The Ghosts of Gol Read online

  "Yes, of course," he said absentmindedly. "If you regard the glowing patch alone. But if you consider that a few moments ago two of our generators acted up in a puzzling manner, what conclusion would you draw then?"

  Waving his hand, he continued: "I know what you're going to say. It could be a coincidence, right?"

  "You know what? We'll wait a little. If methodical forces are at work here we'll experience them again more frequently. So far they don't appear to have sufficient energy to constitute a danger."

  He looked at the clock.

  "Another report from the vehicle is due," he murmured.

  It came a few moments later.

  Tanaka Seiko reported that the infrared searchlight had conked out and that their vehicle was attempting to find its way home in blindness. Rhodan requested a radio beam signal to guide them back.

  Bell gave the order for the radio beam signal. Then he turned to Khrest.

  "Thunderstorms all over the place," he said, sneering a little. "The searchlight has been struck by lightning, too."

  The observation screen was almost useless. Nonetheless, Rhodan had not switched it off. While the vehicle steered carefully in the direction of the radio impulses coming from the Stardust he stared, lost in thought, at the shapeless grey world outside.

  He knew that he could not recognize an ice needle even if he were close to it. Gol's atmosphere was so dense that it absorbed the brightest sunrays in a fraction of an inch.

  "The guide signals are getting weaker, sir," announced Deringhouse.

  Rhodan recognized the effect. He stopped the vehicle and backtracked until Deringhouse reported that the signals were coming again with normal intensity. Then he turned right and drove forward once more. The vehicle moved at a snail's pace.

  Deringhouse said reassuringly, "We're all right. We can go on."

  It turned out that the guide signals reacted more sensitively to obstacles than Deringhouse's scanners which could barely distinguish between liquid, gaseous or solid methane. As soon as an obstacle arose between the Stardust and the vehicle the radio impulses became weaker. Deringhouse had not paid any attention the first time and Rhodan had run into a rock of methane ice, fortunately at slow speed. Since then Deringhouse watched the intensity of the signal carefully.

  Tanaka Seiko was sitting at his telecom set. He received the guide signals clearly and was even able to differentiate changes of intensity, although not as accurately as Deringhouse's measuring instruments.

  That was all Tanaka could hear. Except for the radio impulses there was only the usual static in the atmosphere.

  There was nothing else. Really nothing?

  Tanaka asked himself if the peculiar hum stemmed indeed from atmospheric disturbances. The intensity of such disturbances was normally fluctuating, sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker following the laws of statistics.

  He observed such changes here too. But he noticed an additional strange humming of constant amplitude.

  He was thinking about calling Rhodan's attention to it when the hum suddenly grew to a roar which caused his head to ache.

  At the same moment Rhodan jumped up.

  The grey observation screen showed a bright spot. Small and apparently spherical at first, it soon became bigger and spread in all directions.

  Rhodan stopped the vehicle with a jerk.

  "Sir!" moaned Tanaka.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm receiving something. Roaring, rather loud. It's busting my head!"

  "Don't let it get you," growled Rhodan. He continued staring at the spot.

  He got an idea. He removed the infrared filter from the receiving tube and saw that the spot disappeared. Then he put the filter back in and the spot became visible once more.

  "Infrared," murmured Rhodan.

  Deringhouse rotated his scanning antenna.

  "I'm not getting any reflect," he reported. "But..."

  A dim flickering spread over the observation screen. The light spot remained immobile. The new light came from a different source. It was most intense in the upper half of the right edge of the screen.

  It was the place where Deringhouse's antenna was located.

  "Turn it off!" shouted Rhodan.

  With a quick jab Deringhouse switched off the scanner. The glowing became weaker and soon disappeared altogether.

  However, the spot had become bigger and brighter. "Your antenna was glowing," said Rhodan, without taking his eyes off the observation screen.

  Deringhouse gave no answer. It was impossible for an antenna to glow. But then he himself had seen the effect on the screen.

  "I'm going after it," said Rhodan with a hoarse voice. "Deringhouse, watch the guide signals!"

