by Perry Rhodan
Everything was in order—as long as Earth ships were not in closer proximity than the Arkonides. Suttney was depending on this but he couldn't be sure of it. His calculations depended on any Earth fighting units being at least 100 light-years distant. Over 100 light-years it was proportionately more difficult to get the bearings of a comparatively weak transmitter such as the Gazelle was equipped with. First of all, the signal intensity fell off exponentially so that the results of a bearing fix would be five or six percent erroneous at such a distance. This meant a variance of five or six light-years. So an Earth ship picking up the transmission would not be able to tell with any degree of certainty whether the transmitter were located in one or another of several different solar systems.
Walter Suttney was depending upon that margin of error. The Terranian ships had to arrive too late. Otherwise he was lost.
For awhile he stared at the deckplates under his feet as though now he were ashamed to look anybody in the eye. Then he got up and approached Roane but he was startled when Chellish spoke to him hoarsely.
"Why did you do it, Suttney? What good is it going to do you?"
Suttney came to a stop. It was apparent that the question had taken him by surprise.
"What good?" he asked in bewilderment. "None at all, naturally. I'm not doing this for personal advantage. You know what I think of the present form of government in the Solar Empire. That regime must be abolished, so if we can't do it on our own we have to call in some alien assistance."
"And you aren't concerned about how many besides yourself hold this view? I mean—doesn't it mean anything to you that you're just about the only one left who believes such nonsense?"
Suttney smiled thoughtfully. "Of course not. Something that's true and correct doesn't depend on a maximum of believers. Don't forget Galileo..."
"Leave Galileo out of this!" retorted Chellish in bristling anger. "That's something else. You can't betray the Earth to the Arkonides just because you don't happen to agree with Rhodan's method of government!"
"But I can!" The discussion seemed to be helping him to recover his self-confidence. "You see that I'm already doing it!"
"Do you know what will come from this? The Arkonides will attack the Earth. The Earth will defend itself. There'll be a war the likes of which the galaxy has never experienced. It won't matter who comes out of it the victor: the misery and destruction will be immeasurable!"
"But freedom will reign again on the Earth!" retorted Suttney with a fanatical gleam in his eyes.
Chellish sighed wearily. "What a marble-brained fool you are! You're just sick in the head, that's all. Think of what will happen if the Arkonides subjugate the Earth. Would you rather be a subject of the Robot Regent?"
"From what I've heard, he doesn't take away anybody's personal freedom," Suttney answered calmly.
Chellish waved his hands in a helpless gesture and turned back to his work. He knew there could be no purpose in talking to Suttney about things that he had held as the Gospel truth for five years or more. He hadn't opened the discussion with any hope of dissuading Suttney at the last moment but only because he had been overcome with anger.
He read the indications on the matter tracker and noted that in the meantime three planets had been detected. They moved at orbital distances of 0.6, 2.8 and 10.3 astronomical units from their central sun. It was some satisfaction to Chellish that none of them could be similar to the Earth. Since this alien star had about the same radiation intensity as Earth's sun, the innermost world would be a molten ball, much hotter than Venus or Mercury; and the two outer ones, on the other hand, would be colder than Mars.
In this system there was not one place that invited a landing. And the longer the Gazelle remained in outer space the greater would be the chance of their being overtaken by Terranian ships before Suttney could complete his act of treason.
• • •
The Terranian Fleet went into formation.
Three minutes after Mullon's discovery the transition point was located from which the second resonance-frequency field had been propagated. Nobody knew so far what the identity of the ship was that had been detected but the fact that only the compensator tracker had responded and not the hypersensor was a clear indication that an Earth ship was involved, because the Arkonides did not have resonant-frequency absorbers.
This single clue was sufficient to plunge the entire search fleet into feverish activity. Through a blanket telecom broadcast, Perry Rhodan declared a condition of top alert and ordered the ships' commanders to push onward to the destination point as swiftly as possible.
The Drusus itself did not take time to take its auxiliary craft on board. It took off immediately. The Gazelles were instructed to follow by the fastest means. A separate order affecting the guppies told them to stay where they were and wait for the return of the mother ship.
Within about a quarter of an hour after the first bearings were taken on Mullon's signal, the Drusus emerged out of hyperspace at a distance of 10 light-minutes from the coordinates obtained. This occurred precisely in time to register the broadcast that Walter Suttney was sending out to the Arkonide robot fleet in the vicinity of Latin-Oor. Within only a few seconds the residual speed of the giant ship was absorbed by its mighty retro units. The Drusus hovered almost motionlessly in space, moved only by the gravitational pull of the yellow sun.
Feverish excitement pervaded the entire ship. Rhodan had announced that the arrival of an Arkonide fleet was to be expected at any moment.
The other Earth ships appeared one after another, surrounding the targeted area. They reported their positions by short-pulsed signals which would have meant nothing to Suttney or his accomplices even if they had accidentally left their hyper-receiver open.
The stolen Gazelle itself could not be located at present. Its approximate position was known as of the time Suttney sent his message but the direction the ship had then taken was not known. It was too small an object to be detected by the matter trackers. The gravity fields emanating from the alien star and its planets completely jammed out the Gazelle's small field.
