Planet Mechanica Page 5

  Bell still stood there over the dead Anti. Noticing the paperweight on the floor, he stooped down and picked it up. When he was about to place it on the desk he saw the blood on it. Strange—he thought to himself. But why he thought so he wasn’t sure. Was it because in this particular situation Perry Rhodan had never appeared to be so alien?

  Perry had defended himself. Clearly in self-defense, of course—but even then, would Perry Rhodan necessarily kill? Couldn’t he have shot to wound him instead? Wasn’t it Perry Rhodan who had always demanded that human lives were to be spared where possible, under any circumstances?

  "You seem to be unhappy about something, Bell," commented Cardif-Rhodan warily. "I demand to know what’s on your mind."

  To Bell the question was like a whiplash. He stepped over the body and stood by the desk. Glancing swiftly at Mercant and Marshall he noted that they were also unsettled over what had happened here. Then he looked sharply into his friend’s grey eyes which had suddenly become so cold. "Perry, how did you know that this man was an Anti?" he asked.

  Cardif-Rhodan smiled thinly. "You have forgotten the visit I had with a certain Arkonide named Banavol. You’ve given too little thought to why I wanted to visit the Springer station specifically on Pluto. Why? To inspect their base?" He laughed sharply, which brought a look of new surprise from Allan D. Mercant. "I have a few more important things to do, my friend, than to make personal inspections. However, in this case I had to find out for myself if Banavol’s suspicion was correct. This dead man verifies his report that an Anti had infiltrated here. Or do you suppose that nowadays the Galactic Traders are also able to mentally strengthen their individual defense screens?"

  Bell impatiently waved his argument aside. "But when I came in, Perry, you talked as if you killed him deliberately!"

  The other shrugged without the blink of an eyelash.

  "Oh, did I? Then either I didn’t phrase my words correctly or you misunderstood me."

  3/ WHEN "IT" LAUGHED

  When, they came back to the Ironduke an important message from Earth was waiting for them. In Pagnysur-Moselle, where the European plant for Allitiv production had been set up, the workers and technicians had gone on strike. They were demanding a 20% pay increase. If the strike weren’t settled by afternoon of the following day, doctors in Europe would be threatened with a depletion of their Allitiv supplies. What effect this would have on millions of addicted people could not yet be estimated.

  Cardif-Rhodan read the emergency dispatch in the Control Central and then handed it over to Bell. "Take care of this," he said curtly.

  Bell stared at him perplexed. It was hardly believable, he thought. Could it be that Perry Rhodan no longer cared whether the narcotic victims in Europe got well or not?

  Although boiling with resentment, he controlled himself. "Alright, Perry—I’ll take care of it," he said. And with that he headed for the Communications Room.

  On his way there he met Brazo Alkher, the officer of the fire control center. "Well, Alkher, where are you headed?" Bell asked.

  "To see the Chief. He called me on his minicom. I don’t know yet what he wants, sir."

  "Oh? The Chief called you? Well—alright, thank you, Alkher." Bell seemed to speak absentmindedly, was the impression the weapons officer got from Rhodan’s First Deputy.

  When Bell entered the Ironduke’s Communications Center he neither greeted nor saluted anyone as was his usual custom. He looked at no one but merely came over next to the hypercom operator and stared at the console panels.

  The shavetail lieutenant at that position took one look at him and knew that trouble was brewing. He didn’t dare open his mouth,

  Bell was trying to solve the mystery of when Perry had signaled the fire control officer to come to the Control Central. Because from the moment they had left the dead Anti in the Springer base, he and Rhodan had been together. Was it that Perry had given the weapons officer a call while he was on his way to the Springer station? Those physicians, he thought grimly—what had they done to Perry? Could it be, however, that the Chiefs new and incomprehensible characteristics were not due to the Thmasson shock therapy?

  Finally he snapped out of his broodings and seemed to realize where he was. "Oh—ah—yes! Send the following dispatch to the hypercom station in Europe: Concerning strike in Allitiv plant, Pagny-sur-Moselle. The Administration takes recourse to Section 43, paragraph 2 and declares a state of emergency for the Allitiv plant at your location. Emergency status to take effect at zero hours. All striking personnel to be advised that any further refusal to work will be punishable by imprisonment. Signed: Reginald Bell."

