" Perry Rhodan 0019 - (13) The Immortal Unknown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

As he came out of his daze and opened his eyes, he observed a twisting image. It took a few moments
for him to recognize his own face reflected in the instrument panel. The huge command centre of the
immense space ship was real enough.

Reginald Bell, Capt. Klein and Khrest seemed to be still unconscious.

Rhodan’s voice returned hoarsely. "Hello, Garand, are you there? Garand—what were you saying just
now?"

The telecom screen remained blank. Manuel Garand, chief engineer of theStardust , had not spoken.

Perry Rhodan managed to shed the last shred of hallucination and once again his mind was completely
lucid. His lean face tautened. He murmured under his breath and slowly eased himself out of the pilot’s
seat.

On the large frontal panel of the circular observation screen a giant sun was shining. It was a flaming blue
star of incredible brightness. Even the automatic ray-filter couldn’t screen out a considerable amount of
hard ultra violet. Rhodan’s eyes began to ache.

Was this Vega? Could this bloated ball of fire be the sun whose planetary system they had left a short
time ago?

Panic surged up in Perry and his face grew pale. Without moving his head he called out for reassurance.
"Reg!"

But Reginald Bell, his closest companion, did not move. Only his broad face twitched under the impulse
of his stimulated nerves.

Perry Rhodan—noted from his years in the U.S. Space Force for his remarkable ability of instantaneous
decision in response to emergencies—reacted with the mechanical exactitude of a machine.

His hand hit the bright-red alarm button. Even though he couldn’t understand the full extent of what had
happened, he grasped the situation with sudden clarity.

Something had gone awry despite his careful planning. The hypertransition, a faster-than-light jump
through the fifth dimension, appeared to have been successful. The state of the unconscious men in the
command centre was not unexpected and could be considered normal under the circumstances. It was
quite possible with hyperjumps across 35,000 light-years that the reactivating of completely
dematerialised organisms would cause some complications. Rhodan, too, seemed to have been
unconscious, but he had recovered somewhat quicker.

Stardust IIhad been strained to the limit of its capacity. It would have been unreasonable to expect
humans to withstand more than that.

Rhodan could wait calmly for the crew to wake up. What seemed to be out of kilter was this shining
blue, strongly pulsating giant star which bore a faint resemblance to Vega.

Rhodan’s alarm signal had warned of a catastrophic danger. Although his men were still incapacitated,
the positronically programmed robots on board the super-battleship sprang immediately into action.