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  "Well, yes—at least the equipment must have looked something like that."

  "And what was Carba doing there?"

  "That we don't know."

  "We're going to have to find out," replied Rhodan. He was deliberately emphatic in order to shake his friend out of his incipient lethargy. "Our fleet has captured the Arkonide ship that was used to bring Carba to Kusma. Two of his companions were on board—Minthor and Palor by name—but when they saw they were the target of Terran ships they committed suicide. All our men could do was pick up the corpses so we didn't learn much there. But one thing we do know: people from the Blue System have their fingers in the pie. The Akons are involved in the conspiracy. That makes the situation too critical to allow us to waste a single minute of our efforts."

  The Imperator tensed suddenly. "That reminds me of something," he said. "Arkonide police discovered the body of a man whose identification papers bear the name of Harathron Belubal Yazgan. The man is—was—an Akon immigrant. He was found within 10 km of Admiral Thekus' house."

  Perry Rhodan smiled. "So it seems that our robot wasn't telling such a lie when he claimed that Thekus had gotten rid of this irksome Akon."

  "No, that he did not. There is no doubt that the deceased was shot from the front. I'd like to know how Thekus managed that. Even in death, Belubal doesn't look as if he could have been an easy target."

  "We've all been fooled by Thekus," remarked the Administrator. "He was a member of a conspiracy against the ruling order while still retaining his responsible position. How much damage could he have caused if he had failed to see eye to eye with his own people—and if he hadn't become a liability to them?" He stood up with a grim smile.

  "Where are you off too in such a hurry, Barbarian?" asked the Imperator.

  "I just remembered something," answered Rhodan. "Not far from here one of my officers is waiting—a certain colonel. He's eating his heart out because he thinks that he and his men have traveled over 80,000 light-years without bringing back even the smell of any success. I have to console him. I have to tell him that he's brought us a far piece down the road."

  The tall Terran stopped when the door opened for him. He turned around with a grin and added: "At least I owe him that. If nobody consoles him, his imaginary blood pressure could turn into the real thing!"

  DEATH'S DEMAND

  Copyright © 1977

  Ace Books

  by arrangement with Arthur Moewig Verlag

  All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 


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