The Bonds of Eternity Read online

  Rhodan glanced at the observation screen, which still showed the planet Druufon. "No more news from the unknown, Pucky?"

  Pucky replied a little peeved: "Not a word from our ghostly friend. It seems that he doesn't want to bother with us anymore or he would've spoken up again."

  "Nobody can be in two places at the same time," Rhodan murmured, and touched Sikerman on the shoulder. "Set course for Hades, Commander! We'll jump from there to Grautier and make a little detour. Atlan, Pucky and Harno will accompany me."

  Atlan looked at John Marshall before he walked over to Rhodan and remonstrated: "Don't you think you're overdoing your secretive act? Don't we have a right to share all important knowledge with you?"

  Rhodan was startled. Suddenly a smile flitted over his face and disappeared again the same instant. "Of course you're entitled to it but I didn't want to bother you with pure conjectures. Mercant's message has merely heightened my surmise and I've got to go back to Earth. Something has happened there that nobody expected yet to occur."

  They looked at him with undisguised impatience.

  "What?" Pucky inquired.

  "Atlan doesn't know the whole story and he wouldn't be able to understand it all, Pucky. In order to understand what's involved I have to go far back in the past to a time when he was still waiting at the bottom of the ocean and hoping for better times. That's when it all started."

  "At that time," Pucky replied, "I wasn't yet on Earth myself and didn't know you either."

  Rhodan nodded. He had almost forgotten it. "One more reason to clear up the situation for you. I'll tell you the exact story on our way to Earth. Sikerman, first to Hades! We still have some unfinished business there. Bell will stay behind as my deputy."

  "That'll make him sore," Pucky drooled hopefully.

  "Maybe not!" Rhodan said dryly as the Drusus veered from its circular path around Druufon and headed for Hades. "In fact I'm sure it won't make him a bit sore. Bell is afraid of ghosts and we're going to Earth to meet a ghost."

  Pucky stared at Rhodan and then closed his eyes as if he wanted to sleep. He knew that he couldn't get any more out of Rhodan.

  Atlan remained silent. He also realized that it was useless to pressure Rhodan for more information at this time but he had a hunch that the invisible helper on Druufon had some connection with the 'ghost'.

  • • •

  A little time later the Drusus raced through the gap which separated them from their universe. First they broke through the Druufs' line of ships blocking the approach and ignored the radio signals ordering them to turn back. Then they ran into the fighting ships of the Regent. Again Rhodan disregarded their warning signals and pushed through the robot ships. A few energy shots blasted the protective screen of the Drusus and then the vessel went into transition. The stars and the ships of the Robot Regent disappeared.

  Only the stars came back but then the Drusus was already 22 light-years away from the scene. The vessel touched down on the seventh planet of the Myrtha system, also known as Grautier. But it stayed only a few hours. Then Rhodan took off again—this time on course for Terra.

  And as they approached the speed of light, Rhodan began to relate his story, bringing the past into the present as Atlan and Pucky listened breathlessly.

  It was such a fantastic tale that the listeners skipped a few heartbeats.

  Harno, the strange being from space and time, hovered at the ceiling and followed Rhodan's account...

  2/ THE BODILESS TIME TRAVELER

  It was in the earliest days of the New Power from which later the Solar Imperium was born, about 70 years ago.

  Perry Rhodan was in the process of forming his Mutant Corps. Everywhere on Earth where atomic explosions had taken place genetic changes of newly born children occurred and produced people with unprecedented attributes. They created telepaths, telekins, teleporters, seers and hypnos.

  Among them was a man by the name of Ernst Ellert. Ellert was a mutant whose ability surpassed anything human imagination could conceive. While his body rested, his mind could leave his recumbent body and venture into the unknown regions of time. Thus he succeeded in entering the future and returned with the knowledge of events to come. He was what was generally described as a clairvoyant but in reality he was much more than that. He was, as Rhodan called him, a transchrontinental.

  And one day disaster struck. During an experiment Ernst Ellert received a terrible electric shock and died instantly.

