The Last Days of Lemuria, page 16
part #5 of Perry Rhodan Lemuria Series
The Lemurians behind the barricade at the end of the corridor were still not shooting. Utterly amazed, they watched the battle between their deadly enemies as though paralyzed by the inexplicable development.
Tolot managed to defend himself against the rapid-fire pounding of the fists and pressed his hand-beamer against the Beast's chest. Before he could shoot though, the Beast threw itself to one side. It hardened the molecular structure of its body in mid-leap, and struck the wall with a crash. Then it pushed itself away and rammed Tolot with enormous force.
He fell heavily to the floor and lost his hand-beamer. Meanwhile, the Lemurians had shaken off their paralysis and opened fire once more, but their thermobeams had no effect on the Beast thanks to its hardened bodily structure. It roared in fury and drew an arm-long vibro-knife from the leg-sheath on its black protective suit.
Then it attacked Tolot, surrounded by a lightning storm of thermo-rays from the Lemurians' weapons. It stabbed the vibrating blade at his eyes. Tolot jerked his head to the side and struck out with his upper pair of fists into the Beast's chest so that it stumbled back, and reached for the hand-beamer lying on the ground.
As his hand seized the grip, the Beast threw the vibro-knife. It bored through the resistant material of his battlesuit into his arm. Everything happened so fast that he had no time to solidify his molecular structure.
He bellowed in pain, let the hand-beamer fall, then snatched it up again with his upper left hand. Instinctively he spun around and saw the Beast charging him. Just before it reached him, he raised the beamer and fired.
The interval beam's five-dimensional impact front slammed into the Beast's chest head-on. It was knocked off its feet and hurled against the side wall of the corridor. Tolot kept firing until his opponent's hardened body structure gave way and the interval beam punched an ugly hole the size of his head in its chest.
Blood spurted from the wound in fountains, spraying the corridor. The Beast collapsed and stopped moving. Its eyes glazed over, staring at nothing.
Gasping, Tolot ceased fire.
It was dead.
The Lemurians at the end of the corridor shouted in triumph, but when Tolot turned towards them and raised his hand in a conciliatory gesture, they opened fire on him. Thermobeams sizzled past him and burned holes in the walls and the ceiling.
Hastily he reactivated his shield.
"I am a friend!" he called to the Lemurians. "I am fighting on your side! Don't you understand this?"
The answer consisted of a new salvo of thermobeams.
Tolot swore and drew back to the bend in the corridor.
It is useless, the overbrain informed him unnecessarily. You will not be able to convince them of your peaceful intentions.
Tolot chose not to reply. He pulled the vibro-knife out of his upper right arm and hardened the molecular structure of the wound to stop the bleeding. The burning pain eased at once, replaced by a dull numbness.
He listened but didn't hear any footsteps. The Lemurians apparently didn't dare leave the safety of their cover. Good. He nodded grimly. That saved him from having to fight against them and perhaps even having to kill them. In spite of the overbrain's skepticism, he still hoped to ally himself with the Lemurians.
With a quick glance he assured himself that his hand-beamer's energy magazine was still three-fourths charged. He then ran back to the emergency stairway shaft. Two landings lower, he came across three more corpses along with sooty burn trails and interval impact holes in the walls.
Screams shrilled from below.
Tolot increased his pace and stormed down the stairs with long leaps. The metal steps bent or broke entirely under his weight, but he ran onwards and finally reached the lowest level, where the hall with the time machine was located.
He had only to follow the screams and the sound of weapons to find his way to the large tunnel crossing, from which a corridor led to the hall.
The second Beast had seized a Lemurian soldier and with an effortless jerk broke his spine. Two other men already lay dead with contorted limbs on the floor. Three others pressed themselves against the wall a few meters away and fired at the Beast with their thermobeamers.
The four-armed monster only laughed and hurled the dead soldier at his comrades.
Tolot looked past the Beast and the soldiers to the end of the wide tunnel. Behind a barrier of hastily assembled steel plates were stacked boxes and containers in front of the door to the time machine hall. At least a dozen Lemurians had taken cover behind the plates and waited with drawn weapons for the enemy's attack.
