Interlude on Siliko 5

  THORA KIDNAPPED!

  1/ APPREHENSION

  THE 11th HOUR.

  One minute before they were 83 space cadets.

  One minute after—?

  The 83 young aspirants to acceptance as officers were scarcely calm and collected. Yet the closer time marched to the hour of 11, the more uniform their collective expression became: each strove to suppress the least outward sign of inner excitement and attempted to project instead the picture of self-composure and confidence.

  In moments, in accordance to the roster and schedule of the Solar Empire's Space Academy, the 83 cadets, who averaged 21 years of age, were to enter the 'Great Hall'. Here they would receive from the Academy's commanding officer their commissions as lieutenants in the Spacefleet—or else be assigned to a 1-year cram course to prepare for a reexamination.

  The hour following 11 o'clock would be an important milestone in their lives. For many of the cadets it would be a decisive moment for from then on their destiny would be one continuous active mission after another.

  The 11th hour struck.

  Eighty-three cadets drew themselves up to their finest posture and bearing.

  The C.O. was punctual. The large folding door behind the podium rolled back and the Chief of the Academy entered The Hall accompanied by his staff.

  Maj. Wals announced the C.O. to the cadets. The Chief acknowledged the introduction curtly. His word of thanks sounded completely impersonal. He took one step forward ahead of his officers and swept the anxious men with a single all-encompassing glance. He knew each individual not only by name but training record, moral qualifications and special accomplishments. During the period of their instruction he had not only been their Chief, he had striven to observe each man according to his talents and abilities in order to have him fit in exactly the right place in the spacefleet.

  The interstellar fleet demanded men who could inspire 20 or 30 crewmen with their leadership and insure that they would fulfill their duty to their utmost in the face of the most difficult action.

  The chronometer in the Great Hall indicated 11:01 when the Chief began his address. He was not too fond of words. Dispensing with roll call, he announced only three names.

  Three faces turned pale.

  Three young men lowered their heads and wished they were invisible.

  Three cadets had failed the Academy's final examination and for another year would remain cadets.

  But for this disappointed trio the C.O. had a few words to spare. "Don't be discouraged by this setback. Don't give up—because the Solar Empire is waiting for you! Like every officer in the fleet you will become a pillar of support and I am not trying to boost your egos falsely when I say that one of you may one day be that deciding factor upon which the continuation or dissolution of the Empire will depend!

  "And because each officer of the spacefleet represents a factor of strength in his particular position we are forced to apply the strictest standards to everyone who wishes to belong to this community of service."

  One by one the 80 men stepped forward. They still wore their cadet uniforms but in accordance with the duty roster they were to change into the simple uniforms of spacefleet officers and appear before their department chiefs within the hour to learn where they were to be transferred.

  There was not one day of furlough, not even one hour. Of course this wasn't official. The 80 young lieutenants were entitled to a short leave but they didn't take advantage of it. They had received their commissions from the C.O. and now they changed for the first time into their officer uniforms.

  Tilf Reyno looked himself over and let out a big sigh of relief. "Looks like it's made for me! Thomas—would you say it's a perfect fit?"

  Tilf was a Viking-figured Swede with blond hair and blue eyes. He turned to his roommate, Thomas Cardif, for an inspection.

  After a brief survey Cardif had to admit, "You look as if you'd been poured into it. But how about me?" As he stood up his exceptional physique and bearing seemed to make Tiff pale by comparison. His personality virtually radiated and although unusual for a man only 21 his manner was marked by a certain air of pride. However it was not exaggerated enough to be offensive in any way.

  "Crosh!" Tilf looked at him in frank admiration. "Dressed in that, you look like the Chief...!"

  "Maybe if you tried you could say something even more ridiculous?" Along with the squelch went a flashing look from his strangely amber-colored eyes but in the next moment he waved a hand as if to remove the sting.