  He died—and yet he was not dead!

  His mind had left his body and wandered restlessly through the future and the past while his body showed no sign of decay. Although his heart had stopped beating his blood never got cold and his body thus remained warm.

  Nobody—including Rhodan—knew what really had happened. Ellert's mind never returned to the present. He was unable to find his body again. They could only surmise that he was somewhere lost in eternity.

  What if he returned someday and his body was no longer there waiting for him? Rhodan was aware of the problem and found a solution.

  • • •

  Not far from Terrania—then still called Galacto City—the work-robots finished the job they had been given. The shaft extended 50 meters deep into the Gobi Desert. Heat-glazed surfaces, hard as steel, kept the walls at all times from deteriorating under the influence of meteorological forces and no underground water could seep into the shaft.

  At the bottom of the shaft Rhodan had built a rectangular chamber with a supply of oxygen, energy generators and instruction material. An automatic detection device—improved during the following years—was installed to register at once if Ernst Ellert should ever return to his waiting body.

  In the middle of the vault, measuring four square meters, stood a bench to which the sophisticated instruments were attached. They would be activated immediately if as much as one breath was taken in the chamber, releasing an alarm.

  The figure of a man rested on the bench. Ellert had been placed under the electronic instruments. Metal clamps were attached to his left wrist and to his ankles. His head was inside a hood. Some kind of a mirror almost touched his lips. It was wired so that the slightest exhalation would be sufficient to trigger the warning.

  Perry Rhodan had erected a mausoleum for Ernst Ellert such as no other mortal possessed because he had felt that Ellert was no mortal in the strict sense of the word. Deep inside he had nurtured a conviction that some day in the near or far future he would meet the disembodied time traveler again.

  The shaft had been filled with concrete which hardened quickly. There was no conceivable natural power that could disturb the peace of the 'dead'. However there was an access to the tomb which was only known to Rhodan and if Ellert ever awakened he could free himself in less than half an hour.

  But what would he find? An Earth which circled closely around a red Sun and threatened to crash into it? Or a planet which was bereft of life as the result of an invasion from outer space?

  Rhodan had watched thoughtfully as the robots finished the pyramid-shaped rock on the spot where the tomb was located. Then he turned around and went back to the town which soon became the mightiest metropolis on Earth—Terrania.

  • • •

  For 70 years nothing happened. Meanwhile Rhodan created the Solar Imperium and his power grew boundlessly. And during all that time there was a room under the energy dome of Terrania where all the lines of alarm converged. But a tiny lamp on a tall panel had always remained dark.

  Under the lamp was a name: Ernst Ellert.

  • • •

  On this particular day in September, Sgt. Stootz was on duty in the Alarm Chamber, as the Surveyance Center was generally known.

  Of course Stootz didn't know Ellert but he knew what his duties were. They were neither difficult nor very exciting. All he had to do was to watch whether one of the lamps in front of him lit up.

  This didn't imply that Sgt. Stootz was an ignorant donk. On the contrary. It just so happened that he had pull
ed duty in the Alarm Chamber. Everybody had to take his turn.

  He happened to be one of the most capable electronic experts among the radio technicians. Not only did he know that the alarm lamps could light up, he also knew why they lit up. The simple-looking panels concealed a complicated system of electronic and positronic installations. The connections led in all conceivable directions and mostly ended at the hyperradio receivers so that a warning emanating from any Solar System XX, thousands of light-years away, would illuminate a lamp here before his eyes.

  If they called him in the middle of the night something of utmost seriousness must have happened.

  As he ran to his study, where the communication equipment was installed, several possibilities which could have caused the alarm ran through his mind. Some emergency could have occurred on Terra itself although this was extremely unlikely nowadays. Or somewhere in the cosmos an inferno had exploded in one of the stellar systems. Perhaps Rhodan had given an alarm. He was out there with half the battle fleet of the Solar Imperium and he wasn't gone on a picnic.

  There were thousands of possibilities. But the one that had come to pass never entered his mind.

