Pucky's Grestest Hour Read online

  ENTER, COKAZE

  COKAZE. Richest patriarch of the Galactic Traders...and most avaricious. At last the dread day: the discovery of the solar system by the Springers. As if this problem were not enough, Perry Rhodan learns something that should have bitter consequences for Atlan, new leader of the Arkonide realm. A bomb peril, intended to create chaos throughout the Solar Empire, is initiated on Venus and only one man can avert it.

  Correction: Only one mouse-beaver. The result is—

  PUCKY’S GREATEST HOUR

  PROLOG

  PERRY RHODAN’S DISCOVERY of an Arkonide spaceship stranded on the Moon supplied the impetus long years before for the political unification of mankind and laid the cornerstone for the Solar Imperium—Terra’s interplanetary empire.

  That this realm-microscopically tiny in relation to the many other powers in the Universe—still exists at all and has not been destroyed in an atomic inferno or degraded to the status of an Arkonide colony is due to the clever ploys of the Terrans as arranged by Perry Rhodan in the enormous galactic chess game—and that good fortune that belongs only to those who have earned it.

  But even the happiest of happy days come to an end—and that which Perry Rhodan, the Solar Administrator, and his men have so far successfully prevented has unfortunately taken place: the Earth’s galactic position is no longer a secret, as clearly indicated by the ‘Columbus Affair’!

  The attack of the powerful Druuf fleet could be beaten off by the mobilization of Arkonide power but the request for Arkonide help resulted in the greedy Galactic Traders finding their way into the Sol system too. With the appearance of Cokaze, the richest patriarch of the Traders, internal political difficulties are only beginning for Perry Rhodan.

  But as Perry Rhodan's darkest hour strikes, PUCKY’S GREATEST HOUR is sounded too...

  Perry Rhodan

  Atlan And Arkon #81

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  Pucky's Greatest Hour

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  1/ TROUBLE RAMPANT

  The square-built, thick-set, and red-haired man paced Perry Rhodan’s workroom excitedly, waving a bulky newspaper called The New World Press.

  With his left hand he tapped the article that completely filled the newspaper’s first page. “This is scandalous!” he exclaimed. “It’s just terrible! Words fail me!”

  “So far you’ve been expressing yourself rather eloquently about the lead article in The New World Press,” Rhodan answered gently. “Why don’t you skip over the article and go on to the agenda for today?”

  “Because I can’t, Perry. Nobody can go against their own nature. Self-control is one thing but there’s a limit to everything. And this cheap tabloid has—”

  “The New World Press is recognized as the solar system’s best newspaper,” Rhodan told him.

  Bell looked at him sharply. “What do you mean by being so calm and cool when I’m not?”

  “So you’ve finally noticed, Reggie?” Rhodan asked with a slightly ironic undertone. “It’s taken you awhile but now we can concern ourselves further with the lead article.”

  “What? You want me to read this crummy, lying piece of trash over and get myself all worked up again?”

  “If that’s what happens, Reggie, then it’ll only confirm my suspicion that you’re about ready for a vacation...”

  Bell gasped for breath. Slowly he sat down in the chair next to Rhodan. Even more slowly he overcame the shock his friend had given him. “Me... ready for a vacation? Me... now... in this bad year when nothing’s gone right for us and everything has been a 100% failure? Perry, surely you weren’t serious when you said that?”

  The last question sounded a little helpless. Bell ran both hands through the bristles of his red hair.

  “But I was” Rhodan responded tersely. “I wasn’t joking at all, Reggie. I don’t have any reason to be joking. Look here...” He indicated the lead article in the New World Press. “Of course you’re aware of what will result from this? Not just one paper is attacking us, all of them are! They’re accusing us of incompetence, treason and... of using our positions in our own self-interest. You’ve certainly read each of the charges against us detailed in the article. Are you able to prove to the man who wrote the article, Mr. Nicktown, that he was wrong?”

  At that moment Reginald Bell leaped up. His face was dangerously red. He banged his fist on Rhodan’s desk, roaring, “Why, that yellow journalist—!”

