Twenty years had passed since he had met him, but Deshan suddenly had the feeling that he did not know Levian Paronn at all. He was writing the chronicle of a man who now seemed stranger to him than he ever had before, and he asked himself, who is Levian Paronn?
19
Deshan Apian
Lemuria, 4521 dT (51,879 B.C.)
"Who are you?" Deshan asked. "Who are you really?"
Levian Paronn stood at the large window of his simply furnished office, his back to him. He did not turn around but continued to look out, out across the many workshops and laboratories that belonged to Impetus. A long day of work was behind him and it had been dark outside for some time. A sea of lights marked the location of the city of Marroar. Over the passing years the city had grown ever closer to the industrial complex of the Spaceflight Solidarity. Surrounded by stars, Suen shone in the sky, showing its full crater-saturated face.
Deshan felt the seconds ticking by without anything happening. He sensed the importance of the moment very clearly and respected it with patience.
Finally Paronn turned away from the window, sat down behind the desk, and gestured to the chair in front of it. "Sit down, Deshan."
The Chronicler complied with the request. Paronn looked down, as though he was seeking the appropriate words on the desktop. When he looked up, Deshan saw nothing in his face that hinted at what was going on inside of him.
"I am Levian Paronn," he said quietly.
Deshan decided to be completely open. "I've been in Torhad and made inquiries. As a boy, you were never very good in school, which caused your father great concern. But the records of the Educational Center of Kanrar show that your performance during your studies there was extraordinarily good. Your parents were victims of a traffic accident when you were seventeen. Three analog accounts from that time report the loss of a family in that connection. You disappeared without a trace in the following years until the beginning of your studies at Kanrar."
Deshan allowed a short pause to give Paronn an opportunity to say something. But Paronn was silent, merely looking at him with his gray eyes.
"When we met for the first time twenty-one years ago on the observation platform at the launch of the Moon mission, you claimed to work for the space program. But that doesn't fit. Your work for Impetus didn't begin until two years later, in the year 4502. That same year, I became your official Chronicler. I have observed you during your work and seen that in certain fields you seem to be more knowledgeable than the best specialists. Again and again I've had the impression that you know much more than other people, and in comparison with Lemuria's respected scientists and engineers that is no less than astounding. During the last fifteen years, the focus of Impetus's work has shifted more and more in favor of your own projects. Among them, Number Nineteen plays a special role and recently led to the catastrophe that cost the lives of Professor Luban and the others. Mepha Hatan doesn't seem to know yet that your own plans have gained considerably in importance, but he'll find out sooner or later, and then conflicts can hardly be avoided."
This time Levian Paronn did not remain silent. "Impetus is working together with the Star Seekers' Project Exodus. Our Development Department is using less of the Spaceflight Solidarity's resources than ever before. No one can accuse me of wasting public means."
Deshan nodded. "It was never my intention to say anything like that. But your first priority is not really acquisition of extraterrestrial raw materials, further technological progress, and increasing our economic potential." Deshan hesitated for a moment. "Years ago, I saw your designs. The tubes kilometers long. Spaceships that could carry many thousands of people."
Paronn's face remained immobile.
Deshan decided to bring up the last point as well. "And I find it remarkable that you look exactly as you did nineteen years ago. Mira and I have compared photographs. There is no difference. You have seemingly not aged in the slightest. Who are you?"
For a few more seconds, Paronn's gaze rested on his Chronicler. Then he stood up, stepped to the window, and looked out once more. Deshan wondered if that was a way for Paronn to hide his face from him.
"And then in the space station," Deshan added, "the possibility of your own death seemed to have disturbed you more than the terrible deaths of Professor Luban and the others."
Levian Paronn sighed. "Please believe me. I very much regret that they lost their lives. And not only because work on the project was delayed as a result." He raised his right hand to his chest, then pointed out the window to the dark sky.
"Have you ever considered that the Star Seekers could be right?" he asked. "That there really could be a threat to us from alien beings from space?"
"What does that have to do with it?"
Paronn turned around and his face did not show the severity that Deshan had expected, but a mixture of concern and determination. "A great deal. I did not lie to Mepha Hatan, the Solidarity Taman, and the others at the time. With my work for Impetus, I'd like to contribute to the survival of we human beings as a species. I assure you that I am employing all of my energy for this one goal, for the survival of the Lemurians."
Deshan looked at Paronn and believed him.
"As far as the other things are concerned ... Why should I assume the role of a young man who died together with his parents in a traffic accident? I am Levian Paronn. Trui Paronn was my father and Kaila Rinauro was my mother. As for my similarity with the Levian of nineteen years ago ... " Paronn smiled. "I am well-preserved. Many people age more slowly than others."
Deshan looked Paronn in the eyes and suddenly felt his suspicion had been absurd—everything about this man testified to honest sincerity.
What had caused him to risk his contract as a Chronicler with foolish suspicions? He stood up.
"Please excuse me," he said, embarrassed. "If you now believe that I am no longer suited to continue your chronicle ... "
Levian Paronn walked over to him and rested his hand on his shoulder. "Don't be concerned. With you I feel I am in the best of hands. You are very observant and I appreciate your openness. I believe that the two of us make a good team."
