Читать книгу Perry Rhodan Lemuria 1: Ark of the Stars - Frank Borsch - Страница 5

The stars called to him.

Venron had never seen them. Not with his own eyes. Only in ancient visual recordings. Secretly and furtively, always in fear that the Tenoy would catch him and the other Star Seekers.

The Seekers had surrendered in utter amazement to the glory of the stars. Had attempted to count them and finally given up. There were too many; one could never succeed in grasping the sheer number of them. And to what purpose? Even in the depictions shown by the slowly but inexorably decaying memory units, the stars were the most beautiful things they had ever seen.

Venron had to see them.

With his own eyes.

He had to be certain that he was not yearning for a delusion.

Venron took off the thick plastic apron and gloves that had protected him for the past few hours from the thorns of the protein plants. The protein these plants provided was the richest available. But why the protein plants so reluctantly parted with their fruits remained a mystery to Venron. Perhaps the tenkren who developed them weren't in complete control of their own handiwork. Or perhaps the difficulty of harvesting had some intention he didn't understand.

A voice wrenched him out of his thoughts.

"Doing anything after your shift?" asked Melenda.

Venron looked up in surprise. He hadn't noticed Melenda come into the supply shed. She was his age, a voluptuous, outgoing woman with long hair and a swing in her hips that he had dreamed about for many nights after she had been assigned to his Metach'ton. But the stars had won out in the end. Now he seldom dreamed of Melenda.

"Yes. I ... I wanted to read some more," he lied. "You know, study."

Melenda looked puzzled. "I don't understand why you want to hide from the rest of the world." She stepped close to him, reached out her hand as though she wanted to take his, but then let her arm drop. "You should occasionally come out of that hole you've dug for yourself. I'm getting together with the others at the bow—Delder's plants have new blossoms. He says a shot of the juice will give you a kick like you've never felt before. And Delder knows his stuff! I bet he'll be a tenkren one of these days. You know the others don't especially like you, but I can put in a good word for you."

"Thanks," Venron said, "but I can't. Maybe some other time?"

"Some other time? You don't even believe that yourself!" Melenda dropped her apron carelessly on the bench and stormed out of the shed. The door banged behind her, making the whole structure shake.

Venron stared at the door for a few moments, then folded his apron carefully and shoved it and the gloves in the pigeonholes provided for them. Then he picked up Melenda's carelessly discarded apron and repeated the procedure.

He did it even though it wasn't logical. No one would come into the supply shed before the next shift, which didn't start until the next morning. But Venron couldn't bring himself to go against his training. "Waste is our downfall," he had been taught since childhood. "Our resources are limited and few!" Some traitor you are! he thought. You even clean up after those you plan to betray!

Venron left the shed. It was already getting dark. A bicycle leaned against a post nearby. He typed an inquiry on the handlebar screen display; the status indicator showed the bicycle was not in use. Good. It would make things go faster. Venron rode off, cruising with the familiarity of long years through the maze of paths that wound through the fields and gardens of the Outer Deck. He enjoyed the breeze that poured over his skin and streamed through his hair as he rode. On the bicycle, it was easy to forget the high gravity trying to pull him to the ground. The higher gravity of the Outer Deck made their limbs tire quickly during work. By noon, most of the metach thought only of catching their breath and of the Middle Deck, where they would be allowed to return after their shift.

At long intervals, Venron met other metach. Only a few were out and about at this hour; most were sitting with the rest of their Metach'ton and lingering over their evening meal. Why waste time on the Outer Deck where there was only sweat and hard work? He waved in greeting to the people he passed. His pulse sped up each time, returning to normal only when he went around a curve and didn't hear a shout of, "Hey, stop! What are you up to?"

People seemed to assume he was just what he appeared to be: a somewhat distracted metach occupying the time after his shift by taking a spin. His activity was uncommon, but also not remarkable, viewed mostly as a harmless whim.

No one seemed to realize he was a traitor.

In the distance, Venron spotted a young woman on a bicycle, her upper body bent well forward in order to offer less resistance as she rode.