  Thomas Cardif was often like this and in fact was one of the problem cases for the psychologists who had to run tests on each cadet during the course of their training in the Academy and keep them under constant if unobtrusive observation.

  Many of the tests hadn't been too favorable for him; yet other test series had shown astonishingly positive results. He was one youngster in particular who had been the most puzzling to the psychologists. The diagnoses indicated that he probably wouldn't make friends during his training time; however, outside of a few exceptions almost every cadet was his friend. His frankness and good will were proverbial which helped his comrades to easily overlook these indefinable streaks of pride and hauteur whenever they came to light.

  A taped announcement came over the P.A. and was heard in the living quarters of the shave-tail lieutenants. The clock in every billet registered 11:55. Their duty schedule required them to appear before their respective sector chiefs by 12 in order to receive their transfer papers.

  The officer in charge of Tilf Reyno and Thomas Cardif was attached to the 'General' Department. For every cadet in the Academy to be assigned to 'general' duty was the same as passing a final exam with top honors. Preparation for general duty involved the most extensive training curriculum; starting with astronomy, radio technology and astronavigation it embraced propulsion engineering, Arkonide hypno-training, metallurgy and some 30 other specialties including the study of poisons. In this department a future officer of the spacefleet was exposed to the broadest range of knowledge.

  The course of training, which had ended today in the granting of officer commissions, had produced three men who were to report to Maj. Knight. Now they entered a room whose door displayed the uninformative sign: General Duty Sector.

  "Lt. Hal Stockman!" rasped the Ibero-African as he snapped to attention.

  "Lt. Thomas Cardif!"

  "Lt. Tilf Reyno!"

  Maj. Knight was a grey-haired officer in his 60s who was blind in his left eye. He recognized them curtly and glared at each one in succession. Then, impulsively, he shook hands with them and congratulated them.

  "Lt. Stockman, you are transferring to Venus and will be second orderly to Col. Dirkan. Stand by for departure at 14:00. You will go by courier ship. That is all. Thank you."

  Lt. Hal Stockman turned and left.

  Tilf Reyno was transferred 12,348 light-years away to Hellgate, an uninhabited planet on the border zone of the Arkonide Empire, where he was to relieve Lt. Bings as commanding officer of the outpost base.

  This base consisted of a single giant steel dome and it served as a control center for incoming messages from agents. Supported by a 2-man, crew, it was Reyno's responsibility to assign a priority to all communications according to their urgency and then either to record them in a memory bank or to relay them to the Earth under a pulse-burst code system.

  Tilf Reyno took off one hour after midnight.

  At that same moment in time Thomas Cardif found himself on board a Solar Empire cruiser that was entering its first landing pattern over the planet Rusuf. The solar system of his origin floated now at a distance of 1,062 light-years in the depths of interstellar space.

  At 8:43:08 ship's time the cruiser's Com Central received a clearance to land from the Terranian garrison on Rusuf. At 9:34:52 the spherical spaceship landed at the port of the garrison. By 9:57 Lt. Thomas Cardif stood before his new chief, Col. Julian Tifflor, who was the commander of the small Terra base.

  In that same moment Thomas Cardif was asking himself: why is the Colonel looking at me so strangely? It was not an idle question. From the first moment of his arrival here it had followed him like a shadow. It was the first time in Thomas Cardif's young life that something had made him feel uneasy.

  He had to force himself to concentrate so that he could follow the import of Col. Tifflor's words. He was describing the task that had been assigned to his force on this Arkon world plus the daily difficulties involved and he spoke of the constant flare-ups of disputes with the Galactic Traders who had also established settlements on Rusuf.

  "...so you may utilize today for the purpose of familiarizing yourself with the garrison, Lieutenant, and I'll want you to report to me tomorrow morning at 6:30 for your first daily briefing. Thank you Lieutenant."

  Col. Julian Tifflor, himself a cadet under the New Power some 60 years before, had come through the most dangerous missions and distinguished himself by his exceptional valor—yet as Lt. Thomas Cardif departed he watched him go with an obvious expression of relief.