"I am a friend!" Tolot called to them in a thundering voice. "The Beasts are also my enemies. I have come to help you!"
From behind a container appeared a familiar face: bushy eyebrows under smooth, black hair that had been combed back, stone-gray eyes, sharply defined features. It was the face of the man that he had already seen on the monitor in the communications station.
The Lemurian seemed to look piercingly at him. In relief, Tolot saw him making an imperious, dismissive gesture when the men at his side aimed their thermobeam guns at the new arrival. Obediently they lowered their weapons.
Did that mean he had finally convinced the Lemurians of his peaceful intentions?
A loud bellow drew his attention to the Beast again. It had thrown itself at the three Lemurian soldiers and crushed them with its hardened body that weighed tons. Now it turned to Tolot. Its lips parted in a cold smile and exposed a predator's shining teeth.
"I don't know who you are," it rumbled, "or why you are fighting on the side of the Time Criminals. But I will kill you for this unforgivable crime."
"Many have already tried," Tolot calmly replied, "and all have failed."
The Beast attacked. Tolot shot at it with his hand-beamer and watched in satisfaction as the impact distorted its paratron shield. A second later the Beast had reached him. Their energy shields collided and collapsed in a crackling lightning storm. Before Tolot could press the trigger of his beamer again, the Beast's fist struck him. He groaned. A kick knocked the beamer out of his hand. The weapon flew through the air, slid across the floor for several meters, and came to a stop near the corpses of the Lemurian soldiers.
Tolot stumbled back under the force of the blows and tried desperately to block the fists, but they beat on him so rapidly that the Beast's movements were a blur. Tolot hardened his molecular structure but the Beast did the same, and its fists struck like hammer blows.
Then it seized his upper arms and threw him against the wall. Under the force of his impact, the plasteel twisted and tore in several places. Numbed, Tolot raised his arms and blocked several punches. He managed to drive the Beast back a few meters with a series of well-aimed blows against its hemispherical head.
Its thundering, mocking laughter died away. Hatred flared in its red eyes. It reached back, tore its interval gun away from the magnetic belt holder, and aimed at Tolot. But the brief separation had been enough to reactivate Tolot's paratron shield, and the force field diverted the interval discharge into hyperspace. The Beast's own shield also formed itself again.
Tolot didn't hesitate for another moment. He threw himself at his opponent and made its force field collapse again. In the next moment, a stunning blow struck his head that left him temporarily numb despite his hardened bodily structure. He reeled and was hit again and again. The Beast's fists hammered several times at the wound in his arm, and livid pain made him cry out.
The Beast laughed once more and intensified its attack. Tolot's numbness increased. Dizziness overcame him. He felt pain in his entire body, and his strength ebbed away. Tolot fell backwards to the floor and was too exhausted to leap back up immediately. Violently powerful kicks knocked him against the wall. Through the red spots that danced in front of his eyes, he saw his hand-beamer lying on the floor, barely a meter away. More kicks slammed into him, striking his upper body and his head.
Without his molecularly hardened body structure, his bones would have already been shattered and his head crushed. Even so, he felt closer to death than to life.
"Filthy traitor!" the Beast roared. "Your end has come!"
He blurrily saw the vibro-knife's blade flash in the Beast's hand. It stabbed down. At the last moment, Tolot jerked his head to one side and the vibrating blade bored its way deep into the plasteel floor. The Beast needed a second to pull the weapon out again, and Tolot took advantage of the moment. Despite the throbbing pain in his body, he rolled over, grabbed his hand-beamer, raised it, aimed at the Beast, and fired.
It was slammed against the wall by the interval beam and bellowed with pain as its black suit crumbled away and its hardened upper body was pulverized. Its scream broke off and it fell crashing to the floor. A last shudder ran through its mighty limbs, then it stiffened.
Tolot gasped. The beamer fell from his powerless hand. He knew that he had to stand up and speak with the Lemurians to convince them of his peaceful intentions, but he didn't have the strength. Shadows seethed in front of his eyes. A moan escaped from his lips.
