Between The Galaxies

by Perry Rhodan

  When Meech reached the central deck level he swung out of the shaft cautiously after concealing himself a few seconds at the opening. Then he stepped out into the corridor, followed by Ron.

  A new thought came to Ron. The energy employed by the hyper transmitter had the same structure as...

  He was interrupted. Meech flew at him as if shot from a cannon. The two suits of armor collided with a loud crash and Ron was flung to the deck, knocking his chin against a helmet hinge in the process. Meech was lying on top of him, and a second later it seemed that this had saved his life.

  He would never have been able to react as quickly as the robot. Peering from under Meech's armor he could see a glaring flood of red light coming from the end of the passage. In frozen surprise he noted that the brilliant light advanced slowly and sluggishly, almost looking like oil, toward the spot where the two Terrans were lying on the floor. The light emanated a glowing heat wave in front of it. Ron could feel it through his metal covering and he noted that the plating on the walls was blistering and starting to bubble.

  Without hesitation, Meech retaliated. With a breath-taking swiftness that was not in the least impeded by his heavy mail, he jerked out his disintegrator. It was no hand gun such as Eric had used but rather a heavy automatic weapon that was like a miniature cannon. With a loud hissing and humming the green ray stormed through the passage toward the red fire.

  When the two fires met there was an ear-splitting explosion. Ron felt Meech's ponderous weight lifted from him as the robot was blasted halfway into the antigrav shaft. Once relieved of his protective load, Ron was also gripped by the mighty rush of air and was shoved along the passage.

  Up ahead there was a wild shriek but nobody could be seen. Ron had also heard that the invisibles let out such yells when they were hit by disintegrator fire. He then perceived the advantage that Meech's lightning reaction had given them.

  "Forward, Meech!" he shouted.

  With an almost inimitable grace, the heavy robot swung out of the shaft and landed on his feet. This time Ron was not concerned about using him for cover. They charged forward, shoulder to shoulder, and before long they arrived at the small continuation of the corridor that led to the control room door.

  No one blocked their way. The red fire had vanished. Only the walls still retained their ugly blisters and the air was still scalding hot. Meech held watch while Ron opened the hatch door. It seemed to have been affected by the heat because it took a few moments before it sluggishly slid to one side with a complaining, screeching sound.

  Ron had his weapon in firing position as he started to enter. In fact he had the trigger half depressed, ready to sweep the room with a fanned-out beam, but suddenly he saw the burnished barrel of a weapon sticking out of the hatchway and it was pointed directly at his mid-section.

  With a warning shout he ducked to one side. Meech whirled around, raising his heavy automatic.

  If it hadn't been for Meech's wonderful ability to react with lightning swiftness, a tragedy might have occurred at that moment. Unimpeded by the weight of the automatic, his steel sheathed hand shot forward. Ron heard a clattering blow and a cry of pain. He couldn't see what was happening beyond the angle of the door. Something metallic rattled to the floor. Then all was still.

  Until Meech was heard to say: "Excuse me, sir, but you might have fired before we had a chance to explain the situation." Ron heard somebody sigh. Then Eric Furchtbar's voice answered in slightly hoarse tones: "You're probably right - and I thank you!"

  • • •

  Ron straightened up with a sense of relief. Eric came through the hatchway as Ron explained their identities. He saluted the major weakly.

  "Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently. "I thought I was going to have to handle everything by myself." They all entered the control room together. The door closed behind them. Eric picked up the disintegrator that Meech had knocked from his hand. With a pained expression he shook his arm and then massaged his wrist.

  "What's happening here?" asked Ron. "Any new developments?" Eric made a wry grimace. "I wish I knew, Major. The only thing I know for sure is that the station is swarming with these invisible aliens. It's a shame the way they're fooling around with our generators. And that I'm sure of, too. I don't know what they're trying to do with them but I think I know why they came on board."

  Ron raised a querulous brow. "Oh? Why?"

  "Their ship out there—about 3 minutes ago it blew up. They must have had a nuclear fire going on board, or something of the sort. I don't know if that's what caused them to collide with us or if it had something to do with the war they were fighting out in the abyss somewhere—but at any rate they probably saw that their chances were gone where their own ship was concerned. That's why they transferred over to us. And now they're getting ready for something but I haven't any idea of what it could be."

  This last remark made Ron wary. "They're preparing for something, you say?"

  "Yes, of course," Eric assured him. "Just look at the instruments. The generators are acting up like crazy. They'd never do that by themselves, so somebody has to be fooling around with them continuously - and I'd say in a frenzied hurry. If that doesn't mean they're expecting something to happen pretty quickly, and that they're trying to get ready for it..." He left the rest of the thought unexpressed.

  Ron recalled that some idea had come to him suddenly just before the aliens had unleashed their red fire as he was coming out of the antigrav shaft but he couldn't remember now what it was. In its place came another thought.

  "They've never shot at you, is that right?" he asked Eric.

  "No, and I thought that was very strange. They always used their fists as if they were unarmed. Just once they used something sharp that left a trace like a knife slice. Here, look!" He showed Ron the backs of his hands so that he could see the faint cuts but was almost insulted when the latter failed to be impressed.

