Power's Price Read online

  "Now the plot thickens!" Bell said, gasping for breath and raising his brows.

  "Not quite!" Pucky turned toward him, an unmistakable sign that he did not feel especially guilty. "During my visit to the Cokaz 1, when the patriarch's cylindrical spacer was still in orbit around Venus, I caught Cokaze thinking about the Forit System and its second planet, Solten. The old boy can think about nothing but money, you know, and so quite in passing he was calculating what the Soltenites owed him in license fees. He figured that he could buy three new cylindrical spacers with the take..."

  "Make your point, Pucky!" Bell demanded of him sharply.

  "OK! Gotcha! Won't forget. Meanwhile, some other things were being taken care of. Chief was wondering how I got to Cardif. I sensed. While thinking about Cokaze's lovely source of income. Thought out the details... and because you want to know precisely what's going on, Fatty, I'll tell you very precisely:

  "The plan of Operation Solten came in every detail from me!"

  "So you might as well line me up against the wall, Perry, and have me shot..."

  Rhodan glared penetratingly at the mouse-beaver. "You say you planted this whole plan in my mind, Pucky? That's post-suggestion—I can't believe you'd do it!"

  "But this time you'll have to believe it, Perry. Of course, I didn't know until now how much of an impression I can make on you. I even didn't want to, actually. It's only that... well, you know me when I get something going, even by accident. I had picked up just a teensy bit from your mind and saw how worried you were... how you were wondering what the best means of getting to Archetz might be so that you could find Thomas. Before I knew it I was in there scheming and figuring, and when I was in the full swing of it, all of a sudden I seemed to see that you were thinking my way."

  "Perry, I swear it to you, that scared me—but I was too afraid by then to tell you what I'd done. But this thing about the Soltenites being liars—don't blame me for that. I didn't know it, myself I—"

  Bell was nearest to him and he whispered: "I could wring your little neck!"

  "Just try it!" Pucky warned him coldly, "Maybe you'd like me to explain the meaning of Trobbel to good old Mercant—right, buddy?"

  "What was that?" asked Rhodan, distracted by this side conversation.

  "Oh nothing—nothing at all" Bell answered hastily. "But do you see any weak spots in Pucky's Solten brainstorm?"

  Rhodan glanced at him suspiciously. Bell's sudden turnabout didn't sit well with him. When he looked at Marshall he was met with closed-mouth inscrutability. Pucky was smart enough to let himself be down-staged. He had no desire now to be the center of attention.

  "Nothing wrong with the plan—it's excellent—but what Pucky did is a shock. That's all. Pucky, explain just how you meant to plant this idea in me."

  The mouse-beaver was inwardly triumphant. Rhodan had addressed him as Pucky instead of Lt. Puck. It was a sign that the threatening stormclouds were slowly drifting away.

  "Perry, I wasn't even trying to influence you, at least not deliberately. The only reason I drifted that way was because I suddenly saw that you were thinking along those lines anyway, and all my very weak power of suggestion did maybe was to filter in a sense of confidence in the idea. Please, I don't want to swear it a third time... you have to take my word for it! The only wrong thing about it was that I didn't have the nerve to tell you. But the more I mulled it over the more I thought: Pucky, it's a top-flight plan. It'll help the Boss to kill two birds with one stun. First, he can pick up a beautiful source of revenue from Cokaze; and second, it will enable him to get to Archetz without risk, through the Soltenites... So Perry, do you think maybe, I came up with something good?"

  "What's this about a source of revenue?" asked Rhodan in some surprise.

  Pucky appeared to grow a notch taller. "Well, you see this Cokaze seems to have a little side arrangement with the chieftesses of Solten—you know, the men there don't have much to say about things. The way the deal works is that the Solten spaceships operate under commission of the Springer clans, and if I see through Cokaze the way Ithink I do, in return for that license he's picking up a 10% take from the operation.

  "It shouldn't be too difficult to watch for a chance where we can just sort of rap our gypsy friend Cokaze over the knuckles a little and convince him to knock off his whip cream machine. That way we could maybe pick up a few extra friends in the Arkon Empire..."

