by Perry Rhodan
Meanwhile the darkness gave way to a yellowish red twilight. The atomfire was moving along out of the west, approaching at an increasing speed. There had long been nothing more to be seen of the fireball from the missile explosion that had ignited the blaze, but the yellow wall of flame was now beginning to shine through the thick smoke, outlining the western horizon as a hair-thin line of threatening, deadly luminosity.
They had no more time to lose. The fire was moving at a speed of about five kilometers an hour equally in all directions. That meant it would reach Greenwich in a shortime: at most, two hours.
The measuring instruments showed that the radiation had risen to a level that would have killed an unprotected man within minutes. The external temperature was 180° and the storm had reached such a strength it was no longer measurable on devices designed for normal wind conditions.
Crawling along and tightly clutching the ground with their thick gloves, Perry Rhodan and his men forced their way into the settlement—or that which had once been the settlement.
The houses no longer stood. The storm had knocked them down and taken them with it. Shattered foundations standing against the wind marked the sites where the small primitive prefabricated dwellings of the settlers had once been. The street was covered with broken pieces of glassite.
Perry Rhodan stopped and turned around carefully. He did not dare raise his head more than a hand's width from the ground: his feeling that if he raised it any more the storm would rip him away encouraged his caution.
"If there are any vehicles left," Rhodan said, "they'd be either where the town hall stood or at the northern exit of the village, along the river. We'll split up, then. Bell, you stay with me. Lloyd, you and Atlan crawl to the river—and be careful that you don't lose your direction!"
Lloyd and the Arkonide, crawling at the end of the party, could barely be made out in the gloom. They gave a quick confirmation and then disappeared into the darkness. Rhodan and Bell went on towards the former center of town, where the settlers had once built a large structure from the parts for two houses and dubbed it 'town hall'.
The distance was no more than 100 meters but they needed a quarter of an hour to cross it. The power of the storm grew by the minute a sign of the speed the blazing atomfire was approaching the town.
Rhodan tried to remember the place where the town hall had stood. He had been in Greenwich only two or three times before and with all the houses gone it was difficult to get his bearings.
Hopefully the storm hasn't blown away all the vehicles too, was Rhodan's only thought. He crouched in the protection of the remains of a foundation, which was no more than half a meter high. He raised himself halfway and took the trouble to switch on the lamp built into the forehead portion of his helmet.
The bright beam of light cut a white swath through the twilight. The greyish-white remains of plastic building materials emerged from the gloom. The lamp's shine gleamed onwards, reflecting in the shattered pieces of glassite lying on the ground, and disappeared in the whirling dust when Rhodan turned his head far enough to look down the street.
There was no sign of any vehicles. "Perhaps we haven't gone far enough," said Bell.
"Possibly," Rhodan replied. "Alright, let's go on!" He switched off the lamp and let himself fall forward. He carefully pushed himself out from behind the cover of the foundation and in that moment he saw it. It was no more than a shadow, unreal in the dusty gloom, but conspicuous by the haste in which it moved—and by its direction. It moved against the storm. After no more than half a second, the shadow had disappeared. Rhodan pressed himself flat against the ground and stopped. Bell pushed himself up against him, not having noticed the shadow.
"There's someone up ahead of us," Rhodan whispered.
"Atlan or Lloyd?" Bell asked.
"Neither. They're down at the river!" Suddenly he heard Atlan's voice.
"What's going on with you two? I heard my name."
"Where are you, for heaven's sake?" Rhodan demanded.
"Down by the river," the Arkonide answered. "But there isn't any river anymore. It's dried up."
"Is Lloyd with you?" It sounded as though the Arkonide had to look around first. "Lloyd? Are you here? Yes! He's lying two meters from me. We haven't yet..."
"Listen carefully to me!" Rhodan interrupted, urgently. "Someone besides us is in the town! I've seen his shadow! Be careful. If it were one of our men he would have overheard our radios and called a long time ago..."
"Assuming he's wearing a spacesuit!"
