Fortress Atlantis Page 8

  9/ MYSTERY OF THE "BODY" SHIP

  Nearly two months had elapsed. Inkar and Taneth had continually taken their battlecruisers on dangerous missions to the second planet in order to remove from its plentiful hoards all the goods so sorely needed on Atlantis.

  I provided cover for their missions with my flagship. Three of its powerful propulsion jets had been changed over to weapons as well as one engine of each battle cruiser.

  We had scored our first success three weeks ago when we had registered a foreign object with our hypersensor. However the enemy had conducted only a minor foray in a small sector. After we had latched on to the ship with our new automatic targeter, it exploded in our intense fife in a rapid sequence of events.

  The impulse-wave cannon had gouged a tremendous funnel in the relativity field. Then something happened which proved to be a valuable lesson for our experts.

  The ship was invisible when we registered it. Then it was hurled through the tunnel, which glowed around the edges, as if shoved by a gigantic fist and we recognized it as a long black body. It was as clear as it never had been in another dimension. Its movements seemed to us extremely awkward and slow. The explosion had taken place after the spaceship had become visible.

  I had accused the weapons officer of acting prematurely and threatened him with a court martial. Naturally I would have liked to capture the hostile ship but I was thwarted by his hasty action.

  From then on all was quiet again and we had sighted nothing that looked like a vehicle of the prowler.

  "They're afraid to get too close to us," Tarth had murmured grimly. Yet I held hope he would be wrong. I wanted to know who was lurking out there.

  • • •

  Exactly 24 days after the destruction of the long rod-shaped spaceship I took off again with my flotilla. We cautiously coasted to the second planet in an attempt to install a switch unit we had prepared for the monitoring system of the robot brain on Larsa.

  It was a 5-dimensional measuring device which was precisely tuned to the frequency of the wavefront. We needed an immediate warning when another transgression occurred.

  I was deeply worried because the two planets neared each other more and more in their orbits and a total opposition was close at hand. If another raid were to take place at this particular time, the colonists on Atlantis would suffer also.

  The natives had already been evacuated to the prepared fortresses. They were dispersed in such a manner that they could not be seized all at the same time. At least we still assumed for our own comfort that the purpose was merely the abduction of intelligent beings although we failed to see the logic of their reasoning.

  The two remote-controlled cruisers were now directed by an auxiliary vessel of the battleship. We could no longer afford to venture too close to the enemy with the last three fighting units, especially since our manoeuvrability was diminished by the conversion of some of the propulsion jets.

  I ordered the battle cruisers Paito and Askohr to stand by in space. After I had determined that everything was peaceful on the second planet, the Tosoma picked up speed and plunged into the dense atmosphere. We radioed the code signal to the big robot brain situated on the planet and landed at the high chain of mountains.

  The energy dome of the brain was deactivated. My technicians were already waiting on the antigrav platform on which the switch unit had been loaded. If everything proceeded without a hitch, we could finish the installation in ten hours. The airlock hatch-doors above the ring of engines were opened and the glider floated outside and quickly trailed off in the hazy air.

  The formidable guns of the Brain were pointed menacingly up to the dense clouds covering the young world of jungles. Under normal conditions the automaton was well equipped to repulse conventional attacks and the passage of the wavefronts had so far had no detrimental effect on it.

  The hours dragged on interminably. The technicians did a bang-up job at top speed and we followed their progress via telecom. There was no interference from outer space.

  The commanders of the two battleships were required to send alternating code signals every three minutes. We trusted nobody and least of all the intruders who, presumably, were no denizens of our universe.

  After waiting eight hours something happened which I took at first to be another one of the creepy attacks. I noticed that I wasn't the only one who had heard the noise when I saw Tarth and the others in the Command Center cock their heads.

  We had the impression that an invisible caller was in our midst. However we heard no real sound. What we perceived seemed to originate in our subconscious minds and reached our brains as understandable thoughts without the aid of a spoken language.

