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  I leaped into the flickering antigrav field and plummeted. Once I had arrived at the bottom, I determined that the 50 authentic Zalites had already left the ship. With that Rhodan had given his men the chance to check out the hiding places of their special equipment one more time.

  My disquiet increased even more when I considered what the 150 daring men of the commando team were carrying on their persons.

  I had been present when the high capacity laboratories of the Earth had begun the production of miniaturized equipment. The most capable microtechnicians of the galaxy, the Swoons, had played a not inconsiderable role in that.

  Rhodan had made possible what had seemed impossible to me. So much was hidden in our men’s special uniforms that they could have defeated an entire conventional army.

  Naturally we could not have entered into this mission without effective weapons. Nevertheless I felt a clammy sense of foreboding when I tried to imagine what would happen if the equipment were to be discovered.

  I waited by the large ground hatch until the battleship’s crew had arrived. Rhodan gave the report. His face was composed and mask-like, Commodore Gailos was not to be seen. He had apparently already disappeared in his quarters.

  After just two minutes the open transport vehicles came up. They had large truck-beds with plastic seats and were remote-controlled. I received the next orders of the command station over my helmet radio.

  We were to simply climb aboard the transports and wait for what happened next. A special transport stood ready for the Kon-Velete’s officers.

  Rhodan sent his men to the larger transport vehicle. Some meaningful glances were enough to put me into that feeling of numbness that always took over during moments of critical danger. The time had come!

  I followed Bell aboard the flat vehicle gliding on an energetic impact field. In contrast to the larger vehicles, this one had a robot for a driver. It would still be too much of a risk to discuss the situation.

  When Rhodan came on, he bent over closely to me, and as he did I noticed that his impulse beamer had been placed beneath his uniform, ready to be withdrawn at any time.

  “How do you recognize spaceships with functioning hyperengines?” he asked softly.

  I looked around. Spaceport A-3 was just as large and thus just as poorly arranged as others of its kind. Everywhere stood large and small units of the Arkonide Fleet but how one could tell which were ready for hyperflight and which were not I couldn’t say.

  I shrugged regretfully. Rhodan sat down on the pneumatic bench next to me and stretched his legs out. Bell’s tightly closed mouth told me that he was expecting anything to happen.

  From then on, I looked only at the bluish fluorescing energy dome filling the horizon on the other side of the landing field, rising high into the blue, heat shimmering sky of Arkon 3.

  It was the largest defense screen I had ever seen in my life and beneath it was concealed the Robot Regent of Arkon. Rhodan’s measurements, which he had obtained much earlier, showed that the dome covered a surface area of about 10,000 square kilometers. A square covering such an area would have measurements of 100 kilometers on each side.

  If in spite of Arkonide microtechnology the Brain still required such a large area for housing, then it was questionable whether it could be destroyed at all. We could never know where the weak points were and what we had to do to reach the important sections with our attack.

  Apart from that, all our speculations were pointless as long as we did not know how we could get an effective weapon of destruction inside the energy dome. I was convinced that the detonation of a bomb outside the screen would be useless.

  My entire hope rested on the two teleporters among our mutants. If these men were not able to quickly and inconspicuously penetrate the dome, we would have to find some other way. For weeks I had been concerned with the problem of energy supply, since it was within the area of my scientific specialty.

  It was quite clear that a robot brain of such magnitude would require more than one power station to supply the enormous amount of energy it needed. If I had my forefathers rightly estimated, they had also certainly arranged for an emergency power unit that would automatically switch on in case of danger. The Regent’s capacity for existence hung solely from a flawlessly functioning energy supply. How that was provided, none of us could know.

  Our vehicle moved on. Right behind us followed the four large transports, each with 50 men. Rhodan had seen to it that the 50 authentic Zalites had been given their own transport. Our men thus had the chance for a rapid exchange of opinions. Rhodan’s slight telepathic ability was enough to pick up messages from the mutants, thanks to a limited brainwave modulation courtesy of Harno back on Zalit. At least we were not confined to radio traffic for our communication, which would have been impossible anyway since we were in the immediate area of numerous radio surveillance stations.

  We glided past the also-landed super battleships of a newly formed fleet squadron. The 1500-meter giants were also manned by colonial crews. How effective they would be in combat with a trained opponent was somewhat unclear to me.

  In spite of the confused situation, I tried to think clearly and logically. The most important thing was not to be deterred by my conflicting feelings, which insisted again and again that the total destruction of the Robot Regent could mean the downfall of the galaxy.

  What would happen if we were really to succeed in putting the Brain out of action? What would be the position of the numerous colonial races and the till now suppressed alien races who were now fighting at the front in the interest of the Imperium with more or less good spaceships? What would by necessity take place if all the communications systems directed by the gigantic robot suddenly collapsed? What would be the result if the supply lines, all remotely controlled, no longer operated?

  Finally: would the billions of alien intelligences obey the orders of an Arkonide who by all rights should have been long dead? What sort of means should I use to force obedience in such a case? With Zalite crews on board the battleships? I needed only to look back at our Zalite sleepyheads to know that this was not possible.

