Power Key - K. H. Scheer

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Perry Rhodan 086 Power Key #78 1/ ATLAN HEADS HOME THE ALIEN was tall, slim
and well developed. The reddish brown skin of his thin face indicated that he
was a Zalite: a descendant of those Arkonides who many thousands of years ago
emigrated to the planetary system of the red star Voga, only 3.14 light-years
from Arkon, and settled on the fourth planet. As time passed, the skin and
hair colour of the Zalites had changed but they had nonetheless remained
purebred Arkonides. "Breheb-Toor...!" called the tall man with a penetrating,
commanding voice. 200 colonial Arkonides, Zalites like the officer up front,
seemed to have become electrified. The turning of so many bodies was so exact
and precise that it seemed to be the result of electronic steering with the
most sophisticated automatic equipment. The commanding officer turned.
Stiffly and with short steps, he came towards me. On the breast of his
blue-grey uniform shone the emblem of the Great Imperium: three planets
circling a shining star. The dark face was half-covered by the broad
equatorial rim of the regulation service communications helmet he wore. I saw
only the grey eyes, the narrow nose and the firm mouth. He stopped exactly
three steps away from me. His report followed, given in pure Arkonese,
although the light Zalitish accent was not to be overlooked. During the
report he held his balled right fist pressed against the left chest where it
joined the shoulder. There was nothing to be seen that would have betrayed to
an observer that this space officer was in reality a Terran. No one-not even
the 50 genuine Zalites within the ranks of our commando team-could conclude
that the First Officer of the brand new Arkonide battleship Kon-Velete, and
Perry Rhodan, First Administrator of the Solar Imperium, were one and the
same. Those individuals aware of the situation were also well aware of the
necessity to hold their tongues about it. In accordance with the ancient
custom, I also pressed my right hand against my left chest and thanked the
officer. Behind the men lined up in their ranks, the huge spherical body of
the 800-meter spacer Kon-Velete rose high into the sparsely cloud-flecked sky
of Naator. The sole satellite of the fifth world of the Arkon System, it had
been selected to temporarily serve as the site for the tactical education of
space crews recruited by the Robot Regent. Rhodan's stiff bearing, assumed in
deference to protocol, relaxed. He threw me another warning glance before
returning to formation with those ridiculously short steps. He conformed in
every detail to Zalitish regulations. I pulled my cape tighter over my chest.
An icy wind blew over the wide plain, whose former aspect-that of a rocky
desert-had been starkly altered by the laying of a meter-thick layer of
steel-plastic. The thus-created spaceport bore the name NA-4. Just 24 hours
(standard time) before, I had received the order to move the Kon-Velete onto
this field. With that we knew that takeoff could not be very far away. I
turned around and saluted to the two thoroughly frozen Arkonide officers. They
sat in an open impact-field glider and were busy inspecting the lined-up crews
of the many spaceships. In my capacity as commander of the new battleship, I
beamed the all-ready signal by way of the sender built into my helmet. The
older man raised his hand in salute. He was Admiral Semekho. Thin and seeming
very fragile and weak, he sat next to the robot driver. Yet he belonged to the
small number of Arkonides who still had enough energy and initiative to serve
as commanding officer of a forward fleet base. "I wish you much luck, Capt.
Ighur," he said, his voice coming from the speakers in my helmet. "You will
carry the glory that is Arkon into the depths of space. You are to take off
with the squadron of heavy units. Wait for the takeoff signal. Again I wish
you much luck." The younger officer at Semekho's side waved apathetically to
me and checked off the name of my ship on the list he carried. Lightly
humming, the glider went on. With bitter feelings I watched the vehicle until
it stopped before the next ship down the row, a battlecruiser direct from the
robot production line. I was to 'carry the glory that is Arkon into the
depths of space,' the old and worn-out man had said. "The glory that is
Arkon"! He, who must have been about 10,000 years younger than I, had no idea
that long before him I had been an admiral and commanding officer of a
 squadron of Arkonide ships. Then, when the methane breathers were attacking
our interstellar empire, 'glory' was an appropriate term to apply to Arkon. At
that time we did not find it necessary to man the units of our fleet with
subject races. Twenty billion Arkonides, each man a highly trained specialist
in his own area, stood at our disposal. Not one of us would have tolerated a
robot or an alien intelligence in our control rooms or command posts. Even
suggesting to the youngest apprentice technician that he might have to obey
the orders of a non-Arkonide would have led to mutiny. And now-how did it
look now? Angry and at the same time painfully touched, I looked over at the
crew of robots, marked with different colours, that had lined up behind the
ranks of the men of my ship. Each of the special machines had a specific
assignment to carry out on board the ship, and programming the emotionless
creations for all the different tasks had been a time-consuming and
troublesome chore. In contrast to the other and pitiable commanders I at
least had 200 genuinely living men on board with whom I could speak, laugh
and, if necessary, curse. 150 of them were dynamic men of action from the
ranks of the Solar Space Patrol. They were space travellers with whom one
could go into missions no matter how dangerous without having to fear that
chaos would ensue the first time the ship was hit by enemy fire. None of them
were prone to shellshock; none of them would desert their posts in fear.
