The Tigris Leaps Read online

  TESTING THE ROBOT REGENT

  THE SOLAR SECURITY SERVICE: 32 of its best men, picked for a Special Action against the Positronicon of Arkon, the Robot Brain whose extent of dangerous knowledge must be ascertained by Perry Rhodan.

  Can the Positronicon measure the frequencies emitted by the structocomps of hypertransing ships of the Solar Imperium? If so, there's danger to the Earth!

  Maj. Clyde Ostal, in the year 2042, receives orders from the Peacelord himself to take over the armed spacer Tigris in order to test the Robot Regent.

  At the same time, events on Grautier, the Exile planet, have gotten out of hand and are careening inexorably toward a catastrophic climax as—

  THE TIGRIS LEAPS

  1/ THE DEVASTATING DIAGRAM

  THEY'D DONE IT!

  Three men with exhausted faces sighed deeply as their department's computer spewed out a length of tape with an audible click. The tape fell rustling into a cup-shaped receptacle and at the same time the computer, a device based on positronic principles, shut off and the humming and vibrating died away. A penetrating silence suddenly reigned in the room.

  Chief logician Nourag got up and crossed to the machine, taking the computer tape from its receptacle. Then he turned and looked triumphantly at his two colleagues.

  It was the finest reward for a work that had occupied them for 36 hours.

  Thirty-six hours before, Chief Logician Nourag had been summoned to Allan D. Mercant, Marshal of Solar Defense.

  "I need," Mercant had said, "in 40 hours, a set of precise coordinates according to which our solar system would appear to be in the following position... take this down if you will, Nourag... Phi 16 degrees, 34 minutes, 22 seconds; Psi 03:05:45; and Chi 44:43:01. Your range will be between 3,500 and 4,200 light-years from Earth. No more, no less. Within those limits, where you go is up to you and your men to decide.

  "Once you've determined those coordinates, you will have the interesting task of calculating the distance from the Earth's fictitious location to those star systems known to us.

  "To put it simply, your mission is this: supply me data in the next 40 years that would guarantee that a spaceship of our fleet using it would never find its way back to Earth. However, the data must appear utterly genuine and stand up to the most suspicious examination without evidencing any hint of deliberate foul play."

  With that the chief logician had been dismissed.

  And now they had done it: in 36 hours, on the fourth run-through. Three times before the positronicon had stopped during the middle of computations. The data it had been fed was not sufficient to reach any conclusions but Nourag and his colleagues were able to determine readily enough what information was lacking and supply it.

  Nourag, a small, slender man, was radiant with joy now. The long plastic tape with its encoded symbols was like an open book in his mother language to him.

  "Miltau," he said to his closest coworker, "call Marshall Mercant and tell him our job is finished—and so is our strength, for that matter."

  But the Solar Defense Marshall could not be reached.

  "Alright," said Nourag, "then I'll wait for him. Thank you, gentlemen. You can go now."

  Nourag had been alone for only a few minutes when he had a visit from Esting, the navigational mathematician.

  Esting fell tiredly into a seat. "That Solar Defense bunch," he moaned. "One of these days they're going to kill us all. I had to calculate spring coordinates... Good Lord! I'd hate to be flying in the spaceship going into transition with my data! What in heaven's name is all this nonsense for, anyway?"

  But it was not nonsense at all.

  In all details, it was a very carefully thought-out plan.

  For two hours Perry Rhodan, Reginald Bell, Marshall Mercant and Maj. Clyde Ostal of the Solar Security Service had been sitting at the final conference.

  Allan D. Mercant handed new reports to Perry Rhodan, Administrator of the Solar Imperium. Rhodan skimmed over them and nodded. "The picture is becoming more complete," he said, "but we've waited long enough. The reports from our agents are growing steadily sparser and less detailed. Our experience with the Robot Regent indicates that that means Arkon is attempting to double-cross us again." He laid his hand on the reports that Mercant had given him. "Here we see how strong the probability is that Arkon has begun development of its new compensator-detector. Mercant, not even you know how dangerous our situation has become in the last three days!"

