Enterprise Stardust

by Karl H Scheer

  They still wore their spacesuits but had pushed their helmets back onto their shoulders. The pressurized dome of the vehicle was just as safe as the control center on board the Stardust. The hull of special artificial alloys could be damaged only by brute force.

  With eyes shaded, Reginald Bell looked ahead. He did not like the looks of the high mountain summits. Again he studied their special maps.

  “The Leibnitz Mountains, no doubt,” he said under his breath. “Stop a moment, will you?”

  Rhodan drew the lever back to zero. The high whine of both E-motors in the front wheels faded into quiet as beneath the heavy radiation shield, the reactor lowered the rate of nuclear fission to a minimum.

  Rhodan wiped the sweat from his brow. Without a word he began to polish the dark lenses of his sunglasses. The ultraviolet radiation had become very unpleasant.

  Meanwhile, he was looking across to the mountains. The tip of his tongue moved across his lips, which were broken and chapped.

  “Roughly five more miles, not any farther. You can be very much mistaken here when you guess at distances. Before us lies the Husemann Crater, which is not visible from Earth. Another ten miles or so should bring us to the other side of the pole, but not if we follow this course. We must turn to the left and move eastward. Otherwise, we’ll come into the Leibnitz mountain range, and that would be distinctly unpleasant.”

  Reg’s dirty index finger pointed to the map. Beneath his day old beard, his broad face looked haggard and puffy. The drive had become torture. Rhodan had been racing like a wildman. If they had played on a straight path, they would have reached the polar region long ago; but again and again they had had to circumnavigate countless obstacles. On the map their recorded route looked like the scrawl of an imbecile.

  Rhodan cleared his throat. Without a word he passed the water bottle to Reg.

  “Okay, we’ll turn here. Leibnitz will be a problem. I don’t want to get into those ravines. We’re approaching the eastern ridge now. The main mountain range stretches farther to the west. We’ll get through all right.”

  Reg drank several huge swallows. As Rhodan began to cover the hull of the tank with additional highly reflective screens, a burdensome silence was evident in the cabin. The sun was too much for them. Soon it would become a problem even to dissipate the heat.

  Finally Reg said soberly, “Something’s bound to happen. My neck is itching. Something is bound to happen. Here, take a look at that.”

  He again tapped on the map with his forefinger. The new course passed through the circle that Fletcher the mathematician had drawn earlier.

  “Yes, I know,” said Rhodan broadly. A masklike grin hovered about his face.

  Agape, Reg stared at him. His lips were dry and cracked in many places. “We ought to drive in a huge detour around … that certain place … and first make certain that our broadcast to Earth arrives without fail, Then we can see our way further. How about it?”

  For a few moments Rhodan gazed out into the void. When he finally turned to face the other man, Reginald Bell saw a face heavily engraved with lines. Rhodan’s eyes sparkled like molten steel.

  “Problems are made to be solved. Whether we want to or not, we must attack this affair. It would be of little help to us to delay the outcome with lame excuses. I prefer a quick operation, so we’ll take the shortest path. Very much will still depend on which party is faster. The other side must also be suffering from the conditions of space, perhaps even more than we are.”

  “We sure are some heroes!” said a disgruntled Reg. “Okay. From now on I’ll take care of the infrared prober. But with the faintest signal, you’ll have to drive like the devil himself.”

  As if unconsciously, his hand felt his weapon. Now they were wearing heavy, fully automatic weapons that worked on the same principle as the larger machine guns.

  Rhodan thrust forward a lever, and the tank started with whining E-motors. After they had driven around the crater wall, they reached a wide even stretch full of small rocks. Dust was whirled up behind the racing chains. Oddly motionless, individual particles of dust remained floating above the ground until at last they began to descend so slowly that it seemed it would take forever. Nothing could have more clearly illustrated the absence of wind and the reduced gravity.

  When another six hours had passed, the sun became fully visible. Now they proceeded very quickly. After they had passed the critical point without any particular incident, they drove over the borderline into the direct line of sight. In a moment the great crescent of the Earth loomed up large. It was almost full and easily recognizable. Radio communication was certainly possible, although Earth was still quite low above the northern horizon.

