The mousebeaver skipped the 'thanks'. Disappearing from depot 123, he rematerialised in airlock 3 of the Druuf scoutship.

Switching on the spotlight on his s.p.a.cesuit, he crawled around on the floor, looking for the tiny transmitter. Minutes pa.s.sed. Suddenly something reflected the light from Pucky's spot. "Finally!" the mousebeaver groaned in relief, taking his beamer and aiming at it. A short-lived thermoray melted the dangerous corpus delicti.

Pucky's only incisor shoved to the fore. The mousebeaver was satisfied and laughing. The next moment he began to curse barbarically. The putty was stuck to his paw, straining his patience. Finally, however, it stuck to the floor and Pucky neatly planted the rhythmal5 in it.

When the Druufs break open airlock 3, let them find a plausible explanation of how this crystal emitting one impulse every 5 minutes got in here.

Naturally it had been brought in by Kakuta or Brigonne. But could even the Druufs reproach them after noticing the impertinence with which it stuck in the putty?

Only Tako Kakuta's welding seams did not please Pucky. "That's something!" he growled. "Those seams could drive the Druufs mad. But if I burn a hole through they'll really go crazy and lose all confidence!"

Sometimes Pucky loved to hear himself talk. But he did know how to follow through with quick action and seldom made a mistake while at it.

He burned three holes in the outer hatchway. They were arranged above one another at equal distances in the direction of the welding seam. Then Pucky took a small teleport jump, landing right up against the destroyed airlock door. He briefly held his thermobeamer against each hole so that the metal flow tracks would originate from the outside.

"The Druufs will go donk!" Pucky said with devilish glee. Then he concentrated and reappeared in Command Central of the Drusus.

"That takes care of that, Perry. Want a report?"

But he did not get around to it. The Druuf commander called. "Rhodan, get your ship ready for action!" he said coldly. "Your treacherous scheme was too crude!"

Rhodan demanded an explanation. The Druuf talked about a tracking transmitter. Rhodan denied it, demanding proof. It was surprising that the Druuf was willing to furnish it.

A waiting period began again but with no tension. Pucky had a chance to turn in his report. "The Druufs won't be calling back too soon," he dared to predict. "Kakuta put up a few welding seams in the airlock that will present them with an insoluble puzzle. And my three holes in the outer door will provide the rest. I sure wouldn't like to be the scoutship commander who is about to get a heavy shooing out from his chief of fleet..."

That was the cue.

"Pucky," Rhodan interrupted, "don't the two of us still have something to say to each other? Who was it that ignited the time fuse of a bomb in the Druuf flagship too early and against orders?"

"Perry," the mousebeaver dared to reply, "Fatso once told me I should be wary of people who hold every mistake against you. Do you think Fatso's tip was a good one?"

Wild laughter broke out in Central Command. Even Rhodan could not remain serious.

Meanwhile the mousebeaver had silently removed himself by teleportation. From time to time he was very cautious.

Arkon's main transmitter conveyed Admiral Atlan's second message.

For the second time he spoke to the many races and peoples of the Arkonide Empire.

He gave them an ultimatum: submission or death!

"...I will allow the Druufs to pounce upon this rotting ent.i.ty that will not accept unity!"

"The robot fleet of Arkon will watch as one world after another crumbles!

"Take my ultimatum seriously! Do not forget that I know how to deal with you as the Great Coordinator has dealt with you in the past, if I so desire!"

"Rebels are always lined up against the wall!"

"Decide whether you want to be rebels or true citizens of the Great Empire!"

300 Druuf battleships were speeding through hypers.p.a.ce towards the Rusuma System. They were already underway as Atlan was decreeing his ultimatum. A pre-arranged code signal informed him that operation Fly Swatter had entered its second phase.

Druuf ships over Archetz! Demonstration of terror!

Had Rhodan ventured too much? Was the plan doomed?

He said no and the positronic computer provided a positive probability quotient of 81.54%. Still he could not rid himself of an uncomfortable feeling.

The Drusus was approaching half-speol and hence the transition point. The jump brought them within 10 light-minutes of the Rusuma System. The most high-powered tracking screens and the frequency absorber prevented Arkonide stations from tracking the Terran superbattleship.

