The Regent, even if humanized to the point of being referred to as 'he', was a robot. As such it operated constantly on the principle of maximum utility. It knew nothing of scruples.

On the other hand, Perry Rhodan would have had to be a fool not to know that. The two battleships were in constant motion. During every second of the mission their speed was high enough to allow an immediate transition. Both ships were under maximum alert. A huge number of radar stations kept track of the movements of Arkonide ships, ready to sound the alarm as soon as enough of them had moved in close enough to the Drusus and the Kublai Khan to become dangerous.

However, such was not the case for the time being. Perry Rhodan had calculated rightly. The Robot Regent would not try anything as long as he did not know what the Terrans were up to.

But then he would strike, instantly and cold-bloodedly, with such a large number of ships at one time that the Terran defence screens would collapse under the force of the concentrated fire and the two battleships would be annihilated.

Rhodan knew that his life was not worth a centisolar if he relied on the Robot Regent's a.s.surances. The Regent had spoken of a desire to work together and cooperate but Rhodan knew better than anyone that a huge positronicon can be programmed to be a perfect liar.

The presence of the two Terran battleships served a double purpose. The first was to come to the aid of Tifflor and the Newborn as soon as help was needed and the second concerned the necessity to maintain contact with the Terran base on Hades, which lay in the Druuf Universe. No one would predict the developments that would ensue with the penetration of Druuf s.p.a.ce by the Newborn. It could turn out that at any second the base on Hades would have to take part in the confrontation, and since the base had few ways in which to keep abreast of events, the Drusus and the Kublai Khan stood watch.

Perry Rhodan knew full well the risk he was taking with this operation. He believed he had taken precautions against any and all eventualities.

He did not know that fast approaching him was the moment in which all precautions would prove useless.

He had been told in advance that a Druuf looked like something from a nightmare but as he saw one for the first time, he had difficulty overcoming his shock.

The creature standing before him was more than three meters tall. Man has odd conceptions of size relationships. Used to the size of the largest buildings or other man-made structures, he does not consider an object three meters high remarkably large, no matter what it might be. However, when he runs across a fellow human being taller than two meters, he is startled at first, and a living intelligence more than three meters tall fins him with terror.

So it was with Julian Tifflor as he entered the control room of the Druuf ship and the commander came towards him. The Druuf stood on ma.s.sive column-like legs that by themselves were almost as long as Tifflor was tall. The legs supported a cube-shaped body, from which a round head the size of a medicine ball grew without the harmonious transition of a neck. The head had 4 eye-openings and a 3cornered mouth. Otherwise the head was smooth and hairless, the head of a monster. From the cubical body hung two long, powerful arms which, Tifflor knew, ended in delicate fingers. There was no hand as such. Now the slenderness of the fingers was not to be seen, for they were hidden by s.p.a.cesuit gloves.

As Tifflor expected, the Druuf had a small translator hanging from its chest. He had evidently spoken something into it beforehand, for when the three Terrans came into the room, the device came to life. "I am alone here but don't raise your hopes too much on that account. My men are standing at their posts!"

Tifflor did not quite understand at first. It took some time for him to recover from his shock and size up the Druuf. Then he answered disdainfully, "Have no fear. We didn't come here to cause you any damage."

He looked around. The room's furnishings were strange, almost grotesque for Terran eyes. In the centre of the hall stood an object as large as a small summerhouse, evidently the control console to judge from the levers and switches affixed to it. A lever was as long as a crowbar and throwing a switch would have required two Terrans each pushing with both hands. Around the wall ran a huge panorama vidscreen, showing the dark red depths of the alien universe and its uncountable stars. Tifflor could not recognize any of the equipment installed beneath the vidscreen. Druuf technology was too different from Terran.

All in all, it was a room in which Tifflor believed he could never feel comfortable. He did not yet know that he would be forced to acquaint himself with it.

There was no place to sit in the control room. For the Druufs, who had an average body-weight of 400 kilograms, standing up was a laborious procedure. Only deep exhaustion could bring them to sit down on a stool and it was not uncommon for a Druuf to exhaust himself all over again just by standing up after sitting for awhile. The gravitational pull of their home world, Druufon, was 1.95 times normal, almost double Earth's. The same gravitational pull was probably in effect on board the Druuf ship but the Terrans were not aware of it. They wore modern s.p.a.cesuits with an automatically reacting antigrav absorber which maintained them at their normal Terran weight at all times.

