"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0053 - (45) Unknown Sector Milky Way" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Rhodan believed this, yet there lingered an element of uncertainty. And so he had preferred once more to cause his pursuers to lose his trail.
During the landing on Isan the instruments had detected an unnatural level of radioactivity in the atmosphere. In various locations on the 2 main continents composing the general land mass, the presence of ruins had indicated the occurrence of an atomic war in recent years.
After the space jet had landed, Rhodan had picked up conversations between Killarog and his companions. He had given Pucky, the mouse-beaver, the task of searching for other war survivors on the surface of the planet. By way of fulfilling his assignment, Pucky had brought his parapsychic and paramechanical faculties into play, including teleportation and telepathy.
Rhodan had taken it upon himself to investigate the 2 bunkers which lay in his immediate vicinity. And so it was that he got into a situation that required direct involvement.
Now after the passage of 2 Isan days following his advent, he had both of the bunkers firmly in hand. Reports from Pucky revealed that a total of 11 bunkers had escaped destruction. 5 others had been at the focal point of nuclear impacts and had not been able to withstand the insuperable force of the giant bombs.
According to this the total population of Isan was in the neighbourhood of 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, Perry had learned that the pre-war population had consisted of 3 billion people.

* * * *

Although the conquest of the Sallon bunker was accomplished without much trouble, it was not to Rhodan or Marshall's satisfaction, inasmuch as neither Belal nor the traitor, Havan, had been found.
They had disappeared and according to what Rhodan was able to pick up from various sources, about a hundred heavily armed men had accompanied them.
Rhodan's first impression was that it would be a simple task to find Belal and Havan and to force their capitulation. But as it turned out, they did not seem to be hiding in either one of the bunkers or even anywhere on the surface.
Rhodan was convinced that the Sallon bunker had a branch section or else there was an extra tunnel leading out somewhere, of which only Belal and a few of his confidants were informed. An intensive questioning of prisoners revealed that none of those confidants had been left behind.
So it became clear to Rhodan that he would have to locate Belal's and Havan's avenue of escape on his own initiative.
He was not yet entertaining any thought that Belal's flight might bring him into personal danger. But since he wished to limit his stay on Isan, he had to make certain that, after his departure, there would be no possibility that Belal or Havan could return and place the new double-bunkered democracy in jeopardy.

