The Immortals of Terra: A Perry Rhodan Adventure Walkthrough by Peter Olafson

Some general notes to get
us started.

Certain "sweet spots"
on the screen can be hard to find. In those cases, use the "S"
key to scan the display. All interactive locations will then show
up as glimmering yellow doughnuts.

Some regions require a
great deal of running back and forth. To move quickly from screen
to screen, right click when the exit icon is displayed.

Computers often hold answers
to hard questions. Periodically run your new topics and items past
a "positronic."

If you can’t find a positronic–the
output from the one at Thora’s museum is apparently in Klingonese
and last three segments don’t have computers at all–just ask around.
Eventually, you’ll find someone who knows more about that item or
topic than you do. Good sources include Kari Levian and her boss Malcolm
Daellian at the Waringer Academy and Ijgarsha and Ullban Krems in
Elmo Dater.

And if you can’t find a
positronic or a solid source–Perry’s essentially alone in some segments–don’t
forget the journal in your PDA. Perry writes a lot of things there
he doesn’t expressly state within the game.

You don’t have to do everything
outlined here. I’ve included some tasks that are purely informational
or just add color. Heck, you don’t even have to do everything characters
in the game put forward. Immortals offers up a fair number of red
herrings.

Finally, while most of
the game’s core puzzles have one solution, you’ll find some small
variations here and there. I’ve outlined the ones I’ve discovered.

Your comments and corrections
are welcome. Your can write to me at .

This document is copyright
2008 by Peter Olafson. It’s free. You may not sell it, distribute
it, modify it, excerpt it (except for "fair use" purposes
in news coverage), edit it or publish it in any fashion without my
prior written consent.

The
Solar Residence

You’ve seen the game’s
intro and know that giant robots have attacked a kung fu-fighting
supermodel on a rooftop. Downstairs in his office, Perry Rhodan knows
only that there has been an attack on the Solar Residence. Some equipment
is broken; some is simply disobedient. Perry can’t visit certain areas
and rooms. (He can’t even get back into his office.) A colleague (Reginald
"Bully" Bull, whose portrait is your first inventory item)
has invoked a special law and Perry’s authority is limited.

And he can’t–that is,
you can’t–just pick up and leave. You’re going to have to sort out
what’s happened and then make your escape.

You can explore this starting
area now in nominal fashion and, on the roof itself, acquire a portrait
of kidnap victim Mondra Diamond for your inventory. This allows you
to ask other people (and eventually your office computer) about your
best friend.

To reach the roof, you’ll
pass through the Hall of Fame. Its entrance isn’t obvious. From this
end, you can’t actually see the portal. It’s the niche on the left
side of the starting foyer just below the door to Atlan’s office.
(That’s the one on the far left in the starting hallway.)

This takes you into a broad,
two-segment corridor lined with 10 information kiosks–all currently
non-functional. Exit at the far end, cross the Crystal Lounge (named
for the singing crystals–currently silent–that are suspended here)
and enter the teleporter. Perry asks for "Residence Parliament,"
but the two accessible "transmitters" are semi-broken. (That
is, they work, but send you automatically to their last destination.)
You’ll find yourself on the Residence’s ruined Terrace, where you
learn from the guards that Mondra has been kidnapped by robots of
"non-Terran origin." You’ll have to zap back down again–over
time, the guards offer a range of excuses for shooing you away–but
you won’t leave empty-handed. Mondra’s portrait has been automatically
added to your inventory.

Keep returning to the roof.
You won’t be able to explore it for a while yet, but you’ll sometimes
get useful information from the guards–notably, a reference to the
presence here of anti-shield capsules, which will allow you to knock
down an obstacle after you get into Mondra’s office.)

Now we’re going to get
the power going again. This will enable you to read the room numbers
in the hall where you initially appear (a necessary step for unlocking
the accompanying doors), reactivate all the cleaning robots (including
one in this starting hall) and the information kiosks and an annoying
Perry Rhodan hologram in the Hall of Fame.

