Crimson Universe

by Perry Rhodan

  But wait! There were no fastener cleats! Nor were we standing on any circular platform base of a Terranian transmitter. The plastisteel soles of our boots contacted what appeared to be polished stone slabs. A dull, pressing pain spread through my brain. It seemed to flame up when my logic section awakened, then disappeared swiftly.

  Wrong coordinates! Alien environment! Not a Terra spaceship! Thus my auxiliary brain gave me its warning.

  This served to bring me fully out of my stupefaction. The sounds I was now mistaking for the thundering of force fields were being generated in my ears by the powerpack on my back. My helmet grav-meter revealed a compensating differential of 0.95 g. This meant that we were on a world or inside a spaceship where the full gravity had a value of 1.95 g.

  It brought me to instant alertness. Humans were not alone in the capacity for swift and almost involuntary reaction in such a situation. My thermal gun flashed into my hand faster than Fellmer Lloyd could reach for his own weapon.

  "What's going on?" he asked hastily. His voice sounded muffled inside his pressure helmet.

  Meanwhile, Rhodan had followed my example. He too appeared to have been jolted into sharp awareness.

  It was then that I had a chance to really look about me.

  We found ourselves in a very large chamber, dimly lighted, with a seamless, dome-like ceiling. Facing us beyond the platform cage was an arched gateway leading off somewhere. In that direction it was darker than the room we were in.

  The only installations we saw, other than the apparatus we were standing on, were strange, mammoth machines around the walls. We were in a grid-like construction that didn't have any recognizable closure hatch. We were standing on bare stone, which transmitted neither a sense of warmth nor a feeling of security.

  Far above our heads, close to the arched ceiling, a reddish glowing metal ball hovered weightlessly in the air. This was the source of the obnoxious illumination. The cage construction enclosed a circular surface that was about 10 yards in diameter but the bars were so wide apart that we could quite easily slip between them.

  It was typical of Perry Rhodan, in unexpected situations such as this, to make a diversionary observation. "This air is breathable!" he said, so loudly that I could hear him clearly. "Lloyd, tip your helmet back—this is what you've been waiting for!"

  I looked quickly at my automatic analyzer, which had never failed to function accurately. It was true. Here there was oxygen, nitrogen and surprisingly high quantities of the inert gases. Helium and argon were almost in super-abundance. The outside air pressure was considerably above one atmosphere but Lloyd would have to risk it in order to stretch out the precious small supply remaining in his tank.

  He was standing close to me but failed to act so I struck the magnetic lock release on his helmet. It swung back soundlessly. The stale, noxious air in his suit surged out through his collar ring.

  As though unaware of my action, the mutant raised a warning cry. "Let's get out of here! We've landed among the Druufs. Someone is approaching us. I can't exactly grasp what he's thinking. Too alien, too inhuman in every fiber. It's like listening to a half-intelligent beast wearing a superimposed mental aura. Let's get out, sir!"

  I also tipped back my helmet. The air was surprisingly good but I had to accustom myself to the higher pressure. My ears rang. I rubbed my dried-out eyes to moisten them. For an Arkonide it was uncomfortable to be too long inside a spacesuit.

  Rhodan was the first to press between the bars and get out of the cage. He made a wide jump to the floor beyond the platform base. I called to him quickly to tell him to look at his g-meter and that's when he first noted that we were under a force of 1.95 g. Lloyd dragged himself wearily after me, apparently ready to give up. I knew what he had been through and couldn't blame him. Once inside the cage, he simply stayed behind Rhodan and leaned his back against the wall. I went to the opposite side of the entrance to take cover.

  "Where could we have landed?" whispered Rhodan.

  I gave a slight shrug. "I'm not so much concerned with where we came out as I am with the why of it," I answered, also in a low tone. "There can be no doubt that the transmitter adjustments were in order. Even the green light was on, so another station must have been switched to the reception mode—and that means exactly at our own hyper-frequency."

