Thora's Sacrifice Read online

  Those of the men who had served Perry Rhodan for many decades in a variety of missions had learned to expect the most improbable incidents but to be hurled toward a sun upon return to their own cosmos was something new.

  The computer brain was consulted for the purpose of orientation. At the structure-sensor the officer stared suspiciously at his scanning instruments. "There's nothing in our range, General... although we passed through hyperspace without using the auto-frequency attenuator."

  He sounded confused and Deringhouse looked at him dubiously.

  As they waited tensely for the information of the computer brain, the quiet was broken by a report from airlock 2: "The robots brought in the Chief Commander Taa-Rell and two Aras!"

  "The boss will be tickled that we caught them!" Merck exclaimed impulsively.

  Deringhouse bit his lip. "Some thrill for Rhodan!" he said in disgust. "I wish we could have come back with 100 new spaceships instead of an Arkonide and two Aras! Confound it! What are we going to do with these banicks? (21st Cent. Slang for "BUGGERS". Corruption of Badniks?) We can't take them back..."

  "I'll take care of them!" Thora decided and left the Command Center at once as the men followed her with their eyes. Several shook their heads uncomprehendingly.

  Deringhouse only muttered to himself: "I wonder what these doctors have found wrong with Thora? If she's terminally ill we'll all be coffin candidates soon. I'll be damned if I understand it! I give up."

  The computer brain also had its difficulties. It was unable to come up with a satisfactory result on the basis of the data it had received and it asked for additional information.

  Now Deringhouse took over and directed the inquiry himself. His questions were markedly different from those of the younger officer. Although he had remained youthful in appearance due to the cell-shower treatment he had received on the planet Wanderer, he had gained considerably more experience than his officers had in the 60 years that had already been added to his life.

  Nevertheless the computer brain had great trouble answering his questions since it took time to determine and digest the fact that the Burma had absorbed extra energy from the disintegrator beam at the very time it dematerialized and crossed the threshold of hyperspace. The additional energy was completely converted and augmented the force of the transition radically.

  "If only somebody could tell me where we are!" the astrogator sighed, glancing surreptitiously at Hendrik Olavson.

  But the young lieutenant failed to be disconcerted. "We got away alive and there are no more Arkonide warships in sight. I guess that's what matters most!"

  At the moment the minds of the officers in the Command Center were more occupied with the question of orientation than with the presence of Taa-Rell and the two Aras aboard their ship. The whole team surrounded the computer brain and waited for the result.

  Finally the strip with the information was ejected and Deringhouse picked it up hastily. Sensing a feeling of consternation he sat down before he studied the strip whose symbols were as familiar to him as his own handwriting.

  Suddenly he turned pale. He had trouble believing the statement of the computer brain and said with a grave voice: "Gentlemen, this is a problem for our physicist. Don't ask me how we survived it..."

  Merck was the last to examine the answer. "This is... it almost is like somebody rushing out of a room and getting a kick in the pants to expedite him! This could have hit us between the eyes," he commented dryly.

  It took 30 more minutes before they were able to ascertain their present position. They had set a new record by leaping a distance of 15,000 light-years in one transition but could take no credit for the extraordinary feat.

  As the Arkon system was located 34,000 light-years from Terra they found themselves to be 49,000 light-years from the Solar Imperium and the stellar cluster M-13 was situated between their ship and Earth.

  The impact of the disintegrator beam must have caused the Burma to deviate 180° from its course so that it traversed the hyperspace in the opposite direction. It was to be assumed that the Arkonide space-monitoring stations had registered the structure disturbance which had been created by the Terranian vessel but had failed to connect it with the Burma. The Arkonide robotships must be searching space everywhere else except 15,000 light-years behind their system!

  "Now we'll have time to prepare for the next transition without being disturbed," Deringhouse directed, "but this time with the auto-frequency damper. I want to get back to Earth and then to Venus without such harrowing interludes. On Venus I'm going to have a little chat with Dr. Villnoess! Won't he be surprised!"

  Deringhouse sounded very belligerent although he had every reason to be happy about the miracle which had happened to Thora Rhodan. On the other hand he also remembered his fears for Thora's fate because he couldn't forget Dr. Villnoess' warning: "The healthier Thora looks the sicker she can be!"

  He got up and said to Pasgin: "You can take over the ship again. I want to take a look at our visitors."

  On his way to Thora, Deringhouse ran into the physicians who came from her cabin. "Well?" he inquired tersely.

  Dr. Brann made a helpless gesture. "General, my colleagues and I must be dilettantes or else we've been witnesses to a miracle...