"You possess information showing that the Arkonides, as you call them, plan to attack us," said the Druuf, beginning the conversation anew.

Tifflor looked at him. It was hard to tell in which direction the Druuf was looking, however. The Druufs had evolved from insects. The large optical surfaces of their eyes were divided into hundreds of small facets. Tifflor felt rather uncomfortable. "Yes," he answered tersely.

"Where did you get this information?" asked the Druuf.

The words that he spoke into the translator were inaudible to Terran ears. The Druufs' speech organs produced sounds in the ultrasonic range. The Druuf language was a tangled and unlearnable confusion of high-frequency ultrasonic impulses.

"I was present at several negotiating sessions between Arkon and my world that were conducted over telecom," Tifflor explained readily.

"What was discussed in these negotiating sessions?"

Tifflor did not know how much the Druufs understood of human mimicry but in any case he made an effort to appear impatient and irritated. "Now listen here!" he said to the Druuf. "Danger is imminent. When the Arkonide attack comes, it'll come quickly. And you're just standing there asking me questions as though you have half a year to waste. Are you even authorized to receive this information? I'd like you to take me to your home world so I can tell your government there what I know."

One could not tell by looking at the Druuf whether he was impressed or not. In any event, Tifflor could breathe easier. He had just performed the most important part of his role-and he had done well, he was sure. No Earthly psychologist would have realized that he had pretended to be excited coldly and calculatedly and that he had been working towards the end of suggesting a flight to Druufon to the Druuf as unsuspiciously as possible.

After awhile the Druuf replied: "How am I to know if you really are a traitor?"

Tifflor exulted. Resistance seemed to be weakening. He had to reach Druufon. He must make contact with Ernst Ellert whose incorporeal being inhabited the body of a Druuf scientist, and attempt to direct affairs from Druufon via Ellert. Only on Druufon itself could his mission to convince the highest levels of Druuf government of the Arkonide threat and the necessity of an immediate counterattack succeed.

"You can't," Tifflor answered in return. "But you can keep a watch on me so that I can't cause any damage if I'm not what you think I am. By the way, I must say I was expecting a little more civility on your part. I've taken a lot of risks to warn you about the Arkonides."

That seemed to interest the Druuf. "Risks?" he asked. "You didn't have any escort ships to protect you?"

"Oh good Lord!" Tifflor sighed. "Didn't the pilot of the ship that brought us here in the tractor beam have any eyes in his head? Of course we didn't have any escort ships to protect us! We ran away from the Earth-can't you get that through your head?"

"You ran away? Why?"

"Because otherwise we couldn't have warned you. Terra is still negotiating with Arkon. As I see things, they won't become allies but there will be an end to hostilities between them at least. It would be contrary to the Terran political position to warn you of the Arkonide attack, understand?"

"Not entirely. They say that on your planet there is something called freedom of opinion. Why can't you hold an opinion different from your government's and not be punished?"

Tifflor looked around at John Marshall. Marshall was a telepath and should have picked up the Druufs thoughts. But Marshall shrugged and made an unhappy expression.

"I'm an officer in the Terran Fleet," Tifflor answered cautiously. "Only the Fleet has ships with which one can reach your universe. But every member of the Fleet is responsible to the orders of the commander. According to the orders, strictest secrecy must be maintained concerning the negotiations between Terra and Arkon and the coming attack. Anyone who goes against that would be courtmartialled. We had to steal a s.p.a.ceship and get away from Earth in the middle of the night. "That's the way it is but you come along and treat us like common thieves. I want to be taken to Druufon and speak with some responsible people there, not stay out here in the middle of s.p.a.ce chatting with a mere captain."

The last remark was intended to stir up the Druuf into revealing his true thoughts. That would happen only if the Druufs were as vain as humans tended to be.

But they evidently weren't. The Druuf remained calm and answered evenly, "I am a responsible person. I think I can convince you of that."

Tifflor heard a series of humming and rumbling sounds. He turned and saw that the control room doors had opened. Druufs came in, giant figures with black hides. There were 15 altogether. They formed a circle around the three Terrans and the Druuf commander. Tifflor had the feeling that something had gone wrong but he was not sure what.

