"Perry Rhodan 088 - The Columbus Affair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

1/ THE MESSAGE OF THE CENTURY

THE INCREDIBLE had happened.
In clear, uncoded text the unmistakable signature appeared on the tape. Mute, cold, inanimate-yet possibly signifying a turning point in human history...

Sgt. Bidge had been carefully checking his entries into the radio log for 11 May 2044. What had caught his attention was a hyperspace message designated as 76нHyн11н5н44. It had been sent out under the pulse-burst coding used by the Fleet, duly modified by the recognition coding for that particular security period. Duration: 0.1 second. According to directional beam angle its point of origin had been in space sector M-13 Hercules.
Ordinarily Bidge's task would have been taken care of at this point with regard to the message if it had not been for the fact that the automatic rectifier had added that special signature to the usual ID marks on the punched tape. Those final marks were in clear text. For this part, Sgt. Bidge did not have to wait through the tedious process of decipherment of the pulse-burst message, which contained a variable probability factor ranging over a possible 4.6 million data bits.
He caught his breath sharply when the machine rang its small bell to designate the end of the rectification cycle. On the plastic tape strip in his hands was a completely meaningless maze of dots, lines and geometrical figures compressed into a mosaic pattern. It would require a high capacity electronic brain a half hour to perform a proper data retrieval on this. It was impossible for Bidge to gather the import of the message itself by visual inspection-but he could clearly read that end signature.
He repeated it softly aloud: "IнRhoнAdнT"
For a moment he ceased to be aware of the monotonous humming and clicking of the operating equipment Sgt Bidge was the subordinate duty officer in the crypto room of Solar Intelligence.
One glance at the clock apprised him of the fact that he had already lost valuable seconds. The code man next to him was startled when Bidge reached out suddenly and decisively hit the alarm button.
"Huh? What the...!"
The penetrating howl of the sirens left him speechless.
Bidge waited until the armourplate hatch slid upward automatically and the chief duty officer appeared on the threshold. The crypto room of Solar Intelligence was under Class 1 security control.
Maj. Raynold Abucot had the reputation of being a superior officer who was a stickler for regulations. He came forward with carefully calculated steps, not too fast and not too slow. His face was expressionless.
"Who activated the alarm?"
The sergeant raised his hand. "I did, sir."
Abucot looked at him sternly. "Who is 'I'?" he asked, unmoved.
"First Sgt. Bidge, sir, 2nd duty officer, Crypto."
"That sounds more proper. What's happening?"
With some irritation, Bidge reflected that the question wasn't any too proper, either. Abucot was apparently having one of his stiff-necked days again. Bidge stood up, came to attention and reported in sharply accentuated words: "Sir, a pulse-coded message from Sector M-13 Hercules has just been received and printed out by the rectifier. It bears the personal signature symbol of the First Administrator. And sir-it's in clear text!"
It would not have been necessary for Bidge to accentuate his last statement to get such a ludicrous jump of alarm out of the Major. Bidge watched him curiously but with a sudden sense of being on his guard as the latter stared at the tape, his eyes futilely trying to virtually bore through the plastic strip he held in his hands.
"That's it, alright!" muttered Abucot, flabbergasted. He looked about him almost imploringly. "Sergeant-are you sure this isn't some kind of sick joke?"
"I wouldn't stick out my neck that far, sir."
The senior duty officer swallowed audibly. Finally the Major struggled to put his famed self-composure to the test. Once more his lean, narrow face became expressionless. "Thank you very much. You may terminate the alert."
After briefly touching the wide peak of his service cap in a hasty salute of dismissal, he strutted toward the still-open security hatch. However, before he had fully disappeared beyond it the men in the Crypto Centre noted that Abucot's feet suddenly picked up a frantic acceleration.
Bidge looked at the clock again. Smiling a bit uncertainly, he remarked: "The Old Man came to life pretty much in a hurry, didn't he? He was able to play the ice-berg until he got to the door but I'll bet a month's pay that he's running through the corridors now at half the speed of sound."
"Make that about 20 km per hour," interjected another Communications man. "That ought to be about right."
"Fast enough, anyway," Bidge conceded. "Does anybody remember any other time that Perry Rhodan has beamed such a message? I mean straight across, directly, without channelling through camouflaged relay stations in deep space?"
Sgt Bidge had to wait several moments for an answer. The man sitting next to him wiped his forehead and ventured to reply. "I only know that during our special training it was always drilled into our noggins that the galactic position of the Earth was such a high-level security item that nobody could even dare think of sending a direct message to Terra."
"There you are! That was due to the danger of being traced, isn't that right? So how come the very man who put out this order has violated his own restriction in this risky manner?"
A silence fell in the deciphering room of Solar Intelligence. The service men stared at each other thoughtfully. They suddenly realized that something had happened out in the Milky Way which they were far from fathoming as yet.
From then on the Crypto crew concentrated exclusively on the fully positronic operation of the deciphering equipment, which had already swallowed up the pre-punched tape strip for decoding.
A minute later the Major called in over the intercom. He ordered an immediate transmission of the decoded text.
Bidge nodded. "In about 20 minutes, sir. It's in progress now."
"Please hurry," answered Abucot nervously. He knew very well that the operation could not go any faster.

* * * *

...if you'll permit me to ask it, my dear fellow: are you sober?"
Solar Marshal Allan D. Mercant, Chief of Solar Intelligence, smiled softly. With slow deliberation he replaced a wonderfully wrought letter opener of Luurs metal on the blotter of his desk. A narrow beam of sunlight came through the high, hermetically sealed window, producing a shimmer of reflections in Mercant's straw-blond crown of hair.
His smile widened as Maj. Abucot strove to improve his already exemplary posture.
"Sir, if you please! I've come as quickly as possible to give you this message personally!" He stepped forward in order to place the decoded text of the dispatch on the desk and then he stepped back quickly.
Mercant's smooth, unwrinkled face betrayed none of the tension he secretly felt. With seeming indifference he picked up the sheet of foil and began to read. Finally he looked up. If Abucot had expected to be more clearly informed as to the meaning of the message, he was immeasurably disappointed.
Mercant spoke succinctly. "I see that you've had the strength of the alien transmitter calculated, using your receiver sensors. Are you sure your mathematicians haven't let some kind of error creep into this?"
"Out of the question, sir!" the Major asserted. "That station is operating with a broadcast power of at least 50 million kilowatts on the hypercom bands. I know of only one planet that could possess such a gigantic installation."
"Which is..."
"Arkon 3, sir!"
Mercant nodded thoughtfully. His lean, sensitive fingers still held the foil sheet in front of him. "Thank you very much, Major. You may go now."
Disconcertedly, Abucot walked past the two robot guards, entered the security lock and disappeared.