Shadow of the Mutant Master Read online

  The male Volatians led Fellmer Lloyd to the residence of the Omniscient Mother in the main city of their people which was situated at the center of the plateau. Here they lived undisturbed and untouched by the influence of the technology which dominated the parts of Volat settled by the Arkonides.

  There were no houses, in the customary form, to be seen. They were shaped like beehives and their access holes were difficult to enter.

  The Volatians had lost some of the features which had been typical for them as insects, such as their ability to fly, while others remained unchanged. The female was the mistress who tolerated the males and deprived them of all authority in public and private life. However three times a year all adult Volatians bestirred themselves in a great commotion and all differences of their community disappeared. Then they became equals and at midnight the primordial forest was transformed into a temple where hallowed rites changed the lives of these intelligent beings for a short time.

  Fellmer Lloyd slowly followed the Volatians to the center of the city where a honeycomb structure rose like a monument on a wide square. The building was lofty, about 50 meters high and was, in contrast to the other structures, adorned with ornamental designs which aroused Lloyd's admiration.

  Finally he met the first Volatian women. They were as tall as the men but daintier and more graceful. They exuded something resembling female charm. Their skins favored the brown color and only the thin horn-like ridges looked black. Their feelers were twice as long and considerably thicker. They greeted him and the magnitude of their thoughts also proved to be twice as strong.

  The Volat men who had accompanied him withdrew and the women took him into their midst to lead him into the residence of the Omniscient Mother.

  The entrance hole was high enough to let him enter without stooping. Tallow candles illuminated the interior. The first room to which he was admitted was shaped in a honeycomb design and so were all the others in the building. Lloyd had the impression of being among industrious bees and his experience seemed very unreal. A footpath wound upward in spirals, another sign that the Volatians were no longer able to fly.

  Then he stood before the Omniscient Mother and before he received her first thought he knew that he was in the presence of a queen.

  Her thoughts startled him so much that he stepped back against his will. Come closer, stranger. You carry the same sign of long life on your forehead as Sikeron. You're much older than you look. I know that you're Sikeron's friend!

  Fellmer Lloyd was stunned. No stranger had ever told him this. What sip on his forehead was the Omniscient Mother talking about? How could she tell by looking at him that his cells—as those of Ralph Sikeron and other mutants—had been treated on Wanderer, the planet of eternal life, so that he would not age for six decades?

  He begged her for an explanation but the Omniscient Mother of the Volatians appeared to show a wise and human smile as she refused to enlighten him.

  She awed him more and more as a queen. She radiated sagacity, serenity, and the wisdom of age. The longer he looked at her the more she lost the appearance of an insect and their mental contact grew steadily more intense.

  She was seated in the same manner as he on a weave of organic fibers. Her royal chambers were embellished by evergreen leaves. They were many times larger than the other rooms.

  The Omniscient Mother brooked no interference and devoted her full time to him. She was more than a ruler, she was the immovable pole of the Volatians, their idol who assumed their responsibilities and who was overburdened with work.

  Lloyd refrained from pressing her to talk about Ralph Sikeron. She touched upon the subject herself. He was twice before in this room, Fellmer Lloyd. He concealed his origin the same as you do. He was no more a Prebonian than you can pretend to be. Both of you came from a faraway star. He wanted to return but he died although he wore the mark of eternal life on his forehead. You two resemble each other very much yet he was different from you. He was able to hear us talk but your ears are deaf. However you can understand us as well as he did, albeit in a different way. I believe that the world where you and Ralph Sikeron were at home must be as beautiful as the land of Volat.

  He was deeply moved by her thoughts and felt very fortunate to have found the Omniscient Mother. His respect for alien races grew enormously.

  She continued to relate Ralph Sikeron's discoveries. There's a dark power lurking in the shadows of the Arkonides and Springers on Volat. Sikeron fled to me after the first time he felt the manifestation of its might. He sought my advice but I was unable to counsel him.

  He came once more to request my help after two Springers who were apparently in the service of his sinister antagonist with supranatural powers had traced him. On his second visit he asked my permission to leave a message to his successor directing him to me.

