The Earth Dies Page 9

"What do you mean, stop him?! Are you crazy? This animal, or whatever it was, held a high-powered atom bomb in its hand!"

  "And so you just ran off like so many Gorkan racing bugs, didn't you? Well, Cekztel will have to make his decision on this. I only have the responsibility to find Topthor because he apparently has some important information to give us."

  "Important information?" asked the Mounder testily. He seemed to be trying to remember something. "That could well be. Topthor and Ber-Ka were acting very secretive and claimed that the whole war was senseless. They figured that Rhodan has set a trap for us that we've all fallen into without realizing it. That's all I know about it."

  "Who are you?"

  "I am Gatzek, Topthor's second officer."

  Bernda nodded slowly. "Alright, then tell your men—and for all I care, the reptiles too—that I will permit rations to be distributed among you. But within half an hour I'll expect your full report. There's something that smells about this and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

  He watched with mixed feelings as Topides and Springers walked peacefully past him and sat down next to each other on the ground to wait quietly for their portion of the food allotment.

  • • •

  The Arkon bomb was one of the ancient Arkonides' most terrible instruments of destruction. Once activated, it was capable of unleashing an irreversible, world-annihilating process of combustion.

  Unfortunately, it was not the Arkonides alone who possessed the secret of this bomb. This frightful weapon was also at the disposal of the Mounders but fortunately it had not been put to use very often.

  Cekztel had selected the Arkon bomb as the means of destroying Terra.

  The Springer fleet had retired to a location in space that was sufficiently removed from Terra to be relatively clear of danger. Unmanned rockets were still rising up from the jungle world and automatically seeking out targets. It often happened that they achieved their purpose whenever some isolated Springer ship failed to be on guard enough to jump to safety by means of a short hypertransition.

  What Cekztel was not aware of was the fact that only a handful of Topides was manning the planet's defenses. Most of the installations were operated automatically under robot control. However, this small group of reptiles was now self-committed to death, while Cekztel was firmly convinced that in destroying the 3rd planet he would be eliminating an entire race of people who had dared to thwart the plans of the Galactic Traders.

  He left the Control Central and joined his ordnance technicians. They were occupied with setting the timing mechanism on the bomb that Cekztel's ship was to drop.

  "How far along are we?"

  One of the specialist officers turned to him. "The fuse timer will run for an hour and then the bomb will detonate," he reported. "That should be long enough to let us get to a safe position."

  "An hour...?" Cekztel mulled it over. "Under normal circumstances, that should be enough. By then we can be billions of miles away. But if the slightest thing should go wrong..." He left this possibility dangling but nobody ventured for a second to take his suggestion seriously.

  "The fuse mechanism is activated upon impact," continued the officer. "All we have to do is to drop it."

  Cekztel's gaze rested on the bomb itself.

  It was not very large but it concealed within a devilish mechanism that advanced scientists had developed over a period of thousands of years and which until now had never been improved upon. The only destructive weapon that might compete with it was the gravitation bomb.

  "We will start the bomb run in 10 minutes," said Cekztel and turned to go. Without wasting another word, he returned to the Control Central and turned on the hypercom. He waited several minutes until he could be sure that everyone on board his own ship and all fleet commanders would be able to see him and hear his voice.

  "The hour of decision has arrived. If everything goes according to plan, the destruction of Terra will begin in 70 minutes. Rhodan has escaped us but his allies, the Topides, and the members of his own race on the planet will soon be dead. Within 10 minutes I will plant the bomb, The timer span is for one hour. We will observe the effects of the mission from this position. As soon as this system has 2 suns—a giant red star and a small white one—our task will have been completed. The planet Terra will then continue to live in memory only." He made a slight pause and then continued. "I will contact you again at the time of departure. The starting order for leaving this solar system will be issued shortly after ignition of the Arkon bomb. Until then, all units will continue emergency alert standby. If Rhodan's ship appears, you are instructed to pursue him unconditionally, to attack and destroy him."

