The Tigris Leaps

by Perry Rhodan

  Neither the transformer nor the energy banks—huge machines that would have been enough to have supplied a planet of average industrialization with electrical power for five years—nor the magnetic coils nor the insulated circuit boards of gigantic dimensions could impress Tako Kakuta. The engine rooms of the Titan and the Drusus had accustomed him to a larger scale.

  He had arrived where he had wanted to go. Arkonide space-battleships differed from one another about as much as so many eggs; only in the class of ship and in the weaponry could any variation be seen. Kakuta felt as much at home here in the Ebneb as he would have aboard the Lotus, the Ganymede or the Drusus.

  He saw a metal catwalk winding around the transformer about three meters above the floor. He teleported himself up to it, looked out over the circuitry and discovered two Ekhonides conversing with one another. They turned their backs to him, sat down on an energy cable, dangled their legs and laughed aloud.

  He had to get them out of the transformer chamber or at least to distract them that they would not hear the opening and closing of a diaphragm-like hatch.

  Tako Kakuta had no love for radical methods. He always tried to find means that would bring him safely to his goal without having unfortunate consequences for innocent bystanders.

  He stood next to the magnet regulator, which could alter the position of the giant magnetic coil. A fleeting smile crossed his face. He grasped the regulator with both hands and under the force of his fingers the wheel turned. The huge coil began to sink from 45° to 30°.

  The coil was held floating in place by controlled antigrav fields and as it changed position a positronic warning system sensed that it had sunk too far. A siren screamed out, growing louder the more Tako Kakuta allowed the floating magnetic coil to sink. It was a work of seconds and would have been suicidal for any normal man to attempt, for he would have been seen by the Ekhonides. Since he was a teleporter, however, the place where he had been standing was suddenly empty.

  Two frightened Ekhonides; raced up the steps to the control board after first having had to run around the transformer.

  The alarm still howled. The two Ekhonide space soldiers thought only of the punishment awaiting them and so far had not concerned themselves for the reason for the magnetic coil alarm.

  Tako Kakuta had performed two short teleportations. The last spring brought him to the hatch. Behind it lay the structocomp, an improbably small device in relation to its power.

  But the newly developed compensator detector must be here, too. Marshal Allan D. Mercant's scientific staff had at least reasoned as much and they had not been wrong yet in their analyzes.

  The hatch opened, let the Japanese through and closed again.

  Seconds later, Kakuta stood before the great secret.

  "So that's the thing that's supposed to bring about our downfall!" he heard himself say. Then his eyes searched for the Grey-colored bulges that would unfasten the machinery's covering once he had rested his hand on them.

  The compensator detector, about three meters high and more than 10 meters long, was connected to the structural compensator located next to it. Tako Kakuta did not think of sabotage. The Chief had not given him any orders for it. Perry Rhodan wanted much more to know the details of the compensator detector's construction.

  He laid his hands against two bulges in the covering and a piece of it separated from the rest. Kakuta let it drop to the floor.

  The newly developed compensator detector revealed its secrets to the knowing eyes of the Japanese mutant. In the same moment that he had first glimpsed the inner workings of the machinery through the hole in the covering, his entire knowledge of this area of technology had awakened within him.

  He gave a start. The construction as displayed in its fundamentals was familiar to him! It reminded him of the pickle people, the Swoons, and at the same time he understood that Arkon's newly developed sensing device was simply an enlarged copy of the Swoonish invention.

  An uncanny intimation struck him all at once and he glanced back at the hatch.

  As his head turned he concentrated for a teleport spring behind the structocomp.

  The hatch sprang open. A man, one of the two Ekhonide space soldiers, started to come in and let out a yell—and then Kakuta saw him no more. His short teleport had brought him behind the structocomp. But he hesitated to disappear completely. He wanted to find out what the Ekhonide would do when he saw that a piece of the detector covering had been removed. Kakuta was fortunate that the Ekhonide was motivated solely by a desire to escape punishment and was thus ready to cover up events he would have otherwise reported.

