Man and Monster Read online

  "Looks like he's snapped out of his lousy mood!" Tanner whispered hastily.

  Everson's eyes became brightly alert. His survey was short but penetrating. "Okay… what's been done was necessary. it took a lot out of him. What does Dr. Certch want?"

  Tanner glanced searchingly across at the eccentric little man with the enormous bald head.

  Dr. Orson Certch had chosen the most unusual of professions in the New Science. There had always been psychologists but such people were concerned with the inner life of Man. Certch was also a psychologist but he concerned himself with the highly speculative subject of the 'thoughts and emotional disposition' of robots.

  Everson shook his ponderous head in amazement, which caused his fleshy cheeks to ripple. "Some people have a lot of nerve!" he growled.

  Rhodan sidestepped the scurrying creature approaching in fall flight. With a slight double take, Dr. Certch made an about face in order to approach the Commander again with rigidly upheld cranium and pontifically outstretched finger.

  "I'm very glad to see you, sir!" he shrilled in his high-pitched voice. "I must talk to you immediately, absolutely, without fail!"

  His small, wizened hand jerked with spasmodic and incredible swiftness over the numerous outer pockets of his uniform. Finally Certch found his data tucked behind his broad all-purpose belt. The robot psychologist only came up to Rhodan's breastbone but if anyone could definitely predict the actions of an inhuman machine, it was this little man with the mighty, bald cranium.

  "Please come now!" Certch insisted, after he had already taken a seat and gotten up 3 times.

  But finally Rhodan sat down on a folding seat behind the big calculator in B-Sector. With his choppy manner of speaking, Certch was capable of bringing all people around him to a state of despair. Rhodan began to feel uneasy. Certch was a type of person who interpreted the relationship between a commanding officer and his coworkers as a sort of competitive friendship.

  "Khrest has submitted a calculation request," shrilled Certch. "Interesting! And also dangerous! Hear me out, sir. If you fly to Arkon as planned, we will be in for a surprise. The Robot will strike and it will be swifter and more painful than we imagine!"

  Rhodan's fleeting smile disappeared. He was suddenly sharply alert, his eyes blazing a question. Certch dropped his gaze in a moment of confusion, then suddenly jerked back his prodigious cranium again and his index finger shot forward.

  "So—you would like to know why? Very well—it's relatively simple even for a layman. We have 700 sick crewmen on board, including your Mutant Corps. In the first place, a cure for them is impossible. Considering the fact that there is also no cure to be had on Arkon, the Brain's reaction to that situation is foreseeable with 100% certainty! The Brain knows that for the most part your successes may be attributed to your use of the mutants. The Robot himself possesses battleships in the Titan class. Mechanical, purely mathematical and absolute logic will tell the Automaton that you, sir, have become useless or at the least of less value to him. Without your special resources you may be regarded as any

  other normal power. Is that clear?" Certch's eyes blinked nervously. Again Rhodan did not reply. "Alright, so it's clear. The only plus factors you have left in the logic flow of positronic computation lie in

  your faculty for swift decision. As for the possibility of secret weapons, the Robot will assume you have them. However, an assumption or supposition will not register in its computations as a negotiable item. So that brings us to your energy and enterprise. That will get you a classification somewhat above that of a Naat or some other intelligent life form. A desperately small margin to permit the risk of flying into the direct sphere of power of the robot brain. That would be the end! It's an alternative you shouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole: I can only warn you very urgently!"

  Certch hopped up with a scuttling movement from the seat. The spectacles disappeared from his large nose. "One moment!"

  The robot psychologist paused in midstep. Everson and Tanner looked across at the two dissimilar men. Tiff stood to one side with a white face. Suddenly a tense atmosphere settled over the large Command Center. Rhodan walked slowly over to the scientist and stopped squarely in front of him.

