Ernst Ellert Returns Read online

  TELETEMPORIAN!

  A MUTANT with a unique ability.

  An event of the First Magnitude.

  "Hades calling Terra!" The year is 2044, the call emanating by hypercom from Terrania's secret base in the Druuf universe.

  The message: that the mutant who long ago in the formative stages of the New Power mysteriously disappeared, the only teletemporian of the Mutant Corps has come back. Bringing wondrous knowledge with him.

  There's excitement galore in store as—

  Perry Rhodan

  Atlan And Arkon #83

  —————————————————

  Ernst Ellert Returns

  —————————————————

  1/ DISTRESS CALL TO HADES!

  RESISTANCE was useless. They came in such overwhelming numbers that he abandoned the idea of fighting back. Their airships landed by the dozens on the hard, rocky surface of the desert. They aimed their energy guns at the cliff walls behind which his subterranean laboratory was concealed.

  He could see them in his telescopic viewscreens. How they had found the place was beyond him. The hideout had been carefully chosen and no one besides himself had known about it.

  His speculations were suddenly interrupted as the outside microphone pickups brought the voices of the besiegers into the laboratory. They were sounds that no human ear would have been able to perceive because they were above the normally audible frequency range. But he whom they sought and had now discovered was able to understand them.

  "You're surrounded, Onot! If you come unarmed to the surface we'll listen to what you have to say. If not, we'll destroy you and your laboratory."

  Onot shrugged mentally. He had suspected something like this would happen. In the past his life had not always turned out the way he would have preferred. He had often done things that were against his better judgement and for that reason they had seemed to be incomprehensible. Sometimes he had acted as though he were an enemy to his own people and a friend of his bitterest foe. It had really been his fault alone that the combat robots of the attackers had been able to destroy the great computer center—and later the special space station.

  "I'll come up there," he said into his microphone as he looked somewhat sadly at his surroundings.

  It was a giant rocky chamber which heavy-duty raybeams had once gouged out of the mountain. The only access to the surface was a narrow corridor that led upward like a ramp. This had been his secret laboratory where he had always come to work when he needed quiet and seclusion for his researches and discoveries. And since he was the most outstanding and capable scientist of his race he had made some very significant inventions.

  But for the moment all that seemed to have been forgotten. All that mattered now was his treason. Treason which he had committed!

  He felt of his clumsy-seeming and rather misshapen wrist. There he could detect a tiny protuberance that no one else would have noticed. With a slight pressure he activated the single-celled battery of the tiny micro-transmitter that lay beneath his skin. For a fleeting moment Onot pondered why he possessed this transmitter and to whom he might be sending a distress call. But then he shrugged his giant shoulders and went to the exit ramp in order to give himself over to the police.

  Meanwhile the airship crews had swarmed out around the cliff and covered the area with their weapons. In the deep-hued sky were other aircraft which hovered in readiness to support the surprise raid on the rebellious scientist's hideout.

  These police troops were not human.

  Towering about 10 feet in height, their squarish, unwieldy frames were supported by heavy, pillar-like legs. Their hairless skin was like thick leather. Their huge round heads, almost a foot and a half in diameter, possessed four eyes with a good 300° of vision. Their ears and noses were not outwardly visible.

  Although appearances were deceptive in this case, the Druufs had evolved from the insect phylum. In fact they communicated on an ultrasonic level. The high-pitched soundwaves were sent out and received by natural antennas which were a part of their bodies. Another feature was their ungainly-looking arms, especially because of their hands which were well-shaped with finely articulated fingers and seemed to be unrelated to the rest of their bodies.

  A crevice appeared in the wall of rock and quickly widened, after which Onot stepped out onto the desolate plateau. He opened his arms in a wide gesture to show that he was unarmed. On his face was a mixed expression, a sort of embarrassed perplexity with perhaps a touch of curiosity. "Here I am," he announced. "What do you want of me?"

  A police lieutenant emerged from cover with his beamer aimed at the scientist. "Do you surrender?"

  "Would I be standing here otherwise?" retorted Onot somewhat sarcastically.

  The officer gave a signal to his men. "Search him for weapons," he ordered.

  They found nothing, overlooking the micro-transmitter that was buried under his skin.

  "May I ask what I'm charged with?" inquired Onot.

  The lieutenant shrugged. "You'll find out soon enough. But this much I can tell you: you're going to have a hard time clearing yourself of a suspicion of treason. We have you to thank for the destruction of the computer center. But that was just for starters. Then there was the space station... but enough for now! Follow me!"

  Onot appeared as though he were about to say something but then thought better of it. His triangular mouth closed tightly as he walked away with the lieutenant. A glance at the sky revealed a lowering sun and he knew that it would soon be night. It was a giant red sun that shone down on the dreary landscape but it did not rule this system alone. Close beside it was a smaller, greenish companion which was almost lost to view in the greater orb's baleful red glow.

  After a half-hour's flight the police aircraft landed at the spaceport of the capital city. An armored car brought Onot to the building of the Supreme Tribunal. The scientist had an opportunity to observe his surroundings through a small window. To his amazement he noted that most of the buildings and houses in the city exhibited heavy signs of damage. Some of them had been fully leveled to the ground.

