Part 2 (1/2)
All at once Rhodan's look became hard as steel. ”Lieutenant Puck!” The 'y' was omitted from his name and the mousebeaver knew all too well what that meant. Now he could no longer help Marshall. He stiffened slightly and answered: ”The contents of the ampoules have a lethal effect on people of the Arkonide race. The Aras don't know why. They still have not been successful in discovering which agent in the compound causes brain activity to cease functioning. They have discovered, however, that some intelligent animal races up to level C and we Terranians become suggestors as a result!”
”Then if we were fortunate, we might perhaps find an Ara toxin in Mr. Artun's apartment which turns a human into a hypno after injection. Pucky, if I were you I would have a look in Artun's apartment.”
”OK, boss. I'm to go? Good, I shall vanis.h.!.+” The last squeak of the mousebeaver was still heard when he had already teleported himself away.
Rhodan was alone again with Marshall. ”John,” he asked, ”do you still think my son has a chance?”
Marshall sensed that now he was not together with the Administrator of the Solar Empire but with the person Rhodan-with Thomas Cardif's father.
”John, tell me what you thought just now, please!” As he spoke, Rhodan had gotten up and walked over to the chief of his Mutant Corps. ”Tell me, John, and don't consider my feelings. I didn't try to read your thoughts.”
John Marshall was breathing heavily. ”Mr. Rhodan...” A pause in which a question flashed through the telepath's head. How many decades had it been since he had addressed Rhodan as 'mister'? He did not answer his own question, however, as it was erased by Rhodan's request, ”Does Thomas Cardif still have a chance to liberate himself from those disastrous entanglements? If Perry Rhodan were not his father, I would say ”Yes!”
”But Marshall, I don't hate him like he hates me!” Rhodan desperately cried.
”I know that, sir,” Marshall hesitantly replied, his voice steady. He did not avoid the steely glance of his boss's grey eyes. ”Perry Rhodan, you have always been hard on yourself. You had to be in order to meet your own standards and you will have to be in the future, otherwise...”
”Otherwise, Marshall...? Say it. You must say it now!” The person Perry Rhodan pleaded and ordered at the same time.
”I will say it, boss. But then I will never speak about Thomas Cardif with you in this way again. Never again.”
”You will have to be hard in the future, too. Otherwise you will not be the Perry Rhodan who can show humanity the way. And therein lies the tragedy for you and Thomas Cardif. You both have the highest price to pay.”
John Marshall got up. Slowly he turned away. Slowly he went towards the door. He left behind Perry Rhodan, the loneliest person in the Solar Empire.
Quietly the door snapped shut.
3/ MISSION: FLY SWATTER.
c.o.kaze, patriarch of a Springer clan and the only Galactic Trader that Perry Rhodan knew from the days of the New Power had become a politician. Only he did not realize it; he still considered himself a merchant whose entire efforts were directed towards increasing the wealth and economic power of his clan within the Springer race.
c.o.kaze had landed on Archetz, the 5th planet in the Rusuma System, with the greatest secret of the Arkonide Empire. His fleet of more than 1,000 cylindrical s.h.i.+ps occupied one-third of the s.p.a.ce harbour of t.i.ton, the capital of the Springer world.
Only 44 light-years from Arkon, this system belonged to the centre of the globular star cl.u.s.ter M-13, the foundation of the Arkonide Empire.
But an enormous rift between Arkonides and Springers had arisen millennia before that: not only did the process of degeneration by the Arkonides progress unceasingly, the schism between them was apparent in the fact that the Springers almost exclusively used the Intercosmo language and were barely still in command of Arkonide. The fact that the Galactic Traders were born in s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps and ended their life there bore further witness to the differences.
They were celestial wanderers, whereas the Arkonides were planet people and had to have ground under their feet.
Still, the Springer world of Archetz was not contradictory to the life habits of the Traders. The planet Archetz, had been the jumping-off place for this dynamic people many thousands of years earlier. And it had never forgotten that they had taken off Archetz, to create an absolute trade monopoly in the Galaxy.
Archetz, an oxygen world resembling Earth with 1.19 gravos of gravitational pull, almost 100 kilometres bigger than the Earth in diameter and illuminated by the yellow Rusuma sun, could almost be compared with the war planet Arkon 3.
There was not one city left on the surface of Archetz. Even t.i.ton, a sea of houses sheltering 12 million people, lay 3,000 meters deep. An amazing network of ultra-modem traffic arteries brought t.i.ton within a half-hour's reach of any point on the planet.
The surface of this world was one single industrial centre. But even this impression was deceptive, for almost 4/5ths of their heavy industry lay below the surface and the newest factories had just been completed in the 11,000 meter-layer.
Archetz was a world of superlatives and the main base of all s.h.i.+ps of the numerous Springer fleets. If it was in any way possible, they returned to Archetz to undergo any necessary repairs.