  "Doctor—inasmuch as I am also somewhat familiar with the workings of positronic logic, I presume that your evaluation of the giant brain's attitude rests solely on the hypothesis that no cure for the illness is available on Arkon…"

  "Correct!" the little man confirmed curtly. "What will happen if the sickness can be cured after all? And if the Robot knows about it?" "Situation change of 180° in our favor!" "Thank you very much, Doctor. Naturally you are quite aware of the fact that no such serum is known

  on Arkon. Fine, we don't have to argue that point. Let us take the darkest side of this case for granted. You are familiar with the Ulsterman Principle concerning the rating of transactions based on cybernetic computations?"

  Certch became suspicious. He appeared to be even smaller. "I am also familiar with it, so we will proceed accordingly. Capt. Everson!" The giant loomed up out of the pilot seat. The softness had gone from his face. "Transmit an order to the Medical Chief. I want Thora, Bell and 6 others from the infected crew to be

  changed to a lighter level of sleep. I want it possible to wake these 8 people up at any moment. That is all." Everson turned to the ship's intercom console. Dr. Certch was astounded. "What are you trying to do?" he asked, hoarsely.

  "To proceed in accordance with the Ulsterman Principle," Rhodan instructed him. "We will place 8 sick people on display. The rest of them will be concealed. Pucky and Sengu will see to it that the Brain receives a demonstration of their extraordinary capabilities. The Robot does not know that we have taken over 800 new personnel. Thanks to the screening capability of the hyper-compensator, Freyt's fast expedition to Earth has remained undetected. We owe that to the Galactic Traders, who developed this very super gadget. So—we started out with 700 men and with 700 we return. A clear case, don't you think? We put 8 sick patients on exhibit. They would certainly be too inconsequential to be considered a factor in the overall evaluation of our worthiness as an ally. At the same time we can determine whether or not a cure is available. Dr. Certch, show me any snags that I may have overlooked."

  The scientist hesitated, then came his question: "Are you absolutely certain that the Ganymede was not positioned? You know, because of the resulting space warps, transitions through hyperspace can be detected and measured."

  "We're well aware of that! The compensator absolutely prevents any detection of hyperspace jumps. Where's the snag?"

  "None there," grumbled Certch. "Not under those suppositions. But you have to take care that the Titan isn't subjected to a full inspection. The 8 sick people are not an essential factor. Alright—if I were a robot, I would not wish to have you as an enemy. I'll run this through the calculator again."

  Rhodan stared after the little man as he hurried away from him, and he shouted, "Many thanks for the warning, Doctor!"

  With a weak laugh, Certch disappeared.

  "Everson, we start in 10 minutes. You lift the ship off. Tiff, message to Freyt: he will take off one minute before us.

  Rhodan remained behind the First Officer's seat to monitor Everson's instructions. Chief Engineer Garand made a brief appearance on the viewscreen, his chubby face streaming with sweat. The ready-signals from individual stations were coming in. Freyt's confirmation came through.

  9 minutes later the Ganymede came to life on the screens. The space battleship, 600 feet in diameter and standing 2500 feet high on its giant tail fins, was a little under 2 miles away. The fiery hurricane that broke out of its stern tubes converted the dust-dry, rocky wasteland into a boiling crater. Freyt had not bothered with the particle-deflection fields. On Honur there was nothing to destroy.

  The infernal thundering of an Armageddon roared out of the sound-system speakers. The mighty cylindrical ship lifted upward with a deliberate slowness at first. The hot impu
lse-stream of the propulsion engines became bluish, then violet and finally almost invisible. Then, darting like some leaping monster, the Ganymede shot into the sky. Deep, rolling peals of thunder shook the desolate landscape. Glowing, strangely luminescent air masses folded and crackled with lightning into the vacuum that the Ganymede had created with its gargantuan liftoff. A howling hurricane was generated out of a clear sky. It swept up molten rocks with it, only to hurl them somewhere against the earth with tremendous turbulence.

  The battleship had disappeared.

  The takeoff of the many times larger Titan was but an intensification of unchained forces almost to the infinite. The 18 giant propulsion engines in the equatorial ring bulge of the mile-thick sphere converted the flat desert into a sea of lava. The men left the planet of an alien dwarf star with the storming ardor of careless gods. Their blastoff acceleration brought them to the fringe of space within 4 seconds.

