by Perry Rhodan
Tiff heard him and transmitted the description onward. Marshall received it and reported, in turn, to Deringhouse.
"Ataka!" said Pucky.
Deringhouse nodded. "Maybe you're right, Pucky. The Japanese 'earman' can pick up sound waves that no normal human ears can discern. Also ultra-sound. If these fishmen aren't telepaths, and it doesn't seem to be the case, maybe they do communicate by means of vibrations or sounds in the ultra-range. Ataka can detect them. Besides, his perceptive faculties are combined with a sort of unconscious telepathy, so that it's probable that he might be able to understand the alien sounds. Pucky, bring Ataka here."
The mouse-beaver straightened up. "This is a pretty narrow pad, isn't it, Major?"
"You won't be here very long. We will break out and free McClears. The masquerade is over. We don't have to impose on our lizard friends any longer."
"Thanks to the eternal gods!" squealed Pucky.
"Why is that? What's on your mind?" inquired Deringhouse apprehensively.
The mouse-beaver reveled for a moment in memory of his telekinetic feats of the past. "Well, I've tossed around a few robots and saurians in my time," he said, "but a crocodile—that's kind of new to my trade!"
A second later, he disappeared.
"It's true that the Topides are going to be surprised to find us suddenly carrying weapons but we shouldn't underestimate them. If it's necessary, they can die without the flicker of an eyelash. There's only one point where they're sensitive:
they're superstitious."
"Then Pucky is certainly in the right place, Major."
"You can say that again," Deringhouse agreed. "The rascal is only too well aware of it. You know, after all, according to the book, I should have locked him in the brig."
"There's no prison cell that can hold him," said Marshall, repeating a well-known fact. "In many respects, Pucky is a true prodigy."
The air flickered about them and then the mouse-beaver and Ataka formed before their eyes. The Japanese made himself as thin as possible but they could hardly move be cause of the narrow restrictions of their quarters and the ventilation also left something to be desired.
"It's as bad as a phone booth!" carped Pucky disdainfully.
"Not for long," said Deringhouse emphatically. "Can you open the lock on the door?"
The mouse-beaver hopped over to the metal door panel and examined the inserted bolt mechanism, which it was not possible to manipulate directly—at least not manually. But the mouse-beaver had an invisible set of fingers at his disposal, in the form of telekinetic currents of force.
The invisible tendrils of energy emanating from his small but incredibly capable brain penetrated behind the smooth metal and explored the intricacies of the mechanism. Then, with a soft click, the bolt sprang open. Deringhouse stepped forward and pushed the door outward.
"Well done, Pucky!" he complimented him and drew his raygun. "And now to stir up a little panic among the lizards! Anyway, they'll have their hands full activating their defenses against the imminent attack of the Springers. I grant them that they won't have very long to wait."
"But at least long enough until we're back to safety and can join the action," Marshall warned, guarding against over-optimism. "Pucky, are you picking it up?
There are Topides nearby."
"Yes, there's a whole crowd of them—up there behind that door."
They stood in a long, slightly curving passageway that obviously led along the outer rim of a dome-shaped structure. A row of doors led away into the distance. On the other side of the passage were windows. Beyond lay a primeval, tropical landscape with mountains and forests. On the horizon shimmered the broad surface of the ocean. The sinking sun was close to the dividing line between water and sky.
Deringhouse stopped near the door that Pucky had indicated. "Here?" he asked, wishing to be sure.
Marshall and Pucky nodded in rare agreement. Deringhouse lifted his weapon, stepped slightly to one side and activated the firing button. The fine beam of pure energy struck the frame of the door, melted the metal and moved downward in a welding action. Immediately the swiftly moving mass created a thick welding seam. It would certainly take hours for anyone to open the door. It was only to be hoped that in the room behind it there was not an exit.
"They're sitting neatly in the trap," praised Ataka with shining eyes.
"I'd rather have put them through a couple of flying loops," put in Pucky. "Flying reptiles would make quite a circus!"