  Tarth stared at me in utter amazement, slowly retracting his finger from the alarm button. "Someone is calling you!" he said in disbelief.

  "Yes, I know," I replied hesitantly, looking around with circumspection. What in the world could it be?

  My name was repeated again, followed by a request which almost sounded like a command. A young officer took down in writing the message which had been conveyed in such an extraordinary fashion. It comprised only a few words and it was difficult to judge its true intentions.

  The young lieutenant was visibly shaken when he came over and handed me the note without a word. I read: "To Atlan, the Arkonide Commander in chief. I'm not identical with your unknown adversary in the time zone. Take an auxiliary ship and proceed to my body. I'm going to wait two hours. If you fail to meet me it'll be your and your people's misfortune. I vouchsafe that no attack will occur during your visit in my body. Take your bearings as to my position."

  As I perused the message my incredulity grew at its weird content. Nevertheless I was unable to laugh it off. My officers looked at me with anxious eyes.

  "It's crazy," Tarth warned. "Somebody is using a ruse to entice you so he can get you into his clutches, Atlan."

  I was dubious and the mental message was once more reiterated in our minds. It made the same request as before. I rose from my seat. The face of Capt. Zerg, our psycho-officer, appeared on the telecom screen. He requested permission to speak to me.

  "Go ahead!" I said, outwardly composed and inwardly quaking.

  "We're dealing with para-vibrations, Your Highness," he explained. "They resemble the impulses we produce with our psycho-beamers although they're much stronger. It's a purely mental transmission of concepts as used by some telepathic races. Although we don't possess these powers ourselves, their existence has been definitely confirmed by our research."

  "Did you form an opinion about the meaning of the communication?" I inquired.

  "It's inconclusive, Your Highness. However I'm quite certain that it didn't come from the same shadowy source we're fighting."

  The sound coming from the loudspeaker in the radio center caused me to interrupt our conversation. Capt. Zerg waved quickly and got off the screen.

  The radio officer on duty switched the incoming call to my battle-station. It was Capt. Inkar reporting from outer space. His eyes glittered excitedly. "Inkar to Squadron Chief," he said swiftly. "Did the Tosoma receive an unusual request?"

  "We did indeed," I acknowledged. "Were you able to locate the sender whom I'm supposed to meet?"

  "We've picked up the object with optical and sensor instruments," Inkar asserted. "It contains a great amount of metal other than Arkon steel. It looks like a spaceship, however its shape is asymmetrical. It's formed like a cube with numerous protrusions which are arranged in various positions over its surface. I've abstained from launching an attack against it."

  I was undecided. Capt. Zerg entered the Command Center with a few data cards in his hand.

  "I request instructions, Your Highness," Inkar demanded impatiently. He obviously didn't relish the uncertainty and his powerful ship was probably all set to go into battle.

  "How far away is that 'body'?" I inquired.

  "It's hovering motionlessly in space at a distance of 1.5467 million kilometers which is
well within range of a small impulse-cannon. This leads me to believe that we're not threatened by an attack. Nobody would be so foolish as to stand still before the guns of a battle-ready Imperial battleship."

  "That's right!" Tarth chimed in without being asked.

  "I want the Paito and Askohr to continue their observation patrol," I ordered. "Don't take any action unless the stranger commits a hostile act. I'm going to leave the Tosoma in an auxiliary ship. That'll be all!"

  I would never forget the flabbergasted expression on Inkar's face as I switched off the screen.

  "What good'll that do?" Tarth beseeched me excitedly. "I'm afraid you're falling into a trap. Why else would anybody call you from out there?"

  Capt. Zerg, who was standing at a respectful distance from me and the old commander, spoke up: "Your Highness, I consider it virtually impossible that our ephemeral foes know your name and are informed that we belong to the fighting forces of the Great Empire. Whoever has entered the field knows exactly what is going on in this stellar system. According to the logical evaluation I've obtained, we don't have to fear an attack."

