"Rhodan, Perry - Between the Galaxies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rhodan Perry)
This also made sense to Lofty. From then on he followed the rest of the discussion in silence.
At this time the Joann stood motionlessly in space at a distance of 200 light years from the BOB 21. All hypercom receivers were trained on the observation station. If the BOB 21 should run into trouble, everyone on board the Joann would know about it in the next second. The Joann's own tracking equipment didn't have sufficient range to follow events happening out beyond in the far abyss. She may have had other special capabilities but the Joann was not an observation station.
Meanwhile, Quinto had made arrangements for the Terran Fleet units along the rim of the Milky Way to be reinforced and made ready for action.
At close to 01:00 hours he reached an agreement with his inner cadre concerning the mode of procedure during the next 10 hours. They had heatedly discussed a suggestion of Larry Randall's in which he proposed that they should go to the site of the bomb explosions and have a look around, but this was finally rejected. Nike Quinto won out with his own idea of waiting right where they were, to see how the situation developed.
The BOB 21 had reported several hours prior to this that everything had quieted down in the distant area of surveillance. The explosions had ceased, the automatic transmitter had become silent, and the question was not repeated concerning their form of life.
For Quinto this was far from being any indication that the case was closed. He decided to wait out the 10 hours quietly and then consider whether to take up the trail of direct investigation or to wait further.
His judgment proved to be valid. At 01:23 hours the BOB 21 announced the emergence of an alien spaceship out of the void between the galaxies. The Joann sent an alert signal to the Fleet formations.
*
Eric Furchtbar was observing the alien ship.
Also in the main control room besides himself were Lt. Hynes and corp. Schulmeister. The radar image from Cavanaugh's Com Room had been relayed into the control centre. Furchtbar could see on the screen that the ship was coming closer and that it had gone into a braking manoeuvre.
He told Cavanaugh to turn on the hyper transmitter and beam out a signal with hardly any modulation, which of course could make no sense on the receiving end. But the stranger would no doubt send back some kind of answer and though it would probably make no sense either it would at least indicate that the call had been acknowledged.
This is what Eric expected but he was deceived. There was no answer. The alien ship merely continued its braking manoeuvre. Even an amateur. Could see that every second it was becoming more difficult for the strange vessel to hold its course. It would veer off to the side and struggle back only to buck like a horse and spin on its axis at varying speeds of rotation. It was still too far away to be visible on the optical screens but the hyper-scanner plainly revealed that the ship was spherical in shape.
The energy sensors indicated that the vessel was moving in a synthetic gravity field that took the place of a propulsion system. Strong variations of the field were registered. The generators seemed to be out of control. Eric kept waiting for an answer but none was received. He repeated the signals, he beamed out additional signals, and finally he even sent out a question in positronic code.
But the alien remained silent. Either nobody on board was still alive or they didn't prefer to answer. The first possibility didn't seem to be too probable. If nobody was alive then at this moment the ship would have to be on automatic pilot. This was wholly conceivable but in Eric's opinion such an automatic system should be responding more quickly to the course deviations. Those corrections he saw appeared to be awfully sluggish and clumsy. It was as if somebody was sitting at the controls who knew nothing about astrogation.
But if somebody was still alive over there, why didn't he give a return signal? It was unthinkable that all receivers on board could be malfunctioning. Receivers and transmitter's were the most important items of equipment on board spaceship. Eric was confident that these aliens, whoever they might be, received radio impulses in the same way and that they had equipped their vessel as earthmen would have. Which meant that there would be such a redundancy of senders and receivers that even in case of complete destruction there would still be an emergency set or two in operation.
Eric was being constantly informed from the Com Room as to the remaining time left before the ship would reach a stopping point. Ken Lodge's deep voice was doing the countdown.
"Still 71 minutes, sir. We have the new tracking readout. The alien ship will come to a stop at a distance of 15000 km."
Eric nodded absently. Either their astrogation instruments are out of kilter over there or they really had a clown at the flight controls. 15000 kilometres! With the lack of light here the vessel still wouldn't be visible on the regular screens.
He decided to fire a warning salvo as soon as the ship came within 50000 km. He had delayed long enough. Of course anyone could see that the vessel was in serious trouble and it was not the custom of the Terran Fleet to hail a crippled ship with a shot across the bow but Eric Furchtbar carried the responsibility for 25 human lives. Out there something unspeakably alien was coming toward him. He didn't know what the intentions of the crew might be on board the damaged spacer-so he had to give them a warning.
