" Perry Rhodan 0103 - (95) The Plasma Monster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

stomach. The robot went ahead of him and opened one more door. He quickly
announced: "Sir, Mr. Walt Ballin!" The newsman came within an inch of having
a stroke. He stood rooted to the spot while he stared into the large,
brilliantly lighted room and at the desk, behind which was sitting the man who
had built up the Solar Imperium from a world torn by internal
politics. "Please come in, Mr. Ballin!" He heard Rhodan's friendly voice and
saw the First Administrator of the Solar Imperium stand up behind his
desk. Ballin pulled himself together. But all the formal words of greeting he
had rehearsed during his flight to Terrania were forgotten in his excitement.
He hesitantly entered the room and sat down. He was now in the presence of the
man whose face one could never forget, once he had looked into his cool grey
eyes. Rhodan came to the point at once. "Mr. Ballin, I have read your feature
article in the Europa News. It made such an impression on me that I'd like
very much to hear more about it. You have accused the Administration of not
keeping Terrans sufficiently informed concerning galactic developments. We
have been reproached for this a number of times before. In fact it became a
serious issue before the Parliament. Now it seems that the World Press has
brought it to their attention again through your article. "Now tell me, Mr.
Ballin, what was really on your mind when you wrote that June I feature for
your paper?" Rhodan had scheduled a half-hour interview with Walt Ballin
because his appointment calendar was very crowded. However, an hour and a half
went by and the journalist was still talking to him while Rhodan continued to
listen with increasing interest. His original judgment of the man had not
changed. Ballin belonged in Terrania, not among the tens of thousands of
backup assistants who took care of the routine operations but among his
closest collaborators. He was about to make this suggestion to Ballin when
the phone came on simultaneously with the red alert signal. Rhodan jumped up
and went to his desk. On the viewscreen was the obviously agitated face of the
chief of operations for Terrania's main hypercom station. "Sir..." The man's
voice was so husky that he had to swallow before he could go on. But Perry
Rhodan could guess what was about to be reported to him. Intuitively he
thought: the Blue System. By interstellar standard time for the Sol System,
the hour was 18:59. 10 ADVENTURES FROM NOW you'll be amazed by the Wonder
Flower of Utik 2/ THE OMINOUS VISITOR On board Relay Station Ori-12-1818
the standard time chronometer registered 18:50. Lt. Harold Fitzgerald was in
the midst of a luxurious yawn. For an hour now, medi-cruiser 3 had been
moored alongside Springer ship UG DVI. A staff of medicos had transferred on
board the stricken vessel in order to take up their fight against the
insidious pestilence. For a long time Fitzgerald had been in the Com Room
listening to all the interconnected voice traffic that was going on. Help had
been too late for the majority of the crewmembers on the cylindrical Trader
ship. According to the medicos it was questionable whether or not some 20
remaining Springers would be able to recover. It was a characteristic of this
type of enteric petrifaction to not only cause death rapidly but also to
paralyse and harden the intestines even in the early stages of the illness.
This hardening process could be arrested by a medication that also served to
reverse the process but where the final stages of the disease had been reached
there was nothing more that medical skills could do. During this hour
Fitzgerald had learned so much about the malicious malady that it had caused
him to feel of his own abdominal section a number of times in order to make