The Blue System Page 7

  But then my eyes cleared. I had fallen with my weapon in readiness to fire. The brightening viewscreens of the typical panob gallery revealed that we were back in the star-sprinkled normalcy of the Einstein continuum. The linear hyper-drive had actually been shut off.

  What was more astonishing, however, was the fact that nobody tried anything that we logically expected from them. None of the Akons reached for a weapon or made any movement that we could interpret as belligerent or threatening. What disturbed me most was Auris' rather malicious smile.

  "Why the uncomfortable positions?" she asked.

  Her new attitude was a riddle to me. I sensed that we had overlooked something or made an error. But what?

  "Watch out!" warned Rhodan hoarsely. His features were taut as he made two jumps and arrived at the flight console. With his back against it he could cover the four-crew members with his weapon.

  "Don't try to be smart!" he blurted out involuntarily in English but then he repeated an equivalent warning in archaic Arkonide.

  The four men showed no reaction. They seemed to look through us and the walls—blankly. Only the girl attempted to be a bit more approachable. Rhodan snapped at me excitedly.

  "Come here and keep an eye on things," he said swiftly in Japanese. "I'm going to try to contact the Ironduke. "

  Auris of Las-Toor followed our movements attentively. I caught her twice in the act of glancing at the big darkened screen of the semispace-tracking console. What had we missed?

  Rhodan sought in desperation to make a telepathic contact with the mutants on board the battleship. If the Ironduke were still in semispace his efforts would be fruitless. However it could be assumed that the target visibility feature of linear flight had enabled Col. Claudrin to follow the precipitate retreat manoeuvre of the Akon ship. It was technically possible with the battleship's tracking sensors to trace a linear-drive ship also inside the libration zone. Claudrinmust have noticed our sudden change of dimensional position.

  I was worried about that word must. If the tracking had not functioned precisely or the decision to break out of the flight mode that was carrying the other ship forward at a million times the speed of light had come too late—what could happen then? If Claudrin had not followed our manoeuvre instantly he would be many light-years beyond us by now. Even after re-entering normal space it would not be a simple task to relocate the small Akon spacecraft.

  On the other hand, if he had located our position, a very tricky and time-consuming course-matching manoeuvre would be necessary. I knew what a task it was to attempt to coordinate courses while employing normal propulsion during an approach to another ship that was traveling at close to light-speed. Not only was this a tremendous problem in navigational calculation; it presupposed astronomical know-how which posed a tremendous challenge for the Ironduke's crew out here in this dense stellar zone with its concentrated gravitational factors. So I could only hope and trust that Jefe Claudrin had succeeded in time to match his manoeuvres to ours.

  Auris of Las-Toor was looking at me with a mysterious expression on her face. Her puzzling attitude was almost too much for me to take. What was she trying to communicate to me in this silent manner? Was she expressing compassion, pity, benevolence? I forced a smile at her but it probably only resulted in a distorted grimace. Still more distressing for us, however, was the continued silence of these incredibly insensitive crewmen. It seemed to me that they had surrendered too casually to a situation that they shouldn't be taking at all so lightly.

  After all, there were at least 50 highly qualified scientists and technicians outside the Control Central who must know a way of getting in here sooner or later. If I'd been in their place I would have at least attempted to blow some kind of anesthetizing gas into the room through the ventilation system. It was logical to presume that such an expedition ship would be supplied with such chemicals. There were many other possibilities that came to my feverishly working mind. Why didn't they try anything? The whole thing was insane.

  Rhodan didn't have any success. His ESP faculties were too weak and insufficiently developed under such conditions to enable him to make such a purely mental contact. Claudrin's ship could either be light-days ahead or behind us.

  Perry finally desisted. He staggered over to a seat and sank down into it. A sharp furrow appeared between Auris' brows. Had she sensed what he had been trying to do? Outside nothing stirred. No one even tried to call through over the intercom system.

