Rhodan noticed some movement at his side. The mousebeaver Pucky had sat on a chair in the background. Now he had slipped down and waddled over to Rhodan. “How does this rubber moss taste?” he was interested to know. “Can it also be eaten? I have no desire to breathe it!”
“His gluttony takes the cake,” Reginald Bell murmured from his corner. Pucky lifted a warning finger in his direction, causing Bell to swallow all further commentary.
“You can try it, shorty.” Rhodan replied. “You’ll soon get a chance when you go to Azgola.”
Pucky shuddered. “Me – to Azgola? There’s not a living being left…”
“Precisely!” Rhodan interrupted him quickly. “Let me present my plan before you complain. Then you can raise your objections if you still feel like it. Alright?”
When Pucky nodded without another word, Rhodan continued his briefing. “The harvestship – meaning the robot – must not be allowed to become suspicious. For this reason we keep all our ships away from the immediate vicinity. Only 3 teleporters – Pucky, Ras Tschubai and Tako Kakuta – will go to Azgola and wait for further telepathic instructions. That’s all for now: We can only hope that the harvestship can be deceived by us and come soon. If not …”
The faces on the picture screens looked silently at Rhodan. The men began to realize how such a good thing as the nutritious spores undoubtedly were could turn into a danger. They could change the approach to nutrition for the entire Galaxy and facilitate their agricultural policy. But as long as the spores could not be properly gathered and their distribution expertly evaluated they remained the objects of deep concern.
The picture screens faded. A few minutes later a connection was made with Atlan, who was in charge of the operation on Arkon. The face of the Arkonide Imperator looked troubled and showed lack of sleep. “What’s the situation there, Atlan?”
“Serious, Perry. “I’ve put Arkon 2 under quarantine. Nobody is allowed to leave the planet and we can already feel the effect of this measure as Arkon 2 is the hub of our trade and the seat of our industry. However we were able to avoid a panic. The physicians are trying to cure the growing obesity and neutralize the forced feeding by inhaling the spores. They have had some success and managed to slow down the rate of fattening.”
“Excellent,” Rhodan expressed his satisfaction. “There must be a way of compensating the excess of carbohydrates by increasing the energy conversion of the body.”
“Don’t overestimate the limited possibilities of our scientists,” Atlan warned, unconvinced. “The spores contain almost 80% of highly potent fats which are deposited immediately and completely in the body. The chemical combustion in the human body generates the equivalent of 9.6 calories for each gram of fat. The remainder of 20% is composed of carbohydrates and protein. The only critical substances are the fats, and we have to deal with those.”
“First of all we have to get the harvestship,” Rhodan replied firmly. “It should be the best way to solve our problem. As soon as we learn the right method of harvesting the spores, Arkon will be saved. And so will be the other planets where the lichen grows and whose populations can’t be evacuated. So far we don’t know how many other worlds have been planted by the seedship. The spores could spread like a plague thruout the Galaxy. If we can capture the harvestship intact we must be prepared to deploy it wherever it becomes necessary. You will have to be patient, Atlan. It would have been too great a risk to bring the harvestship first to Arkon 2. The Robot knows that the seedship never worked there.”
“I understand, Perry . Besides, I prefer that you conduct your first test on Azgola and study the result. I’ll keep in constant touch with you by hyper-radio.”
“Fine. Our communications won’t be intercepted by the robotship. It reacts only to a special group of symbols and we will duplicate them as soon as it arrives. We were fortunate that we were able to pick up the construction details of the special transmitter on Mechanica and if everything works out satisfactorily we should be able to contact the harvestship.”
“Yes,” Atlan replied grimly: “If everything works out.”
The next radio call went to Terra. The technicians assigned to the construction of the symbol transmitter promised to deliver the apparatus within a week. They were quite satisfied with the instructions they had obtained from Mechanica.
