Spoor of the Antis Read online

  FEVERISH HASTE

  Research Project "Liquitiv" is being pushed forward in feverish haste. For what was at first merely a mission for a few agents of Division 3, has developed into a desperate situation that has the leaders of the Solar Empire holding their frightened breaths. Terra, the colonial planets and the Arkon worlds find they have been lulled into a false sense of security by the scientists of two Imperiums who have made a disastrous error in their analyzes of the long-range effects on human and Arkonides of Liquitiv.

  Perry Rhodan

  Posbis #102

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  SPOOR OF THE ANTIS

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  PROLOG

  THE LIQUITIVE RESEARCH is being pushed forward in feverish haste. When at first a mission for only a few agents of Division 3 has developed into a crisis that has the top command of the Solar Imperium holding their breaths because the situation on Terra, the colonial planets and the Arkon worlds has become almost desperate. For years the necessary security measures had been Ignored, after well-known scientists had come to the opinion that Liquitiv, a new liqueur, was eminently suitable for delaying the natural aging process of the human organism and that those who used Liquitiv would experience a new vigor and muscle tone. The disastrous error has finally been recognized-and thus the responsible leaders of the Solar Imperium are on the spoor of the Antis, grimly resolved to track them down.

  1/ LAST LAUGH

  SHEER DESPERATION.

  Mulvaney's plan had been born of sheer desperation. From a legal standpoint, of course, it was purely reprehensible because it involved the possibility of having to murder old man Lansing. In a normal state of mind it would never have occurred to Mulvaney to kill another person. However, his condition had entered a phase now which made rational thinking impossible: he was approaching the brink of insanity.

  Lansing himself was not the cause of such a motivation-no one had any reason for hating old man Lansing. Mulvaney's real objective involved a few plastic flasks which he suspected his intended victim kept in his possession. And of course it could not be presumed that Lansing would hand the flasks over of his own free will. After the Government had clamped down on the sale and distribution of the liqueur, any remaining supplies of it had been hoarded tenaciously by the owners. It was only a matter of time until the last little bottles of Liquitiv would be consumed by their addicted users.

  But Henry Mulvaney wasn't thinking of this. Nor was he thinking any more of the fact that more than 50 million Terrans were now addicted as he was and would do or commit anything to obtain the liqueur. With trembling hands he grasped the top of Lansing's patio wall. The hour was after midnight. The street was lonely and deserted. Albert Lansing was an oddball recluse and a crank, an invalid who was paralyzed from the waist down. Every day the old shut-in had a robot servant with him but it did not stay there at night. The robot was the only compromise Lansing had ever made with modem technological advancements. His wheelchair was the old-fashioned kind with large wheels on either side for hand-power locomotion but similar automatic models could hardly match the skill and swiftness with which Lansing manipulated his familiar vehicle.

  Mulvaney drew himself up on the outer wall of the patio. The inlaid stone capping felt cold and rough. The house stood silently before him. He turned a last time to check the avenue behind him and the gas-tube street lamps were like startled stars in his wide-staring eyes. His face was wildly distorted. He paused there for another moment and then jumped into the patio itself. The soft earth absorbed the sound of his arrival. Rising up from his crouched position, he moved stealthily forward, heedless of the flowers and other plants he trampled under foot. When he stepped on the approach path his feet made a slight grinding sound on the colored gravel.

  He drew the magnetic key from his pocket. The shadow of the house finally enveloped him, making him practically invisible from the street. It gave him an increased sense of security which helped to calm him momentarily. A cat suddenly arched its back at him nearby, its great yellow eyes gleaming balefully for a moment as he stared at it. Then it was gone into the bushes of the little garden. Mulvaney grumbled menacingly, half-aloud, without being conscious of it. All he could think of was his mad desire for the Liquitiv. The closer he came to his goal the greater he felt his need.

