“That’s the same kind of robot that I ran into,” interjected Ras swiftly.
But Marshall was not to be diverted. “He wants to knock out the robot before he comes back. He doesn’t know where we are. He doesn’t seem to receive my thoughts. Maybe he’s too busy to pick them up because he’s making an attack…”
Everyone listened breathlessly to the words of the telepath as he depicted the fight between the mouse-beaver and the robot—as far as he could extract the details from Pucky’s racing thoughts. There wasn’t too much of it but at last he could report success.
“Wiped out! Pucky did it! Now he’s concentrating on a jump. He’s thinking of you, sir! Now—he’s jumped…” Marshall paused for a moment and looked about in the Command Central as though expecting to see Pucky. “He’s gone, I can’t pick up any more of his thoughts. But Pucky jumped!”
Rhodan’s eyes narrowed suddenly. His glance swept first to Khrest, then Atlan, to finally return to Marshall. “He has jumped…?”
“I’ve lost all contact, sir. He must have jumped—or he is dead.”
Rhodan’s face became hard, as though hewn out of stone. For long moments it was completely silent in the semicircular room. No one said a word.
Then Rhodan turned to Sikerman. “Course full ahead to the 2 Druuf vessels. We attack!” He stepped over to the intercom and pressed a switch. “This is a top alert! All battle stations stand by! Capt. Aurin—fire ready with the teletransmitter!”
He was using his most effective weapon first.
The teletransmitter originated on the planet Wanderer, the synthetic world of the Immortal, a mysterious being of pure energy who had granted Rhodan a prolongation of life. The transmitter was capable of teleporting material objects, from one second to the next, to any desired distance. When the corresponding forcefields cut across the giant ship out there it would simply disappear, just as if it had never been there. Somewhere at a distance of 1,000 or 10,000 light-years it would materialize in the 4th dimensional universe and be lost in time and space.
It only took the Sherbourne 10 seconds to slacken its pace and go into attack position. The defence screens built up rapidly in order to fend off any enemy energy beams.
The intercom speaker crackled and then Aurin’s voice was heard: “Transmitter aimed at target. We await the firing order, sir!”
“Wait!” replied Rhodan.
He lay in wait for the first action from the Druufs… which wasn’t long in coming.
The magnetic clamps unfastened themselves from the stern of the smaller ship and set it free. They retracted swiftly into the hull. A shimmering wall of energy built itself up between the Druuf ships and the Sherbourne. The dark shadows of the 2 enemy vessels seemed to hover inside an almost invisible bubble.
Such energy defence screens had no influence on the effects of the teletransmitter; it could also teleport the screen itself through the 5th dimension if it were necessary.
But the Druufs did not seem to be disposed to surrender themselves to an unknown fate without a battle. In the bow of the large ship, dark hatches slid to one side. Then the spiral barrel of an electronic cannon crept forward out of a recess and its muzzle aimed itself at the Sherbourne.
In the background Khrest released the air from his lungs with an audible sigh. His tension had eased, as he perceived the intent of the enemy—the uncertainty had been worse than the actuality.
“There—!” Atlan called out involuntarily as the brilliant bolt of lightning shot forth and struck the Sherbourne’s screen. The energy shot sprayed out like a fan and was dispersed.
Rhodan nodded grimly. “And I had wanted so very much to see what a Druuf looked like. It’s a shame!” He bent forward slightly without taking his eyes from the screen. “Aurin! Fire—10 seconds duration—on the smaller ship. Maybe that’ll make the giant more reasonable.”
Actually not much was to be seen happening during the following 10 seconds. At first it appeared that the shell of energy around the 2 enemy vessels intensified its shimmering effect. Then the shell broke in 2 only to reform again. But this time only around the larger ship. The smaller one hung there for a moment without protection, somehow deserted by its giant brother—then it simply disappeared without a trace.
But not without some very remarkable side effects.
