Perry Rhodan Lemuria 1: Ark of the Stars (33 page)

The maphan stepped forward and pointed in the direction of the ark's bow. "If you please!"

Pearl Laneaux swore under her breath in a strangely melodious language that seemed unsuitable for obscenities. Her hand rested on the grip of her beamer. It was clear from her manner what she thought of Taklir's "politeness," but Solina had come to know her well enough to know she was too intelligent to do anything stupid. She only rattled her chains a bit to let her tormentors know that she could see right through them.

Hayden Norwell's shoulders sagged. His was not an aggressive personality. And Rhodan? The Terran looked at her pleadingly.
Do something!
he begged.
You're one of them, aren't you? Do something!

Solina turned her head in shame. What could she accomplish? She was just a tiny, insignificant cog in the vast workings of the Akonian Empire. This mission, these pathetically few hours, had been the only time in her life in which she had attained a position of influence, in which she been involved in something great, not as an analyzing spectator separated from events by the abyss of millennia, but as an active participant.

It had felt so damned
good.

She didn't want it to stop.

She had to do something. She couldn't watch idly while the chance of her life slipped through her fingers. She had to make at least an attempt to do
something;
just so she could live with herself.

Use your brain!
she urged herself.
You've always been so proud of it, haven't you?

Two of the Akonian soldiers stepped to the side to allow the maphan and the three Terrans to pass through.

Solina watched them blankly. The Takhan had the whip hand—two hundred warships and several tens of thousands of soldiers to carry out his orders without question. The Seventh Fleet had secured the ark within minutes. One gesture from Gartor of Taklir, and only a cloud of stardust would remain of the
Palenque
—and that applied to the
Las-Toór
as well, if the scientists made too much trouble.

No. Resistance was not only futile, it was suicidal.

Rhodan, Pearl Laneaux and Hayden Norwell joined the maphan. They were passing through the ring of soldiers when Solina had her inspiration.

Resistance was futile, but even the weak had the weapons.

"Takhan!" she called, turning to the admiral. "May I congratulate you in the name of all the Yidari on board the
Las-Toór
for taking initiative so resolutely?"

Gartor von Taklir chose to acknowledge Solina for the first time. There was an impatient gleam in his eyes. The admiral didn't seem to care for flatterers, especially when their flattery had no definite aim. Solina had to keep talking, and quickly.

"But you shouldn't act so half-heartedly."

"What?"

"If you expel the Terrans—which is the only appropriate thing to do—you should expel all of them."

"What do you mean by that?"

Solina pointed to Denetree, who had been watching events as though stunned. "You forgot that one here."

"That's a Terran? She isn't wearing a spacesuit like the others."

"No, she's a specialist. The Terrans slipped her in hoping to put one over on us."

Noticing that she was suddenly the center of attention, Denetree woke from her paralysis and murmured some words in Lemurian.

"She isn't speaking Terran," the admiral declared suspiciously.

"Of course not. Not now. She's trying to maintain her cover. But look at her closely! She has a Terran's fair skin! Is this secret agent to be allowed to remain on board and spy on this artifact?"

"The Terrans can't be that stupid."

Solina held the Takhan's gaze. "Oh, yes, they certainly can be. And they're arrogant, too. The Terrans have considered themselves lords of the galaxy for much too long, and they've gotten lazy and sluggish. If you ask me, it wasn't an accident that an
Akonian
fleet appeared first."

"There's something to that. Achab, take her along!"

The commander hesitated, then said, "But Takhan! What if she isn't a Terran? We—"

"What does it matter? Look at the terrified little thing—what could she tell them? Let them take her with them!"

Denetree said something in Lemurian again, louder this time. Solina stepped to her side and hissed into her ear, "By all the star gods! Get moving, girl! Go, or I'll ... "

She gave her a shove in the direction of Rhodan and the other Terrans. Denetree went.

* * *

When Rhodan, Pearl Laneaux, Hayden Norwell and Denetree emerged from the teleporter on the bridge of the
Palenque,
they were met with outrage.