  I was in a state of vacillation. My decision to obey the strange invitation from outer space seemed to be absurd again. "When will our technicians be finished with their job?" I asked.

  "In about two hours," came the reply from the mountain cave of the positronic brain.

  At the same moment we perceived the message from the depth of space once more. The unknown, or unknowns, persisted in the tenacious effort.

  For a while Tarth maintained his silence. He had been a devoted servant of my family for many decades and was deeply concerned about my well being. After studying me intently, he suddenly broke his silence. "Well, you might as well take off. I know you're itching to go. However I insist on one condition: the Tosoma must not remain here on the planet. The Askohr under Taneth can take over the protection of the technicians on the ground. The battlecruisers are no longer fast enough to cope with all emergencies."

  Tarth's suggestion bucked up my confidence. I was severely troubled by the remark that my failure to respond to the unknown's demand would only worsen the fate of my people.

  I issued my instructions and waited till the. Askohr emerged from the atmosphere and touched down next to US. The engineers working in the fortress were advised to discontinue their efforts at the first sign of danger and to flee into space aboard the battlecruiser.

  Then I was ready. The urging of the stranger grew unbearably intense inside my head. The increasing insistence was communicated by a gradual reinforcement of the impulse signals.

  The Tosoma leaped out of the glowing atmosphere of the second planet and into the glaring light of the sun which loomed much larger here than seen from Atlantis. A few seconds after we hid left the stratosphere, our rangefinders picked up the first image. Fascinated, I stared at the third screen of the ultra-light-speed hypersensor.

  I saw merely an outline of an irregularly shaped dark body which was suspended motionlessly in space. If it was a ship it was certainly the oddest configuration I had ever seen. The construction was asymmetric and the numerous protrusions jutting out from its surface gave the impression of being bulky isolators, armored turrets or measuring instruments for some kind of energy units.

  "Hold your horses!" I admonished Tarth, who was trying to get a few 100,000 kilometers closer.

  The old man gave me a disgusted look before he started to laugh. "Listen, Atlan," he growled. "I've rocked you on my knees and taught you how to fly a spaceship. The Imperator has appointed me as your guardian and I protect you with my life. If anything happens to you out there, I'll turn this part of the cosmos into a pile of junk. I'm going to wait exactly one hour, Atlantis time. If you fail to return by then, I'll take action. Should that thing over there make the slightest move to get away with you, I'll be at its side in an instant transition."

  "Wait and see. I don't have the feeling that they'll give me trouble. Now will you please get an auxiliary ship ready for me?"

  "Already done," Tarth replied. "I knew you wouldn't listen to my advice."

  I put on a spacesuit containing air, water and food for 48 hours and checked all its equipment. Everything functioned perfectly. Then I took the elevator down to the huge hangar of the Tosoma. The little elliptical impulse gadabouts were barely eight meters long and only half as wide.

  I slipped through the tiny airlock and turned on its air and warm up system. Its perky engine began to hum. They were capable of reaching the velocity of fight in less than two hours, which was more than adequate for the requirements of a rescue ship.

  Tarth inspected the little impulse-cannon mounted in the ship. It was ready to be fired. All was shipshape on board the Tosoma as usual.

  "Attention all ships!" I called into the mike of the hyperradio. "Refrain from intervening on my behalf unless given orders to the contrary. Keep calm if you don't hear from me during my visit to the alien spaceship. In case of emergency, I expect to rely on the protection of my spacesuit's energy field projector. Ready, Tosoma?"

  I listened to the sucking noises of the vacuum pumps. Then the door of the airlock rolled back and I was ejected by the magnetic catapult whose sudden push was absorbed by the counteraction of the thrust-absorber so that I was kept from feeling the severe shock.

  I soared into the spacious firmament. The Tosoma became quickly unrecognizable to the naked eye and in a few moments it disappeared as a dark, shapeless speck.

