The Sleeper of the Ages Page 2

  No man's land. Here ran the never precisely determined boundary between the Blues' and the Akonians' spheres of influence. It was Perry Rhodan's intention to speak with representatives of the Akonians; he was seeking a reconciliation with the old archenemy. Rhodan knew that a catastrophe on a scale never seen before threatened the Galaxy: hyperimpedance. Since he was absolutely certain of the accuracy and importance of his knowledge, his message to the Forum Raglund seemed the ideal way to put aside centuries-old rivalries.

  By chance—which cost the crew members of a "crawler" their lives—the PALENQUE stumbled on a generation ship of Lemurian origin that had left Earth more than 50,000 years before. But the Star Ark, as it was soon called, proved to be hotly contested: the LAS-TOOR, an Akonian research ship, encountered the artifact at the same time. The two crews overcame their mutual mistrust and investigated the Star Ark together.

  A world filled with wonders awaited them. Ten thousand Lemurians inhabited the ark, existing at a low technological level on a ship plagued by technical failures. Where their voyage was taking them, they did not know. They had forgotten or had never known. Their attitude was shaped by an indescribable fear of the outside universe, as though the reason behind their millennia-long journey was to flee from an unknown enemy.

  The old Lemurians did have an archenemy: the Beasts, the ancestors of the Halutians who were now the human race's most loyal friends. The Beasts had devastated Lemur, the old Earth, and destroyed the Lemurian interstellar empire—thousands of years after the ark left on its journey.

  The inhabitants of the ark could not have known of the Beasts. If they had chanced to encounter them, they would not have survived. The Beasts tended to give Lemurians short shrift.

  And yet ... in the ark, Rhodan and his companions had come across an altar—and the statuette worshipped there was that of a Beast.

  Simply impossible.

  Equally impossible was the device that the Naahk of the ark had worn around his neck: a cell activator. The commander was immortal.

  Mysteries on top of mysteries. Even before Rhodan could make an effort to solve one of them, an Akonian fleet squadron had appeared and seized the ark. The Terrans—and the Akonian scientists—were from that moment on unwelcome. They had been allowed to leave unharmed, but that was all.

  The PALENQUE and the LAS-TOOR had met again on the nearby planet Maahkora, united in their defiance to solve the mystery of the ark—which was theirs by right.

  And the data chip that Venron had passed on to his sister Denetree showed them the way ...

  "You're dreaming, Denetree," Harriett said. Denetree turned her head and saw Harriett gather her dark bluish-red strands of hair behind her neck with both hands. "Come back to yourself. Come back to us—you've been in your own little world."

  The holoscreen was filled with the formulas, symbols, glyphs, drawings, and blocks of text that the computer was attempting to translate. Denetree turned her face away. The thought of Venron and the other Star Seekers was overwhelming. They had to learn more about the LEMCHA OVIR. Perhaps the ship was in trouble; Denetree still remembered very well the conditions on her own ark. Decay had reached alarming proportions.

  She broke off her train of thought and was grateful to Harriett for the patience that she showed her, the unknowing newcomer in the midst of confusing surroundings. Her ability to express herself was limited by her confused assumptions and conflicting feelings. "I can only give you one consolation," Harriett said after a while. "Time will heal your wounds. You are in an unfamiliar environment ... "

  "I know I'm a stranger here. And that I'll stay a stranger for a long time." Denetree's fingers came to a stop. Mathematical figures appeared on the monitors. "Everything is new and beautiful here. And comfortable beyond anything I've ever known, and as spacious as in my wildest fantasies. I don't have to exert my muscles in the PALENQUE. Everything is done by machines. Invisible fields carry me from deck to deck. You don't have any thorny protein plants that we have to wring our nourishment from. Even so ... "

  As the data chip's information was converted to Terran terminology, checked a second time by the Syntrons, and processed for further analysis, Harriett Hewes heard Denetree's story, repeatedly interrupted by tears.