The people in the Drusus were groaning from the pains of transition. For 10 seconds the positronicomp had taken over all functions. The crew slowly regained their full powers but some of them continued to feel the pain of rematerialisation for another half-hour.

Rhodan did not get a chance to take a couple of deep breaths. Harno had tuned into his thoughts.

Rhodan's face, marked by shock, instantly turned ashen grey. Harno had conveyed almost inconceivable news.

The commander of the Druuf fleet had suddenly abandoned his pledge to keep his agreement with Rhodan. The monster from another universe again regarded Rhodan's promise as a trap, the promise to allow his fleet to exit through the lens field projector portal after the flight over Archetz.

Why? What had changed? Rhodan's thoughts inquired of Harno, who was projecting the fearsome face of the Druuf commander sitting immobile in a ponderous chair.

"The mentality of the Druuf, Rhodan! With your powers of comprehension you cannot understand the Druuf change of opinion. One thing is comprehensible: only now has he recognized the significance of the planet of Archetz. He wants to capture the System, gain a foothold there and then capture star after star."

Now Rhodan knew which inner voice had tried to warn him against any pact with the Druufs. Now only Atlan and his enormous robot fleet could prevent the downfall of the Springer planet Archetz!

Atlan saw Rhodan's face on the readout screen. The expression on it had alerted him; yet he had not expected an alert of this nature.

"So it will be blood and tears after all, Perry! Just what you wanted to prevent under all circ.u.mstances. Let me speak. We still have a few minutes. The robot fleet has already received my order to attack but they will arrive later than the Druufs. I shall..."

Rhodan interrupted him. "Any action is too late, Admiral. The Druufs are already in the Rusuma System!"

3,000 gigantic alien battleships were suddenly hovering like a cloud about the Springer world Archetz. Not one single planetary station had announced their approach.

With half the speed of light they plummeted down toward Archetz, leaving behind in linear s.p.a.ce most of the planet's fortification. Before the first heavy defence position could fire one shot, they began to spread death and destruction over the Springer world.

t.i.ton went up in smoke and flame. Three other cities were razed simultaneously. Archetz' moons with their ray cannon emplacements turned into blazing torches in the day-lit sky.

The Druuf ships were everywhere. Their tracking devices of utter precision led the way into the forts; rays of battle followed, unloading their energy into the planetary atmosphere.

Despite the handicap of only being capable of half the speed of light in normal flight-of being half as fast as any other being-they were unleashing death and destruction before the Springers even grasped that death was closing in on them with a fleet of more than 3,000 ships.

Yet a few vessels on Archetz succeeded in escaping the inferno, breaking through the Druuf fleet out into free s.p.a.ce.

The crew on the Drusus were pa.s.sive observers. Rhodan's hands were tied. The large panorama screen, set for greatest magnification, showed everything with incredible clarity.

Thomas is down there! an inner voice told him.

Spherical ships of all Arkonide battleship cla.s.ses were appearing, from the small destroyers to the superbattleships.

They descended out of the Cosmos like a gigantic swarm of locusts, streaking in like tiny suns with protuberances extended in a straight line for the chase.

They came in thousands and within seconds there were more than 10,000 of them. And even more enormous swarms arrived to hurl themselves at the Druufs.

"Where is the guppy, Reggie? Still no word from it?"

Reginald Bell shook his head.

When Rhodan learned from Harno that the Druufs intended to conquer the Rusuma System and break their agreement with the Terrans, a guppy with the best teleporters on board had been sent on its way.

The teleporters' a.s.signment: get our astronauts out of the Druuf flagship!

And now the men in the Drusus were waiting for the return of the auxiliary craft but not even a distress call had arrived. Nothing!

Still the battle between Arkon's robot s.p.a.cecraft and the Druufs became the Druufs' downfall. By now 10 to 15 robot-manned vessels were pursuing one single Druuf ship. Their programming was all that Arkon's robots knew; their creator, the Robot Regent, had not endowed them with human compa.s.sion. They did not even realize that they were combating strangers from another universe. They had received the command to destroy this fleet and they would follow the order until there was not one enemy ship remaining or until the order was replaced by another from Arkon.