Besides these 150 men were 50 authentic Zalites, who had been assigned to me
some weeks before. The new battleship was to be manned by at least 200
thinking beings, since past experience at the blockade front near the Druuf
discharge zone had shown that robot crews alone were no longer
enough. Neither Perry Rhodan nor I had been happy about having to take the
Zalites on board. Naturally we would have to be careful from now on that we
did not make any serious mistakes. Even one English word might excite surprise
and suspicion. Still vivid in everyone's memories were the mysterious attacks,
although we had successfully seen to it that our men had come through the
medical and psychological examinations in good shape. To round out our bad
luck, among the fifty Zalites were two officers with whom I had to trust
leadership posts. Since we were supposedly Zalites ourselves, I could not find
any plausible reason to simply reject two competent-rated men. I found it
difficult to shake off my worries. We were in an alien environment and among
bitter enemies who would have mercilessly struck with even the slightest hint
of our true origin. The gigantic Robot Brain on Arkon 3 had recently added a
new subject to the general fleet training program: 'Studies in Terran Battle
Tactics'! When I heard of that for the first time I grew weak in the knees.
According to the course description, the Regent was preparing for the conquest
of the Solar System even though it still did not know where the Earth even
was. In a few months, the Druuf threat would come to an end by itself, for
the discharge zone was once more approaching an unstable state. This time,
however, the aliens from the other time-plane would no longer have any
possibility of invading Einstein Space. If they knew that their opportunity
would last for only a few more months, then the Robot Regent would have to be
ready for anything. Already it was clear that the Druufs were attacking with
enormous fleets. Once the Druufs ceased their attacks, the Regent would turn
its attention to the gradually increasing irritant named Earth. Then the
discovery of our galactic position would be only a matter of time. Such
knowledge led us to the decision to put the Regent out of action once and for
all, assuming it could be so simply turned off or blown up. At the moment it
looked as though Rhodan's plan, carried out so far at great effort and
expense, was doomed to failure. The date was March 18, 2044, Terran time. On
January 21 we had taken off in the Drusus and the fast cruiser California
after making the most basic preparations. An open attack against the Robot
Regent would have been senseless. At this time the Robot had almost 60,000
warships standing by in the vicinity of the discharge zone. If we were going
to render the Regent harmless, we had no choice but to resort to
subterfuge. So the 150 men of the commando team had been converted into
Zalites even while they were still on Earth. I too had been given the typical
 reddish brown skin and the long copper-coloured hair which, when the light
shone just right, shimmered greenishly. I heard a slight cough in my
earphones. Rhodan, standing near the front of the lined-up men, gave me a
warning glance. I came out of my brooding and resumed playing my role in the
ceremony. I saluted again to the formation and ordered over the communicator:
"Let the crew go on board, Maj. Sesete!" Rhodan turned around. His orders
resounded over the wide plain. 200 identically uniformed men marched towards
the open ground hatches of the battleship. More than 1,000 robots followed
behind them. Among the robots were also the new battle machines designed for
ground operations. They were steel giants with built-in swivel-guns and four
multi-jointed arms. Almost three meters tall, they towered far above the other
robots. I stood near one of the ship's telescopic landing legs and watched
the troop of men board. They seemed well disciplined: we had expended every
effort to learn Zalitish formalities. We had landed on Voga 4 with the help
of a matter transmitter secretly installed there. The cosmic agent Jeremy
Toffner had slipped us into the capital city of Tagnor where he found a
prepared base of operations waiting for us in the catacombs beneath an
arena. From then on, our mission had grown more dangerous. Months before, an
Arkonide space admiral named Calus had landed on Zalit, his task as assigned
to him by the Robot Regent to recruit Zalitish spacemen for service in the
Arkonide fleet. For all practical purposes, Calus was the personality on Voga
4, which was why we went to the trouble of putting one of our men in his
place. After wearisome preparations by our scientific team, we succeeded in
putting the slender Sgt. Roger Osega, disguised as Calus, in the governmental
palace of Tagnor. The genuine Calus was our prisoner. After that, it was
easier for the 150 disguised Terrans to pass as Zalites. We were provided with
flawless identification papers that finally enabled us to deceive the Arkonide
impressment squad. Halfway through February 2044, we were at length brought
in fleet transport to the huge moon of the planet Naat, where our difficulties
began anew. The Robot Regent had given the galactic physicians the assignment
problem to deceive the Aras and smuggle false data about each individual in
our group into the automatic crew register. Even that was successful. It was
only weeks later that things almost came to a catastrophe. On the distant
planet Zalit, 3.14 light-years from the Arkon System, Zalitish resistance
fighters had successfully carried out an assassination plot against the
Arkonide commanding officer, Admiral Calus. But it was our Sgt. Osega who was
killed. At the last moment, our mutants and scientists left behind on Zalit
removed Osega's body. If it had been found, someone unquestionably would have
realized that instead of Calus a thorough alien had fallen victim to the
senseless attack. Once again we had escaped disaster but the event served to
show us just how unpredictable fate could be. When we had landed on Zalit, we
assumed that in a few weeks we would reach Arkon 3 and there act according to
plan. Not one of our expectations had been confirmed! Mountains of difficulty
had, risen before us. Again and again compromise solutions had been necessary.
