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Space biologist Gil, who has many military operations behind him, is going through tough times: unemployment, poverty, a family on the brink of divorce, plus a high probability that a hereditary genetic disease will manifest—one in which a quick death is perhaps the best outcome.

And suddenly an unexpected job offer appears that seems to solve all problems at once: a scientific expedition to a distant planet. Good money, medical insurance, minimal risks. Will the decision to fly, driven by fear, turn out to be the right one? And are the risks really so minimal on the distant and bizarre planet Ix-Chel?

The Dance of the Fool

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

DISCLAIMER

The Dance of the Fool

To my father. You inspired me.

Part 1

Thirty-Five to Forty-Four

1

The heat hung like sticky, sickeningly sweet marmalade. It seemed that the air, moving back and forth in the trachea, didn't reach the lungs.

Two dirty rectangles on the plastic body of an old (already antique-looking) air conditioner seemed to hint that until recently there had been a sign here reading "Do not turn on, broken." And judging by the warm breath that the device wheezily squeezed out of itself, they never managed to fix it.

We were sitting in conference room number nineteen (as it was written on the door), which seemed to be deliberately placed in the farthest corner of a huge complex of five buildings—a good half kilometer from the main entrance. Half a kilometer of dusty carpet covering, including three antediluvian concrete passages and some fantastic number of stairs... There were three of us: me, the HR manager opposite, and the chief of the security service in the corner.

The security chief was corpulent. He silently guzzled water, standing right by the cooler and consuming cup after cup. The gray classic suit on him in such heat seemed completely inappropriate. Huge dark stains spread under his armpits, and on the fat man's back and forehead sweat protruded in large beads. As soon as he finished another cup, he immediately began to fill a new one—as if afraid that he would soon run out of something to sweat with. From time to time, he fanned himself with a tablet like a fan, which, I think, he never once looked at.

The manager was another matter entirely. Scrawny, awkward, with a teenager's face, he had completely immersed himself in my resume and had been silent for about five minutes. Only slightly moving his lips. The inflamed pimples on his face indicated that he terribly loved to touch various dusty junk with his hands, and then wipe his sweaty forehead with his palms. And his neck... Judging by the pimples—his neck too.

The hangover still made any sharp head movement unbearable, so I tried to be as slow as a Madagascar tortoise. A birthday that falls on Sunday usually portends a hellish Monday. And a hangover on Monday at a job interview—that's at least the ninth circle, or however many there are in hell... By the way, this was also my last chance: there were no other options left. Unless, of course, you count that insane morning phone call... But I haven't gone crazy yet.

"So you served in reconnaissance?" the manager suddenly asked, emerging from his tablet.

His eyes shone with curiosity. I'd even say with admiration.

"On Proxima. Combined reconnaissance and sabotage group. They need to have a biologist in those."

"On other planets it's mandatory," he nodded and unpleasantly pursed his lips, hiding an embarrassed smile. "I wanted to sign up too. Well, wanted—I mean, I dreamed... I was still in school then... In high school."

He inserted the last remark hastily and with obvious subtext—"I'm not as green as you might think!"

"It's not too late," I smiled.

"Oh... Mom would die if the risk forecast at my job exceeded two ten-thousandths!"

"Wet stairs have claimed more lives than the swamp spiders of Proxima," I said seriously.

"Really?!" he nervously wiped his forehead with his palm.

"Well, hypothetically. Considering that wet stairs are thousands of years old, and the encounters with spiders lasted three weeks..."

"I get it, I get it," he nodded and smiled; the smile came out somehow greasy. "I get it..."

"But moms love statistical forecasting," I spread my hands.

"They adore it..." he sighed. "Oh, and you ride a gravicycle too?"

The manager indicated with his eyes the bandana tied on my wrist. The "Tsunami" logo was right on top.

"Ah... Yes..." I got embarrassed, not knowing if it was appropriate to clarify that I don't anymore.

"I'm crazy about them!"

"Do you ride too?"

"Are you kidding! Mom would eat me alive!"

"Gotta respect your mom," I agreed, dreaming of drinking an ice-cold bottle of beer as soon as possible. The stuffiness was simply killing me.

He ran his eyes over my resume once more.

"Well then... If no one else has any questions..." the manager drummed his fingers on the table in confusion. "Generally, we don't usually give results right away, but considering your specialization... And the topic of your thesis, by the way, is literally our biggest project... So..."

I even leaned forward with impatience, expecting the pimply guy to stop hesitating and extend his hand with a question like: "When are you ready to start?" He looked at the fat man with doubt once more, but he (surprise!) was very busy filling his cup.

Then the manager looked at me, nodded, and leaned forward to stand up.

"So, so to speak..." he began, and I hastily wiped my sweaty palm on my jeans, preparing for the handshake.

At that moment, the cooler in the corner loudly burped air bubbles that burst into its tank: "Bgulim!" Startled, the manager quickly pressed his butt to the chair and looked around. I barely restrained a smile. And then the sweaty type spoke up. He disgustingly cleared his throat in his corner, slurped some more water, and said, looking at his tablet for the first time instead of his cup: "Is this true? About participation in combat operations?"

"Of course," I was confused. "We were just talking about this a minute ago. Military reconnaissance."

"Yes-yes... I heard. I mean direct participation. You know, you can fly to Proxima and sit in the warm clothing distribution warehouse..."

"No-no, I assure you. I have eight combat missions. Honorary badge of the Joint Staff. It's all written at the end."

And I smiled at the manager opposite me. He also smiled (now his gaze read with reverence) and looked questioningly at the fat man again. He sighed noisily.

"Well... Well... If that's the case..." he crushed the cup with a crunch in his flabby palm. "Then I'm forced to categorically not recommend your candidacy."

"Meaning?" I didn't understand.

"I'm afraid you're a potentially unstable and unbalanced element of the team," the fat man explained. "And this is a scientific institution. We're only connected with the army through orders and... We try to avoid people like you."

The thought flashed that I had underestimated the fat man's weight in this company. Before I could note this pun to myself (the fat man's weight and his weight in the company, haha), it hit me that the interview had come to an end. The manager, staring at the table, was bustling about rolling up his liquid crystal tablet.

"And what's the problem?!" I was indignant. "Yes, I participated! I always thought it was honorable! Especially since you work for the army's needs, and I understand that too..."

"Statistical forecasting," the fat man shrugged. "It gives quite a high probability of undesirable problems with combat veterans. Too high for us."

I must admit, at that second I imagined smashing his head against the wall. Crash! And from the impact, "recoil" runs across his fat cheeks, making them flutter like a hound's ears... So in something he's probably right... Undesirable problems—that's about me. And they don't even know about the diagnosis yet...

"I'm very sorry," the manager mumbled, hiding his eyes. "I'll see you out."

Truth be told, I don't have a diagnosis yet. There's only heredity. A fifty-fifty probability that the abnormal protein in my DNA will start to mutate and poison cells. This can happen at any moment from today until the day I turn forty-four.

And then I'll become a fool.

In the literal sense of the word. I might jump out a window, like my father. Or do something even worse... Like my great-grandfather.

2

That morning everything went a bit wrong. Starting with the alarm clock. Its signal seemed painfully loud. I jerked, sharply lifting my head from the pillow. I spent three seconds realizing what exactly woke me up. It can't be that morning came so quickly... Or can it? I hastily (and therefore clumsily and for a long time) felt for my phone. And only on the second try managed to press the right button and turn off the signal. This time it rang far too suddenly... Not that I had a habit of waking up ahead of time, but now it turned out completely... The word "tactless" was spinning in my head. A tactless alarm clock—isn't that funny?

You just don't want to get up, buddy... How unbearable this ritual is—inventing reasons to start a new day. To find at least something worth opening your eyes for. No motivation... What nonsense in my head! Of course there is. Today is a very important day... An important day-day...

Thoughts became confused, turning into images and pulling me back into the soft oblivion of sleep. And here before my eyes again flutter the wings of thousands of butterflies, trapped in the fresh cement seams of a newly built white wall... How could you lay bricks on live butterflies! Clumps of cement fall on top of black-and-orange wings, and on top with a disgusting crunch lies a new, perfectly smooth brick...

I barely open my eyes, freeing myself from the suffocating grip of the dream. I seem to still hear the crunch of crushed wings from my dream, echoing in my throat with a completely real feeling of nausea. What nastiness... The most nightmarish dream of my life. And it repeats every time I get sick. As if the body is sending me a signal in the form of delirium, where thousands of peacock butterflies have stuck to a lone construction site in the middle of a flowering meadow, and workers lay cement mortar right on them, crushing the fluttering wings with bricks...

Have I really gotten sick? I touched my forehead. No, you can't understand anything that way. And I feel fine! Or... A guess suddenly covered me with an icy wave. Has it started?!

I sat up jerkily. Suddenly it became stuffy, and my forehead was covered with tiny droplets of sweat. Come on, stop it! Well, you dreamed about those damn butterflies. They've appeared in dreams a hundred times... Or is it really it? After all, the line has been crossed.

From this thought, a hard lump formed in the pit of my stomach. As if I had swallowed something big, and now it corrosively crawls down my esophagus... Hangover, that's your whole illness. And the butterflies are because in half an hour you'll be crushed by a headache. Can't be so impressionable. After all, until forty-four—that's nine years. If I start seeing symptoms at every step, I'll go crazy.

Quickly, not giving myself a chance to return to gloomy thoughts, I got up. Vira was breathing evenly, curled up in a ball. Elsa was sleeping in the next room. I tried to move quietly. I was pleased to note that I felt fine and yesterday's whiskey seemed to have passed without consequences for me... In the most unexpected place—almost in the middle of the room—I stumbled over something. Trying to keep my balance, I awkwardly stepped forward and with all my might hit my little toe on the shelf. Pain pierced me like a flash, reaching, it seemed, all the way to my thigh... I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out... Vira-Vira... Her slippers always lie as if someone, standing somewhere in the hallway, enthusiastically threw them into the room. Moreover, first threw one, and then tried to hit the first with the second... And what if she stubbed her toe because of my things? I can imagine what would happen...

Limping, I got to the bathroom. I liked, before turning on the light, to sense the smell of the bathroom. The light aroma of shampoo, remnants of the pungent smell of cleaning agent, very faint notes of my toilet water...

"Light!" I tried to pronounce the command as clearly as possible, since lately the "smart home" system suffered from electronic deafness—regularly failed to recognize commands.

It came out louder than necessary, and the bright flash of lamps unpleasantly cut my eyes. Treacherously, nausea rolled in—probably that Becherovka "for the road" was excessive...

"Light!" I repeat in a whistling whisper.

And the lamps dim to a barely noticeable candle glow. That's better. It was unwise to spend on all this smart nonsense. If you think about it, it's even more convenient without it. But back then there was money, and it seemed like a great idea... I got in the shower, but the hot water didn't help. Rather the opposite. The image before my eyes was swimming. The shower cabin, the shelf with shampoos, the seams between the tiles—all this seemed to be carried aside by an invisible current. But as soon as I blinked, everything returned to its place, only to smoothly float somewhere to the right and up again. Helicopters... Nausea approached again. Now it's absolutely obvious that I have a hangover.

In half an hour I was making myself coffee. Through the huge kitchen windows, a barely pink dawn was already breaking through, reflected by the mirror panels of the skyscraper opposite. I turned off the soundproofing, and hidden speakers at a moderate volume began to reproduce the street noise. Below, the market was preparing to open, and fish traders were already rumbling with carts.

According to last year's ratings, Kyiv entered the top ten most expensive cities in Europe. This didn't mean at all that it had become more comfortable. It meant that it had become bigger. That its insanely expensive center had become even more expensive, inflating the prices for utilities in such modest residential areas as ours along the way. So I wasn't pleased by Kyiv's high place in the rating. The city where I settled after the army was now turning into a place for the wealthy and happy, and I instead had stepped onto the slippery path of a person without regular income...

I plopped down on the levitation puff, which softly sagged under me and immediately silently returned to its previous height. Usually I loved this feeling. Like in childhood, when we jumped backwards into the snow. But today it caused a new attack of nausea. The kitchen nook whirled into a crazy dance, rushing somewhere up and to the left. I closed my eyes, begging my stomach not to make rash decisions. It got a little better. By the way, this flying stool can be sold—it's quite expensive...

"News!" I said, and the transparent screen on the wall lit up.

"...No precipitation is expected," purred from the screen a young person with impeccable appearance and an empty gaze. "The accident forecast in Kyiv for today is three hundred-thousandths of a percent per capita..."

Mentally I multiplied the meager percentage by twenty million residents—it turned out that six people today would one way or another meet sudden death. I grunted gloomily. I never cease to be amazed by this since school—since the first lesson in statistical forecasting. For each Kyiv resident separately, the chance of an accident today is microscopically small. Somewhere between "never" and "get it out of your head." But six "lucky ones" will still find themselves in the metal embrace of a mangled car or fall into eternal sleep, inhaling carbon monoxide—in accordance with probability theory, statistical accumulation of risks, and other nonsense. And these six are also listening to the news now, fooling themselves with the thought that three hundred-thousandths is too little for something to happen to them specifically...

My diagnosis, by the way, also occurs no more often than once in however many millions. But sooner or later, despite the statistical forecasting beloved by all, something bad finds you specifically in this life.

"Next!" I commanded, and the computer began switching channels every five seconds, waiting for my "stay." But I was silent, and on the screen one after another appeared stern beautiful girls with neatly styled or trimmed hair. With cold anxiety they told what had happened in the world while I slept...

In general, the problems had been going on for five months already. The hardest in my life. After service in the army... My first flight to another planet and that meat grinder that the attempt to establish a colony turned into... When my mother died on Earth and I wasn't even at the funeral... After all this—the most difficult unexpectedly turned out to be just five months of unemployment.

And considering how many companies I've already been to, next I'll have to either retrain (how and with what money, I'd like to know!), or move into the category of low-paid labor. Who in our crazy time needs a biologist?! A biologist in the risk zone, more precisely. I pressed my palms to my temples. Need to survive at least until lunch... And I have three whole interviews...

"So when will you become a fool, sir?"

"Any day, starting from thirty-five, but definitely no later than forty-four!"

And since I celebrated my thirty-fifth yesterday, as they say, "welcome to the club!"... In the army it was simpler. There's no time to think there, and just try to live to thirty-five... Damn fear of tomorrow... More precisely, fear before tomorrow. Of course, I don't tell anyone about this. Even Virunka doesn't know. The only problem is that I know.

When I was fifteen, my mother even took me to a suicidologist. He asked questions for a long time, then printed out a forecast and assured mom that the probability of conscious suicide in me was no more than two percent. And she calmed down. So much so that the thought of jumping from the roof really did start visiting me. Wonder where you'll stick your forecast then, doc!

For example, my grandfather did this: on his thirty-fifth birthday, he decided to drive in manual control mode in his favorite sports car and drove into a bridge support. In our family it's customary to consider this an accident and the result of exceptional carelessness at the wheel. Putting forward other versions was not accepted. But one circumstance never gave me peace: on his birthday, having already finished celebrating with friends, grandfather got behind the wheel completely sober.

Be that as it may, I'm made of different stuff and prefer to entrust such a task to circumstances. Therefore, finally convinced that humanity knows even less about abnormal protein mutations than about space (that is, finally receiving my damn diploma with honors), I headed the list of volunteers for Proxima. Although it was already clear then that many of us would return to Earth in plastic bags...

The coffee maker beeped briefly, and I commanded to turn off the news. I put the milk jug in front of me and in eager anticipation took the cup. This was a kind of ritual—taking the first sips of espresso without adding cream yet, enjoying the acidity of the coffee foam and letting my thoughts wander where they please. Where associations can carry them, invariably starting with the chocolate-nutty aftertaste of coffee and ending anywhere...

Now it seems to me that I had a premonition that morning. Though reason says: hardly. It's just that an unexpected sharp turn happened in my life... And over the years it began to seem that some premonition should have existed. But there wasn't one. The tone of the doorbell sounded sharp and unexpected.

End of Chunk 01

I shuddered. The voice of the "smart home" system gently inquired from the nearest speaker whether I wanted to answer a call from an unknown number. I glanced at the clock. Eight oh one. Who, I wondered, had enough nerve? If I answer, my coffee ritual will be hopelessly ruined. I was already about to command "decline call," when I thought again about who could be calling. And what the reason for such a call must be... Not to mention that in the last three months, besides Vira, absolutely no one had called me.

Carefully and therefore somewhat hoarsely, I said: "Hello!"

"Greetings! Mr. Giru?" inquired a young female voice in English, and I unmistakably recognized a Japanese accent.

Of course, she wanted to say "Gil," but the Japanese language has problems with the letter "L" (that is, it doesn't exist there at all), so in the mouths of representatives of the Land of the Rising Sun, my name transforms into either Giu or Giru—depending on the imagination of the particular Japanese person.

"Yes, that's me," I tensed, trying to remember what I once knew in Japanese, but besides the phrase from the phrasebook "please bring steamed rice," only "hello" came to mind—konichiwa.

She ignored my pathetic attempt to switch to Japanese and continued in English:

"I represent the private military company 'Conquistador Corps,' Tokyo. Our recruitment center has selected you for an interview. When would be convenient for you?"

The Conquistador Corps—the world's largest private military company! Moreover. It's a whole empire that has long since gone beyond its native Japan! Suffice it to say that it has its own battle fleet. Professional warriors who give a hundred points' head start to any space marine. And they pay them very, very well.

If the operator hadn't called me by name, I would have thought she had the wrong number.

"Giru-san?"

"Excuse me, I'm a bit confused... How did you find out about me?"

"You applied to join the Corps."

Well, yes... Only that was eight years ago... Back then I was blowing the rest of my army salary on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and Conquistador Corps advertising invitingly loomed on every corner... Damn eight years ago! In the deepest depression, suffering from

post-traumatic stress disorder, I dreamed of only one thing—to feel again the simplicity and value of a combat mission. Again to add to the smallest of daily worries that simple and weighty "survive"... So that those damn thirty-five years would stop looming like a concrete wall in my head.

"Excuse me? Giru-san?" the female voice pulled me from the flow of memories.

"I apologize... This is a great honor... But I have a family now... And a child. So... I'm afraid I can no longer become a conquistador."

It sounded a bit silly—as if we were playing at discovering America. Only needed to add "senorita." But in the Corps they took all these Spanish motifs very seriously.

"We know about your family circumstances," purred the girl from the Corps. "And we're calling because this is a specific contract: it's expected that conquistadors will become founders of a new off-world colony. And because of the planet's extreme remoteness, they're going there with their families. The statistical risk forecast corresponds to minimal category 'A,' the climate ideally matches Earth's. You have a biology degree and a license to operate an atmospheric shuttle—these are extra points at the interview. When should I sign you up?"

The young lady on the other end was chirping as if it were about a haircut or water delivery. Conquistadors... With families... Risk forecast—minimal category... It sounded like a dream.

"Can I call you back?"

"Of course! But we conduct interviews constantly, so the sooner you call, the better chance of keeping a spot for you. Have a good day!" she ended the conversation without waiting for my answer.

Once I waited for their call almost every hour. Then—every day. Then—once every few days with trembling in my chest I remembered my application. I reassured myself that the contingent for the nearest missions had been recruited, and my time would come soon. And only after about three years—I understood. So clearly, as if they themselves had called and told me. They found out. They learned about the problem of "thirty-five to forty-four"... These guys really dig deep—no doubt about it. They requested all my data, including my medical history. And someone with a practiced motion moved my file from the "Candidates" folder to the "Why_the_hell_would_we_need_him" folder.

That's what I thought. I was so convinced that I had almost erased from my memory the very fact of applying to the Corps. And now... They're calling precisely when the "thirty-five" mark has been passed, and until forty-four—a hellish eternity! Didn't dig deep enough? Didn't dig? Or can I really get the best contract of my life? Serious money for minimal risks... Too good to be true? They said something about extreme remoteness... Well, what's close in space! Go on, call them back and sign up for that exam so you don't lose the chance—what's the problem! The answer lies on the surface. More precisely, the answer is sweetly sleeping, scattering her slippers all over the room. A girl named Vira with the Korean surname Ra. She'll "shoot me down" long before the exam, plus she'll do it with a scandal. Our discussion will be very short and will end as soon as I utter those mysterious words "extreme remoteness." Yes, yesterday she yelled that I should get a job not just anywhere, but find "a position matching my qualifications." But today, most likely, she'll say something like: "I'm not taking the child to the edge of the unknown." She doesn't give a damn about all these promises of minimal risks. We all remember perfectly well how everything ended on Proxima...

I decisively, almost in one gulp, swallowed my coffee. I won't even discuss anything with her. Our relationship is already cracking at the seams anyway... And in general... Taking a family to an undeveloped planet—that's crazy! Not to mention the "extreme remoteness." Even with category "A" risks! After all, today in Kyiv, with all the minimal risks, six people will die! So—no. I won't risk my family.

But where the hell were you eight years ago, huh?!

They pay about three hundred thousand a year... Okay, if it's "category A risks," let it be even two hundred. Two hundred!!! Plus—pension after the contract ends. Plus—discounts at all possible resorts and a bunch of hotels. Plus—tax breaks...

I must admit, my "thirty-five to forty-four" won't go anywhere on another planet either, but there won't be time to think about it, that's for sure. Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, a timid thought lurked that if someone eats me there, it would be the best outcome. But I didn't dare to say such a thing even in my thoughts. It doesn't matter if I can't fly! I'm not getting divorced... I almost threw the cup into the sink.

"Wash the cup," I grumbled to the "smart home."

"Call Sashko," the female voice indifferently replied.

"Cancel! You deaf idiot... Cancel!"

"Cancel. Command 'Deaf idiot' not recognized. Do you want to assign an action right now?"

"Wash the cup!!!"

I was terribly upset. Damn those gamma quanta, those conquistadors! I have interviews at two scientific dumps and at a food company. Need to have time to shave.

Hastily, afraid to change my mind, I called up the holographic screen above the table, opened the list of incoming numbers, and pressed the "delete" button.

THIS NUMBER WILL BE DELETED [CANCEL] / [DELETE]

My hand hung for a moment a centimeter from the holographic buttons... Goodbye, conquistador career...

"Have the cream—gone bad?!"

It's Vira.

3

I turned around, not having had time to press anything. Virka was squeamishly sniffing the package. I desperately wanted to yell at her. To scram back to bed with such a mood and not nag here! But I restrained myself.

She disgustedly hurled the cream box into the garbage convector, continuing to mutter:

"I told you not to leave them on the table for half a day..."

However, this repeated every morning. Virka always woke up in a bad mood and first thing found something negative that would ruin her morning. For example: "What weather..." Or: "Remember that it's time for you to find a job?" Or: "Did you clean the tub after yourself?"—and so on. The main thing is to say it instead of "good morning" and with a sour face.

"Why were you yelling at Klava? You should finally take it to service..."

Klava—that's what she christened our "smart home." Though in the program the female voice was called, I think, Victoria. Vira's sense of humor is a peculiar rudiment, it's the only thing that remains in her of the girl I once stupidly fell in love with. And even that—she hasn't joked for a long time, just out of habit says something that could seem funny. For example, gave a stupid name to the computer. But she herself, probably, never once smiled about it.

"Good morning, dear," I uttered this phrase falsely sweetly, emphasizing that Vira could also start the morning with a greeting.

"And you be healthy..." with an expression of some disgust on her face, she rummaged in the bread box. "And the croissants are gone..."

In general, her eternal whining had reasons, and Virunka often called them weighty. She suffered from migraines. Severe headache bothered her every morning and subsided only after taking some tryptamine-containing chemistry. I should explain that usually Vira wakes up still without pain. She gets up with a certain premonition of pain, about which she says her head is "pressing from the inside."

Actually, it's time to take a pill, because her brain is already boiling with serotonin. But no—Virunka stubbornly waits about two hours, hating the whole wide world, until finally the trigeminal nerve joins the process, and then the pain itself begins. That's when she swallows a pill. I tried to explain to her in human language the mechanism of a migraine attack, but in vain. Virunka continues to torture herself (and me) with morning anticipation of pain. She says she first needs to make sure whether there will be an attack, "so as not to poison herself with chemistry unnecessarily." But I think she just needs these legal two hours of hatred for the world.

I started to explain something about the call, but realized she wasn't listening. Virunka nodded, stirring my coffee and waiting for when she could insert a word. I fell silent without finishing.

"You're just crazy, Gil. Sick in the head. Yelling at the computer. Soon you'll start attacking me and Elsa."

This was also a joke. Vira even smiled slightly, but not cheerfully, rather—tiredly. Such a little joke with a moral. Like, I'm joking of course, but you be aware... So how do I tell her about "extreme remoteness"? So she'd scratch my eyes out?

I reached for the holographic panel that still hung over the counter. With one careless motion I pressed "DELETE" and closed it. Welcome to reality...

Virunka put her heel on the el-puff seat, bending her knee to her very chin, and swallowed. Disgustedly grimaced, showing with her whole appearance how unpleasant the coffee without cream was to her. Such is her character: I, for example, would either not drink it, or enjoy what there is. But she'll drink, grimacing and twitching her shoulders, with genuine, unfeigned disgust. Because, Vira is deeply convinced, life is shit. Both before the pill, and after, and on those amazing days when her head didn't hurt—also.

"How's your head?" I asked, not understanding myself what I wanted more—a normal morning conversation about nothing or a reason for a good fight...

"Stunning! To ask about the head of someone who dies from migraines every morning! Plus you snored half the night like a horse, Elsa had some dream and she cried about ten times, so I dozed off only in the morning, but you decided to yell at Klava. And here I am—drinking this shitty coffee without cream."

You have to know Virka to understand—she almost didn't intend to reproach me for anything. This was a completely honest answer to the question "How are things?" in her style. But inside me everything was seething with irritation. Obviously, this is the line beyond which marriages fall apart. The word "divorce" still seemed like an impossible nightmare to me, but came to mind more and more often. I took a deep breath. I tried to remember how beautiful she seemed to me when I first saw her. I approached Vira and bent down to kiss her on the cheek.

She squeamishly wrinkled her nose, not turning in my direction. I straightened up; felt foolish.

"Virunka... I love you..."

"Uh-huh..." she was concentratedly and squeamishly sipping coffee. My coffee.

"Vira!" I said quietly but quite sharply. And fell silent, choosing words. Getting ready to say how tired I was of hearing her "uh-huh" in response to my "I love you"... How painful it is when a close person doesn't even hug you...

But Vira, sensing that I was boiling, simply waved me off with her hand, contemptuously muttering her drawn-out "Oh-h-h-h"... And I

changed my mind about fighting.

"I have three interviews today," I reminded her as casually as possible.

"Lucky you... At least you'll see people. And I'll go crazy from boredom here soon."

I quickly went to the bathroom, continuing to be angry at her and at myself. Eternally gloomy toad! She cares so little about me that she even fights only when she decides to herself!

...Walking away, I returned to our bedroom and furiously hurled her slippers that still lay in the middle of the room.

4

It was only two o'clock in the afternoon when I dryly said goodbye to the pimply HR manager of the Bioengineering Institute and stood confused in front of their main building, not knowing how to kill the rest of the day. I had failed the two previous interviews with exactly the same crash, and the thought of going home now and listening to Vira's whining seemed unbearable. Better to delay that moment. Ideally—let her already be asleep when I arrive. And, by the way, I really want a beer...

"Watch it, don't become an alcoholic," I said to myself, remembering the nasty diagnosis and how it makes a person defenseless against any addiction. And immediately stubbornly objected to myself: "I definitely earned a bottle of beer!"

Sometimes mother said about father: "Better he had chosen alcohol!". Though, of course, not better. It's just that he chose slot machines, and this passion of his lay on all of us as an unbearable burden. How many times mom fought with the club administration across the street, demanding they not let father in! And they didn't care: he's eighteen, after all. And so, when mom once again locked father in the apartment, he jumped out from the thirtieth floor. Either he committed suicide, or—and this was more likely—he was simply trying to get down faster: the disease had completely deprived him of fear, just as it had deprived him of the ability to predict the consequences of his actions. Or maybe he was just breathing by the window when his body decided to dance one of its favorite convulsive "steps."

"Dancing fool..." mom once said in anger. And in my head the word "fool" firmly attached itself to the helpless expression of dad's face when he tried to calm his arms and legs that danced beyond his will. You couldn't put it more precisely... When once father picked up a teapot, and a second later it flew in an indefinite direction (turned out, at mom's head), mom called him that to his face for the first time... The teapot was cold, fortunately...

It occurred to me to see Djokhar. Haven't crossed paths in a hundred years. I pulled out my phone on the go and found the number in the list. He doesn't drink beer, and it's the middle of the workday... But at least we'll see each other. Djokhar served in the conquistadors for about eleven years. But that's beside the point—I've already decided everything anyway. I just missed an old friend.

Above, in the transparent tube of the high-speed track, a gravicycle roared past with a muffled roar. Out of habit I tried to catch some detail with my eye to determine the model. However, I would recognize this one even in the dark. "Tsunami." The same as I had. Some incomprehensible longing ached in my chest with almost physical pain. "You're a father! And you can't afford to race around on a gravicycle!" —after Elsa's birth I heard this twice a day. It came to real fights... And after three years I told myself that Vira was right, and with my own hands wrote an ad for selling my dream.

...I, as if mesmerized, watched what was happening at the range. Fighters from the police special unit were blasting massive cast structures that served as targets into splinters of molten metal. The characteristic smell of heated magnetic coils evoked memories of the army... Induction rifles—the pride of weapons manufacturing—using an electromagnetic field, accelerated a uranium bullet to insane speed, and it, piercing the air with a thunderous sound, could destroy any material known to mankind.

Djokhar nodded to me from afar, as if to say, wait a bit more, and I'll come over. His commands barely broke through the insane rumble of rifles. Finally he gave some orders and headed toward me. Compactly built, with the springy gait of a leopard.

"Salam, my dear!" Djokhar hugged me tightly and kissed me on the cheek. "Congratulations on the past one! Celebrated well?"

I involuntarily winced at the word "celebrated."

"Thank you," I replied. "Normally. Family-style."