  In their wake were air masses in giant upheaval and below were bubbling landmasses. They also left behind them the funny little animals called Nonues.

  But the men had taken with them their cares and worries. Exactly 10 minutes after diving into outer space, both ships attained the relative speed of light. The programming of the hypertransition computers had been completed. Arkon, center star of the Greater Empire, lay 47 light-years away…

  Perry Rhodan had given the instruction to carry out their transition through fifth-dimensional hyperspace in the normal manner. This meant they would be generating a clearly detectable space warp.

  "If only we're not jumping from the frying pan into the fire!" mumbled Marcus Everson to himself before he was gripped by the forces of the dematerialization field and was attenuated into material unreality.

  The red dwarf star Thatrel became a glimmering disk… then disappeared.

  3/ THE NEXT MOVE: TO MOOFF 6

  Arkon—symbol of power, heart of the Greater Empire and home world of the anthropomorphous Arkonides. Through the unprecedented sternness and purposeful initiative of a gigantic robot brain, Arkon had become once again what it had always been before: the central ruling power of the known galaxy.

  The emergence of the 2 giant ships into normal space had been a routine and matter-of-fact occurrence by Arkonide standards. Here at the hub center from which all cosmic commerce had expanded, an incredible volume of traffic was carried on.

  Nevertheless, Rhodan's ships were immediately detected and located. The 5000, space fortresses in the outer defense ring had demanded the latest recognition code through their data links. Since the instantaneous transponders on the Titan and Ganymede were only keyed for an outmoded response, an automatic communication linkage was made directly to the robot brain on Arkon III.

  The first surprise had come immediately after establishing the communications link. The vast automaton, which called itself Great Coordinator or Regent, had authorized the flight of the two battleships into the Inner System. Besides, Rhodan had learned that since 5 days ago, by corresponding standard time of Arkon II, this planet that had been intended for the galactic interchange of goods, had been declared an open port once more.

  This was a piece of news that led to a burst of speculations on board the Titan. When Perry Rhodan penetrated the Arkon System the first time, the ruling macro-robot had jealously guarded against their flight to any of the 3 Arkonide worlds. In the meantime, it appeared that the manifestations of Arkonide decadence had been so widely hushed up that the Brain, without too much loss of prestige, could take the chance of granting the traditional landing permits to the countless space-traveling races of the Milky Way.

  They passed inside the orbit of the 5th planet of the sun of Arkon. Again, a code signal was demanded. The two battleships were directed into interplanetary flight-approach channel 32-17, a precaution that was mandatory in view of the heavy spaceship traffic in the area.

  "Bogies in green and 92," came a droning announcement over the speakers. "Large spacecraft, battleships of the Empire Class, 3 units…"

  Marcus Everson, functioning just now as second pilot, jerked his head around. Apprehensively, he sought Rhodan's eye. "Empire Class!" snorted the Captain.

  "Our escort cover. All hands will remain calm, no show of excitement now. Attention, all members of the new crew: don't be tricked into any premature action! During our first visit here, things were a lot worse. We were practically forced to land on the 5th planet. In the meantime, we've made a certain arrangement with the robot brain. Don't worry about the 3 units of the Arkon Fleet! No armed ship may enter here without immediate escort. Purely a self-preservation program of the Brain—okay?"

  Rhodan's chuckle was heard over the speaker system. Nervous crewmen exchanged glances. Tanner, who was functioning for the moment as Chief Gunner, hesitantly withdrew his fingers from the weapons keyboard.

  "Remember—no boo-boos!" Rhodan admonished.

  "Ships accommodating us into escort formation," reported Tifflor from the tracking station.

  The observation computer switched connections. The 3 brilliantly lit vessels appeared on the screens of Green Sector.

  "Man! Three spacers of the Empire Class!" whispered Everson. "Sir, are they robot-manned…?"

  "Not exclusively any more. A few months ago, the Brain was sold on strict remote control. Which was a break for us. If at that time the Regent had been able to use capable, really thinking crews, we'd hardly have been able to get away with stealing the Titan."

  Everson swallowed hard. A shadow of uncertainty touched the Commander's face.

