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

"So your joy should be all the greater now," the doctor told him, giving each man a small packet. "Be careful with them! You're receiving an emergency food ration and some water tablets. By spacing out the supply, a man can survive for a week with them. In any event, we won't be starving for awhile. Now, let's go on, shall we?"
They went on.
The character of the landscape soon changed. The stony plains gave way to a grassy steppe, which proved no more pleasant for walking. The grass with its unbending and extremely sharp blades was extraordinarily dangerous. If he wanted to avoid being wounded, one had to avoid every single blade of grass, for the blades were like steel knives.
The men were happy when the grass became lower and was at length replaced by a cushion of moss-which was just as hard but not so impeding. Even the plastic soles of their boots seemed to be uncomfortably hard and unresilient, although that could have been due to the men's imaginations.
The terrain rose uphill.
Steiner wiped the sweat from his brow. "Time may go by more slowly here," he groaned, "but you sweat just as fast anywhere it's hot." He had stopped and looked over the plains. Josua stood watch somewhere down there but as yet he had not reported.
They stood on a small plateau. The terrain behind them sank into the broad plains while in front of them it rose onwards towards the summits of the mountains. After 2 hours of walking they had not covered more than 10 kilometres but the curiosity driving them on to learn what lay beyond the mountains let them pay no mind to their strenuous efforts.
And then they saw a movement.
It started over in the western horizon where the thickest masses of clouds covered the sky and-as it doubtless had for hours, local time-it rained. The raindrops there would fall unendingly slowly, reaching the ground only days later. It was madness to think of it.
The movement that caught the Terrans' eyes started in the clouds and resembled a beam of light snaking quickly down to earth, reaching the surface in 1 or 2 seconds. The light-pattern did not dissolve but remained suspended between the earth and the sky.
Steiner stared at the apparition for some time, then said: "What is that?"
Rous had gone pale. He saw his suspicions confirmed. "Lightning, Steiner. Everyday run-of-the-mill lightning-though slowed down 72,000 times. It could be that the lightning bolt out there will remain in the sky for the next 10 hours. Did you see it? It took a good 2 seconds to reach the ground from the clouds. That means that..."
"No!" the physicist interrupted, shaking his head without comprehension. "It can't be true! If it were, it would mean..."
"It's nothing but a logical conclusion, Steiner. If everything in this dimension moves more slowly for us because we live at a rate 72000 times faster, then light will be slowed down too! So light, Steiner, has a velocity of 4 km/sec in this time plane. We don't know yet what will result from that but you can see from the lightning out there that there will be results of some kind."
"Lightning can stay visible in the Earthly sky for 1 or 2 seconds. That means that the bolt out there in the west could remain in the sky for 20 or 40 hours, held there by the incomprehensible natural laws of the different dimensions. Those laws, however, seem to be fundamentally similar."
So-relatively speaking-the speed of light was 300,000 km/sec here too.
"Does the red sun have anything to do with that?" asked Harras, pointing towards the south where the sky burned like fire.
Rous nodded. "It's what gave me the idea in the first place. The extremely slow speed of the sunrays are a clear example of the results of the Doppler Effect. I'm surprised we can see anything at all, really."
"If we're here for awhile, I'll look into that," Steiner promised. With narrowed eyes he regarded the lightning bolt, which was not changing at all. "SPEOL here is only 4 km/sec. What would happen if I fired my beamer? The neutrons have certainly retained their own rate of time."
Rous shrugged. "I wish I knew..."
The Terrans walked on, each absorbed in his own private thoughts. A brief inquiry to Josua showed that nothing had changed. The African was told to climb through the light-ring as soon as it had appeared and he had radioed the others, and turn off the LFG for 2 hours. That would give them time to walk back and the black wall would not be a barrier.
Andre Noir was the first to notice the rising temperature. "It's getting rather warm out," he said, looking up in the direction of the hidden summit. "Why are we going to all this effort and trouble, anyway? I've wanted to ask why all this time but I assumed there was some special reason for us to go on foot. What is the reason, Lt. Rous?"
"You're thinking of the Arkonide battle-suits, right? Yes, there is a reason we're walking. Consider the terrible speed flying would mean on this world. I can't say this for sure but certainly we'd burn up at a speed of a few meters per second."
Steiner's face took on a grim expression as he bent to pick up a stone. Which is to say he wanted to pick up a stone. He was not successful. The inertia of the small rock had increased its weight 72,000 times.
Rous could not hold back a smile. "I know just what you wanted to do but I could have told you it wouldn't work. The stone is subject to quite another set of laws, laws we don't have any control over. I know, now, too, that unless we operate an LFG very skilfully we'll never be able to take a prisoner out of this world and into ours. But if you want to see my suspicion confirmed, use some object that we brought with us. A coin, perhaps. Throw it into the ravine there and we'll see what happens."
The men were all happy with the idea of being able to stop for a rest and not having to walk any farther. And the thought of perhaps flying instead of walking had a positively exciting effect. But if Rous were correct, they would have to give up all thought of flying.
Steiner drew a heavy platinum coin from his pocket, looked at it regretfully for a moment, then stepped up to the edge of the ravine. The rock walls were steep, plunging almost straight down for a hundred meters or so. At the bottom was a green meadow.
"You only have to drop the coin," said Rous, trying to keep his inner tension from showing. "That would be enough."
Noir, Harras and Ragov crowded around Rous and watched in suspense as Steiner raised his arm for a throw and then hurtled the coin far away.
It described a wide are, then began to drop straight down-for at most a second, anyway. Then something very strange happened to it. At first the coin seemed to glow in a silver harshness, as though caught in the glare of a hidden spotlight. Then it became red, then white. A thin trail of steam marked the coin's passage. Finally, even before it reached the valley floor, the coin disappeared, dissolved into nothing by air friction.
One of the men gave a disbelieving moan.
Rous took a deep breath and said: "Just as I thought! And now I also know that a shot from our impulse-beamers will have devastating consequences. Can you imagine what they would be?"
Steiner, who stepped back from the cliff's edge, nodded slowly. "I can imagine, alright. On the Earth a beam of light moving 72,000 times faster than the normal speed of light would not only leave a trail in the atmosphere but also in time itself. The whole structure of things could break up and fall apart. And here...?"
"And here," said Rous with assurance, "we aren't even going to try it. I'm not going to run the risk of time... of time exploding!" he added decisively.
He did not respond to the fact the faces of his men had gone pale. After glancing briefly back towards the plains, he started walking again.
The others followed him.

