Spybot!

by Perry Rhodan

  Atlan looked at him doubtfully. "If this matter has something to do with our undiscovered spy, you just tipped him off."

  Rhodan laughed. "You have a ludicrous imagination, Atlan! What would a spy have to do with a mess of regurgitated carrots?"

  Atlan's face remained expressionless. For long moments he studied Rhodan searchingly and finally said: "I'd certainly give a lot to know what you're thinking about..."

  6/ PROJECT: BLINDFOLD

  The planned transition took place. Five minutes later the now familiar transmission of their position went out and the hiding place of the micro-device was located. The tiny transmitter did not differ in any way from its predecessors.

  Rhodan was not surprised.

  But perhaps the spy himself could be surprised. He gave an order to Sikermann and Bell to prepare for the next transition and in the same direction as before. The hyperjump was to take place in exactly two hours.

  Then he got tip and went out without explaining where he was going. The wide corridors of the Drusus appeared to be quiet and deserted. The crews were at their weapons stations. Not a man moved from his post without express instructions to do so.

  Ahead of him all he heard was the soft humming of the eternally gliding conveyor strips.

  Rhodan had set the new transition for 23:30 ship time. Until then he still had enough time to speak with Pucky concerning the mysterious carrot situation.

  Instead of summoning Pucky to the Command Central he chose to visit him personally. He needed a little exercise yet he confessed to himself that what had induced him to take a walk was the rather unrealistic prospect of running into the spy by mere chance.

  He dispensed with using the conveyor. Instead he walked along next to the wall of the passageway with his head lowered in thought.

  This spy was beginning to get on his nerves-especially since he didn't want to reveal his anxiety to his men. A time-tested axiom from the Academy in Terrania stated that a nervous commander was the worst thing possible for a threatened ship. And Rhodan considered the professor who had formulated this principle to be a very smart man.

  Oh well, he thought, what good is that to me? Nervous or not, I'm going to find that this spy keeps sending out his position messages after every transition. We're both pulling with equal force on opposite ends of a rope and neither one of us is moving forward or backward.

  How long will it go on? We don't have any more time to lose!

  Thus lost in thought he happened to pass the wide sliding door of the positronic data bank room. Having passed it by only a few paces, he thought he heard a noise.

  He stopped and looked behind him. Nothing was there.

  "Think of the devil..." he muttered half-aloud. "I shouldn't have brooded so much about my nerves."

  Nevertheless he retraced his steps and opened the door to the data room. He stood in the open doorway and looked around.

  The data retrieval consoles were arranged in a horseshoe half semicircle. Linked to the ship's positronicon through invisible conduits, these consoles were equipped to furnish data to an astronaut attempting to determine a course or ascertain the position of an unknown star or many kinds of information for a great variety of purposes.

  Information was organized here by machine groups in accordance with the relative importance of the data. General information usually available to anyone-mostly of a kind that would be needed in an emergency-was kept in Transfor language, which was the simplest computer coding system. Other information, which was less frequently used or somewhat restricted, was coded into Sira 3 language, or Hangol. A third classification of data-the most restricted and secret of all-was in the central console that formed the apex of the entire installation. This information was electronically registered in the data bank in a complex and almost undecipherable coding format known as the Fermat system.

  All of this went through Rhodan's mind with lightning rapidity... before he saw the red signal light glowing on the front panel of the Fermat data console.

  He reached it in a few long strides and read the back lighted indicator: DEFECT...

  The rest he did mechanically in a flashing movement without premeditation. His fist struck the alarm button on the wall beside the sliding door and he was relieved when the shrill howl of sirens filled the corridors.

  Seconds later, Bell's excited voice was heard on the P.A. speakers throughout the ship: "Emergency in Data Bank, E-deck! Capt. Farrington-on your way! See what's wrong!"

  Rhodan remained near the wide bulkhead doorway. The clamor of the sirens stopped suddenly. Moments later, Farrington's troops came into sight through another bulkhead hatchway from an adjoining section, with Farrington in the lead. The latter saluted while still running.

  "Block off the Data Section, Captain!" Rhodan ordered. "Nobody gets in or out." He looked at his watch. It was 22:35.

  Farrington posted his men. He was just about to ask whether any vacuum cleaners were needed when Rhodan turned to him again.

  "I'm sending some math programmers down here so that they can investigate the defect. You will let them pass inside, of course. Understood?" He looked at his watch again. He was about to leave when an idea occurred to him at the last moment. "How long did it take you and your men to get here, Farrington? I mean from the second you received Bell's instruction?"

  "Not more than a minute and a half, sir. The alarm sounded just after 22:33 and at the same moment we were dispatched by Bell."

  Rhodan thanked him. Then he left the scene.

  • • •

  The report from the scientific programmers was very bad news.

  Perry Rhodan called his officers together in the Command Central, from the rank of Major on up. He opened his announcement by saying: "We are confronted with the immediate prospect of a catastrophe. Any hope of averting it is very slight. Our unknown intruder has retrieved the Earth's position from the data bank!"

