Twilight Of The Gods Part 1

Twilight of the G.o.ds.

Walter Ernsting.

CHAPTER ONE.

Toward noon the roaring of the endless barrage grew weaker. Now there were only occasional detonations of heavy grenades exploding on the surface of the invisible energy screen; their strength was spent in producing brilliant flashes of lightning without achieving their intended effect.

Then complete silence followed.

The four men who were sitting in the former command center of the Stardust I looked at each other. Captain Reginald Bell sluggishly pushed aside the chessboard. "What is that supposed to mean?" he asked.

His chess partner looked regretfully at the chess figures that had been knocked over by Bell's negligent gesture, before he replied, shrugging his shoulders, "Your guess is as good as mine. Probably just a brief firing pause."

"After days and days of nonstop bombardment? I bet they must have a good reason to stop the shooting."

"That bet you are bound to win for sure," nodded the man sitting across from Bell. "There are always some reasons for everything." He pointed to the tumbled over chess figures. "By the way, that was an unfair trick. You knew you had lost the game, didn't you?"

"My dear Dr. Manoli," said Bell pompously, "quite the contrary would have happened. The game was as good as won."

"Sure. But by me," grinned the physician.

"Let's leave it undecided who won or lost that game. Let's concentrate on first things first!" interjected a tall, lean man with steely gray blue eyes-Perry Rhodan. He had just got to his feet and walked over to the round hatch where he could survey the scene outside. "As far as I can make out it looks as if the Asiatics have pulled back their forces." Stepping back from the window, he nodded pensively while he smoothed back his dark blond hair. His other hand remained in his trouser pockets all the while. Then he turned to the fourth man of the group.

"How is Khrest coming along Dr. Haggard?"

Dr. Frank Haggard answered with the slightest hint of a smile, "From a medical Point of view Khrest's health has been completely restored. There is not a trace of his leukaemia left."

"We don't have to fear for his health any more?" asked Rhodan eagerly. "He will go on living then!"

"Of course. Although I don't know for how long. The life span of the Arkonide race must be limited somehow; otherwise, they would not have set out on their search for the planet of eternal life. The alien's body seems of an extraordinary youthfulness, and his metabolism shows a surprising vitality. But judging from his looks he seems to be about fifty years of age."

"But he is much older than that," said Rhodan. "And so is Thora."

Thora, the commanding officer of the extraterrestrial race of s.p.a.ce explorers, presented a mystery and challenge to the few humans that so far had come in contact with her. She had fascinated them by her appearance. Her light hair, more white than blond, her huge eyes of an odd golden-reddish hue and her almost yellow complexion had indicated her to be of an albinoid type. And yet she had to be called beautiful. Perry Rhodan, though, considered her beauty to be only skin deep. He was convinced that she had inside her nothing but icy cold reasoning and a steely logical mind. She seemed to lack a heart and soul. Never would she have been willing to help the human race or even to recognize them as her equals, if she had not been forced to do so by her s.p.a.ceship's destruction. The s.p.a.ce cruiser's auxiliary vessel, which in reality was an enormous s.p.a.ce sphere almost 200 feet in diameter, was equipped with an ultralight drive, but its range extended only 500 light-years-not enough even to establish contact with the nearest base of the Arkonides.

"Thora is getting on my nerves," announced Bell as he stood up. "I know that she despises us, and she is coming to our a.s.sistance only because this way she is able to help herself. I just can't stand that."

"The Arkonides do need us, that's quite true," admitted Rhodan. He continued with emphasis, "But don't let us forget that we depend on them, too. It's a kind of symbiosis. We can't do without it if we ever want to reach our goal. And one of these goals, Reg, is the unification of mankind. The imaginary threat has had the result for the first time in human history that all the nations of the world have united, even if only to destroy us."

Haggard moved next to Rhodan and looked out of the hatch. The Arkonide s.p.a.ce sphere reposed quite close to the Stardust. Inside the alien ship the generator was working to produce the mighty power field that created a protective screen around their base. The outer circular perimeter of that energy dome touched the ground at a distance of about three miles from the center. This was a fortress that could not be stormed. Even atomic bombs glanced off ineffectively from the invisible outer hull of energy.

