Time's Lonely One Read online

  The dramatic events in this volume take place well into the 21st century as we leap ahead into a new epoch in humanity's history which you will witness at first hand through the eyes of a hibernator from the past, a man of many personalities, possessor of a powerful 'monoblock' & an invisibility device.

  The Hermit of Time.

  Atlan!

  Antagonist of Rhodan!

  A clash of giants ensues 12,000 light-years distant from Earth on Hellgate when the Peacelord encounters—

  Perry Rhodan

  Atlan And Arkon #42

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  TIME'S LONELY ONE

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  1/ WHAT FATE, MANKIND?

  "THE TIME is up, Master!"

  When was the last time anyone had called me Master?

  I turned my aching head. It ached from the confusing kaleidoscope of conversations, sounds and sensations of the past few minutes:

  The whispering that crescendoed into loud laughter.

  People claiming they'd never heard such nonsense.

  A woman's husky voice that caused the laughter to cease abruptly.

  "I beg your pardon!" a man exclaimed in consternation. "Are you trying to say that this even remotely resembles the truth?"

  The woman's voice, exploding in anger. Then the roar of laughter again. It could only be Job—nobody laughed as loud as Job Malvers over trivialities. If only he'd inhibit his imbecilic guffawing for once! I never cared for him, now less than ever. He was short and plump with rosy cheeks and cold eyes and whenever something went wrong in my department he was inevitably to blame.

  "Shut up!" I cried out, furious. "Why the devil don't you keep quiet? What difference does it make now whether the landing was voluntary or not?"

  "Sure!" Billy Plichter snorted. "Okay, let's begin again. Where were we, Olaf? Oh, yes—why does the Teftris equation have to be completely wrong? Hey, Olaf, what's the matter with you? Olaf! I mean you! What's wrong with the equation? Olaf... Olaf... Olaf!"

  The demand grew louder. I listened to the sound of little bells ringing in my brain. I heard myself answer although I didn't speak.

  Olaf—it was obviously I whose name was being called repeatedly and with increasing intensity. The pain in my head grew worse. Billy Plichter was merciless with his insistence. I certainly deserved a rest; I'd earned it!

  Somebody began to speak. It was a little while before I understood the words—and then that they issued from my own mouth! I wanted to laugh but the pain intensified again.

  A fizzing noise next to me. A stinging pain in my thigh but passing quickly, to be replaced by a pleasant warm feeling rippling through my body.

  But what inconsiderate physician would give me such an intimate injection in the presence of other persons? I felt embarrassed because 'Willy' Fergusen was in the room. How could the doctor give me a bare thigh shot while she was looking on?

  Fiery veils surged before my eyes. The throbbing pain inside my skull became too much to bear.

  When I could see clearly again, I realized 'Willy' Fergusen was no longer in the room. Job howled with laughter again—but he was not really there any more.

  Close before my eyes the big picture screen radiated brightly. I watched the colored images with astonishment. My colleagues discussed matters with which I was familiar, I was in their midst—and yet I lay there.

  The tableau began to flicker away, to be replaced by a modern clock with a year scale. A voice announced solemnly: "The time is up, Master!"

  When was the last time anyone had called me Master? I turned my aching head. "I beg your pardon!" I stammered awkwardly with a thick tongue that had the feeling I had not used it for ages.

  "The time is up, Master!" the same voice reiterated. This time the voice reaching my ears sounded less solemn and had a more metallic ring.

  Rico's plastic face was wrinkled in an amiable smile. I blinked my eyes as I looked up at him. "Hello!" I said weakly. "Is that you, Rico?"

  "Yes, Master! This is Rico. Time's up. I had orders to wake you up after exactly 69 years, Master."

  I was annoyed by this servile expression. Such high-grade robots shouldn't be directed to use titles on every occasion that smacked of submission. But what did he mean when he referred to 69 years?

  The thought made me shudder. It was always the same. The recognition hit me with a painful shock.

  I sat up and Rico immediately supported me. I felt the hard steel under the plastic skin of his hand. My joints seemed to have become rusty. I looked again at the videoscreen. Only 69 years! I had set it for 70. What happened?

  Rico replied, totally unmoved as only a machine could be: "Only 69 years, Master. I received the command impulse exactly 36 hours, three minutes and 18 seconds ago."

  Therefore this time it had required 36 hours to rouse me from the death-like bio-deep-sleep.

  "Too long, much too long," my brain signaled. Then I asked myself what tiny error could have caused the time switch to miss one year. It probably was my fault. Everything had had to be done in such a hurry at the time of the atomic skullduggery up there.

  A mechanical speaker blared and it startled me anew. The clock faded from the videoscreen. The picture-tape had served its purpose. People like me at the moment of reawakening needed acoustic and visual images from the time before the beginning of the biomedical sleep process. Now I remembered that I had the foresight to put the prepared tape into the automatic timer myself.

  Job's revolting guffaws had been helpful. Otherwise I wouldn't have recovered so quickly.

