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  The Druuf did not seem to have any objections. "I shall be expecting you," he said. "Your craft will be given a tracking signal to guide you to my ship."

  Tifflor broke off the connection. He turned and faced his men. "Now It's getting critical," he said. "Tschubai, Marshall... get ready!"

  • • •

  It was reported to Door-Trabzon that not far from the WaKelan, which was flying slowly towards the overlapping front, two alien spaceships had been spotted. Door-Trabzon's first reaction was confusion, for it was clear from the course of the two ships that they were flying together, and up to now Door-Trabzon had been expecting the appearance of only one Terran ship.

  His confusion reached its height when the radar gave the first exact figures pertaining to the size of the two ships. They made Door-Trabzon's powerful ships look puny in comparison. They were space giants with a firepower that could temporarily surpass the energy output of an average star.

  Somewhat hastily Door-Trabzon gave the order for the unknown ships to be surrounded and attacked. To be certain, he requested a squadron of 200 cruisers and battleships but hardly had they started to move out when one of the alien ships made radio contact with the WaKelan, claiming it and its companion had come with peaceful intentions and their plans were in full accord with the Regent of Arkon.

  That took the wind out of Door-Trabzon's sails. He rescinded his order and instructed the squadron of battleships and cruisers to await the course of events from a distance. Then he had the WaKelan proceed ahead so he could look things over.

  Even before he got that far, he received a brief message from Arkon stating that the Terran commander, Perry Rhodan, had suggested that he himself take part in the search for the deserters' spaceship, and that this suggestion had seemed reasonable and desirable to the Regent.

  That threw Door-Trabzon completely off balance. For one thing, Perry Rhodan was a name that had resounded throughout the galaxy for decades, and for another, Door-Trabzon was too familiar with the relationship between Terra and Arkon—or more accurately, between Perry Rhodan and the Regent—to understand why Rhodan of all people would be allowed to move freely among the ships of the Arkonide search and blockade fleets.

  However, Door-Trabzon knew that the message from Arkon was to be considered as an order. He had no other choice than to act accordingly. He was of the opinion that Perry Rhodan would never search for a single escape ship unless there was some advantage for him in it. But this opinion was worth nothing as long as he could not convince the Regent of its logic.

  He tried to do so but he seemed to have picked an unfavorable moment for it. The Regent did not even reply.

  • • •

  Door-Trabzon did not know that at that time the Regent was occupied in issuing a series of instructions to the central positronicons of its blockade ships. The orders were rather close to what Door-Trabzon would have ordered himself—had he had the possibility of doing so.

  The Regent remembered the suspicion expressed by his logic sector when it first learned of the fleeing ship from Perry Rhodan's information. A certain degree of probability that was too much to be overlooked indicated that the business with the deserters was very simply a bluff. So far, however, the logic sector had not been able to determine what the purposed such a deception would be, or at least it had come up with nothing substantial enough to form the basis for a definite course of action. To that end the Regent directed the orders it issued the positronicons. Their task from now on was to keep track of the course followed by the Terran ships and to report any manoeuvres they undertook to the Regent at once. For his part, the Regent waited impatiently for his logic section to be able to formulate probabilities on the basis of the now-incoming information. From such probabilities it would be possible to work out a plan of action that promised success.

  The Regent had not forgotten that Terra stood or fell with Perry Rhodan and that just a few weeks before he had had Perry Rhodan almost in his grasp as a prisoner. Here a new opportunity offered itself. If everything worked out, this would be Perry Rhodan's last undertaking.

  The Regent, even if humanized to the point of being referred to as 'he', was a robot. As such it operated constantly on the principle of maximum utility. It knew nothing of scruples.

  • • •

  On the other hand, Perry Rhodan would have had to be a fool not to know that. The two battleships were in constant motion. During every second of the mission their speed was high enough to allow an immediate transition. Both ships were under maximum alert. A huge number of radar stations kept track of the movements of Arkonide ships, ready to sound the alarm as soon as enough of them had moved in close enough to the Drusus and the Kublai Khan to become dangerous.

  However, such was not the case for the time being. Perry Rhodan had calculated rightly. The Robot Regent would not try anything as long as he did not know what the Terrans were up to.

  But then he would strike, instantly and cold-bloodedly, with such a large number of ships at one time that the Terran defense screens would collapse under the force of the concentrated fire and the two battleships would be annihilated.

  Rhodan knew that his life was not worth a centisolar if he relied on the Robot Regent's assurances. The Regent had spoken of a desire to work together and cooperate but Rhodan knew better than anyone that a huge positronicon can be programmed to be a perfect liar.

  The presence of the two Terran battleships served a double purpose. The first was to come to the aid of Tifflor and the Newborn as soon as help was needed and the second concerned the necessity to maintain contact with the Terran base on Hades, which lay in the Druuf Universe. No one would predict the developments that would ensue with the penetration of Druuf Space by the Newborn. It could turn out that at any second the base on Hades would have to take part in the confrontation, and since the base had few ways in which to keep abreast of events, the Drusus and the Kublai Khan stood watch.