Shiny, metallic robots hurried back and forth, anchoring the s.p.a.ce sphere securely to the ground and busily performing many tasks. They were the only occupants of the alien s.p.a.ce cruiser, besides Khrest and Thora, that had been saved when their moon base was annihilated. They were the lone survivors of a s.p.a.ce expedition that had set out from a star empire whose scope could hardly be imagined by a human mind.

The Arkonides' remaining auxiliary vessel could indeed traverse a distance of 500 light-years within a few days. This was an incredible feat, measured by human standards, but unfortunately for the Arkonides, it was insufficient. Their situation could be compared to that of a shipwrecked crew stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, busily building a canoe from a single tree trunk. However, the storerooms of the auxiliary vessel were bulging with spare parts and all kinds of machinery, capable of constructing whole s.p.a.ce flotillas, if the industrial potential of Earth's economy could be harnessed to this productive effort.

This was the reason Khrest and Thora had entered into an alliance with Perry Rhodan. This offered the only way they could ever return to their home planet. With human help they could construct a ship that would reach their planets revolving around a hot, blue white sun within the star cl.u.s.ter M 13, more than 34,000 light-years away. This planet, Arkon, was the center of a galactic empire.

Haggard motioned toward the s.p.a.ce sphere. "They seem to be settling down here on Earth, at least temporarily. How can they build a starship here in the desert, far removed from civilization?"

"I don't know for sure," admitted Rhodan, "but I have a pretty good idea. Don't forget that we are sitting here underneath an energy dome about six miles across. That's quite some area. I can well imagine that huge industrial facilities could be erected here. Don't you agree, Doc?"

"You mean an industrial plant for s.p.a.cecraft construction?" wondered Haggard aloud. "You mean to say thata"

"I only suggested such a possibility," replied Rhodan softly. "I am not too well informed about Khrest's plans but I am convinced that he will need our technical a.s.sistance with them. We'll see shortly what he intends to do."

Reginald Bell, too, had got to his feet in the meantime. He yawned.

"I must confess that I'm worried about this cease fire. As long as the Chinese were busy shooting at us, they were not up to any other mischief."

Suddenly Rhodan's brow was deeply furrowed. "Any other mischief? My dear friend, this brings up an unpleasant thought. Could they use this lull to attack us in some other manner we aren't aware of yet?"

Bell turned pale. "I didn't mean it that waya"

"But wouldn't it be quite plausible for them to look for some other method to remove this cancer from their body? After all, that is what we are in their eyes, nothing but a cancerous growth threatening their survival. Unfortunately, we cannot observe from here whatever is going on outside. We have no friends-"

"How about Captain Klein from the intelligence agency!" Bell interrupted. "Don't you remember what he did, together with his colleagues from the Eastern Bloc, Lt. Kosnow and Lt. Li Tschai-tung from the Asiatic Secret Service? How they acted quite unmistakably in our interest when they were supposed to annihilate us! I am absolutely convinced that they would warn us if they knew of some danger."

"Yes indeed-Captain Klein." Rhodan nodded in agreement. "He is on good terms with the main command center in Greenland. He is working directly under Allan D. Mercant, and if he knew anything that would threaten us here, he would not hesitate to inform us about it."

Rhodan peered once more through the window hatch. He trembled slightly. A shadow flitted across his face, but he did not seem to be displeased by what be saw. He was, on the contrary, somehow embarra.s.sed by it. But he quickly regained his composure.

He turned to the three men. "Thora wants to talk to me." He walked over to the door of the command center.

Now Bell in turn looked out of the hatch. Over there, next to the gigantic s.p.a.ce sphere, stood a beautiful figure, tall and slender. Her bright hair could hardly be distinguished from the metallic background of the s.p.a.cecraft. She stood quietly, waiting, every inch the unapproachable commanding officer of the stranded s.p.a.ce expedition. Her pride forbade her to make even the slightest welcoming gesture to the approaching Earthling.

Commander Perry Rhodan could not have explained logically what attracted him to this woman. Never before in his life had he encountered someone who was more intelligent, more aloof and more arrogant. This creature from another world, who had the appearance of a woman, was heartless; she simply could not have a heart. Nevertheless, she was most beautiful.

Yet it was not her beauty that attracted Rhodan to her; it was rather her aura of inaccessibility. At first he had thought it important to persuade her that human beings, too, were intelligent and therefore had a right to exist. But soon he had Recognized that only an approach of cold logic would convince someone of Thora's type. He had to make her see that man was not only intelligent but also indispensable to her plans.