  "Stop engines—go into freefall!" Rhodan ordered. The hoarseness in his voice reflected his fatigue.

  I nodded in agreement. It was the only way to help Claudrin to make his expected adaptation manoeuvre.

  In that same moment we began to hear a rumbling noise somewhere in the spherical hull of the Akon ship. I looked up, listening, while Auris began to smile for the second time. With a graceful gesture she brushed back her long, copper-colored hair in which the dim light from the flight panel seemed to scintillate.

  Rhodan raised up and slowly arose from his chair. He seemed to sense that something was wrong. "Just don't make any unwise move, Auris!" he warned her. "You are in my hands. So I want you to contact the other ship's officers and—"

  He stopped speaking as she shook her head in rejection. She was quite calm and again I noted that strange expression of pity or compassion in her eyes.

  "Too late, Your Excellency," she announced. "For what is to happen now, no one on board can be held responsible. You have overlooked the fact that this is a ship of the Akon Energy Command. It might have made you realize how tremendously powerful and versatile our main transmitter is. When you entered here you would then have destroyed a certain viewscreen immediately. In that case our Central Station would not have been able to see you in here nor would they have been able to track our galactic position. But it's done now. There's no use talking about it."

  Rhodan lowered his weapon. He looked angrily at the arching screen. It was the one which had provided a view of the target star during linear flight. It was a strange situation, to say the least. We knew that in a few seconds something incomprehensible was going to happen and yet we were helpless to do anything about it Resignedly I also lowered my tiny weapon. Even now the Akon officers revealed no sign of emotion.

  The rumbling became a muffled thunder. If it had been possible for us to get out of the Control Central now and destroy the ship's transmitter before it reached its full power output, that in itself would have been fine, but the thought was a hopeless one because even if we could have gotten out we'd have run into the armed crew.

  Tama Yokida was the first to put his weapon away, since he saw the futility of the situation. He sat down without a word in one of the seats but still kept a sharp eye on the Akons.

  Just as the ship's hull began to tremble, Rhodan's body also started to become rigid. I was filled with a frantic hope. Had he made a contact? I struggled not to reveal my anxiety and finally Perry's face relaxed. His faint smile told me that the telepaths on board the Ironduke had just gotten through to him and that meant that the Terran battleship had also, dropped back into normal space. Although he gave me no explanation I was sure that the mutants had been updated as to current events.

  It also meant that the Ironduke would be returning immediately into semispace in order to continue its interrupted course toward the Blue System. So in spite of everything we were not alone!

  Before I could ponder the pros and cons of the new situation the Akon ship was gripped by a terrible force. Before my eyes the others in the room began to blur. My vision was obliterated in a burst of crimson pyrotechnics and then there was nothing. My last thought was that this was the most violent dematerialization I had ever experienced.

  The Akon Central Station transmitter must have generated an incredible burst of power to be able to dematerialize the considerable mass of the spaceship and take it over in the form of extra-dimensional pulses.

  6/ THE FIGHT FOR TIME

  I could still feel piercing
pains in my body when I awakened as if from a nightmare. Tama Yokida was apparently still unconscious. Close beside me, Rhodan raised himself up with a groan. He muttered that 'they' had not even made an effort to place us on cots or in contour chairs. In his opinion 'they' had suddenly become very disagreeable.

  When my vision cleared sufficiently I noted that we were no longer on board the spaceship. That's why we were on metallic slabs that gave us no warmth at all. A biting cold pierced my thin uniform and seemed to augment the stiffness of my limbs. Rhodan helped to pull my sagging spirit together. I looked around and was quickly filled with amazement.

  We were lying on the metal floor of a large corridor or hall that was covered by a transparent ceiling. Farther ahead it ended at an airlock that was also transparent. Close beyond it was a small spaceship with flattened poles, measuring perhaps 50 meters in diameter. Its equatorial ring was excessively wide and sharply canted. I was sure that this was the vessel in which we had been abducted but at the moment the ship itself was immaterial to me. What was much more fascinating was the arching structure of light that almost blinded me as I looked at it. More than 200 meters high, it consisted of two towering pillars of energy which seemed to meet in a pointed are where the bright red glare became an ultra-bright violet. Between the giant transmitter's bands of energy there was a blackness of night. It gave me the impression of a gateway to the legendary underworld.