  Until now he had regularly consumed a flask every three days. The promised effect was youthful vigor and a suspension of the aging process, which never failed to be felt. Mulvaney had not been able to comprehend why the Government should have prohibited the enjoyment of this preparation. He knew nothing about the human wrecks who had been brought to Earth from Lepso, struggling in vain for their salvation. Nor did he realize that he himself would fade away and die if he continued to drink the liqueur for a total period of 12 years and four months.

  By now he had arrived at the door of the house, where he paused to listen. He cautiously placed his ear to the door. Inside everything was quiet. It was a two-story dwelling and Lansing had installed a lift-chair along the staircase to help him go up and down. Mulvaney knew the layout very well because he had often come here to play chess with the old man. It was the way he had found out that the cripple regularly imbibed Liquitiv. Lansing had confessed to him that he had hoped the liqueur might improve his condition or possibly cure him of the paralysis. A certain color and heartiness had returned to his face and he had lost most of his wrinkles. To his few acquaintances he even appeared to be more energetic to some degree-but the paralysis had remained.

  Mulvaney placed the magnetic key in the lock and the security bolt slid back immediately. A slight pressure of his hand pushed the door open. The room beyond appeared to be a dark hole but he stepped inside without hesitation, making sure that the door was locked again behind him. He held his breath for a moment and attempted to detect by sound or any other sign where Lansing might be at the moment. He took a step forward. His burning thirst had increased still more.

  He had to get his hands on that Liquitiv!

  What was that?-the turning of wheels?-the approaching wheelchair? Mulvaney dodged to one side. But nothing came toward him out of the darkness of the room. His fingers groped along the wall until they encountered an obstruction: the wardrobe cabinet. He felt of something soft and yielding-the house smock for the robot. It was another crazy idea of Lansing's, making his robot wear a smock. But he was in no mood to be amused. He kept groping his way until he found the wall again.

  Here was the entrance to the kitchen. Inside the house there were no internal doors because they would only have obstructed Lansing's wheelchair. The individual doorways were only covered by divided curtains. Mulvaney pushed the heavy material to one side and came into the kitchen. There was a strange odor in the air as though somebody had spilled too much cleaning fluid on the floor. He bumped into the table, which had a kidney-shaped indentation in it. This was to accommodate Lansing in his chair whenever he was eating here.

  Now where would the old man hide his Liquitiv?

  Mulvaney thought awhile. He couldn't just search around willy-nilly without some plan of action. That might take him hours. Also, this blind groping around was bound to make noise. The only alternative was to find Lansing.

  He went around the table and stumbled over a chair. This was an unusual object to find in this place. Fortunately the chair legs had been coated with some yielding material so that it didn't make much noise. Mulvaney was sure by now that the kitchen was empty. Evidently Lansing wasn't in here. Suddenly the idea came to him that Lansing might have become aware of his intrusion already. He might be lying in wait for him somewhere with a weapon. The thought of Lansing's being armed brought him a sense of dread. F
or awhile he was incapable of doing anything. He merely stood there trembling with new fear. But then his body took over and demanded its needed quota of Liquitiv. The gnawing sensation was worse than any fear!

  He left the kitchen. On the ground floor there were only two other rooms, the library and a so-called workroom. Of course Lansing never worked anymore, even though he occupied the place a great deal of the time. He received a monthly pension and also was given some voluntary support by relatives in Europe. Lansing's 'workroom' would have been a strange sight to any stranger. Two parallel metal bars stretched from the entrance to the opposite window. They formed a kind of aisle which was just wide enough to permit passage of the wheelchair. Only once had Mulvaney witnessed the purpose of this arrangement. It was the only place where the crippled man could leave his chair without assistance. He would get up onto the bars and pull himself along on them until he reached the window, where he often stood and stared for hours at the street outside. When Mulvaney discovered him here that single time, Lansing had remained angry about it the whole evening and had not been able to concentrate on his chess game.

  Mulvaney remembered when he had hesitantly pulled the curtain back to look in on him.

  "Go ahead and laugh, why don't you?" Lansing had shouted at him.

