"Perry Rhodan 019 - The Immortal Unknown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

Rhodan didn't answer him. The little diversion had been pleasant but he had now other problems.
Behind a transparent partition sat the excellently trained radio-technicians of the battleship's range-finder section. They had learned by hypno-training.
Rhodan raised the micro-sender on his left wrist to his lips. His voice was heard, loud and clear, over the loudspeaker behind the partition.
"Deringhouse, did you get anything?"
A tall man, who could be seen sitting 50 yards away, turned his head. He could survey a part of the command centre from his place.
"Nothing, sir," his soft voice came over the miniature set. "This space sector seems to be swept clean."
"Didn't the mass-sensors register anything?"
"They show nothing at all. I'm bound to get an echo if there's something around within a light-month. There's only the usual micro-matter. A lonely atom once in a great while. A planet should be a little bigger than that."
"Thank you for the lecture, Major," Rhodan replied icily.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I forgot again that I have nerves.
The final evaluation of the positronic brain came in. Rhodan leaned forward. The transition was successful, so was the co-ordinating operation and flight correction.
Slowly he reclined again. Stardust II was crawling at a ridiculous 10 miles per second through space, which indeed appeared to be empty in this sector. Not even a measly meteor could be spotted by the best range-finder of all times, and they would have spotted it if it measured only one-thousandth of an inch.
It was a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. Rhodan slowly turned around and noticed Thora.
"A sour face, reproachful eyes and arrogant attitude in perfect combination, that's you," Rhodan remarked facetiously.
"We could have been in Arkon by this time," Thora said excitedly. "But you won't listen, Perry! You'll never solve the last riddle, never! Take me and Khrest home at last as you have promised us long ago. Khrest doesn't insist on pursuing the secret of biological cell conservation. You have no right to risk our lives, Perry!"
"Aren't you forgetting the exploding Vega? Besides, our calculations are correct. The planet we're looking for is close by. Because it doesn't circle around a sun and emits no light of its own, we can't see it. But we have other means of detecting it."
"You're heroic and dramatic!" the Arkonide woman mocked him. "You'll probably detect nothing. Your calculations are inadequate. This planet could be a 100 light-years away, assuming of course that it exists at all which I doubt very much. You better turn back."
Bell's wrinkled forehead hid his thoughts till he spoke up in a miffed tone:
"We're not turning back. I've a sinking sensation that somebody is leading us by the nose ad absurdum. I've got a good idea. Would you like to hear it, Perry?"
Rhodan sat down in a contour chair.
"If it's a good one we can talk about it."
"The Unknown or, if you will, the Unknowns have played some rough games with us. It's only logical that every step we take becomes more difficult. Now we've the hardest nut of all to crack."
"What else is new?"
"The planet is shielded from our direction finders, that's all. We ought to check out whether they function properly. Why don't you launch a small spacefighter and test how the instruments register the craft. That way we'll eliminate a very fundamental doubt."
"That's an excellent idea," Rhodan agreed after a pause. "Major Nyssen...!"
The shouted call went to all departments. Nyssen's craggy face appeared on the videoscreen.
"Here I am, sir!" he croaked. "At my post in the hangar."
"You don't say!" Rhodan snapped. "Guess, why I want you! lump into your pursuitship. Blast-off in exactly five minutes, whether you're in your crate or not. Hurry up!"
Nyssen cursed horribly. The could still hear him after his craggy face had disappeared from the screen.
Marshall, the telepath, was aroused and disturbed.
"If you knew what he's thinking-!" he whispered. "It makes me, shudder."
"Forget it," Rhodan grinned. "We've freedom of thought on this ship. Major Deringhouse!"
"Sir?"
The tall figure with the freckled face detached itself from its seat behind the transparent wall.
"You heard what we're planning to do. You won't believe it but Mr. Reginald Bell had an idea. Switch on your range-finder three minutes after Nyssen has shoved off at full thrust. I want to see what your instruments will do. Nyssen, do you still hear me?"
Nyssen reported from the cockpit of his fighter. He had managed to climb into his machine within a few moments.
"You're free to fly anywhere. Choose your own course but make sure to watch your automatic direction finder all the time. Don't go any father unless you keep the Stardust right on the sensor beam. You'd never find us again."
"I've got air, water and food for a month," Nyssen muttered. "Okay, sir, I'll watch it."
When the five minutes were up, the spaceship was slightly jolted. A fire-spitting phantom shot out of the gaping airlock above the bulging ring.
Nyssen's ultrafast single fightercraft zoomed into dark space. The lowing point was quickly out of sight.
"Nyssen to Commander," the loudspeaker intoned. "Automatic sensors work perfectly. Stardust is on beam I won't lose you. Watch my dust! Over and out."
Nyssen switched off the radio's microphone. The faster-than-light telecom took its place. Ordinary communication was no longer adequate.
His craft became an utterly forlorn speck groping in the endless depths of the universe. The Stardust was no longer visible. All Nyssen could hear was the droning of his impulse drive-engines. He hurtled at 300 miles per second into the void, leaving the mothership farther and farther behind. After three minutes ship time he cut off the power. The wild howling became a gentle hum.
The tiny pursuitship remained in free fall at 55,000 miles per second. Nyssen looked around. He already knew the the feeling of unlimited loneliness. The missions in Vegan system had probably been far more hazardous.
The thought gave him some comfort until he painfully realized that there was a little difference between the absolute void and a system crammed full of planets. There he could have landed anytime in an emergency, whereas here he had only the Stardust within reach. If it should vanish he would be lost forever.
Drops of sweat began to stand out on his forehead. He stared anxiously at the dial of the range-finder bathed in green light. The battleship was still clearly reflected as a blip.
Nyssen gripped the direction control lever of the energy impulse jet. Then he waited. The efficient range-finder of the Stardust should already have found him.
After another minute the seconds became suspenseful eternities. Finally, he jammed the lever for the field reversal into the notch while pulling the step-switch for the drive-engines all the way up with his left hand.
A violet glow shot forward from the braking jets of the needle-nosed fighter, checking his speed abruptly.
A weak noise was audible as his machine roared. The telecom clicked.