Planet Topide Please Reply Read online

  Without the help of this machine the humans of the Solar System could never have even approached their present task. However, here on board the Burma the problem was being attacked without furore or fanfare.

  Now when the readout strip chucked out into the receiver tray, Pasgin inquired: "Ylers, don't you think we'd better consult our expert on this? When I was in the Com Room, Gallus was telling me something about a 100% reflection factor..."

  "Get him in here!" the computer officer gasped, shaking his head incredulously. "At least that way I'm not going in solo on this thing!"

  Pasgin gave an order for someone to get Gallus. He was interested in Ylers' reaction. "You don't believe in that 100% possibility?" he asked.

  Ylers answered without much hesitation. "No such thing as 100% reflection! Even the reflective process itself consumes energy!"

  "Even in hyperspace?" asked Pasgin.

  "Ouch!" groaned Ylers at his console. "You've got me cornered on that one because no man alive can say yes or no..."

  "Hold it, Ylers. Our expert on the subject says yes. He told me that the very lack of energy loss is a characteristic of hyperspace."

  "He ought to know," conceded Ylers grudgingly but he still continued to shake his head.

  Gallus entered.

  "Oh, Mr. Gallus, would you please check over the results from the positronic..."

  "One moment, Mr. Pasgin," interrupted Gallus. "There must be some misunderstanding here. I'm not at all in a position to verify the computations of the meta-positronicon. Nor is any Arkonide in a position to do so. Everything pertaining to such hyperspace mechanics is an exercise in multiple unknowns. Just why or how even a practical interface with these phenomena is obtained through a mathematical approach in the first place is a riddle, especially one that results in answers that prove out by actual application—such as physical tests and of course your regular hypertransitions. Not even an Arkonide can explain it—but he uses it."

  "Then am I clear to beam our agreed signal to Earth, telling them that our preparations have been completed?"

  "Yes," replied the ionization expert. "Nothing stands in the way of it now."

  "OK then, fine!" muttered Pasgin to himself. "Here goes Operation Kamikaze!" He switched the intercom to the Communications Section. "You may send our pre-arranged signal to the Chief. Multiple relay, pulse-burst coding and scrambled. You know the special code. Confirm please!"

  The confirmation returned immediately from the Com Room. At the same time the prepared signal was beamed out. The operation countdown began...

  • • •

  At 20:31:09 Earth time, 6 January, 2044, the main hyper-communication station in Terrania received the Burma's hypercom signal and immediately relayed it to the Kublai Khan, which was standing by ready for takeoff.

  At 23:35:14, the super battleship rose into space and was on its way. Other than the flagship Drusus, the Kublai Khan was the only ship that carried a tele-transmitter on board.

  Its great spherical hull, made of the best Arkonide steel and measuring a mile in diameter, held within it a 2,000-man crew. But for this particular mission they had been very specially selected. Their uniforms alone were a telltale departure from normal procedure. To those Terranians who had never been off the Earth before, the uniforms were nothing more than disguises, only Atlan saw something in them that was intimately familiar and he started to be afflicted by a slight touch of homesickness. Wherever one looked on board the Kublai Khan, one encountered Arkonide uniforms, and everywhere the men either spoke in the Arkonide language or in the broader-sounding Intercosmo, the commercial language of interstellar space. In fact the entire crew did not seem to know English!

  At 02:01:34 Earth time on January 7, 2044, the massive space battleship dropped under the protection of its powerful residual shock-wave dampers and entered into hypertransition. It emerged into the normal continuum again, somewhere in the Orion sector. Specifically it was just one light-minute away from the advance Terranian squadron that was waiting for it.

  While its 2,000-man 'Arkonide' crew was recovering from the 'jump shock' of transition, the vast ship's automatic transceiver sent out its recognition code-signal to the other fleet units nearby.

  The most important leaders of this daring enterprise were gathered together with Perry Rhodan in the Command Central of the Kublai Khan at this time in order to hear Joe Pasgin's report on the hyper-interference tests.

