Shadow of the Mutant Master Read online

  He banked steeply and dived toward the roofport of the Administration building. The engine roared at top speed and the compressed air buffeted the vehicle and made it weave in its swirling wake. Fellmer Lloyd didn't move a muscle in his face. Kuri looked grim as she kept turning her head to look at their pursuer, who was gaining on them. When Kuri wanted to tell Fellmer that the other craft was catching up with them, she noticed that his face was contorted again in a terrible grimace.

  Hypnotic forces tried to overpower his will. Someone was at work erecting a block in his brain in order to destroy his resistance and to seize his mental control.

  His aim, the Arkon Administration building, became blurred and he floundered dangerously. He was unaware that Kuri Onere had pushed him aside and taken over the controls of the overburdened taxi.

  Inarticulate groaning broke through Lloyd's gritted teeth. With his last ounce of strength his mind rebelled against the despotic hypnotic forces.

  There came another hypnotic order: Give up, Fellmer Lloyd!

  Unconsciously the cosmic agent cried for help in his desperation he called Perry Rhodan in his thoughts! He thus unwittingly betrayed Rhodan's existence, unless Ralph Sikeron had already given away this secret previously.

  Give up, Lloyd! Rhodan can't help you now. Give up!The hypnotic wave that threatened to inundate his last ounce of willpower surged over him in a flood of hate.

  Kuri Onere noticed the sudden drop in the Prebonian's resistance. She didn't know against what he fought but she felt that a deadly peril threatened to engulf her companion.

  She acted strictly on impulse. The pursuing airship had caught up within 200 meters of them. It was still more than three kilometers to the Arkonide Administration building when she suddenly braked her considerable speed.

  She was violently thrown against the armature panel of her ship as the braking forces took sudden effect. Then she switched to reverse with utmost acceleration in an attempt to ram their pursuer.

  The other taxi had noticed her braking manoeuvre much too late. Kuri raced back under full power and seemed to smash into her opponent when he veered away in a defensive movement at the last moment. She heard a crash behind her. Her taxi began to vibrate violently and spiraled down in tight curves.

  But the hostile aircraft plunged straight down toward the ground with screaming engines after it overturned and lost a door with a man tumbling out behind it.

  Kuri's wrists were seized by two hands. She was forced away from the controls by Fellmer Lloyd who was suddenly his old self again. With skilful manipulations he counteracted the wild gyrations of the taxi and stopped its dangerous dive. After regaining control he steered it back on the old course. "Thank you, Kuri!" he said softly and added: "Don't get your hopes up, the others aren't going to crash. They'll soon have their airplane straightened out again."

  "Fellmer..."

  He shook his head. "I'll explain later. Wait! Jidif just died. I can't sense him any more." Kuri looked at him with astonished eyes. Suddenly she realized that the man at her side was no Prebonian and that Asargud had only pretended to be one.

  Lloyd's tired face was bathed in sweat. He turned to the girl and admitted: "No, Kuri, I'm no Prebonian and neither was Asargud. Do you understand now that I can read thoughts?"

  The superb Arkonide Aerial Control organization had not failed to observe the wild dogfight of the two taxis. I clearly marked police craft stopped the fleeing taxis and forced them to land on the Administration building.

  Fellmer Lloyd made no further attempt to escape but he didn't know what to expect from the police after he landed.

  "The thermo-beamer!" Kuri reminded him of the weapon.

  He was amused by her concern. He pulled out a paper from his pocket and showed her a license, a flawless duplicate produced by the Solar Defense.

  After the landing he presented the license to the haughty Arkonide who had gingerly removed his thermo-beamer and retained it. The Arkonide eagerly looked at the license which he had been unexpectedly handed. "Check it!" he said gruffly to the Springer dozing next to him.

  The Arkonide and the Springer intended to make a hyperradio inquiry to the planet Prebon, 794 light-years distant from Arkon. Lloyd, who read the mind of the two men, knew that he wouldn't leave this office as a free man if the Solar Defense had made the slightest mistake in faking the license.