  He shook his head. "Chief," he said to himself, "I'm afraid that in this case your calculations aren't going to work out so smoothly." He was thinking of Perry Rhodan.

  Throughout the Solar Empire there was only one 'Chief' just as there was only one 'Tiff'—meaning in the first instance Perry Rhodan who in 60 years had built up a small but powerful stellar empire and in the second instance Col. Tifflor. He could get away with addressing Rhodan merely as 'Chief' and Rhodan simply called him 'Tif
f'. It was a nickname his friend had given him 60 years ago during his days as a cadet.

  Between Rhodan and Tiff there was a strong invisible bond. The crowning proof of this was not alone the fact that he had been allowed to receive the life-prolonging biological cell shower on Wanderer, the artificial planet: the true test of closeness was that Perry Rhodan had confided in him as to who Thomas Cardif was. He was the son of Thora and Rhodan!

  Again to himself Julian Tifflor repeated the name: "Lt. Thomas Cardif..." Again he breathed a sigh of relief—and yet he was overcome with apprehension against the time when Thomas Cardif would learn the identity of his parents...

  2/ THORA'S TEARS

  Perry Rhodan's wife Thora had been staring at the park-like landscape with heavy thoughts. Out there what had once been the Gobi Desert had been converted into a paradise. Only to the right of her field of vision could she see the towering shapes of the industrial and administration buildings. They were the only indication that this miracle in the former desert was inseparably connected with technology, politics and determined men who had been well tempered in the crucible of experience.

  Perry Rhodan's magnificent creation, the spacefleet of the Solar Empire, demanded men of this kind and the continuous training of the Space Academy was forming them to that mold.

  Thora reached out and turned on her videophone. The robot operator of the house answered. She asked to be connected with the Academy. "Please ring me when the commanding officer is on the line." The Arkonide woman saw no reason to dispense with her customary politeness, even with a robot.

  She had hardly sat back in her chair before her videoscreen flared up. Its lifeless grey tone was replaced by living color. The striking countenance of the head of the Space Academy appeared on the screen. He gently nodded his head in greeting.

  Thora smiled. "It's been a long time since I've attended graduation ceremonies at the Academy and I was thinking I'd like to see the cadets again when they receive their officers' commissions. You discharge them tomorrow, don't you?"

  "I'm sorry," she heard him say and the regret was expressed in his face. "We had to advance the time. The young lieutenants received their commissions yesterday and in the meantime they have all been transferred to their duty areas."

  "What a pity," Thora heard herself say. Her voice remained normal even though this news had almost robbed her of the strength to breathe. "Thank you Commander."

  When she switched off the connection she no longer had to maintain her artificial smile. She was alone in her room. The proud daughter of one of the most ancient and renowned noble houses of Arkon pressed her hands to her face and wept. Her tears were for Thomas Cardif, the young lieutenant who had been assigned to serve under Col. Julian Tifflor on the planet Rusuf.

  "Perry..." she whispered while her body trembled in her grief. "Perry, we have wronged our child! Both of us have made everything a living lie!"

  She knew it; Perry Rhodan knew it. But when they had finally come to realize what they were relinquishing and what they were withholding from their son it was too late to abandon the course that had been taken.

  Now Thomas Cardif had to remain Thomas Cardif because the youngster was at once too old and too young yet to withstand the emotional and psychological upheaval that a true revelation would involve—at least not without scars.

  They had only wanted what they thought was best for him—Perry, Thomas' father and she, his mother. It was intended for Thomas that he should make a man of himself on his own merits without having to depend on his famous father. Until he became a man he was to make his own way in the world and never detect the hand of his father, which guided him unobtrusively.