It was a lie, because yesterday I got drunk alone. Just stopped by the nearest liquor store before bed and that's all... "Ye-e-e-eha!" Not too cheerful, to be honest.

Djokhar nodded:

"Let's go, it's a bit noisy here."

He spoke with a barely perceptible accent. Bearded, with a wide smile and a predatory gaze. Djokhar grew up high in the mountains, in places where they still use atomic rifles (apparently, the last ones in the world!). Such ancient horror, firing from which you can easily vaporize a tank—and immediately feel the metallic taste of a lethal radiation dose in your mouth.

"Terribly glad to see you, Gilelchik," he put his arm around my shoulders. "Lost weight! Still racing on your gravicycle like crazy, or finally sold the damn thing?"

"Sold it last fall," I said and, noticing approval in his gaze, added: "And I really regret it. Virka made me..."

Djokhar nodded understandingly. He was the only one I allowed to call me Gilelchik. His experience and wisdom were so indisputable that next to him—despite the relatively small age difference—I always felt like a boy.

We sat down in a small cafe. Right above us from a holographic screen they were broadcasting the latest news. But overall it was quiet. I started to order on the tablet, but Djokhar touched the waiter call button.

"You know, I like it when a pretty waitress comes over, because you can call her 'sunshine' and watch her smile," Djokhar's face lit up with a wide smile that probably also pleased waitresses. "An auto-carrier, Gilelchik, doesn't do that. It's not equipped with something you could smile at."

"Live service is insanely expensive here..."

"I'm treating."

"That's not the point, Djokhar!" I felt myself blushing. "I have money, first of all, and secondly..."

"Gil, you're getting into the role of unemployed. That's 'first of all.' This is dangerous, my friend, because 'unemployed' and 'person looking for work' are different people. Do you understand what I mean?"

"You're worrying for nothing. I belong to the latter."

"And where are you and Vira going for Christmas?"

The question sounded, to put it mildly, unexpectedly.

"What Christmas?"

"Any one! Denomination doesn't matter. But at the end of December everyone goes somewhere for at least a week. So I'm asking—where will you go?"

"How should I know, Djokhar! It's only July now."

"You're talking like a rich person who doesn't worry about discounted airline tickets. Will you take business class on departure day?"

"Stop it... First need to find a job."

"There! That's what I'm talking about, Gil. Your credit card isn't blocked, is it? But you're not planning a vacation because you don't have a job. Though logic tells me that within six months you'll definitely find something. If you don't give up. So what, slowly giving up? Right?"

I looked away, unable to withstand his gaze. Vacation, yeah. Sure. Don't have other worries.

"I'm not used to planning that far ahead..."

Djokhar, smiling, was studying me. He often smiled like that when he disagreed. Sometimes he joked, sometimes just looked like this with interest and, perhaps, slightly ironically. If we happened to argue about fundamental issues—some philosophical-global ones like whether the formulation "was following orders" is a justification for a soldier or where the line of humanity is if thousands of lives are at stake—at some point I would necessarily start to get internally feverish, involuntarily raise my voice, gesticulate, and even get irritated. And he, instead of also getting angry—would smile. At such moments Djokhar would listen attentively and somehow greedily to my every word, not interrupting and even stopping arguing. And only occasionally would add fuel to the fire, objecting to some of my most convincing arguments. I would flare up again, and he with some unconcealed satisfaction would listen to what he supposedly categorically disagreed with. From the outside, it might have seemed that he was mocking. But if you saw how unlike Djokhar each of his few friends was, you would understand that there's not a hint of mockery in such arguments. Djokhar says: "Those who agree with you can make you a bit more confident, but those who disagree—much wiser."

We'd known each other for a long time, but in these two years in Kyiv we became truly close. I often couldn't accept what Djokhar said, but he invariably made me think about things that I would never have remembered in the flow of daily bustle.

Now behind his soft smile one could clearly read: "Who are you fooling, Gilelchik." Though that's my phrase, of course, not his. It turns out that what I "read" in his eyes, I'm telling myself... Because even without him I understand everything perfectly: I've long since tried on a new role for myself. A role in which there's no place for either vacation or Christmas. No plans, not even dreams. The role of a fool with his uncontrolled dance.

"For the first time in populated space, a planet with traces of a highly developed extraterrestrial civilization was found," the sympathetic announcer spoke in a concerned tone, tearing me from gloomy thoughts. "Traces of intelligent life were discovered by the orbital telescope system 'Ora Pro Nobis' in deep space decades ago, but the authorities are hushing up this discovery. The Global Space Exploration Agency has already called this information fake."

"Hear that?" I nodded toward the screen, just to break the awkward silence.

"Every year such sensations..." Djokhar shrugged. "Even surprising that someone bothers to refute them."

"You think we're the only intelligent beings in the Universe?"

Djokhar grimaced:

"Honestly, I don't give a damn... I'm more worried about you. I don't like your state, friend."

"I really did start giving up," I admitted, though it wasn't easy.

Djokhar nodded with satisfaction:

"Awareness is the first step to overcoming."

"But it's all behind me. I found a job. Almost found one. Need your advice."

"That's different," Djokhar grew serious and looked me in the eyes attentively. "Tell me, my dear."

"I was invited to an interview at the Corps."

He didn't interrupt me once, listening to a long tirade about my doubts and worries.

The waitress came over. She was indeed a very charming freckled girl who with her whole appearance asked to be called sunshine. But Djokhar didn't even look at her.

I couldn't help it, because it was terribly important for me to convey to her the urgency of my order—a mug of cold, very cold beer.

I finished my story by saying that I'm unlikely to dare to take my family to a conquest, but I want, at minimum, to understand what I'm refusing.

"Wait-wait, Gilelchik. So it's all behind you and you found a job? Or you can't fly because of your family and therefore gave up?"

Djokhar's question, as always, hit the mark. Once I looked in the mirror in the morning, imagined myself in uniform, and said: "A bit more, and it will become reality." I knew their charter by heart, the history of missions, the names of bases and warships... Once... That was before Vira. Before my eternally life-weary Virusa, whom I was careless enough to fall in love with a year after submitting my application. But mainly, it was before Elsa.

"I don't know, Djokhar. That's probably why I came to you."

"Do you need advice? Or do you want me to convince you to agree?"

I wanted to answer quickly, but realized it wouldn't work. Djokhar noticed what I didn't dare admit to myself: deep down I was most afraid that they would take me today for one of these boring jobs and I would spend the next five years of my life in a white coat (if, of course, something doesn't happen with the protein in my DNA). And the Corps... The Corps would be my salvation.

"So what do you say?" I asked.

"Don't even think about it," he answered in an unexpectedly confident tone. "Honestly and frankly. Don't think about it. Even if they promise you mountains of gold—send them to hell."

"Do you know something about this project?"

"You could say, almost nothing. But I know the Conquistador Corps pretty well. They never pay for nothing. And all these perks-schmerks, salaries-shmalaries—it's not because you're so good. And not even because you're eating mud on an alien planet. It's because you're putting your life on the line."

"What does your 'almost' mean?"

"Did they already tell you where the planet is?"

End of Chunk 02

I shrugged: "They said something about extreme remoteness."

He leaned toward me but, before speaking, held a short pause. Just to make sure I would hear every word.

"Gil, that planet is in another galaxy."

"Come on!" I smiled skeptically.

"I'm serious. The first expedition in history to the Large Magellanic Cloud."

I pulled out my phone and entered a query in the search. And was a bit stunned.

"One hundred sixty-three thousand light years?!"

He nodded.

"And do you know how many years will pass on Earth during the jump to the Magellanic Cloud?"

"At the moment of the jump," I automatically corrected. "The jump takes zero time."

"Alright, smartass, at the moment. How much time will pass on Earth at the moment when you transfer to the Large Magellanic Cloud?"

I thought. With ordinary transverse jumps, the desynchronization can reach several days, and sometimes weeks. But now we're talking about a giant, almost unthinkable distance. And, it seems, there's a geometric progression...

"Ten months?" I guessed randomly. "Or more?"

"Twenty years."

"How much?!"

"Twenty and change Earth years! Meaning to jump there and immediately back—that's forty years! Gil, by that time everyone you know will either be very old or have passed away."

"Damn..." it escaped me. "I see why they don't mind us flying with families..."

"You just can't imagine how far it is!"

"No, well, I can imagine approximately..."

"Are you sure?" Djokhar ironically raised an eyebrow. Then he took a toothpick and made a tiny mark in the center of the wooden table. "This is the sun. Imagine it's here, on this table, and the size of a poppy seed. And you need to mark the nearest star to the sun, keeping to scale. Not another galaxy yet, just the nearest little star. Where will it be?"

"The nearest... Well, that's Proxima Centauri..." I tried to imagine it and the Sun, as if looking from the side. "If the Sun, as you say, is a poppy seed... I don't know..."

Djokhar drilled into me with an attentive gaze and was silent.

"At the next table?" I tried to see the correct answer in his eyes. "No? On the sidewalk outside the window?"

Smiling, he leaned toward me across the table and slowly said:

"If on this table lay a tiny sun, like a poppy seed... Then another seed would have to be placed not even in Kyiv, but somewhere beyond Brovary! Twenty-eight kilometers from here, Gil! Two poppy seeds and between them—twenty-eight kilometers of emptiness! That's all! Nothing more! And this is the closest star to us! And if you wanted to draw a map of our galaxy on which the Sun would be marked with at least a one-millimeter dot, this map would hang from one end off the Earth, and from the other—off the Moon! A map, Gil! Just a map where it's possible to mark the Sun! And you're going to take your family to a planet that's even farther! Much farther! After all, between Earth and planet Ix-Chel, where they're inviting you, two of our galaxies would fit completely! And your only connection there will be a quantum channel through which you can transmit text a few words long. Very suitable for an SOS signal! But help... Help, in case of anything, will come at the earliest in twenty years!"

On the last phrase he emotionally threw up his hands, and now they were slowly lowering, like sand settling after an explosion.

I thought about his words. Of course, I studied astronomy, like everyone... But I never tried to imagine space to scale like this... And two poppy seeds in black emptiness at a distance of tens of kilometers struck me... In pictures everything looks different...

We were silent.

"I don't know, Gilel," Djokhar suddenly said, "on the other hand, I understand your aspirations... You have to decide for yourself... But I'll just tell you as a friend..."

The waitress came over again, put coffee in front of Djokhar and slid the desired mug to me. Djokhar fell silent, patiently waiting for her to leave. I used this pause to immediately fall upon the cold beverage. If I had lived in some ancient times,

I might have thought that a person's stomach is located in their head. Be that as it may, the sensations were exactly like that: the brain, which until now had been flopping back and forth in the heated skull box, finally found peace and smoothly swayed in the beer. The bubbles tickled it, and from this it became good and calm...

The waitress, charmingly smiling, fluttered away. Djokhar patiently waited for me to return to the real world. I sat with my eyes closed until I felt that my soul, expelled yesterday by the combination of whiskey and Becherovka, decided to return to the body.

"Sorry, I got distracted," the voice now sounded hoarsely. "We were talking about it being god-knows-where."

"To hell with them, with these jumps, Gilelchik! In forty years Kyiv won't go anywhere. Good job, decent fees, you'll return a veteran with a wagon of benefits... After all, you won't age! But there's another reason to dissuade you."

He fell silent, choosing words, and I waited.

"I didn't tell you why I left the conquistadors?" he asked and continued before I answered. "So listen..."

5

I sat, shocked by the frankness of his terrible story, and tried to comprehend it all. Djokhar was also silent, staring into space, and his fingers barely noticeably twitched, beating out an inaudible rhythm on the table.

"Alright, Djokhar," I stood up, extending my hand to him. "I'll think about it. Actually, I seriously had doubts because of all these years that will pass on Earth..."

"But I didn't convince you, did I? You've always been stubborn, Gilel... Even on Proxima."

I said nothing. Djokhar stood up, shook my hand firmly and unexpectedly warmly.

"Forty years, my dear, forty years!" he said. "If you haven't realized it yet, for me you're flying away forever. So... You'd better change your mind. But if you still decide to..."

And Djokhar hugged me tightly.

When father jumped, we weren't home.

The police immediately called mother. And I was at school and knew nothing. When, exiting the elevator, I saw the open apartment door, I got scared. Inside there were lots of unfamiliar people. And mom immediately rushed to me.

"He's gone," she said and cried.

I didn't ask who. I didn't even ask how. Instead, something completely different flashed through my head. Finally—that's what I thought about the person I loved more than anyone on this earth. I immediately tried to soften this thought, adding to myself: "Finally he's released from suffering"—but it sounded false and as if not in my voice. Not at all as easily and sincerely as the cynical and vile "finally." It seems to me I would never have thought of such a thing if this thought hadn't come to my head on its own. As if not mine. It just appeared, flooding me first with a strange, inappropriate feeling of relief, and then—with a wave of burning shame. "Finally this hell has ended."

And it all started almost innocently. Imperceptibly. Father stopped reading. Previously, books were his obligatory companions in bed before sleep, in a chair on weekends, and even very often at meals. And suddenly he abandoned reading. Completely. Then nobody saw anything bad in this. And I—even the opposite: father suddenly shared my passion for computer games, and it was fantastically great! True, he didn't like discussing the game—just didn't support the conversation, as if it wasn't him who was shouting "go-go" five minutes ago, overtaking me in the motorcycle racing championship simulator...

No, then I saw nothing strange in this. Now I know the reason: he couldn't talk about what didn't exist at that moment. His abstract thinking was like a plastic cup into which some wise guy poured boiling water. And every day this cup became smaller and smaller, turning into a useless lump of polystyrene...

We were always very close. Only he never tired of saying how much he loved me. Mom more often played the role of one who is ready to accept love—with the caveat that my childish affection would be appropriate and not too rough, that mom wouldn't be too tired after work or very

busy... But father—father gave love in its simplest and most precious manifestations, regardless of how he felt and under any circumstances. Before sleep he would come to kiss me and, kneeling before the bed, would voice his favorite question: "Do you know, Gilka, why I love you so much?" And I was the happiest in the world. And then we rubbed noses, like New Zealand aborigines...

When I was ten, father was already visiting doctors because of strange involuntary movements—the first "steps" of the still unfamiliar to us "dance of the fool." It was then that such an incident happened.

We were walking through the market. A large pavilion of fruits and vegetables was filled with the aromas of melons and peaches. Father, catching my gaze, suddenly took a large golden pear from the counter and gave it to me, smiling with his kindest smile in the world. I waited for him to pay, but he walked on, showing no intention of doing so. Actually, he didn't even think about this necessity, just as a five-year-old child might not think. And the seller—a tall tanned guy with a gloomy face—called out to father, coming out from behind the counter. I don't remember exactly how he said it. I remember the confused smile on dad's lips. He didn't understand what they wanted from him. I don't know how he perceived all this... He thought he'd already paid, or maybe thought that for such a trifle you don't need to pay...

Probably the only thing that can be said for certain is that the abnormal protein in his chromosomes was already mutating and desperately destroying nerve cells. It was getting harder and harder for father to grasp abstract concepts. Various "ifs" and "thens," "to predict" and "to imagine"... Cause-and-effect relationships and logical chains were becoming an impossible science... He was still an ordinary person who had fallen out of love with reading... But in the wormholes that corroded his brain, there was gradually no room left for anything except the simplest actions.

"Are you stupid?" the seller asked father, enraged by his smile, and snatched the pear from my hands.

And then I cried. Not because I needed that damn pear. I just didn't understand what was happening and why father was called stupid, and he was standing and smiling. I cried and shouted: "Dad!" —helplessly looking at him. I thought he would just pay. But he threw himself at the seller and started beating him, putting some unprecedented fury into each blow...

When they pulled him away, father suddenly broke free, easily scattering those who held him back, picked up the cursed pear and, wiping it on his sleeve, held it out to me.

"Don't cry, Gilka," he said, smiling. "Don't cry."

He was acquitted. The results of medical tests arrived exactly a week before the trial. Father returned home the same kind and smiling video game enthusiast. But the former dad never returned.

A year later his condition was frankly pitiful. He had become a huge child, incapable of predicting the elementary consequences of his actions. Multiply this by poor coordination... And even bringing a spoon to his mouth was a problem for him... Plus spontaneous involuntary arm waves or head twitches. Most simple household tasks became impossible for father, and even dangerous. Moreover, dangerous not only for him.

We took turns feeding him with a spoon. Mom shaved him every morning. Then she stopped—when he once unexpectedly jerked his head so hard that mom cut him with the safety razor.

We tried not to let father go anywhere alone, because he fell, and the abrasions on his face became as familiar to us as his beard... And then he started running away. Running away at the slightest opportunity, as if he were a spaniel anxious at the start of spring. And if running away didn't work out for a long time, father would go openly, despite mother's attempts to hold him by force...

Of course, we were advised to put him in an appropriate institution. And mom even agreed to this, despite my protests and her own doubts... But in three weeks we came to visit him and immediately took him away, seeing this beaten and miserable creature that "qualified help" was turning our dear dad into...

I don't know why I remembered him now... Who am I fooling... I know, of course I know. I have to go through all this nightmare again, only now my daughter will be in my former role, and the dance of the fool awaits me... I entered the elevator that was supposed to take me to the seventy-first floor of the skyscraper where my apartment was located. But instead of the floor number, I typed the word "garden" on the touch screen.

I want to be alone.

No. You want to finish the conversation with yourself, because you still haven't decided. And it's not at all about father's fate awaiting you. It's that you're afraid to act like great-grandfather.

As soon as this thought visited me, I decisively protested and even said aloud:

"What nonsense are you spouting!"

And immediately loudly answered myself:

"This isn't nonsense at all!!!"

At that very second the elevator doors opened. Before me appeared a young couple. They looked around the elevator in surprise, in which there was no one else. The girl involuntarily glanced at me and squeezed out a polite smile. Her look was embarrassed. I hastened to exit.

This floor was open and completely planted with trees. Once this garden became the decisive argument for Vira and me in choosing this not-the-cheapest apartment. The wind pleasantly blew on my face, bringing the smell of the river. It was dark. The lighting allowed you to see the paths but didn't disturb the atmosphere of night. Between the fancifully combined cedars and apple trees here, a neat alley led to the high parapet. As if for a running start before a jump...

I mentally cut myself off. Normal people admire the city from here. And only in a sick head can an association with jumping arise. In one like yours and your father's. If, of course, he jumped and didn't fall.

Somewhere far below, a quiet night street tinkled with bicycle bells. The city played with lights, as if it were a cluster of cliffs with stars scattered across them. Leaning over the parapet, I looked down. A light chill ran down my back. Reaching all the way to my knees, it curled up there in a ball, barely pricking. I thought about dad. Imagined his helpless gaze and how he tries to grab the window frame with his hands, but only waves them in the air... No, he couldn't have jumped himself. I don't want to believe it. I don't want to believe that his life was so unbearable... No. Not him, and even less so grandfather.

But great-grandfather could?

Oh yes. Great-grandfather could. The story of his death has been retold for two generations now. And, obviously, will be retold further if I preserve my sanity long enough to manage to initiate my daughter into this. After all, you can't act like that. Never, under no circumstances.

And what are you, Gil, planning to do? Isn't your departure on a mission (to another galaxy) together with your family the same thing? Great-grandfather just chose a thermobaric grenade, and you—a contract with the Conquistador Corps. But there's something in common, right?

There's nothing in common here! Great-grandfather acted like an idiot! Selfish, cruel! I've hated him since I first heard that story!!! What do I and a job offer have to do with it!

With the fact that great-grandfather also didn't care about everyone, including the closest ones. He was only concerned with his illness. Somewhere, like you...

"I do care!!!"

My cry echoed briefly from the buildings opposite and dissolved, mixing with the shouts of sellers announcing today's final discounts at the fish market.

"I care!" I closed my eyes, pouring out all the pain and fear of recent weeks into the face of the night emptiness. "I want my daughter to be happy! Not like mother and I, but happy! And I want to be happy next to her! To live happy next to her!"

The only question is whether you want to live to see it, Gil...

I felt a tear slide down my cheek, as if it lives its own separate life, and immediately the cool wind started to tousle with invisible fingers the wet trail left on my cheek. It's true, what can I say. Deep down I wanted to leave this world beautifully, loudly, and young. I remember when I dreamed of buying a gravicycle and almost memorized various reviews, on one site I came across this phrase: "The Statistical Forecasting Service called this extremely high-speed Japanese device the most dangerous modern gravicycle due to the large number of accidents involving it." It was about, of course, the famous "Tsunami." And it was this phrase that became the last grain that tipped the scales of choice. I bought the "Tsunami" in a week. "Because I'm a balanced person and will be able to tame it"—that's what I told myself. "Because this is my insurance against the dance of the fool"—that's how the truth sounded.

And a few years later Elsa was born, becoming an uninvited thread that tied me to this world. Eventually I even sold the bike... And though I didn't agree with Vira about the bike, the truth is that Elsa was worth all the gravicycles in the world. Probably, this was the only real purpose in my life—to give her happiness.

And what are you doing now? Aren't you going to put your tiny Elsa's life on the same scales as yours? How can you even think about such a thing! Especially considering what you know about the Corps now.

Djokhar left the conquistadors as a sign of protest. "As a sign of protest against cynicism"—that's what he said. Nobody noticed this protest, except himself. But he couldn't stay.

The private military company "Conquistador Corps" began developing some new planet quite far from the Sun. The planet was not just Earth-type, which is already rare, but also had decent deposits of osmium. So they landed a reconnaissance group there. Everything went according to plan. But after four months, contact with it was cut off. After some more time, various commissions were sent there—to study what happened. They figured it out, drew some conclusions, and decided to land the main contingent. And then Djokhar flew there.

The planet was called Hun-Ahau. In honor of a deity from Mayan Indian mythology. In general, all the attributes in the Corps somehow bear the imprint of the conquest of America. It's part of the ideology.

So on the planet everything was not bad, so much so that it was even boring. The fauna wasn't hostile, the climate—a bit hotter than Earth's. The atmosphere, however, was unsuitable for breathing, but this problem was easily solved by oxygen masks. The only nuance—some microscopic parasites. Medics prescribed obligatory rubbing of the skin with special protective cream once a day, but there were no other warnings.

The conquistadors made camp, set about clearing territory for the future osmium mining station, etc. About the reasons for the death of the first reconnaissance group, nobody knew and by that moment nobody was even asking. Until one of the shuttles crashed.

The ship was descending to the planet with a small group of civilian specialists, and one of its engines failed. The emergency landing was managed quite far from camp, in a rocky gorge. The pilot died, the second pilot was seriously injured, osmium-rich rock completely blocked the signal of all communication devices. The civilian specialists with the wounded in their arms decided to move to the plain, where rescuers could detect them. And everything should have ended well: three or four days to the plain, the water supply should have been enough, there was no shortage of medicine,

the second pilot's condition was stable. The only "but"—nobody told the civilians about the prescription to apply the cream. After all, this briefing was planned after arrival at camp...

On the seventh day after the crash, a rescue group commanded by Djokhar penetrated into those same rocky spurs where the shuttle fell. They came across traces of the missing almost immediately. An hour later they discovered the cave where they had spent the night. Djokhar entered first. It was his flashlight that snatched from the darkness the corpses curled up on the cave floor. All the bodies without exception had no skin. None at all. The cursed microscopic parasites attacked skin not protected by cream, settled in it and multiplied. For a person this process was accompanied by obsessive itching, but no more. But after three days the parasites moved to a new stage of development. Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. And they devoured all the host's epidermis in a matter of hours.

The most horrific thing is that by the moment when there was no skin left on the body at all, the people were alive.

"And now ask me how Hun-Ahau translates," Djokhar said, reaching this point in his story.

He leaned across the table, his eyes burned with some fierce fire, and his fingers gripped the tabletop so hard that his nails turned white.

"You said it's the name of a deity..."

"Yes! Ask, Gil, how this name translates!"

"And how?"

"God-without-skin! Do you understand or not? The first scouts were also found without skin. And some wise guys from the Corps thought this was terribly witty! 'How good that the Maya have such a suitable deity—God-without-skin! It'll be cool to name the planet after him, where parasites live that can skin you alive!'"

"Lord..." it escaped me.

"At that second, when I saw the bodies, I decided to leave there. When I realized that for someone in the company our lives are nothing more than a play on words. That's the whole Corps. Cynicism as a way of thinking... That's why I don't trust them and wouldn't want you to go to that outfit!"

Today in the cafe I decided not to let this story into my life. To mentally fence myself off from what I heard. It's an isolated case. An isolated case in Djokhar's life. Not in mine. What do I have to do with it! But now I didn't even understand, but acutely felt—Djokhar speaks the truth.

I felt better. Somewhere over the boundless Dnipro, which stretched almost to the horizon, a seagull cried... Once it was narrow, and over there, quite nearby, towered, sparkling with residential districts, left-bank Kyiv. And now it has become a refuge for fish. Human dwellings and memories, sidewalks and squares dear to someone's heart are buried under tons of water. And for us who live today, this is now something as distant as that poppy seed in boundless emptiness...

6

"What is this, Gilel?"

Vira didn't even greet me. She came out, hearing the doors unlocking, and was obviously furious. In her hands she held the film of a liquid-processor tablet with an open email letter.

"You haven't been paying them all this time?!"

I took the tablet, already guessing what was there. I wanted to say "it can't be," but the very first lines of the letter convinced me that it could. Our bank had blocked my card and demanded immediate repayment of all loans or confirmation of solvency. All loans—that's not just the debt on the card. It's the remainder of the debt for our apartment. That is, what we were planning to pay off for another fifteen years.

"I paid, Virun... We specifically set aside... This is some nonsense," I mumbled, already understanding what the matter was.

Back in May I was supposed to update all these certificates of income and other data... But since I had been unemployed for three months by then, I decided to wait a bit. Obviously, the bank took care of everything itself...

"Can you protect us from at least this?! What now? What will I buy food with tomorrow if the card is blocked?!"

"Well, for tomorrow we'll scrape together..."

"I don't need tomorrow!" Vira exploded. "I need, Gil, to not have a headache at least about these loans!"

"Vira..."

"Tomorrow get a certificate from your new job that you were hired! Just take it to the bank right away. And do it in the morning! So the cards are unblocked by the weekend. I wanted to buy Elsa some sneakers."

Vira turned around and went to the kitchen, apparently considering there was nothing more to discuss.

"By the way, where did they hire you?" she asked indifferently, not even turning around.

Silence fell. Virka always turned on the soundproofing, so the silence was almost sterile. "Grave-like," I corrected myself mentally. They say "grave-like silence."

I took off my shoes and put the sneakers on the shelf. Our Elsa's sandals, as if on command, fell to the floor. I tried to squeeze them into place, but because of this Vira's shoes fell out.

"Gil?" Virka's voice sounded. "Where did they hire you?"

I angrily shoved the shoes on top of my sneakers. I almost succeeded. But then something cracked, the shelf sagged, as if it opened its mouth in confusion, and all the shoes spilled onto the floor.

Upset, I decided I'd pick it up later and went to the kitchen. Vira, as always, was cooking something. I plopped down on the el-puff, took the remote and turned off the soundproofing. Into the apartment burst the cries of seagulls and the echo of loud laughter somewhere far below...

"I hate it when you turn on that noise," Vira muttered. "Don't you love silence?!"

Silence is not loved by those who are afraid to be alone with their thoughts... At least that's what father said. Maybe he was right. Or maybe I'm afraid to be alone with Virka's whining...

"Gil? Did you hear my question or not?" Vira finally turned around, and her gaze focused on me. "Where did they hire you?"

In her eyes there was only ordinary domestic indignation like "you're not listening to me again" or "how tired I am of talking to a wall." She didn't suspect.

"Nowhere," I said.

"What do you mean 'nowhere'?"

"You asked where I was hired. Which part of my answer is unclear to you?"

Vira frowned, as if trying to grasp the thought with vertical wrinkles above her nose bridge.

"You mean 'nowhere'?" she repeated in surprise.

I stood up and approached the kitchen cabinet. I didn't want to eat at all. But probably I'd drink some tea...

"And where's Elsa?" I asked.

Vira was still frowning, staring into space.

End of Chunk 03

"At the pool... What do you mean 'nowhere', Gil?! You had three interviews. Three! Did you blow them all?"

"Imagine?" I nodded indifferently, getting out a pack of hibiscus tea. "Want some tea?"

"Gil!" Vira stared at me, and a tiny spark of fury flashed in her eyes. "Are you mocking me?! You blew three interviews, our cards are blocked, they're demanding you return a huge loan, and you're asking me if I want tea?!"

"First of all, I didn't blow anything. I wasn't suitable for the employer, it happens. That doesn't mean I did something wrong."

"Gil! What will I buy food with tomorrow?!"

"Two minutes ago you said you don't need tomorrow! Vira, calm down, and let's talk."

"Because of you we have problems with the bank, you can't find a job for six months, and I'm supposed to calm down?!"

I took a slow breath and continued in a completely everyday tone. You could say, carefree.

"And secondly, Vira... Why don't you try to get a job somewhere too?"

Vira turned pale with indignation and noisily drew air in through her nostrils.

"I knew sooner or later you'd start reproaching me with this!"

"What kind of reproach is that..."

"So, when Elsa was born, he was 'for' me staying home with the child! His job is more important! Better paid! Interesting! When Elsa needed to be driven to all these clubs and pools, he didn't object either. Didn't ask if I wanted to stay home. Didn't ask if I was sick of running around the same circle day after day like a donkey! And now, when he screwed up, I'm to blame that I still haven't found a job?!"

"Vira, who said you're to blame..."

She seemed not to hear.

"How do you do it? No matter what we discuss, I'm the only one to blame! Even if you blew three interviews in one day, who fucked up? Right, Vira! Sits at home, does absolutely nothing and also asks 'what will we live on'!"

I was taken aback by such a sharp turn. Twenty variants of answers flashed through my head, but I still couldn't decide on one.

After all, the choice was between the prospect of fighting but proving my point, or leaving everything as is, swallowing her accusations along with it... And I thought I was too tired to fight.

My dinner stood on the table, covered with a transparent lid. The utensils lay neatly... For some reason I felt sorry for Vira who had prepared all this. I went to wash my hands and sat down at the table.