  Rhodan cast a brief glance to his right. They had become very sparing with words during these last few hours.

  Reg grinned, all the while whistling shrilly and quite off-key. Rhodan forced the vehicle up a steep incline. The chains dug into the ground, and the labouring roar of the motors rose louder. Arriving at the top, they stood on a small rocky plateau. At their right, a dark ridge wall towered high into the void. But far ahead of them hung the illuminated orb of Earth. They had made it. They said little at this point. Lines of exhaustion were deeply embedded in their faces. The necessary manipulations followed quickly, perhaps a bit too hastily. Both had the vague notion that it was high time for action.

  Rhodan brought out the parabolic direction finder, and Reg connected the reactor, full strength, to the transmitter. Rhodan adjusted the antenna, and Earth was soon suspended in the crosshairs of their sights. Hesitating, with a clumsy movement, Rhodan turned the seat around. In front of him the needles of the control dials were jerking. The instruments were in perfect working order. He moved the microphone closer to his mouth. With some ceremony, he tuned in the automatic frequency selector.

  “Ready?” Reg asked roughly. He stood hunched over in the cabin, the heavy RAK automatic ready in his hand.

  Rhodan nodded. The normal static blanket of space was audible on the loudspeakers of the receiver. In no way could this be compared to the hellish crackling and whistling of the controlled interference that had caused them to crash.

  As a tired smile played about Rhodan’s lips, he switched over to BROADCAST and spoke with muted voice into the microphone.

  “Major Perry Rhodan, commanding officer of the Stardust expedition, calling ground control, Nevada Fields. Please reply. Major Perry Rhodan, commanding officer of the Stardust expe—”

  It came as suddenly as lightning out of a clear sky. A sudden shimmering reinforced itself into a stark green glow that limned their upturned faces in the ghastly hue.

  Directly above them, the antenna began to glow with a greenish fluorescent fire of such intensity that Rhodan buried his agonized eyes in his hands with a moan.

  It happened with astounding swiftness and, moreover, in complete silence. Above the squat lunar full track tank hung a broad hemisphere of pulsing flame. In comparison, the sun faded into a dimly lit body. Their surroundings became indistinct.

  Before Reg could utter his horrified cry of warning, a crackling sound began to emanate from the radio. A bright spark of electricity bolted out of the plastic wall covering and acrid acid vapours rose from the box. Small flames played about the smoking insulation.

  Rhodan’s kick came just in time, interrupting the connection to the reactor conduit. Reg hardly realized that Rhodan’s hand was smashing against his helmet. Only when he was able to fill his wheezing lungs with a welcome breath of oxygen did he realize he had been screaming.

  Perry Rhodan sat motionless in his seat. The incident seemed to have passed over him without effect. The enigmatic glow had vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared. Nothing further was to be seen, not the slightest flicker.

  Only the completely molten antenna and the smouldering radio were witness to an event that lay beyond ready comprehension. Reg moved awkwardly about in the cabin.Wildly he searched for a tangible opponent, his weapon drawn
and threatening; but nowhere was such a form to be found.

  The sharp hissing of the dry foam fire extinguisher made him turn again abruptly. Rhodan sprayed the gutted radio with a face bespeaking such indifference that Captain Bell began to swear. He swore intently and quite loudly, though his lips were hardly moving in his puffed up, deathly pale face.

  The fire was out. The air conditioning drew out the noxious vapours as fresh oxygen streamed into the cabin. The affair had cost them a few more gallons of precious breathing air.

  Rhodan removed his helmet. Slowly, entirely devoid of expression, he gazed upward. Then his voice sounded. It vibrated rather like a resonant mandolin string. “Finished. Finished completely. That’s what they were waiting for.”

  “Good Lord, what was that?” whispered Reg. He sank back into his seat, fully exhausted. “What was it?”