It’s pretty straightforward.
Backtrack to your starting position and make your way around the central
wreckage to the right side of the room. You’ll see another teleporter.
This time, Perry asks to go to the "Surveillance Center."
That isn’t happening either. Step into the light and you’ll reappear
in Mondra’s glider hangar. Perry steps off to the left to take in
this malfunction and a guard zaps through right after him. (He’s here
to prevent you from using the glider you’ll find at the far end.)

Follow him. Walk toward
the bottom right corner of the screen and then right, past the damaged
section of wall, into the hangar proper. You’ll find a technician
named Yuri and the guard here. (The guard has a name, too, but you
don’t get it until later.)

Also Mondra’s glider. This
will eventually be your way out. But you can’t use the glider yet.
If you try, the guard stops you.

Just use the reddish door
(the one with the wheel against the rear wall) and you’ll find yourself
in a utility room. Use the terminal on the right and a big temporary-power
switch appears in the middle of the screen.

Click on it–you don’t
have any choice, actually–and you’re done! The current flows. Among
other things, you’ve turned on the left-hand terminal and additional
functions for the right-hand one. Click on the right-hand terminal
again. You’ll summon a blue display with five columns. These are the
controls for the doors on the starting level. Perry speaks up here,
identifying the middle column (with "936" at the bottom)
as his own, the left-hand ones (479 and 836) as Atlan’s and Gucky’s,
and speculating he can use this to unlock these doors.

Actually, you can unlock
Perry’s door right now. The trick here is simply plugging the number
from the bottom of the central column at the top of that column as
well … but by using arrows to cycle through alien symbols.

Now, no one has told you
that the symbols at the top are the numbers from the bottom. You’ll
soon get a bit of data that makes this clear–it translates the symbols
into numbers–but at this stage, a little leap of faith is required.

But you can sort this out
of your own, and, when you do, you’ll find that all the information
you need is already right here. The alien symbols are already in place
atop the columns for Atlan’s and Gucky’s offices. Gucky’s office number
differs from Perry’s in only the first digit and that digit happens
to be the third digit in Atlan’s office number.

Hence, the symbols atop
Perry’s column (936) should be, from top to bottom:

• the bottom symbol from atop the 479 column
• the middle symbol from atop the 836 column
• and the bottom symbol from the 836 column

Once the right symbols
are in place, you’ll see a line of current from top to bottom in Perry’s
column. We’ll return to this utility room a little later to plug in
the data for Bully’s and Mondra’s offices. (Note that you can’t get
into Atlan’s and Gucky’s offices. Their sections of this display show
damage and inspections of their respective doors in the starting hall
reveal they are broken as well.)

Now exit the right-hand
terminal and use the left one. This will permit you to redirect the
cleaning robots and your "avatar" (that malfunctioning hologram
mentioned earlier) to different sections of the Residence. (It will
come in handy later in distracting guards on the roof and the hangar.)

However, right now, the
terminal doesn’t work at all and Perry mentions finding someone to
fix it. So why are we looking at it? Because looking gets you a picture
of the terminal, which allows you to talk to people about this topic.

Exit this display as well
and return the way you came. When you reach the damaged wall outside
the hangar, you’ll see a new technician at work. Use your use "Maintenance
Terminal" topic with him. He’s not qualified to perform that
kind of work, but will make other arrangements for the terminal’s
repair.

Also talk to him without
a topic to learn what he’s doing here. The thermo-scan glasses he’s
wearing effectively provide a kind of x-ray vision. Click on them.
Perry then invades the bionic’s personal space and the bionic manages
to say with a straight face that he needs the glasses now, but suggests
they might become available a bit later.

Return to the starting
hall, where you’ll find red lights flickering above three of the four
doors–the one over your own door is green–and the cleaning droid
doing its thing.

Here you have several tasks:
re-explore this level, retrieve the office numbers for your neighbors
Bully and Mondra, and check out your newly-opened office.

Now that the power is back,
exploring will get you an additional portrait–that of Ulan Soso–for
your inventory. You can then check him out on your computer in your
office and collect a key item. (You’ll pick up another portrait, for
Aimo Martel, in the office itself.)

Ulan Soso’s portrait:
Just use the kiosk for "The Solar Residence" (Soso is the
structure’s architect) in the Hall of Fame we visited earlier en route
to the Terrace. Those terminals are working now.are working now.

