Between The Galaxies

  Perry Rhodan

  Posbis #119

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  BETWEEN THE GALAXIES

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  FOREWORD

  In May of the year 2012 at the University of Terrania the Institute of Cosmobiology opened a series of

  lectures. One of these seminar talks was on the subject of contact with extra-galactic intelligences. In the course of his lecture the speaker said:

  "Here within our own galaxy we Terrans have perceived that not all intelligent life forms can evolve according to Terran standards. We've, come to understand that an intelligent being does not necessarily have to walk on two legs nor does he have to have two arms, two eyes, two ears, and one mouth and one nose. There are other forms of life and nowadays we can sometimes encounter an alien creature who might offer us a tentacle instead of a hand in greeting, if such a gesture is known to him — yet do it with a certain ease or simplicity which heralds a growing state of cosmic thinking.

  "But what still lies ahead of us? How-ever variegated the races of our galaxy may be, there are signs that they all have certain common characteristics. For example we have not found any mode of thinking that is essentially alien to our own. However, what should we expect when we make our first contact with a race from an alien galaxy? Can we hope to find features and characteristics with which we might all have something in common?

  "The answer is no! Even within our own galaxy we have found grades of differentiation which begin to get pretty far off the norm. So in considering any extra-galactic contacts we would have to expect to encounter some rather wide differences. We can't expect them to regard friendship as something good or hate as something bad. We can't even expect them to have any concept of good or evil. What could be 'beautiful' to us might be 'green' to them, if you know what I'm driving at. We can't depend on being able to even converse with races from an alien galaxy when we first encounter them—not as we are accustomed to doing with other races in our own galaxy. Misunderstandings will be common at first but such misunderstandings could have devastating consequences.

  "One might accuse me of talking about rare eventualities such as a 3-headed calf, and in fact at first glance this subject seems a bit far-fetched. However, in this age of trans-light spaceflight that first contact could occur any day and at any hour. This is especially so if we wish to concede that some hypothetical life form in any particular alien galaxy may be far advanced over the state of development of Arkonide-Terran civilizations.

  "For that moment–the moment of the first contact — we should be prepared. It is highly possible that it could be vital to the further existence of our culture. we cannot afford to just sit complacently around and wait. We have to foresee and anticipate such an event. Our situation demands it."

  Quite contrary to expectations, the words of the speaker were heeded. Men began to prepare for such an extra-galactic contact. That is, preparations were made as far as they could go under the circumstances. Any effective program of this nature required at least some knowledge that could define the objectives, but no such knowledge was available. No one had even the slightest idea of what lay ahead for humanity.

  Still, there were the probability calculators, mighty positronic computer installations which were provided with highly detailed programs. These machines worked out hundreds of thousands of possible situations and prescribed an equal number of modes of operation. Of course even these advanced machines could not assume a success probability higher than 53% on the average for any proposed method of procedure.

  So basically everything was still up in the air, if one discounted at least the act that men had begun to get used to the idea of an intergalactic contact, which was in contrast to what they had done prior to that May lecture of 2012.

  Later it seemed to be a strange quirk of fate that the first contact occurred almost 100 years afterwards to the day. Of course in a more basic sense that eventuality was foreordained when Perry Rhodan first encountered the Arkonides ...

  1/ "ARE YOU A TRUE LIFE FORM?"

  There was nothing but a deathlike silence and emptiness in this region of the universe.

  In a ship suspended in space far removed from the outer rim of the Milky way, the mass detectors had nothing to detect. The only equipment capable of picking up anything was the broad-surfaced collector shields on trans-C velocity ships which now and then probed into this abyss between the island universes. In about every 10 cubic meters there might be a single hydrogen nucleus. To collect just a single gram of matter it would be necessary to comb through a space sector big enough to contain 5000 planet Earths.

  That's how empty it was out here. Well, to the devil with it, thought Eric Furchtbar. He only had a few, more days to go before they'd come to pick him up.

  No one was assigned to duty for more than three months on board the BOB (Barrier-line Observation Station) 21. In the beginning it had been estimated that the men could endure a half year of service out here but it hadn't worked out. After about 3? months the crews began to get "space happy." They would start seeing ghosts and begin to hear mysterious cries emerging from emptiness.

  It wasn't so bad if a man took time to think about it, theorized Eric Furchtbar. All you had to do was sit still somewhere and get it into your head that there were no such things as ghosts and that sounds were impossible out there in the awful void. But who ever had time to go into such meditations? Usually they sat with each other and conversed. What did they talk about? The terrible emptiness. How ghastly it was and how hard it was to imagine such an endless abyss. They thought of how frightful it would be if the BOB 21 suddenly sprang a leak—although it would not be any worse than a leak occurring somewhere in the middle of the galaxy.

  And then it would happen suddenly. When they went to bed and started to fall asleep. All of a sudden they would hear voices. And then they would see the grey shadows flitting about. Instead of becoming meditative they would start to yell and rave, or the more impressionable ones would shiver under their sheets.

