Saboteurs in A-1 Read online

  "The big Brain decisively rejects all our fears concerning the possibility of its being destroyed by any kind of attack from within or without. However, it was willing to consider at least the hypothetical possibility, and it deduced from that the conclusion that its destruction would lead to your overthrow as Imperator. It would also result in the sudden collapse of the Imperium into many thousands of individual sovereign states and petty autocracies.

  "In the Brain’s opinion, today’s attempt against you is an incontrovertible proof that the revolutionaries are only interested in getting you out of the way in order to bring about an automatic handover of governmental powers to the Regent again."

  "That’s machine logic!" objected the Arkonide. His right hand was resting on Pucky’s narrow shoulder. "Rhodan, I don’t think Carba is stupid enough to want to get rid of me merely for the privilege of being ruled by a robot positronicon. Since this thing happened today I’m inclined to believe more than ever that Carba may think he’s found a way to change the Brain’s security circuits in his favor. That’s why I suspect that Carba has allied himself with Akon scientists, if not with the Ruling Council of the Blue System itself."

  Rhodan interrupted with a counter-argument. "That’s not a true picture, Atlan. Solar Marshal Mercant has assigned a mutant detail to the task of finding out if the Ruling Council has made any contact with Arkonide conspiracy groups. My mutants had to confirm that the Ruling Council is standing by its agreements with us at the moment—although the government of Akon would immediately break all treaties if you were to be overthrown or otherwise eliminated."

  "But such inquiries don’t stand in the way of assuming that Carba may be meeting with Akon scientists so that they can find a way to make use of Akon hyper-energy technologies as a means of overpowering the robot Brain. The Akons have demonstrated only too well in the past that they can penetrate the Brain. In order to block such an attempt, I’d like to make the same urgent suggestion that Pucky did: Atlan, transfer your government activities into the Brain on Arkon 3. Should you follow this advice, I’d like to also ask you to convince the Brain that it should permit access to its section A-1 by a team of Terran scientists, so that the security circuits may be amplified. In my opinion it shouldn’t be difficult to convince the Brain that an updating and perfection of A-1 is vitally necessary. If you show the Regent that it can hardly hope to defend itself against Akon transmitters and time machines, it will have to permit non-Arkonides to enter A-1."

  "Aha!" exclaimed Atlan. His eyes flashed briefly in sudden comprehension. "Now I see it all. This Terran activity, the mass landings of Terran warships only yesterday on Arkon 3... Perry, when I think of how often you Earthmen have prepared yourselves in advance of any possible event, and when I compare you with my Arkonides, I am driven to despair. Am I actually the Imperator anymore? And is it worth it to save this rotten stellar empire from its long-deserved destruction?"

  "Atlan, if I were you I wouldn’t talk like that, although I can well understand your feelings. But what do you say to my suggestion to leave Arkon 1 and move to Arkon 3? Within a good hour or so, Arkon time, I’ll be landing at the spaceport near the Brain, and I’d like very much to meet you there, Admiral."

  Rhodan’s voice was wonderfully reassuring. At the moment he relieved Atlan of such a mood of depression that he was inclined not to lift his hand again to help his degenerated race.

  The Imperator’s face had been like a mask but suddenly his features came to life again. "I’ve made my decision, Perry," he nodded. "We’ll meet on Arkon 3. I’ll come there in a robotship, along with your men who have been guarding me here. Friend, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you Terrans ... and my robots, if some devil hasn’t just reprogrammed them again! Thanks for your call, Perry."

  From the Ironduke the hypercom contact was cut off. Silence pervaded the room. But of course Pucky was the first to break it. "Atlan," he chirped, "what robotship will you use to fly to Arkon 3?"

  "We’ll go in the Marc-8—why?"

  "If you don’t mind I’d like to suggest that you let me take you to the Marc-8 by teleportation. That’s the safest way to go."

  John Marshall spoke up. "Sir, it would be well for you. to accept Pucky’s proposal."

  Atlan chuckled grimly. "So it’s come to this already on the Crystal World! The Imperator has to sneak out of the palace like a thief in the night if he doesn’t want to be murdered on the way to the spaceport. It’s something I’ve really never dreamed of."

