“You will come back,” said Erb simply and then turned to the controls of his equipment, upon which the fate of everyone depended.
“Thank you,” replied Rhodan and signalled to Sikerman, Marshall and Pucky. Then he left the observation room with a firm step and went out into the corridor. Marshall followed him, then Sikerman.
Pucky slipped slowly off the couch where he had been sitting, waddled quietly over to Bell and took hold of his hand. “Let’s hope it won’t be long before we see each other again,” he said with some emotion, at the same time nodding to Erb. “I don’t know if the carrots in the other time-world are as good as they are on the Drusus but you can take it from me that carrots aren’t the only good things that will make the return trip worth striving for. You’re also included.”
For once Bell took him seriously and refrained from ribbing him. “Watch over the Chief, Pucky!” he advised and he gently patted his little friend’s furry shoulder. “Always stick with him and protect him. I’ve never seen him as reluctant to go on a mission, as he seems to be this time. Actually nobody should pay any attention to spooky hunches…”
“Then don’t!” said the mouse-beaver while shaking hands with Erb. “Here’s hoping your warp-box does its job, pop!”
Pucky was freely informal regardless of name or rank but nobody ever took offence because after all the mouse-beaver enjoyed very special privileges.
“It’ll soon be rattling,” replied Erb in the same spirit and he placed a hand on the control console of the WFG. “I’d advise you to get yourself on board the Sherbourne. I’m turning on the field coils in exactly 2 minutes.”
“I’ll be there before Rhodan,” Pucky assured him. He concentrated a moment—and made his jump. In other words, he suddenly became invisible and materialized in the same moment down in the hangar, where he almost scared the wits out of a young cadet who was just on his way to the launch lock.
At this same time, Rhodan and Sikerman stepped into the hangar. Marshall, the telepath, followed behind them.
The hangar was a tremendous room because it always housed a spherical cruiser that was 300 feet in diameter. Actually no regulation launch lock was used here, through which a ship could leave the Drusus in a matter of minutes. Instead, the opening was created by simply folding back whole bulkhead sections, which caused a portion of the hull itself to disappear. Outside lay the shimmering desert of the dead planet.
Simultaneously there existed out there in the desert another world which was invisible, concealed behind a barrier of time. It was a world in which all life proceeded at a rate that was some 72000 times slower than normal. This much was known about it but not much more.
Without wasting words, Rhodan entered the Sherbourne and took over the co-pilot’s seat. Directly in front of him on the viewscreen lay the desert of Tats-Tor and the sky above it. There the circular window of light would have to appear, through which they were to penetrate into the other dimension…
Sikerman sat down next to Rhodan. His seemingly clumsy hands went possessively to the controls before him. His bullish face was without expression but Rhodan could sense the keyed-up state of his pilot’s thoughts.
Pucky did not go to the quarters which had been reserved for the mutants. Instead he also walked into the Command Central, where he got up onto a couch and sat there with his back to the wall while his intelligent eyes took in everything that Rhodan and Sikerman were doing. All his nerves and senses were at a high pitch of alertness and his forces of concentration had switched over to ‘emergency’ status. So if it became necessary he could make use of his incredible psi faculties at any second.
The preliminary starting signal sounded throughout the Sherbourne. The outer hatches closed automatically and bolted the airlocks hermetically, thus sealing everyone inside from the outer world. Now the crew was protected from the vacuum of outer space but was this also a protection against time itself…?
The second signal sounded.
Rhodan watched Sikerman’s veined, sinewy hands at the console board; then his gaze wandered to the viewscreen. Out there nothing had changed. The deserted Gazelle lay motionlessly in the desert. The sky was bright and cloudless.
With his right hand, Rhodan switched on both the telecom and the radio receiver, connecting himself with the Control Centre of the Drusus. By this means his own crew on board the Sherbourne could also hear what was going on. No one was to be left in uncertainty if something unforeseen should occur.
“Bell, we’re ready for takeoff. How does it look to you there?”
Bell’s face appeared on the viewscreen. “Just 60 seconds more, Perry! Wait until you see the circle of light.”
“Of course! But what do you think?”
Bell grimaced uncomfortably. “Don’t ask me that.”
“What can happen to us if we come back quickly?” countered Rhodan. “As long as Erb keeps the generator running, we can come back any time we want. As soon as we’ve located Rous…”
“And how long might that be…?”
Rhodan didn’t answer. As he looked at his watch, Bell said: “10 seconds to go yet. We’ll soon see if this thing works!”
“It will!” came Erb’s determined voice from the background. He was not visible on the viewscreen.
The 10 seconds seemed to be endless.
“Now Erb is turning it on!” announced Bell.
Rhodan moved his eyes from the smaller screen to the larger one. The sky over the desert was still bright and cloudless but already in certain areas a weak shimmering effect was noticeable, as though the magic of an unseen sorceress were beginning to materialize a myriad of dancing mirrors in the air. After more of these apparitions appeared, they began to take on the pattern of a circle—a circle of light that measured slightly more than 600 feet in diameter.
The final starting signal shrilled through the confines of the Sherbourne.
It failed to divert Rhodan’s attention.
The light-circle increased in brightness and became more definable. Within another 20 seconds it was complete, without any gaps. Perfectly visible and gleaming brightly it towered against the clear sky. But the sky inside of the circle had changed.
Rhodan noticed it just now. The sky within the energy-ring had become reddish. Dark clouds hung motionlessly in this red-tinged sky—clouds that had not been there before. They were the clouds of the other time-plane!
“Ready!” Rhodan nodded to Sikerman. “Take off at top atmospheric acceleration—in 10 seconds!”
Sikerman responded in a completely automatic manner and everybody on board the Sherbourne knew what he had to do. The lower rim of the light apparition was 60 feet above the desert of Tats-Tor. Without an air vehicle it could not be reached.
10 seconds after Rhodan’s command, the Sherbourne shot forth from the gigantic body of the Drusus and hurtled through the atmosphere of Tats-Tor. The ship increased its velocity as it glided low over the sandy ground and raced toward the glimmering warp-field that separated one universe from another.
Bell and Erb watched while the Sherbourne plunged into the window of light—and then disappeared abruptly.
In the same second the radio signals from the light cruiser were silenced. Rhodan’s face disappeared from the viewscreen as though struck from it by an invisible blow. In this world there no longer existed a Perry Rhodan… nor a Mutant Corps… nor a Sherbourne.
And in the other world…?
Bell stared at the empty screen with his jaws locked tightly together.
The long wait began…
2/ ONE POSSIBILITY!
They were still living on the high rocky plateau by the caves of the Druuf. During the past 8 days the sun’s motion had hardly been noticeable but the bolt of lightning that had been frozen in the sky by the slowness of time had finally faded out. It had hung there unchanged for more than 40 hours between the clouds and the ground.
Lt. Rous and his 5 companions kept waiting impatiently for the small light window to appear again down below on the plain, which would make possible their return into the normal universe. But they had waited in vain.
The discovery of the K-7 and its crew, which had been lost for months, was a ray of hope. Of course it was no ray of hope that only a few minutes had passed for the commander of the auxiliary craft during what had been a period of a quarter of a year in the normal universe for Rous before coming here.
The 180-foot sphere still stood on the plateau in the shadow of the cliffs. Up above hung a cloud of vapour over the mountaintop which heralded the imminent outbreak of volcanic action but by their reckoning the eruption couldn’t occur for several normal years yet. Other than themselves, nothing lived on this world, which Rous had named the Crystal World. At least there was no visible life because everything here moved 72000 times slower than normal. Everything was subject to the laws of this other time-plane. Everything!