  Rico's round plastic head appeared in my view. He was one of four robots that had been specially designed for the supervision and maintenance of the shelter machinery. His flair for speech was a bit of positronic tomfoolery, using his ultra-rapid evaluation components which transformed mathematical results into intelligible sounds. It also served as a means to stimulate my slowly responding senses. I simply had to talk to somebody, even if it was only a machine. Rico's vocabulary was rather limited.

  The activation shower which was remote-controlled by the central brain had been rolled to the right side of my couch. The small chamber resembled a modern operating room except for the absence of surgeons. The biochemical stimulants which activated my body cells were either injected or radiated in various forms. My head was still enclosed in the glistening hood of the frequency generator which had transmitted my first sensory impressions.

  I lay still for an hour and reflected on the reasons which led me to go into the deep sleep.

  Right—69 years ago those in the responsible positions of the major power blocs had lost their nerves. I had sought refuge in my deep-sea shelter when the first atomic rockets were launched. Apparently I had barely managed to escape the senseless destruction. But what had happened to the great mass of people on the continents of Earth? The thought about the fate of the billions of people was too grim to be pondered coldly and soberly. All I could think of was that I probably was now the last human being on Earth.

  "Human being!" I laughed bitterly.

  Rico came quickly closer. If his mechanical eyes could profess concern, they did it now.

  I remained motionless and enjoyed the touch of the multiple-armed massage machine treating me with soft plastic hands. This kneading of my muscles was a must if I wanted to gain control of my body again.

  It took a few more hours before I was able to rise from my couch. Pressurized air hissed through the tiny pores of the couch's foam and the depressions my body had created in 69 years were smoothed out again.

  Naked and still weak from the emotional turmoil, I was led out of the sleeping room by Rico. Outside in the pleasantly furnished antechamber the color organ was in operation, flooding the walls with soothing wave patterns. The gentle strains of an old musical composition induced a comforting feeling in me.

  The few steps exhausted me enormously. With a sigh I slouched into the soft cushions of the vibrator chair which continued the intense kneading treatment of the robot hands in a more unobtrusive way.

  Rico served me the first liquid nourishment. It was still too early to offer solid food to my stomach. It would take at least three or four more days before I felt fairly fit again.

  Rico rolled the movable mirror before me and helped me to sit up. I had lost only very little weight, a sign that my body had endured the period of the deep-sleep very well.

  I motioned him and watched him move the mirror back into its place in the wall. Then the automaton came back and stood in front of me. Rico's face could have looked human if it hadn't been so colorless and waxen.

  "My friend, what I wouldn't give if a real person were standing in your place!" I exclaimed feebly. "What does it look like up above?"

  "A lot of water, Master," my personal valet replied diplomatically.

  I observed him intently. Was his answer only a psychological trick to arouse a certain feeling of ire in me or didn't he really know any better?

  "Of course there's a lot of water. We're here at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean near the island Sao Miguel in the Azores where the famous underwater trench with its enormous depths begins. So we have a great mass of water over us. What I wanted to know is what the European continent looks like. What did the atomic war do to Spain and France?"

  "This isn't known, Master!"

  My blood welled up in my face. Rico's humble plastic smile suddenly looked like a scornful grimace to me. "Why not?" I questioned him sharply. My v
ocal chords were already functioning flawlessly. "Why didn't you follow my instructions to observe the surface?"

  "It's your own fault, Master. All three observation satellites were shot down by rockets. We were aware that it was senseless to put the monitor spheres in operation because the space above the planet was swarming with fighter crafts. However we couldn't go against your orders."

  A wave of disappointment, shock and rage surged through me. Naturally the robots had no option to react in any other manner after I had given them the premature, command to survey the major continents at once. I had been anxious to find out what had occurred during the war as soon as I woke according to plan.

  Now I was completely cut off. I was not only the loneliest living being on Earth but also the most ignorant.

  Above the steely hull of my deep-sea pressure-sphere rested a tremendous mass of water. Of course it had protected me against the deadly fallout from countless nuclear explosions but this alone hardly served my purpose.

  The burning desire to hear a word from human lips became so overwhelming that I felt nauseous.

  I sat up and moaned. I looked with dismay at the hideous scars crisscrossing my belly. Nothing could be done about this any more, although I would detest hearing curious questions about them.

  Anyway, what surgeon could have removed the stitched evidence of the horrendous cuts in my body? It was highly unlikely that a good surgeon was left on the face of the Earth. The atomic disaster had struck mankind 69 years ago. The doctors who had finished their training must have died long ago, even if they could have managed to save their lives by some lucky coincidence.

  "My clothes!" I barked at the robot.

  "Which ones, Master?"

  "The ones I wore last."

  "You're still too weak, Master. The second phase of the recovery period is only just now beginning."

  There was no point in refuting the logical objections of a superb machine and so I resigned myself to his guidance.

  With Rico's support I fumbled my way to the central switchboard and plopped down into the comfortable swivel chair. There I went through the prescribed waiting period and the point-by-point checkout.

  The large observation panel showed all departments of my bombproof deep-sea shelter. Not even the effects of an atomic war could be noticed down here.

  The main energy-station had always been a little problem. Reactors 2 and 3 were idle and reactor 1 operated at 20% of its maximum output.

