The Sleepers Read online

Kennof had been flown to the caves in a helicopter with two other men. One of them was a nervous, destitute type with fiery red hair and a deep scar on the right cheek. His name was Jubilee and he sat next to Kennof. He didn’t tell his reasons why he wanted to undergo the treatment of the ISC.

  The third man sat directly behind Kennof. He was a former politician whose life had foundered because of his false ideals. Nevertheless Lester Duncan had a dignified appearance and when he spoke he chose his words with great care. Kennof felt a certain sympathy for him but considered Jubilee with indifference.

  At the moment Kennof had little time to pay attention to his traveling companions. He had to find a safe place for the radio-transceiver and the micro-deflector. He would also have to take off his ring with the miniature detector. However it was so inconspicuous that he would have no trouble discarding it somewhere. But he had to conceal the devices in a spot where he could easily retrieve them again when the need occurred without arousing suspicion.

  "I’ll have Dr. Le Boeuf attend to Mr. Duncan first," Clinkskate said. "Then it’ll be your turn, gentlemen."

  Kennof interrupted. "Could you show me the washroom, sir? I’d like to freshen up a little bit."

  "Follow me!" Clinkskate responded.

  Kennof felt calmer as soon as they had left the large office. He walked with the ISC-man and Jubilee till Clinkskate pointed to two doors. Kennof thanked him and he hoped that nobody else occupied the washroom at the moment.

  He was lucky. The door could be locked from the inside. He pulled the micro-deflector out of his pocket and switched it on. By deflecting the rays of the light the device made its wearer invisible, since visibility meant the reflection of light by a body. Now that Kennof was not reached by any light, he couldn’t reflect it either. However even a simple detector could register his presence and any physical contact with his body could be noticed as well. Moreover he had to be careful to avoid the slightest noise.

  Good old Shane, Kennof thought and slipped out of the washroom. The corridor was empty of people. Kennof followed the direction in which Clinkskate had left with Jubilee. He soon reached an open door and entered an enormous vault which was partitioned on several levels. With the trained eyes of a sleuth, Kennof recognized the medical installations and their power sources as he looked cautiously around.

  Suddenly Clinkskate stepped out of an elevator a few meters away. Kennof retreated hastily and Clinkskate passed him closely without noticing him. The detective figured that he had only a few minutes to find a hiding place for his transceiver.

  It was too risky to use the elevator to go down to another floor. He had to pick a safe spot up here. He estimated that Clinkskate had already reached the washroom when he saw a shelf which was stocked with some spare parts. He carefully hid the radio-transceiver behind some roller bearings. Then he switched the deflector off and put it on the shelf as well. If somebody spied him now, he could claim that he had lost his way. He kept the ring with the tiny defector on his finger. It was a marvel of micro-precision and must have been constructed by the Swoons whom Perry Rhodan had persuaded to come to Terra on one of his bold adventures that had him to their planet. Their contribution was invaluable.

  Kennof peered into the corridor to see that it was clear. He gave a fleeting, nostalgic thought to the Solar Defense Corps. This was the sort of work that inspired him and the Solar Defense Corps could have provided it for him but its militaristic hierarchy and blind discipline ran counter to his taste.

  He ran back and reached the office almost at the same time as Clinkskate. I’m still in pretty good shape , he thought as he grinned at Clinkskate,and I can make it very tough for these guys.

  He was oblivious to their terrible capacity to make things tough for him or he wouldn’t have been so optimistic.

  • • •

  Despite his checkered career as a busy sleuth, Kennof had never had occasion to learn what was required to prepare a human body for an extended deathlike hibernation and what Dr. Le Boeuf and his assistant Piotrowski had done to him during the past hours didn’t do much to enlighten him about the biochemical secrets of deep artificial sleep.

  If his sense of time had remained unaffected by the repeated application of narcosis it must have been late evening. Dr. Le Boeuf stood at the examination table and stroked his tired face. "That stupid Jubilee has cost us too much time," he said to Piotrowski. "I suggest that we measure Kennof’s brain frequency now and do the rest tomorrow."