  The Defense Marshall looked at Rhodan in astonishment. Rhodan reached behind himself and produced a slip of paper on which a diagram had been drawn. He laid it out on the table.

  Bell, Mercant and Maj. Ostal bent over the diagram in curiosity.

  The diagram came from the space freighter Orinoco and was three days old.

  Two days before, the Orinoco had returned from a freight run to the M-13 System, landing at Terrania a full six hours behind schedule.

  The six-hour delay was due to unplanned transitions. The commander of the Orinoco fortunately belonged to the officers of the Terran spacefleet and merchant marine and consequently took his work very seriously.

  The diagram that now disturbed three of the men taking part in the conference had deeply shaken him as well. And thus 30 minutes after his arrival in Terrania, he had requested to speak with Perry Rhodan.

  "This is too much!" Bell exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  Mercant's eyes shimmered dangerously.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal had gone pale.

  The testimony of the diagram was devastating.

  Mercant began to speak, as though lecturing a class. He rarely spoke in that tone: only when he had been deeply disturbed. His pen flew over the diagram, pointing various things out. "Here... that's the Orinoco 's transition... uninteresting. But here, at 0434:05 hours, ship's time, the vessel came out of hyperspace. And there..." Mercant's hand trembled. "... At 0435:36 hours, ship's time, just one minutes and 31 seconds later, the first Arkonidean ship flew towards it. And that 1.23 light-years from where the Orinoco was going to land.

  "No sir, I didn't know that. That's the catastrophe we've been trying to prevent for more than half a century. And tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, the first Arkonide Titan -type spacespheres will be landing here by the hundreds!"

  It was astounding that Bell did not comment at first. This was something quite out of character for him. He, a man whose bent for flying off the handle at the least provocation was well known throughout the Solar Imperium, merely ran both hands through his reddish hair while gasping loudly for breath. Finally he burst out with: "What a fine fishket! (21st century expression for 'kettle of fish') The Druufs to the right of us, the double-crossing Robot Brain to the left of us... and the positronic scrap pile knows the position of the Earth now...!"

  "I don't believe it knows yet," Rhodan interrupted. "The range of the Arkonide structural compensators is still limited." He reached behind himself again and laid the second diagram on the table. "Commodore Lyst of the Orinoco had the fortunate idea of testing the capabilities of the new Arkonide device with a spring near M-13. This diagram doesn't tell us why the Arkonide sensor can't pick up the frequency of our structural compensators from a distance of more than 10 light-years but it does tell us that we Terrans don't dare lose another minute..." He allowed a pause to emphasize what he had yet to say. "...And we have to first make arrangements so that all our spacers can return to Earth when we transmit a coded message for them to do so; but making at least 20 different transitions while on their way before they finally set course for Terra on their last spring. That, gentlemen, is our situation at the present time."

  "As if that motorized bucket of bolts hasn't given us enough trouble already!" Bell cried out angrily. "Perry, don'
t you feel an urge to send Pucky to the Robot Regent so our little friend can 'play' with him a bit?"

  In spite of the earnest situation, Perry Rhodan could not repress a smile. Bell's suggestion of sending the telepathic, telekinetic and teleportative mouse-beaver extraordinary, Pucky, to face the giant computer on Arkon 3 was no joke but just the thought of a playing Pucky was enough to cause a smile.

  Had he been given such a mission, Pucky would have certainly displayed his single incisor tooth, as he always did to express his joy. Teleporting himself inside the mammoth positronic computer and then beginning to 'play'—destroying the positronicon section by section with his telekinetic powers unleashed full-force—would have been his idea of fun.

  However...

  "Such a suicide mission is out of the question for Pucky," Rhodan said, tabling the idea. "Mercant, don't have your agents concentrating their attention on the construction of the Arkonide sensing equipment. Ed much rather know if they're started mass production of the device. Its construction is less important..."

  Bell stared at his friend, startled. Rhodan overlooked it, turning to Maj. Ostal. "Are you ready enough that you could take off at 12:45 hours?"

