Chunk 15

And at the same time I reviewed all the trips where the corporal went without me. In short, the corporal erased the data from one raid where only he went. I sent him to set up video traps to the northeast of the camp. And he set up the traps! But instead of returning to base, the corporal that day drove somewhere else.

"Why do you think so, if the data was erased?"

"The onboard computer has the time of the first engine start that day. Eight in the morning. And data after the work ended—six in the evening. And to the place where the traps are set up—twenty minutes. Plus an hour to set them up. Can you count? At ten o'clock maximum he should have returned to base."

"But he returned at six," I nodded, trying not to lose the thread of her reasoning this time.

"Right. He drove somewhere else."

I looked at Irma, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

"And where?"

"I have no idea. But having been there, the corporal decided to erase the tracking data," Irma turned to me, drilling into me with her penetrating gaze. "And what happened next, you know. Whatever happened to the corporal, it happened somewhere to the northeast. Close enough to return the same day. We'll go there right after the funeral. And then I'll tell you the rest."

She came around five. It seems to me, as soon as the entrance doors clicked, I already knew who it was. And at minimum, I was afraid it would be exactly her. And when the person who entered stopped behind my back, I immediately recognized this rare mixture of smells in the colony: tobacco and a delicate, barely perceptible aroma of perfume.

"Good evening, Colonel Vandlik, ma'am!" I wanted to stand up to salute, but she slapped me on the shoulder, making it clear that all this formality wasn't needed.

"Reflection in the monitor? Or were you waiting for me, Gilel?"

"The smell," I finally turned around. "Wonderful perfume."

Miniature and muscular, like a gymnast, Vandlik smiled at me with her best smile, and at that moment seemed attractive to me. I was so surprised by this unexpected thought that I involuntarily glanced at her breasts (probably for the first time in my life), as if wanting to make sure she was really a woman. However, Vandlik had nothing that field uniform couldn't hide. And I immediately raised my eyes, this time encountering the prickly gaze of her light, husky-like irises. Unlike the smile, there was no warmth in them. Not a single joule. In them was the excitement of a wolf that has caught its prey by the throat and with delight clenches its teeth, waiting for the crunch of vertebrae.

Probably, if you imagine that someone pulled me out at that moment from this whirlpool of problems and fears, led me a bit aside, sat me on a hillside and said: "Look, this is the life of a guy named Gil. He's in trouble. What's his problem?"—I could have answered correctly. But first I would have just sat and breathed in the scents brought by the wind. Distant river, mown grass, sun, linden blossoms. And I wouldn't think about the guy or his problems. I'd think about Grandfather. About the fact that in Grandfather's life, essentially, there were no problems. At all. He was successful, full of youth and strength and didn't even know for sure whether he'd get sick or not. But Grandfather wasn't living in this life. He'd long and hopelessly gotten stuck in the future. Most likely, in some specific painful day, filled to the brim with despair and anguish, where the disease in him not only existed but had reached its grim apex. This day hadn't yet come and maybe would never come. But Grandfather was afraid of it. So instead of living to the fullest, he got into a sports car, accelerated to about two hundred seventy and steered it into the guardrail of the bridge laid across the Dnieper.

Looking at my life from the hillside, I would certainly have remembered that incident and said: "This Gil of yours is stuck in the future. In a future where he's been put on trial, his wife has turned away from him, everyone in the colony has gone crazy from black pollen, and he himself has turned into a fool who dances! But he's not actually in the future. He's in the present." Unfortunately, no one led me aside then. And overall—the whole world lived in an imaginary, statistically probable future. I was no worse than others. Just with a very high percentage of possible problems.

So, meeting Vandlik's glassy gaze, I felt an irrational desire to flee. I swear, if it were technically possible, I would have done just that. Simply disappeared from her without thinking about the consequences. But I had nowhere to go. Good thing I had enough endurance at least not to let fear seep out. I gave my face a calm, slightly tired expression of an honest person at the end of the workday. And with sluggish interest looked at her, expecting Vandlik to say something. But she was silent, and I couldn't stand it:

"Will you have coffee?"

