Of all this, Perry Rhodan of course knew nothing. Nothing compelled the Regent to keep his worst enemy up to date on his thoughts and plans. Rhodan could only hope that his hint that the Newborn could have slipped unnoticed through the blockade front would be enough to give the Regent ideas-even if not inspiring him to send his fleet into the Druuf Universe.

Just a few moments after Pucky disappeared in the transmitter, Rhodan learned that his calculations had been right. The Arkonide fleet was in motion, 20,000 ships were preparing to go through the overlapping front into Druuf s.p.a.ce. 20,000 ships were taking off on an adventure with uncertain consequences-and that only to capture a single Terran vessel and take its occupant's prisoner.

The alarm sounded aboard the Drusus and the Kublai Khan. The great game had begun. In a few moments the Arkonide ships would run up against the defensive front of the Druuf fleet. Rhodan's tactic's were a prime example of how through carefully chosen hints even a master of logic such as a positronic robot brain could be induced to following the will of a human being.

The only question now was whether Julian Tifflor and the Newborn would find themselves in the middle of the conflict or if they were already safe on Druufon.

Tifflor had given up the Newborn. He had done it with a heavy heart but he saw that he could do nothing else. The 12-man-crew led by Lt. Lubkov was taken on board the Druuf ship and some minutes later the Newborn was blown up according to plan.

There were two reasons for it. Tifflor was remaining on the Druuf ship so he had to bring his men over if this undertaking was to have even a slight chance of success, he needed every one of them.

On the other hand, he could not let the Newborn fall into the hands of the Druufs. No one could predict how much the Druufs would find out about Terran technology by dismantling the ship.

And so the Newborn was destroyed. Lt. Lubkov left the ship last and it was he who armed the bombs. The Newborn became a glowing white cloud of gas slowly expanding into s.p.a.ce, its luminosity fading. Half an hour after the explosion there was not the least trace of the old cruiser.

The Druufs seemed to have no objections to that action. They were probably satisfied with Tifflor's explanation that he had not come to them out of sympathy for the Druuf cause but out of hate for the Arkonides. He played the role of a man who though having acted contrary to the will of his superiors still did everything he could to protect the homeland from which he had defected.

Tifflor had developed a new plan. If his earlier intentions had proved unworkable, he still did not want to go back to Earth empty-handed. There were two things that made a certain amount of risk worthwhile: the camouflage that made Druuf ships almost invisible and the mysterious engines that enabled their ships to fly faster than light without transitions and springs through hypers.p.a.ce. Tifflor was convinced that the possession of both secrets would give the Terran Fleet technical superiority over the Arkonides.

He had been given the control room of the Druuf ship as a headquarters. A squad of Druuf robots stood ready to carry out his every order as quickly as possible and to man the equipment which he could not operate because of his unfamiliarity with Druuf technology. Since Tifflor had taken command, no more Druufs had appeared in the control room.

Tifflor understood the situation correctly. The robots were not there only to carry out or relay his orders, they also fulfilled the most important function of keeping a watch over him and his companions and preventing any misuse of the power a.s.signed them.

The fleet section, whose command Tifflor had been given, consisted of a total of 14,000 units. That was three times the total strength of the Terran Fleet As before, Tifflor was certain that it would not come to an all-out battle with the Arkonides. He had informed his men of his new plans and was waiting now for the first favourable opportunity to put his ideas in action.

Of course they were at a disadvantage now that the Newborn had been destroyed. They no longer had a s.p.a.cecraft in which they could escape when it became necessary. They could not steer a Druuf ship by themselves and the robots would refuse to do it when they became aware of what kind of game the Terrans were trying to play.

Even so, Tifflor figured he had a chance of making contact with the base on Hades and getting help from there when it was needed. The Druufs would inevitably find out sooner or later that their guests had nothing else in mind than stealing two technical secrets. At the same time they found out, there had to be a s.p.a.cecraft from Hades lying somewhere near the Druuf flagship, ready to take the 15 Terrans aboard and transport them to safety. The chances of that being so arranged were not especially large but Tifflor reasoned that the gains he might possibly make outweighed the risks he would have to take.