  • • •

  From a distance of 418 km the Ekhonide Tro-lugo activated the timer in Marshall’s weapon. The flat little capsule case in his hand concealed a highly refined transmitter. On its cover were two shimmering circular areas about the size of a thumbnail.

  A few minutes before, Tro-lugo has seemed to be completely emotionless as he stood next to his accomplice, Haan, in the glass-enclosed cockpit of the tourist aircar.

  "Contact!" he had said as he pressed the red circle on the capsule case.

  Almost instantly Haan had turned the craft sharply in a reversal of its course. With its impulse motors running almost silently at an altitude of 8000 km, the four-seater vehicle was flying over the last slopes of a long range of hills. But the two men had no eyes for the scenic beauties of the Crystal World. Their gaze was directed behind them into the distance—back where the Crystal Palace was located and where the hated Imperator Gonozal VIII lived and ruled.

  Haan turned on the autopilot and looked at the countdown indicator. It was 11 seconds into the cycle. Still 64 seconds, he thought, as he turned to Tro-lugo.

  "Why doesn’t the bomb go off at once?" he asked. "Why the built-in delay? I’ve wanted to ask you that all day. Is there any reason for it?"

  Without turning, Tro-lugo asked him a counter-question. "How much time is left?"

  Haan glanced at the countdown indicator again. "Still 53 seconds."

  Tro-lugo nodded. "Mith explained it to me. It has something to do with the size of the atom bomb. The normal igniter could not be used and also the remote control mechanism had an influence on the design. Since the Terran impulse weapons are smaller than Arkonide makes, it was necessary to use a timing fuse with a 75-second delay, Arkon time. But what difference does it make, Haan? Even if Marshall is held up on his way to the Imperator, it won’t change the end result. Most of the Crystal Palace will go up in a cloud of smoke. How long now?"

  "Eighteen seconds."

  At that moment a voice was heard on the radio speaker. In finest Arkonide, they heard: "130!" It was spoken three times.

  "He made it!" cried Tro-lugo in relief. "So my trip to see Carba wasn’t in vain. And I was ready to throw this whole thing."

  "What?" asked Haan, although he knew what Tro-lugo was getting at.

  "What! What! What!" mocked Tro-lugo in a sudden fit of emotion. "Haan, I can tell you now. I would have become a traitor to Carba if he had insisted that my uncle would have to die in this attack against the Imperator. But now he’s just passed the 30-km mark and nothing can happen to him when the bomb destroys the palace. What’s the countdown reading?"

  "Four seconds ... "

  Tro-lugo remained motionless. He calmly held the remote-control case in his hand. The small colored circles on its cover shimmered faintly. The four seconds seemed very long...

  "Ye gods of Arkon!" yelled Tro-lugo suddenly—and the control case slipped from his fingers.

  Far behind them in the cloudless sky a small, bright sun appeared. In spite of the distance the blast of light was so brilliant that Tro-lugo instinctively threw his hands up in front of his eyes. Since Ham had glanced in the same direction at the last moment, he fared no better. Yet he was the first to be able to see again.

  The first thing he saw was the synthetic sun in the distance. It had lost some of its original intensity but had extended itself proportionately. Still gleaming brilliantly, the nuclear ball hung in the sky like a giant cloud. Its lower edge had already touched the grou
nd and it was beginning slowly to lose its shape.

  "Haan, call him!" cried Tro-lugo. "Call him at once!"

  Haan wondered if his friend had lost his mind. To use the radio at a time like this would only put the robot patrols on their trail.

  "Whom should I call, Tro-lugo?" Haan stared at his co-conspirator with still-smarting eyes.

  The other’s answer came as a shock. "Nobody, Haan. Not now—it’s useless. My uncle would never have been able to escape from that inferno!" He slumped down into the seat next to Haan.

  "What? Do you think the bomb exploded near your uncle’s flier? Are you saying that the Crystal Palace wasn’t hit? But that’s crazy! Your uncle even sent the code signal. We also received his signal that he had succeeded in making the weapon switch. By the gods, Tro-lugo, what are you talking about?" By this time Haan had grasped the other by the shoulders, trying to shake him back to his senses.