  He had not shaved in three days. He wore used prospector overalls from the PALENQUE storeroom with many pockets and a simple shirt. Once he had been called an "instant adapter" because of his ability to adjust successfully to changing circumstances. He was a guest on board and he was adapting, though not at all instantly, to the ship's appearance, which he tentatively termed "charmingly run-down."

  No one else heard the soothing, mathematically logical music: wonderful sounds from a time when the world was still thought to be comprehensible. Concerto for 4 harpsichords, strings & continuo in A minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, played on an ultra-harpsichord with Terkonite-steel strings. Earphones on his head, Perry Rhodan lay relaxed in the soft contour chair in his relatively roomy cabin and for a second time went through the data on Denetree's chip.

  It was difficult to interpret the gap-filled data and derive more-or-less clear information, even when one—as he did—spoke fluent Lemurian. Moreover, he had two sources of distraction from fruitful consideration. Firstly by the Akonian crew of the LAS-TOOR, whose scientists were hovering over him waiting for success. And secondly, by the complicated relationships of the crew of the PALENQUE's control center. They were apparently a motley bunch thrown together almost at random, consisting of a gang of peculiar but highly motivated individuals. Rhodan privately admired their professional reliability.

  "At least we have the course vector—that's the most important thing," murmured Rhodan. His words were drowned out by the metallic tones of the Allegro. Zodiac Gordon, Jr., the twelve-fingered mutant and bard, played the solo part. The music chip was something Rhodan always took with him in his luggage.

  He was no wiser even after the third time through. Meanwhile, he had formulated a theory to which some evidence pointed: it appeared as though a non-specialist or a stranger had entered the data during the NETHACK ACHTON's journey.

  Rhodan, Denetree, and Sharita Coho, the PALENQUE's commander, had spent some time speculating and discussing the problem. All questions remained open: it was hard to imagine that data from the first ark could point to the voyage of the second! The LEMCHA OVIR had set out only a few years after the NETHACK ACHTON—according to the chip. So how could information about the LEMCHA OVIR have reached the NETHACK ACHTON?

  Had the data been entered into the on-board computer by a mysterious visitor? Who could that have been? And if that theory was correct ... what was the purpose of it? After all, the ships—or arks—were supposed to be racing undetectably through space! After much effort, only the name of a second ark could be determined from the data—Star of Hope, translated from Old Lemurian—along with some features of its construction. Was there a third ark? Or even more? Questions and more questions!

  That meant Rhodan was unlikely to discover any time soon the reason for the launch of these transports to uncertain destinations, nor the motivation behind this exodus. And as far as his vague suspicions concerning the connection of a Halutian or Beast with the Lemurians went, his conjectures veered off into the realm of the fantastic.

  "But one fact remains," he said to himself. "The second ark only set out several years after the first one. Even so ... lots of questions, not very many answers!"

  When all was said and done, Rhodan thought, any mystery could be rationally and scientifically explained. Sooner or later, anyway; sometimes it took centuries before an issue was settled completely. Analysis of the chip would still take much time and considerable effort. Rhodan thought for a moment of the beautiful Denetree with her Lemurian pale skin and her desperately sad eyes. She had been torn out of her familiar way of life, which had been difficult and filled with hard work. She had been forced to adjust to a completely different and perhaps frightening environment. He remembered their first meet
ing, and the look in her eyes that almost literally seized upon him as though he could cure her depression with a smile or a wave of his hand.

  "Maybe we'll find the answers on the LEMCHA OVIR," Rhodan said to himself, but somehow he doubted it. Thousands of years of experience had taught him that every answer only led to new questions.

  As the strings of the Mimas Recreation Orchestra went into the final passages and Bach's music came to an end, Rhodan attempted to formulate a mental picture of the other ship based on the chip data and what he had seen and experienced in the NETHACK ACHTON. There were two possibilities: Either everything could be the same, or it could be completely different.

