"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0058 - (50) Attack from the Unseen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

1/ ACTION ON RENO 25

TROUBLE on Trebola 2?
Quite the contrary.
The 2nd planet of the star Trebola, located 4000 light-years from Earth, was a peaceful world. A beautiful world. It was no Terra but it suited its inhabitants well intelligent and non-aggressive as they were. And spider-like.
Humans found difficulty in distinguishing one spiderian from another. Fortunately, it worked to the same degree the other way around: the inhabitants of Trebola 2 could rarely tell one human being from another. So it had been no problem for Ralf Marten to pose as a descendant of the Arkonides.
Ralf Marten: mutant. Tall, slender, dark-haired. Eyes clear blue and oval enough to suggest almonds-the heritage of his Japanese mother.
A man with the power of teleoptical projection, when Marten concentrated hard enough, he could project his consciousness into another individual's brain. In effect, see through another person's eyes.
It was partly because of his astounding faculty that he now found himself a cosmic agent in the service of Perry Rhodan, guardian of the Solar Empire, stationed on this arachnid world unthinkable trillions of miles from the planet of his birth.
As on all inhabited worlds in the Arkon Imperium, Arkon's interests were protected by an Arkonide Administrator and Trebola 2 was no exception. It had been no problem for Marten to pass as a descendant of Arkonides among the spiderians but, even more important, his pose had convinced the planet's chief Arkonide. His story was that his ancestors had been stranded here in the past and had changed appearance slightly over the centuries.
Life on Trebola 2, at least that which stemmed from interstellar traffic, was concentrated on the outskirts of the spaceport. Here Marten operated a small travel agency, arranging pleasure trips and flights to all parts of the planet for sightseers and tourists. In this manner he kept in contact with intelligences from other worlds and often learned of developments which could be of great importance to Perry Rhodan and the Earth.
Closing his office, he strolled along the street toward the main avenue which led to his small apartment. From the outside his quarters were typical of those intended for humanoid inhabitants of Trebola 2. But there were certain definite differences inside which would have greatly intrigued certain people-had they known of them.
Ralf Marten slowed his pace and looked cautiously to all sides. He feared discovery any day now for the interstellar empire of the Regent of Arkon knew that Earth, thought destroyed for more than 50 years, still existed. True, the Regent was a mighty positronic brain, but that only made it all the more dangerous.
Relieved, Marten then entered the apartment building and took the elevator to the 10th floor. He stopped before the door to his rooms and inserted his thumb into the small, round opening near the lock. He had only a few seconds to wait till the electronic lock registered his fingerprint and his brainwave pattern. Then, humming gently, the door opened and Marten stepped in, shutting it behind him.
He whistled to himself as he went into the kitchen and programmed the robot stove to prepare his supper. He used the time until his food was ready to tend to some rather mysterious business.
Standing in the comer was an inconspicuous metal box measuring a yard in length and foot and a half in width and breadth. Marten opened the lid with the aid of a pair of complicated keys he wore on a chain around his neck. Should someone having no business doing so attempt to open the box, a built-in bomb would go off, destroying the box and killing the intruder.
As the lid came open, the device inside automatically switched on its receiver and transmitter. It was, of course, no ordinary radio-which would be of little use over a distance of 4000 light-years. Instead, the box contained a hypercom unit especially constructed for use by cosmic agents. Its signals crossed unimaginable distances in fractions of seconds.
The impulses hurtled through hyperspace from Trebola 2 to the Earth. They were coded and no one who had not tuned in with the proper decoding device could have understood them.
"Agent Marten calling Terra. Go ahead, Terra. Agent Marten calling..."
The call beamed out until it was answered by a confirming signal from Earth. Then the transmitter shut off automatically. Marten would then know that there were no new instructions and that the receiving station on Earth knew that Agent Marten was still alive.
A red light lit up.
Marten forgot his kitchen robot and adjusted the receiver.
There was a message for him.
A few seconds later, a masculine voice resounded through the room. Marten gave an involuntary start for it had been a long time since he had heard a Terran's voice.
"Headquarters calling Agent Marten. Your instructions from Terrania are as follows: you will board the ship of Springer clan leader Logarop, which will land tomorrow. Your present quarters are to be destroyed, as per Plan XXB. Please confirm. Over."
Marten replied: "Agent Marten to Headquarters. Instructions understood. Over & out."
The humming died away.
The lid closed and Marten stood up and went slowly into the kitchen. The food was done but he hardly tasted it. Naturally, there was nothing on Trebola to hold him there but every change leaves open the question of whether or not the future will be better than the present. He had grown accustomed to Trebola and was familiar with his duties. What lay before him now was highly uncertain.
But orders were orders.
Tomorrow he would leave his apartment, as though nothing had ever happened, but an hour later gaseous acids would destroy all his traces in his former quarters. Should anyone in the days or months ahead get the idea of forcing his way into the deserted apartment, he would find nothing to indicate Marten had ever even been there. The rooms would simply be empty.
Marten retired early that evening. He had no desire to pay a final visit to the Administrator.
His mission on Trebola 2 was finished.

