Chunk 01

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Annotation

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