The Druufs made no hostile moves. They simply stood there and no one could tell in what direction they were looking.

"Please answer a few more questions," said the commander. Tifflor registered with astonishment that the word 'please' had been used for the first time. "The main question is this: why did you go to so much trouble to warn us? For the sake of friendship?"

Tifflor narrowed his eyes. The question had been inevitable and he did not let himself be taken unawares. "No!" he gritted. "Because I hate the Arkonides!"

All of a sudden there was some movement among the Druufs. Heads turned. Faceted eyes sparkled. Tifflor was convinced that they were talking to one another but the sounds were inaudible to human ears.

Only after considerable time had pa.s.sed did the commander turn back to Tifflor. The mechanical voice spoke from the translator: "In our opinion, you are speaking the truth. We are almost certain because we were already aware of the threatening danger before you came. All preparations have been made for defence against the Arkonides. You don't need to convince our government... It already is convinced."

"As a consequence, you don't need to make the long and difficult trip to our home world. We are grateful to you and certain that you want to help us. Thus we have a request to make of you, stay here and take command of part of our fleet. You are familiar with our inferiority against the Arkonides as regards our reaction time and even the speed of our ships. Stay here and help so that at least part of our fleet can react quickly enough to the enemy's manoeuvres to come through successfully. That is our request!"

With that Tifflor knew that his plan had fallen through.

There was no way out. It would have looked suspicious if he refused the request. The request was reasonable and he should have expected the Druufs to make it.

There was no turning back. He had to say yes. If he refused, he still would not reach his goal. The Druufs would be suspicious and certainly think no more of taking him to Druufon.

The undertaking had miscarried. Without the partic.i.p.ation of Ernst Ellert no substantial success could be obtained.

Tifflor had difficulty hiding his disappointment. "Of course," he answered as steadily as he could. "Of course we'll help you defeat the Arkonides."

6/ BAITING THE ROBOT REGENT.

The plan had been to put the Druuf government in an uproar. There was no doubt that Ernst Ellert, in the form of the Druuf scientist Onot, would have been able to do this together with the alleged deserters.

The plan had been to lead the Druufs into making a sortie into the Einstein Universe-into making a move, then, that the Arkonides were not expecting anymore-and to bring to their attention all the different ways in which they could cause damage to the Arkonides. Attacking isolated bases, for example, or destroying trading outposts, or other single actions. Naturally the Arkonides would have retaliated but that was part of what the plan hoped to accomplish as well.

The purpose of the plan was fundamentally to cause the Arkonides to lose so many ships fighting with one another that Terra would remain out of danger and end up more powerful than either survivor.

The plan could not be carried out now. The Arkonides were not really planning to attack the Druufs in their own universe-or at least not in the foreseeable future. The fleet movements that had caught the Druufs' attention were the result of the Robot Regent wanting to capture a single Terran ship manned by Terran deserters.

It would not come to an all-out battle. At most, border skirmishes. The decisive weakening of Arkonide and Druuf fighting power would remain unaccomplished. Without the falsified information supported only by Onot's authority as a scientist that was to be supplied to Druufs and which indicated an alleged Achilles heel in the Arkonide Imperium, the Druufs would never undertake a drive into Einstein s.p.a.ce. They were now too convinced of their own inferiority to attempt it.

Tifflor's hands were tied. True, he could try to make the Druuf commander aware of different possibilities for plaguing the Arkonides but even the commander could not act without authorization from his government. The evaluation of Tifflor's suggestions would take up time-and time was something Terra no longer had.

In a few months the overlapping front would close. Then there would be no contact between the two universes and no more opportunity to set one enemy against the other.

Depressed, Tifflor prepared for his new role as commander' of a section of the Druuf fleet. He was convinced that he would never have to exercise any authority in that role. Why not? Because there would not be any battle. The Druufs were staying over here; the Arkonides would stay over there. Before the overlapping zone closed, there would be at most a few small border skirmishes.

But the plan had counted on a destruction of from 40,000 to 50,000 ships.

Pucky the mousebeaver gave the roomy interior of the control room one last benevolent look although his vision of it was slightly hampered by the meshwork of the transmitter cage.

