Power's Price Read online

  Perry Rhodan

  Atlan And Arkon #89

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  Power's Price

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  1/ OF THOMAS AND A THUMB

  THE STARS in Globular Cluster M-13 shone and sparkled as they always did, compressed into a space of 100 light-years in diameter. To all the ships coming in from other parts of the Galaxy, they presented the configuration of a single gigantic and glistening sphere.

  M-13 was not a conglomeration of colors—it was a composition in color set against the black background of the universe. To the people flying towards M-13 and Arkon, the first impression was that of warm luminosity.

  Globular Cluster M-13 was also the Great Imperium, the Stellar Empire of the Arkonides—an empire of wildly different races—an Imperium in which billions upon billions of intelligences lived and, to some extent, had grown great, strong, powerful and wealthy along with the Arkonides.

  M-13 was a display of almost unreal beauty, but also, in its concentration of stars in the narrowest possible space, a demonstration of power.

  As a globular cluster, M-13 seemed to be an organic unity; but the aspect was deceiving. Like the Great Imperium, it was badly torn—a stellar empire whose political structure threatened to break up into a multitude of separate parts at any moment.

  For 15,000 years it had been growing, always led by Arkonides. And then came the day when Arkonide spaceships left the confines of M-13 and extended their Imperium deeper into the Galaxy. But the day also came in which the all but inexhaustible vitality of the Arkonide people began to go dry like a spring and signs of oncoming downfall encroached from all sides.

  The Robot Regent the mightiest positronic brain that had ever been constructed, had been able to hold Arkon's crumbling power together only by means of brutal force.

  Now the Brain existed only as a programmed mouthpiece. Atlan the Timeless had assumed the squandered heritage of his race and, if he did not want to go down in history as a bloody dictator, had to observe political earthquakes almost with indifference.

  But the stars themselves took no notice of all this, and the blue-white radiance from the center of the M-13 system shone as warmly and softly as ever.

  • • •

  Peter Breucken stood with his friend Carl Vertieden in the pole-hatch of the Burma, a spacesphere of the State Class with a diameter of 100 meters and an optimum crew of 150. Both men had been watching for some time what was going on at the edge of their spacefield and the longer they watched, the more concerned their expressions became.

  "There, Peter... robots again," said Carl Vertieden, who, like his friend, came from Hilversum. "Have you seen any of those legendary 100,000 hibernating Arkonides? I haven't seen one yet!"

  The 100,000 people on Arkon 1, 2 and 3 are nothing more than a drop of water in the ocean. That's why you see only robots here. Without the mechanical men, Arkon would have had to give up a long time ago."

  "It's not far from that now. This morning, I heard the Commander talking with the Chief on the radio. Not only did they say that we would be soon leaving this horrible robot planet and its giant brain but the Chief also said that the whole Imperium was nothing but a lot of rebellious good-for-nothings..."

  "Perry Rhodan certainly didn't phrase it like that, Carl. Hey, look! Here comes a car out of the mammoth positronic dome. I wonder if it's coming over here?"

  The huge domed structure of the positronicon extended over 100 square kilometers, dominating this part of Arkon 3. It stood out against the sky like a mountain and was flanked on the right and left by industrial structures.

  The two young men watched the car coming towards them at high speed. Then it suddenly swerved to the right and—flipped over! A bright column of fire flashed from the wreck and then, with a furious crash of thunder, the vehicle, still turning on its own axis, exploded like a tiny blazing red sun.

  Carl Vertieden and Peter Breucken had no time to cry out. As they were about to run over to the scene or the accident, the ultra-swift vehicles of Arkon 3's robot-police were already racing to it and had soon sealed off the area.

  "Good heavens!" said Carl Vertieden impressed, even though just a few minutes before he had spoken rather critically of the robot world of Arkon 3.