  In short, they would go out of their minds.

  Eric had to admit that it wasn't always so simple. He looked around him. The room he was in was rectangular if one overlooked a slight outward curvature of one of the lateral walls. The walls were covered with instruments, meters, viewscreens and control panels. There were a few seats located here and there. In the center of the room was a large table that was covered with star charts, coordinate tables and stacks of programming sheets which were still in the original order as on the first day. No one had ever used the positronic input forms.

  There was no reason to make any new programming inputs. Nothing ever happened. The 25-man crew of the BOB 21 spent their time in merely determining that this sector of the universe was absolutely eventless. Day after day, week after week, month after month.

  The instrument needles stood at zero as if they had been turned off. Every 10 minutes Eric would get up and press the switch of the master test board. A green lamp would light up to reveal that all instruments in the room were working and ready to respond. Of course Eric knew this but he only went through the

  routine each time to see the lamp come on. Just that at least was an event to break the monotony.

  The only equipment that was really shut down was the viewscreens. Matter tracers and reflex sensors were capable of picking up anything coming from the outside much faster than the conventional optics. Besides, the aspect of the empty void between the galaxies wasn't worth turning on the screens. on the contrary: it increased the anxiety factor.

  No, it really wasn't pleasant duty here. If you took the psychological problems into consideration, the BOB 21 was actually un
dermanned. At least two men should be in each room together. Eric would have liked to have somebody to talk to but he was sitting here alone in a room that was almost 50 square meters in extent. 8 other men were sitting somewhere in other rooms, and the remaining 16 were off duty.

  Eric got up restlessly and slowly paced the room. With his almost six foot frame he might have had an imposing figure if he had not been so frightfully thin. His uniform, which was the right length but too wide for him, hung in rather dismal folds about him. But that didn't seem to bother him. The only thing he was really aware of was his bald spot, which was shiny enough to catch his eye wherever he saw his reflection. As a man of 31 years he endured it with what little of dignity that remained to him.

  As he walked alone the curved wall he almost took a masochistic pleasure in the realization that only about half a meter of distance separated him from the lightless vacuum that stretched out from here over millions of light years to the next galaxy. He wondered how he might feel if he thought that the plastic metal hull really was the only thing between him and that awful void. Would it make any difference? About 140 years ago when Terrans were first venturing into space, the hulls of spaceships had been made of ordinary steel and by comparison to these walls were they were as thin as an onion skin. And in those days there was no such thing as the defense screen that protected the BOB 21 from the outer environment more effectively than any material walls.

  No, decided Eric, he would still feel safe without the outer screen. Way out here there were no meteors. What could possibly happen to do any harm?

  To the devil with all these grey ghosts and phantoms, he thought angrily. He almost wished that something really would happen. He turned and went back to his seat. Sitting down with a sense of boredom he chanced to glance at one of the meters.

  The blue-white illuminated needle stood trembling at the upper end of the scale.

  • • •

  It was the fastest Eric Furchtbar had ever moved to get onto his feet. In three long strides he reached the main panel and activated the alarm. Sirens started to shriek, signal light blinked, and the viewscreens flashed into operation automatically.

  The mighty observation station virtually bristled with a sudden vigilance,

  like a man startled from sleep.

  Eric returned to his seat. The instrument that had given the first indication was designed to register para-energy radiations. It only reacted to hypertype emanations below a certain threshold of energy and which had no detectable modulations. Such radiations could come from any number of possible sources. If this had been inside the galaxy, that particular indicator wouldn't have been quiescent for a single second.

  But way out here . . . ?

  Eric scanned meters on other instrument panels along the walls. Other needles were quivering with subtle activity now. One of them registered a light hypergravity shock, and some of the hyperoptic channels were acting up.

  All of it was hyper, thought Eric in wondering puzzlement. No direct indications.

  He looked at the viewscreen. They revealed the same black void as they always did when they were turned on. There was still nothing to be seen. Whatever may have happened it must have occurred too far away for the light to have reached the station yet. He waited a while longer. Then he got his first call on the intercom. It came from the Analysis Section. On the small screen he recognized the red-haired younger man whose freckled face wore a perplexed and slightly confused expression.

  "We've gone over all the input tapes, sir. There's no doubt about the indications. somewhere out there a sun has suddenly come into existence."

  Eric Furchtbar almost choked. "A sun..!" he cried out. "You can talk plainer than that, Kirkpatrick!"

  Kirkpatrick unconsciously wiped his brow. "Taking all observations together, sir, there is only one straight answer. Somewhere out there is a sun. On a detailed basis– "

  Eric interrupted the freckle-faced analyst with a wave of his hand. "Forget the details! How can a sun come out of nothing, just like that!?"

  Obviously the question was too much for Kirkpatrick. He stammered: "That's something... I–I can't tell you, sir..."

  "OK, skip it! How far away is it?"

  "Between 400 and 500 light years, sir."

  Eric sighed and looked at the main screens. It would be 400 to 500 years yet before the light reached them. He wouldn't live to see that. "Alright," He said resignedly. "Stay with it, Kirkpatrick, and call me again when you get the full results from the positronics."

