Caller from Eternity Read online

  "It's all over town that Rhodan is ill, Mr. Bell. I learned this morning, by the way, that he has a case of indigestion, that's all. Also he's probably worried that he might have another seizure of pain again."

  During this, Col. Nike Quinto had straightened up to listen attentively. He had a question but Bell beat him to it.

  "So that's why the latest is the belly measure? What's happened these last few days is too much for me, Mercant! How come Perry has to have a cell activator in addition to the physiotron treatments? And that spook on Wanderer I understand even less. Why should It hand over this device to Perry? Quinto, how does all this compute with you?"

  The latter shook his head gravely. "Mr. Bell, there's nothing to say as long as the Chief maintains this screen of silence around him. But the situation concerning the tape measure is interesting..."

  "You mean its crazy!" Bell interrupted loudly, starting to lose his temper. But then he suddenly calmed himself. "Mercant, I didn't just drop in for a chat. Since you're the Solar Marshal I'm telling you-the time has come for us to..."

  "No!" Mercant got up swiftly. He understood but refused. "Too early for that! I've spoken to half a dozen physicians. There are no indications of mental derangement, Mr. Bell. You must understand what that means."

  Bell started pacing the floor, much more emotionally involved than Mercant or Quinto in the struggle between the loyalty of friendship and his duty to the Solar Imperium. He finally stopped abruptly in front of the Solar Marshal. "But you also understand that things can't go any farther! In two or three days we'll have a galactic war on our hands and billions of lives will be lost if our Fleet units continue to provoke the Arkonide Imperium. What Atlan thinks of us-well, you couldn't put it into words anymore!"

  Mercant looked at him sharply. "Mr. Bell, do you want to overthrow the Chief on the mere suspicion that he is ill?"

  The heavyset First Deputy snorted. "John Marshal's just come back from Arkon and today he asked me the same stupid question! Listen, you know I'm the last one to ever betray Perry Rhodan but as his responsible top staff we can't just let the Solar Imperium go to the dogs!" Behind his words was a deep sense of responsibility and concern for billions of people. "I read Marshall a riot act and finally forced him to dig into the Chief's thoughts. Since Perry has lost his ESP there's no chance of is noticing it. And what was Marshall able to tell me? The Chief thinks inwardly! Whatever that's supposed to mean, Marshall couldn't explain."

  Mercant made no comment. Bell stormed out. Mercant and Quinto sat in silence as they heard his footsteps fade away.

  • • •

  Perry Rhodan had always been among the early risers and, Cardif-Rhodan followed the same routine but this morning his yawn was not a hearty one and he did not feel refreshed by his sleep. The first thing he did was to reach for the tape measure on his nightstand and go through the ritual that had disturbed Bell so much the day before. He measured his waist again. His eyes widened as he read the results: another inch of girth!

  He tried to laugh it off. "I must be seeing things!" he muttered to himself. Then he dropped the tape and stretched.

  Barefooted, he went into the bathroom and, as was his custom, got onto the scales. "What...?" He had to reach for support. His knees began to tremble. He couldn't believe his eyes. Although he had not had anything to eat or drink the previous night, he had nevertheless gained almost 11/2 pounds!

  He looked into the mirror. An alien face looked back at him, etched with lines of anxiety and dread.

  He quickly removed his pyjama shirt and the mirror reflected all too clearly the sunken state of the metal activator in his chest. But just at that moment it began to throb and he felt the reassuring flow of new current through his body.

  The anxiety and dread vanished from his face.

  "Don't get edgy, Rhodan!" he said aloud to himself, and he laughed.

  But with the back of his hand he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

  • • •

  On Saos a day and a night was 214 Earthly hours long. When Brazo Alkher was led to his last interrogation and was seated once more in front of Kutlos, grey dawn was breaking over this desolate world. The long Saos day began with thundering hurricanes which were not even deterred by the 150-meter pyramid in their raging attack, causing the mighty structure to rattle in its foundations. Only once on his way back to his cell did Brazo have a chance to look outside and see the dust clouds whipping across the circular compound.

