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  "Chubby, by tonight the Brain on Arkon will have placed most of his fighting ships under command of living intelligences. You have to see to it that your hyperspace interference fields will be available by tomorrow night so that the first ships can make a night flight out to Topid. I can't give you any more time. That is all!"

  Rhodan then established contact with Allan D. Mercant. "Anything new on Topid?"

  "No sir. With the exception of a few robot spacers, no Arkon ship has appeared in the Orion sector nor have any been announced by the Brain but my two agents were able to detect three different hypercom contacts in the past 24 hours involving messages between the positronicon of Arkon and the Topides. They were unable to decode the conversations."

  "And what's the general situation, Mercant?"

  The Marshal's face was grim. "Bad, sir! From hour to hour the giant positronicon is becoming stronger. Even at the height of the Empire's former power the people were never governed with such a tight rein on all their actions... and not even the Aras dare to rebel, much less the Springers and the Mounders. These Druufs and their continuous mass attacks... they've practically welded the crumbled pieces of the Greater Empire back together again. My agents don't have our general perspective of the situation but everywhere they run into the same mystery. Independent or subversive action, revolts and secession movements—all of that has disappeared from star cluster M-13."

  "Thank you, Mercant."

  He prepared the text of the orders which had to reach Hades, a planet in the Druuf universe, within the next two hours. Since the loss of Grautier, direct support and physical contact with Hades had been cut off and now there was only radio contact. Rhodan used that sparingly because he was well aware of the danger of being traced. So in order to deliver his latest orders he was resorting to use of a remote-controlled spy probe. The worst that could happen was that it could either be shot down or in case of seizure it would self-destruct, leaving no clue as to the message it carried.

  He was reading the orders directly to the hypercom central when his other screen started flashing a call from Pluto. "Hold on!" he called to one side, and he finished reading the text, giving orders to have it transmitted to the probe-launching ship through at least 10 separate relay stations. Then he finally turned to handle the call from Pluto.

  The relay stations were nothing more than State class observation cruisers which were widely deployed through the galaxy. Messages in transmission were often ping-ponged from one ship to another, in pulse-burst coded format and at varied frequencies. This zigzag pattern normally caused a five second delay for a dispatch to reach its destination but it made it impossible for either the point of origin or reception to be traced.

  "Yes?" Rhodan turned to the screen where the C.O. of the Pluto garrison had appeared.

  "Sir, excuse me, please..."

  "Alright, what is it?" interjected Rhodan, obviously vexed by the interruption.

  The garrison chief's face became colder than was normal even for the chilly climate of Pluto. He cleared his throat and finally rasped out his message in a tone that Rhodan didn't like at all. "Sir, for several days a certain Lt. Thomas Cardif has been attempting to..."

  A tiny shock ran through Rhodan as he heard his son's name—Thomas Cardif—but he betrayed nothing of the sudden storm of emotions within him as he interrupted the officer on Pluto: "Am I his immediate superior or you, Major? Handle Lt. Cardif as you would any other officer in your command!"

  "Sir..." Rhodan could not fail to notice the major was marshaling all of his courage in order to present his case. "The lieutenant's psychiatric examination indicates a hate complex he has built up against you. Since he is not entirely responsible for his behavior at the moment, I'd like to take the liberty..."

  Perry Rhodan leaned forward, his grey eyes suddenly glaring. His lips tightened. The deepened cleft between his brows now revealed his agitation. Only his voice remained calm, though the tone was cold. "If your Lt. Thomas Cardif belongs in a sanitarium he cannot remain an officer of the Solar Spacefleet. But if he's not sick and is only suffering from a self-induced hate complex, then put the youngster to work, Major! Don't you have any children of your own?"

  "Yes, two boys and a girl, sir..."

  "OK! So what are you going to do with him now, Major?"

  "He is making subversive and rebellious speeches against you, sir..." The Major had finally managed to reveal Thomas Cardif's indiscretion to his father.