  "Hm-m-m," grumbled Bell. "You're monkeying around with a race of liars!"

  "That's left field just now, Bell. Anyway, Pucky, I'll keep that idea on the griddle for a while. But I hope you understand that this whole business isn't going to exactly speed up your promotion!"

  Pucky laughed and his incisor gleamed like polished chrome. "Come on now, Boss!" he exclaimed magnanimously. "What do you think I care about that? Promotion or demotion... it makes no difference the main thing is you didn't boot me out of here."

  He disappeared from the spot where he had been standing. The air was still shimmering from his passage as Rhodan turned to Marshall.

  "John, do you believe Pucky's explanation?"

  "Yessir but only because it came from Pucky. I wouldn't swallow such a yarn if it came from anybody else."

  • • •

  Enre the hypercom specialist for the Galactic Traders was steadily driving his colleagues on Archetz out of their minds—and he wasn't far from that stage himself. There had been four hypercom communications from Terra to Arkon—three of them to the war planet and one to the Crystal World. All of them had resisted every attempt to decode them.

  "Those aren't intelligible messages," asserted one assistant, "they're just a bunch of band jamming—ECM, interference!"

  Enre informed everybody that they nevertheless were hypercom messages and not electronic countermeasures but that was as far as his knowledge went. Still, he did not give up. He ordered all other developmental work to be held in abeyance. The deciphering task took top priority.

  Toward evening the first clue was uncovered.

  "Enre!" his senior assistant called to him. "There's something wrong about these waveform positions..."

  Yes, they seemed somehow displaced, in fact they had to be. That much appeared to be certain by the time midnight rolled around. Enre had sent everybody home except for his senior man. Nearby the positronicon was humming almost inaudibly. The two of them waited anxiously for the vital readout. The computer should now be able to give them some information as to what was wrong with the hyper-frequency waveforms. It had to tell them why every one of the mysterious messages from Terra consisted of displaced amplitudes.

  The plastic-foil readout chucked into the receiver tray. Enre and his chief assistant both stared at it nonplussed. The positronic machine insisted that the wave peaks of the four-hypercom dispatches were not displaced.

  "I'm going to get some sleep!" Enre blurted out disappointedly and he threw the punched strip on the table.

  "Not I!" said his second in command. "I'm curious to know what trick these Terrans are trying to play on us this time!"

  "Do you know the Terrans?"

  "No."

  "But I do. One of them! Perry Rhodan's son. By the gods I tell you that if all Terrans are like him then we're going to hear a lot more about them!"

  "He appears to have caused you a bit of trouble."

  Enre flared up. "Why just me? The Revolutionary Council is in disagreement on account of him. And why? Because Rhodan's son looked strangely at Patriarch Gatru. Don't ask me how he looked at him. Gatru had him taken away by a robot but it didn't phase the youngster at all. He's a wild one, that fellow..."

  "So now he's locked up?"

  "Who?"

  "Rhodan's son."

  "Yes, it looks as if they've taken him far, far below somewhere. Maybe even as deep as I went today. It's hard to imagine what's going on down there. I've never seen such tremendous industrial installations as I've seen in the past few days—at least what I saw of them as the grav-lift passed thr
ough various cavern tracts, I don't know what good it will do us. Well, good luck. Try to figure out those hypertransmissions. Good night..."

  • • •

  Under a massive counter-detection screen, Col. Baldur Sikerman flew the flagship Drusus deeper into the Forit System. He finally took up a holding position between the orbits of the 3rd and 4th planets. The 5-D mass sensors were doubly manned and there were triple crews on the hypersensors and all tracking, range and bearing instrument consoles plus anything else that could affect the existence or non-existence of the 1,500-meter diameter spacesphere. All gun turret hatches were open and the crews sat behind their weapons in fire readiness. The battle-stations condition meant that all hands wore spacesuits. Only their helmets were flipped back for the time being.

