by Perry Rhodan
"Mal-Se may go!"
The latter relayed this instruction to someone farther on.
The answer came back: "Mal-Se will depart in the 25th part of a time period."
The Wise One nodded and cut off the viewscreen. "Once more the Ruling Council will be satisfied with the services of the Energy Command. Has Vu Pooh reported yet?"
"Yes, Wise One," Hut-Up informed him. "The Retse-U will arrive in the first fifth of the fourth period."
"Very well. Vu Pooh is to report directly to me. I must speak with him, Hut-Up."
• • •
"You're right!" exclaimed Bell. "It's actually an Akon transmitter!"
There was no longer any doubt. Within seconds a 100-meter arc of energy had spread out over the thing. Impervious to the seventh planet's natural forces it began to glow red around its inner edge. The entire formation appeared to concentrate its energies into compact lines of force as a darkly shimmering tunnel took shape.
The only one who spoke in the Drusus' Control Central was Gen. Deringhouse as he ordered the robots to stop where they were and await further orders. It was not necessary for him to say more. Their programming took care of the rest. The Terranian fighter machines stopped their march within 200 meters of the Akon transmitter and its red-glowing energy field.
Now Rhodan pulled the microphone to him. "Whatever comes out of the transmitter is to be captured. Under no circumstances is there to be any
destruction or killing!"
He returned the microphone to the general. And then the waiting period began.
The vast wall of the Drusus facing the Akon structure loomed in fire readiness. Unswervingly its heaviest thermo-disintegrators and impulse cannons held their sights fixed on the technological product of an alien race, ready to convert it into a fiery tornado of destructive forces.
Through this direct observation of the mission, Walt Ballin learned more about the capacities of the Solar Fleet than he would ever have dreamed of. He kept watching Rhodan and his admiration for this man's cool, considered calculation grew with each passing moment. Perry Rhodan was neither a dictator nor a dogmatic martinet.
At the moment he was saying: "The Akons certainly didn't go to this trouble just to play games with us. Perhaps we have already waited much too long."
"But nothing's happened yet," Bell reminded him.
Rhodan didn't argue with him. "Deringhouse, bring the robots back into the ship—on the double. This thing is getting a bit too weird for me. Gentlemen, what are the instruments picking up?"
The question was directed to the officers in the Control Central. Deringhouse sent out his radio command to the robots, causing them to turn back. Bell did not agree with the procedures but he shrugged and let things take their course.
For the first time in his, life, Walt Ballin felt what it was like to have cold feet. An uncanny fear possessed him, yet it was not a fear of the strange, red-glowing structure out there, it was a deeper fear of something indefinable.
"Pole turrets! Fire at will!" Rhodan's voice fairly rang in the room as he spoke into the intercom mike.
Almost simultaneously, yard-thick disintegrator and impulse beams shattered the Akon transmitter. Everything went up in an atomic gas cloud that was instantly shredded and dispersed by the methane hurricane. In the place where the station had stood was a glowing spot where the frozen rock surface turned to lava and vaporized.
The bombardment from the Drusus' upper turrets lasted three seconds. When the energy cannons were silenced, four km away was a gaping crater in which the molten rock was slowly cooling off under a forming crust of gleaming obsidian.
"I'd have waited a little longer, Perry!"
"For what, Bell?"
His stocky, freckle-faced companion did not show any reaction to his obvious excitement but he said, "Well, if that's the way you had it figured..."
Me, too, thought Walt Ballin, but he couldn't understand why he was still gripped by nameless fear.
Shortly thereafter, Deringhouse reported to Rhodan. "Sir, the robots have come back through the locks. I have instructed the robo-techs to report here to the Control Central."
"Bell, take charge of positronics. I want to get a readout as soon as possible on the robot observations, although I don't expect very much."
"OK!" Bell went to the console of the positronic brain and switched on the interrogation circuits.
