Perry Rhodan Lemuria 1: Ark of the Stars (15 page)

"An improved snapshot, in other words."

"Yes. As for the rest ... You know there is no planetary secret in the galaxy I cannot penetrate. But I can't get through to this thing. They've got a damned good hyperdetection shield."

"I consider that unlikely," Rhodan said.

The Immortal spoke just loudly enough to be heard above the excited murmur of the bridge crew. Everyone turned at once to look at him.

The man had a sense of timing. And presence to spare. Even after observing the Immortal for the weeks he'd spent on board the
Palenque,
Alemaheyu still didn't know how Rhodan commanded attention so easily, with so little fuss—but he swore to himself that he would find out. And once he had succeeded, then ... then he would more often have the pleasure of people listening to him. He didn't want any more than that. After all, he already had the best job in the universe.

Sharita's expression made it clear that she would like to ignore Rhodan's interjection, but that was impossible.

"And why is that? Would you perhaps be ready to share your Immortal wisdom with us?"

"There's not a great deal to share."

How could he tolerate Sharita's aggressive tone so calmly? Alemaheyu always lost his cool at some point and snapped back.

Rhodan pointed to the holo. "That ship is rotating along the long axis. There is only one explanation for that: the rotation is the source of centrifugal force, which provides gravity to the ship. It's a primitive but foolproof method. But anyone forced to produce artificial gravity by rotation most assuredly isn't capable of the higher-dimensional technology needed to baffle our hyperdetector."

Pearl Laneaux chimed in. "According to my calculations and assuming that the optical data is correct, I estimate a gravitational strength of one and a half gs in the outer sections."

"I guess that sounds reasonable. We'll accept that estimate as a working hypothesis. And how do you explain the failure of the hyperdetector, Perry?"

"I don't have an explanation. At the moment."

"You don't have a—"

Rhodan held Sharita's cutting gaze. "But I can tell you who must be on board on that ship. I took the liberty of going through all the visual data that Pearl's investigation teams transmitted to the ship's syntron from the interior of the wreck."

"How? You don't have any authorized access to the syntron whatsoever!"

"What? I didn't know that." Rhodan's attitude was the ultimate in innocence.

Way to go, buddy!
Alemaheyu thought.
Let her have it!

"I would never attempt to procure unauthorized access to data. You must have made an error in the allocation of access rights."

Sharita began to protest, but Rhodan spoke over the beginning of her diatribe. "But that doesn't matter. Mistakes happen, right? At the moment, the important thing is what I stumbled across. The teams found lettering on the walls in several places where they removed the ice layer, and there was enough to confirm my initial suspicion. The lettering is in Lemurian."

"Lemurian!" Sharita needed a moment to absorb it. "But ... that would mean that thing out there has been under way for fifty thousand years. Or longer!"

"Yes," Rhodan agreed. "We—"

"Hyperdetection!" Omer interrupted him.

"Hyperspace exit at ninety light-seconds distance!"

"Put it on the screen!"

The holo of the mysterious cylinder ship collapsed. When it reformed, it showed a different ship: a spherical shape, flattened poles, extended weapon turrets.

Sharita was the first to find her voice again. "Didn't I say it from the start? Akonians!"

When Denetree awoke the next morning, she was alone in the house. She went from one room to the next without finding Launt or even a note from him. Denetree tried not to worry—she hoped Launt was out trying to fulfill her request—and to her surprise, she actually succeeded.

Her surroundings were too strange, too unreal. Four rooms! She spent several minutes just going from room to room to room, as if she had to convince herself that the house really existed. Never before had she met anyone who had sole possession of a whole room, to say nothing of an entire house. The houses of the metach'ton belonged to the community. Each room housed three, four, or even five people, and who slept with whom in which room was always changing, depending on personal feelings and the outcomes of the power struggles that constantly seethed under the surface of every Metach'ton.

