Read Online Tomy and the Planet of Lies by Erich von Däniken - Free Book Online

our own guardian angel: Tomy.” Marc looked skeptical. We wandered back into the hall and asked Tomy what he thought of it all. He was convinced of the commandant’s honesty. I noticed a rack on the wall with steel helmets and suddenly wondered if these might not have an effect like a Faraday cage and block Tomy’s “intelligent energy.” He waved our worries aside, saying: “There’s nothing that can stop that, not even meshed materials.” I tried to explain to him what a Faraday cage was and that a network of metal could cause electrical impulses and radio waves to bounce off itself. But Tomy said I should try to imagine an atomic nucleus the size of a pea. The electrons racing around it would be 100 meters away from the nucleus. I understood what he meant. He was reminding me that all matter consisted of hardly anything more than empty space.
    After about an hour, “Fidel” stood up. He had, in the meantime, put on some long pants, done up his shirt buttons and tucked his army beret under his arm. We followed him up some stairs to the second floor. He knocked on a heavy looking door.
    The room was artificially cooled, heavy drapes blocking out the bright daylight. To the left of one of windows lay a beautifully colored Persian carpet upon which stood a massive desk. Behind this sat a tall man with perfectly combed, graying hair. He radiated calmness and superiority. On his left arm, he wore a black band of mourning. Somebody he knew must have died recently. When he started to speak, it was in the matter-of-fact style of a newsreader and I could sense his alertness. He was not imperious or domineering and yet the way that he expressed himself left you in no doubt that his orders would be carried out to the letter. At first, he spoke in Arabic to Tomy and then he turned to us and switched to English.
    â€œI have been in contact with Teheran and our embassy in Switzerland to find out a little bit about you. Our religious police are not too pleased to hear you are here, Mr. von Däniken, but you have a valid visa and we will make sure that nothing happens to you.”
    He waved us over to a group of upholstered armchairs and sent “Fidel” out, calling something to him as he left. Tomy translated that our tank was to be filled up. I pulled out the $600 that I had prepared for the commandant and added $30 more for the cola and the water. The gasoline was on the house, he told us generously, but he would like a favor from us: Tomy’s help.
    I had known that something was fishy and I asked what form this help was to take. We could discuss it in the morning, he said meaningfully. Now we were to drive to Zahedan, only 80 kilometers from here. It was a good stretch of road and he had reserved rooms for us in the Sahedan Inn Hotel. A jeep would escort us there. The commandant got up, shook our hands, and called for an orderly. Was that it? We had waited around for an hour for this brief audience?
    Our Range Rover was back in the courtyard, the windscreen wipers were back in place, and only the canvas rear window remained to show what we had been through. A quick check confirmed that all our baggage was still there and the needle on the gas gauge was pointing to “full.”
    The first thirty kilometers on the “good” road were not much better than they had been in the desert trip through Baluchistan. We drove past some stony-looking mountains and then, finally, around fifty kilometers before Zahedan the road was suddenly asphalt paving. It had already gotten dark when we finally drove into Zahedan. The place seemed to me like it had been conjured up out of the tales of one thousand and one nights. Clean, paved streets and squares, houses with more than one story, traffic signs, and neon advertising signs. Then a large board: TOURISTS WELCOME AT THE SAHEDAN INN. The empty parking lot in front signaled an empty hotel. As we got inside I caught a glimpse from a mirror