In the Centre of the Galaxy

by Clark Darlton

  "Maybe you’re right," Homunk admitted. Still, he hesitated. The quick conclusion seemed a bit too abrupt for him. He could not imagine that the robots would give up so easily. Besides, they had not demanded the removal of the dangerous bomb. "Climb back in, Ooch. We’re flying back to the EX-238."

  Before he and Pucky could climb up to the glider, the robot screens lit up. This time the loudspeakers were not on.

  The robot brain itself took up communication with Homunk.

  While he was reading the symbols, he was translating aloud, so that Pucky could understand the message: "We’re giving you 10 minutes of your time to leave our world. Hurry, before it is too late. End of transmission."

  Homunk looked at Pucky. The mousebeaver held up his black box.

  "Ask the thing what’s up."

  "What for? We’ll return to the ship, then we’ll see. I don’t know if you’re thinking what I am. Only I wouldn’t want to make the final decision, because I don’t know if I could justify it. You know what I mean…?"

  "The bomb, of course. Don’t worry, that decision is not up to us but up to the robots themselves."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Wait," Pucky said mysteriously and took Homunk’s arm. "Let’s teleport."

  When they were sitting in the glider, it lifted immediately under the practiced hands of the pilot Ooch. They headed toward the spaceport. There the spherical spaceship EX-238 towered over all the Silver Arrows that stood around it by the hundreds. There were hardly any robots to be seen. In the east, the army of the believers, who no longer believed, was moving out of the city.

  The protective shield of the EX-238 was withdrawn as the hangar lock opened. Five minutes later, Homunk and Pucky were in central control. Lt. Schlenkowa had relinquished command to Maj. Koster again.

  "At last!" Koster did not hide his relief. "I was afraid they’d hold you back."

  "I’d like to know how," Pucky growled, and devoted himself wholly to greeting Iltu, who returned his greeting affectionately.

  "Pucky put pressure on them," Homunk explained and reported to the Major what had happened. Koster’s face was thoughtful long after the android had finished his report.

  "I don’t quite understand," he said slowly and turned on the intercom. On the screen appeared the face of the officer responsible for the weapons room. "Repeat again, Lt. Werner, what you gave to Lt. Puck today."

  The lieutenant excused himself, disappeared for a few seconds and then reappeared with a piece of paper in his hand.

  "An Arkon bomb, sir. And a remote detonator and a dummy bomb. Besides which, a radio amplifier. That’s all, sir."

  The screen darkened.

  Maj. Koster and Homunk looked at Pucky.

  Pucky was crouched next to Iltu on the couch. They were holding hands and looking as innocent as lambs.

  "Well?" said Homunk. "I find you’re irresponsible, after all. Had you noticed, Pucky, that you’re sitting right on top of the box? Your weight isn’t much but it’s enough to depress the white button."

  Pucky grinned, pulled the box from under his haunch and handed it to Homunk.

  "You can take it back to Lt. Werner. We don’t need it any more."

  "The amplifier, right" What good is it?"

  "It looks beautifully dangerous," Pucky confessed. "And you must admit that it served its purpose, right? Of course you can press the button for hours and nothing will happen. There isn’t even a battery inside.

  Homunk took the box, looked at it, shook his head and laid the amplifier on the control desk in front of Koster. Then he turned back to Pucky.

  "Now you’d better explain…"

  "Just a moment!" Koster interrupted him excitedly and pointed to the outside screen. "There’s someone in a tank. What’s that structure on top?"

  "A screen," whispered Homunk. "Ha! A message in symbols. I’ll read…"

  "…before we destroy you, you should know that your plan has failed. We’ve found the bomb. It is now on a remote-controlled spaceship and has nearly passed out of our sun system. Out in the universe, it can detonate all it wants. It will do no damage…"

  "…that was the message. Now the armoured ship is drawing away again. Be careful, Koster, do you have all the protective shields working? Take off. The robots are going to attack."

  Koster gave the necessary orders.

