The Invincible

THE CLOUD

They were getting used to the planet, its never-changing desert face, the slight shadows cast by its unnaturally light clouds as they drifted apart. Even by daylight one could see them through the light of the bright stars. They came to accept the ever-present sand that crunched under wheel and foot. They even grew accustomed to the dull red sun, whose rays were incomparably softer than those of its terrestrial counterpart. Instead of warmth, one felt its silent presence whenever the back was turned.

Every morning the work troops set out, each one in a different direction. The energo-robots disappeared among the dunes, rocking like giant boats. Once the dust cloud settled those who remained at the Invincible would try to guess what the day would offer. The men discussed what one of the radar observers had said to one of the communications technicians, or tried to recall the name of the pilot who had lost a leg on the navigational satellite Terra 5 six years ago. They passed the time chatting about little things, perched on empty canisters below the rocket, whose shadow circled like the hand on a gigantic sundial until it grew long enough to touch the ring formed by the energo-robots. Then the men rose and began to look out for their friends, who would return exhausted and hungry.

Without the novelty which had originally inspired them when they were working in the metallic debris of the “city,” their energy soon dissipated. Hardly a week had gone by when even the Condor work detail failed to bring any more exciting news (like the fact that another corpse had been identified). And the findings that at first had been symbols of sheer horror — the remains of their dead comrades — were now carefully packed inside hermetically sealed containers and stowed down below in the storage rooms of the Invincible. The men whose job it was to continue to search the sand around the Condor, or to rummage through the ship’s interior, experienced boredom rather than a sense of relief. They seemed to have grown oblivious to the fate of the former crew. Their efforts now concentrated on collecting bits of memorabilia, meaningless knick-knacks that had survived their anonymous owners — an old, workworn harmonica or a Chinese puzzle. These objects quickly lost all traces of their origin, and were soon circulated and used as communal property among the Invincible’s crew.

Rohan would never have believed it possible, but in less than a week he was behaving no differently than the rest of the crew. Only on rare occasions, when he was completely alone would he begin to wonder what he was doing there. All this work, their antlike activity, the complicated details of their research: the transilluminations, the search for specimens, the rock drillings (which were made even more difficult by the third step routine), the opening and closing of the energy fields, the laser weapons with their exactly prescribed firing range, the unending visual control, the constant calculations — all this, he realized, was nothing but self-deceit. Basically, they were doing nothing more than wait for some new event, another catastrophe. They were simply pretending that they did not know the real reason for all this busy-work.

At first the men would crowd around the ship’s infirmary every morning to wait for news about Kertelen. He seemed to them not so much the victim of a mysterious attack as some creature who no longer resembled a human being, a monster who had nothing in common with them. It was as if they believed they were in some fantastic fairytale, in which an unknown force from a hostile planet had changed one of them into a monster. In reality, of course, the man was nothing but a cripple. Moreover, it soon became apparent that his brain was simply empty, like that of a newborn baby. His mind was able to absorb all the knowledge the doctors would teach it. Gradually, like an infant, he began to talk. Those who passed the hospital no longer heard the strange whining sounds, unlike any produced by human voices, or that senseless baby’s crying that had been so terrible because it came from the mouth of a grown man. One week later, Kertelen formed his first syllables and began to recognize the physicians, although he could not yet pronounce their names.

By the second week, the men had lost interest in him, especially after the doctors announced that he would never be able to say anything about the circumstances surrounding his accident, not even after he had completed his unusual re-education process and had “returned to his normal self.”

In the meantime the work continued. The crews continued to map the city and to collect details about the construction of the shrub-like pyramids, although no one could figure out their function. Finally, the astrogator decided that further investigations of the Condor would be useless, and therefore were to be discontinued. The spaceship itself would have to be abandoned. Repairing the outer hull was more than they could manage here, especially since the engineers had much more urgent work to do. Only a large number of energo-robots, transporters, jeeps and all kinds of instruments were transferred to the Invincible. The spaceship itself was reduced to a wreck after this salvaging operation. The Condor was made tight. The crew comforted itself with the thought that either they or the next expedition would eventually bring the cruiser back to its home base. At the conclusion of these operations, Horpach directed the Condor troop to continue its work in the north of the desert. They joined Gallagher’s group now under the command of Regnar. Rohan advanced to main coordinator of all research activities. He would leave the immediate vicinity of the Invincible for no more than brief periods, and not even every day.