"So here you are at last!" The uniformed Sharita Coho stamped up and down, her cheeks flaming red. "Didn't I tell you? You can't trust those Akonians! They tricked us! It's a miracle that they let you go without a scratch and ... " The commander broke off as she noticed Denetree. "Who the hell is that girl? Another Akonian? I've had my fill of them with the one we've got, with all her special requests! I ... "

"She's a Lemurian," Rhodan said.

"A Lem ... how did you pull that off?"

Before Rhodan could answer, Alemaheyu Kossa broke in. "Sharita, comm message from Takhan von Taklir. We're supposed to get out of here at once, or else ... "

"Oh, let the old man blather!"

"But ... "

"Did you finish my avatar? We can put it on for the admiral, the same way Jere von Baloy used his on me."

"Just about. We've got a very decent beta version."

"Run it. Let's see how the Akonians like the taste of their own medicine." The commander turned back to the newcomers. "All right, out with it. How did you smuggle this Lemurian out? Is she a spy?" She looked at Denetree suspiciously. The young Lemurian woman trembled. Perspiration stood out on her forehead.

"It wasn't us," Rhodan replied. "An Akonian woman from the
Las-Toór
managed it."

"Oh, come on! Why would she do that?"

"I'm wondering the same thing." Rhodan went to Denetree and took her hands. "Can you hear me?" he asked in Lemurian. "Can you help us?"

The Lemurian whispered an answer, but it was lost in the roar that suddenly shook the
Palenque
's hull.

"Intimidation fire!" Harriett Hewes called. "The Akonians fired a salvo. They must not have found your avatar very convincing."

"Shield load?"

"99.3 percent of capacity. They know exactly what they're dealing with."

Sharita shrugged. "Very well," she then said. "We shouldn't refuse such a polite request. We'll leave."

Denetree reached under her belt and pulled out a black plastic rectangle. It was so small that the Lemurian could close her fist around it. She held it out to Rhodan.

"What is that?" Sharita asked.

"The reason why Solina Tormas saw to it that Denetree went with us," Rhodan replied. "A memory chip."

The hull of the
Palenque
shook a second time as the Akonian fleet gave it a blazing farewell salute, then the ship transitioned into hyperspace.

Rhodan barely noticed it. Let Takhan von Taklir imagine himself as the victor and tow the ark to the Akon system as a trophy. The Terran believed he held something much more valuable in his hands—the key to the mystery of the ark.

Maahkora, 17 April 1327 NGE

The sun sank below the horizon.

Alemaheyu and his companions watched the setting of the giant sun Pollaco Hermi on the helmet displays provided by their ship's syntron. Watching with their naked eyes, the prospectors would have seen only the light fading from the haze that had stubbornly persisted in the streets of the capital city of Kreytsos ever since their arrival on Maahkora. The haze consisted of a mixture of ammonia, hydrogen, methane and various trace gases, heated to a temperature of 98.7 degrees centigrade—moderate for local conditions.

Despite his protective suit, the comm officer thought he could feel every one of those degrees. Sweat covered his body in a sticky film.

Now and then, massive shadows emerged from the mist, paused for a moment to look at the group of humanoids, and then went on their way, always in a hurry. Because Maahkora was the Maahks' embassy planet in the Milky Way galaxy, strangers were the exception, rather than the rule. There was always something urgent to be done here.

Still, Alemaheyu and his companions caused something of a sensation.

Had the news spread that Perry Rhodan, the immortal Terran, was in Kreytsos?

Unlikely. No one knew of Rhodan's presence, not even the Terran Residence.

Or was it the size of the group that attracted attention? There were more than forty Terrans, two Blues and a Gurrad striding through the streets of Kreytsos. Only a skeleton crew, commanded by Harriett Hewes, remained on the
Palenque.
She was also looking after Denetree, who was still very depressed by the death of her friends.

Or was it the group's attitude, which seemed at odds with their destination? The prospectors determinedly set one foot in front of the other. A look through their helmet faceplates would have revealed strained expressions and firmly set jaws, as though they marched toward an unpleasant, unavoidable task. This expression was overlaid by a hint of curiosity.