  The motor began to whir and the vehicle started with a jolt. The mysterious light spot came closer and closer. At least that appeared to be the case at first. However, after a certain time, the spot did not change its size anymore. It seemed to retreat at the same rate with which the carrier tried to approach it.

  Rhodan drove a few hundred yards and stopped. "It's useless," he grumbled in disappointment. "It's leading us around by the nose. Maybe it's purpose is to lead us astray. Deringhouse, what's our direction?"

  "Zero-zero-eight degrees, sir."

  "Any trouble?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Distance?"

  "One miles and a quarter to go, sir."

  It took almost half an hour to traverse this distance.

  When he finally immersed the vehicle into the sea of methane, Rhodan felt as though he had reached a haven. He was diving in with his cumbersome vehicle in a flourish and drove it straight to the lock where

  Bell had set up a powerful searchlight.

  After the gates of the lock had closed behind the vehicle and the big pumps had exchanged the dangerous methane for breathable air, they knew they had survived the perilous journey.

  A little fatigued, they clambered out of the vehicle, entered the antigrav elevator to go up and gratefully stepped into the Command Center within two minutes.

  Rhodan stood with his back toward his listeners. They were Bell, Khrest, Thora and the two majors,

  Deringhouse and Nyssen.

  "I think your electrical thunderstorm theory is excellent, Khrest," said Rhodan. "Although only"—here he turned around on his heel and faced the Arkonide—"for the purpose of reassuring the crew."

  "Ourselves, we know that these things don't happen accidentally."

  "Is that so?" questioned Khrest. "How do we know that?"

  Rhodan explained obligingly. "Tanaka tells us that the spot of light which we observed in the vehicle emitted hyper-radiation. Tanaka can differentiate between hyper-radiation and simple electromagnetic radiation by the manner in which these painful symptoms affect him. There is no such thing as an electromagnetic beam which emits hyper-radiation."

  He was pacing back and forth. His listeners followed him with attentive eyes.

  "Another thing," continued Rhodan. "Something out there ruined our searchlight. I had the distinct impression that the energy was literally sucked out of the fusion-aggregate. The line was thereby overloaded and burned up."

  "A few minutes later we encountered in the solitude of Gol a glowing being which emitted infrared rays exactly in the same region of the spectrum as our searchlight. Besides..."

  "Aren't you a little rash?" interrupted Thora. "Glowing being! Do you mean to say that these things are life forms?"

  "Wait a minute!" begged Rhodan. "We have some more facts. Deringhouse attempted to get this thing into his range finder. It created no reflex on the observation screen but his antenna began to glow. I'm convinced that we'd have had the same result as with the searchlight if Deringhouse hadn't switched off the scanner in time."

  He stood before his listeners and looked at them one after the other, his hands clasped behind his back. When he started to talk again, he did so with a harsh and forceful voice.

  "There's only one reasonable explanation for a
ll these incidents we've experienced, from the fluctuation in our protective screen shortly before our landing to the glowing of Deringhouse's range finder antenna. Some thing or somebody on this planet has the capability of absorbing energy of any kind and is making exorbitant use of it."

  There was a long silence. Too long for Reginald Bell. Are we supposed to think," he let loose, "of this something or somebody as a living or perhaps intelligent being?"

  Rhodan smiled.

  "This is a problem with which we'll have to wrestle. The answer can't be stated in a few words and it won't make it easier to understand."

  "Tanaka has ascertained that these beings emit hyper-radiation. However, nothing can emit hyper-radiation unless it belongs, at least partially, to a higher order of space.

  "It would be violating the spirit of scientific clarity toimagine something about these forms. All we know is that they're here. We can study them when we have the opportunity and, if we're lucky, we'll eventually be in a position to describe their existence with symbols of Arkonide mathematics.

  "That's all."

  "Please go back to your stations. We'll have to examine this matter and make a few calculations. I'll notify you in case anything of importance happens."