Now and then she stopped at one of the windows and looked out. A wall surrounded the house and protected its inhabitant from curious glances. Denetree saw her bicycle leaning against the house. She wanted to go outside and check to make sure it was in working order—not because she doubted that it was, but from a need to feel something familiar in her hands. But she resisted; there might be some way she wasn't aware of to see into the courtyard from outside.

She ended her restless wandering in the most wonderful of the rooms: the kitchen. Launt had his own kitchen: he wasn't forced to eat in the Metach'ton's community kitchens! He could be by himself! She looked through the cabinets and found several doughcakes and some vegetables. She hesitated for a moment: this food wasn't for her! but in the end hunger overpowered her reluctance. She gulped down all six doughcakes and would have eaten more if she could.

It felt good to be full, but an undercurrent of fear mixed quickly with the sense of being pleasantly stuffed: had the condemned prisoner just eaten her last meal?

It was a miracle that Launt had saved her from the Tenoy. A miracle that could not last. Tenarch or no, even Launt's power was limited. Sooner or later, the Ship would track down Denetree, even if she stayed with the Tenarch. Denetree needed another miracle.

She heard the door opening.

"Denetree!" Launt called in a low voice. "Don't be afraid, it's me!"

She ran into the front room. "Where were you so long? Did you find it?"

Launt hung his jacket on a wall hook and pulled a small box from his pocket. "Duties," he said. "And this took me some time. As a Tenarch, it's easy to do most things, but even for me it was hard to just show up at a Metach'ton and tap on the walls looking for hiding places."

She took the box from him. "How did you manage it?"

"The old Respect for Authority routine. The Naahk sent one of his advisers to make sure that the hard-working metach didn't want for anything. To guarantee impartiality, the Tenarch naturally insisted on not being disturbed during his inspection."

"Naturally!" Denetree laughed and hugged the box tightly to her chest. A part of her observed her behavior suspiciously—there wasn't anything to laugh about!—and noticed that Launt's good mood seemed forced. The Tenarch was pale and appeared tired. After he gave her the box, he began to continually rub his hands together. They went into the kitchen. Denetree put the box down in front of her, picked up a knife and prepared to cut the twine wrapped around the box.

"Denetree," Launt said, "you can't stay here."

"I know." She couldn't stay anywhere on board. That was clear to her. But she wasn't worried. She had her gift from Venron, and her brother would not leave her in the lurch.

"The Tenoy arrested a member of your group."

"Who?" Her confidence had a hole torn in it.

"Mika. She lost her nerve at a checkpoint."

Mika? She had always seemed to Denetree as one of the strongest of the Star Seekers.

"What happened to her?"

"She ... " Launt swallowed. "She betrayed the rest of the group."

"I don't believe it! Mika would never—"

Launt shook his head. "She did. Believe me."

Denetree didn't want to accept it. She grasped the knife more tightly in her hand, cut the twine and opened the box.

Surprised, she froze in the middle of the movement.

"What is it? What's in the box?"

She reached in, picked up the tiny item and showed it to Launt.

"An arm chip?"

"He knew that he would put me in danger. His sister Denetree would not be allowed to live. Venron's gift is a new life for me." She stared at the wafer-thin chip that rested on two of her fingertips.
A new identity. Was it possible?

"May I?" Launt asked. She let him take the arm chip. He disappeared with it into an adjacent room and came back with a hand scanner. "Don't worry," he reassured her when she suddenly stiffened. "It isn't connected to the Net. The computer in this house has ... how should I say this ... has taken leave from the Ship's Net for a while."

Launt read the chip, whistling appreciatively as he read the data on the display. For the first time since he had come into the house, it seemed to Denetree that he was relaxed.

"Well, it was an honor for me to have had you as a guest,
Danque
," he said to Denetree. "But now it's time that you went on your way. The members of your new Metach'ton are anxiously waiting for the reinforcement they've requested! What are you waiting for, Danque?"

When the massive hatch slid to the side and opened the way for Solina Tormas to step into the control center of the
Las-Toór,
the historian had to force her feet to move forward.