* * * *

5 other agents of the Solar Imperium had experiences similar to Ralf Marten's that day. The headquarters in Terrania, capital city of the planet Earth, called for them to return. The order came directly from Perry Rhodan himself. No explanation was given.
Terrania, vast metropolis of more than 14 million inhabitants, lay in the area that had been known as the Gobi Desert little more than a half-century before. Today, nothing remained to remind one that here sand and gravel had once been all there was to see. Giant skyscrapers, vast green parks and an enormous spaceport marked the shape of a city from which the destiny of an entire solar system was ruled.
One man was responsible for it all.
Perry Rhodan.
It was he, too, who had ordered the return of 6 cosmic agents and had made the necessary arrangements. The operation required several days, since not every agent could get away from his previous assignment as easily as Ralf Marten.
A week after the order for return had been issued, the only agent missing was John Marshall, the nominal leader of the Mutant Corps and a superior telepath.
John Marshall, the dark-haired Australian with the narrow, impassive face, had received the life-prolonging cell-renewal on the artificial planet Wanderer, along with Perry Rhodan and other personalities of the former New Power. Although he was now about 100 years old, John Marshall looked like a well-preserved 40.
His mission had taken him to Reno 25.
Reno 25 was the 25th planet of a solar system consisting of 3 nearby stars and some 60 planets orbiting all 3. The stars themselves, the middle point of this rather unusual system, revolved around the system's centre of gravity, an empty point in space.
7 of the system's planets were inhabited by intelligent beings but Reno 25 was the main world.
About 10,000 light-years removed from the Earth, Reno 25 was an important trading centre for the Arkonide Imperium and a base for its battlefleet, as well as a base for the Galactic Traders.
There was no wonder, then, that it was here, of all places, that John Marshall had been posted for sending on to Earth all important information he might pick up. For his duties he made use of a transmitter similar to Ralf Marten's; at least before he followed the new orders and returned to Earth.
In order to pose as a Luraner, Marshall had had to make use of the Terran plastic surgeons' art. The Luraners were a thoroughly humanoid race and were known as a somewhat independent branch of the Galactic Traders-or Springers, as the Traders were also known. They were called Springers because they lived mostly in their huge cylindrical spaceships and, in a certain sense, 'sprang' from star to star to carry on business and trade.
Marshall called himself Probat and was considered the business partner of a very influential Luraner. Everyone knew the Luraner's name but no one had ever seen him-for the simple reason he existed only in Marshall's imagination. As the unseen partner evidently was very rich, his perpetual absence played little role.
'Probat's' office lay in the immediate vicinity of the spaceport. In one of the spaceport's private hangars stood a discus-shaped spacecraft some 90 feet in diameter. It was a Gazelle, a scouting ship capable of springs through hyperspace of up to 500 light-years.