Chunk 11

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)