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  Actually, trouble really was brewing in a certain region of the galaxy. Among the many incoming dispatches and reports of the previous day, two had arrived which Rhodan handed to Bell and Atlan without a word after he had read them.

  "But that's probably only one isolated case," was Atlan's comment.

  "It's the beginning!" contradicted Bell with sudden conviction and the looks he got from Rhodan and Atlan failed to budge him from his opinion. "I always have to remember my thumb..."

  Perry Rhodan lost some of his famous self-control. "Will you get off of that childish notion, once and for all?! You couldn't even sell Pucky such nonsense! Now how do you make a case out of just these two reports?"

  Even Rhodan's outburst could not deter this boisterous, red-cropped bulldog from his course. "It's the beginning of trouble because it has to do with the so-called Great Coordinator of Arkon. In other words, he's a robot brain, and so far I've never discovered in him any of our many human shortcomings. Here in this report it says that an Empire ship has just taken on 3 Galactic Traders for its top command, when up to now it's been flown by robots. In the other report it's asserted that a robot commander has been exchanged for an Ara! What that means to me is this: His Majesty the Great Coordinator of Arkon has decided to put an end to the crazy material expenditure of his robots. This transistorized monster is looking at the element of human caution as a greater advantage to him than the kind of robot programming that fights until a ship is destroyed!

  "Deducing further deliberations of the Brain: when Druuf ships show up, my robots either fight to win or go down in flames—but if humans run my ships and they meet with a hopeless situation they'll try to save their skins, which also has the effect of preserving some of my ships and weapons.

  "So the gist of these two reports concerning a command regrouping in the Arkonide fleet squadrons is that a situation's looming up that isn't rosy at all for our side. Because that overgrown automat is getting fed up with the clanky daring-do of his robots who only grind up all his equipment—and if he's going to stick his snoot any farther..."

  Rhodan interrupted sharply again and his face reddened slightly. "Reg, when will you quit mangling the language!"

  "You're absolutely right, Perry," admitted Bell with amazing alacrity, "because that mammoth bucket of bolts on Arkon doesn't have a snoot!"

  Atlan, who had thus far not expressed himself, was an attentive observer. At this moment he envied Perry Rhodan his friend Reginald Bell.

  Rhodan, disciplined to his fingertips, stern with himself, filled with the mission of bringing Earthly humanity to the rulership of the universe, had a man at his side who was his best friend and who also never flinched from duty—one who often recovered from the rough spots without embarrassment because he only represented himself for what he actually was, big-hearted, expansive, easygoing, boisterous and with an impulsive temperament that was not averse to using strong language. He not only relieved himself this way—he even gave Rhodan a relief valve for blowing off the tension, even when such heavy altercations were involved as the present one.

  Now Atlan joined the fray: "Barbarian, your uncouth friend here seems to grasp the situation better than the two of us..."

  Bell appeared to mutter something to himself but it was deliberately audible enough for Atlan to catch. "OK, Little Admiral, I'll get you for that one! But just keep talking!"

  Atlan didn't allow this to interrupt his remarks although he made a mental note of the warning. If anybody ever followed up on such promises, it was Reginald Bell. "...and we always have to keep in mind that there are going to be accidental leaks and unexpected circumstances which will have increasingly grave consequences for us, because by such means the Robot Regent either has learned already or is bound to discover that the Solar Empire is behind the incessant attacks of the Druufs, tricking them into repeated military action."

  Rhodan shook his head. "I can't go along with you there, Admiral, because..."

  Atlan interjected ominously: "In the Grautier situation you also failed to heed my warnings. If we don't stumble upon some last opportunity to trick or bluff Arkon into its own demise, then I'll give you 6 months at the latest—after the last battle along the overlap front—before you'll see Arkon's ships sitting on your spaceports and the sun of your world obscured by a massive spherical shell surrounding Terra, which will be composed of tens of thousands of warships.

  "He talks like he was the one who cut his thumb New Years on a piece of unbreakable..."