  "What do you mean another station—it's this one!" He looked gloomily about at the strangely shaped equipment.

  "Why so? There are a billion possibilities," I said irritably. "There's something wrong about all this."

  "Like there was about our hypertransit landing us right in the middle of the Druuf system. There must be powerful interference frequencies jamming here of a kind we don't know enough about. Maybe this machine was on the air for an entirely different purpose. I'll guarantee you they weren't right on our own transmission channel. When we put out our contact signal it may have heterodyned just the right harmonic or differential to trap us on their beam. And here we are in the wrong place. One thing sure—the Drusus was never there at all. A freakish coincidence."

  It irritated me that his typical Terranian mentality should draw such a conclusion. According to our research and experiments there could be no room for coincidence.

  "It's coming closer," whispered Lloyd, who seemed to be staring through the wall. "I can't get the gist of the thoughts as well as I could if it were human. It's more like a grouped train of impulses that seem to express the idea of expectancy. What is he expecting?"

  Rhodan's eyes narrowed as he apparently toyed with an idea. "He's expecting whatever this Druuf transmitter was supposed to bring in. That's why it was in operation! Through some beat-frequency of interfering force fields it happened to activate our green light. So these fellows are on to 5-D transmission. Interesting."

  "I don't think too much of this equipment. Looks more like an experimental research setup."

  It was Rhodan's turn to shrug. Neither of us knew the exact answer and we didn't have time or the right test instruments for making a thorough investigation.

  "Watch it!" hissed Lloyd. He had suddenly drawn his own weapon, which in his case was only a shock-gun.

  "Try your shocker on him first," advised Rhodan swiftly. "If it doesn't work we can always attack with our impulse-beamers."

  Outside in the darker hall we could hear the sound of heavy, awkward-sounding footsteps. It sounded as though someone were setting his feet down with unnecessary force.

  The natural effect of 1.95 g, announced my extra brain.

  Rhodan was also aware of this. Did he also suspect that we were probably dealing with very large and powerful creatures? In my own experience I always found that when a heavy-gravity planet was inhabited it produced intelligences who were very sturdily constructed. After all, they had to be able to move and breathe freely in their heavier environment.

  A few moments later we saw the Druuf! When we peeked cautiously around the edge of the entrance we could make out in the background of the passage a dark, shadowy silhouette that was so squarish in shape that my eyes watered in my excitement—a characteristic of my race.

  Slowly, too slow by my own standards, the creature plodded toward us. It was at least nine feet in height. This seemed strange until I recalled the time-differential between the Druuf plane and the Einstein continuum.

  Swiftly I whispered to my companions: "Remember, he's only half as fast as we are. By his own standards he's probably moving with considerable speed. Lloyd said he was in a state of expectancy, which means he'd be hurrying his pace. So if that's a fast walk I'd say we had an advantage over the Druufs."

  When the light from our own chamber finally reached the Druuf we were able to see him clearly. In spite of his weird physiology I observed him calmly, whereas Lloyd emitted a moan of horror and even Rhodan started briefly. In such situations my Arkonide training as a psychologist specialized in alien races came to the fore. I had long since ceased to wonder about the strange forms of life that Nature could produce in all he
r multiferous prodigality.

  "Glord!" the mutant groaned. Then he fell silent as I gave him a reproving look.

  The Druuf was actually nine feet tall but almost equally as broad. He came nearer on his weirdly shaped, pillar-like legs. But at least he was a biped, which was in some small measure reassuring. His two very powerful arms terminated in startlingly thin but well articulated claws, which were nevertheless somewhat humanoid in their appearance.

  But from that point on, all traces of human similarity vanished. The frightening part was his spherical head, measuring about 20 inches in diameter, dominated by 4 large eyes in which the light was now reflected. Two of them were where one would expect to see them but the other two were located where a human would find his temples.

  The nose and ears were missing. Nor was there any hair at all. Finally it was the triangular shaped mouth that gave me the clue. Undoubtedly these creatures had developed from insects. It explained the probable reason why Lloyd had been unable to clearly understand the thought-impulses.

