Red Eye of Betelguese Read online

  "Before we take up guard duty here, you—ah—wanted to look over the fourth planet," suggested McClears. "Do you think it's necessary that I come along? Or do you think maybe it'll be better for me to stay here with the Terra?"

  Deringhouse considered this for a moment and then nodded. "Maybe it's not a bad idea if we separate just now," he admitted. "I'll be back in 20 hours. I don't think it'll be necessary to spend any more time looking at that water world. As soon as any Springer ship appears in this system, we'll meet at Terra 2 and carry on according to plan. Our Com stations will remain in contact with each other."

  McClears breathed an obvious sigh of relief. "In the meanwhile, I can take more time to look over Terra 2." It seemed almost as though he were consoling Deringhouse. "As soon as you return, you'll receive a detailed report. Do you think it's necessary to set up a base?"

  "On Terra 2?" Deringhouse shook his head. "No, that will not be necessary. If the Springers attack, they must not catch us on the surface of the planet. That would be too dangerous." He pondered the question a moment. "If you want to, you can launch a Gazelle class scoutship. It'll be better for you to remain, however, out in space with the Terra. Do you go along with my thinking?"

  McClears indicated his agreement. After an exchange of further instructions, information and good advice, Deringhouse made his departure and put the Centurion on a new course. He broke through the thick cloud cover of the third planet and hurtled outward into space.

  The first short hypertransition brought the ship into a position from which both planets in question could be laterally on either side of the giant sun. On the right, the brightly gleaming cloud cover of Terra 2 could be seen, while to the left the 4th planet shimmered in an almost unnatural blue-rose light. The planet hovered in the vastness of the void like a drop of sea-water.

  While the nav-computer calculated the coordinates for a second hypertransition, Deringhouse regarded this giant 'water drop'. Beside him sat John Marshall while Capt. Lamanche busied himself with the controls.

  "It has a pleasant appearance," remarked Marshall, who was reflecting the Major's thoughts.

  Deringhouse nodded. "It's like a blue diamond, irradiated by a reddish light—a magnificent sight. A name like Betelgeuse 4 sounds a little too prosaic for such a wonder of the universe. How about calling it Akvomondo?"

  "The Water World? Why not? The name certainly fits."

  "So, Akvo it is!" said Deringhouse. "I'm anxious to see what we will find there."

  "Probably water," peeped a thin little voice, somewhat timorously, out of a corner of the control room.

  Deringhouse turned slowly toward the source of this voice, trying to accustom his eyes to the semi-darkness there, but John Marshall had whirled around as though bitten by a snake. Pucky crouched in the corner and manufactured an embarrassed grin with his single incisor tooth, the while his soft brown eyes

  seemed to smile imploringly, as though asking for forgiveness.

  "You!" gasped Deringhouse and almost fell out of his seat.

  "Yes, I," confirmed Pucky, and turned his attention to John Marshall, who was still sitting motionless, staring at this unexpected apparition. "Don't forget to take in some air, Johnny. The human body can't hold out much longer than 3 minutes without oxygen—and it would be a pity to cause you to—"

  "How did you get here?"

  Pucky leaned back and supported himself against the bulkhead, visibly relieved. "You may not be ready for this but I came here on board the Centurion."

  "Now don't talk nonsense, Pucky. I brought 9 people with me from the Corps. You were not among them."

  "Actually, you brought 10 with you but you didn't know it," the mouse-beaver lamely explained. "Naturally, Rhodan doesn't know anything about it, either. He's going to be thunderstruck when he finds out."

  Marshall got up slowly and walked over to Pucky. "I'm afraid you're going to be struck with more than thunder, my disobedient little friend. Do you always have to go against regulations? So you sneaked on board.—When did you do it?"

  "Sneaked is not the correct expression—I naturally teleported on board while you were still in Terrania. This is the first time I've had the nerve to show myself. You aren't really mad at me, are you, John?"