  The crude interjection seemed to act as a splinter in Atlan's normally shatterproof patience as he turned and shouted: "Mister Bell, once and for all will you keep that snoot of yours..." He stopped abruptly, aware of verbal contamination.

  Bell got up slowly with an impertinent grin on his broad face but nodded good-naturedly at Atlan, who was still in the throes of reproaching himself gravely for his momentary slip in diction. He also nodded to Perry and prepared to leave. "Friends," he said, with the double entendre of a virtual Pharisee, "I'll give you an 'A' for elocution but if report cards were to be handed out in regard to our concern for the Solar Empire, we'd come up with a goose egg!"

  He was already at the door. When he spoke now, the innuendoes were suddenly gone. Nor did he laugh or joke or speak any more of his thumb. "Thanks to the Druuf attacks, today the Robot Regent of Arkon is stronger than any other time in history or the first time the thousands of races and peoples composing the Greater Imperium are rendering unto 'Caesar' an unrestricted obedience and allegiance. How many battleships does he have at the front? 80,000... 100,000...? If Arkon comes out of this with only half its forces, it won't make any difference where we are concerned, because we couldn't be ready for 50,000 or even 10,000 ships!

  "But that still isn't the thing that keeps making me lose my sleep. The two of us, Perry—you and I—somewhere or somehow, we've missed something, a missing ingredient that's vital. Since New Year I haven't been able to shake it off. Since then I've been beating my brains out trying to figure what it is we've overlooked but I can't put my finger on it. I only know that it's got something to do with Arkon... and once they are here... Well then, sweet dreams to the Solar Empire!

  "It's no use to keep hoping for a stay of execution until the end of the fighting along the discharge zone. Sure I've often referred to the robot Regent as a bucket of bolts—I got it from Pucky in the first place. But now I know why. It's because I've always feared that super genius and his machine logic. I only sent up a flak of trick names for him in order to deceive myself. But since New Year's Eve, that's over with.

  "That positronic brain only needs one little microcircuit or relay register to start snapping in the right direction—among all the millions of circuits he's composed of—and the doomsday calculations will begin. Just how calculating he can be we've learned only too well! We also know that he never forgets. And when somebody comes up with a bid to buy a hundred spaceships, the Brain is bound to mark him down on a special list. In about one second the big monster can extrapolate a fairly sharp estimate of the strength of our spacefleet, so from that point on, who gets the last laugh—not us! It makes no difference whether a galactic war is blazing along the overlap zone or not.

  "Then, my friends, the Arkonide spacers will suddenly be here and the two of us, Perry—we'll be clicking our heels to attention in front of the Arkonide robots. As for you, Admiral, to them you're a traitor and it'll only take one fighter robot to convert you into a puff of smoke. That is, if we don't come up real quick with that missing ingredient that we've overlooked. Good luck!"

  Perry Rhodan stared for some time at the door after Bell had closed it and departed. Atlan did not say a word. Bell's warnings and gloomy foreboding had gripped Rhodan more powerfully than he cared to admit.

  "That's Bell!" he said finally. "Ever since New Year's Eve he's been waving that crystal ball of his..."

  "The question is, is he seeing anything in it?"

  Rhodan looked at Atlan in astonishment. "
What's that supposed to mean?"

  "What I mean is, Perry, without Reginald Bell you would never have built a Solar Empire. Always at the right time he has the unfailing instinct to put his

  finger on the trouble spot, and what's more, he has the frankness and courage to admit it when he's afraid of something. Perry, you know it's an advanced concept for administrators to use all the esper talent they can muster, so if somebody foresees the hand of fate in the near future is he to be called a crystal-gazer or a realist?"

  Rhodan leaned far back in his seat, his gaze fixed on Atlan. He took a long, deep breath. Every feature of his striking countenance became deeply etched, while his hands rested calmly on the armrests of his chair.

  "Crystal-gazer or realist... At the moment I don't think I can give you an answer, Arkonide. I'll have to sleep on it."

  It seemed to satisfy Atlan as he nodded reflectively but then he asked: "Perry, of course you don't think you can tell me what the two of you may have forgotten or overlooked?"