  "The police don't react that quickly even on Earth," Peter commented. "But perhaps we Terrans are better off for it than these Arkonides. You ought to take a look at the assembly lines, Carl! The robots manufacture spacespheres the way we do cars! Do you know what I've done a few times? I've been looking at the ground and to this minute I haven't seen a single bit of open soil. Sometimes I'm on the point of believing the old Arkonides built this world out of iron and steel so that they could make it into one gigantic factory. Our lunar factories are as nothing compared with this planetary industrial giant."

  "Make us look bad, will you!" demanded Carl. "'As nothing', you call us! What are we here for then. Because Atlan needs help. Atlan is at his wits' end."

  "Carl, you're often just a babbler!" Peter interrupted. "Are you forgetting Perry Rhodan's son, the miserable traitor! It was Thomas Cardif who first put Atlan in this exposed position, and what, do you suppose I would think of you if you didn't come to my aid in a desperate situation? After all, the Chief and Atlan are friends."

  Then the pole-hatch intercom loudspeaker sounded. "Please report one at a time to First Officer Pasgin about the accident!"

  With one step Peter Breucken stood before the communicator and switched on the vidscreen as well. "Petty officer Breucken of Gunpost 2, reporting as ordered to the First Officer..."

  "Come to me in person," Joe Pasgin interrupted tersely. "Who else is with you?"

  "Petty officer Vertieden from the transformer section!"

  "I'll be expecting you at once in my cabin. To encourage your haste, I ask you to keep in mind that the Chief is interested in the accident."

  The screen went dark. Vertieden and Breucken stared at it in surprise.

  "Perry Rhodan is interested in it?" repeated Carl Vertieden. "Now I'd like to know who was sitting in that car when it blew up!"

  • • •

  "Now these fellows are working with murder and assassination attempts," said Perry Rhodan, who, though otherwise a self-controlled man, was pacing the floor before Atlan and Reginald Bell in the room within the gigantic positronicon. Solar Marshal Allan D. Mercant, the defense specialist genius and director of Solar Defense, had just left the room, which was furnished in Arkonide style. Only the left wall, which was a control panel 10 meters high, showed that the room, despite the great comfort it offered, allowed its occupants little time for leisure.

  Perry Rhodan shook his head again and again as he walked restlessly to and fro. Now he was looking at Atlan, who returned his gaze with extraordinary calmness. "He's forgotten nothing of what he learned at the Space Academy. He knows the inner structure of the Solar System like the back of his hand. In fact, it was all crammed into him. Cold-blooded, unscrupulous..."

  "Perry, come over here and sit down!" Bell interrupted, all but ordering him to do so. When he saw Rhodan's hesitation, he indicated the empty seat with a motion of his arm.

  Atlan pushed a glass toward him.

  Rhodan sat down and took a drink.

  "Barbarian," Atlan said to him, leaning slightly forward as he spoke, "we have to wait. The positronicon is now in the process of working out somewhat more than four million possibilities. We won't know anything for certain for some hours yet."

  "But you know the result of the evaluation already, Admiral!" Rhodan replied, evidently depressed.

  At that Bell snorted so loudly that Atlan and Rhodan looked at him. He showed them his right thumb tip and befo
re one of the two men could say anything the heavyset red-haired man was already talking. "Now let me speak and don't let my thumb scare you!"

  "I've been superstitious ever since last New Years Eve! In the whole Milky Way there's never been another case of unbreakable glass breaking and causing an injury."

  "I broke the champagne glass and cut my thumb on the shards; since that moment, I've been deathly afraid of what the year 2644 would bring. Well, we've gotten through all but 40 days of it by the skin of our teeth. Our position... and that includes yours, Atlan, just like Perry's... is that, to put it broadly, of a tightrope walker performing at a height of 100 meters without a net. Only instead of an audience down below of people who hardly dare breathe because of their tension, there's a bunch of fellows trying to shoot you down!"

  "But the man named Thomas Cardif is not among the onlookers!"

  "I'm telling you this in spite of my cut thumb and my superstition! Thomas Cardif can't be so rotten or so traitorously inclined: after all, his father is Perry Rhodan!"