"Thank you," I removed the cover from the plate. Vira, without turning around, nodded. "What time will they bring Elsa?"

"Should be here any moment now... Take the vinaigrette. And sauce, I'll put it out now."

We always got along decently when it came to food. Vira cooks tolerably, and I've never once in all these years said that something isn't right. I don't know where this comes from in her subconscious, but precisely this scheme of mutual understanding (she cooks—I like it) is extremely important to her. Thus, the process of food consumption (more precisely, my feeding) was for Virka as if taken outside the brackets of daily problems or quarrels, beyond the framework of fatigue and mood swings. And it doesn't matter whether I need it. In Vira's opinion, that's just how it should be.

How many times I wanted to talk with her about something or just take a walk together in the evening, or hold her hand, finally... But I constantly ran into an obstacle in the form of cooking food for me. That is, the reason she didn't have time to communicate with me was myself.

"I'm not going to feed you the same thing for the second day!" —this Virka phrase meant that she and Elsa could calmly make do with yesterday's stew, but she wouldn't stoop to feeding her husband with it.

Or this:

"Vira, I just want to hug you!" —"Not now, I'm making dinner for you!"

Nothing affected this sacred process! Even when we fought and Vira didn't talk to me for three or four days (by the way, the record is eleven!), she still not only carefully set the table, but also gave hints during the meal:

"Don't forget the salad... Take sauce for the meat."

This didn't mean that Vira stopped being offended and started talking to me. No. Food is like medics on the battlefield: they don't shoot at them, but the battle doesn't end because of this.

doesn't end because of this. For the sake of food, Vira declared a partial ceasefire.

What's interesting is that she didn't cook what I like (I don't think Virka ever even asked about this), but what she considered necessary. And my timid wishes, expressed at the beginning of our life together, she took as an encroachment on freedom of self-expression and an attempt to dominate her.

"Very tasty, thank you," I said sincerely.

Vira was silent and continued to sulk, but now a smile lurked in her eyes.

The doorbell rang: the neighbor brought Elsa. She and Vira took turns driving the children to the pool. In half a minute, my daughter burst into the kitchen like a hurricane and threw herself at me, hugging my neck with her thin little arms. She was four. She was an extraordinarily beautiful, always smiling child.

"She missed you," Vira smiled.

"Daddy! Guess the riddle!" Elsa exclaimed with the look of a person who had a brilliant idea. "Who is like a hedgehog, but has one needle? Who?"

She adored making up riddles.

"Well..." I honestly tried to figure out at least some options, but nothing came to mind.

"Do you give up?"

"Uh... Yes."

"It's a hedgehog!" she cried out, and her little face simply lit up in expectation of my "why."

"Oh really... And why does the poor thing have only one needle?"

"Because Baba Yaga stuck so many apples on him that all the needles—fell off, and one—remained!"

Elsa was even dancing from delight.

"Exactly!" I deliberately slapped my forehead.

"And you didn't guess! And it was an easy riddle!"

I picked up my daughter in my arms, and we began to silently rub noses according to the custom of New Zealand aborigines. Then I hugged Elsa tightly, thinking about what to say to Vira now.

Half an hour ago, on the roof, it seemed to me that the decision was made. I need to stop sending resumes to large companies and

focus on simpler positions... Once, as a seventeen-year-old kid, I entered the biology department, dreaming of working at a dolphinarium. Money so-so... And no prestige at all (if you don't count the opinion of children)... But what a job! Once it seemed like the best in the world. Why not try now? I knew this would cause Vira to have a fit and probably even become a reason for threats to take Elsa and leave. But we both know she'll never do that. "You'd have to be a complete idiot to divorce your husband at thirty-two with a child in your arms"—those are her words.

So ended my reflections on the roof. And what I said to Vira the next second was somehow a surprise even to myself.

"I was invited to a job," I said. "A very good one..."

Vira looked at me attentively, raising an eyebrow.

"Dad, let's go to my room!" Elsa jumped to the floor and pulled me by the hand.

"In a moment, daughter, I'll come..."

And she ran away. Vira pulled out a chair and sat down opposite.

"Gil, are you a masochist?"

"Why?"

"Well, what do you have to have in your head to fight with me for half an hour about not having a job, and not say that it turns out you were invited somewhere after all!"

"This, Virunka, doesn't change anything, because I'll refuse."

She tilted her head in surprise, wrinkling her forehead comically.

"Are you trying to drive me to hysterics?"

"Just sharing with you... I passed the preliminary selection for the Conquistador Corps... I submitted an application before meeting you... They're offering a contract... But the planet is very remote. And you have to go with family."

"And?"

An ironic smile played on Vira's lips.

"What do you mean 'and,' Vira? It's god-knows-where! Just think: at the moment of the jump..."

I suddenly became confused, thinking that Vira was unlikely to be able to grasp the essence of desynchronization, and didn't know how to explain.

"Roughly speaking, during the jump," I barely uttered, "twenty years will pass on Earth..."

"But we won't age, will we?" she asked carelessly. "This jump... Does it take long?"

"Not at all," I shrugged. "For us it will happen instantly..."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Everything, Vira... We'll return in more than forty years. Forty years, understand? All our acquaintances then..."

"What, I wonder, all our acquaintances? My hairdresser? Our neighbor? Gil, there's no one here who would be dear to us except our daughter, whom we'll take with us!"

"Vira, it's a poorly studied planet, and conquistadors are being sent to develop it, understand? And it's fantastically far! I just can't risk you like that!"

"Ah... Well, of course..." Vira said disappointedly and nodded her head with feigned understanding. "Much better to live in a cardboard box and dress from the garbage. Or what's your plan? Settle at the fish market and have unlimited access to waste? However, I don't care. The main thing, Gil—don't take us to another planet!"

She started to clear the table, no longer looking at me. Bowls and plates flew into the sink from a dangerous height, plaintively clanking their earthenware edges against the metal.

"Virunka..." I approached her, but she paid no attention to me. "Listen... If I draw a dot here... Just here, on the counter. A small dot. With a pen. And we imagine that this is our Sun, only tiny. And then I ask you to mark the nearest star to us. Where would you put a dot?"

"I'm not putting anything anywhere..." Vira muttered.

"Just try to imagine. It's important! If the Sun is here and tiny. A millimeter. Where will the nearest star to the sun be?"

"I don't know, Gil," she said irritably, not turning around.

"Beyond Brovary, Vira! Twenty-eight kilometers away!"

"And?" she asked, finally turning around.

"Vira, two tiny dots and between them twenty-eight kilometers," I couldn't hold back. "And nothing more! Understand?"

"And?" she repeated with emphasis.

"If you decide to draw a complete map of the galaxy, its edge will be farther than the Moon. And they're inviting us even farther, understand?"

"No," Vira cut off. "What does the Moon have to do with anything?! To the Moon even from Kyiv—there are two flights a week!"

And she resolutely began to arrange dishes in the dishwasher. I sighed heavily and sat down again. Vira continued to clean up, putting anger into every movement.

"People wait for years!" she suddenly exclaimed, and it was clear that this was her internal dialogue breaking out. "Wait for years for a call from the Corps, ready to immediately drop everything at the first call! And this one—unemployed, with blocked cards and debt—refuses! Another planet, so what! No-no. I'm on the crest of a wave! Where would I rush off to!"

Vira suddenly threw a spoon into the sink, and it clanged with such force that I involuntarily winced. And she sat down at the table, hiding her face in her palms.

"Are you crying?" I squatted down in front of her.

"No, Gil," she said tiredly. "I just have no strength. The last six months I don't recognize you. You're like a child who decided it will be this way and no other. You fantasized a career for yourself that can't be, and nothing else suits you. You fail interview after interview, but it teaches you nothing. You won't agree to less. And here's a chance! And what a chance! Conquistador Corps! Even I would agree to work there! But you, obviously, have other plans! And even if in reality the garbage dump awaits you, you'll still stubbornly push forward..."

"What does this have to do with it, Vira..."

"And what then, Gil?"

"This planet is in another galaxy..."

"But Gil, people no dumber than you are sitting there! Are they such idiots as to consciously risk the lives of their employees and, moreover, their families! Their relatives will drag them through the courts!"

I slowly nodded. There was a rational grain in this... The death of a civilian on a mission is not at all the same as losses among conquistadors. If not the children, then the grandchildren of the deceased will ruin the Corps in lawsuits. The scale of the scandal is even hard to imagine!

"And after this planet you can break the contract and not climb into new missions," Vira said. "It's a way out, don't you understand! And enlighten me if I suddenly don't know something, but as I see it, it's the only way out for us!"

I realized that Vira had already decided everything for herself. And if I don't go to the interview at the Corps, she'll simply devour me.

"Virun... Remember, you asked about the story with my great-grandfather, and I didn't tell you... You know how he died?"

"You said in a fire."

"No. Though the fire started because of him... He shortened his own life. But the point isn't that, but how he did it. He blew himself up with a grenade. And of all the grenades that great-grandfather could have stolen from his military unit, he chose a thermobaric one. It's such... Incendiary, you could say... Terribly powerful. And he probably didn't do it on purpose. Most likely, he took the one that was easiest to steal. But that's the whole point: he didn't give a damn about others. Once he's leaving this world, he doesn't care what happens here next. Locked himself in the bathroom, pressed the grenade to himself, pulled the ring... Six floors burned down... A child died in the apartment upstairs... You know, I have a feeling that if I sign this contract, I'll act like great-grandfather."

Vira, frowning, shook her head.

"Why? What's the connection at all?"

I wanted to answer, but hesitated. Vira doesn't know anything about the disease... About my fear of becoming a fool who dances... Of course I won't tell her that great-grandfather pulled the pin the day after the doctor explained to him that the strange "nervous tic" was actually the first step to complete motor discoordination and a harbinger of rapid mental degradation.

"The connection is that great-grandfather did what he wanted and didn't think about the consequences," I said.

"You're thinking precisely about the consequences! What a comparison! He wanted to leave life, and you—found the job you dreamed of! Moreover, precisely when your work is needed by all of us! Gil... Salary, normal insurance, a contract for at least five years! I understand, you're worried about us..."

Insurance... This word stuck in my brain like a nail. Vira continued to say something, enveloping me with soft, almost tender intonations, but I heard nothing more. Insurance. What an idiot I am!

What an idiot I am! That's the main thing! Not to die young, outsmarting the disease! The main thing is to protect my little Elsa! What could be worse than leaving this life, leaving them with Vira without a penny!

Worse—is without a penny to doom them to care for a dancing fool...

Be that as it may, the Conquistador Corps provides a full social package, and their medical insurance is the best there is on the market. And even if I'm destined to live to this nightmare... To become mentally retarded with impaired coordination... Even if so, all the necessary care—hospitals, nurses, medicines—everything will be free! Plus insurance payments will provide for my girls for life. And if I die earlier—even better. The payments won't go anywhere. The Corps will save on nurses... But the family won't have to suffer because of my pitiful state. They'll recover from grief and will be able to live without need. After all, however cynical the Corps is, it takes care of its veterans to the end...

"You'd prefer a quiet and prosperous life in Kyiv, I understand..." Vira went on.

If only you knew how far from the truth you are right now... She looked into my eyes, as if trying to see a spark of reason in the gaze of an idiot. And suddenly smiled.

"Did you know it's my youthful dream? To be a conquistador's wife. God, at twenty I would have gone crazy with happiness! You'll have a uniform, won't you?"

I smiled in response.

"Wait, there's still the interview..."

"But you, Gil, have already been selected! The rest—you'll pass! How did you even manage? There are probably five hundred people per position!"

I shrugged. Vira suddenly hugged me, pressing her cheek to my chest.

"What's the planet called?" she asked. "Is there a name?"

"Yes. Ix-Chel."

"What?"

"It's a goddess... Of fertility and the rainbow."

"Yes, perfect!" and Virunka kissed me firmly on the cheek.

...At ten o'clock Elsa went to bed, Vira immersed herself in reading, and I unfolded the tablet on the table. I don't even remember at what moment I decided to search for "Ix-Chel."

The Maya Indians generally never depicted women as beautiful in our understanding, but I saw nothing bad in the image of the goddess: a sturdy busty girl with a well-fed rabbit on her lap. Solid prosperity. Quite a successful symbol of the rainbow prospects of the newly-minted colony... What happened on Hun-Ahau is, of course, horrific, but in my case the name promises no deceit. Unless we're in for some very dangerous oversized rabbits...

I looked through two more articles on Maya mythology, until I came across another image. If not for the caption below, I would have thought it was a completely different deity. But it was her—the same goddess of the rainbow and fertility. The article noted that later the Maya for some reason stopped depicting Ix-Chel in the image of a girl with a rabbit on her lap... They began to draw her differently...

In the image of an old woman with jaguar eyes.

7

The bus smoothly swayed on the magnetic cushion and started off, leaving behind the port of Tokyo, shining in the morning twilight. The largest transport hub that carries out any flights: from international within Earth to intergalactic—to any point of developed space. And if they accept me into the Conquistador Corps, then to distant Naosu, where, according to calculations, was the starting point of the main jump, and from there to the incredibly distant Large Magellanic Cloud—we'll also be launching from here. If, of course, I pass the exam...

The optimist in me said that since they paid for the flight both ways and issued quite generous per diems, I was almost accepted. The pessimist philosophically noted that it's unknown what's worse—to fail the exam or to pass it and fly toward god-knows-what. There was also a frightened skeptic who kept repeating that they'll open my file at the medical commission and someone will unceremoniously say: "Did you see what syndrome he has? Hereditary time bomb! Who even calls them here?!"

calls them here?!" And then he'll turn to me and ask snidely: "Are you even aware that you can't be given weapons? Lord, with such a diagnosis you can't even be given a hair dryer in the bathroom!"

Outside the window it was raining. The argon glow of advertising billboards in the pale light of the gray morning still seemed bright. Japan had changed little over these years. At least the highway connecting the spaceport located in the ocean with Honshu Island differed only in the content of advertising boards. I wanted to open the window to breathe in the moist air with the smell of the sea. I loved such weather. Loved it precisely here, where the sky is so often low and cloudy, and the air in the morning is so moist that even without rain tiny water droplets settle on your face. Perhaps I shouldn't have left. Shouldn't have gotten attached to such a cozy and carefree Kyiv. Tokyo is much better suited for someone who wants to race through life at full speed without touching the brakes. I shouldn't have met Vira. Then Elsa wouldn't have been born either, who suddenly broke my wonderful, ancient as the world, plan "live fast—die young"...

The large artificial island ended, and the bus smoothly plunged into the brightly lit throat of the tunnel laid along the seabed. The electric motors gradually raised their bass voices to a melodious tenor, and the bright spots of LED lamps outside the window merged into shining white stripes. We were accelerating to hypersonic speed. My shoulders were pressed to the seat, and my head became five times heavier. Looking out the window was now not easy, moreover, the flickering of light stripes caused dizziness, so I turned away, put the back of my head on the headrest and closed my eyes.

What are you doing, buddy? Seriously—what are you doing? There's no way back, understand?

Still better than sitting without a penny and waiting for that cursed protein in my cells to mutate and start eating the brain... But I still won't pass a hundred times. Maybe they called by mistake altogether. A mistake—that's what this is! Not for nothing was I not needed by them for eight whole years. And now my application ended up in the wrong folder. Or a trainee who wanted to break the record for the number of calls per day mixed something up... It can't be that they won't dig deep enough.

Then what are you, Gil, doing on this bus? As always, instead of making a decision, you relied on chance?

And there is no decision. Probably there will be one soon. But for now, the bank gave us a three-month extension only because smart Virunka thought to send them my invitation to the interview at the Corps. So at this moment—no problems, no decisions. I'm just riding in a tunnel. And what will happen next—nobody knows...

The inertial compensators howled. We shot through the strait in a matter of minutes and were now dropping speed, approaching the exit. I looked out the window again. The white stripes of lights turned into blurred dotted lines. Ahead through the windshield it was visible that the tunnel smoothly curved upward, rising from the ocean floor.

Warning signs began to appear oncoming. I could see the instrument panel—the distance sensor on it showed that to the nearest vehicle ahead was less than two kilometers. The speedometer numbers began to fall rapidly to the "1000 km/h" mark and below.

Two gravicycles overtook us, as if the speed limit wasn't for them. And considering that gravicycles don't have autopilots... Damn, how I envied those guys right now who had saddled amazing power! I closed my eyes, feeling how inertia, counteracting braking, persistently pushed me forward, and imagined how the bikers feel now, rapidly rushing past the slowed-down tin cans... The roar of wind beyond the aerodynamic pocket... Sharp, last-moment braking—the howl of compensators—almost cosmic overloads—turn! And again insane acceleration to supersonic speed...

Vira always said that gravicycles are just expensive toys. And you can't put them on the scales with such important things as family. And if you think about it, of course, she's right... But depriving me of my "Tsunami," she seemed to take away a piece of myself... And yet I love her, despite everything... Probably still love...

Already at the tunnel exit I felt that my heart was beating much faster than usual. A feeling of light tremor in my fingers appeared. I raised my palm and looked at it carefully. Thank God, they're not trembling. But that there's not a shred of confidence before the exam anymore, that's a fact.

Outside the window, artificial light gave way to the milky haze of a foggy morning. There was no rain here. Behind the five-meter transparent fence of the highway towered Tokyo with swarms of air transport. After hypersonic speeds, movement at six hundred kilometers per hour seemed

almost crawling, and I looked with satisfaction at the cliffs of the planet's tallest skyscrapers floating past us.

Yesterday I dared to call Djokhar and say that I was flying to the exam. I was grateful that he didn't try to dissuade me anymore. I asked him about the chances of passing the selection, and everything turned out more complicated than I thought. Djokhar was sure that the tests themselves were nonsense. Standards, knowledge of the characteristics of various types of weapons, or so-called "shock interviews" (like unexpected shooting at you above your ear)—this is supposedly just for show.

To weed out complete idiots, Djokhar said that in the Corps they pay attention to two things in general. First—they try to understand "whether you'll bite through someone's throat if they back you into a corner." That's what Djokhar thinks. And here the tests have nothing to do with anything. If you're like that, they'll understand. And the second—unfortunately, completely unclear in their criteria—a kind of factor "B," about which it's only known that it's evaluated by a separate commission. That's all.

If you're zero at math and write your name with mistakes, if you're under investigation or even escaped from prison, if you have problems with physical training and you're lazy as a pig—the Corps doesn't care. They've fully absorbed the principle "can't—we'll teach, don't want—we'll force." The main thing is that when they drive you into a corner, you can bite through a throat. And then—if everything's fine with you regarding factor "B," then you're a conquistador. That simple.

And in a corner I was definitely capable of a lot...

The Tokyo headquarters of the Conquistador Corps was located in a separate building—incredible luxury for Japan. No big signs, of course. But two armed conquistadors at the entrance were a quite eloquent indicator.

I kept repeating to myself that nothing was decided yet. That they won't take me a hundred times and all that. And that it'll be for the better. But in my soul I couldn't get rid of the thought that now is my only chance to solve everything in one fell swoop: the loan, lack of work, protein mutation... and also the absence of sex with Vira for six months, her whining about loneliness, my depression...—Ix-Chel could become our El Dorado.

...The heavy doors of thick transparent macromolecular slid aside, and I found myself in the reception area. One of the reception areas... Where they met people like me. A familiar feeling gripped me... I call

End of Chunk 04

its "smell of money." It's a special atmosphere. Not luxury, not deliberate demonstration of wealth, no. It's an atmosphere you feel in companies where they don't think about whether something could be done cheaper. Why cheaper? It's the best floor covering, the best furniture, the best design... The reception area looked like the captain's bridge of a space liner as depicted in movies. That is—huge, radiant, all so... cosmic!

The real liner bridge is different—small, uncomfortable, thoroughly metal, cut by yellow demarcation lines and warning signs... Do not cross, do not touch, do not handle... More likely, recruits like me found themselves in such luxury as here for the first time and last. And, in case of success, the grim reality of warships awaited them...

"Greetings! My name is Max, I'm the recruiting manager of the private military company 'Conquistador Corps.'"

I turned around in surprise at the voice: to hear such pure English in Japan is rare. Max was European. A pleasant young man, my peer by the looks of it, in blue pants and a white shirt, with a tablet in his hand. He extended his hand to me.

"Gil," I said, shaking it.

"Gil, now we'll head to the test zone, where you'll pass several uncomplicated trials. In some cases you'll receive specific tasks, and sometimes we'll expect your reaction to a situation without giving any instructions. After testing, a small interview awaits you, based on the results of which we'll either confirm our invitation to the Corps or not. All this will take no more than three hours. Are you ready?"

"Uncomplicated tests," "small interview," "either confirm or not"—such a feeling that I need to find out what I am according to my horoscope... On the other hand, he probably has a dozen like me per day...

"Do I... Need anything else? To..."

"Empty out your phone and everything metal or macromolecular... And—good mood!" he poked a special plastic locked container at me and smiled widely, like a real salesman from a boutique.

Good mood? It seemed like all this wasn't real. Somehow too... frivolous or what. I mentally mimicked his inappropriate

manner of expression: "If you don't pass the selection, you'll have the opportunity to jump from the skyscraper roof this very evening! And if you pass, you'll go to a planet where they'll skin you, and you might even manage to record it on your gadget!" Interesting, is this strange cheerfulness a feature of this specific manager or their policy?

I laid out everything he said.

"May I?" a portable metal detector beeped in Max's hand.

I obediently spread my arms to the sides.

He most thoroughly set about checking, starting with the shoulders. As soon as he brought the device to my right side, it beeped worriedly.

"What do you have there?" Max asked in surprise.

"An implant. I'll show you the certificate."

I took the wallet from the container and handed him the card. He just as carefully studied it and even wrote down the serial number.

"Thank you," Max nodded. "No problems."

Then he just as thoroughly finished the inspection, but the metal detector didn't make another sound. Next Max as if casually pushed a pile of papers at me warning that the private military company "Conquistador Corps" is not responsible for any consequences of future tests. I—just as casually—signed, without reading too carefully.

And then I felt Vira's hand take my wrist and lightly squeeze—phone neuro-call. I recorded it when we were just dating. Characteristic Vira manner—to hold you by the hand, looking into your eyes, and if you delay, impatiently squeeze your wrist. A gesture meaning: "Well—make up your mind!"

"Excuse me," I muttered to Max. Had to take the phone from the container. "Hello!"

"Hi! So what, Gil, did you pass?" Virka's voice was everyday, the tone you ask what subway station you're at.

"Virunka, would I really not have called you?! I just arrived."

"Well, okay, when you pass, call! Get some document from them right away for the bank, okay? We still have a ton of stuff to buy for the trip. And by the way, we don't even know the departure date."

"Vira..." I wanted to say something like "They haven't taken me anywhere yet," but glancing at Max, I changed my mind. "I'll call. Wish

me luck!"

"Good luck, Gil!" and she disconnected. Before I could thank her.

I stood for a second, collecting my thoughts. Then I turned off the phone and put it back in the container. It seems that's all. I decisively slammed the lid and put my finger to the fingerprint scanner.

"Ready?" Max beamed like a souvenir thousand hryvnia note.

If only I knew for what...

"Ready," I answered seriously.

"Follow my instructions, please. Let's go."

8

The elevator rapidly carried us somewhere down. Much lower than the first floor, as far as I could imagine. Max became focused. He was silent and didn't look at me. I tried not to think about testing. Even good if I don't pass. I'll try my luck at the dolphinarium... Now, of course, it'll be hard. I'll have to borrow money from someone. And the bank will take the apartment, so... But eventually everything will work out!

If you don't become a dancing fool. So I'm begging you, buddy, pass these damn tests! Then you'll at least have insurance...

The floor we got off at was not at all like the radiant company reception. Gray polished walls of something like composite plastic—smooth as glass. The Corps emblem on the wall right opposite the elevator: the fanged skull of some beast, half-burned by something like a thermal emitter, from this the edges have a characteristic melted form, and through the half-destroyed right eye socket you can see flame inside... All this in a wreath of stylized spacesuit life support tubes and barbed ribbon wire.

"We'll start with a medical examination and, if all goes well, move on to tests," Max said indifferently, and in my stomach a circus acrobat broke loose from his rope.

"Just now?" I asked stupidly.

"What exactly?"

I quickly corrected myself, afraid he'd notice my agitation:

"The medical exam results—so fast?"

"Of course. Without them there's no point tormenting you with tests."

I nodded gloomily.

The next doors slid aside in front of us. Right behind them was a short corridor, completely white and brightly lit. Waiting chairs along one wall, two doors with numbers "1" and "2" opposite and two bored men in chairs—both in the same white shirts as Max.

"Salut! You've been here long?" he asked cheerfully.

"Mine just went in," answered one.

"Five minutes," the second shrugged.

Max pressed a button in the wall, and a ticket with a number rode out from under it. We sat in the chairs. My heart pounded like crazy. The acrobat who broke loose from under the dome inside me was helplessly thrashing on the safety net. It's all fine, buddy. Whether you pass or not—they won't eat you there!

Mentally I kept returning either to the argument with Vira or to the conversation with Djokhar, trying to convince myself that failing everything would be for the best. You wanted an extension from the bank? Here you go! Blow everything here as quickly as possible, and you'll still have a month to look for work!

But my acrobat, bouncing on the net, whispered with just his lips: "If only I could pass! Lord, let me pass this cursed medical exam!"

One door opened. I barely flinched at the click of the lock and mentally cursed myself. A gloomy tall guy came out. It seemed to me he was upset, and I expected he'd say to his manager any moment: "Didn't pass." But then Max said: "Our turn," and the guy started looking at me with interest, never saying anything.

Max opened the door, letting me go first. I entered.

"Gilel Girshevich," Max said behind my back and loudly read my individual number, "sixteen zero twenty-four delta-bravo-bravo!"

"Bravo-bravo" echoed in my head, and I imagined they were shouting it to that acrobat who fell from the rope and is still trying to climb down from the net somewhere in the region of my stomach. And then I added "bis" from myself and smiled internally at this joke. Singularity to you all up your asses!

Max closed the door behind my back.

There were several people in white coats in the room, they sat facing projection monitors and didn't even turn their heads in my direction. The only one who looked at me was a gray-haired Japanese man about sixty in appearance.

"Stand here, please," he addressed me in English, pointing to a diagnostic box that resembled some futuristic time machine. "Take off your shoes, please. And your socks, please, remove them."

I took off my shoes and stood on the imprints of bare feet drawn on the floor of the box. Right in front of me on the wall were the same panels with handprints, and I pressed my palms to them.

"Please place your feet and palms on the diagnostic panels with the corresponding symbols," the Japanese man belatedly instructed and added another "please."

My heart was pounding somewhere in my throat. I expected that maybe something would beep or light up, but nothing happened. Silence fell. The Japanese man stepped back a few steps. Something beeped. The gray-haired man quietly spoke with someone in Japanese. A woman's voice answered him. Then the Japanese man addressed me again in English: "Do you suffer from heartburn?"

"Sometimes..." I said uncertainly.

Again a quiet exchange of phrases in Japanese.

"Mr. Girshevich," a woman's voice suddenly said loudly, "fifteen years ago you consulted a doctor..."

My heart clanked and seemed to stop beating.

Fourteen, to be precise. Until thirty-five there was still a whole eternity, but I decided I couldn't stand this uncertainty anymore. The Institute of Genetics was located on a huge territory planted with fir trees. From building to building neat asphalt paths ran. Once father underwent examination here. Back then it didn't occur to me that I'd come here soon too. Then for a long time there was no time for that.

And now, finally, I'm walking between ideally whitewashed curbs, heavily moving legs cotton from agitation. The disease either manifests spontaneously, at an undefined moment from thirty-five to forty-four, or—never manifests at all... An elderly professor reread father's medical history for a long time, and then opened great-grandfather's

file that I brought. And finally, removing, putting back on and removing his glasses again, in an apologetic tone he issued his verdict: I inherited the abnormal protein from my father. After thirty-five the probability of pathological changes is fifty percent.

"Yes, I consulted..." I answered the question and didn't recognize my voice: it came out so strained and pitiful, as if someone was squeezing out the remains of toothpaste from a tube that had emptied a week ago.

"Regarding an ankle fracture," the woman's voice continued.

"Ankle?" I turned around in surprise to see who was speaking.

"Please do not change body position," the gray-haired Japanese man immediately jerked me.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Ankle, yes..."

My God, ankle! I didn't even remember right away. Well, of course! There was such a thing!

"Yes, I remember!" I repeated for certainty, and now it sounded more joyful, and therefore idiotic.

"Does this injury bother you today?" the woman's voice asked.

"Not at all!" I turned again and managed to see a large, human-height holographic image of my leg with bones and blood vessels visible inside.

"Please, do not change..." the gray-haired Japanese man started, but I immediately turned back to the previous position.

"Yes-yes, sorry," I said and scolded myself for the noticeable enthusiasm in my voice.

"Do you feel pain or discomfort in your leg with sharp weather changes, pressure or humidity fluctuations..."

"No, not at all."

"...with physical exertion..."

"No."

"...when you run, jump from a height..."

"No."

"...or with improper foot placement?"

"No, nothing like that. No."

Silence fell. They again quietly conversed in Japanese. I turned my head, squinting my eyes as much as possible. The gray-haired man stood with his

back to me next to some woman in a white coat, pointing with his hand at something on the volumetric hologram of my foot.

"Mr. Girshevich," the gray-haired man's voice sounded. "Did this injury bother you in any way during your service in the army?"

"No, not at all," I answered, as indifferently and clearly as possible.

"We're asking for your own safety," he continued, "since we want to help you avoid any health-related problems during your service in the Conquistador Corps."

"Of course, sir," I answered, trying to restrain my own breathing. "No problems with this leg, sir."

They whispered some more.

"Do you have any other problems or chronic diseases?" the woman's voice asked again.

"Well... I've had an artificial kidney since I was three..."

"Yes, it's indicated here. Does it bother you?"

"Not at all!"

"Has it ever bothered you after the end of the rehabilitation period?"

"Never," for persuasiveness (and unnecessarily) I shook my head.

"Get dressed, please."

I stumbled twice trying to get my foot, wooden from agitation, into my shoe. Finally, having somehow laced up my shoes, I went out.