  That had been the theory when they had chosen to deprive themselves of their love's greatest treasure—their own son—but finally it occurred to them that their offspring had grown up alone in a coldly impersonal world that was devoid of the warmth of the nest, totally without the balancing factors of parental relationship in his own home.

  Too late!

  And today it was again too late. Thomas was no longer in Terrania, Thora wasn't able now to even observe her son from a distance.

  She wept in lonely silence. No one interrupted her. Not a soul intruded upon her solitude. The First Lady of the Solar Empire had become a very lonely wife.

  Her husband Perry was not on Earth. He was presently located on Morag 2, a world on which six of his people had disappeared into the alien time dimension. She couldn't put in a call to him to seek consolation. It was not permitted.

  But she was allowed to leave the Earth.

  She could commandeer a Gazelle and fly in it to Venus. She'd make it look as though she were merely getting away for a change. On Venus it would be easier to take off toward her real destination because she had more chance there of eluding the surveillance of ground stations than she would here on the Earth.

  Having been formerly the commander of a great Arkon expedition ship it was no problem for her to fly a Gazelle. To make a jump through hyperspace and put more than 1000 light-years behind her was routine Arkon technology.

  Rusuf, the fourth planet of the star Krela, was Thomas Cardif's new location. Thora had known this for some time as well as the fact that with the exception of just three subjects he had passed his exams with honors. She had every reason to be proud of him. And that she was for there were only five people in the Solar Empire who were aware of the existence of the son of Perry Rhodan: herself and Perry, the Arkonide Khrest and Reginald Bell and now the fifth one, Col. Julian Tifflor, commanding officer of the garrison on Rusuf.

  It was not as Rhodan's son that Thomas Cardif had passed his tests. No special advantage had been given to him in fact he had been denied more than any other cadet: love!

  Parental love!

  Still holding her face in her hands and sobbing, Thora whispered: "Perry, I can't take any morel I'm flying to him... I must see him!"

  This moment of despair finally had to yield to her Arkon upbringing—and Thora was and would remain an Arkonide even though she had found the greatest happiness of her life at Perry Rhodan's side.

  In its golden age, during the epoch of its mighty expansion, Arkon had forced its men to be stern with themselves and to look at facts as they were without flinching. Often such facts consisted of virginal planets which Arkon wished to incorporate into the Empire and soon many of them became constituents of the stellar realm in star cluster M-13 because the conquering Arkonides denied themselves advantage or personal comforts in their primary consideration of serving the Empire.

  And now Thora recalled the conversation that took place prior to the birth of her son between herself and Perry and Khrest and Bell. She remembered that Bell, the impulsive but undying friend of Perry Rhodan, had only come in on the end of the conversation and hadn't heard the whole discussion but he thundered right into the middle of it: "Fine parents you are...! Thora, by all that's holy...!"

  He was prevented from expressing more of his indignation because Perry had laid a hand on his arm and given him a sharp look. There was an agonized smile on his lips when he said: "Fine parents, are we? Bell! I'll reserve judgment as to whether that's an insult or a compliment—but you don't have to come in here flashing your anger at us, my chubby friend! As parents we're not as irresponsible as you might think and what joy we find in our child, Bell, you know as well as Khrest. It's just that Khrest has thought a little further than you and I and Thora here..."

  "I caught that bit when I came in, Perry! You two are crazy enough to..."

  Perry had stopped him then with a glare that demanded silence. "Now you just let me tell you the rest of it! Or do I have your permission?"

  "Go ahead, talk!" Bell had growled back and in the same breath warned him: "But if that's the decision you're going to stick to, then count me out as your friend—I'll deal with you strictly in the line of duty and that'll be an end to it!"

  Without saying a word, Perry had handed him the readout that had been calculated by the positronic computer on Venus.

  Bell had flared up again when he read the prediction the machine had given as to the possible character of Perry Rhodan's son. "Horse-feathers!" he protested. "Do you believe it, Perry? Are you going to hang your kid's fate on a lousy plastic strip from a computer?"