  “A particularly funny way of interfering with our broadcast, but don’t ask me how they’ve done it. I’m innocent; I have no idea; I don’t have the faintest notion of an idea. I only know that the glow appeared all of a sudden just as our transmitter first began to operate. That means they were lying in wait for us with a fully automatic direction finder. The mechanism switched on at once. And that’s all I know.”

  Reg slowly swallowed a capsule of concentrate. His eyes had grown narrow. The capable engineer in him, that part of his brain wherein was stored a wealth of expertise in electronics, awakened.

  “Otherwise, you’re feeling all right, aren’t you?” he inquired. “I’ve always thought of you as a clear headed, exemplary pupil of the Space Academy.

  “And you don’t any longer?” asked Rhodan, with a line of bitterness showing around his lips.

  “Not at the moment. You were just now talking like Superman in the funnies. What do you mean by ‘fully automatic direction finder’? Do you realize what you’ve said? Man, we were working with a sharply defined directional beam. The antenna was pointed toward empty space. How could they locate such impulses so quickly? Perhaps you have an explanation for that greenish glow? Can you imagine what great energies they were working with?”

  “You’d better not ask, or I’ll have to give you an answer that sounds absolutely crazy.”

  “We were lying under a bell-shaped dome,” Reg insisted obstinately. “I saw it clearly. A ray of green light darted out of it toward the bottom, and that was the end of our antenna. Perry, I tell you, nothing like that exists. Otherwise, I could understand everything, really everything. I might even have accepted the idea of controlled bolts of lightning; but here my brain stops working.”

  Rhodan did not move from his rigid posture. His eyes alone stirred, and violently.

  “Well, then, we were dreaming, were we? In your place I would have said simply that my reason had reached its limit. Someone heard my broadcast at once, and someone just as swiftly went into action. How he did that is of only secondary interest to me, since I can make neither heads nor tails of this, even with my technical background. Much more important, it seems to me, is that this ‘someone’ intends to make us prisoners on the moon. I’ll bet my head that the Stardust couldn’t take off even one mile into space. Don’t ask; I just feel it. No, I know it. What remains to he done now?”

  Reginald Bell changed colour even more. Now completely pale, he looked hard at his commanding officer, whose bright eyes had darkened considerably. “You’re the most cold blooded guy I’ve ever seen,” be gulped. “You have nothing else to say?”

  “Insoluble problems range too far outside the boundaries of our consideration. We should not waste our breath on them.”

  Reg cleared his throat. Colour seemed to return to his cheeks. “Okay. Let’s hide our head in the sand,” he laughed bitterly. His glance searched the landscape. It seemed unchanged, desolate and lonely. “Still, I don’t understand anything any more. If it didn’t seem crazy to me I would talk about a force field. But how could it be constructed practically out of the blue? No poles, nothing at all. Who wants to get rid of us here?”

  “Perhaps the rocket from the Asiatic Federation landed a few hours before us. They might have new inventions on board. How about that greenish glow?” Rhodan observed his friend’s reaction closely.

  Reg grinned. His heavy hands were dangling across his knees like unwanted appendages.

  “Let’s drop this pointless discussion,” conceded Reg. “You don’t believe that yourself, old man. I’ve now arrived at a point where, in the final analysis, nothing matters to me any more. I’ll swallow a rusty nail if the Chinese have invented something of the sort. That was an overpowering display. What are you planning now?”

  Rhodan smiled with uncommon geniality. Such a broad grin meant, for Reg, alert procedure number one. He knew the tall man with the lean face.

  “Let’s drive there and have a look and, if possible, pull the trigger a tenth of a second faster than our opponents. I can no longer see any other possibility. If we remain where we are, we’ll suffocate in a matter of weeks, and if we try to leave, we’ll surely be shot down.”

  “Negotiate?” asked Reg doubtfully.

  “Oh? With pleasure, even. I only wonder if we can negotiate with these people. Events seem to indicate the contrary. Why wouldn’t they let us begin transmission? Who would be threatened by it? Everybody on Earth must know by now that the Stardust has landed on the moon. It seems senseless to interrupt our communications so drastically. What’s at the bottom of all this? This affair seems like the game of a madman. It seems simply irrational. Even if they tried to kill us, I could still see some sense or purpose to it; but they don’t seem to have considered that at all. Why haven’t they?”