Only outside the door did I realize I hadn't heard any answer.

"And when will we find out?" I asked Max.

I didn't specify what exactly, but he immediately understood. Smiling, he checked his tablet.

"Medical test passed! Congratulations. It'll be harder from here."

If only you knew, buddy... If only you knew...

We left the white corridor and soon found ourselves at smooth gray doors without symbols and markings. It seems it only now started to dawn on me what had happened. I passed the medical commission! I don't understand how, but I—passed...

"The test zone begins from here," Max said seriously, without his former enthusiasm. "You perform each task in a separate room. Try to spend minimum time, it affects the result."

He put his palm to the sensor, the lock clicked, and Max opened the door, letting me go first.

A room. A high table (the kind you had to stand in front of) with a touch screen display. Max didn't say a word. On the display—rows of images, sequences of words. For several seconds I couldn't believe everything was really so easy—elementary logical sequences! One sequence needs to be continued, from another exclude the extra element. "Pear, apple, orange, monkey..." Cross out the monkey. Kindergarten. I answered 20 such tasks without wasting time on thinking.

Next room. Banal vision check.

Next. Reaction exercise.

Then more interesting. A table divided by an opaque partition, two chairs on different sides. A girl in a coat on one of them. I sat on the other. The partition turned out to be a touch screen monitor.

"Good afternoon," the girl greeted. "I'll choose pictograms on my monitor. You—on yours, and each time you must guess my symbol. For choosing the first you have a minute, for each next—20 seconds."

It was felt that she was speaking well-learned text.

"Can I ask a question?" I stood up to see her over the partition.

"Of course."

"Is this a telepathy test?"

"The essence of the test has been sufficiently revealed to you, sit down."

Well, thank you. I'm sitting down. The chair is hard. On the touch screen 32 pictograms. A tree, a boat, an atmospheric module—like in a children's book.

From the other side a melodious "bam" sounded.

"I've chosen the first symbol. Each time you hear such a signal, you must choose."

I tried to focus. "You must guess my symbol"—do they want telepathic abilities from me? Nonsense, nobody has even proven they exist. Some kind of intuition? Same thing... A minute

for the first symbol... Why more than for the others? Should I understand the principle? I closed my eyes for a few seconds. Yes. If it's telepathy or other nonsense—that's not for me. Everything will be off, I might as well not press anything. On the other hand, this isn't that kind of outfit. What do they need? To back me into a corner and see what I can do. What do they want? For me to choose the same symbol. How? They didn't specify.

I sharply opened my eyes. Exactly. "The essence of the test has been sufficiently revealed to you." That is, there are no other restrictions. 15 seconds left. 14...

I quickly stood up and walked around the table. Internally I even cringed, expecting to be told to sit back down, but nothing like that happened. I looked at the girl's monitor. Crescent. Quickly returned and, without sitting, pressed such a symbol on mine. "Bam"—she chose another symbol. I looked at her monitor again. Fish. Pressed mine.

After the fifth "bam" she said "enough."

"Does this count as cheating?" I couldn't help asking.

"You didn't break any rules and fit into the allotted time. But you could have been faster."

She smiled almost imperceptibly. Or did I imagine it?

"Faster? Figure it out sooner? Or run faster?"

"Ask me what I pressed."

"Damn! Really!"

Now she was definitely smiling:

"But your method has its own plus."

"What?"

"Answering, I could have told a lie."

This was getting interesting...

Another door closed behind me. An elongated room, like a corridor. At the opposite end—also a door. On a metal table—several weapon samples. The variety was impressive.

Here's a brand new induction pistol, next to it—a completely ancient laser, from those where the base is still an ethylene combustion reaction. And right away—a modern, terribly expensive solid-state pulse blaster. And here's a bulky "heat rifle"—a laser that generates an absolutely invisible beam that melts steel like plastic... And something else incredible that I didn't even identify.

In the room, besides Max and me, there was no one.

"If not for the ethylene laser, I would have thought you have an exhibition of weapons manufacturing achievements here," I said jokingly.

But the guide decided not to notice my witticism.

"So," Max's tone was absolutely serious, "if you need a weapon behind the next doors, which would you choose and why?"

"This one. The inductor."

Max looked at me expectantly.

"I have a decent shot record with such. Good thing. The heat rifle—also a familiar piece, but not very convenient indoors. The ethylene blaster—junk... From the solid-state I shot only once... The rest—I never even held in my hands."

"Good, answer accepted. Let's move on."

With these words he pressed his hand on the door, and it, instead of sliding aside like all normal doors, turned around its axis. A revolving door. But the point isn't that, but that Max simply—bam!—and found himself on the other side, and the door, having turned, was closed again. I didn't understand, is this test—over? Or were the words about weapons needed on the other side—not just like that? Should I take the pistol or not? And no one to ask. But the trick with guessing pictograms taught me a lot. I took the inductor, checked the coil charge level and ammunition, stuck it behind my belt and approached the door. Locked. I hesitantly stopped, but literally in a few seconds something clicked and the door lightly jerked. Open. Waiting another moment, I entered through the revolving door.

9

Darkness. Something unbearably clearly reminded me of Proxima. Jungle. Eternal, endless rain... I seemed to even smell the scents... Rain, withered leaves and tropical herbs... And the painfully familiar sour smell with notes of smoke... The memory was very vivid. My heart started pounding like crazy. I myself didn't understand why all this suddenly surfaced in my memory now. Apparently, I just haven't held weapons in my hands for a long time...

I squinted briefly, and then again started peering into the darkness. Black as pitch. Blood pulses in my temples. Unexpectedly for myself

I discovered that the pistol was already in my hand. So instincts are working.

And now what? They're probably watching me through night vision devices... What do they want to find out? How will I react in a dangerous situation? Is this the corner they've backed me into? And what if I start shooting? The inductor is combat, real, I just checked myself. So it turns out—I could kill someone? And considering that no one gave me an order to take weapons from the previous room... Nonsense, they wouldn't have laid out a loaded pistol if it wasn't intended for this room... Or—is that the point of the check? How should I act? Do nothing without an order or be ready for danger at any moment?

The first thing that happens in complete darkness—you stop feeling the flow of time. How long have I been here? Theoretically—about two minutes, no more... But I was already starting to doubt. Something clearly clicked several times somewhere ahead and to the right. I immediately crouched on one knee and aimed at the sound. What if there are people there? Instructors of this damned company who underestimated me? How to behave?

Or just call Max? After all, sometimes everything here is extremely simple... No, that's unreasonable. In a combat situation I would never do such a thing, I'd be afraid to reveal myself. So, not that. Stand up and try to find the exit? Not that... What in general can be in a dark room that you can fire at with an inductor without problems? A robot? Or will lit targets appear now?

And then I understood. Felt. Smelled it. Everything merged in my head into a single picture. That's why the darkness. That's what the pile of papers is for saying no one is responsible here for my life. That's where the memories of the disastrous swamps of Proxima come from. Sour smell with notes of smoke. I hadn't smelled it for almost ten years and thought—I won't smell it again. Damn, until this second I didn't even know I still remembered it! I froze, completely turning into hearing. Everything fits. Here's who you can fire at without problems, who sees in the dark and who will "test" you to the fullest!

Damn swamp spiders of Proxima.

Huge as a good calf, predatory arthropods. In Latin they're called "lycosa satanas," that is "satanic tarantula," and in my opinion that's too mild a name. To say I was very scared at that moment—that doesn't convey even a tenth of my horror. Physically felt a lump of pain and nausea somewhere in the solar plexus region.

My heart pounded like crazy. There wasn't enough air. My desperate attempts to quiet my breathing echoed with dull pain in my chest. With my own eyes I saw these creatures only once. From a platoon of fifteen fighters, two of us survived. Up to our ears smeared with someone else's blood, we ran, dragging on ourselves what remained of the third... Not understanding that this scrap of human body simply couldn't be alive...

I froze, almost stopped breathing.

The spider attacks its victim as soon as it moves—swiftly, faster than an earth snake. But freezing—that's also not the solution. The beast will approach close enough and still at some point in a matter of seconds will tear you to pieces with powerful chelicerae. So—need to shoot. And as quickly as possible.

True, after the very first shot the spider will rush at me like stung. The flash will illuminate the room only for a moment. I'll need to manage to see it and aim more precisely. And if I don't manage to finish it off in a second and a half—I'm done for.

So, need to manage.

I took three deep and slow breaths. Held my breath "on half-exhale." Aimed in the direction from which the clicking of the creature's paws had come before.

Let's hope there's only one spider here... And I smoothly pressed the trigger. Flash!

There were six spiders.

End of Chunk 05

Part 2

The Girl with the Rabbit on Her Lap

1

When the heavy hatch of the ship's airlock began to slowly slide aside and white sunlight burst into the luminescent artificial day of the landing shuttle, I was overcome with happiness. Pleasure. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams, and I thought that even such an ordinary sight as this was a rarity in the damn void called "space." The combat suit squeezed my body pleasantly. Brand new, without a single scratch, with bright, not yet worn emblems of the Conquistador Corps on the shoulder plates and helmet.

According to protocol, any landing in a "conquest zone" had to be carried out by the advance squad in full combat gear with weapons at the ready. As a biologist, and with my luck, I naturally ended up in the advance squad. The others would be able to simply walk down the ramp. But I actually liked it better this way.

I reached for the rifle on my back, and the sensors in the suit, guessing my intention, helpfully signaled the steady-shot equipment. The mechanical "arm" of the stadishot whirred as my fingers touched the barrel, smoothly "feeding" the heavy induction rifle from behind my back. This was just a toy! Now the weapon swayed smoothly at chest level, supported by a three-jointed robotic manipulator attached to my back. In the army, you couldn't even dream of such a thing. The stadishot completely negated the weight of the weapon while allowing you to shoot on the run, compensating for almost any terrain irregularities...

Wow!

I was pleased as punch. And even hummed inside my suit. Especially since this combat outing was truly a formality for us — the "fourth wave" conquistadors on the planet.

I have to admit, after that damned test I was very offended at the Corps... If you can call it that — the feeling of a person who died and then learned that the death was fake... Getting into the neuroconstructor is very close to what, in my imagination, awaits us in hell. So after the trial, I even had a thought to spitefully reject their offer... But then it turned out that I didn't just pass the test, but did it somehow incredibly well and all that. A special commission concluded that I sufficiently possessed the mysterious factor "B," and the Corps offered me a contract... And everything was decided. Hell knows how, but they managed to get a person with a fifty-fifty chance of becoming a fool into the corps... Probably just got lucky.

A sharp siren blared. Following protocol, we cheerfully jumped out of the hatch in combat formation.

Well, greetings, Ix-Chel.

"March! March! March!"

The commanding voice with a metallic note belonged to a woman. Short, with an almost boyish build, sharp facial features, and quick, somewhat nervous movements. She wore a well-fitted uniform adorned with colonel's insignia. With a gesture, she indicated where and at what pace we should move. The lady colonel, whoever she was, had obviously come out to demonstrate that this wasn't a resort and we were conquistadors, not girls on the beach. But from the fact that she herself was in an ordinary field uniform without a combat suit, with only an induction pistol at her side, and stood carelessly on a height, it was quite clear that this was ordinary military farce. There was no danger, of course. But we, like idiots, up to our ears in armor and with heavy rifles at the ready, obediently rushed in the indicated direction as if we were in the crosshairs of a dozen enemy snipers... The army. That's its charm and its eternal stupidity: orders trump common sense.

Through the black volcanic sand, everything around had a rather gloomy appearance, organically complemented by a low overcast sky. We lined up and froze. I looked around. The camp was quite large, surrounded by a high dense forest. At least from here it looked like a forest. A protective perimeter was already visible. The huge landing module of our ship was lost in the spacious territory of the colony.

The colonel unhurriedly approached us and walked along the line. Young for her rank — a little over forty — but judging by her gaze, she had seen a lot in her life. Very light, almost faded blue eyes and equally colorless hair tied in a tight ponytail, a thin mouth that seemed completely devoid of lips, and a miniature, doll-like nose. Looking at her, I wavered between the assessments "pretty" and "plain."

The squad commander stepped forward to report, but the colonel indicated with a nod that it was unnecessary. She looked us over from head to toe, obviously enjoying the moment.

"What conclusion can you draw from seeing a person without a suit on an alien planet?" she asked with unexpected melodiousness in her voice, in the English commonly used in international missions.

Our people froze at attention. The squad commander — we had briefly met during the flight — was an ordinary rank-and-file soldier, and it was hardly worth expecting him to be the first to understand where the colonel was leading.

"I'll give you a hint," she said and smiled at the corner of her lips. "I'm alive!"

Well, at least she had a sense of humor. I had probably gotten unaccustomed to army thick-headedness, because unlike my squadmates, I dared to open my helmet visor without orders.

"The air is breathable, ma'am!" I barked.

And froze for a second, wondering if I'd get chewed out. But apparently, I'd done the right thing.

"One out of twenty has a brain! Could have been worse!" she looked at me approvingly and briefly commanded the squad to open their helmets.

Behind her, the rest of the conquistadors and civilians were exiting the module. I spotted my people in the crowd — Vira and Elza, they were walking hand in hand. An unpleasant feeling sucked at my chest — I should be with them now, helping them settle in here, thousands of light years from home, but I couldn't. Now I was an indentured person. A small and so unusual nuance of life in a colony with family — they're nearby, and at the same time I'm far from them. And if Elza saw me now and ran up, I would have to stand like an idiot, waiting for orders. And then I'd get it for my family disrupting the routine...

"I am Colonel Nicole Angela Vandlik," the lady with faded eyes introduced herself, "senior control officer of the Ix-Chel mission!"

Senior control officer — an interesting position. Formally, it's the deputy commander responsible for security. In practice — he's equal to the commander in authority, and in some cases has more rights. After all, if the camp commander is like a ship's captain, then the control officer is an admiral. He's responsible for the mission's success. He doesn't care about logistics, discipline, routine, supplies. None of that. Until something threatens the chances of completing the task assigned to the colony. As I've heard, sometimes no one except the control officer knows this task. Well, and security is what control officers worry about daily. So to speak, in the breaks between strategic decisions.

"From this second, your safety on base is my responsibility," Nicole Angela Vandlik was saying. "I love discipline, but I don't love stupidity. What's more, there's no worse fool than an overconfident fool. So think about it!"

She paused, as if trying to understand what impression her words had made on us.

"On this planet — there are two worlds. One — inside the protective perimeter erected around the camp," Vandlik gestured around. "This is where category 'A' awaits you, successful service, and a happy departure day in three years. But the world beyond the perimeter is different! It demands attention and caution!"

At these words, Vandlik pulled a holographic pointer from her pocket and ran it in front of her. A volumetric two-meter image of a strange primate-like creature appeared, its hairless skin lying in massive, rhinoceros-like folds, and its face adorned with powerful tusks. The creature was sniffing something on the ground, occasionally listening alertly.

"This is a forest devil," Vandlik said. "Video taken the day before yesterday just a hundred meters from the Perimeter. Males weigh about half a ton. Very fast and incredibly strong. They jump on prey from ambush."

Vandlik switched something on the pointer. The forest devil was replaced by a huge reptile resembling a crocodile, but with "knees" protruding to the sides of six long legs.

"Fish lizard. Amphibian. On land it develops speeds up to one hundred and ten kilometers per hour. Six-meter tongue covered with a layer of toxic slime."

Next, a mixture of a centipede and a lawnmower appeared on the sand, with menacingly large mandibles, completely covered with sharp chitinous spikes.

"Death beetle. Forty-kilogram poisonous arthropod. Paralyzes prey and lays larvae in it. Hunts warm-blooded creatures," Vandlik surveyed us with a predatory gaze. "Who didn't understand, warm-blooded means you too! But! The fauna is not aggressive if you don't do stupid things! From the day of the reconnaissance landing until now, there hasn't been a single attack on a human. And there won't be, if no one conceives some idiocy! I hope everyone understands well — category 'A' doesn't yet guarantee you won't break your neck falling from an all-terrain vehicle. The same goes for those who find the local animals insufficiently scary. Any questions?"

There were no questions.

"Welcome to Ix-Chel! Now — dismissed!" and without waiting for the command to be executed, Vandlik walked off somewhere into the depths of the camp, marking her step in a masculine way.

The residential blocks were located further away. The barracks too. But my position allowed me to live outside the barracks. So I hurried to help my people settle in. I couldn't wait to change into field uniform. The combat suit made me look like a cross between a robot and a medieval knight.

I caught up with the family at the residential block. Separate entrance for each family, large window next to the door. Just like a vacation bungalow on the islands. If not for the twenty-centimeter-thick armored door and armored shutters on the window...

I gallantly picked up Vira's suitcase right at the entrance, with my other hand — Elza. Another time, my wife would certainly have muttered something caustic, hinting that help was no longer needed. But not now.

"Sir conquistador!" Virunchik made a funny curtsy.

"I prefer 'señor'!" bowing my head, I pressed my hand to my chest.

Elza jumped down and ran into the house with a delighted exclamation.

"We have a little house, hooray!"

"Little" was because she'd only been in Kyiv skyscrapers. And places like this, Elza had only seen from a bus window on the express highway and in cartoons.

I resolutely carried the suitcase across the threshold, making sure that help was truly not needed: all the heavy stuff had already been carried without Vira. But it seemed my conquista therapy was working — Vira accepted my help like a schoolgirl whose backpack is being carried for her!

"Daddy! Daddy!" Elza shouted, first running into another room and then returning. "What looks like a turtle and barks, but isn't a dog?"

I thought she'd found something.

"Where? Where did you see that? Didn't touch it with your hands?"

"Come on, Daddy! It's a riddle!"

Virka snorted with laughter.

"I see... Looks like a turtle, you say?" I hid a smile at the corners of my mouth, pretending to think.

"And barks, but it's not a dog!" Elza beamed with happiness.

"Well... Maybe it's a dog that crawled under a coffee table?"

"Wrong! Give up?"

"I give up," I sighed submissively.

"It's a turtle that swallowed a dog, and now it's barking inside! But all the people — they didn't see the turtle do it! They were at home getting ready for work. So they think it's the turtle barking!"

And Elza ran off to her future bedroom. All the furniture we'd chosen and even arranged in advance in a special app was already in place.

"You'll wear your armor to bed tonight," Virunchik playfully tapped on my breastplate.

Our apartment consisted of two tiny bedrooms, a small living room, kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. The entrance door was double, a small vestibule between them equipped as a sort of disinfection airlock, where if necessary a person in a suit could be treated with a special solution. But now the inner door was constantly open, which once again confirmed — the planet had been studied and declared safe.

"How are you? Sure you've recovered from the test?" Vira caringly looked into my eyes and even took my hand.

How long ago she'd done this! So long ago that I'd even stopped noticing her beauty. But it was true — Virunchik was if not a magazine beauty, then at least an insanely pretty character from a Japanese cartoon. Slender, graceful, with mischievous little eyes and a perfectly charming smile. People like her get stared at on public transport. People like her get overtaken on the street so they can look at her face and make sure it's as beautiful as everything else.

Suddenly I felt inappropriate arousal, and Virka somehow instantly read it in my eyes.

"You beast! Take off the suit first!" her usual acerbity was again taking on a good-natured tone, and her gaze indicated that tonight our personal life would be completely restored. On all fronts.

Vira went to unpack the suitcases. I approached the armor storage niche and began unfastening the suit elements.

"By the way, I seriously asked about your well-being," she called from the next room.

"Everything's fine, you know. I passed a hundred and fifty checks..."

"After the neuroconstructor you should really have taken about three months off."

The neuroconstructor... After the entrance exam to the Corps, I shuddered at the very word. The most disgusting invention of humanity. It generated infrasound of a certain frequency that caused uncontrollable fear in a person. The subconscious, trying to explain this fear, immediately found images. Something this person fears most in the world. The neuroconstructor read these images and generated a phantom. A controlled hallucination. But the most terrifying thing — the brain readily accepted this phantom as reality... In simpler terms, the neuroconstructor brought your worst nightmares to life.

This was supposed to become a weapon of mass destruction: a person who, for example, was torn apart by an imaginary monster, according to the creators' plan, should have died, since their brain was convinced of the reality of the fatal wounds. But in practice, the neuroconstructor's victim lost consciousness, got post-traumatic disorder, but didn't think of dying. What's more, it turned out that the constructor couldn't transmit a signal even a hundred meters — the person had to be inside the generating circuit. So even just scaring enemies wouldn't work. Unless kidnapping them one by one. And the military closed the project. And the Corps — bought it. And this unrealized weapon of mass destruction became an examination simulator.

So in an empty hall in the basements of the Corps in Tokyo, six Proxima swamp spiders appeared. Six imaginary monsters, each of which for my brain was as real as the floor under my feet. The next half-minute, after the flash of my first shot illuminated the dark hall, was the worst nightmare of my life. No, not like that. No word fits. It was unthinkable horror and pain, the most incredible that a living being can feel. I still have a fear of complete darkness. I'm not afraid to sleep at night or anything, but finding myself in total darkness, I feel a surge of uncontrollable animal terror again and again. Because then, at the exam in the Tokyo headquarters, as soon as I pulled the pistol trigger, the beasts rushed at me and tore me to pieces. Literally.

And I felt everything.

How they tore off my leg. How they gouged out my eye. How they ripped open my belly. How one of the creatures stuck its head armed with chelicerae into my wound, tearing out my guts... I screamed and shot. Shot and screamed, trying to kill as many creatures as possible before dying.

When one of the spiders tore off the arm with the weapon, I managed to stick the thumb of my other hand in its eye... I don't remember anything after that — I died.

And the Corps specialists, sitting later in front of monitors, carefully analyzed the recording, studying how long I resisted, comparing my behavior with the pain intensity chart...

Corps medics give a hundred percent guarantee of complete recovery. Physically, the body doesn't suffer. Except for bruises or burns — everything the brain can create on its own. You come to and find yourself alive and completely healthy. Except extremely exhausted. But what you went through dying, giving up your life drop by drop, you can never forget...

I straightened my comfortable field uniform. Much better than in the suit! I hung the pistol on my belt and glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes until formation. I'll have time for coffee. Or maybe... I looked at Virunchik bent over the suitcase... Eh, if only Elza weren't here...

Passing by Virka, I couldn't resist and, like a boy, lightly slapped her. Straightening up, she carefully looked into my eyes with that same professional gaze I once mistakenly took for a look full of tenderness and adoration from a woman in love. Although no, this time the tenderness and love in it were absolutely real. But back then... Back then, if not for my mistake, I would never have dared to storm such an impregnable fortress as Vira seemed. So I had every reason to continue loving that gaze, even after learning its real origin.

"You're looking at me again as if I'm just a client," I said with a smile.

"We don't say 'client,' my dear, you've clearly confused it with some other female profession," Vira deliberately added metal to her voice, but it was clear that she, of course, wasn't serious.

"And how do you say it?"

"Now I don't say it at all. Thanks to your dislike of contraceptives!" she answered caustically.

"As if you didn't want a child," I gently hugged her, looking into her eyes.

Vira folded her arms across her chest, showing she wasn't going to hug back.

"I did, of course, dummy. I didn't plan it — that's true. And I was planning, by the way, to build a career."

"So what did you call clients?"

"You'll like this word too much."

"Then say it!"

"You haven't earned it," she tried to slip out of my embrace, but I didn't let her. "Okay, bore, I'll tell you, just don't get cocky. Participants in TV programs are called 'heroes,' darling. But it has nothing to do with heroism."

"Hero! So that's why you looked that way!"

"I was admiring my work, showoff," and Vira with a smile wriggled out of my embrace and went back to arranging things.

When we met, she worked as a makeup artist on a TV show. That program was about events on Proxima, and the editors needed a simple soldier, like me. Given that I was one of two surviving fighters from my platoon (well, and the circumstance that the "hero" the editors found first got sick), I suited them perfectly.

Finding myself in the makeup room chair, I was nervous, sniffing the smells of cosmetics and ready to protest if they tried to do something stupid to me, like painting my lips... I'd heard that on TV shows they do this even to men, otherwise on the general shot the lips won't be visible on screen... But since the administrator who brought me here had left, and there was no one else in the makeup room, all I could do was nervously sniff like a dog at the vet. My colleagues in service would be missing out if they saw me dolled up with lipstick.

"Good afternoon," a pleasant female voice sounded behind me, and I was pleased to note that the girl who was to work on my appearance was very pretty.

Her figure, despite its miniature size, had all the necessary virtues of an attractive woman, including breasts emphasized by clothing and rounded hips; her lips were thin, but this didn't spoil the impression at all, but made her neat little mouth even more refined; her face harmoniously combined Asian and European features, her nose was tiny and at the same time aristocratic (such noses are usually drawn on cartoon princesses), and her eyes — not really that large — on the almost doll-like face seemed huge.

"So..." she waved her hand over the vanity, where in perfect order, like torture instruments, brushes, sponges, tweezers, combs, and who knows what else were laid out...

Probably noticing how intently my gaze followed her every movement, she smiled indulgently:

"Don't worry, I'll just lightly powder your face so you don't shine... And here, under the eyes, I'll apply a little tone..."

While she was doing this, I happily examined her lips and eyes, feeling a mixture of awkwardness and excitement that the face of an unfamiliar beauty was so close to mine. Sometimes it would take just a careless movement for our lips to collide. And then she, leaning back a little, looked at me with that same look. How to describe it... Imagine a beautiful girl who leaned so close to you that you can feel her minty breath on your cheek. And this girl's eyes focus on your neck, lips, eyes, your hair, and return to your lips again. And her lips at that moment stretch in a barely noticeable smile, as if she'd never in her life seen such a handsome man. As if she's melting with emotion, studying every feature of your face. Back then I was ready to swear that what she wanted most in the world was to kiss me and was trying her hardest to suppress this desire. Her lips came even closer to mine, and I almost felt her careful kiss (of course, only in my imagination). And she... She looked into my eyes with inexpressible tenderness — it seemed, into my very soul — and, tilting her head to the side, slowly removed a strand of hair from my forehead.

In reality, it was just an appraising look from a makeup artist who was in a good mood. But how could I know that! And if with her next movement she had placed her small palm on my cheek, I would have taken it as a natural continuation of that look. And then I would have simply closed my eyes, allowing my face to enjoy the heady coolness of her skin, and my heart to fall with a crash at her feet... But instead she suddenly grabbed a can of hairspray and, before I could remind her of her promise to "just lightly powder," enveloped me in a caustic aerosol cloud.

"Just a little bit," she said, deftly covering my eyes with her palm from the spray stream. "That's it!"

With a sharp movement she removed the napkin that covered my uniform collar, and turned away with such a look as if I'd ceased to exist (this seemed simply unfair after such glances).

"The administrator will pick you up in the corridor, wait there," she informed me matter-of-factly, without turning around.

A few seconds later, noticing that I wasn't going to get up, she turned again:

"Something else?"

"A question," I answered in a hoarser voice than I'd like.

"After the show you'll get wet wipes, the makeup comes off very easily," she said and turned away again.

"Different question."

Waiting until she looked at me again (this time a bit surprised), I asked:

"What's your name?"

She raised an eyebrow, looking as if she'd noticed me in this chair for the first time. Her gaze again slid over my eyes, lips, and shoulders, but there wasn't a trace of the warmth it had radiated a minute ago. Only slight curiosity filled with skepticism.

"Okay," she said for some reason. "Vira. Last name — Ra."

"Vira-ra?"

"Very funny joke. And so original!"

"It's from the internet."

She didn't immediately understand the meaning of my new joke, but then unexpectedly smiled.

"Okay, let's consider you've redeemed yourself. And now I have a terrible amount of work."

2

There's no point in describing the first month in the Ix-Chel colony in detail. Generally, it was routine work at the biostation. But considering we were in another galaxy, it's hard to think of anything more interesting than such a routine!

For example, amino acids: on Ix-Chel in all living organisms they were right-handed — and this was so exciting! I'm serious now: nowhere else had biologists encountered this. And they even thought that if life from right-handed amino acids was possible, then it would be completely different. Opposite. At one time this idea was very popular among science fiction writers — "life opposite to life"! In reality, life on Ix-Chel was rather ordinary. The right-handedness of amino acids...

End of Chunk 06 (Pages 61-72)

In practice, it only meant that we couldn't assimilate protein from the meat of local animals, and the local predators couldn't properly digest a human. And that was that.

The colony was located in a temperate climate zone, closer to tundra. It was quite cool, and the low cloud cover made any day gloomy. The vegetation resembled northern coniferous forests on Earth, which is why we called the surrounding wilderness "taiga." The terrain was flat and swampy. The animal world was lush, diverse, and somewhat dangerous (there were plenty of predators), but also quite normal. And yet the very fact of studying something previously unseen was captivating.

Mostly I hung around the biostation. And since I wasn't just a biologist, but a biocontrol employee, I was interested in animals potentially dangerous to humans. This, as you understand, is three times more interesting! And sometimes there were raids beyond the Perimeter, each one a pure adventure. No wonder I managed to forget about my disease. There was simply no time for stupid thoughts. We collected information, instructed sentries, developed survival recommendations, and so on.

Besides me, two other military biologists and a technician worked at the biostation: broad-shouldered dark-skinned biocontrol commander Aba (actually Major Abu Asad, but behind his back always Aba), a sweet brunette with a captain's rank — senior biologist Irma, and a somewhat withdrawn lanky sergeant Anton. You could say that a separate biocontrol company is a bunch of troublemakers with basic biology knowledge who know how to catch hellish creatures alive. But our biostation was its own microworld within this company. An ideal team. Except that Anton was a gloomy skeptic who had a talent for ruining the brightest summer day, so rare and desired here, with an inappropriate reminder about solar radiation. However, he made it even more interesting. He seemed to offset the research romanticism that we biologists almost worshipped.

Usually we divided all the work equally, regardless of rank, and our atmosphere was more scientific than military. In a month I'd gotten so used to our team, it was as if we'd worked together for years.

The camp was completely autonomous. If you didn't count the water, which we purified and then enriched with salts brought from Earth, we consumed nothing from outside at all. Except air. We had our own livestock farm with cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, we had our own fruit trees and a rice field. And even the lawns in the camp were sown with Earth grass. The security service had German shepherds, and their nighttime barking made our colony completely resemble a backwater Earth town.

