" Perry Rhodan 0042 - (34) SOS Spaceship Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

The scan operator returned quickly with: "Approach from Phi 34°, Alpha 18; value 1-0-7; 45 point
acceleration; 300 miles per second. Speed oh-point-8 light. Objects: 2. Type: Empire ships. End of
read-out."

What happened next had not been programmed. With lightning swiftness, Rhodan switched over to
manual flight mode for emergencies. The mighty ship’s positronicon seemed to disconnect and fall silent.
It was no longer in control of theTitan .

"Okay, my nosey friend," murmured Rhodan, referring to the robot brain on Arkon, "we shall see!" His
hand seemed to casually brush across the acceleration adjuster keyboard.

In the same moment the boosters cut in and shoved theTitan to full acceleration, which brought an
octave higher pitch to the already whining inertial-thrust absorbers.

Again Rhodan waited for the comp data. He demanded it this time with an exaggerated politeness.

From the speaker came a sound of heavy breathing, then the scan operator’s tense voice: "Uh, distance
250,000 miles, sir!"

"Thank youvery much," replied Rhodan and added a general comment, both to persons present and
over the com system: "Nav computation and scanner section has three delayed-action marks in
succession. For the necessary 100% precision, special practice drills will be scheduled in the near future.
Gentlemen, I cannot always spare the time to request the comp data readouts. Has it occurred to you
that in many vital situations we’re going to be faced with we’re just not going to keep on top of it unless
everybody, and I mean everybody, works with the top level of efficiency!"

The two following Empire spacers, now accurately pinpointed to the coordinate scanners and magnified
on the observation screen, appeared to approach even faster than before. Bell grunted his anger,
offended by this spying action of the mammoth robot brain on Arkon.

A sparkle appeared in Rhodan’s eyes, a rare and winsome gleaming that seemed capable of melting all
resistance. Obviously this was aimed at the machine intelligence he was opposing, as though across a
game board politely. He didn’t mind the distrust of the robot positronicon. After all, he had taken off with
the most powerful battle-spacer known. The robot brain had not voluntarily lent him theTitan as his own
private taxi. Rhodan had simply appropriated the top-level piece of ordinance, so brand spanking new
that it had only passed through a few preliminary flight tests.

Perry knew that no act of human kindness or warm buddy system had caused the positronicon to leave
this prize in his hands. A positronicon had no emotions, merely a cold-pulsing sea of tight little logic gates.
So home-base had concluded: there was only one crew capable of handling this ship now and that team
worked under leadership of this alien, Perry Rhodan.

"What are you dabbling with over there?" asked Bell, slightly confused, as he leaned curiously toward
Perry.
 "Just running a little test, Reg. Don’t look now but our automatic guidance system is still operating, even
though I hit the override just prior to making a hyper-transit jump. Now what I’d like to see is how fast
it’s going to cross-compensate for a series of little ‘dabbling’ as you call them."

Bell took a deep breath. Thora and Khrest also reacted gravely.