It required 10 minutes for the technical robots to appear in the Control Central for their observation report, so meanwhile Rhodan utilized the time by conversing with Walt Ballin. The first thing that struck him was the journalist's almost sickly appearance. Walt Ballin was fearful of something; it was exactly the same fear that had assailed himself! But he masterfully concealed his amazement and alarm. He concentrated on Ballin's own field of endeavor and managed to involve the journalist in an interesting discussion.
"You mean I can write everything, sir? When we get back to Earth, don't I have to show my report to get a release from you or some control commission?"
Rhodan's features remained stern but there was laughter in his eyes. "Ballin, we don't have a dictatorship and... what's more important, Mr. Journalist: the Administration has nothing to hide, other than normal security items—but those are withheld from everybody. The thing I'm anxious to see is what you'll make public in the newspapers and what not."
"Everything, sir! I won't strike out a line of it," asserted Ballin with conviction.
"That's the way I thought once myself, Ballin. It was a long time ago. Yes, in those days I was as young as you are now. And then came the responsibilities and the doubts. I had to ask myself what I could reveal and what I could not."
"Sir, even journalists carry their responsibilities!" Ballin felt called upon to defend his profession.
"I invited you to come to Terrania because I took you to be a person of conscience and responsibility... Ah, the robots, Ballin! We'll have to interrupt our conversation again."
5 robots stomped ponderously into the Control Central. It was always an imposing sight to see these metal Titans in motion. Walt Ballin heard them report, one after another, soon realizing that he could not follow the gist of it because he simply didn't have the technical background. But he fell to marveling at these masterpieces and their scientific creators.
But Bell wasn't marveling at all. He stood idly in front of the positronic board and from second to second his face took on a grimmer expression. He couldn't make anything out of the scientific robots' assertions. Their direct measurements in front of the Akon transmitter were full of contradictions and obviously false.
Deringhouse shut off their special program circuits and sent them back to the storage depot. Rhodan was just getting ready to give the order for takeoff when a call came in from robot depot 4. Ortlow, the Depot Chief, reported that all returning robots had come back covered with some kind of smudge.
"Ortlow, you know we have cleaning equipment on board for that," Rhodan answered him angrily. He was vexed at being held up by such a triviality.
"But sir, the stuff simply won't come off! It clings to the robots as though it were burned onto them."
"So what, Ortlow? You take care of it—that is all!"
He turned to Deringhouse. "General, take over the ship. You may take off..."
The speakers blared with a hypercom interruption. The Com Room announced an urgent message for Rhodan from medi-cruiser 3. The hypercom viewscreen in the Control Central stabilized its picture and the Chief Physician of #3 became visible.
"Sir," he began, "we've identified the epidemic on board Springer ship UG DVI as enteric paralysis and all of the prize crew that came over have also become infected with it. But that's not the main reason for my call. What I wanted to tell you is that this plague among the Galactic Traders on the UG DVI has been planted there by artificial means—that is, deliberately. There is every indication here that the enteric paralysis culture was produced on Earth."
Rhodan was sharply r
eproachful. "Prof. Degen, consider what you're saying!"
The medico made a defensive gesture with his left arm but added: "Sir, naturally I'm no criminal police expert and I could be mistaken, but how could a broken ampoule with traces of this culture get on board a Springer ship when it could only have been in contact with Terrans during the past four weeks?"
"Professor, my day also has only 24 hours in it and not a minute more. Now you cut off this call and get in touch with Allan D. Mercant, the Chief of Solar Intelligence! You convey to him—"
"Sir, just a few minutes ago he directed me to you and I'm to ask you in his name to fly to our present position so that this ampoule can get to Earth by the fastest means. Of course there'll be no danger in transporting it. The plague culture is so well isolated that nothing in our strict quarantine regulations can be violated."
Rhodan nodded at the hypercom screen. "Very well, Professor. We'll be alongside in about an hour."
Shortly thereafter the Drusus rose up from the giant methane planet. At the time, Reginald Bell was in Rhodan's cabin. His stocky figure moved from one chair to the other but he couldn't feel comfortable anywhere. But Rhodan made a special effort to feign an outward self-composure.