In an area criss-crossed by many ravines with subterranean springs, the two groups made some peculiar finds. They encountered clay deposits with layers of a reddish-black substance which seemed to be of neither geological nor planetary origin. The specialists were at a loss. It looked as if millions of years earlier vast quanitites of metal particles had settled on the surface of the old basalt mantle of the planet’s solid shell. These splinters consisted either of metal or some metalloid matter — perhaps a huge iron-nickel meteor had exploded in the planet’s atmosphere and then melted into the ancient rock during fiery cataclysms. These metallic fragments might have oxidized gradually, followed by chemical reactions with their matrix and other elements present. Finally they would have changed into these black-brown layers with occasional spots of crimson.

So far excavation had struck no deeper than a shallow level of rock formation, whose complicated geological structure confused even the most experienced of the planetologists. Once they had driven shafts down to the basalt base — itself indubitably more than a billion years old — they discovered that the deposits immediately above contained carbon of organic origin which showed highly advanced stages of recrystallization. At first the scientists believed this layer to have been the original ocean bed. But then they came upon true coal beds with fossils of a large variety of plant species that could only have existed on the dry land. Little by little they gained a clearer picture of the life forms that had existed at that time on the continent of Regis III. Thus they learned that primitive reptiles had once roamed in the primeval jungle, some three hundred million years earlier. Indeed, they returned in triumph one day with the remains of a reptile’s spinal column and the jawbone, though the crew showed little enthusiasm about these finds. Apparently, evolution had taken place twice in the dry land areas. The first extinction of all life occurred in an epoch about one hundred million years back. At that time all plant and animal life seemed to have died out suddenly; the most probable cause would have been the nearby Nova explosion. However, life had developed again after this catastrophe; new forms, new species had arisen. Unfortunately, no exact system of classification could be established by the scientists; the available data were not sufficiently comprehensive. Yet they were positive that no mammals had ever evolved on this planet. Some ninety million years later, a second star explosion had occurred, but this time at a far greater distance from Regis III. This event could be traced by isotopes. According to the approximate values calculated, the intensity of surface radiation was not strong enough to have caused such enormous losses of life. And yet — even more puzzling — from this point on, plant and animal fossils were less and less frequently seen in the rock formations. Instead, the scientists found pressed “clay,” antimony sulfides, molybdenum and iron oxides, salts of nickel, cobalt and titanium in increasingly larger quantities.

There were strong centers within the six- to eight-million-year-old metalliferous strata which were found relatively close to the surface; but this radioactivity was comparatively shortlived considering the age of the planet. During that period something seemed to have unchained a series of violent, localized nuclear reactions, whose products were deposited in these “metalline clay-layers,” Besides the hypothesis of the “radioactive iron meteor,” other, most fantastic assumptions were advanced, attempting to establish some connection between the strange centers of radioactive “hot spots” and the annihilation of the planetary system of the Lyre and the extinction of its civilization.

It was suggested that atomic battles might have taken place on Regis III among the spaceships escaping their threatened planetary home system. Yet this did not explain the extent of the metalliferous strata, which were discovered in other more remote excavation sites as well. From all these various data a mysterious yet plausible picture emerged: life on the planet’s continents had become extinct during the same span of millions of years during which the metalline deposits had been formed. Radioactivity could not have been the cause of the destruction of all living things. They had made calculations and converted the general amount of radiation into equivalents of nuclear explosions. This amounted to twenty to thirty megatons. Distributed over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, such explosions — if these had in fact been atomic explosions and not some other kind of nuclear reactions — could not, of course, have seriously endangered the evolution of biological forms.

Since the scientists suspected some connection between these deposits and the rains of the “city,” they insisted on continuing with their research, but this required that considerable amounts of debris be cleared away before they could begin prospecting. The only solution was to dig underground shafts; but those who worked below the surface would no longer be able to enjoy the protection of the force fields. The scale was tipped when — at a depth of about twenty yards — a layer rich in iron oxides was found to contain rusty metal parts of a most curious shape that looked like the corroded remnant of tiny mechanisms. At this point the scientists decided to carry on even without the protective energy field.