  "Unfortunately, Major, that's nothing new. But it rubs me the wrong way that you're looking at him as my son and that you don't feel free to act as you see fit. Well, I want you to handle him exactly on that basis. Put him in front of a court martial where he belongs and after he's served some time just keep him so busy that he won't have any time or appetite for rabble rousing!"

  "Sir, might I add a further observation?" asked the major.

  "Please do!"

  "Sir, as you may know, Lt. Cardif has your own brand of energy..."

  Rhodan broke in again: "A plus-factor I'm glad to hear about. Just guide that energy of his into constructive channels. For Thomas Cardif's sake, I hope you succeed... Yes, I know, Major, you can't have children without expecting headaches... Thank you. That is all!"

  The connection between frozen Pluto and the Earth had been cut off but in Terrania Rhodan's thoughts whirled for some minutes around the subject of his son. It was during a mission to Siliko 5, a planet fortress of the Arkonides, that Thomas had first learned that Thora and Perry Rhodan were his parents. In a bitterness of reproach over the fact that his origin had necessarily been kept secret, he had refused to discard the alias of Cardif, the name he had grown up with.

  Supporting his head in his hands, Rhodan sat there and stared into space. Again and again his thoughts cried "Thomas!"—yet he knew that cry could never penetrate to Thomas Cardif through the Arkonide wall that was his mother's legacy.

  Thomas Cardif, Perry Rhodan's only son, hated his father!

  It was with a sense of relief that Rhodan noticed Bell's arrival. The stocky fellow was startled at the sight of his friend sitting there in a mood that was rarely ever revealed to anyone.

  It made him more cautious than usual. "Something happen?" he asked.

  "Reg—Thomas is going to be court-martialed

  "What?!" The exclamation sounded like a trumpet blast for a battle charge.

  "And you...? Naturally, I suppose you agreed to it, is that what you're telling me?"

  "What else would you expect, as Administrator of the Solar..."

  Bell interrupted. "Perry, you're one of the best—a magnificent guy—but as a father you're not worth the powder to—Look! My old man used to tan my hide any time I got into mischief but he would have gone to the President of the United States to fight for me if it had ever been necessary. So what do you do, instead? Let me have that space phone!"

  He pushed Perry to one side. The call key snapped audibly as it was pressed home. The interplanetary exchange answered. Bell asked for an immediate connection with the major at the Pluto garrison.

  Shortly thereafter, the viewscreen brightened.

  Bell wasted no time. "Major, I'm calling about Thomas Cardif. I do not agree that the youngster should be court-martialed... That's right, I'm talking to you from the same spot where the Administrator spoke to you a few minutes ago. He's sitting here next to me. So we understand each other, right? And whether you decide to nurse him or whatever, you can figure it out from there better than I can.

  But one thing is clear, OK?"

  "Very clear, Mr. Bell." And a sigh of relief came from Pluto.

  "Alright, that is all, Major!" Bell finished and pressed the disconnect.

  He had the sensitivity to drop the subject of Thomas Cardif, then and there. In fact, this wasn't what he had come to see Perry about. "By noon tomorrow the new equipment will be in production, Perry. The specialists have gotten over the hump. In a few hours the tech experts will be putting their know-how to the tes
t. I think this is one night we'll be able to see what a bed looks like."

  While he talked he had been looking at his thumb. It had healed long since but he seemed to be troubled by it because he shook his head with grave dissatisfaction.

  Perry Rhodan refrained from asking him what he was shaking his head about. He was in no mood to listen again to his friend's gloomy premonitions. "That's right," he answered, attempting to get Bell off the subject. "Tonight maybe both of us can get some sleep."

  5/ OPERATION KAMIKAZE

  Eight light cruisers of the State class, each of them a fast spacesphere 300 feet in diameter, had taken off in the direction of Orion. Simultaneously two heavy cruisers of the Terra class also departed on the same mission. The only vessel still waiting to go was the super battleship Kublai Khan, now disguised as an Arkonide ship bearing the name of On-Tharu. It would not be able to move into action until the complicated preparations for its visit to Topid had been completed.