  He rushed to the set next to his desk and pushed a button. The viewer lit up and showed the baffled face of Sgt. Stootz. "This is the Radio Center Alarm Control, sir."

  "What's the matter?" Mercant exclaimed, interrupting the dutiful report of the attendant technician. "Why do you wake me up?"

  It was well known that Mercant never went to bed before 12 o'clock and Sgt. Stootz failed to take Mercant at his word. "Sir, I've received an alarm signal. A red lamp went on 10 seconds ago."

  "Which lamp? For crying out loud!"

  He could see how Sgt. Stootz leaned forward to take a closer look at the red lamp. "The lamp is marked only by the name Ernst Ellert, sir."

  It was as if an icy hand touched Mercant's shoulder. He knew Ellert and his background and was aware of the plight of the bodiless time traveler. He suspected what it meant that the alarm signal of the mausoleum was triggered.

  His instructions came quickly and precisely in his usual manner. "Wake up Dr. Haggard and some of his assistants in the medical department. Tell Haggard to come to me at once. We'll have to drive out to the tomb. Get in touch with Rhodan by hyperradio in the Myrtha or Siamed system. As soon as you make contact, switch it over to me. I must send him a report. Then..." He hesitated and finally added: "That'll be all!"

  As the screen of the videophone went dark Mercant sat motionlessly as if transfixed in his room. The last movement of Tchaikovsky's second symphony reverberated from the living room and then everything was quiet.

  • • •

  When Perry Rhodan finished his story everybody in the Command Center of the Drusus remained silent for awhile. Without uttering a word Sikerman peered at his dials and other instruments. The Drusus approached the point of transition with the velocity of light.

  Atlan leaned against the wall and looked at Rhodan. A strange fire flickered in his eyes.

  Pucky waited quietly. He sat with closed eyes on the couch and seemed to doze. But Rhodan knew that Pucky wasn't napping and that he had been listening with concentrated attention.

  Harno floated near the ceiling in his usual unobtrusive manner.

  Rhodan looked at each of his listeners. "Well, that's the story of Ernst Ellert. And now the red signal tells us that he finally woke up again. Mercant has called me immediately by hyperradio. I don't know if we can make it back to Terra in time but we have to try. There can be no doubt that Ellert's mind has returned to his body after 70 years and I don't have to tell you what I believe."

  Atlan looked up. "You believe that Ellert and Onot are identical," he said simply.

  "There's little room for doubt," Rhodan agreed. "All indications point to our unknown supporter. He knew me although he couldn't remember from where. He mentioned that he was a wanderer through eternity and claimed to have experienced the beginning and the end of the worlds or at least to have seen it. Ellert traveled through time—one more coincidence. No, I'm convinced that we've found Ellert at long last..."

  "...or he has found us!" Pucky interjected. His high voice had a peculiar tone. "He must've been looking for us."

  "Quite possible," Rhodan admitted and watched how Sikerman started the transition. The pain of the shockwaves ran through their bodies. They felt nothing else. When they looked at the observation screen they saw their own Solar system.

  The landing was strictly routine. They hardly exchanged a word as Terra grew bigger and bigger till it filled the entire screen. The ship touched down with a gentle tap. They were home.

  Rhodan left the Drusus together with Atlan and Pucky. Harno had retreated inconspicuously into Rhodan's pocket.

  Mercant was already there to meet them. His face looked tired. The sun was rising in the east and he hadn't slept a wink all night. "Welcome to Earth," he said, stretching out his hand to the men. Then he bent down to greet Pucky too. "You didn't come too late. Nothing more has happened so far."

  Rhodan was glad to hear it. He sighed with relief and climbed into the vehicle which was waiting to take them out of the city. The mausoleum had been erected with foresight so far out in the Gobi Desert that there was no likelihood of it ever being encroached on by the buildings of Terrania.

  The houses retreated left and right and then downward as the wings folded out from the vehicle's body. They soared up into the air and Mercant briefed them tersely. "Haggard and his staff are keeping watch at the mausoleum but it's all still the same. The red light is on and nothing else has changed at the pyramid. The concrete is fully intact."