He knew nothing of the steps Rhodan was taking in the meantime to accelerate events, so he could not know that all his reasoning would shortly prove fruitless.

As yet he suspected nothing of the disaster rushing towards him.

The cosmos experienced a spectacle of vast proportions.

The firmament began to glow when Admiral Door-Trabzon's Arkonide fleet broke through the overlapping front. The discharge funnel, till now a dull red, half-dark figure, lit up as the break-through of 20,000 ships interrupted and dammed up the equalizing flow of pulsating energy. The universe suddenly seemed to be divided into two halves, one dark, in which the light of stars seemed only a faint glow, and one glowing yellowish red, in which the energy of eons was concentrated and beginning to shine.

It was a sight such as the galaxy had never before witnessed.

Even Perry Rhodan was impressed. He had previously calculated that the break-through of so many ships would affect the structure of the contact zone and cause a number of extraordinary effects but he had not believed that one of those effects would be so clearly visible as the bright glow of the entire overlapping front was.

It looked as though the universe had been ripped apart and through the hole one could see the fires of h.e.l.l. It was a sight that none who saw would ever forget as long as they lived.

For more than an hour the orgy of radiant brilliance endured. Then the intensity of the glow began to fade and within a few minutes sank back to its original state. The overlapping front stood once more as a dimly glowing cloud in the middle of s.p.a.ce.

Door-Trabzon's fleet had gone through Remaining behind were 20,000 ships, half the Arkonide blockade fleet, as well as the two Terran s.p.a.ceships, the Kublai Khan and the Drusus. Each of the Terran ships was powerful in its own way and abounding with energy but in case of trouble hopelessly inferior to the 20,000 Arkonide ships.

Ten minutes after Door-Trabzon's ships had disappeared, the mousebeaver Pucky returned via transmitter on board the Drusus, bearing bad tidings.

7/ UNIVERSE VS. UNIVERSE.

Tifflor was just about to familiarize himself with the technical equipment in the control room when one of the translator-equipped robots crackled: "Alien ships spotted! A large fleet of s.p.a.ceships is breaking through the overlapping front! The Arkonide attack is beginning!"

Tifflor whirled around. At first he was inclined to regard the alarm as a joke but then he realized that even the most complicated robot is, not capable of joking. In almost the same moment he saw a vidscreen on the wall below the panorama screen light up, showing uncountable, slowly moving red points on a blue background.

Tifflor was familiar with the equipment. The vidscreen was connected with a radar system and an indexing unit. The radar functioned in the usual way and the indexer decided whether a detected object was identified or not-which in this case meant whether it was friendly or unfriendly. The detected object appeared on the vidscreen as either a red or a green point, depending on the decision of the indexer, which was constantly informed of the courses of all Druuf ships. A green point was friendly, a red meant danger.

Tifflor did not waste any time wondering how the Arkonides had arrived at the idea of invading Druuf s.p.a.ce. Here they were and if he did not act quickly in his new office as a Druuf admiral, the Arkonides would overrun the Druuf fleet before even a single shot had been fired at them.

Tifflor looked a second time at the vidscreen, attempting to estimate the number of Arkonide ships.

Eight of Tifflor's 14 companions were present in the control room. The other six he had a.s.signed to flagship's gun posts and supplied them with translator-equipped robots so that they could make themselves understood and issue orders. He had thought that would be in keeping with his role. But suddenly it was not play-acting anymore. It was deadly reality.

Tifflor began to act. Now that he knew how to do it, he could read with no difficulty from the radar screen that at the moment the centre of the Arkonide fleet was nearly five light-hours away and moving at a velocity between 30,000 and 40,000 kilometres per second. The astonishingly low speed seemed to indicate to Tifflor that at the moment the Arkonides were not any too sure of themselves.

That gave the Druufs a chance.

"All ships ready to start!" Tifflor told the robot standing nearest to him.

To someone not involved in the situation, it would have looked as though the robot did not react at all. However, Tifflor knew that it was relaying the order over a sort of telecom transmitter and the commanders of the subordinate ships were receiving it in the same instant.

A bothersomely long time by Tifflor's standards pa.s.sed by before the robot reported: "All ships ready to start."