  After the robots had locked him back in the escape-proof room and he found his companion in destiny to be sound asleep, he returned to his own cot. Although thoughts were racing in his mind he finally also fell asleep.

  Soon he thought he was experiencing a nightmare. He stood in the midst of a terrible storm. Thunder shook the earth as bolt after bolt of lightning flashed. And then somebody grasped him roughly by the shoulder.

  "Get up! We're under heavy fire from outer space!" Stant Nolinov was yelling in his ear.

  In an instant Alkher was wide awake. He sat up and then leapt from his cot. The floor swayed under his feet as a hellish blast of battle sounds smote his ears. The industrial settlement must be under heavy bombardment, he thought. And then he recalled the statement he had overheard Kutlos make during a hypercom conversation in the room next to the hearing chamber: "Even the Springers can't threaten us! Tell them this is Central Control-we know how to defend ourselves!"

  The two Terrans were suddenly thrown to the floor in their cell.

  "Bombs!" shouted Alkher. And he was the one to know because he was a weapons officer-a heavy ordnance man. And he also knew who in this part of the Milky Way preferred to use bombs in their attacks: the Galactic Traders!

  So they had made good their threat against the anti-mutants. The attack from space continued. The whole planet seemed to be ready to fly to pieces.

  "The door!" he cried out suddenly.

  It has ceased to exist. But had the energy screen in front of it also been annihilated? He picked up a small stool and threw it out into the passage. He saw it shatter against the far wall.

  "Let's go, Stant!" he yelled in the same moment.

  The attack over the settlement increased in magnitude. Apparently a large Springer fleet was somewhere above the Anti stronghold, letting loose with every weapon at its command. Alkher and Nolinov raced along the passages they had so often traversed on their way to the hearings.

  Close ahead of them the corridor was suddenly split asunder. A 3-meter chasm yawned before them and Brazo just managed to block his comrade from it at the last moment. But he saw a branching passage. At the end of it was an antigrav shaft which probably meant their salvation, provided it had not already been put out of commission. They ran, wondering at the fact that they had encountered no robots as yet. They reached the antigrav and found that it worked. They jumped into it and it bore them upward. It was impossible to exchange any words because this second planet of a nameless small star was being threatened with extinction.

  Alkher had an instinctive urge to leave the shaft in a hurry. Nolinov was hesitant about it so he yanked him out at the next level. "To the left!" he yelled in Nolinov's ear.

  Here they encountered two robots. The two officers threw themselves to the floor, expecting a ray barrage. Nothing happened. The robots were not fighting machines but automatons who were employed in the manufacture of the Antis' individual defense screens. The two men ran onward and discovered a running conveyor belt. They jumped on it as a means of transportation onward.

  The belt was just carrying them into a tunnel when a bomb exploded close by, creating earth tremors which caused the band to stop. Fortunately the lighting was still in order so they crawled forward on their hands and knees. After a few more meters the tunnel opened into a giant chamber where the individual defense screen generators were being produced. Work robots were still busily working at their tasks.

  The two Terrans were not molested so they ran toward the large entrance gate. They felt tha
t they were taking forever but only five minutes had passed since they left their cell. As Alkher reached the gate portal he let out a cry and disappeared beyond the opening where the great door was hanging awry on its hinges.

  Nolinov was right on his heels. The room beyond was a spacesuit depot! This discovery had in no way been helped by the Antis. It had been pure chance and finding their own suits here also was a real piece of luck. They inspected them thoroughly, following all rules they had been taught in the Solar Space Academy, and then grinned at each other eagerly as they both finished simultaneously. Once they were in the suits, Nolinov gave the signal to go and they continued their way to the surface. The still-raging battle offered them a chance to escape during the confusion.

  The next antigravitor was not working. They could not know that the Antis had just shut the shaft off seconds before this so that the Terrans would be forced to use the emergency stairs nearby. They raced up the steps which led them to the ground floor. The Terrans pushed onward shoulder to shoulder, not suspecting that the Antis were following their movements over video circuits.