They are devoted to the
topics "Thoregon," "Monos," "The Solar Residence,"
"Atlan," "New millenium, the Swarm," "Super-intelligence,"
"The SOL," "Encounter with IT, Immortality," "The
STARDUST Mission" and "Andromeda and the Masters of the
Island." The Solar Residence kiosk is the second from the end
on the left side of the hall at the end nearest Perry’s office.

Note that the data on a
given kiosk isn’t always displayed right away. A distorted screen
and one of three cryptic messages may pop up at random. In those cases,
you’ll need to activate the terminal a second time to call up the
actual display.

Cast in vague, almost poetic
language and spoken in an ethereal and almost comuter-like voice,
these messages are intended to provide an early clue that Mondra is
in danger (for players who haven’t visited the roof), that events
are in motion and, above all, that you must "HURRY! … HURRY!
… HURRY!"

(Actually, you don’t have
to hurry. Events in adventure games rarely are time-sensitive, and
all events in this one are keyed to your actions.)

But one message does contain
a helpful nugget: "You must find the undying myth!" You’ll
find references to this myth a little later in Mondra’s notebook.

Perry can’t as yet identify
the messages’ source–given their appearance here, we can judge they
must come from a talented hacker–and you won’t be able to guess at
it until we reach the next segment. You’ll hear from this seeming
ally again at Waringer Academy.

You’ll want to check out
all the kiosks. Immortals is based on a long series of science-fiction
novels–the first appeared in Germany in 1961–and these terminals
offer a lot of history and background. (once you get into Perry’s
office, you’ll find a bunch of these novels on the right near the
door.)

In addition to the kiosks,
you’ll now find this hall occupied by the malfunctioning Perry Rhodan
hologram and an active cleaning bot. The former is supposed to serve
as a virtual tour guide, but glitches out during its first line. Once
repaired, this obvious fellow offers a way out of the Residence.

The office numbers:
In the starting hall, simply examine the light over Bully’s door–the
one to the right of your own–to get his number: 938.

And Mondra’s is … well,
you can’t tell what Mondra’s office number is just yet. A former secret
agent, she has her own ideas about privacy and her door plate has
been somehow obscured. That task will have to wait on the availability
of the thermo-scan glasses being used by the bionic outside Mondra’s
hangar. (Technically speaking, you don’t have to see -any- of the
door plates to unlock these doors–but I recommend you adopt this
slower route to let yourself into the game gradually.)

Perry’s office:
And now you get into it. Click on the info terminal on the near right-hand
wall to receive a message Mondra sent before her abduction. She’s
planning to meet with Bully on the Terrace to discuss "quite
alarming things" about a charity exhibition she’s planning at
Thora’s Museum on Titan and "something going on with Martel,"
and wants you there as well.

Speak of the devil: The
next message is from Aimo Martel himself. He proposes a meeting in
his lab at the Waringer Academy to discuss a new technology which
he is eager to keep out of "the wrong hands." This gets
you his portrait. Perry tries to reply, and can’t. His email’s been
locked down by Bully’s blackout.

You’ll want to run all
the portraits by your computer. It’s at the top of the stairs. Lots
of background here–plus you get something new out of it. When you
run Soso’s portrait, a bit of code called "Swoonish omega decimal
minuscules" replaces it. Run this by your PC, too, or just look
at it. It’s a number translator. Too late to help with your office
door (though it can, should you defer that task until later), but
just in time to help with Bully’s door and especially Mondra’s.

You’ve done what you can
do here. Get back to the utility room, call up the right-hand terminal
and use the plus and minus signs at the bottom of the column to the
right of your own to plug in Bully’s office number (938) and the arrows
at the top to pick out the correct alien symbols. As with your number,
this one pretty much translates itself. The top two symbols atop Bully’s
column should be the same as those in Perry’s and the bottom symbol
should be the top one from the 836 column. (If the symbols prove elusive,
just use the Swoonish omega decimal minuscules to make the translation.)
Again, the correct number is rewarded with a solid line of current
through Bully’s column. Back in the starting hall, you’ll find the
light above his door has gone green.