  He sank back into his chair. Kirkpatrick was one of his most dependable men. If he said that a sun came into being out there a few minutes ago, then there was a sun out there.

  • • •

  Art Cavanaugh was sitting in the mess hall when the alarms started. He had just picked up one of the colorful Gogo pieces from the bevel-edged playing board and was calculating the move that would beat his partner, Ken Lodge. When the sirens shrieked, Ken Lodge jumped up and knocked the board and the pieces aside. The figures rolled off the table and fell to the floor.

  "Alert!" he shouted.

  Cavanaugh got up more slowly, wearing a frown. "That came just in time for you, didn't it? one more move and I'd have wiped you out!"

  He turned calmly to look at the lighted call panel at the other end of the room. His eyes narrowed. "It's coming from the main control room," he said. "The old Man's on duty . . . !"

  Suddenly he began to move so fast toward the door that the powerful figure of Ken Lodge couldn't keep up with him. The passage outside was filled with shouts and the sound of running feet. Art Cavanaugh was only a sergeant like his giant friend, Ken Lodge, who stamped out after him with rumbling complaints. But he had a lively imagination and was trying to imagine what had set off the alarm. He had studied the awesome void beyond the walls of the station and had almost become convinced that nothing would ever happen out there to merit their attention. But now something had occurred.

  What could it be?

  Ahead in the corridor was the green light outside the Com Room. Art caused the heavy entrance hatch to slide to one side. A man sat there surrounded by hundreds of instruments. He grinned at him when he came in.

  "You didn't waste a second, did you?" he commented.

  Art dismissed the remark with a wave of his hand. "What's going on? what caused that alarm?"

  "No idea," said the com man. "It came from the main control room. I haven't seen anything suspicious here."

  "Get up from there," Art ordered.

  The Com man had the same rank as Art but Art was older. When he took over the other man's place his fingers flew over the test buttons. Green indicator lamps responded. All equipment was in order. He turned around. "Nothing at all?"

  "Not a peep, Art. Everything's quiet as a mouse."

  Ken Lodge had come in almost aimlessly with his hands in his pocket. He joined Warren Lee, the younger Com man who was standing behind Cavanaugh. Art had just turned back to inspect the long rows of indicators.

  Then all of them heard it at once. With a shrill whistle the hyper receiver came to life.

  No one would have been able to move as swiftly as Cavanaugh. His quickness was incredible as he switched on the oscilloscope and adjusted it. The swiftness of his movements was unbelievable as he tuned the receiver frequency so that the signal came in clear and legible.

  There was nothing else to do. They watched breathlessly as the green scope began to show a waveform which the hypertransmission was tracing on the fluorescent screen. The basic oscillation took on the shape of a pure sinewave. Nothing in the outer void could generate such an exact configuration unless it had been specifically created for that purpose.

  Created...

  Somewhere out there was a transmitter.

  Somewhere out there were intelligent beings—there in the vast abyss between the galaxies.

  • • •

  Eric Furchtbar knew what he had to do. A sun and a hyper signal that so far nobody could decipher�
��that was enough to set the machinery going, of which the BOB 21 was only a small part.

  He had the positronics work out a coded report which clearly and concisely described both observations. The computer delivered the required encoding pattern, which Eric fed into the directional-beam transmitter. A hundredth of a second later the beamed message was on its way to the Earth. The receiver station there decoded it automatically and relayed it on to the responsible officer.

  That officer was Nike Quinto, head of Division 3 of Intercosmic Social Welfare and Development. If Quinto hadn't been alone at that moment he would probably have complained loudly about the rise of his blood pressure, which such unexpected events always seemed to aggravate.

  Judging by the reaction to Eric Furchtbar's report it seemed as if the Earth had been doing nothing for a hundred years other than wait for the first message from intergalactic space. The ship that Nike Quinto and his men always used to get to the scene of the action was standing ready for takeoff. There was nothing left to do but to go on board and give the order for departure.

  The Earth really had waited for this moment. Throughout the years ships had been held on standby, ready to take the members of the Mutant corps or Intelligence or Division 3 to various trouble spots affecting galactic politics. Each time the Terran technology took a step forward, such ships were always modernized. Thus for the more important missions, first-class equipment was always available.

  Also, Nike Quinto's men had been fully prepared. What they might expect in intergalactic space, what they had to watch out for, how the situation might be when they were thousands of light years removed from the farthest rim of the Milky Way and encountered an alien intelligence—all this is firmly anchored in their minds. Hypno-training had given them all necessary information, in such a manner that they would never forget it.

  It was a specially selected team that Nike Quinto took with him on that same day, May 2nd of the year 2112. His immediate companions were Maj. Ron Landry, Capt. Larry Randall, Sgt. Mitchell Hannigan?nicknamed Meech?and the sworn-in but unenlisted assistant, Lofty Patterson. on previous missions of Division 3, each of them had proved his mettle.