"Without sugar," she nodded. "And with a cigarette... Let's talk outside, okay?"

It was quiet. The camp, as far as the eye could see, was empty. It would fill with people hurrying home only in an hour, and for now no one was bothering us.

"I wanted to," Vandlik began and fell silent.

She looked at her feet, chewed her lower lip and suddenly, all alert, asked:

"Do you believe in coincidences?"

I became wary.

"Well... The theory of probability hasn't been canceled yet, and..."

"But I don't! Gilel, I believe in chains of events. Listen to this. The day before yesterday one lieutenant comes to me to snitch that fights are happening in the camp..."

I clenched my teeth at the word "snitch," but kept silent.

"...and already in the morning in the colony the first extraordinary event in all this time happens: some cretin kills a bunch of people. And it turns out this cretin participated in those same fights! Moreover, just the day before that lieutenant's visit. And so, conducting investigative actions, I meet in the barracks where the cretin lived—who? Right, that lieutenant! Together with him is his girlfriend, and they both can't properly explain what they were doing there. And when I check what the cretin was doing in the last two days, it turns out he went on a raid in the company of whom? Yes! That same lieutenant and his girlfriend! And already in the evening—boom!—the next extraordinary event: someone kills the mentioned cretin right in the hospital ward!"

Here she directed an attentive gaze of her almost white eyes at me, but I tried not to let a single muscle twitch on my face.

"Didn't hear, by the way?" Vandlik seemed to be trying to penetrate with her gaze inside my skull. And there was a feeling she was succeeding.

"No," I shook my head. "How terrible..."

"Well, such things..." she downed the coffee in one gulp. "And all this is happening on a planet where before this no one even shot themselves in the foot! But the most interesting—this morning. I take video from the hospital surveillance cameras, and—wow!—the killers were also two! One taller, another shorter—just like my acquaintances the lieutenant and his girlfriend. Question: coincidence? Answer: no-o! This is a chain of events. It's just that the connection between the links isn't visible yet. But you, Gilel—are exactly the person who will help see it. Agree?"

"I'd be glad to..." I pretended not to understand anything. "We go on raids all the time. Whichever bio-company employee you take, sooner or later there'll be a raid where either I, or Irma, or both of us went with them. And as for those killers, if you're hinting at me and Irma..."

"Exactly," she smiled, and her small teeth gleamed in the razor slit of her thin mouth.

"...then any two randomly selected conquistadors will most likely not be absolutely identical in height. Someone will turn out taller, someone—shorter," my heart pounded faster and faster, and the indifferent tone came harder and harder. "And as for the reasons for our visit to the barracks, we already talked about them yesterday in your office. And I have nothing to add."

The last word came out as "nuh-thing," because my tongue, dried out from excitement, treacherously stuck to my palate.

"Too bad you have nuh-thing," Vandlik mimicked and suddenly crumpled the cardboard cup, tossed it in the air and bounced it with the toe of her boot about eight times. "Op! Op! Op!"

The cup finally fell in the grass, and Vandlik smiled an open, somewhat shy smile:

"I used to bounce it forty times! Can you do that?"

As if we were school friends just talking about nothing...

"With a cup—haven't tried," I smiled in response, but I'm afraid it came out false.

I remembered how yesterday in the office she looked at me just as friendly before "tightening the screws" to the max.

"Look how this works," Vandlik said amicably. "You say: 'Haven't tried with a cup.' And I immediately: 'What have you tried with?' And you're like: 'Well... With a ball...'. And I: 'Have you bounced it at least ten times?'. You answer: 'Plus-minus,' and hope I'll leave you alone. And then it turns out I have a ball with me. And that you can't hit it at all. Not plus, not minus—not once! And you look like a good-for-nothing and a liar. But if you'd said right away 'I can't'—there'd be no questions. Understood?"