  Tro-lugo did not resist him. With his head hanging dejectedly he said softly: "The light flash was way too high in the sky, Haan. Let loose of me!"

  "You’re out of your mind! You’re pushing this love for your uncle out of proportion! What do you think would happen to you if Carba found out you were ready to betray us all? And to make it worse, you were allowed to go-to Zero!"

  "Zero World ... " Tro-lugo laughed bitterly. "Yes, I’ve been at ‘Zero’, Haan. If I had arrived an hour later I would have found an empty headquarters. Zero World has long since been moved to another planet-I don’t know where. Does that set your mind at ease, Haan?"

  The other answered gruffly. "A man who was ready to commit treason cannot ease my mind. Look here, Tro-lugo!" Suddenly there was a note of sharpness in Haan’s voice.

  When Tro-lugo looked up, he stared into the muzzle of his companion’s thermo-beamer. "So that’s what it’s come to," observed Tro-lugo calmly. "I guess you wouldn’t find it hard to shoot me."

  Haan was still deliberating when the receiver blared out a ship call: "You will heave to immediately and land at position ER-55," came the metallic voice of a robot. "Do not try to escape. Our guns are aimed at your excursion flier!"

  Haan lowered the thermo-gun slowly. Through the rounded cupola dome the two men could see a robot police ship. It was only one km away. Suddenly they were allies again instead of enemies. Although the robot challenge was merely a routine affair at the moment, it would cease to be such if they discovered the remote-control case and examined its contents.

  Haan switched on the auto-landing control and set it for ER-55. Their small tourist craft made a sharp turn to the left and simultaneously began to lose altitude. Close below was a plastic landing area where excursion craft were coming in from all directions, herded by robot-manned police vehicles. There was nothing more for Haan and Tro-lugo to do. The auto-flight controls would take them safely to the ground.

  "What do we do with this?" asked Tro-lugo, pointing to the small control case at his feet.

  "The best we can do is to hide it and hope they don’t inspect us too closely. But we can’t destroy it in any case. You can be sure that robotship has its energy sensors running. If they pick up any strange sources of energy from us they’ll get suspicious. I’d like to still have a chance of getting away."

  "Hm-m ... "muttered Tro-lugo as he picked up the case from the floor. The little colored spots were still faintly glimmering. He suddenly froze, staring at the case. "Haan," he whispered hoarsely, "those robots have picked a spurious energy source from us already! Here—don’t you see these lights on the cover—-one green and one red? The transmitter inside is still radiating energy. Now we can’t even hide this thing. We’re cooked! Gonozal’s police have caught us!"

  "Give me that!" demanded Haan gruffly as he jerked the case out of Tro-lugo’s hand. Before inspecting it he took a last quick look below. At the moment they were only 1000 meters above the small landing area and within another minute they would reach the ground.

  Since the atomic sun had flashed in the sky, Haan had been more alert and active than Tro-lugo. With remarkable calmness he placed the plastic housing of the device to his ear—then cursed. He had heard the typical faint sound of a transmitter crystal. It was enough to tell him that the gadget was still broadcasting radio impulses.

  "We’re finished!" he said briefly. "But before Gonozal’s police get their clutches on me, I’m canceling out. I have nothing more to lose."

  He threw the special transmitter into a corner. At the same moment a light jolt went through the aircraft. They had landed.

  Through the canopy they could see robots drifting through the air toward them. To their right the police craft that had hailed them also landed. The hatch swung open and five more robots floated out. Within seconds they had surrounded the excursion flier.

  "Come out!" ordered a metallic voice over the speaker.

  Tro-lugo’s face was blanched when he got up Haan got to his feet a moment later but he was scowling and there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes. He followed closely behind Tro-lugo. Outside, more than a dozen robots were waiting for the two Ekhonides.

  This is it, thought Tro-lugo, and he waited for the hypno-beams from the arms of the robot police. But there was no hypnosis and Tro-lugo wasn’t expecting a thermo-beam. He knew that Arkon police robots were so programmed that they would not make use of their deadlier weapons except in exceptional emergencies.

