Secret Mission Moluk Read online

  Just as old as the institution of men in confinement is the thought of escape. Even Stone Age man schemed to escape from the cave of his enemy. The more complicated the dungeon, the more refined the plans for escape. At length there were penitentiaries which were renowned for the fact no one bad ever escaped from them. There was not the slightest possibility of obtaining the desired freedom before the wardens were willing to let the prisoner go. If, however, one of the prisoners burrowed his way out under the wall, the penitentiary's good name was ruined. There were invented time-locks, electronic barriers and impenetrable walls and they were built into the prisons. And astounding as it may seem, there were still escapes. No system however well-devised could destroy a prisoner's will to escape. Even in an age of scientific perfection and supertechnological installations, there were still men who responded to the limitation of their freedom by escaping. The feeling of being locked in is one of the worst feelings a person can have. The feeling of hope is stronger, however...

  • • •

  "We've got to get out of here somehow," said Werner Sternal. "In any case, we've got to try. It's better to do something than sit around here waiting for our friend to come back to us."

  Bellinger would have liked to note that for him the phrase was 'stand around' but Everson spoke first. "Our bad luck is that even the opening is gone," said the Colonel. "Napoleon can move through walls if he wants to." He turned to Sammy Goldstein. "Can you make mental contact with the shape changer?" he asked. "Can you sense where he is now or if he's approaching?"

  The mutant made a vague gesture with his arm. Like all telepaths, he was sensitive and suffered unspeakably with the slightest change in his usual abilities. "No matter what I tell you," he said slowly, "how can you know I'm not being influenced when I say it? My information is of no use to you because you are distrustful of me. You will always remember how I was possessed by Mataal. The same thing is possible now, too. We don't know. What I tell you might lead you astray. Therefore any report from me will only confuse you."

  Everson realized that the mutant was right. It was now completely senseless to rely on him. Goldstein would speak only when he was sure of what he was saying. And even then Everson would not be able to believe him.

  Meanwhile Weiss and Sternal had stood up and together with Bellinger they were examining the walls. They felt every centimeter they could, although their hands could not reach to the ceiling.

  Finally Poul Weiss reached a place that he began to inspect with especial thoroughness. "We came through here," he said. "There must be a door here or whatever you want to call it."

  "Napoleon could have just as easily created the entrance solely for the purpose of bringing us in here," said Everson. "That does not necessarily mean the opening still exists."

  "Don't start that, sir!" exclaimed Bellinger shrilly. "In a few hours you'll be asking yourself if even this room exists at all. When you begin that train of thought, you end up denying the entire world around you."

  Dismayed, Everson registered the panic-like excitement of the Lieutenant. He went over to Weiss. The biologist was working unflaggingly. Even if they were to unexpectedly succeed in escaping from here, Everson thought, what would they do then? Beyond the room was a corridor, beyond that another room. If they made an escape, they would not be changing their situation; just their position. It would be the same as if a prisoner at Sing Sing had tunneled out from under his cell, only to emerge in the guardroom.

  "Done!" exulted Weiss.

  Everson blinked in confusion. To him the wall still presented an impenetrable surface unbroken by anything.

  "What are we waiting for now?" asked Weiss.

  Bellinger snorted. Sternal gave Everson a meaningful glance. The young mutant shook his head. With the exception of Weiss, no one could see anything through which one could disappear.

  "Let's talk this over first," said Everson cautiously. "How did you succeed in finding the entrance?"

  Weiss smiled wanly. "It may sound ridiculous," he said, "but I had firmly wished for an opening there—and there was one."

  "Interesting," murmured the Colonel. He wondered why of all people it had to be the biologist who was losing his grip, the very man who had been the most sensible of all.

  "I think I'll go take a look outside," Weiss announced.

  Poor fellow, thought Everson, you're going to have a nasty surprise when you bang your head against solid matter.

  But it was Everson who had a surprise coming.