"If he didn't have one on he should have been dead for hours by now. It must be an alien." Atlan was quiet for a moment. "Well then, now what?" he asked calmly. "We'll keep on looking," Rhodan decided. "Hold your weapon ready in your hand and shoot when you see something."
"Right," the Arkonide answered.
At that moment Fellmer Lloyd called. "But I can't sense anyone, sir," he declared. "If there's somebody in the town I should be able to make him out."
"Not if he's a telepath himself or a robot," Rhodan answered. "Better not depend too much on your paranormal abilities."
"I understand, sir," Fellmer Lloyd said. "I'll depend on my confidence."
Rhodan smiled to himself. If they could still make light-hearted comments, then not all was lost.
He looked around for Bell—and gasped for breath when he found he had vanished.
He became angry. The idiot! How could he make it through a situation like this one alone?
"Reggie, you idiot!" Rhodan commanded. "Come back immediately!"
For some time there was no answer. Panic climbed in Rhodan's mind. The shadow—had it taken Bell with it?
"Reggie!" Rhodan called for the second time. "Where are you?"
Then—a weak answer suddenly came.
"Perry Over here! Help!"
The voice sounded small and plaintive, almost a whisper. Perry Rhodan started to move. Bell could not have covered more than 10 meters in the few moments in which he had been talking to Atlan and Lloyd. So Rhodan needed only to search the immediate vicinity in order to find him.
"Help...!" it came again with a choking voice.
The storm, Rhodan thought. It must have blown him away and thrown him against a wall.
He crawled across the street. In his haste he raised himself a little too high once—and the storm caught him and picked him up, knocking him headfirst against a low remnant of a wall on the other side of the street. Instinctively he raised his arms to absorb the impact. Stabbing pain ran from his left wrist high up into his arm.
In the incident Rhodan had lost his direction. "Reggie?" he called.
"Here!" came the weak voice. "Help!"
"I'm coming!" Rhodan answered. "Hang on, Reggie!"
He crawled over the wall that the wind had thrown him against and it took all his strength to keep from being blown away again. His left arm hurt almost unbearably but the pain made him angry and his anger in turn gave him new strength.
"Here... help...!" the voice whispered, prodding Rhodan into redoubling his efforts. He was now behind the wall and for the moment at least did not have the storm to contend with. He wanted to raise himself up and switch on the lamp when the voice came again: "Perry... here! Help...!"
Rhodan listened. The voice seemed to be coming nearer. Bell was moving towards him. If he could still move, why was he crying so pitiably for help?"
"Reggie?" said Rhodan impatiently. "What's going on?"
But the answer that came back was only the usual "Perry... here... help!"
In the shelter of the wall, Rhodan got up on one knee. Something was moving in the darkness in front of him. "Is that you, Reggie...?"
In answer came only a half-choked groan. Rhodan bent down, seeing the shadow before him grow larger. Over the muted exterior microphone he heard the howling of the storm breaking over a new hindrance.
At that moment Rhodan realized he had walked into a trap. Whatever it was that was coming towards him, it was not Reginald
Bell. It was a monster able to move upright in the middle of a glowing hot storm as a planet died without being thrown off its feet. Rhodan saw nothing more than a pale shadow at least 2½ meters high but that was enough for him. His hand closed around the grip of the small, light thermobeamer. He needed only to point the barrel a slight degree upwards and press the button.
He had overestimated the distance. Just in front of him something exploded violently. Rhodan saw a blinding flash of light and felt the heavy blows of debris from the explosion striking him. He was knocked backwards and over the wall. On the other side, the storm caught him and blew him some distance away.
That was his salvation. Although he had rammed his head against a remnant foundation with such force that he lost consciousness for a few minutes, he had nevertheless escaped the deadly heat radiated by the glowing remains of the exploded monster.
An urgent voice brought him back to consciousness. "Perry? Answer me? What happened? What was that noise?"
