The passage ended before a door.
Later, Ras Tschubai couldn’t remember why he and Pucky knew that the smooth wall was a door. There was no indication of this fact. It had no latch or doorknob or any recess where a person could place his hand.
Just a smooth wall—nothing more.
Pucky began to use his psi faculties and made a psychokinetic survey of the barrier. “It has an electronic lock,” he finally announced in a whisper. “It only opens in response to some electrical signal. So the Druufs must haul around little transmitters with them which they use when they want to go through one of these doorways. Remarkable.”
“Can you open it?” asked Ras anxiously.
“At least I can give it a try,” answered Pucky consolingly and he concentrated on his task. Meanwhile, Ras kept a lookout. He still carried the heavy impulse gun, which no matter could withstand when its full energy was aimed at it.
Behind the wall—or door—a sound was heard. Something made a soft click. And then the panel slid to one side. Behind was a large room filled with a maze of instruments and unfamiliar-looking apparatuses and equipment cabinets. This, without a doubt, was the Command Central of the black ship.
The first thing that attracted Ras was a tremendous flat oval-shaped viewscreen that was set into the forward bulkhead right in the bow. On it the Sherbourne was to be seen, apparently motionless and waiting but actually racing ahead of them at 1.86 miles per second.
In front of the screen were 3 of the Druufs who had apparently not heard the opening of the door. At least they took no action to hinder the 2 intruders. Beside them were ponderous-looking metal cases and cabinets containing alien mechanisms, machinery and other apparatuses.
In a right-hand corner of the room glowed a 2nd and smaller viewscreen. When Ras saw it, it startled him although he didn’t have the slightest idea of what it was he was looking at.
2 circles of light were on the screen which had a common centre point. They would gradually become misaligned, one from the other, and then they would resume a concentric position together. One circle was green and the other red. It was obvious that somebody was busy trying to maintain the alignment so that both circles would become superimposed, one upon the other, precisely around the centre point.
What sense the whole thing made was not clear to Ras but he suspected that it was a device for maintaining the presently ordered course. His suspicion was correct although he didn’t know it.
The Druuf in the centre of the trio slowly turned around.
Pucky still attempted to establish a telepathic communication with the alien entity but he did not succeed. Not the slightest mental reaction was detectable. It seemed to Pucky as though the Druufs were nothing but soulless, automatically functioning creatures.
So he tried the acoustical method. “Why are you chasing us?” asked Pucky, using the Arkonide language which was known everywhere in the universe. “We do not wish to have groshk—war.”
By now the centre Druuf had finally turned completely around. It was evident that it had not quite fully reached the time-plane of the Terranians. Nevertheless he came dangerously close to it.
Pucky and Ras could perceive that the upper walking limbs in the creature’s body had retracted and in their places appeared arms, on the ends of which was a great variety of instruments. Small tongs, screwdrivers, even fingers and suction cups. The Druufs must have reached the evolutionary class of universal intelligences.
Nevertheless they still lacked faces.
It was still a complete mystery to Pucky and Ras as to how they could hear, see or speak—if indeed they were able to do any of them.
One of the creature’s arms drew inward slowly and about a half minute later a round, dark opening emerged from the spherical body. The Druuf emitted no thought-waves so it wasn’t possible for Pucky to learn the alien being’s intentions. He was as unprepared as Ras when the 2 of them were fired upon.
Without the slightest warning a green beam of energy shot from the muzzle of the weapon and passed between Ras and Pucky to strike the wall, where it seemed to fan out in an explosion of dying sparks that finally glided downward to the deck.
“You two-faced no-face!” hissed Pucky, diving under the beam for cover. A block of metal offered him a sufficient haven for the moment. Simultaneously his telekinetic force-streams grasped the Druuf and forced it to roll back slightly. Now the energy beam shot vertically to the ceiling of the control room, causing it to melt.
Ras had also gone for cover and he didn’t hesitate to use his own weapon. He aimed at the belligerent Druuf across a machine block, pressed the trigger and didn’t release it until the alien thing ceased its attack in a holocaust of molten metal. So far nobody had ever survived such a bath of ravening energy.
Nor did the Druuf.
Something hit the deck with a metallic clang. Pucky raised his head cautiously over the rim of his protective cover and sought to discover the cause of the unusual noise. What he saw was so amazing that for a critical moment he forgot about the other 2 Druufs in the Control Central. Their attacker had fallen apart.
A wide crack gaped open in the round figure, exposing its interior. Gleaming silvery conductors, burned here and there and also discoloured in many places, made up a jumble of windings and coils which reminded Pucky of a highly advanced electronic brain. Partially destroyed metal modules and containers still popped out of their mountings and rolled or fell to the deck with a clatter, where they lay motionless. With a dull explosion a vacuum tube or what looked like one burst apart. A bluish jet of flame jumped upward from it, only to subside and become extinguished. Suddenly there was a stink of burned rubber and ozone in the air.
Ras gave out a startled groan: “Robots! The Druufs are nothing but robots!”
Pucky continued to stare at the incomprehensible thing. “It’s true enough that they’re robots,” he confirmed but added: “Still, that doesn’t prove that these tin-plated basketballs are the Druufs.”
Ras was about to answer but interrupted himself. “Look out!” he roared, at the same time raising his impulse weapon and firing ahead at random.
The 2 other spherical robots must have become aware of their companion’s demise in the meantime. They reacted accordingly and began to attack. Ras Tschubai’s warning came not a second too soon. Pucky ducked behind his hiding place and sought to make a telekinetic attack against the enemy but because of the slower reaction time of the Druufs—or robots—Ras had an advantage over them and managed without Pucky’s help. He took care of the 2 robots with 2 quick shots.
The Command Central was a scene of wreckage. There wasn’t very much that remained undamaged. The 2 colour rings drifted out of the screen and Ras discerned at the same time that the Sherbourne was slipping off the large oval screen.
The Druuf ship lost its course. The surface of the Crystal World became visible and seemed to rush toward them with increasing velocity.
“We have to get out of here!” yelled Ras as he prepared to make a telejump.
Pucky saw that there was no other alternative. They hadn’t missed anything else on this ship and it wasn’t possible to linger any longer on board without gambling their lives.
“Let’s blast off!” he said regretfully while showing his incisor tooth, for once, however, without intending it to be a grin. “But we’ll still have a look later at those other 2 scows, now that we know what’s up. For the moment, anyway—to the Sherbourne!”
And they dematerialised.
2 minutes later the Druuf vessel ploughed its way into the surface of the Crystal World with a tremendous explosion.
Lt. Rous stood beside Rhodan in the Command Central of the Sherbourne and observed the spectacle through narrowed eyes. “That can’t be!” he murmured in bewilderment and turned slightly pale. “It’s simply not possible!”
“What?” asked Rhodan tersely. Although the inference was dawning on him, he voiced the question.
“It’s entirely impossible for the whole planet, the whole time-plane, to have adapted its temporal frame to us! Can you figure any other reason why that detonation down there appears natural to our eyes? Look for yourself—the mushroom cloud is rising swiftly into the upper atmosphere. And I don’t mean slowly or imperceptibly! Before, you know, even raindrops were falling at the rate of only fractions of an inch per second. But now…?”
Rhodan nodded slowly. “Do you want another reason for it?” He stood there as motionlessly as a statue with his lips tightly compressed. “There isn’t any other time-plane, Lt. Rous—at least not any more!”
But he knew in the back of his mind that there was another, though he dared not recognize the fact for the moment.