On the nineteenth day after they had landed on Regis III, dark, dense cloud formations, unlike any they had observed before, gathered over the area where the excavation unit was working. Toward noon a violent thunderstorm broke out that surpassed any electrical storm ever seen on Earth. Sky and mountain merged in the unceasing blinding flashes of lightning. The brooks turned into torrents that rushed down the winding ravines and flooded the excavation site. The men ran for shelter under the dome of the big energy field. Mile-long lightning bolts repeatedly struck the hull of the protective dome. Finally, the thunderstorm moved slowly off to the west, and the entire horizon above the ocean was soon a single black wall ripped by constant lightning.

On the way back to the Invincible the prospecting detail discovered vast numbers of tiny black metal drops in the sand. Were these the ill-famed “flies”? The men gathered them up very cautiously and took them along to the spaceship, where they aroused great interest among the scientists. However, there was no possibility whatsoever that the drops were the remains of insects. Again there were consultations among the experts, frequently resulting in violent controversies. In the end it was decided to send an expedition toward the northeast, beyond the labyrinth of ravines and the areas of iron oxide deposits, because some new discoveries had been made on the caterpillar chains of the Condor vehicles: they had found traces of minerals that had not been seen in any of the terrains that had been examined so far.

The next day, twenty-two men climbed into their vehicles. As soon as sufficient stores of oxygen, food and nuclear fuel had been packed away the column began to move. The group was well equipped with energo-robots, the self-mobile mortar from the Condor, transporters and robots (among them twelve Arctanes), automated dredging machines and rock drills. Regnar was in charge of the expedition. Radio and telvision contact was maintained with the column until the planet’s curved surface made the further use of ultra-short waves impossible. Then the Invincible launched an automatic teleprobe into a stationary orbit, over which communication could be maintained.

All that day the column continued to advance. At nightfall the vehicles and machines formed a defense circle and surrounded themselves with a force field.

The following morning they continued on their way. Toward noon, Regnar informed Rohan that he wanted to stop at the foot of some sand-covered ruins inside a shallow crater in order to inspect them at closer range. One hour later, the reception became very bad because of strong static disturbances. The communication crew switched to another wave length for better reception. Soon afterwards the reception suddenly broke off altogether, just as the thunder died away and the storm moved off into the direction the expedition had taken. The breakdown in communication had been preceded by several episodes of fading that increased in length and strength. Most peculiar, however, was the fact that at the same time TV reception had become worse, even though it was independant of conditions in the ionosphere, as it emanated from a satellite circling beyond the atmosphere. It was about one o’clock when all communication ceased. No technician, none of the physicists called in for consultation, could explain this phenomenon. It was as if a metal wall had descended somewhere in the desert to cut off the expedition from the Invincible.

All this time Rohan had kept close to the astrogator, who seemed quite apprehensive. At first Rohan believed there was no justification for the commander’s attitude. The weather front that had moved off in exactly the same direction as the expedition might have certain definite screening properties. The physicists, however, doubted that such a thick layer of ionized air could possibly come about. When the thunderstorm had completely died down and it was still impossible to re-establish communication, even after sending nonstop call signals, Horpach dispatched two scouting planes of the flying saucer type. It was close to six o’clock in the evening.

One of the flying saucers flew a few hundred yards above the desert. The other rose to an altitude of two and one-half miles, serving as a television transmitter station to its lower flying companion. Rohan, the astrogator, Gralew and a dozen other men, including Ballmin and Sax, stood in front of the big telescreen in the command center, viewing directly whatever happened inside the visual field of the first machine’s pilot. Beyond the dark labyrinth of ravines stretched the desert with its endless chains of dunes, now covered by black stripes, for it was close to sunset. The oblique rays of the setting sun cast the landscape in a mournful light. Small craters, filled to the rim with sand, slipped by underneath the low flying machine from time to time. Some craters had remained visible only because of the central cone of a volcano extinguished for many centuries. The terrain rose gradually and became increasingly diversified. Amid the sandy hills high rocky ridges jutted out, forming an entire system of oddly jagged mountain chains. Lone stone needles resembled the bodies of smashed rockets or of some gigantic figures. Crevices, filled by cone-shaped formations of boulders and rubble, cut the slopes with their sharp outlines. Finally the sand disappeared altogether and gave way to a wilderness of steep rocks and rubble heaps. Here and there tectonic fissures wound through the planet’s crust. From a distance they resembled meandering rivers. The landscape now resembled that on the Earth’s moon. Suddenly the television reception grew worse once again. The image became blurred and synchronization was disrupted. All efforts at correction were in vain.