  The spherical spaceship stood close to this yawning darkness. I guessed that we had been hurled out of it somehow because the small craft had obviously suffered considerable damage. The left side of its ring-bulge had been ruptured and I could see that broken machinery had been blasted out of its interior.

  It was evident that this violent jump through the 5th-dimensional continuum was not an everyday affair. They had taken emergency measures which had apparently involved considerable risk.

  Robots were marching past us, carrying lifeless-looking bodies. One of the humanoid figures I recognized as one of the officers who had been in the Control Central. Nothing was to be seen of Auris.

  "It seems we've fared better than the Akons," commented Rhodan in a low tone.

  I turned my head but did not make the effort to get up. Nor did I even look up at the Akons who had just been handling us. I hadn't yet seen their faces but since the ship's crew were being carried off I knew that all of them would be strangers anyway. I followed Rhodan's gaze. By his expression I saw that he was also astonished. But he paid little attention to the giant energy arc since he was already familiar with the phenomenon. Actually they had been the reason for his first landing on the great moon of the planet Sphynx.

  At first it seemed that we had emerged on a similar moon but that was an illusion. We were located on the spacious upper flat pole of an incredibly gigantic space station. My preliminary impression was that we were on some kind of super spaceship but that didn't make too much sense. At least I had never been on any space vessel, regardless of type, where one could land on its exterior hull. We had to be on the upper surface of a space station. About 500 meters from us the curvature of a spherical wall began. I could only see a small arc of the curve because the rest of the great curving wall was beyond my range of vision.

  While I was pondering the significance of such a mammoth structure the transmitter's energy arc suddenly collapsed in upon itself. The blinding glare of it vanished and I was soon able to see the first glimmerings of the countless closely packed stars which were like a tapestry scintillating in all the colors of the spectrum.

  "We're at the edge of the galactic center," Rhodan whispered to me. "Inside the Blue System! Don't you see that sheen?"

  My eyes had recovered by now and wherever I looked I noticed the bluish light. Behind us flamed the glowing disc of a sun that was also blue. Now I could understand why the surviving crewmembers of the first linear test flight had spoken of this solar system in such tones of awe and even fear.

  I forced myself up onto my elbows and remained in that position for awhile. When I finally got into a crouching posture to shake off the dregs of numbness, nobody came to give me a hand. I stood up. Three Akons glanced at me in obvious hostility. I ignored them as Rhodan joined me and we attended to Tama Yokida. His sensitive brain had apparently not been able to recover yet from the heavy shock. With mutants one never knew what type of strain they could stand.

  Rhodan checked his pulse and then reassured me. "OK, he'll be coming around soon. Have you noticed that we've landed on the flat-topped dome of a giant space station?"

  When I confirmed that I had noted this he added: "Alright then, maybe you can tell me why they've built such a monster out here on the farthest edge of the system?"

  No, that I couldn't tell him because I hadn't the slightest idea. "Defense fortress?" I suggested hesitantly.

  When he laughed this didn't seem to please the three Akons. One of them came closer indignantly.

  "Go to the devil!" said Rhodan in icy tones, and then he added in archaic Arkonide: "I don't wish to be spoken to!"

  The Akon colored visibly and I held my breath. This Terran had his nerves about him! Rhodan turned his back to him and talked to me as though nothing had happened. But this time he reverted again to Japanese.

  "This station probably is one of many power plants they've had to place here at the edge of the system in order to supply energy to the blue defense screen. Those dome-like structures over there..." He pointed to the right. "They're the projectors. I wouldn't like to get very close to them. Oh, so he's still here, is he?"