  That had been typical for Reginald Bell; he had not expressed himself very tactfully but there was no misunderstanding what he had said and he was utterly convinced of the truth of it. He was still displaying his right thumb to Rhodan and Atlan.

  "Mr. Bell!" said Admiral Atlan sharply. "Put your thumb away! Half the Galaxy is talking about your oddity. We..."

  "Oddity, is it?" interrupted Bell energetically. "You call it an oddity when we're all sitting at the lowest point of our career in the Universe—only I can't yet believe that Thomas Cardif is guilty of this murderous attack. And besides, it doesn't fit the facts!"

  "I'm not kicking a dead horse. Nothing is accomplished for us that way. Our purposes can be served only by seeing a 24- or 25-year-old man in the role he is now playing! These tricky interstellar gypsies, these Galactic Traders, have long ago driven the little upstart Cardif up against the wall!"

  "That is what I'm trying to tell you!"

  "And even if Thomas had carried out a hundred jobs like the one that led to the car blowing up two hours ago, the boy was not aware that you, Perry, were to have been blown up too!"

  "Where do you get your information?" asked Atlan ironically.

  Bell sized up Perry, who was listening to the emphatically spoken words of his friend. Then his gaze moved away and settled on the Admiral. "Atlan, my knowledge doesn't come from here!" And Reginald Bell pointed to his head. Then his hand sank and rested against his heart. "It comes from here. You certainly know us romantically-inclined Terrans well enough—probably better than you know yourself. My heart—crazy as it may sound—has told me that Thomas Cardif is not capable of any murder, and if your positronic monster claims the opposite is so, then I'll furnish the proof that I'm right and this thing is wrong!"

  In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Atlan laughed. "Mr. Bell, if only we Arkonides were also somewhat romantically inclined and. listened to what our heart tells us. But I'm afraid that an Arkonide heart can't say much of anything these days."

  In his usual manner, Bell fended off Atlan's openness. "Now don't you get started pouring out your feelings, Admiral! I'd rather have you tell me how a Springer could get to Arkon 3. It must surely have been one of those star-gypsies who..."

  "Couldn't it have also been someone from the Solar System, Mr. Bell?"

  To that, Bell had only one word in reply. "Huh!"

  Perry Rhodan's commentary was longer. "Allan D. Mercant believes that in a few hours he'll be able to tell us if Atlan's suspicion is justified."

  "Then I'll have to prepare myself for some surprises," growled Bell and it was plain to see that he too suspected someone from the Solar System in the bombing. "Yeah, yeah... It's a blessing that today is November 21st and the year 2044 will be over in 40 days!"

  • • •

  The three of them stood in the evaluation wing of the mammoth Brain, waiting out the last few minutes. Ten minutes before, they had been notified that the calculation of somewhat more than 4,000,000 possibilities would shortly be completed.

  Each of them, whether Atlan, Rhodan or Bell, was accustomed to submitting complicated questions to the positronicon but seldom was a computer given a problem with such ramifications and fateful importance as this one. It had resulted in a mind-wrenching number of possibilities having to be weighed against one another. Only Arkonide hyper-mathematics and logic could even attempt such a task.

  The room in which the three men now found themselves was dominated by Spartan practicality but the Arkonide scientists, who thousands of years before had built and programmed the gigantic computer, had imparted a style even to technology in its naked form that gave the feeling that, at the time of its construction, the Arkonides were masters of technology and not its slaves.

  From that feeling generated Reginald Bell's hostility to that unequaled masterpiece of Arkonide advancement because the reverse had been true for so long.

  He had never been able to get used to the idea that a positronicon was ruling a stellar empire the size of the Arkonide Imperium, and Atlan knew Bell's feeling better than anyone.

  Such were the Admiral's thoughts as a feeling of emptiness overcame him along with something akin to fear of the future.

  He had his cell activator once more. His life seemed to be assured for centuries, perhaps even for millenniums to come, but he had lived on Earth for too long to think only of himself.