  Marshall stared at the miscreant, who pleaded with his brown, hound-dog eyes. His rusty brown pelt lay flat against him, which demonstrated his peaceful attitude. The incisor tooth had long since disappeared behind the lips of his sharp snout. Pucky was not grinning any more, which could mean almost anything.

  It was difficult for Marshall to keep a straight face. "You'll have to settle this with Rhodan, Pucky. He's the one who will have to punish you for your insubordination. I can't even put you in irons, because how can you imprison a teleporter?"

  "Yes—ah—I've already asked myself that," Pucky murmured softly.

  Marshall swallowed almost convulsively. Deringhouse let out a really weird groan and then turned again to the viewing screen, as if he would have nothing more to do with the entire affair. The mouse-beaver belonged to the Mutant Corps, which was led by Marshall. Therefore, Pucky was Marshall's concern.

  "Very well," sighed the telepath. "We will hold this situation in abeyance until Rhodan decides what is to be done. I'm afraid you're going to have to be taught a lesson."

  "If I can make myself useful here, maybe it won't go so badly," said Pucky, hopefully, with a return of his usual self-confidence. He hopped forward a few steps and looked past Deringhouse at the viewscreen. "So that's the 4th planet. What's the matter with it?"

  "Nothing is wrong with it!" Deringhouse turned and looked angrily at Pucky. "What's supposed to be wrong with it?"

  Startled, the mouse-beaver drew back. "I only thought..." he chirped, "because you were staring at it so—" Pucky had an ingenuous habit of butting into all things and all places without regard to rank or age. He may have justified the habit on the basis of the fact that everyone treated him that way—because after all it seldom occurred to anyone to say "excuse me" to a mouse-beaver, or "sir" or "if you please..."

  "I happen to be pondering over it," said Deringhouse, reprimandingly. "And I'm waiting for the go ahead for our next hypertransit. I do presume that it is still permissible to reflect, ponder and deliberate, or—?"

  Pucky stood his ground. He glanced briefly at Marshall. "Oh, it's permissible, alright, Major, although it has been the cause of a great deal of folly and nonsense, as is certainly borne out by human history, which I had the more or less dubious pleasure of studying while I was on the Earth, in order to—"

  "Knock it off!" shouted Deringhouse. "Who's been teaching you that soapbox elocution? I don't think you ever intended to end that sentence."

  "Well, that's the way Bell always talks when he wants to express himself properly," replied the mouse-beaver defensively. "Naturally, he has also imparted other things to me, but—"

  "Yes, I've heard about them," mumbled Deringhouse, and concentrated once more on the viewscreen. "Bell isn't the highest man of letters and he's about as subtle as a bull."

  For a moment, Pucky appeared to be somewhat perplexed. Then his incisor tooth gleamed briefly as he hopped back into the corner of the room, avoiding Marshall by a wide margin.

  The telepath looked at him in mock sympathy. "I wouldn't want to be in your skin, Pucky, if Rhodan shows up here. This time he would hardly be as lenient with you as he was on Aralon."

  "He'll practice a little leniency, alright," growled Pucky with an unusually deep tone of voice, "if I save all of you from certain destruction." He balled himself together on the deck as if ready to go to sleep. "The way I see it, it won't be hard for us to fall into some dangerous trap, and then you may find me to be very useful." Having spoken his piece, he closed his eyes.

  Marshall stared down at him for a few seconds, then sighed and returned to his seat next to the controls. Lamanche, meanwhile, had been wise enough to stay out of the situation, choosing not to add to the demoralization of either side.


  "Well, Deringhouse, what do you say? Do you think we'd better notify Rhodan about this? Maybe they've noticed Pucky is missing back home and they'll be worried about him."

  A heartfelt sigh emerged from the corner.

  Deringhouse winked at Marshall. "Worried? Who could possibly worry about such a disobedient mouse-beaver? I'll bet you no one has even missed him. It won't even occur to anybody that he isn't around any more."

  "Huh?" The question emerged from the corner, slightly restrained but nevertheless audible.

  "That's right" retorted Deringhouse, who was playing his ace card now. "No one is going to miss you."