"If Allan D. Mercant is using us as a courier, Reg, I'd say he attaches great importance to this plague situation. OK, so we'll do him the favor. For the present we won't be missing anything by making a slight detour. Although I may sound pretty hard it doesn't change the fact that the 'stone-belly' business doesn't interest me just now. I haven't any time to get into the matter because this mysterious lightning visit of the Akons has got me so buffaloed that I can't think of anything else. More and more I'm getting to feel that we've all overlooked an important small detail somewhere."
"And naturally nobody's come up with any afterthoughts on that score... What's that now? Perry—the relay station. It's for you!"
Lt. Harold Fitzgerald had something to report from Ori-12-1818. "Sir, we've run across an observation error here. The Akon's transmitter-receiver station sent out two shockwaves instead of one. The first one must have shown up on the Drusus instruments as well but then—exactly 30 minutes and eight seconds after the first spacewarp the second one happened. But it was of a strange extra-dimensional variety and so weakly heterodyned that we've only just now stumbled onto it by accident. Sir, we've replayed the whole thing over again and..."
"Alright, Lieutenant," Rhodan interrupted gently. He could see that Fitzgerald was a bit uneasy. "I'll channel you in to the Control Central where you can transmit us that replay. Then I'll take a look at it, myself. Many thanks!"
A moment later, he and Bell hurried to the Control Central. The transmission from the relay station had already come through. The officers made room for them and it was not long before Rhodan made his first comment. "It's easy to see how they could have overlooked it." He switched to a detailed magnification while back-reeling the tape, after which he played it forward from a specific timing marker.
Rhodan and Bell had both seen curves like this when they were in the Blue System and they assumed they had to be transmitter shockwaves but in this case there were certain modulations of the waveforms that were unfamiliar to them.
"We're not much smarter now than we were before," said Bell impulsively but he became silent when he felt Rhodan's hand on his arm.
"Wrong, Reg. At least now we know that the Akons sent something back to #7 and they went out of their way to keep us from knowing it. Deringhouse, activate the Fleet units stationed on Betelgeuse 3. Planet seven is to be watched very sharply. We can't give the Akons any chance to set up a base there. You will advise the Fleet Commander that he is to prevent this with every means at his command. When do we go into transition?"
The hyperjump came three minutes later.
5/ DEATH STALKS THE WORLD
Once more the Drusus had taken its accustomed berth at the Terrania spaceport. Two medicos picked up the broken ampoule of plague virus that had been discovered on the UG DVI. They handled the tiny, thinly sealed package as though it was an explosive that could go off at the slightest impact.
In Rhodan's aircar were Bell, Gen. Deringhouse and the journalist Walt Ballin. As the craft raced toward the skyscraper office building and curved in for a landing, Rhodan broke the silence.
"Never until today did I ever come back from a mission with such an uneasy feeling. I don't know..."
The aircar made a gentle landing. They left it and the antigravitor carried them from the roof landing to the next lower floor where Rhodan's offices were located. When he passed through the anteroom with his entourage all key spots in Terrania were automatically advised that the Chief was back.
The intercom viewscreen was already on. The face of Allan D. Mercant was visible. While Rhodan took his seat he was already speaking into the microphone. "Mercant, you'll have to let me off the hook on this plague situation. Whatever's at the bottom of it I'm not interested in it at the moment. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"
Mercant shook his head negatively. "Sir, the Drusus has just alerted Solar Intelligence. There is suspicion of sabotage in the robot depots. Depot Chief Ortlow has asked for a major investigation. All robots including the regular working robots on board are showing surface damage. I had a look at a couple of them a few moments ago and I can tell you it's pretty alarming."
"Alright, Mercant. Report to me if the suspicion of sabotage is confirmed. Anything else?"
The Solar Intelligence Chief knew Rhodan too well not to see that at present he didn't want to be burdened with relatively minor matters. He hastened to say there was nothing else and he cut off his connection.