  Instead, Ron turned abruptly to the robot. "Then why did they shoot at us...?" The question came out like a shot from a gun.

  "Because they took us for robots," was Meech's answer, which was returned with equal swiftness.

  Eric Furchtbar's eyes widened with sudden comprehension. "So that's it!" he exclaimed. "I've been wondering all this time why you were hauling that strange-looking armor around."

  The other two ignored him for the moment. He wanted to ask them what they were thinking of on board the Joann in sending men to the station disguised as robots. He didn't know that Meech Hannigan was actually a robot. However, when he saw that Ron was busy with his own thoughts he decided to remain silent.

  After pondering over Meech's answer a few seconds, Ron nodded. "Sounds logical," he agreed. "The invisibles don't intend to destroy organic life as long as they can avoid it—but they don't have the same consideration for robots. They shoot at them wherever they encounter them. Meech confirmed this line of reasoning but added: "That's a valid assumption as long as we can presume that the aliens' way of thinking is related to ours."

  Ron thought this over. Somehow he had not considered these aliens as having a different form of reasoning than what would be the norm in his own galaxy, but now he remembered the warning.

  "They shot at you?" asked Eric in surprise.

  "Yes—with a weapon that generated a sort of Greek fire. It creeps slowly along the corridor and is devilishly hot. It is a gleaming red color. If Meech hadn't reacted quickly it might have been curtains for us."

  "That's strange," muttered Eric. "In our case they never—" Ron interrupted him. "It makes it all the more evident, doesn't it, that they were having their big battle out there with robots...?"

  "That's one of a 100 different possibilities. Don't forget, sir, that we have practically nothing to go on."

  "Yes, and I guess we don't even know if they think at all as we do."

  It was frustrating. Normally whenever one took up a thread of reasoning and followed it, in a very short time it fell into place somehow with the basic stan
dards of logic. You could do this with Arkonides and even with the Ferronians and the Swoons and maybe even with the serpents of Passa - but not with entities who came from an alien galaxy.

  Ron turned to look at the indicators Eric had mentioned. The meters were in an uproar, most of them showing readings in the upper limits of their scales. In fact some had passed the red line. The aliens were overloading the generators.

  "Now you can see why I came back up here," said Eric. "In the transmitter station I could only watch the two cages but up here I can monitor everything."

  "Have they been fooling around with the transmitters?" asked Ron.

  Eric shook his head negatively. "No—everything is calm in that area."

  "Were you attacked on your way back here?"

  "There wasn't a trace of them. Except for the Com Room and the power room, the BOB 21 is empty."

  This brought Ron back to the thought that had escaped him before. They had turned on all the generators and had channeled the total output into the Com Room. Why? What were they trying to do? Ron recalled that his vague idea had something to do with related forms of energy—and then it suddenly came to him again.

  The alternating field of a hyper transmission was related to the stationary field of a defense screen in the same way as an electromagnetic field was to one that consisted of an intersecting electrostatic and magnetic field. And one could rectify hyperfrequencies, of course, just as easily as those in the electromagnetic range.

  Was that it? Were the phantoms merely attempting to beef up the defense screen? For a brief moment it seemed to Ron Landry that he had a clearer picture of the situation than he had ever had before.

  Then Eric Furchtbar gave a shout. "We're getting another message!"

  It startled Ron from his train of thought. Ever since the BOB 21 had received the first alien hypercom signals, the small scope in the main control room had been coupled to the Com Room equipment. Until now the small circular screen had not shown anything but a confused tracing of interference that was caused by the feverish activity with the generators but now it revealed a clearly amplified wave pattern. About one and a half cycles of the carrier wave were encompassed by the screen but it was spiked with numerous modulation patterns.

  "That's the old one again – about a true life form!" announced Eric excitedly. "The pattern is unmistakable!" The image remained on the screen a few seconds and then vanished. Ron would have preferred going down to the Com Room and running the recorder strip through the positronics for verification but the aliens were down there and besides, nobody was on duty in the computer room. Even if he could have obtained the tape he would have had to run the positronics himself, and at the moment he didn't have time for it. So he took Eric's word - that it was the same message as before. Why were they asking this again? They had already received their answer several times.

  Another thought came to him. "Have you any way of telling whether or not the wave pattern is clearer and more amplified this time than when it was last received... or is it weaker...?"

  "This was much stronger than the last time." Eric's answer came without hesitation, which meant he was sure of the difference.

  Ron's tension increased. Hyper transmission was one of the wonders of modern technology but no matter how wonderful it was it couldn't violate natural laws. You had to receive signals from a near source more strongly than you would from a distant source. The first message received by the BOB 21 had come from a distance of about 400 light years but this latest reception was much clearer. Therefore, the distance had changed.

  Somebody else was approaching the BOB 21!

  Ron told Eric to answer the call the same as he had before. Eric went to the small control panel that enabled him to operate the Com Room equipment. He pressed a few buttons and smiled faintly.

  "I hope it's still working," he commented. "Who knows what those characters may have done in the meantime?"

