Duel Under the Double Sun Page 3

  It took me a long time to conquer my mood of depression. I finally stepped into the cruiser's Control Central. I was the only person there because for me robots were not 'persons'. When one of them addressed me with the title of Imperator, something tightened inside me. Why couldn't they simply say "Atlan"-or as far as I was concerned, just "Sir"? Among humans I had taken it so much for granted.

  I bellowed at the machines around me but they only gave me their stereotyped smiles.

  "Your Eminence requires rest," said a plastic-clothed medorobot which had been especially constructed to watch over my health.

  I scolded it, using Terran words which I had first heard in the days of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Barbarossa. My photographic memory had not permitted me to forget them. I had accompanied Red Beard over the Alps on several campaigns and had sought to talk him out of his Italian policies. After the battle of Tusculum, I had given him an injection from my scanty provisions of Arkonide antibiotics but wasn't able to counteract the ravages of the plague. In 1177 a negotiated peace had been arranged in Venice with Pope Alexander. At the time I had thought of being able to found a world empire with the help of these two important men but it seemed that humans had not yet become mature enough for that.

  Somebody was nudging me urgently. I awakened from my reveries. My extra-brain had almost taken complete possession of me. Seconds went by before I realized where I was. The Control Central of an Arkonide robotship was no place for the vision of a red-bearded Kaiser.

  As I turned angrily toward the commanding robot, it took a step back from me. "Your Highness, there is a hypercom message. It is of top priority," the machine insisted.

  It was only then, I became aware of the shrilling of the callboard. My anger subsided as I hurried to the Com Room and switched on the receiver.

  The Regent immediately announced himself. "His Administrative Excellence, Perry Rhodan, wishes urgently to speak to Your Eminence. What shall I tell him?"

  The question was brief but it was more significant than the robot Brain realized. As my thoughts raced I felt a rising tension. What did the Terran want? Until now he had avoided asking for my advice. Actually it was only owing to Bell's decisiveness that I had even been able to contact Perry at all on the hypercom.

  "Attention-Imperator to Regent: ask the Administrator to be patient. Tell him I'm making a surveillance flight on board a robot cruiser and that I shall contact him shortly."

  "Understood, Your Highness. I shall keep this channel open and stand by."

  The scanning lines formed a red triangle. I knew I could rely upon the Brain.

  I called Allan D. Mercant on the normal video band. He appeared to be astonished. The Atlantis was ready for takeoff.

  "Don't ask questions, Mercant," I cut in swiftly. "Rhodan wants to talk to me. Delay your takeoff and listen in on what he has to say."

  "What-Perry...?!" somebody exclaimed beside him, and then Bell's face came onto my screen. "He called you? I don't get it. What's wrong?"

  "I don't know that yet. The Regent is letting on that he can't locate me yet. Rhodan is waiting. Apparently he's using Terrania's main transmitter. Stand by at your receiver and I'll transfer the incoming hypercom to you on the normal video band."

  "He mustn't find out that we're here."

  I nodded and moved away from the pickup camera. The ship's central computer robot made the channel conversions so that the crew of the Atlantis could listen in. I gave instructions to the robot Brain on Arkon 3 to pick up the incoming transmission from the Earth, to decode it, amplify it again and beam it out to my cruiser. There was no better relay station in the galaxy. Although the Arkon System was relatively close, the Brain had 10 million kilowatts of broadcast power at its disposal.

  "The message is not coded," explained the Regent before he switched over.

  This news was anything but reassuring to me. I had always known Perry Rhodan to be far-sighted and cautious. He had never sent even the most innocuous or unimportant message before without using pulse-burst coding and a scrambler. So this made me think that there was more involved here than just a message across an abyss of more than 43,000 light-years.

  I attempted to pull myself together as I took a seat in front of the hypercom console. The outlines of a human figure took shape on the screen. I waited until the Regent had made the proper adjustments for clarity. Then I was looking into a part of the main Terranian transmitter station and everything was so clear that I might as well have been physically present in the room. I did not recognize the officer who first appeared. He asked me to hold on for "just a moment" because the Administrator was temporarily occupied.

  "Carry on, Major," I answered. "I'll wait!"

  I turned to look at a separate viewscreen which could not be seen by anyone in Terrania. There were the faces of Mercant and Bell, who nodded to me wordlessly. Apparently they were now in a position to listen in.

  This transmission is costing hundreds of thousands, announced my logic sector.

  I became angry at the unnecessary remark. Naturally the required expenditure of power for such a trans-stellar message was not going to be cheap.

  A few minutes later I was aware of strange noises. It sounded something like the death-rattle of a dying animal or-yes, that was it-the heavy panting of overfed monsters such as I had hunted on many a primitive world. My eyes began to water, which for an Arkonide was a sign of high agitation. But I realized that I must not show any signs of my reactions. I forced a smile onto my face and checked my expression in the reflecting surface of a blank viewscreen. I resolved to keep the smile going, no matter what happened.

  A deformed figure loomed into the wide-angled optic's range of vision. I closed my eyes briefly only to open them wide again. I saw a monstrosity, a gigantic figure which could hardly be called human anymore. A bloated face came into view in which nothing was normal with the possible exception of the eyes. They had not become distended or spongy like the rest of the bodily tissue.