  This time he smiled at the confused-looking Akon who was evidently trying to find his voice. "His Majesty, Imperator Gonozal VIII of Arkon," he said, introducing me. "I myself should be known to you by now. I must urge you to extend to us the courtesies to which we are entitled. Your name?"

  The old man suddenly became very reserved. If he had possessed a sense of humor he might have been able to handle Rhodan's confrontation more adroitly. I could hardly suppress a smile. My barbarian friend was permitting himself to be insolent with this obviously high-ranking representative of my mother race. Nonetheless I was amazed to note that Perry's words seemed to take effect. Was it possible he had intuitively found the key to the alien mentalities of these people?

  Rhodan seemed to be provoking them deliberately. This time it washe who gazed with cool disdain at the two other Akons nearby.

  "Your name!" he repeated more loudly and insistently. "Am I addressing an officer in command here or an empowered statesman? If not I request that you inform someone who is properly authorized."

  Slowly I began to get the picture. Rhodan had never once, even by inference, made an exhibition of his high political and military position, yet here he was doing it deliberately. Of course, I thought, he had every right to reject a reception or any interrogation by mere underlings. However, I was surprised when this older and more distinguished Akon complied with Rhodan's demand as a matter of course. I figured it would be a good example to follow.

  The Akon introduced himself. "Your Excellency, I am Lempart of Fere-Khar, First Chairman of the Ruling Council of Akon and Chief of the Experimental High Energy Station, Eretre."

  He had spoken with respectful reserve. So this was how one had to talk to them! This was interesting to know since we had both assumed that in spite of our high station we would be looked upon as barbarian chieftains. Or had our near escape and Rhodan's declaration of war caused a considerable change in the Akon attitude? It almost seemed that way.

  "I demand an explanation for this crime which has been committed under your orders!" I said sharply.

  I then experienced the most belittling fiasco of my entire existence as Arkonide Fleet Commander and Imperator. Lempart reacted sharply, fairly snarling at me, "You have nothing to demand here, you degenerate! You colonists are still under the command of the Ruling Council even though you've managed for some time to elude our jurisdiction. Your assumed rank is immaterial to us."

  I heard Rhodan sw
allow audibly. Thiswas bitter medicine for my Arkonide pride! So Rhodan was somewhat respected as an alien head of state while I was nothing more than a descendant of degenerate colonists. It required a great effort to control myself.

  "Will you please follow me," said the Ruling Council's chairman. Apparently he had come fully authorized to negotiate with us.

  "You mean with Perry Rhodan!" announced my extra-brain rather curtly.

  In the meantime Tama Yokida had regained consciousness and had been able to understand the discussion. His expressionless oriental face irritated me even more. I could imagine that those dark eyes were laughing at me.

  Rhodan gave me a wink. He followed the elder Akon and passed the two other representatives of this race as though they were nothing but air. It had become useless for me to emulate his conduct. Only now could I fully appreciate how providentially Rhodan had acted in issuing emergency orders to his forces and mine.

  We walked along the transparent passage which shielded us from the vacuum of space. In spite of this it had become very chilly. Therefore I was glad when the open steel door of an airlock came into view. I wondered at the fact that there was no one else here except the three Akons and their robot escort. Could this gigantic station be unmanned?

  This possibility proved to be factual, which gave me something new to think about. Were the circumstances such that these three Akons had been sent here only because of our surprising arrival? This would explain why possibly the highest official of the Akon Empire had put in a personal appearance. Now I realized that Rhodan's war declaration had come as a bombshell. Apparently they had been convinced that the Solar Administrator would never risk such a move.

  After the air in the lock had become equalized, we stepped through into a section where the antigrav lifts were located. They were similar to those used among Arkonides, which was not surprising. Certain of the basic technologies were not too susceptible to change. After all, 20,000 years ago my ancestors had taken everything with them that the mother race had thus far discovered or invented. When certain items reached an ultimate state of perfection they were simply not subject to change.