The Trigan Empire

“Alone in the stricken weather station, with all about me dying, I sent my message out across the ether.”  

Help me, please . . . someone . . . help!

“Somewhere out there, a substratosphere passenger cruiser picked up my feeble call.”

Hello, hello, weather station . . . receiving you . . . what is your trouble?

“I can imagine what took place between the captain of the cruiser and his second pilot.”

Sir, they’ve got the virus fever aboard the weather station! Practically everyone is wiped out and the signal operator wants us to land there and bring him off.

There’s only one thing for it.

“Instead of taking the decision himself, as he should have, the captain consulted eight frightened people.”

So there you have it. Do we land on the weather station and take off the survivor, at the risk of ourselves contracting the virus fever?

. . . I put it to the vote!

No!

No!

No!

And I add my own vote . . . No!























“Picture my horror and despair when I received their verdict.”

Cruiser’s Captain speaking. I’m sorry, friend, but we have taken a vote, and we think the risk is too great.

No! No! You can’t do this to me!

You can’t abandon me!

“The sole survivor on an abandoned city in mid-space, with everything I needed to sustain life—food, drink, warmth, purified air—everything but freedom. Nothing but mind-bending solitude.”

Five lunar years have passed. I think another five will drive me insane!

“My sanity was saved by my discovery—in one of the many well-equipped workshops—of a damaged air craft. In the years that followed, I worked on the craft, to repair it.”

One day, I’m going to have this fit to fly. Then it’s back to Elekton . . .

. . . and vengeance!

“Years later . . .”

It is ready!

And now, to find those who condemned me to all those years of terrible solitude . . .

. . . and to pay them back in kind!

His story finished, the speaker regarded his prisoners.

The ten year-old crew and passenger list told me all I needed to know. Further investigation revealed that two of those persons had died in the meantime, but that eight remained, including the captain of the cruiser . . .

. . . Now Marshal Rossu, Chief of the Trigan Air Fleet!

This instalment was originally published in Look and Learn issue no. 759 on 31 July 1976.

A sudden stunning blow dashed Janno senseless.

Uuuuhh!

Back in Trigan City, Janno’s disappearance had caused the Emperor to summon a special meeting to discuss his nephew’s possible fate.

I think we may take it that Janno can be counted as the ninth person to vanish in this strange manner.

Precisely, Imperial Majesty . . .

 . . . And it is of vital importance that we discover immediately what is the connection between Janno and those other eight unfortunates.

But, Peric, the computer machines have been working on it day and night.

Elekton’s top scientist smiled sagely.

There comes a time, Colonel, when computer machines, however sophisticated, cannot compete with . . . the mind!

I shall apply my mind to the problem!

Out on the edge of space, in the long-abandoned weather station . . .

. . . Janno recovered consciousness.

By all the stars!























Eight people regarded him, and one man’s face was startlingly familiar.

Marshal Rossu! What are you doing here, Excellency?

I might well ask you the same question, Lieutenant.

Suddenly—a newcomer!

You! I demand an explanation as to why we’ve been tricked into coming here.

There are eight of you, plus one intruder who should not be here at all, but who will suffer the same fate as the rest . . .

The time has now come for me to unmask and tell you all!

The concealing mask was ripped away, revealing a countenance that was lined and hardened with great suffering.

Well, do you know me?

I never saw you before!

The stranger began his story.

I take you back ten lunar years. To the day when this weather station was a new project and operating with a crew of a hundred trained personnel, of which I was one.

“One terrible day, a deadly virus fever struck the crew, laying them low in their scores. By the end of that day, I was the only person alive and on my feet. And pleading for help . . .”

Come to our aid . . . come to our aid . . . please . . . please . . .

This instalment was originally published in Look and Learn issue no. 758 on 24 July 1976.

Night time, silence and darkness as a dark figure emerged from an upper window of Trigan City Hospital . . .

 . . . and embarked on a dizzy downward climb.

Some time later, a night nurse making her rounds spotted the empty bed.

He’s gone!

Alarm! Alarm! Lieutenant Janno is missing from his room!

News was brought to the Imperial Palace, and the Emperor himself awakened, to hear of his nephew’s disappearance.

But I understood Janno had only just come off the danger list, and the doctors had prescribed several more weeks of complete rest and quiet.

That is so, Imperial Majesty. I am afraid we must assume that your nephew did not leave the hospital of his own free will.

That assumption was incorrect. Janno had left of his own accord, and for a very good reason. At that moment, he was entering Air Fleet Base.

They won’t believe what I tell them. They treat me as if I’m wandering in my mind—and so . . .























 . . . I’ll go and investigate that old weather station myself!

Entering the crew-room unseen, he later emerged in full flying kit, his face masked by the visor.

Now to take off in one of the stand-by craft!

Three zippy fighter-craft stood ready for emergency take-off, day and night. Approaching the nearest, Janno was challenged.

Excuse me, sir, may I see your authorisation, please?

A touch of a starter button blasted the powerful engines into life . . . and . . .

Hey!

Later, high in the sub-stratosphere, Janno saw, for the second time, the deserted city in space.

If only I can get in there, before I’m shot down again.

Janno decelerated rapidly, and brought his craft down upon a landing platform on the ancient, abandoned weather station.

I hope that pressure door over there still works, so that I can get inside.

The pressure door was still operative. Moments later, Janno was inside the station.

So far, so good!

But he was not alone!

This instalment was originally published in Look and Learn issue no. 757 on 17 July 1976.