The Thrall of Hypno Page 5

  Down below to the left was suddenly a flaming hell, about where the small berth stood with the two interceptors held in reserve. Bell, who had looked inadvertently at the rear observation screen, was blinded and closed his eyes. He quickly figured out that neither Rhodan nor Marshall with his mutants could have already reached the interceptors.

  Then he turned to the frontal observation panel. He switched on the night-vision sensor and in ten seconds got a clear picture of Good Hope VII. Deringhouse kept six miles above Terrania and had apparently no intention of landing.

  "That must be him," Pucky chirped in the back, catching his breath after the fast run. "I don't see that he's throwing bombs."

  Bell didn't take his eyes off the screen as he slowed down the velocity of the Z-13. "You can't see that because he's using a new weapon. Do you think you can get that buggy under telekinetic control?"

  "Maybe." Pucky doubted his capability. "I'll try it." But he didn't get a chance to do it. Good Hope VII suddenly drew an elegant curve and soared with extreme acceleration out into space, leaving the Z-13 and the interceptors that had just become airborne, far behind.

  Had the Supermutant called off his attack?

  3/ IVAN FOUR-EYES

  (THE OTHER ULTIMATE WEAPON)

  The first atom bomb of the Soviet Union was exploded in Siberia. It was an event that deeply surprised and frightened the western world. But it also alarmed the Soviet scientists themselves, at least some of those who were present at the explosion.

  Ivan Vassiljevich Goratschin and his young wife Ludmilla were members of the experimental team and were caught in the radioactive fallout that was prematurely precipitated due to unfavorable climatic conditions. They were at once medically examined with the diagnosis that both of them must have received lethal doses.

  Goratschin refused to be separated from his wife and to be sent to a hospital. He sensed deep in his heart that he had only a few months or a year at the most to live and had a premonition that he suffered a fate that would perhaps be shared in a few decades by whole generations.

  He fled with his wife into the wilds of Siberia, covered all his tracks and disappeared. Somewhere near a river he joined some woodcutters who lived mainly from hunting and only reluctantly fulfilled their quota to the state. They asked no questions who the man and his pregnant wife seeking refuge were and gave them shelter. Later they helped him to build a hut and accepted gratefully his services as adviser for the local soviet. He was an expert at filling out the required forms for delivery to the government so that they had no more trouble with the inspection commissioners who visited the village every few years.

  Ludmilla bore him a son.

  The child was a monster with two heads weighing fifteen pounds at birth. He had a scaly skin and long sturdy legs.

  It took all of Ivan's power of persuasion to prevent the villagers from killing his child. He invoked the right of the individual and the equality of men. The woodcutters relented but avoided close contact with the refugees who had settled among them.

  The mutant grew up in the isolation of the village. When Ivan Ivanovich Goratschin was three years old everyone had become accustomed to his looks but his parents had died in the meantime.

  Ivan Vassiljevich had quietly left one day and Ludmilla requested the woodcutters not to look for him. She knew that her husband wanted to spare the simple folks the sight of his misery. Soon she also felt that her time had come. The son with two heads was now three years old. He was already able to fend for himself and helped the woodcutters in the forest.

  Thus Ludmilla disappeared one day too and never came back. Like her husband she died a lonely death in the woods.

  At fifteen years Ivan was a full-fledged member of the community and nobody would have thought of teasing him because of his two heads. When strangers came Ivan went into hiding so that nobody found out about his existence.

  When Ivan was twenty-three years old his self-confidence had grown so much that he decided to hide no longer when the next commission came to the village.

  His sight first created a horrendous shock followed by amazement.

  One of the visitors showed a special interest in Ivan. "Wouldn't you like to come with me to the big city, my friend?" he asked him.

  "NO, I've no desire to leave," he replied. Without another word be went with his friends down to the river to fish through holes in the ice.

  Four months later the stranger came back, not alone this time. He brought along four soldiers in uniform carrying rifles. They claimed they came at the behest of the government and had orders to take Ivan with them.