  "Is this to be coded, sir?" asked the young operator.

  "Clear text!" growled Bell. "I’ll teach those people in Pagny-sur-Moselle not to capitalize on a desperate situation like this. Wait, friend! Let’s change that last sentence. Finish it up like this: All striking personnel to be advised that any further refusal to work will be punishable by deportation. The Administration refers to Section 1, paragraph one of the emergency provisions. Signed: Reginald Bell... I think that’s more to the point. Damnation! I’ll go along with any legitimate strike but this one is piracy!"

  Without another word he stamped out of the Com Room. Unsuspectingly, he returned to the Control Central.

  Jefe Claudrin was standing in the middle of the room like a brass statue. His eyes fairly burned a hole in the Chief as he stared at him. Perry Rhodan turned his back on Bell as he came in.

  "That is the way it will be, Claudrin! You are to remain with the Ironduke on Pluto. Ready a space-jet for takeoff! Nolinov, Alkher! You know what you have to do!"

  The two young lieutenants stood before Rhodan and saluted sharply. "Yes sir!" they snapped in unison, and turned to leave.

  But Bell blocked their way. "Where to?" he asked.

  The other officers present in the Control Central had been looking back and forth from the Chief to the commander but now they stared only at Perry Rhodan, who was standing about 20 feet from Bell and facing him.

  "Bell, may I ask that you do not delay the lieutenants?" he ordered more than asked.

  The redheaded First Deputy glared at Rhodan with a hard gleam in his eyes. He took another look at the two lieutenants and then answered with equal sharpness in his voice. "I’d like to know why a space-jet’s taking off! To my knowledge, all jets are in standby readiness—standard procedure."

  Jefe Claudrin stepped in front of the Chief and saved him the trouble of answering—but he had a special purpose: to tell Bell what had happened in his absence. "The Chief wants to fly alone to Wanderer—with these two men. He can’t use the Ironduke."

  It made no sense to Bell. There was no ship in this section of the galaxy that was faster and safer than the Ironduke. Couldn’t Perry see that right now everything was going haywire with him—that he was more vulnerable to mishaps than ever before? What did he want to do—force a catastrophe on himself? For weeks now he’d been practically insulting to one and all. It was enough to drive a man up the bulkheads, he thought dejectedly.

  Then he astonished everyone by just saying "OK" and stepping aside so that the two officers could pass. He had seen a well-known flash in Rhodan’s eyes which was typical of the Chief. It meant that no power in the world could deter him now from flying in the space-jet to Wanderer.

  Besides, Bell was in no mood for fighting windmills. He didn’t know when he had ever felt as dispirited as he had in the past few hours.

  • • •

  Space-jet I-109 had disappeared into the depths of the outer void. The Ironduke’s hypersensor system had tracked the small craft’s transition entry.

  "Flight on course!" was Jefe Claudrin’s brief announcement.

  And why shouldn’t it be, he thought, with the two-man team the Chief had selected?

  Stana Nolinov, commander of the Ironduke’s robot forces, was just like weapons officer Brazo Alkher—unpretentious but a hard-bitten young veteran and ready for anything. However
, the daring gallantry of these two was not their chief characteristic. In emergency situations when there was no time to think, they were both capable of acting instinctively and doing the right thing at the right time.

  They hadn’t exactly learned these things during their training period in the Solar Space Academy but shrewd psychologists had recognized the invaluable talents that were slumbering in the two of them and understanding instructors had been able to bring out these hidden capabilities, developing their reactive faculties to the point of automation.

  Brazo Alkher was at the flight controls of the I-109. The position coordinates of Wanderer had been dumped into the smaller ship’s nav-computer from the Ironduke’s main positronicon banks. Some time before, the vast brain on Venus had spent a number of hours working them out.