  I could never supply the billions of robots, which had been constructed in about 10,000 different types, with their appropriate programs. That would not have been possible for a scientific team of 100,000 men.

  My reason told me that the destruction of the Regent was a kind of suicide. But if we did not destroy it, the Earth and the entire Sol system would be destroyed in at most nine months.

  I glanced at Rhodan from the side. He seemed to be thinking only of the possibilities for an eventual escape and was wondering which ships were ready for hyperflight. He had probably not wanted to face the fact that escaping from Arkon in that manner was no longer possible. He had been able to do it once, about 65 years before, but then other conditions had prevailed.

  I tried to put aside the weighty thoughts over the sense and nonsense of our undertaking. I held instead to the original idea, which very simply and logically stated that my venerable forefathers would not have neglected to supply such a large robot brain with a failsafe circuit. We only had to find out when and under what conditions it went into effect to turn the Regent off and then our problems solved themselves.

  I gave a start. Some hundred meters ahead a vaulting, steel dome became visible, rising seamlessly out of the spaceport’s metaloplastic covering. If there was going to be an inspection, then it would be only in the rayproof and pressure-secure airlocks of the entrances to the subterranean living areas.

  I felt inconspicuously for my thigh where my weapon was hidden in an inner pocket that conformed exactly to the shape of my body. Terran scientists had done such a good job that discovery of pieces of equipment by simply feeling was next to impossible.

  In that, they had worked from a human point of view. They had thought like Earthly police who searched a suspicious person only once and only with the natural tools nature had given them: their hands!

  They had
overlooked the fact that on a 99% automated world there was no one there who had any possibility of using such methods. If things of that nature were to be determined on Arkon 3, then one was simply and rationally sent through an X-ray chamber!

  If that happened, then the question was whether the X-ray opaque inner lining of our pockets and holders would function. The screening would hold up under a simple X-ray treatment but only if the inevitable shadows showing up on the screen were not properly interpreted.

  Rhodan’s forehead was suddenly covered with a fine layer of perspiration, which oddly stabilized my formerly weakening self-control. Calm and collected, I looked over at the meter-thick steel doors opening up to let us in.

  The surface entrance was one of many. If it had an X-ray chamber, then it was still questionable whether the built-in devices were in operation.

  The robot driver stopped just in front of the dome, which was only a few meters high. I climbed out and waited for the rest of the men.

  Rhodan and Bell, except for me the highest ranking officers of the battleship, placed themselves behind me. I looked questioningly at the numerous camera lenses installed in the wall surfaces to the open doors.

  I rubbed my forehead involuntarily, blinked up at the mercilessly shining sun of Arkon and then firmly pulled down the switch of my helmet radio.

  “Capt. Ighur, to Regent!” I said with obvious sharpness. “The treaty I made with Admiral Calus over sending aid does not contain any point which obligates me to stand for hours at a time in blazing sunshine. I request immediate entry and quartering in climatically suitable rooms or otherwise I feel released from my responsibilities. Someone seems to forget that we are not accustomed to such temperatures. My men are showing signs of exhaustion. Out.”

  Bell looked at me with wide eyes. Rhodan coughed in surprise then realized what was going on. We had to find a reason for getting through the hatch as quickly as possible.

  The men of the commando team had heard, too. They seemed to be holding their breath. The 50 genuine Zalites looked at me in awe. By their standards I had risked too much but they were truly suffering in the heat.

  Some seconds went by before the Brain answered. “Begin with the admission procedure. Your remark relative to refusing orders has been registered.”

  “That’s all the same to me,” I said, still angrier. “I have no intention of prematurely ruining our health. I appeal to the Regent’s logic sector. Do you want rested and battleworthy crews or feverish and exhausted soldiers?”

  “Enter,” answered Substation A-3. Nothing more was said about refusing to carry out orders, something which I had only hinted at.

  “Disembark from the transports and form up in loose march order, double time through the hatch!” Rhodan shouted, loudly enough to make me step quickly to one side. “Occupants of the forward transport first! Double time, I said!”

  The 50 true Zalites ran as though they had the devil himself on their tail. Behind them came our men. Seconds later they were crowding around an entranceway about three meters wide in such confusion than an orderly X-ray procedure was almost out of the question.

  My heart beat hollowly and slowly. It seemed to me as though my blood was running much more heavily through my veins. I stood near the entrance, held my commander’s cape closely over my steel-plastic helmet and turned my back to the sun.

  If the Terrans here and there seemed to have gone mad… well, they were good actors! Rhodan and Bell’s shouting was an extra impetus for the men to even more wildly force their way forward.

  I noted with satisfaction that some strong men had fished eight or 10 genuine Zalites out of the crowd so that the in fact unarmed individuals could be used, so to speak, as decoys.

  When our men had passed through the clearly visible X-ray device, they pushed the Zalites back where the oncoming Terrans caught them and used them for the same purpose.

  Rhodan, Bell and I acted at the right moment. Men the entrance was almost free, only nine remaining Zalites still stood in front of the X-ray barrier. I motioned to Bell. The Zalites would have to serve for our cover as well.