  There was a trace of surprise on Rhodan's face. "Don't tell me you're being taken in by that dumb thumb of his!" he said brusquely.

  The Arkonide replied calmly: "Barbarian, that may be an unanswerable question. Nevertheless, I don't take Bell's vague premonition lightly. We ought to make every possible preparation against unpleasant surprises, in the interests of the future security of the Solar Empire."

  "Hm-m-m," muttered Rhodan, grudgingly. "I know what you're getting at— Grautier. Before that world went under, I should have given more weight to your warnings. And of course now it's a weak excuse to complain about a faulty frequency damper that happened to lead Arkonide ships onto the right trail... OK, this time we understand each other, and from where I sit—Bell isn't a crystal gazer. He's a realist with ESP!"

  "To put it in the Bell vernacular," replied Atlan, "is that sour grapes or are you eating crow?"

  2/ THE TOPIDES TIP THE SCALES

  Earth's strategic situation deteriorated from day to day. Rhodan and his staff were powerless to prevent it.

  Owing to the collision of two universes separated by two planes of time, the mighty Arkon Imperium was stronger than ever before in spite of past decadence and all the strivings of its many hundreds of races and peoples for independence. The unceasing attacks of the Druuf space squadrons and the implementation of all their alien resources to force an invasion into the Einstein universe had had a reverse impact. After 5,000 years of continuing signs of dissolution and decay, the Greater Imperium had for the first time united itself under the rulership of the colossal positronic Brain.

  Arkon's war fleet, heretofore splintered and scattered all over the Milky Way in separately operating squadrons and task units, had now gathered itself into one massive blockading conglomeration of power before the discharge zone where the two universes touched and slightly overlapped.

  As long as this gigantic, material-consuming battle continued between the Arkonides and the Druufs, the comparatively small Solar Empire was not in any acute danger. However, Rhodan's space-time astrophysical experts had determined that in about 12 months the discharge zone between the two universes would become unstable again and therewith an easy access from one continuum to the other would come to an end. On the one hand this would throw Terra into a stage of red alert, whereas that Great Coordinator, the Robot Brain of Arkon, would have his hands completely free to throw some 80,000 warships into a galaxy-wide search for the Solar Empire. For the giant positronicon had already concluded that the latter was a greater threat to Arkon than this still raging battle with the alien Druufs from another plane of time.

  Rhodan had counted on emerging from this clash of great powers as a third-party observer who would have the last laugh, more or less like one who holds the coats while two other contenders fight. However, after the destruction of his advanced fleet base on Grautier he had come to realize that the proverbial did not always hold true.

  All possible security measures had long since been taken which were designed to conceal the galactic position of the Earth. Commercial traffic to other worlds, which had been increasing heavily during the past few years, had now been reduced to a minimum after the failure of a residual frequency damper had led to the loss of Grautier, yet Rhodan, Bell and Atlan were in complete agreement that all of these measures meant nothing more than a temporary reprieve. By one means or another, Arkon was bound to find the Earth one day.

  Marshal Allan D. Mercant, Chief of Solar Security, sat facing Perry Rhodan and Atlan together with John Marshall, leader of the secret Mutant Corps. Like the two other Earthmen present, he had retained his youth by means of a biological cell shower on the synthetic planet Wanderer. He had come to the meeting without portfolio or documents, thus imitating Perry Rhodan who more often preferred to 'play it by ear' rather than fall back on a mass of fixed figures and data.

  He had never tended to blow his own horn over the fact that he had built up within the galaxy an intelligence network that was without parallel. He had infiltrated his men onto all important planets of the Greater Imperium, and their coded hypercom dispatches accurately reflected the prevailing situation within the vast realm of the Arkonides.

  Rhodan and Atlan listened to his report in silence.

  On the other hand, John Marshall did not appear to be with them. Still they knew him too well to be deceived by the absent expression on his face. At the moment he was receiving Reginald Bell's thoughts, which informed him of the latter's thumb-cutting incident on New Year's Eve.