  Somewhere an Anti was speaking calmly into a microphone: "Fire-target zone 8!"

  Target zone eight was struck by fire from a cylindrical spaceship hovering over the temple area. Directly in front of Alkher and Nolinov the airlock door was blown to pieces. The brilliant beam melted a crater in the floor and its glare blinded the two officers momentarily. Before the shockwave reached them, however, they had closed their helmets and clapped their faceplate filters into position.

  Heedless of the raging inferno they made long running leaps until they were out in the open. They were trying to reach the cover of a bearing wall of one of the low buildings when it was blasted by a direct hit from a raybeam, and in the turbulence they had to separate. Alkher flattened himself against the ground beneath the shockwave in a storm of dust and expanding gasses. He did not know where Nolinov was and he didn't dare to call to him over his radio helmet.

  The blinding dust cloud was dispersed in all directions by the hurricane. As Alkher sprang to his feet he was once more aware of the fact that Saos' gravity was greater than the Earth's. He was about to make a dash for more distant cover when he saw an anti-mutant about 30 meters away who was running straight across the open space between the buildings. Alkher found himself next to another wall and when he drew back quickly he discovered a door. He swiftly depressed the latch and slipped inside.

  Just at this moment the Springer attacks lessened somewhat. Alkher found himself in a small airlock where he waited, calculating how long it would take the Anti to reach the other side of the clearing. Meanwhile he thought of using the lull to contact Nolinov by helmet radio.

  His earphones came to life but before he could speak his eyes opened wide in astonishment. What was he hearing? An anti-mutant was speaking pleasantly with somebody on board one of the Springer ships that was making the attack! He heard the Springer answering in his broad Intercosmo. Then the Anti responded again. He heard a name: Extan-unmistakably the name of a Galactic Trader clan. What was this clan, Extan, supposed to do now? Alter their firing range?

  Alkher didn't get to hear more because Nolinov was calling him on the emergency band and he had to switch over. Regretfully he did so and sent his I.D. signal.

  He heard Nolinov's voice: "Flight direction-300 meters straight on." It was an instruction of how to find him-also a signal alerting him to the fact that he could leave his cover in the small airlock. He moved out but he would have preferred switching to the other frequency again and hearing what else the Springer and the Anti were saying to each other. He wanted to know how it was possible for a congenial conversation like that between an Anti and an attacking Galactic Trader from the Extan clan-especially when the Anti was even advising the other how to direct his fire!

  But he ran out of time to think about it just now. He was sprinting across the large clearing or plaza toward one of the large dome structures which contained one of the four power stations. A renewed blast of enemy fire was coming through the heavy cloud layers of the storm planet. Energy beams splashed fountains of blinding fire to the right and the left of him as he ran.

  Over the radio, Stant Nolinov could hear his companion's labored breathing. Second later, Alkher came plunging through the haze of dust and smoke, and then the two Terrans were silently off together. They moved shoulder to shoulder, only daring to cast quick glances to either side and hoping not to be caught in a direct beam shot. They had just gotten past the large power station when a disintegrator beam struck near the industrial complex and made a swirling vortex of destruction 30 meters into the ground. Alkher, who was considerably faster in his reactions, darted to his left while pulling Nolinov with him.

  They left the last coverage that the temple compound afforded them and came to the open floor of the basin.

  • • •

  Allan D. Mercant took a seat without invitation. He didn't even look up when Bell snapped at him angrily.

  "I don't recall having asked you to come here, Mercant!" As the latter kept searching through his file folder, Bell reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. "Mercant, I think I made that plain enough!"

  Finally the Chief of Solar Intelligence looked up from his papers. His face was expressionless. There was little to indicate that he had gone through his second night without sleep. He spoke quietly while presenting a report. "Mr. Bell, we can talk about that after you have read this."

  Unsuspectingly, although with some reluctance, Bell took the sheet and couldn't help reading it because the words fairly leapt at him: Secret agreement between the Ruling Council of Akon and Imperator Gonozal VIII...