They even pursued Druuf ships that crashed on Archetz or on the other planets and moons, hammering them with fire from their disintegrator cannons, from their impulse and thermo weapons or from their thermo firing towers until everything disappeared in a cloud of exploding energies.

Then this terrible struggle came to an end almost instantaneously.

The robot fleet began to regroup in squadrons and slowly pulled back to the edges of the System.

"Over... the end," Bell said in a quivering voice as the Drusus sped towards the burning planet Archetz, constantly beaming its ident.i.ty signal.

As they penetrated the cloudy ceiling and gained ground visibility directly over t.i.ton's s.p.a.ceport, a gigantic cloud of smoke surged towards them. Beneath it a city of 12 million inhabitants was crumbling in ashes.

Bell started. Some weight, a body had fallen into his lap. "Pucky-!" he cried and the smile on his face broadened.

His teleportation jump had deposited the mousebeaver right in Bell's lap.

Pucky was exhausted. He was so weak that he almost fell asleep in Bell's arms. Pulling himself together one last time, he squeaked in a feeble voice: "All clear, Perry! All healthy! The guppy is somewhere down there. Shot down. We had to deboard. We..."

Pucky had fallen asleep and Reggie carefully carried him over to the couch at the side of the room. "I'd like to know what this runt had to do to get our astronauts out of the Druuf ship unharmed!"

A half-hour later the Drusus landed on t.i.ton's almost totally destroyed s.p.a.ceport. Rhodan dispatched his mutants to look for his son, Thomas Cardif, and to take him into custody. But John Marshall, the best telepath of the Mutant Corps, had already told Rhodan shortly before landing: "Sir," he is either dead or he has fled. I can't find him and I would have to discover some trace of him if he were on this world of debris."

Shortly after the mutants were dispatched the teleporters arrived. They had come within a hairsbreadth of destruction along with the flagship of the Druuf commander.

"Sir," Brigonne said enthusiastically with gleaming eyes, "without Pucky we would have never gotten away! Pucky is a miracle and so human!"

Rhodan smiled. "But please never say that to "Pucky! He doesn't want to be prized as a human; he is proud to be a mousebeaver!"

For the third time within a short period Arkon's main transmitter in the star cl.u.s.ter M-13 made itself heard. It was no longer necessary for the stations to report what had occurred in the Rusuma System; the people of the Great Empire, frightened almost out of their wits, had heard about it when the battle had hardly begun and the downfall of the Druufs was not yet a certainty.

Still in their dismay they realized that this Admiral Atlan, who called himself the successor of the Robot Regent, had the power to take drastic and relentless action. Hence the billions of intelligent beings in the Empire listened well as the main transmitter from Arkon 3 beamed a new message. Among the mult.i.tude of intelligent beings, a few million started as they spotted a familiar face on the screen.

Perry Rhodan was addressing the people of the Arkonide Empire on Arkon's major transmitted "...I bow before Atlan, the Emperor Gonozal VIII, who will lead Arkon's empire to renewed greatness!"

"I proclaim to the Great Empire as Administrator of my interplanetary realm: allegiance for allegiance!"

"Peoples of the Great Empire, realize that your task and ours lie in the far reaches of the Universe and not in mutual hate and discord..."

Atlan laughed bitterly as Perry Rhodan stepped back from the camera and approached him. "Friend," he said gravely, "you have now made me emperor but what use is the t.i.tle if the people of the Great Empire do not wish to stay with Arkon? No, I'm not resigning, Perry, but I don't want to be a dreamer, either. Time, barbarian! Time, time and once again, time! I can't change anything from today to tomorrow that has been destroyed for generations by irresponsible Arkonides. Neither can I do everything by myself-but will the time even be granted to do anything at all?"

Rhodan was astonished. "This is the first time I have seen you pessimistic, Admiral."

"I'm not, Perry. I just have not forgotten a certain Thomas Cardif... and you are the best example of what one single Terran can accomplish!"

Rhodan ignored that. "I think that Thomas was killed on Archetz."

"I don't think so. A Rhodan does not die that simply. Especially not a Rhodan who calls himself Thomas Cardif."