"Perry Rhodan 022 - Escape to Venus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Thora smiled. Her smile had no effect on the robot's psycho-regions, only the compelling logic of her question affected him.
"No, it is not forbidden to receive any orders from you."
"Alright, we can start then!"
R-17 was still hesitating. As far as it was possible for him at all, he did not seem to feel too happy with his existence. But he could not find any logical counter argument to blandly refuse Thora's request. This woman was a member of the race that had created him, while Rhodan was merely an inhabitant of this planet by the name of Terra-although he was a particularly outstanding specimen of that race. Thora was much closer to R-17 than Rhodan, although he had been forced to obey him as a result of conditioning received at the hands of Khrest. He would never disregard this command to obey him. He would be incapable of doing so without bringing about a disastrous short circuit in his system.
On the other hand, if he were to obey Thora he would not act directly against Rhodan's orders; ergo, he was not exposing himself to any danger.
He nodded his head in a human-like gesture. "Yes, we can start. My orders were not to permit any strangers to approach this ship. Thora of Arkon, however, is no stranger."
"Fine. Let's not waste any time. Set course for the planet Venus as fast as you can manage. I want to test how fast we can reach our second base in this solar system in case of emergency."
She was waiting impatiently as the robot rather clumsily climbed up the ladder and opened the entrance hatch. Not until he had disappeared in the airlock did she follow him up into the ship. The robot pushed a button and the heavy outside hatch fell shut. The anti-grav elevator brought Thora and R-17 within a few seconds up to the destroyer's nose, where the command centre was located.
They sat down in the movable seats. While the robot was calculating the course, the engines began to warm up. Somewhere in the interior of D3 the reactor began to work, producing the incredible amounts of energy needed to lift the ship off the ground against the gravitational pull, then hurtle it through space with the speed of light. The artificial grav-fields were switched on automatically to neutralize any G-forces. The entire complicated mechanism of an unimaginable technology was set in motion.
Thora was waiting. She knew she had accomplished her aim. It would be just a few more minutes, then she would watch this hated planet sink away like a blue sphere in the ocean of infinity. Venus would be only a stopover, for it would be sheer madness to try reaching her home planet, more than 30-thousand light-years away, with a ship limited to the speed of light. But on Venus there was a hyperwave sender and it would certainly not be too difficult to call one of the Arkonide space cruisers to come to her rescue.
R-17 motioned to her. "All ready for takeoff. Observe the videoscreen to acquaint yourself with the capacities of D3. Rhodan has strictly forbidden maximum speed; this is permitted only in case of an emergency. Still, we'll reach Venus in about one hour and a half. Venus is now on the other side of the sun."
"Distance?"
R-17 answered immediately: "143 million miles."
"Our top permissible speed?"
"75% that of light."
She did not reply and waited. R-17 seized a lever and pulled it downwards. Nothing seemed to happen but the image on the videoscreen underwent rapid changes.
D3 lifted off without using the pulse-drive power unit. The antigrav projectors nullified the gravitational pull of Earth, and repelling force-fields moved the now weightless mass of the spaceship.
The ground fell away suddenly from underneath the ship. Buildings, roads, rivers, mountains and deserts seemed to fly rapidly and evenly from all sides toward the centre of the starting point, and the field of vision expanded until the entire terrain suddenly dropped away and was replaced by a dark-violet area.
The universe!
In less than 10 seconds the destroyer had rammed through Earth's atmosphere and was now unrelentingly racing through space.
For a moment, Thora thought she recognized a flashing point in the right corner of the observation screen; but almost before she became consciously aware of it, the light point had disappeared again. Then she noticed the sun, nearly straight ahead in the rocket's line of flight, its brightness considerably reduced by dark filters.
Earth assumed the shape of a globe that rotated peacefully in the starry sky, becoming smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a brightly shining heavenly body.
Thora sighed. She glanced in the direction of the robot pilot.
R-17 returned her glance. "A fine ship," he said with appreciation.
"True, a fine ship, but not good enough for what I have in mind, R-17."
The robot did not ask any questions. Silently he set the course, made adjustments and calculated.
The sun seemed to be threateningly close.