Now the whitish coloration of the rocks turned into ever darkening shades. The high-rising rocky ridges that moved away from the immediate view were brownish and covered by a poisonous and metallic glitter. Velvety black spots occurred here and there, as if a dense dead scrub proliferated over the bare stones.

A call came from the first machine, which had remained silent thus far. The pilot reported that he could hear the automatic position transmitters with which the lead vehicle of the expedition had been equipped. Yet the men assembled in the command center could hear only the pilot’s weak and fading voice, calling Regnar’s group.

The sun was lowering in the sky, which glowed in rich crimson hues. A black wall reared up against this red backdrop in front of the machine. The wall seemed to consist of many cloud-like yet solid strata that reached from the rocky ground to a height of one thousand yards. Everything behind it was now hidden from view. If this dark conglomeration of partially inky-blue and partially metallic purplish shimmering clusters had not moved up and down, slowly and rhythmically, one could have taken it for an unusual formation of mountains.

Now the sun rays struck the wall in near horizontal lines. Below them caves opened up revealing sudden flashes of light coming from inside. The gaps in the wall appeared to be filled with furiously dancing swarms of sparkling black iron crystals. At first the men in front of the picture tube had the impression that the cloud was advancing toward the approaching machine; but this was an optical illusion. Only the flying saucer was moving with constant speed, flying straight toward the strange obstacle in its path.

“KU-4 to ground station. Shall I fly above the cloud? Over,” sounded the muffled voice of the pilot.

“Commander in chief to KU-4. Stop in front of cloud!” came the astrogators reply after a fraction of a second.

“KU-4 to ground station. Stopping before cloud,” confirmed the pilot at once and Rohan thought that his voice sounded rather relieved. Just a few hundred yards separated the machine from the strange formation that had begun to fork out, each prong diminishing in breadth toward the end; they seemed to stretch as far as the horizon. Now the entire screen in the command center was filled by the gigantic, pitch black mass of the vertical surface of this improbable ocean. The flying saucer no longer moved in the direction of the black wall. Suddenly, before anyone could even utter a sound, bolts of lightning shot out in all directions from the slowly heaving mass. The image on the screen grew dark, vanished to a small point, then again lit up, flickering once more, rent apart by the lines of weak electrical discharges, and finally disappearing completely.

“KU-4, KU-4,” called the operator.

“Here KU-8,” suddenly reported the pilot of the second craft, that had functioned all this time as the relay station for the first flying saucer.

“KU-8 to ground station. Shall I start televising directly? Over.”

“Ground station to KU-8. Start televising directly!”

The big videoscreen in the command center was now covered by wildly whirling black currents. It was the same picture but this time seen from a height of two and one-half miles. Now it could be observed that the black mass formed one immensely long cloud bank that rested against the towering ring of mountains, as if it intended to block the way to this region. The surface of the black Wall moved along sluggishly like some congealed, viscous mass. No trace could be detected of the first machine that had been swallowed by the dark substance.

“Ground station to KU-8. Are you receiving KU-4? Over.”

“KU-8 to ground station. Nothing from KU-4. Using interference waves. Calling KU-4! Calling KU-4, here KU-8! Come in, please! KU-4, KU-4!” the men heard the second pilot’s voice. “KU-4 does not reply. Proceeding to infrared waves. Calling KU-4! Here KU-8, come in, please! KU-4 does not reply. Using radar now to probe the black cloud wall.”

It grew absolutely still inside the darkened control center; not even the men’s breathing could be heard. The entire room was tense with expectation. There was no change on the screen; the men no longer looked at it. The rocky ridge jutted out above the black cloud, an island in an ocean of ink. High up in the sky gold-drenched cirrus clouds were fading away. The sun’s disk was already touching the horizon. In another few minutes, dusk would fall.