  "Nonsense;" Dr. Elslow interjected excitedly. "I don't believe in miracles. I still maintain that the symptoms of leukemia and the so-called Sarcoma F Arkon syndrome were nothing but delayed reactions to the serum, which the mutants John Marshall and Marten obtained, from the Aras on Tolimon. That's the only explanation for it. You saw the blood test!" Dr. Elslow defended his opinion, vigorously and both his colleagues were visibly impressed.

  But Deringhouse, being a layman, preferred to stay out of the dispute. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, just tell me one thing: is Thora sick or well? I'm a soldier and I'm not interested in questions of why and how."

  "We've just examined Thora again. She's not only healthy... she's getting younger again. We performed cell-tissue tests, using the Ara analyzer. Her tissue showed a resilience such as I have observed only in young girls under 20 years of age."

  Dr. Brann was a little puzzled why Deringhouse suddenly patted him on the shoulder and left for Thora's cabin, whistling in a low key.

  "General!" Dr. Elslow called behind him. "If you want to see Thora, you'll have to go to deck H. That's where she went to conduct the interrogation of the Aras and Taa-Rell."

  Deringhouse turned around and went to the antigrav elevator which took him to deck H where the detainment room for prisoners was located. He noticed with dismay that, contrary to the security rules, the robot on guard duty was standing outside the door.

  The mechanical sentry stepped obediently aside.

  Deringhouse opened the door.

  It all happened with unbelievable suddenness.

  There was the flash of a raygun.

  A bloodcurdling scream ran in Deringhouse's ears: "You traitor!"

  Instinctively Deringhouse had his blaster out, of its holster and in his hand and fired at the long-legged man with his back to him.

  The Ara slumped to the floor.

  Thora cried out—a cry terrible in its intensity, its implication. A cry not of fright but of injury—severe, serious.

  Deringhouse nearly knocked Ishy Matsu down as he leapt over the body of the infamous Ara. Together with Ishy he saw a heart-stopping sight: Thora... deathly pale... hand clutched to her side in pain and bewilderment... swaying... sinking to the floor...

  Fatally wounded! "God! God!" Deringhouse shouted. "A doctor—quick!" He was utterly unnerved. There was no alarm button in the prison cell.

  Ishy raced from the room to summon help. Deringhouse knelt beside this woman for whom he felt such a deep platonic love. He cradled her head in his lap, smoothed her long silky hair. How young her face looked! Yet so pale... so frighteningly pale! The lids rose tremulously, revealing Thora's luminous red-gold eyes. They regarded Deringhouse but they saw another in his place. A wan smile formed
at the corners of Thora's mouth. Deringhouse inclined his head, placed an ear near her pallid lips and heard her whisper: "Perry... My beloved husband. Why do I hurt so? What has happened to me? Oh—!"

  Deringhouse winced as the dying woman he adored grimaced in pain, grasped her side.

  "Perry! Take me in your arms! Hold me!"

  Deringhouse was seized by a paroxysm of indecision. Should he play the part? The moment was holy. He looked down at her, his vision blurred by tears. But it was not his tears alone that diminished the brilliance of her eyes: they were visibly dimming of their own accord as the inner light of her being burned low and near to extinction. "Perry..." she murmured again, almost inaudibly.

  "Where are the doctors!" Deringhouse cried out in despair.

  Then Thora uttered the final words of her life. "Perry—it's been... wonderful... to be with you. You've done so much... for others... and for me. Our son Thomas—" An involuntary gasp. "Perry... Perry..."

  At that moment Dr. Brann finally rushed into the room, Dr. Elslow hard on his heels.

  All witnessed in choking disbelief the last feeble movement of Thora's head as her face turned toward the wall. The doctors examined her fatal injury in shocked silence.

  Her proud spirit was gone, at one with the universe and eternity.

  • • •

  A short while later the doctors noticed the wounded Ara. There was nothing they could do for Thora but true to their medical code they began to treat the heinous murderer to try to save his life.

  Overwhelmed by grief and loss, Deringhouse knelt beside the body of the amazing Arkonide woman whom he had adored so ardently, and wept unashamedly. He was at a loss to understand how the weapon could have fallen into the hands of the Ara nor could he understand what the physicians had told him only a few minutes earlier about Thora's remarkable metamorphosis and how she was growing steadily younger.

  Heartbroken, he regarded the glazed eyes from which the gold had faded, the lifeless face whose lovely lips, pale as pink porcelain, still wore a yearning smile where a moment before had dwelt that mysterious spark of that unfathomable enigma called life.

  Deringhouse swallowed painfully in deepest despair.

  How was the impossible information to be conveyed to his commander?

  The man whose name had been framed on Thora's dying lips?

  "Perry—!"

  8/ AFTERMATH

  After briefly touching down on Grautier, they flew back to Earth in the Burma.

