" Perry Rhodan 0097 - (89) Powers Price" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

1/ OF THOMAS & A THUMB



THE STARS in Globular Cluster M-13 shone and sparkled as they always did, compressed into a
space of 100 light-years in diameter. To all the ships coming in from other parts of the Galaxy, they
presented the configuration of a single gigantic and glistening sphere.

M-13 was not a conglomeration of coloursтАФit was a composition in colour set against the black
background of the universe. To the people flying towards M-13 and Arkon, the first impression was that
of warm luminosity.

Globular Cluster M-13 was also the Great Imperium, the Stellar Empire of the ArkonidesтАФan empire of
wildly different racesтАФan Imperium in which billions upon billions of intelligences lived and, to some
extent, had grown great, strong, powerful and wealthy along with the Arkonides.

M-13 was a display of almost unreal beauty, but also, in its concentration of stars in the narrowest
possible space, a demonstration of power.
 As a globular cluster, M-13 seemed to be an organic unity; but the aspect was deceiving. Like the Great
Imperium, it was badly tornтАФa stellar empire whose political structure threatened to break up into a
multitude of separate parts at any moment.

For 15,000 years it had been growing, always led by Arkonides. And then came the day when
Arkonide spaceships left the confines of M-13 and extended their Imperium deeper into the Galaxy. But
the day also came in which the all but inexhaustible vitality of the Arkonide people began to go dry like a
spring and signs of oncoming downfall encroached from all sides.

The Robot Regent the mightiest positronic brain that had ever been constructed, had been able to hold
ArkonтАЩs crumbling power together only by means of brutal force.

Now the Brain existed only as a programmed mouthpiece. Atlan the Timeless had assumed the
squandered heritage of his race and, if he did not want to go down in history as a bloody dictator, had to
observe political earthquakes almost with indifference.

But the stars themselves took no notice of all this, and the blue-white radiance from the centre of the
M-13 system shone as warmly and softly as ever.



****



Peter Breucken stood with his friend Carl Vertieden in the pole-hatch of theBurma , a spacesphere of
the State Class with a diameter of 100 meters and an optimum crew of 150. Both men had been
watching for some time what was going on at the edge of their spacefield and the longer they watched,
the more concerned their expressions became.

"There, PeterтАж robots again," said Carl Vertieden, who, like his friend, came from Hilversum. "Have
you seen any of those legendary 100,000 hibernating Arkonides? I havenтАЩt seen one yet!"