The teletransmitter had been developed in the normal universe and thus obeyed the normal laws of time and space. Even the Sherbourne’s lapse into the alien plane of time could not alter that fact. The small black Druuf vessel was torn out of the 4th dimension with unimaginable force and hurled into the spaceless and timeless 5th dimension. In the 5th dimension of the alien time-plane! The force and velocity with which this event occurred was 72,000 times faster than any normal material teleportation. The effect was like that of a high-speed object striking water. Time itself in the alien plane took on the characteristic of solid matter under the impact of the lightning transition.
The teleported ship practically crashed against a wall of time that had acquired mass and substance.
It blew into atoms but at the same time caused a fracture in the time wall. Without Rhodan or any of his companions on the Sherbourne realizing it, they were all thrown back some distance into the past. From a purely superficial standpoint this was not noticeable to the observers because the visible effects were limited to the immediate vicinity of the impact.
Yet this temporal catastrophe served to save Rhodan from a very tragic surprise because if it had not occurred he would have lost many years of actual time—years in which perhaps the Solar Empire might have crumbled and died.
Thus it was that all he saw for a moment was a shimmering hole at the place where the black ship had been. Even while he was registering this in his brain and was searching for an explanation of the phenomenon, the hole closed up again; everything was as before.
“We’re rid of that one,” said Col. Sikerman, unimpressed. “And now.
“Capt. Aurin!” Rhodan called into the intercom. “Stand by with the transmitter but fire only on my expressed order.”
“Understood!” came the unemotional answer.
“Our defence screens won’t take much more of that Druuf fire,” warned Sikerman worriedly. “If we don’t attack…”
“Let’s sweat it out a bit longer,” interrupted Rhodan. “After all, the Druufs have seen with their own eyes what kind of a weapon we have. They should act accordingly.”
“If they have any eyes at all,” said Atlan…”
6/ RHODAN’S GHOST?
Pucky stared fearfully at his hand that had passed through Rhodan. Then he came to realize that his hand was made of matter and thus had to be real. If anything around here wasn’t real, it had to be Rhodan.
His eyes wandered to Rhodan’s ghost, for the apparition could be nothing else. But the earth under his feet, the grass—all of that was present, after all, otherwise he’d not be standing…
Pucky didn’t have a chance to develop further conjectures. An invisible hand came out of nowhere, grasped him and hurled him downward into the darkness of a timeless Infinity. He felt himself dematerialise as though he had concentrated on a teleport jump.
But it happened involuntarily.
Pucky could not have ventured to guess how long this condition persisted, if indeed it were possible to measure such a situation in terms of time standards. Suddenly he was again able to sense and feel—and it was a comfortable warmth that now surrounded him.
Warmth meant life and materialization.
And a functioning set of brains!
He opened his eyes for orientation and if need be to jump, no matter where. But even before he could recognize anything he heard an astonished shout of relief: “There he is—Pucky!”
Simultaneously streams of thought inundated him with a wave of joy and sympathy.
“Yes, there he is,” said Rhodan also, and for a moment he forgot the great ship of the Druuf. “Pucky, you sure thunged (Contraction of thumb-hung, from hung by the thumbs? —21st century slang for ‘ran us through the wringer’) us! Why didn’t you jump right away as soon as you realized you’d only be taking revenge on a robot?”
In obvious cogitation, the mouse-beaver studied the faces of those who were present in the Command Central. It seemed difficult for him to remember the event. He finally looked at the viewscreen. “How long has it been,” he asked, “since the small ship has been gone?”
Rhodan waved off a remark by Marshall and interjected: “Just a few minutes, Pucky. I presume that you’ve been on board the large Druuf ship in the meantime. What did you find there?”
The mouse-beaver slowly shook his head. For a second he looked into the timeless eyes of Atlan as though he were searching there for an answer to his secret questions. Then he announced: “It was just 10 seconds ago that I attempted a jump here from the small ship—but in between I materialized someplace else. On the Earth.”