  Even while the protective shields activated, a few dozen Silver Arrows took off from the landing fields. A hundred meters from the EX-238, the around parted. Energy cannons appeared and opened fire immediately.

  The glaring flame beams glided ineffectively off the protective shield of the EX-238.

  The spherical spaceship started up.

  On the vidscreen, the city sank away below. The Silver Arrows slipped in from the screen’s edges and attacked concentrically. They had astonishingly powerful cannons but they could not penetrate the three layers of the protective shield. Perhaps if they concentrated on one particular point of it and held it under constant fire…

  Koster stepped up speed.

  The central planet of the Milky Way grew ever smaller. At last the first stars appeared, so close together that there seemed no way through them. But the first ones were still two light-years away.

  Since the attack of the Silver Arrows did not let up, Koster ordered the use of the transform cannons.

  Homunk had gone up to Pucky. He sat next to him and Iltu. "You bluffed the robots?" he asked.

  Pucky shook his head. "It only looks that way. I swindled them with the box, that’s true. But not with the bomb. What they found and loaded into their rocket was the dummy. The real bomb lies 50 meters under it in a dried-up swimming pool of the old Galacteers."

  Homunk looked at Pucky searchingly.

  "And where is the remote-control button?"

  "In the dummy."

  Homunk stood up. He paced central control up and down while outside one Silver Arrow after another was torn apart by frightful explosions. Against teleported atom bombs, neither protective shields nor evasive manoeuvres provided any protection.

  It was easy to guess the rest.

  Even Pucky had not the courage to take responsibility for the destruction of the central world. He left it to the robots themselves. He had put the detonator into the dummy. If it was dismantled, the real bomb would be detonated by remote control. Even if it was moved from its place. The robots would only have had to have left the dummy alone to save their world and themselves. But the robots had loaded it into a rocket and shot it into space.

  Fifty meters under the surface of the central world the atomic fires were already raging. They could not be put out and they would find enough to feed on to convert the entire planet into a sun very quickly. In an hour the robots would know that they were lost. The emigration would begin but there would be perhaps only 50,000 Silver Arrows that would be on the hunt for human beings. A danger for which Terra would be prepared—if it ever reached Terra.

  The last five Silver Arrows disappeared in the direction of the central planet.

  The EX-238 exceeded speol and left the Einstein universe.

  Pucky freed his hands from Iltu’s. He stood up and went toward Koster and Homunk. In the background, FR-7 stood with expressionless features.

  "Homunk, did I do right?" the mousebeaver asked. His voice sounded a bit uncertain.

  The android nodded. "None of us had any other choice. I know exactly what would have happened if you had not done as you did. And I will impress upon Rhodan what a danger these curious robots would have been to us all."

  "But… I’m still reproaching myself. If I’d never hit on the crazy idea of capturing a Silver Arrow during my vacation… what would have happened then?"

  "It would have taken a bit longer, that’s all, Pucky. The robots would have united at last, whether in 100 or 1,000 years. Finally they would have found out that human beings were no gods. You can rest easy, little one. Your idea to capture a Silver Arrow was certainly the best idea of your life
. You’ve saved the universe—and that’s no exaggeration."

  Pucky stared at him, then his eyes lit up. He stretched himself and grew a few centimetres taller.

  "You’ll say that to Perry, too, won’t you?" he wanted to know.

  "Naturally, because it’s the truth."

  "Reggie will explode!"

  "Hardly. He’ll first be shocked, then relieved. He’ll pat you on the back and nominate you for the medal which you richly deserve."

  "A medal? You mean—Perry will bestow a medal on me?"

  Homunk was disposed for endless patience but gradually all this questioning rubbed against his electronically guided nerves. But when he was about to answer, the door was ripped open.

  Two completely dishevelled mousebeavers stormed into central control. A third followed. He looked as if he’d been caught between two wringers and had managed to save himself only at the last moment.

  Pucky stared at them furiously. They jerked him out of his heavenly dream and brought him back to reality.

  "Ooch and Wullewull! I should have known! What’s the matter? And what does Fippi look like?"