Tifflor felt obligated to clarify his battle plan. The Druuf robots possessed that fantastic ability of two-track mental performance, enabling them to listen and to relay what they heard simultaneously. Tifflor knew that there would be no additional loss of time in the relaying of his explanation.

"We'll accelerate to ultra-light speed as quickly as possible. There would be no point in approaching the Arkonide openly and clearly visible. They would be superior to us in speed and reaction capability. We'll start to brake only once the forward units of the Arkonide fleet are behind us. That way we'll appear in the middle of the Arkonide fleet. The second we appear, we open fire. The Arkonides will be surprised but since most of the ships will be robotships, the surprise will not last very long. So we'll drop our speed only slightly below that of light and thus after firing a few shots we can immediately disappear again.

"That is all. Each of you will be more or less on, your own.

"And now... let's go!"

He tried to imagine how at that moment gigantic black-skinned commanders were standing at their telecom receivers in 14,000 Druuf ships, listening to his words. He wondered if it bothered them to be taking orders from a Terran. Tifflor did not believe he would enjoy taking orders from an Arkonide but perhaps this was a different matter entirely.

The Druuf ships were outfitted with antigrav absorbers similar in effect to those in use aboard Terran ships. One did not notice that the ship was in motion. Even the picture on the panorama screen did not change. The dimly shining points that were the other ships moved in the same direction and at the same speed as one's own. The constellations stayed the same. Finally, only the bright glow of the engine showed that anything was happening.

Lt. Lubkov had already found a place at one of the control consoles at the wall. He had trouble seeing over the edge of the console counter and even more trouble operating the huge lever and switch. But he knew what function was served by the single lever and switch and just then that alone was important.

"Tell Sgt. Fryberg we're on our way," Tifflor told him. "Have him make it clear to the Druufs that they're to fire as fast as possible and keep their rate of fire that fast. Explain to him that we have about 20,000 Arkonide ships in front of us and that our very lives depend on how fast we can shoot."

"Yes sir!" Lubkov answered. Then he stretched and reached up over the edge of the console to one of the huge levers protruding from the control panel. He grasped it as high along the upward slanting rod as he could, then raised his feet from the ground so that he hung from the lever with his entire weight. It began to slowly sink and Lubkov could move his hands a bit farther up the lever. He finally had it all the way down. Tifflor could see through Lubkov's faceplate that the man had sweat on his forehead. But he was smiling.

A vidscreen outside Tifflor's range of vision lit up on the console control panel. The round head of a Druuf appeared but when it saw that a Terran had made the call it disappeared and was replaced by Sgt. Fryberg's broad face, which was red with excitement. Lubkov repeated word for word what Tifflor had said. Fryberg nodded seriously and promised: "If they all shoot as fast as we will, then the Arkonides are as good as licked already. I'm afraid the outcome won't depend on us alone, though."

Tifflor heard his answer and admitted he was right. When they emerged in the midst of the Arkonide fleet, the Druufs would begin shooting-but what then? They would need more time to aim at their targets than the Arkonide robots would need to recover from their surprise and start offering resistance.

Blast it all, anyway-what possessed the Arkonides to suddenly launch a full-scale invasion of Druuf s.p.a.ce? Tifflor had been ready to a.s.sume a considerable risk by stealing two technical secrets and delivering them to Terran scientists. It was quite another matter being on board a Druuf ship, manned by a crew needing a terrifyingly long time to react to anything, and flying on to meet a monstrously huge Arkonide fleet. It was suicide.

Tifflor reflected on it while the ship continued to accelerate and the first colourful effects of the Doppler Effect began to show up on the panorama screen. The Druuf engines were powerful. In only a few more minutes the speed would reach the critical point and the ship would leave the four-dimensional continuum. It would begin to move through a higher s.p.a.ce, yet without losing sight of the four-dimensional universe.

There was too little time and too many thoughts were storming at him at once for Tifflor to reach a definite decision on whether to continue with the present course or attempt to reach the base on Hades.