In Bully’s office, grab
the remote control on the floor to the left. It’s broken. You’ll learn
that if you try to use it on the broken model (the Blues saucer) on
the table to the left over by the window. You can have it repaired
later by the hangar attendant Yuri and recharge it in the Robotics
lab at the Waringer Academy. You’ll use it twice to good effect later
in the game.

Try the computer, too.
It needs a password. You don’t have it. Perry already suspects the
password is the name of one of Bully’s model ships, but which one?

You can go get the remote
fixed now, but hang around for a bit. Something’s changed at the far
end of the Hall of Fame. In the Crystal Lounge, you’ll find a new
character. This fine fellow seems fascinated by the crystals suspended
here–now that the power’s up, they’re singing again–and is whistling
to stimulate their responses. (This is a bit of foreshadowing. You’ll
do something similar at the end of the Waringer Academy segment.)
He’s the repairman summoned by the bionic outside the hangar entrance.
Talk to him about the maintenance terminal and he trudges off to the
utility room. (He doesn’t have much to say on other topics, but can
alert you to the general crappiness of Bully’s remote control.)

Problem solved?

Not exactly.

Follow the technician.
He walks slowly but evidently works really fast. When you step out
of the teleporter on the hangar level, you’ll find him chatting about
soccer with the bionic working on the blasted wall. When he sees you,
he breaks off and reports bad news: As he feared, the terminal uses
old technology and he can’t fix it without some further help. The
bionic puts in that you should talk to building architect Soso. Alas,
as you’ve already discovered (when Perry tried to reply to Martel’s
note), you can’t send out messages.

In any case, it’s a red
herring. You already have the info. Simply show the technician the
Swoonish omega decimal minuscules and he trudges off to continue his
work. He won’t be done for a while yet.

Another small change has
occurred, and you might easily miss it: The bionic isn’t wearing his
special goggles any more. They’re now sitting atop the case just to
the right of the ruptured wall. Click on them. Perry politely asks
the bionic if he can borrow them, and the technician agrees. These
will allow you to read Mondra’s hidden door number.

But you’re already down
here, so let’s tackle a lingering task and pick up a new inventory
item. Follow the round-bodied repairman to the right again. You’ll
recall the remote we picked up in Bully’s office is broken. When you
pass Yuri, you can talk to him about it and he’ll identify part of
the problem and fix it for you.

Or don’t. It turns out
this repair isn’t required. If you skip over it, you’ll nevertheless
be able to recharge the remote at Waringer Academy and use it twice
with no ill effects.

Then make for the utility
room. The technician’s back at work. Steal his lunchbox from the the
floor. (Apparently Perry’s courtesy extends to the bionic but not
to Cebulba-like technicians.)

Now get back to the starting
hall. In your office, you’ll find your computer projecting a colorful
swirl. You’ve got female: It’s Tamira Sakrahan, the First Terran.
She doesn’t actually tell you anything, but takes in your story, asks
if Bully is using his authority against you ("I hope not,"
says Perry) and promises to see what she can do. (She never gets back
in touch. It’s just a cameo by another seeming fair-weather friend.)

Outside Mondra’s office,
use the thermo-scan glasses on the protrusion above her door. There’s
her number: 256. Hustle back down to the hangar–where you’ll find
can’t give back the thermo-scan glasses just yet–and the utility
room (where our lunch-less pal is still at work). Activate the right-hand
terminal and plug in "256" at the bottom of the rightmost
column.

Now for the alien symbols
at the top. You already know one of them (the 6). That bottom symbol
is the same as the one in Glucky’s and Perry’s columns. However, the
2 and the 5 are mysteries–albeit minor mysteries, given that you’ve
already accounted for seven of the 10 symbols (the six numerals in
the pre-set symbols, plus the starting "0" symbols on the
three right-most columns–and it’s easy enough now to find the remainder
via trial and error.

But maybe you don’t dig
trial and error–in which case you can look them up via under your
ever-useful Swoonish omega decimal minuscules, which translates all
10 very neatly. Plug in the code. The column lights up. Get back to
Mondra’s office.