  Without waiting for an answer, he cut off the communication. He hunched motionlessly over his controls for more than 5 minutes but then he suddenly became active again.

  With the touch of a few levers he increased velocity and caused the ship to peel away from the fleet formation. Like a plunging hawk, the great ship dropped toward the tiny star of a planet, which swiftly grew larger and finally filled the viewscreens.

  Everywhere on the rugged and craggy surface, firing shafts which had been hidden until now opened up, mighty impulse cannons shoved their spiral barrels out of the ground and spewed forth energy and destruction against this audacious invader. Cekztel diverted all available power into his defense screens and approached the atmosphere without any diminution of velocity and soon the shrieking of air friction penetrated the ship.

  His speed was still too great. Were the bomb to be dropped now, it would still act like a short-lived satellite. The velocity dropped quickly.

  Heedless of all dangers, Cekztel's ship sank lower and passed over a giant mountain range. The surface fire diminished. Apparently the Terranians had not anticipated that any attacker would pick out a mountain range as its target.

  And that was just fine for Cekztel.

  He turned on the intercom. "Weapons Central! In 20 seconds, bomb away! You will lob it into the crest of the range ahead of us!"

  He decelerated slightly and considered speed and altitude, calculating approximately where the point of impact would be. A towering, flat mesa-like formation presented itself to his view. Now he glided along above it. Simultaneously he received confirmation from the bombardier.

  "Bomb away! It's going to hit that mesa!"

  Cekztel turned and reached for altitude. He saw the bomb fall and strike the rocky surface. A small cloud of dust—that was all. The silvery glistening device lay in a small, shallow trench.

  And waited...

  In 59 minutes, the end would come.

  Cekztel took one last look at the condemned world below him and then he gripped the controls with confidence. The ship turned up almost vertically, showed its stem to the planet and hurtled with swiftly increasing velocity into the blue sky—followed by a long-range Topide missile. A 5-lisek hyperjump was sufficient to bring the ship to a safe distance because the tracking range of the rocket's automatic navigation equipment was limited to about 60,000 miles. The far-traveling rocket would no doubt continue its course until, in a thousand years or so, it would detect some solid object, overtake it and destroy it.

  Perhaps it would only be a meteor but perhaps also an unsuspecting commercial vessel. Who could guess? At any rate, it didn't concern Cekztel. His work was done. Within the hour, he would already be under way to Star Cluster M13...

  6/ DERINGHOUSE SIGHTS HIS—"MAN"

  Deringhouse saw Rhodan's face on the viewscreen although the 2 ships were separated from each other by more than a billion miles. Also the carrier and audio frequencies of the radio transmission did not require the fraction of a second to cover the distance because they were channeled through the accelerator of the hypercom equipment.

  "Well, it's happened, Deringhouse," said Rhodan. "Cekztel has planted the bomb. In the remaining 50 minutes I'm going to try to rescue the Topides who are still down there."

  "Is that enough time for you?"

  "I m
onitored the patriarch's speech to his fleet," replied Rhodan reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll set the Titan down there in time. Actually, it's too bad about the planet—it's such an idyllic sort of primeval world—but its loss has to be our gain, for the sake of our goal. I was worried, or course, that the Springers would smell a rat at the last moment. Generally speaking, a civilized world usually presents a different appearance than this one. It's lucky for us that the Topides were so helpful, by converting the uninhabited planet into a bristling fortress. That's what supported the impression that this was the Earth itself."

  "Sir, shall I remain in the Akvo area?"

  "Yes, try to pick up Pucky. By this time he should have completed his mission. To be certain, I think you'd better land there and search for him. You're fresh out of telepaths so you can't make a contact with him."

  "Pucky took a special mini-transmitter with him but unfortunately it doesn't have a receiver. Anyway, he can send out a tracking signal and that should help us find him in the shortest possible time. But of course until now he's been silent."