She did not make the slightest effort to come to meet him. She did not stir. She waited motionless until he stood in front of her. Only then did she address him.

"They have stopped the shooting," she remarked dryly. She avoided specifying who they were, noted Rhodan. She would not even call them humans or terrestrials. Cra.s.s disdain was in her voice. "Why?"

Perry looked straight into her icy eyes. She met his glance steadfastly, but then a brief flicker arose in, their bottomless reddish gold depths. Just a brief moment; then once again she was in complete control of herself.

"It might be that the enlargement of our energy dome has caused them to change their plans," Rhodan replied, quietly. "After all, we have increased your domain to about five times its former size. They had to withdraw their troops hastily after your initial punitive measures. Although they did continue the bombardment of our positions here for some time, they seem to have worked out some other tactics in the meantime."

"This will not do them any good either."

"You might underestimate the human race," suggested Rhodan slowly. "This is not the first time for you, though. Remember what happened the last time? You lost your ship, didn't you? Why do you want to repeat your mistake?*

"I never make a mistake, I want you to know. Not I, but the robots, were responsible for the catastrophe on the moon."

"Those robots had to, obey your commands and carry out your orders," corrected Rhodan calmly. It gave him an almost painful pleasure to humiliate her. "Don't you think that the protective screen might be too large now? Its scale might decrease its stability, I'm afraid."

"Let me worry about that. in my opinion even the largest atomic bomb would detonate ineffectually on the screen's surface. You don't realize the full capacity of the Arkonide reactor. It is capable of producing enough energy to throw your planet out of its usual orbit."

Rhodan knew that she was not exaggerating.

"In any case, I am very appreciative that you have limited yourself merely to defensive measures," he said. "I realize that you could easily have reduced to dust the enemy army that is surrounding us. Why don't you, by the way?"

Displeasure briefly flared in her icy features.

"Khrest is against it. He probably believes he must be grateful to you for curing him of his illness."

"Shouldn't he?"

She shook her head lightly. "You look at this problem the wrong way. We are only trying to pay off a debt when we come to your a.s.sistance here. I'll admit that in some areas you are ahead of us-in the field of medicine, perhaps. But in the field of technologya"

She did not bother to complete her sentence. Rhodan seized the opportunity. "You are indeed far ahead of us in the field of technology; I fully realize that. But despite this superiority, even you are powerless without our help. Even if 500 light-years represent an insurmountable distance for us now, under the present circ.u.mstances, you still cannot make an use of your know-how to bridge this distance and return home. In order to do so, both you and Khrest are fully aware that you are forced to collaborate with us. This is the only reason, the one and only reason, that you have entered into this alliance with us. We don't need to fool each other. Let's be honest"

She did not even smile. "Little by little you are beginning to think logically, Rhodan. Our collaboration is nothing but a matter of expediency; that is all there is to it. Once both you and we have attained our goals, we will again go our separate ways. No expression of grat.i.tude need be exchanged, because each of us will have profited by our mutual a.s.sociation. That is the way I see things."

"Khrest's approach is more human, if you will pardon the expression. He has a soul."

"A soul? What is that, a soul?"

Rhodan flipped his hand in a contemptuous gesture. *Maybe sometime later I'll try to explain that to you. Right now it would be a complete waste of time. Will you tell me, now, why you asked to see me?"

His matter of fact att.i.tude and coldness had a very sobering effect, even on Thora. Little did she know what effort he had to exert to achieve this effect of aloofness.

There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes as she answered, "Our robot detachment has stabilized the energy screen. We can await any further attacks with complete calm. How soon can you provide us with the necessary help, so that we may begin with the construction of our new s.p.a.ceship?"

"As soon as mankind stops fighting me. Only then can we start to a.s.sist you with your project. Unfortunately, I can't change the fact that your cooperation must precede ours. First you help us so that we can help you in turn."

"And how long will it take for the human race to understand the foolishness of trying to fight against us?"

"Never, unfortunately, as far as I know them. Unless they are forced to do so by radical means." He smiled coldly. "We are a race of warriors still, I regret to say."

She regarded him. For an instant Rhodan seemed to perceive a sign of sympathy in her glance; but it was probably just an illusion on his part.

"So were we," she remarked, "once upon a time when we were young and immature. This att.i.tude will pa.s.s only when the race has become mature and wise."

"And has grown old!" added Rhodan.