  On the great panoramic screens gleamed the fascinating spectacle of star cluster M-13. In spite of the panob gallery's great visual capacity the screens were not large enough to encompass the entire star system at this range. But no one in the Control Central was concerned about it. Nobody was stunned by its incredible splendor because they were all occupied with their work tasks, and nobody had time to stop and admire a scene upon which they had often looked with wonder.

  The Forit solar system revolved at a distance of 248 light-years from the central world of the star cluster which placed it well out in the 'thinner' zone where the stellar density was light. There was a small reddish sun—Forit—four small, insignificant planets, two of them barren rocks. Only the second planet supported humanoid life. Here the race of some 50 million Soltenites made their home. These were the people the Arkonide catalogs had referred to as a race of liars. On the planet closest to the sun there was only animal life. Having originated from the Arkonide race the Soltenites had not only gone through a physical degeneration but also their social order had been reversed. Out of an original patriarchal system an extreme form of matriarchy had developed. The woman was everything; the man was merely a beast of burden and even though he was the father of his children it was only biologically significant.

  The same reversals and deterioration had affected the religion of the race. The Soltenites' forefathers had still believed in Arkon's pantheon of gods many millennia before but now the Soltenites were immersed in demonism and paid homage to hideous spirit ogres, considering them to be deities worthy of worship—and all such demonic gods were without exception of the masculine gender.

  Rhodan's 'exo-ethnologists' had not been able to explain the strange paradox. On the one hand there was a strict matriarchy and on the other an exclusive patriarchy among the demon gods. The Arkonides were normally very careful and detailed concerning records of all peoples within the Imperium but in the case of the Soltenites their data was astonishingly sparse and uninformative. The question arose as to whether the race on Solten might have impressed the Arkonides of the past as being either too weird or sinister.

  "This could be a long wait," said Sikerman to his copilot and with a note of derision he added: "Maybe the Soltenite men have been confined to their rooms by their women and don't dare go out on the streets."

  The Drusus was circling the 3rd planet in freefall. Its mighty impulse engines were idling with an occasional sputtering rumble. The greater portion of its power plant capacity lay dormant with energy banks held in battle reserve. The only 100% power loads were connected to the gun positions.

  The Forit System's planet 3 moved slowly across the panob screens, an airless world of stone without even any recognizable surface features. It was 2,460 km in diameter but its gravity was a heavy 2.3 on the scale. The Drusus ' supersensitive hypersensor was indicating a steady stream of warp disturbances but they were all at such remote distances that they were practically disregarded.

  Somebody spoke up with a question: "Actually, how big is the Soltenites' fleet, anyway?"

  "About 5,000 ships," answered an operator at the positronic console.

  Which explained, of course, why Terrans and Soltenites hadn't run into each other so far. By comparison with the average size of other major fleets this minuscule force was like a dust mote.

  There was a sudden gurgling outburst of laughter from a nearly white-skinned Swahili named Dando. Everyone in the Control Central knew who it was because Dando's rich laughter was inimitable. The only mystery was what he was laughing about—until Col. Sikerman became too distracted by it.

  "All right, Dando, when are you going to knock it off?" he asked from his pilot seat without turning around.

  There were a few more gurgling ripples of laughter before Dando could answer. "OK, Colonel—but I get a kick out of these Soltenites!"

  Sikerman became interested. "You mean that's what the ruckus was all about?"

  "Sure, Colonel!" Dando's gleaming white smile appeared. "Man, if I was a Soltenite I'd be a liar, too! I'd lie right up to the rafters! The poor devils have to lie when they're out anywhere in the Empire—they have to cover up how ridiculous they must feel, being tied to 'mama's' apron strings like they are!"

  "Gyrating galaxies...!" Sikerman sought to scratch his head but was blocked by his helmet which was back on his neck. He turned quickly to his co-pilot. "Take over!" he said, getting up. Still standing next to the flight console he turned to the Swahili. "Dando, how did you come across that idea?"