He heard approaching steps, but he still couldn't move.
"Don't kill it," said a voice that was accustomed to giving orders. "Bring a restraining field projector here. Hurry!"
The steps came closer and then paused at his side. A heavy thermobeam gun protruded into his range of vision, followed by a sharply featured face with gray eyes and bushy eyebrows beneath smooth, black, combed-back hair. The face of the man that he had seen before on the monitor in the communications station before it blew up.
Again that face seemed familiar to him, and while he fought against the weakness in his limbs, he tried to think of where he had seen this man before.
On Xölyar in the Blue System, his overbrain informed him, the central system of the Akonian Empire. This man called himself Achab ta Mentec there and was a fleet officer.
Tolot was so surprised that for a moment he forgot his pain. He heard pounding steps, then several men came up to Mentec, apparently dragging something heavy with them. Another face appeared in his range of vision, the face of a woman.
"Here is the restraining field projector, Technad Paronn," she said.
Tolot gave a start. Paronn! Achab ta Mentec was Levian Paronn, the builder of the star arks!
He wanted to open his mouth and speak to Paronn, but he suddenly felt a pressure on his entire body as the restraining field projector was activated and enveloped him in an impenetrable force field bubble. He could no longer move, only breathe shallowly.
Then the exertions of his recent battles caught up with him.
Icho Tolot lost consciousness.
17
They had won the battle against the ancient enemy but the triumph was bitter and carried within it the seeds of defeat. The atom fire in the east was continuing to eat its ceaseless way onwards and would reach the Suen base in the very near future, and they had no spacecraft in which to flee the doomed world. Their hope that the squadron's heavy cruisers would return to Torbutan and rescue them diminished with each passing minute. The nineteen ships had probably been destroyed by the Beasts.
It's hopeless, Levian Paronn thought bleakly. We are as good as dead.
He had taken off his protective suit and sat wearing civilian clothing on a box in the time machine hall. Through narrowed eyes, he regarded the Beast from the future as it lay on an antigrav disc, enveloped in the invisible chains of the restraining field. It breathed shallowly and regularly, still unconscious and bleeding from a wound in its arm.
Hesitantly, Paronn lifted the shock rod and touched the four-armed giant's motionless body with it. The electric discharge made the Beast jerk and with a choked cry it abruptly opened its eyes. For a moment, it stared into emptiness, then focused its gaze on Paronn.
The Technad had expected to see hatred in its eyes, cold anger, or heated frenzy, but all he found were mild surprise and alert interest.
"I know you," the Beast rumbled. "You are Levian Paronn, the builder of the star arks."
Paronn blinked, shocked. "You ... you know me?" he asked in incomprehension.
"I know you from the future," the Beast confirmed, "55,000 years from now."
Paronn's heart beat quickly and loudly. He didn't know how much he could trust and believe the Beast. True, it had not shown any hostile intentions so far, and had even supported the Lemurians in battle against others of its kind. But its helpfulness could also be a trick, part of a refined plan to lead them into destruction.
Then he thought again of the atom fire and their imminent end in a nuclear blaze, and found himself shaking his head. They were lost in any event. The Beast had no reason to deceive him. They were all in the same boat, and if it did in fact come from the future, it had to know if he had fulfilled his destiny and saved the Great Tamanium by venturing into the past.
"I am Icho Tolot," the Beast said, "and I am a friend of the Lemurians, not an enemy."
"A Beast who is a friend of the Lemurians," Paronn replied with puzzlement. "I must admit that I find that difficult to believe."
He leaned forward and the egg-shaped Cell Activator that he wore on a chain around his neck slipped out from the top of his shirt.
The Beast's eyes widened. "A Cell Activator!" he rumbled in surprise. "So you are an Immortal?"
Paronn was at a loss for words. He stared at the Beast and reached unconsciously for the Activator to conceal it under his shirt again.