“KU-8 to ground station,” sounded the pilot’s voice, which seemed to have completely changed during the few seconds since the last communication. “Radar findings indicate a purely metallic obstacle. Over, please.”

“Ground station to KU-8. Switch radar screen image over onto television screen! Over!”

The screen grew dim, then totally dark, glowed briefly in a pale blue light, then turned green. Finally it became scattered all over by innumerable, brightly sparkling discharges.

“The cloud consists of iron,” said someone behind Rohan. It was like a sigh.

“Jazon!” shouted the astrogator. “Is Jazon here?”

“Yes, here I am.” The nuclear physicist stepped forward.

“Can we heat that up?” asked the astrogator, calmly pointing to the videoscreen. Everyone knew what he meant. Jazon hesitated. “KU-4 ought to be warned first to expand their protective energy field to its maximum.”

“Jazon! They are incommunicado.”

“Up to 7000° Fahrenheit… without great risk.”

“Thanks! Blaar, the microphone! Commander in chief to KU-8! Get the laser ready! Aim at the cloud bank! Up to one billierg into the epicenter! Nonstop bombardment along the azimuth!”

“KU-8. Nonstop bombardment up to one billierg,” answered at once the voice of the pilot. Nothing happened for one second. Then a flash, and the central cloud which filled the lower part of the screen changed color. At first, the cloud seemed to liquefy, then it turned red and finally began to boil. A funnel with glowing walls was formed; all the neighboring shreds of cloud were sucked into it as if into a maelstrom. Suddenly all movement ceased. The cloud was now in the shape of a huge ring; through this lumen could be seen many chaotically arranged groups of boulders and rocks. A fine black ash-like dust drifted in the air.

“Commander in chief to KU-8. Maximal fire power!”

The pilot repeated the order. A wildly flickering wall surrounded the hole as the cloud attempted to patch it, withdrawing its groping black arms whenever they were seized by the flaming inferno. All this lasted but a few minutes. The situation grew more and more critical. The astrogator did not dare shoot at the cloud with the full force of the laser-beam mortar, for the flying saucer with its pilot was still inside the cloud. Rohan instinctively knew Horpach was hoping that machine would fly out through this gap. But now as before, there was no trace of it. The KU-8 hovered almost motionless and pierced the bubbling rim of the black ring with its blinding laser beams. The sky was still quite light, but the shadows grew increasingly darker along the rocks. The sun was setting.

Suddenly, the gathering darkness in the valley began to glow eerily. The cloak of darkness that enveloped everything loomed a dull red, like the mouth of a volcano beneath a fiery cloud of ashes.

Now only dark shadows were visible. They kept merging, forming one continuous mass in whose center fiery flames hissed and boiled. The cloudy substance, whatever it was, had moved in to attack the missing aircraft, and fierce flames shot up wherever the black mass collided with the ship’s energy screen.

Rohan looked at the astrogator, on whose rigid, expressionless face was mirrored the wavering reflection of the blazing fire. The middle of the screen showed the black seething mass with the fiery nucleus that intermittently broke into sheaves of fire. In the distance a huge mountain was silhouetted against the cold purple of the last sun rays that at this very moment so much resembled their terrestrial counterpart. All the more incredible was the spectacle that took place inside the cloud.

All of a sudden something horrendous happened. Either the pilot of the machine imprisoned by the cloud lost his head, or some catastrophe occurred aboard the aircraft — in any event, a bolt of lightning coursed through the black simmering mass, a blinding light marked the spot where the lightning had hit, and long swaths of the cloud that had been ripped apart by the explosion scattered rapidly in all directions. The shock wave was so violent that the whole picture began to oscillate, echoing the same crazy dance that the KU-8 performed as it was tossed about by the turbulence of the atmosphere. Then the screen was filled again by the black mass which grew denser and denser. Only black could be seen, nothing else.

“Ready the antiprotons! Full force ahead! Aim at the cloud! Nonstop bombardment!”

The pilot repeated the order. The technicians observed the side screen on which everything was visible that happened behind the machine. All of a sudden one of the technicians yelled: “Watch out, KU-8! Climb! Higher! Climb, keep climbing!”

