Part 1 (1/2)

Twilight of the G.o.ds.

Walter Ernsting.

CHAPTER ONE.

Toward noon the roaring of the endless barrage grew weaker. Now there were only occasional detonations of heavy grenades exploding on the surface of the invisible energy screen; their strength was spent in producing brilliant flashes of lightning without achieving their intended effect.

Then complete silence followed.

The four men who were sitting in the former command center of the Stardust I looked at each other. Captain Reginald Bell sluggishly pushed aside the chessboard. ”What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

His chess partner looked regretfully at the chess figures that had been knocked over by Bell's negligent gesture, before he replied, shrugging his shoulders, ”Your guess is as good as mine. Probably just a brief firing pause.”

”After days and days of nonstop bombardment? I bet they must have a good reason to stop the shooting.”

”That bet you are bound to win for sure,” nodded the man sitting across from Bell. ”There are always some reasons for everything.” He pointed to the tumbled over chess figures. ”By the way, that was an unfair trick. You knew you had lost the game, didn't you?”

”My dear Dr. Manoli,” said Bell pompously, ”quite the contrary would have happened. The game was as good as won.”

”Sure. But by me,” grinned the physician.

”Let's leave it undecided who won or lost that game. Let's concentrate on first things first!” interjected a tall, lean man with steely gray blue eyes-Perry Rhodan. He had just got to his feet and walked over to the round hatch where he could survey the scene outside. ”As far as I can make out it looks as if the Asiatics have pulled back their forces.” Stepping back from the window, he nodded pensively while he smoothed back his dark blond hair. His other hand remained in his trouser pockets all the while. Then he turned to the fourth man of the group.

”How is Khrest coming along Dr. Haggard?”

Dr. Frank Haggard answered with the slightest hint of a smile, ”From a medical Point of view Khrest's health has been completely restored. There is not a trace of his leukaemia left.”

”We don't have to fear for his health any more?” asked Rhodan eagerly. ”He will go on living then!”

”Of course. Although I don't know for how long. The life span of the Arkonide race must be limited somehow; otherwise, they would not have set out on their search for the planet of eternal life. The alien's body seems of an extraordinary youthfulness, and his metabolism shows a surprising vitality. But judging from his looks he seems to be about fifty years of age.”

”But he is much older than that,” said Rhodan. ”And so is Thora.”

Thora, the commanding officer of the extraterrestrial race of s.p.a.ce explorers, presented a mystery and challenge to the few humans that so far had come in contact with her. She had fascinated them by her appearance. Her light hair, more white than blond, her huge eyes of an odd golden-reddish hue and her almost yellow complexion had indicated her to be of an albinoid type. And yet she had to be called beautiful. Perry Rhodan, though, considered her beauty to be only skin deep. He was convinced that she had inside her nothing but icy cold reasoning and a steely logical mind. She seemed to lack a heart and soul. Never would she have been willing to help the human race or even to recognize them as her equals, if she had not been forced to do so by her s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's destruction. The s.p.a.ce cruiser's auxiliary vessel, which in reality was an enormous s.p.a.ce sphere almost 200 feet in diameter, was equipped with an ultralight drive, but its range extended only 500 light-years-not enough even to establish contact with the nearest base of the Arkonides.

”Thora is getting on my nerves,” announced Bell as he stood up. ”I know that she despises us, and she is coming to our a.s.sistance only because this way she is able to help herself. I just can't stand that.”

”The Arkonides do need us, that's quite true,” admitted Rhodan. He continued with emphasis, ”But don't let us forget that we depend on them, too. It's a kind of symbiosis. We can't do without it if we ever want to reach our goal. And one of these goals, Reg, is the unification of mankind. The imaginary threat has had the result for the first time in human history that all the nations of the world have united, even if only to destroy us.”

Haggard moved next to Rhodan and looked out of the hatch. The Arkonide s.p.a.ce sphere reposed quite close to the Stardust. Inside the alien s.h.i.+p the generator was working to produce the mighty power field that created a protective screen around their base. The outer circular perimeter of that energy dome touched the ground at a distance of about three miles from the center. This was a fortress that could not be stormed. Even atomic bombs glanced off ineffectively from the invisible outer hull of energy.

s.h.i.+ny, metallic robots hurried back and forth, anchoring the s.p.a.ce sphere securely to the ground and busily performing many tasks. They were the only occupants of the alien s.p.a.ce cruiser, besides Khrest and Thora, that had been saved when their moon base was annihilated. They were the lone survivors of a s.p.a.ce expedition that had set out from a star empire whose scope could hardly be imagined by a human mind.

The Arkonides' remaining auxiliary vessel could indeed traverse a distance of 500 light-years within a few days. This was an incredible feat, measured by human standards, but unfortunately for the Arkonides, it was insufficient. Their situation could be compared to that of a s.h.i.+pwrecked crew stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, busily building a canoe from a single tree trunk. However, the storerooms of the auxiliary vessel were bulging with spare parts and all kinds of machinery, capable of constructing whole s.p.a.ce flotillas, if the industrial potential of Earth's economy could be harnessed to this productive effort.