In orbit hung our mother ship — a huge star battleship with the pompous name "Three Crowns of Cortez." It arrived at Ix-Chel first, and it would be the last to depart for Earth, taking all of us from here after the mission ended. On the "Three Crowns" there was plenty of everything, including scientific laboratories, a hospital, reserve supplies, and so on. The two other ships — smaller ones — had already left, taking with them the engineering battalion that built the camp and the rest of the temporary mission participants.

What else to tell about Ix-Chel... The local day here was four hours longer than Earth's, but for convenience it was still divided into twenty-four parts. It came out to seventy minutes per hour. We stopped noticing the difference very quickly. The extra work time was ground up by routine matters. The extra hours for sleep were eaten up by evening chores. Except that the sixtieth minutes on the clock display reminded us that this was still not Earth.

And also nothing rotted here. Incredible! Nothing at all. We still hadn't figured out what happened to dead animals in the taiga — obviously there were some sanitary animals — but in our colony we even conducted several experiments. A piece of raw meat in the warmth showed not the slightest signs of decomposition even after a week. It simply dried out.

Vira attended courses for civilian specialists, after which she was to take some position in administration or logistics. Elza went to kindergarten. By and large, the dream I'd unexpectedly formulated for myself in infinitely distant Kyiv had come true — "to live happily near Elza." And I was living. For the first time in a long time I was living, so to speak, "breathing deeply." Elza, my little sunshine, made this life truly happy. Relations with Virka, by the way, had also improved. Although the change of scenery wasn't a panacea: Virunchik, no matter how you turned it, remained herself. And yet our family crisis had stayed somewhere back there, a hundred and sixty-three thousand light years away.

That morning I, as usual, was making myself coffee. It was seven o'clock or somewhere close to that. Vira was still sleeping. I was listening to the local radio station, where, as it should be in the morning, they were just reading statistical forecasts. The probability of rain, equipment failure, migraine attacks, and even unexpected pregnancy precisely today. People adore all this nonsense, believing they can outwit fate. I know a person who changed his mind about getting married after hearing about a five percent probability of intrauterine pathology in his and his fiancée's not-yet-conceived child...

"And I know a guy who ran off to another galaxy so there'd be someone to pay out insurance to his family," I remarked caustically to myself and hastened to crumple up this thought and throw it in the farthest trash bin of my mind.

I had a different situation. Completely different. A fifty-fifty probability, from the point of view of statistical forecasting, is fantastically high! There they rarely talk about anything more than fractions of a percent. By the way, this doesn't stop space liners from exploding from time to time. So a flipped coin, on which at any moment a dancing fool could come up, in my place many would take as a death sentence. And I'm definitely not the worst example. Though, I have to admit, not the best either...

The coffee maker busily hummed, and two tight honey-brown streams struck the rounded bottom of a carefully warmed porcelain cup. The crema turned out wonderful. I took the cup from the machine and set it on the table. If you love coffee as I love it, then you know that in such moments every second matters. Every microgram of volatile essential oils. I hastily took a chocolate bar from the refrigerator, poured a bit of warmed milk into a creamer, lifted the cup to place it on the saucer... And then there arose a sensation as if something stuck to the fingers of my right hand. Something thin, like a film. I looked — nothing. I rubbed my fingertips, and they responded somewhere deep inside with a weak tingling. I worked my hand well. Really such a feeling, as if my fingers were wrapped in film. I feverishly searched for some explanation for the strange sensation. Some other explanation — one that wouldn't include the phrase "abnormal protein"... I'll admit, somewhere in my chest an invisible breeze of fright immediately whirled up a vortex of prickly snowflakes and drove them down, first into my stomach, then through my thighs below my knees and, finally, dispersed them with a lingering unpleasant sensation along my calves. But no... Probably just slept on my arm. At worst — pinched a nerve.

The announcer with a beautiful contralto voice reminded that on Ix-Chel there were category "A" risks, which means the probability of death for each person individually is estimated at zero-point-zero-something-or-other percent. But since I'd long ago calculated that in practice this means at least eight people who will find their death here on Ix-Chel over the next three years, my mood was completely ruined.

Once again I doubtfully rubbed the fingers wrapped in an invisible polyethylene film. We've completely lost our minds with this confidence of ours that the probability of getting hit by a car is at worst about the neighbor whose name we never thought to learn. About him, or about another one, a floor below, or about the one who always forgets to close the underground garage gate — but definitely not about us... Vira (just think, pessimist Vira!) sometimes accused me of expecting bad things from life. And she was right about something... But to deceive yourself with fractions of a percent and be unable to round them up to one human life — that, in my opinion, is even worse. Just google how often syndromes like mine occur, and then look at me. Something like that...

I remembered the coffee and saw that the luxurious crema had settled and decreased almost by half. I angrily threw a dirty spoon into the sink. It loudly clinked against the steel, bounced and fell again, clattering defiantly. Strange, but I felt better. I sat down at the table and finally took a sip. And squinted with pleasure — the coffee still turned out well. No, I'm no worse than others. I just really love life... And fear losing it.

"What are you clattering about?" Vira's sour voice made me shudder with surprise. "Woke me up..."

"Oh, well... Good morning, Virunya!"

"Couldn't be better... Couldn't fall asleep half the night."

Virka sat on the stool, as always tucking her knees right under her chin. After leaving Kyiv I'd already started to forget what it was like — to start and end the day with someone who's eternally dissatisfied with something.

"Why?" I asked as gently as possible. "Nightmares again?"

This was probably also a feature of Ix-Chel: here people often had vivid and emotional dreams. And usually unpleasant, and sometimes truly frightening. Probably "nightmares" is the most accurate definition. Probably due to oversaturation of the atmosphere with ozone. At first it was worrying, but then everyone got used to it one way or another, and some even liked it. Nightmares became a common topic of conversation, like discussing the weather. Unless those dreams were very personal. After all, for example, I from time to time dreamed again of terrible butterflies. Or variations on the theme of "dancing fools." So I didn't discuss my dreams with anyone.

"You tossed and turned like a flea-bitten dog," Vira informed me. "Half the night back and forth..."

Tonight in my dream I was my father jumping from a window... Fragments of delirium surfaced in my head, and I mechanically rubbed my fingertips against my palm. Nerve... Just pinched a nerve.

"And you jab with your elbows too..." Vira continued. "I'll wake up one day with a broken nose!"

A bubble of rage slowly began to inflate in me. This was her favorite theme: I sleep in positions uncomfortable for her! Several times she even woke me in the middle of the night to say something like: "I was turning over and hit your elbow!". She was turning over, not me!

Restraining myself, I simply began making her coffee.

"And toward morning some nonsense was dreaming," Vira went on. "Either we're getting divorced, or you're going somewhere... With some mare..."

"With whom?" I couldn't help it and smiled.

The bubble of rage immediately deflated. I couldn't be angry when she joked.

"Hell if I know... I didn't look at her face. You, by the way, didn't particularly look at her face either. More at her tits."

"Well you're a frog this morning," I leaned toward her to kiss her forehead, and Virunchik tenderly wrapped her arms around my neck.

"You're the frog..."

She pulled my cup toward herself and took a sip.

"No sugar," Vira made a theatrical grimace, but this was already fake grumbling.

"I generally made it for myself."

"Damn egotist."

I placed a cup and sugar bowl in front of Vira. She put in her usual three spoons and began noisily stirring.

"And you're jealous, it turns out."

"Like everyone..."

Vira was probably not so much jealous as insecure. And behind these caustic jokes, and once — feigned inaccessibility, hid just fear. About a year after Elza's birth, she was jealous of me for the first time. What's more, out of nowhere — about an old acquaintance. "You think I don't understand! — Vira said. — I was such a sexy Asian, and now I gave birth, and my breast size is called 'any': whatever cup is in the bra — that's the size! And she probably hasn't given birth? Hasn't, right?" Most likely, she just needed a little faith in herself, but then I didn't understand that yet, and we had a serious fight for the first time.

"This Irma of yours — is she pretty?" Vira suddenly asked, as if hearing all my thoughts.

"Who?"

"Irma. She doesn't leave your tongue lately. A beauty?"

I shrugged. I thought I should apologize to Irma today, because yesterday we quarreled. Not really truly (for a quarrel you need to at least be friends, and we just worked), but it all turned out stupid. My mood immediately worsened.

"Why did you get gloomy?" Virka switched to such a conspiratorial tone, as if we were buddies discussing my new girlfriend. "Come on, spill: does she have beautiful tits?"

"How should I know!" I felt awkward and got angry because of it at both Vira and myself.

"Oh come on, Gil! I'm just curious. Probably a cute girl with a third size."

"Ordinary..." I waved it off. "And at most a second."

At that second it seemed for some reason that it would be wiser to reduce it by at least one size.

"Aha, so he does stare at her breasts!"

"Stop it," I finished my coffee, kissed Vira on the top of her head, and went to the bathroom.

"Till night again today?" she called after me.

"I'm planning till six."

"He's planning... You could devote more time to the family!"

This wasn't a reproach. Just a request.

"I thought I'd gotten on your nerves back in Kyiv," I called from the bathroom.

"Your Kyiv was twenty years ago, if by Earth time!"

"Then, Vira, you're already fifty-two," I peeked out from behind the door. "Not a bad look for a granny!"

"Jerk!" and she, laughing, threw a roll of paper towels at me.

I washed with pleasure. I heard Vira standing in the doorway. Watching. Lately she often watches me like this — without any reason or sense. As if she suddenly discovered she has a husband and still can't believe it. She didn't do this before. Although no — she did, when there was no Elza yet. And then she noticed me only when she needed something.

"Elza brought home a flower yesterday," Vira said.

I turned around.

"What flower?"

"Says it grew on the lawn."

I dried myself with a towel and looked seriously at my wife:

"You can't do that here! Talk to her when she wakes up. This isn't Earth. Not Earth at all."

"I told her. And threw out the flower. But you talk to her too, okay?"

"Today."

"For that you need to come home not at night, you're aware?"

"No problem!"

"For a week already no problem, but when you show up, we're already sleeping."

"Don't grumble. I promise."

I approached and wanted to kiss her on the lips, but Virka offered her cheek.

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet."

"And in the movies people how?"

"In movies — it's editing," and Virunchik automatically wiped her cheek after the kiss, as if reminding that this was still her, and not an improved copy of my wife.

A research all-terrain vehicle was backing up to the biostation building, clanking its treads. Anton was running around waving his arms. Obviously, he was trying to make the driver's work easier in this way, but was actually significantly complicating it and twice nearly ended up under the treads. He often seemed absurd, this Anton. But he knew his work pretty well. Abu Asad quietly barked at him, and he, covered in bright red blotches, finally let the all-terrain vehicle drive in. I should say, the major had a talent for "shouting" commands quietly, without raising his voice. And often the more nervous he got, the quieter he spoke.

Noticing me, Aba nodded briefly:

"Where have you been?! Get over here, on the double!"

The massive rear doors of the all-terrain vehicle lowered, and the reason for the commotion became visible — massive containers secured in the corners of the cargo bay with new specimens. Each was marked with the eloquent sign "especially dangerous life form" — a human skull inside an open predatory jaw. Irma and some unfamiliar Japanese with corporal's insignia deftly began unloading.

"Take them to quarantine!" the major commanded. "Maximum caution!"

I approached the all-terrain vehicle. Something disgustingly scratched in the containers, as if the creatures locked in there were trying with all their might to tear apart the monomolecular walls with their claws. Irma sealed the rear doors of the all-terrain vehicle from inside, and a second later had already jumped out of the hatch above and jumped down. Flexible and graceful, she moved quickly, like a predatory animal.

Irma was interesting from any point of view. A biologist with the highest qualifications, she constantly used slang words, like a street bum. I have to admit, this detail gave her a special charm. Or this — she was the only one in the camp who wore a thin non-removable bracelet on her right wrist. Usually such bracelets were put on deserters who were lucky to receive clemency from a tribunal in exchange for years of penal service. How she earned such a decoration, I didn't know.

"Roll the big container on a cart!" Irma shouted. "The others can be carried as is. Don't get closer than a meter and a half to each other with containers. God forbid you drop a container on a container or screw up somehow else! Clear?"

Yes, she always expressed herself very clearly.

By the way, we quarreled over her bracelet. Yesterday we were all sitting together in the cafeteria after work, because Anton decided to celebrate his first month in his first alien mission and ordered pizza and beer for everyone. And he, as always, began complaining about Ix-Chel, where he didn't like everything. And Irma made a toast: "Just three years — and everyone will be admiring planet Earth again!" As if joking, since in the first month three years is not at all "just," but a hellish eternity.

And then I up and blurted out:

"Planet Earth, by the way, only you will be admiring. We'll be admiring Earth landscapes at most."

"What do you mean?" Irma didn't understand.

"Well, you can't admire Earth from Earth. But from the Moon — just right! From Mars also not bad, but in your place I'd choose the Moon."

This was because deserters can't return to Earth for three years after a mission. They can settle on the Moon or Mars. Everyone knows this. But no one particularly reacted to my witticism. And the witticism was so-so — I don't know what got into me. I was already about to change the subject, when Anton latched onto this stupid law about deserters, and he and Aba started discussing it. Irma first listened, then frowned like a cloud and withdrew into herself. I wanted to somehow fix the situation, since it turned out that because of me her mood was spoiled. And I asked what she got the bracelet for — I thought, somehow to sympathize with the person. To support her. But Irma in her style advised me "not to confuse the shores" and left.

So today I was trying to catch her gaze to understand whether she was angry or not anymore. And, truth be told, I felt like a donkey. I was pulling the biggest container from the all-terrain vehicle and wondering how to talk to her. If necessary — ready to apologize, what the hell...

The unfamiliar corporal, grunting, was dragging two boxes at once, making a big detour around my container.

"Guess who's in there?" Irma suddenly asked and smiled mischievously, showing two charming dimples on her cheeks.

I wasn't expecting this, honestly. So she's not angry. "Well..." I was confused. "Someone we've been looking for a long time..."

Those dimples of hers completely scrambled my brains. Every time I saw them, I had to remind myself that my Vira was even prettier, that Irma might have a bad temper, and after all we had a child with Vira... In that order — a whole clip of arguments.

"Fish lizard!" Irma burst out with the excitement of a child who found matches. "Finally caught one!"

"No way..." I wasn't up to the fish lizard.

I wanted to say something witty to Irma. Or at least intelligent. But nothing came to mind — those dimples on her cheeks were some kind of psychotropic weapon that turned off the brain. Especially in combination with the breasts.

"Don't spread your fingers!" she nodded at my hand when I took hold of rolling the container.

And walked ahead with a quick step, giving me the opportunity to follow her with my eyes with pleasure. Left-right, left-right... You could watch that sway forever. But I have Vira... And Elza... I shook my head, throwing off the almost physical sensation of a mirage.

I dragged my container into quarantine. I could hear Irma outside giving instructions about recharging the all-terrain vehicle. So she's planning to go somewhere again. And that's good, because the last few weeks thoughts about her had already become obsessive. The less I see her, the better.

I began transferring the new beasts into the storage cells. Need to be more careful — I'm somehow inattentive today. In such a state you really could lose fingers. By the way, about fingers... I rubbed my right hand. There was almost no tingling, but the "film" on them was still felt. It'll pass. By evening it'll definitely be gone. Pinched nerve, one hundred percent. Maybe not even in the hand — could have, for example, pulled my back...

Having finished, I carried the empty containers to the basement. Already descending, I saw Irma and the corporal. Both were looking at me a bit confused, as if I'd caught them at something.

3

"Need to put the containers away," I mumbled, though of course I didn't have to explain anything.

Only now I realized that while I was going down the stairs, immersed in my thoughts, they were talking. And, it seems, in raised tones. What's more, the corporal was shouting, which was a bit strange in a conversation with an officer, even considering the democratic ways in the Corps.

"Permission to carry on?" the corporal asked obviously for my benefit, since, first, we definitely didn't care about such formalities here, unless it concerned the colony leadership, and second, he said it too loudly and shot a glance in my direction.

"Carry on," Irma answered and also stole a glance at me.

You'd think they're lovers... This guess somehow unpleasantly pricked me somewhere under my ribs. Quickly putting down the containers, I hurried upstairs. The corporal whispered something even before the door closed behind me, and I heard Irma thunder "shut up."

"If they are lovers, so what? — I listlessly fumbled with a table, entering new residents of the quarantine section into it, while thoughts in my head pierced space and time, again and again returning to the dimples on Irma's cheeks. — What's it to me? I have nothing to do with Irma. And nothing to do with anyone. It's all because of Vira, who's again becoming a disgusting grumbler..."

Thoughts obediently darted into the past, ending up first in our Kyiv apartment on the eve of departure, then at Vira's childbirth, further — at our wedding, and diving even deeper, reached the day we met... I didn't notice how the next moment they'd already transferred me to an alternative reality, where I was making morning coffee not for Vira, but for Irma. And no matter how I tried to reject this image with the rational part of my brain, the dark and irresponsible half of my "I" screamed that Irma sitting in a robe in our kitchen was simply a stunning sight.

"What are you thinking about?" Irma tousled my hair with her hand.

I shuddered with surprise.

"Oh, well... Didn't get enough sleep..."

"Let's go slurp some coffee."

She headed to the coffee machine. Tearing myself away from the tables (actually the last three minutes or so I'd just been staring into emptiness pointlessly), I followed her. A cup dropped from the machine, and it began pouring coffee and milk into it with a whir.

"Irma, yesterday I made a stupid joke about your bracelet..."

"Don't stress," she didn't even turn around.

"Really, sorry, because..."

Irma quickly turned and placed her neat little finger on my lips.

"Don't. Stress," she pronounced. "Will you go beyond the Perimeter with me?"

"You drove around all night!"

"I'm fine, don't worry."

She took the first portion of coffee and held it out to me, coming a bit closer than necessary. She smelled pleasantly of perfume. I'd almost taken the cup when my fingers pulled some trick. I didn't even understand right away... As if the middle finger suddenly flicked the cardboard body of the cup a ringing flick, involuntarily and sharply straightening... Irma shrieked, jumping back. The cup hit the floor, spilling coffee. I also jumped back to avoid getting splattered.

"Damn!" I looked at my hand in surprise.

My fingers were trembling, as if from excitement, but this trembling was somehow... Too strong... No-no-no! Not today! Not today and not here!

I bent and unbent my fingers several times. Everything seemed fine... You just shoved the damn cup, staring at her like always, right? I rubbed with my left hand those fingers that were to blame, and immediately stared at them as if it turned out they weren't there. The sensations now were as if I'd put on a medical glove. The thinnest kind — the kind surgeons use, but now this was far from a film! The fingers no longer felt the lightest touches! As if a layer of nerve fibers had burned out in the skin... In the brain. Abnormal protein in the brain poisoned a layer of neurons — is that what you wanted to say?

"Clumsy oaf!" I cursed myself.

Actually I wanted to bark "Shut your mouth!" at my inner voice. And I angrily kicked the cup, venting my anger on it.

"Is everything okay?" Irma asked worriedly. "Did you burn yourself?"

"Yes... I'm sleepy somehow. Forgive me, please... It turned out stupid..."

"Just relax already," Irma said in surprise and brought a mop from the utility room.

I stealthily looked at my fingers again. Now my hand was trembling even harder — like an old alcoholic's. However, this could already be from nerves: my heart would probably jump out through my mouth now...

"Irma, I'd better do it myself..."

"Don't freak out," she wiped everything up in two movements. "Burned badly?"

"Not very... Thank you."

She smiled at me, showing her dizzying dimples.

End of Chunk 07 (Pages 73-84)

"I'll make more," and Irma pressed the button on the machine. "So will you go?"

I'll go. Now even to the devil's horns. Just to distract myself from the horror I'd been accumulating for the last fifteen years and now — released outside...

"Catching someone again?" I asked as casually as possible.

She looked at me mysteriously and said quietly:

"Milking."

"In what sense — milking?"

At that moment Abu Asad entered, and Irma immediately stepped on my foot. I fell silent, not quite understanding what was happening.

"I'm like a sleepy fly too," Irma said, as if continuing the conversation. "Coffee's the only thing saving me."

"By the way, getting enough sleep is a fighter's duty," Aba remarked seriously, heading to his office.

"Yes, sir!" Irma saluted jokingly, performing an "honor arms" with the mop. "Permission to begin immediately?"

"Sleep at night, Irma. At night."

Smiling, he closed the door behind him.

"As if there's nothing else to do at night, right?" Irma winked at me cheerfully.

We went outside and settled on the steps, sipping coffee. I touched my fingertips again.

"Irma, what secrets?"

"What?"

Her eyes radiated holy innocence.

"Well, you stepped on my foot when..."

"Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to. I told you — sleepy," she smiled broadly. "So are you coming or not?"

"I'm not participating in anything illegal, just so you know."

"Interesting how you imagine an illegal trip beyond the Perimeter! Seems like soon there'll be a proctologist at the checkpoint. By the way, how are you with that?"

"With what?" I didn't get it.

"With the ability to be amazed. A sign of intelligence, by the way. Didn't you know?" laughing loudly, she tousled my hair again.

"So are you coming or not?"

Hating myself at that moment, I squeezed out an answer:

"Sorry. I wanted to finish with the card catalog and..."

"As you wish," she shrugged and, throwing out the cup, went inside.

It seems I managed to regret my answer before the door closed behind Irma. But damn it, I couldn't allow myself anything like that! Nothing you couldn't talk about in the presence of your immediate commander. After all, the only way to lose the Corps insurance is to get kicked out of the mission for disciplinary violations... As soon as I thought about it, I rubbed those damn fingers again. I have no idea how it started with my father.

Did he have something like this? Or did it affect his brain first? I wonder if I'll be able to notice when my thinking becomes flat, like a children's picture?

I was about to go inside when I heard from around the corner our Anton swearing loudly and filthily. I was curious, and Anton probably needed at least sympathy. So I went to look.

He was sitting with his legs dangling into the hatch of a technological shaft for an artesian well, and raining curses down into it.

"You'd think you had a fight with the inhabitants of hell," I said.

He looked up, and his confused face immediately broke out in bright red blotches.

"This, Gil, is some planet Murphy!" and he comically slapped his knees. "If we weren't the first discoverers, I'd decide that dude wrote his shitty laws here!"

"Murphy, buddy, died about a hundred years before the first flight to Mars."

"'If you're afraid some shit will happen, don't doubt it — it will happen!'" Anton quoted, raising his finger. "Well, isn't that about us, Gil? Not about this God-forsaken planet, whose name is even hard to pronounce?!"

"It seems in the original that phrase sounds like 'anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' I don't even know where you could insert the word 'shit' in it."

"Anywhere! On Ix-Chel it should be inserted in every statistical forecast instead of idiotic percentages! 'And finally about the weather: today SHIT awaits you. We remind you, category "A" risks mean SHIT for each colony member individually based on expedition duration of at least three years! That's all. SHIT.'"

I couldn't help but laugh, it was so funny the way he said it, from time to time slapping his knees.

"So what's the problem, Anton?"

He seemed relieved.

"Some local crab climbed into the engine... When I was installing the pump, I thought, if some animal decides to warm itself on the casing and climbs a bit further — it'll have a chance to short out everything here to hell! Our Aba, of course, said that couldn't happen, since the motor's working and the vibration scares everyone off. And today — bam, no water! I climb in here — there you go! Everything's like I said! But everyone here are biologists, and I'm a simple guy with a screwdriver, why listen to me!"

"Shit," I smiled.

"Now you understand me..."

"Should I bring a container?"

"It's probably dead... Now have to change the motor..."

As I said, Anton knew his work. Though he was eccentric and withdrawn (today was perhaps the first time I'd heard so many words from him at once). I looked over his shoulder. The casing was removed, and I could easily see the creature stuck inside the electric motor. From the outside it resembled more a crayfish — particularly in size. Only the legs were long. The chitin that had turned red on the sides — where the discharge passed — only enhanced the resemblance. I lay on my stomach, carefully took the arthropod by the back, and pulled it out. The creature was alive and immediately anxiously spread its legs. Instead of claws it had long, sickle-like talons.

"Damn thing!" Anton recoiled.

"It's a reaper. We only recently added them to the catalog."

"Why reaper?"

"Because of the sickles. My name, by the way."

Naming new species was what I loved. Irma was the author of most. Obviously, she loved this business even more than me. But I discovered the reapers myself and didn't yield this right to anyone.

"Dangerous?" Anton asked confusedly.

"Well... They're not poisonous and not aggressive. So if you don't stick your hand out to them, quite safe."

"Aha. And tomorrow they'll climb not into the pump but into the transformer — and bye-bye! The whole biostation can take a vacation."

"I don't think anything in living nature could be interested in AC transformers."

"Oh! That's kind of what Aba said then about the pump!"

I smiled.

"No, Gil, seriously! This is people's weakest point! We have everything electric, even the rifles! Just imagine the power station failing. And what? No transport, no medical equipment, no weapons, no communications..."

"No water, as we've seen," I echoed his intonation.

"Exactly..." Anton didn't even realize I was mocking him and, sighing, climbed into the shaft to fiddle with the pump.

I took the reaper to quarantine. I don't understand why the hell it was interested in the pump.

"So are you coming or not?" Irma's voice suddenly sounded behind my back.

I turned around. A barely noticeable smile played on her lips. I'm sure you've seen the same when a classmate offered you a smoke behind the school, knowing in advance you'd refuse. And refusing was unbearable. Honestly, I desperately wanted to go on the raid... And Irma was formally senior, since I was a lieutenant and she was a captain, so...

"If you'll tell me who you're planning to milk," I answered evasively.

"I'll even show you," Irma promised. "Waiting in the all-terrain vehicle!"

My answer didn't actually mean "yes" at all. To start, I planned to hear more about the raid she didn't want to discuss in front of the commander. But Irma had already left quarantine, leaving the decision entirely to my conscience. I thought with chagrin about the problems potentially promised by any rule violation. I doubtfully rubbed my fingertips, as if hoping I could wipe off the disgusting feeling of stuck film from them... Now they'd leave, and I'd be forced either to remain alone with these thoughts, or listen to Anton's fears about destroyer transformers and electric pumps...

"Okay," I said to myself and went to get ready.

Irma and I had already been riding on the armor of our all-terrain vehicle for over two hours, far beyond the camp limits. I'd never been this far. I even forgot about the "glove" on my fingers. Raids were always what I loved most here. They made me live in the present day. Sitting on armor in the taiga is strictly forbidden, but biologists violated this rule point on all planets, believing they themselves knew where it was dangerous and where it wasn't.

The all-terrain vehicle drove onto some swampy plain and moved, hugging the very edge of the forest.

"So will you tell me or not?"

"You'll see," she answered. "Careful!"

Ahead, some whitish stems hung all the way to the ground, and we, though in suits, hurried to jump into the hatch. The predatory plants of this planet impressed with their variety and size.

Inside was only the driver — that same corporal. Irma insisted we shouldn't take many people.

"You're not acquainted, by the way," she said. "This is the best corporal in our bio-company. He also came with the first wave."

The corporal, without tearing himself from the observation optics, extended his hand.

"Okamura."

Such familiarity with an officer, to put it mildly, didn't quite correspond to the charter, but Okamura did this on the rights of an old-timer. The first wave had arrived almost a year before us. So I sincerely shook his strong palm. And my lieutenant's rank, by the way, is perhaps the worst in the army. Soldiers call you behind your back exclusively "loo-ey" (especially if you're a biologist, not an assault trooper, and arrived a month ago), and those senior in rank often still treat you like a coffee-making specialist. So a handshake from a veteran corporal could even be considered an advance of trust.

"Gil," I introduced myself.

"Our guy," Irma added.

"Is he in the loop?" Okamura immediately asked.

"He's with us," she answered confidently. "And we'll bring him into the loop now. Right?"

The last "right?" was addressed to me and reinforced by the appearance on Irma's cheeks of those same magic dimples. All I needed was to get into some mess. I involuntarily touched my right fingertips. My task — impeccable service, insurance, payouts, and all that.

"In the loop about what?" I asked Irma.

"Oh, brother!" Okamura answered instead of her. "Now we'll open a new life for you. We're here!"

At these words he stopped the all-terrain vehicle. Then put on his helmet and in some imperceptibly feline manner climbed out of the hatch. It seemed he did it in one quick movement, and this in a suit! I thought the Japanese had unusual strength hidden in him.

"Don't fall behind," Irma winked at me and also easily jumped outside.

4

I tried to get out of the all-terrain vehicle as quickly as they did, but felt clumsy to myself. Yes, they're just beauties.

We stood in sparse undergrowth. The corporal was on alert — it was clear from everything that the guy took his service seriously. Irma, on the contrary, confidently headed for the nearest thickets, not even bothering to get the rifle from her back. Honestly, I was more drawn to the corporal's tense alertness. I hurried after Irma, activating the stadishot "arm" on the go — the manipulator neatly fed me the rifle. The corporal brought up the rear of our small group, ready to incinerate anything that showed aggression. And there was plenty to show aggression — ahead, literally ten steps away, a pack of bipedal reptiles scattered in all directions, quite docile at first glance. But the beast they'd killed eloquently refuted their "docility." On Ix-Chel there was some strange density of fauna: animals only gave way to humans at the last moment, managing to impress with their fearsome appearance.

Irma walked forward quickly. Here she parted the branches of a tall bush... And I froze. It was an amazing sight.

In the center of the clearing, in the middle of black volcanic sand, grew a flower. A giant five-meter flower. Four huge, bright purple petals, gracefully curved, lay on the sand. Between the petals proudly towered several semi-transparent six-meter stamens — also bright purple. The flower fluoresced with an even neon glow. And so intensely that even during the day, albeit as gloomy as now, it was noticeable. Under the light gusts of wind, the stamens swayed, as if dancing to an inaudible slow melody.

From all this beauty wafted a dizzying delicate aroma... of strawberries. That's right — the aroma didn't just resemble the smell of strawberries, it practically was it! A real, such recognizable smell of ripe wild strawberries!

"Whoa..." escaped from me.

