"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0032 - (24) Infinity Flight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)
The journey lasted almost one hour as it proceeded across the city. Then for another half an hour they drove on a main road leading out of the city again, all the time accompanied by a police escort. Their path led through beautiful park land and woods. Finally they arrived before a huge gate which was opened to let them through on a driveway that ended at the residence of the chief of the government.
Rhodan admired the Barkonides' sense of beauty. The house was not very high; it resembled in style a gigantically enlarged bungalow. The front wall consisted mainly of a glasslike material. It was transparent and permitted a view of the rooms beyond.
"You'll like it here," said Laar pointing to the building. "This is the administrative and scientific centre of Barkon. Don't be misled by its apparent small size. A remote-controlled television station connects us with all the important places in our world. In your room you will have the opportunity to get acquainted with Barkon and its history throughout several hundred thousand years. Nothing much has changed during that time and you might even consider us to be a sterile society. But we have worked toward one single goal and have neglected many other things."
I know," said Rhodan and paid no attention to the astonished faces of the four men.
Ten minutes later the door of his room closed behind him. He was alone in the room which was going to be his home for the next 10 weeks. A bit forlorn, he sank back into an armchair which stood close to the glass wall. From there he had a sweeping view of the whole city and the nearby ocean. He sighed.
Ten weeks! Why should I spend 10 weeks on this alien world when I can't spare a single minute from all the pressing affairs I should tend to? Isn't that a sheer waste of time?
"We can converse aloud here," countered the Immortal. "Then you won't feel so lonely. Nobody can hear us here and there are no secret microphones anywhere. Waste of time? That's what you think? You are mistaken, old friend. Just remember that you are sick in bed. Your encounter with the galactic traders still lies ahead in the future, more than 10 weeks. So what could you be missing then?"
"I don't know an answer to that. But won't you finally reveal to me what I have to do in order to save Barkon from being annihilated?"
"Don't worry about that either. I'll take care of everything for you. It'll be just some slight manipulation you'll have to do. One day before we leave they'll show us their installations with which they plan to propel Barkon II through space. That's when we'll do it. Kind of a reversal of poles, you might call it."
"That's all there is to it?"
"Yes, that's all!"
"Then why do we have to stay here 10 weeks?"
The Immortal sounded highly amused. "In order to get you acquainted with the history of our galaxy. You can't watch it any faster than the passage of time. And you'll have to watch quite a number of films, I'm afraid."
"Couldn't this be done via hypnoschooling with a time accelerator?"
"Not this time, Perry." The Immortal spoke with a slight reprimand in his voice. "You are as good as immortal but you haven't yet learned the meaning of patience. I believe this won't come until boredom begins to set in. But knowing the way you are you won't have even enough patience to sit still and be bored."
Rhodan looked out of the window. Dusk was falling over the beautiful landscape. Suddenly he felt very forlorn and forsaken.
The first two weeks passed quickly. With the aid of the television scanner Rhodan acquainted himself with his temporary planet home Barkon. It was accomplished by direct transmission from all parts of this peaceful, unspoiled world. But every evening Rhodan was freshly impressed by the mere sight of the nocturnal darkened sky. Of course no television was needed for that. Only once during these two weeks had the air been clear enough to permit him to see a faint glimmer exactly at the zenith. It had the shape of a frayed spot. This was his own galaxy, 150,000 lightyears away. And since he himself was now in relatively present time, the Milky Way he saw was also 150,000 years old. He looked into the past with his naked eyes.
At the beginning of the third week he received a visit from Nex the Nexialist.
"I have been entrusted with the task of showing you the history of Barkon. For this we'll have to go to the Great Archives."
It's getting interesting now, said the Immortal in an inaudible voice to Rhodan. Get ready for some surprises. Don't ever forget that this race already existed when the Milky Way was still young and without life.
A car brought them into the city. Nobody paid any attention to them. Barkon had returned to the normal activities of its everyday existence. All of a sudden Rhodan realized what made Barkon seem so much like Earth. Its day also lasted 24 hours.
They turned into a side street. There was a sudden steep descent: the road led directly underground. The tunnel was brightly lit but it seemed to be endless. The car drove down this tunnel for a full 10 minutes before it stopped.
"We are now exactly 600 feet below the surface," explained Nex. "This is an absolutely safe storage place for our films. No cosmic radiation can reach down here. Air is permitted to enter when the films are shown and that takes place only once every 50 years when a new government has been formed and its representatives are required to view the history of our world. Otherwise these films are stored in a vacuum."