  Rhodan terminated the conversation. "Fly to Akvo and wait there till you see that this system has acquired an extra sun. Find Pucky and then keep your receiver open. You'll hear from me in due course."

  Deringhouse cut the connection. Rhodan's face disappeared from the convex screen, which immediately darkened. Capt. Lamanche, who sat at the pilot controls, looked up.

  "Course for Akvo, Major?"

  "Yes. First, fly over the continent, Lamanche. If we don't find anything there we'll try the coastline. Somewhere we have to find a clue to Pucky's and Topthor's whereabouts."

  The Centurion approached the marine world and soon sank downward into the atmosphere. At a low altitude the spherical ship flew in increasingly widening circles over the continent. Which brought the Centurion ever closer to the coast.

  While Lamanche did the piloting, Deringhouse took over the optical equipment for a visual search, backed up by the radio central, where the ship's receiver was tuned to Pucky's tracking-signal frequency. The mouse-beaver still did not seem to find it necessary to reveal his location.

  Was it that he hadn't found the opportunity to do so?

  A shock of anxiety came over Deringhouse. Until now the thought had not occurred to him, even for a moment, that something could have happened to Pucky. A mutant with 3 parapsychic faculties was practically invulnerable and it seemed impossible that he hadn't taken care of Topthor by now. Then why didn't he contact them so that he could be picked up? Or was he fooling around with those fishmen of Akvo and taking a submarine ride, as he had done once before?

  By the time Deringhouse discovered the crater on the plateau he had become filled with alarm. But then the rising anxiety in him was immediately replaced by surprise and wonderment.

  The crater could only have been caused by the small atom bomb that Pucky had carried with him. Obviously he had found Topthor's ship and destroyed it. But what about Pucky and the Mounder?

  Deringhouse's thoughts went in circles, and arrived at nothing.

  The conical blast hole in the ground fell behind. They crossed over a plateau and then a wide stretch of tropical forest that seemed to reach toward the distant coastline. But Deringhouse soon realized that the coast was not as far away as he had thought. To the left of their flight path he saw the blue shimmer of the broad sea.

  Below, everything was still and peaceful. Deringhouse wondered futilely if there were any survivors of the bomb explosion. It was not like Pucky to kill defenseless enemies, however evil their intent might be.

  Lamanche had turned on the forward viewscreen and based his action on the theory that 4 eyes were better than 2. And events were to prove that he wasn't wrong.

  Of course Deringhouse saw the ship in the same moment but even before he could draw the pilot's attention to it the latter had acted and turned on the defense screen. Only then did the 2 men bring their discovery under closer scrutiny.

  The long, slender hull of the Springer ship lay on the edge of a plateau. A number of dark dots moved about on the bare surface of the area and suddenly halted, then took off in all directions. Some of them disappeared into the ship and some into the forest.

  Deringhouse said: "Go down lower, Lamanche. Let's have a look at those characters. It seems there are other Springers here besides Topthor."

  "Topides too," added the captain while he lowered the Centurion. "I had a good look at them in the screen's magnifier."

  "And at peace with each other, would you believe it!" Deringhouse was entertaining private thoughts which were to lead to a fatally mistaken conclusion. "Since when did they stop fighting each other?"

  Unknowingly Lamanche added more to the error in judgment that was to come. "Maybe Topthor has told them about the mistake they've fallen prey to—at least that's one answer to your question, sir!"

  Deringhouse nodded ominously. "That's most likely the answer, Captain. All right, move in on them but keep your defense screen up. We'll look these fellows over and interrogate them..."

  "Interrogate...?" Lamanche expressed bewilderment but then stopped talking.

  From below, a poisonous green ray of energy shot upward and reached toward the Centurion. It struck the invisible envelope of high-tension energy and was absorbed. But the unknown marksman persisted relentlessly in the same line of fire, attempting to make the defense screen collapse.