  It was well that the Druuf had given us the opportunity to see his monstrous, clumsy body first. In spite of his weird shape, he wouldn't have seemed very fearsome at all without that horrible head. But I knew human reactions and I could well define my own feelings. Even though reason dictated that any being was to be judged by its mind rather than its outward form, nevertheless the instinct was repelled by such a sight.

  Especially humanoids of my own kind became suspicious whenever aliens were markedly of insect or reptilian evolution. Something in the human psyche couldn't accept such alienness where higher intelligences were involved. It was only through the powers of the clearest reasoning faculties that one could suppress his aversion, distrust and hate—and reason didn't always go that far.

  I observed Rhodan unobtrusively. As expected, he appeared to be fighting his own reactions. He was of course probably telling himself that the Druufs were not responsible for their appearance—we were no doubt equally hideous from their own point of view. Rhodan recovered very quickly from his first impression but revulsion was written all over Lloyd's face. However, this might have been based on his special faculties. He could certainly grasp more of the Druuf's true nature than I could.

  We drew back out of view again, since the alien obviously was equipped with a sharp sense of sight. He moved through the semi-darkness with the same confidence as we would have in bright sunlight.

  "Take a good aim, Lloyd," I whispered quickly. "He will not be able to speak as we do—probably on another principle entirely. Don't give him time to call for help."

  Lloyd nodded tensely with an expression of repugnance. The heavy footsteps were silent for a moment but then they continued. The Druuf moved slowly into the wide entrance and I saw then why the opening had been arched so high.

  I pressed back against the smooth wall and saw Rhodan do the same. When the pillar-like legs of the thing came into view I observed that this race possessed a brownish black, leathery skin that looked like an elastic sort of exoskeletal armor. The Druuf's closely fitting garment was almost transparent and I found it strange that these creatures should even consider any artificial covering to be necessary.

  Lloyd hesitated so long with his weapon that I was just about ready to attack with my thermo-gun. But then I realized that the mutant was trying to sample the monster's thoughts at close range. At the same time the Druuf came to an abrupt halt. I saw that his laterally located eyes rotated forward. He stood motionlessly in one spot and stared at the gleaming bars of the platform cage. I suspected that he missed seeing what he had expected to find there. It was time for Lloyd to make his move!

  As I heard the loud report from his shock-gun, I was about to follow with my own weapon. But I refrained from doing so when the massive body crashed to the floor like a felled tree. I broke the fall of its head so that the spherical skull would not be damaged.

  Rhodan moved forward quickly. The alien's big eyes were wide open. Lloyd staggered closer with an effort. His twisted expression suggested that he was on the verge of another attack of dysentery.

  He spoke to us in a pain-choked voice: "I held off long enough to try reading him further. He was thinking something I couldn't quite grasp—something about a freight package. He seemed concerned about a box or a large carton. I..." He stopped suddenly and dropped to his knees with a loud moan. I dragged him quickly to one side and laid him on the floor near the entrance. His suffering was excruciating. I thought fleetingly of the possibility of contagion due to the opening of his spacesuit but it made no difference to me.

  As I was returning to Rhodan, the mutant groaned out another warning: "Careful, sir! That fellow must have sent out something—like an alarm pulse—though it wasn't a true telepathic message."

  Rhodan pointed silently to the small appendages on the creature's rounded brow. At present they seemed to hang limply against his dark skin.

  "Feelers or antennas, take your choice," he said.

  "Could it be that they communicate with ultra-high frequencies?"

  "Ultra-sound?" I answered. "It's quite possible. I know of intelligences who substitute this method entirely for the normal articulatory organs. I mean, for them it is an organ of speech, just as naturally as the vocal cords are for us. If Lloyd couldn't pick up any purely telepathic signals, you could have a point. According to that, we wouldn't be able to sense or understand any Druuf 'speech' without the aid of appropriate instruments. So anyway, now what happens?"