  And what happened after Ralph Sikeron returned to Kuklon, Omniscient Mother? Lloyd asked in his thoughts.

  He knew that he went to his death. I believe he determined the source of the uncanny power that my people had heretofore not noticed on Volat. He was aware that somebody was waiting for him in Kuklon. When he said goodbye to me he wished the people, of my world good luck with his last words. Are they also waiting for you in Kuklon, Fellmer Lloyd?

  When the Volat men joined him again at the border of the broad square where the queen's residence stood, he glanced back for the last time with grave foreboding.

  Three days later he was back at his Gazelle which had escaped detection by the search of the Arkonides.

  7/ ACTION IN THE AIR

  Kuri Onere was not in the least surprised when the Prebonian appeared at her door. The pretty Springer girl brought him up-to-date about some interesting details.

  First she surprised him with the news that the Prebonian murderer whom he happened to resemble so much had been apprehended two days earlier in the slums of Kuklon and had been taken to Prebon. Then she related the less agreeable news that she had received a visit from Jidif the day after Lloyd's departure.

  She paused in the middle of her story and looked with amazement at the Prebonian who had a vacant expression in his eyes. She was afraid to disturb him as he appeared to look inward.

  Lloyd put his hand into his pocket. He had changed his clothes again and was once more dressed in the latest style of the Arkonides. His suit had pockets big enough to conceal two compact rayguns.

  The Arkonide Administration of Volat was not in favor of letting the population arm themselves with lethal weapons and imposed a prohibitive fine for the carrying of unlicensed guns. Ever since the impersonal gigantic positronic Brain had taken over the rule of Arkon, its edicts were enforced in the far-flung borders of the Great Empire.

  Belying his sluggish appearance Lloyd suddenly bounced Eke a tennis ball behind the door which was at the same moment pushed open from outside. Before Kuri understood what the three strange men wanted, the Preboner had triggered his shock-beamer and two of the unannounced visitors crashed to the floor of her room while the third fell backward into the hall.

  A stem look from Lloyd's eyes warned the girl not to move. His mental sensor screamed: Danger!

  Putting the three Springers out of action was not the end of the incident. A fourth man was staked out near the antigrav and waited for the right sign from his accomplices. Unfortunately Lloyd had been unable to recognize the sign and now the brains of the stunned Springers could not release it since their functions were paralyzed.

  Why can't I help you? Lloyd gathered the thoughts of the girl. He discovered that Kuri was not only courageous but had kept her calm.

  "Run outside and try to distract their partner waiting outside!" he instructed her. "Scream a little when you run out of the apartment but don't alarm the whole house!"

  A fleeting smile crossed Lloyd's face as he watched Kuri disarray her hair and dash out of the room. She began yelling in a voice which was neither too loud nor too soft as she Red into the corridor to the antigrav elevator.

&
nbsp; What did they do to this girl? were the terrified and outraged thoughts of the fourth man waiting at the elevator. He leaped forward and tried to hold her mouth. Everybody’ll be here in a minute if she doesn't stop shouting!

  At this moment Lloyd came rushing out the door, stepped over the unconscious man lying in the hall and fired his second shot from the shock-beamer. The burly ruffian collapsed at Kuri's feet. "Throw him into the antigrav!" Lloyd whispered to the girl. He bent down, picked up the other Springer at the door, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack, ran to the antigrav and pitched him into the shaft.

  The gravity was regulated to flow upwards and the limp body of the intruder ascended behind the man the girl had pushed in. The third one followed in a few seconds and when he went to get the last of the men who had barged in and seen his face, he gave a low whistle. "Kuri!" he called. "Come back and lock the door!"

  He put the fourth man down on a chair and the girl exclaimed angrily when she recognized the Springer: "Jidif! Do you know, Fellmer, that he's a crony of Uxlad's youngest son Tirr?"

  "Okay!" Lloyd made a slip of the tongue in English and he hoped that Kuri would pay no attention to the foreign-sounding word.