When Deshan left the office a little later, he felt like a fool who had managed to get off more easily than he deserved. He did not hear the relieved sigh of the man behind the door.
20
Roder Roderich
Everyone had regained consciousness by this time but the room had gone dark again. Then a large door slid to one side and light fell into the room. Roderich blinked in horror as he saw a monstrous form silhouetted against the bright background: a metal spider-like being equipped with numerous arms and legs.
Servo-motors buzzed and hummed as the large robot moved and stalked into the room with the crawler crews.
"Yu'lli ... " Roderich muttered. "I think your multi-formed Creature of Chaos is paying us a visit."
"It doesn't belong to me," the Blue called Yu'lhan replied in a soft woman's voice, drawing back. His brother stayed close to him and twittered something that the Translator did not interpret.
"Security status critical," said a voice that came from somewhere within the oval central body of the robot. "The non-humans must be eliminated."
The tall, fatherly Catchpole appeared next to the young Roderich. "The non-humans are our friends and do not constitute a danger to the base."
Roderich heard a low growling behind him. He turned his head a little and whispered, "Keep back, Kitty ... "
The growling turned into a hiss.
Small bulges formed in the robot's central oval, and several long, tentacle-like arms stiffened, transforming into the weapon barrels aimed at the group of prospectors.
"We will not allow our friends to be ... eliminated," Catchpole said.
A gun barrel aimed itself at the two Blues standing close to each other. Grimly determined, Roderich made sure to stand between the robot and his two friends to protect them with his body.
The robot came closer still, loomi
ng in front of Catchpole, Roderich, and the others like a huge metal arachnid. "The ones of the Builders' race must be protected. But the others are a security risk and ... "
The voice faded out and the robot froze. The light in the corridor flickered and somewhere in the distance echoed an uncanny shriek that made cold shivers run down Roderich's back.
"Yu'lli," he whispered, "was that the Black Creature of Death?"
Catchpole stepped forward and touched one of the robot's weapon arms. It did not react.
Chet Dada and Teodoro Franty, who formed an inseparable trio with Catchpole, hurried past him to the door. "We should take advantage of this perfect opportunity!" one of them exclaimed.
The others followed them, including Catchpole. Roderich waited until the Gurrad Grresko and the two Blues had left the room before he, too, turned away from the robot.
Silence awaited him in the corridor. The Black Creature of Death from the Blues' mythology no longer howled in the distance, and Roderich wondered if that was a good or a bad sign.
Suddenly, there was a humming of servo-motors from the room they had just left.
"The robot!" Chet Dada exclaimed. "It's reactivating" He instinctively chose a direction and started running.
Half a second later, the entire group was sprinting through the corridor with Roderich bringing up the rear. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the spider machine stalking into the corridor. It rose into the air using an antigrav field and began to accelerate towards them. The young prospector realized at once that they could not outrun it.
A beam of energy flashed past him, hot and bright. It missed Grresko only because he had turned to the side at just that moment to attempt opening a door. The Gurrad ducked, leaped into the middle of the corridor, and ran even faster.
Behind the fleeing prospectors, the robot's humming grew louder.
Again the beam of energy blazed, and sizzled its way along the metal floor right next to Tru'lhan. Catchpole half turned as he ran and fired a weapon that he had pulled from one of the many pockets of his overalls. A glowing ray shot straight towards the robot and scattered when it struck the defensive field just in front of it.
Further ahead, someone had managed to open a door and the prospectors began exiting the corridor. Catchpole slowed down, firing rapid bursts at the pursuer and waving to Roderich with his free hand. He understood and ran behind Tru'lhan and Yu'lhan through the open door ...
... and almost fell over a waist-high railing into an abyss at least a thousand meters deep. It would have been a plunge into certain death because the asteroid's slight gravitation would not have been any help as the artificial gravity in the station gave Roderich his usual weight.
Behind the door was a small platform connected to a narrow walkway that led along the inner wall of a colossal shaft.
Roderich was stretched halfway over the railing and staring terrified into the depths when Yu'lhan pulled him back with a seven-fingered hand.
"I owe you one, Yu'lli," Roderich gasped.
The Blue tilted his discus-shaped head from one side to the other. "I will speak about that later," Yu'lhan's seductively purring human female voice replied. "And my name is not ... "
Catchpole slammed the door shut and raced past them. "Don't waste any time here! That thing is still on our heels!"
Yu'lhan and Truellhan ran with long, astonishingly elegant-seeming steps, and Roderich also trusted himself to the narrow walkway. He ran close to the railing, with not even a meter separating him from the depths from which silver-gray, metal pipes rose. They showed transparent sections at regular intervals, like windows. Behind them was a pulsating glow that was synchronized with a muffled, also rhythmic humming. Perhaps they were energy transfer channels? Rib-like extensions jutted from the shaft walls, reaching in many cases to within a few meters of the pipes. They showed round openings where the walkway passed them.