  "Whatever you say," his assistant agreed.

  Kennof sighed in relief. He had already given up hope of getting an opportunity to conduct a clandestine inspection of his own. Now the question was whether they would leave him alone. He sat up and watched the two physicians. Complying with Piotrowski’s instructions the two nurses put an oval-shaped object on high legs close to Kennof.

  "What’s this, Doctor?" Kennof inquired, sensing a vague suspicion.

  Le Boeuf nervously manipulated several cords. "An apparatus for measuring your brain frequencies," he explained. "There’s nothing to be afraid of."

  Kennof forced himself to smile. It was unfortunate for Dr. Le Boeuf that Kennof was familiar with the look of a Terranian brain-frequency meter. Kennof’s smile faded and his heart beat faster as the physician prepared the examination.

  A closer look convinced Kennof: the instrument was not of Terranian origin! The ex-agent couldn’t suppress a shudder of cold fear. How did the ISC obtain such an instrument which, as far as he knew, was not even in the possession of the Solar Defense? Coincidence? Impossible!

  "Lean a little forward," Dr. Le Boeuf demanded grouchily. He pulled a band tightly around Kennof’s head. There were numerous thin wires attached to it.

  Piotrowski, who stood behind the instrument and apparently noted the recorded values, said in amazement: "You seem to be tossing a lot of problems around in your head."

  "Don’t confuse the man!" Le Boeuf rebuked him sharply. "Just watch the results!"

  Piotrowski gave his colleague a nasty look. The nurses stood waiting in the background. Kennof tried to control his turbulent thoughts. To fumble the ball now would have been asinine.

  "It’s finished," Piotrowski announced after awhile. The band was released from Kennof’s head and the nurses wheeled the mysterious instrument out of sight.

  "You can lie down in the bed over there and sleep till tomorrow," Dr. Le Boeuf said. "As this is going to be your exclusive occupation during the coming years, you shouldn’t have much trouble sleeping," he laughed raucously. Piotrowski chimed in with a shrill giggle.

  "Nurse Marion will stay with you," Dr. Le Boeuf continued. "If you wish she can give you a sleeping pill." A nurse! He should have known better than to think they would leave him all alone. Nevertheless he made a weak attempt to talk the physician out of it.

  "I won’t need Marion, Doctor. Don’t make her lose any sleep because of me."

  "She’ll take care of you," Le Boeuf said in a firm tone. Kennof dummied up and went to bed. The physicians and one of the nurses left the room. The other nurse who was given the duty to watch over his sleep pulled up a chair and silently sat down next to his bed. She was tall and slender and her face had remarkably regular and beautiful features.

  She can’t sit here all night, Kennof thought in dismay. She must leave sometime or fall asleep. Two hours elapsed without a change. The nurse sat next to him, unmoving. Finally Kennof had an idea. "Nurse," he asked, "may I have a drink?"

  "Of course," she said in a friendly tone. Kennof’s hopes were instantly buoyed but he was quickly disappointed when she went to a cabinet, took out a bottle and filled a glass. Tea! Kennof thought glumly. Tea of all things! But he sipped it with feigned pleasure. She probably kept some food nearby as well. It would be useless to make a request for it. He would never get rid of her that way. After two more hours had gone by Kennof was ready to play crazy. He began to observe the woman very intensely. Not once had she closed her eyes to indicate that she felt tired. The r
oom was dimly lit.

  Was it possible that she wouldn’t sleep at all? She didn’t even blink her eyes. An ice-cold shiver chased down Kennof’s spine. That’s it! He stared at her with dubious eyes. Her pupils looked straight ahead and she didn’t bat an eyelid. Marion was not a nurse! She was not even a woman—she was a robot!

  Kennof crawled instinctively deeper under his covers. As a former agent he had considerable experience with robots. With Terranian robots!

  Was it a figment of his imagination that the nurse was the embodiment of a machine of extra-Terranian origin? Not if the brain-frequency meter came from another planet too.