  He was taken aback when she picked it up at once and questioned him: "Okay?I've heard Asargud say that word several times. What does it mean? Okay isn't a Prebonian word."

  "Later!" Lloyd tried to put her off in the hope she would forget about it. He fished a hypodermic needle out of his deep pockets. It was a marvel of Ferronian technology whose precision and manifold applications would have delighted the Aras.

  He injected Jidif with a drug counteracting his shock. The effect was startling. He jumped up at once and stared, terrified and furious, at the Prebonian who calmly stood his ground without showing that he was a man possessing unusual mental powers. Lloyd read Jidif's mind like an open book. He thought about 'bosses' and about the two Galactic Springers who had pursued Ralph Sikeron and had been unmasked by him here in Kuklon.

  However Jidif's thoughts did not present a clear picture of his bosses to Lloyd. No matter how hard he tried to focus on them, things became more confused instead of clearer.

  Suddenly Lloyd's chain of thoughts was broken. Something had cropped up in his memory. He had a flash about the Mutant Master!

  Many years before when Perry Rhodan and his mutants had to fight another mysterious enemy that inflicted painful blows on the New Power, it had proved at first to be impossible to make any of the captured hostile mutants reveal the identity of the Mutant Master. He had imposed a hypno-block on his mutants which was stronger than their lives.

  But the Mutant Master had died more than half a century ago on his flight from Perry Rhodan in outer space. I must ignore the memory of the Mutant Master, Lloyd concluded eventually. Ralph Sikeron's reference to the Mutant Master could not be understood literally. He must have hinted at some enigmatic connection. Jidif was under a similar hypno-block that forbade him to betray his bosses.

  "Get out, Jidif!" Lloyd ordered energetically, pointing to the door. Kuri was at a loss to understand his motives.

  The spindly Springer got up suspiciously. His face was a mirror of his vicious thoughts of revenge.

  The cosmic agent raised his shock-beamer. He had no other choice but to use it again on Jidif. He and Kuri had to have a few hours respite in order to submerge unnoticed somewhere in Kuklon's masses.

  "I'll make you pay for this," Jidif grunted on his way to the antigrav shaft as Fellmer Lloyd aimed his shock-beamer at him. And in his thoughts the Springer added to his threat: ...you damn Terranian! Lloyd pulled the trigger the moment he grasped that Jidif had knowledge of Terra. Now he knew why Ralph Sikeron had sent the warning signal Three Bells!

  Two Springers had exposed Ralph Sikeron as Perry Rhodan's agent and learned from him the cosmic position of Earth by parapsychological probing.

  Now it was his turn to radio Three Bells for Terra. Terra had to call a state of a high alarm!

  • • •

  Kuklon had grown into one city from three separate towns which were more than 30 kilometers apart at the time they were founded. It had three old quarters with narrow twisted lanes which formed an intricate labyrinth of streets.

  Lloyd and Kuri had changed their air taxis eight times and started to walk through the crowds of many different races as soon as they reached Kuklon-Psor, the old town of Psor.

  There were rows of stores and shops which offered everything in the Galaxy for sale. Most of the trade was conducted for the convenience of space travelers.

  Suddenly Lloyd pulled the girl aside. Kuri didn't resist him. They fled in a special store which sold nothing but Frubi-Kar, the indestructible luminous material.

  The Galactic trader and his two sales girls feared a robbery when they saw the two people barge into the store. The owner's first thought concerned the alarm button for the security system and he thereby unknowingly revealed the location of the switch to Lloyd who pressed the button before the shopkeeper could reach it himself.

  An energy screen was instantly drawn in front of the shop window and the entrance door as the little converter in the ceiling started to him.

  A shot from a raygun, fired from across the street, slammed with a shower of sparks into the stable energy screen, shutting the mouth of the protesting shopkeeper.

  The wall of energy was completely transparent and they could see the crowds before the store scatter in all directions as three more shots were fired at the spot of the shield behind which Kuri Onere and Fellmer Lloyd were standing.

  "Where is the backdoor?" Lloyd barked at the Frubi-Kar seller, raising his hypno-beamer to show he meant business.

