Mystery of the Anti Read online

  As he only nodded I strove to compose myself. "I don't know, John, if Perry Rhodan did me any favor by pushing my proclamation as Imperator. In my opinion it would have been better to continue working in secret."

  "The circumstances were against it, sir."

  Although I had long dreamed of being addressed by the highest title of the empire, his simpler usage was welcome to me now. The others referred to me as 'Your Eminence' but it failed to impart any sense of pride.

  "Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?" inquired Marshall.

  "No, thanks very much. I must try to carry on by myself. You look tired, John."

  He only smiled, and then I suddenly wished that I could once more be living and working with men like him. I looked down at the other terraces whose windows brightly reflected the white light of the Arkon sun. In spite of all this splendor it seemed to me that I was displaced.

  Even the very thought of it was an irony of fate. During my long years of wandering and witnessing the various cultural epochs of the planet Earth, I had always attempted to advance the humans in their technologies and sciences, Long after the sinking of Atlantis when they finally discovered space flight, Rhodan had brought me back to Arkon. My time had come. The secret security circuits of the robot Brain had responded to my brainwave pattern. Apparently I was the only living Arkonide in the stellar empire to whom the giant machine could actually pass the scepter of power. The Imperators prior to my advent had only been marionettes under the forced dictatorship of the Regent.

  Marshall knew what was on my mind. In his modest way he held back until he saw it necessary to tear me away from my self-torturing contemplation.

  "Sir, you should try to get a few hours of rest. I wouldn't be happy to see you get sick. The past few months have been very strenuous."

  I pulled myself together. It was senseless to cling so much to the past. Ahead of me lay a great task which I could only accomplish while in full possession of my mental and physical strengths. I looked at my watch. It was slightly before sundown. The crystalline composition of the palace walls flashed to life. Blinding splinters of light seemed to cascade downward over the wide inner court, splashing from the monumental works of art and across the cultured gardens like a fountain of glory. From somewhere came the shrill lament of an animal that was not of Arkon. The wide-sweeping antigrav highways began to gleam with an inner light.

  Arkon 1 was beautiful. It was my home world. A new calmness settled upon me. I relished the spectacle of the sunset until the last streak of light disappeared behind the horizon. Everywhere the lights came on. The numerous buildings adjoining the Crystal Palace appeared to develop a phantom life of their own. Here were the many ministries of the Empire, gigantic building complexes in which nobody had done any serious work in many a decade.

  Their infallible robot Regent had always been so convenient. I shuddered to think of having to entrust the fighting Fleet's supply of reinforcements to the exhausted officials and staff officers. Now as before, these things were taken care of by the Brain. And I was thankful for it. I would never have been able to handle the millions of logistical problems that came up continually. Without this newly docile super robot I would have been justified in giving up my position as Imperator.

  I stepped over to the horseshoe curve of the large operations table and turned on the energy barrier that protected my personal portion of the palace. Now no one could come through the broad corridors that approached my location. Marshall looked at me with a puzzled frown but he became still more uneasy when I checked my energy weapon.

  "Best to be on the safe side," I told him. "John, go get some sleep. If you want to do something for Arkon, then try to keep those para-senses of yours on guard, even while you're resting."

  "Sir, what is it you fear?"

  I shrugged. "Everything and nothing. It's just that I'm fairly convinced there are still a few active heads among that sleepy-looking bunch in the Supreme Council—men who are only concerned about the good life and feathering their own nests. They could be dangerous."

  "You are uniquely secured in here."

  "At least it looks that way. But I seem to remember a time many years ago when it was amazingly simple for Rhodan to surprise the Imperator then in his sleeping chamber."

  "I was with him, sir. It was all based on a carefully planned mutant raid."

  "Which doesn't eliminate the possibility of some Arkonide also making an entry if he is especially familiar with these premises."

  John Marshall excused himself. His sleeping chamber was right next to my workroom and office. It was comforting to know that this friend was nearby.