He was rather surprised that she nodded in agreement without growing angry at him. "You are right, unfortunately."

With these words she turned around and walked toward the s.p.a.ce sphere.

CHAPTER TWO.

An un.o.btrusive looking man sat behind the desk.

He was rather short, youngish in appearance, and he exuded an impression of almost unbelievable harmlessness. A thin wreath of golden locks circled his bald dome. Here and there near his temples a few white hairs could be seen. His eyes regarded the world around him with a beatific expression.

For the time being, this world consisted solely of a technically perfectly arranged office, almost two miles underground, deep below the permanent ice of Greenland. This was the headquarters of the best organized secret service of the world, the Intelligence Agency. This special organization had been formed during the Cold War and was under the command of NATO. The harmless man behind the desk was the head of this organization, Allan D. Mercant, one of the most feared men of the twentieth century.

A screen lit up.

"The heads of the secret services have arrived, sir."

"Eastern Bloc and Asiatic Federation?"

"Iwan Martinowitsch Kosselow from the Eastern Bloc and Mao-tsen from the Asiatic Federation," confirmed the announcer from the communications center. "Lieutenant General Tai-tiang has just landed. He has been escorted to the electrolift already."

"Well, the whole clan is a.s.sembled then," Mercant nodded and leaned back in his seat. He waited until the screen grew dark before he smiled mildly.

Only a few short weeks ago it would have been absurd even to imagine in one's wildest dreams the events that were now taking place. The men who once had been the bitterest enemies, the highest in command of the secret service and espionage organizations, were now meeting in the Headquarters of the Western Intelligence Agency. They had a common purpose now-to destroy a common foe.

Mercant's smile grew suddenly bitter.

And what would happen in case they succeeded in their task? He knew the answer the moment he thought of the question. There was a strange fire in his eyes as he bent forward slightly to push a b.u.t.ton.

Another screen lit up. On it the head of a pretty girl became visible. "Mr. Mercant?"

"Please see to it that the three men who have been accommodated in the transfer hotel are called to the conference too. Their names are Captain Klein, Lieutenant Li Tschai-tung and Lieutenant Kosnow. Let them wait in the outer office until I call for them. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, sir," The pretty girl nodded, and her picture disappeared from the screen. Mercant stared at the empty screen for another second before he rose from his seat.

This conference room had been chosen other than the one where the plans for the moon expedition had been discussed and decided. This time Mercant had placed the utmost importance on complete secrecy. There was no trace of any hidden microphone or other electronic snooping device; there were no secretly running tape recorders or noiselessly working cameras. The room was small, with only one door and not even an air conditioning system. There was only one vacuum pump that sucked out the used-up air, which was constantly replenished by bottles of compressed air standing in a corner of the room. Admittedly, this was a rather primitive arrangement, but it was proof against any unwelcome listeners.

And Mercant knew only too well why he did not want to risk any unwelcome listeners.

Three men were sitting at the table when Mercant entered the room. They interrupted their conversation, which they had carried on in Russian, and rose.

Mercant smiled innocuously. "It's a pleasure to be able to welcome you here, gentlemen. We owe this happy occasion to our common foe. Thanks to him, we are sitting here united around the conference table. Too bad that one day soon we will finish off this enemy, don't you agree?"

Lieutenant General Tai-tiang, commander in chief of the encircling troops, seemed to be nonplussed. It was evident that he did not know how to interpret this startling remark.

Iwan Martinowitsch Kosselow, Chief of Defence of the Eastern Bloc, reacted quite differently, however. He broke out a wide grin, slapped his ruddy, fleshy cheek and roared loudly, "I am not so sure that your President would be pleased to bear that kind of talk. But our conversation won't go beyond these walls, I hope."

Mao-tsen, chief of the Asiatic Federation defence department, smiled enigmatically. This was all the comment he cared to make.

Mercant shook hands with his three guests and asked them to be seated again. Suddenly his face turned serious, as if someone had wiped away his friendly smile.

"Rest a.s.sured, my dear colleague," he said to Kosselow, "there isn't another human being on this Earth who can hear whatever we discuss in this room. We are hermetically sealed off from the outside world. The door has been electronically locked, and in case I should suddenly suffer a heart attack your own organizations would have to go on without you; leadership, for n.o.body would come to let you out of here. Maybe in a year or two, people would start wondering how long this session was taking. But by then it would be too late for you anyhow."