"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0042 - (34) SOS Spaceship Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

1/ X MINUS ZERO!

SPACESHIP Ganymede-60 seconds from blastoff.
X minus 60.
The gigantic hull of the mighty spacer stretched into the sky. The cloud ceiling over the spaceport was 1500 feet but the great bird of space pierced it, its streamlined bill reappearing at close to 2500 altitude.
X minus 50.
Dense cloud formations drifted past the faintly gleaming fuselage at about half its height, concealing its upper structure and somehow magnifying its 600-foot diameter to more massive proportions than usual. The ship gave the impression of being some great tower out of ancient time. There where it pierced the drifting cloud cover was an impression of centuries-old battlements but its colossal tail fins finally forced a full perception of the ship's imposing proportions.
X minus 40.
The frantic agitation in the Ganymede's command centre had subsided. The programmed computer directed the work and timing of all mechanical operations of the ship. Lift-off for Earth was imminent. The clouds and the bow of the spacer were still reflecting the light of the red sun Voga, a supergiant solar beacon, celestial energy source for 15 planets. The giant tail fins still rested on the synthetic surface of the launch base at Tagnor.
Tagnor, the immense spaceport, was the largest on Zalit, fourth planet of the Voga System. Here, more than 15,000 years ago, the first Arkonide ships had landed and begun to colonize this sector of the universe. For 15,000 years the ships of space had landed and taken off-but they had only been stellar travellers of the Arkon Empire or those of its satellites, never visitors from the unknown vastness of the outer void.
The Ganymede was not Arkonide in origin; she did not belong to the world of Star Cluster M-13; her home was Earth.
X minus 20 to Lift-off for Terrania!
Soon the Earthship would thrust aloft into space and the wonder of the unimaginable beauty where thousands of suns gleamed out of the supernal abyss like phosphorescent starfish, suns coalescing in veils of colour to alleviate the awesome ebony maw of the Universe and transform this corner of the Cosmos into some enchanted boulevard of cascading fire fountains.
M-13-star cluster-34,000 light-years distant from Earth, a domain of more than 100,000 stars-that was Arkon. And Zalit, 4th planet of the Voga System within M-13, was only one of many worlds that had been colonized by Arkon in millennia past.
X minus 10. In 10 seconds the mighty Ganymede would rise and leave this alien Empire-an infinitesimal mote in the infinite. Colonel Freyt made this mental comparison while glancing at the countdown indicators and watching the second hand tick toward X minus zero. He was flying back to the speck of nothingness in the void by order of Perry Rhodan but-here he squared his chest and a gleam of pride came into his eyes-he would return to M-13 together with the Chief and turn this empire of a hundred thousand stars upside down.
It was the final second. The big panoramic observation screen revealed the spaceport of Tagnor. Hundreds of spacers were lined up down below but Col. Freyt only had eyes for one of them-the Titan-and again as always the impact of the tremendous sphere sent a tingle down his spine.
There! X minus Zero... and Lift-off!
In the midst of a thundering and roaring from its engines, the ship seemed to rise with carefree ease. It lifted slowly into the cloud ceiling. The drifting clouds appeared to be a tenacious substance into which the ship gradually pierced its way until the tail fins disappeared from view.
Then came the shock-boom from the force of the blast-off which shoved the Ganymede aloft. The cloud cover was rent asunder, roiling and tattering aside into shreds. A gigantic hole opened up, through which the red sun of Voga spilled its radiance over Tagnor, and in the centre of this blinding montage of light the rising spaceship was boldly etched in all of its imposing magnitude.
It continued to accelerate and to recede, hurtling outward into the sunset, until in a final flash of light it disappeared.
Slowly, the mile-wide gap closed in the cloud-cover over Tagnor...