Yes, you’re finally in–but
not that far in. You’ll find your access to a box blocked by the brown
aurora of an illegal military shield and access to the far end blocked
by a carnivorous plant. Try to run past the critter (or interact with
it) to get its portrait for your inventory.

And what do you do with
a portrait? You run it by the computer back in your office and learn
that Suurg flies have a calming effect on the plant. Perry here notes
that Mondra breeds those flies up on the roof. You’ve probably already
heard from the guards there about anti-shield capsules. Those might
help with the box.

But you don’t have freedom
of action on the roof. Every time you use the teleporter outside Mondra’s
office, the guards here send you back down after a brisk Q&A.
You’ll have to find a way to distract them, and you’re about to find
one.

Get back down to the hangar
entrance. You’ll automatically return the thermo-scan glasses to the
bionic. (Perry here offers to buy them and the bionic raises the possibility
they’ll be returned to you later.) Press on to the utility room and
the technician announces he’s completed part of his work and takes
off for lunch. The cleaning robots can now be reassigned. And a bunch
of cleaning robots reassigned to rooftop duty would be an ideal distraction.
Call up the left-hand terminal and send the bots to the Terrace and
then get up there yourself to capitalize on the chaos they sow. The
guards are so busy with the industrious little droids they have no
time to deal with you. You have the free run of the place.

Start by grabbing the robot
head over near the central dome above and to the left of the teleporter.
Then poke around inside Bully’s blasted cleaning robot (just to the
right of the teleporter) to find the missing piece of that Blues saucer
model from Bully’s office. (You’ll notice the piece contains the rest
of the model’s name. This is the path to the password for Bully’s
PC.)

Now climb the stairs to
the headless statue at the upper right and, at the top, grab the anti-shield
capsules on the right side of the surrounding path. Finally, check
out the big bowl at the top of the stairs. Mondra bred her Suurg flies
here. That’s what’s flying around in the background. You have only
one thing that could serve simultaneously as both fly bait and fly
trap: the technician’s stolen lunchbox. Use it on the bowl and sit
through the post-purchase-reinforcement spiel to to capture a few.

And now to put your new
gear to use. Get back to Mondra’s office. Use the anti-shield capsules
on the shield around the box. The shield goes bye-bye and you’re free
to take the broken robot and strange lens within. Use the lunchbox/Suurg
fly trap on the Carnivora and it stops trying to bite your head off.
Now you’re free to visit the left end of Mondra’s office. Claim the
notebook from the left side of her desk.

In the lens and notebook,
you now have the two key items in the game.

Also have a peek at the
alien artifact to the right of the desk. This isn’t required, but,
if you use the lens on the artifact, the device’s purpose emerges:
It is a holographic projector. But what is the dragon-like creature
it displays? Read the notebook. It identifies this as a member of
an alien race called the Illochim. It also gets you a portrait of
Mondra’s pal Kari Levian, who’s going to be a big help to you when
you reach the Waringer Academy.

And really -read- Mondra’s
notes. Among other things, they contain the available information
on the lens, point back to its previous owner (a mysterious "Q.B.")
and forward to a likely source of information on its use and provenance
(Malcolm S. Daellian at Waringer), raise the prospect of Kari (who
is Daellian’s assistant) serving as intermediary and supply a script
translation table that’s way too detailed not to be of eventual use.
(It’ll help you through a puzzle at the end of the Thora’s Museum
segment.)

Outside the office, you’ll
be met by the technician, freshly returned from lunch, and your avatar,
out of position, who identifes the tech as Richard Klabund. The technician
then trundles off to repair the avatar side of the left-hand terminal
in the utility room.

Back in the starting hall,
you’ll run into the bionic from the hangar entrance, who appproaches
as though he’s going to punch you in the face … and restores to
you the thermo-scan glasses. (They’ll come in handy in the Waringer
Academy and Thora’s Museum.)

Return to Bully’s office
and use the Le-Clyi piece on the Blues saucer over by the window.
That completes its name: Le-Clyi-Lercyi. However, despite what Perry
said earlier, that won’t work as Bully’s password. But notice that
the ship has been added to your inventory. To what purpose?