  Reginald Bell was too short and stocky to look much like an Arkonide but he wore the uniform of an Arkonide staff officer. At this moment he seemed to be talking aloud to himself. "If these ionization fields don't break down on us, I'll be amazed. But great galloping galaxies—what am I saying?!"

  No one contradicted him, not even Pucky the mouse-beaver. Wearing a special Arkonide inspector's uniform, the latter was lolling as usual on his small couch, where he had placed a ball-shaped object named Harno—his new little friend.

  It appeared that Perry Rhodan and Atlan were the only ones who were presently occupied. Although Bell himself had developed this plan against the Topides, just now he was merely a listener like the others. The mouse-beaver yawned somewhat conspicuously and made matters worse by neglecting to place a paw in front of his mouth.

  On the other hand, the Com Central had its hands full. One order rapidly followed another. Rhodan's ships were beginning to erect an electronic blockade around the reptile-inhabited world of Topide in Orion, in order to seal it off entirely from all external radio traffic. One after another, the great ionization fields were set up. At an average distance of 30 light-minutes from the Topide system, a vast spherical structure slowly took form—something that had no existence in normal space but which was nevertheless locking together in the incomprehensible dimension of hyperspace. This had the double effect of cutting off the lizard men from any communications which might be sent to them from other worlds and keeping them from being able to beam out any messages farther than 30 lems from their planet. Such directional beams were met by the unyielding spherical interference field structure, and in accordance with laws peculiar to hyperspace itself they were then deflected by a 100 % reflective process.

  In the Com Central of the Kublai Khan, alias On-Tharu, complicated apparatuses with still more complicated adjustments and controls were busy converting a series of incoming peeps and chirping into messages which were of a quite respectable length and vital importance. The ship's intercom system transferred them immediately to the team that was working with Perry Rhodan.

  By 03:42:04 ET, on January 7, 2044, the reptile world of Topid had been completely isolated from all other systems in the galaxy. Only now could Perry Rhodan turn to the task of eradicating an old sin of omission.

  While the On-Tharu made a gradual thrust at half lightspeed toward the binary system of Topid, the mixed Solar Fleet squadron remained behind, each vessel at its assigned picket point either before or behind the interference zone. Meanwhile on the super battleship the last preparations were being made for a landing on the reptile planet, in order to insure that they would not be met with a powerful barrage of energy-beam fire.

  Rhodan leaned toward the grid mike and called to the Com. Room: "Turn on the robot Brain's frequency channel and beam out his private recognition pattern. 30 seconds should do it. He never holds his call-flash longer than that with us!"

  At the same time the heavy footsteps of a robot rumbled up behind him. Atlan forced a smile. Bell grinned his satisfaction. He appeared to have forgotten the New Year omen connected with his injured thumb.

  The mouse-beaver did not seem to share the nervous high tension of the moment. His paw rested on the smooth round surface of Harno, whom he had rolled up close beside him. Pucky's eyes were closed and only his incisor tooth was in evidence. This was a sign that he was in his element.

  A confirmation came over the loudspeaker: "The call signal is on the air!"

  Rhodan nodded almost imperceptibly. The tall robot remained standing beside him, appare
ntly specially programmed for just this event. On the hyper-screen was the widely famed recognition wave-pattern of the robot Brain of Arkon 3. This signal must have been visible also for the past 20 seconds on a number of special view screens operated by the reptilian intelligences below.

  Then came the first radio response from the Topides, confirming their reception of the 'command call from the robot Regent of Arkon'! It lasted half a minute.

  Precisely at the end of the 30th second, the robot next to Rhodan began to speak with a metallic-sounding voice. It bore an astounding resemblance to that of the Robot Brain itself: "This is the Great Coordinator speaking. Today the On-Tharu will land on Topid under direction of my special minister Attor, who is to carry out an immediate inspection survey. You are to give every assistance, fulfil every request and obey every order. Any resistance or failure to comply will result in the destruction of the planet. That is all!"