Irma smiled with satisfaction and headed for the flower.

"Watch out!" the corporal suddenly shouted.

We immediately lowered the transparent visors of our suits and crouched, ready to shoot. The corporal was pointing at a small bush ten meters from the flower.

"I see!" Irma answered and finally got her rifle from behind her back.

I didn't see anything yet. In any case, no movement was noticeable. Irma pulled out a multivisor and looked through it, clicking the spectrum switch.

"Death beetle," she said and poked the device at me. "Look there!"

Indeed, near the petals of the purple flower sat motionlessly a gigantic insect.

"Prepare the net!" Irma commanded.

I helped the corporal get special equipment from his backpack that shoots a net and automatically tightens it on the object. We began slowly approaching the death beetle.

In open space it was hard not to notice us, but the beetle, as before, sat motionless. We were already about twenty paces away. This was strange... If it had deliberately hidden, having let us get so close, it would have started to rattle its chitin threateningly. But its behavior was atypical. Unless it was itself preparing to attack us while we thought we were hunting it...

An unpleasant chill arose in my chest. I took a few more steps... And exhaled, lowering my rifle. Now you could clearly distinguish sand and bird droppings on the death beetle's carapace. Dead.

Irma also straightened up, walked over, and kicked the dead beetle with her toe.

"Wow... Come look," she called.

I approached. The strawberry aroma intensified dizzyingly. More than anything in the world I wanted right now to eat a small fragrant berry. I even caught myself mechanically looking under my feet, as if strawberries could really grow here. But around, of course, there was only sand, shimmering in the purple light with an anthracite gleam.

I forced myself to focus on the dead creature. From the ground to the death beetle's carapace stretched numerous very thin white outgrowths resembling either some kind of roots or worms...

"Something grew into it?"

Irma didn't answer. I looked again at the flower, whose petals spread on both sides of us about two meters away. Their surface was by no means smooth, as it seemed from a distance — it was densely covered with long transparent bristles. More precisely, even — fuzz. I tried to imagine what it felt like to touch, and for some reason it became unpleasant — I remembered a caterpillar from the tent caterpillar family, which we in childhood called "hairy." Its body is also covered with very thin long hairs, and the skin itched for a long time after contact with it...

"And here's another," Irma hooked the edge of another death beetle's carapace with her toe, almost completely buried under a layer of sand.

I couldn't tear my eyes from the flower. Something was wrong with it... If you didn't count my associations with caterpillars, it was beautiful. The stamens danced just as charmingly in the wind, and the aroma was intoxicating. And strangely, when we got closer, the smell didn't become either unpleasant or stupefying, but instead became somehow voluminous and so strikingly delicious that saliva flowed. New notes opened in it, and I wanted to climb inside the flower to feel how it smelled there...

Irma bent over the second death beetle. From below it also turned out to be "stitched" to the soil with white threads, but the carapace was already almost empty.

"It rotted from the inside!" Irma said. "We know there are no putrefactive bacteria on this planet, but this death beetle did rot! Look!"

Where the outgrowths penetrated the body, it was indeed as if rotten. Only I didn't smell any characteristic odor. I didn't smell anything at all except strawberry fragrances.

"Interesting..." I said, though truthfully, the "dancing" flower worried me more now. "Listen, is it just me, or is something wrong with this flower?!"

"Everything's fine, lieutenant," the corporal said. "We've been here before."

"And it's not a flower," Irma purred, still looking at the death beetle. "Come on. I'll introduce you closer."

And she resolutely walked straight to the purple plant. The flower seemed to come alive. The petals noticeably trembled, and the stamens swayed toward Irma.

"Irma..."

But she cut me off with a hand gesture. The stamens bent. Their tips were now at the level of Irma's head, they swayed unpleasantly. Like cobras.

I stopped, not knowing what to do. Looked back at the corporal. He showed me an "okay" sign. Like, don't freak out, kid...

Meanwhile Irma slowly raised her right hand, as if she was going to grab these stamens. And froze. About three seconds passed, when suddenly one stamen darted to the visor of her helmet with the swiftness of a viper attacking. Irma dodged with a lightning movement, grabbing the stamen with her hand. And in the other she already held a plastic bag, into which she stuck the tip of the stamen and shook it well. The bag immediately became covered inside with some black filth. As if something from the stamen (or whatever it was) squirted in there... Irma immediately released it and stepped to the next one.

It swayed toward her, but was also caught. Irma stuffed it into the same bag. She managed to "milk" two more stamens, when suddenly the next purple outgrowth turned out too clever. Slipping from Irma's hand, it darted to her face and spat a thick black cloud right at the visor.

"Overdose!" the corporal said cheerfully behind my back.

The cloud hung around the helmet, settling on the glass. Irma laughed at this joke understandable only to them, wiping the visor with her glove.

"Is this dangerous?" I asked.

He shrugged.

"She's in the helmet."

Meanwhile Irma caught a new stamen and also "milked" it into the bag.

"That's enough for today," she finally said and held out the bag to me. "Here!"

I stepped toward her.

"Careful!!!" Irma barked, pointing at one of the purple petals under my feet. "Step on it — you'll be very surprised."

I carefully walked around the petals and took the bag from her hands. There was about a liter of some very light, very fine pollen.

"Let's get out!" Irma commanded, and we returned to the all-terrain vehicle.

It was black, completely matte and fine like powder. Like dust. But the grains still had shape and weren't round but elongated. Irma and the corporal took off their helmets and began pouring the pollen into small bags. At one moment Irma carefully stuck her pinky into the large bag and got a tiny bit on the very tip of her nail. Bending over, she noisily sucked the black pollen into her nose. Froze. Then sharply straightened, throwing back her head, and breathed deeply.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "Lieutenant, you have to try this!"

And held out the bag to me.

"Uh no, friends..." I looked at Irma uncertainly. "I don't really want to... Is this a drug?"

"This is life, lieutenant!" the corporal smiled. "Take a bit! With your pinky!"

"Come on, don't be a pussy," Irma encouraged.

"Are you guys even conscious — shoving alien filth up your nose?!"

"And she said 'our guy,'" Okamura grunted disappointedly.

Irma took the bag and with fantastic dexterity climbed onto the two-meter all-terrain vehicle — in one imperceptible movement. Settling in, she continued imperturbably portioning out the pollen — didn't even lose her breath. I thought she was probably once a gymnast or something.

The corporal caught my gaze.

"Impressed?"

"Indeed..." I nodded. "Not bad for someone who's on something..."

The corporal giggled. Irma smiled indulgently.

"You thought I was a drug dealer, right?"

Truthfully, that's exactly what I thought. But now she was looking at me like a child, and I was confused.

"Black pollen will be humanity's greatest discovery," Irma said.

The corporal snorted.

"What? You'll say it won't?" Irma extracted with her pinky another tiny black bit and held it out to the corporal, hanging from the armor. "Now you."

"Irma..." he looked from under his brows. "I told you..."

"You have your first fight today."

"Exactly. And I want to win myself. Not on pollen, understand? Myself."

"You would have died yourself a year ago."

"I know. But today I want to do it myself."

Irma grimaced.

"You're an idiot," she said coolly. "You can't jump off immediately! How long have you been clean?!"

"A week," the corporal answered and lowered his eyes. It seemed to me, even guiltily.

"Don't you dare! Hear me?! You don't understand a damn thing about this!!! You can't quit!"

"Irma, everything will be fine. After the fight I'll take it again. I want to prove to them all!"

"Listen here, smart guy! You can't do that! You can't jump off! You can't enter the cage clean! If they don't tear you apart there, you'll die after!!! Because you've been on pollen for a year! A year! You know what that means?!"

Irma easily jumped down from the armor and approached Okamura looking like she was going to gouge out his eyes. She shoved the bag of pollen under his nose.

"Now! In front of me!"

"Okay..." he said gloomily, and his face went gray.

Irma looked as if trying to incinerate the corporal with her gaze.

He stuck his hand in the bag, got a decent pinch on his pinky and showed it to Irma. Like a magician demonstrating an empty top hat. I was standing behind Okamura and could see: he tricked Irma. Raising his pinky to his nostril, he sharply plugged it with his finger, pretended to inhale, and turning away, shook the pollen onto the ground. Slick — from the side it seemed he did everything.

Irma nodded and again climbed onto the all-terrain vehicle to portion out the black powder.

"By the way, tell him," she suddenly asked.

"Tell what?" I couldn't stand it.

"About a year ago I fell from the southern wall of the Perimeter," the Japanese said. "Broken spine."

"Whose?"

"Mine," the corporal smiled. "I lay there like a beetle. There was no question of getting up. And I wouldn't have made it to Earth either. The pain was such that I would have shot myself if they'd given me a weapon. The doctors were pumping some chemistry, but it didn't help."

"And then I brought him pollen," Irma said. "Quarter gram a day — and the corporal got on his feet in a month. Literally."

I looked confusedly at the corporal, then at Irma:

"Probably wasn't such a serious injury..."

"No, it was all adult-level," Irma waved it off. "I'll show you the scans if you want. And now, as you see, the spinal cord is completely restored."

"Irma, of course, excuse me, but..."

"And the doctors, by the way, also don't understand," the corporal added. "They've examined me about ten times already. Figure monthly."

Okamura easily jumped onto the all-terrain vehicle. I don't know about a world high jump record, but it really looked like it. Now I could say absolutely precisely: he was in stunning shape. Both of them. But I wasn't rushing to take on faith the story about a miraculous healing.

"You think you recovered because of the pollen?" I asked the Japanese.

"It grows neurons," Irma answered for him, "millions of neurons per hour! Restores muscle and bone tissue, increases reaction time. Lots of things."

End of Chunk 08 (Pages 85-96)

"I don't know, lieutenant, why Irma decided to invite you to our club," Okamura said, "but in your place I'd be jumping for joy."

"You're jumping anyway..." escaped from me.

Irma and the corporal laughed.

"Really our guy," he nodded to her. "Cool!"

"Will you try?" Irma held out the bag again.

"Not all at once, okay?"

She nodded. The corporal dove like a lizard into the hatch. I climbed onto the armor.

"Irma, so what is this flower? And why haven't I seen it in the catalog?"

"You'll understand someday. Can't explain in two words."

The corporal stuck his head out of the hatch:

"Let's go already!"

Irma took me by the shoulder and turned me to face her.

"I've been studying the pollen for over a year. The corporal's treatment is a striking result, but far from the only one. And now I need a partner. A scientist, not just a dude with a rifle."

I shrugged uncertainly.

"Well... If it's not just drug dealing..."

"This is the most stunning medical experiment in history!" and she was the first to jump into the hatch.

The all-terrain vehicle tore off with such speed, as if the pollen had affected the engine too. I barely held on to the armor. I didn't even climb inside, I fell. Again I felt involuntary envy of their agility.

Drugs, brother, this is just alien drugs...

When the all-terrain vehicle stopped in the camp, the sun was already floating toward the west. I climbed out of the hatch and found that we weren't near the biostation as I thought, but near a huge warehouse complex. Irma, catching my surprised look, smiled.

"Come on, it'll be interesting," and jumped off the all-terrain vehicle.

5

We left the heavy equipment and suits. Irma unbuttoned her tunic. The wide belt of her army pants beautifully emphasized her waist, and I involuntarily thought that she was still insanely beautiful.

Inside the warehouses, Irma led us through some corridors with a hostess's air. The huge hangars were piled with so much of everything in the world that it seemed we could live autonomously for ten years, not experiencing the slightest need for anything. Then we entered some utility room where a hugely tall fat man sat in a chair. Although "fat man" — that's unfair of me. The guy was by no means thin, but had significantly more muscle than fat.

"Salut, Irma!" and he stuck out a huge fist.

"Hey there!" she bumped his fist with hers. "Meet our lieutenant. He's with me."

The big guy looked at her meaningfully:

"Totally with you?"

"Yes. Relax, he's ours."

The sergeant extended a sledgehammer-like fist to me too.

"Alex," he introduced himself. "Call sign Oven."

"Gil," I said. "Don't have a call sign yet."

"Won't rust on me, just so you know!" and Alex giggled. "Just don't take offense!"

Irma got out the bags of black pollen:

"Twenty per gram."

Alex raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Irma, soon it'll be cheaper than beer! Just give it away, what the hell!"

"Nobody will take freebies. Let everyone get a taste, then we'll raise the price."

"Ah... Cool idea," Alex agreed. "So what... Shall we go? It's starting soon."

And he shot a glance in my direction again.

"I told you: he's with us."

"Well, you know better," Alex slapped his thighs and rose from the chair. "Capybara's fighting now, and Mr. Oven bet a stack of bills on him!"

"I'm fighting today too, by the way," Okamura said.

"First time?" Alex broke into a smile. "Hang in there, bro, everyone gets wrecked their first time."

Okamura squeezed out a stupid smile.

"I actually have a black belt..."

"Anthem in your suit!" Alex cut him off. "Nobody here gives a shit about your karate. Capybara there smashes people against the cage — heard of that style?"

"Capybara will lose," Irma stated for some reason and headed for the exit. "Should have bet on the girl."

"Why the hell! The forecast for Capybara is ninety-six percent! And the girl was barely resuscitated last time!"

"Exactly," Irma said and left.

"What 'exactly'?!" Alex objected.

She didn't hear. Already in the corridor, Alex ran past me, shoving me well with his thigh, and caught up with Irma.

"Listen, sis, this won't do! Come on, spill! I'm risking money here!" and he grabbed Irma by the shoulder with his paw. "Why will Capybara lose?!"

She stopped, looking at Alex from below.

"Because I know. Want to earn — bet on the girl." Shaking off Alex's hand, Irma walked on.

We wandered a bit more between rows of containers and came to some heavy doors. These were whole gates. Alex entered a code on the access panel. As soon as the door slid aside, the noise of voices and roar of music rushed out from there.

"We'll see..." Alex grumbled and entered first.

The place we found ourselves in had a strange appearance. It was one of the hangars. In the center stood a huge cage — a circle enclosed by a metal mesh. I found Irma with my eyes. She immediately came up to me.

"Questions later," she shouted in my ear, shouting over the music. "Just watch!"

Meanwhile the hangar was quickly filling with people. Conquistadors gathered in groups. We ended up in the center of the crowd. Irma was soon pushed aside. After some time, applause and welcoming shouts rang out. I saw a barefoot guy, naked to the waist in camouflage pants. He was short and very broad-shouldered, almost square, his large bald head sat on a thick short neck, and his arms above the elbows were smeared with yellow paint. Then the far edge of the hangar exploded with applause, and the crowd parted, letting the second fighter through. Only when he came closer did I see that the muscular torso and stunning biceps painted red belonged to a girl. Also barefoot and in army pants. Her breasts were covered by a khaki tank top. I cringed inside. I hate women's fights.

From somewhere Alex appeared and grabbed me by the shoulders:

"Yellow is Capybara! He'll tear the brat to shreds!!!"

And Alex screamed a greeting so loud my ears rang. And then — like in a movie. The hangar filled with a roar of cheerful rhythms. Several conquistadors pushed the crowd away from the cage. The crowd chanted: "Capybara! Capybara!". The opponents approached the ring. And suddenly near them I saw Irma: she held out a bag of pollen to some tall bald guy. He scooped from there a bit each with a tiny spoon or spatula and gave it in turn to each gladiator. Both obediently inhaled the drug, covering one nostril.

"Check out what's about to happen!" Alex screamed and imitated several boxing punches.

"Why the pollen?" I asked.

"Go in the cage without it — let's see what's left of you!"

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"You'll understand yourself!" Alex slapped me on the shoulder with his huge palm.

The music suddenly died down. Capybara and the girl entered the cage and walked to opposite sides.

A deathly silence fell. I involuntarily stepped forward.

"Let the fight begin!!!" the bald man proclaimed pompously into a microphone in a high singing voice.

The sound of a gong rang from the speakers.

The first seconds everything was as usual. Like at any similar competitions on Earth or anywhere. They circled around each other, as if sizing each other up. And then Capybara moved forward and down, trying to grab the girl by the legs. The throw was swift, like a mongoose. She managed to jump back, but the opponent still grabbed her right thigh and immediately with a jerk tore her from the ground and arched his back, throwing the girl over himself. The hall roared a sympathetic "Oh-h!" — she landed on her head. The blow was one of those after which you don't get up anymore, honestly! The thought flashed that this was it, but flipping over, the girl instantly bounced up. Like a spring. And then — I couldn't even properly track it. It seems Capybara had just managed to turn when she struck him in the face with her knee in a high jump. Something crunched loudly. He seemed not to feel it, grabbed his opponent in an armful, spun with his whole body and hurled her at the cage wall.

"Yes, little brother, a-a-a-a-h!" Alex roared, slapping me on the back with his palm.

The throw was so strong that the girl crashed into the mesh somewhere at three-meter height. She fell onto the arena, unsuccessfully landing on her back, and the hall for the second time issued a groan. But the girl smartly flipped onto her stomach and froze, propping herself with her palms on the floor. I was afraid to blink lest I miss anything. Capybara (his face and chest were now covered with blood) began walking around the girl along the mesh. She only turned her head after him — without getting up, like a lizard. And then she darted at him with one imperceptible jerk. The subsequent lightning exchange of blows is impossible to describe. She falls and immediately gets up. He covers and counterattacks. She falls again. Arms and legs don't even flicker, they flash. Now he falls, but almost the same moment he's on his feet again. All this had long ago crossed the boundaries of an ordinary fight. More precisely, this was beyond human capabilities... And here the girl jumps onto Capybara's shoulders. I don't remember exactly how. It felt like she just — and ended up on him, squeezing his neck with her knees. And the next moment, without unclenching her legs, she falls down with all her weight. Capybara staggers and also crashes to the floor. Then the girl sharply rotates her hips, and for the second time in the fight you can hear the terrible sound of broken bones.

Want to earn — bet on the girl...

Capybara went gray and froze. His opponent with a victorious cry does a somersault over her head, and the hall explodes with enthusiastic shouts. I turned to look at Alex, but he wasn't there — he was towering over the crowd already somewhere near the exit...

When I ran out into the corridor, Alex was turning the corner. Excited spectators poured out of the hall, discussing the fight. I ran after him, pushing through the crowd. And suddenly ran into Okamura, naked to the waist. Above the elbows his arms were in blue paint.

"I'm next!" he shouted to me. "Tell Irma, she wanted to watch!"

I nodded and ran on.

The corridor had long been empty. With great effort I managed to find the room where we first met Alex. Irma was there. Alex gloomily propped up the wall. And on the table lay Capybara, smeared with blood. Two guys with first aid kits on their belts were putting an orthopedic collar on the gladiator's neck.

"Thanks," Irma said, and the guys left.

"The corporal's about to fight..." I began, but Irma interrupted:

"Come in."

I closed the door behind me. The guy on the table looked terrible. If I understand anything about this, he has a serious injury. At least a neck fracture. A miracle he's alive.

"He needs a hospital..." I said uncertainly.

Irma shot a cold glance in my direction.

"Are you kidding? And what will we say there?" she turned to Alex. "Three days, and he'll be fine. But he can't go to the barracks. Can you arrange leave for three days?"

Alex nodded dejectedly.

"Irma, I lost money..." the big guy said quietly.

"Should have bet on the girl."

"Then who will bet on him if even I bet on the girl! And already half are shouting the fight was bought!"

Irma just shrugged and turned to me.

"How long until the corporal's fight?"

"Don't know, he was already going to the arena..."

"Listen, Irma," Alex interrupted me. "Favorites shouldn't lose! At least not like this! Otherwise people will stop coming here!"

"They won't stop."

"Irma, screw your matrix, I need him to win!!!" Alex screamed this phrase so loud my ears rang. "I'll be selling your pollen like the fucking coffee machine in the cafeteria, I swear! You'll get tired bringing it to me! Just figure something out, huh? Increase Capybara's dose or..."

"Can't increase the dose!"

"But you knew in advance he'd lose! So you know how to influence it!"

She thought about something, looking at her feet. Then looked at the big guy, tilting her head back.

"Need leave for a whole week. Not three days. Can you do it?"

"No problem," Alex answered readily.

"And he'll have to stay here. Not at your place, not in the barracks, not anywhere else. Here. Under supervision. Got it?"

"Whatever you say, Irma, I..."

"And you'll move two quotas a week."

"Two?!"

"What did you think!"

Alex thoughtfully moved his jaw left-right.

"Oki-doki, two each. And what will you..."

"Shut your trap."

Irma pulled out a drawer of tools from under the table. Rummaged in it.

"Need a wrench," she said.

Alex silently fumbled in some cabinet and held out to her a huge nickel-plated wrench.

"Lieutenant, hold his shoulders. If he jerks — he'll damage his spinal cord."

I didn't ask questions, walked around the table and pressed the gladiator's shoulders to the tabletop. Irma deftly stuck a roll of bandage in his mouth. The guy was surprised, but she didn't let him object, sealing his mouth with a strip of silver tape. He mumbled something in protest and started jerking. I leaned harder, holding his shoulders on the table.

"This will hurt," Irma said.

And the next moment she swung the wrench and hit the guy on the shin with all her might.

6

"What are you doing?!" I screamed.

The gladiator howled in pain, instinctively trying to sit up. Though I was stunned by what happened, I didn't dare let go of his shoulders — if he damages his spinal cord, he'll most likely die. I even had to lie with my cheek on his forehead so he couldn't lift his head. Alex was silent, but from his bulging eyes I understood he was in the same shock as me.

"Pollen perfects the imperfect," Irma answered calmly. "Accordingly, more damage — more improvements."

And she, swinging the wrench, delivered another merciless blow — to the other shin. I didn't have time to stop her. Capybara screamed and jerked like a fish on shore.

"Stop!!!" I barked.

"Hold the shoulders!!!"

I leaned on the guy with all my weight. His forehead was cold and wet.

"In the cage, the one who was beaten harder last time always wins," Irma continued calmly and struck the fighter's thigh with the wrench.

He howled again and arched. This time I'll manage... I looked at Irma. Her gaze wandered over the gladiator's arm looking for a place for the next blow. Capybara stopped jerking, and his torso lowered back onto the table. And then I rushed at Irma.

"Back!" Alex barked, unexpectedly intercepting me with his huge arm. "I got the idea! She's doing everything right! Hold the shoulders!"

"Hold them yourself!" I stepped back from the big guy in confusion. "Irma, give him at least anesthetic!"

"He needs to adapt to pain too," she objected in a cold tone. "For him to win, he'll have to be broken after each fight. Otherwise he'll fall behind opponents."

Then I walked around Alex and headed for the exit. No one tried to stop me. The big guy leaned on the fighter's shoulders instead of me. Irma swung the wrench. I left the room, not understanding what was happening. Behind my back the wrench descended on the unfortunate man's arm with a crunch.

Somewhere nearby enthusiastic shouts of spectators rang out. I tried to orient myself where the exit was. Then quickly moved in the chosen direction. At first I even recognized the rooms I was walking through, and then found myself in front of an unfamiliar and completely dark hangar we definitely didn't pass through. Then I returned to the nearest turn and chose another direction. But also made a mistake: in a few minutes I was already standing at the gates behind which music thundered and the crowd raged. Damn...

I really didn't want to return to Irma... I thought that the music might mean the end of the fight... And as if in confirmation, the gates opened. I stepped aside, letting out a group of conquistadors carrying someone bloodied on their shoulders.

I tried to see who it was, fearing it was Okamura, but saw that the paint on the gladiator's shoulders was white, not blue. The corridor filled with people. Okamura appeared a few seconds later — on the shoulders of fans, with triumphantly raised arms. At least he'll show me where the exit is. And I began making my way to the corporal through the crowd.

"Okamura!"

He noticed me and jumped to the floor.

"I did it!!! Did you see? Without pollen, brother! Refused before the fight! And didn't take any during the day! Myself, you understand? Myself!!!"

"Yeah, fought great..." I lied. "Listen, I need to go, but I'm lost."

"Let's go together, don't rush! Give me a few minutes!"

Okamura went to the shower. I stood in the corridor thinking about where this damn raid with Irma had dragged me. Why did she decide to choose me specifically? But on the other hand — who? Anton — the eternally gloomy technician? Or offer to sell drugs to biocontrol commander Abu Asad? Oh right, it's not drugs, it's the greatest something-or-other. I remembered with what impassive expression Irma broke poor Capybara's leg, and I felt sick.

The corridor emptied — the next fight had started. Okamura wasn't coming out. All I needed now was for Irma to come and start feeding me all this delirium about a cure for all diseases again... Even if Okamura really did get on his feet after a spinal injury... And that still needs to be checked, what kind of injury it was... Where is he anyway?

I knocked.

"You almost done?"

No answer. Water was still running. He could be faster.

"You didn't forget about me?"

I don't know how I guessed something was wrong. Probably because the shower was running completely monotonously. It's not like that when you're standing under it. And I jerked the door open.

Naked Okamura lay on the floor in fetal position. His back was adorned with a tattoo of intertwined dragons, and they seemed alive — his whole body shook from strong fever. I ran up. The corporal was conscious. Yellow as wax.

"What happened? Can you hear me? Can you sit?"

He nodded. I helped him. Okamura wanted to say something and was already drawing air into his chest, but seemed to think. And then he was twisted in a painful retching spasm.

"Oh Lord..."

"Ate something..." he muttered listlessly, but it was quite clear that food had nothing to do with it: his vomit was thick and black as coal.

"I'll get Irma!" I said and ran out of the shower.

This time I found the way to Alex's closet quite quickly. They were there — putting splints on unfortunate Capybara.

"Something's wrong with the corporal!" I shouted from the doorway. "He's vomiting black!"

"What an idiot..." Irma hissed through her teeth, and I didn't understand whose address. "Lead the way!"

Nothing was left of the flexible and strong corporal. The person sitting on the shower floor was breathing rapidly and seemed to barely maintain consciousness. I entered after Irma, but she pushed me out and slammed the door.

"Are you completely brain-dead?!" I heard her voice through the door. "I said you can't jump off pollen! Said it?!"

Okamura answered something quietly — I didn't hear what exactly.

"And how?! Proved it?!" Irma was shouting at him. "Look at yourself now! Get up!!!"

Judging by the sound, he vomited again. Irma cursed.

"Sorry," the corporal whimpered pitifully.

The door opened. Okamura was still naked and, swaying, stood in the middle of the shower. Irma's tunic was unbuttoned, the T-shirt from neck to waist was flooded with black — the corporal had vomited right on her. Taking off the relatively clean tunic, Irma threw it at me.

"Hold this!"

In one movement she removed the T-shirt, not paying attention to the soldiers in the corridor. Someone whistled — she wasn't wearing a bra — but Irma didn't bat an eye. With the clean part of the crumpled T-shirt she carefully wiped the black liquid from her skin. I stared stupidly at her breasts. Nice. Somewhere in the back of my consciousness flashed the thought that it would be polite to turn away. Irma took the tunic from my hands.

"Finished gawking?" she barked. "Help him get dressed!"

Okamura wasn't vomiting anymore, but his strength was only enough not to fall. We struggled for about ten minutes. Finally we got out. Irma grabbed the corporal from the other side, throwing his arm over her neck. Already at the all-terrain vehicle Alex caught up with us.

"Everything okay?"

"It happens," Irma answered dryly. "First fight."

"And what to do with Capybara?"

"Tomorrow he'll be able to walk, remove the splints. Don't change doses! Training — on the fifth day."

"Thank you."

"Sell the goods — that's your 'thank you.'"

Alex helped put Okamura in the all-terrain vehicle, easily picking him up in his arms. Irma slammed the rear doors of the all-terrain vehicle and shoved me with her elbow.

"Let's go!"

She drove the all-terrain vehicle herself. The corporal was still pale as a candle, but held himself better already. He even sat up.

"How are you?" I looked into his eyes.

The pupils were very wide, simply huge. He silently showed a thumbs up.

Irma stopped the all-terrain vehicle near the bio-company barracks.

"Take it three times a day," she said.

"You see, it makes me vomit right away..." the corporal said pitifully.

"Let's hope the rejection passes in a day. And you can't sleep!"

"Yeah, I remember..."

"Do whatever you want, got it?"

"Got it... I'll load up on energy drinks..."

Okamura climbed out the hatch — clumsily, like an old codger. I wanted to help him, but Irma stopped me.

"Sit."

You could hear him jump off and, it seems, fall. Then, cursing, he got up and heavily shuffled away.

"Why can't he sleep?" I asked in surprise.

"Because he'll die..." Irma said irritably and nervously pressed on the gas.

The all-terrain vehicle tore forward so fast I almost fell. In a minute we were at the biostation.

"Come to my place, I'll explain everything," Irma said, jumping off the armor. "You'll see the research materials, understand everything. Otherwise you're looking at me like I'm a monster."

Before my eyes indeed again and again rose her face at the moment when she was breaking the guy's legs.

"Don't need explanations, Irma, thanks," I also got off the all-terrain vehicle. "I think what I've seen is enough for me."

"You still don't get what's happening, right?" she slightly tilted her head, looking into my eyes. "Remember: 'what doesn't kill us makes us stronger'? That's about pollen. Literally. In a day what can't be achieved by years of training happens! And it's not about the bets that fat guy made. The fights are ideal conditions for an experiment. And black pollen is the key to perfection!"

"Okamura there can barely walk from perfection."

"His own fault. He'll recover. Pollen is a Nobel Prize, lieutenant. Saved lives, millions in earnings, world fame — whatever you want! A chance for all humanity. Understand?"

"Only I, Irma, don't really need millions. And fame doesn't matter to me."

"But perfection wouldn't hurt, right?"

I clenched my hand and rubbed my palm with my fingertips. The numbness in my fingertips hadn't gone anywhere, the "glove" seemed to have gotten even thicker... My head immediately filled with sticky, cold anxiety.

"Come on," she insisted, "I'll show you the research results, and you'll understand everything."

"You're sick in the head, Irma. In case no one's told you that yet."

End of Chunk 09 (Pages 97-108)

The smile vanished from her face. She frowned, looking from under her brows.

"And stay away from me," I again mechanically rubbed my hand.

Turned out, the back side had gone numb too.

"What's with your hand?" she immediately asked. "You keep rubbing it..."

"What — you'll break it with a wrench?"