  Bell quickly read that Atlan had placed 1,000 of his most modern spaceships at the disposal of the Akons in the Blue System! He learned further that three major shiploads of hypno-training equipment had been sent to Drorah, with which it would be possible to convert inexperienced mother-race Arkonides into experienced spacemen within a very short period of time!

  Bell's face paled as he looked up and stared at the Solar Marshal. "Does the Chief know about this?" he asked tonelessly.

  "Yes."

  Bell exploded. "Don't make me have to arm-wrestle you for every word, Mercant! What did the Chief have to say about this?"

  "What would you expect him to say about it, Mister..."

  Bell slapped the desk with the flat of his hand, which made no apparent impression on Mercant. "I'll tell you what I'd expect him to say!" shouted Bell as the color came back to his face in his new anger. "It's the same as I'm saying now, Mercant! This thing Atlan has done is a stab in the back, a colossal impudence and an insult! And besides that, I'll have you know it's a... it's a... Well, all right then, what did Perry say?" he finally asked grudgingly.

  Without a word, Mercant took back the report and placed it neatly in his file folder. "Bell, the Chief didn't express himself one way or another. I was only with him about 15 minutes but during that quarter of an hour he kept checking his weight. He must have gotten onto the scales at least four times while I was there..."

  "I don't think I heard you right, Mercant. It sounded like... you mean he was weighing himself-at a time like this? Four times in 15 minutes...?"

  Mercant merely looked at him in silence. In fact both men stared at each other without a word for what seemed to be minutes.

  "This time he's done it!" exclaimed Bell finally. "He's flipped his lid!"

  "No," came the Solar Marshal's prompt denial. "But he does seem to be driven by some kind of fear or deep anxiety."

  "And you think that's connected with his bathroom scales?"

  "Perhaps. But how could I really know? Who can say today that he's been taken into the Chief's confidence? Since Operation Okul that's a thing of the past! It seems that the Liquitiv situation may have been weighing too heavily on his conscience."

  "If anything, it's Thomas Cardif, wherever he is, who should be having his father on his conscience! Mercant, hasn't your In
telligence organization ever found a trace of that lunatic?"

  "Thomas Cardif has disappeared among the stars as completely as the Arkonide, Banavol."

  "Who is Banavol?"

  "Have you forgotten who it was who advised the Chief that an Anti may have infiltrated into the Springer base on Pluto? According to the Chief himself, Banavol was the one who tipped him off. I've thrown everything we've got into the mystery of Banavol's whereabouts and there's no trace whatsoever. Somewhere between Earth and star cluster M-13, the trail simply disappears."

  "Mercant, you didn't bring up the subject if you weren't leading to something-so get it off your chest!"

  Mercant raised a hand as though in self-defense. "Naturally I'm leading to something, Mr. Bell. Lately there have been too many people who disappear on me-after being in private sessions with the Chief."

  Bell suddenly got up from his chair and walked swiftly to the window. He remained there for some time, his arms spread out while he leaned on the windowsill. Mercant watched his motionless figure, waiting for him to pick up the conversation again. Finally he heard him speak as though he were talking aloud to himself.

  "Banavol comes here and then disappears. An Anti meets the Chief at the Pluto base and dies. Perry flies with Alkher and Nolinov to Wanderer and the two officers fail to return... If I narrow it down to one common denominator I can say even that had its beginnings on Okul! On Okul, father and son came face to face with each other alone for the first time in many years. Mercant-wouldn't you say that Thomas Cardif also disappeared without a trace-since that time?"

  The other answered impatiently. "Mr. Bell, your speculations now are a little careless."

  Bell turned to face his visitor but remained by the window. "Alright, but can you deny that all this started on Okul?"

  "What are you getting at?" asked Mercant cautiously.

  "Couldn't the Antis have brainwashed the Chief in some manner?-you know, with methods that are unknown to our doctors and maybe also the Aras?"