Actually, a couple of purposes–but,
for now, just so you can run it by the computer in your own office.
It turns out Lercyi was a celebrated Blues ship commander whose unpronouncable
name was recast as "Leclerc" in Earth history. And -that-
is Bully’s password.

While you’re here, run
the rest of the new stuff, too. You’ll learn the lens might be more
precisely identified with an ultra-high-frequency scanner. The deactivated
robot from Mondra’s box is a Martel model designed for use in "prestigious
chambers and as service robots for high-ranking political and business
figures." Though most of its functions have been destroyed, it
contains a recording in its main memory.

Finally, the robot head
appears to be Blues technology and the embedded transmitter indicates
it was operated by remote control. Perry says this doesn’t make sense.
The Blues are occupied with other concerns. Why would they attack
the Residence?

Now get over to Bully’s
office, plug the "leclerc" password into his computer and
you’ll be able to read an email from Mondra to Bully (she commissioned
him to look into Martel’s work), view blueprints to the Residence’s
forcefield (which briefly gives Perry pause) and Martel’s Robotics
Institute and surveillance photos of Martel–one of them with a fluffy-haired
man whose face is in shadow, You’ll automatically download the institute
floorplan. This is followed by an annoyed, broken-up message from
Bully that … well, it doesn’t really tell you anything except that
it’s a "really bad time" and he’ll explain everything later.

If you wish, you can pop
back to your office again to take a protest call from a Blues ambassador–apparently
set off by your computer’s analysis of the robot head. (How’d the
Blues hear about it? Perry hasn’t had a chance to tell anyone.) In
any event, his denial of your non-charges is the first appearance
by these high-strung folks, who look like a four-eyed version of Mayor
McCheese. They’ll play small roles in the game’s Waringer Academy
and Elmo Dater segments.

There’s not much left to
do here but plot your escape. But that involves your hologram and
the technician’s still working on the terminal that directs that it.
You need to perform one more intermediate step to trigger completion
of his work.

Maybe someone could help
with the deactivated robot? The bionic is gone and the next useful
words from the tech in utility room will be his last words to you.
But the hangar attendant Yuri is still around. Use it on him and he’ll
place it atop the nearby energy source and fire up its video recordings.

You’ll see Martel talking
to the fluffy-haired man from the surveillance photo and a woman with
short white hair whom we haven’t seen before. Martel’s concerned their
appearance here has jeopardized their joint plans, and makes reference
to having sent them a drill. Then Martel sees the bot recording and
tells it to stop. Too late. The woman draws on the droid. End of transmission.
A journal entry clarifies what you’ve seen: "It appears that
Aimo Martel was holding secret negotiations with Arkonides behind
my back." This gives you your next destination: the Waringer
Academy.

You’ve already run Martel
past your office PC, but "Arkonides" is a new name. You
can’t look it up on the your computer–you won’t get a portrait of
your nemesis until late in your visit to the Waringer Academy–but
you can pick up a few tidbits from the kiosks in the "Hall of
Fame." These include the entries "The STARDUST Mission"
(via the right-hand kiosk closest to Mondra’s office), "Encounter
with IT, Immortality" (the left-hand kiosk in the next closest
pair) and "Atlan" (the right-hand kiosk in the pair second
closest to Perry’s office). The Arkonides’ "Divine Empire"
is Terra’s chief rival.

Once you’ve seen the video,
pop in on the technician in the utility room. He’s done and you can
now reassign the avatar to any accessible room in the Residence save
the Crystal Lounge (where it met you and the tech Klabund earlier),
the Terrace and the utility room. (See "Odds & Ends"
below for details on additional fun with the avatar.)

Send the hologram to the
hangar. It’ll automatically distract the guard (who turns out to be
a midshipman named "Pit Djingels") with its spiel and you’ll
automatically board Mondra’s glider.

Next stop: Waringer Academy.

Odds
& Ends

Once the technician Klabund
finishes his repairs, you can have some non-essential fun by assigning
your avatar to rooms other than the one in which its services are
required.

