" Perry Rhodan 0079 - (71) The Atom Hell of Grautier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

felt his way to the intercom and switched it on. The unit was furnished with current from another source.
The vidscreen and the instrument lights lit up instantly.

Judson thought over the question of what he should do now. The world around him lay wrapped in an
oppressive, dangerous stillness. He seemed to be alone on the entire planet. The flashes of missile
launchings, the blowing dust, the crouching figures of men running here and there in the gloomтАФall those
were things that were taking place in another universe and had nothing to do, with Mike Judson.

He pulled himself together. He had to do something. Those men out there were waiting for his orders.
He tried to estimate how many of the 23 ships which had remained behind were still intact and came out
with about 15. The nuclear bomb had torn apart, overturned, flattened or melted the other 8.

Judson called the radar station. The red and sweating face of a man appeared on the vidscreen.

"Listen to me!" Judson exclaimed. "IтАЩm deafтАФI canтАЩt hear you at all. When you answer my questions,
do it with gestures or write on a piece of paper. Is that clear?"

He saw the man nod and say something, though he could not hear it.

"Where is the enemy now?" Judson wanted to know.

The radar officer bent to the side and busied himself for a few seconds at his task. Then he raised a
sheet of paper and Judson read in hurried scrawled letters:

"Spread out all over the whole planet. Average altitude 1500 kilometres."

Too high, then, for the stationary disintegrators, Judson decided, depressed; and above all, the ships
were too widely dispersed for a massive bombardment.

"What are our losses?"

Again a short pause. Then a new sheet of paper.

"8 ships, 84 men wounded or dead. Increasing radioactivity threatens more losses."

The spacesuits, Judson thought in confusion. Why hadnтАЩt they put on their spacesuits?

Then it occurred to him that he was not wearing one himself. Too much had happened in a few minutes.
No one had had time to think of anything but his own surprise.

"Take charge of passing on this instruction for me," he ordered the officer. "Spacesuits are to be put on
at once! This is more important than anything else. And let me know as soon as some new development
takes shape. The Arkonides are laying low at the moment, arenтАЩt they?"

The officer nodded and Judson ended the communication.
 He knew that they could not hold the base. It was only weakly protected with defence weapons. That
was because at the time of its construction no one had expected the Arkonides to be operating in the
near future with a gigantic fleet only a few light-years from Grautier. The baseтАЩs most effective defence
was that the Arkonides knew nothing of it. If they had discovered it a few days before, the Terran fleet
would have been on hand to repulse any attack. Now there were only a few small unarmed transport