Perry Rhodan was relying on Walter Suttney to send out his locator signal, as he had announced he would, as soon as the Gazelle landed somewhere to wait for the enemy. Of course he would probably radio beam his coordinates because he had undoubtedly chosen this area in view of its only being 16 light-years removed from Latin-Oor and the Arkonide fleet. But all beamed transmissions generated peripheral and dispersion fields which could be detected by sensitive equipment at great distances, also making it possible to get a bearing on the location of the sender.
The ships of the Earth fleet were deployed in such an arrangement that the Arkonides would find themselves surrounded by Terranians no matter where they emerged from in the general area. Rhodan considered this to be the optimum strategic formation because he knew that the Arkonide fleet consisted of about 4,000 fighting units. This gave the enemy an advantage over the Earth fleet's fighting force in a ratio of four to three. One did not wait for a superior enemy in random positions. It was more prudent to establish a formation in which the opponent's superiority could at least be equalized during the first moments of the engagement.
If anyone had asked Perry Rhodan at this time whether or not he anticipated a battle for the possession of the Gazelle and the secret of the Earth's position, he would not have been able to answer. He did not know just how much value the Robot Regent of Arkon placed upon the data concerning Terra's location. It could well be that he was so hot to get it that he would not shy away from an attack on the Terranian Fleet.
In any case it was well to be armed and ready.
During all the commotion that filled the vast interior of the Drusus, no one had paid any attention to Horace Mullon, at least initially. He lay near his console chair, flat out on the deck in a state of unconsciousness due to utter exhaustion, having given every reserve of strength remaining to him. It was only after the Drusus had come to a hovering position th
at a team of medical orderlies brought him to the ship's hospital bay. There they gave him an injection which served to bring his energy system back out of shock, and finally his state of unconsciousness was converted to one of deep and healing sleep.
At about this time the first series of shock waves produced by the Arkonide ships was registered on the hypersensors. The disturbances originated 16 light-years away but their cracklings had hardly faded from the consoles before the second series came through-this time in the immediate vicinity—which produced a 'furioso' cacophony of sound that was like a sudden tropical storm. Each shock-wave of energy hit the sensors with a thundering amplification until finally the tracking section had to activate the acoustic suppressors to keep everybody from being incapacitated by all the roaring and thundering and crackling that was going on.
After 20 minutes the noise subsided. A total of 4,115 individual hyper-shocks had been counted, which indicated the exact number of units in the Arkonide robot fleet. They had reacted promptly to Suttney's call.
A few yellow-gleaming light points appeared on the Drusus ' viewscreens out of the glittering sea of stars in the background. These represented those ships of the Arkonide fleet which were closest to Perry Rhodan's super battleship.
The same picture must have presented itself on the telescopic viewscreens of the Arkonide vessels. For the robot crews or any allied troop personnel from the Arkon-subjugated alien races who may have been on board, it was no doubt a great shock of surprise to emerge in the midst of a battle-ready Terranian fleet.
Would they now construe Suttney's call as having been a trap?
A tense period of waiting now began on board the Terranian ships, while Horace O. Mullon lay recuperating in his sleep of exhaustion.
• • •
Following Suttney's orders, Chellish had increased the Gazelle's velocity five times over its original pace. At more than 60,000 miles per second they approached the innermost planet of the system, which Suttney had selected as a landing place. Chellish had informed him that they'd find a fairly unpleasant environment there since its mean daily temperature exceeded 155° Fahrenheit. But Suttney knew as well as Chellish that the outer void was a very unsatisfactory hiding place for a spaceship. He would rather land on a boiling hot planet than take the chance of being captured by Terranian ships.
Chellish had taken it upon himself to give names to the system and the particular planet they were concerned with. He had said nothing about it to Suttney because the latter was in no mood to be receptive to suggestions from his prisoner concerning any dubbing ceremonies. But from then on, to Chellish the alien sun was Caligula and the hot inner planet was Tantalus. He had no inner qualms about relating Caligula to Ronson Lauer, who seemed to share many traits of character in common with the tyrannical Roman emperor, although his imagination was a bit more primitive. As for the name Tantalus, it was nothing more than the expression of a hope that the modern version of Caligula, who now lay in his cabin nursing his wounds, might meet no better fate in the future than that mythological betrayer of the gods.
Ever since Chellish had argued with him over his reasons for his act, Suttney had fallen into a curious, staring funk. But Chellish did hot dare hope that the result of his broodings would be a decision to abandon his traitorous plan. Suttney seemed to be in the position of a man who has determined to commit murder but finds himself repelled at the last moment by the sheer monstrousness of the deed. Nevertheless, he would murder—or translating the analogy to the actual case: he was still going to betray the Earth.
Oliver Roane was equally as silent as Suttney but in his case it had nothing to do with mental preoccupations. He had meager equipment for meditating. His most pleasurable occupation seemed to be to merely sit there and do nothing.