  Without availing myself of any help from the servant robot, I also prepared myself for sleep. I chose a comfortable contour couch near the transparent energy screen. My ostentatiously furnished bedroom was uncomfortable for me.

  Before I fell asleep it became clear to me that I was no longer as united with my home world as I had been long ago, prior to my departure toward the Terran solar system, which at that time had been both insignificant and unknown.

  My last conscious movement was to feel the cell activator attached to my chest. The egg-sized apparatus was pulsing as reliably as ever.

  2/ 60 HOURS TO LIVE

  I was awakened by a strong feeling of nausea. When I sat up abruptly on the pneumo-couch I thought I was going to have to throw up.

  Close beside the curved control desk in the middle of the room, I saw John Marshall lying on the floor. The disintegrator had fallen from his hand. The Terranian was lying in a twisted position on the floor. His uniform over the left shoulder had been burned. In spite of the air-conditioning the odor of parched synthetic material was noticeable. The sight of the dried blood on him revealed that he had been seriously wounded.

  I fought back my momentary weakness. Without a word I staggered over to the wounded man and then sank down weakly beside him.

  "John!" I called to him. "John, wake up!"

  He did not stir but his breathing sounded normal. Probably he would soon regain consciousness. I remained sitting on the pleasantly heated floor until I could more or less bring my senses back into working order.

  "Gas!" A slightly painful throbbing advertised the activity of my extra-brain. "Someone has anesthetized you."

  I fought for my self-control. My logic sector had not yet ever failed me. Activated by some involuntary center in my brain, it functioned more clearly and effectively than my own conscious reasoning.

  I inspected John's weapon. The molecular disintegrator had not been fired. The charge marker was set on 'full'. The meter scale did not indicate any energy discharge. All of which revealed that the telepath had not been able to carry out what he had intended.

  I was also wondering what I could do to suppress my nausea. Since Marshall was here in my workroom, in contrast to myself he must have heard something. Apparently I had been narcotized while fast asleep by the incoming vapors. But where had the poisonous gases come from? I looked about me cautiously until my extra-brain again penetrated my consciousness.

  "Air-conditioning, you fool! You have followed the Terranian custom of switching to fresh air from the outside!"

  Which was of course a fact. Over the course of many centuries on the distant Earth, I had accustomed myself to sleeping by open windows. A native Arkonide in my position would never think of switching the ventilators to this kind of setup.

  It was true that the regular air-conditioning channels also utilized the external air but on that hookup there were excellent automatic controls which processed all fresh air, analyzed it and removed any harmful ingredients of its composition.

  I realized then that in very fact I had ceased to be a true Arkonide. I had taken on too many human habits.

  I pondered the matter further. Someone was familiar with the conditionings of my past and had logically arrived at a correct conclusion. He had been able to introduce the gas somewhere outside of my security screens, thus causing me to be dr
ugged. This was obvious even though I did not know whom to hold responsible for the act. The primary question was why he had done this. Moreover, Marshall's wounded condition clearly indicated that some unwelcome visitor had gotten into my operations room. But why and how?

  It could not have been some mere cutthroat or paid assassin or at least I was not yet convinced of this possibility. Had it been some thief or perhaps several of them? What was there here to steal? Besides, the living standards on the Crystal World had been so high that there had been no such thing as robbery for many centuries. The whole idea was false and impractical.

  So what had been the purpose of incapacitating me with gas? A true assassin would not have used this method or—if anything—he would have used a deadlier narcotic and been done with it. A groan from Marshall startled me from my lethargy. It served to shake off the last effects of the anesthetic and even the pressure from my extra-brain subsided.

  I tore away the burned material of his uniform and found that his shoulder wound was not as serious as I had expected. Apparently he had been grazed by the needle beam of a thermo-gun.

  Above my control console I finally saw the impact point. A valuable drapery had been burned. In the wall behind it gaped a hole the size of a fist which had been glazed by heat.