A huge black whirling cloud came racing like a hurricane from the vacant air space in the west. A moment earlier the black tornado had still been part of the immense cloud bank. Now it became separated and rose vertically, whirling rapidly, dragging offshoots behind that soon split off due to the violent motion. The pilot noticed this phenomenon a fraction of a second before the warning call rang out. He pulled the machine upward in steep ascent. But the cloud pursued him, spewing black columns up into the sky. He attacked them systematically, shooting at one after the other. He made a frontal hit and one of the black clusters nearby started to divide and became darker. Suddenly the whole image began to shake.

As soon as part of the cloud bank reached the region of the radio waves, making radio communication from plane to ground increasingly difficult, the pilot apparently used the antimatter mortar for the first time. Abruptly the planet’s atmosphere changed into one immense sea of fire. The purple afterglow of the sunset vanished instantly. For several seconds the television observers in the command center could still perceive the cloud through the jagged horizontal pattern on the screen. Out of the cloud rose smoke columns that quickly oozed away, their color fading to a grayish white. Now a second explosion, far more terrible than the first, poured cascades of fire over the rocky chaos that had been almost enveloped by gases, haze and smoke. This was the last picture that was transmitted, for one second later the screen was filled with sparks and arcs of electrical discharges, and then vanished altogether. Only the empty, brightly lit screen glimmered in the darkened command center, illuminating the deathly pale faces of the assembled men.

Horpach ordered the radio crew to keep calling both machines. Then he went to the adjoining navigation cabin together with Rohan, Jazon and several others.

“What is the nature of this cloud? What is your opinion?” he asked without any introductory remarks.

“It is made up of tiny metal particles. A remote-controlled emulsion, as it were, with uniform center,” answered Jazon.

“Gaarb?”

“I am of the same opinion.”

“Any suggestions? None? All the better. Which supercopter is in better shape, ours or the one from the Condor?” Horpach demanded of the chief engineer.

“Both are in perfect condition, astrogator. But I would prefer ours.”

“Excellent. Rohan, if I’m not mistaken you once expressed the desire to work outside the protective dome. Well, here’s your chance. You’ll get eighteen men, take along double the usual complement of automatic arms, vibration arc lasers and antiprotons. Anything else you could use?”

Nobody replied.

“All right, then. So far we haven’t invented anything more powerful than the antimatter. You’ll start at 4:31 A.M. Sunrise. Proceed in a northeasterly direction and try to find the crater that Regnar mentioned in his last report. Shoot at everything on your way out there, but keep at a safe distance. Don’t waste any time waiting around or experimenting. And don’t spare the ammunition. If you lose contact with our base here, just carry on. As soon as you’ve located the crater, proceed to land, but be careful not to lower on to our men there. I suppose they’re somewhere around there — ” He pointed at the map of Regis III that covered an entire wall. “Over in this area, cross-hatched in red. It’s just a rough guess, but that’s all we have so far.”

“What do we do after touchdown, astrogator? Shall I search for the men?”

“I leave that up to you. Use your own judgment. Rut please remember not to shoot at anything within a radius of thirty miles, because our men might be somewhere in there.”

“How about ground targets?”

“None whatsoever. Up to this point here” — the astrogator outlined the area with a sweeping motion of his hand — ”you may deploy your annihilation weapons aggressively. Rut beyond this line you’re to defend your selves only with your force field. Jazon, what is the limit for the field of such a supercopter?”

“Several million atmospheres per square inch.”

“ ‘Several million.’ What’s that supposed to mean? I asked you how many? Five million? Twenty million?”

Horpach’s voice sounded very quiet; but the effect of this studied calm was to strike chill in the hearts of the Invincible crew.

Jazon cleared his throat. “The field has been tested with twelve and a half.”

“That sounds much better. Did you get that, Rohan? Whenever this cloud bank reaches this limit of your force field, you get the hell out of there. Climb up, that would be the best escape route. Well, of course it’s impossible to predict everything that might happen…” He looked at his watch. “Eight hours after you leave here I’ll have you called over every wave length. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try to establish communication via satellites or direct optical contact. We’ll send laser signals using Morse code. That’s always worked up to now; at least I’ve never heard anything to the contrary. But just in case the laser beam signals should fail to get the message to you, wait another three hours and then start back to the base. If I’m not there — ”

“Do you plan to take off?”