  "Stars and suns!" Kakuta heard him mutter with a trembling voice. "I haven't been drinking any Uquir! I've never believed in ghosts before but I do now. Why, the little stardevils must have taken this plate off the machine...!"

  Kakuta listened as the Ekhonide replaced the covering, then with the force of his will sprang back to Perry Rhodan's room in the Star of Arkon.

  And after him Kitai Ishibashi arrived. Ishibashi had been away the longest but had the least to report.

  "Now, where are Ostal and his men?" asked Perry Rhodan.

  Fellmer Lloyd looked at him without the faintest idea. "I can't perceive them, sir. If only at least one Ekhonide or even that fleet general knew something... but the general is only toying with the notion of giving some Springer a brainlashing."

  A dangerous light seemed to appear in Perry Rhodan's eyes. "He won't succeed in that. We'll have to see to that but I think we also must be prepared in the event they find our men. Certainly at the moment they aren't feeling any too comfortable. Let's go."

  7/ OF ROCKS AND ROBOTS

  Egg-Or did not get to bed. Gen. Sutokk of the Arkonide fleet stationed on Ekhas did not think of sleeping at all. Perry Rhodan and his three mutants were on their way through the night-lit metropolis of Ent-Than, buying

  clothes for the fugitive Terrans and obtaining a freight-transporting vehicle. Maj. Clyde Ostal and his 32 men were on their way too. They stood on the edge of a large clearing and saw over the treetops a greenish-lit moon. Over the right

  side of the clearing was another moon, three times larger than the first. It, too, reflected greenish light, so brightly that the opposite forest edge cast shadows and the men could see out over the broad, level expanse.

  The forest of the planet Ekhas was silent. Its quiet was uncanny. No night animals called out, neither the birds flying through the darkness nor the mammals who fled at the approach of man.

  Nor was there any wind. But despite the lateness of the night, it was still oppressively humid. The atmosphere was supersaturated with moisture. Sweat gushed out of the pores of all 33 Terrans.

  They had been standing under the trees at forest edge for some minutes. They were waiting for Maj. Ostal to give the order to march on. But not yet. Ostal was inquiring into the cases of six men with foot problems. Allan D. Mercant's rugged training had taught them everything—everything except the art of going through a vast, trackless forest barefoot.

  All craved water; the thirst had closed their mouths. Only those who absolutely had to speak said anything. They had given up muttering and cursing. But their morale was good.

  Whatever they had not attained today would be theirs tomorrow or the next day. Clothes. Food. Water. Suddenly the larger moon disappeared behind a cloud that had silently crept across the night sky of Ekhas Now more clouds came and the smaller half moon vanished as well. From a distant wall of black clouds the 33 men heard a thundering and soon after the first lightning was seen crashing to the ground. The thunder grew louder.

  "A storm!" the Major cried. "A storm will bring water, men!" He was promising water both to them and to himself. But first came the storm and with its howling innumerable flashes of lightning blasted over the men. Suddenly the clearing lay in the harsh light of the thundering forces of nature unleashed. 33 men saw the cabin—or the house—simultaneously. Maj. Ostal tried to shout above the chaos but only S. Se
eger, who stood next to him, understood what he had said.

  Lt. Seeger yelled into the ear of the next man. "Follow us! Pass the order on!" A long chain of 33 men ran barefoot across the grassy meadow toward the building on the other side. Then came the rain. It gushed out of the clouds as though from a waterfall. Large puddles quickly formed on the ground. Even Maj. Ostal took advantage of them to still his thirst.

  The water was warm and smelled brackish: they only noticed it once they had drunk their fill and wiped their no longer cracked lips with their hands.

  "Onwards!" came Ostal's order, which was passed from man to man. They ran, and the unchained energies in the sky above provided enough light that no one became separated from the rest.

