Chunk 08

"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)