  “Reggie,” Rhodan interrupted sternly, “don’t call Nicktown a yellow journalist. His article is very responsibly written. The man is right! He’s right because he sees the situation the way we have described it to him and all the others. We’re the guilty ones, Reggie! No one but ourselves...”

  The thickset man had taken his seat again. He was not pleased with what Perry had said to him. “What? You’re saying Nicktown’s right? Does that mean you’re also saying we’re incapable of leading the Solar Imperium?”

  Rhodan suddenly became angry, for he could see that Bell was being intentionally thick-headed. “What’s wrong with you today? Did this article scare you?”

  “Scare isn’t the right word, Perry. I can’t shake the awful feeling that there’s a storm brewing for us but this time it’s not out in space somewhere but right here at home. We’re going to have some big trouble. Here... just listen to this sentence...” And before Perry could stop him, Bell was reading from the New World Press:

  “It is with much apprehension that we wonder what the First Administrator intends with the expanded Emergency Powers Act. Does he wish to have a free hand with which to make the Solar Imperium an Arkonide colony or to enter into an even closer alliance with the Galactic Traders under the patriarch Cokaze?”

  “And,” Bell went on, “it’s from this question alone that the internal political storm will come. In just these few words there’s enough fuel for 10 revolutions...”

  “Optimist!” Rhodan interrupted.

  Surprised, Bell looked at him. He did not understand Rhodan at first, then he asked cautiously: “You see the danger as even worse than I see it?”

  Rhodan only nodded. After a long pause, he spoke. “In the last years we’ve made some serious errors. Today the seeds we’ve sown are ready for harvest. Today we’re no longer able to erase our mistakes. Today we’ve got to answer for our mistakes and I don’t have to be a prophet to predict that very soon now the Solar Imperium is going to have its first parliamentary debate...”

  “But the Emergency Powers Act...” Bell interrupted, immediately silenced by an expressive gesture on Rhodan’s part.

  “Even the Emergency Powers Act doesn’t close down the Parliament and I’m the last person interested in making it a collection of obedient marionettes rubber-stamping my orders. If the representatives of the Upper House believe they should make their thoughts known to the administration, then I won’t stop them...”

  “Oh my stars and little comets!” Bell exclaimed. “A debate like that, going out over every radio transmitter, is only going to increase our troubles a hundred times over. We’ll be setting off the bomb ourselves, Perry!”

  “Is that bad, or would it be worse if someone else set the bomb off?”

  “It’s a good comparison,” growled Bell, unsatisfied, “but it isn’t very pretty. I’d just like to get my hands on that Nicktown...”

  “Leave Nicktown out of this!” Rhodan told him sharply. “We are the ones who have only sketchily in-formed the citizens of our little realm of what’s going on. How often have dangerous situations been kept secret from them for weeks or months? Have we ever let it be known what efforts we’ve undertaken to keep the Earth’s galactic position a secret from
the Robot Regent? We’ve published nothing about that. We are the ones who’ve kept mankind in the dark... and then the Druufs came into the solar system with almost 10,000 spacers... and then Arkon came with its robot fleet to help us and the Springer patriarch Cokaze with 4000 cylindrical spacers!

  “Reggie. what do you think that meant to all the people shocked out of their peaceful illusions? For many it was like the end of the world! Have you taken a look at the latest population statistics? No? Well, since the Druuf attack the suicide curve has soared by a huge percentage and it’s still climbing!

  “From that perspective our actions have failed. It doesn’t matter now what our motives were for those actions. Nicktown regards himself as a prosecutor. He’s right to charge us with incompetence.”

  “Now listen to me,” Bell rumbled. “You sound as if everything we’ve ever done has been a mistake!”

  “Not even Nicktown is saying that. He may be charging us with treason but he isn’t accusing me of trying to set up a dictatorship. He even points out that my coworkers and I have never misused the power we hold through the Emergency Powers Act. He doesn’t shy away from charging treason but...”