  Mercant answered for Ostal. "They'll be ready by then, sir. The extra equipment is ready now and the rest of the work is just routine."

  Rhodan turned to his friend. "Reggie, I asked you to have the light cruiser Lotus refitted. How has the work been going?"

  "We’re ready," he replied, gesturing angrily, "but those pickle people, the Swoons, seem like they never will be. If I could only see what they're trying to do. These microscopically small devices of theirs are beginning to get on my nerves.

  "They'd get on my nerves, too, Reggie... if the Swoons were working for Arkon instead of us." That was all Rhodan had to say about that but for Bell those words had their own meaning. He knew Perry Rhodan better than anyone else and he was aware that when Rhodan spoke in such riddles, something was up and would soon reveal itself, usually at some unexpected moment.

  "Anything else, gentlemen?" Rhodan looked at the men questioningly.

  "Yes sir," said Maj. Ostal. "Is our destination still the star system of Naral?"

  "Yes it is. According to the latest reports of our agents, suspicion as increased that one or even several compensator-sensors: are on the planet Ekhas, possibly built into Arkonide ships. We know already through the commodore of the Orinoco which Arkonide planet is definitely the site of a sensor unit but re-programming your ship's extra equipment would cause us to lose five days—and that much time, gentlemen, we don't have. In the next few days or hours Arkon could succeed in increasing the range of their compensator sensor to a thousand or more light-years. What then?"

  "I still like the idea of sending Pucky to pay a call on the Robot Brain!" Bell muttered, vexed.

  Perry Rhodan replied without hesitation. "We need both Pucky and the Positronicon on Arkon 3—we can't afford to lose either of them!"

  2/ PRISONERS: ENT-THAN

  With the takeoff of the spherical freighter Tigris, which measured 100 meters in diameter, at precisely

  12:45 hours from the spaceport at Terrania, an operation began with the precision of an adding machine—an operation that the Solar Imperium had to carry through to a successful conclusion at all costs.

  Commander of the ship was Maj. Clyde Ostal of the Solar Security Service. The crew was 32 men recruited from Allan D. Mercant's Defense Ministry.

  They knew what was at stake. They also knew that their mission was dangerous. Even though the star system of Naral was 'only' 4,536 light-years from Earth and from Arkon 1, 2 and 3 around 34,000, it belonged nonetheless to the Great Imperium, for the people who lived there were Arkonide descendants and had never forgotten that they were Arkonides. Their loyalty to the Imperium was proverbial; their contacts with Arkon 3 were so close they could not be any closer.

  Speeding along at 85% SPEOL, the Tigris shot through the solar system, passed at length the relay station on Pluto and then plunged into the gulf between the stars.

  Rarely had a ship been sent out from Earth with such precise orders as the Tigris, which was clearly identifiable as a Terran trade vessel.

  The vast storerooms were filled to the limits with goods that were already impatiently awaited in the Tatlira system. Hypercom messages from Terran space freighters to Terran trade offices on alien worlds—inquiries and messages for relay between solar freighters underway—all these had been inconspicuously in progress for three days and whoever was listening in from the 'other' side saw in the last transmission of the freighter Eugenio, which stated that the Tigris would arrive on 18 June 2042, only a typical commercial message.

  'Listening in' on hypercom traffic was as common as ever. The Galactic Traders listened in on all frequencies with a thousand ears. Arkon listened in from Globular Cluster M-13 or from its advanced bases on various worlds. And the Solar Imperium listened too. No one, it seemed, wanted to be caught unawares by some new development.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal grinned as he listened to the last hypercom message of the Eugenio.

  With that, Order 17 was carried out. Now he could go on to the next.

  Order 18 read: Undertake Transition one and two only with the extra device. Shut off ship's Positronicon. Shut off data and storage banks. Check out three times! Inspecting equipment at 10 minute intervals: Maj. Clyde Ostal, Lt. S. Seegers Lt. Peter H. Hasting.

