by Perry Rhodan
Rhodan stopped for a moment and looked at his friends. Thora was listening intently and Rhodan thought he detected a trace of admiration in her eyes. Khrest remained quiet, as did Haggard and Marshall. Only Bell was wriggling in his seat as if he could no longer contain his impatient feelings. There was a mute request in his eyes to wind up the whole affair as fast and painlessly as possible.
Rhodan did him that favor.
"The exact wording of the message was:...just a second according to my chronology. The emphasis here is on the word 'my.' The logical conclusion therefore is that there is only one immortal being!"
Absolute silence reigned in the cabin for a long time. Khrest looked as if he had been suddenly sentenced to death. Thora's mouth stood slightly open in amazement at this announcement and Bell stared wide-eyed, utterly perplexed.
Haggard and Marshall were the first to break the silence. Both spoke at the same time: "Only one immortal being! That's a paradox! Impossible!"
"Possible!" Rhodan replied coldly. "It is absolutely within the realm of possibility and I will tell you why. Way back when the immortals landed on Ferrol they were still existing as a race. Then, for unknown reasons, they decided to emigrate from the system. At the same time some catastrophe befell them which brought about the extinction of their race, despite their immortality. Only one of them survived. He did not want to keep the secret for himself and decided to find a worthy successor. He devised the galactic riddle. Whoever could solve it would be rewarded with the secret of eternal life.
He set the trail, probably later than we originally assumed. We found his trail and have been pursuing it ever since. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing paradoxical now in speaking of the "immortal" rather then referring to his whole race that lived longer than the sun. Their sun must have set much too soon for them!"
"Only one immortal being," Khrest murmured pensively. "Your explanation, Perry, is more than fantastic. It is monstrous!"
"What kind of a creature would that be?" Thora asked softly. "A creature that poses riddles that demand extraordinary intelligence to solve — and not only that: whose solution requires the knowledge of gigantic brains? A being that has control over time?"
"Yes," Rhodan agreed. "It is capable of controlling time. And this is what renders it immortal. We will go down to the underground vault and request an answer. I'd like you to accompany me. Today!"
Khrest demurred. "Without the mutants?"
"We'll take along John Marshall, the telepath. Perhaps also our telekineticist, Anne Sloane."
"How about our robot?" Bell interjected.
Everyone knew who was meant by that. They had trained one of the Arkonide robots by connecting him. directly to the positronic brain. He had thus become capable of five-dimensional thought. The immeasurable memory banks and logisma-gears had turned him into a super-intelligent machine creature who had become an indispensable member during their search. No one could predict what emergencies they might encounter.
"All right then," Rhodan finally gave his consent. "This time the following people will accompany me: Khrest, Bell, Marshall, Anne Sloane, Dr Haggard and the robot. Thora, wouldn't you like to join us this time?"
Their eyes met. Rhodan recognized that she would prefer to accompany him out of sheer defiance. But then her feminine prudence won out. "Since Khrest is going along with you, I suppose it will be wiser for me to stay behind. Sort of a precautionary measure, a safety device."
Bell suggested: "Why shouldn't a few more of the mutants come with us? At least our teleporter Ras Tschubai. Perhaps also Ralf Marten. He's always complaining that he has to stay too much in the background."
"Okay with me," Rhodan agreed shortly. "Will you please inform the others. Our matter transmitter to the Red Palace will accommodate just nine persons. We'll leave in thirty minutes."
Ages before, the immortal, whose trail they were trying to track down, had erected a ray-vault beneath the palace of the Ferronian ruler. The vault was invisible to the naked eye. It was formed by beams of rays, consisting of the waves of far distant radio stars. The Arkonide generator was the only machine capable of neutralizing these waves. It caused the crypt to materialize in present time and to take on three-dimensional form.
Rhodan pushed the button to start the generator. Almost instantaneously their environment changed. Where shortly before had been nothing but a vault steeped in semidarkness, a glistening cone had appeared. It seemed to have come from nowhere. Gradually the glowing ray-cone dissolved. Now objects became visible inside the large underground hall. Yet the matter transmitter was not among them.
In the spot where formerly the transmitter had stood was now a chair. It was poised on a low dais. The chair seemed to beckon one to sit down in it. It was the only object that now remained where the cone had been.
Rhodan deliberated briefly, then concluded: He was supposed to sit down in this chair, of course! The rest would follow by itself. The chair would supply the first answer they were seeking.
Khrest, too, had recognized the significance of the chair. "This chair represents the link to the immortal. Anyone of us can take a seat in it, Rhodan, for we all are familiar with the name of the man in the past who expressed amazement."
"I'll do it," said Rhodan. "If anyone has to take a risk, I prefer to be the one. Khrest, you wait here with the others. Observe closely whatever will take place. Come to my assistance if necessary."
Bell obviously wanted to make a comment but held himself back. His lips were pressed tightly together. Fine perspiration beaded his forehead.