  Deringhouse shouted to battle stations: "A Springer ship is below us. I am directly over the target. Drop an atom bomb!"

  It was self-defense, even though they could have responded with a considerably less powerful weapon. But Deringhouse was now fully convinced that Topthor had revealed the Great Secret to these Springers and Topides.

  And therein lay the tragically mistaken conclusion.

  Tragic, that is, for the surviving Topides and Springers, over whom the mantle of death fell with the swiftness of thought...

  • • •

  Except for Bernda and Gatzek.

  The 2 Springers were on their way to the coast to search for Topthor. They had learned from the Topides that the Mounder and Ber-Ka must have reached the island. Proof of this had been obtained from a partially intercepted message between Topthor and Cekztel.

  Naturally, Bernda could have used the ship to get to the island but he preferred to go in the tractor scout car in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a small private excursion. Whenever he was on an alien world he didn't like to forget his business interests. The exceptionally wide spread of these tree branches interested him especially. Their seeds would bring a good profit.

  Gatzek knew nothing of the commercial objectives of the slender Trader, whose physiology reminded him of the hated Terranians.

  They reached the coast and followed the tracks of the ground car which Topthor and Ber-Ka had used the previous day while undertaking the arduous journey. When they finally observed the low-lying structure of the artificial island, they figured they had it made. With a sigh of relief, Gatzek recognized the other ground car parked near the shore. It was empty.

  Bernda pulled to a stop. A bit stiff in his legs, he climbed down from his seat and jumped to the sandy ground. More slowly and ponderously, the Mounder followed; his feet sank deeply into the soft ground.

  "How did they get out to the island?" he asked and he looked doubtfully at the row of small boats that lay beside the small dock. "Certainly not in those flimsy kreenut shells..."

  "They can carry more than you might, think," answered Bernda "Let's give it a try."

  Gatzek went over to the first boat and tested his foot on the small deck. It sank somewhat but its gunwales remained sufficiently above water. "I guess they'll do, Bernda Let's hope nobody steals our scout car in the meantime."

  "That's silly! Topthor's car is still there untouched. Anyway, who's around here to take them?"

  Before Gatzek could answer, something happened that caused him to jump back to the shore.

  Afar off, a brillian
t flash was seen above the forest. It was not especially blinding but there followed a shockwave that swept mightily over the treetops and blasted seaward, causing a swirl of ripples across the water. It was only the intervening protection of the forest that saved the 2 Springers from being thrown to the ground.

  "What was that!" cried Bernda suddenly turning pale. "Isn't that in the direction we came from? The ship...!?"

  Gatzek could not suppress a trembling that crept through his body. "The ship... yes, that could be. What's happened?"

  10 seconds later the answer came in the form of a giant spherical vessel that appeared above the forest and moved toward them at a slow but threatening pace.

  One of Rhodan's ships!

  Bernda emitted a warning shout and started to run. He paid no further attention to his companion, concentrating exclusively on his own safety. Before the spacesphere reached the beach and descended, the lean Trader arrived at the edge of the forest and pushed his way into the thick underbrush. He shoved, pushed and ran as fast as he could until he was out of breath. Fully drained and exhausted, he sank to the ground, quite certain that nobody would be able to find him here in the wilderness. All around him the mighty boles of the wide-branching trees rose up vertically and were lost in a maze of green foliage above. There was nothing that could be seen of the sky.

  For some minutes he lay there stretched out on the moist forest floor and listened for any chance sound of pursuit. But all remained quiet. Perhaps they hadn't located his tracks. The overhead canopy of leaves was too thick to make any attempted search from the air successful.

  He wondered if Gatzek had made it to safety.

  Bernda was finally able to concentrate on his surroundings and he breathed a little easier. His glance fell upon an elongated, nut-like object—at least it was orange and looked like a nut. He was aware of a trace of hunger as he straightened up and took the thing in his hands. He saw at first glance that the shell was hard. He found a rock, braced the nut against a tree root and broke the shell.