"Stop it. Just wanted to offer a little pollen. By morning everything would pass..."

I simply turned and left. Shame she turned out like this. But whatever. My hand worries me much more. "Just pinched a nerve," I told myself mentally. "Think about something pleasant."

...Irma takes off her dirty T-shirt in a crowded warehouse corridor, and I can't tear my eyes from her large brown nipples — for some reason I thought about exactly that.

Everyone at home was already asleep. I took off my shoes without turning on the light so as not to wake anyone. Now I'll grab a quick bite and sleep... I rubbed my hand again. The "glove" had indeed transformed from surgical to rough household... Anyway, it's not yet a fact that this is — it. More likely even — it's not it.

I quietly opened the bathroom door and turned on the light.

Fear shook my insides like an electric shock. There was someone in the bathroom. Or something. Very close, large and dark. It jerked and lunged in my direction. I instinctively raised my hands, involuntarily making a drawn-out "E-e-e!" on my breath. And only after a moment understood it was Vira's robe. A robe worn, actually, on Vira. A second ago she was standing bent over the sink, and now turned to me, covering herself from the light.

"Turn it off!" she said peevishly.

"Virka?" my temples pounded from the experienced fright. "Why are you in the dark?"

"Turn it off, I said!" she approached the door and fumbled for the switch, covering her eyes with her palm. It went dark, but I'd already managed to notice it on her face.

"Wait..." I turned the light on again.

"Gil! Fool!" she turned away, covering herself with her elbow.

I took her by the shoulders and tried to turn her face toward me, but Vira resisted.

"Leave me alone! Gil, turn off the light!"

"You have blood!"

Under her nose was a dried dark stream, and now I noticed a few drops on the sink too.

"Turn it off!" and Virunchik suddenly pushed me.

Whether from surprise or from how much force she put into this movement, but I flew to the wall, hitting my back noticeably. Virka immediately turned off the light.

"Are you crazy! Nosebleed — why are you bugging me? Where do you go until night?!"

I approached the sink and turned on the light above the mirror. Vira squinted again. She was somehow disheveled. And... I paid attention to her gaze. Something was wrong with it. Vira's eyes were running back and forth. I didn't understand why...

"What were you doing here?"

"Got up to use the toilet. Blood started from my nose," Vira sniffled and touched the dried stream with her finger. "Move, I'll wash up. Where are you wandering, Gil?!"

"Was on a raid," I shrugged, letting her to the sink.

"Don't lie! You came back from the raid god-knows-when — I went to your biostation!"

"Went?"

"And what should I do at nine in the evening! Your Anton checked — the all-terrain vehicle returned to camp at six-thirty," Vira quickly washed up. "Hand me a towel. So where were you?"

"At the warehouses. Doesn't matter..."

I shook my head, trying to return the thought that flashed a second before her questions. Something wrong with her eyes...

"What warehouses, Gil?! I called you about six times..."

"It was noisy," I answered mechanically.

Eyes... Something about eyes...

"Where noisy?" Vira went on the attack. "At the warehouses? Were loaders rehearsing?!"

"Rehearsing..."

"Yes, little brother, a-a-a-a-h!"

I tried to catch that thought, but it had already slipped away and my head filled with completely different memories...

"Let the fight begin!!!"

"Gil! Were you with that Irma of yours?!"

"Yes," I nodded absently. "On the raid..."

In a crowded corridor Irma takes off her T-shirt, and I can't tear my eyes away... Eyes... Something wrong with Vira's eyes...

"What raid, damn it?!" Vira raised her voice.

"Vira!" I took her face, turning it to the lit mirror. "What were you doing here just now?"

I caught it — the thought that had already slipped away. And now, looking into Vira's brown eyes, I clearly saw I wasn't mistaken. Just as clearly I saw a fleeting fright flash in them.

"Are you sick?!" she sharply broke free and sniffled. "What do people do in the toilet?!"

Vira's pupils were huge. Bright light should have reduced them to the size of a tomato seed. But her pupils were large as a ripe gooseberry.

"Vira! Are you taking something?"

I approached her again, took her by the elbow, but Vira immediately freed herself, stepping back. And mechanically stuck her hand in the robe pocket.

"What are you babbling, Gil?! Is it because I'm asking who you were carousing with?!"

"Stop talking nonsense! What's in your pocket?"

I tried to stick my hand in her pocket, and she pushed me — this time really hard. Didn't even know she could do that. Vira's little shoulder struck me in the chest, and I fell on my back, managing to group myself only at the last moment. The floor painfully hit my extended forearms. And the back of my head rang from collision with the plastic shower cabin lining.

"You're a fool, Gil!" Vira said offendedly. "I'll sleep with Elza. And don't come, I don't want to see you!"

And she slammed the door behind her.

In the morning it seemed to me the "glove" on my hand had gotten thinner. At least it definitely hadn't gotten thicker. This gave me a bit of strength. Vira was sulking and didn't want to talk. I, on the contrary, tried to stir her up with questions. It seemed this way I could understand whether my nighttime suspicions were justified or not. Maybe she'd give herself away somehow. But Virka didn't have a guilty look, didn't do anything inadequate. I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it.

Honestly, that morning the only thing that really worried me was the terrible double bottom of our colony. Drugs of alien origin, brutal fights almost to death, the nightmare execution performed by a girl who just yesterday seemed almost the sweetest person in the world... It was all as if part of some wild bloodthirsty cult. And most disgusting, I didn't just peek into this bottom, I touched it. Dirtied myself first by complicity in collecting pollen, and then...

Memory mercilessly accurately reproduced the disgusting crunch of a broken tibia. I shuddered. No, I won't be an accomplice to this savagery! I didn't ask to join their clan of drug dealers and didn't promise anything anyway. I don't know what they're thinking, but I have a daughter. A daughter and a diagnosis they never even dreamed of. And I won't risk my career, because it's the only thing that can secure my Elza's future. Not their stinking pollen and especially not Capybara's victory in the next fight!

That's why I'll do what I decided. Doesn't matter what they'll call me after this... Now or never.

7

Senior Control Officer Vandlik set up her office in the internal security company barracks — together with her charges. Although by status she should have had an office at headquarters, next to the commander. Many thought she deliberately tried to be "closer to the people," inflating her value in subordinates' eyes. But not the guys themselves, whose right uniform sleeve was dyed black (sign of internal security). For them Vandlik's authority was unquestionable. And, I think, not without reason.

"Black sleeves," to put it mildly, were shunned, since maintaining discipline and investigating service violations were also part of their tasks. Their barracks stood on the outskirts, near the very wall of the Perimeter, as if emphasizing this status. Also here in a long strip were lined up kennels with dogs, whose unfriendly barking rang out to a good half of the camp.

Vandlik was at the sports ground. When I saw her, she was demonstrating to the next group of conquistadors how ridiculous their attempts to attack her hand-to-hand were. Probably, to say she did this with pleasure would be inaccurate: Vandlik did this with relish. Neither her short stature nor boyish weight hindered her at all. She was twice as fast as each of her bruisers. Catching the moment, she dove under the arm of an already quite winded conquistador and poked him well in the solar plexus. Without giving the man even a chance to bend, she bent the poor guy's arm with a crunch, forcing him to maintain balance on tiptoes.

"Animals will attack you with paws, chelicerae, stingers, claws, horns, teeth... And the rule is always one — move off the attack line!" Vandlik demonstratively released the poor fellow, and he fell to the ground. "And you're too in love with your assault rifles! Keep being dumb, they'll bite them off along with your arms!"

She spoke beautifully, weightily, calmly. Vividly. Vandlik had a talent for hammering new skills directly into her charges' subcortex.

I had the chance to get better acquainted with her at recent shooting competitions. Only combat units participated. I was present then only because such were the rules: at any mass events in the colony there must be at least one biologist, just in case. Vandlik noticed something in my eyes when I was watching the next fighter performing tasks. Shooting prone, standing, from cover and on the move. Once, back in the army, I went through enhanced marksmanship training and didn't become a sniper in my unit only because there were too many like me there. But my love for shooting hadn't gone anywhere, and I sadly noted the crude mistakes of some shooters, thinking how great it would be to participate myself.

"Want to shoot?" she unexpectedly asked.

"Yes, ma'am! Don't have clearance."

"At the start is a completely disassembled rifle. New design, you haven't shot with such yet."

"Think I'll manage to assemble it somehow..."

"I think so too. But you won't fit in the time limit on the first try. And even if you don't miss once after — forget about a prize place."

I understood from the tone that this was a kind of invitation to participate, and smiled broadly.

"What are you standing for, lieutenant?" Vandlik barked emphatically by the book: "To starting position at the double!"

The new rifle indeed differed from everything I was used to dealing with. After figuring out the bolt fairly quickly, I got stuck trying to understand how to snap the body together. Someone was shouting completely senseless hints. I mentally counted off precious seconds in my head — instead of the allotted fifteen I was fumbling for probably all fifty. But it didn't matter: following Vandlik's advice, I threw out the very thought of victory and just got pleasure. Finally the lock pin clicked, and I raised the combat-ready rifle.

I remember how I took prone position, reminding myself I could take my time now. How I made myself slowly inhale and exhale, allowing my body to "spread around the rifle," as my instructor once said. How I smoothly pressed the trigger... The shot thundered, and as always when you can't see whether you hit or not, the thought arose that I'd missed.

After all, I only see the target outline, and any deviation to the side... But I habitually threw all this out of my head, focusing on the shooting process. Just need to repeat everything exactly the same as the first time. Shot! And again — exactly the same, to the smallest movement. Shot! And again...

I remember Vandlik, checking the targets, found me with her gaze. I expected from her some gesture, like, not bad... Or maybe, on the contrary, that she'd grimace contemptuously... But she just looked at me attentively, and then, approaching an officer from another range, checked his table for a long time. When they announced the top twenty, I won't hide it, a timid hope smoldered in me to be at least in the tail. But a miracle didn't happen — how long I fumbled assembling the rifle put a cross even on the twenty. Well, fine.

And when it all ended, Vandlik suddenly came up to me and with her characteristic directness stated:

"You know you showed the best result?"

"That is, the best?"

"That is, the best in shooting. Doesn't matter what place you ended up in. I hope it doesn't matter to you either. But you shoot excellently. For a biologist. Want to come to my training? Starting tomorrow. You'll like it."

Since then for a month I'd been spending in Vandlik's company at least three hours a week, improving my combat skills together with her personal bull terriers — guys with black sleeves.

She didn't spoil me with any special treatment, and I was hardly her best student, but we both enjoyed our interaction. She valued the pleasure with which I trained. I — her directness and ability to explain something once and for all. If you already managed to avoid injuries in training, going forward you'll apply the learned techniques without thinking.

...The paratroopers were jogging sluggishly in a circle under the encouraging shouts of the miniature control officer. I approached Vandlik, choosing my words.

"I have information," I said. "Unofficial. Concerns security."

Vandlik looked at me seriously with her pale blue eyes.

"Twenty more laps!" she barked at her charges. "Whoever has a dry back — penalty duty!"

And the senior control officer nodded, inviting me to follow her.

We stopped in the shadow of a building. Vandlik got out an old-fashioned tobacco cigarette and held it out to me.

"No, thanks. I don't smoke."

"I also try not to get carried away," she nodded. "Statistical forecasting and all that... But you know, one acquaintance of mine suffered all his life trying to quit, because his individual oncology forecast was sky-high... And in the end he was cleaning a rifle and shot himself in the head. Such things..."

And she lit the cigarette she'd offered me herself.

"What did you want?" she asked, releasing a cloud of smoke through her nostrils.

Suddenly I realized I wasn't ready for the conversation. It seemed so necessary and unambiguous to me that I didn't even think through where I'd start. And only when Vandlik asked, any beginning started to seem like some disgusting snitching.

"So..." I began. "I accidentally learned that in the colony... things are happening... dangerous for all of us — probably..."

"Get to the point!"

I sighed and delivered:

"Illegal fights at the warehouses — heard of such a thing?"

"Of course," Vandlik nodded without even raising an eyebrow. "Did someone get killed there?"

Her calm caught me off guard.

"N-no, not really... Definitely not, but..."

"Crippled?"

I nodded uncertainly.

"Probably."

She shrugged.

"I knew sooner or later they'd overdo it. But those are their problems. For violating the Corps charter they get kicked out to hell without compensation."

I hesitated. I should have told her about the pollen. But at the same time manage not to name Irma. Even though I came with a report to the control officer, I definitely wasn't planning to become a traitor. Though at that moment I felt exactly like one.

"They're taking some filth," I finally said.

"Drugs?"

"I think so..."

Vandlik's face became concerned.

"Anything heavy? Synthetics?"

"As I understood, it's something local. Looks like black powder."

"Pollen," she nodded and lost interest. "Organic stimulant. They have a whole mini-religion about it."

Squinting, Vandlik took a drag with pleasure. I waited for her to say something, but the senior control officer was completely absorbed in smoking.

"Anything else?" she asked, noticing my gaze.

"Well... This isn't enough?"

"Just enough, I'd say. Enough for the guys to have somewhere to let off steam. A conquistador absolutely needs his own piece of freedom. Freedom from the charter and commanders, I mean."

"You're joking!" escaped from me.

"Not joking at all," Vandlik answered imperturbably.

"It's just... Drugs and illegal fights... I thought the direct duty of a control officer..."

She interrupted:

"The direct duty of a control officer, Gil, is to ensure mission success. If for this we need to forbid drugs — then forbid them. But if pollen can help perform tasks, be assured, I'll set up uninterrupted production here."

"Didn't know you were a philosopher..."

"I, lieutenant, am a practitioner. In one mission in our unit there was a guy. Such a nerd... Wouldn't hurt a fly. Some important specialist in something... Private first class. Once he took his rifle in the middle of the parade ground and started shooting everyone in a row. I was still an ordinary internal security lieutenant then. Was standing right in formation... And he killed a guy next to me. And a bunch of people. And then someone shot him... That's how it was... And you know why he did it? They drove him crazy. They had some conflict with the commander, and he decided to get back at the nerd, driving him to hysteria with petty harassment. If this had happened with us, the guy would have gone to the warehouses, taken some powder, won a hundred on the tote, and mentally showed the commander 'fuck you'!" Vandlik warmed up, she gestured animatedly, clenching the cigarette in her teeth. "Understand? Felt free and subject to no one — look, and the person doesn't have a depressed but elevated mood! But in that mission there was nothing like that. The nerd endured humiliation for about half a year, and then he snapped."

"I understand..." I said somewhat confusedly. "May I ask another question."

"Go ahead."

"Does the commander know?"

She looked at me with interest.

"You're quite a character! But I like it. Few people care, you know! Answer: yes, the commander knows everything that concerns him. And isn't aware of what doesn't concern him. Any more questions?"

In the last words sounded a threat, and I thought it was better not to push it.

"No, ma'am!"

"That's a good boy. And if you learn that someone's selling anything heavy — whistle immediately. That's a real threat to the mission. But pollen or herbs..."

"We have herbs too?"

Vandlik giggled. Seems she was deliberately provoking me.

"Didn't expect this from security..." I said carefully. "In a good sense."

"That's what they pay us for. And just for guarding we have dogs and assault troops."

Vandlik extended her hand to me in a manly way. Her handshake was surprisingly firm.

"Don't you want to transfer to us?"

"To the 'sleeves'?" I was surprised. "That is, to the service..."

"To the 'sleeves,' to the 'sleeves,'" Vandlik smiled. "You're a sharp guy. And our own biologist wouldn't hurt either."

"I'll think about it," I promised.

We said goodbye, and I shuffled off to the biostation, feeling embarrassed.

From a distance I noticed that all our people were crowding outside, surrounding the transformer box. Anton, cursing under his breath, was rummaging inside. I stood behind the others' backs and silently watched, trying with all my might not to let one guess form into a full thought. I waved it off like a persistent autumn fly, mentally repeating the word "nonsense." But in a minute Anton turned to us, and the guess became reality: he disgustedly held out to us two freshly extracted from the transformer's depths dead reapers.

"Strange," Aba said quietly and went inside, not developing this thought at all.

Anton threw the reapers on the grass. Returning, he clicked the switch, and the transformer quietly hummed, returning to life.

"Next time it'll burn out," he muttered, addressing no one.

"Don't jinx it," Irma said and also went inside.

Closing the transformer box doors, Anton looked at me wearily. He didn't say anything, but his gaze was more eloquent than any "I told you so."

The day turned out long and strange. I often rubbed my hand and kept thinking about Irma. She acted as if nothing had happened, smiled, flashing her dimples on her cheeks, and all that. And I again and again returned in thought either to that terrible execution of the poor fighter, or to how Irma unceremoniously changes clothes in front of everyone. This combination of sexuality and cruelty didn't fit in my head and constantly troubled me. Irma was a complete contradiction. On one hand — to sell drugs... Stimulants, as Vandlik says... And on the other — to arrange, what the hell, a colossal experiment on the pollen's effect on humans! These studies should really be looked at. I'm not saying, of course, about tasting the pollen... At least without a full laboratory analysis... I rubbed my hand again. Seems now I do this always when I think about pollen. No, kid, let's not rush. I haven't forgotten Okamura who was vomiting some black shit.

Speaking of Okamura. Finishing work, I immediately went to him.

On the barracks second floor it was ideally clean. The corridor was flooded with uniform cold light. Okamura's door turned out to be the last one. I knocked. It was quiet. I knocked again and put my ear to the door. No steps, no other sounds.

"Who?" suddenly sounded right under the door, and I flinched.

The voice was weak and quiet. As if its owner found the strength to answer between retching fits and is hurrying to be alone again with the toilet.

"It's Gil. The lieutenant who rode with you yesterday," I stepped back so he could see me in the peephole. "Wanted to ask how you are."

"Shitty... Body's not accepting it."

I thought he'd open, but — no. The corporal wasn't planning to continue the conversation either.

"Maybe you need the hospital?"

"Don't need..." he answered, and it was clear each word came terribly hard. "Irma said, it'll pass..."

"You... Don't sleep there..."

"I know..."

"Call if anything, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

I stood a bit longer, expecting that maybe I'd hear some sounds. At least him walking away from the door. But it was quiet. Shuffling a bit more, I left.

The nightmare happened the morning of the next day.

8

It was around eight. Seems I was just standing in the middle of the kitchen and for the hundredth time rubbing my fingers, convincing myself everything would pass. Though actually that morning the "glove" on my hand had become noticeably longer. Now it evenly covered my whole wrist. Vira sat with her nose buried in a cup. We'd hardly talked for the second day. The radio chattered. I even remember that morning the announcer was reading the emergency forecast and promising some ridiculous fractions of a percent calculated per colony resident... And then gunshots rang out. So unexpectedly that I didn't believe my ears.

End of Chunk 10 (Pages 109-120)

I froze, listening. Silence... Even had time to think it seemed... And here — again. The sound was recognizable and clear. A shot — and immediately a second! And again — a shot! And immediately another! More! More! Now not the slightest doubt — they're shooting, and very close! And not at all at the shooting range, which is a good kilometer away, and definitely not beyond the Perimeter. They're shooting very nearby. Here again! I started putting on my shoes.

"What is it?" Vira asked fearfully.

The next moment the air was torn by a short bass sound of an explosion.

"Oh Lord..." escaped from me.

Fastening my belt with holster on the go, I rushed to the door.

"Gil!" Vira called me and added, when I turned already at the door: "Careful!"

I read this word from the movement of her lips, because it almost completely drowned in the sound of another powerful explosion.

"Lock the door!" I shouted.

Elza started crying in her room.

I raced to the center of camp. Very soon I began noticing other people also running toward the sound. And all in the direction of the parade ground. And here a bit ahead on the right I saw Irma.

"What happened there?" I asked, catching up with her.

"Some shit!"

About a hundred meters remained, but it was already visible that Irma was right. On the parade ground lay corpses. Many — scattered on the concrete among bloody pools. Separate from other bodies darkened something small. It seemed to me, someone's leg.

"What happened here?.." I muttered.

A crowd quickly gathered around. Irma and I had to push through. Some officers were already pushing back the crowd, hastily setting up a perimeter around the scene.

"Who was shooting?" Irma asked loudly, addressing no one.

"That guy," someone answered, pointing toward a solitary body lying at the very edge of the parade ground, like a pile of clothes. "Started firing at everyone indiscriminately. Threw two grenades. Then they shot him."

Irma walked swiftly through the crowd, deftly pushing people with her elbows. I barely kept up with her. We walked around the parade ground along the perimeter and finally stopped, looking over the shoulders of the guys in the cordon. Medics were running around, loading wounded onto stretchers. The shooter was now quite close to us. He was still alive — medics were fussing over him. Someone threw his backpack aside and began cutting off his clothes. Opened a case with a defibrillator. "Hands! Discharge!" The boots on the guy jerked. A quiet "Useless" sounded. Another discharge...

"Hey!"

I turned. Irma pointed with her eyes at the shooter's backpack lying nearby.

"See?"

But I didn't understand what she was pointing at. Then Irma crouched, leaned on her hands on the concrete and pulled the backpack by the cut strap. And then I saw.

Next to the Corps emblem and inscription "Bio-company" on the backpack was visible a name patch with a single word.

"OKAMURA"

I looked at Irma. But she shook her head, as if saying: "Not here!". And immediately got up, diving into the crowd. As soon as we were behind conquistadors' backs, I grabbed her by the elbow.

"Irma..." only one question spun in my head. And I didn't need an answer, because I already knew. "Is this because of the pollen?"

"What are you babbling!" she stared at me in surprise or even indignation.

"And what then?! The day before yesterday he was vomiting like he'd eaten coal. And today he lost his mind!"

"Stop talking nonsense! Better help me: the corporal has a room full of powder, and if they find it..."

"I don't care, Irma! I don't give a damn about your pollen and the Nobel Prize too! How many people did you manage to get hooked on this?"

"What?!"

"How many people in the camp have tasted pollen? How long have you been selling this filth?"

"What difference does it make! I'm telling you about something else!"

"And I'm telling you about this! Last night my Vira was acting strange. And if I find out she's also..."

"So what?" Irma looked at me defiantly and with cold contempt. "I thought you were a scientist! But you're incapable of just thinking logically! If people shot each other from pollen, then one half of the camp would have already shot the other, because I, lieutenant, sell half a kilo a week!"

"Half a kilo a week? Half a kilo a week of an unknown substance of biological origin on an alien planet? You know who you are?! You're insane!"

"Listen to me..." Irma approached, but I recoiled as from something contagious.

"You're crazy! You, this fucked-up Okamura, and that fat guy Alex who crippled a person to earn more from him! You're idiots who don't understand where you ended up!"

She flared up at these words and pressed her lips tight. And I simply turned and ran home.

Vira and Elza were already gone. At first I wanted to call Vira, but changed my mind. She won't confess anyway. And I ran to the bathroom — for some reason I thought I'd find the pollen exactly there. Even seemed I'd seen a packet on the shelf among Vira's creams. But in the bathroom there was nothing like that... The robe! Of course... It hung in our bedroom. I ran there and thoroughly searched the pockets. Empty.

The robe smelled of Vira... Such a dear Vira, incredibly precious and close to me, despite everything...

Okay, and if it's not pollen but something else. For example, coke — even ordinary Earth coke — where could it be? She didn't go to courses with a packet of drugs in her pocket! Need to search at home. Vanity, her jacket, jeans in the closet, purse... I even climbed under the mattress — nothing. Maybe I really imagined it. She was simply in the bathroom. Wanted to sleep, light hit her eyes... But her pupils — they were abnormally dilated. Weren't they? And the force with which she pushed me! Though maybe I just stumbled... Returned to the bathroom again, replaying many times what happened at night. Blood... Blood was flowing from her nose... Opening the cabinet doors again, I thoughtfully examined Vira's shelf. Nothing! Nothing like what you could keep powder in, not to mention packets of pollen... Perfumes, hand cream, dental floss, nasal spray... By the way, blood could have been flowing precisely because of the spray — it quite strongly dries the mucous membrane. This thought again made me doubt my suspicions. What do I know about pollen? Why did I decide Vira is on it? Probably should have looked at Irma's research to at least understand something. After all, I don't even imagine what mechanism of its effect is. And honestly, whether there's a narcotic effect at all and what it is — I don't know either. Obviously there's a doping effect — that's true. And also pollen seems to enhance regeneration... That's if Irma isn't lying.

I suddenly realized I must check this — whether Irma is lying. Or maybe not lying, but simply exaggerating the healing properties. I immediately mechanically rubbed my numb hand. No, that's not the question yet. I simply need to understand what we're dealing with. If a guy who's on pollen shot a bunch of people, and I also suspect my own wife of using it, I absolutely must learn everything possible about this filth!

Alex was leading me down an unfamiliar corridor. Ahead sounded uniform loud blows, but I couldn't understand what kind of sound it was.

"They say Okamura was taken down by his own roommate," Alex said. "Joyce or whatever his name is. Imagine? To take down a dude you shared a room with, at the moment when he's shooting your platoon... Damn, what trash!"

The sound of blows was now much closer. Alex paid no attention to it.

"And Capybara — is he getting up already?" I asked.

"Getting up?! You'll freak out when you see!"

"So Irma wasn't wrong in her predictions?"

"When was she ever wrong! By the way, where is she?"

"Okamura's room is full of pollen — Irma wants to get it before security guys show up there."

"Got it. Capybar-r-ra!"

The blows stopped. The gladiator peered into the corridor. His tank top was wet with sweat, and he stood on his legs as if the day before yesterday there had been no execution.

"Training on the fifth day," Alex rumbled in a bass. "Forgot?"

"I'm just warming up," he muttered.

We entered an empty room in the middle of which hung on chains a huge punching bag. Capybara began methodically working it with his fists, producing that same loud sound. The blows were such that the chains whined piteously, and I really feared they might not hold.

"Came to ask how you're feeling," I said.

He pretended not to hear and furiously pounded the bag further.

"Irma sent him," Alex explained.

"Worried? But when she was breaking my legs, she wasn't worried. Crazy bitch," Capybara stopped boxing and spat on the floor. "But she knows her business, no question. I've never been in such shape!"

And he slammed the bag so that sand poured from the ceiling mounts.

"Easy," Alex barked.

"And the pain?" I asked. "Did it pass?"

"What 'pass'! Like a train ran me over. It just became different."

"Different?"

"Well... I kind of feel it... But it doesn't hurt. That is, it hurts, but it's easy to endure. Don't know how to explain. I feel everything hurts terribly, but it doesn't stress me."

Capybara took in the corner a so-called "suitcase" — a leather pad for practicing kicks.

"Will you hold it?"

Taking the handles, I pressed it to my thigh and spread my legs wide.

"Go ahead."

"Bad idea," Alex managed to say, but Capybara, exhaling shortly, had already delivered a fast instantaneous blow.

I flew to the wall like a bowling pin. And no matter how I tried to stay on my feet, I crashed to the floor. As if the ground was knocked out from under me. Capybara laughed. Alex rushed to lift me.

"You lost your roof?!" he barked at the gladiator. "He's not on pollen!"

"For real?" Capybara immediately stopped laughing. "Sorry, brother. I thought since you're with Irma..."

"Everything's fine..."

I got up. My leg went numb, and I also hit my shoulder well when falling.

"Are you ideological, like Alex?" Capybara asked. "Or is twenty too much for a dose?"

"And Alex is ideological?"

"He promised his granny," the gladiator grinned.

"Mother," Alex corrected gloomily.

"Mommy won't see, Oven, you're in another galaxy!"

"I promised this at her grave," he said seriously.

"Sorry," Capybara frowned. "Did someone die from drugs on you?"

"No," Alex smiled gloomily. "High as fuck, I decided to land a galactic battleship on an Earth-type planet."

"Holy shit, no!" Capybara smiled with a mixture of admiration and disbelief in his eyes.

"I'm a damn good pilot, brother."

"The battleship would have fucking fallen apart!"

"Most offensive thing is it didn't fall apart. In another situation, maybe they'd even give me a medal for that..."

"I suspect that in reality — they didn't..." escaped from me.

"I was landing it, brother, 'on a dare.' Specifically high on chemistry. With three hundred people on board."

Capybara whistled. I involuntarily snorted.

"The trial lasted two years. Could have been jailed. Mom had a heart attack. In the end, pilot first class, Captain Alex Pai, became a supply service sergeant. And no more drugs. Never."

We both were silent, not knowing what to say. Finally Capybara muttered confusedly something like "Actually, pollen isn't quite drugs."

"Well, of course!" Alex exclaimed with false fervor. "Homeopathy, fuck it! Vitamins that make Frankensteins out of people! You, by the way, need to take it."

Capybara looked at his watch. Nodding, he pulled from his pocket a nasal spray, shook it, stuck the tip in his nostril and squeezed the plastic walls of the bottle — "swish — sh-sh-sh". Sniffling, the gladiator held out the spray to me:

At first I didn't even understand.

"Nose spray?"

"Kidding, it's not spray. One press — one dose. Very convenient. Or did you also promise your mother?"

For some time I silently looked at the extended bottle while some thought slowly floated to the surface from the depths of my subconscious...

Very convenient: one press — one dose...

Nasal spray dries the mucous membrane... So blood could have been flowing because of spray?

Kidding, it's not spray...

I looked at Capybara, in his eyes still glowed a mocking question: "Or did you also promise your mother?".

"Virunchik..." I said to him.

"What?"

But I had already jumped up and rushed to the exit.

...In the bathroom, opening the cabinet, for some time I just looked. The nasal spray stood in the most visible place — at the edge, like something frequently used... Slowly, as if it was a bomb, I took the bottle and unscrewed the cap. While running here, I almost managed to convince myself it was just spray. I remember, Vira's been sniffling lately. And she doesn't look like any Frankenstein! And yet I delayed this moment. And then sharply squeezed the plastic walls.

"Swish — sh-sh-sh" — instead of aerosol, a thick cloud of black pollen rose into the air.

"Damn filth!"

I immediately grabbed the phone to call Virka. Then changed my mind — what will I say? Yell? Ask why she's doing this? Where does she get it? No, with Vira we'll talk later. Now I won't call her.

After several long beeps Irma picked up.

"Hello!"