"And in case you should vanish from...?" Ras Tschubai asked.
Rhodan quickly glanced at the African. "Then you'll follow me. After all, that's what teleporters are here for."
The African smiled quizzically. "I can surmount space but not time."
Rhodan did not reply. He straightened up with determination and walked over to the chair. In the few seconds it took him to reach the chair, all details about it became imprinted on his mind.
The seat was not upholstered, it was just a smooth metal surface. The back consisted of metal, too. It seemed to blink at him maliciously. The plump legs were anchored to the ground. The seat was unusually thick and massive.
Rhodan stood in front of the chair. He hesitated.
What would happen when he sat down in it? The message had warned him and insisted he come here only if he knew the name of the person who had wondered about the transmitter. All right, he did know that name. So he qualified in that respect.
He took one last step and climbed upon the podium. Then he sat down in the chair.
The metal felt warm to the touch, as if someone had been sitting in it a short while ago. That was all he felt. But while Rhodan was still waiting for something to occur, things began to happen lightning fast, taking him by surprise.
A hum started below; the machine began to operate. The entire subterranean hall began to vibrate. An energy screen lit up simultaneously. It enveloped Rhodan and the chair with the podium. Rhodan perceived Khrest, Bell and the others as from behind a thin veil, but all sounds had ceased abruptly. He was all alone under the energy dome, totally cut off from the outside world, although he could still see it. Then even this vanished.
It grew dark around him. Only the energy dome shed a weak fluorescent light, not enough to make things recognizable. Rhodan became aware that some alien force began to invade his mind. He resisted this attempt instinctively but soon abandoned it. It would have been senseless to avoid the questions that were being posed to his subconscious. He did not even know whether he would be able to answer them. His resistance died down fully once he realized that it could only harm him to continue to offer it. With a sense of well-being he felt how the unknown entity suddenly and completely took possession of his mind.
This lasted but a few seconds, then it became light again, while at the same time the energy screen disappeared. The vibration below the metal seat stopped; the hum ceased. Rhodan peered int
o the eagerly questioning faces of his friends.
"Where have you been?" asked Bell. "You disappeared from view."
"So did you." answered Rhodan, and rose from his seat. He remained standing next to the chair; he could not tell exactly why. What held him back?
It came to him in a flash: the answer! Where was the answer the immortal had promised?
Meanwhile the others crowded around him. Khrest and Bell both inquired excitedly: "What happened?"
"I couldn't say for sure what was taking place but I assume that something thoroughly examined my memory. The immortal—or his creation—must have found out by now that I know the name of the man who ten thousand years ago was surprised to see matter transmitters that operate on the fifth-dimensional principle on the primitive, semi-barbaric planet Ferrol. That was the condition the immortal had requested us to fulfill. We did our part, now it is up to him to show us the next step."
Now Haggard, Marshall and Anne Sloane had come quite close. Also Ras Tschubai, Ralf Marten and the robot. Rhodan was standing in their midst.
This was exactly the moment the invisible, mysterious mechanism seemed to have been waiting for. Very slowly, silently, the solid floor of the underground vault began to sink down. The rock walls appeared to slide upward. The seven men, Anne Sloane and the robot were standing on the platform of an elevator that kept steadily descending.
"Hope it'll turn out all right," Bell muttered under his breath. "We should all have gotten off as long the going was good. They certainly gave us plenty of time for that."
"That was on purpose!" Rhodan remarked reproachfully. "Haggard explained once that the immortal who intends passing on to us the secret of eternal life is not solely interested in how intelligent we are but also want a to make certain of our physical and psychic qualifications. This is just another test."
Bell did not reply. Apparently he realized that Rhodan was right. In the meantime the platform came to a standstill. Now the four rocky walls began to recede and the space, deep below the original vault, increased steadily in size. Suddenly a block came into sight, as if conjured up out of thin air. The block stood in the middle of the otherwise empty room. A metal block. Light came on. It was everywhere, in the walls, in the ceiling. The hall was cube-shaped, each side about ten yards long. The ceiling was now separating them from the shaft above. They were totally cut off from the outside world. Eight persons and a robot were sitting in a prison, in the most perfect trap.
The metal cube! Their attention was at once drawn to it. Of course, for there was nothing else to be seen in this isolation cell. Rhodan's probing eyes noticed that this cube showed the same well-known irregularities they had previously encountered. The hieroglyphs and symbolic script of the immortals! They were clearly visible on the metal cube's side facing them. Was this inscription to be their next clue?
"How can we decipher these lines?" wondered Khrest. "I have firmly anchored the symbols in my photographic memory. But how can we get to the positronic brain from here to decode the message? And how would we get back here again?"
Rhodan did not answer him directly. He simply turned around and motioned to the robot. The marvel of Arkonide technology reacted immediately. Markon came closer. Silently he waited for his orders. "You see this inscription on the metal cube?" asked Rhodan."
"Yes, sir."