  Rhodan did not concern himself further with the 3 giant escort ships, which until a short while ago had been considered the largest of their kind in existence. Meanwhile, the Arkon fleet modernization program had produced the Universe Class, just short of one mile in diameter. The Titan belonged to this latest class.

  Rhodan had a slight touch of uneasiness when he recalled his foolhardy undertaking. Equipped only with the Ganymede, which was a peanut, by Arkonide standards, they had flown merrily and recklessly into a star system whose inhabitants had understood faster-than-light space travel when humankind still lived in caves. Rhodan had decided on the Arkon flight in hopes of finding help against the increasingly acute threat of the Springers. And not the least of pressures in this direction were the importunities of Khrest and Thora, who after 13 years of absence desired to return home.

  No one had been able to foresee that the Arkonide emperor had been dethroned 6 years before. Still further from anyone's imagining was the concept of a take-over of rulership of the Arkonide Empire by the giant robot brain.

  Rhodan had been forced to land on the inhospitable planet #5, which he then had left in a scoutship against the instructions of the Brain. On Arkon I, the crystal world, he had not been able to find help. But an admiral of the deposed emperor, who still had an active mentality, had brought him together with his 50 Right commandos to Arkon III, where he was received as an 'auxiliary' taskforce.

  The flight with the brand new Titan had been a trick. The hypertransition over 3 light-years had insured escape. Then came the unintended landing on Zalit, whose dictatorial ruler was of a mind to use Perry Rhodan as an ally in a plan to overcome the powerfully rising robot brain. Rhodan had secretly switched plans when he discovered that the inhabitants of the planet Zalit were under the mental control of jellyfish-like creatures equipped with telepathic and hypnotic faculties—whom Khrest called Mooffs.

  A bitter battle had broken out, which because of its favorable outcome had resulted in Rhodan's recognition by the robot brain. The Robot had simply sought, as a direct consequence, to enlist Rhodan as one of its allies. It was a purely logical transaction, since the Machine did not have too much support from organic life forms. Rhodan had blocked off the danger from the Mooffs and had retained the Titan more or less as his part of the 'loot' out of the overall adventure.

  This had been the resulting situation finally leading Rhodan to the dispatch of Col. Freyt in the Ganymede to Earth, in vi
ew of the fact that his newly-acquired space giant was under-manned with only 700 men. Then on the planet Honur, where they were going to wait quietly for the new men from Terra, the crew's poisoning by the secretive beings there had ensued.

  Now they were making their second flight into the Arkon System. But Rhodan was extremely uneasy over the fact that his best and most experienced people had become ill. The robot brain's reactions could result in catastrophe from the moment it became aware that the mutants were no longer capable of service. Rhodan gambled everything on one card.

  As two Arkon worlds came into view on the screens of the trans-light-speed ultra-scanners, he was reminded of the monstrous Mooffs. That was an affair that everyone had totally neglected because of the surprising events on Honur.

  Just as he was thinking of this, the robot psychologist Dr. Certch flashed onto the video intercom. "This is Certch speaking!" he announced himself superfluously. "I have new data, sir. Are you clear on the fact that the Robot will classify our adventures as insignificant? Naturally he would not do so if he were informed of the existence of about 700 sick crewmen. But since you are only going to appear to be nursing 8 patients, the Brain is going to arrive at the conclusion that any top priority effort to obtain a cure for them is superfluous. It is of little consequence to him if 8 insignificant people die. Do you get my point?"

  "I was just dabbling a bit in that specific area."

  "Ah, wonderful! There was, on the other hand, this thing with the Mooffs. The Brain will give a top priority classification to an elimination of this danger. Recently you have brought out a proof of the fact that the insurrection of the Zalites is attributable to the uncanny influence of the Mooffs."

  "Right—and wrong," retorted Rhodan. "I have enlightened the Brain on this point, to the effect that the Mooffs were at no time operating under their own free will. This weird race of creatures, although intelligent, is limited in its physical form and need for a methane atmosphere, so it couldn't effectively become a part of galactic politics. Behind the Mooffs, are concealed other intelligences, who are misusing the ugly monsters."