  The clearing was wider than they had first estimated in the unfamiliar light of the two moons. And then the storm died just as suddenly as it had arisen. They had still not reached the cabin or house on the other side of the clearing. The two moons appeared in the sky once more. All of a sudden the Major signaled with an outstretched arm for the two men following him to stop. The order was repeated and everyone in the group quickly came to a halt. No one saw anything; then Seeger and Sgt. Fip heard the Major's order. "You two follow me! The others stay here!" They had been wading by threes through large pools of water, which were already being slowly absorbed by the thirsty ground.

  Ostal pointed the direction in which to go and Seeger and Fip silently followed.

  Then Ostal held out his arms again and stopped the two men. At the same time he made a low hissing noise. He had seen something. Seeger and Fip tried to penetrate the darkness with their eyes. Isn't that a light? Seeger asked himself just as at his side Fip whispered: "I see a light!" Against the black background of the forest's edge showed the barely visible form of a low, flat building,

  lit at one place by the weak light source which the Major had discovered before Fip and Seeger. Clyde Ostal slowly took cover on the ground. If there were alert observers in the building, then the Terrans, standing out in the full light of the two moons, had just been seen. Lt. Seeger and Sgt. Fip followed the example of their superior, then crawled on their stomachs to the right and to the left so that in case of attack the small party would not be wiped out by a single shot. "Seeger, come with me!" Ostal ordered. "Fip, you try to get back to the men if anything happens to us. Under no circumstances are you to try to help us. It would be senseless in the situation we're in now. Fip, I'm counting on you!"

  Ostal and Seeger approached the building from the right running stooped and in a wide, curving path. In that fashion they reached the dark shadows of the forest's edge and there dared to continue in an upright position.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal was about six meters ahead of his lieutenant. Before him the outlines of the flat building became ever sharper. It was not a simple cabin but a building made of plastic, the plastic Arkonides had used for construction of houses for millenniums.

  Suddenly Ostal stopped as though rooted to the spot. Next to the left corner of the building, the one turned to the clearing, he saw the outline of a robot. "Back, Seeger!" was all he could say before a powerful hypnobeam struck him and he lost consciousness.

  Lt. S. Seeger was not a victim of panic. The word did not exist in Allan D. Mercant's training. He reacted unbelievably fast. He watched as the robot strode out of the shadowed side of the building, went to its victim, bent down and picked him up—then he watched as the robot carried Maj. Ostal to the low building.

  During his observation Seeger had crawled back into the shadows of the woods. He did not understand why the mechanical man had not detected him and put him out of action, too.

  As carefully and cautiously as he could, Seeger made his way back to Sgt. Fip. When he saw the lieutenant was alone, Fip whispered: "What happened to the major?"

  "Robots back there!" was the lieutenant's reply and Fip did not need to inquire any further.

  When they returned to the waiting group, Lt. Seeger took over the leadership. They marched onward across the clearing, avoiding the building by going far to the left of it, reached the forest and continued from there.

  In Terran measurements, a full day on Ekhas lasted 38 hours, They had fought through the night and forest for 10 hours, and nine hours of darkness still stretched before them. They were too realistic to have any hope of coming to a settlement by daybreak. The day before they had seen no human communities from the airtaxi high above the forest. So it struck them as a completely unexpected surprise when they spotted some dozen unmoving lights shining through the trees ahead.

  "Sgt. Fip!" Lt. Seeger said, calling the man to him. "The two of us will...!"

  The night stillness was torn by the typical thunder of spaceship engines.

  "On to the forest edge!" Seeger ordered.

  But they did not reach any forest's edge. The forest simply petered out into a down-sloping terrain covered by tall bushes. In front of them, lit by the greenish radiance of the two moons, stretched a kilometer-wide band of tangled shrubs and creeping vines that at first steeply then gradually descended to merge into the plain below.

  "No wonder we didn't see that from the airtaxi," said Lt. Peter H. Hasting, looking out across to the distant lights, and listening, like all the others, to the increasing roar of engines. "But that out there can't possibly be the spaceport of Ent-Than." Then he noticed something about his own body: the arm he had extended for pointing across the plain had been broken—now it was healed!