"Decode it and then let us have the text of that message."
"Yes, sir." The robot focused his eyes, optical lenses, on the mysterious inscription. Then the robot, created in the image of his Arkonide builders, stood stock-still. Inside his metal body relays began to click. Contacts were made, new currents flowed into so-far unused regions of the small positronic brain. The inscription was photographed, then relayed to the proper parts of the brain to be decoded.
Bell showed impatience. "Who knows if he'll succeed? And what will happen to us here in case he fails?"
"Worrywart!" It was John Marshall, disapproving loud and clear.
"What's that?"
"Cut it out!" ordered Rhodan. "Let Markon get on with his work!"
In the background, Ras Tschubai and Ralf Marten carried on a whispered conversation. The teleporter was greatly tempted to try escaping their prison by simple materialization. But he did not dare to experiment without Rhodan's express command. After all, their prison chamber might be shut off from the outside world not merely by walls of rock but perhaps a time barrier or even a five-dimensional field. And these he could not penetrate.
The robot started to move. He turned around, fixing his rigid optical lens-eyes directly on Rhodan's face. "The inscription was easy to decode. Here is the message: 'Now seek out the man whose name you know. Only he possesses what you need in order to find the way to the Light. Do you know the meaning of time?'"
The robot fell silent. Rhodan waited a moment before he inquired: "Is that all there is to the message?"
"That's the text of the entire inscription on the time-transformer, sir."
Rhodan felt thunderstruck. His heart skipped beats, once, twice, three times. Then the blood streamed with renewed force back to his heart. He shuddered.
"What did you say, Markon? What is that over there?"
Rhodan pointed to the metal block in front of them.
The robot answered unemotionally: "A time-transformer, sir. An instrument capable of manipulating the fourth and fifth dimensions. It serves the same purpose in fifth-dimensional mathematics as a computer does in three-dimensional calculations."
What can be accomplished with such a time-transformer, Markon?"
Bell, who had pressed forward, seemed to detect a trace of irony in the usually dispassionate voice of the robot.
"Transform time, sir. What else?"
"The joke's on us. That tin can is making fun of us!" Bell commented furiously."It pretends a time-transformer is nothing more than an abacus for little kids to learn to add and subtract."
"Shut up, Reg!" Rhodan snapped at his friend. It was rare that he lost his temper. "And if you have something to add to the discussion then make sure it will be something helpful, otherwise keep quiet."
Rhodan again addressed the robot: "You said the machine's purpose is to transform time? Does that mean this block is a time machine?"
"You might call it that, if you wish, sir. But a time-transformer is different from normal time machines. You cannot step into it and then travel forward or backward in time to whatever era you select. A transformer is set specifically for one certain date. It will take you to this time and then back again to the present. I am theoretically acquainted with the transformer's working principle."
"Which direction will this transformer take?"
"Into the past, sir."
Khrest had stepped up to Rhodan. "Things are getting clearer now, Perry. Up there while you were sitting in that chair, the immortal ascertained that you knew the name of the Arkonide commander. As a result, we were permitted access to the time-transformer. There is no objection against bringing along your friends. Now this machine will carry us back in time, to give us the opportunity to meet Kerlon. For, according to the message, Kerlon is the one who possesses what will show us the path to the Light. Whatever this unknown thing might be, we don't know yet. We'll have to find it and then take it away from him."
Bell and the mutants kept staring silently at the metal cube. It was a weird sensation to think that this inconspicuous looking metal piece should be able to transport them ten thousand years back into the past. Only the robot, incapable of experiencing emotions, remained undisturbed. Quietly it awaited whatever might come next.
"How does this transformer function, how can it be activated?" Rhodan looked inquiringly at Khrest. "I can't find any controls."
The robot reacted at once and answered in place of Khrest: "The time-transformer is connected to the automatic mechanism in the vault. Our path has been preset. We cannot influence it in any way. I would say that we are already traveling backward in time."
Startled, Rhodan lo
oked around the room. The others reacted similarly. Nothing seemed to have changed in their temporary prison. They must still be somewhere underneath the vault of the Thort's Red Palace.
Or maybe not?
But before they could continue with their deliberations, something strange happened. Rhodan, Khrest, Bell and several of the mutants had already experienced it when they were in the hall of machines during the first stage of the galactic riddle. As before, they were seized once more by a sensation resembling horror, when the immortal's voice, preserved across thousands of years, spoke to them again out of the void.
It was a voice without sound, a mute, urging voice, that penetrated directly into the group's minds and therefore needed no translation.
It was a new message:
"I am speaking to the one who has followed my trail this far. When you arrive, be on guard; don't let yourself get killed. No one will come to your assistance; you must help yourself. And only if you find Kerlon, and with him that which will show you the way to the Light, will you be able to return to your own time. Wait for a period of exactly three days, not more nor less. Only then will the machine bring you back again. I hope you will succeed in this task. I have been waiting for such a long time already."
