Perry Rhodan (003) Galactic Alarm by Rhodan Perry

Author:Rhodan Perry [Rhodan Perry]
Format: epub
Tags: General Interest
Published: 2010-01-02T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Umanak Fjord, David Strait. This is, according to anyone who has ever been there, where it is impossible to distinguish the gray sky from the equally gray icebergs.

There hardly exists a more disconsolate place on Earth. On the other hand, nowhere else on Earth are such important decisions made.

Umanak Fjord is headquarters of the International Intelligence Agency, which for the time being was just as overrun by foreign agents as by those of the IIA.

Very little was to be seen above ground. A few thick walled wooden houses belonging to a Danish trading firm were lived in by some Eskimos. On one of the houses a primitive wooden board nailed above the front door said in crooked painted letters that furs were sold in this establishment. But no one had ever purchased any furs from the Umanak Fur Co.

The Eskimos were well trained special agents. The manager of the post was a Dane. In reality he held the rank of first lieutenant and was Allan D. Mercant’s special pet.

The rest of the installation was hidden under ice and rock. More than ninety-five percent of all activities at Umanak fjord were carried on underground.

About 500 people lived permanently at Umanak Fjord. Only ten of those were familiar with the extent of the underground installations. The agents of the Asiatic Federation and of the Eastern Bloc who lived here during these days of enforced cooperation knew only the two upper stories.

Colonel Mercant’s living and working quarters were on the lowest level of the tract. He was surrounded by security guards and safety installations. Not that he was afraid for his own personal safety. What mattered to him and to those responsible for these precautionary measures was the tremendous number of valuable and secret documents stored in safes built into the lowest floor.

Mercant worked in his private office, which he had furnished according to his own taste. The furniture was outsized. Any visitor had to look around this office and its gigantic furnishings to locate the colonel. Mercant as a rule he sat behind a giant writing desk, comfortably leaning back in an armchair that was far too big for his slender figure. His head was hardly visible above the edge of his desk.

Mercant did not adhere to any fixed schedule. He worked until he got tired and felt that his efficiency was not up to par. Then he went to bed and slept until he felt sufficiently rested to carry on his work. The even. illumination Of his rooms enabled him to abandon the normal twenty-four hour rhythm of the world above.

The only ones to suffer from such an unorthodox time schedule were Mercant’s orderlies. Most of them loved well ordered activity and well regulated hours for rest. But according to Mercant’s point of view, world security should be neglected because of subaltern officers’ preference for well regulated working hours.

That day he had risen at 3 o’clock, not bothering whether it was 3 in the morning or in the afternoon. He had started to work on some papers that he had been forced to lay aside before he had gone to bed.

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