  Kennof knew full well that without a weapon he didn’t stand a chance in a fight with a robot. There was only one possibility: he had to short-circuit the positronic brain of the robot. This was not too difficult for him if he was up against the logic of a Terranian automaton. However if the machine was constructed by an alien race it was quite possible that it acted according to a different logic system. There were so many variations that Kennof shuddered to think about it.

  What are you waiting for, old buddy? Kennof asked himself.

  Kennof had little doubt that he could handle the robot if it was built by Terranian standards. However if it behaved with a logic foreign to him, a great many totally unpredictable things could happen.

  "Nurse!" Richard Kennof began softly. "I’ve just found out that you’re a robot."

  The ‘nurse’ gazed at him and Kennof winced a little.

  "I will report it to Dr. Le Boeuf," the machine declared.

  "Now wait a minute, my friend," Kennof exclaimed hastily. "Didn’t Dr. Le Boeuf order you to watch me at all times?"

  The robot was silent for a moment and then said: "Those were his orders."

  Kennof wagged his finger. "Nevertheless it is absolutely imperative that you inform the physician at once of your discovery because it could have dire consequences."

  "I must go to him at once," the machine agreed and started to move.

  "Stop!" Kennof bellowed. "Are you going to disobey his orders and leave me here without being guarded?"

  "Certainly not," the robot reversed itself.

  Kennof said harshly: "Now go and get the doctor before something happens. And don’t forget to watch me. You’re not permitted to leave me. Are you listening? This was a strict order. But you must tell Le Boeuf that I know about you. What are you waiting for? Go ahead! Guard me! Stay here! Go away! Stay! Go Stay"

  He kept talking until it was over. The electronic safety valve of the machine’s brain was triggered and short-circuited its action. The robot had been unable to coordinate the contradictory instructions. The success of Kennof’s tactic had depended on the accuracy of his assumption that Dr. Le Boeuf had indeed instructed ‘Nurse Marion’ to stick with the sleuth without fail.

  No positronic memory-bank was able to cope with two conflicting demands of equal urgency. The only solution for such a machine was to retreat into an automatic ‘schizophrenic’ state.

  Kennof jumped out of his bed. A quick examination confirmed that the robot had been manufactured on Earth and that it no longer presented a danger. Let the two physicians rack their brains next morning how he had put the nurse in such a helpless condition.

  The next important step was to get his micro-deflector and transceiver back in order to search the caves. The devices were hidden on the floor above him. He was afraid to use the elevator since the noise might have attracted the employees of the ISC. However there were no stairs as far as he could see. The elevator was set in an open shaft and Kennof decided to climb up on the suspension cable. He got up on the roof of the little cabin. If somebody happened to use the elevator now it would have been the end of the line for him. Kennof pulled his heavy body up on the cable with the agility of a monkey but he tore the skin of his hands on the sharp ends of the wires where the cable was frayed.

  When he reached the next floor he sneaked to the shelf where he had hidden his instruments. They were still in place. Kennof worked fast and precise so that it took him only a few seconds to go back.

  He had only a vague idea how to proceed from there. Since he had been unable to obtain promising clues, he had to trust his luck from the start.

  It was shortly before midnight when he passed through the same door where Dunbee had begun his flight a few weeks earlier. He activated the micro-deflector to guard himself against unexpected encounters. Kennof reached the shaft into which Dunbee had fallen, and paused. Although it was not the end of the corridor he decided to investigate the hole. He lowered himself into the hole and slid down cautiously, making sure that the irreplaceable equipment Shane had given him remained undamaged.

  When he emerged at the bottom his eyes beheld a remarkable scenery. A soft light illuminated the spacious vault. Huge rocks threw their distorted shadows on the floor and bizarre figures of stone protruded from the ceiling high above Kennof. The three vats looked like sleeping monsters in their lair.

  Kennof stepped closer and glimpsed—for the first time—the sleepers.

  They floated like fish in each chamber. With closed eyes they slept naked in the yellowish liquid, their faces turned up or down; faces of men and women, workers and scientists. Their hands were folded, spread out or twisted into claws.

