, when will the installation of the hyper-compensator be completed on board your vessel the Solar System?"
So it began. Freyt fired question after question at them. He demanded precise answers. The communication wires were almost hot. There were inquiries and check-backs to and from shipyards, laboratories, research plants, worldwide radiotelephone conference calls to the major end-item and staging plants. There was a half-hour period in which two-thirds of global radio and television communications were blocked or commandeered by Terrania.
This was the first and only sign the Earth had that something unusual was in the air. Terrania only exerted its prerogatives on a global jurisdiction level in the case of an extreme top emergency. All satellite stations were in alert condition One. The period of peace and quiet had ended at all defense bases on the planets and on the Moon.
Col. Freyt noted the light of enthusiasm growing in the eyes of his colleagues. But he did not subscribe to this brand of heroism, since he was in possession of a few more of the facts involved. A film from Arkon interrupted the communications network for 10 minutes. A bewildered and uncomprehending audience was bombarded 10 minutes long with Arkon Power ; they were smothered with it, almost to the point of destruction. The film hammered its message home mercilessly to each man.
After this demonstration, Col. Freyt then brought their focus into reality: "Under the most favorable circumstances, we and the Earth have a chance of about one in a million. Gentlemen, our prospects for success or survival have always been as good or as bad as that until the present moment. If the Aras should succeed in tying the Galactic Traders in with their goals, whereby the Springers and the Mounders launch an attack against the Earth—and after all, why shouldn't the Aras succeed?—then in a very short time there will not be an Earth any more, but rather, this solar system will possess two suns instead of one!
"Don't toy with the idea of using Arkon's strength. The Chief sees in that the one greater danger for the Earth. Because if the great positronicon once learns our location, then nothing will save us from Arkon slavery and servitude under the will of a Machine! If we are not able to help ourselves, we are lost.
"Until tomorrow at the same time, I will await your recommendations pertaining to the situation...!"
• • •
Pip! The telltale sound of a pulse-coded message was heard over the Titan's hyperspace receiver.
"Chief!" blurted out Cadet Mengs, who was on duty in the Com Central. "Talamon's fleet has gone to its transit station!"
Perry Rhodan ignored the appellation of 'Chief'. He knew that everyone referred to him as such unofficially; nevertheless it was not customary to issue a dispatch to him in this form of address.
He turned his head. Bell sat in the co-pilot's seat. "Hyper-compensator, Bell?"
"Operating!"
Each event now committed the next in an inexorable chain. The Titan was ready for a hyperspace transition. All preparations were completed. Time Zero arrived. Now the mighty positronicon took over all controls. All chance of human error was eliminated.
Then the Titan disappeared into hyperspace. The tremendous warpage of the universal fabric, which was detectable in the entire Galaxy with every departure of a vessel from the normal space-time-continuum, this time remained unsensed!
The last great scientific discovery of the Galactic Traders—Earth's and Perry Rhodan's bitterest enemies—was the hyper-compensator, one of which was located within the giant spherical hull of the Titan. The ingenious device was first uncovered on board the Ganymede, which had been built by the Springers as a battleship and was captured from them by Perry Rhodan. The discovery was made during a complete redesign of the vessel, in which the 4 tail fins and another 120 feet of fuselage were added. By means of an ultimate emergency effort, Earth's industry had been able to imitate the alien technology. But the hyper-compensator that Rhodan had at his disposal on board his spaceship was only a working prototype; it would take some time yet before the Earth would be able to go into mass production of the device.
At a mathematical null-point in time, the Titan emerged from hyperspace once more and now hovered in the mysterious silence and darkness of the universe, 8000 light-years removed from the Arkon Empire—far distant from any concentration of stars. Under protection of this boundless solitude, it was safe from discovery by any Springer ship.
Cadet Mengs had reported Talamon's fleet to be at its transit station. In short pulse-bursts, the executive communication of the green-skinned patriarch Talamon had come through on scramble code. With more than 200 battleships, he lay 4000 fathoms deep on the bottom of an ammoniac sea; above which boiled and seethed the poisonous atmosphere of a planetary giant whose diameter exceeded that of Jupiter eight times. It was numbered among those worlds within the Arkonide Empire which were avoided like a stellar plague.
