"We were talking about Monterny's mutants. They've already been alerted."

"That's right. Our radarite Tanaka Seiko has intercepted the thought message sent out by the mutant master and also his subsequent telecast. Tanaka located each of the receiving stations and drew a sketch. Here it is.

Rhodan took the piece of paper and studied the drawing. It reminded him of a spider's web. In the middle, at the focal point, sat the supermutant. Innumerable lines were spreading out from this centre in all directions. These lines led to the respective mutants and agents. Rhodan's men were already on their way to each of Monterny's men.

"Excellent," Rhodan said. "This will effectively isolate the mutant master. He no longer will be able to count on a.s.sistance from the outside."

"I doubt this will matter greatly to him. Don't forget Tifflor's report. His prisoner was talking about Mars. I'm afraid that Monterny has at some time added another base to his wide-flung network, a base on Mars."

"Right now he's still sitting here on Earth and that's where we'll get him and finish him off. I've never been so determined to stamp out an opponent utterly." Rhodan's voice had a.s.sumed a steel-like quality. "The mutant master is the declared enemy of all mankind. He wants to unite all men but under his iron rule. The ultimate world dictator."

"We'll ruin his plan for him, you can rely on that," promised Bell and glanced at his watch. "Our shock troops should have reached Monterny's ranch by now. They should be in the vicinity. I wonder why we didn't get any report from them?"

"They may have run into difficulties. In any case, we won't wait much longer now, we'll start the action very soon. If possible I want our men to take Monterny alive."

Bell's eyes resembled good-sized saucers. "Why? In order to imprison him? He'll get away again and then the whole chase will start all over. No, if we catch him, I'm in favour of wiping him out for good."

"I'm thinking of his mutants," demurred Rhodan. "I'm convinced they know just as little about their master's despicable deeds as Tatjana did."

"But aren't they committing some crimes, even if they obey their master?"

"They are acting under duress, Reggie. They believe they are acting for a good and just cause. Well, we'll soon enough find out for ourselves..."

The door to the command centre opened. "A report from Utah," exclaimed the radioman excitedly. "They want to talk to you, Mr. Rhodan."

Bell arrived at the communication centre even faster than Perry Rhodan. Pucky waddled behind them at a leisurely pace.

"This is Wuriu Sengu speaking," came a voice from the loudspeaker after Rhodan had given the pa.s.sword. Sengu was the j.a.panese 'scout', the seer of the mutant corps. He could see through solid matter and discover any object he wanted to find even behind steel walls. "I'm not quite two miles from Monterny's farm house. I managed to land and creep toward the house unnoticed. Everything seems quiet inside the house itself. I can't locate a living soul in it. But under the ground there's a lot going on. An unbelievable system of defence installations. Long corridors with branch pa.s.sages and innumerable closets. Provisions, armouries, living quarters. Freight elevators for all kinds of guns and cannons. The supermutant has entrenched himself in some kind of a command centre and is busy preparing for the defence of his realm. He must have been warned by somebody."

"By whom?"

"Perhaps Seiko can tell us. He's listening to their conversations but I have no contact with him."

Rhodan deliberated for a few seconds. "Fine, Sengu. Keep up your observations. Try to establish communication with the other mutants, especially with Seiko. Let us know when something new happens. We'll attack in exactly 30 minutes. Keep in the background and intervene only after the main danger is over. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, sir."

Rhodan pulled himself up to his full height. "I'll direct the attack from the auxiliary vessel Good Hope V."

Bell reacted in astonishment. "From the Guppy?" he wondered. "And what am I supposed to do with the Stardust?"

"Watch out that nothing goes wrong, my friend," Rhodan comforted him. "You keep off to the side and make sure that this scoundrel doesn't get away from us. Don't forget he has still at least two destroyers that can travel at the speed of light. He stole three from us; one was destroyed. One is probably located on Mars. That leaves one. And this is the one you have to watch out for."

"Me too?" chirped Pucky. He didn't look too pleased.

"You too!" Rhodan rea.s.sured the little fellow. Then he turned to Bell and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm glad that we didn't bring our Arkonide friends along for this action. Thora and Khrest are not in favour of war-like activities. They regard them as barbarian manifestation of violence."

"They aren't too far off, I'd say."

Rhodan smiled wryly, "No argument from me, Reg, but can you suggest an alternate solution in this case?"