  I switched on the undersea observation panel. The infrared sensors mounted on the outside of the sphere gave a clear, grainless picture of my shelter on the bottom of the sea.

  A huge quantity of mud had accumulated before the southern exit hatch. However the upper airlock was unobstructed. I stepped up reactor #1 to full output to provide enough energy for the thrust-field projectors.

  The big machines began to hum for the first time in 69 years. The muffled noise from below disturbed my ears but the mud deposited at the sphere began to move.

  The concentrated pressure jets of 40,000 tons thrust per cubic meter easily cleaned away the muck. Within a few minutes the southern airlock was completely cleared.

  Subsequently I tried to establish contact with the little television satellite. The 6-foot sphere had circled the Earth in a 2-hour orbit before the outbreak of the war. The excellent technical instruments permitted a magnification that made man-size objects clearly visible.

  I failed to get a response. The micro-brain inside the satellite didn't react.

  "TEK-1 was shot down, Master," Rico stated blandly. "It happened two days after you were put to sleep. A pursuit craft of unknown origin mistook our satellite for an American object."

  I made a mute gesture in his direction. I suffered the pangs of self-reproach. I had made too many mistakes when I panicked and fled to save my life in the deep sea.

  Now I was cut off from the surface. I consulted the central brain to obtain the results of its measurements. If the continents were contaminated by radioactivity, the possibility that the ocean currents also carried harmful particles could not be excluded.

  "No danger in immediate vicinity," the positronic brain of the shelter sphere reported. "Ultra-range sensors register strong source of radioactivity in the trench of the Azores. Magnitude fluctuates between 6.5 and 35.0 milliroentgen, depending on ocean currents."

  I suppressed a groan. 35.0 milliroentgen were dangerous—and this 950 feet below sea level.

  I tried to arrive at a relative determination of the radiation intensity on the mainland. If we had 35.0 milliroentgen down here, it must have been horrible up there.

  Which radioactive isotopes did they unleash? According to my calculations the half-life of most isotopes was so short that no appreciable radiation could be expected to last beyond 69 years.

  I realized that I had to surface as quickly as possible after checking the entire equipment of the shelter. Perhaps I would be in a position to help some survivors with food and medicine. I had a good stock of supplies and I could have fed, clothed and trained at least a thousand people. It was conceivable that it would be up to me to enable mankind to make a new start. The only question was how much the pernicious radiation had affected the genes of the survivors. Maybe many ghastly mutations had occurred.

  Wracked by deep anxiety, I left the control room of the steel sphere. I had come to a definite conclusion: I must ascend in order to find out about the fate of mankind.

  The urge to help was uppermost in my mind. I thought of my friends and other people I had known. I even remembered Job Malvers with affection no matter how often he had got under my skin. Now I missed his raucous laughter.

  I decided to play the old videotape once more.

  2/ UNDERSEA CAPTIVE

  The selection of my equipment was a simple matter. There was no need for offensive nor defensive weapons in a denuded wasteland.

  On the other hand I took every precaution against radioactive emissions and the reactor of my protective suit was fully charged. I was sure to require plenty of energy.

  The cell oscillation activator, my most precious possession, was tuned again by the automatic positronic precision instrument. Due to my extended bio-sleep the individual frequency of my cells had undergone a little change.

  The egg-shaped miniature set hung down on my bare chest under the heavy and uncomfortable anti-radiation suit I had to wear and which hopefully would enable me to withstand the terrific pressure of the water above me.

  My sole defensive weapon consisted of a harmless psycho-beamer whose hypno-suggestive effect would suffice to make any likely opponent forget his idea of attacking me. This was all I needed.

  I put highly concentrated food and radiation-absorbing medical supplies in the backpack of my high-pressure field outfit. If necessary I would have to transport surviving victims of the senseless war to my vital deep-sea sphere since it would be impossible for me to give adequate medical treatment to severe invalids on the surface.

  I surmised that I could suffer no harm from the pitiful and handicapped flotsam of war inside my refuge. What could they do to me?

  Five days after I was awakened by the robot, I had recovered well enough to risk my ascent.

  I examined the airworthiness of my outfit by operating the antigrav aggregate. It functioned perfectly and I floated with ease from the floor to the ceiling of the sphere.

  Rico watched my experiments with cold shiny mechano-eyes.

  The observation panel still depicted the visual and graphic record of information which had been the latest news 69 years ago. Before I left the sphere I glanced once again at the observation panel and read with ambiguous feelings the item of an American newspaper that the first manned atomic rocket had landed on the Moon.

  The commander of the atomic rocketship was Maj. Perry Rhodan, test pilot of the U.S. Space Force. Before this man had started on his flight I had personally checked his qualifications. He had made an excellent impression on me. How could I have foreseen at that time that this same Space Force Major would be indirectly responsible for the outbreak of the dreaded atomic war? I had also heard something about a rumor that he had made a discovery on the Moon which was of utmost importance to all power blocs on Earth and that he had refused to surrender his secret. After lie returned in his lunar rocket to the uninhabited Gobi Desert, the ruckus got started.