Then he closed his eyes and pressed the b.u.t.ton on which his paw had been resting for some time.

He did not feel anything. When he opened his eyes once more, he found himself in a large hall hewn from solid rock. There were several rows of machines similar to the one Pucky was in and to the one he had been in a few seconds before on board the Drusus.

He saw a few men standing in front of the transmitter cage door but he paid them no attention. He listened. He extended his telepathic tendrils and tried to pick up the signals broadcast by the man for whose sake he had come here to Hades.

And he picked them up.

They sounded like a gentle but clear chirping. They came from the depths of s.p.a.ce and Pucky had no trouble learning from them that the man radiating them was enjoying the best of health, the signal transmitter that he carried in his body was a semi-organic device whose functional capability rose and fell with the bodily condition of its carrier.

Pucky was satisfied. Julian Tifflor was somewhere in the area, no more than a few billion kilometres away by Pucky's reckoning. The telepathic signal transmitter, which Tifflor carried around with him as a sort of parapsychological beacon, was working at normal power.

Meanwhile the men outside had opened the transmitter door. Pucky strutted out, his bushy beavertail-a most peculiar addition to a s.p.a.cesuit-dangling behind him. The men smiled. Pucky noticed and replied with a scornful look. He was used to humans smiling at his appearance. He looked like a cross between a beaver and a mouse that had by mistake gotten too large. People had a large number of fairy tales and fables in which speaking and intelligent animals appeared but when those people encountered in real-life a mousebeaver, which could speak and think logically, then they didn't know what to make of it in their astonishment. So they smiled.

Pucky sat on his rear legs, supporting himself with his tail. He made an effort to give his large-eyed mouse face a look of importance and said, lisping, "I was told to get in touch with Capt. Rous immediately. Please inform Capt. Rous I'm here."

The men began to laugh but after a few seconds they stopped again. Captain Rous came down the corridor between transmitters.

"I'm already here," he said. "Our transmitters seldom get green lights. Something seems to be going on there, right?"

He knew how important it was to Pucky to be treated as a human, and gave him his hand. The mousebeaver returned the greeting with a cheerful, almost charming gesture. "You'd better believe something's going on!" he answered importantly. "A whole lot of things are coming off. Colonel Tifflor and 14 men have taken an obsolete cruiser and gone into the Druuf Universe to tell the Druufs of an imminent attack by the Arkonide fleet." As he spoke, he narrowed his eyes-just as he had seen humans do.

Rous laughed. I don't quite understand it all," he admitted, "but surely you're going to tell me the whole story."

"Oh, of course!" Pucky a.s.sured him. "As soon as I have something to eat."

Marcel Rous made a wry expression. "Good grief!" he exclaimed. "We don't have any carrots!"

Pucky exposed his single large incisor, trying to produce something on the order of a smile. "That's alright," he said generously. "If I have to, I'll be satisfied with a can of whatever you have."

He excited good humour on all sides. Suggestions were made as to what to offer their guest and Pucky, who loved all kinds of playing, including word-games, did his part to keep the merriment going.

Meanwhile they crossed the transmitter hall and reached the section of the base where administration and personnel rooms were located, about in the middle of the complex. The entire base had been built in a gigantic mountain cavern. During that time, Pucky continually heard the chirping of the telepathic transmitter Tifflor was carrying, although the mousebeaver was hardly paying any more attention to it.

Pucky made it known that he would remain on Hades for a few days-until Tifflor's mission had been successfully carried out and the Newborn was on its way back to Earth. Pucky was shown his quarters and something to eat was brought to him there. Captain Rous gave him some company while the other men went back to their posts. Pucky took advantage of the opportunity to tell Rous what was going on out in Druuf and Einstein s.p.a.ce and what was supposed to take place in the future.

The plan was obvious enough. Rous understood it quickly. He also understood that the base on Hades, one of the inner planets of the Druufon system, would play an important role if Tifflor was in danger or even if the entire operation threatened to fall through.

While he was occupied in such thoughts and tried to foresee future developments, Pucky calmly and with the best manners demolished the contents of two cans of food. With his meal he drank water from a large cup. He paid no attention to either Rous or the chirping signal from Tifflor's transmitter. He was hungry and when he was hungry he thought of nothing but eating. Rous had almost asked too much of him by wanting to be informed of the situation before Pucky had a chance to appease his hunger.