  Kennof was consternated. All these people had fled from the misery of their lives to seek happiness in a distant future. They filled him with shame and revulsion. He considered these attempts by a frightful number of people to outwit their fate as doomed to failure. Whenever they would wake up, they would take the same personality which had handicapped them in the past into the future. Nothing would be changed.

  Kennof forced himself to go closer to the containers. The sleepers rested on pneumatic supports and the chambers were separated from each other by a wire-grid. All sleeping cubicles were connected by contacts and numerous hoses. The cell-plasma was in continuous motion, a sign that it was replaced or treated in a permanent process. The individual sleepers could only be reached by an access at the top of the containers where Kennof saw more of the hoses, pipes and contact sockets.

  The former agent of the Solar Defense felt relieved. Admittedly he had anticipated finding something highly irregular and had refused to believe that there was nothing around here but sleeping people. The ISC might have used some questionable methods and even violated the law but the people who had come here for help were safe and sound in their care.

  He had no inkling that he would have to change his opinion in less than an hour.

  • • •

  Richard Kennof wriggled out of the shaft with considerable puffing. He would have no other choice but to return to Dr. Le Beouf’s custody and insist that he had changed his mind and was ready to face the world again.

  As he was busy dusting off his clothes he got a signal from the mini-detector in his ring. He interrupted his work in surprise. According to the magnitude of the reaction by the device, a strong discharge of energy must have taken place in his immediate vicinity. Kennof checked the ring.

  "It registers regular bursts of energy as well as those of five-dimensional nature," Shane had explained. "The tiny dial is divided in two sectors. The red sector indicates an occurrence of higher order, that is in the five-dimensional field."

  Kennof became alert when he recalled these words. He scrutinized the dial again but he had made no mistake. Somewhere a five-dimensional discharge had occurred. He gnashed his teeth. His suspicions that had been lulled were awakened again. How was it possible that an ultra-dimensional energy source existed at the ISC station? It was so unheard of as to border on the incredible. Yet he was certain that his detector functioned properly. Shane had checked it conscientiously before he had delivered it to him.

  There could be no further thought of rest this night for him. He ran along the corridor which continued beyond the shaft deeper inside the Earth. The ring showed no further discharges.

  Kennof was clutched by an almost unbearable
tension. Was there something awry with the Sleeping Corporation after all? As he was invisible he didn’t have to be especially careful.

  The corridor ended at a metallic platform in another cave and Kennof entered it without hesitating. Next to the entrance was another opening which led into the wall of rock. It was arranged in such a clever way that Kennof could easily picture in his mind how perfectly it could be concealed in case of an inspection. He was led to this assumption by several large boulders which were piled up near the opening. It was extremely unlikely that an inspector would have discovered the natural opening which was also camouflaged by the metal platform. But now the access was open since no inspection was in progress.

  Kennof let out a low whistle. Whatever the Intertime Sleeping Corporation wanted to hide—it was to be found in that recess of the cave. The detective tiptoed into the secret passage. It was lit up and seemed to be in frequent use. He heard a few indistinct noises in the distance and he hurried to get closer until he made out the voices of several men. His heart began to beat faster but he tried to control his excitement.

  The passage turned at a right angle behind which appeared to be a larger room. Without making a noise Kennof took the last steps before he approached the next cave. The room he entered was not as big as the other caverns.

  First he saw six men in the blue outfits of the ISC. Then he noticed another man—a man he recognized: Jubilee.

  Kennof stifled a cry. Jubilee lay, apparently unconscious, on the bare floor. Behind the poor unfortunate, who had come to Wyoming together with Kennof, metallic bars were mounted vertically in the ground. They were arranged in a semicircle with a diameter of about 10 meters. Somehow it reminded Kennof of a caged circus ring. High above the open bars, close to the ceiling of the cave, floated in defiance of all laws of gravity a metallic ball with a reddish shine.

  Kennof almost forgot to breathe. It all looked so strange and menacing. He had never seen anything like it before and was unable to figure out what it could be.