Bell did not reply; there was none to make. The two men, accompanied by Pucky their trusty follower, returned to the command centre. Here Bell took over the command of the Stardust while Rhodan hurried to the antigravelevators that would take him to the hangars where he would take care of getting the Good Hope V ready for action.

Five minutes later the s.p.a.cesphere with a diameter of 180 feet left the gigantic Stardust and quickly descended into the Earth's atmosphere. The nine destroyers followed in military formation.

The a.s.sault on the headquarters of the supermutant was about to begin.

4/ FLIGHT OF THE MUTANT MASTER.

Hardly had Monterny's direction-finders registered the arrival of the s.p.a.cesphere and set off the alarm than Rhodan completed his landing manoeuvres. Only at the very last moment did he brake the scorching descent. The Good Hope V was still vibrating on her telescoped supports, hardly 600 feet away from the low flat farm building, when the mutant master opened fire on them.

Out of more than 20 gun barrels roared the flames, over several yards in length, hurling deadly explosive projectiles with terrific impact. The projectiles flew in a straight line toward the Good Hope V and detonated on the protective screen which had meanwhile been erected obtaining its energy from the inexhaustible Arkonide reactors. It was a pyrotechnical display never before witnessed by any person living in this quiet landscape in the rocky mountains. Untouched, unscathed by this horrific onslaught stood the s.p.a.cesphere behind its energy field. It waited.

The automatically controlled defence installations of the mutant master shot off over 500 missiles before the electronic brain realized how useless this procedure actually was. The type of bombardment changed. The mechanical conveyor exchanged the explosive heads of the projectiles. The electronic brain had decided to use atomic weapons.

Rhodan had counted on that. He knew that the protective screen could handle this load by neutralizing it. But the deployment of atomic weapons was an indication that the supermutant had no other means at his disposal now. This was the beginning of the end.

Rhodan waited three to four minutes until a short fire interval occurred. In the meantime he had sufficient opportunity to ascertain the position of the cannons. Their barrels protruded from the bare rock and could in no time disappear beneath the ground where they would be una.s.sailable. If he wished to put these guns out of action he had to act fast.

The fighter robots were ready to be used in battle. The soldiers of the New Power, superbly trained for defensive actions, were feverishly waiting in the large freight lock of the Good Hope V. The rest of the mutant corps were impatiently hoping for the go-signal. They alone had some inkling that the final battle could be fought exclusively on a mental level.

Mutants versus mutants!

All the s.p.a.ceship's available disintegrator cannons were pointed at their targets, ready and waiting. In the instant that Rhodan would cause the energy field to collapse they would discharge their ruinous flood of all-vaporizing rays and annihilate the target. Each crystal-line structure would cease to exist.

Rhodan had waited for the short fire-pause. This was one of the shortcomings of a mechanically guided installation, that the various artillery pieces could not be dealt with individually. When they all were silent or had to be exchanged, not a single one was ready to shoot.

The protective energy screen of the Good Hope V collapsed.

The same second eight or nine hardly discernible ray-beams shot out of the concave mantle and found their goal. Soil and rocks changed within the fraction of a second into a boiling, vapouring ma.s.s in which the steel cannons were floating about and melting away like so many pats of b.u.t.ter in a frying pan.

Now the ray-beams swung round and aimed at their next objectives. Before the electronic brain of the mutant master's defence installations managed to register the disaster, all the cannons except for two had been disabled. And both these cannons sank through the softened ground into the subterranean shafts. This merely saved them from instantaneous destruction. The energy fingers emerging from the mighty rayguns of the Good Hope V melted the exits of the shafts at ground level, forming a gla.s.s-like, extremely hard glaze which sealed the pit-mouths absolutely airtight. This eliminated all artillery pieces that the supermutant could have deployed against Rhodan and his men.

And this is what they had been waiting for.

The alarm signal was resounding in shrill tones throughout the ship. Hatches opened. Out of one, a wide ramp descended at a slant toward the ground. Seconds later, twenty Arkonide fighter robots were advancing steadily toward the farm house, nestled among towering trees. The house contained the entrance to the super-mutant's underground fortress. Their left arms were held at an angle. They had no left hands. In their place was a conical-shaped opening which tapered off at the end.

They were followed by the soldiers, armed with handy pulse-ray guns and automatic weapons. Gas grenades were dangling from their belts.

Rhodan had remained in the command centre and watched on an observation screen the various phases of the attack. For the time being he didn't dare deploy his mutants; they formed, so to speak, his reserves.