Rhodan turned to the journalist. "Well, Ballin, what will we be reading tomorrow in the Europa News concerning the Drusus' latest mission? Do you already know what you're going to write about?"
"For the present you won't be reading anything, sir," replied Ballin. "I certainly can't just build a report on guesswork!"
Bell and Deringhouse stared at him in astonishment. They had not expected such an answer.
Rhodan sought to draw him out. "But Ballin, we've just given you an exclusive about the Akons. The Administration will be glad to place any further details at your disposal."
"Sir, I'm no scandal sheet hack, you know." As he spoke he scratched the back of his hand. "You've said, yourself, that you know very little about the Akons and I think this whole matter should be resolved or clarified at least in order to be published. But why are you laughing, sir?"
Bell and Deringhouse had also broken out laughing. In fact Bell was fairly shaking in pleased amusement.
"Now you're wearing our shoes, Ballin. And they fit you very well! We often thought like you did and then something new would come up and something still newer, even before the first business was safe to talk about... and then the day comes... when the Parliament claims we've failed in our duty to inform them... Hey, dog gone it all, what's making my hand itch like that? What's going on?"
"Mine, too..."
"Same here." This third admission came from Rhodan.
The four men looked at the backs of their hands. Each of them had a few flat spots on their skin the size of pinpoints.
"It itches like the devil!" Bell had never been the most patient of men and he could become very annoyed by molestation of any kind. "I'll call the medico on
duty and have him give me something for it. Let me use your intercom, Perry?"
"For a trifle like that, Reg? But go ahead, as far as. I'm concerned."
Rhodan drew to one side and Bell called for the doctor, who happened to be on
the same floor of the building.
"I'll be right in, Mr. Bell!"
Moments later the doctor stood among them, examining the backs of four pairs of hands. He shook his head perplexed, then turned to Rhodan. "I should be able to diagnose something like this on sight but I don't know what we have here. I'm afraid this is a job for the clinic's dermatology lab. Sir, you have
the same pin-pointy red spots on your face!"
The telecom buzzed. It was the Drusus. One of the staff officers was on the screen. "Sir, something very weird is happening here! All of a sudden the entire crew has picked up an awful skin itch. I've already alerted the main clinic of Terrania!"
Before Rhodan could say anything the doctor was speaking. "Hold your hand up to your view camera!" he ordered the man on the Drusus. The latter obeyed and. the doctor confirmed their fears. "The same visible symptoms! Glord, I'm beginning to itch, myself!"
"Doctor," said Bell, "you don't think we've come down with the 'stone-belly' sickness, do you?"
Ballin and Deringhouse stiffened in new alarm.
"No, gentlemen, such a suspicion is absurd. These are not the symptoms of enteric paralysis."
"Sir, can I cut off now?" asked the officer from the Drusus' Control Central.
Rhodan nodded his permission. The picture on the screen fluttered as though to disappear and then it was replaced by another. It was a call from the main clinic in Terrania.
"You—?!" Rhodan's question carried a new note of alarm.
"Unfortunately, sir. I have just placed the Drusus under quarantine and I have to request that you and everybody who's come in contact with you since your landing not to leave their rooms." This was stated by Dr. Haenning who was simultaneously the Quarantine Chief and Health Inspector for the Solar Imperium.
Rhodan had no intention of contradicting him but like any man who is stricken by something unknown to him, he asked for further particulars.
"Sir, I can't tell you anything yet," replied Dr. Haenning regretfully. "In all probability this ailment is harmless but under the quarantine regulations I am forced to..."
A top priority call came in from the hypercom station.
"One moment, please, doctor," Rhodan interrupted. "Stay on the channel."
As the hypercom screen stabilized its picture it revealed the worried features of the Chief Medical Officer on medi-ship 3. "Sir, I've just heard the news that the Drusus has been quarantined. Either we infected the Drusus when we handed over the plague virus sample or the Drusus has passed it on to my ship, the Nile and the long-ship UG-DVI. All of a sudden crews on all three ships are showing the same symptoms!"