The only thing that was really clear to him was that in the original plan it had been seen to that the Druufs and Arkonides would tear each other apart. The original plan had not been workable but then that which it was supposed to accomplish had developed of itself anyway. The Arkonides were attacking and within 15 minutes a murderous s.p.a.ce battle would break out. 20,000 Arkonide ships were racing towards about twice as many Druufs. There would be losses. Entire sections of both fleets would be wiped out-just as had been provided for in the plan.

Was it somehow important that 15 Terrans had been innocently drawn into the middle of the fracas? They had a mission before them. The Druufs, of late convinced of their inferiority, would give up the battle as lost too soon and pull back. Arkonide losses would be slight. Only when the section of the fleet commanded by Tifflor proved that it was possible to successfully fight against the Arkonides would the rest of the Druuf fleet be ready to take an effective part in the battle and inflict heavy losses on the Arkonides.

No, Tifflor decided, we can't take off now. This is what we were trying to arrange all along and if we don't get out of it ourselves it still won't have cost Terra very much.

He chose not to think any more about it and directed his attention to what was happening with the ship as it accelerated at maximum power towards the critical point.

As an event it was not very impressive. The only thing that happened was a change of colour on the panorama screen. The deep red disappeared, replaced by a cloudy black against which the stars shone harshly.

The Druuf ship had left the four-dimensional universe and was speeding at a velocity greater than light towards its intended meeting with the Arkonide fleet. The sight of the enemy ships-the red points on the radar screen-bad not changed. The radarscope functioned independently of the medium in which the ship moved.

Tifflor felt more at ease. He had antic.i.p.ated the effect differently, as something more obvious and more disquieting. He had believed that he would have to command a ship whose course he could not watch and whose guidance he would have to leave to the alien robots. Just the fact he could see where he was going seemed to him a meaningful advantage.

On the radar screen the flood of red points came closer with dizzying speed. Tifflor tried to guess what the first manoeuvre of the Arkonides could be when they saw the enemy s.p.a.ceships appear in their midst but his thoughts ran chaotically through his mind. He was not able to concentrate.

He glanced at Lt. Lubkov, who responded with a calm, considered smile.

At that moment the intercom sounded.

It was Fryberg on the line again. "I don't know if it's still important, sir," he said to Lubkov, "but near his gun port Cpl. Mainland discovered a lifeboat hanger. The hangar is..."

"No," Lubkov interrupted, "it isn't important anymore."

With one step Tifflor stood in front of the high console. "Keep talking, Sergeant!" he ordered before Fryberg could switch off. "This interests me."

Fryberg swallowed and continued. "There's a huge lifeboat there in the hangar, sir. Mainland cautiously asked a robot about it and found out that it's kept constantly ready for takeoff. A Druuf sits in the c.o.c.kpit and keeps watch. He functions as a pilot when the boat's used. And... the boat probably has the ultra-light drive, sir."

Tifflor threw a quick glance at the radar screen. He estimated that it would be no more than a few seconds before the Druuf ships began to brake and open fire.

"Tell Mainland not to worry about it anymore," he said. "We'll take care of it. Tell all the men on the quiet that we'll take off with the lifeboat when things get sticky here. Lubkov or I will give the order. No one is to do anything on their own. Understood?"

"Understood, sir," Fryberg answered calmly and switched off.

Tifflor turned. He had made an effort to talk in a low voice and it seemed that the robots were too busy with their task of braking the ship and emerging back into the four-dimensional universe at the right point in time to pay attention to anything else. He waited a few moments and when none of the robots moved he turned to Ras Tschubai the teleporter, who had been sitting obediently on the floor.

"Tschubai, this is your job!" he said rapidly in a low voice. "Take Noir with you. He's to try to put the pilot under his control."

Andre Noir the suggestor had been leaning comfortably against the wall by the main hatch. When he heard his name spoken, he came over. "I can't guarantee that it'll work, sir," Noir pointed out. "Druufs have a completely alien brain."

"Try it anyway!" Tifflor told him. "No more discussion now. Hold on tight to Tschubai!"

Noir obeyed. He placed himself in front of Ras Tschubai, put his arms around his neck and allowed Tschubai to wrap his arms around his body. The African closed his eyes and a moment later both of them were gone as if dissolved into thin air.