  I reflected on the recklessness of a manoeuvre that would bring a spaceship within the range of the Tosoma's devastating firepower. I would never have taken such a chance. Whenever I approached an unknown vessel I always kept in motion in order to be prepared for an evasive move by a quick thrust of energy.

  I accelerated quickly toward the mysterious object, pondering at the same time the meaning of its commander's peculiar request to 'appear in my body'. Moreover, I suddenly realized that I had not been asked to come alone. On the other hand no mention was made of anybody else either.

  My nerves were on edge when I coordinated the directional beam of the hyper-transmitter with the echo-sensor. When the light turned green, I put the mike to my lips. I had not yet flipped down my space helmet. "Admiral Atlan, Chief of the 132nd Imperial Taskforce, to alien ship! I received your message and have consented to meet with you. I am alone and will arrive in ten minutes."

  I listened intently to a response which came in the form I had expected. The unknown sent me a telepathic message again. I've spotted you. Shut off your engine. I'll bring you safely into my body.

  There it was again, the same ambiguous expression. Naturally I would enter the spaceship but why did the commander call it his 'body'? Those people seemed to have very strange concepts.

  My curiosity grew immensely as I obeyed his instructions to cut off the engine. A few minutes later I noticed a gentle pull and the dark hull of the spaceship soon loomed in front of me. I realized that I had undergone a miniature transition and my hitherto unconscious respect grew by leaps & bounds. The technique demonstrated to me was something which the Arkonides had not yet achieved.

  I took time out to keep the men on my ship abreast of the developments in order to assuage the anxiety they must feel.

  "Sheer madness!" Tarth's voice boomed in my receiver. It was a favorite expression of his. "Remember, this is precisely the weapon we're trying to get."

  As if I didn't know! It was the first idea which had occurred to me when I felt the slight pull. At that moment I had thrown all my mental reservations against the unknown overboard. I had experienced a controlled dematerialization and if we succeeded in duplicating the method, the war against the methane-breathers was bound to take a turn for the better.

  Suddenly a bright round spot of light appeared before my eyes. It was the sharp outline of an opening in the hull which invited me to enter its light, although I heard nothing from the commander.

  I was gradually pulled into a bare-looking metallic room. T
he door was closed behind me and some air began to fill the room. Then I received the next information. I'm providing you with a mixture of oxygen and helium. There's no gas pressure inside my body.

  This contributed to my bafflement. I reached nervously for the switch of my radio transmitter but on second thought abstained from calling my flagship. Tarth was too jumpy. If he did something foolish, all could be lost.

  I took a sample of the air and put it through the automatic analyzer. I got the green light in four seconds so that I was able to breathe the artificial atmosphere. Then I opened the cabin door and climbed out. The impulse-weapon in my belt gave me a feeling of confidence. Instinctively compensating for the weak gravity I moved slowly toward the inner door which slid back before I walked through.

  I had expected to see some people but there was nobody around. The long corridor was only dimly lit. There were humming and whirring noises all around me. It sounded as if billions of insects were busy building their hives.

  Guarding my steps, I walked through the corridor. My mounting apprehension left me only when I perceived the voice coming from within again. Welcome, Atlan. You're now in my body. I know your thoughts. This is a robot spaceship without a live organic crew. I'm a compact control unit operating in space and equipped with every device my creator considered to be useful, including superior force for combat. Turn left!

  I was stunned. So this was the solution of the puzzle! A robot who was, for all purposes, identical with the entire ship could very well speak of receiving me in its body.

  I entered an antigrav-field which carried me upward where I emerged from an opening in the floor and found myself in a large circular hall with an arched ceiling. It contained a confusing array of innumerable instruments with countless rows of push-buttons which impressed me deeply. The ship seemed to carry on a mechanical life of its own.

  I stood still in the middle of the room because I was afraid I might touch some high-voltage conductors. They evidently worked with extremely high-energy values and I failed to see shielding installations which apparently were unnecessary for robots.