  On board the Burma, one of the light cruisers, a tiny lab had been set up for Gallus, the chief expert for hyperspace ionization fields. He did not emerge from his workroom until he received an intercom call from the ship's commander, Joe Pasgin, and was ordered to come to the Command Central.

  A small, slender-framed man, Gallus was a sensitive bundle of nerves but he was without peer in his specialized field. Realizing that this was the expert's first trip into outer space, Joe Pasgin was there to greet him in front of the great gallery of panob screens as Gallus stepped into the Central and was confronted with the spectacle of thousands of unblinking suns, staring at him from the darkness of the void. But the ion-field specialist seemed to ignore the reproduction of the universe hanging before him. He was only interested in reports concerning his synthetically generated interference fields, which were now to undergo a practical testing.

  Pasgin had to inform him: "We have to wait until we're in the Orion sector before performing the tests. That's a strict order from the Chief, Mr. Gallus. After all, we don't want to put up a neon sign for the Arkonides just yet. Do you hear that countdown? In 20 seconds we'll be making a transition jump to the Orion area. So if you can just be patient with us for a minute or two..."

  Under protective concealment of the residual shockwave absorbers, the eight light cruisers and their two Terra-class escorts made a formation hyperjump and emerged into normal space at a distance of slightly over 800 light-years from their starting point. After the shock of rematerializing had been dissipated along with the pulling sensation of pain at the nape of the neck, a signal was received from the Sherbourne to start the first test with the newfangled equipment, which was supposed to generate ionization fields of astronomical proportions and keep them stabilized.

  The distance between the Burma and the Sherbourne was slightly more than 600,000 miles. They could not directly observe each other without electronic assistance. But in the Communications Central of the Burma, the presence of the distant Sherbourne was demonstrated as Gallus and Pasgin watched three new instruments that were connected to the hypercom receiver. On the screen of something that looked like an oscillograph, a weirdly formed and constantly changing double curve caused Gallus to cry out: "There! That's the Sherbourne!"

  Knowing nothing of these communications techniques, Joe Pasgin could only give a polite nod of confirmation. The curves told him absolutely nothing and their strange configuration was somehow alien to him. But the frail small man beside him appeared to have fallen in love with them. He gazed at them in fixed fascination and then suddenly uttered an ecstatic cry when an adjacent black oval screen flashed to life with an extremely bright greenish glow. Its intensity wavered momentarily and then it held steady.

  The Burma's Chief Com Officer seemed to have been briefed from the start on the operation of the oval-shaped screen, for now he exclaimed: "It's for real! The hypercom stuff isn't getting through at all. I wouldn't have believed it!"

  Now Gallus was the pure researcher. "Hold the directional beam where it is," he said to the communications man. "I want some readings on the field reflections."

  Almost in spite of himself, Joe Pasgin began to be interested in Gallus' testing because in the final analysis their results would determine if it would be possible to cut off Topid's total radio traffic and only let controlled messages come through The latter would be cross-relayed by Terra ships through the screening zone, and once inside they would be rebroadcast to the lizard people.

  While the small composite squadron of the Solar fleet approached the planetary system of the reptile intelligences at half speol, the last practical experiments were being completed on board the Burma and the Sherbourne. Gallus had changed from a quiet, frail little man to a dominant focal point of wizardly energy. In a seeming rage of zeal, he extended the range of his experiments and made test after test comply with more and more rigid parameters. And whatever he did to try to break through his ionization fields in hyperspace was blocked. What he was most enthused about was the fact that the interference fields held stable and that they could be moved in all directions and to any desired distance with a minimum of energy output."

  "We'll achieve maximum efficiency," he explained to an attentive Joe Pasgin, "by placing the field at a distance of from 24 to 34.5 light-minutes. Three cruisers on one side of the screen will be enough of a field generation base to suppress all hypercom messages to cluster M-13 or the blockade front. Two other ships will be needed on stand by in case of emergency." Almost rapturously, Gallus concluded: "Mr. Pasgin, the Chief will be pleased with what we've accomplished!"