  Wullewull let out a stream of invective that would have put even Bell to shame. With both hands he pointed at Ooch. "Him—I caught him! He’s been flirting with Fippi! That’s shamelessness for you, after I’d given up Biggy to him. He can’t let me have anything, the jealous rat! But I showed him…"

  "He’s done nothing of the kind!" protested Ooch indignantly. "Ask the others who’s done what to whom, Pucky. Every one of them will tell you…"

  "I don’t want to know who’s beaten up anybody. I want to know who started it all!"

  "Ooch started it!" said Wullewull.

  "Wullewull started it!" said Ooch.

  Pucky looked at Fippi questioningly.

  "Alright, Fippi, who did start it?"

  Fippi lowered her eves in embarrassment. She had folded her hands in front of her and twiddled her thumbs.

  "Really, it was Axo who started it all," she confessed hesitantly. Both Wullewull and Ooch pointed their ears and made stupid faces. "He told me that I was the sweetest creature that he’d ever seen and he wanted to show me the machine rooms if I would go with him. Just then, Ooch came around. In order not to have to go with Axo…"

  Wullewull and Ooch looked at each other. Grimly they nodded. Without bothering further about Pucky, Fippi or Iltu, not to mention Homunk or Maj. Koster, they flitted into the hallway outside.

  Pucky looked after them in contentment, then said to Fippi: "If you want to see Axo again, I’d advise you to do it quickly." Fippi disappeared like a bolt of lightning.

  Iltu pressed herself to Pucky.

  "You sure know how to handle them."

  "That’s my style," Pucky stated and grew a few centimetres taller again.

  At that moment, the navigation’s officer said: "Commander, spacecraft ahead. They are also staying in interspace with linear drive."

  Maj. Koster threw a glance at Homunk. The android shook his head.

  "It can’t be a Silver Arrow. They stayed behind us. Can you exactly determine their location?"

  "Of course."

  Maj. Koster turned on the special radar screen. By means of its refined transformation system, it was possible to identify materials that had left the Einstein universe and were staying’ in the area bordering on hyperspace.

  It was a Silver Arrow.

  "It’s rather small," Koster observed. "At most 20 meters long. Let’s get closer. Perhaps at last Pucky will have his opportunity to capture a Silver Arrow and take it home with him."

  It was, of course, a joke, but Pucky took Koster’s words seriously. He waddled to the screen and studied the object in question with special care. It grew slowly larger, the closer they came.

  "Don’t the robots notice anything?" he finally asked Maj. Koster.

  The commander answered after a brief pause. "Of course. The Silver Arrow is holding its speed and its direction unchanged, even though we’re getting closer. Either there’s a purpose to all this or…"

  "Or…" Pucky pressed. "I know what you’re thinking but say it out loud. The others should hear it too."

  "Or the ship has no crew."

  "That’s exactly my opinion. The Metalix don’t have any crewless ships, however, except for one. Namely, the one where they put the dummy bomb."

  Koster looked at Pucky in wonder.

  "Our dummy bomb? That would be a crazy coincidence."

  "The entire universe is a crazy coincidence. I’ll bet our dummy bomb is in that ship. Let’s get closer, then I’ll see."

  "Teleportation?"

  "Naturally."

  Iltu shook her head and drew back onto the couch. She knew only too well that she could not talk Pucky out of this venture. Homunk said: "We’re in linear space, Pucky. I don’t know…"

  "It’s quite safe. Of course it would be possible to capture the thing in front of us and return to the normal universe but we’ll only be wasting time. I’m not on vacation forever."

  The small Silver Arrow was flying close to the EX-238. The distance was only a few hundred meters. It was obvious that the craft was not being steered, that it held its course exactly, unswervingly.

  Pucky concentrated and sprang.

  He materialized in the Silver Arrow and immediately noticed that the craft’s interior had not been completely finished. He was glad he had closed his space helmet before he jumped, for in the rocket there was no air. There also were no compartments, hallways or cabins. Except for the propulsion room, the ship was empty. It consisted of a single long room. In the middle of the room lay the dummy bomb.