  Nyssen and Deringhouse got up and left Reginald Bell did not move. Khrest started to rise but sank back with a sigh against the bolster. Thora looked at Rhodan with big red eyes. "You ought to be more careful," she said pensively. "You're talking to your men about beings living in a higher order of space. I'm not sure whether these people, although they're majors, are familiar enough with the concepts of hyper-geometry to know that there's no value judgment expressed by that." Rhodan nodded. "That's a good point I'll keep it in mind." He smiled. "Still, it does state a value," he said softly, as if talking to himself. "We can achieve a transition, we can modulate hyperwaves and broadcast them. But we're at a loss as how to handle a being whose abode is in higher space. Anybody living in space of n dimensions eludes by this fact alone the grasp of those in (n-one) dimensional space."

  Khrest finally got up. "So you realize that it's more sensible to abandon this expedition?"

  Rhodan swiveled around. "No," he said sternly. "I can't see that at all. I doubt very much that it's more sensible, as you say." Rhodan leaned against the backrest of his chair and stretched out his hand. "It's still the same old problem, Khrest," he said. "We encounter something new. It arouses our curiosity and we try to find out more about the new discovery. There are only two reasons which will force us to give up. Either we'll eventually learn all we want to know or the venture begins to endanger our lives, or has already taken our lives. Neither one of these cases has occurred. Therefore, we'll keep trying to satisfy our curiosity."

  Khrest gave no answer.

  "Have you been able to decipher the notations of the structure sensor?" asked Rhodan.

  "No, I don't think it can be done.

  Aren't you a little too hasty in your assumption?"

  Khrest shrugged his shoulders. "The structure sensor is an instrument which enables us to observe warping of the space continuum, the four-dimensional space, mind you. The effect itself though is of a higher dimension which explains the fast propagation velocity. "Nobody has ever thought about modulating such an effect—as evidently was done here—and, accordingly, the structure sensor wasn't built to be a receiver. You can't receive radar signals with a stovepipe, to give a good example."

  "Yes, you can," protested Rhodan. "All you have to do is to prepare the stovepipe for the purpose."

  Khrest looked surprised.

  "Are you seriously implying that the structure sensor..."

  "I'm quite serious," replied Rhodan. "Indeed, that's what I'm going to do. However, it will be necessary to work out many equations. Do you want to help me with it?"

  "Heaven protect mankind's mathematics." laughed Rhodan cheerfully. "Arkonide math is so advanced that it's defined hyper-oscillation with such a simple expression that it can't be broken down any further. By contrast, Terrestrial math does it the hard way to explain this occurrence. First one has to derive the formula and, in the process, one gets the idea how to apply it in a higher degree."

  Khrest nodded agreeably but a little derisively.

  "I wish I knew what you mean."

  "What is a hyper-oscillation?" asked Rhodan. "Let's be careful. It's produced by variable, periodic gravitational reaction. We can create such a variable gravitational reaction if we use a micro-accelerator to bombard high-energy protons in certain intervals so that their energy produces new particles."

  He leaned over the table on which he had spread out his computations.

  "You know the formalism of your mathematics which defines a particle and converts it into an antiparticle simply by rotating the hypercomplex system of co-ordinates?"

  Khrest nodded. He began to get the idea and it left him speechless.

  "Good. Then you know that I have only to couple the conventional micro-accelerator with a similar accelerator for antiparticles to..."

  Khrest waved his hand.

  "Wait a minute!" he exclaimed. "And don't always say 'only.' If you can prove your theory in practice you'll have revolutionized the entire science of physics."

  Rhodan nodded casually.

  "Maybe so. All I know so far is that in order to obtain sufficient antiparticles will need so much energy that I'll have to disconnect our protective screens temporarily."

  Nevertheless, he took the chance. Time was of the essence. The structure sensor kept repeating the same program in regular intervals.

  But how long would it be before the patience of the unknown was exhausted? Until now he had always stressed that his candidates should not spend any more time than assigned for the solution of a problem.

  How much time was allotted now?