  I waited until Marshall's vision became clear. At last he sat up as abruptly as I had, myself, but then he sank back with another groan. I supported his head and attempted to reassure him.

  "OK, John, it's alright now. Do you hear me? We did it again—still all in one piece. In 24 hours we'll have that shoulder back in shape again. John, get with it, boy! Wake up! If you feel nauseated, let go. Apparently we were knocked out by some kind of gas. John, do you hear me...?"

  After a few moments his brain began to function. I could see it in his eyes, which had become bright and clear.

  With an effort he stammered: "Atlan... I—I got here too late. There were two of them. Men in white smocks or cloaks. Their brain impulses woke me up but by the time I came and opened the door I had already absorbed too much of the gas. I—Atlan, what happened?"

  I smiled at him and braced him up to a sitting position. As I did so, the movement brought his head to rest against my chest. According to Arkonide custom I was only wearing a loose nightgown. I had my first intimation of calamity when his expression appeared to become rigid with alarm. He slowly turned his head up to me so that I could gaze directly into his widened eyes.

  "What is it?" I asked quickly.

  "Sir, where—where is your cell activator?"

  I pushed him from me in order to feel of my chest. Where the egg-shaped activator had hung before there was nothing. It was then I knew why I had been gassed. I had a sudden impression of falling into an abyss. The sense of nausea came back. Weak and helpless, no longer in possession of myself, I yielded to the sickness and collapsed.

  I lay there for some time on the gleaming mosaic of the floor covering until I felt John's hand on my shoulder. All feeling seemed to have left me. I could not accept the reality that my life-supporting device was gone from me.

  "Don't lose control of yourself, sir," I heard him say. "You have to calm down, sir. We won't rest till we've found the activator again. The criminals can't have gotten very far. Contact the robot Brain at once and find out what spaceships may have taken off in the past few hours. We were unconscious about three hours. Before I was wounded I managed to check my watch. By that I can pinpoint the time of the raid exactly. Ask the Regent what ships left the planet in the last three hours. If none have left then the device must still be here. Issue an order to freeze all takeoffs and landings. That way we'll practically have the crooks in our hands."

  John Marshall appeared to be an expert psychologist. He realized that my state of collapse could not be remedied by ordinary words of consolation. So he had applied another and much more effective method. His quick analysis and cogent consideration of events did more for me than I at first realized.

  Hope surged back into me. If nothing else could be done I could at least take the initiative. I straightened up and noted that John had by now recovered from his queasiness.

  "Thanks, John," I said in a voice that was hoarse with excitement. "That's the answer. I don't know if you're aware of it or not but without the cell activator I'll only have about 60 hours at the most before the aging process will suddenly start and within a few days I'll be dead of old age. John, somebody was well aware that I didn't have to be assassinated directly. The theft of that device was an absolute guarantee that I would be eliminated in the shortest possible time."

  He studied me with narrowed eyes for awhile before he spoke again with a slow deliberation. "Who could have known that you possess such a device? Nobody on Arkon had any intimation of it. But that's beside the main point, sir. If anybody was informed about the vital function of the activator, which its theft now seems to indicate, then it wouldn't have been stolen without a good reason. I think we'll soon be receiving an ultimatum. Atlan, the Greater Imperium is at stake!"

  "An ultimatum?"

  "As sure as my name is Marshall. Sir, contact the robot Brain!"

  Five minutes later I knew that fully nine spaceships had left the planet during the three hours in question. The activator could have been on any one of them. I issued a command to the Brain to the effect that a thorough investigation should be made, using every means available, in order to determine the destination of each ship.

  There was nothing more that I could do at the moment. While we continued to ponder the situation and extrapolate every possible clue, I proceeded to take care of Marshall's shoulder wound. There were plenty of medications in an adjacent room. My medical knowledge was quite sufficient to enable me to clean the wound properly and spray it with the necessary amount of cell-regenerating plasma. Finally, a high-pressure injection relieved him of his pain.