Immediately yanking the handlebars to the left, he shot down between rows of bushes. Sliding off the seat, he crouched down so that he could see the path without being seen, and didn't move until the woman had passed.

It was Denetree. She had tied her hair into a knot as she usually did when she made her rounds. Her legs rose and fell in a swift rhythm. She rode in a high gear not only to develop her muscles but to be able to increase her speed at a moment's notice.

Venron waited for almost half an hour before he dared come out of the bushes. He couldn't have faced his sister. She would have guessed his plan, read it from his face, from his body language. And would have insisted on going with him ...

But that was impossible. Venron had no idea what awaited him. He would look for Denetree later and apologize to her for not saying good-bye.

I've done what I could for her, he tried to console himself. He would leave, but would leave a trace of himself behind. He had planned for that.

Venron continued on his way, finally stopping at a remote shelter. The simple plastic construction, a roof supported by four slender poles about the height of a man, would be torn away by even a mild storm—but there were no storms. The shelter sufficed to protect against the artificial rain.

Venron leaned the bicycle against one of the poles, switched it to FREE so the next person to find it could use it, and knelt on the ground. A thin layer of moldering grass and plant stems covered the floor of the shelter. Venron brushed it to one side to uncover the bare metal surface. Near the middle of the cleared space he found what he was looking for: a scratched display screen. Even though it was now fully dark, the screen glowed enough to be readable.

He spread the thumbs and index fingers of both hands, then pressed them simultaneously against all four corners of the display. A keyboard appeared on the screen and Venron entered a random series of numbers.

He didn't need a code: The input was only necessary so that the mechanism wasn't activated by accident. This mechanism opened the hatch to the pressurized air chambers below the surface that would ensure their survival in an emergency. As far as Venron knew, such an emergency had never occurred—and he strongly doubted that the chambers would be of much use if an emergency came to pass. One could survive for a day or a week in them—but then what?

Venron heard a clicking. A square section of the floor lifted creakingly to stand on one edge over a man-sized hole. The Net had released the hatch. Good. The Net had also been informed that there had been a request to open a hatch. Not so good. Everything now depended on how the Net interpreted the action. Playing children opened the hatches on a regular basis. The Net expected it. Testing the limits of their world and what was allowed was part of children's normal development. To a point.

If it was Venron's bad luck that children had been using this entrance a little too often recently, the Net would confine him in the chamber below until the Tenoy came. It would be very difficult to explain what he was doing in the underground chambers: He was an adult who ought to know better than to stick his nose into things that didn't concern him.

Venron climbed down a narrow metal ladder into the dark. Each time he rested his weight on a new rung, the ladder squeaked and sagged. Above him, the hatch closed automatically. Faint light came on, making the outlines of objects visible. Venron looked at the ceiling. Only every third light was illuminated.

Our resources are limited.

Venron had not been down in the pressurized chambers since his childhood. He was surprised by how small and cramped it felt. He was in a long, narrow corridor with a low ceiling, lined on both sides with benches. Baggy pressure suits hung in wall niches, looking like sacks with helmets attached. They would fit anyone of any size or build, and even untrained persons could slip them on in seconds. But they condemned their wearers to immobility. It would be impossible to move through the narrow corridor wearing the pressure suits, especially if the corridor was jammed full of people.

Venron didn't want to imagine it. He already felt oppressed by the confined space.

He started walking, counting the pressure suits as he went. When he reached sixty-three, an opening yawned in the apparently endless row. There was a narrow passageway in the wall where another pressure suit should have hung. Venron squeezed himself inside. After a few meters, the passageway opened onto another corridor lined with pressure suits. Venron turned left and counted the suits again. At ninety-six, he found a new gap and squeezed his way into it.

The throat-constricting feeling that he was caught in a trap gradually subsided. The conditions he had found so far matched the description he had read, which encouraged him to hope that all of it would be accurate. As yet he had not heard the heavy footsteps of the Tenoy racing through the corridors to seize him, nor any warnings from the Net.