  Pucky waddled forward out of the corner, his incisor tooth gleaming in an expression of new challenge and enterprise. Before Deringhouse, the mouse-beaver drew himself up to his full height. "So, you say nobody will miss me? And would you like to make a bet on it? Good! Let's make a wager! Let's say—for

  200 carrots and 3 hours of back-scratching... "

  "For... 3 hours—what?" Deringhouse appeared to be completely at a loss.

  "Quite simple: scratching my back, preferably at the nape of my neck," explained the mouse-beaver pleasantly. "I submit myself to it sometimes as much as a half hour at a time. I remember once that Bell was stuck for 5 hours—"

  "Yes, I also heard about that," the Major interrupted him, while running a hand through his sparse hair, "but I'm not taken in by your tricks so easily. You bet with anybody you please but not with me!" He turned to Lamanche. "Well, what do you say? Are we ready?"

  "The coordinates have been established," said the Frenchman. "We can transit."

  Pucky hopped back into his corner. When the opportunity presented itself, he would remind Deringhouse of the wager...

  • • •

  As they emerged from hyperspace and returned to the more trustworthy space-time continuum, the planet Akvo was hardly two light-minutes distant from them. The instantly-activated deceleration strongly reduced the flight velocity of the Centurion. Deringhouse cut in his manual override in order to have the ship completely in his control.

  The blue planet continued to grow in size. Its appearance was strangely unique. It did, in very fact, appear to be one giant drop of water, floating weightlessly in the universe and illuminated by a giant rose-colored lamp. By now, Betelgeuse had acquired the apparent diameter of Earth's own sun but it was billions of miles removed. It's light required many hours to traverse the intervening distance.

  Deringhouse switched on the intercom and established a connection with the ship's laboratory. "Meier! This is Control Central. During our approach flight to this planetary body ahead of us, I want you to set up a complete instrumental probe. I need the constitution of the atmosphere, the rotation data as well as the orbital data and the annual and seasonal data that's related to it. Shoot me the results up here as fast as you can."

  "Wilco, Commander!" came the answer.

  Deringhouse cut off and turned to Marshall. "I'm anxious to see those results."

  The telepath waved his hand in a questioning gesture. "Major, I don't quite understand your interest in this planet. You're the commander and I shouldn't mix into your affairs but if you permit me the question—why are you so interested in this fourth planet when our assignment is supposed to be concerned with decoying the Springers into a destruction of the third one?"

  "It may be nothing but curiosity," admitted Deringhouse. "But I'm also thinking of our own security. The first observations ever made of the Betelgeuse system only bring up the possibility of two planets having intelligent life—the third and the fourth. If the third is doomed to destruction, I'd like to know at least if the fourth one might be suitable for later operations. I think you can understand that, Marshall. It adds up to this: our overall safety and security demands that we become as completely informed as possible concerning conditions in this system. I believe I can accept the responsibility for the slight delay involved. We won't miss the main action. If the Springers show up, we'll be informed immediately by McClears."

  The telepath was able to observe that Deringhouse spoke exactly what was in his mind. He nodded slowly. "I'm in accord with you, Major. Do you also intend to land on Akvo?"

  "That depends on the circumstances. If we pick up any signs of intelligent life, I will naturally attempt to establish a communication." A buzzer sounded. "Excuse me—that's the lab. We'll know in a few moments now what the conditions are on Akvo." He pressed a switch and announced: "Control Central."

  "Meier here, laboratory. Results as far as we've gone are as follows: the 4th planet has a 48-hour day, the orbital revolution around Betelgeuse requires 270 Earth-years, change of seasons is consequently almost unnoticeably slow, and is insignificant, anyway, because hardly any ecliptic angle is measurable. The atmosphere is breathable. It's a little light on oxygen, and steamy. One landmass about the size of Europe is the only continent and then there are a number of smaller islands. Otherwise, the surface consists entirely of water. The ocean is not

  particularly deep. That's about all of it at the moment.

  "Thank you, Meier."