  Once, before Bach's time and even for a couple of centuries afterwards as well, the sight of an ark—or any spaceship of any size, actually—would have made Terrans believe in wonders and marvels. In legendary creatures like ... Only after a moment's thought did the synonyms come to mind: "Leviathan, Zaratan, Behemoth, and Fastitocalon," he murmured and grinned at the mental images, two Biblical, one from mythology, and the fourth out of Tolkien. Whales as big as islands, to which seamen anchored and lit fires on the forested backs. "Dragons, black monsters like crocodiles. Giants that dragged ships and men down to their doom when they dove. A Terran collective memory—perhaps the concepts even originated from the Lemurian legacy. Who knows?"

  He told himself that such linguistic speculation was hardly appropriate for the current situation. He took off the headphones and slipped into the soft boots used on-board. He should be in the control center. If he stayed in his cabin too long, the crew were likely to interpret it as deliberately cutting himself off from them, or else as a gesture intended to flaunt his assumed superiority. He clapped the multifunction armband around his wrist, went into the central antigrav shaft, and came out in the main control center.

  He greeted Sharita Coho, who regarded his light casual jumpsuit with disdain but without comment. She wore a black, high-necked uniform that seemed more like someone's fantasy of what a starship commander should wear than was in keeping with the laid-back atmosphere of the PALENQUE. The hunt for the second ark had apparently put her in good spirits and she nodded benevolently to Rhodan, despite his poor taste in clothing. The others greeted him without noticeable enthusiasm.

  Rhodan sat down in his usual place, the visitor's chair, and looked around. The control center crew's mood seemed to be on an even keel. Denetree, who sat next to Harriett Hewes at the communications console, gave him a long look; she looked helpless and depressed. He smiled encouragingly back at her. Denetree resumed reading the data that was fed to the main Syntron after being evaluated by human eyes.

  For several moments, Perry Rhodan occupied himself by observing Denetree's sharply featured Lemurian profile. He saw a young face that promised future exotic beauty. The long braid down her back, which drew her deep chestnut brown hair taut over the ears and which was beginning to come loose in several windings, emphasized her clear-cut features. The chin displayed strength of will. The face with large, light blue eyes was marked by confusion, uncertainty, dreams, uncoordinated thoughts, vague memories, pride, and the powerful will to survive and experience all the sensations and wonders of the Galaxy. Denetree, Rhodan thought, would overcome her past experiences in a few weeks and view her new world from a different standpoint.

  While Rhodan studied the hologram over the heads of Alemaheyu and Sharita Coho, Eniva ta Drorar entered the control center. The Akonian "hostage" on board the PALENQUE towered over many of the 50-member crew by a head, her height just eight centimeters short of two meters. She consciously moved through the functional atmosphere of the ship with the dazzling extravagance of a colorful synthesis of all the arts.

  Eniva ta Drorar was a beautiful woman. Wherever she appeared, it seemed to the crew as though her immediate surroundings were lit up by spotlights. She was followed by looks that were baffled and admiring, or better still, amazed. She was well aware that she, to put it mildly, emanated the arrogant allure of a Vakt'son, an Akonian noble, but she was not playing a part: she was one.

  She also seemed thoroughly aware that it was thanks to the prospectors' casual approach that the relationship between Akonians and Terrans had relaxed. Casual in this case did not mean careless; permission to come on the bridge could be withdrawn at any moment. She gave Alemaheyu, the curly-haired communications officer, an encouraging glance. In the tightly-knit community of the ship it had not stayed a secret: Eniva ta Drorar had allowed Alemaheyu to cherish certain hopes. Justifiably? Rhodan thought and shrugged. We'll see. Exchanging an almost virtual kiss with Alemaheyu isn't exactly a declaration of love!

  She approached Denetree and Harriett, had a seat extended, and sat down. She turned her head; Alemaheyu winked back and adjusted his headband. Eniva's shoulder-length hair, shaped by tiny antigrav fields, arranged itself flat over her ears. Now she seemed to Rhodan like an incredibly competent, concentrated computer expert despite the yellow, black-embroidered peasant blouse.