"Understood," I smiled uncertainly. "I can't."

"Who cares! But from now on—let's do without cups. Because auntie Vandlik might always have a ball on hand. Understood?"

Her gaze was no longer friendly. This was the gaze of a guard dog that caught a thief. A gaze that warns. And savors.

"I'll try," I tried to make it sound dignified.

"Well, then tell me this. Do you remember well yesterday—after you left me?"

"Pretty well..."

"What did you do then?"

"Well... Went to the biostation. I'm systematizing local arthropods, if you're interested. Then went home. Stopped by the pharmacy on the way. That's all."

"Next?"

"What 'next'?"

"Next. At home. What did you do?"

"Well... Had dinner. Played with my daughter. Put her to bed. Brushed my teeth. Should I give details?"

There was a challenge in my question, but Vandlik seemed not to notice:

"Yes."

"Went to bed."

"At what time?"

"At eleven. Or half past eleven."

"I see. Slept all night? Till morning?"

The audacity with which Vandlik was now invading my personal life was annoying, and this added some strength to me.

"Till morning. Should I recount my dreams?"

"Can anyone confirm this?"

Now there was no doubt left—Vandlik was "digging into" the hospital story.

"My wife, Vira. Are independent witnesses needed?"

She again let the sarcasm pass by.

"So Vira also spent the night at home?"

"Of course, where else?!"

"How do you know, if you were asleep?"

"Because I have sensitive enough sleep to hear my wife get up and leave home! Should I explain that we sleep next to each other, or is that already clear?"

I seemed to have raised my voice a bit. Well, it won't hurt her—Vandlik really has gotten impudent. After all, I'm not arrested and not accused of anything!

"Completely clear," Vandlik nodded. "Well then... In words you bounce pretty well. Well, and now—the ball!" her eyes opened wide, and an ugly smile touched the corners of her lips. "This night your wife Vira got into this camera's field of view twice. At one oh-eight and at one forty-seven," she pointed with her finger at the camera hanging three meters from us. "First she spent a minute and a half here, the second time—twelve minutes!"

Vandlik fell silent, looking into my eyes. I suspect, according to her plan, I should have now turned into jelly and melted at her feet. I must say, that's approximately how I felt. But I couldn't allow myself to melt anymore—I understood too clearly that the senior control officer had backed me against the wall. I think Vandlik herself didn't suspect how correctly her hunting instinct was leading her. Otherwise she wouldn't have revealed all her cards. I gathered my thoughts. What did she say? "Sex is a good reason"?

"I wasn't planning to share this with anyone," I said confidently. "This is my personal business. But if you're so insistently prying into it—please! This night I didn't spend the night at home."

"How interesting!"

"If you're so interested, my Vira is pathologically jealous. And in the evening we had a fight about Irma—my, as you call her, 'girlfriend'. A very bad fight, and I left. Spent the night at Irma's, because I have no other friends. That's all. Vira came running twice in the middle of the night and pounded on the door. Irma didn't open. In the morning Vira told me she

also went to the biostation. As it turned out, no longer from jealousy, but really worried about me. Anyway, we almost got to divorce. That's your link in the chain. Sorry there's no sex."

Squinting, Vandlik looked into emptiness and was silent.

"Sodom and Gomorrah, not a biostation!" she finally said. "Let's assume I believed you. This doesn't change my attitude toward coincidences. So, our conversation isn't the last."

And Vandlik briskly walked away.

went on the lawn. And suddenly stopped and dropped to her knees, as if examining something on the ground.