  100,000 Arkonides, active and filled with vitality, stemming from the Golden Age of the Arkonide people, now stood at his side. In two or three years each of them would be a leader at the place to which he had been assigned. But what were 100,000 active and energetic Arkonides when the mass of people was growing increasingly degenerate and its undesirable characteristics were multiplying? The race's sole concern now seemed to be avoiding all challenges so that it could lead an indolent and duty free existence.

  Atlan felt a hand on his shoulder. Bell was standing next to him with something to say. "Admiral! We've overlooked a small trifle! All 100,000 able Arkonides!"

  "Overlooked? When?" demanded Atlan, irritated that he understood neither Bell's first—nor his second inference.

  "We've overlooked the fact that of the 100,000 time-sleepers, some are on Arkon 3. Couldn't one of them have put the bomb under the car? Why should the black sheep be found only among us Terrans?" Reginald Bell's face was earnest. He had pronounced his last question emphatically, looking at the Admiral penetratingly.

  "Let's wait to see what the positronicon has to say about it," answered the Arkonide, now evasive.

  Bell pounced on the evasion at once. "That doesn't sound very good, Arkonide! Lame answers like that one don't become you."

  "Mr. Bell, I must be the last person who would make any effort to defend Thomas Cardif and..."

  "Oh my stars and long-tailed comets!" interrupted Bell angrily. "Who said anything about defending Thomas? To defend someone means that he's been accused, and we haven't gotten to that point yet! The only thing lacking now is for that positronicthing to blame the boy for the murder attempt too." His gaze shifted back and forth between Atlan and Rhodan but neither said anything.

  At that moment, almost unexpectedly, the metallic-sounding voice of the gigantic positronic Brain spoke.

  This unimaginably complicated complex of switches and relays understood only objectivity, fulfilling the task asked of it and, when called for, reaching logical conclusions.

  The monotonous voice continued. "The political upheavals which at this time put into question the existence of the Great Imperium are a sign that he exists."

  Bell grumbled with a critical look at the place from which the voice came. "No more than splitting hairs!"

  The Robot Brain went on: "It is thus of secondary importance, the matter of who is stirring up unrest. Furthermore, the influence of Thomas Cardif is so slight that its effect cannot even be measured."

  "For as long as Arkon is not able to extend its full power to all reaches of the real
m, any action against the disrupters is ultimately a useless waste of strength because force inevitably leads to counter-force..."

  Bell muttered to himself but loudly enough that Perry Rhodan and Atlan could understand him. "For all the light this is shedding on the matter, the black hole in the Milky Way is a brightly lit parking place next to it!" But in the next moment he listened attentively.

  "...Since the unsuccessful attack on Imperator Gonozal VIII, Thomas Cardif is no longer the guiding spirit among the Galactic Traders. The logical conclusion states with 99.5% probability that Thomas Cardif's influence on the overthrow movement has become unimportant. All actions undertaken since the attempted theft of the cell activator lack the distinguishing characteristics that indicate the involvement of Thomas Cardif. However, the danger of overthrow by force is not any less for it because the historical development of the Great Imperium itself is in that direction."

  "The explosion of the courier car, to which one Terran fell victim, is, according to the results of the investigation by the robotpolice and our evaluation of those results, an attack by the New Arkonides. It is suspected, with a probability of 67.45%, that about one-thousandth of the New Arkonides suffered brain damage as a result of the long-term sleep. The attack itself is regarded as a single act with no purpose or goal. The consequences of the attack are only slight in nature."

  "As to the question of which planet is the source of ever-new impulses leading toward economic collapse and the attempts at political overthrow by various movements, all the information so far programmed has been evaluated and, taking as a basis the great number of inhabited planets, there can be only one answer:"

  "The planet Archetz in the Resuma System!"

  Then the great machine was silent.

  Two Terrans and one Arkonide looked mutely at one another.

  Archetz—the main world of the Springers.

  Archetz—the world that had been half melted under the firestorm from 3000 Druuf spacers.