  Alkher and Nolinov were alone in the control room. The Chief had withdrawn to his cabin. Although the disc-shaped flier was only 35 meters in diameter and was a mere seed pod in comparison to any of the heavier class spherical ships, it offered everything that might be expected of a proper space vehicle. Equipped with the most modem hyperspace propulsion and the finest automatic pilot system, it was even superior to many larger ships of other galactic races, and where its armaments were concerned, no space-jet was to be underestimated. Nevertheless it had been a rather unreasonable choice to use it for a flight to Wanderer. The fact remained that the Ironduke was a thousand times safer against all eventualities.

  This was what Alkher and Nolinov were discussing in low tones at the moment. That the Chief had gone to his cabin shortly after their departure from Pluto did not seem to be unusual. But how could they have known that just now the man they took to be Perry Rhodan preferred not to have anyone around him?

  Thomas Cardif was mentally weighing the probability of actually discovering on Wanderer what his father’s knowledge told him he was supposed to find on the artificial planet—a relatively immortal being who in some indescribable form represented a combined race of intelligences, discarnate yet possessed of the incalculable knowledge of a people who in eons past had once ruled the galaxy.

  With sober logic he evaluated his situation and his plan.

  He thought of the hypnotic operation on Okul during which Perry Rhodan was forced to surrender his knowledge and faculties to him, Thomas Cardif. But this transference had not been 100% complete. Cardif’s inner ego had retained the upper hand and this represented his greatest danger in the game he was playing in the Sol System. In this respect he was his own worst enemy.

  This much he knew but he did not know what would happen when he faced the being on Wanderer and asked for the cell activators.

  He tried to analyze his inner state of readiness for the ordeal, searching for any areas of uncertainty, but the longer he searched the more reassured he became. So far the paranormal tracers and telepaths hadn’t been able to recognize his camouflage. They still took him for Rhodan and it was this certainty alone that would give him the full self-assurance he’d need to face the creature on Wanderer.

  Thomas Cardif lay on his bunk like a daydreamer. His attitude was relaxed. Nothing in his outward appearance revealed the ingenious psychopath who was forging a plan that would cost his father his life and free him, Cardif, of his dependence upon the Antis.

  He hated his father just as much as he had more than 60 years ago. To him the First Administrator was not his father, merely his procreator, and he was the man who had intentionally sent his mother to her death. It was true! Of this he was convinced and any claim to the contrary was a lie invented to protect Rhodan. How often he had searched through the mental patterns absorbed from Rhodan for thought impulses connected with his mother! None had been found! But for Thomas Cardif there was an explanation for it: Perry Rhodan had given himself hypnotic treatments, no doubt, in order to erase from memory the fact that he had murdered the Arkonide princess Thora!

  Of course Cardif failed to realize that such a thought pattern would have had to be transferred to him as well. If his theory were true he would have been aware of Rhodan’s intent to submit to such a treatment.

  An announcement from the control room startled him. It was Nolinov: "Sir, transition in three minutes 30 seconds. This is the last jump."

  The real Rhodan would have acknowledged the information with a word of thanks but Perry Rhodan was a naturally born leader of men who knew how to handle his co-workers in order to inspire them to their greatest efforts. Rhodan’s double had no such faculty.

  In the control room Nolinov glanced at Brazo significantly. "Well, old buddy," he asked casually, "what do you make of the Old Man’s mood? I’ve flown some more cheerful types in my time!"

  Brazo wasn’t ready to quite conform to Nolinov’s opinion. "Don’t forget what the Chief went through on Okul. He only has one son, you know, and when something like that happens to a father, even the strongest man is liable to come away with a few psychological scars."

  Nolinov nodded his agreement but he had certain reservations. "That could happen if Perry Rhodan were any ordinary man, like you are me. But he’s not. He happens to be the man who built up the Solar Imperium! No, Brazo, a few scars maybe—but not a crack in the old armament like this. I don’t trust this... this whatchmacallit? No matter. Call it shock treatment. I think it went haywire somewhere and if you asked me to lay my money on it I’d bet that his reason for going to Wanderer is to get some real inside advice concerning his condition."