  Ishy Matsu was aboard. The winsome girl bitterly blamed herself for Thora's death because the mad Ara had suddenly seized the weapon from her holster when she walked past him and had snuffed out Thora's life before the telepath could detect the murderous intention in his mind.

  Perry Rhodan was alone with Thora, holding the deathwatch.

  He had the strength to console Ishy Matsu and tried to make her see that Thora had been the victim of a tragic accident. But for himself there was no solace.

  Sitting for hours, days, beside the embalmed body of his lovely Arkonide wife, he contemplated her young, ethereal beauty, the slim form, once so icy, later so warm, that had borne him his only son.

  While Perry mourned, a mausoleum was erected on Terra's Moon at the site where Thora of Zoltral originally made her emergency landing in the Arkonide exploration ship she commanded. It was not an ornate monument; rather, its clean graceful lines gave it an imposing dignity.

  It was a testimony in stone and steel meant to last through millennia to honor Thora Rhodan—the benign spirit of the young Solar Imperium.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, had Rhodan closed his mind to the dangers which menaced the Galaxy from the overlap zone? Was the Administrator of the aspiring Imperium completely crushed by fate's cruel blow? His best friend Reginald Bell tried his best to help him overcome his completely understandable and all-too-human grief.

  Khrest, who alone with Thora survived the Arkonide expedition stranded on the Moon, struggled to gain control of his emotions. Someone had claimed after the stopover of the Burma on Grautier that Thora had been seen to be a radiant young woman once again in a superb state of health... when she was incredibly slain. Khrest was concerned lest Rhodan should hear the rumor.

  Noble intention but impossible of realization. Rhodan had learned the truth of the rumor and it made Thora's death even more tragic, more difficult to bear.

  Thora's body, otherworldly in beauty even in death, was flown to the Moon.

  Her husband and son Thomas stood mutely by her grave.

  The eyes of the father—the mightiest man in the Imperium—begged, forgiveness of the 24-year-old Spacefleet lieutenant who had spurned him as his father, even rejecting his name. Perry Rhodan extended his hand hopefully to his son—but Thomas Cardif disdained his silent plea.

  Rhodan's agony was doubled as the bitter, unbending youth stood stonily by his side, cold as the eternal ice of the planet Snowman. Thomas Cardif, flesh of Rhodan, blood of Thora, but his thoughts were his own, and though he stood within an arm's length of his father and scant feet from the mortal remains of his mother, his filial feelings were light-years removed from both.

  Mercifully, Thora was spared witnessing this, the nadir of her husband's life.

  Perry Rhodan slowly withdrew his proffered hand as he regarded sorrowfully his only son. Then he gazed at Thora's lovely quiescent face beneath the transparent protective enclosure.

  Rhodan did not notice that' the kind but impulsive Reginald Bell clamped his fingers around Thomas Cardif's wrist like a vice of steel and forced the young man to step behind his father and next to Khrest. Khrest regarded the youth with unconcealed fury and resentment and the only two words he uttered to him expressed a world of contempt. From his lips they sounded like the vilest curse: "You Arkonide!"

  No one had an inkling that Perry Rhodan's thoughts were also occupied by Arkon. The Robot Brain had begun to obtrude, on his mind again, the monstrous computer complex that covered more than 10,000 square kilometers and ruled the gigantic empire of stars with inhuman logic.

  Succumbing momentarily to his unbearable torment, a thought of wrathful hate half-unconsciously formed in Rhodan's tortured mind. But before he grasped its dangers it faded away again and gave way to a feeling of dismal loneliness.

  When he raised his eyes again he saw his friend Reginald Bell standing at his side where his son had been and billions of mourners, who witnessed the entombment on their larger-than-life holo-screens, clearly observed a faint mellow expression flit over Rhodan's grief-lined features as he took a deep breath and snuffled his nose.

  Perry's fellow Terrestrials, whether on Earth or Venus or in ships in the sea of space, discovered in their leader's most bitter hour that the Peacelord of the Universe was not a god, not an unbreakable superman, but a very human being.

  THORA'S SACRIFICE

  Copyright © Ace Books 1975

  Ace Publishing Corporation

  All Rights Reserved

  THE SHIP OF THINGS TO COME

  WITH THE LOSS of his wife, will Perry Rhodan be able to carry on? He must... for the sake of mankind, for our stake in the future, in the universe, and for the goal of galactic peace.

  So 'tis to Grautier that he'll go, to combat a menace even greater than that of the Druufs.

  On Grautier, the Grey Beast world, the Terranian Spacefleet—500,000 soldiers strong—will hold themselves in readiness to hurl their might against an inhuman enemy. The next episode is no picnic.

  It's the saga of—

  THE ATOM HELL OF GRAUTIER

  by Kurt Mahr

 

 

 
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