Again Venron counted. He stopped at thirty-three. This time, there was no gap. He was looking at a pressure suit that was exactly the same as the hundreds he had already passed. He grasped the suit by the neck ring, lifted it up, and set it down on the opposite side. The suit was surprisingly light. Once, as a child, he had put on a suit just to be daring, and without understanding what he was playing at. The other children had teased him for weeks afterwards because the suit had been such a tight fit. "You're so fat!" they had called over and over again. "Fat! Fat! Fat!" Only Denetree hadn't laughed at him. She simply took him into her arms without a word and held him until he had calmed down.

Venron still remembered how hard it had been to lift the helmet over his head at that age. But he had grown up slim and strong.

Moving the suit revealed bare metal. Venron leaned close, narrowed his eyes and felt the wall. It seemed massive. Doesn't matter, he assured himself.

He ran his fingers over the surface, searching for any unevenness. Not an easy task: Dust had settled on the wall over the centuries and hardened, so much so that it had withstood the efforts of the maintenance and cleaning crews that still serviced these chambers at regular intervals. Twice he thought he had found what he was looking for, twice he was disappointed. Then he found the hidden switch, and to his right a concealed display screen slid out of the wall.

An input field lit up in front of Venron.

He mentally repeated the password that he had stumbled across a few weeks earlier when he was looking for new star pictures to show the Seekers. He had succeeded in temporarily isolating a memory unit from the Net without being noticed, a success that could only last a few minutes. A dummy virtual unit wouldn't fool the Net any longer than that. To his disappointment, he hadn't found any new star pictures, only boring construction plans. Without giving it much thought, he copied some of them to his portable memory unit, reversed his manipulation of the system and slipped away.

When he examined his plundered data later, he found—hidden in a dry mass of construction plans and circuit diagrams—a door to the stars.

Would he be able to open it?

He entered the password, and a section of the wall slid back. The hatch was not completely open when Venron dove into the darkness beyond.

From this point forward, he had very little time.

The opening of this hatch, a door most likely unknown to even the highest levels of the naahk's leadership circle, would alert the Net to his location. Venron had to be quick.

Spotlights blazed on and bathed the corridor beyond the hatch with glaring light. Venron felt as though the eyes of a thousand faces were staring at him. Blinded for a moment, he stumbled, then he caught himself and ran. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, relying entirely on the map that was burned into his mind, the layout that he had memorized so exactingly in the past few weeks.

The plans had overtaken even his unconscious mind, and his nightly dreams of the stars were interrupted by nightmares of winding corridors. He woke up screaming, only to look into the apprehensive and angry faces of the metach with whom he shared sleeping quarters.

"Venron," they had whispered. "What's gotten into you? What are you yelling about? Go back to sleep! We have to work tomorrow!"

He never told them what woke him, not even when they threatened to beat him if he didn't keep quiet. Not even when they carried out their threat.

Venron kept his eyes shut. His pulse raced faster, and his lungs drew in air that smelled different, so cold and metallic.

He heard a crackling sound and waited for the peremptory voice of the Net, which from a myriad of loudspeakers would order him to turn around.

It didn't come.

The light grew weaker. He felt a slight breeze. Had he reached his goal? He slowed down to a trot, ready at any second to leap to one side or take off running again.

He opened his eyes once more, just a crack. The light was less harsh now, and came from far, far overhead.

In front of him loomed a shape so large that it blocked some of the light as he approached.

Venron stretched out both arms and walked on. When his fingers touched cool metal, he stopped, laid his head back, and fully opened his eyes.

He was in a huge room, nearly half a kilometer high. His hands rested on the massive hull of a craft secured to a ramp that inclined sharply upwards and ended at a hatch outlined on the wall of the chamber.

The shuttle! The schematics had been correct!

Venron cried out with joy, the fear and doubt that had threatened to overwhelm him vanishing in an instant. His exultation echoed back from the walls—and beyond those walls, the stars awaited him!

Venron ran around the hull. The shuttle's lower rear hatch was open, as though the ship was waiting for him. Venron hurried up the ramp and ran through the cargo bay, intent on reaching the cockpit. The plans he had downloaded were not complete. Venron had been able to learn little more from them than that the shuttle existed and was kept constantly ready for use.

And that it was armed.