  The claims of the Ekhonide prison doctors had been proven true. The new Ara treatment, a serum that had been injected into his arm, had accomplished the healing process in less than 20 hours. The preparations used up to now in the Great Imperium, also known and used in Perry Rhodan's Solar Imperium, required 50 to 60 hours to take full effect.

  Lt. Hasting wanted to bring it to the attention of his comrades but at that moment a cylindrical spaceship took off, silhouetted against the once more clear night sky. At first it rose almost straight up but at 500 meters leveled off for horizontal flight that would take it directly over the Terrans' heads.

  Engines roaring, it sped past them and for half a minute thereafter a ringing, distant thunder was the last to be heard from it.

  "The lights..." Lt. Seeger exclaimed and pointed in the distance.

  One light after another went out. Then the brushland before them lay as though it were virgin, untouched wilderness.

  "And our major...!" It could not be determined who said that but it was said and the words had the effect of an exploding bomb. Thirty-two men were suddenly ashamed. They had left Ostal to his fate without even lifting a finger to help him.

  Seeger whirled around. "I don't care to know who just said that but I must remind you just what sort of situation we're now in." His voice had a sharp edge to it. "We have not deserted the major. He ordered us not to do anything if something happened to him or me or both of us. And we can do something to find and help him only when we have the means to do it. I think we can find those means where the Springer ship took off from, there where the lights were burning. We have to get there before daylight. We must do it, men!"

  They did it but not before daybreak.

  Seeger, Hasting and Fip stood before the last bushes and cautiously drew the branches aside.

  Fifty feet ahead, three Springer robots stood like steel monuments. The light from yellow star Naral reflected off their optical lenses. It did not bother the robots: positronic systems are not so easily blinded.

  Now one of the robots turned in the direction of the Terrans. Fip was last to let go of the branch he was holding. The men stood unmoving. They knew that Springer robots were not as sensitive or as perceptive as Arkonide robots. All their hope rested in that fact.

  Five long minutes ticked by. There was neither the hollow tread of an approaching robot nor the low hissing of a thermobeam slicing into their hiding place.

  "We can't stand here forever!" Peter Hasting whispered. "How can I go talk to a Springer without being blasted b
y a robot in the attempt?"

  "Hasting," said Seeger, "how do you hope to find a Springer to talk to when we don't even see a single building here? Only the robots are any kind of hint that there's something here... What can you make of that?"

  "Everything, Seeger. Whoever sneaks into this wilderness is attempting to hide something from the Ekhonides. And whoever has something to hide is not necessarily our enemy. And if we warn the Springers that we were... He gave a start and asked hastily: "Could the low building with the weak light and the robot guard belong to the same Springer clan? Seeger, Fip... what do you think?"

  Seeger shook his head. "The low building stood unbidden on the edge of the clearing. It can be clearly seen from above. But here there seems to be hidden an actual landing place for spaceships. I don't see any connection between this place and the building where the major was taken prisoner."

  "If that's true, it reinforces my position," said Hasting without further comment on the matter. "Seeger, three or four men have to take some risks now. We have only stones at our disposal. I need men who are good at throwing stones and hitting their targets... Allan D. Mercant, that's something you never taught us in your commando school: throwing stones at positronic robots!"

  Lt. Seeger laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "And what will you be doing while the robots are distracted by the hail of stones?" he asked, his expression sharply suspicious.

  Peter Hasting replied: "Well,one of us has to try it. When the robots are distracted, I'll make a break for it."

  "No!" Seeger exclaimed energetically. "That'd be suicide!"

  "Do you know any other solution, Seeger?" asked Hasting calmly.

  "Let me go in your place, Lt. Hasting!" offered Sgt. Fip.

  "It's two against one," said Hasting with a grateful glance at Fip. "The sergeant also sees that my plan has a chance. Will you give the orders for it? Once the first stones fall and the robots take a closer look, I'll make my dash. But see to it that I have the most possible freedom of movement on the right side. The bushes are thickest there. Well...?"