“Don’t interrupt me, Rohan! No, I don’t plan to, but things don’t entirely depend on us. If we’re gone, you’re to go into orbit around the planet. Have you ever done that with a supercopter?”

“Yes, twice, in the delta of the Lyre constellation.”

“Fine. Then you’re aware that it’s somewhat complicated, but not impossible. Your orbit must be stationary. Stroem will give you the exact data before you start. Once in orbit, you will wait for me for thirty-six hours. If I haven’t reached you by then, you’ll simply return to the surface of Regis III and land near the Condor. Try to get it in shape to take off from here. I know what this advice sounds like, but you’ll have no alternative. Once you’ve engineered this miracle, report back to Earth with the Condor. Any questions?”

“Yes. May I establish contact with these… with this center that directs the cloud, if I should succeed in locating it?”

“I’ll leave that up to you also. But make sure that the risk remains within the limits of reason. Of course, I am totally ignorant, but I don’t think you’ll find any master brain on the surface of Regis III. If a center even exists.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve been scanning the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. If anyone were steering this cloud with the help of rays, our instruments would have registered the corresponding signals.”

“The center might be hidden in the middle of the cloud.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Jazon, can you conceive of a means of telecommunication independent of electromagnetic waves?”

“Completely out of the question, if you want my opinion.”

“What do you think I asked for?”

“The extent of my knowledge is not the same as what exists or might exist. We don’t know any other type of communication. That’s all.”

“How about telepathy?” came a voice from the background.

“No comment,” replied Jazon curtly. “Nothing of the kind has ever been detected, as far as I know. Not in any part of the universe explored by man, at least.”

“Let’s not waste our time with useless discussions. Get your men together, Rohan, and make the supercopter ready for takeoff. Details about the ecliptical orbit will be in your hands within the hour. Stroem will work it out for you. Stroem, please calculate a constant orbit with an apogee of 150 miles.”

“Will do, Astrogator.”

The astrogator opened the door leading to the command center.

“How are things going, Terner? Nothing yet?”

“Nothing. Just a lot of static, that’s all.”

“No trace of emission spectrum?”

“Not a trace.”

That means that neither of the two machines is using any of their weapons. They’ve stopped fighting, thought Rohan. If they’d gone on to use laser fire or induction emitters, the instruments aboard the Invincible would register such activity at a distance of several hundred miles.

Rohan was far too gripped by excitement to worry about the mission he had been ordered to carry out — and far too busy to indulge in the luxury of anxiety. There was no time for sleep that night. The supercopter had to be checked out, additional fuel had to be taken aboard, provisions and weapons had to be loaded. The men worked hard to finish all the necessary preparations in time. The instant the red disk of the sun peered above the horizon, the two-storey-high craft, weighing seventy tons, lifted off into the air. Heavy dust clouds whirled around the launching pad. The copter flew in a straight line toward the northeast, Rohan quickly gained an altitude of almost ten miles. He could travel at maximum speed within the stratosphere. There was also less danger of an encounter with the black cloud, or so he reasoned.

Whether he was right in his assumption, or whether it was just luck, preparations were met for landing hardly one hour later. The sun’s slanting rays fell on the supercopter as it descended, while the sandy crater below still lay in the gray light of dawn. Even before huge fountains of sand gushed up to meet the downward blast of hot gas jets, the video technicians alarmed the men in the command center that they had sighted something suspicious in the northern part of the crater. The heavy craft interrupted its descent and hovered, trembling slightly as if poised on an invisible tensioned spring. From a height of 500 yards they made a thorough inspection of the spot.

The screen of the magnifier showed a gray-brownish background against which tiny rectangles stood out, grouped geometrically around a larger, steel-gray rectangle. Together with Ballmin and Gaarb, who were sitting next to him at the controls, Rohan realized that these were the vehicles of Regnar’s expedition.

Swiftly, with all precautionary measures, they landed not far from the area. The telescopic landing legs of the supercopter were still working and clicking into place simultaneously, when the crew began to lower the gangway and send off two scouting machines, well-protected by a movable force field. The interior of the crater resembled a shallow dish with a jagged rim. A black-brownish crust of lava covered the central cone of the ancient volcano.

The scouting vehicles needed a few minutes in order to cover the distance of one mile that separated them from Regnar’s group. There was excellent radio communication, no sign of interference. Rohan spoke with Gaarb, who was riding in the front vehicle.