  Weiss simply went though the wall.

  • • •

  Dr. Morton switched on his light and looked around. Behind him was the entrance. They had climbed in to look out at the desert once more from this point. Pentsteven stepped next to the doctor, swinging his light like a tennis racket and twisting his head all around to see where the light fell. Sgt. Delaney, a small, thickset man, shone his light on the floor. Eiji Tanaka, the astronaut, had thrust his thumbs in his belt and waited.

  Next to him was an opening large enough to bring an elephant through. It was not sealed off and it was dark. Tangential to the opening, several metal supports of varying diameters led upwards. At a height of 10 meters they met a bulkhead in which another corridor could be seen. On the walls the men found countless swellings and depressions whose meaning no one could even guess.

  "We'll climb up the poles," said Dr. Morton. With the agility of an ape he embraced one of the supports and began to pull himself upwards. Pentsteven followed as the second man. The astronomer was in no way the doctor's athletic equal and had to pause for rest. He was hanging under the bulkhead like an overripe fruit. The impatient calls of Sgt. Delaney finally encouraged him to swing over to the doctor. Tanaka and the Sergeant overcame the hindrance without difficulty.

  "What are we going to do now?" asked Pentsteven. His voice had involuntarily sunk to a whisper.

  Before anyone could answer, a weak call for help sounded in their receivers. Four beams of light bored into the darkness.

  "It could be a trap," warned Dr. Morton. The lights' glare found a figure writhing on the floor. "It's the Green!" cried Pentsteven. "Look, Doc!" They ran to the moaning Napoleon. The grizzled face of the native was distorted with pain. Evidently someone had beaten him brutally. Dr. Morton bent down over him.

  "Quiet now," he said. "We'll help you, old friend." Napoleon raised his thin arms defensively. In the harsh light, his eyes seemed like bottomless seas in deep pits. His breath came as a rattle. "You must help your friends," he croaked with effort. He turned over to point out the direction to the doctor. "They're down there with the demons. Hurry!"

  Dr. Morton leaped up, colliding with the astronomer, who had been looking over his shoulder. Sgt. Delaney had pulled his thermobeamer and looked around wildly.

  "Back!" ordered Dr. Morton. "We've got to go down again."

  He stroked Napoleon's ugly head. "We'll come back," he promised.

  They hastened away, the flashing glare of their lights streaking across the walls. They did not see the Green stand up and vanish into the blackness.

  • • •

  "Since we all saw the same thing, it must have happened," said Marcus Everson, regarding his companions with an earnest look. "So we must agree that Poul went through this wall as though it were not there."

  No one answered him. Everyone was hanging on his speculations. If he could not obtain any allies for Rhodan. Everson had decided, he wanted at least to bring the valuable cruiser back. That was easier said than done. The obstacles seemed insurmountable. Napoleon doubtlessly intended to get his hands on the Mexico. Even a shape changer could not guide a spaceship through space by himself. He would need help. Everson could imagine just about what the pseudo-native had in mind. He would put the members of the expedition out of the way and return to the Mexico as the 'sole survivor'. Like Mataal, he would try to be on board the spacer when it took off. Once out in space, he would bring the crew under his control and force the men to carry out his wishes. In any
event, he seemed to have in mind leaving the most important men behind on Moluk. That showed that he looked at least at the mutant as a certain danger.

  But it was a luxury to think any more about it; they had to find a way out of their situation. Poul Weiss was not fitted out with supernatural powers. There had to be a rational explanation.

  Just as Everson began to consider it seriously, the biologist came back in the same way he had left.

  "Let's go, sir," he said, eager for action. "The corridor is completely deserted. Napoleon isn't around."

  It didn't happen every day that a normal Terran went through the walls of an alien spaceship as though they were air. Some seconds passed before the Colonel could collect himself well enough to ask a question. "How did you do that, Poul? I mean, how did you manage to leave this room?"