  Rhodan nodded. This really was what he had expected to find although he couldn't be sure. If his speculations were correct, it would be too early for Ellert to again take possession of his body.

  The city fell back and the monotonous surface of the desert rolled backward below the glider until they recognized in the distance the needle which poked into the sky at dawn. The tomb!

  They descended quickly and landed 20 meters away from the glistening pyramid. A group of men greeted them. They had been waiting in some station wagons which showed the sign of the Red Cross.

  Dr. Haggard was one of those whom Rhodan had allowed to receive the cell-shower on the planet Wanderer. His lean figure was a little stooped although this was not due to his actual age. He came to shake Rhodan's hand and greeted Atlan and Pucky, who continued to waddle over to the pyramid, where he stopped.

  "It's been a futile wait so far," Dr. Haggard said to Rhodan, who could detect a slight skepticism in his voice for which he could hardly blame Haggard. Every sensible man had to retain a modicum of doubt, hearing Ellert's story.

  "I've anticipated as much," Rhodan replied, gazing thoughtfully at the pyramid the same way Atlan and Pucky did.

  Haggard shrugged his shoulders. "You know I'm a scientist, Perry. I'm critical by nature. I find it difficult to assume that a human body that is buried for 70 years in the ground will become alive again."

  "You know as well as I that Ellert never really died. You've examined him yourself with Manoli at the time. Did you find any explanation for the phenomenon?"

  "No," the physician conceded hesitantly. "Of course not. But 70 years is too long a time..."

  "Not for somebody who can roam through eternities," Rhodan ended the fruitless discussion. His eyes turned reflectively to the pyramid whose tip was gilded by the first rays of the sun.

  He knew the secret of entering the burial vault without damaging the protective concrete shelter. He felt an unconscious resistance against penetrating the tomb but overcame it with logic. "Everybody wait here," he declared. "Only Atlan will accompany me."

  He noticed Pucky's inquisitive face and shook his head slightly. His hand held Harno in his pocket. What about him? He decided to take the spherical being along.

  Then he sought a spot on the smooth steeply soaring wall of the pyramid. He touched the surface with his hand and slid h
is fingers slowly across the wall. Once he stopped as if to think. Then he exerted some pressure and the ground of the desert began to move 5 meters from the base of the pyramid.

  Mercant muttered audibly as he saw it. He had no inkling that such a secret entrance existed and the thought had never occurred to him.

  Rhodan winked in his direction as if he had guessed Mercant's thoughts. Then he took Atlan by the arm and went with him to the place where the rocky ground had opened up and laid bare steps leading down very steeply. The illumination flared up automatically.

  Rhodan displayed no reluctance to reveal his secret. He realized that the pyramid had served its purpose.

  He went in first and Atlan followed him. The two men who were destined to rule the Galaxy in the near future descended to a dead man who was no corpse, with the hope to be enlightened by him.

  When Ernst Ellert touched the switch 70 years earlier and made several 1000 volts jump through his body he didn't lost consciousness for a moment. Although a terrific pain flashed through his body he felt it only for the fraction of a second. Then he left his body and was hurtled into the void of timelessness and infinite space. Everything around him sank into a bottomless vacuum which had neither beginning nor end.

  Sometimes colorful swirls began to dance around him and vanished again. At other times he could hear weird electronic music although he had no ears. All these impressions came and went in rhythmic sequences as if he had been plunged inside a pulsating universe.

  He drifted as if in nirvana. Once he thought he saw in the far distance a sun floating by which was surrounded by whirling planets. Galaxies slowly rotated around themselves and disappeared far back in space.

  Eternity itself seemed to shrink.

  And then he was engulfed in the stream of time which carried him away with swiftly growing speed. He lost all control over the medium which heretofore he believed he had mastered. He fell, tumbling aimlessly and without resistance into infinity which had nothing to do with matter, leaving the presence far behind.