* * * *

The air around the summit did not move any more than that on the plains but it was less clear and warmer. One could hardly see 10 meters ahead. The exertion required to get there had not paid off for a wide overlook on the surrounding countryside was impossible. It was as though the more or less level mountaintop was enveloped in wispy cotton.
"I'd like to know where the heat's coming from," Noir muttered. "Does anybody have a reasonable explanation right at the moment?"
"Certainly!" Steiner said and bent down. He laid the back of his hand against the naked rock, then pulled it quickly away. Surprise showed in his face. Then he stood up again.
"Well?" said Rous, hoping to encourage Steiner to reveal the results of his experiment. "What was it?"
"The ground is hot," Steiner murmured indecisively. "You could say there's a fire burning under the rocks."
Harras began to laugh. Steiner turned angrily towards him. "I'd like to know what there is to laugh about! Why can't there be volcanoes and such here?"
"Fire!" Harras grinned without embarrassment. "I'm trying to imagine what fire would be like here. A game burns and requires time in which to do it. How would that look here? A flame held frozen by time..."
"But just as hot," Steiner warned, pointing to the ground at their feet. "The warmth has had time enough to climb through the rock like on a ladder-millenniums, perhaps."
Rous looked at the slope on the other side of the summit. "I don't know... possibly we're not on the highest peak. You've given me an idea, Steiner. If this is a volcano, then perhaps we're standing on the edge of the crater. That would explain the heat."
Harras, who had walked a short distance away, called out suddenly: "Come over here, men! You'll be amazed! But be careful and don't slip..."
Steiner and Rous moved immediately but Ragov and Noir waited where they were. They were not quite so rushed in this world of endless time.