" Perry Rhodan 0082 - (74) Checkmate Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

him. "It’s no wonder you feel that way," he answered. "You haven’t seen the latest data from the Venus
Positronicon yet."

Bell stood up. "No," he affirmed, "actually I haven’t yet. I didn’t think Atlan worked so fast."

Rhodan smiled at him. "His people built the positronicon on Venus—10,000 years ago. There’s no one
who can work with that machine faster than he can."

Bell nodded. "All right, that’s why you sent him to it. Now what does that positronic wonder have to
say?"

"I just told you, our feet aren’t big enough!"

Bell grew silent and reached for the plastifoil sheets. They were about the size of notebook paper and
divided by thin lines into 20 narrow, vertically running areas. The sheets were covered with dots, crosses
and small circles, symbols belonging to the machine code of Arkonide computers. Being able to read the
symbols without the help of a positronic transcriber required practice but Bell happened to have had such
practice.

He read some of the sheets and laid them back down. He looked out the window, as though thinking
heavily about something.

"The Arkonide Imperium is in an uproar," he finally said, putting what he had read into words. "The
Robot Regent is mobilizing its last reserves so that it can overcome the Druuf threat. It doesn’t
know—and isn’t even able to understand—that the Druufs will be a threat only for a very short time to
come. The overlapping front where our universe and the Druuf universe meet is diminishing and is drifting
towards the centre of the galaxy. Once the overlapping front has disappeared, then there will be no more
natural means of going from Einstein Space to Druuf Space or vice versa. That means that from then on,
the Druufs will no longer constitute a threat to us." He glanced to the side and regarded Perry Rhodan. "I
didn’t read any farther," he admitted, "but the conclusions are pretty obvious, aren’t they?"

"I’ll be able to answer that if you tell me what you think."

"The Robot Regent on Arkon," Bell continued, "has mobilized its entire realm. That means it has at least
80,000 warships under arms. It is not able to comprehend the actual phenomenon of differing rates of
time. It’s limited to what it can understand—the Druuf spaceships coming into our universe from time to
time and the overlapping zone through which its own ships can penetrate Druuf Space. When nothing
more is heard from the Druufs because the overlapping zone has disappeared, the Regent will take that
for a trick of some kind and continue its vigilance because it believes the Druufs could reappear at any
moment."

He paused, running his right hand through his hair. He did not look at all happy. "Whoever attacks
Arkon," he went on, "now and in the near future, will have to deal with a fleet of 80,000 units, which
doesn’t count the new ships constantly pouring out of the factories. When you consider that the Terran
fleet consists of only a few thousand ships… yeah, then you certainly do come to the conclusion we’d
better stay out of this business for awhile."

Perry Rhodan was silent. Bell, waiting for an answer, asked after awhile: "That was what you meant,
Perry, right?"