  Kuri remained in the background during the investigation. The girl was not considered to be under suspicion. Then the Arkonide received a report from the city. He was the only one who could hear the message but Lloyd learned its contents from him by telepathy. The Arkonide Police had found the second taxi which had fled. It was equipped with an extremely powerful engine and had a converter which was used to supply energy to rayguns. However there was no trace of the occupants to be found.

  The Arkonide studied the Prebonian thoughtfully. The report he had been given confirmed many of the details the arrested man had stated.

  Lloyd waited with a little apprehension for the result of the hyperradio call to Prebon. He had to be patient for another 10 minutes. Then he knew the answer when the Springer returned to the office with the license in his hand. The Solar Defense had worked meticulously.

  "The license is in order, lord," the Galactic trader announced servilely to the Arkonide. However the latter's suspicions were not yet allayed.

  "How can Prebon issue a license for Volat and...?"

  The Springer interrupted him: "The license shows the seal of the Arkon Administration of Prebon and it's registered under #666 748 54/KR by the robot-brain government on Arkon."

  The explanation of the Springer satisfied the Arkonide. He reluctantly returned the gun and the license to Lloyd and growled: "But you won't get away without paying a stiff fine for your violation of the airspace law!"

  Half an hour later Lloyd was found guilty. The court slapped a high fine on him and he had barely enough money with him to pay the penalty. The pitiful sum he had left wasn't even enough to pay the automaton of, an air taxi.

  Kuri had neglected to take money with her when they were forced to depart so hastily from her apartment. Lloyd remembered the Arkonide girl at the administration of the spaceport. "Where is a videophone booth?" he asked Kuri.

  Before she could point it out to him, Lloyd's extra-sensor raised a new alarm. The adversary from the region of the supranatural attacked him again!

  Someone tried to take possession of the cosmic agent's thoughts and Lloyd felt the alarming emptiness in his brain again.

  However he was able to rebuff the telepathic compulsion with his mental powers. With his extrasensory organ he determined the direction from which he was assailed and he perceived a brainwave pattern that was rife with hate.

  Lloyd fought back with all his might while Kuri looked around with frantic eyes, suspicious she might see the enemy of her companion in any person.

  Just as Lloyd broke through to his opponent with a concentrated telepathic effort, the brain of the intruder was shielded by a strong hypno-block, so that he lunged into a void with his mental counter thrust.

  A hypno and an esper had joined their vicious forces against him! "The bosses? " he wondered out loud.

  At this moment Lloyd was animated by a single desire: flight! He knew hp was in no condition to withstand a third hypnotic whirlwind attack. He was still physically shaken by the hypnotic onslaught against his will on his flight with Kuri in the air taxi and the tormented part of his brain felt burned out.

  They took the antigrav elevator and went up to the roofport although it was useless to put distance between him and the hypno for whom a few kilometers more or less made no difference. His enemy was only a few floors farther below in the building.

  "Nothing is coming as yet," Kuri heard her companion whisper. He displayed an eerie calm in the face of danger. Only once had Fellmer Lloyd acted irresponsibly and rashly but he had never again committed a serious mistake. 60 years ago on the planet Vagabond he had jeopardized the lives
of Rhodan and many of his comrades by his carelessness but now the lives of billions of people on Earth depended on him!

  After they reached the roofport Fellmer saw a 2-man police craft. The hatch was open and the engine in idling position. The Springer pilot lolled around the telescopic support leg of another high-speed spaceship, talking to a girl.

  "Quick!" Fellmer Lloyd pushed Kuri into the police craft. They repeated the routine they had already practiced before when they seized the air taxi on the little square in Kuklon. Kuri fell back into her seat and Lloyd took the other one. The hatch slammed shut and the automatic lock snapped in.

  The pilot standing at the speed spacer heard the click, looked inadvertently back and saw his craft soar straight up into the sky. His shouts of alarm were not heard by Lloyd.

  Lloyd put his hypno-beamer into Kuri's hand, saying: "Give me a shot when you see my face contort again. Don't ask questions and don't hesitate a second. It's better to do it unnecessarily than a moment too late. Can you fly this craft?"