  "Well, sisters in the Problem Center," she said in perfect, if overly deliberate Intercosmo, "how do things stand in the knowledge race?"

  "Undecided. One to one," Harriett replied and pointed to the display screens and holo-projectors. Tens of thousands of numbers appearing in the holos disappeared, regrouped and then disappeared again, allowing obvious holes in the data to be seen. "We know practically only one thing for certain. We're heading in what you might call mini-jumps to a point that is possibly less boring than all the others."

  "Some certainty!" grumbled Omer Driscoll, the hyperdetection specialist.

  Over the following minutes, nothing significant changed. The PALENQUE had left hyperspace some time before, and the crew took the ship's bearings and recorded star images for this part of the Ochent Nebula. The commanders of the PALENQUE and the LAS-TOOR had not yet agreed on the length of the next jump. Of course, it would have been more efficient if the two ships had been searching separately and compared results over hypercom, but the distrust between Terrans and Akonians was still too great, even though no one was willing to say so out loud.

  Jump followed jump. A strange mood settled over the PALENQUE's bridge: a mixture of tension and boredom. Only a skeleton crew remained in the control center; under the leadership of Pearl Laneaux, the first officer. Most of the rest of the crew were busy re-fitting the ship's crawlers, converting the flying laboratories into autonomously operating units. Rhodan suspected that this did not happen entirely voluntarily. A complicated relationship existed between Sharita Coho and her first officer, which, in the last few days, had been strained when Pearl Laneaux had been right a few too many times.

  Alemaheyu used the time to talk to Coho and Rhodan about the mysterious hypercom signal that he had stumbled across while checking through the PALENQUE's log files.

  "Here." The com officer pointed to a graph floating in a holo in front of the three. "The spike is obvious. A hypercom impulse. Its origin is the NETHACK ACHTON."

  Coho gave him a skeptical look. "No doubt?"

  "No doubt," Alemaheyu replied. He stiffened involuntarily; the commander had wounded his professional pride. "As a communications specialist I know my job."

  "But you're aware that this com signal is simply impossible," Rhodan put in. "The ark is a low-tech artifact. We didn't find even a trace of five-dimensional technology anywhere on board—and hypercom is based on five-D tech."

  "I know, I know ... but the data is unmistakable. A strong, unmodulated hypercom signal came from the NETHACK ACHTON."

  They were silent for several moments. The PALENQUE completed another ultra-light jump. Driscol went to work, scanning the surrounding space. The NETHACK ACHTON had been equipped with an almost perfect shield against hyperdetection. Driscol had isolated the faint echo that remained and provided it to the Syntron. The result was that the hyperdetector was not searching for a kilometers-long spaceship but for a faint energy signature.

  Driscol was bent over his console. When he noticed
the expectant looks from Rhodan and the commander, he shook his head. "Nothing." Coho gave the order to return to hyperspace.

  "The time of that signal ... " Rhodan wrinkled his forehead. "Am I mistaken, or was it broadcast at about the same moment when we and the Akonians entered the ark?"

  Alemaheyu called up some data, then nodded. "Yes, you're right!"

  "What could that mean?" Coho asked, thinking out loud. "A coincidence?"

  "Improbable," Rhodan said. "Just about impossible. It seems to me more likely that we triggered an automatic response. An alarm system."

  "As soon as strangers enter the ark ... that fits in with the fear of the outside world that plagues the ark's inhabitants!"

  "It does. But that doesn't explain the five-D technology. And besides, there's still the question of who the signal's intended recipient was."

  "Could it have been a cry for help?"

  "Help from whom? Who could run to the aid of a starship that's wrapped in a hyperdetection screen and moving through space at very nearly lightspeed—and has been for more than 50,000 years?"

  Alemaheyu stroked his curly mane. "The signal could have made sense once, after the ship set out. That was a long time ago, but the automatic system could still have been operating ... "

  The PALENQUE slipped back into normal space. Driscol bent over his console. Then he straightened up. "You'd better take a look at this!"

  2

  The Ark LEMCHA OVIR