  A vague sense of guilt assailed him at first but then came that reassuring inner voice again which seemed to maintain that he was completely innocent.

  What about that inner voice...?

  Onot sought to remember what he knew about it but his memory failed him. Nevertheless, something had been there, he thought darkly to himself, but try as he might he could not have told anyone what it had been. Someone was with him but he could neither see him nor feel him.

  He awoke as from a dream when hard hands grasped his arms and jerked him out of the car. He stood in a high-walled courtyard.

  "You can do your daydreaming later," said the lieutenant scornfully. He seemed to have forgotten how easy the scientist had made his task for him by not putting up any resistance. "The prison cells here are quiet and solitary."

  "Thank you," replied Onot, still lost in thought.

  They led him through wide hallways past a countless number of doors and then downstairs into his prison cell. When the cell door finally closed behind him and he was alone, he breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now they'd give him some time to think in peace. Above on the ceiling there was a grating—the air ventilator. Perhaps also a hidden remote camera eye. In the corner was a narrow cot and next to it were a table and a chair. That was all.

  Onot sat down. He supported his head in his hands and sought to recapitulate the past. So much time had gone by, perhaps 100 or 200 days. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. Once he had been the celebrated Onot, the leading scientist among the Druufs. He had given them many discoveries and inventions.

  Inventions...?

  Ono
t felt a surge of new hope. Of this he could be sure! He recalled his last piece of scientific work. He had built in the spatial stabilizer on board the giant space station. This apparatus had been unique, his latest invention. It might also be called a time stasis machine. With its help it was possible to build up a force field in which time became stationary.

  Time stasis...?

  It seemed to Onot as if a light were being cast into the darkness surrounding the happenings for which he was being held responsible. Perhaps now his memory would return and he would find an explanation.

  But when the strong headache suddenly returned to him which had hounded him during the past number of months he lost hope again. He knew that this headache phenomenon was his greatest enemy. It was then that the voice had often spoken to him. He remembered that there had been a time when he knew who belonged to that voice but at present it still escaped him.

  Later perhaps...

  • • •

  Capt. Marcel Rous had really been assigned to a lost outpost.

  As its name implied, the planet Hades resembled the gates of Hell. It was the 13th planet of the most colossal solar system that human eyes had ever beheld. The giant binary star Siamed possessed a family of 62 planets, almost all of which had their own system of satellites. Planet #16 was Druufon, the home world of the Druufs.

  Which was also the reason why Capt. Marcel Rous was stationed on Hades, the 13th planet. Terra's military base here had been hollowed out of the solid rock by the energy beams of heavy ship's cannons and now lay deep beneath the surface of the twilight world where life was practically impossible except for the narrow twilight zone between the light and dark hemispheres.

  But they had nothing to do with the surface areas where they could be spotted by possible patrol units of the Druufs. After their heavy defeat in the Einstein universe the Druufs had retreated into their own time plane and had abandoned all further attempts to expand their power. Their enemy had even taken advantage of the retreat by destroying the space station where Onot's latest weapon had been installed.

  Just the same, Marcel Rous remained alert. If the Druufs were to discover that a Terranian stronghold existed in their own solar system, they would strike with every force in their possession. So now the base served only a single purpose: it must not allow the connection with Ernst Ellert to be severed.

  Over 70 years ago Ernst Ellert had been a member of the Mutant Corps. His faculty of being able to project his mind into the future had also shaped his destiny. An accident had separated mind from body. Restlessly his mind had wandered astray in time and space, ever seeking its own plane of the present but never finding it. What it did find, however, was a new present, which was a future plane by comparison to its own time.

  Now it possessed a body again but it was not his own. The latter lay in a mausoleum on Earth near Terrania. Perry Rhodan, Administrator of the Solar Empire, had kept it preserved there. So the essence of that which was Ellert lingered on Druufon, the chief world of the Druufs. He had promised to send a signal when the time had come for him to leave his host body and when he would be able to return to the Earth.

  Approximately one light-year distant from Hades yawned the great rift in the universe which joined the two time planes with each other. Only by this means was it possible to change from one plane to the other without special technical assistance. But now this rift—a so-called discharge cone—was wavering and becoming narrower. It wouldn't be long before it would be a thing of the past. Then the Druufs would be gone, once and for all, from the time plane of the Terranians, unless they were to discover on their own a method of bridging the time wall.

  There were 12 matter transmitters at the base on Hades. They had made it possible to build and equip the secret station. From a distance of more than a light-year, weapons, material, provisions and personnel had been transmitted from Terranian ships to Hades. When it became necessary, these same transmitters would bring the Hades personnel back to safety again.

  At the moment, the time had not yet arrived for it.

  Marcel Rous was on his daily rounds in the stronghold, talking here and there with crewmembers and checking the guards, the communications installation and the warning system. When he was leaving the tracking and observation room he heard voices in the wardroom and mess hall. One voice in particular was that of a man who had arrived on Hades only a few days before as part of the relief crew. Men who were off duty spent their time in the large wardroom, drank their whiskey rations and related their experiences.