  But they were terrible eyes, no longer the ones I had known and held so dear. They had lost their grey-green sparkle of irony. Now they were a baleful yellow with the predatory look of a wolf-over-bright, filled with a nervous quick movement and devoid of any trace of feeling.

  The owner of these eyes was, impossibly, Perry Rhodan!

  The pickup microphones in the Terranian station seemed to be supersensitive. I heard the thud of the body as it settled into the seat before the screen. Mighty hands became visible which were also deformed and grossly porous looking.

  So this was what my friend had become! This was the man whose dry humor I had learned to treasure as much as his warlike severity. Now all I saw in him was a horror of dissolution.

  "Hello?" came the first word from my speaker. "Atlan? Is that you? No imitation?"

  "The genuine article, little Barbarian," I answered hesitantly.

  His face contorted into a scowling grimace and without reason he shouted curses at me. "...and I'll not stand for your impudent form of address! Let's get it clear right now who is the mightiest here, little admiral king of the robots! Or is there something else you can show for yourself? Bare your chest! Did you hear me? You will show me your cell activator!"

  By this time he was acting like a madman. I saw his giant fists strike against the shielded pickup camera in blind rage. I sat there in frozen shock. I had not imagined that his mental deterioration had come to this point although Manoli had told me I must prepare myself for anything.

  I tried to convince myself that any consideration at this point would be inappropriate. This man could only be restrained with harsh words and massive threats. But then I realized how false such a procedure would be. Let him insult me, I thought, let him rage. There was still a possibility of helping him. I pulled down the mag-zipper of my uniform and tore open my undershirt. I knew this would enable him to see the cell activator hanging on my naked chest.

  He became silent immediately. The balled fists disappeared. The distorted face
appeared again. He stared entranced at the device. His parted lips were trembling. "That... that's really your activator?"

  "Yes, friend, you are looking at it."

  I couldn't smile any longer. Still apparently out of his mind, Rhodan dropped his huge head into his arms and sobbed. It was agonizing for me to see him in this condition. I decided there would be no skirmish of words. Only a few moments before I had been ready to tell him that he was not the mightiest in the universe. Instead I spoke rapidly in order to calm him down. "Friend, are you looking for the planet Trakarat? Rest your mind-I have found it."

  Never in my life had I heard such an outcry nor had I ever seen such a desperate hope in another man's eyes. And I had seen much suffering and dying in my time. He had raised up with his mouth gaping wide and seemed ready to crawl right into the hypercom optics. "Where... where is it located?"

  "Right after we're through here the Regent will transmit the data to you immediately. I'm in the process of checking out the information from the Akons. No-now get hold of yourself and listen! It wasn't treason to contact them because only the Akons could know where the double sun of Aptut was to be found."

  "That's immaterial!" he shouted. "Are the coordinates valid? I don't care where you got them! Are they the right ones? Man-you answer me!"

  He started to fume again but I became calmer. "They are correct. The Regent is working out the Akon details in two directions-one set related to Terran requirements and one for my own."

  "How long will it take? I demand on the basis of our alliance that you back me up with every available unit of your fleet! When will the data get here? I'll take off at once!"

  I answered him in a sharper tone than I had intended. "You will wait for my signal or you'll make the attack alone!"

  He did not start raving again but I would never be able to forget the malicious look he gave me. Finally he even smiled and I had to close my eyes. "Not a very pleasant sight, am I?"

  I looked at him again. "At the moment that's not important. I need about 24 hours to get the Arkonide Fleet under way. Even if I wanted to I can't move any faster than that. By then you will have received the necessary data for a rendezvous point. What are you using as your flagship?"

  "The Ironduke. I demand that you come on board. I want to have you where I can watch you."

  He laughed wickedly. Very deeply disturbed, I cut off the connection, after assuring him several times that the coordinate data were exact. By way of saying goodbye he had openly threatened to ruthlessly destroy my "miserable political structure along with its decadent robot ruler" in case I thought to betray him.

  I groaned aloud and buried my face in my hands. Which brought the medorobot immediately to my side again. I dismissed it with an imperious wave of my hand and then looked at the other viewscreen.

  "I ask you to forgive him, sir," said Mercant in depressed tones. "Perhaps now you have an idea of what's going on back on Terra. Still, the way he treated you was quite moderate by comparison."

  I closed my uniform. "Forget it, Mercant."

  "May I make a suggestion, sir?"

  I only nodded to him, at a loss for words at the moment. How could a man change like that?-I asked myself.

  "Since you have informed Rhodan concerning Trakarat it's no longer possible for us to deliver the data to him. He would become suspicious immediately. So we'll fly back and wait for the official reception of the coordinates. Do you agree with that?"

  As I nodded again, Bell intervened. "Atlan, are you really coming on board the Ironduke? He'll give you a bad time."

  "So what if he does? No one will ever be able to say I left a friend in the lurch. I only ask that you clear up one thing with the battleship's officers and crew."

  "What's that?"