He reached the cockpit. It was small, with room for only one person, and hung like a transparent blister from the bow of the shuttle. A second, separate cockpit, probably for the co-pilot, bulged from the bow close by. Venron slid into the pilot's seat. Over the gap into which his legs disappeared hung an expansive display screen showing status indicators. Venron touched one and immediately received a more detailed view of that information.

The shuttle did not demand authentication to respond to commands!

Venron had counted on that. Anything else would have been illogical. Among other purposes, the shuttle was intended for use in emergencies. A restrictive access procedure might mean that a shuttle would fail to launch because no authorized pilot was aboard. Further, even an average metach could operate the shuttle by virtue of an interactive help system.

But Venron would have been able to manage even without such a system. He knew his way around computers.

His fingers manipulated the touch screen. First, he verified that the on-board computer was not connected to the Net, then he closed the stern hatch and requested the system status. All indications were green. The shuttle was ready for takeoff.

He initiated engine start-up. The craft shuddered, then, after a few moments, the shuddering transitioned into a gentle vibration. A control lever extended itself and pressed into his hand. Venron grasped it. A countdown appeared on the display, showing the seconds until the engines were ready for ignition. The time was shorter than he had dared hope. Just a few moments more, and he ...

The image on the pilot's display suddenly changed. Venron now was looking from the shuttle's stern out on the rear part of the hangar. Large doors were sliding open, and through the openings swarmed men and women in the black uniforms of the Tenoy, their weapons aimed and ready.

"Stop right there!" a loud voice resounded through the hangar. It was not the voice of the Net, so it had to belong to one of the Tenoy. It penetrated even the nearly soundproof cockpit.

"Think of the disaster you bring on us!" the voice continued. "And on yourself! Only death waits for you outside! Come back! You can still turn around!"

It was too late for second thoughts or regrets. The Naahk would show a traitor no mercy.

Venron switched the image on the display from the stern camera back to the countdown. Still a few more seconds. He gripped the control lever more tightly, then touched a button. The Tenoy, who had nearly surrounded the shuttle, hit the floor as though cut down by a scythe.

The men and women crawled away, desperately searching for cover the hangar did not provide. Venron couldn't see any of their faces; they were hidden by their helmet visors. He was happy about that. He wouldn't have liked to see anyone he knew.

The triple cannon installed under the bow completed its sweep without Venron discharging it. He didn't have any intention of being a murderer. He only wanted to reach the stars.

The cannon was now aimed directly at the closed hatch. Venron pressed the discharge control.

A fireball exploded in front of him, immediately followed by a hailstorm of particles and debris that drummed on the cockpit canopy. A cloud of black smoke billowed through the hangar. Venron pressed the control a second time. There was a second fireball, followed by another shower of debris, but this time no smoke cloud rose. Instead, the smoke was sucked outside as though by a pump.

Venron, who had dreamed of the stars without suspecting what they actually were, who didn't realize that there was a vacuum between them, watched in astonishment for several moments as the atmosphere in the hangar streamed outward. Then he activated the engines.

The shuttle shot out of the hangar. The pressure of acceleration pushed Venron deep into his seat. It went black in front of his eyes—a merciful blackness, since it prevented him from seeing how the Tenoy were pulled by the escaping air into the vacuum where they suffocated. Venron tasted blood and felt something soft and solid rubbing against his teeth: the tip of his tongue, which he had bitten off when he clenched his jaws.

But Venron didn't feel any pain. As he grew used to the acceleration and his blood circulation returned to normal, his eyesight came back.

He saw the stars.

They were brighter than in the films. More glittering. And more colorful. In one direction, they shone red, in another white like in the photographs, and violet in a third. They were close enough to touch. They belonged to him. He had only to reach out his hand to them and ...

A jolt slammed the shuttle. The pilot seat jerked up and Venron would have been thrown against the canopy if he hadn't been automatically strapped in at takeoff. He heard the tearing of overstrained steel, then the display in front of him went dark, along with the light that had illuminated the joystick.

The stars began to spin. Faster and still faster.

Venron screamed, but the stars didn't hear him.