  The latter burbled again with his laughter. "Excuse me, Colonel, but it gets to me when I think that a Soltenite has to ask his wife for permission to even go beddy-by! Don't you see? They'd have to lie like troopers when they're on any other world where menfolks are at the helm! They have to play the big man and come on strong like the others and they probably overdo it so in the end they get made out to be liars. And if the poor guys luck runs bad it gets back to the Squaw Command that he's been struttin' high as cock o' the walk, man, and those Arkon records show that he's in for a real strappin' session back home! 'Course that there last part's no laughin' matter, Colonel!"

  Sikerman's face reflected bewilderment as he shook his head.

  "Colonel," Dando added, "I was just thinking, that's all!"

  Rhodan, Bell and Marshall had been waiting in Rhodan's cabin with mounting impatience, wondering when they'd have their first contact with a Soltenite spaceship. When the intercom rang, Bell showed his relief.

  "At last!" he exclaimed.

  Sikerman's face on the video screen seemed to confirm his thought but Bell looked flabbergasted when the commander proceeded to relate to Rhodan what Dando had told him.

  "Thanks, Sikerman," Rhodan replied. "And you may give my compliments to Lt. Dando. I think he may have solved the puzzle. Those poor devils," he added, shaking his head in commiseration.

  "I'd become a liar, too..." Bell started, not realizing at first he was speaking aloud. He stared at Rhodan. "Are you sticking with the plan?"

  "Of course," answered Rhodan.

  "Terrific!" said Bell, derisively. "That confounded mouse-beaver really hatched out a lulu for us! To the devil with him!"

  "Pucky... Pucky... Pucky!" muttered Marshall resignedly.

  "What's so bad about it?" asked Rhodan by way of rebuttal. There was a twinkle of amusement in his grey eyes. "Wouldn't you say we might at least learn a lot here? Maybe well just learn what it's like to be a Soltenite. Only thing is, of course, I don't think I'd like to be under the thumb of a... how did Dando express it? Under a Squaw Command." He laughed. "I can see it now—a Wig Warm Council!" And he raised a brow at Bell. "I don't know, though, Tubby—don't you think it might do you some good?"

  Reginald Bell was never one to be subtle. His answer was close to being an eruption. "Perry, if you ever go through with another original pipe dream again that that misplaced midget cooks up—"

  "My chubby chum, either you're suffering lately from a chronic case of indecision or you're the victim of extortion by said misplaced midget. Would you care to explain the meaning of the expression, Trobbel?"

  Before Rhodan had finished his question Bell was on his feet and headed toward the door without looki
ng back. "I'd better get to the Control Central and check things out!" As he exited he slammed the door rather heavily.

  "Careful, Chief!" There was an amused smile on John Marshall's face. "Mr. Bell is about ready to explode."

  "I know, John, but I'm curious to know what Trobbel means. Do you happen to, by any chance...?"

  "I don't know, either, sir. Solar Marshal Mercant has already questioned me about..."

  "Me too..."

  • • •

  On board the Drusus it was the beginning of the 5th hour of waiting. The operators at the hypersensors were yawning as their alertness gradually wavered. Suddenly, however, they came alive. Their tracking instruments flashed a proximity alarm.

  Lt. Brack at range control beat them to the punch: "Spaceship! Distance is 2.4 million km., Colonel!"

  "The course...?"

  Then the data began to rattle out like a hailstorm. The ship's computer automatically registered all indicator inputs and proceeded to process them. The Drusus ' power stations instantly switched the reserve energy banks into full-load distribution. A siren whined in the Fire Control Central and three eerily glowing red lights came on.

  Top alert!

  The Drusus ' impulse engines groaned aloud as though pausing for an instant to take a deep breath and then they blasted forth with all their thundering power. The vast ship came out of freefall and picked up speed. At the same time the antigrav generators set up their deep-throated rumbling. Power plants 11 through 14 were feeding their total outputs into the anti-detection screens. Only ships of the Stardust and Imperium class were able to generate anti-screens of this magnitude and hold them stable.

  "Alien ship undercuts our course at..." And again came the readouts, degrees, timing factors and all other pertinent data.

  With the flip of a switch Sikerman ordered the positronic nav-computer to regulate the Drusus ' course. The distance of the alien vessel narrowed perceptibly.