  The village did not dare draw the attention of the government. Ivan understood and respected their point of view. He was basically a very good-natured man and a double size Russian heart was beating in his eight-foot body. But this heart could also hate with doubled intensity when he was abused.

  And now he had been cornered and his fury was aroused. Ivan offered no resistance as the soldiers took him in their midst and led him away. The fur-clad stranger followed not too far behind. He kept both hands in his pockets and Ivan knew that he had his grip on his pistols.

  The woodcutters gazed after the little group marching away and were reconciled never to see Ivan again. They really had learned to appreciate him. Hadn't he saved the lives of some who had become lost in the forest and had run out of matches? It had been bitter cold. The wood was frozen hard and they had no fire. But Ivan made a fire, a big blazing fire that kept burning brightly. He had simply stared at a spot and flames flared up. They warmed themselves quickly and gathered new strength, enabling them to find and return to their village.

  Nobody had given much thought as to how Ivan had accomplished the feat of kindling a fire with the frozen wood.

  It was long after dark when Ivan returned. His leg was bleeding; a bullet from the stranger had gone clean through. The woodcutters besieged him with questions but he refused to answer. He kept staring in the direction of the forest and the gentle slopes of the hills behind which lay the big tundra which had to be crossed in order to reach the cities of the people.

  Then his eyes suddenly widened.

  "They're coming back," he muttered. The wood-cutters shuddered and stared into the night but could see nothing except the dark trunks of the trees.

  The men remained silent and followed Ivan's seeing eyes without finding the goal. The hill was almost six miles away and the night was pitch-dark.

  Ivan closed his four eyes. He sat on a tree trunk, leaning slightly forward and supported his body with his hands. For a second the light of a flashlight blinked. Now he knew where to concentrate his mental currents.

  And then the incredible happened.

  Behind the forest a brilliant explosion formed a glowing ball of fire and slowly rose up toward the invisible stars. When the light of the ball faded and became dark, a dimly lit cloud remained, looking like a giant mushroom. It spread out and took on eerie forms.

  Soon a heat-wave engulfed the village, melted the last snow and tore wide cracks in the ice of the river that had already become thinner. The women screamed in terror and threw themselves on the ground. Ivan uttered an enormous laugh but the horror of what he had done began to creep into his laughter. Then men crossed themselves in awe.

  They continued discussing the miracle for a long time but were unable to find an explanation. Ivan retreated to his hut and refused to see anyone.

  Next morning at the crack of dawn they all went into the forest to the hilly slope. What they found there was even more astounding than the mysterious explosion the night before. A huge crater was gouged into the bare rock. The snow was molten and trees and bushes were uprooted. No living plants remained within a radius of one mile. The blackened area of devastation was almost round like a circle with the deep crater at its center.

  Not a trace was left of the five kidnappers.

  Therefore Ivan was considered to be Superman. He obviously relished his role and enjoyed giving littl
e demonstrations of his uncanny powers. He was unaware that his gifts were the heritage of his unhappy parents whose genes had been changed so drastically by the lethal radiation dose.

  Years later Clifford Monterny assembled his own Mutant Corps. Ivan would never have voluntarily followed the flabby stranger who appeared one day in the Siberian wilderness but Monterny was an irresistible hypno. He forced Ivan under his spell and compelled him to become his faithful servant.

  Ivan had no choice but to obey and he followed Clifford Monterny to the United States where the head-quarters of the Supermutant were located. There Ivan underwent his training that soon turned him into the most terrible weapon of destruction on Earth. Under the tutelage of the Supermutant, Ivan learned very fast to home in optically and mentally on targets over distances of many miles and to transform them into atomic energy.

  Afterwards Monterny transported his most valuable mutant to Mars where he established a military base. The war against the New Power began.

  It ended in Rhodan's victory but Monterny managed to escape and fled to Mars where he joined Ivan and two dozen other mutants he held under a permanent hypnoblock. Monterny often picked criminal elements as his helpers since their disappearance from the human society attracted far less attention than a missing solid citizen or public personality.

