"Rhodan, Perry - Between the Galaxies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rhodan Perry)

Art didn't understand too much about the art of logic but he had enough confidence in his captain not to insist on sticking to his analysis. Yet in the back of his mind the thought persisted that somebody out there was frantically yelling for help. Or at least their automatic transmitter was still operating when perhaps the people it served had already died. Because that sun that Mike Kirkpatrick had mentioned had meanwhile been defined as a nuclear explosion of tremendous size.
Then this 2nd signal had come in. Whoever was sending it wasn't making an effort to repeat it too often. Art adjusted the receiver frequency but all he could see on the scope was a single decaying wave spike. Then the scope was blank again. Warren Lee wound the recorder tape back to where he could snip off the strip that contained the short transmission. Ken Lodge felt he ought to make himself useful, so he placed the tape strip in a bright red envelope and sent it through a pneumatic tube to the positronic analysis section.
Meanwhile, Cavanaugh had notified the main control room. Eric Furchtbar was still at his post although he had been 12 hours on duty without interruption. Eric asked for the tracking readouts, and considering his agitated condition Art knew he was lucky that the automatic tracker had completed its task in the meantime. The readout consisted of three triangular coЎrdinates and a radius vector. The radius vector indicated the distance between the BOB 21 and the unknown transmitter. It turned out to be 410 light years.
This was the same distance of the first transmitter, which placed it in the same area where the nuclear explosion had occurred.

*

During the next few hours further explosions were detected. A portion of the mighty energies unleashed were 5th-dimensional in nature and 5-D hyperfields were registered by the instruments on board the BOB 21 practically with no lapse of time.
Eric Furchtbar began to feel nervous. The BOB 21 was merely an observation station, not a true spaceship. It had been brought here by a space tender, which had simply decoupled itself and gone back to where it had come from. The BOB 21 had no real propulsion system and its only navigational engines were for limited movements to correct its position. The station was stationary. In case they should come under attack the crew was supplied with weapons, fairly effective ones at that-but if the situation became hopeless there was no way of making a fast exit.
During Eric's 13 hours of duty, 11 explosions were registered-all of them in relatively quick succession. And there was no change in the hyper signal that Art Cavanaugh thought as a distress call. It looked as if a great space battle were taking place out there somewhere. The radiation fields registered by the instruments indicated that each explosion was caused by a bomb in the range of 1000 gigatons.
Eric had almost forgotten about the 2nd short hyper message when the analysis section announced that the positronic deciphering run had been successful. The man talking over the intercom was Lt. Hynes.
"After everything we've been taught we can't be certain that the decoder is actually giving us the true content of the message," he said. "But everything seems to fit. Every test result comes up with the same coefficient of probability. What this would indicate-"
Eric interrupted him impatiently. "Alright, alright! What does it say?"
In the viewscreen, Lt. Hynes could be seen picking up a piece of paper. He studied it a few seconds dubiously and then read it aloud: "Are you a true life form?"

*

The incomprehensible generates uncertainty and a presentiment of impending danger.
For Eric Furchtbar and the other men on board the BOB 21, this question about a true life form was the most inconceivable thing they had ever heard before in their lives. Nonetheless there was little doubt that the question had really been asked-by somebody who was 410 light years out there engaged in an argument with somebody else, in the process of which they were batting around monster fusion bombs.
Eric Furchtbar had experienced a sense of uncertainty and approaching danger before but this feeling now was coming on like a slow panic.
However, before he could beam out another message, a dispatch came in from the Joann, announcing its arrival on Arkon 3. Eric answered practically on a simultaneous beam, and thus in a matter of seconds Nike Quinto was the recipient of information which caused him to take off immediately after just having landed. The Joann sped outward, prepared to leave the galaxy.
For the time being, no one had answered the mysterious question: "Are you a true life form?"








2/ STRANGER FROM THE ABYSS

The blackness out here was absolute.
On board the Joann Ron Laundry was watching their approach to the disc-shaped observation station. Only a few seconds before it had become visible on the screens.
Ron had an uneasy feeling when he noted the effect created by a total absence of background behind the BOB 21. The station actually did not appear to come nearer. Instead it was as if somebody inside it were inflating it steadily with an air pump. It seemed merely to swell up rather than reveal any motion of itself or the Joann. There was no sense of approaching it. The station simply grew larger.
The BOB 21 continued to grow until it almost filled one of the viewscreens. Then the impression of growth ceased. The ship and the station were stationary, relative to each other. Col. Nike Quinto and Maj. Ron Landry shuttled across in a space glider and Capt. Furchtbar met them in the main lock. On his face was an obvious expression of relief.
But that relief was short-lived because Nike Quinto advised him that this was just a brief visit and that he had no intention of just parking the Joann next to the station for no good reason. Nor did he indicate how far away he intended to be after he left. But Eric Furchtbar had the feeling that it would be fairly distant. If things got rough all of a sudden, he and his men would be back on their own resources, the same as before-at least in the first crucial moments of alien confrontation.
He didn't complain about it. The Terran space fleet was not a discussion society.
Nike Quinto asked to see all the data that had been picked up by the automatic recorders since the detection of the first bomb explosion. He studied the tapes and graphs carefully while discussing them with Ron Landry in such low tones that no one else could hear him. Finally he requested the use of the station's positronic facilities. He and Landry occupied themselves with the computer equipment for half an hour, and then they called Furchtbar into another meeting.
Quinto's face looked flushed then he spoke. "There can be no doubt that the second message you received was deciphered correctly. It actually does say: "Are you a true life form?" So, somebody is out there whose perception or mode of thinking lies somewhere between a 'true' life form or an 'untrue' form-or maybe they can differentiate between a dozen different grades of being. What they may mean by 'true' in this sense is something we don't know. These unknown aliens are waiting for an answer. In that connection we'll have to rely on our own best instincts. To me, Captain, you're as true a life form as Major Landry, and it's to be hoped that I make the same impression on you. So in my opinion we should answer: Yes, we are a true life form."
Furchtbar was so horrified that he jumped up out of his chair. He was utterly amazed. "You mean-we should actually give them a return message?"
Quinto pretended to be surprised. "And why not?"
"But if we do we'll reveal our position! Out there are unknown intelligences battling each other with weapons of such a destructive power that it's even hard to imagine! If we answer them they'll be able to trace us. That will probably draw the battle to this area and we'll be right in the middle...!"
Nike Quinto was surprisingly calm for a change. "You're overlooking something, Captain. The aliens have asked if 'you' are a true life form. The real question is: who is this 'you' they are addressing?"
Still agitated, Furchtbar looked at him helplessly. "That I couldn't say, sir."
Quinto nodded as if he hadn't expected any other response. "Have you checked the energy indicators of your hypercom receiver?"
"Just roughly. We were sure there wouldn't be much to help us there."
Quinto waved a finger at him. "That was a mistake. Otherwise you would have found out that the output power of the alien transmitter wasn't especially high. Even though it's a hypercom signal it's probable that it couldn't be picked up at a distance of 5000 light years. Of course we'll check immediately to see if anyone else has picked it up somewhere but I'm fairly sure of what we'll find out. So what does that mean?"
Eric felt perplexed. He did not like the situation. He wasn't fond of being asked questions when the questioner knew from the beginning that he couldn't answer them. "I haven't any idea, sir," he said curtly.
Quinto continued patiently. "That message had a target destination. Nobody just shoots a question like that into the blue without knowing that someone's at the other end to hear it. But it was transmitted in such a way that it could not be received even at the outer edge of the Milky Way. So who in thunder were they aiming it at?