Atlan's voice. Rhodan raised himself carefully and looked around. A reddish fire burned 10 meters away in the darkness. Numbed and terrified, he thought at first that the atomfire had reached the town in the meantime. Then he remembered the monster he had shot and sighed, in relief. Added to the pain in his left arm was now an almost audible throbbing in his skull but his fear for Bell's safety made him quickly forget all his pain.
He carefully turned around and crawled towards the place where the glow was gradually fading and at length died out. "On the way," he answered Atlan. "I'm alright," he said. "The Arkonides seem to have set robots down on Grautier. One wanted to lure me into a trap but I spotted it in time. That was the noise you heard. But what's worse is the fact Bell's disappeared. The robots are probably responsible!"
"I know that I won't be able to convince you, barbarian," Atlan answered earnestly, "but the atomfire will reach the town 20 minutes sooner than we expected. We can plainly see it from here and if you would take the trouble to look at your thermometer you'd believe me. Meanwhile we've found an old Quad the storm seems to have overlooked. The Quad is perfectly flightworthy and it has a powerful course stabilizer so the storm can't affect it. So we can come pick you up and then see to it that we get out of here as fast as possible, but..."
"'But' is right, Admiral," Rhodan answered grimly. "I'm not leaving here until I've found Bell. Hemust be around here someplace. So wait 10 more minutes! If I haven't found him by then, you can get out of here. No one will hold it against you."
"But sir," Fellmer Lloyd spoke up quickly, "I'd hold it against myself! " Suddenly he became angry. "I'm coming over to you, sir, and if Mr. Bell isn't already dead, I'll be able to find him 10 times faster than you could. Besides, what do we have the Quad for?"
All of a sudden there was light, mocking laughter. "Alright then, barbarian," said Atlan. "All for one! We'll be there in two minutes."
Rhodan breathed easier. Lloyd's idea had been the right one. If Bell were still around and still alive, then Lloyd the telepath could perceive the emanations from his brain and find him.
He crawled on. The red glow from the devastated robot had gone out. Rhodan looked at his thermometer: just exactly 424° Fahrenheit.
He called Bell's name a few times but Bell did not answer. At best he was unconscious. That meant it had not been Bell who had earlier called for help. The robot had called. A special robot with programming covering the English language.
A bitter grin twisted Rhodan's face. They had thought of everything!
He pushed his way past the robot—or rather, what the explosion had left of the robot. On the other side of the robot was an astonishingly well-preserved and long remnant of a wall. Rhodan made use of it by raising himself up and allowing the beam of his lamp to shine through the gloom.
At that moment Fellmer Lloyd's voice was heard. "We're almost there, sir! We'll find Mr. Bell in five minutes." It sounded reassuring. Rhodan smiled and beamed the ray of his lamp on a fleck glistening and shimmering, standing out from its surroundings, some distance away.
"Don't hurry too much," he answered. "I just found Bell. And judging from the way he's lying, it looks like the robot gave him a nerve shock."
• • •
After Maj. Brackett had waited for 10 hours without anything happening, he sent out an emergency call. It was a single signal, simply modulated and compressed to a few nanoseconds. Only a Terran receiver would react automatically to this signal. An alien would do so only if the radio observer chanced to overhear it and decided it had a deeper meaning than was apparent.
Naturally Brackett knew the danger existed. Tens of thousands of Arkonide ships had gathered in this sector of the galaxy and on board each ship was at least one man stationed at the hypercom listening for suspicious signals.
When Brackett decided nevertheless to risk beaming out a signal, he did it because he was convinced that all hell had broken loose on Grautier in the meantime and because he felt it was pointless continuing to wait idly with the Rigel.
The signal was received simultaneously on many sides. The ships of the Terran Fleet noticed the emergency call. The Drusus heard it. And a number of Arkonide communicators heard it, as well, immediately bending to the task of cracking the message's code and stretching it out to the original length. Then they tried to determine the spot from which the signal had come. They were all difficult operations and needed several hours to accomplish.