  This was the abrupt end of a message which had every appearance of coming from the Great Coordinator on Arkon 3 and which every Topide had no recourse but to accept as such.

  The robot who had been prepared for this deception promptly withdrew. The On-Tharu continued hurtling at unabated velocity toward the double-sun system, which by virtue of its 27 planets was by no means small. 15 of these 27 worlds belonged to the great brilliant white star which had six times the mass of its violet companion. Six other planets orbited around the violet glowing sun, which at first glance might have seemed to be a 'dwarf'. But closer inspection proved it to be a very hot small star with a relatively meager mass, a fairly insignificant gravitational field and a small diameter.

  However, the remaining six planets revolved around both stars and one of these was the principal world of the lizard people, while the other five planets of this complicated system were in every respect a secondary importance.

  The giant main computer brain of the On-Tharu had absorbed its Arkonide knowledge from the data banks of the older Titan. Just now it was feeding the last coordinates of Topid into the massive automatic pilot system of the spherical battleship and at the same moment the operators became aware of being tracked by the reptiles and their space surveillance patrol ships.

  "Bogies on the screens!"

  "Space-warp trace!"

  "Six ships in yellow zone... two in the green!"

  The three men responsible for the success or failure of Operation Kamikaze quickly exchanged glances.

  "Fire Control?" Atlan hailed the giant ship's Weapons Central over the intercom.

  "Yes sir?" responded an officer, who then corrected himself: "Yes, Admiral?"

  "If those lizards seem to be getting too close, give them a full warning salvo across their bows. We will not give them any radio warning nor will we respond to their own signals. If we're going to represent ourselves as Arkonides, then we have to act like them. So fire without warning but don't hit any of the Topides. Understood?"

  "Yes, Admiral... once an Arkonide always an Arkonide!"

  This unexpected reply from the Weapons Central caused Atlan to react with a slight start of surprise. He did not have to look to his right or left to catch the reactions of Rhodan and Bell. They tried to suppress their smirks of amusement but did not succeed.

  Atlan snorted angrily. "That one's got his nerve!"

  Bell, of course, had a comment. "I didn't know that our weapons chief was also a poet. You know only a poet could sum up the total character of a race in just six words—nothing left to be said. Atlan, wouldn't you say that the whole Balawax is in those six words: 'Once an Arkonide always an...'" He got no further.

  From the main gun turrets at both poles of the Kublai Khan, all weapons opened up on the approaching Topide ships, blasting a titanic warning salvo across their bows. Even though a mile separated the two firing positions on the ship, the thundering shots were heavily felt in the Command Central.

  The heaviest sound-waves had barely subsided when Atlan leaned toward Bell and muttered: "My fat friend, I'm going to take that poet of yours in hand personally and..."

  Reginald Bell placed a hand on Atlan's arm. Although he always preferred the pleasanter aspects of life, he was never one to sidestep the rough spots. "You're not going to handle our fire control officer like an Arkonide! Listen, friend—you know, with all your understanding of our mentality, sometimes it's frightening what you miss in us humans! Major Crafford—I think that's his name—wasn't aiming at you with that crack. He was only expressing a judgment of your own people's impossible stupidity and arrogance. Admiral Atlan, the whole universe would be yours today—if you had developed friendships instead of..."

  The sound shock of a second salvo ran through the mighty vessel. Major Crafford had fired his next warning in the deadlier form of combined beam concentrations.

  The loudspeaker crackled with an announcement from the Com Room: "The lizards are asking for the vessel's name, sir."

  Khrest emerged from the background, about to speak to Rhodan, when he was interrupted by a ringing additional announcement:

  "We have an energy trace, sir! They're making trouble for us, directly from the planet itself!"

  The statement was very ambiguous.

  "What do you mean—trouble?" Rhodan shot back sharply. "What kind of trouble?"