  Mulvaney had been affected by the experience for several weeks after that and he had tried to avoid visiting or contacting the old man. But Lansing had called him up and invited him to play with him again.

  Now as he groped his way toward the 'workroom' he remembered the invalid's words. A certain sense of timidity kept him from parting the curtains and going in but finally he overcame the feeling and entered. After finding that Lansing wasn't there either he went to the library, which was also empty. This meant that he had to be upstairs. With mixed feelings Mulvaney went stealthily over to the staircase.

  Here he unexpectedly tripped on a broken wheel of the wheelchair and fell on his face. His wildly flailing hands came in contact with other disconnected parts of the familiar vehicle. Lansing's wheelchair lay in a rubble of destruction at the foot of the stairs. Mulvaney groaned and crawled his way out of the tangled mess.

  If Lansing were anywhere around here, the noise would have surely attracted his attention. But aside from the sounds that Mulvaney made himself the house was completely still. He got up in a hurry and threw all caution to the winds. His craving for the supposed rejuvenation elixir dominated him completely. An icy terror clutched him when he thought that someone else might have been here before him. Maybe Lansing's supply had been stolen already.

  With a loud curse he turned on the lights. Now he could see that the wheelchair had fallen down the stairs. It was completely destroyed. A few steps up from the bottom was Lansing himself. He was dead. He was sort of hanging there, partially leaning against the banister posts with his eyes staring and a waxy look to his face. Mulvaney began to sob, not for his dead friend but out of new desperation. He felt instinctively that he would find no Liquitiv here.

  Slowly he approached Lansing and noticed that he was clutching a slip of paper in his right hand. He took it from the lifeless fingers and read the small, cramped words, written with a trembling hand.

  Today my supply of Liquitiv ran out. I don't have strength anymore to live without it. May God forgive me... Mulvaney let the paper fall to the floor.

  Lansing had committed suicide. It meant that there wasn't a drop of the liqueur left in the house. The crippled old recluse had deliberately steered his wheelchair down the stairs and let it tumble him to his death.

  One more he heard the old man's words "Go ahead and laugh, why don't you?"

  Mulvaney began to giggle senselessly like a madman. He was laughing. His whole body shook. He needed Liquitiv-badly, very badly. But the Government had stopped the sale of it. No one could procure any more of it now.

  The horrible plan of the Antis was beginning to show its first effects. Mulvaney staggered out of the house like a drunkard. He was only a single human. Addicted and lost.

  One of more than 50 million.

  2/ GLOBAL DEADLINE

  More than 50 million humans were threatening to break out in revolt. Earth had become a madhouse. The addicted victims had to have the liqueur which was commonly known as Liquitiv. It was as necessary to their lives as air to a normal man.

  Things were not much better on the colonial worlds. Also Atlan, Imperator of the Greater Imperium, was fighting the same problem on the Arkon planets. Gigantic shipments of the treacherous narcotic elixir had virtually flooded the planets of both of the allied Imperiums.

  Perry Rhodan, Administrator of the Solar Imperium, stood stiffly at his desk in the large plain room that served as his office and conference chamber. He was not alone. In front of his desk was a group of men and women who stared with burning eyes at this highest chief of the government. Rhodan did not see a single friendly eye among them. At first he had been angered by the request of these addicts for an audience with him but finally he had yielded to pressure from Reginald Bell. The tall, lean man finally moved. With at least an exterior calmness he took a seat behind his desk.

  Immediately the assembled people began to all talk at once. Rhodan raised his hands. He could understand their state of agitation but if he were going to help them he had to have order. "Choose a spokesman among you," he commanded. "It's senseless for all of you to talk at once."

  Before anyone could suggest someone, a thickset man who was taller than Rhodan stepped forward. "I'm Godfrey Hunter," he said.

  Undoubtedly the lack of respect in his voice was the result of his uncontrollable state of agitation. Rhodan realized that the man had lived a quiet and orderly life until now. But already the ban on selling Liquitiv was having its consequences.