He issued orders to gun position 1. Behind the heavy energy cannons the crew sprang into action. The positronics indicated the exact spot where the ship would be when it passed the 50000-km line. The target point was pre-calculated. Five heavy-calibre thermo guns were aimed at a place that was within 100 km of the critical point.
In the main control room the seconds seemed to drag by in slow succession. Every minute, Ken Lodge's deep, monotonous voice came through with the continuing countdown.
"Still 54 minutes, sir. Unknown vessel's present velocity is 1.123 times 10 to the 7th meters per second."
"We could send out a lifeboat to them, sir."
Eric was startled to hear Lt. Hynes' voice directly behind him. He whirled around. "My God but you gave me a scare!" he admitted frankly. "Can't you stomp those boots a little louder when you walk? A lifeboat? They're still cutting the ether at over 1000 km per second. Our shuttle craft don't have good enough auto-nav controls-at least not in that range of speed. They're not much better than maintenance workboats, for repair work near the station. If you wavered a minute of arc in the wrong direction that steamroller out there would flatten you to pieces."
Hynes listened patiently and then added: "I didn't mean now, sir. Later, when they're practically at a stop. Of course the pilot would have to be a volunteer." His voice rose slightly with a note of tension. "We can't just sit here and wait for something to happen, sir!"
Eric looked at him sarcastically. "Would you like to be the volunteer, Lieutenant?"
In the same moment he was sorry he said it but the question was out. Ed Hynes pressed his lips together and squared his shoulders.
"Of course, sir," he answered immediately.
Eric waved a hand wearily. "Forget it, he said in a conciliatory tone. "We still have 50 minutes to mull it over. It isn't a bad idea-maybe we can figure something out."
Lt. Hynes went back to his post, somewhat subdued. The time dragged by with such excruciating slowness that the pauses between Ken Lodge's announcements seemed to be semi-eternities.
"...another 31 minutes sir..."
Always another minute, and another!
"...still 28 minutes, sir..."
The alien ship was still twisting, turning and bucking out there in the darkness. Furchtbar thought that he wouldn't be surprised if the thing exploded and sent the splinters flying around their ears. But the stranger kept on coming.
"Fifteen minutes, sir. The bogie's present velocity is 2780 km per second. Present-distance: 120000 km."
Eric envisioned Ken Lodge standing in the Com Room with the intercom mike in his hand. He wondered if the big fellow was really as cool and collected as he sounded.
At last the time seemed to be passing more swiftly all of a sudden when zero minus 10 minutes was reached. The moment was approaching when gun position 1 would be laying a shot across the alien's bow. That would be at zero minus 140 seconds. Three minutes ahead of time, the chief gunner announced for the last time that his weapons were ready. Eric warned him that under no condition was the stranger to be brought under direct fire.
After that the tensions rose to their highest pitch. Eric remained in contact with the gun position. He finally heard the hoarse voice of the gunnery sergeant.
"Fire!"
The scanners traced the powerful beams of the the thermo guns as they shot straight through the darkness and passed beneath the alien vessel. The BOB 21 rumbled and shook from the mighty salvo while the optical screens were filled for some seconds with the blinding glare.
Eric Furchtbar leaned forward tensely in his chair. How would the stranger react to the warning shots? He must have seen that no direct hit was intended. Gun position 1 had pulled off a minor masterpiece of precision. Their fire accuracy had a variation ratio that was down to 1/1000th of the range.
"That ought to show them we're awake over here," said Ed Hynes from the background.
Eric nodded grimly. It seemed to him that the alien ship had suddenly come under control. At least it wasn't swaying and turning anymore. He couldn't even tell if it was even moving. He was about to put a call through to the Com Room when he was interrupted by an announcement from the energy-sensor operator.
"Sir, the alien's gravity field has collapsed."
The voice was strained, the words were swift, and the face of the man on the vid-screen wore a confused expression. Eric nodded confirmation. The intercom darkened-and then Eric realised fully what he had just heard.
The gravity field was the stranger's propulsion. If the field had collapsed it meant he wouldn't be able to manoeuvre. In that case he would keep the velocity he had when his propulsion failed. Which meant he would also stay on his present course.
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