Whatever Arkon had discovered in s.p.a.ce travel technique in the last 10,000 years soon became the possession of the Springers. They had created their own moral code, finely tailored to their own benefit. By unrelenting action in the worlds of the Galaxy, with no regard for blood or tears, they had increasingly established their power. But the Galactic Traders had one plus on their side which far outweighed their hard, unrelenting drive: intentional or not, they, who had only thought of trade, profit and economic power, had also become the culture bearers. And with their expansion over the Galaxy they had planted the first trace of civilization on newly discovered planets for the Arkonide Empire.
But Archetz was their point of origin; they always returned to Archetz. It provided everything desired by hundreds of thousands of cylindrical s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps and their crews.
This world, on which strangely enough other races seldom landed, was hardly known to peoples other than the Galactic Traders; the mighty industrial potential the planet represented was unknown. The Milky Way was totally oblivious to the financial metropolis of Archetz.
When the topic was money and accounts, the Springers only spoke of the bank. It occurred to no one to say: Bank of the Galactic Traders in t.i.ton on Archetz. There was only one such inst.i.tution; not even Arkon could boast of the likes. But Arkon knew about it, only it never spoke of it because the mighty Arkon itself at the height of its power had secretly feared this financial giant.
Patriarch c.o.kaze, having landed in the c.o.kaz 2 close to the ma.s.sive reception building of the s.p.a.ce harbour, while his clan fleet had set down to the north, entered the bank of the Galactic Traders with his family members and Thomas Cardif.
Silently the group made its way through the large crowd in the lobby. c.o.kaze knew his way around here. He headed for the small antigrav lift which was hardly used by the general public.
Eight Springers and one deserter, an officer of the Solar s.p.a.ce Fleet, were carried downward. They had to wait in a sumptuously furnished room. The bank clerk who had inquired about the wishes of Patriarch c.o.kaze had left with the remark that Atual and Ortece would hardly have time to receive them.
The Springers were still silent and Thomas Cardif, who felt no tension, admired these silent people.
A door in the side wall opened silently. Someone looking typically Springer in a toga-like yellow robe approached c.o.kaze.
”Patriarch?” the Springer queried, slightly bowing his head.
”Atual?” c.o.kaze countered in a questioning tone, repeating the head movement.
”Ortece is expecting us.”
c.o.kaze nodded as if he had antic.i.p.ated nothing else. But only the richest clan head among the Galactic Traders could think like that. He followed Atual, turning back after a few steps to look at Thomas Cardif and motion to him. ”You stay at my side, Arkonide!”
Atual heard him. Surprised, he tamed around. When greeting them he had only looked at c.o.kaze but now he saw Perry Rhodan next to the Patriarch!
”Why that is Rhodan, Springer!”
The Patriarch laughed uproariously, pus.h.i.+ng Thomas Cardif towards Atual.
”He does have something to do with Rhodan, Atual! Here, have a look at Rhodan's son whose mother was a princess of Arkon!”
Atual, a head taller than the Patriarch, bald-headed, which was a rarity among Springers, sharply examined the Terran. ”Rhodan's son?” he said as his critical gaze fell on c.o.kaze. ”I think Ortece and I will not be able to keep our daily schedule today.”
”That's something one never knows with you bank people,” c.o.kaze grumbled. Atual, head of the Bank together with Ortece for the past 31 years, did not respond to this insinuation by the Patriarch. A little while later the Springers and Cardif were seated opposite these two powerful men.
”We have heard your dangerous report, too, Patriarch, and we were astonished that you would get involved in that game,” Ortece (unlike Atual, of delicate build) reproachfully told the clan chieftain.
”That is why I have come to you,” c.o.kaze quickly stated. ”Rhodan's son is sitting next to me. That should give you something to think about. And you know that I have come directly from the Solar System. I cleared it completely before Arkon's robot craft could cause any difficulty when they suddenly appeared in Rhodan's power sphere.”
”c.o.kaze, you are wasting many words. We have no time for that!” the undistinguished-looking Ortece insisted.
”You will have plenty of time for me soon. I am sure of that, Ortece!” c.o.kaze replied with a slight edge to his voice. ”What I just said has surely escaped your attention: I cleared out of Rhodan's sphere with all of my s.h.i.+ps before Arkon's robot s.p.a.cecraft could give me any trouble! Ortece, the clan of Patriarch c.o.kaze has never voluntarily cleared a world occupied by its s.h.i.+ps! But Arkon's s.h.i.+ps that suddenly appeared in the Solar System had Terranians on board as commanders...”
Ortece interrupted once more. ”You have spoken better on other occasions, Patriarch! We will have to take our leave soon to negotiate with the committee about a loan to the Gutha world...”