"Wait your turn," advised Deringhouse and led the way.
The others followed. Pucky brought up the rear, because when he was not
teleporting, his short legs always upset his calculations, as far as locomotion was concerned. In order to suppress his vexation, he whistled loudly and shrilly to himself as though not a Topide existed.
The passage ended at a door which was standing ajar. Behind it was no chamber at all but freedom. However, what kind of freedom was it? Under these circumstances, was there anything that could be done with it? They were still in the camp of the reptiles.
Deringhouse took a firm grip on his weapon and pushed the door open. Inasmuch as he did it rather violently, the Topide sentry outside was almost catapulted belly first onto the ground but he caught himself and turned around with a grunting sound. In his eyes was the equivalent of a reproach.
The reproachfulness transformed itself into alarm as he saw Deringhouse, Marshall and Ataka. Then shock became amazement when he saw Pucky. Pucky took offense at the other's amazement, which only Marshall was able to grasp, because he was also a telepath and was able to comprehend the first mental reaction of the guard, the same as Pucky.
"What—?" sizzled the mouse-beaver in his rage and he almost choked. "You call me—vermin? Then you're a kite...!"
And the Topide flew like a kite.
Telekinetic force currents lifted him from the ground and sent him vertically upward into the air. He let out several shrill cries of alarm that no one heard. Pucky's flare of anger soon burned itself out and he lowered the unfortunate Topide, who had lost his weapons as a result of his involuntary jump. Thus divested of everything but fear, he was deposited on the flat roof of the dome-shaped building. There the reptile hunched close to the edge of the roof and stared down, uncomprehendingly, at the 3 men in whose midst was a small, furry creature that seemed very similar to the giant rats in the canals back home.
"Vermin—of all things!" snorted Pucky again and strutted right out into the open as if he had never heard of the word "danger".
In a shed at one side of the main structure, Deringhouse recognized a couple of the ground vehicles, whose operation he had providentially observed, so it would not be difficult to put such a vehicle to use in making their escape. Of course, Pucky could have transported them one at a time to the Centurion but then possibly this would give the Topides a little too much to think about. Everything had to look so normal that no one would get suspicious.
"Over there—the ground cars!" Deringhouse called after Pucky. "Let's take one of them! But first, let's take care of some general confusion."
The rest was not too difficult, because the leaders of the Topides were locked in and appeared for the moment to have no other immediate worry than to break out of the welded door. Marshall threw two of the small bombs into the building and raced after Deringhouse and Ataka, who were busy getting to the cars.
With a flaming detonation, the dome-shaped building shattered into many pieces which, having become molten, simply melted down. Out of a nearby entrance a few of the unwounded Topides came storming and began to shoot wildly about with their hand weapons. That was a welcome signal for Pucky to give them his best attention.
While the 3 men were attempting to get one of the larger ground vehicles into operation, the mouse-beaver started to 'play', as be called it when he had the opportunity to apply his telekinetic gifts at will.
The reptiles did not know what was happening to them. They suddenly lost their f
ooting and began to float in the air. No one suspected the little furry animal to be the cause of this miracle, except Al-Khor who was making a few connections in his mind. The leader of the Base Command sailed weightlessly along above the tops of several trees without any visible means of propulsion, while be recognized in the mouse-beaver the curious apparition that had popped up in the ground car for several seconds earlier that morning.
What was happening was not natural! But Al-Khor did not know personal fear. This wonder creature was made of flesh and blood and therefore had to be vulnerable. He still possessed a raygun. In spite of this more than ridiculous situation, he aimed at the tiny creature in the middle of the rubble-strewn forecourt and pressed the trigger button.
The result was something other than what Al-Khor had expected.
Since he was the same as weightless, the recoil of the energy beam accelerated him sharply into the sky. Noting the astounding action of the Topide, Pucky gave impetus to Al-Khor's flight. After putting him through a few somersaults, he finally set him, down on the top of a tree that was over 150 feet high and whose lowest branches came only within 60 feet of the ground. The Topide would have to figure how he was going to get down.