  "I must call the Administration..."

  "Not now!" Lloyd growled. "Don't keep me waiting if you don't want me to get, unpleasant..." The concentrated fire of five thermo-beamers hit the energy screen again, pelting it with a glowing shower of sparks. The load exceeded its capacity, causing the converter in the ceiling to labor and whine in protest.

  The young sales girl began to scream hysterically and ran out of the room, shouting: "Follow me!"

  Fellmer and Kuri rushed out behind her. The houses of the older parts of Kuklon-Psor were not equipped with antigrav elevators. They raced down well-worn stairs and through the living-quarters of frightened Arkonides or Springers, came to some more stairs and finally reached a half-deserted alley. Kuri and the agent ran to the comer of the next street and joined the crowd like a couple of leisurely sightseers who had some time to while away in Kuklon.

  "We've nothing to fear for the time being," Fellmer reassured the girl, hoping to make her feel at ease.

  "What makes you think so, Fellmer? How did you know that they'd break into my apartment? And what about the attack at the Frubi-Kar shop?" the girl asked excitedly and with good reason. The uncanny reactions of the Prebonian baffled her. Was he able to look into the future?

  "I could feel it, Kuri," he replied. This was not far from the truth but it was not a satisfactory answer for an Arkonide or a Springer.

  "How is it possible to...?" With great apprehension Kuri fell silent in the middle of her sentence. Her companion looked so weird again although different than he did before in the apartment.

  Now he broke out in a sweat and stopped walking. His face twisted and he turned pale. What was the matter with him? She looked around and was about to shout for help when Lloyd groaned and regained his normal appearance.

  Kuri Onere was a good sport. She controlled her curiosity and suppressed the questions which were burning on her tongue. She didn't want to bother him with disturbing questions and waited till the Prebonian was ready to speak.

  They had reached a little square. Over to the left an air taxi discharged its passengers. Fellmer Lloyd took Kuri by the hand and started to run. "Hurry up!"

  He pushed her so hard that she almost fell down when he helped her into the taxi. He jumped in behind her and slammed the starting lever down as far as it would go.
The unleashed antigravity forces made the air taxi soar abruptly above the roofs, causing the compressed air to howl wildly. Then Lloyd pushed the machine in horizontal thrust and it shot forward.

  The roof ridge below him disintegrated under the bombardment of a thermo-beamer as the taxi scraped the rooftops and disappeared safely in the protection of the houses.

  They had foiled the fourth attack within an hour and as the air taxi raced over the mass of Kuklon's houses, Lloyd waited for the fifth assault which was sure to come. The enemy had dropped his mask. He had come out of hiding and had gone over to a straight attack.

  After the stealthy assassination attempt at the Frubi-Kar shop where five men with thermo-beamers tried to bump him off, someone had applied enormous hypnotic power to force him under his will. Only his thorough training had prevented him from falling victim to the first attack of the stranger. He could understand better how Ralph Sikeron had been murdered.

  He kept a close watch on the traffic around him, suspecting his foe in every air taxi. "I've got to radio a message," he murmured, disregarding the presence of Kuri. The girl would soon find out anyway whom he and Asargud really represented although she could not be allowed to know that their base of operation was Terra.

  The largest building of Kuklon appeared in the distance: the Arkon Administration and the seat of the Administrator, the most powerful official of Volat.

  Kuri Onere gazed at Lloyd with her beautiful dark eyes. She had recovered from the horror of the repeated attacks in remarkably short time.

  "Wouldn't you prefer to leave my side? There's danger wherever I go and..." Lloyd broke off.

  Danger! his extra-sensor shouted. Danger from left. Danger from the third taxi!

  "Jidif is on our heels again, Kuri." With these words he voluntarily revealed the secret of his capability. With a sideways glance he noticed that the girl was rather relieved to hear his words.

  Fellmer Lloyd had climbed fairly high on his hasty flight his air taxi. This higher altitude which was out of bounds for air taxis was now a good vantage spot for his dodging the fifth raid.