  And now that Major Deringhouse in the Good Hope VII was on the verge of discovering the carefully kept secret of his support base on Mars, the Supermutant took action. Under no circumstances would he be willing to pass up such a unique occasion to acquire possession of the spacesphere.

  Everything went according to plan.

  Deringhouse ordered his men to leave the ship. Seconds later they, too, were under the control of the Supermutant, who clamped his hypnoblock on them. The five remaining interceptors were temporarily secured in a ravine and the crew was imprisoned.

  Major Deringhouse and twenty-five of his men were directed to launch a decisive attack on Perry Rhodan's headquarters in Terrania.

  Ivan Ivanovich Goratschin was to serve as his most formidable weapon.

  • • •

  Major Deringhouse took his leave from the Supermutant toward whom he manifested neither friendly nor unfriendly feelings. He was so devoid of emotions that even the awesome sight of Ivan left him entirely cold.

  Nevertheless, the mutants controlled by the Supermutant could not be described as perfect automatons. This was no longer the case, at least with Ivan, who had been able to regain a small part of his own thinking in the last three years. It was not enough to free him from the spell of his abominable master but it sufficed to make him ponder certain problems although they were at first of a secondary nature.

  So he studied, for instance, the problem which of his two heads was the older and therefore had more authority.

  The right head was called Ivan, although this was wrong and plainly nonsense. It claimed that it had become conscious three seconds earlier than the other one. This topic gave rise to hour-long disputes that always ended in futility since both heads possessed a common body and the same nervous system.

  Just as erroneous as it was for the right head to be called Ivan, the left head was named Ivanovich. The Supermutant was responsible for this mistake since he disregarded the Russian custom that gave two names to each person. Ivan was Goratschin's proper first name whereas Ivanovich meant only son of Ivan."

  As it often happens, the error became a joke and stuck as lasting nicknames.

  The Good Hope lifted off and Mars soon sank into the infinity of space. When Major Deringhouse passed the relay-station ship Z-45 he felt a vague sensation that he was supposed to do something but the voice of, the Supermutant prevailed in his brain: "Keep flying, Deringhouse. Don't pay attention to anything that happens outside your own vessel. Do you hear me? You don't have to worry about these details because I've already taken care of them. Continue on to Terrania without making reports.. Stop at an altitude of six miles above the Terrania energy dome and do nothing."

  Deep down in his unconscious mind Deringhouse was relieved to receive the last command. He felt easier that he was not required to make use of his weapons albeit he was in no position to ignore such an order.

  Finally the Good Hope hovered over Terrania. Complying with his orders all radio and range-finder sets were turned off so that Deringhouse failed to receive the urgent calls of Rhodan and Colonel Freyt.

  He watched with apathy as the atomic blasts lit up the early night, believing that he and his men were not responsible for the holocaust. This assuaged the fears of his unconscious that were not completely eliminated.

  Alone in his cabin Ivan Ivanovich sat on his bed and stared with expressionless eyes at the various picture screens. Time and again he emitted his concentrated fixations till he caught his first moving victim.

  It was Lieutenant Carell.

  Carell was a living organism, consisting partly of calcium and carbon atoms or their compounds. Ivan's mental vibrations through intensive concentration had the same effect on matter as a fuse on explosives. They released the energy of the matter instantaneously. Ivan could spontaneously turn a man into an exploding A-bomb.

  However, he was not restricted to human beings. Carbon occurred in almost all combinations in the universe. Thus Ivan was not limited to his attacks on men but also detonated the robot fighters of the New Power. Indiscriminately he triggered the devastating atomic blasts on Earth without knowing the horrors he committed:

  Meanwhile the Supermutant was safely on Mars and directed his 'detonator,' as he called the double mutant Ivan Ivanovich. This was his secret ultimate weapon with which he hoped to defeat Rhodan in the last battle.

