"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0040 - (32) Challenge of the Unknown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

"Okay, okay," growled Bell and turned around and looked at Tifflor. "Come along, Tiff. We'll find that dam place
without anybody's help. aha, here's number 34. Then 35 can't be much farther."
And he was right.
Before their time had run out they managed to place the palms of their hands against the lock of a door which
opened in response to their body warmth. There was a big sign reading H 35 on that door.
It was a hangar.
Most of the huge ball was taken up by a giant sphere whose diameter was nearly 180 feet. A spaceship of the guppy
type. Faster-than-light, easy to manoeuvre, heavily armed and equipped with powerful protective shields.
"Thank heavens!" said Tifflor and announced his name to the officer in charge. "Not a second too soon."
"Nor too late!" observed Bell, highly pleased, stating his name although the officer knew very well who he was.
"And now let's get back to the command centre. If we don't hurry we can starve before we get there. The next alarm
drill is scheduled for five hours from now-unless something unforeseen should happen, of course."
* * * *
Two very different monsters were hovering apparently motionless in the infinite cosmos which was completely
filled by stars, leaving not a single dark spot in a great blaze of light This confusion of suns presented an unusual
sight to a human being familiar only with the nocturnal sky above Earth. But the sun of Arkon was 34,000
light-years from Earth. It was located in the globular cluster M 13, which consisted of over 30,000 stars packed into
a relatively small space 99 light-years across. Some suns were so close together that they might be mistaken for twin
stars, which, of course, was not the case from an astronomical point of view.
Arkon was situated almost at the centre of this globular cluster and three light-years away from the two monsters
which were circling a gigantic red sun at a distance of 12 billion miles.
With one single leap through hyperspace Rhodan had fled from the Arkonides' sphere of influence, hoping to gain
sufficient time here in the vicinity of the giant red sun to familiarize his crew with the captured Titan. Under these
circumstances it had seemed too risky to return immediately to Earth with their new acquisition.
The captured Titan was one of the monsters.
It had the same spherical shape as the old Stardust, although it was twice as big. With a diameter of nearly one mile,
the super-battleship of the Arkonides eclipsed anything Rhodan or any other human being had been able to imagine.
Its engines and armament generally resembled that found in the old Stardust, except for greater size and extent.
There was nothing in the known universe capable of penetrating the protective screen of the giant sphere.
Two bulges to the north and to the south of the sphere's equator were formed by the hangars housing the 40 guppies,
the 180 foot wide space spheres, which could be ready for immediate action at any time. The guppies carried a crew
of at least 15 men.
Moving quite close to the Titan, in their orbit around the red giant sun, was the spaceship Ganymede. She looked
almost dainty, although she was some 2500 feet long and 600 feet wide at her thickest part. But not only her size
distinguished her from the captured battleship which Rhodan had named Titan: she was cylinder-shaped rather than
spherical.
There was a crew of 300 men aboard the Ganymede who were spared the drill manoeuvres to which the 700 people
manning the Titan were forced to submit, for the Titan had been seized by Rhodan just a few days ago.
The Titan's control centre was twice the size of the one on the Stardust, which had remained back on Earth. There
was a mind-boggling profusion of instruments and control panels whose function would have remained
incomprehensible to Rhodan if he had not passed through the Arkonide hypno-training. This way it took only a few
hours until he had learned to control the ship and could do whatever he wanted very much to the dismay of the most
gigantic of all positronic brains in the universe, which in actuality was the, ruler of the empire of the decadent
Arkonides.
For that had been the greatest surprise to Perry Rhodan: neither the Arkonides nor their Imperator but a giant
positronic computer administered the mightiest star realm ever in the history of the universe. This was the only
reason that galactic empire had not broken up a long time ago.
Rhodan was standing, his back leaning against one of the control panels, and contemplating his closest collaborators
and friends whom he had requested to appear in the control centre after the latest emergency drill was over and they
had time for a quick snack in the mess hall.