  "Well, how should I express it? Inform the men that they should not take part in any possible hostilities between me and Rhodan. I know how to take care of myself. Do you have anything else to say? My time's running short."

  "No, that's about it. Thanks for now-and don't forget the navdata concerning the rendezvous point. Our war declaration against the Antis will go out over an open intergalactic broadcast. Such a measure has already been justified by the 10,000-year plan of these criminal intelligences."

  10 minutes later I heard the thundering of the Terran engines. Named after the island continent on ancient Earth which I had colonized, the Atlantis broke through the atmosphere of Saos and disappeared into the outer void.

  I took off shortly thereafter. I failed in my attempts to avoid thoughts of Perry Rhodan. His deformed face continued to rise before me. When the robotic autopilot guided the ship into hypertransition and the first pains of dematerialization touched me, it occurred to me that Mercant had not given me the new weapon he had promised me-but that could be taken care of later.

  3/ OPERATION: "DESTINATION"

  It was the 23rd of October, Terra time, 2103. Twenty hours before, the first units of the Arkonide robot fleet had emerged from hyperspace. At that time they formed a squadron at rendezvous point 'Destination', the center of which was marked by a blue super giant without a planetary system, The star was located on the edge of the so-called 'pin-cushion sector' at a distance of 418.25 light-years from the red double sun Aptut.

  The approach flight to the zone of operations had been made under cover of the strictest secrecy. Not a single Arkonide official or officer was informed of the undertaking. It had been difficult to program the robot Regent in this regard. No one could have helped me so I had been forced to remain day and night in the control central so that the corresponding instructions could be loaded into the Brain's positronic registers.

  Because of this task the departure of my main fleet had been delayed, all of which made it necessary to send additional hypercom messages to Earth. And of course Rhodan had gone into another fit. After the robot Regent had issued the rendezvous coordinates the Solar Fleet had plunged into hyperspace under one command. So when my own cruiser formations arrived, the Terran forces were already there.

  I had been forced to wait until the last minute. Rhodan didn't seem to understand the internal political difficulties I had to contend with. Naturally the mass takeoffs had been noticed. I had avoided unpleasant questions from suspicious members of the Supreme Council by making vague references to fleet manoeuvres. I had gotten rid of questioning admirals with harsh commands and by pointing out the incompetence of officers and crews. In the process I acquired new enemies but I didn't dare utter a word concerning operation 'Destination'. The god-priests of the Baalol cult had their spies everywhere. Whereas the robot Regent was reliable I could not trust the later descendants of those Arkonides who had constructed the giant Brain. For me it was all very depressing.

  Twenty hours after the departure of the lighter squadrons I had taken off with the heavier units. Prior to this I had been forced to contact Reginald Bell, using top secret pulse-code in which I beseeched him to restrict Rhodan's insistent calls. In his great impatience he didn't seem to realize how revealing such repeated communications could be. Bell had finally managed to put Rhodan in front of dead microphones, so that his calls were unheard, and I was able to complete my preparations without any further disturbance.

  For a single programmer it was a problem to launch a fleet of 10,000 spaceships in just 50 hours. I didn't have any commanders whom I could have briefed concerning the plan. But I was served by many millions of robots. They could think independently and make correct decisions, provided they had been correspondingly programmed beforehand. Without the registry banks and distribution circuits of the Regent it would have been impossible. Simultaneously with its instructions the Brain provided robot crews for 10,000 ships.

  For the fleet flagship I had selected the new Teparo, one of the super class measuring 1,500 meters in diameter. I was the only living being on board the giant. After I had embarked and one formation after the other vanished into the blue sky of Arkon 3, I finally saw the paradox of my situation: 10,000 modern batt
leships, and one soldier! It was pure insanity to hope that the men of my worthy race could ever again pull themselves together or perform deeds on a scale equal to their forefathers. In the course of the past 10 years or so I had been forced more and more to fall back upon robot crews. All my hopes had been dashed to nothing through the increasing decadence of the Arkonides.

  The laws of Nature were unrelenting. The Akons from whom we had originated had remained healthy and active. We, the descendants of former Akon colonists, had been subjected to the effects of environmental adaptation. Among scientists of space-faring peoples it had already been known for a long time that interstellar emigrants in the course of thousands of years would lose all the technical knowledge and moral maturity with which they had been endowed by the mother world.

  Disturbed by bitter feelings I had gone into the first transition with a group of 3,000 warships and super battleships. In spite of troubled experiences I had had with Arkonide auxiliary races, three manned cruisers had been assigned to the task force. Their crews consisted of Zalites. But after the first hyperjump of only 4,000 light-years I was compelled to send the three commanders home again. As usual they had made a faulty manoeuvre, having considered certain decimal fractions of the transition calculations to be 'negligible'. As a result they had come out of the hyper-universe into the Einstein continuum 100 light-years off course.

  Capt. Felicete had informed me by hypercom that one of his engine reactors was acting up. He said he was working on repairs of the main auto-synchronizer controlling the cooler-stabilizer thermostats. I had waited two hours. I found out that the thermostats had been replaced but the coolers were still running too hot. It had not occurred to them to check their field-chamber circulating pumps and so they had again dismantled and reinstalled their thermostats.