Talamon remained for a period of 36 hours with his ships at the point of hyper-transit. Thus it had been arranged between him and Rhodan. Also it was tacitly understood that the slightest trace of any suspicion must be eradicated suggesting that Perry Rhodan was still present within range of Star Cluster M-13 or that Talamon the Mounder was working with Rhodan! Because the Titan's communication center had intercepted Topthor's calls, as well as the insistently repeated search signals from Mounder Headquarters, inquiring after Talamon. Among the signals and dispatches which had come through unnoticed, however, was the one that announced the time and place of the meeting of the patriarchs.
A reasonable explanation had been prepared for Talamon's having gone 'under cover', which advertised more or less that his absence gave promise of Talamon's being able, in a short time, to deliver up an enormous quantity of Arkon T-steel.
After some hours, while Perry Rhodan was making an inspection tour through the control stations of his ship, he came upon Cadet Mengs in the Com Central. The Cadet shoved over a stack of deciphered code dispatches and intercepted messages. Rhodan shuffled through them in an almost desultory fashion, until suddenly he reacted. He turned to Bell. "Well. my chubby friend, take a look at that, will you?"
There were 4 dispatches. Bell had no more than gotten to the second one than he started growling angrily. "Are these poison peddlers back messing around already?" After absorbing the fourth message, his eyes were blazing. "If I could lay my hands on this Ara character, Gegul...!" he threatened. "These Aras have got the devil beat! Nothing is sacred to these medics—ha, medics! Murderers is the word! Under the disguise of being healers and good Samaritans, they carry on their dirty business of blackmail and death! Perry, do you know where this planet, Exsar, is located?"
The Arkonide star catalog gave them the information. The ship's positronicon calculated the hypertransition coordinates. 4375 light-years was not a great distance for the Titan. Perry Rhodan and Reginald Bell knew that with this hypertransit jump they would be taking a great risk but they had to convince themselves that the terrible implications of the dispatches were true.
Once more undetected, the Titan emerged from hyperspace, taking up a position that was within 18 light-hours from the orbit of Exsar, the 6th of 9 planets encircling a small double sun. Lt. Tifflor was called up to see the Chief.
Perry Rhodan briefed him as to the nature of the mission. "Lt. Tifflor, we have to minimize our risk factor as much as possible. So we're going to put you and the Gazelle through the teletransmitter within 10 light minutes of Exsar. You will reach the planet on the night side. This happens to be one of the few actual Springer home worlds. Your landing must not be detected under any circumstances. I want you alone to leave the ship, wearing a spacesuit. The suit is important because on Exsar a plague is raging which is taking a daily toll of 200,000 people—that is, the Galactic Traders together with their wives and children. This planet was the only one that refused to send a patriarch delegate to the conference of Springers that's due to take place shortly. In return, the Aras have struck back. With their hellish germ technology, they have contaminated an entire planet
with a deadly plague. I have to know if this incredible situation is actually true. You, Tifflor, must bring me the confirmation that these hyper dispatches are not the babbling of an insane crackpot or a crank." He tapped the 4 message sheets he held in his hand. "The positronic will give you all necessary data. Don't forget that the Titan is under cover of its ECM mantle and counter-detection shielding. Is that all clear, Tifflor?"
"All clear, sir." Lt. Tifflor saluted. In the leading cadre of Perry Rhodan's New Power, he was the youngest and most promising officer. He was a young man to whom no one might have attributed the capability of reckless daring-do—at least at first glance. But in his way he was very much like his chief, Perry Rhodan.
• • •
After his landing on Aralon, Chief Inspector Gegul hurried at once to the Medical Council. He had already sent notice of his arrival ahead of him. As he entered the, great anteroom, which was tastefully decorated by a stylized, softly glowing Aras medical symbol, his secretary, Arga Tasla, awaited him.