  He made a short pause in which to observe the reaction of this announcement among his men. He saw a shadow of consternation cross their faces. There was a brief moment in which even a spark of fear appeared in their eyes but it disappeared as swiftly as it had come.

  They were not ready to shy away from the awful consequences which might face them.

  "So we have to consider that our carefully protected secret will shortly become known to the spy's principal authority-probably the Robot Regent of Arkon. Let me give you a few details in this regard."

  "As you know, this enemy agent has already succeeded in learning the Terranian code system from the positronicon. If he has the proper equipment-which is a foregone conclusion-he is completely capable of deciphering any coding modifications. The simple ones will break down fairly fast for him, the difficult ones correspondingly longer.

  "The galactic position of the Earth has been memory-stored in Fermat logic, which means it is in the most complicated modification language that we possess. Our spy is going to need a number of hours to make a breakdown of the position data sufficiently to be able to beam it out of here-and according to our estimate this may be as much as four or five hours. That is exactly how much time we have for averting the catastrophe.

  "You understand that we haven't much certainty of success against this danger. Some of you will be placed under command of Mr. Bell. With the help of the positronicon, you are to work out a scenario of strategic action in case we are not able to prevent a betrayal of the Earth's position. As of this moment, all machine times issued to other users are hereby canceled; the positronicon is solely at your disposal.

  "Proceed from the premise that the Robot Regent of Arkon will no longer be our ally as soon as he knows the position of our home planet. It's true that he has placed the larger part of his war fleet under our command as a defense measure against the unknown menace from the alien time dimension; but presumably he can revoke this arrangement very quickly.

  "So I want you to come up with a plan which considers that the Regent will be our enemy... and try to find something t
hat will still give us a chance in all this mess!"

  Bell picked out his team, altogether 15 men. Among them were seven mathematicians and scientific programmers, five Academy officers with expertise in political strategy and three technicians who were especially familiar with the positronicon.

  Bell's group left the Command Central ready to go to work. Shortly thereafter the remaining officers returned to their posts. The Command Central itself was only lightly manned now. It was not intended any longer that the Drusus should make a move before the time had elapsed in which the spy would be completing his task-or until they had apprehended him.

  Atlan the Arkonide was the only one who didn't have anything to do. "Why do you believe," he asked, "that the spy may not have simply transmitted the Earth coordinates right along with the coding system he learned from the positronicon before? Then if his principal has the whole package in hand, he could be cudgeling his brains over the decipherment right now."

  Rhodan shook his head. "I consider that improbable," he answered. "If he has a hypercom transmitter that puts out more than his micro-tracker gadget-and we have to assume that, because otherwise he's not going to get any information out of here-then I'm sure it'll be a small piece of equipment that can only handle one specific transmitting code. And certainly it can't in itself break everything down to what we'd call a literal translation. His transmitter, naturally, will be an Arkonide model and must work with Arkonide word formats or some Arkonide code. So he is not able to beam out any information that's in Terranian code. In addition to his transmitter he'd have to have a code transformer, which is the only thing that would make it possible for him to decode our position data and transform it into his own coding system. So any way you look at it, it's going to take him time-thank God!" He stood up and added casually: "If you're free, why don't you come along with me to the Data Bank? I'd like to take another look around."

  "Playing detective?" smiled Atlan. "Alright, I'll come along."

  • • •

  Capt. Farrington still had guards at the single entrance to the Data Bank room. Two of the mathematical scientists that Rhodan had assigned to the area were still busy with their investigation of the defect in the equipment.

  "Have you uncovered the defect yet?" inquired Rhodan.

  "Yes, sir. You see, there's been a short through some of the diode logic gates and..."

  Rhodan waved a hand. "I'm afraid I wouldn't understand much of the details. Just tell me-how was the defect caused?"

  "By inexpert operation," came the prompt reply. "The spy must be an amateur with this kind of equipment. He's tried to use the data retrieval board as if it were a hand-crank calculator. Apparently he hit every button in sight in order to extract information. Unfortunately he chanced on the right combination and did retrieve what he wanted before he made a mess of the internal logic and fouled up the machine."

  Rhodan nodded casually and seemed only mildly interested as though he had expected as much. "And when did the defect occur?"

  "That we have determined to the exact second, sir," answered the scientist proudly. "The machine registered its breakdown at precisely 22:30:14, ship's time."

  Rhodan also acknowledged this information but of course with a more marked expression of interest. He took the Arkonide to one side. "That casts a new light on the subject," he explained. "I gave the alarm at exactly 22:33, which means just about three minutes after the defect occurred. I had come from the Command Central without using the conveyor belt, yet I wasn't exactly dragging my feet. I would have had to see the spy, without any question, if he had come out the door."

  "Is that true?" asked Atlan. "I mean, have you double-checked it?"

  "Yes, to such an extent that I'm now convinced our culprit was here in the Data Bank room when I first went by the door. I heard a sound in here-and I recall at the time that I thought I had only imagined it because I was pretty uptight about everything. But now I'm sure that the sound came from the Fermat-system console... at the moment in which the defect occurred.