  Guilt and a poorly suppressed smile mixed on Weiss' face to form a grimace. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I thought you knew."

  "Give us some time to take it in," recommended Lt. Bellinger sarcastically.

  "At the point where we came in," explained Weiss, a wall simply does not exist. It exists only in our poor, misled brains. The molecular transformite suggested to us by a psycho-trick that the opening closed. We were so convinced of it that we could even feel the solid matter—or rather, we believed we could feel it."

  He grinned, stepped back a few paces and put his arm through apparently solid matter.

  "Here," he said, "is the proof. You have only to believe that there is a gap here through which we can go."

  "Let's try it out anyway," suggested Bellinger. With outstretched hands that demonstrated his suspicion well enough, he ran towards the barrier—and disappeared. His head appeared once more, looking like a grinning Buddha head covered in defiance of all tradition with curly hair. He nodded encouragingly.

  Shortly thereafter, they stood together in the corridor.

  "We came from there," said Weiss. "The barrier seems to be stable." He pointed to a dark spot whose midpoint was almost black while at the edges it frayed out like a blossom. "Even the thermobeamers will not help us any farther."

  Everson pointed to the colored spot. "Have you already tried?"

  Weiss nodded. He did not seem to be especially afraid of the consequences of his fire. He moved with the casualness of someone walking through Goshun Street in Terrania. The biologist was a slim man of average height in whose face hardly any irregularity could be seen. From the outside he seemed attractive and sympathetic. Young, inexperienced spacemen tended constantly to turn to him for advice.

  "We can't see the other end of the corridor from here because it isn't light enough," he said. "But we can go over there and look around a little."

  "Alright," Everson agreed. He went to the head of the small group and they walked towards their distant destination, unconsciously avoiding making any noise as they went. The corridor narrowed somewhat but a man could walk comfortably.

  "There's one thing I'd like to know," murmured Sternal. "Are we moving vertically or horizontally in respect to the desert surface?"

  "Try to find a window," Bellinger suggested, grinning.

  Goldstein was the only one who was silent. It could almost be believed that he had no interest in the escape. His attention seemed to be focused inwards. The mutant had never been particularly talkative but he had rarely ever seemed so uninvolved before.

  "We can go on," Everson exclaimed. "The opening isn't closed on this side."

  The others looked past his broad back.

  "It looks as though we'll have to go on our way in the dark," said Sternal worriedly. "It gets dark beyond the opened bulkhead."

  "Switch on your lights," Everson ordered. It turned out, however, that with the exception of the colonel, everyone had left their lights back with their spacesuits.

  "No one is going back," the commander of the Mexico decided. "This one light will have to do."

  He switched it on. A beam of light trembled over the floor, felt along the walls and flitted briefly under the ceiling. Their surroundings had not changed. They went along now somewhat more slowly. Everson had drawn his shocker. Their action was of course somewhat planless but it was still much better than resigning themselves to their fate.

  All of a sudden Everson sank. His last step had been into nothingness even though he had illuminated the floor shortly before with his light. The sensation of falling made his stomach queasy. The lamp in his wildly swinging hand described fiery circles in the black void through which he fell. Someone cried out. Shortly thereafter came the muffled sound of a body hitting the floor.

  A demonic face appeared clearly visible in Everson's mind. He drew back from it but it came nearer. For a desperate moment came the thought that perhaps he was not falling but floating weightless. The hard, beak-like lips of the face parted. Everson gasped for air. He wanted to struggle but there was no place to begin. He rolled about, somersaulted, fell backwards, reeled forwards. His body could not adjust to this condition.

  And then a voice spoke from the unfathomable darkness—a voice that had grown beyond its youth. "This is all only a trick, sir! Fight against it—we'll take care of it!"

  "Goldstein!" Everson wanted to cry out but he could get only a tortured moan past his lips. Instinctively he felt something building up around him that would be decisive.