  She looked speechlessly at the weapon in her hand.

  Lloyd searched the airspace intensively and he picked the Chief Radio Officer of the Arkon Building for his telepathic probe. However the man had no knowledge of the police craft's theft.

  The mutant did three things simultaneously: he gave Kuri instructions where to fly in case he became incapacitated by the hypno-weapon; he showed her how to operate the ship, keeping his eyes peeled for pursuers who might appear in the sky before long; and he maintained his telepathic control of the Arkon Administration's radio center.

  The police craft had quickly reached its top speed and they were a few hundred kilometers away from Kuklon. when he received the first warning shot from a concealed ground battery with an order to land.

  Lloyd dived toward the ground in a breathtaking steep curve in an attempt to escape close above the surface since he knew that the Arkonide ray-cannons could not fire below an angle of 15°.

  He leveled his ship out again when enormous hypnotic forces reached once more for his will. He moaned with a twisted face and was thrown into convulsions.

  Without batting an eyelash, Kuri let him have the full force of the hypno-beamer. Under the 3-second beam his body became a human shell without a mind.

  With the weapon in her lap, Kuri took over the controls. Although the Arkonide ship handled as easy as a toy, it required some experience to fly it. But what Kuri lacked in experience she made up by her determination to conquer the invisible danger with her companion.

  In a daring manoeuvre she streaked through the air almost at ground level and the glaring energy stream from the battery position behind her was unable to harm her. It shot at a 15° angle into the sky and was lost in the sunlight of Hesperais.

  The dark line of the forest belt became visible in the distance at the same time a tiny flashing point appeared on her right. With calm perseverance Kuri pushed her engine to the limit. It had to run only a few more seconds before reaching her goal. However the pressure absorbers failed to resist the enormous deceleration forces. Kuri was thrown with 5-or 6Gs against the instrument panel as the ship zoomed over the forest and drifted close to the vast deck of leaves. Suddenly her engine was struck by a grazing shot from the pursuing ship.

  Before Kuri could prevent it, the tiny vehicle crashed into a huge treetop. The bouncing branches and the action of the absorber eased the impact. The ship turned around its axis, slipped off the branches and fen into the jungle below the dense cover of leaves.

  The power generator of the ship and the converter still functioned. The young woman watched the instruments and did exactly what Lloyd had showed her.

  After dropping 70 meters out of the tree, she hit the antigrav lever and the ship settled gently on the ground.

  Kuri freed Lloyd, who had slid under the instrument panel. With one hand she opened the hatch and dragged Lloyd behind her with the other. She knew that the threat was still hanging over them. The young Springer girl hoisted the unconscious man on her strong shoulders and headed deeper into the jungle.

  The police craft of the Arkonides kept circling over their heads in vain.

  8/ THE SHADOW SOLIDIFIES

  Fellmer Lloyd grinned with delight. He had every reason to be pleased. The Arkonide Administration was exasperated because it had no definite clues as to who had spirited away their police craft. The main positronic computer had decided with an allowance of 5.32% that the Prebonian who had just been sentenced to a high fine would not commit a second violation by logical standards.

  At least Kuri Onere accepted his word for this evaluation although her companion had not been back in Kuklon.

  "I must leaf through the thoughts of the Arkonides," he had said 10 minutes earlier and then became transfixed in a state which Kuri described as 'looking inward'.

  Now he quietly smiled at her. His admiration for the girl kept growing steadily. Finally he sighed: "Why can't all Galactic Traders be as inspiring as you? How beautiful and peaceful life could be in the Galaxy!"

  She felt embarrassed and tried to change the subject. "Are our two unseen persecutors Galactic Traders too?"

  Lloyd no longer suffered from the shot of the hypno-weapon. The last side effects had subsided an hour ago. He hesitated with his answer because he was not sure of the facts. "Probably, Kuri, but they could also be Arkonides. One of them can do the same thing you can accomplish with the hypno-beamer—he can rob everybody he chooses of his will and impose another one on him. In one respect the natural hypno-power is stronger and less hazardous to one's health, as well as longer lasting than the most efficient dose jolt from a hypno-beamer. The other Springer or Arkonide tried to read my thoughts but he's not particularly good at it. Nevertheless he represents a real menace due to the collaboration with the hypno. The problem is how to defeat their sinister intrigues. Have I told you already that they're probably guilty of murdering Getlof Asargud?"