  Rous grinned to himself as he entered the place unnoticed and sat down at a small table in a booth.

  "You're a heck of a story teller, Kranolte!" shouted someone amusedly. "According to you, Rhodan would never have been able to knock out the robot Brain without your help!"

  The man named Kranolte was a sergeant wearing the uniform of Solar Intelligence. He nodded his head emphatically. "I don't want to exaggerate, Myers, but you can take it from me—we were really in a helluva fix. We were hiding out in a cave in the middle of the desert on Zalit, standing guard on a transmitter, and any minute we were afraid of being discovered by the Arkonides. Man, they really could have made it hot for us!"

  "That may well be, Kranolte, but you can't convince me that your mission alone was what made it possible for Atlan to get to Arkon and become the new Imperator of the stellar empire. During that time you were squatting in a cave and waiting for things to clear up, while Rhodan was conquering Arkon with his 150 special troops."

  Kranolte appeared to bristle at this. "Putting it bluntly, that's an insult, my friend! After all, you weren't there!"

  "But I know you," retorted Myers, undisturbed. "The way you tell it, you sound like Pucky. He's also claimed in the past that the Earth would have long ceased to exist without his help because he's saved it at least 10 times from annihilation already."

  "That's all just talk," retorted the other. "Who was it that said jealousy is crueler than the grave?"

  "Alright then," said Myers, although he failed to grasp Kranolte's Biblical quotation, "tell us what you did on Zalit that was so great!"

  Sgt. Kranolte didn't need a second invitation. "Well, you know as well as I do that the Arkon situation under the Regent couldn't go on much longer, so Rhodan decided to pull the plug on that robot Brain. Rhodan and I and 200 men were dumped into Zalit, which is only three light-years from Arkon. And now comes the part about the cave. Inside was our transmitter receiver and through it the California sent backup supplies and equipment to us. We had to see that nobody located the transmitter in that cave and we organized the caravans that brought the materials to Tagnor, the capital city. Without that material the whole operation would have been impossible. We were sitting there in the middle of the desert..."

  "You've said that twice already," interjected Myers.

  "...and we had to watch out so that the Hhracks didn't gobble us up. In the meantime Rhodan and Atlan and the others went to Arkon and put the Regent out of business. Atlan became Imperator and Rhodan gave him recognition. Yes, that was a real wild time we had that time on Zalit. Back in the cave, we..."

  "You and your stupid cave!" shouted Myers, finally losing his patience. "If you hadn't been stationed there it would have been somebody else. You were just a small cog in the machinery—and that includes any of us! Nobody is indispensable, you know!"

  Kranolte seemed to shrink a few inches. "Well, just don't get carried away!" he challenged Myers, much to the amusement of the other men in the room. "You can be replaced!"

  Myers' mouth dropped agape. He was suddenly flabbergasted. "But—didn't I just get through saying...?"

  Kranolte nodded patronizingly. "Sure, but you didn't quite put it that way. Anyway, take it easy, nobody's infallible. Isn't that right, Capt. Rous?"

  Marcel Rous realized he'd been discovered. He had to admit to himself that Kranolte had cleverly squirmed out of the hole he'd gotten himself into. He stood up and nodded. "Of course you're right, Serge
ant. At least concerning that last point you made. Carry on, men."

  The men had sprung up to stand at attention. Rous smiled as he left the mess hall. Even at a distance he could still hear the storm of rebuke crackling down on Kranolte's poor head. They thought that he had been aware of his superior officer's presence for some time and had sought to take him in with his exaggerated heroic deeds.

  Back in the com room Rous made certain that the message receiver section was in working order. The first incoming pulse would cause the recording tapes to turn on so that any piece of news would be stored for access later. But the indicators were still showing green. No news yet.

  The communications man on duty greeted him. "The, cruiser Ohio is still on picket point outside the discharge zone. Nothing special going on."

  Rous merely nodded acknowledgement and returned to his quarters after making one short visit to the main Control Central of the base. All quiet on Hades. The Hell planet lay in a deep spell of peacefulness. And yet doom was only light-minutes away.

  When Rous lay down on his bed he thought that boredom came more quickly to men when they were so close to the heart and hearth of danger without anything happening. Later, however, he was to wish that he had never had such a thought.

  • • •

  Onot spent two days and three nights in his cell without event. No one bothered about him. A silent caretaker brought him food but refused to answer any questions.

  His memory slowly returned to him. So far it had not yet occurred to the scientist that he might be suffering from amnesia. Of course he admitted he might have forgotten one thing or another but to suspect an actual gap in his memory was out of the question. Granted, there had been times in the past when he had acted very strangely, especially that time when hostile robots had destroyed the computer center. He couldn't explain even to himself why he had acted so strangely, yet he knew that he had done so.

  It was all a tangled mess. His mind sought to draw a straight line from the present to those events of the past but it failed. It was as though impenetrable veils of forgetfulness drifted between the events and obstructed his attempts to look backwards. All of which only served to accentuate his intolerable headaches.