  Brazo Alkher looked at his stocky companion in some surprise but he did not have time to make any further comments. The hypertransition jump was due in five seconds. The countdown was racing toward the zero mark.

  They both strapped themselves in. Zero arrived. The transition followed, accompanied by its process of dematerialization. Then came rematerialization and the men in the I-109 felt the pulling pains that were typical of this type of travel—especially in the area of the neck. The 2 young officers groaned aloud and shook off the last of the shock effects, finally turning their full attention to the gallery of viewscreens before them. They noticed a section of space that seemed to be empty of stars for a distance of at least five light-years.

  "Did we take a wrong turn, Brazo?" asked Nolinov with a worried frown.

  Alkher was already calling for a readout from the ship’s positronics in regard to their galactic position. In the same minute the computer chucked out a strip of punched tape. Both men could read the coded symbols as though they were in normal print.

  "We made it, alright," muttered Nolinov, dumbfounded.

  "That’s the way it always is when you come out in front of Wanderer. Normally that synthetic planet can neither be seen nor traced. Hang on, Stant, I’m advising the Chief."

  "I’m coming," was Cardif-Rhodan’s curt reply.

  In his cabin, Cardif got up and stretched himself, after which he took a long, deep breath. He now prepared himself to take the most dangerous step of his life. It was a thing he must do if he didn’t want to be under threat from the Antis all his life because of this Perry Rhodan role they had superimposed upon him. If he wanted to cut the strings of the puppet he had to make the gamble.

  When he finally left his cabin all sense of anxiety had left him. He was convinced that he could even fool It!

  • • •

  They had held their breaths when the space-jet flew through the gap in the energy screen surrounding the synthetic world. Even Cardif was strained to control himself when it suddenly appeared beneath them: Wanderer, planet of immortality!

  It was not a planet in the normal sense. It was actually a vast disc, 600 kilometers wide, above which the bell-shaped defense screen arched invisibly. The extensive disc below them contained every aspect of beauty that was to be found in the cosmos. Brazo Alkher and Stant Nolinov would have preferred to look at this miracle for hours on end but they were under the Chief's orders to fly toward a circular clearing, two km wide, on the edge of which stood a slender, fragile-looking spire that towered more than 2,300 meters int
o the artificial blue sky.

  This was the domain of It or Him—who had lived here for unknown eons of time!

  Just before the gap had appeared in the energy screen, Thomas Cardif had heard from It. He heard a voice inside him saying: Perry Rhodan, do you wish to come to me?

  And before Cardif could free himself from the impact of the strange contact, the inner voice sounded forth again: I am pleased to see you once more. You seem very desirous of visiting me. But were you not here but a few moments ago?

  Rhodan’s transferred knowledge enabled Cardif to realize what the collective entity meant by a few moments. He or It had a different time concept. What represented decades to humans was for Him but a matter of moments.

  And now the voice remained silent even as the I-109 made a light landing in the circular area before the slender tower. Cardif stood behind the other two men and looked over their heads at the viewscreen gallery. Rhodan’s knowledge enabled him to understand what he saw. Nothing here was strange to him. He even knew where he was supposed to go. The last rumble of the engines died out. Alkher and Nolinov had shut the ship down.

  "Wait here for me, gentlemen," they heard the Chief say behind them. "I am going alone."

  They watched him in silence as he traversed the radial corridor and came to a stop at the airlock. The batches swung open and he left the ship dressed as he was, without any form of protection whatever.

  Wanderer’s gravitational pull measured 0.9 gravs. The conditions here were almost the same as on Earth.

  Cardif crossed the clearing and was approaching the tower when he suddenly heard or perceived the equivalent of roaring laughter in his subconscious mind.

  Rhodan, I’ve almost been devoured by boredom! Friend, how happy I am to see you! It is regrettable that I am not in material form so that I might embrace you and slap you on the shoulder!

  Once more the peals of laughter resounded in Cardif’s subconsciousness but it no longer disconcerted him. It had greeted him as Perry Rhodan. It had even expressed the desire to clap him on the shoulder!