"Irma, the jokes are over! I found pollen at Vira's! Understand or not?! I don't care what you think about this! But I want to know everything about this filth! What is it, what effects can there be, who specifically uses it, how long — everything!"

"Pollen has nothing to do with it," Irma interrupted. "I found the reason why he did it."

"What?" I didn't understand. "What and who did?"

"The corporal. I found the reason why he did it."

I was silent, digesting.

"And what's the reason?"

"Definitely not pollen. You must see for yourself. In his room. Hurry!" and before disconnecting, added: "Because everything's much worse."

9

Luckily for me, there was no one in the corridor. I quietly knocked on Okamura's door. Silence. Wanted to knock again, but thought to take out my phone and dial Irma's number.

"Is that you there?" she asked tersely.

"Yes, at the door."

"Is anyone in the corridor?"

"No one."

The door immediately opened, and Irma dragged me inside. A strong stale stench hit me in the face. So strong I had to suppress a gag reflex. It smelled like shit. The room — small, rectangular, with two beds — was literally littered with some packets, banana peels, wrappers and various junk. In the corner, by the bed, lay a pile of clothes, and I suspected it was exactly what stank. But I wasn't planning to check. I stood with my mouth open, looking at a huge dark object on the wall. Its form and wall structure left not the slightest doubt. And though I saw what I saw, I still couldn't help but ask:

"Irma... What is this thing?"

On the wall, from ceiling all the way to floor, hung a huge cocoon. It was torn, as if a giant silkworm had just crawled out of it, and uneven edges gloomily hung in shreds of webbing.

"I think he hatched from here this morning," Irma said. "Or at night."

"Who 'he'?!" I asked in shock.

"The corporal, who else. If it was someone else, Okamura hardly would have calmly gone to formation, right?"

"Wait... What did you just say? That the corporal hatched from a cocoon?"

You've probably also noticed that the most distrust and even indignation can be caused precisely by those assumptions you already know are true.

"Look here," Irma opened the refrigerator. "Seems he had a serious munchies..."

"Serious what?"

"Serious 'what' — munchies. Hunger."

The refrigerator was stuffed with empty canned food cans, juice and milk packages, crumpled disposable dishes, half-eaten apples and so on.

The mess in the room was obviously a continuation of the same feast.

"So if it was an animal," Irma continued, "it hardly would have managed to correctly unpack dry rations and close the refrigerator after itself."

"What happened here?" I squeezed out, involuntarily glancing at the pile of clothes that stank of shit.

"I'd say he ate everything he could find."

"And then wrapped himself in a cocoon or what?!"

"Or vice versa: crawled out of the cocoon and attacked the food. But this definitely can't be called 'high on drugs' and 'sniffed filth.'"

"And what will we do?"

"Get the hell out of here," she said confidently and immediately shoved me a pile of packets with black pollen. "Distribute in your pockets. I'll cut down the cocoon."

"Irma, stop! The question is whether to sound the alarm right now on the general channel or first go to the commander."

"You really don't get it? They'll find this," she nodded at the cocoon, "and start figuring out where the corporal could have caught something. First thing they'll do tracking of the last raid. They'll see the destination. Find the flower. The flower I've been going to once a week and didn't enter in any register. Get it or not?"

"I understand, yeah! The secret of your fucking powder will be revealed, and your dreams of a Nobel Prize..."

"You don't fucking get it!" for the first time in her life Irma was yelling at me. "I'll be sent to a tribunal — that's what will happen! Or do you think anyone will pity a deserter?!"

And she shoved in my face her wrist with the non-removable bracelet. Irma's lips were pressed into a thin white line, and eyes wet with tears shot furious lightning. Yes, here she's right. Tracking yesterday's route will lead them to both the flower and the warehouse. The powder story will surface immediately...

"And what do you propose?"

"I said. Cut down the cocoon — and we were never here."

"Irma, we're in another galaxy. And something bad is happening here. And I have a daughter, and her safety..."

"And who, you think, will safety depend on when you inform the commander? On biocontrol, of course! But I'll already be arrested. And it turns out, you'll deal with this alone! That's your safety! Or — we can do everything together without any official orders. And we'll inform when we figure everything out. What will change, except that I won't be imprisoned?"

We were silent, probably half a minute. I looked into her large eyes filled with some wild, almost animal despair. And then I approached the cocoon, taking out a knife.

"Better hurry before his roommate comes," I said, separating the cocoon edges from the wall. "How did you manage to unlock the door, by the way?"

"I had a turbulent youth," Irma waved it off and rushed to help.

In ten minutes the cocoon was cut into pieces and folded on the floor. Irma took a half-empty trash bin, stuffed pieces of the gray covering woven from webbing in there, then tied the garbage bag and shoved it inside her jacket.

"Let's go!" she said quietly and, peeking into the corridor, went out first.

Already downstairs, at the barracks exit, we ran into Vandlik. The woman-colonel with faded eyes. I noticed her only when she called me.

"Lieutenant, what are you doing here?"

It seemed to me the colonel put as much suspicion into her tone as she could. "A paranoid working in her specialty" — that's what they said about her behind her back.

"We stopped by the neighbor of the guy who caused the carnage today," I feverishly recalled Alex's words, hoping I remembered the surname correctly. "Joyce. He's from the bio-company, we often talked. This morning, as you know, he had to shoot his roommate... We wanted to somehow support the guy. But he's not home."

"The room is locked?" Vandlik pierced me with her pupils the color of faded jeans, and from this gaze I wanted to confess everything.

"Yes, colonel. We knocked, but no one opened."

I really wanted Irma to also join the conversation, but she was silent.

"Obviously," Vandlik nodded. "He's testifying right now. And do you know every private in the bio-company so well?"

Irma finally spoke, and her voice, unlike mine, sounded calm and confident:

"He was often on raids I led. A collected fighter with a sharp mind..."

"It seems to me, captain, I wasn't addressing you," Vandlik unexpectedly coldly cut her off. "But thanks for the information. Both dismissed!"

Irma withstood her icy gaze if not with defiance, then calmly, not looking away, demonstratively saluted, and we hurried down the stairs. And I still didn't believe we'd be let go like that, and waited for the control officer to call us back... After a few steps I couldn't stand it and looked back myself.

Vandlik was looking directly at me. As if waiting for me to turn, not Irma. Catching my gaze, she raised her hand like a person who remembered something important.

"Lieutenant... Stop by in an hour. There's a conversation."

10

That day I went "to the conversation" with Vandlik with lead-filled legs and brimming with dire premonitions. The path to the entrance of the internal security company building seemed specially laid past kennels with dogs. Seeing me, they began to howl, wheeze and throw themselves at the metal fence as if they were usually fed people. What's more — biologists. All this didn't add to my cheerfulness.

The "black sleeves" loitering by the entrance parted, letting me inside. Few entered them of their own free will. I crossed the threshold. Ordinary doors right opposite the entrance, made of translucent plastic, were adorned with a laconic inscription "VANDLIK".

I knocked.

"Yes!"

Her already small figure seemed completely childlike in the huge chair and was almost invisible in the fog of acrid cigarette smoke. I involuntarily wrinkled my nose, seeing the bluish veil that swirled in the air like a large clumsy cloud.

"Sit," she said shortly.

I sat. The smoke stung my eyes a bit. For some time I studied the toes of my own boots, because Vandlik was silent. Then finally began:

"This is an unofficial conversation, Gil. I simply trust you. And you can help me."

"Of course, colonel, ma'am," I said emphatically officially. "What do you need?"

"About this guy..." Vandlik looked at her tablet screen. "Corporal Okamura... What the hell did you need in his room?"

She asked this simply and directly. As if an hour ago she hadn't asked the same question on the barracks stairs.

"I already told you — we stopped by his neighbor Joyce..."

"Yes-yes... To the reliable guy who often went on raids with you..." she again stuck her nose in the tablet. "To be precise, the 'reliable guy' went on a biocontrol raid once. Two months ago."

And she looked at me with a nasty smile.

"I don't know what data you have, colonel..."

"Data on exits beyond the camp. My guys from internal security keep them," she said this sharply, and because of the cigarette it came out through her teeth too. "And by the way, Captain Irma Salvatierro, who so values sharp-minded..."

End of Chunk 11 (Pages 121-132)

on that particular raid! Now answer me, Gilel—what the hell were you doing in Okamura's room?!"

I tried to look at my boots to avoid meeting her gaze.

"I have nothing to add... We just wanted to support Joyce and that's all... And as for the raid, those weren't my words. And it would be wrong if I started commenting on them."

"That's good, Lieutenant!" Vandlik barked with military fervor and in a completely masculine way. Then she checked her tablet again and continued more calmly. "But then comment on this... By incredible coincidence, it was Okamura, not his neighbor, who was with you on a raid just the day before yesterday. And today that same Okamura shot half his company. Isn't that a coincidence?"

I shrugged. Not because I didn't know what to say. It's just that my heart was pounding so hard that if I'd opened my mouth, either a bark or a sob would have come out. I needed to at least calm my breathing a little...

"Just tell me about the raid the day before yesterday," Vandlik said softly. "You weren't even the senior officer there, Gilel! What do you have to lose! Tell me in detail how it all went. Minute by minute. Even if something seems unimportant to you."

"We went for samples..." I began uncertainly.

"Which ones?"

"Well... Death beetle... Does it matter?"

"Just so I can picture the situation... Why two biologists at once, but only one soldier?"

Her question caught me off guard. Moreover, it was a bullseye question—on a real sampling raid, usually one biologist and at least six shooters from the bio-company go. But Irma didn't need extra eyes.

"I didn't plan the raid, ma'am..." I answered. "But maybe to avoid attracting extra attention—those death beetles are quite smart..."

Vandlik nodded, unhurriedly flicked ash, then checked her tablet again.

"But it says here 'alien creatures brought in—zero.'"

"Yes... Nothing worked out. Like I said—very cunning creatures," sweat broke out on my forehead, and I wondered if it was noticeable.

"And during the raid itself, did anything... unusual happen?"

"Absolutely not."

"Maybe something that could potentially affect a person's behavior..."

"I assure you. An ordinary raid."

"Nobody bit this Okamura? Spit poison at him? Whatever else happens out there..."

"Nothing like that, ma'am."

"Fine. And you didn't notice anything strange in his behavior?"

"No. Honestly, we only met the day before yesterday."

"I see... And you knew his neighbor well? What was his name..." Vandlik searched for the surname in her tablet again.

"Joyce," I prompted.

"Right!" she released smoke from the corner of her mouth without unclenching her teeth.

I shrugged uncertainly.

"We talked. He's a cheerful guy."

"And you decided to see how he was doing," Vandlik continued. "Because to experience what happened this morning..."

"You can say that again," I nodded, emphasizing my agreement in every way. "Poor Joyce."

"Poor Joyce," she agreed. "Uh-huh..."

She took another drag, released several beautiful perfect rings and admired them for a while as they dissolved in the air. Then she suddenly stood up decisively from behind the desk, walked around it, and sat on the desktop, now looking down at me.

"Then you'll be interested to know that his surname isn't Joyce, it's Jenkins."

I was dumbfounded.

"Not a very big difference, I agree," Vandlik continued in a carefree tone, "but if you're going to support a cheerful guy in a difficult moment... you usually AT LEAST KNOW WHAT HIS NAME IS!!!" she shouted the rest of the phrase so loud that my ears rang.

This is the end. I frantically tried to think of something, going through all possible options. But only one word sounded in my head: "screwed." Screwed up to my ears.

"You know where I served before this?" Vandlik stood up and, puffing clouds of smoke, walked to the window. "In the Noria Infantry Conquistadors. Heard of them?"

Had I heard? I probably would have been stunned by this statement if I didn't already feel like a crushed bug.

"Noria Infantry?!" I exhaled, unable to restrain myself.

"Are you a sexist?" she understood my surprise in her own way.

"Not at all, but..." the thought flashed in the back of my mind that a Noria Infantry veteran on a Category A mission was like having a Nobel laureate suddenly turn out to be our technician.

Vandlik smiled.

"Everyone's surprised. There really are few women there. I was one per battalion... So, the main thing they taught us in Noria Infantry was to notice details. The smallest, tiniest signs that something's going wrong. Probably that's where my professional paranoia comes from. That's what you all call me behind my back, right?" she winked at me cheerfully. "And, as a paranoid, I must tell you that your and the captain's lies fell apart in the first second. The moment you got the name wrong, I already knew that everything else was also a lie."

Vandlik sat on the windowsill and the friendliness suddenly vanished from her face.

"Talk."

"And don't even think about hiding anything," sounded in her voice. I waited a bit, gathering courage for another lie, then began uncertainly:

"Well... Since going there wasn't my initiative, I can only assume..."

Vandlik nodded encouragingly, as if to say, go ahead, don't be shy.

"Since it turns out that Irma... I mean the captain... That she didn't have the opportunity to work with this... Jenkins... On raids outside the Perimeter... Then maybe she knew him not from raids at all. I mean—not from work at all."

I looked at Vandlik meaningfully, feeling myself blushing.

"Are you hinting at sex?" she perked up. "I love that! If you only knew how many cases seemed hopeless and inexplicable until sex started featuring in them! Sex is a good reason.

Clear and usually—honest. The only 'but'—why the hell did she drag you along to Jenkins?"

I felt a kind of grim excitement. I stopped caring about the senior security officer and all her tricks. You're not so omnipotent, Vandlik. Just another jarhead.

"I think that's exactly why she dragged me: so this clear and honest reason wouldn't be obvious to the whole barracks," I said confidently. "But I wasn't holding a candle, of course..."

"Nobody holds candles these days, Gilel. More and more often they use a mobile device with a camera," she was clearly cheering up. "But the investigation doesn't yet need those recordings."

Vandlik giggled, jumped off the windowsill, and crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray.

"So it turns out this Okamura had something seriously short-circuit in his head... I can't understand how such an idiot wasn't filtered out in the entrance tests, but it happens. And your girlfriend, I mean the captain, is sleeping with Jenkins, who shot Okamura. And, worried about her lover, she rushed to visit him. As a woman, I even understand her. And you, it turns out, were brought along as a cover—purely for camouflage. Everything adds up. For now."

I nodded and fidgeted in my chair, expecting Vandlik to finally let me go.

"I hope I don't need to explain that this whole conversation is between us?" she asked.

"No need. May I go?"

"Go ahead! And thank you."

I stood up. From the excess adrenaline I felt like running and jumping. When I was already at the door, Vandlik suddenly called out:

"Why did he decide to take out the trash?"

"Who?" I didn't understand.

"Okamura... This morning he ate everything he found in his room. Rations, canned food, some chips and chocolate bars—about eight kilograms of food! Ate and immediately shit right in his pants," (here I involuntarily winced, remembering the disgusting stinking pile of clothes in the corner of his room). "The room stank so bad your eyes watered. But he, as if nothing happened, threw the shit-covered clothes on the floor, took a shower, put on a clean uniform, and went to shoot his friends. And so I thought..."

Vandlik looked at me attentively. "At what moment did the cretin suddenly feel the urge to throw out a bag of trash? What prompted a person who has a pile of shit in the corner and whose room looks like a dump to suddenly rush to take out some particular trash?"

I did my best to portray surprise and disgust on my face, while a single thought beat in my head like a fly against glass: how could we be such idiots?! Why did we take all the trash? We could have put the cocoon pieces in a separate bag!!!

"It's terrible—what you told about Okamura," I finally said.

"That's what I don't understand," Vandlik nodded, drilling into me with an attentive gaze.

And I hurried out before she remembered something else. And her gaze seemed to leave a huge burn on the back of my head.

*

Straight from Vandlik's I headed to the residential buildings that I'd long been mentally calling "home."

I had the feeling my head was about to burst: I'd been having an almost non-stop internal dialogue with myself, trying to find at least some explanation for that damn cocoon on the wall, but there wasn't one.

Except, perhaps, one—problems had started. Even worse. Some serious shit had started. And the worst shit was that I'd ended up nearby, when in my position I needed to be far away. As they say, farther from the brass, closer to the mess hall. To quietly wait out the end of the contract. Or medical discharge... And I touched my hand covered with the invisible glove again. But even just for my family to get the insurance for my worthless life, first and foremost I mustn't stick my nose anywhere! Not into damn cocoons, and especially not into drug dealers!

On the way I stopped at the pharmacy, bought nasal spray, took out the plastic bottle and hid it in my pocket, and threw away the box. Today you, Vira, are going to be very surprised. And then I'll force you to throw out of your head all the nonsense that you obviously call ideas. Or whatever could have prompted you to get hooked on alien drugs...

At home Vira behaved as usual—as if those two days when we weren't talking had never happened. Well, I decided not to remind her. The conversation

about the shooting on the parade ground started on its own. As if in passing, I said, watching her reaction:

"They say the corporal was a drug addict. Imagine! He was hooked on some local crap. Plant powder or something like that."

Vira shrugged.

"Half the base smokes jah here..."

"I'm not talking about jah, Vira! He was snorting alien shit!"

"Daddy, what's 'shit'?" Elza interrupted, and we had to change the subject.

About three times Vira visited the bathroom, where instead of black pollen, real nasal spray was waiting for her on the shelf. And each time she came out, I first scanned her face with my gaze, trying to understand if she'd used the bottle, and then found a reason to also go to the bathroom and see if she'd taken the spray. No, the bottle hadn't moved a millimeter. Never mind, I'll wait... I'll wait until she herself bursts out with a lament: "Where's my drugs?!"—and then... Oh, then we'll see how she justifies herself...

The phone beeped and I flinched. It was Irma. Vira sat across from me and drilled into me with dissatisfied eyes.

"Hi. We need to meet, urgently," Irma fired off without unnecessary pleasantries.

"You know, I've been home for a while, with my family..."

"He's alive! But tomorrow morning they're sending him to the battleship. Right now is our only chance to find out what happened."

"Thanks, but... If possible, I'll skip this raid. I told Abe I can't constantly go on night runs," I hoped Irma would understand that Vira was next to me.

Irma interrupted:

"You found pollen at your wife's, right? And you want to find out everything about the pollen. So, I'll take a scraping from him for analysis. Maybe we can even ask a few questions. That's all."

I involuntarily glanced at Vira, afraid that she might hear Irma's words from the quite loud speaker... But there was nothing in Vira's gaze except ordinary jealousy.

"How do you imagine this?" Since Vira was listening to every word, I added a few words especially for her. "Is there a request for departure?"

"I have 24-hour access rights to the hospital. So we'll meet there in twenty minutes. Just not at the entrance. Stand on the path."

And she disconnected.

"Work?" Vira immediately asked in a tone that emphasized: "Don't you dare tell me this is work!"

"Yes..." I said as indifferently as possible. "There's an urgent matter."

"Female voice."

The tone was as if that changed everything.

"Our lab chief."

"Irma," she prompted. "Or did you forget what her name is?"

"Vira, stop it! This is serious and urgent! It's about that guy who shot everyone."

"And what does that have to do with you?"

"It has to do with the fact that he's from our bio-company. It's a long story. I'll be back in an hour."

I kissed Elza and started getting dressed. Vira didn't take her eyes off me. "You, my dear, haven't even gone for that damn pollen of yours yet," I thought spitefully and left.

*

It was about half past ten. The hospital building, like everything in the camp, was assembled from sturdy metal-polymer modules united into a whole complex. In appearance—a full three-story building of several wings connected by passages. Everything around was well lit, but a hundred meters away, where we stopped—pitch dark.

Irma had brought the multivisor for some reason and was now examining the hospital through it.

"There are two guards smoking. No one else on this side..." she clicked the mode switch. "Looking inside... In the electromagnetic range—all clear. Thermal... Also. We can easily enter through the side entrance."

"You're joking? You said it was all legal!"

"Are you scared?"

I hate when women say that.

"Relax," she smiled. "I have access rights, it's all legal. But the guards also have the right to call my commander.

And we don't need that. You get it, right? We'll just go in quietly and that's all."

And she walked quickly toward the building. What could I do... I hurried after her, convincing myself that nothing terrible was happening. A few seconds later Irma held her card to the side entrance lock. I kept looking around every second, feeling like a burglar and afraid someone would appear from around the corner. Instead of a welcoming green light, the lock responded with an unwelcoming red and made an unpleasant low sound.

"Damn..." Irma said quietly.

"Not meant to be!" joy rang treacherously in my exclamation.

Irma scorched me with a look that read either sympathy or mockery.

"Nobody's meant anything. Hand over your jacket."

"What for?" I grew wary, but still took off the jacket.

Irma threw it on, put on the hood, and nimbly, like a cat, jumped onto the nearest windowsill.

"Because there are cameras."

And before I understood what her answer meant, the folding knife's lock clicked. Irma applied some effort and the window opened.

"You're crazy! I'm not climbing in!"

"Stop making things up! Get in quick!"

I raised my hands, showing that I pass. I definitely didn't sign up for this. Just then, cheerful footsteps sounded around the corner. Close. Very close. I won't have time to run. Make up something? The guard will call security though, and that means—a meeting with Vandlik. For the third time today.

"Faster!" Irma hissed and extended her hand to me. "Come on!"

Another moment I hesitated. And then I took her palm and pressed my boot against the wall. Irma pulled me damn hard, and I found myself on the windowsill. We jumped into the corridor and crouched down. A moment later rhythmic footsteps sounded below. I froze, praying the guard wouldn't notice the open window.

Suddenly the footsteps stopped. Everything inside me went cold. I clearly imagined him looking attentively at the open shutters. Now he'll take a step toward the doors, apply his card, come in and see us... I looked at the window, expecting that any second his flashlight beam would run along the window frame. Screwed... I really did get screwed...

The recognizable sound of a stream insolently watering the lawn clearly indicated the guard wasn't looking at the window. At least not at this moment. And yet it took about three seconds to realize this. And only then did I carefully release air from my lungs, breathing with relief.

The zipper zipped, and measured footsteps sounded again.

"You're completely sick or what!" I whispered to Irma. "We didn't agree to this!"

And, decisively standing up, I opened the shutters. Good thing I had enough sense to look out before jumping on the windowsill: the guard stood five steps away puffing clouds of vapor from an e-cigarette. Slowly, since with peripheral vision he could notice movement, I leaned back and closed the window. Irma calmly examined the corridor through the multivisor. I crouched next to her, restraining the desire to strangle her. The device in her hands buzzed barely audibly.

"Everything's right," she whispered, as if nothing had happened. "These wards aren't in use. Behind the doors on the left—the working wing."

"Irma," I said barely audibly. "Any idiot will notice us on the monitors."

"Here!" she handed me an ordinary sterile mask from her first aid kit, putting on one herself. "That's if you suddenly want to wave at the lens."

"No way!" I hissed, grabbing her by the elbow. "I'm going back!"

"Really? You think the guard of an empty hospital stares continuously at empty corridors every night? With their empty eyes?"

I didn't answer—footsteps sounded outside the window again. Irma figured out what was happening before me. She jerked me by the elbow and almost dragged me down the corridor. A moment later the door lock beeped. When we turned the corner, I wasn't even sure we'd made it in time. My heart was pounding. We both wheezed like hedgehogs. The guard's unhurried footsteps sounded. He was even whistling something. He stopped. The window shutter knocked. The mechanism clicked. Footsteps again—now moving away. A second later the door opened and the guard went out. I exhaled. From the rush of adrenaline there was ringing in my ears. The whole time I imagined how well we could be seen right now on several monitors.

"Look," Irma suddenly said quietly. "Either we go, or, really—get out! We almost got caught twice because of your whining!"

It sounded like she'd called me a coward. Overall Irma was telling the truth: choosing between a stereo film and empty monitors, I would of course choose the film. If I were the guard. But who knows what they'll do...

"Then let's run," I grumbled and went first.

No matter how hard I tried to step quietly, in the almost absolute silence of the sleeping hospital each step seemed like a ringing slap. My heart was pounding wildly. From how hard and frequently Irma was breathing, I understood that she was actually feeling queasy too. That thought somehow made me feel better.

The magnetic doors let us into the working wing without any problems. Quiet. Around the next turn the corridor was lit. Without agreeing, we both walked calmly and confidently, as if performing routine duties. Running or sneaking would be not only pointless but more suspicious. Truth be told, it's unlikely anyone would think we have the right to be here, but still... Another corridor. Magnetic doors. Another corridor. Another two exhausting minutes of suffocating fear in the bright hospital corridors. Soon we found ourselves in front of the opaque doors of a quarantine box. If the sign was to be believed, Okamura was inside. Ignoring the standard inscription "DO NOT ENTER, DANGER," Irma applied the key card to the lock. Something clicked, and the heavy door budged slightly. I grasped the handle and carefully opened it.

Inside it was completely dark. Judging by everything, our corporal was asleep. I hesitated uncertainly. We can't just turn on the light and wake him up like that... Or can we...

"Guard!" Irma suddenly breathed in my ear and literally shoved me into the ward.

Before the meaning of what was said reached me, she closed the door and we found ourselves in total darkness.

For a moment I was disoriented. I turned my head, trying to make out something, but the darkness was so thick you could poke your eye out. From this I somehow

completely lost orientation, and it seemed it would even be hard to say where was up and where was down. Time seemed to stop.

"Here's who will test you fully..." my own voice suddenly said in my head, and under my ribs the unpleasant tickle of approaching panic fluttered. The familiar sour smell came. You're imagining it. You're just imagining it. There's no smell.

I closed my eyes and inhaled air. It smelled only of hospital and recent renovation. It's fear, buddy, just fear. And yet I was afraid to even move because of the irrational certainty that I'd immediately run into the sharp chelicerae of a swamp spider. My heart pounded like a jackhammer. It seemed behind the noise of blood in my ears you could make out the clicking of spider claws.

"Panic attack," I told myself, with my last strength trying to keep consciousness on this side of reality. "After the neurodesigner you're afraid of complete darkness."

In the endless blackness some lights moved smoothly, as if carried by a current. As soon as I noticed them, they sharply changed direction, then just as suddenly froze. I couldn't understand if they were far away or maybe hanging in the air right in front of my face, but their movement caused dizziness. I was losing my sense of reality.

"Indicators," my own voice sounded in my head. "LED indicators on medical equipment. You're turning your head and it seems like they're moving."

This thought brought some relief. I still couldn't orient myself in the ward, but the space around gradually became real.

"I'm looking through the multivisor," Irma's voice suddenly sounded, and it was like a gulp of air. "He's asleep! Artificial sleep."

I shuddered, finally shaking off the last remnants of panic. Obviously only a few seconds had passed. I wanted to wipe the sweat from my forehead and discovered with surprise that I had a pistol in my hand.

"Irma..." I called quietly, but she interrupted.

"I'm turning off the artificial sleep now!"

"Don't even think about it!"

We needed to get out. I don't know how... But definitely not by disconnecting artificial sleep for a guy who was shot at with an induction rifle today. I wanted to approach and stop her. But as soon as I took a step, panic returned, screaming in my head that right now I'll run into a spider. With my face into its downy paws. And though how absurd this thought was, it paralyzed me, pinning me to the spot.

"Irma!" I repeated. "Don't do it!"

"It's all fine."

And then immediately something clicked. Then one of the medical devices beeped thinly, and silence fell for a few seconds. Finally the bedding rustled on the bed. It sounded like someone stirred. Then strange: the sound was such that he kept stirring and stirring, not stopping. Stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring...

"Irma! What's happening?!"

Another endless moment of silence while Irma answered in confusion:

"I don't understand..."

"Don't understand what, Irma?!"

It seemed to me, one more second and claws, stingers, or god-knows-what-else would pierce me. I gripped the weapon tighter, feeling an irresistible desire to shoot while there were still bullets.

"Irma? What exactly don't you understand?" I asked, feeling panic squeezing my throat.

"Look! You have a flashlight—look!!!"

Right! Calling myself an idiot, I found the holster on my belt, yanked out the flashlight, feverishly felt for the button. The bed was empty.

"Higher!" Irma with the multivisor on her face stood by the bed with her head thrown back.

I raised my gaze without raising the flashlight. There was enough light to see the ceiling well. But to believe what I saw was impossible.

On the ceiling, hunched up, either in a crouch or on all fours, in just his underwear, sat Okamura. More precisely... It looked like Okamura—with the angular muscular figure, black hair, buzz cut "like a marine," dragons intertwined in a tangle on his back and shoulders... But his face... Imagine someone sculpted it from plasticine, then just smeared it with one strong movement of the palm. All the features were like melted wax. Where the eyes should be—just skin that had tightened over the depressions. The nose—an indistinct bulge, and the mouth—a barely noticeable fold, as if cut with a thread in plasticine... I stood, stunned, not

noticing that the flashlight beam was pointed at the floor, and I was staring at the strange creature in the half-darkness, trying to convince myself this was just my imagination.

"His face..." escaped from my lips.

Okamura flinched at the sound of the voice and immediately jerked up his eyeless muzzle, as if trying to see me. I instinctively shone the flashlight on him. Letting out a high inhuman shriek, he covered himself with his hands and tumbled backward onto the bed like a sack. Then with a rapid leap he darted somewhere into the darkness. The beam caught only the crumpled bedding and overturned equipment. IMPACT!

The freshly received hard blow echoed on my teeth. Realizing I was lying on the floor, I jumped up sharply, focusing on the pistol sight. Bam! Some medical device fell. In two movements I lit up the room with the flashlight. He's not here.

"Irma!" Even as I said it, I realized that a second ago I hadn't seen her in the ward either!

Something was struggling right under the bed.

"Irma!!!" I drop to the floor, trying to aim as quickly as possible.

He was eating her or trying to eat her—I saw only the gaping mouth reaching for her face, and Irma's disheveled hair...

I'm aiming and holding my finger on the trigger. But something stops me. Miss—and the charge could blow them both to pieces!

I roll over my back and aim again. No, still the wrong angle!

It seemed I was moving through some kind of gel. As if time itself had slowed down and was now hopelessly lagging behind the pace of my brain's work. I roll over again. Press my toes into the floor. Freeze. Better now. Aiming. The "glove" on my hand is terribly in the way. "You'll miss," flashed through my head, and I shove that thought as far away as possible. Don't think. Just shoot.

Abruptly, somehow unbelievably loud, the shot of the induction pistol rang out in the stunning silence of the empty hospital.