" Perry Rhodan 0100 - (92) The Target Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Zartus followed his instincts and moved his hand swiftly, shoving the upper dental plate into his mouth.
For a moment he felt the sharp pressure of the micro-film container which had been shoved out of place
in the haste of positioning the plate. Desperately he worked the thing with his tongue until it fell into place
on its suction base and aligned itself with his facial contours.

The man with the slight build straightened up with a sigh of relief and turned around, smiling uncertainly
as he raised his hands.

"Pretty clever, mister!" said somebody sarcastically. "You missed your calling—should have been a
shell-game artist in a circus!"

Zartus knew that he was a goner if he were to be captured in this sector of the automatic assembly line.
During the last 57 years the Earth’s Moon had been changed considerably—in fact it had been
converted. The end product was a satellite changed into one big integrated spaceship building-dock
along Arkonide pattern and dimensions. This planetary factory, having the greatest productive capacity in
the history of humanity, had been completed only a few months ago. Since then the Moon’s vast
assembly lines had been operating under remote control of relatively few automatic stations.

Zartus figured that he had been spotted by a vidicam because the place was heavily equipped with
surveillance systems. But even so—and Zartus saw no other possibility—they couldn’t have seen what
he had hidden in his upper plate. Still, he had checked for remote cameras and hadn’t noticed any. How
had they been so well informed about his operation?

He took another look around him. He thought of his assignment, of the micro-camera under his
wristwatch, and also of the Lunar Security organisation, which was part of Solar Intelligence. If he were
to be picked up now in possession of the camera and the film, his career as a planning engineer for
automated feeder systems would be terminated! Also there was the threat of the 3d degree, trial
procedures, demotion, certainly a long penitentiary sentence or even maybe forced labour on some
remote and airless satellite.

Perry Rhodan as First Administrator of the Solar Empire had reserved the right to preside over trials
pertaining to cases of espionage which affected Solar security. When Alfo Zartus realized that his present
act came under martial law, the fear of a Court Martial made him lose his rational control. He looked
about himself again, this time ignoring the shout of warning. With a half-choked cry he exerted all his
strength to swing up onto the feeder belt where he immediately fell flat, unable to crouch or stand. He
was carried at high speed toward the narrow opening in the rock wall.

Beyond lay staging room 136 where components on multiple feeder lines from all directions were joined
into a larger final-stage assembly.

"You out of your mind?!" he heard the unknown speaker shout. "Get off of that thing, do you hear me?
Jump! That’s fatal, man—jump, I say!"

Zartus laughed involuntarily. His fingernails clawed at the grip-tread of the synthetic conveyor-strip as he
groaned painfully due to the jolting rollers, while at the same time he was trying to figure how to escape
from staging room 136. The unknown observer was still yelling at him but the words had become
unintelligible.
 Zartus was just thinking that he’s better destroy the incriminating data on him when he went through into
the other room and was grasped and jerked upward by the steel tongs of an automated swivel
mechanism. He cried out in panic as he realized the warning of the unknown observer had not been a