It was the first time that she had been allowed to enter the innermost section of the research ship. The other Yidari had made it clear that a person as insignificant as she had no business there. Solina had made the best of the insult, telling herself that she didn't have any reason to go into the control center anyway. What was really there to see? The same people she saw in the mess and in the corridors, except that they would be busy acting important with their instruments.

But when Solina actually saw the control center, she frankly admitted that she had consoled herself with a white lie in order to maintain her otherwise shattered spirits.

The control center was overwhelming.

The historian in her had seldom seen a more meaningful example of the pronounced hierarchical thinking of Akonian society. The control center of the
Las-Toór
had a circular base, over which a domed ceiling arched. In the middle on a raised platform sat the maphan, the commander, Jere von Baloy. At an angle to his left was the place of the Keven, the pilot, and to his right was that of the Ma-Techten, the first officer. The platform was oversized, taking up nearly half the floor space. Around the command platform was a mid-level ring of work stations seating the most important members of the control center crew: the Therso, weapons control officer; the Davron, hyperdetection officer; the Espejel, comm officer; and the Heroth, chief engineer. All stations were circular, but the consoles—and thus the attention of those who worked at them—were directed toward the maphan. Finally, in a third, outer ring on the lowest level of the control center floor, were work stations available to be used by the ship's various Yidari. Solina could see that all but one were all occupied.

The child in Solina, the curious little girl who had made her what she was now, looked past the hierarchy that was literally cast in steel. The walls and dome of the control center were entirely covered by a holo.

It showed hyperspace.

At least Solina thought that was what she was looking at. There were no stars, none of the unrelenting blackness that for her defined space. Instead, she saw a rainbow of sluggishly intertwining colors. It was as though hyperdimensional space consisted of heavy, multi-colored sand that under the influence of an invisible force twisted, mixed, swirled—and somehow continuously escaped her. Each time Solina focused on a single point she lost her perception, and when she squinted to compensate for the effect the point vanished. She could have spent days hypnotized by the spell of hyperspace.

"Solina!" the maphan called from his platform. "Instead of standing there like you've never seen hyperspace before, why don't you report?"

"I ... uh ... was just about to."

"Very good."

The screens and instruments of the only empty work station in the lower ring woke to life, and the blue glow of the indicators mixed with the iridescence of hyperspace.

"There is your work station," Jere von Baloy pointed. "Please sit down."

Solina did as he told her, then looked at the maphan. Looked up at him, since the arrangement of the control center did not allow otherwise.

Jere von Baloy turned away and exchanged some words with the Keven, who accordingly adjusted the course vector. What could he want from her? Solina had difficulty judging him. Just the "von" in his name and the fact that he was the commander of the
Las-Toór
should have created an unbridgeable gulf between him and Solina. But somehow, it didn't. Since their departure from Drorah, the maphan had not worn his uniform even once.

Mostly he went around in dirty overalls that could have belonged to any neelak maintaining the smallest auxiliary craft.

The maphan wasn't particularly concerned about rank, even though he had spent his entire adult life working within a ranked system—and successfully, too, as his position showed.

According to everything she knew about him, Jere von Baloy was closer to her mental outlook than anyone else on board the
Las-Toór.
Or was that just wishful thinking? The maphan had yet to indicate by a single syllable or gesture that there was any special understanding between them.

"Take a look at this," Jere's voice said from her console. A holo took shape in front of her. It showed a pixilated, gray-toned flickering. By making an effort, Solina thought she could make out a cylinder-shaped form that seemed to appear for just a moment.

"What is that?" she asked. "And what should I do with it?"

"The hyperdetector picked up that image, but that's the best resolution it can give us," the commander explained to her. "It's the destination of our ultra-light jump. And I believe this object will be of interest to you."

"Why? What makes you think that?"

She didn't get an answer. Solina looked up. Jere von Baloy had turned away and was now speaking with the Therso, who with the ease of long practice was checking the readiness of the ship's weaponry. The maphan appeared disinclined to waste another moment of his valuable time on Solina.