The prospectors were headed toward Meklaran in Kreytsos' pleasure quarter, but they didn't give the impression that they were anticipating pleasure.

As the light from Pollaco Hermi faded away, the street lighting brightened correspondingly. And as the prospectors increased their distance from their ship, a new sun rose before them: the lights of Meklaran.

Alemaheyu's throat felt tight. Perry Rhodan appeared beside the
Palenque
's comm officer and asked, "Nervous?"

Alemaheyu looked at the Immortal in surprise. "You know about it?"

Rhodan nodded. "Of course. You know how it is—there are no secrets on board a ship."

"Very true, very true." Alemaheyu swallowed. "Yeah, I'm a little nervous ... "

"You'll be okay!" Rhodan raised his left arm, as though to slap the comm officer encouragingly on the shoulder, but dropped it again without making the gesture.

"Thanks," was all Alemaheyu said. His thoughts, which were not, as Rhodan suspected, entirely devoted to the evening that lay before them, caught him up again in their vicious cycle.

Before they left the
Palenque,
Alemaheyu had checked his console one last time. Out of habit, without any particular reason. And while he was archiving the log files from the past few days, he had stumbled on an anomaly. He hadn't had the time to investigate it more thoroughly—Sharita Coho didn't stand for lack of punctuality—but everything indicated that the antennae of the
Palenque
had received a hypercom impulse during that time. The ship's syntron had categorized it as a natural phenomenon of the Ochent Nebula and so hadn't notified Alemaheyu.

Alemaheyu had quickly reached a different conclusion: the signal was artificial—and it had originated on the ark.

Which was impossible.

Completely impossible.

Hypercom was five-dimensional technology. The ark's technical level was centuries, if not millennia away from that.

The signal couldn't have come from the ark.

Alemaheyu only peripherally realized that they had reached the edge of Meklaran. A shaped energy dome vaulted over the district, creating a tolerable atmosphere inside for oxygen breathers.

The prospectors took off their protective suits and left them behind in the monitored storage locker area, revealing widely idiosyncratic and colorful casual clothes. Air saturated with sweet fragrances, the lures of widely diverse establishments, filled the comm officer's nose. Alemaheyu loved this aroma, but this evening he was too entangled in the whirl of his thoughts to enjoy it.

Assuming that the comm signal really had come from the ark, then what did it mean? Was it a distress call? Or an invitation?

Perhaps that was it. An invitation that the Akonian fleet had answered.

You couldn't put anything past the Akonians.

Perhaps that also applied to artistic taste? Alemaheyu would find out this evening.

Sharita took the lead of the prospectors and navigated confidently to The Drunken Sailor. Was she familiar with the location of their destination? Or following directions from her picosyn? After just two thousand years in business, The Drunken Sailor wasn't Meklaran's oldest night spot, nor was it the most famous or the most notorious—nor, as Alemaheyu discovered when they entered its dim interior, was it the most clean. It was simply a very typical run-down bar in a very typical run-down pleasure quarter.

In other words, The Drunken Sailor was the ideal place for what they had in mind.

Tables for about a hundred people had been set up in the main room, the chairs arranged to face the raised stage. Just the sight of them made Alemaheyu forget all thoughts of mysterious hypercom signals.

Just half an hour more and ... .

The doors at the other end of the room slid open and the crew of the
Las-Toór
streamed into The Drunken Sailor. For several long seconds, the Terrans and the Akonians eyed each other, silent and uncertain, then the bar owner took pity on them and laid down a carpet of Maahkish music over the uncomfortable scene—a clever choice, since no non-Maahk could stand such so-called music. Sharing their disgust at the abrasive noise, the Terrans and Akonians found places at the tables.

The Terrans sat to the left of the center aisle and the Akonians to the right. The Akonian commander made an effort to approach his Terran colleague, but Sharita sent him back to his chair with an icy look.

The bar robots swarmed out. Both sides ordered as if there were no tomorrow, glad to have something to do, and soon the tables were piled high with bowls and glasses. Both sides shot more frequent covert looks across the aisle, but still no one dared to invade enemy territory.