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

From time to time Rayleigh quickly scanned the group of illuminated indicators but the pointers all rested
listlessly on zero, showing no inclination to move.

Peter Rayleigh was a young man of not more than 22 years. A few months ago he and a couple of
others from his regiment had been assigned to a secret mission. Neither Rayleigh nor the others had any
notion of what it entailed and they still had not understood when it was finally explained to them. They
had been selected to reinforce or relieve the personnel on the base of Hades. It was said of Hades that it
was located in a different time plane. While Peter and his comrades had heard about time planes more
than once, they had not mastered the mathematics necessary to comprehend the phenomenon.

For that reason Rayleigh occupied his time with speculating about just how far Earth might be from the
point at which he was seated. The question was so intriguing and the image of a green meadow dotted
with flowers so compelling that Rayleigh very nearly failed to notice that one illuminated pointer on the
scaleboard had suddenly begun to move. Quiveringly it wandered a bit to the right, returned and then
deflected again.

Rayleigh was startled out of his brooding. He saw that the quivering pointer belonged to a G-meter, a
device that measured strengths of gravity fields. It was so unbelievable that the gravity in the vicinity of the
cavern base should have changed twice in rapid succession that for a few moments Peter Rayleigh was
convinced that his eyes had played a trick on him. He remained motionless and stared at the apparatus. If
he had not been mistaken the pointer would deflect a third time.

Excited and in haste, Rayleigh memorized what he would have to do in that event: remove the readings
from the gauge drum, compute the numerical deviation from the norm, determine the source of
propagation and notify Capt. Rous, the Commander.

Rayleigh rattled it all off in his mind as he intently stared at the scale. The pointer had returned to zero
and had not moved again. Peter Rayleigh waited awhileтАФit felt to him like five minutesтАФcast a
mistrustful glance at the pointer and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

Just as he did this the pointer deflected again. It was exactly as Peter Rayleigh remembered from the first
time: quivering deflection, return almost to zero, renewed deflection, return to zero.

Peter Rayleigh suddenly came to life. He sprang up and with one swift step was in front of the makeshift
stand value on which the opalescent cases of the recording drums were resting in rank and file. It did not
take long to find the drum that belonged to the G-meter. The two steep jags the stylus had traced with
red ink on the gliding paper could not be overlooked. With trembling but nonetheless skilful fingers
Rayleigh opened the window flap, ripped off at top and bottom the strip on which the reading was
recorded and removed it. He absentmindedly closed the window flap as he stared at the paper. The two
jags were about ┬╜ minute apart. Between the jags the measured value, that is the red curve traced by the
stylus, sank exponentially, but it did not return all the way to zero. The curve continued a short stretch
horizontally, then climbed almost vertically to the second jag.

The picture was clear. The figures resulted from on-and-off switching operations. The short horizontal
course of the curve marked the actual, stationary value of the gravity field which was being turned on and
off. This value was so low that the G-meter could just barely register it. Whoever was switching gravity
fields on and off either was very far away or his gravity generator was no good.

Peter Rayleigh could not decide offhand which of the two possibilities was correct. That would require a