"Perry Rhodan 064 - Prisoner of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Rous felt the heat growing greater. He felt as though he was directly in the path of some heat source. Then he saw Harras waving to him through the haze.
"Here's the crater itself," the technician called, indicating the red-glowing pit at his feet. "The lava's down there."
The lava looked like a solid glowing red mass that did not move. But the frozen wave motion showed that the mass had been caught in the process of rising and would reach the crater's edge of some unguessable time in the future.
"And thus the heat," said Steiner. "My suspicion was right and that's all I wanted to know. Who can tell how quickly this volcano eruption we're witnessing will take place?"
"Volcano eruption?" Rous looked surprised.
Steiner pointed to the lava. "What else? I'm convinced that the lava is rising. It will reach the edge of the crater in 2 or 3 years, perhaps sooner. In any event, it's no danger to us. And if this liquid fire begins to flow down into the valley, there would still be time to get to safety-although it would be questionable for anyone who's on the same rate of time as the volcano."
"A volcano eruption!" murmured Rous, still amazed. "And we're standing here watching it! This is more astounding than the business with the insect's wings."
Noir cleared his throat. "Frankly, it's getting a little too warm for me here. We probably can't go any farther in this direction because nobody knows how wide the crater is. So what'll we do? Go back?"
"I don't see any alternative," Rous admitted.
"If we really want to go into the direction of Akonar," said Ragov, "We'll have to find some other route."
"We'll never find the city itself," said Steiner in reply, "because it remained behind in the other time plane. Our time plane. But we would find the inhabitants. Maybe we could do something to welcome that conceited Administrator into his new world."
"What would be the use of that if he wouldn't feel anything for 3 days?" inquired Harras sarcastically.
Rous had meanwhile realized the cause of the haze in the air was the steam from the lava. The thought came to him that the vapours could be poisonous. "We're going back," he announced, starting to retrace his steps. "There wouldn't be any sense in running any unknown risks. At least the air is clean down in the lowlands."
They had covered about one-half the distance back when Ragov suddenly yelled. He raised his arm and pointed to the rock wall on the left. His lips trembled. At first the others did not see what had excited him, for nothing moved. But then, what did move on this crazy world?
"That animal there...!" Ragov stammered frantically. "Don't you see it?"
Rous looked as hard as he could but saw only motionless lumps of rocks of various sizes. Did Ragov mean them?
The Russian lowered his arm, then bent his head so he could hear better. Something was in the air, an odd sound. It sounded like the hollow rumbling of a distant storm. But if the lightning still stood unmoving in the sky, then it was too far away for the thunder to have reached here yet. Sound did not move more than 17 meters an hour.
And yet, that low rumble was in the air.
"...Uuuf... ruuuf... druuf..."
"Can you hear it now, Lieutenant?" asked Ragov. I noticed it the same moment I spotted the animals."
"What animals?" Steiner wanted to know. I don't see any animals."
"They're standing-or crawling-in front of those eaves there." answered Ragov. "I've never seen creatures like them. Are they caterpillars?"
"Caterpillars?" Rous demanded impatiently. "I can't make out any caterpillars. Besides, the distance is still too great to..."
"What I mean," said Ragov quietly, "is that they look like caterpillars but are much bigger. The stones over there in front of the caves..."
The black holes of the caves yawned like open mouths in the rock wall. Irregular stone steps led up to them, narrow paths smoothed by the passage of countless feet. And below, at the beginning of those paths, lay the stones.
The caterpillars...
Now the other men saw them too. The supposed stones were all of the same shape. As though carved from rock, they lay and stood unmoving singly and in groups in various places across the rocky terrain.
And in the air was the never-ending "...ruuuf... druuuuufff..."
"They're living creatures, no doubt about that, and they live in the caves," Ragov said, as though lecturing a biology class, and he walked fearlessly towards the strange creatures. "Since I hadn't run across similar organisms in the normal dimension, I must assume that in all probability these are inhabitants of this time plane. Perhaps they are even our unknown enemy."
Rous had recovered from his surprise. He followed the scholar, who now stood in the midst of the petrified creatures and studied them intensively. The other 3 men came along too.
They indeed resembled greatly enlarged caterpillars. The wing-sacs on their backs indicated that they could fly or at least had been able to fly at one time. None of the caterpillars were less than a meter and a half long. Instead of fine hair their bodies were encased in dark brown armour shells. Just under the round insect head was a pair of delicately structured limbs obviously evolved for working and grasping, as opposed to the legs all along the rest of the body which evidently served only for locomotion.
"... Druuuf... uuff..."
The strange tones had grown shorter and clearer as the men approached but reverted to their old hollow reverberation when they stood still.
Sound distortion...?
Rous had guessed Steiner's question before he could ask it. "Yes, that's it! The animals here call out their cries, which because of the time lapse reflect into our ears at an unendingly slow rate. To hear how they really sound, we'd have to record them on a tape and play it back 72,000 times faster."
"You're right," Rous agreed. "The animals are communicating with one another. We can't even call them animals anymore since they possess a certain measure of intelligence. Perhaps more than we suspect."
"I wonder if they aren't even the most intelligent beings in this dimension," Rous murmured.
"Could be," Ragov conceded and bent down to look more closely at a caterpillar. "Maybe we'll find out someday."
Rous wanted to say something in reply but the light humming of his ring-radio prevented him from doing so. Josua was calling in.
Rous quickly activated the device. "Yes, Josua? Rous here. What is it?"
The African's voice sounded uncertain. "I don't know if it's anything at all but I thought it would be best to let you know..."
"Yes...?"
"A... a... well, something is above me in the air. I just now saw it. It looks like a ship, about 10 meters long and shaped like a torpedo. It must have come out of the clouds and it's slowly sinking lower. Looks like it's going to land."
The other members of the expedition listened attentively. Rous knew immediately what was in their minds and put it into words. "Josua, you mean to say you can see the ship move?"
"Definitely, Lieutenant. But it's still very slow. At least 2 hours will go by before it lands-if it lands."
"We're coming back," Rous promised, throwing a regretful glance at the petrified caterpillars. "The landing of a ship seems to me like something important enough to interrupt our investigations here."
"I'll report again if anything happens," Josua said in closing.
Seconds later, Ragov shook his head unhappily. "I wonder if it's right to simply ignore our discovery like this? If only we could take at least one of the caterpillars with us..."
"You know yourself that isn't possible," said Rous, "or at least under these circumstances and without any means of help. If you want to move any of these creatures here, you would need the same amount of energy required to accelerate a man on the Earth to a velocity of 70 kilometres per second inside of 1 second. Or to put it another way, it would be easier for you to knock a man into orbit around the Earth with your bare fists than to lift one of these caterpillars just I meter. Of course, you could take your time. I would say you would need 20 hours per meter."
Ragov looked around in desperation. "I'm gradually beginning to understand what role the concept of time plays. Only I'm afraid that once I do understand it, I'll go crazy..."