There was a cracking behind Roderich as part of the door was burned through by an energy beam and the rest knocked away. A small piece of debris struck one of the pipes and the pulsing of the glow within briefly changed, then reverted to its normal rhythm.
Roderich ran even faster. "Yu'lli, Tru'lli—pull your heads in if you don't want to give that thing targets!"
The two Blues ducked and a beam hissed over them, drilled through a nearby spar, and crackled along the wall.
Roderich took a quick look back and saw that the robot had changed its configuration—with its previous height of nearly three meters, it would have hardly been possible for it to pass through the relatively small opening. Arms and legs were now bunched into three tail-like knots behind the central oval, which had formed more bulges—one of them spat out another energy beam, not as bright as the previous one but pale and gray. It grazed Roderich's left arm. The result was not the burning he feared but a moment later he lost all feeling in the arm.
"Paralyzer beams!" Roderich exclaimed. "The robot isn't limiting itself to shooting at Yu'lli, Tru'lli, and Grresko any more!"
Catchpole fired at it, but again a defensive field absorbed the discharge.
Further on, the walkway led past an opening in the wall, and the prospectors took advantage of the opportunity to escape the direct line of fire. Roderich and Catchpole were the last to leap through the opening, and they raced through a wide, irregularly lit corridor. There were doors on both sides, but none of them could be opened. To make matters worse, the corridor was perfectly straight and offered no cover. A few hundred meters ahead, its outlines were lost in darkness.
Strange sounds came out of that black void.
There was rumbling in the distance. Metal groaned and tore with shrieks that sounded like a tortured living being. A stamping followed that quickly grew louder, accompanied by an increasing vibration of the floor.
Behind the still running prospectors, the robot floated on its antigrav field through the opening that connected the corridor with the walkway in the shaft.
Ahead, a monster came out of the darkness, a giant with two pillar-like legs, four arms, and three red, glowing eyes, clad in a red battlesuit. The two chest-arms assumed the function of additional legs as the colossus ran and made the floor vibrate.
"A Halutian!" someone exclaimed.
"Up against the walls, get up against the walls!" Catchpole shouted to the prospectors so no one stood in the monster's path.
Roderich also pressed against the wall, and a few seconds later, the Halutian thundered past him, roared, and threw itself at the robot. The flying machine fired at it and the beams struck its head, but dissipated on contact with tissue as hard as Terkonite steel—the Halutian had condensed its cell structure.
The robot's defense field flared up and flickered as though a powerful fist had hit it—apparently it had only limited capabilities for dealing with kinetic energy. Then there was a deafening roar that made Roderich wish he could hold his ears. But his left arm remained paralyzed, like a lifeless appendage of his body.
The Halutian reared up to his full height of three and a half meters, drew his four arms back, and then lashed out at the robot. The defense field flickered again and disappeared. Metal crumpled under four fists and sparks flew from mangled circuits. Another beam struck the Halutian but was just as ineffectual as the others.
The ear-numbing roar sounded again, and Roderich squeezed his eyelids shut as severe pain shot through him—he feared that the drum in his left ear had been torn. When he opened his eyes again, the Halutian stood before a pile of wreckage, its four hands still balled into fists. After a few seconds, it turned away from the remnants of the smashed robot and stamped with long, floor-shaking strides towards the others.
It loomed like a mountain before Roderich, who never before in his life had felt so small and helpless.
"How do you calm an angry Halutian down, Yu'lli?" he asked the Blue who stood pressed to the wall next to him.
"My children ... " rumbled the Halutian.
Catchpole sighed in relief and stepp
ed forward. "Icho Tolot?"
There was a cracking in the corridor's ceiling. Along with all the others, Roderich looked up, a part of him realizing in relief that his hearing had not been affected. Openings appeared in the metal and energy-projector heads emerged from them.
"I don't like the looks of this ... " Catchpole said.
Two humming energy curtains appeared, green like an HO field, and Roderich was certain that this time the energy was not intended to scan them.
This time it was meant to incinerate and kill them.
The curtains began moving, sliding towards each other, with nine human beings, two Blues, a Gurrad, and a Halutian between them.
21
Alahandra
Little Alahandra had seen and heard.
"Life is precious," she said as big Alahandra continued to dance between the many columns, touching and stroking them. The snakes of light crowded towards her fingers The glittering and sparkling seemed to want her hands to capture them.
"The Enemy must be destroyed."
"There are individuals belonging to the race of the Builders with him."
"Collaborators who constitute a security risk and therefore must be eliminated like the Enemy."
"A security risk for whom?" asked the girl, who now knew more. The repeated waiting in the gray room had separated her from knowledge. Seeing and hearing meant learning.
The woman hesitated briefly, then hurried on from column to column, avoiding those in which the snakes of light had been dead for a long time.
"A risk for us?" asked little Alahandra. "There is no one left in the station. We are alone."
"I have a responsibility."
"You are sick and hoped I could heal you, but I cannot drive the sickness from you. It lies in your ... subsystems. Perhaps your memory is also affected."
Exodus to the Stars Page 12