Gegul nodded to her hastily. His movements expressed both urgency and triumph. He had returned from a personal mission and he wanted to extract the maximum enjoyment of his triumph before the full body of the Council of Physicians. So he did not stop when Arga Tasla came toward him. He practically regarded her approach as an annoyance.
"What is it?" he asked curtly.
"We have intercepted messages originating from the planet Exsar and they indicate—"
"Please!" Gegul interrupted her sharply. Now he was puffed up with self-importance and he motioned her peremptorily to one side. "For now, at least spare me the trivialities. I've just come from Exsar; I know what's going on there at the moment. Within 8 days there will only be a dead plague world called Exsar..."
"Chief Inspector!" she interjected almost imploringly. "We know all of that! But do you know that your operation there is under observation? For hours, hypertransitions have been hammering all over the Galaxy in every direction and every message mentions your name, insisting that the plague on Exsar is the work of the Aras of Aralon!"
Gegul's triumph-flushed countenance froze in sudden shock. His eyes widened in amazement as he stared at her. "Does the Council of Physicians have wind of these messages?" he almost stammered.
Before Arga Tasla could answer, the thunder of a spaceship liftoff boomed into the anteroom. Gegul was suddenly galvanized by the noise; he whirled around to the window and saw a ship hurtle skyward in the distance. It bore the ray insignia of Aralon and the markings of a hospital ship.
Filled with a vague foreboding, he asked her, "Where's it going?"
"To Exsar, Inspector. It's been loaded with 84000 tons of serum g/Z 45—our entire supply! 6300 doctors and medical techs are on board. During the last 10 minutes all Aralon transmitters have been broadcasting a denial that we have any connection with the plague on Exsar. As a proof of our good will we are contributing our entire stock of g/Z 45 completely free of charge. Also, about a half hour ago a formal inquiry came through from the robot brain on Arkon!"
Gegul knew what a pound of g/Z 45 cost; it was one of the most precious pharmaceuticals produced on Aralon. The '3-hour convulsion sickness' that he himself had brought to Exsar was the most highly contagious of all infections. The Council had shipped off 6300 medical men to Exsar—which meant 6300 candidates for death! Hardly 10% of them would have a chance of ever seeing Aralon again and after the landing on the plagued planet the hospital ship faced a 50-year quarantine!
"Ye Cosmic Gods!" stammered Gegul, close to collapse.
"Gegul!" called the security robot guarding the entrance of the chamber where the Council regularly met. Its voice was hard. "I request you for the last time to appear before the Council of Physicians!"
Gegul knew that he walked his last steps as. a free Ara. Death waited for him. He had failed! He had added to Aralon a greater catastrophe than Perry Rhodan!
• • •
In the receiver of his small hypersender, Tifflor heard the incessant broadcast of the same repeated data. Again and again he heard mention of Gegul's name, as well as Aras and Aralon, and somewhere in between he picked up something that sounded like '3-hour convulsion sickness'. The Galactic Traders and their families were dying like flies—by the hundreds of thousands!
No one had taken notice of the Gazelle. Those who looked upon the specter of Death were not very interested in company or who might be paying them a visit. Gliding just 1500 feet above Exsar, Lt. Tifflor flew in his Arkon spacesuit at a 70-mile an hour clip. Without interruption of signals, he was tracking the local hyper-transmission station and his speaker volume kept getting louder. Tiff did not need to worry about being discovered. The tiny deflector field around his suit made him invisible.
Now his antigrav field lifted him. Like a leaf drifting on the wind, he glided in a gentle curve above the mountain chain and down again toward its base, where he discovered the small settlement. Here the tiny transmitter was sending out an uninterrupted stream of alarms to the Arkon Empire.
No one challenged him as he entered the low, flat building which displayed on its roof the typical antenna array for hyper-transmission broadcasting. He kept his deflector shield operating. The Springer at the hypertransceiver must not recognize him as an alien, otherwise the presence of Rhodan in the proximity of Star Cluster M-13 would not be a secret any longer.