  He was startled when I finished so abruptly. He gestured toward the platform cage. "Can you operate that thing? Our habitation on Hades would be preferable to here."

  I knew that without some thorough testing I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the unutterably alien machines. I couldn't even guess where the power source might be.

  "It would be foolish to even try!" I answered.

  Rhodan got up slowly. He stared fixedly at the body of the dark-skinned giant, which had become stiff as a board. "They could easily crush us with their arms," he observed, matter of factly. OK, let's get him secured. Since he passed out so fast he seems to have a real sensitive nervous system. At a guess I'd say he won't recover for several hours yet. By then our situation should have been decided, so in other words we won't have to tie him. Besides, I don't have even a scrap of cord in my pockets."

  "That would never happen to a story hero," I laughed humorlessly. "Let's scout around in the meantime. Lloyd, the best thing you can do is lie here near the doorway. Defend yourself with your shock-blaster as long and as best as you can. How do you feel?"

  "Miserable, sir. I would never have believed it could be this bad. Luck to you, sir. I'm picking up alien brain-waves again—this time a whole pack of them. They sure take their time to show up." As we were checking over our thermal weapons, he added: "Sir, if you could just get that monstrosity away from here!" There was a hysterical undertone in his voice.

  We dragged the Druuf's giant body deeper into the chamber. Lloyd smiled at me gratefully. His antipathy was too natural a reaction for me to consider it strange.

  On the other hand, Rhodan spoke to him grumpily. "Knock it off, man! He only looks a little different."

  "Just the same, sir, when I look at him I have to keep thinking of Hell. That's the last one of them that's going to get in here so easily."

  I refrained from advising him how simple it would be for the Druufs to come in. What could he do with only a shock-gun? Actually even with our more deadly weapons we hardly had a chance.

  He waved at us a last time and then we left him. We felt it would be superfluous to crouch low to avoid detection here so we moved onward in a normal upright position. Rhodan knew as I did that we had played out our hand. No one had bothered us or made an attack but we were quite certain that we'd never come out of this without a real miracle.

  With complete objectivity, Rhodan announced: "I believe we're deep below the surface of a planet. The gravitational pull is enormous. It could be that we
've landed on number sixteen of the Druuf system—in other words, on their home world where you detected such an energy output. Up ahead of us there must be some machinery in operation."

  I had also begun to hear the muffled thumping. After about another 100 yards a tremendous room opened before us but this time there were numerous entrances or exits. Here it seemed they had never heard of doors. Everywhere I saw the open archways.

  The assigned purpose of the equipment before us was self-evident. Even the Druufs had to build their atomic reactors more or less as we did. On the other hand, we saw no coupled converter banks. The machines here were colossal. They employed wireless, field-isolated energy conductors, whose ultra-violet illumination brightened our surroundings considerably. The gloomy red glow was not apparent here.

  We stood there in silence, observing the master power station. Seconds later, even Rhodan's weakly developed telepathic faculty enabled him to sense the approach of the Druufs.

  "Those are fear-inducing impulses," he said. "No wonder that Lloyd got uptight so quickly. If we were reasonable fellows now, we would go to the nearest archway and hold our hands in the air while waiting for these people."

  I looked knowingly into his grim face. "Butare we reasonable?"

  He glanced at me darkly and shook his head. "Over there is a good cover. I'll take the reactor base on the right side." Without another word, he left me.

  I picked out a good spot and sought to examine the general situation. Close behind me was the passage from which we had come. While passing through it we had not seen any other openings in the walls. So we could probably stay here awhile, only to return eventually to the transmitter room with its giant energy grids. And there the inevitable end would probably come.

  I thought of Lloyd, of my friends on Earth and of my turbulent past. I had experienced many a hopeless situation but this one was really it. If we had only found an acquaintance here somewhere or at least somebody who could have given us the slightest clue to the Druuf technology, we might have chanced it and tried to break through to the surface. But we were simply left sitting in the mousetrap, waiting for what was to come.