  But Haan the Ekhonide, who was born on the same world as Tro-lugo in star cluster M-13, was hiding his thermo-beamer close behind his companion’s back. While Tro-lugo was still waiting for a hypno-beam he felt a pressure against his spine.

  Then everything was over for him.

  His sudden death from a thermo-weapon constituted a special emergency for the robot police. Their positronic brains had registered Tro-lugo’s death and ordered their motor centers to fire their hypno-guns at maximum intensity—but not one robot fired. The glare shields in their optical systems were activated, momentarily inactivating every robot weapon.

  Even as Tro-lugo fell forward in death, Haan made an end to his own life. With his last breath he cursed Imperator Gonozal VIII.

  A short time later when the robots searched the excursion craft, they found the plastic control case in a corner. An hour later the police central on Arkon 1 regretted that the two Ekhonides were dead and could not be questioned.

  3/ EXPEDITION: BRAIN OF ARKON

  Solar Marshal Allan D. Mercant the man who some wags claimed could hear grass growing 1000 light-years away, sat facing Reginald Bell.

  Red-haired and stockily built, Bell made an impatient gesture, advertising that he was not in a very good mood. On the other hand Allan D. Mercant seemed to be the picture of composure. But this appearance was deceiving. The Solar Marshal and Chief of Solar Intelligence had just given an agitated report to the effect that in Atlan’s more than 10,000 years of life he had never been more endangered than during the past few days and hours.

  Bell shouted angrily: ‘I don’t understand these robot police on Arkon 1! Why didn’t they get control of the two Ekhonides with their hypno-guns immediately after they landed?"

  "Because the Arkon Imperium is not a bandit state, sir. It is a form of government in which the individual has a maximum of personal freedom," said Mercant calmly.

  "But it’s idiotic to follow those rules when the situation gets like the one they had on Arkon 1 a few hours ago," raged Bell, who was Rhodan’s representative in Terrania during the Administrator’s absence. "Mercant, if something similar happened here on Earth and anybody were to throw a private atom bomb to get rid of his opponent, I can promise you..."

  "...that we would still not become a police state," interrupted the Solar Marshal with a smirk.

  "But those lame-brains are starting to throw bombs!" Bell complained irritably.

  Mercant contradicted him. "The A-bomb assassination attempt was carried out by Ekhonides, sir. Carba, the successor to Admiral Thekus, is among the new Arkonides. He has not become lethargic due to the genera
l degeneration. But something else is very disturbing, which is the fact that it was possible for the revolutionaries to take John Marshall’s weapon from its holster and exchange it for one that was booby-trapped. Mr. Bell, this incident makes us realize that we are not in a position to absolutely guarantee Atlan’s safety; It’s my opinion that only one who can do that is the robot Brain on Arkon 3."

  Bell looked at him closely. "You mean you’ve abandoned your theory that the Blue System or an influential group of Akons is behind the subversive movements in the Arkon Imperium?"

  The Solar Marshal hesitated before answering. "Sir, you’re referring to the survey our mutants have made in the Blue System and their monitoring of the thoughts of the members of the Ruling Council. The negative results there are by no-means any proof that Akons are not mixed up in these underground activities. If I may judge from experience I’d say that for this very reason the Akons are probably the driving force behind it all."

  "But you don’t have proof, Mercant."

  "Bell ... " The Marshal’s voice was almost patronizing. "After all, you’ve known me since you were a captain in the U.S. Space Force and I was even then the chief of International Intelligence. Since then I’ve spent over a century and a half in the same job, except that now it’s interstellar in scope. In all that time I’d say I’ve learned my trade pretty well—at least well enough to know that in addition to the new Arkonides and the Ekhonides there is an influential group of Akons working in the underground movements. Actually it should be obvious. The Akons regard it as a vital imperative to achieve the destruction of the Solar Imperium, which they can only do by subjugating the Arkon Imperium. Therefore, eliminating the Imperator is only of secondary importance to them."

  "I’ll leave you to tell him that!" retorted Bell sarcastically.