Then just go to the room
in question and talk to the hologram. In your office, recognizing
you as Perry Rhodan, the avatar defers to your own descriptions. In
Bully’s office, it calls attention to his spaceship models. In the
Hall of Fame (the hallway to Monda’s office), it now says its lines
properly. (Before the repairs, it always fizzled out.) In the Foyer
(the starting hall) it says … about what you’d expect.

And in secretive Mondra’s
office, the avatar refuses to offer a description! "Monda Diamond
does not wish me to provide you with more details on her quarters,"
it says. "I am also not permitted to answer any questions regarding
her quarters."

"Like I said before:
paranoid ex-agent," says Perry.

(Until you send them off
to the Terrace, you can also dispatch the cleaning robots anywhere
except the hangar, Crystal Lounge and utility room. But, being that
they just stand around idly, they’re not much fun.)

Waringer
Academy

The Regent’s presence here
might tip off Mondra’s kidnappers, so, when you click on the door
out of the Landing Platforms, Perry automatically goes undercover–transforming
himself into "Laszlo Daikonu." Just follow the tunnel to
the tram platform and click on the transparent sign to select a destination.

Initially, you can travel
only to the Foyer. (And, in fact, you’ll never see most of the destinations
on the sign.) The tram appears almost instantly, you’ll step aboard
automatically and off you go. When you arrive, just click on the escalator
to reach the reception area. Talk to the young lady at the desk to
the right and you’ll receive a day pass.

This’ll get you to the
Academy’s Cafeteria. But that’s a dead-end at this point.

So are inquries after Aimo
Martel. Talk to the receptionist about him and discover one of the
hazards of undercover work: Neither Martel nor anyone in his department
knows anyone with your cover name. Ah, but try Kari Levian’s name–if
you don’t have it, read Mondra’s noteook–and, surprisingly enough,
you’re good to go. It turns out your undercover DNA came from her
boss’s laboratory, and Kari thinks on her platform-shoed feet. Just
use the central teleporter.

Talk to Kari at length.
A question about Martel wins you an update to your ID card identifying
you as a member of her boss’s staff. That’ll help get you into the
Robotics Institute. The robot head gets you a portrait that allows
you to search a computer for an employee in the institute’s Mobile
Android Systems unit.

Ask about the singing crystal
on her desk. She’ll give it to you. After all, something of Mondra’s
might help in your search. (Actually, it’s a get-out-of-jail-free
card for the end of this segment.) And the lens gets Kari out of her
chair to tell Daellian of your arrival. You can then muck around with
her stuff–using her console to collect email from your computer (a
second garbled message from Bully, characterizing the situation as
"too unstable" and ordering you to stay put), stealing the
container of flies from beside her chair and using it on the nearby
Carnivora to get the plant dung beside the pot. (Even Perry wonders
why he’s carrying this crap, but it’ll come in handy real soon now.)

Hello? Anyone here? Kari
doesn’t return from Daellian’s office in a timely way and you’ll have
to try to use the teleporter to trigger her return. She reports that
Daellian wants to see you, but is involved with his work, and could
you come back later?

Sure, why not? As we’ll
see shortly, the stuff acquired in her absence has supplied you with
the means to jump the Academy’s turnstiles. Once you’re done with
this next phase, come back here and Daellian will be free to chat.

Back in the Foyer, use
the Robotics Institute portrait you received from Kari on the public-access
computer at the bottom of the escalator. It’ll cough up the photos
of a pair of Academy staffers who might be able to help you with the
robot head: Brendan Huber and Nar-Khol. (Alternatively, you can use
the portrait on the receptionist at the info desk. She’ll mention
that Huber and Nar-Khol are working today and that Huber’s in the
Cafeteria!)

Run the plant dung by the
positronic as well, and pay special attention the last couple of lines
of the entry. It contains a medicinal substance that can be used to
treat headaches or sober up a drunken man. That’s about to become
relevant.

Then get back on the tram.
Kari’s handiwork on your ID card hasn’t changed your access. You’re
still confined to the Landing Platforms, the Foyer and the Cafeteria.
But, thanks to the plant dung, the Cafeteria is no longer a dead-end.
Select that as your destination, and just head right from the tram
platform to enter the Cafeteria proper.

