Chunk 06

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)