"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0082 - (74) Checkmate Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

From his seat at the table, Rhodan could look out through a large window and see a vast section of the city of Terrania. The room was on the top floor of the tall administration building. Rhodan had attached great importance to having his office here. The view of the city was a constant reminder of the gravity of the decisions that were made in the room.
"Everything's in order," Bell announced, closing the door behind him. He seemed to be confident that Rhodan would understand what he was referring to.
Rhodan broke off from the work he had been doing. "What did he say?" he asked.
Bell grinned almost maliciously. "He knocked out one of the two guys before he knew what was going on, and the other one afterwards. Both of them are now undergoing treatment. But I think they understood how Tifflor was feeling at the time."
Rhodan nodded smilingly. "What did Mercant's agents have to say about it? Did they observe anyone?"
Bell shrugged his shoulders. "They saw a few suspicious characters following Tifflor's car up to the city limits, although not all the way to the Psychostation. Mercant has put them down on his list: they are possibly galactic spies, although they don't know exactly what's happened. They'll start to make sense of it when Tifflor disappears. It looks as though everything's in fine shape."
Bell had come closer and sat down in one of the comfortable chairs that Rhodan had provided for his visitors.
"I still don't know what we expect to gain from this business, Perry," Bell continued.
Rhodan did not seem to have heard the question. He looked past Bell and out the window. The clear white winter's sun stood two hands' breadths over the horizon. It was 9 A.M. Half an hour before, frost had gleamed from the roofs. The year was coming to an end.
"There's much we can gain from it," Rhodan answered at length. "Like a serious weakening of the military potential of our two enemies, the Druufs and the Arkonides."
Bell cleared his throat. "I recall that just two months ago we intended to attack Arkon directly. Everything was ready for it. Only a small incident kept us from going through with it. Why don't we put the same plan into operation again?"
Rhodan looked at his friend. "What you call a small incident," he replied, amused, "came very close to costing us our lives as well as the lives of others. Have you forgotten so quickly? Don't you still remember how it looked when the entire planet Grautier exploded beneath our feet?"
Bell nodded. "Sure. It was serious for us. But in comparison with the scale of galactic politics, it was only a small incident. We lived through it and now we can take the plan up again, right?"
Rhodan answered quickly, "No, we can't We've had to realize that we aren't ready to take the Arkonides' place yet. Our feet aren't big enough to fit their shoes, so to speak."
Bell leaned forward. "That's a colourful metaphor," he said irritably "but I don't think it applies."
Rhodan glanced in the direction of a stack of paper-thin sheets of plastifoil lying on the table in front of him. "It's no wonder you feel that way," he answered. "You haven't seen the latest data from the Venus Positronicon yet."
Bell stood up. "No," he affirmed, "actually I haven't yet. I didn't think Atlan worked so fast."
Rhodan smiled at him. "His people built the positronicon on Venus-10,000 years ago. There's no one who can work with that machine faster than he can."
Bell nodded. "All right, that's why you sent him to it. Now what does that positronic wonder have to say?"
"I just told you, our feet aren't big enough!"
Bell grew silent and reached for the plastifoil sheets. They were about the size of notebook paper and divided by thin lines into 20 narrow, vertically running areas. The sheets were covered with dots, crosses and small circles, symbols belonging to the machine code of Arkonide computers. Being able to read the symbols without the help of a positronic transcriber required practice but Bell happened to have had such practice.
He read some of the sheets and laid them back down. He looked out the window, as though thinking heavily about something.
"The Arkonide Imperium is in an uproar," he finally said, putting what he had read into words. "The Robot Regent is mobilizing its last reserves so that it can overcome the Druuf threat. It doesn't know-and isn't even able to understand-that the Druufs will be a threat only for a very short time to come. The overlapping front where our universe and the Druuf universe meet is diminishing and is drifting towards the centre of the galaxy. Once the overlapping front has disappeared, then there will be no more natural means of going from Einstein Space to Druuf Space or vice versa. That means that from then on, the Druufs will no longer constitute a threat to us." He glanced to the side and regarded Perry Rhodan. "I didn't read any farther," he admitted, "but the conclusions are pretty obvious, aren't they?"
"I'll be able to answer that if you tell me what you think."
"The Robot Regent on Arkon," Bell continued, "has mobilized its entire realm. That means it has at least 80,000 warships under arms. It is not able to comprehend the actual phenomenon of differing rates of time. It's limited to what it can understand-the Druuf spaceships coming into our universe from time to time and the overlapping zone through which its own ships can penetrate Druuf Space. When nothing more is heard from the Druufs because the overlapping zone has disappeared, the Regent will take that for a trick of some kind and continue its vigilance because it believes the Druufs could reappear at any moment."
He paused, running his right hand through his hair. He did not look at all happy. "Whoever attacks Arkon," he went on, "now and in the near future, will have to deal with a fleet of 80,000 units, which doesn't count the new ships constantly pouring out of the factories. When you consider that the Terran fleet consists of only a few thousand ships... yeah, then you certainly do come to the conclusion we'd better stay out of this business for awhile."
Perry Rhodan was silent. Bell, waiting for an answer, asked after awhile: "That was what you meant, Perry, right?"
"Yes, that's what I meant. We're too weak and we've realized that only at the last moment. When you take the number of ships alone, the Robot Regent is superior to us by a ratio of 20 to 1. That says nothing about morale, however. Ours is better than that of the allied races serving the Arkonides. That's beyond all doubt. Nevertheless, our situation is even worse than that of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years War. And... naturally we can't count on a miracle like the one that saved old Frederick from destruction back in the 18th Century."
Bell turned and went to the window. "Do you think Tiff's mission will help us any?"
"Tiff is only a small stone in a vast mosaic. From now on the Earth will limit itself to dealing out such small blows. We can reach our goal only step by step. We have to gnaw away at the Arkonide Imperium like mice at a cheese. One day the little mice will have entirely eaten away the big cheese."
"While I don't particularly like the analogy you've used," said Bell, "I think you're right."
He went back to Rhodan's table and picked up the rest of the sheets which he had not read.








2/ THEFT OF A STARSHIP

The man had a swollen chin and claimed to be named Franklin Lubkov, 27 years old. Tifflor could not vouch for his name and age but the fact that the man had a swollen chin was beyond dispute.
Franklin Lubkov was a lieutenant in the Terran spacefleet and now that he had the first, unfriendly portion of his mission behind him, he showed his superior the proper respect. When Tifflor ordered him to take his hand away from his chin and assume a friendlier expression, he obeyed.
"It still hurts, sir," he said. "I wouldn't have ever thought you could hit so hard."
Tifflor changed the subject. "Tell me all you know about this whole business," he requested.
"There isn't a whole lot to it," Lubkov replied. "Sgt. Fryberg and I were given the assignment of picking you up on the evening of 10 December after you had finished supper at Tai Wang's restaurant, and to bring you to a building whose location was described exactly to us. We were also instructed to make the pickup 'gangster-style'. Then our faces were disguised with makeup and we were given shabby suits. We were told how important it was for everything to look genuine."
"But who told you to do all this?" Tifflor interrupted impatiently.
Lubkov made a wry expression. "Marshall Mercant, sir. In person and well-identified with credentials and IDs."
Tifflor whistled through his teeth. "And so all you had to do was obey, eh? All right. After you had brought me here... what was to happen then?"