The door was open. Curiously, Tiff entered the house. For the first time he saw how Galactic Traders lived who did not spend their lives on spaceships. The unaccustomed dwelling culture surprised him. The house, located in a village-like settlement, radiated an atmosphere of cozy comfort, and for the first time Tifflor felt a twinge of sympathy for a Springer.
When he shoved open the door of the room where the hyper-transceiver was operating, he saw the Trader whirl around. For safety, Tiff kept his psycho-beam raygun trained on him. By means of the antigrav field he floated over to the transmitter, where he cut off the microphone. It was not necessary to broadcast their conversation to the whole Galaxy.
Then he made himself known as an Arkonide. As the Trader, a stubby-framed, fortyish man, gazed toward him uncomprehendingly, he repeated his statement in Intercosmo.
"An Arkonide?" came the counter-question. The man slowly lowered his right hand.
Tiff gave him a warning.
"Why do you hide behind the deflector shield?" asked the Springer suspiciously.
Then Tiff came to the point. He didn't give the other a chance to talk until he had spoken his piece. "So with your suspicions would you like to let every last Springer on Exsar become a victim of the plague? Don't you have enough dead people lying around in the streets by now? Tell me what you have been able to observe and I will do my best to provide that at least a few million people survive this sickness. So you see, my friend, it all depends on you!"
Two hours later Tiff found himself in the capital city of the continent. Here most signs of life had almost been extinguished. Over the metropolis hovered the breath of pestilence. Horrifying spectacles lay before him as he swept on over the houses. His goal was the main hypertransmission station.
It was still operating but the great building that housed it was filled with either the dead or the dying. There was no one who might have been helpful to Tifflor. One hour later he succeeded in connecting the alien tape player to the transmitter. It was a continuous tape. Endlessly the hyper-transmitter sent out its accusing broadcast. Accusations against Aralon and the Aras! And personal accusations against Chief Inspector Gegul of Aralon!
Julian Tifflor was convinced that the mammoth Brain on Arkon would have to had picked up this continuous hypertransmission. Just how precisely and logically that automatic positronicon operated, he well knew from his experience as an assistant to Perry Rhodan. On Aralon they would receive official inquiries from Arkon, which meant that the Aras of Aralon would have no other recourse than to do everything possible to bring the deadly '3-hour convulsion sickness' under control.
�
�� • •
Perry Rhodan was paged by his communications center. "Sir," inquired Communications Officer Jobson "may I tap you in on a tape broadcast we're picking up from a hyper-transmitter station on Exsar?"
"Channel it in here," Rhodan decided. Then he began to smile when he immediately recognized Tifflor's voice—but suddenly his face became rigid. Bell, who had lain on the couch staring at the ceiling, suddenly sprang up and growled through his teeth. "If I could get my hands on Gegul, he'd learn a thing or two! They pass themselves off for doctors when they are actually monsters! Perry, why haven't you turned this hell of a world of Aralon into a sun ball?"
"Because I am neither avenger nor judge, Bell. We do not have the right to sit in judgment and I am content not to bear such a responsibility!"
4/ "EARTH—AND RHODAN—MUST BE DESTROYED!"
The Gazelle was hardly inside its hangar again before the stupendous sphere of the Titan got under way. With the help of the hyper-compensator it left the planet Exsar's solar system quite undetected and also arrived out of hyperspace unnoticed in the proximity of the planet Honur in the middle of Star Cluster M-13.
From the Arkonide star catalog it was open knowledge that Honur was a 'forbidden world'. Aside from this single notice, however, there was no indication as to the reason for the restriction against landing there. Some time ago Perry Rhodan had not allowed the restriction to deter him from going there and the price tag for disobeying the official ban had been the near fatal illness of his entire crew. That the little funny bears of Honur, miniatures not much over a foot in length, secreted a nerve poison from their pelts and infected anyone who inadvertently touched them was in itself a catastrophic situation—but that these innocent creatures with their poisonous secretions represented a deliberate product of Aras' breeding laboratories was a criminal offense!
The Aras of Aralon had not atoned for their crime in a form that was commensurate with its gravity. In spite of being criminals they were also the top medical geniuses of the Galaxy and the Arkon Empire could not yet dispense with their help.
