"Perry Rhodan 066 - The Guardians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Mullon objected. "We better leave this to the People's Assembly. It's up to them."
Chellish quickly agreed. "Of course. I only said it because I'm so terribly mad."
Actually he was a little apprehensive because he had told Mullon when he met him at the river that he had been one of Hollander's collaborators and he feared that a wrong word might reveal that he had lied at the time.




2/ THE SIEGE OF GREENWICH

The rest was simpler than Mullon had supposed. Of course he didn't try immediately to take prisoner the 40 men under Pashen's command who had occupied the mound of dwellings.
Instead he loaded Hollander in the helicopter and flew with Chellish, Milligan and Freddy to Greenwich. They landed near the wreck of the spaceship and freed O'Bannon, Wolley and a number of other prisoners before anyone in the town noticed that something was awry.
Then Mullon sent Chellish in as negotiator and declared that Hollander would be summarily shot unless the entire so-called Defence Troop would put down their arms and surrender outside the town in 30 minutes.
Chellish returned after a suspenseful wait and reported that Mullon's conditions had been accepted.
Half an hour later Greenwich was liberated. The last of the Defence Troopers who had left the town with their guns to give themselves up as ordered were driven out by the unarmed townspeople without regard to their own safety.
The following day Pashen and his men, who were already perturbed and vexed by Hollander's prolonged absence, were also taken prisoners. Pashen was the only one who put up a defence and he was wounded in the process.
Mullon had captured their position on the hill with only 10 men. Most of the work was done by the dwarfs who had returned to the foot of the hill and caused the weapons of the defenders to levitate and float away at the decisive moment so that they were almost helpless.
The prisoners were transported in batches to Greenwich by helicopter.
On his last flight Mullon brought back the mungo who had been frightened away when Hollander was apprehended. Hours later he finally returned.
Meanwhile the People's Assembly had been convened and debated the punishment of the conspirators.
At the trial the opinions clashed sharply on the question of what to do with Hollander. Nobody had any desire to ease his lot but a considerable number of the jury's members were opposed to the death penalty which had been abolished on Earth a long time ago. Now they rejected it as a barbaric regression.
However O'Bannon raised some grave arguments. "Why," he asked heatedly, "did they abolish the death penalty on Terra? Because from the beginning of civilization capital punishment only served to protect society against criminals. Such protection has been accomplished on Earth long ago by other means. Criminals are now banished to keep them from harming the citizens and convicts can be kept for life in modern penitentiaries behind bars without taking the slightest risk. But what are we to do here? I ask you. We can't banish him nor do we have a prison which is secure enough to hold him forever. For us the old argument is valid again. Those who are bent on destroying our society by heinous crimes must be punished by death unless we know a way of detaining them indefinitely. I'm in favour of putting Hollander to death for his evil deeds."
After O'Bannon's short and simple appeal a vote was taken and 2/3rds of the jurors supported his demand. Hollander was given the opportunity to defend himself but he didn't make use of his rights. He remained silent and so the sentence was executed.
The number of his followers was too large to lock them all up in the wreck of the Adventurous. The loss of so much manpower had to be weighed against the gain in safety. Therefore it was decided to form a labour gang where Hollander's misguided accomplices were put to work under the supervision of armed guards for 2 years.
By this method they had disposed of 'Case Hollander.' It was an important episode in the history of the Grautier colony. It had brought home the fact that collective banishment was not sufficient to make decent citizens of all people. Freedom was something which had to be carefully nourished or it would get lost.

* * * *

During the following weeks the People's Assembly discussed the relations of the colonists to the blue dwarfs and the mungos.
Mullon proposed an expression of gratitude for the effective support they had received from the dwarfs and to reward the mungos for the harsh treatment they had suffered at the hands of Hollander. The Assembly resolved to present one of the extra generators of the Adventurous to the dwarfs to replace their old-fashioned induction machines for a more efficient production of electricity.
The mungos were given a choice to pick anything they liked from a pile of colourful surplus stuff. Their enthusiasm over the offer was unmistakable. They descended on the spread of wares and grabbed what they could carry.
The generator was loaded into the helicopter and flown by Mullon and Freddy to the den of the dwarfs. Mullon installed the machine and explained to the best of his ability the purpose and the operation of the generator. Thanks to the telepathic abilities of the dwarfs they mastered the task quickly and Mullon gained the impression that the dwarfs appreciated the gift.

* * * *

After having taken care of all the diplomatic niceties Mullon began to work on the solution of several projects which he had pondered for some time.
For instance there was the problem of calibrating time. Up to now everybody tried to keep his watch running since it had been set on Terra for the last time The hour hand went around the dial more than 3 times in a day on Grautier and sometimes the watches showed 12 o'clock when the sun rose. Nevertheless the days were counted consecutively as 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th of May although it was already August on Terra instead of May. Mullon was the only one who had kept an exact record of the passage of time.
Mullon figured out that 200 years on Grautier corresponded to 172.33 years on Terra and that each Grautier year had 188.8 Grautier days. He rounded this figure off to 189 days and therefore had to eliminate a day every 5 years. A Grautier day was the equivalent of 39.67 hours on Earth and Mullon set it at exactly 40 hours so that a Grautier hour was approximately half a minute shorter than a Terra hour. The Grautier year was divided in 12 months as on Earth but 9 months had 16 days and 3 months 15 Grautier days. Thus he could retain the same names for the months to which they were accustomed.
Furthermore he retained the division of every hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds.
The day the People's Assembly adopted his recommendation was called the 1st of January. The day was unusually hot and the only thing it had in common with the date on Earth, at least in the northern hemisphere, was its name. However the year was not changed so that it was the same as on Terra's calendar. Everybody was satisfied with the new system. In fact they were quite proud to have their own chronology.
Mullon had many more projects on the fire. He wanted to study the habits of the gigantic grey-skinned animals they called giraffants. It wouldn't make much sense to build vast plantations in the vicinity of Greenwich if the town happened to be on the migrating trail of the huge beasts so that everything in their way was trampled down.
There were a few people among the settlers who had studied biology and some others who had acquired considerable knowledge of the fauna in other ways. They convinced Mullon that the only way to study the giraffants properly was to stay close to them in their natural habitat. However it would be extremely dangerous to get too close to a herd of giraffants: these monstrous animals moved with great speed and their thick skins could not be penetrated by conventional weapons but only by modern thermo-beamers and disintegrators of which the pioneers had only a limited number. One possibility of carrying out Mullon's plan was by using the helicopter for an extended time. Mullon was willing to do it since it was only seldom needed in Greenwich. However the People's Assembly didn't consider his expedition important enough to put the valuable machine at his disposal for an indefinite time.
Mullon was ready to go to bat for it in a good argument because he considered the rejection of his proposal shortsighted and had no intention of being responsible for such neglect for reasons of apathy or carelessness.
Consequently he made the rounds in town to talk privately with those people who had opposed his plan most in an effort to convince them; and since his arguments were valid and those of his opponents none too sound, he felt after 5 days that he could bring up his proposal for another vote and be more successful.
But he didn't get his chance. In the night between the 15th and 16th of January a new disaster struck the little colony.

* * * *

Mullon was awakened by a noise at the door. Sleepily he raised himself up in bed and listened. Somebody knocked at the door rather violently.
Freddy became alarmed. "What's the matter?" she cried.
Mullon got up and opened the door. It was Milligan. Freddy turned on the light. They noticed that Milligan's face looked dazed and scared.