" Perry Rhodan 0080 - (72) Caves of the Druufs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

and a myriad of moons. In the eyes of man it was a monstrous system containing a great number of
methane giants like the one on which the Druuf ship had landed.

But this did not suffice for identification. Methane planets were present in most planetary systems and the
cosmos of the Druufs certainly did not contain any less than the Einstein universe in which the Terranians
and Arkonides lived.

Perry Rhodan laboriously raised his head and stared up into the brown sky. There were no stars in sight
but the narrow crescent of the moon, a dark red glow, could be vaguely seen close to the tip of the
monolith towards which they were plodding.

It was not the mere presence of a moon that was important but its colour. It was almost at the zenith and
was nonetheless red. It could be that the atmospheric layer of the methane planet was so high that it
created the same effect upon heavenly bodies at the zenith as terrestrial atmosphere did upon those
sinking into the horizon. It could be that the crescent of the strange moon was red for no other reason
than the disc of the EarthтАЩs sun shortly before it sets.

But it could also be that the colour of the moon was derived from the central sun that shone on it. Red
would then increase the probability that the methane giant on which the Druufs had landed belonged to
the Siamed System. It was of utmost importance to establish this, for only within this system lay the sole
support base thus far established by the Terranian Fleet in the foreign time plane: Hades, the
Mercury-like twilight world.

Perry Rhodan was still occupied with the odd colouring of the sky, wondering whether the brown could
stem from the combined effect of two daystars, one red and one green, when his helmet receiver picked
up a surprised outcry from Reginald Bell.

Flanked by ten Druufs, the small band had reached the foot of a lone looming crag. The cause of
Reginald BellтАЩs surprise was a gloomy hole, big as a barn door, gaping out of the rocky wall that Perry
Rhodan could not recollect having been there previously.

So the monolith harboured the entrance to a cavern or a cavern system below the surface of the planet,
which the Druufs had either found or built themselves. Apparently they considered this place secure
enough for confinement of important prisoners.

Beyond the hole, in the interior of the monolith, some sort of moderately inclined ramp began. Its stony
surface was polished smooth, probably from frequent use, and the four prisoners found it difficult to stay
on their feet instead of submitting to the tug of gravity and simply rolling down the ramp.

At the same instant as the cave entrance closedтАФit was impossible for Perry Rhodan to determine by
which mechanismтАФa glaring light blazed on, illuminating the ramp down to its foot-end. The ramp ended
in the middle of an almost completely circular room about 20 meters in diameter that had 12 passages
branching off it in star form. The walls of the room and the passageway were crudely hewn. It seemed
the Druufs did not value outer beauty, still they had outfitted the passages with conveyer belts that
enabled the prisoners to progress quickly and spared them the task of resisting the torturous pull of the
gravitation and lifting their legs anew with every step.

The meaning and function of the cave did not become apparent to the prisoners as they moved through
the passage on the conveyer strip. They were only able to make out a series of rooms with doorways in
the passage wall and that the subterranean installation was considerably larger than they had at first