  “Treason...! Treason!” choked Bell angrily. “That’s a lot of nonsense and for us the most dangerous kind of nonsense...”

  “Yes, because we haven’t informed the citizenry sufficiently even in that respect. And that’s why I’ll be grateful if the representatives should happen to remember that they have the right to summon us before parliament. On the other hand, I have a fear it might trigger the underground revolution into life...”

  Bell stared at him. “Underground? Did I understand you correctly? The plotting and the conspiracies have already started?”

  “Here, see for yourself...!” With that Rhodan reached to the left and removed a newspaper from atop a stack of reports. He shoved some of the reports towards the surprised Bell.

  The longer Bell read, the longer his face grew. “That’s enough,” he said finally. “And all these reports are for today. And they all concern Nicktown’s article. But, you see, wasn’t I right to fear something like this was in the works? Ever since last New Year’s Eve, when I picked up a champagne glass that was made of guaranteed unbreakable glass but it broke anyway and—”

  “Be quiet for once!” Rhodan snapped. But Bell was not to be stopped.

  “Why? That’s what happened! I cut my thumb tip on the pieces and if you think about it...”

  “I think it would be better if you were to employ your mental efforts on the problems we’re facing now, Reggie,” Rhodan admonished him, his tone not very friendly. “Now, if you would, call Hank Donneld in the Information Department. Our news policies must be revised from the ground up or we’ll only go through all this over again in the near future. And what could happen then, I don’t dare try to imagine.”

  “Hasn’t Nicktown prevented us from getting the expanded Emergency Powers Act passed with his article? Because if, besides the press, heavy industry protests, and the banks get cold feet because of it, the consumers will join in the outcry and then we’ll have just what we don’t need while that interstellar gypsy Cokaze and his people are cosily settled on Earth, Mars and Venus—Revolution!”

  “Finally,” Rhodan sighed, leaning back in his chair. He smiled at Bell. “Finally your thoughts are moving in the right direction. For that alone I can be grateful to Mr. Nicktown and his aggressive article...”

  “Now wait a minute,” said Bell, showing once again that he was confused. “Are you speaking in a foreign language today or is my mind going? What did you just say? That my thoughts are moving in the right direction and you have to be grateful to Nicktown...?”

  “Right! We need that expanded Emergency Powers Act to have more freedom of action. If we publish a description now in the official bulletin of what the law will make possible, it would be tantamount to calling the citizens of the Solar System to the barricades. But if we have it passed by Parliament, then we’ll have formally created a base on which we can move much more freely than up to now.”

  “But I still don’t understand why you feel you have to be grateful to Nicktown,” said Bell, shaking his head.

  “His article will force Parliament to convene! He has made the representatives remember their rights, and even if it comes to a vote of confidence... Well, Reggie, it’ll be far better to fight it out on the floor of Parliament than come under suspicion of being a dictator...”

  The intercom loudspeaker crackled.

  When Rhodan and Bell had met for their conference an hour before, Rhodan had expressly forbidden any disturbance. Only Solar Marshal Allan D. Mercant, who directed the Solar Defense, or John Marshall, Chief of the Mutant Corps, were able to ignore the instruction.

  The vidscreen flickered. The grey disappeared, colors showed up, flowed here and there and stabilized into Alan D. Mercant’s face.

  “Sir, some very important news has just come in. Unfortunately, the most important item is still just a rumor. Patrick O’Neil reports from Washington that the Euro-American bloc of representatives is negotiating with the Asiatic and African blocs to call the Parliament of the Solar Imperium into session in Terrania in three days.

  “The rumors also say that the main topic will be the question of trust in the administration along with a vote of confidence but the Euro-American bloc is refusing to debate the expansion of the Emergency Powers Act!”

  Rhodan bad listened with a strained expression, then spoke into the intercom microphone. “Mercant, put all your available men into the field at once! Their job will be to help make sure that the representatives actually do convene in Terrania three days hence and...”