  The events were about to reach such a phase when something happened with which the Supermutant had failed to reckon. Ordinarily his hypnoblock was so firmly imposed that it could not be influenced or budged over great distances. But Rhodan had mutants too.

  For instance, Betty Toufry.

  Her first feeble contact with Deringhouse had resulted in nudging ever so slightly the hypnoblock of the strong willed but far distant Supermutant.

  Or André Noir, the French hypno...

  Despite the fact that Noir's abilities were far less pronounced than those of the Supermutant, they were sufficient to sway a human being on board the Good Hope. Noir succeeded already during his headlong rush to the spaceport of Terrania in establishing regular contact with his 'victim,' partially counteracting the hypnoblock of the Supermutant.

  At the same time Esper John Marshall caught frightening bits of thought. At first he didn't believe they could be human thoughts but then Fellmer Lloyd remembered having come across similar thought patterns during the first contact.

  They doubtlessly came from the Good Hope VII. And then the thought impulses ceased abruptly. The atomic explosions also came to an end. It did not even occur to Rhodan to suspect a connection between the two phenomena.

  Simultaneously the Good Hope gathered fantastic speed and disappeared in the direction of Mars.

  4/ TWINHEAD IN TURMOIL

  Bell was perplexed as he stared at the observation screen on which the spacesphere shrank so rapidly that it looked like a ball falling into the abyss of eternity.

  Pucky felt deprived of his chance to show what he could do. "He's fleeing from me!" he consoled himself with a high-pitched whistling that expressed joy and anger together. "He must have noticed that I wanted to grab him. The Supermutant is a coward!"

  "Don't jump to such rash conclusions; they're usually wrong anyway," Betty Toufry warned. She was lying in one of the big chairs. "You're an excellent telekinetic but a lousy telepath..."

  "...and you're an excellent telepath but a lousy telekinetic!" Pucky countered furiously.

  "You're absolutely right!" the girl agreed without getting upset. "And that's why I know that you're wrong if you think the Supermutant is afraid of you."

  "Did you make contact with Deringhouse?" Bell broke in. He tried vainly to obtain a conn
ection with Rhodan or Colonel Freyt.

  "Not directly," Betty shook her head. "For a moment I thought I sensed his uncertainty but then his weak mental currents were superimposed by close and stronger ones."

  "The Supermutant," Bell guessed without thinking. Betty shook her head again. "I said close! The Supermutant is on Mars. He must have an effective agent on the Good Hope who is giving Deringhouse orders and whose thoughts I've intercepted."

  "And?" Bell inquired eagerly. He turned the knobs of the receiver till a constant hum became, audible on the frequency of the New Power.

  "He ordered Deringhouse to retreat immediately to the vicinity of the Moon."

  "Moon?" Bell reiterated, turning up the amplifier. "How come the Moon?"

  "I don't know," the girl answered, seemingly at a loss. "At any rate I didn't feel any trace of fear in the thoughts of the stranger, rather a sense of superiority and perhaps a little regret. I really don't understand, this any longer."

  "Regret?" Bell glanced questioningly at Betty. "Why would he order the destruction of the New Power and then feel remorse? Ah, there's Rhodan!" He adjusted the volume and switched on the picture. Rhodan's face appeared on the screen. His features reflected boundless amazement. Deep furrows in his face made him look years older.

  "Hello, Bell! What's going on? We've lost Deringhouse."

  "What happened down there?" Bell wanted to know. "Some localized damage but the bombardment suddenly ceased." Rhodan obliged him first with the information, knowing that he couldn't get anything out of Bell before. "The Mutant Corp's and I are waiting in the interceptors. We're anxious to pursue Deringhouse but we lost sight of him."

  "He pulled back to the Moon," Bell told him. "Betty has picked up some of their thoughts."

  "Very good. I'll proceed with the mutants to the Stardust and chase them. Freyt will follow me in his own space fighter ships. Keep on Deringhouse's track. Tell Betty not to lose contact with him."