* * * *

"Whoosh! and away!" said Reginald Bell, leaning way back in his armchair. He watched the panoramic observation screen in the Titan's command centre with hands locked behind his head.
The Ganymede was no longer visible on the panob. The final dim flash of light had been a farewell of the departing ship to the crew of the Titan, which remained behind on Tagnor.
Bell made himself comfortable. For the moment he was content with the situation. The Ganymede was streaking toward its hypertransit point, from where it would reach the Earth in a few instantaneous jumps. There were a thousand hypno-trained specialists in readiness, every one of them a highly qualified man in his field, and all of them impatient to return on the Ganymede to form the crew of the biggest space fighter of the galaxies, the Titan.
And here in this super spacesphere sat Reginald Bell. Slightly on the roly-poly side, given to bursts of temper, a daredevil but a heck of an honest guy. He was Perry Rhodan's best friend, his deputy, a man firm as a rock.
He turned his head toward the pilot's seat to look at Perry Rhodan. Here beside him was a man who had the means at his disposal to be lord and master of the Earth, yet to whom the thought had never occurred. But Perry had another goal-one of the distant future: to make Earth the centre of the galaxy! This lost speck in a remote arm of the Milky Way, this dust in the Universe, would take over Arkon's role, relieve the decadent Arkonides of their mission, which they no longer could accomplish, and then finally extend civilization to all the worlds of the Universe.
Bell watched him. Rhodan was tensely alert. He flipped a control switch, always ready to do what was needed when others were still in a shock mode. The next moment he sat there relaxed and waited for a report from the Hyper-Sensor section.
The coordinate-detection beams from the Titan were monitoring the Ganymede's Right. The Hyper-Sensors were triggered to detect the moment when the earthbound ship would make a hypertransition, thus warping the structure of surrounding space.
"Did you say something, Reg?" asked Rhodan, glancing at him earnestly.
Bell suddenly straightened up and replied a bit peevishly. "I sort of had a feeling I made an observation that the Ganymede had just whooshed off, Perry!"
"Interesting, Reg, but not relevant. Col. Freyt has a hypertran compensator at his disposal but we don't. He can 'whoosh off, as you put it, but we have to wait awhile until we have such equipment, so we can't enjoy the luxury of 'whooshing off' just now-although it would be such a joy, don't you think, my friend?"
Rhodan's first words had alerted Bell and both levity and petulance ceased. His eyes darted around the giant command central of the ship and he sighed wearily.
The Titan was in his opinion the ultimate of all ships in known space but this command centre was, in his opinion, a nightmare. There was no one who would be able to read and comprehend all the indicators and instruments simultaneously. The Titan, a sphere having an approximate diameter of one mile, was the crowning achievement of Arkonide spaceship technology. The huge command central was in the form of a hall-like cupola whose walls bristled with indicators and meters and all sorts of automatic visual data readouts and scanners. Somewhere in all this jungle Perry Rhodan had spotted something of vital importance, something which Bell, naturally, had overlooked.
"I give up," whispered Bell. "What is it?"
"Pan-vidscreen, sector Beta-slash-eight!"
Behind Perry Rhodan stood the Arkonide, Khrest, his tall figure impressive and his intellectually sensitive features as always unforgettable. And now he, too, noted for the first time the designated area on the seamless panob screen. Bell saw the three blips in sector Beta-slash-eight and took comfort in the fact that even the top Arkonide scientist had needed Rhodan's suggestion to make the discovery.
"Spacers." Bell tried to sound casual but was unsuccessful as usual. He stole a sidelong glance at Perry, who smirked knowingly. He knew his chubby friend too well to be bluffed by him.
"Where's the comp data?" That was Perry Rhodan, the man in charge. He knew that the range and bearing computations for the trajectories of the three spaceships must have been retrieved by now if the bogey-tracker at the scan console were anything but a zombie.
The comp data readout began to crawl across the screen.
Perry and Bell exchanged glances. Their grim expressions slowly changed to looks of relief.
Rhodan turned to Khrest. "Well, we may have been recognized by the robot brain on Arkon but it doesn't quite trust us yet."
"A computer brain-a machine, Perry!" the old Arkonide argued contemptuously. "A machine is not human. A positronicon cannot know the value of Terranian integrity."
Perry Rhodan couldn't suppress a smile. "Thanks for the compliment, Khrest, but you exaggerate. We're not that honest. I don't even blame the positronicon for sending spacers after my Ganymede to check out the hypertransition. Between real friends there shouldn't be any secrets. Your fine mechanical Regent of Arkon seems to know that. It may have already questioned our motive for keeping the position of our home world a secret and as a logical consequence may have started to doubt our expressed readiness to support the Arkonide Empire."
"But you are supporting it," replied Khrest, somewhat shaken.
Perry could answer with unblemished conscience. "Yes, but not as unselfishly honest as the duty between friends demands. I have never for a second abandoned the plan to conquer Arkon's empire for the Earth."
At that moment an announcement from the Hyper-Sensor section blatted out over the speaker: "Ganymede transition executed under standard coordinate data. Hypertran compensator not used. Message received pulse-coded. Over to Com Control and out."
Through a rash of contact-switching and speaker cracklings, Communications Control followed up with: "To Commander-in-Chief. Three unidentified spacecraft on Ganymede course. Coordinate comp readout: origin, Arkon. End of message. Col. Freyt."