107 THE BLUE SYSTEM K.H.Scheer OF ASSASSINS & ATLAN ATTEMPTS on his life. Eternal intrigues. Threats to his reign. The rule of Imperator of Arkon is certainly not one of serenity. His subjects hate him! His ancestors despise him! And now, it appears, there is a new nuisance on the blue horizon: aliens intent on pitting the Realm of Arkon against the Solar Empire! Atlan must meet with Perry Rhodan to defeat this malicious plan, this systematically arranged sabotage by- THE BLUE SYSTEM BEFORE THEY'RE THROUGH THE'YRE BLACK and BLUE- PERRY RHODAN-The Solar First Administrator ATLAN-For the Arkon Imperator its a dog's life! Auris of Las-Toor-A beautiful diplomat-the acme of Akons! Col. Jefe Claudrin-The Ironduke's commander takes a 'screen' test Lempart of Fere-Khar-The chairman of the Akon Council gets a tiger by the tail Adm. Talur-Commander of the 12th Arkon Cruiser Fleet Truk Drautherb-A wearying stickler for Arkon protocol Mahout Sikhra-Leader of the lronduke's commandos Maj. Hunts Krefenbac-The Ironduke's First Officer takes a lady for a ride Pucky, Tama Yokida, Fellmer Lloyd, John Marshall, Tako Kakuta, Ras Tschubai-The mutants blow the whistle on the Blue System! Moku-Atlan's pet boxer ...and the spaceships Ironduke and Her-Akal FOR ONCE IT'S GREAT TO HAVE THE BLUES! PERRY RHODAN: Peacelord of the Universe Series and characters created and directed by Karl-Herbert Scheer and Walter Ernsting. ACE BOOKS EDITION Managing Editor: FORREST J ACKERMAN WENDAYNE ACKERMAN Translator?in?Chief and Series C?ordinator CHARLES VOLPE Art Director PAT LOBRUTTO Editor Sig Wahrman Stuart J. Byrne Assistant Translators THE BLUE SYSTEM by K.H.Scheer A Division of Charter Communications Inc. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036 THE BLUE SYSTEM Copyright (c) 1976 Ace Books An Ace Book by arrangement with Arthur Moewig Verlag All Rights Reserved. Original German Title: "Das Blaue System" First Ace Printing: July 1976 Printed in U.S.A ORDER OF THE ACTION 1/ SAD DOG DICTATOR page * 2/ THE BRAIN'S INNER SANCTUM page * 3/ THE GREAT HYPER-CAPER page * 4/ PURSUIT IN LIMBO page * 5/ PERRY'S ATYPICAL ACTION page * 6/ THE FIGHT FOR TIME page * 7/ IRONDUKE BREAKS THROUGH page * 8/ THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES page * PROLOG AT THE BEGINNING of the 22nd century, the test flight of the cruiser Fantasy, first ship with linear space drive, has opened a new era of space travel. However, this flight had far-reaching consequences of an unexpected nature. The Akons, ancestors of the Arkonides, had long considered themselves secure behind their system-spanning defence screen and they had not concerned themselves with galactic politics-until this intrusion. After that they had begun to strike out against Terra and Arkon with various unscrupulous methods. The Akons' "Plasma monster" had almost destroyed the Earth, and the "ghost fleet" had been on the verge of converting Earth into an atomic inferno, just before the phantoms were thrown back into the past they had emerged from, through destruction of the time converter. Atlan is very disturbed over these occurrences. Intrigues and assassination attempts have made his position hard enough as it is-but now he suspects that the Blue System of the Akons may be coming up with the idea of causing the Arkonide Empire and Perry Rhodan's Solar Imperium to clash with each other. Thus, Atlan has invited Perry Rhodan to a private council of war. The two rulers are conferring in the Inner Sanctum of the giant Robot Brain when the Akons strike anew...! 1/ SAD DOG DICTATOR WHEN A MAN IS LONELY he has a greater longing than other men for love and affection, for genuine friendship and entertaining diversion. And I was very lonely! I was probably the most forlorn and lonely individual in the entire cosmic conglomeration of star cluster M13 in the constellation of Hercules, whose suns and planets-from all reports, at least-belonged to me. I was alone among several billion Arkonides and 500,000 humans from Terra, to whom I had granted permission to come to Arkonide planets in my capacity as Imperator Gonozal VIII and absolute ruler of the stellar empire. But even the Terrans had not been able to relieve the situation very much although for months I had been making an effort to loosen up the stiff formalities of the receptions and solemn festivities. Thus far I had failed to break through the ancient traditions of protocol and ceremony in an attempt to interface with the representatives of humanity on a more cordial and unconventional basis. For I was the Imperator! And as such I had to comport myself, as my Protocol Chief Drautherb was always reminding me. The preservation of necessary respect was a question of 'royal propriety' which could not be allowed