  Perry Rhodan knew full well the risk he was taking with this operation. He believed he had taken precautions against any and all eventualities.

  He did not know that fast approaching him was the moment in which all precautions would prove useless.

  • • •

  He had been told in advance that a Druuf looked like something from a nightmare but as he saw one for the first time, he had difficulty overcoming his shock.

  The creature standing before him was more than three meters tall. Man has odd conceptions of size relationships. Used to the size of the largest buildings or other man-made structures, he does not consider an object three meters high remarkably large, no matter what it might be. However, when he runs across a fellow human being taller than two meters, he is startled at first, and a living intelligence more than three meters tall fins him with terror.

  So it was with Julian Tifflor as he entered the control room of the Druuf ship and the commander came towards him. The Druuf stood on massive column-like legs that by themselves were almost as long as Tifflor was tall. The legs supported a cube-shaped body, from which a round head the size of a medicine ball grew without the harmonious transition of a neck. The head had four eye-openings and a three-cornered mouth. Otherwise the head was smooth and hairless, the head of a monster. From the cubical body hung two long, powerful arms which, Tifflor knew, ended in delicate fingers. There was no hand as such. Now the slenderness of the fingers was not to be seen, for they were hidden by spacesuit gloves.

  As Tifflor expected, the Druuf had a small translator hanging from its chest. He had evidently spoken something into it beforehand, for when the three Terrans came into the room, the device came to life. "I am alone here but don't raise your hopes too much on that account. My men are standing at their posts!"

  Tifflor did not quite understand at first. It took some time for him to recover from his shock and size up the Druuf. Then he answered disdainfully, "Have no fear. We didn't come here to cause you any damage."

  He looked around. The room's furnishings were strang
e, almost grotesque for Terran eyes. In the center of the hall stood an object as large as a small summerhouse, evidently the control console to judge from the levers and switches affixed to it. A lever was as long as a crowbar and throwing a switch would have required two Terrans each pushing with both hands. Around the wall ran a huge panorama vidscreen, showing the dark red depths of the alien universe and its uncountable stars. Tifflor could not recognize any of the equipment installed beneath the vidscreen. Druuf technology was too different from Terran.

  All in all, it was a room in which Tifflor believed he could never feel comfortable. He did not yet know that he would be forced to acquaint himself with it.

  There was no place to sit in the control room. For the Druufs, who had an average body-weight of 400 kilograms, standing up was a laborious procedure. Only deep exhaustion could bring them to sit down on a stool and it was not uncommon for a Druuf to exhaust himself all over again just by standing up after sitting for awhile. The gravitational pull of their home world, Druufon, was 1.95 times normal, almost double Earth's. The same gravitational pull was probably in effect on board the Druuf ship but the Terrans were not aware of it. They wore modern spacesuits with an automatically reacting antigrav absorber which maintained them at their normal Terran weight at all times.

  "You possess information showing that the Arkonides, as you call them, plan to attack us," said the Druuf, beginning the conversation anew.

  Tifflor looked at him. It was hard to tell in which direction the Druuf was looking, however. The Druufs had evolved from insects. The large optical surfaces of their eyes were divided into hundreds of small facets. Tifflor felt rather uncomfortable. "Yes," he answered tersely.

  "Where did you get this information?" asked the Druuf.

  The words that he spoke into the translator were inaudible to Terran ears. The Druufs' speech organs produced sounds in the ultrasonic range. The Druuf language was a tangled and unlearnable confusion of high-frequency ultrasonic impulses.

  "I was present at several negotiating sessions between Arkon and my world that were conducted over telecom," Tifflor explained readily.

  "What was discussed in these negotiating sessions?"

  Tifflor did not know how much the Druufs understood of human mimicry but in any case he made an effort to appear impatient and irritated. "Now listen here!" he said to the Druuf. "Danger is imminent.

  When the Arkonide attack comes, it'll come quickly. And you're just standing there asking me questions as though you have half a year to waste. Are you even authorized to receive this information? I'd like you to take me to your home world so I can tell your government there what I know."

  One could not tell by looking at the Druuf whether he was impressed or not. In any event, Tifflor could breathe easier. He had just performed the most important part of his role—and he had done well, he was sure. No Earthly psychologist would have realized that he had pretended to be excited coldly and calculatedly and that he had been working towards the end of suggesting a flight to Druufon to the Druuf as unsuspiciously as possible.

  After awhile the Druuf replied: "How am I to know if you really are a traitor?"

  Tifflor exulted. Resistance seemed to be weakening. He had to reach Druufon. He must make contact with Ernst Ellert whose incorporeal being inhabited the body of a Druuf scientist, and attempt to direct affairs from Druufon via Ellert. Only on Druufon itself could his mission to convince the highest levels of Druuf government of the Arkonide threat and the necessity of an immediate counterattack succeed.

  "You can't," Tifflor answered in return. "But you can keep a watch on me so that I can't cause any damage if I'm not what you think I am. By the way, I must say I was expecting a little more civility on your part. I've taken a lot of risks to warn you about the Arkonides."

  That seemed to interest the Druuf. "Risks?" he asked. "You didn't have any escort ships to protect you?"