This was the reason Khrest and Thora had entered into an alliance with Perry Rhodan. This offered the only way they could ever return to their home planet. With human help they could construct a s.h.i.+p that would reach their planets revolving around a hot, blue white sun within the star cl.u.s.ter M 13, more than 34,000 light-years away. This planet, Arkon, was the center of a galactic empire.

Haggard motioned toward the s.p.a.ce sphere. ”They seem to be settling down here on Earth, at least temporarily. How can they build a stars.h.i.+p here in the desert, far removed from civilization?”

”I don't know for sure,” admitted Rhodan, ”but I have a pretty good idea. Don't forget that we are sitting here underneath an energy dome about six miles across. That's quite some area. I can well imagine that huge industrial facilities could be erected here. Don't you agree, Doc?”

”You mean an industrial plant for s.p.a.cecraft construction?” wondered Haggard aloud. ”You mean to say thata”

”I only suggested such a possibility,” replied Rhodan softly. ”I am not too well informed about Khrest's plans but I am convinced that he will need our technical a.s.sistance with them. We'll see shortly what he intends to do.”

Reginald Bell, too, had got to his feet in the meantime. He yawned.

”I must confess that I'm worried about this cease fire. As long as the Chinese were busy shooting at us, they were not up to any other mischief.”

Suddenly Rhodan's brow was deeply furrowed. ”Any other mischief? My dear friend, this brings up an unpleasant thought. Could they use this lull to attack us in some other manner we aren't aware of yet?”

Bell turned pale. ”I didn't mean it that waya”

”But wouldn't it be quite plausible for them to look for some other method to remove this cancer from their body? After all, that is what we are in their eyes, nothing but a cancerous growth threatening their survival. Unfortunately, we cannot observe from here whatever is going on outside. We have no friends-”

”How about Captain Klein from the intelligence agency!” Bell interrupted. ”Don't you remember what he did, together with his colleagues from the Eastern Bloc, Lt. Kosnow and Lt. Li Tschai-tung from the Asiatic Secret Service? How they acted quite unmistakably in our interest when they were supposed to annihilate us! I am absolutely convinced that they would warn us if they knew of some danger.”

”Yes indeed-Captain Klein.” Rhodan nodded in agreement. ”He is on good terms with the main command center in Greenland. He is working directly under Allan D. Mercant, and if he knew anything that would threaten us here, he would not hesitate to inform us about it.”

Rhodan peered once more through the window hatch. He trembled slightly. A shadow flitted across his face, but he did not seem to be displeased by what be saw. He was, on the contrary, somehow embarra.s.sed by it. But he quickly regained his composure.

He turned to the three men. ”Thora wants to talk to me.” He walked over to the door of the command center.

Now Bell in turn looked out of the hatch. Over there, next to the gigantic s.p.a.ce sphere, stood a beautiful figure, tall and slender. Her bright hair could hardly be distinguished from the metallic background of the s.p.a.cecraft. She stood quietly, waiting, every inch the unapproachable commanding officer of the stranded s.p.a.ce expedition. Her pride forbade her to make even the slightest welcoming gesture to the approaching Earthling.

Commander Perry Rhodan could not have explained logically what attracted him to this woman. Never before in his life had he encountered someone who was more intelligent, more aloof and more arrogant. This creature from another world, who had the appearance of a woman, was heartless; she simply could not have a heart. Nevertheless, she was most beautiful.

Yet it was not her beauty that attracted Rhodan to her; it was rather her aura of inaccessibility. At first he had thought it important to persuade her that human beings, too, were intelligent and therefore had a right to exist. But soon he had Recognized that only an approach of cold logic would convince someone of Thora's type. He had to make her see that man was not only intelligent but also indispensable to her plans.

She did not make the slightest effort to come to meet him. She did not stir. She waited motionless until he stood in front of her. Only then did she address him.

”They have stopped the shooting,” she remarked dryly. She avoided specifying who they were, noted Rhodan. She would not even call them humans or terrestrials. Cra.s.s disdain was in her voice. ”Why?”

Perry looked straight into her icy eyes. She met his glance steadfastly, but then a brief flicker arose in, their bottomless reddish gold depths. Just a brief moment; then once again she was in complete control of herself.

”It might be that the enlargement of our energy dome has caused them to change their plans,” Rhodan replied, quietly. ”After all, we have increased your domain to about five times its former size. They had to withdraw their troops hastily after your initial punitive measures. Although they did continue the bombardment of our positions here for some time, they seem to have worked out some other tactics in the meantime.”

”This will not do them any good either.”

”You might underestimate the human race,” suggested Rhodan slowly. ”This is not the first time for you, though. Remember what happened the last time? You lost your s.h.i.+p, didn't you? Why do you want to repeat your mistake?*

”I never make a mistake, I want you to know. Not I, but the robots, were responsible for the catastrophe on the moon.”

”Those robots had to, obey your commands and carry out your orders,” corrected Rhodan calmly. It gave him an almost painful pleasure to humiliate her. ”Don't you think that the protective screen might be too large now? Its scale might decrease its stability, I'm afraid.”