  In the same moment the overload alarm for the defense screens set up a howl of sirens. Within the ship, transformers roared suddenly to peak capacity while the energy absorption system threw in one reserve bank after another. A deluge of unknown forces engulfing the super powerful outer protection screens of the Kublai Khan had to be absorbed and converted by the mighty transformers so that the titanic energies could be conducted into the buffer storage banks which had purposely been held empty for just such a case as this.

  The surprise attack lasted only two seconds, then the deadly phenomenon creased like a passing flash of lightning.

  The Com Central blatted more news out of the loudspeaker. "Topide wishes to be excused for having recognized the On-Tharu too late—all approach ships ordered to turn back!"

  Bell was promptly heard to say: "That's a double donk brazen lie! We ought to..."

  But the speaker continued: "The hypercom station on Topid requests direct contact with the Brain of Arkon!"

  "No dice!" countermanded Rhodan curtly. He recalled having also called the Arkon robot monster repeatedly in vain. "Just don't answer them! That is all!" But Perry turned back with emphasis to the nature of this 'trouble' the Topides had served them with. "Now, gentlemen, may I please have a fast explanation of what almost broke through the maximum capacity on our screens?" The tone of his voice advertised that he would tolerate no more excuses. His grey eyes flashed with an inner fire, not of uncontrolled emotions but of anger at having to ask for the information.

  The very busy research lab was heard from, under the direction of Dr. Bansfield. "Sir, this is Tech Department 184." On the intercom screen the young scientist's face reflected an obvious excitement. He was in his early 30s. "Sir, the Topides must have developed a new kind of defense weapon. Pending a recheck of our findings, they were firing a three-phase beam..."

  "What the devil is that?" interrupted Rhodan irritably.

  "Sir, I beg pardon, but..."

  "No buts—just say it!" insisted Rhodan.

  "Three-phase beam is just a working term, sir, because we don't yet know how the reptiles have solved such a complex problem. They seem to use a probing beam to measure our defense screen capacity. As far as we can determine, the test beam seems to regulate its own high tension to match the tension levels of our absorption fields..."

  "Which are never constant," interjected Bell. "That's gwash (baloney)!"

  But the young scientist appeared to be very confident of what he was talking about. "Sir, that's what we thought at first but we had to remember that our reserve absorption banks were purposely kept empty for just such a case of overload. But when we found that even some of the master accumulators had suddenly lost 20% charge—in less than two
seconds—we could only conclude that the lizard people have hit on a new deadly weapon. They can cause any spaceship, after even a light attack, to destroy itself from within. Because—contrary to all previous experience—our absorbers didn't extract any excess of alien energy fed into our screens from outside. Instead, the paradoxical reaction occurred whereby monstrous amounts of our own energy were transferred in just two seconds from our main reserves into the banks, not only overloading them but threatening us with an overall collapse."

  Atlan had straightened up with a jolt of alarm while Bell moved close to the viewscreen.

  Rhodan remained unmoved in his chair but when he spoke now that same peculiar note of calmness crept into his voice which he had so often been noted for during other precarious situations. "Doctor," he said, "briefly, do I understand the following? A probing test beam contacted our screen field and measured its strength. At the moment, the transmitted energy adjusted itself to the tension level of our defense screen. Please interrupt me if I go off the track here. So by all outward appearances that would strengthen our screen. What I don't get is the fact that our absorption banks acted exactly opposite to their designed function. Instead of drawing in and storing the excess energy, they switched additional energy into the screen fields!"

  "Sir..." Dr. Bansfield sighed deeply. "Since the probe beam became identical in strength to our screen, it was able to come through but as our present flow charts show very clearly, all absorbers including the transformers were changed in polarity! This process may perhaps be explained by considering the hypothetical and speculative border science that was once propounded by an ancient Arkonide mathematician..."

  Perry Rhodan, who together with Bell had undergone the most advanced phases of Arkonide hypno-schooling, was familiar with the work of the scientist mentioned, and he was taken by surprise that Dr. Bansfield should also be informed about it. But he did not express himself on the matter. He thanked Bansfield and urged him to pursue his further investigations on a top priority basis.