  "Then I went back to the bulkhead door. I had gone some distance past it already and I also spent a few moments deliberating whether or not I should really look into it. So I opened the door and looked around. I discovered the red warning light and went over to it in order to read the indication on the panel. It was only then that I put in the alarm.

  "Yes, it's in agreement with the time span involved here. So the spy did not leave this room by way of the door. We have to find the hole he slipped out of, because he certainly isn't here anymore."

  Atlan did not contradict him. All traces of patronizing humor on the subject had disappeared from his shrewd countenance. The hunt for the unknown intruder had begun to fascinate him.

  They scoured the room thoroughly. They pounded on all the walls because it was entirely possible that the spy could have used a disintegrator to burn out an exit hole for himself and afterwards have cleverly disguised his passage.

  They brought in ultra-sonic sounders in order not to have to depend on the knocking alone... but they found nothing.

  Until suddenly Rhodan had an idea. He remembered the rotting carrot mess that the maintenance crew had discovered in the airshafts and he investigated the four dust screens that terminated the cross shafting of the air-conditioning installation in the walls of the room.

  3 of them were completely intact and probably had not been removed from their locations since they had been installed originally.

  The fourth one, however, was lacking the small screws which held the screen frame fastened to the plastic flange of the feeder airshaft. Rhodan obtained a grip on the fine wires of the screen with two fingernails and pulled on them. The screen moved out of its niche almost without resistance and fell forward.

  "Oho!" muttered Atlan.

  Rhodan lay flat on the floor and shoved his right arm into the feeder duct. His hand reached the place where the ducting opened into the almost vertically running larger airshaft but he found nothing.

  He sat up and looked silently at the Arkonide.

  "Do you believe that... that he went out that way?" asked Atlan.

  Rhodan nodded.

  Atlan was obviously impressed. "That," he said softly, "gives a new look to the situation, right?"

  They went back to the Fermat console where the scientists were just replacing the front panel. The red warning light had been shut off. The defect had been corrected.

  "What's that?" asked Rhodan suddenly and pointed to a fine white groove that had been made in the front panel-from the row of retrieval buttons almost down to the readout slot-in a vertical line.

  The mathematician observed the white line. "A scratch sir," he answered.

  It had not escaped Rhodan's attention. "Have you ever seen it here before?"

  The man shook his head. "No, sir."

  "Don't you think that the spy could have done that?"

  It was apparently embarrassing to the mathematician that Rhodan was including him in his investigation. He nodded faintly and said quietly, "That would be entirely possible, sir."

  "But he would have had to at least used a very tough knife blade," interjected Atlan. "This panel is made of metallic plastic. How do you think he was able to cut such a deep scratch in it?"

  The mathematician didn't know.

  Rhodan smiled. "I think it's simply explained. He took out his pocketknife and scratched the front panel in order to leave a sign, just like many psychopathic criminals on Earth. It's supposed to mean: I was here." He glanced at Atlan.

  The Arkonide laughed. "You're right. That must have been the reason exactly."

  The mathematician stared confusedly from one to the other but neither of them enlightened him further.

  Rhodan and the Arkonide exited the data room.

  "So now we know him, right?" asked Atlan in a better mood, as the two of them stepped onto the glideway.

  "I believe so," answered Rhodan.

  "Why are we still waiting? All we have to do i
s close in."

  Rhodan made a deprecating gesture. "Don't be too sure! In the beginning perhaps he felt pretty sure of himself. He probably thought nobody would suspect him. But in the meantime he's wronged off a number of times... or maybe had no choice in the matter. I'm certain we won't find him right off the bat."

  "You think it's the mouse-beaver...?"

  Rhodan looked at him startled. He smiled but gave no definitive answer...

  • • •

  Nobody knew when the next transition would take place. The one that had been planned had been called off. Did Rhodan want to confuse the spy?

  Bell was on his way to his cabin to take a half-hour's rest when a thought came to him. He took a new direction and wandered through the corridors without any apparent goal. Finally, however, he stopped in front of a certain door. Without knocking, he went in.

  Pucky was waiting for him in a sitting position. "I'd like to live long enough to see you act like a gentleman," he grumbled and gave Bell a scornful look. Didn't you ever hear of knocking?"

  "Depends on how you want to take that," countered Bell. He wrinkled his nose and added disdainfully: "You've got a nerve talking about good manners. It stinks like a pigpen in here."

  The mouse-beaver drew himself up slowly. "Let me tell you something, Fatso. In the first place, it doesn't stink in here, and in the second place... if it should stink here, it's none of your business. It can stink here as long as I want it to!"

  "OK, shortso. Makes no difference to me." He looked around. "By the way, where the heck is your new friend, Muzzel? You two are supposed to be just about inseparable now."

  "Jealous?" Pucky beamed gloatingly. "Do you have complaints about Muzzel too?"

  "Quite a few," acknowledged Bell despite Pucky's penetrating glare. "A dachshund like that isn't very trustworthy, which you know is common knowledge. I wouldn't rely on him so much and..."