For quite some time the manned space station had been revolving around the Earth. Together with two other space stations, it maintained a worldwide television network. The three stations were circling at the exact altitude where the speed of their orbit equalled that of Earth's rotation, in this manner constantly over the same spot on the world's surface.
Radio operator Adams was fully aware of his responsibility as he established communication with the two other stations in order to begin the broadcast of 'TerraTelevision.'
It was 10 years to the day since the venture into space had started under the command of the then totally unknown Major Perry Rhodan. The Stardust had landed on the Moon, found there the wrecked remnants of an Arkonide space expedition whose female commander Thora together with the leading scientist Khrest accompanied the successful space mission back to Earth. This had been the beginning of a new era, reflected Adams.
Station II confirmed establishment of contact and within a few seconds the other space station followed suit. Adams now called Earth. The big broadcast centre in Terrania answered. Now the worldwide broadcast could begin.
Radio operator Adams leaned back comfortably in his chair. There was not much more for him to do; the rest would follow automatically. Still, he wanted to make sure he didn't miss this historic occasion. Perry Rhodan in person was scheduled to address mankind.
On the monitor a whirling star cluster appeared which soon changed into the familiar picture of the Milky Way, slowly rotating against the dark background of infinity. This was the TV identification of Terrania, the capital of the New Power.
Now the face of a man appeared on the monitor screen. It was a lean well-cut face. Its deep lines, especially around the mouth, made the man look older than he actually might be.
"This is Colonel Michael Freyt speaking from Terrania. On the occasion of our 10th national space holiday, I present to you Perry Rhodan, president of the New Power and friend of the Arkonides."
The man's image vanished from the screen and was replaced by another face. A clicking noise could be heard as the simultan-translator installations were switched on. Perry Rhodan's words would be translated into all languages of the world as quickly as spoken.
How strange, thought Adams, this similarity between Freyt's and Rhodan's features. They might almost be mistaken for brothers. The same lean figure, the same steel-grey eyes and the sharp lines around nose and mouth. Even the identical, purposeful glance! But Rhodan is the younger of the two-or could I be mistaken? He ought to be more than 45 by now, still he doesn't look a day over 38. Sure would like to know how he manages to keep young like that! That uniform suits him to a T. Must be about 10 years since he exchanged the uniform of an American test pilot for it. What a wild story that was way back...
But fortunately, Adams had to miss the beginning of Rhodan's speech. The shrill sound of an alarm bell rang throughout the space station and startled him from his reminiscing. He jumped up and rushed to the door.
An alarm signal on the space station always meant danger.
But they were lucky this time. The man on guard duty had observed an unidentified flying object on the radar screen. This UFO had raced close by the station with tremendous speed and had disappeared in the direction of the Moon. Evidently it had come from Earth.
"From Earth?" wondered Adams. He sounded very doubtful. "Have you checked this out with Terrania?"
"Not yet."
"Get it! Pronto, old man!" recommended Adams and comforted himself with the thought that the most interesting talks usually start out with boring introductory remarks. He would probably not miss too much if he would first wait for the answer from Terrania.
Terrania reported almost immediately: "No spaceship has taken off from here. We need further data from you."
Further data! That was a tall order! The spaceship, assuming even that the UFO had been a spaceship, had whizzed by so incredibly fast that very little had been observed about it. Perhaps the continuously running film camera might supply some more information. The film had just emerged from the developer.
The picture showed a ship about 30-yards long with a rather narrow diameter. Something like a torpedo. Velocity: could not be exactly determined but certainly in excess of 60 miles/sec▓.
Adams shook his head as he heard his colleagues send these data back to the control station on Earth. Assuming that such a ship really did exist, then it must have come from Perry Rhodan's secret aircraft installations about which so little was known. Unless one believed the rumours...
The answer from Terrania came surprisingly quick and it was not what Adams had expected:
"Try at once to obtain further data from our station on the Moon. Important to get a report on the presumed course of the unknown ship. We are also interested to learn more about the ship's velocity when passing in the vicinity of the Moon. Thanks for your help. We are awaiting further reports from you. Meanwhile we will also investigate from this end."