The Beast interpreted his gesture correctly. "Don't worry," he said in a low voice. "Your secret is in good hands with me. I am also an Immortal. Like you, I carry an Activator, although it is a different model."
"But where ... how can you ... " Paronn raised his hands in confusion. He had never told anyone about the Cell Activator. It was a secret between him and the Twelfth Hero. Yet this Beast spoke of it matter-of-factly, as though it was common knowledge.
"A being called IT gave me my Cell Activator," Tolot replied. "I assume that you also received your device from IT."
Paronn shook his head numbly. An inner voice admonished him to be careful and tell the Beast nothing about the Twelfth Hero and his fateful mission. But another, louder voice urged him to do just that. It was absurd, but he had the overwhelming feeling that he could trust this Icho Tolot.
In a low voice he described his meeting with the Twelfth Hero and the mission that he had been given. It was an enormous relief to finally speak about it, to share this secret with someone, even if that someone was a Beast and thus the feared and hated enemy.
When he was finished, Tolot looked at him sympathetically. "I understand," he rumbled. "This Vehraáto must have been IT. No other explanation is possible."
"Who is IT?" Paronn asked, not comprehending.
The four-armed giant smiled. "A Superintelligence. A being on a higher level of development, the guardian and mentor of a sphere of influence that consists of the galaxies of the Local Group."
The explanation increased Paronn's confusion even more. Tolot noticed it.
"But that isn't important now," he continued reassuringly. "What's important is only that IT frequently intervenes in the lives of us lower beings. And that IT gave you a Cell Activator proves how significant IT considers your mission. Perhaps IT wants to give the Lemurians a second chance through you and the star arks ... Yes, that's conceivable."
"What are the star arks?" Paronn asked, puzzled.
"Generation ships that will cross the galaxy for more than 50,000 years in dilation flight. You will travel into the past, to the era before the Lemurians develop faster than light space travel, and build the arks. The seed of your people will survive on board these ships. That must be the mission Vehraáto—IT—spoke of." Tolot's voice now sounded imploring. "That is the great deed you will accomplish and on which the fate of the Lemurians depends ... "
Paronn was so agitated that he leaped up from the box and paced nervously back and forth. "But that isn't the plan!" he exclaimed, overwhelmed once more by distrust. Perhaps the Beast really had come to this time only to divert him from his mission, to thwart the salvation of the realm. "My task is to prevent the fall of the Lemurian empire by annihilating the Beasts before they destroy the Great Tamanium!"
"That is not possible, Levian Paronn," Tolot replied evenly. "The course of history has flowed in a different direction."
Paronn stopped in mid-stride and glared at the Beast. "I can change history with the time machine. I will go back into the past just before the outbreak of the war and give the Lemurians construction data for modern ships and weapons systems. That way the Beasts' empire can be defeated before they develop their devastating interval cannons and superior paratron technology."
"You are mistaken," Tolot told him. "The opposite is the case. If you did in fact carry out this plan, you would only accelerate the fall of the Lemurian empire. It will probably even be impossible to evacuate the Lemurians to Karahol as a result."
Paronn gasped for breath. "But ... "
"The Beasts are only the henchmen of the First Vibratory Power, which possesses highly advanced technology," Tolot interrupted coolly. "If the Beasts encounter strong resistance in the opening phase of the war, the First Vibratory Power will equip them with paratron technology even sooner. The Lemurians will then be defeated more quickly, with disastrous consequences for this galaxy and Karahol. I'm sorry, Paronn, but the fate of your people is sealed."
"No," he gasped, shaking his head violently. "There must be a way to save the Great Tamanium. If the Beasts are only henchmen, as you say, then I will just make a preventive strike on this First Vibratory Power in the past. I will wipe it out before the Beasts start the war."
"Even that is impossible," Tolot replied, his voice gentle. "The First Vibratory Power is located in another galaxy, out of reach of your starships."
With sagging shoulders, Paronn sank back down on the box. He didn't know why, but he believed and trusted this Beast even though there was still a voice inside of him warning that this was a trick, a trap. Discouraged, he lowered his head.