  Pucky looked at it with mixed feelings. It looked exactly like the genuine Arkon bomb but it was empty inside. Such dummies were often used to fool an enemy but they were also useful for transporting food, supplies or other equipment.

  Pucky made the rounds. The ship was not manned. Not a single robot was on board.

  Pucky returned to the dummy bomb.

  He was about to teleport himself back to the EX-238 when an idea came to him.

  The fine lines of the rectangular flap were clearly to be seen on the otherwise smooth surface of the dummy. To one side there was the button that would open it. Pucky bent over and pressed the button.

  The flap opened. Behind was a tiny chamber. The remote control detonator was held by two clamps. It was still set in the same position as Pucky had left it. Over it was the pin that would press the button that would detonate the bomb. This pin would automatically be released if unauthorized hands touched it or even if the whole mechanism was moved.

  Pucky stared alternately at the pin and at the button.

  The pin was safely anchored, and the button had not been pressed.

  The Arkon atom bomb had never been detonated.

  At first Pucky experienced something like relief, even if it was only robots who might have been destroyed. But then he thought of what Homunk had said, had prophesied.

  And Homunk himself was a robot.

  It was perhaps the greatest battle that Pucky had fought during his entire life. It was a battle with himself, with his conscience. Till now he could always comfort himself that it was the robots themselves, after all, who had activated the detonator. But now no one could take the responsibility from him. He had to carry the load himself on his not exactly broad shoulders.

  At this moment Pucky felt he had grown older for the first time in centuries. In the past, he would not have hesitated a second before pressing the button. The hyper-impulse would have sped through space at a speed greater than light and would have reached the tiny receiver of the Arkon bomb. The impulses could not be delayed nor deflected by the influences of the suns. Unerringly they would have reached their target and detonated the bomb.

  Pucky only stared at the button.

  In the radio there was a crackling.

  "Pucky," said Maj. Koster with concern. "What’s happened?"

  "Nothing. I’m standing in f
ront of the dummy."

  "Good. You’ve won your bet. Let’s go on."

  "I’ll be there right away. I just have a few details to take care of." Pucky turned off the radio equipment.

  Then he bent down and pressed the detonating button.

  As he straightened up, his usual happy­go­lucky face was dead serious. He knew that with a single push of his hand he had condemned an entire civilization to death. In but an hour the atomic fire would eat its way to the surface of the central planet, break through and go wild. Nothing could stop it.

  Only now was the universe saved from the onslaught of the Metalix.

  Pucky threw a last glance at the bomb, then teleported back to the EX-238.

  At the moment he materialized, Axo raced through the door, ran along the arc of the semicircle of the control room and ran back out into the hallway. Breathing hard, Wullewull and Ooch were right behind him. Whenever they wanted to make their telekinetic powers felt, Axo countered with the same kind of block.

  Pucky threw a puzzled look after them.

  "There’s something for you," Iltu piped up in indignation. "If you must know, Axo had nothing to do with it. Fippi lied to you. She was the one!"

  Pucky shook his head as if to ward off evil spirits. "What a witch!" he murmured. "Women—!"

  "Pucky!" Iltu cried, piqued.

  Pucky ducked and looked around helplessly for Homunk. The android came up to him and patted him on the shoulder. "She won’t hurt you; after all, I’m with you," he said. "Don’t be angry with Fippi. Or haven’t you ever in your life got out of a bad situation by lying?"

  Pucky shook his head emphatically. "Never!"

  Homunk changed the subject.

  "Well, what was in the Silver Arrow? Did you find the dummy bomb?"

  "Yes."

  "Everything alright?"

  "Yes."

  "Sure everything’s OK?"

  "Devil take it, yes!" Pucky turned away in anger and strode to the door. "Everything really was OK. Any more questions?"

  Homunk looked at him steadily. "No thanks. It’s not necessary, Pucky. If you say so, it must be so. I believe you."