  He could not know that it was the beginning of a battle that would be fought with invisible means and would last for hours. During the space of his long silence, Sammy Goldstein had developed a plan.

  Now he was in the process of carrying it out.

  7/ THE MENTO-DUEL

  His expression an annoyed one, Scoobey watched the four robots pulling the ray cannon through the sand. The robots were, of course, able to accelerate their pace but then the men would not have been able to follow. The officer thought somewhat painfully of how the attempt to make a lifeboat battle-ready had failed. With some surprise he looked at Murgut, who was leading the group. The native's long legs crossed tirelessly over every unevenness in the ground.

  Scoobey was certain that the Green could develop a respectable speed when he had to. Murgut had almost entirely conquered his fear of the desert. He had become familiar with the weapons of Terran spacemen while on board the Mexico. The armament had so impressed him that he was convinced that Terran weaponry would prove a match even for 'Evil embodied'.

  Scoobey took a deep breath. The small troop fairly bristled with guns. A locating device was constantly receiving the signals broadcast by Landi's radio. Although they had already calculated the radioman's position, they remained in contact. There was the possibility that Landi's men might have to flee.

  Murgut slowed his pace and waited until Scoobey had come alongside. The lamp that had been given him the Green wore from a string tied around his neck. He had told the spacemen that he planned to rent the light out to his fellow Greens—for a certain payment, of course.

  "My head hurts," he complained to Scoobey. "And it's getting worse."

  "I'm sorry," sympathized the officer, "but with this heat it's not surprising. The doctor will give you something."

  Murgut pressed his, hands against his temples. His dark eyes were wide with fear. Scoobey waved for Dr. Lewellyn to come over. Before the doctor had quite reached them, the Green began to moan. The gourd-shaped head began to sway from side to side as though mounted on a ball joint.

  "Quick, Doc!" cried Scoobey, although he knew that it was relatively difficult to make a diagnosis on alien beings or, for that matter, to even help them at all. A medication that could help a human was not necessarily effective on an extraterrestrial. "His fear is greater than his pain," said Lewellyn.

  Murgut, who wore the same sort of speaking apparatus as Napoleon, clutched the doctor with one hand and rubbed his forehead with the other. "It's a demon, Doctor!" he croaked fearfully.

  "Nonsense!" Lewellyn contradicted. "We've been underway for hours without seeing any of those legendary desert spooks. There aren't any."


  Unexpectedly, the native sank to the sand. Scoobey glanced uncomfortably at the physician. Lewellyn grasped Murgut by the shoulders and attempted to lift him up. The Green's entire body trembled. "Leave me!" he shrieked. "Evil embodied will kill me!" Desperately he ripped himself out of the doctor's grasp. He pressed himself against the ground as though it offered him protection and aid. His voice shook with panicked terror. "It's in my head!" Murgut howled. "It's killing me!"

  • • •

  Dr. Morton put his hand against Delaney's chest The sergeant stopped. Pentsteven waved his light around.

  "Why aren't we going on?" asked Tanaka quietly. "That Napoleon has sent us off on a wild goose chase, sure as anything," Dr. Morton said, his voice edged with frost. "For some reason that only he knows, he lured us away from up there."

  "That poisonous old spider!" muttered Delaney. A short time later they were back at the place where they had found Napoleon. However, the Green had disappeared. Dr. Morton growled an appropriate curse and interrupted Pentsteven, who was about to launch into a long-winded explanation of his thoughts on the matter. "We're going on," he ordered. "From now on we'll proceed with utmost..." A trembling ran through the ship and he went silent.

  "What was that?" Fear made Pentsteven's voice little more than a whisper.

  The second vibration was stronger. The trembling was so violent that Dr. Morton had the feeling of standing on a shaking net. Pentsteven held out his arms to keep his balance. Sgt. Delaney supported himself with his hand against the wall. Dr. Morton opened his helmet so that he could hear every sound.