  Before the Regent's new findings began to come in, the telepath had already put on a fresh uniform. I had also gotten dressed. We refrained from sounding an alarm because I knew very well that the dull officers of the palace guard wouldn't be able to help me anyway.

  Three minutes later the Regent contacted me over the special channel of the Imperator. There was nothing on the big viewscreen but a confused line tracing. I listened calmly. Five of the piloted ships were scheduled passenger vessels with distant destinations beyond the Arkon System. Fast cruisers of the robot fleet had already gone into transition in order to overtake the transports. The four other spacecraft were privately owned. All of them had since landed on Arkon 2, the planet of intercosmic commerce and private industry.

  "Do you wish further investigations to be initiated, Your Excellency?" inquired the greatest robot machine of the universe.

  I declined the offer, which brought a smile to John Marshall's face. He had guessed my thoughts this, time. I switched off the connection and turned around. Everything was quiet in the palace. It appeared that no one had any inkling of what had occurred. If there were any accomplices of the assassins here they would be able to detect any signs of rising unrest. I was sure that they had not counted on my typically Terranian method of handling the situation. Any normal Arkonide, at least any of those in the present era, would have panicked immediately and sounded the alarm.

  I went over to a regulating switch and dimmed the lights further. My panoramic energy screen could block reflections so that no glimmering of light from the inside could be seen beyond it, anyway.

  "Somewhere in the palace somebody's going to be on pins and needles, waiting for my call for help," I said. "So we won't do any favors for whoever it may be. It would be an absolute mess if I were to authorize the guards to start investigating. At least I've learned that much in the meantime!"

  "My sentiments exactly, sir."

  "Hm-m... so in view of all this, John, what would you advise?" I looked straight into his intelligent eyes until he calmly replied.

  "Sir, after Perry Rhodan sent me here from the planet Wanderer as
your liaison officer, he returned to Earth where he has been for the past few days. I would urgently advise you to put in an immediate request for help from the Mutant Corps. We are the only ones who can find the activator again."

  "Do you mean that I should invoke the treaty that I signed with Rhodan? Everybody helps everybody?"

  "No sir, I wasn't referring to that. I mean that you should turn to Perry Rhodan as your friend, not as the Administrator of the Solar Empire."

  "Friend... How good that sounds!" I said to myself, deeply moved. "John, I'll do it. If I don't find that device again within the next 60 hours, my long life will be at an end. Perhaps I should let it come to that."

  "And the Imperium, Admiral Atlan?"

  There was a sharp sound to the remark. Also, he had addressed me as Admiral. I looked at him ironically. "Don't be so self-effacing, Marshall! You know very well that with my death the Earth would be lost. Or do you perhaps assume that with my demise the fully reactivated robot Brain will overlook such an obvious threat as Terra once proved to be? If I cease to exist, within a matter of days you would see 10,000 or more battleships emerging from hyperspace, intent upon subjugating humanity or destroying it entirely. On that point I think we are in agreement, wouldn't you say?"

  "Completely, sir," replied Marshall, somewhat crestfallen.

  "Good! I value your frankness, John. That's something I don't seem to find on Arkon any more. To be even more candid, I might add that I have no particular desire to die, at least not with the present situation as it is. So let's put in a call to Rhodan. He will appreciate at once that in his own interests he had better show up with all his mutants. Terra isn't strong enough yet to face up to a major space attack. That is why I have nothing against the further development of humanity.

  When and as I can, I'll still continue to be your protecting shield."

  "We know that, sir."

  I had finally recovered from my shock over the theft. A few moments later I contacted the giant positronic Brain and ordered it to establish communication with the interstellar radio station in Terrania. Ever since the unsuccessful attack by a Druuf fleet against the Solar System, the Regent had known where to locate the Earth, which had previously been so enshrouded in secrecy. On Arkon 3, the war planet and home of the Fleet, I knew that by now the mightiest directional beams of the galaxy would be swinging toward a certain sector of space.