  Seconds later the oscilloscope registered the wave pattern of the outgoing signal. It was coded the same way as the aliens' message. No one could tell from the scope what the content of the answering message was but Eric claimed that there was only one prepared program strip in this transmitter. It had to be the right one.

  Ron Landry forced himself to be calm because he had to think clearly. He wondered if he should try making contact with the invisibles but he rejected this idea before long. Eric and his men had spent a lot of time on that without the slightest success. He was sure that the second alien ship whose message they had just received would show up very soon. He was almost equally certain that this second ship would be bringing the enemies of their present unseen visitors, because the wave pattern of the received signal was basically different from the message the invisibles had sent out previously. Therefore there were just two types of aliens out here in intergalactic space—the invisibles, and their enemies, whoever they might be.

  Ron went over this chain of logic repeatedly, attempting to find an error in reasoning. He searched for places where either one of the alien actions might be attributed to a mode of thinking different than his but he found no loopholes. The chain of reasoning was like a puzzle whose pieces fit into each other. It had to be the way he had figured it—or they had overlooked something.

  But then again this present situation would explain why the invisibles were trying to strengthen the station's defense screen. In some way they had learned about the imminent arrival of their enemies. Probably they didn't believe the screen had enough protective power in its normal state, and that's why they were beefing it up. This might also explain why they had not responded to Eric's previous attempts to contact them. They needed every spare second to prepare for an attack by the enemy.

  Ron turned and looked questioningly at Meech Hannigan, and Meech understood.

  "My analysis, sir..." he began, and then he proceeded to give the same arguments and logical conclusions that Ron had already thought out by himself.

  Eric Furchtbar stared at them in wide-eyed amazement as he listened.

  For him the past few hours had been too hectic for him to get into the deeper whys and wherefores of the situation. He was still trying to recover from the shock of the first ship's sudden appearance.

  "Do you really believe," he said excitedly, "that still another vessel has set a course for the station?" Ron nodded. He was about to answer him but Meech made a surprising breach of regulations by cutting in on him quickly.

  "There's nothing much more to argue about, sir. There are the other aliens already!" The alien ship fairly leapt into the viewscreen. A half a second before it had not been there but now it filled more than half of the main screen. It had arrived without the slightest hyper shockwave disturbance.

  Ron instantly realized that this was a new type of transition. He was about to marvel at it but all his wonderment concerning the strange ship's propulsion was swept aside by the shock of its outward appearance. He was only vaguely aware of a groan of dismay from Eric's tall figure beside him, and it could have been that he also let out a groan. It was impossible that anyone could be insane enough to design such a ship.

  It looked as if it had once been cubical but its structure had been bent out of shape. What remained was a completely erratic geometrical creation with a basically octagonal pattern. Since the BOB 21 provided them with artificial gravity, the observing Terrans had a sense of up and down, so what they thought they saw was a looming vertical wall directly in front of them. It ended in a sloping edge, beyond which they could make out one of the deck surfaces, a trapezoidal plane that slanted steeply up to the farther edge or nether wall of the hull. The left sidewall stood out at a grotesque angle. On the viewscreen, nothing could be seen of the righthand wall. It was probably indented.

  Although such was the general shape of the vessel its sides and deck areas were anything but even. There were bays and turrets, domes and other projections as well as a confusing maze of niches and channels. Out of the domes towered rod-shaped protrusions cov
ered with stiff fan-like shapes. In the indented areas gleamed varicolored lights. From the bays, heavy three-pronged and four-pronged forks emerged into space, and a lively movement of some kind was to be seen on the mound-like elevations. Not even Meech could make out what the movement was or what it was supposed to accomplish.

  This gave Ron an idea. It was fairly illogical and that was why Meech hadn't thought of it. Ron knew that objects moving on the outside of an intergalactic spaceship had to have some limitation of size but those things over there were neither bugs nor humans. They must have been as big as lifeboats or observation modules. At least he thought so. There was no comparison, however, that he could judge by.

  But if he was right, the alien ship was a giant. Until now he had thought the vessel was only a few km away from the station but after all it had just emerged from hyper space—and not even an intergalactic commander would terminate a transition so close to his target. So the monster was farther distant, and judging by that it would have to be much larger than he had thought.

  Those angular sides had to be at least 2 km across. It was only a rough estimate but Ron was startled nevertheless. The alien monstrosity was even larger than the mightiest super battleship of the Terran spacefleet.

  It left Ron severely shaken. For a few tense moments he stood there waiting for some gun ports to open up out there and for a mighty blast of deadly energy to come flashing at them. But the seconds passed without event. The weird, fragmented crate thing merely hung there motionlessly in the void.

  Then Ron began to wonder what these new aliens were waiting for. It seemed as if they had actually been waiting for him to have the thought because in the next moment the oscilloscope came to life again. He glanced at it only briefly before he turned to Eric.

  "Is that the same as before?" he asked.

  Eric studied the scope with wide, wondering eyes. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "That's the same old question!"

  Ron almost barked an order. "Then give them the same old answer again!"