The picture screens had been co-ordinated in such a fashion that Rhodan was sitting in a gla.s.s house. Nothing could be missed by him this way. And thus he was the first to recognize the mutant master's counter measures, which soon became generally noticeable to a disastrous extent.

Clifford Monterny was staring in a blind rage at the controls of his automatically guided cannons. The electronic brain no longer reacted. The needles on the dials pointed to Zero. All his artillery pieces had been cancelled out.

But if Rhodan were to believe that he had won the battle, he was sadly mistaken.

Although Clifford Monterny had counted on instantly finishing off any attacker with the concentrated fire of his 20 heavy guns, he had nevertheless calculated the eventuality that he might fail in it. This is where his small but slavishly devoted mutant army came in.

His hands turned a dial on the intercom set. A screen lit up and the head of a Caucasian became visible.

"Roster Deegan," said the supermutant, "summon all the other mutants for immediate action. Especially the telekineticists. Rhodan is attacking us with his robots. Under no circurnstances must they reach the house. Come here to the command centre and direct from here our counterattack."

Two minutes later Monterny's Telekins entered the fray.

The robots were marching straight ahead, followed by the soldiers.

They had covered about half the distance that had separated them from the house initially. There were another hundred yards till they would reach the farm house, across dried out meadows with occasional groups of trees. Over to one side was a heap of neatly stacked wood logs. The landscape looked peaceful now; there was nothing out of the usual to be seen.

But impressions can be very deceiving.

Rhodan was sitting in the command centre of the Good Hope V, manning the controls and waiting for further developments. Granted, the defence weapons of the enemy had been silenced, but Monterny had not yet been defeated. A man who has set out to conquer and rule the world does not give up after the first try. He has many aces up his sleeve.

Rhodan wondered what his: next manoeuvre might bring.

The front row of the advancing fighter robots suddenly stopped in their tracks as if they had run into some solid obstacle, an invisible wall. One of the machine men began to stagger, lost his balance and fell flat on his back. He made no attempt to get up. The others-Rhodan couldn't believe his eyes-were lifted off the ground and rose slowly up in the air, hesitantly, in an irregular fashion. Then they started to twist and twirl around their own axis, finally drifting to one side.

Several of the robots began to shoot wildly in all directions. The recoil from their pulse-ray guns pushed them in the opposite direction. They were turning rapidly like pinwheels, sending forth deadly fingers of energy, and drifted back to the ground where a part of their number was rendered harmless by the soldiers.

The second row of robots became the victim of a more skilfully executed a.s.sault. Monterny's mutants learned fast. The five robots, marvels of electronics, were hurled through the air by some uncanny force, then slammed violently against the quickly activated protective screen surrounding the Good Hope V. Their limp figures crashed to the ground where they remained motionless. Their sensitive inner workings couldn't stand up to such ruthless treatment and tremendous stresses.

But even before the third row of the robots could be incapacitated, something took place which Rhodan had halfway expected.

The soldiers of his little army suddenly began to behaving very strangely. Some of the men sat down on the gra.s.s, put their dangerous weapons carelessly on the ground next to them and started to unpack their K-rations. Apparently they planned to have a picnic before continuing their mission!

Telekineticist and hypnos, thought Rhodan in mild desperation. Anyhow, Monterny's mutants displayed a certain sense of humour, otherwise they would have ordered these soldiers to kill each other off.

Rhodan prepared instantly for a counter-blow. Its success would depend on whether the supermutant himself had carried out this action or his mutants had. According to Rhodan's experiences to this moment, Monterny was the only living mutant who could repel the effects of the psychobeamers.

Now John Marshall the telepath gave a signal to Tatjana. The young Russian girl, filled with zeal to make up for her previous mistakes, jumped out of the hatch of the Good Hope V and ran down the slanting ramp as fast as her legs would carry her. She carried a silver rod in her hand, which she pointed in a direction that clearly indicated how familiar she must be with the underground headquarters of Monterny. She held the rod at a wide angle, pointing at a spot left and front of the house.

Rhodan watched Tatjana on the picture screen. He enlarged the image and could almost read her thoughts from the expression on her face. But John Marshall was able to directly enter her mind and learn from the source what mental commands she was issuing.

Her endeavours were crowned by success in barely one minute. It was amazing to witness what was taking place.

The robots who were still floating in the air lost their invisible support and fell to the ground. Most got quickly back on their feet again. As if nothing had happened, they continued advancing on the house, firing steadily out of their left weapon-arms and shortly reducing the building to a smouldering rubble heap.