Rhodan said nothing. Silently he followed the Barkonide through long corridors and various rooms until they reached a fairly large and comfortably furnished room. A gigantic switchboard took up one of the walls. In the front, above some kind of a stage, hung a milky shimmering screen. On the opposite wall Rhodan could see the builtin projector. Two rows of upholstered chairs beckoned invitingly.
"Please, have a seat, Rhodan. Everything will be done automatically; I just have to press the correct button to have the desired film brought to the projector. Our race knew space travel already one million years ago but this knowledge could not save us from the catastrophe. On the contrary. The forcible separation from our home environment in the universe was made even more difficult for us with the realization that a few fortunate ones managed to flee in time. I'm going to show you now Barkon at the start of this catastrophe-which at the same time is the end of its galactic history."
The room grew dark. In front, where Rhodan earlier had noticed the milky projection screen, the wall seemed to recede in order to give way to a reality which presented itself in reallife colours to Rhodan's eyes.
"That's Barkon seen from a departing spaceship," explained Nex with a slight tremor in his voice. "As you see-nothing much has changed since then-except that we had, spaceships at that time. Now you can clearly recognize our former neighbour planet three; it's entering the picture from the side. Unfortunately we could never find another planet suitable for habitation in our own solar system. But we had a colonial empire, a very big colonial empire."
"In which part of the galaxy was the sun Barkon located?" Rhodan asked on an impulse, without having been prompted by the Immortal.
"You'll soon be able to recognize it. It's of course impossible in the short time at our disposal to view all the films we have but I'll select the most important ones. Every 50 years, when our government changes and the newly elected representatives witness the complete showing of these films, they stay three months down here apart from brief interruptions. But then they are in formed of the history of our world and the past of our galaxy, of whose present story we know nothing at all."
His statement contained also a form of request.
"Well discuss this," promised Rhodan. "However I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
"Your marvellous ship makes me suspect just the opposite," Nex smiled encouragingly. "But look here now-that's one of our last ships carrying settlers. It brings the emigrants to a newly discovered system where life has not yet developed."
The gigantic structure was about 11/2 miles long and was circling Barkon in an orbit. Smaller ships ascended from the planet's surface to bring the passengers. Giant plastic hoses served as safe gangways. Huge cargo hatches admitted smaller vessels carrying the luggage and equipment of the colonists. Far below the planet Barkon was turning beneath the busy agglomeration of the spaceships.
"The settler ship brought along the film again," continued Nex. "You are seeing only short sections."
Soon afterwards the Barkon system sank away in the infinity of space. The film had been made with a quick motion process. This caused Rhodan to reexperience something similar to what he had witnessed on his flight to Barkon II: the stars were gliding swiftly past in the area before him. A yellow sun grew larger. It seemed to be the destination of the expedition. Then a planet filled the view, a mediumsized world, overgrown with a luxurious vegetation. Rocky, high plateaus reared up from grasslands and primeval forests. Broad rivers streamed through fertile lowlands through which vast herds of strangelooking animals roamed. Once Rhodan thought he saw a creature, resembling a dinosaur but he could have been mistaken.
"There was no intelligent life yet on this world," explained Nex. "But this planet was fertile and teeming with all kinds of animal life. Our settlers found a paradise. From the time they landed to the development of a civilization, about 10,000 years must have passed, according to the experiences we've gathered in other places."
"Do you simply deposit your emigrants on a suitable world and then no longer keep in touch with them?" Rhodan asked in surprise.
A peculiar smile played around the Barkonide's lips. "Yes, that's the way it is. At the very beginning of our history we started colonies that remained dependant on the mother world. But that proved later to be the wrong method. The settlers kept relying on their old home planet and its supply lines. They developed no proper interest to exploit the opportunities offered by the natural environment of their new colony. The settlers became decadent, lazy. On the other hand, our shipwrecked volunteers-for this later type of colonists had to take apart their spaceship in order to be able to survive-they found a new home which supplied them everything needed for life. They were forced to work and to seek further development of their resources. True, they also suffered reverse strokes of fate, and more than once we found out that our descendants on these colonized planets had reverted to barbarism. But these were the exceptions. As a rule vital societies would develop who guarded the inheritance of their forefathers-even if they'd forget their origin. For this was one of our principles: we would not provide the emigrants with any written records or films of our history. Only thus was it possible to make them become completely independent."
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