  Rhodan constructed the micro-accelerator for antiparticles. He required two days—Terrestrial time—for it.

  During those two days the technical surveillance registered four times that one or the other of the generators for the protective screen was running dry. This effect never lasted more than ten seconds and, being prepared for the situation, they prevented the Stardust from suffering any damage.

  Each time after such a period of idling, however, the spot of light which—as Rhodan believed came from a higher universe, showed up on the observation screen.

  On the third day after the start of the project Rhodan wanted to produce his antiparticles. The micro-accelerator which the hyper-transmitter used, as it were, for an oscillation track served simultaneously as a reservoir. Protons injected into a circular track were kept on the same energy level for years.

  In theory Rhodan would only once need a current of antiparticles to keep big new accelerator operating for years. However, since antiparticles had a great tendency to combine with normal particles and get lost by radiating away their mass, he would have to "recharge" the anti-accelerator frequently.

  "Will it do us any good?" muttered Rhodan, reflecting on the experiment.

  For nearly an hour Stardust II was deprived of any protective screen except the one which gravity neutralizers produced. The output was reduced and the ship secured a firmer hold by sinking about one hundred fifty feet deep into the soft ground.

  Nonetheless, the procedure was critical. The gigantic body of the vessel presented an expansive surface for the attack of the storm. Rhodan had ordered all men of the crew to their stations and had given instructions that this experiment should be interrupted any time the ship was in serious danger.

  Then he waited.

  It was an unpleasant suspense. The Stardust, stripped of its protective screen and too big to be unaffected by the storm, was tossed around like a steamer in a hurricane.

  But the hour passed without any serious damage to the vessel. Only one valuable instrument broke because it had not been secured to its base, disregarding Rhodan's instructions to the contrary.

  The second micro-accelerator was in operating condi
tion. Rhodan and Khrest installed it in the structure sensor and knew that the new oscillation track coupled with the old one was capable of receiving circular, polarized gravity radiation as well as transmitting it They had thereby boosted the effectiveness of the operation one dimension higher.

  "What time is the next transmission due?" asked Rhodan.

  Bell looked at the clock.

  "In fourteen minutes."

  Rhodan sank into a chair and waited.

  "Two more minutes," said Bell.

  Rhodan got up and went to the structure sensor. He smiled oddly at Khrest. "You can laugh all you want if it doesn't work," Rhodan said. "One minute to go," interrupted Bell impatiently. The hatch rolled open and Thora came in. Without uttering a word she sat down beside Khrest and waited, too. "It should come now," declared Rhodan. And come it did. A point of light flashed on the screen of the oscillograph, wandered around and, for a fraction of a second, gave the impression of getting lost in the meaningless pattern which it had already drawn a hundred times. But then, as though it had changed its intentions, it began to form a sine wave and ran across the screen. It flickered once, twice and then it stopped. The modulation was clearly visible in the fine, uneven nodules of the curve.

  The sixteen seconds had passed in a flash. The screen went dark. Rhodan stared at it as if he did not believe his eyes. Khrest got up shakily and turned to Rhodan.

  "I'm not one to bandy around fancy words," he said earnestly, "but... later," Rhodan interrupted almost rudely. It frightened Khrest to see how suddenly Rhodan's activity developed with renewed, explosive force.

  "Bell! Ask Tanaka Seiko to come here immediately. Khrest, please help me. We want to play this transcript for Tanaka." The structure sensor was switched over. Tanaka came in and watched in astonishment Rhodan was feeding the tape just now recorded back into the structure sensor and induced it to transmit again what it had received earlier.

  "Listen, Tanaka!" Rhodan demanded. "Tell me if you can hear anything!" He turned the set on. There could be no doubt for even a second that Tanaka was receiving something. He leaned forward in his characteristic, rigid posture and gave the impression of falling out of his chair at any moment. After sixteen seconds had passed, he remained motionless for a while. A few minutes later he sank back in his chair, took a deep breath and looked around with amazement. "I understood it very clearly, sir," he said finally. "Never before has it been so easy to decipher a message as this one."