* * * *

Belal was not considered by his men to be in a hard-pressed situation, for in a sense he wasn't built that way. He was the sort of person who never considered a situation to be hopeless until his hands were tied and the knife was sticking in his chest. In the absence of the actuality of such a fate, Belal was a dangerous opponent.
"So what do you make of it?" he asked the older man who stood before him.
This man was Malarial, a scientist and a genius in his field. Because he foresaw the possibility of making use of Malanal in the future, Belal had looked after him and cultivated him from the early inception of his plans. With the resources of the Sallon bunker that were at his disposal, he had provided him with an extensive laboratory that was equipped with a considerable amount of valuable apparatus. The rooms in which the laboratory had been installed had been hewn out of the rock about a year after the war and they had acquired 2 secret access passages. The people who had accomplished this work had either been members of his trustworthy honour guard or they had been recruited from work camps and had been caused to disappear.
When the stranger named Perry began to make his weight felt, Belal perceived that his former foresight had not been in vain. Along with his honour guard and trusted cohort Havan, he had retreated into the laboratory and there he was confident that he would remain undiscovered for the time being.
This 'for the time being' was sufficient for his plans. Belal had no intention of tolerating Perry as master of the situation for any great length of time. And Malanal played an important role in his strategy.
Malanal spread his hands to express that sound and foolproof information should not be expected of him. "I have dispatched 2 of your men to the surface, Belal..."
"It is to be hoped," interrupted Belal angrily, "that you've made sure they won't be seen by the vessel out there."
"No. They've approached this task very carefully. They have not emerged from the upper exit; they merely took a couple of stones from the hole and threw them at the vehicle."
Belal wrinkled his brow. "And what was the purpose of that nonsense?"
"Within a few yards of the actual wall of the machine, the stones bounced back from an invisible barrier and fell to the ground. We have here the same phenomenon that was reported to us by the detail that was chasing the prisoners Ivsera and Feriar. The strangers are able to create a protective screen around them that can't be penetrated by material objects."
Belal stared into space. "So you think it's futile to try to attack this machine?" he inquired, finally.
Malanal shook his head. "From my point of view I wouldn't say it was entirely futile."
Belal became impatient. "Then out with it!"
Malanal bowed slightly. "The stranger who is called Perry," he explained, "will eventually have to return to his vessel. Since he himself is a material object, he won't be able to enter unless the protective energy field is turned off at that moment. If we could manage to place the machine under heavy gunfire at that moment, we could probably destroy it."
Belal frowned. "I don't want to destroy it!" he shouted. "I only want to disable it, so that I can make improvements on some equipment I have in mind."
Malanal nodded agreement. "That's possible, too, Belal. It all depends on the firepower you can bring to bear. But that's not my affair."
Belal stood up. "Good. I will provide everything that is necessary. I think a couple of 3-inch rocket launchers will be enough to knock out the machine and either kill the strangers or put them out of commission. I'll place my men immediately at the upper exit... what a stroke of luck that the stranger landed precisely in that particular spot!"
He left the room, without favouring Malanal with another word.
The secret laboratory section of the Sallon bunker consisted of one main corridor and a total of 20 adjacent rooms. 5 rooms had been provided as living quarters for the scientists who worked here and the rest had been furnished as laboratories. During the 7 years that had passed since this installation, the Sallon scientists had pushed their research forward and achieved results that Belal was certain the other bunkers did not possess.
By means of this strategy, Belal secured himself with an absolute superiority against the day when the inhabitants of Isan again emerged on the surface of their world and began to start organizing.
In one of the 20 rooms, Havan of Fenomat had been quartered with 3 bodyguards which Belal had provided him. This was not because Belal was worried about preserving Havan's life so much as it was that the latter's character was too much like his own to be trusted.
In the days following the fall of the Sallon bunker, Havan was in a much more dejected state of mind than Belal and Belal began to believe that he regarded their situation as hopeless. Since this was to his advantage for the present, he only told Havan a few unimportant details concerning the conversation with Malanal, which in actuality had been a hopeful development.
Havan nodded dispiritedly when he heard the incomplete report and then Belal withdrew to his own room in order to enjoy a little nap. Havan took pains to leave his door open so that he could be certain that Belal would not be coming back and then he turned to his 3 bodyguards. "Did you see that? He didn't tell me everything. Malanal has given him more information than he's giving out. Most likely there's actually some possibility of overcoming the stranger. I have to know. See if you can get all the facts. You already know what the pay-off for you will be."
The bodyguards nodded obediently. No doubt Belal would not have fallen asleep so easily if he had known how capable Havan was in proselytizing his own men through the device of promises and threats. The 3 bodyguards had ceased fulfilling the duties Belal had assigned to them, even from the first hour, since Havan had promised to place a bunker and personnel at their free disposal just as soon as the stranger and Belal had been overcome and the state of Heyatha and if possible also Othahey had been brought under Havan's control through the use of Malanal and his technological inventions.
The one weak point in Havan's strategy was above all Malanal. Havan had found out that the scientific assistants were faithful to the old man. There was no other access to the secrets of the laboratory than through Malanal himself.
However, Malanal was a man who knew how to keep his distance. Havan was not of the impression that he was in agreement with Belal in all particulars. But when he tried to use this information as a leverage for breaking up the Belal-Malanal relationship, he ran into some opposition. Malanal had made it clear to him that he would work neither for Belal nor Havan but for science alone.
However he was at least disposed to refrain from relating to Belal his conversation with Havan.

* * * *

Perry Rhodan intended to assign Pucky to the search for Belal and Havan as soon as he returned from his inspection trip. As a teleporter, Pucky was capable of 'jumping' around in the area of the Sallon bunker at random and by this means he would be able to discover the hiding place.
However, 2 days after the take-over of the Sallon bunker, Laury reported excitedly over the space jet's radio that Pucky had come back wounded and was unconscious. Apparently he had used the last dregs of his energy to teleport back to the small spacecraft. He was bleeding from a number of wounds that according to Laury's information had been caused by ordinary rifle shots. Laury had sufficient first aid training so that Rhodan could entrust Pucky to her care with confidence. She assured him that the mouse-beaver would be back on his feet in a couple of days.