The feasting soldiers abruptly stopped their little snack, stared dumbfounded for the fraction of a second at their opened tin cans, dropped everything, seized their weapons and ran after the marching robots.

Tatjana stooped for a moment, the while making sure that Monterny's mutants could no longer exert any influence on their attackers. She realized, however, that the most difficult and dangerous task was still ahead of her. Of course, she didn't know all the details of the mutant master's headquarters, and she had no idea how many people were housed here underground in the pa.s.sages and chambers hewn from the rock, but she guessed that Monterny would have ready a few more tricks for an unpleasant welcome for his attackers.

She had to find a way of persuading one of the mutants to open the second access route to the underground fortress. She was sure she would be able to manage that with the help of the psychray.

Robots and soldiers came to a halt in front of the smoking ruins of the farmhouse. There was nothing for them to do here. Supposing the entrance to the subterranean labyrinth had been inside the destroyed farmhouse, it was unusable. n.o.body could now enter or exit.

Tatjana loosened slightly the screening block around her brain to permit her to absorb the thoughts of other people. She concentrated on the familiar thought pattern of the supermutant and tried to establish communication with him. At the same time she kept her psychobeam pointing constantly in the direction of Monterny's command centre; she was ready at any moment to close the block screen once more around her brain.

And then Monterny's voice, weakened to some extent by the residual protective barrier around her brain, was suddenly inside her head. "Tatjana, you've disobeyed my orders and betrayed our good cause. You've joined the camp of the most despicable enemy of all mankind and..."

"Enough!" Tatjana concentrated and flung back a denial. She felt fortified by the knowledge that John Marshall could 'hear' her and would transmit the entire conversation directly to Perry Rhodan. "All you say and all your work consists of empty phrases which serve to hide your true motive: violence. I've seen through you, Clifford Monterny. You have abused my idealism."

"You fool!" countered the supermutant without attempting to influence Tatjana with his hypnotic suggestions. He knew better: she was impervious to his powers. "You haven't a chance of overcoming my mutants."

"Rhodan's weapons are superior, Monterny. His mutants are far more capable than yours and he also has more of them. Give up!"

A wave of soundless, derisive laughter raced through Tatjana's and Marshall's brains.

"Give up?" mocked the supermutant. "When I give up, the whole world will perish along with me. If Rhodan is to rule over the Earth, then it will be a world without human beings."

"Thanks," Tatjana thought calmly. "You have just spoken your own death warrant. Just try and give a command to your mutants now. We'll see who is the stronger-you or us."

"Hold on," begged the mutant master maliciously. "It's to your advantage to wait. Perhaps you'll succeed in influencing my mutants. But your psychray has no power over me. n.o.body can prevent me from issuing a command to my agents the whole world over who have been waiting to carry out their well-planned actions."

"Possibly," countered Tatjana. "But it won't do you much good to issue these commands; you won't be able to establish contact any longer with your agents. They've already been arrested and rendered harmless by the Security Services of the New Power. Don't forget that Rhodan, too, controls a most powerful mutant corps."

Monterny's thought-curse was more execrable than any spoken words. He betrayed his impotence. And it also told Rhodan that his opponent's strength had been broken. If only they would succeed now in penetrating the underground fortress- Tatjana didn't waste any time. Her probing thoughts sought and found those of Roster Deegan. a.s.sisted by the psychobeamer she gave him the urgent order: "Roster, open the emergency exit!"

Monterny could feel that Tatjana was now turning away from him to take up connection with his telekineticist. He guessed what she wanted from him and decided to use this opportunity to put to a test who really was the stronger of the two.

Being a telepath he understood the command she gave Roster. But since he was not only a telepath but a hypno he simply issued a counter-command.

Undecided, Roster stopped in mid-motion: slowly he resumed his seat. The supermutant was stronger than the psychray! Monterny felt triumphant-till abruptly Roster rose again from his chair. Slowly he walked to the door and out into the corridor.

For a moment Monterny stared after him, perplexed, then he cursed and applied his hypnotic power once more and with greater effort. But he noticed at once that his efforts were met by an intensive resistance which he couldn't overcome. He didn't know that meanwhile Andre Noir, Rhodan's hypno, had combined his forces with Tatjana's. Supported by Tatjana's psychobeamer he, Andre Noir, was superior to the supermutant.