  Again Reg began to whistle shrilly. “Well, after all, they are killing us slowly,” he pointed out. “And very slowly indeed. Once our oxygen has been used up…”

  He fell silent, but his brow showed evidence of concern. Briefly he added, “All right, Commander. I’ll chart our new course on the map. Let’s make short work of it. In eight hours we can be there,”

  “First, let’s get some sleep, for exactly eight hours. Then we’ll shave neatly and make ourselves presentable. I don’t want to give the impression that we’re savages.”

  Reg stared through the transparent dome of the tank, quite speechless. Finally he was able to collect his wits. “Shave?” he groaned. “Did you say shave?”

  “Unlike ourselves, the Asiatics will have no such heavy growth of beard,” declared Rhodan with a strange smile. “They might not appreciate it.”

  Reginald Bell suddenly felt a chill. What did his commanding officer have in mind?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Less than twenty miles from the pole, toward the dark side of the moon, the infrared sensors had come to life. A body radiating heat in excess of the norm was in the vicinity. The source lay exactly within that limited area which Captain Fletcher had estimated as the probable location of the interfering transmitter.

  They had left the tank and continued on foot along the edge of the huge crater, a mighty edifice never visible from Earth. The ring of mountains rose to a height of more than 1,800 feet. Then, after about half an hour’s climb, they had passed the last obstacle. They were still at the foot of the crater wall but now somewhat farther north.

  The portable direction finder had given more and more indication that they were nearing their goal. They were shortly to find the other rocket.

  Then Reginald Bell’s collapse had come.

  He was crouching and then kneeling on the ground, his hands thrust out before him. His incoherent babbling was picked up by the microphone and broadcast from his helmet transmitter.

  Perry Rhodan did not utter a sound. Instinctively he had taken cover but now he was struggling for his self-control with all his might. The sight alone had delivered the coup de grace to the frayed nerves of these men.

  “No, no … not that! Not that!” Reg began to moan over the speaker. The same words followed in singsong rhythm, again and again.

  Rhodan s
at up with a jolt. His fists, once clenched relaxed. More roughly than necessary, he pulled his friend behind the cover of a big rock. Reg rallied from his state of shock. Trembling, he riveted his eyes on Rhodan. The helmet visor clouded over from his heavily perspiring face. Rhodan switched on the small ventilator within the helmet. Reg sorely needed it.

  “Calm yourself. Don’t lose your nerve. Take it easy for heaven’s sake. Don’t talk. If they turn that green glow on our antenna, all will be lost. Get a grip on yourself.”

  Rhodan took refuge in the utterance of stereotyped phrases. They might have sounded monotonous in their constant repetition, but for this very reason, merely through the lulling effect of the words, they became effective. Rhodan had thought himself mentally prepared for it, but the sudden confrontation with the truth had bowled him over. They were no longer alone. They had never been alone.

  This realization upset him and dealt a telling blow to his equilibrium. He felt as if he were facing a tremendously tall, unscalable wall. Reg’s sobbing helped him to get his feelings under control again.

  Perry Rhodan needed a few more minutes. Then again his face assumed a firm expression. The wild pumping of his heart decreased. His glassy eyes regained their sober glow. Only his hard grip around Reg’s upper arm remained steadfastly the same.

  He decided his friend would need longer to regain his grip. This was probably the greatest shock Captain Reginald Bell had ever suffered.

  Cautiously Rhodan raised his helmet above the rocky outcrop. His gaze devoured the titanic structure that lay before him. His last doubts had disappeared. No, this was no longer a dream. Before him lay the vast and tangible reality.

  He was silent until Reg began to speak once again. Rhodan no longer intended to forbid radio communications. It was almost a certainty that it would have been quite senseless.

  “You knew that all along, didn’t you? You’ve known it for hours already!” Reg’s hoarse whispering came over the loudspeaker. “That’s why you wanted me to shave. What gave you the idea, Perry?”