  Pasgin discounted the other's enthusiasm for the moment. "And how are we supposed to intercept all the messages through the interference fields—the ones intended for the lizards?" he wanted to know.

  "You don't intercept them through the fields. No hypercom dispatch can penetrate these unique screens, no matter how powerful. But it's a characteristic

  of the ionization layers to reflect transmissions at 100% efficiency. Of course, there's one danger in that..."

  "What danger—where?" asked Pasgin.

  "There is a danger of placing the reflection field at just the wrong angle to the directional beam's angle of incidence, in which case it wouldn't be difficult to send the beam directly back to its point of origin at its full original strength..."

  "Glord!" Pasgin stared at him in sudden alarm. "You mean to tell me then that the robot Brain could receive back his own hypercom messages?"

  "Naturally!" replied Gallus in some surprise, unable to understand the other's flare of excitement.

  "Does the Chief know of this possibility, Gallus?"

  "Of course not. How could he?"

  "Shoosh! Only a nuck on cloud 99 would ask a question like that!" Pasgin blurted out. "What do you think the robot Brain would do if instead of getting an answer to his inquiries he had his own message bounce back into his receiver? He'd send out a fleet force to the place where his hyper-beams were being reflected..."

  "Where? In hyperspace?" asked Gallus innocently. He was merely the dedicated scientist, devoid of cunning or guile.

  Joe Pasgin got control of himself. It galled him that this expert was so blind to the cold facts of reality but he answered: "No. The Arkonide ships will show up at the source of the hypercom interference and they'll start blasting without mercy. That's why the Chief had better know about this as soon as possible!"

  The ship's P.A. system announced from the Control Central that the Terranian squadron had arrived at the ordered position within five minutes. Pasgin hurriedly excused himself from Gallus.

  When he entered the Control Central he was aware of a high pitch of activity. Messages and reports were coming in from all parts of the spherical spacer in an uninterrupted stream. They were a prelude to one of the most daring manoeuvres that Perry Rhodan had ever attempted.

  Many of the men in the Command Central of the Burma had flown missions in other ships and in the course of time they had developed an almost infallible instinct fo
r the kind of assignment they were on, whether harmless or dangerous. They knew that this run was not only one of the riskiest, it was the ultimate of impudence. Not one man among them was especially anxious to get into a shooting match with the enemy but they were all keen on getting the better of the robot Brain of Arkon, and the sheer cheekiness of the plan intrigued them to the point where they were willing to accept any risks that might be involved in the project.

  There was a name for their mission which had been adopted by everybody: Operation Kamikaze! Its meaning was ominous but it made little difference to Perry Rhodan's men. They were accustomed to hitting rough weather once in awhile. Although they knew it would be no picnic, however, they didn't quite recognize it for what it really was, Rhodan's desperate attempt to rescue what could still be salvaged!

  Joe Pasgin received the reports of the other spaceships. He checked their position figures and then nodded a confirmation to the positronic section. For the officer in charge of the computer computations, this meant that the other ships had taken up their planned positions and that his work could now begin.

  The Burma was unique among all other State class ships in that it was equipped with a special positronic computer brain. The feature of this machine was that it handled the higher math of Arkonide meta-mechanics which even made it possible to make calculations concerning hyperspace functions.

  At the moment it was occupied with the incredibly complex problem of calculating the angle of incidence of the directional beam from Arkon 3's hypercom transmitter, which was regularly used by the Regent. For every second of time, hundreds of vector radiants had to be considered including contra-rotational motions. The fact that the Topide system was more than 33,000 light-years from the central world of Arkon was not the main difficulty but the fact that the incidence angle against the interference screens had to be determined within hyperspace. For according to the theoretical postulates of Arkonide metamechanics, in hyperspace there were neither any normal space-time characteristics nor any concepts at all that were related to our own universe.