  "We speak for a larger group of people, sir," Hunter continued. The way he spoke through his teeth revealed that his self-control was on a thin edge. "Sir, we're asking you to lift the ban on the sale of Liquitiv immediately."

  There was a murmur of agreement from the other addicts as they all pressed closer to the desk. Rhodan studied Hunter thoughtfully. He felt compassion for such people but he dared not show it. When he finally spoke, his face remained expressionless.

  "How long have you been drinking the liqueur?" he asked.

  "About three years, sir. I still remember the day my wife brought a flask of it home with her. I can't find anything wrong with drinking it-there's nothing dangerous about it. On the contrary, after my wife and I began to use it there was an obvious general improvement in our whole physical condition. I could practically say, sir, that since then I've hardly aged at all."

  You poor devil-thought Rhodan. If you had seen the men we found on Lepso you'd be sure to understand. "Oh, I believe you," he said aloud. "I believe every word you say. But now answer another question for me: how many days has it been that you haven't been taking the Liquitiv?"

  "I haven't had a drop for six days!" growled Hunter venomously. It was obvious that he blamed the First Administrator for this fact.

  Rhodan nodded: Six days-that was the known limit, according to all observations. After that point the phenomena of breakdown and fatigue became apparent. The second phase would then set in with spells of dizziness. The end was agonizing and brutal: the body of the victim would begin to writhe under repeated nervous attacks until it virtually shook itself to death.

  Rhodan was stone-faced as he looked at the man. He did not yet have the report of the medical experts who were searching feverishly for an antidote to the narcotic which would cure the addiction. Thus far all attempts to cure the victims had failed miserably. His mind was shadowed by a very dark vision. He saw millions of Terrans in a growing state of mental derangement, trying desperately to hold on to an existence of blind illusion, demanding the continuance of this horrible self-deception. The situation had reached the point where it was far more dangerous than during the time of Vincent Aplied's vast smuggling operation. At least Aplied and the Galactic Traders had bee
n content to merely use the standard forms of narcotics produced on Terra, with the intention of undermining the economic position of the Earth.

  But when it came to the Antis there was an end to any scruples a tall. For them, any means was justified if it could place power in their criminal hands. Their fanatic anti-mutant sect had spread through the galaxy like a spider's web. World after world fell into this web like so many flies. The Antis had no need for armed fleets. They worked insidiously from the background and others performed their dirty work out in front. Others, that is, like Rhodan's own son.

  The thought of Thomas Cardif blurred Rhodan's vision momentarily. Was it possible that his own flesh and blood was capable of such deeds? His lips tightened when he remembered the photo that Allan D. Mercant had shown him of a certain Dr. Edmond Hugher on Lepso. It was the haunting picture of a man who had purportedly extolled the virtues of the new elixir and had tried to convince everyone who would listen to him. One of those who had believed him was Dr. Zuglert. But Zuglert was no longer among the living. He had carried this picture on him, however, because he had worked with Hugher on Lepso.

  And Hugher was none other than Thomas Cardif, Rhodan's son.

  Hunter's tense voice interrupted the thoughts of the tall, lean man behind the desk. "Have you decided, sir?"

  "I can't make any official statement yet," Rhodan replied, still maintaining an outward calm. "Until the medical experts have been able to prove conclusively that the continued use of Liquitiv is harmless, the liqueur will not be released for public sale."

  "Dammit!" yelled Hunter. The word seemed to hang suspended in the room. Everyone fell silent. It was another demonstration of what the Antis' product could bring a man to. Hunter's drawn expression revealed that he was suddenly aware of his loss of control.

  Rhodan got up slowly. Even the most impartial observer would not have been able to read the Administrator's thoughts in his inflexible features. Hunter was leaning slightly forward and seemed to sway back and forth slightly. His movements were strange but Rhodan understood. Hunter was fighting an urge to simply turn and run wildly out of the room. It was only the last dregs of his pride that held him there. Rhodan's trained eye could detect this trace of stubbornness, the man's inner struggle with himself. Hunter had not broken yet but he did not have far to go.