Now that he knew everything, he ought to be quiet.

"Say," Rous began after awhile, contrary to Pucky's expectation. "What's..."

Pucky heard no more. Rous was still talking but Pucky was not listening. Something had changed. He did not know what but since he was a cautious creature by nature he tried to get to the bottom of the mystery. It was as though a clock had stopped. The ear was so used to the ticking it no longer noticed it. When the ticking stopped, the change was immediately noticeable even though one might not at first know what had happened.

The comparison with a clock took Pucky down the right track. He suddenly realized what had happened, Tifflor's chirping signal had decreased in intensity. It was not coming in regularly. It had grown weak, fading out and then fading back in. That could mean only one thing, something had happened to Tifflor!

Even before Pucky had left the Drusus by transmitter to begin his visit of several days on Hades, Rhodan had carried on a number of discussions with the Robot Regent on Arkon. The main topic of all of them was the search for the deserters' ship. The Regent wanted to know why, if the ship had been on the way to the Druuf Universe, it had not appeared in the vicinity of the overlapping zone. Rhodan explained to the Regent that there was always the possibility the deserters had slipped through unnoticed the ranks of the blockade ships while on their way to give themselves over to the Druufs.

The Regent informed his logic sector of the last possibility and received the information that slipping through the blockade front was not at all impossible for a small, inconspicuous ship. In fact, the logic sector calculated a not inconsiderable probability that such an unnoticed penetration of the lines had already been accomplished by the Terran ship in the previous few hours.

The Regent suddenly found himself facing an entirely new situation. He had been out to capture a ship manned by deserters. He was not interested either in the ship itself or in the fact its crew consisted of deserters. What the Regent wanted was information about the galactic position of Rhodan's home world Terra, and it seemed likely to him that it would be easier to get such information from deserters who had originally planned to defect to the Druufs than from war prisoners, for example, who were captured by force and who remained loyal to their home planet.

The Regent had done everything possible to block the deserters' path and now he found out that even so there was still the possibility that they had eluded him after all. That meant they were already in the Druuf Universe.

The Regent began to seriously weigh the possible effects of an invasion of Druuf s.p.a.ce. Before he had shied away from the idea. He was a capable and competent positronic mechanism but his builder had either neglected to equip him with an understanding of the mathematical-physical theory of different time rates or else had not considered it necessary. At the time the Regent was being built, the theory was just being formulated and was considered as the useless product of fantasizing mathematicians. No one believed that a situation would develop in which the theory would be useful. The theory was not thought to have any practical value at all and the Regent was not burdened with it. The result was that the Regent had no 'feeling' for the pa.s.sage of time. He was a machine, an immortal machine. He could count seconds, yes, but that meant nothing to him. He could not grasp the concept of 'time'.

Thus the Druuf problem had been incomprehensible, if not uncanny, to him from the first moment on. He had been forced to call on Perry Rhodan for help. When the overlapping front opened up, the Regent had posted a gigantic blockade fleet in front of the gap and was more or less satisfied as long as the Druufs did not succeed in forcing their way into Einstein s.p.a.ce.

In this case it was necessary to weigh two things against each other, the uncertainty about the consequences of a ma.s.sive penetration of the Druuf Universe by the Arkonide fleet, as opposed to the possibility of capturing the ship of Terran deserters and in that manner acquiring information concerning Terra's galactic position.

After several hours of calculations, the Regent decided that the second point decided the issue. a.s.suming that the Druuf danger was stemmed by the presence of the blockade fleet, there was nothing of more importance to Arkon than learning Terra's position and so having a possibility of knocking this powerful and potential enemy out of galactic politics before it was too late.

The Regent had therefore decided to send his fleet into Druuf s.p.a.ce. He was of the opinion that the most advisable course would be not to send in the entire fleet but only that portion of it commanded by Door-Trabzon.

The two Terran superbattleships, the Kublai Khan and the Drusus, still stood at the entrance to the Druuf Universe and the Regent hoped to kill two birds with one stone: learning Terra's galactic position and at the same time destroying the ship Perry Rhodan was in. That, if successful, would forever condemn Terra to galactic obscurity.