under any circumstances to deteriorate to the disgraceful level of a 'handshaking familiarity' with other intelligences. This policy was also urgently pressed upon me by the officials of the court. Royal propriety had also been explained to me as 'representative restraint or reserve' but I wasn't quite sure what was meant by this concept. In my opinion the whole thing contained a contradiction. On the one hand if I were to properly represent the Greater Imperium, then pomp and all related issues were indispensably connected with it. Yet this was somehow incompatible with the idea of 'restraint'. In my estimation this simply called for a combination of modest discretion and unimpeachable deportment. At any rate I very soon realized that I could not swim against the current forever. My initial resistance to the prevailing social order on the Arkon planets degenerated into a sort of helpless resignation. If I had been surrounded by a sufficient number of mentally active Arkonides who were still imbued with the old acumen and perception, it would have been possible to change the situation. Then I would most likely have been able to take an 'iron broom' and sweep the palace halls and chambers clean of this rubbish. So I was forced to depend upon the few Terrans around me who in turn had their own problems to contend with. All of these things had become an inseparable part of the Empire-the ridiculous splendour of banquets and celebrations, the vacuous and trivial blathering of loafers and fawning psychophants, the groundless hauteur and overbearing attitude of counsellors and high-ranking officers of the Fleet. I could not shake them out of their lotus dreaming. More and more my thinking was becoming more valid for the distant Earth than it was for the Arkonide Imperium. But to all these difficulties was added still another constant danger. More than once, there had been attempts to get me out of the way by one means or another. Assassination attempts had practically been the order of the day until I took energetic measures and refused to suspend a few death sentences here and there. They hated me! As the old Arkonide admiral Atlan from the ruling dynasty of Gonozal, I was as much feared as I was unpopular. I had long since confessed to myself that I was more human than I was Arkonide. My actual and only true friends lived 34,000 light-years away in the Sol System. Perry Rhodan was the First Administrator of the Solar Imperium that he himself had brought into being, and on this man I could rely in the fullest sense of the word. He had proved himself worthy of my trust and so I had no plausible reason for standing in the way of humanity's galactic trade and colonial policies. In my secret heart I knew that the golden age of the Arkonides was finally at an end, in spite of all my attempts to regenerate the Empire. And for me it was painful to realize that Perry Rhodan was quite aware of my situation. Now I had called for his help again after having had to turn to him only two months before. An unknown power had attacked the Arkonide Empire as well as the Earth. Very unusual technology had been demonstrated which convinced me that the boundless arrogance of the still mentally active Arkonides was highly inappropriate. Actually I was pleased that Perry Rhodan specifically had been involved since many Arkonides still considered him to be a barbarian. He had been able to prove that we were nothing more than degenerating colonial descendants of a great race of people who had sent the ancestors of the present Arkonides into the depths of the void some 20,000 years ago. This was a fact which I had only learned a few months before. As a result, my position as Imperator of the realm had become more important and responsible. But something had happened that we Arkonides would never have permitted ourselves to imagine. In the centre of the galaxy there was a race of people who treated us with as much arrogance as we had been accustomed to treating other intelligences until now. Naturally, Rhodan had not been able to resist pointing this out to me, with appropriate sarcasm. He couldn't offend me any more with such remarks but the 'Barbarian's' explanation had caused other Arkonides to turn visibly pale. It was too humiliating for them to think that the members of their mother race should consider them to be degenerated colonial descendants with outmoded customs. Such was the situation on the Crystal Planet of the Arkon Empire when the linear drive major class Terran battleship Ironduke burned a glowing contrail into the atmosphere and prepared to make a landing at the imperial spaceport. * * * * The sky seemed to burst into flames. The white sun of ...
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