Meanwhile, the Drusus, waiting for calls for help from Grautier, did not move from where it was, but two battle cruisers detached themselves from the Terran Fleet and after a quick transition reached the Rigel's position. Over normal radio Brackett gave a brief report of the situation. He suggested that the crew of the Rigel be transferred to the two ships that had come to help and then blow up the Rigel. Considering the uproar in which this sector of space now found itself and the fact that the appearance at any moment of Arkonide ships attracted by the emergency call had to be reckoned with, there was no more reasonable suggestion than this. With the limited means available on the three ships, repairing the damaged frequency damper was not possible. Installation of a new damper would have taken at least five hours but transferring the 800-man crew, which had practiced such manoeuvres often enough, would on the other hand require no more than an hour and a half.
Brackett gave the necessary orders. He remained behind aboard the Rigel up to the last, arming the nuclear charge himself so that the valuable ship would not fall into the enemy's hands. He did it with sweating hands and a lump in his throat. He had commanded the Rigel for no more than six months but she was his ship.
As a small auxiliary craft brought him on board the battle cruiser Bilbao he did not say a word. Lt.-Col. Huyghens, commander of the Bilbao, was wise enough to understand his pain and do nothing more than silently shake Brackett's hand.
Brackett witnessed no more of the end of his ship. The two battle cruisers started as soon as he was on board the Bilbao.
But others saw what happened to the Rigel. Arkonide ships emerged out of hyperspace just as the two Terran battle cruisers had disappeared. One of the Arkonide ships had enough time to come alongside and discharge a number of robot-manned auxiliaries to occupy the Rigel and bring it under their control.
While the robots were still occupied with opening the large main hatch, the bombs exploded. The Rigel, the robots and the Arkonide ship vanished in a bluish-white fireball
• • •
Reginald Bell was still alive—there was no doubt about that. But he was stiff as a board and it cost them more effort than they ever could have imagined to get him inside the Shift. The storm had risen to unbelievable fury.
The brightness around them grew steadily and quickly. The western sky was a solid yellowish radiance against which the sadly mangled walls and torn foundations were grotesquely silhouetted. Once Rhodan took the time to glance at his armband thermometer. The exterior temperature had increased to 430° and was climbing higher at a rate of about 4° every 10 seco
nds.
The howling of the storm was lost in the subterranean thunder that seemed to come from the depths of Grautier and made the ground vibrate, They expected the earth to break apart at any second and gush forth with glowing white streams of magma and they knew well that such a catastrophe was well within the range of possibilities. At temperatures of millions of degrees, the atomfire fused the atomic nuclei of elements and the energy liberated by the mass deficiency of the fused nuclei raised the temperature all the more and kept the fire from going out. A large number of variations was allowed to the fusion of atomic nuclei, for the effect of Arkon Bombs was not limited to fusing silicon nuclei with silicon nuclei, or sodium nuclei with sodium nuclei, or calcium nuclei with calcium nuclei.
Though of somewhat less probability, fusion of two different nuclei, like that of a silicon nucleus with a sodium nucleus, was entirely possible. Nevertheless, the fire spread out quickest in directions in which it found the most homogeneous fusion mass, where the composition was most completely of a single element. If, somewhere in the west, the fire came across a vein of copper that came to the surface at one point and then stretched to the east underground, the fire would proceed to eat its way along the subterranean vein with more speed than it would through the unhomogeneous mix of various elements on the surface. There was no sign which could be recognized of whether or not the atomfire might even at that moment be raging beneath their feet, under the foundations of the former town of Greenwich. Only when the fire reached a less stable ground layer would the monstrous heat force its way upwards, rip the surface apart and spew into the air the unimaginably hot reaction products of nuclear fusion in the depths.
The Quad stood out on the street. They had to lift Reginald Bell over the wall remnant he had been lying behind. For that they needed all of a quarter of an hour. The firewall in the west climbed ever higher. The darkness had long given way to radiant brightness. But now the wind blew more violently than ever, and each time they thought there would be a brief respite, it picked up again and threw them back.