The quiet spell was welcome to Chellish. Nobody seemed concerned about the tracking instruments. The hypersensor was shut off and was therefore a blank as far as what was going on in surrounding space was concerned. Otherwise the indicators might have stirred a suspicion in Suttney's mind that a few ships other than Arkonide vessels could be snooping around in the area.
In order not to be completely blind in this regard, Chellish sought to discern any possible changes in the viewscreens. He was finally successful, just as he started his retro manoeuvres within 30 million miles of Tantalus. It took a practiced eye to recognize the little dots of light that suddenly appeared and to differentiate them from the ordinary stars. Even Chellish found this difficult but he was certain that some of those dots out there were ships. whether of Earthly or Arkonide origin he couldn't tell yet.
He noted that they seemed to hover almost motionlessly in space, which led him to believe that they had not yet detected the comparatively tiny Gazelle. Locating such a small object in interplanetary space was a difficult chore because of all the interference factors involved. Those ships out there, whatever their origin, would have to wait for Suttney's location signal if they wanted to find him.
Altogether, Chellish could make out 35 light points which were definitely not distant stars. These would be ships within a range of one million miles from the Gazelle and which were also in such a position as to reflect the light of Caligula. There must be many more than just these 35—behind him, in front of him, close in, above and below. It was an eerie experience to be flying through such a mighty formation of vessels without seeing more than 35 of them.
Tantalus emerged into the field of vision. Under the effects of a high velocity approach it was fascinating to see the planet change within a few minutes from a point of light to a disc, from a disc to a ball and from a ball to a great yellowish-grey mass, which moments later expanded beyond the edges of the screen.
The color of the planetary surface gave Chellish some food for thought. From a distance, any planet ordinarily reflected the light that came to it from its sun. If the sun was yellow, then the light from the planet would appear to be yellow. However, at close proximity it should begin to take on characteristic color tones of its own. For example, at this distance the Earth would have appeared to be greenish blue in color. That the surface of Tantalus was still yellow, interspersed with a dirty grey, indicated that the planet did not have much in common with the Earth as far as the surface was concerned.
Chellish dropped the ship into the upper layers of the atmosphere. Then he changed course and dove toward the surface at a steep angle. Meanwhile he observed what lay beneath him, noting that Tantalus did not seem to have any diversity of markings. Beneath him everything was the same yellowish grey, from one horizon to the other. In some places the grey predominated and in others the yellow tones were accented but Chellish couldn't yet determine the significance of it. During the first 10 minutes of his observations at a lower altitude he only once made out a variation, which was a straight black line running a few hundred miles across his field of vision—probably a flat mountain ridge.
Suddenly someone was standing beside him: Walter Suttney. He had not heard him approach. Like Chellish, he stared at the screen, his eyes reflecting his dejection.
"Desert!" he muttered. "A wilderness waste!"
Chellish agreed. There was no other explanation for the monotonous surface coloration. Tantalus was one giant desert—a colossal sea of sand with the air above it boiling from heat.
Meanwhile the automatic analytical instruments had registered what else there was to know about Tantalus. It had a diameter of almost exactly 6,200 miles, which made it somewhat smaller than the Earth; it turned on its axis once every 21 hours and five minutes; and its orbital velocity was just under 24 miles per second. The readout on the atmospheric composition was 68% nitrogen, 29% oxygen, 2.3% Argon, 0.7% carbon-dioxide, water and helium. So the air was breathable but whether or not the lungs could withstand the temperatures at which the relentless sun maintained the atmosphere was another question. As the Gazelle moved along above the surface, the thermocouple revealed that the sand of Tantalus stood at a temperature of over 200° Fahrenheit.
> "There!" said Suttney abruptly. "Land there!"
A second black streak or strip had appeared on the viewscreen. The Gazelle's present altitude was approximately 18 miles. It was now fairly discernible that the streak consisted of a strung out grouping of mountains-fairly low in contour. It was one of the few places on Tantalus where there were any shadows cast at all.
Chellish noted one other fact: the oncoming edge of night was only about 120 miles away from the mountains. In less than an hour it would be dark down below.
He took the ship into a wide curve and then approached the low mountain chain from the West. At a steep glide angle he lowered to an altitude of 500 yards, at the same time ascertaining the fact that this was the maximum height of any of the hills. He reduced speed to a minimum and waited for Suttney to select a landing spot.
"No difference," muttered Suttney. "Might as well go into that canyon there."
The opening between two low hills was more like a deep, narrow ravine. Its opening was just wide enough to admit the passage of the Gazelle. Chellish was pleased to note that the locality favored his own chances. Suttney knew from what direction the Arkonide ships would be coming and would send out his bearing data over the radio beam, trusting that this would reduce risks to a minimum. On the contrary, however, the walls of the ravine would serve to cross-multiply the residual effects, thus making the beam more traceable than would have been the case normally. And this was important in case any Terranian ships were already in the area.
Chellish let the ship glide into the ravine about 200 yards before he lowered it carefully for a landing. As was his habit, he set it down without the slightest jolt.
Suttney turned around. "Roane!" he called out sharply. "Keep an eye on him!"
Roane got up and drew his weapon again.
