Read Ebook: Reign of the telepuppets by Galouye Daniel F Birmingham Lloyd Illustrator

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Ebook has 611 lines and 25070 words, and 13 pages

Illustrator: Lloyd Birmingham

Release date: December 30, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1963

Reign of the Telepuppets

"The way this thing shapes up," Director Gabe Randall of the Bureau of Interstellar Exploration was saying in his usual manner of understatement, "it will be our most important trouble-shooting mission to date."

He stood cranelike, one leg hooked over a corner of the desk, as he whacked his thigh with an illuminated indicator rod. With purposeful eyes, he sized up the other three men in the briefing room. Lean and alert, he held himself straight against the encroachment of age that was evident in a fully white shock of hair and a brow furrowed with decades of executive responsibility.

"I suppose," he digressed, smiling, "that we'll have to get along without our Maid of the Megacycles."

Dave Stewart, Randall's assistant, glanced at the empty chair. "Carol said she'd be along shortly." Actually, she hadn't. But, if the situation were reversed, she'd cover for him.

"Woman's prerogative," the director observed, shrugging phlegmatically. "Gentlemen, I submit that the greatest deterrent to progress in BIE is the fact that direct radio empathy can be developed only in women--and young ones at that."

But Stewart recognized the imperceptible jocularity in the other's stare. It contrasted the sobriety with which he had said only a moment earlier that the nature of the mission required top personnel.

At half the director's age, Stewart had earned his recognition as logical successor to the seat of executive authority. And, in Carol Cummings, Randall had selected the most capable radio empathy specialist BIE had produced in years. The prettiest, too, he added as an afterthought.

"Top" personnel for a "priority" job? Stewart shook his head dubiously.

Randall rapped the desk and the sharp sound snapped McAllister's chin from his chest, where it had gradually descended.

"Since it appears we'll continue to be disfavored by Miss Cummings' absence," the director resumed, "we'll proceed."

He touched a button and darkness filled the room. Another stud hurled into existence a ten-foot sphere of galactic luminosity, ablaze with motes of scattered brilliance.

Stewart located the co-ordinate axes and traced them to Sol. Nearby was Centauri, ringed with a halo to signify location of Headquarters, Bureau of Interstellar Exploration. Mortimer's corpulent face took on a Buddha-like appearance in the illumination from Alpha Hyades, hovering near his left cheek.

"All right, Stewart," Randall gestured with his rod. "Suppose you identify that star immediately behind your shoulder for McAllister and Mortimer's benefit."

"Alpha Tauri."

"Right. Aldebaran--where you made a telepuppet drop on Four-B two years ago."

"Just before Harlston and I pushed on out to explore beyond Aldebaran."

Randall directed his next words at the pilot and ship systems officer. "What Stewart did not know as he ranged outward was that the Aldebaran telepuppet team, for some reason, stopped transmitting--less than a year after the drop."

Stewart finger-combed a spray of blond hair off his forehead. In the pseudo galactic illumination his face, tanned from exposure to a score of suns radiating heavily in the ultraviolet range, appeared cinnamon in hue.

Randall glanced back at him. "Tell them what we're going to do on this mission."

"Unknot the puppet strings," he said laconically, becoming impatient with his dutiful recitation to enlighten the other two.

The director glanced off to his right, eyebrow raised to compound the eternal ridges of his forehead. "I see we've got our Maid of the Megacycles with us at last. Couldn't you tear yourself away from a Terracast, Miss Cummings? Or did you bring it along?"

Groping for her chair, she weaved between the steady, cold points of suspended light that represented Epsilon Scorpii and Eta Orphiuchi. "Don't look now, Chief," she added, winking, "but I'm afraid this newscast shows you've got a leak in your bureau."

Stewart caught her arm and guided her toward the chair. His hand held the coarse texture of fatigue coveralls that did little to obscure the shapeliness of her lithe, five-foot-four form.

She returned his greeting with a spirited, "Hi, glad to have you aboard. Not planning to lead us off on a two-year jaunt?"

Randall tapped the desk with his rod. "If Miss Cummings is willing to forego informalities, we can get along with our briefing."

McAllister tossed his head erect, but started nodding again almost immediately. Mortimer looked up tolerantly from contemplation on the orbiting of one of his stout thumbs around the other.

The director touched another button and the celestial sphere expanded to twice its diameter, encompassing another seventy light-years in all directions. "Again, directly behind you, Stewart, is--what?"

Enthusiastically, he sat erect. "The Hyades Cluster."

Randall laid down his rod. "Stewart, as you are aware, completed his expedition two weeks ago--in a ship stripped down for maximum range. Now he's going to tell us something about his experiences."

Mortimer, finally interested, glanced over at McAllister. The pilot, however, was dozing.

Stewart stared at the cluster of four stars huddled together in the still air of the briefing room. "We found the Hyades rich in Earth-type worlds. Seven--" He paused. Was it seven, or eight? "Eight of them are more like Terra than Terra itself. Four others are more suitable than anything we've run across in a century and a half of galactic exploration."

"You all know what this development means," Randall said.

"That our expansion will be concentrated in a new direction!" Carol volunteered hopefully.

The chair creaked its complaint as Mortimer shifted his weight. "And the Aldebaran telepuppets?"

Randall gestured for emphasis. "That robot team is now of first-rate importance. We'll need a full analysis of Four-B in the shortest time possible. The Hyades are a hundred and fifty light-years away--too far for direct development. But a halfway base in the Aldebaran system will open them up to us immediately."

Carol found Stewart's arm. "This one is really worthwhile. Think you can get your puppets back on their strings?"

"I suppose so. There can't be too much wrong with them." But still his thoughts were on the Hyades. Somehow they left him with an emptiness, a bittersweet taste. Whereas he knew he should feel only enchantment and the satisfaction of accomplishment in his discovery.

"That all there is to this mission?" McAllister, fully awake now, asked disappointedly.

"I thought it was going to be a challenge," Mortimer complained.

Randall played the buttons on his desk as though they were a console keyboard. The celestial sphere deflated, then collapsed. Room lights blazed, harsh and intense. "Everything clear?" he asked.

Carol's eyes widened. "You're going too?"

"Yes, finally. About time I got out in the field and see how our new generation of--ah, specialists handles things."

Stewart only stared at the director. On the latter's desk were mountainous stacks of back work. Yet he was finding time to get away.

Rationalization circuits working sluggishly as he surveyed his realm, Bigboss dredged from the fragmented impressions on his memory drums his most fascinating, most disturbing subject for speculation:

Yet He sensed, with the nagging certainty of conviction, that somewhere in His Universe, there was an insolent creature or creatures who would dare challenge His infinite supremacy.

Remembering his blaster, he swung around, aimed it at a boulder and, vengefully, fed it an enormous surge of power. Angry liquid light streaked out from the intensifier and crashed against the rock. The concussion sent him skittering back several meters.

Bigboss was by far the most magnificent member of the clan--if indeed, he should condescend to regard himself as belonging to the set at all. Fully twice the size of any of the others, he reared pompously erect on four stout appendages. Through its ports, his central section offered glowing evidence of the nuclear processes within. Majestic in stance, he swung a pair of formidable members--the auxiliary blaster and a massive, extensible vise.

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