With each passing day things happened that were not part of our original plans
at all. We were tied down for weeks on the huge moon. Shortly after our
arrival we had been assigned a factory-new battleship of the Imperium Fleet. I
was named commander, since I had been fitted out on Zalit with papers
attesting to my qualifications for such a rank. If we had thought that events
would continue in so smooth a manner, we had only deceived ourselves again.
Training flight after training flight followed. We practiced all possible
kinds of squadron manoeuvres and, not only that, we had to take care that the
50 genuine Zalites didn't hear any unconsidered words. Programming the robots
had occupied our specialists for 14 days. In our efforts to fulfil our duties
exactly and satisfactorily, we did not find any opportunities for carefully
thinking through our plans. Strongly hoping that everything would still
succeed, we entered our service with the Arkonide Fleet. Discipline was strict
and punishment was harsh. The Arkonides had long known how to deal with crews
made up of subject races pressed into service more or less against their will.
It was quite natural that such people would not be especially zealous. And
 now today I had received the order to take the battleship along with its
trained crew to Arkon, where it would probably undergo further tests. I
shuddered when I thought of the dangers connected with the move. The Solar
Imperium's most important men were on board a spaceship that was flying
directly into the lion's den. I was now very glad that we had left the
mousebeaver Pucky, the two-headed mutant Goratschin and the female mutants
behind at the base on Zalit. We would probably have run into immeasurable
difficulties if we had taken these individuals along into the final action.
Certainly we could not have disguised Pucky and Goratschin as Zalitish
natives, even with the most determined of efforts. The last of the robot
troops marched past me. These were the special machines of the leak security
corps, marked by red circles on their metallic chests. Perry Rhodan stood at
the foot of the extended entrance ramp. The Kon-Velete was a new and
battle-worthy ship but it did not possess the slightest comfort. Even the
commander's cabin was spartan simple in its furnishings, and the sanitary
installations were by our standards more than insufficient. The Robot Regent
evidently did not think it necessary to reconvert the gigantic assembly lines
on Arkon 3 simply because the new spaceships were suddenly to be manned by
living beings. When the last robot had disappeared, I glanced upwards. The
open hatch of the airlock lay 22 meters above us. There the curve of the lower
pole cap began. The 800-meter colossus was in any case a ship a commander
could be enthusiastic about. I had long given up hope of ever being able to
stand in the control room of an Arkonide spacer again. My long wandering
through the history of the Earth was at an end. Now a new epoch was beginning.
Right in front of me stood the man who in merely the space of a few decades
had transformed the once so primitive Earth into a planet of galactic
importance. Before Rhodan spoke to me, he touched the switch of his helmet
radio, checking it. Were we ever to leave the units on during an incriminating
discussion, it could mean our ruin. I also checked my radio. It was switched
off. Three guards appeared in the airlock. The men belonged to our group.
Everything was in order. Lt. Olavson waved at us reassuringly. I looked
around carefully once more. To the left and right of our landing place stood
the battlecruisers of the fourth group. Each had received a crew of only 50
men: far too few for the ships which were, after all, 500 meters in diameter.
Their battle-worthiness was considerably impaired by their lack of men. As a
result of the total degeneration of my people on Arkon, the ruling robot
suffered a chronic manpower shortage. The Regent tried to make up for what it
lacked in fighting ability due to insufficient crews by substituting
quantity. "Takeoff in 32 minutes", I said lowly to Rhodan. The sharp wind
drove into my open mouth, making my teeth ache. Perry only nodded. He had
long given up rehashing matters that had already been discussed a thousand
times. Now the important thing was finally transporting our group of men to
where we could carry out our plans. We had done everything that was within
our power. Now we could only throw ourselves on the mercy of fate. What would
happen from now on was out of our hands. "Three more Zalites are sick,"
Rhodan informed me. "Bell just got the report. They can't tolerate the climate
here. How do you feel?" He looked at me closely. I knew that my face was
showing signs of tension. "I'm alright," I told him evasively. "Don't forget
to salute again when I enter the control room after you." I could still hear
his imprecation as I stood on the slowly upwards-gliding steps of the entrance
ramp. The three guards snapped to attention. Olavson's loud voice made me
wince. He could not accustom himself to reporting in a normal tone of voice.