  However, Marshall was not in the least amused. He recalled another time when Bell's premonitions had gone unheeded. With his usual grumbling and blustering he had expressed his foreboding in no uncertain terms concerning the planet Honur, long quarantined and declared off limits by Arkon. At that time no one, including Rhodan, had taken him seriously, and then when catastrophe struck the crew of the Titan and 800 crewmen including Thora, Khrest and Bell were gripped by a mortally dangerous euphoria, it was too late to react to his warnings.

  While Mercant continued with his report, Marshall 'listened' further: We're roaring at light-speed into a situation where the roof is going to come down on our heads. All the mutants had better get back to Earth on the double so they can take a hand in this!

  Bell, who was busy somewhere several floors below the conference room, suddenly turned his thoughts to other problems. Now the Chief of the Mutant Corps gave his full attention to the status briefing at hand.

  The discussions so far had made it graphically clear that the Solar Empire had been backed into a defensive position.

  Rhodan was speaking. "If we just try to wait it out we'll be putting our heads in the sand. Somehow we have to checkmate the robot Brain before the last of the space battles between the Arkon ships and the Druufs have faded out..."

  "But my barbarian friend—!" interrupted Atlan sympathetically. "That's precisely what you cannot do—it's impossible! Without the robot Regent in charge, do you know what that would make of the Greater Imperium? Star cluster M-13 is one galactic fusion bomb and taking out the Regent would bring it to critical mass—an explosion capable of enveloping us all. No, Rhodan, that's not the answer, and yet any further discussions on the subject seem to be a waste of time because so far we haven't yet found a way that leads us to Arkon III. We... uh—your intercom is buzzing, Perry."

  The grey raster of the viewscreen flickered bright, suddenly revealing the face of a man who was recognized as the chief of Terrania's great hyper-communication center.

  "Sir, I can't reach Mr. Bell but I have some latest dispatches that I think should be evaluated immediately..."

  "Put them on the screen—we'll read them here!" ordered Rhodan swiftly. He moved to one side to make room for Atlan.

  The man's face disappeared, to be replaced by a sheet of printed text. They recognized the decoded dispatch of an observation cruiser:

  0005-1 to Chief.

  Summary of findings from returned rocket probes 45618, -19, -34,
and -65.

  82nd light fighter squadron, Arkonide fleet task force 312, relieved and withdrawn at 5:54:34 Earth time.

  All robot officers including commanders trans-shipped

  Arkon freighter H-56874.

  At 11:03:21 Earth time, top command of 82nd light fighter squadron taken over by Topides.

  At 14.33:06 ET, this unit was returned to the battlefront.

  0005-1 to Chief...

  In that moment Perry Rhodan had a vision of the Solar Empire being shattered to pieces under the bombardment of giant Arkon ships. "Thank you!" he called into the microphone before Atlan could utter a word.

  "What about the rest of the messages?" asked the Arkonide with a touch of annoyance.

  Allan D. Mercant and John Marshall hadn't been able to read the hypercom text on the viewscreen, so at least Mercant was at a loss.

  Rhodan was oblivious to Atlan's question. His face was noticeably pale when he turned to Mercant and Marshall. "Light fighter squadron 82 of the 312th Arkonide Task Unit has had its robot command replaced by Topides..."

  Solar Marshal Allan D. Mercant, normally a model of self-control, suddenly sprang to his feet. Although John Marshall did not react as conspicuously, he pressed hands to his temples and repeated: "Topides... Topides..." Then, with startled emphasis: "Topides!"

  Atlan's powerful voice interrupted. "May I be informed as to what is going on? How is it that these reptiles can send you scurrying for cover like so many mice?"

  Within seconds Rhodan had regained his legendary calm. He turned to Atlan, who was still glaring at him demandingly. "Those lizards from the planet Topid aren't driving us into any holes but with Arkon's gladly-furnished support they'll be able to drive us out of our hiding place. My friend, within a slight coordinate error of just 27 light-years, the Topides have known the position of Earth for more than 70 years!"

  Atlan looked at him sharply. "Barbarian, I'm aware that you Terranians are afflicted with a ludicrous brand of humor but this exceeds my Arkonide understanding. This joke that you..."