  • • •

  During the last days of July by the Terrestrial calendar—but 4342 light-years from Earth—Lloyd finished assembling his small private army on Volat. Without the help of the sympathetic insect people he could not have managed to put together such a staunch force. He would have been unable to hire such dependable mercenaries with all the lavish financial means at his disposal.

  The Volatians, who were only seldom to be seen in Kuklon, nevertheless enjoyed excellent connections inside the city. Lloyd was never able to get to the bottom of their relations. Whenever he raised the question it was suggested to him to ask the Omniscient Mother and they always intimated that he stood in great favor with the queen.

  Lloyd had twice dared to sneak into Kuklon. Kuri had returned to the city since his first visit. She had hired the Springers Ghal, Zintz, Oslag and Ulmin, who for a price would have abducted the Arkon Administrator Mansrin himself and dragged him from his bed to Thator Square.

  Three Volatians, who continually traveled back and forth between their queen's residence and Kuklon, enlisted an inhabitant of the planet Haspro and three nose-giants from the Gfirto system in Fellmer Lloyd's cause. The nose-giants even aroused the amusement of the most cosmopolitan colonial officials of Arkon. With their hairy furs, and three legs and arms, the creatures looked at first glance comical and dumb. However they didn't take second place to the Springers in their acumen for big business and they had a fine nose for a profitable deal. Furthermore they could boast of enormous physical strength and their fearlessness was proverbial.

  The creatures from the planet Haspro resembled the fauns of the Greek myths in their shaggy appearance. They had an unusual talent for arithmetic and were in great demand wherever positronic brains were too expensive. That they also had a photographic memory and never forgot anything no matter how briefly they had seen it was something that Lloyd learned only later by coincidence.

  Lloyd had been careful not to make a 'mail drop' out of Kuri's address. All his information concerning his private army was channeled through O-oftftu-O, who was
the only Volatian to have an apartment at Kuklon between the spaceport and the city. Lloyd was afraid to ask whether his name had been spelled correctly in the written foreign language.

  The cosmic agent had established his headquarters in the forest 80 kilometers west of the Gazelle's landing place. His little transceiver was silent. The other station was in O-oftftu-O's apartment. An hour earlier a Volatian had left the mutant again, going in the direction of the capital, and Lloyd was still occupied with sorting out the information which had been delivered to him when his receiver sounded a short beep.

  Lloyd glanced thoughtfully at the transceiver and sighed. He used the next 15 minutes to obliterate every trace of his forest headquarters. The beep had been the arranged signal that his presence was urgently required at Kuklon.

  As soon as Hesperais had set, he climbed into the somewhat outmoded Xun model which the Springer Ulmin had secured for him and flew to Kuklon.

  The showdown with the two Arkonides or Springers—the hypno and the telepath—commenced.

  • • •

  At O-oftftu-O's place he met the Springers Ghal and Oslag, the being from Haspro and one of the nose-giants. Lloyd studied them discreetly. He knew they were much more interested in finding out who he was than in trailing the unscrupulous Tirr Uxlad and discovering through him where the two bosses were hiding.

  Kuri Onere had never learned either that Lloyd's home was Terra, which was said to have been transformed into a sun about 60 years ago under the concentrated attack of the Galactic Traders and the Mounders, whereas this fate had actually befallen a dead planet in the Betelgeuse system.

  Oslag had an important message. "I've seen both bosses," he claimed, giving a detailed description. Lloyd sharply scrutinized the young man to check his veracity. The Springer spoke truthfully yet the mutant shook his head incredulously. According to his description neither one of the two bosses could be an Arkonide or a Springer. But Oslag stuck to his story and now the inhabitant of Haspro supported his claim. He revealed his photographic memory and recalled having seen the two bosses also.