  Bell’s rough voice now really made my ears hurt. I had never before heard the stocky man shout like that. He turned himself loose on the pitiable Zalites, giving them a reprimand that made me smile in spite of the seriousness of the situation.

  “Stop right there!” he raged. “Who told you to go into the airlock first? Well, who? A little bird maybe? The First Officer told you, that’s who, understand? Don’t stand around like that—attention! Turn your faces to me. What kind of bearing is that? Now listen to me…”

  Bell’s body stiffened as I stepped majestically through the entrance. The nine Zalites stood like stone idols precisely between me and the X-ray machine. Rhodan was so close behind me that he painfully trod on my heels.

  Bell screamed some more Zalitish curses, then turned and quickly followed us. Only then did the natives of Voga 4 come in their turn. They looked like they had just been flayed and seemingly did not quite know what had happened to them. Well, they didn’t know the Terrans very well!

  Our men already stood ranked up in the expansive hall beyond the entrance. Here and there someone swayed. Then, according to plan, a largely built sergeant fell to the floor and four other men tore off their helmets, moaning and rolling their eyes.

  “Water! Where is some cool water?” I cried. “We were out under that blasted sun too long. Major Sesete, look after the sick men. Or are they only faking?”

  Rhodan’s posture, while standing at attention, was magnificent. The sweat ran in clear streams beneath the protruding helmet edge. “These men come from the cool mountain regions of Takotre, Captain,” he announced. “They’ll recover in a few moments.”

  I glanced quickly at the Regent’s camera lenses. The scene was impressive and, besides that, looked authentic. A mechanical brain which replaced human feelings with pure logic was easy to deceive in that manner. I expected a call from the Regent and it came at once, only it came over the large loudspeakers of a public address system. The metallic voice seemed to come out of the naked steel wall.

  “Is treatment of those suffering from the heat necessary, Capt. Ighur,

  “If the Regent had waited another minute longer it would be!” I exclaimed angrily. “Now it might not be. After we’ve been settled in our quarters, I’ll make a

  health report. Where should we go?”

  “Floor 14, Block C-436-8. Use the lift,” droned the loudspeakers.

  Then the communication was terminated. I took a deep breath. According to my experience, no more inspections or examinations were to be expected.

  I slipped a glance at the nine Zalites our men had so skilfully used as decoys. Seemingly they did not yet understand at all why Bell was still remonstrating them. Evidently they thought it was a mistake.

  Marshall the telepath winked at me reassuringly. He had been given the order to monitor the thoughts of our unwanted fellow crewmembers.

  Farther on, the wide doors of a large lift opened up. Entrance stations of this sort did not have any antigrav shafts.

  “Go in by groups,” I ordered. “Sesete, see to that. Roake, stay topside until the last man is in the elevator.”

  Rhodan and Bell became active again. The other officers of the ship followed me into the large basket, which was flanked on either side of the entrance by automatically directed ray weapons. Anyone wanting to make his way into the subterranean complex of Arkon 3 had to first make contact with the nearest control station.

  Otherwise there was no one to be seen. Not even a robot had been sent up. Behind us the steel doors of the lock had long since closed once again and with that we were almost as cut off from the open terrain of the spaceport as we would have been were we on another planet.

  We said nothing during our rapid descent. It was against all Arkonide custom for the ship’s officers to carry on conversations in the commander’s presence. Even more unthinkable was speaking directly to the c
aptain. There were an infinite number of details that we had to take into account. The slightest error could lead to our discovery. Naturally it was very difficult for the Terrans to hold to these regulations. We had more than once found ourselves in acute danger during the first weeks of our mission out of sheer inattention to detail.

  The luminous number plates of various floors whisked past in rapid succession. Our speed slowed as the 14th floor approached. With a violent jolt, the magnetically supported basket came to a stop. The sliding doors opened up.

  I stepped first into the bright light. Blinded, I looked up at the white atomic sun, whose hard ultra-violet rays had been adjusted according to the amount given off by the natural star. It frequently happened that alien intelligences not accustomed to it were surprised with sunburns. My Terran friends too had to first get used to the idea that even deep beneath the surface of Arkon 3 they would have to protect their skin. It was unusual. But then, what was normal on the three planets that were the birthplace of the Great Imperium?

  Farther ahead I noticed an older Arkonide in the violet cape of a scientist. He lay sluggishly back in a reclining armchair and seemed to be bored.

  When the elevator bell sounded once again and the men entered the airlock hall, he turned his head with evident effort. I looked into languidly blinking eyes.

  Just in front of the reclining man stood a portable Simultan receiver on whose screen differently colored patterns appeared in confusing numbers. The old man seemed to have been occupied by the for-me-mysterious game. He seemed only now to see us.

  Reginald Bell arrived, leading the second group. The loud orders of my ‘Second Officer’ seemed to disturb the Arkonide. His face twisted in disgust. Then he threw me such a reproachful look it was as if we had said something treasonous in public.

  “Be quiet!” I exclaimed to Bell. “His Eminence is resting. Conduct yourself properly!”

  This time the look from the reddish one was a little more pleasant. Smiling, stepping on tiptoe, I walked closer and silently placed my hand against my chest in greeting.