It was just as well, for Zalitish regulations required such loudness. I
thanked him, then entered the axial lift in front of Rhodan. The left took us
up through the centre of the ship, stopping automatically at the anteroom just
outside the control centre. Perry went ahead, opened the massive hatch and
once again reported. Only then could I go in. The constant ceremony was
gradually becoming irritating. The Zalites had adopted it from old Arkonide
military protocol but as time went by it had grown so exaggerated that even I
did not feel comfortable with it. Besides our men there were also two
 'authentics' present. Thanks to the enormous class differences in effect on
Vega 4, they regarded me almost as a superior being. Lt. Kecc, the
communications-radar officer on duty, stood by his swivel chair almost as
though petrified long after the Terrans had sat down again. Rhodan glanced
angrily at the narrow-chested man with the thin face. The second Zalite sat at
the control board of the antigravitation system. He could not wreak any havoc
there because the ship's positronicon would eventually automatically correct
any errors, even without his participation. I looked around attentively,
seeing long familiar faces which more or less showed that the men had had
quite enough of the game of deception they had been playing for weeks. I knew
the psychological difficulties too well not to know the pressure under which
they laboured. So I said with more than one meaning: "The Great Cöordinator of
Arkon has just informed me that we are to land on Arkon 3 in a few hours.
There our final tactical training will begin. In at most four weeks we'll be
sent to the front. Long live the Great Imperium!" The two Zalites repeated
the last sentence loudly. The Terrans seemed less enthusiastic. Those were the
only small details that might have alerted a very observant onlooker to the
fact something suspicious was going on. Luckily for us, the 'authentics' were
not quite so fanatic as that. I knew that at least 40 of the Zalites aboard
had been impressed into service. John Marshall, chief of the Solar Mutant
Corps, nodded to me in a barely noticeable manner. He had checked the Zalites'
thought impulses. Everything seemed to be in order with them. Rhodan stood
before me to receive the order for takeoff. I gave it tersely and loudly while
he looked at me as icily as though I were personally responsible for the fact
we had not yet reached Arkon. This operation was hardly a cakewalk Dow. It
was based strictly on a suspicion that months before had still seemed to me an
absolute certainty. By now, however, we had already suffered such difficulties
that the calculations and conclusions made and reached then themselves seemed
questionable to me. When I thought of that I almost became ill. So I
constantly made an effort to let no one suspect that I no longer trusted my
own original evaluations. It was clear that we could not defeat the Regent by
direct means. It was just as clear that the time was past in which an
admittedly dangerous but still possible flight into the system of Arkon's
white sun could be undertaken. The Regent had hermetically scaled off that
sector of space. So there was only one way in which the Robot Brain, growing
gradually all-powerful, could be destroyed. We had to slip in as
inconspicuously as possible, strike, and then wait to see what happened
next. During the planning I had made it perfectly clear to Rhodan that
escaping from Arkon was no longer possible. He had done it once but that was
at a time when the Regent had not yet completed its preparations. Now the
situation was entirely different. The Arkonide scientist Khrest and I had
been of the opinion that our venerable ancestors would not have neglected to
install a flawlessly functioning failsafe system during the construction of
the Robot Brain. In other words, there must be an overriding emergency circuit
that would erase the Brain's entire programming as soon as the machinery
ceased to function dependably and in the manner intended by its Arkonide
builders. Such a situation was now unquestionably in effect. The Regent
seemed to be almost short-circuited and its actions were of such a
contradictory nature that the failsafe system envisioned by Khrest and myself
should have long since been activated. Why that had so far failed to happen we
could not guess. We had undertaken this mission simply because we had told
ourselves that there must be a way. That was how we had arrived in our current
situation. For my part I felt that the men in the Terran commando squad no
longer trusted me 100%. Everything had happened just the opposite of the way
we had imagined it would. Now we had to convincingly play the role of the
loyal and submissive colonial crew of a spaceship and since there were only
150 of us we were hardly capable of effectively manning that ship. We were on
the verge of either flying to our doom or to our triumph. There was no longer
any third alternative. We still could have withdrawn and given up during the
preparations on Zalit but now it was too late for that. I was troubled all the
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