Tifflor hoped the pair would reach their goal without incident. He turned his attention to the robots once more. Just then one of the mechanical beings faced him and declared with a metallic voice: "The time has come. The battle can begin!"

At the same time the dark red sky of the Druuf Universe lit up again on the vidscreens. Between the brightly shinning stars stood the dimly glimmering light-points of the Arkonide ships.

They were like a swarm of gra.s.shoppers-an enormously huge number.

"Open fire!" Tifflor shouted. "And keep shooting!"

One of the robots translated his words into the inaudible Druuf language. Tifflor kept his gaze trained on the vidscreen and waited with hammering pulse for the first light flashes. And they came!

Not far from the Druuf ship, a glaring sun lit up. A blue-white fireball came into being, growing in a matter of seconds to the size of the full moon disc, and dissolved in an expanding cloud of gas. A second fireball appeared nearby, reaching its peak of brightness when the first had dissipated.

Suddenly the dark red universe was filled with harsh, deadly lights. The Druuf fleet ploughed furrows of death through the ranks of the Arkonide invaders. The ray fingers of energy bursts reached invisibly towards the enemy, caught him and turned him into nuclear torches. Death and destruction were the order of the day in the Arkonide ranks. In a matter of minutes Arkon lost more than 8,000 ships.

Then the Arkonides adjusted to the new situation. They knew the positions of their enemies and their central positronicons had recognized that only an immediate counterattack would save the Arkonide fleet from total destruction.

They shot back. Fireb.a.l.l.s lit up that were not destroyed Arkonide ships but Druuf ships that had suffered direct hits.

Tifflor ordered a retreat. The Druuf ships accelerated once more, following a course that ran perpendicular at an acute angle to their original path and which carried them across the Arkonide front lines. About 12 minutes after they first appeared, the Druufs vanished again. During those same 12 minutes they had lost around 2,000 of their own ships.

Tifflor sighed in relief. The first blow had been successful. He knew that the rest of the Druuf fleet would not have the courage to undertake a similar move against the Arkonides. They knew how it was done: appear, shoot and disappear.

Even so, it was hard to say in whose favour the shooting would be. On the second attack the Arkonides would not need any three minutes to recover from their surprise and it had been observed that they were able to fire more quickly and more concentrated than the Druufs.

Tifflor allowed the ships to a.s.semble again after being widely scattered by the battle. On the vidscreens showing the cloudy black background of super-s.p.a.ce, the last glowing traces of destroyed ships could be seen, interspersed with small, faintly luminous gas clouds.

Tifflor decided to risk another attack. From the movement of the red points on the radar screen, it was clear that the Arkonides had not at all given up their intention to invade the Druuf Universe. Moving in a straight line, the ships were heading directly from the overlapping zone onwards towards the centre of the Druufon system. Their speed had increased. The Arkonides' velocity was now about 80,000 kilometres per second.

The Druufs did not make any objections to a renewed attack. Tifflor held his part of the fleet in a waiting position until the points lighting up on the panorama screen showed that the rest of the Druuf fleet had now begun to attack.

Only then did he let his ships, strike. Hard and unhesitating, as before.

He was almost too late. As his fleet emerged from super-s.p.a.ce in a sharp braking manoeuvre and started to take part in the battle, the dark red universe was shining with the harsh light of thousands of artificial suns. More than three-quarters of the fireb.a.l.l.s had once been Druuf ships, for the slowness of their crews had been their ruin.

But Tifflor's Rank attack gained time. The Arkonide fleet, attacked from two sides at once by a superior force, ripped apart and splintered into small groups. No longer were the Arkonides able to concentrate the fire of 10 or more ships on a single target and destroy its defence field on the first salvo. The Druufs were given a breathing s.p.a.ce and the uncertainty that had befallen them with their first losses disappeared.

Tifflor's ship worked together with about 50 other Druuf ships against an isolated group of 40 Arkonide vessels. Tifflor knew that he was thereby running a risk. If the Arkonides were able to concentrate the fire of only 10 ships on a single Druuf ship, then the Druuf was lost.

And if that first target happened to be his own ship the Earth would not find out anything of the Druufs' hyperlight-drive in the foreseeable future.