Caves of the Druufs Read online

  Deringhouse's gaze was at first fixed upon the accordion folds of the draped spacesuit. Then he turned his attention to the enormous spherical helmet and its viewplate. The face behind it was that of Fellmer Lloyd, whom they had considered dead on Terra for 14 days.

  He was by no means dead. He grinned shyly at Conrad Deringhouse, as if begging pardon for the peculiar get-up in which he had made his appearance.

  From then on things developed with the speed of lightning. His telepathic talent enabled Pucky to determine the whereabouts of the three other missing persons in spite of the darkness and the storm. It only took three teleportation jumps and they were all in safety. Last of all was Perry Rhodan, whom Pucky found lying utterly exhausted in the gummy billows of the red lake.

  Conrad Deringhouse wasted no time. As soon as the last of them was on board, he started up the Gazelle. He disregarded the customary precautions and was promptly positioned by the Druufs as the ship rose vertically above the base. Deringhouse had counted on that, it was part of his plan.

  The transmitters were in readiness. Perry Rhodan was the first to leave the positioned Gazelle. In the same second he appeared on Hades, still partially dazed. Atlan followed him as the first direct hit by Druuf ray cannons lit up the protective shell of the Gazelle.

  Conrad Deringhouse remained at the controls until the very last. The Druufs had perfected their aim. Several volleys were striking the energy fields at once and the instant at which the energy field generators would break down under the constant overload was just a few seconds off.

  Deringhouse left the condemned ship five seconds before it received the decisive shot. Just as Deringhouse found himself in a transmitter cage on Hades, the Gazelle exploded from the concentrated fire of Druuf defensive weapons, sending down a shower of glowing metal bits onto the surface of the planet.

  • • •

  What followed was like a pleasant dream to Perry Rhodan. He had not been fully conscious when he landed in the transmitter on Hades. They helped him out, lifted him on their shoulders and carried him

  through the transmitter hall in a triumphal march. Atlan, Reginald Bell, Fellmer Lloyd, Ras Tschubai, Pucky and Conrad Deringhouse joined in as soon as they got out of their grid cages.

  For a few hours the huge cavern on Hades was no advance base in the midst of enemy territory but a witch's cauldron bubbling over with joy.

  Two doctors assured Perry Rhodan that he needed rest more than anything else. Rhodan, however, had meanwhile received a concise report from Gen. Deringhouse about the political situation on Earth and now replied to the doctors that while it could well be that he needed his rest, the Earth needed him even more.

  Maj. Ostal promptly appeared with the California at one of the designated times. A transmitter in the large transmitter hall flashed green. It took barely two minutes and the seven involved in the Roland venture had returned from Hades to the cruiser. The California stood ready for transition. Pucky, who was last, had not yet left the transmitter on board the ship when Clyde Ostal began the transition.

  Meanwhile the Arkonides had detected that some foreign ship was appearing in the midst of the blockade at irregular intervals, lingering a short while, vanishing again within a split second. A few times they had attempted to determine in advance the point at which the California would emerge by a probability calculation and had come dangerously close to Ostal twice in the process.

  This time they had miscalculated, otherwise Ostal could not have dared to remain two minutes at the same place. He would have been forced to interrupt the transmissions.

  The Arkonides only spotted them as Pucky had already completed the long journey from Hades to the California . They arrived much too late.

  A few hours later Perry Rhodan landed in the fleet harbor of Terrania. His arrival was kept secret. Nobody except Marshall Freyt and a few high staff officers were informed. Marshall Freyt presented the report that on the morning of the same day the police had dispersed a huge demonstration under the leadership of Lt. Cardif, who had meanwhile been divested of his officer's commission by the fleet. Cardif himself had been arrested.

  Perry Rhodan was exhausted from all that he had undergone but no one could tell whether Marshall Freyt's report had affected him. He took note of it and praised Freyt's circumspection. Nobody could have detected by his reaction that it was his son who had been arrested.

  All at once Perry Rhodan was anxious to receive medical treatment. He would have to be in top condition mentally and physically when he again presented himself to the public.

  He knew that his reappearance signified the end of the domestic crisis. He meditated on this and was dismayed at the realization that the welfare and misery of Earth, of mankind and the Solar Empire, was associated with his person to a much higher degree than he had previously assumed. This he considered wrong.

  He decided to handle this differently in the future. In the long run it would be disastrous for mankind to connect its destiny to the existence of one single man. This thought brought him tranquility at last and he fell asleep.

  • • •

  Far away from Terra, in a world that lay in another time plane, a consortium of high officials were shelving the plans they had made to compel the cooperation of the Terranians with their own race.

  The most important Terranian, who had already been in their custody, was no longer alive. The commander of a base located far out in space had failed to grasp the significance of the situation and had simply allowed the ship in which the Terranian was attempting to escape to be shot down. Upon his return to Druufon the commander would be charged with incompetence and be degraded.

  • • •

  Around 600 million kilometers from the place where the officials were temporarily filing away their plans sat a Tommy—stripped of his rank insignias just because a small, inconspicuous creature had first knocked him down with a metal rod and then removed his spacesuit. He thought about how he should have proceeded in order to have remained in the good graces of the governing aristocracy of Druufon.

  As hard as he tried, the Tommy could find no error in his actions. He arrived at the conclusion that someone had betrayed him.

  CAVES OF THE DRUUFS

  Copyright © Ace Books 1975

  Ace Publishing Corporation

  All Rights Reserved

  THE SHIP OF THINGS TO COME

  WORLDSHIP A gigantic spacer, thousands of years from home, moving majestically through the maw of the universe. A self-contained world unto itself, pacing through the untraveled spaceways, past unknown worlds living and dead, planets where life is but burgeoning and burned-out worlds where life has become extinct. And the crew of this cosmic ship?

  Slaves! Flesh-and-blood slaves to metallic-and-electronic robots! A situation which intensely irritates Pucky... who does something drastic about it in—

  SPACESHIP OF ANCESTORS

  by Clark Darlton