In the center of the place,
you’ll find a man bent over a counter–evidently knocked on his ass
by the food fed to him by his Blues acquaintance.

For details on Blues cuisine,
click on the tan strip at the front of the counter on the right side
of the Cafeteria–you can then get more info by clicking on individual
menu items–and the signs that flank the Cafeteria entrance. "The
Blues consider their food to be a real delicacy," says Perry,
"but it’s completely disgusting." )

The sick man should look
familiar. It’s Huber from the results of your computer search. Talk
to him. (If he won’t talk to you, you haven’t run the search or talked
to the receptionist in the Foyer.)

This guy needs something
strong to wake him up. Talk to the counterman for a parody of a ’90s-coffee-shop
spiel. You’ll automatically order an espresso. (Check out the picture
on the coffee mug. Isn’t that you?) Alas, it won’t be strong enough
to kick Huber out of his stupor, so don’t give it to him as-is. (You
can, but you’d just have to go back and get another one.) You’ll have
to tweak it a bit with plant dung (which changes the espresso to "flavored
espresso"). That wakes up the scientist, albeit in the worst
of ways, and he’ll ask what you want.

Huber can offer comments
on a variety of topics–including the first hint that your remote
control is out of energy–but you only need to want him to analyze
the robot head you found on the roof of the Solar Residence, so turn
it over for his inspection.

And, just like that, you’re
inside the Robotics Institute. You’ll automatically use your ID card
on the swipe-card gadget at the security desk. (The guard makes a
curious comment about your "accident.") Huber then takes
you through the unit’s key-coded front door–give a listen to the
musical code as he does–and shows you the hallway leading to the
individual labs, the teleporter to Martel (keyed to Martel’s voice),
the doors to the hangars where equipment is assembled and finally
his own rather cluttered domain (Robotics Lab 2 on the schematics
in your inventory), where he sets to work figuring out what makes
that head tick.

Note also that, when you
express interest in the Explosives lab, Huber hustles down the hall
to steer you away. That’s a significant hint for later.

In his own lab, the scientist
asks you not to touch or take anything. Of course, this being an adventure
game, you’re going to touch everything that can be touched and take
everything that isn’t double-bolted to the floor, so you’ll eventually
want Huber to clear out.

But it’s better to have
him on hand for some of your prodding, as he’ll provide more details
than Perry can sort out on his own. For instance, make sure to check
out the black-and-white video screen at the left rear of the lab.

"The greatest super
drill of all time," offers Huber. "No material out there
is too hard for this drill." That must be the machine you saw
Martel discussing with the Arkonides. He said it had been shipped
out. But Huber says the institute is waiting for the final OK from
the Regent. That’s you. And you don’t know anything about a giant
laser. Is this the project Martel wanted to discuss with you?

Huber also provides useful
details on the voice simulator–a little gadget just to the right
of the pressure-cooker like device on the table in the left near corner.
It’s designed to permit an android to speak in different voices. With
Martel’s voice, it could help you get past the acoustic lock on the
teleporter.

If you haven’t already,
ask the scientist about Bully’s remote control. He’ll tell you it
needs energy. You can restore it by using the remote on the recharger
(that "pressure cooker" I mentioned earlier.) That gives
you the ability to fly the Leclerc ship using the remote. (Not now.
You’ll do this to get back into the lab later in the game.) And Huber
picks this moment to give up his unrewarding task and seek the help
of fellow scientist Nar-Khol.

"If you give an ordinary
Ara a piece of an unknown life form [the text says "information"],
he’ll do almost anything for you," he says.

Again, that’s a big clue
for later in the game.

Huber then takes off with
the robot head and leaves you blissfully alone. Use this opportunity
to take the plastic box at the rear of the room just under the center
of the long video screen. You can also take the voice simulator if
you like or collect it later. (It’s an essential item, but you don’t
use it during this first visit to the lab.)

Also check out the device
just to the left of the little platform where the robot head was installed.
This runs the robotic arms operating in the background, and Perry
here raises the possibility of reprogramming them and thus distracting
the scientists. Look at the empty platform and he’ll suggest it could
be used to scan other items as well.