  Deringhouse remained silent for awhile and stared at the videoscreen. The bluish planet had become larger and now almost filled the entire field of vision. In the reddish sunshine the outlines of the single land surface stood out plainly and seemed to lie in lonely isolation on the great watery waste of the planet. If there were intelligences there, they would have to live principally from the sea and its products. Ship navigation would be extremely limited because why cross the sea if there was no shore to reach? A completely unknown type of civilization must have developed itself here. Deringhouse was extremely curious about it.

  He finally made a decision. "We'll look for a good landing place on the continent. They could hardly know anything about space travel here."

  "Who do you mean—they?" asked Marshall, pointedly.

  He did not receive an answer...

  The Centurion circumnavigated the water planet one time. Flying very low, it swept along over the endless blue wastes and then once more approached the coastline of the continent. Isolated advanced archipelagos failed to show the slightest trace of civilization. Overgrown with dense forests, they were reminiscent of the paradise islands of Earthly southern seas. Wide-sweeping sandy inlets and bays invited one to tarry awhile but Deringhouse was not in the least inclined at the moment to take a holiday. What he was searching for was alien intelligences. Akvo could not be without life.

  The first evidence that appeared to support Deringhouse's contention was a low-profile dome-like structure located in the immediate vicinity of the coast, not more than a mile from the beach. The water must have been very calm at this location because the sea bottom could be seen quite clearly. The upper portion of the cupola structure rose out of the water, revealing a platform and balustrade. Porthole-like windows encircled the building, the bottom half of which lay under the water and certainly reached the ocean floor.

  The Centurion slowed its flight.

  Deringhouse stared at the phenomenon. "Well, now!" was all he could think of to say at the moment.

  John Marshall joined him in observing the dome-shaped structure. As usual, Lamanche remained unmoved by the event. He tended the controls and made sure that the heavy cruiser remained on its course.

  "A noteworthy development!" observed the telepath. "What I can't figure out is why they built that thing in the water when they have plenty of room there on the land."

  Deringhouse looked ahead at the nearby coast. "You've got a point there. There's nothing like this that I can recognize on land. At the least I would have expected a city at a location like this but I only see primeval forest and a coastline made up partly of sand and partly of rocky headlands—but otherwise, nothing. It's peculiar, really—very peculiar..."

  The domed structure fell behind them as they arrived at the coast and followed it a few miles. Beneath them lay nothing but untouched land, which did not reveal any sign of a
rtificial or synthetic development. The terrain ascended gently, showing low mountain chains, broad river valleys, giant prairies and savannas and endless forests. But no signs of a civilization could be discovered.

  "That's very strange," said Deringhouse, expressing his thoughts aloud as though to himself. "There's only one continent on this planet and you'd think the inhabitants would have used up every square foot of land by now. You'd expect to see throngs of people down there, like in our capital cities. And what do we find? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Where are these characters hiding themselves?"

  "If we hadn't seen that cupola back there, I'd swear the place was uninhabited," remarked Marshall.

  "The cupola, however, does exist," said Deringhouse pointedly. "There's life on Akvo, that's certain. And we're going to find it."

  Having expressed himself, he leaned back as though lost in his own reflections, and this suited Marshall. He gave Lamanche a friendly nod as he left the Control Central. Behind him waddled Pucky, who had read his thoughts. Marshall took the shortest route into that part of the ship where the other 9 mutants were quartered.

  The door of the Control Central had hardly closed when Deringhouse stirred out of his mental preoccupation. Without removing his gaze from the videoscreen, he leaned forward abruptly and said to his first officer, "What is your assessment, Lamanche?"

  The Frenchman absently swept his hand across several controls on the console before him. He shrugged his shoulders and then expressed himself somewhat guardedly. "We don't know yet what that cupola is. For all we know, it could be a wrecked spaceship—we haven't yet taken a good look at that thing. It would support my own theory that there isn't any intelligent life here."

  This explanation did not seem to satisfy Deringhouse at all. He snorted disdainfully. "A wrecked spaceship—hah! The cupola is a building. That's for certain. The only remaining question is, why—" He became silent suddenly. Lamanche looked up and followed the gaze of his commander.