Rhodan concluded the call and sighed with relief. “Now there’s nothing left to do for us but wait and hope that our technicians will have finished their job before the harvestship appears. We’ll have 2 or 3 days leeway since it will probably take the ship some time to perform its operations for the harvest.” He looked thoughtfully at Bell. “Would you please request the commander of the Sirius to approach Azgola within 20,000 kilometers? I’ll be in the Command Center in 5 minutes.”
Bell got up and quickly glanced at Pucky. “Is it already time?” he asked.
Rhodan nodded. “We can’t wait any longer. It would be too late once the harvestship is here. Under no circumstances can it be permitted to notice or suspect the presence of alien vessels. See you in 5 minutes.”
Bell left. Pucky, the African teleporter Ras Tschubai and his Japanese colleague Tako Kakuta, remained silent. They did not seem to be happy with their mission. Never before had they been in a situation like this. They would eat no food for the duration of their visit to the lonely planet Azgola and still gain weight steadily. With each breath they would take in more calories than their bodies could get rid of. The oversupply would cause them to become corpulent which was neither fatal nor dangerous in the initial stages but was something they would rather do without. Especially Pucky was more than displeased with the prospect. “Will we be getting fat just by breathing?” he asked again dubiously with a sour face: “Even if we don’t eat anything?”
“You won’t be hungry,” Rhodan predicted’. “You won’t have to stuff any carrots in your pockets. I promise you you won’t feel like eating them.”
“Hm,” Pucky grunted incredulously. “At least carrots won’t make you fat.” Then he cast an amused glance at the slender Japanese. “I’m very curious how Tako will look when he puts on a little weight. It wouldn’t hurt him a bit.”
“It won’t hurt any of you,” Rhodan assured him. “We have the necessary drugs to slim you down again after it’s all over. However, you shouldn’t gulp a bar of chocolate each time you take a diet pill. Right, Ras?”
The Afroterranian nodded guiltily. His craving for chocolate was common knowledge.
The 3 teleporters received their last instructions. Rhodan designated Pucky as leader of the expedition whose task was simply formulated: transport the intact harvest robotship to Arkon after takeover by the special transmitter.
The question was: would the vessel come?
A teleportation was not necessary. When the Sirius was only 20,000 kilometers from Azgola, Rhodan ordered a Gazelle to be launched. These swift and highly maneuverable, disk-shaped reconnaissanceships could get away without a trace even if the harvestship were to arrive earlier.
“The Gazelle will put you down somewhere on Azgola,” Rhodan explained to his 3 mutants. “You are at liberty to move around anywhere on the planet, which is now uninhabited. Find a good place to hide, perhaps in the city of Timpik, which previously had a population of a quarter of a million Azgons. Or you can stay in one of the forests. As soon as the harvestship shows up, Marshall will make telepathicontact with you. Or Betty Toufry if it is too difficult for him. You will act exactly according to my instructions. Is that clear, Pucky?”
The mousebeaver nodded warily. “Why make a point of it? Did I ever fail to carry out your orders?”
He looked so guileless as to make Rhodan grin. “Let’s not talk about that, shorty, ” he decided. “You know what I mean, Pucky. You’ll do only what I tell you. We are not confronting a human opponent but a robot.”
“Oh,” Pucky scoffed, disappointed. “I’ve been in that rut before. Didn’t we have enough trouble with the robot Brain of Arkon?”
“This one is completely different,” Rhodan insisted. “The robot Brain of Arkon knew exactly whom it was fighting. It acted consciously and logically whereas the robot who is in charge of the harvestship obeys the orders of a race that died out long ago. Thus it merely responds to prearranged instructions and we don’t know what it will do when it learns that its instructors are extinct and its task has become superfluous. Perhaps it will try to attack us if we give it enough time. Maybe it will destroy itself – and this would be the worst disaster to befall Arkon. You cannot compare the harvestship at all with the robot Brain on Arkon, Pucky. This robot must not be permitted to find out that it has an opponent. And if it does, it must be instantly put out of action. In this respect it is a blitzkrieg altho I can’t predict how long you will have to wait for it to break out. None of us knows how much time the ship requires for its flight nor the place in the universe where it was waiting for orders.”