  The 'extra device' had been specially constructed for the two first transitions of the Tigris and in reality was nothing more than a small positronicon. It had been programmed to carry the trade vessel safely through two hytrans from one determined point in space to another 1,375 light-years away.

  The small crew of the spacesphere experienced the unpleasant shock of transition twice. As the last man in the control room recovered, they all looked to the panorama screen, which offered them a view of an alien sky.

  The extra device went into action once more. Within a few seconds it had calculated the coordinates of the trade vessel's new position to the fifth decimal place and, comparing the result with Order 19, Maj. Ostal found the two in agreement.

  Now Order 20 waited to be carried out.

  In Cabin 8, the alarm clock rang out in two short bursts, then one long. Four men had been waiting for the signal. They hurriedly left their cabin and headed for the control room. There they wordlessly began the work of detaching the heavy extra device from the ship's up-to-now idle positronicon and removing all traces of any evidence that an auxiliary unit had ever been coupled to it.

  They were still busy with the last of the labor when a work robot lumbered in and waited for orders to carry the extra device away.

  Its steel limbs did not even strain as it lifted the unit, which weighed at least 150 kilos, and left the control room with it.

  The robot was expected at Hatch B. The inner hatch door opened up, the robot stepped into the airlock and then the door closed behind it again.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal and three officers watched the panorama screen. Suddenly a square object appeared on it, floating through space past the ship—the extra device which the work robot had thrown out.

  During the next few minutes Ostal turned off one Tigris defense field after another. The extra device floated farther and farther away at a constant speed.

  Lt. S. Seegers switched on his microphone and called the disintegrator crew. "Open fire on floating object!"

  Three seconds later all men in the control room had to briefly shut their eyes to avoid being blinded by the sudden glare on the screen. The extra device had vanished in a cascade of rapid atomic destruction.

  Nothing more remained to hint that the Tigris had come to this point in space with the help of a rather expensive technical trick.

  Order 21, the next to last, remained now.

  Maj. Clyde Ostal called up the Com Center of his ship. "Contact our settlement on Goszul's Planet in the Tatlira System and tell our people there that in three hours and 10 minutes
the freighter Tigris out of Terrania will be landing. Transmit the message over the scrambler and use the normal merchant code. Over."

  The Solar Imperium had known for some weeks that the Springers could now not only decipher the Terran merchant code but also reconstruct scrambled messages.

  "Lt. Hasting?" Maj. Clyde Ostal turned and gave him the list of orders 1 through 22. "Annihilation of the equipment as ordered. You'll be responsible to me if even some ashes are left over!"

  Clyde Ostal's face, which usually was inflexible and displayed no feelings, was now open and expressive. He, the 45-year-old commander of the operation, was letting his men perceive that they were nearing a decisive point.

  "Transition to the Tatlira System!" he ordered. But a mocking smile suddenly played around his mouth. Over on his right, two officers were feeding the ship's positronicon the new data. Not only the coordinates of the ship's current position were necessary to insure a flawless transition but also the energy values calculated by the positronicon as being essential for reaching Tatlira by way of hyperspace. Hyperspace, of course, was that 'in-between' space which could be comprehended only mathematically.

  Although the huge computer aboard the Tigris had been completely misprogrammed by Earthly scientists after hours of team effort, it operated in spite of the falsified data just as Marshall Mercant and the scientists had hoped it would.

  Daring a hypertrans with utterly garbled programming and maybe 1/10th of correct data, and still feeling confident of coming out all right even in 'the wrong place in space', was not simply light-headed recklessness on the part of the Tigris crew. They were confident that the scientists on Perry Rhodan's staff had known what they were doing.

  "Transition in 10 minutes!" announced the vocoder of the positronicon chronometer, then began the countdown.

  At X minus five minutes, Clyde Ostal called up the Com Center again. "All clear... is the message ready to send in the automatic transmitter? Are the scrambler and distorter units ready to go?"

  "Yes, Major. The text of the message is uncoded, as ordered!" The officer on duty at the transmitter wanted to emphasize once more that the procedure was an unusual one. Uncoded hypercom messages were a rarity.