To their horror, the other reptiles collided in the middle of the air and made a hopeless tangle. No one dared to shoot for fear of endangering the other.
In the meantime, Deringhouse rolled the ground vehicle out of the shed. A further hand grenade got rid of the remaining ground cars in one blinding flash of destruction. The Topides would have to walk. That was precisely what they despised doing the most.
"Let them down!" shouted Marshall and motioned to Pucky, who crouched happily in the sparse grass and formed the reptiles into a circle a hundred feet above the ruins of the dome. "They've had enough!"
"But I haven't yet!" shrieked Pucky, letting the Topides fall 30 feet before bringing them to an abrupt halt in midair.
"So I notice!" Marshall scolded and gave Deringhouse several instructions. The ground vehicle rolled alongside Pucky and stopped. "I'll have to do something about that!" He leaned down from a side door and gripped Pucky by the nape of the neck. He lifted the mouse-beaver up and, with a firm grip, brought him into the dome-shaped cabin. "And now do what I told you to!"
For a brief moment Pucky wavered, then grunted angrily and looked up at the terrified Topides, who waited motionlessly, and for the most part without weapons, to see what the uncanny power would do with them now. Then he sighed resignedly and gave his brain a corresponding command.
The Topides went into a squadron-like flight formation and then hurtled away with a reckless acceleration to disappear on the other side of the treetops. Pucky gazed for a few more seconds after them, then sighed once more and turned to
Marshall. "So?"
"What's the matter with you? You aren't supposed to let them fall!"
"They haven't fallen, Master. They're sitting somewhere in the trees and building nests for their young ones, in case they don't prefer to climb down. But of course that's also possible." The mouse-beaver's bad mood was obvious. "So what do you want me to do now?"
Marshall took a deep breath. The worst was over. "We rescue McClears. He's in a worse situation than we are. He only has Tiff with him."
Pucky listened within his mind. "The distance is exactly 22.6 miles southeast. Should I make a jump over there?"
"Not yet. And when you do, you have to take Ataka with you; he's going to try to make contact with the Akvons."
"Akvons?"
"Yes, that's what we call the fishmen. Deringhouse bad the idea. In the coming fight, I don't want any innocent forms of life to suffer. Nobody wants that."
"What's happening to the Centurion?"
Deringhouse had steered the ground vehicle onto a narrow road that led in the direction of the coast. He adjusted his small armband transmitter, which the Topides had not taken from him because there had been no time to do so.
"Capt. Lamanche will have to show us what he can do," said the major. "We will drive to the coast and start an action to rescue McClears while the Centurion deactivates that tractor beam and also comes to the coast. We'll join each other then. In any case, I want to avoid anything that will make us look supernatural to the Topides. They know only too well that the Springers fight with traditional weapons and equipment. We must not arouse unusual suspicion—and that goes especially for you, Pucky!"
"Am I a supernatural being?" asked the mouse-beaver anxiously.
Deringhouse didn't go into that one. He established communication with Lamanche. "Captain, my instructions are for you to give a brief warning and then bring your guns into play and destroy the metal domes that are now surrounding the Centurion. It's my thought that they are probably the generators for the traction beam. And then clear out. Track us if we are on the coast. I'll then give you further instructions."
"Roger!" came Lamanche's voice, cool and impersonal as ever. "Anyhow, it's a miserable thing to sit around without any action like a mother hen on her eggs. The mutants are burning up, wanting to show those lizards a thing or two."
"The mutants, above all, will remain in the background. The Topides know that Rhodan has a Mutant Corps but the Topides must believe that they are dealing with normal Springers. Is that clear?"
"Roger again, sir," returned Lamanche, somewhat offended. "We will meet on the coast."
Deringhouse stared for a few seconds at the suddenly silent receiver. Then he grinned briefly and put the vehicle in motion.