“We’re still climbing a slight incline, we should see them any moment now,” Gaarb repeated several times. Suddenly he shouted: “Here they are! I can see them!” Then he added with a calmer voice: “Evidently everything seems to be okay there.” He counted: “One, two, three four — all the vehicles are there. But why are they parked in the sun?”

“How about the men? Do you see any of our men?” inquired Rohan, who sat tensed in front of the mike.

“Yes. Something’s moving over there — two men. Here — another one — somebody is lying down in the shade — I can see them, Rohan!”

His voice grew distant. Rohan could vaguely hear him say something to his driver. Then came the dull echo as they shot off a smoke signal. Gaarb’s voice came on strong again.

“That was just a little salute to let them know we are here. The smoke is drifting over their way now. It will soon clear up. Jarg, hey there, Jarg! What’s the matter? Hey there, guys!”

His excited shouts were loud in Rohan’s ears. Then there was abrupt silence. A motor sprang to life. Rohan could hear the humming engines move farther and farther away until they came to a halt. Then a few hurried steps, muffled sounds of shouting, indistinct screams and then silence again.

“Hello, Gaarb, hello!” Rohan kept repeating in his mike. His lips were trembling. Footsteps approached, someone running across the sand came nearer; the loudspeaker began to crackle.

“Rohan!” Gaarb’s voice sounded strange; he was breathing hard.

“Rohan! Damn it! It’s the same as with Kertelen! They’re all crazy — they don’t recognize us, they don’t talk — Rohan, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I’m listening. Are they all the same way?”

“Looks like it to me. But I can’t say yet for sure. Jarg and Terner are just going through the group to see — ”

“How about their force field?”

“It’s switched off. I can’t detect it. I don’t know. They must have switched it off.”

“Any signs of a struggle?”

“No. Nothing. All the vehicles are parked here. There’s no damage. And the men are simply lying around or sitting there. You can shake them and they don’t react at all. What? What’s the matter over there?”

Rohan heard a distorted sound, interrupted by a long whining whimpering howl. Rohan gritted his teeth, trying to suppress the feeling of nausea that welled up from the pit of his stomach.

“For God’s sake, that’s Gralew!” came Gaarb’s horrified voice. “Gralew! Gralew! Don’t you recognize me?” Gaarb’s panting, amplified by the loudspeaker, seemed to fill the entire command center.

“Gralew too,” he uttered breathlessly. Then he fell silent, as if gathering new strength.

“Rohan, I don’t know if we can handle this situation by ourselves. We have to get them away from here. Send us some more men, will you?”

“Right away.”

One hour later the convoy of horror stopped below the metal body of the supercopter. Only eighteen men out of the original twenty-two that had left with the expedition had been found. The fate of the other four was unknown. Most of the group had offered no resistance and had come along peacefully. Five of the men refused to budge and had to be taken by force. They were carried aboard on stretchers, then brought to an improvised infirmary on the lower deck of the supercopter. The other thirteen men, whose rigid masklike faces were especially terrifying, were brought to an isolated room where thy allowed themselves to be put to bed without any resistance. They had to be undressed. They were as helpless as newborn babies. Rohan witnessed the scene silently. He stood in the corridor between the rows of cots. He noticed that most of the men remained passive, although those that had been carried off by force continued to whine eerily.

Rohan left the incapacitated men in the care of the attending physician. He sent all the vehicles at his disposal on a search mission, trying to locate the missing four men. He had many vehicles now, as he had brought back the machines abandoned by the sick men. Now Rohan used his own men to drive these machines. He had just finished dispatching the last group when he was called back to the command center: the radio men had finally established contact with the Invincible.

He was not at all surprised that they had succeeded in getting in touch with their “home base.” He was beyond the stage where anything could still surprise him. He gave a brief report to Horpach.

“Who is missing?” the astrogator wanted to know.

“Regnar, Benningsen, Korotko and Mead. What’s the story on the two airplanes?” Rohan now inquired in turn.

“I have no news from them.”

“And how about the cloud?”

“I sent out a patrol this morning. They just returned one hour ago. They couldn’t detect any trace of the cloud.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even the aircraft?”

“Nothing.”