  Allan D. Mercant, kept young because of the cell renewal treatment on the planet Wanderer, gave a start, looking astounded. Now he interrupted the administrator. “Sir,” he said in an excited voice, “you aren’t aware of the rest of the reports yet. They all refer to Nicktown’s article in the New World Press and they all...”

  “I’m referring to that article myself,” Rhodan answered with the hint of a grin. “The political atmosphere is currently so polluted that only a drastic airing out will make it healthy again. Nicktown has made us aware that it’s high time something was done. That’s why I’ll be glad to stand before Parliament in three days.

  Mercant, the best informed man in the Solar Imperium with the exception of Bell and Rhodan, and a genius in the area of defense and related subjects. He shook his head doubtfully. “Sir, there’ll be a hot debate. Public opinion in the Imperium is a cause for considerable concern. You’ve lost sympathy everywhere since the Battle of Terra...”

  Rhodan did not let him finish. His tone sharper than before, he asked, “Mercant, are your men able to see to it that Parliament will convene in three days or not...?”

  Not only the Defense chief was startled but Bell too. Rhodan’s eyes once again had that steel-hard look that was always to be seen when he faced an important decision. It was not the look of someone betting more than he dared risk; it was a look that was indescribable and, to someone who had seen it before, unforgettable. It was also a look that inspired and filled with enthusiasm any—one toward whom it was directed.

  Like Bell, Mercant felt himself addressed by it. The Solar Marshal sat up straight without consciously wanting to and declared: “Sir, I believe I can assure you that Parliament will convene in Terrania in three days.”

  “Thank you, Mercant,” answered Rhodan. “I expected nothing less from you!”

  * * * *

  Millions of people witnessed on their vidscreens the debate of the Solar Parliament.

  It was far worse than Bell bad feared even in his worst imaginings. Again and again he turned to John Marshall, who by means of his excellent telepathic abilities was checking out the representatives.

  “Unchanged, sir,” said the mutant for the tenth time, “but I’m on the trail of something... Please!”

  That meant: don’t bother Marshall. Bell granted hi
s wish immediately and listened to Perry Rhodan at the speaker’s stand, answering a question from the floor.

  Suddenly there came an interruption from the African delegation. “How much longer are we going to finance your private army with tax money? Not even the Emergency Powers Act gives you the right to add to your collection of freaks and mental cripples—the wonderful ‘Mutant Corps’ as you so grandly call it. What do you say to that, Administrator?”

  For three long seconds one could have heard a pin drop in the gigantic parliamentary hall of Terrania. That question, put forth by the African representative Onablunanga, unintentionally drove a number of other representatives over to the Administrator’s side at that moment.

  Millions of home viewers watched as Rhodan’s face froze and his mouth became a narrow line.

  The television cameras showed Reginald Bell getting up, walking over to the speaker’s stand and whispering to Rhodan. Then Rhodan stepped to one side and Bell took his place.

  “Gentlemen of the Upper House!” cried Bell in a thunderous voice. “Ladies & gentlemen! In place of the Administrator of the Solar Imperium, I’d like to answer Onablunanga’s question myself and, in the name of the Administrator and his aides, enter a protest against its wording and its insinuations.”

  “Mr. Onablunanga, we find ourselves here in the chambers of Parliament, not at the Kimberley Iron Mines. Is it necessary that I remind you of this fact?”

  When Allan D. Mercant heard this reference to the Kimberley Iron Mines he sat up with a jolt. His fabulous memory called up all the facts concerning the scandal, a scandal whose chief figure could not be prosecuted because as a representative Onablunanga had immunity.

  What had taken place in South Africa could not be euphemistically termed an ‘affair’; even calling it a scandal was putting it mildly. And of all times, Reginald Bell had chosen this moment to take the bull by the horns.

  Bell’s voice, amplified by the intercom loudspeakers, was louder than the commotion within the African delegation. He spoke up enthusiastically for the men the representative has called freaks and mental cripples. Bell’s temper, his blunt but accurate phrasing, and his detailing all the times the mutants had risked their lives in defense of the Solar Imperium, caused the Upper House to listen to his remarks with ever greater interest.