The route he followed could hardly be called a road but at least it indicated a direction. The dome-shaped vehicle was well equipped with shock-absorbers and springs but the abnormal shape of the seats, which were not built for human anatomy, forced a cramped position during the trip.
The terrain sloped downward and after a half-hour the coast came into sight. To the right and the left there was hardly an opening in the primitive forest, in whose undergrowth no hand, either human or inhuman, had yet penetrated. The road curved slightly to the left and headed toward a point which could not be far from the place from which one could reach the metal island, a mile or so across the water, where McClears and Tiff were held prisoners. But the road reached the seacoast even sooner. Here the primeval forest could not find sufficient nourishment in the sandy soil, so that a broader, more wide-open strip was created. The road led along this directly toward the cast.
Deringhouse drove the car under the protective branches of a giant tree and cut off the engine. The humming ceased and for a moment the 3 men heard nothing other than the roar of the surf and the movement of the wind in the leaves of the trees. The primitive landscape stretched calmly and peacefully before them. The sea stretched away into endless distance—it would be necessary to circumnavigate the globe to reach land again. The billows rolled toward the coast and broke far off shore to then come hurtling toward the sandy beach in a foaming flood. Then leisurely the water washed back into its own element.
"Here I'd like to put up some tents," murmured Ataka dreamily, "like on an uninhabited south sea island..."
"Appearances are deceiving," retorted Deringhouse and he pointed at an angle into the sky. They followed his gaze. A small, glistening aircraft object raced across the crystal clear dome of the sky and moments later was lost to view. "That's a patrol flight. They probably don't know yet what has happened. If we're lucky, the communications equipment at their base has been destroyed."
Marshall turned to the Japanese. "Do you think you could make contact with the Akvon's from this point? Otherwise you'd have to be teleported with Pucky into McClears' prison. It would be better if the action to set them free were started from here, in order not to raise any suspicions. The Topides have to believe that we are Springers, without any supernatural faculties."
Ataka nodded and came forward out of the shadows of the trees. "If Tiff described it correctly, they communicate by means of sound waves. I'll try to pick up a contact—in the water. So—what I'm going to do is take
a bath!" He dropped his uniform jacket onto the beach, got rid of his trousers and sauntered to the roaring surf like a soldier on furlough.
Pucky watched him enviously. "He has all the luck!" he chirped. "I wouldn't mind a cool bath right now myself."
"Maybe you'll get to bathe much sooner than you'd like to!" said Deringhouse. "Or above all—more than you'd like to!"
"He can't hear you with the noise of the surf," replied the mouse-beaver evasively. He watched as Ataka leapt over the first combers. But he had to work his way out almost 50 yards before the water reached to his chest. The waves lifted him now with an even cadence and he waved happily back toward the shore.
"Where does he think he is, on leave or something?" cried Pucky jealously.
Suddenly, Ataka disappeared.
In one moment his head was clearly visible and in the next moment it was gone. He remained out of sight for almost a minute before his laughing face bobbed up again. He waved both of his arms excitedly.
"He can hear the Akvons." Marshall passed along the message of the Japanese. "But he understands nothing. He may be receiving an overwhelming confusion of information. At any rate, we know now that they have a means of communication."
"Just barely!" was Deringhouse's evaluation. "What now?"
"Maybe the Akvons are telepaths," said Pucky hopefully.
"Not very probable," put in Marshall, "but we'll soon find out."
Ataka signaled again. Now he dove under once more. When he reappeared, Marshall became excited.
He's reporting stronger impulses. He has been detected. And now..."
They saw it themselves.
Out there, 200 yards from the beach, the surface of the water was cut by 4 or 5 V-shaped ripples, which converged upon Ataka, who had become motionless. The waves reached to his neck but sometimes only came to his navel.
The 5 silvery trails circled him and then their foamy wakes subsided. A sleek, seal-like body emerged from the water in front of Ataka and began to gesticulate with its very movable arms. Its oval mouth was clearly discernible.