  "Oh good Lord!" Tifflor sighed. "Didn't the pilot of the ship that brought us here in the tractor beam have any eyes in his head?Of course we didn't have any escort ships to protect us! We ran away from the Earth—can't you get that through your head?"

  "You ran away? Why?"

  "Because otherwise we couldn't have warned you. Terra is still negotiating with Arkon. As I see things, they won't become allies but there will be an end to hostilities between them at least. It would be contrary to the Terran political position to warn you of the Arkonide attack, understand?"

  "Not entirely. They say that on your planet there is something called freedom of opinion. Why can't you hold an opinion different from your government's and not be punished?"

  Tifflor looked around at John Marshall. Marshall was a telepath and should have picked up the Druufs thoughts. But Marshall shrugged and made an unhappy expression.

  "I'm an officer in the Terran Fleet," Tifflor answered cautiously. "Only the Fleet has ships with which one can reach your universe. But every member of the Fleet is responsible to the orders of the commander. According to the orders, strictest secrecy must be maintained concerning the negotiations between Terra and Arkon and the coming attack. Anyone who goes against that would be court-martialed. We had to steal a spaceship and get away from Earth in the middle of the night. "That's the way it is but you come along and treat us like common thieves. I want to be taken to Druufon and speak with some responsible people there, not stay out here in the middle of space chatting with a mere captain."

  The last remark was intended to stir up the Druuf into revealing his true thoughts. That would happen only if the Druufs were as vain as humans tended to be.

  But they evidently weren't. The Druuf remained calm and answered evenly, "I am a responsible person.

  I think I can convince you of that."

  Tifflor heard a series of humming and rumbling sounds. He turned and saw that the control room doors had opened. Druufs came in, giant figures with black hides. There were 15 altogether. They formed a circle around the three Terrans and the Druuf commander. Tifflor had the feeling that something had gone wrong but he was not sure what.

  The Druufs made no hostile moves. They simply stood there and no one could tell in what direction they were looking.

  "Please answer a few more questions," said the commander. Tifflor registered with astonishment that the word 'please' had been used for the first time. "The main question is this: why did you go to so much trouble to warn us? For the sake of friendship?"

  Tifflor narrowed his eyes. The question had been inevitable and he did not let himself be taken unawares. "No!" he gritted. "Because I hate the Arkonides!"

  All of a sudden there was some movement among the Druufs. Heads turned. Faceted eyes sparkled. Tifflor was convinced that they were talking to one another but the sounds were inaudible to human ears.

  Only after considerable time had passed did the commander turn back to Tifflor. The mechanical voice spoke from the translator: "In our opinion, you are speaking the truth. We are almost certain because we were already aware of the threatening danger before you came. All preparations have been made for defense against the Arkonides. You don't need to convince our government... It already is convinced."

  "As a consequence, you don't need to make the long and difficult trip to our home world. We are grateful to you and certain that you want to help us. Thus we have a request to make of you, stay here and take command of part of our fleet. You are familiar with our inferiority against the Arkonides as regards our reaction time and even the speed of our ships. Stay here and help so that at least part of our fleet can react quickly enough to the enemy's manoeuvres to come through successfully. That is our request!"

  With that Tifflor knew that his plan had fallen through.

  There was no way out. It would have looked suspicious if he refused the request. The request was reasonable and he should have expected the Druufs to make it.

  There was no turning back. He had to say yes. If he refused, he still would not reach his goal. The Druufs would be suspicious and
certainly think no more of taking him to Druufon.

  The undertaking had miscarried. Without the participation of Ernst Ellert no substantial success could be obtained.

  Tifflor had difficulty hiding his disappointment. "Of course," he answered as steadily as he could. "Of course we'll help you defeat the Arkonides."

  6/ BAITING THE ROBOT REGENT

  The plan had been to put the Druuf government in an uproar. There was no doubt that Ernst Ellert, in the form of the Druuf scientist Onot, would have been able to do this together with the alleged deserters.

  The plan had been to lead the Druufs into making a sortie into the Einstein Universe—into making a move, then, that the Arkonides were not expecting anymore—and to bring to their attention all the different ways in which they could cause damage to the Arkonides. Attacking isolated bases, for example, or destroying trading outposts, or other single actions. Naturally the Arkonides would have retaliated but that was part of what the plan hoped to accomplish as well.

  The purpose of the plan was fundamentally to cause the Arkonides to lose so many ships fighting with one another that Terra would remain out of danger and end up more powerful than either survivor.

  The plan could not be carried out now. The Arkonides were not really planning to attack the Druufs in their own universe—or at least not in the foreseeable future. The fleet movements that had caught the Druufs' attention were the result of the Robot Regent wanting to capture a single Terran ship manned by Terran deserters.

  It would not come to an all-out battle. At most, border skirmishes. The decisive weakening of Arkonide and Druuf fighting power would remain unaccomplished. Without the falsified information supported only by Onot's authority as a scientist that was to be supplied to Druufs and which indicated an alleged Achilles heel in the Arkonide Imperium, the Druufs would never undertake a drive into Einstein Space. They were now too convinced of their own inferiority to attempt it.