I came closer and quietly stood nearby. I got curious—I peered into the grass, trying to understand what she was looking for. Then I realized her eyes were still closed and she couldn't be looking for anything. What is she doing? And here I noticed with surprise that my daughter's nostrils were barely noticeably flaring with each breath. She's... Smelling something? As if confirming this thought, Elza bent her head completely to the ground and crawled forward. It was a creepy sight. Then she froze... And suddenly started digging the earth like a dog, throwing clumps of grass and earth between her legs, with a dull thudding driving her little fingers into the soil. Thud-thud-thud-thud... Very fast and somehow... Somehow very creepy. Thud-thud-thud-thud...

"We need to stop this," I told myself, approached my daughter and took her by the shoulders.

Elza suddenly shrieked in some hoarse, unlike hers, low voice and, without turning around, grabbed my cheek with her hand, painfully scratching. From surprise I couldn't hold on and clumsily sat in the grass. Her eyes were closed, the eyeballs darted under the eyelids with some amazing speed, her nostrils noticeably flared, and her jaw muscles moved back and forth.

"Elza, sweetheart..."

With the first sounds of my voice she raised her face, as if wanting to look me in the eyes, held her breath and froze, except for the mad dance of her eyes under closed eyelids. Then I jumped up and simply gathered her in my arms. I was ready for her to struggle, but Elza immediately relaxed. Her face became calm, as a sleeping girl's face should be. Her nostrils no longer flared, the jaw muscles didn't move up and down, and the eyeballs under the eyelids calmed down. She was asleep. And in the morning, of course, she wouldn't remember anything... I felt how a belated chill of fear ran down my spine, descending to my legs, making them heavy and stiff...

In the morning Elza ran into the kitchen before Vira and started firing riddles.

"Who's like people, only gray?"

"Mice?" I asked without much hope.

"Come on, Dad! I said 'like people'! And mice have a tail."

"It's—shadows!" it dawned on me.

"No-o-o! Give up?"

"Yeah."

"It's—people who fell into gray paint!"

I smiled and wanted to hug her. I noticed the earth packed under her nails and shuddered, returning in thought to the creepy night walk... "Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud."

"Daughter, do you remember what you dreamed tonight?"

"No-o. Your cheek is scratched!"

I absentmindedly touched my cheek.

"I know... Did you dream you were looking for something in the grass?"

"No-o!"

"Or like you went for a walk, maybe..."

"No!"

"Did you dream anything at all?"

She thought.

"Nothing!"

She kissed me and ran hopping to her room. At the threshold she stopped, and I thought she remembered something. But no.

"Guess another riddle!" Elza smiled determinedly.

"Come on, sweetheart."

"Who..." she made a pause full of mystery and magic. "Who sits under the ground... Like a person, but not a person... And smells delicious! Who?"

I approached and squatted in front of her, examining such a delicate, such a thin figure, a pretty, doll-like face and deep, such happy eyes.

"I don't know... A confectioner in a bunker?"

"Oh, Dad!" she smiled, understanding I was joking. "Not in a bunker, but under the ground!"

"And what does it smell like?"

"Can't tell, because that's immediately the answer!"

"Then I don't know."

"Give up?" Elza asked sternly.

"Give up!"

She hugged me around the neck with her thin little arms and solemnly said the answer:

"Smells like—strawberry! And it's—a strawberry flower!"

And she ran away.

Inside me something unpleasantly snapped and spread through my body with a sticky feeling of anxiety. Maybe because of all possible smells of the flower from her riddle, Elza chose exactly this one—such a fragrant and such, it would seem, impossible on this planet smell of strawberry.

I shook my head and closed my eyes for a second, trying to get rid of the intrusive analogy, but it only got worse: under lowered eyelids huge bright-purple flowers whirled in a mad dance.

*

On the day of the funeral, it drizzled.

Practically the whole camp lined up on the large clearing right by the Perimeter. Before this day they'd planned to make a stadium here. The dead were buried in ordinary, completely unceremonious plastic urns in which they'd previously sent ashes to relatives. "Stone" tombstones were printed on a 3D printer. And if they weren't being held by grim guys from internal security, you'd think they were real. The guys installed the slabs by neat square holes in the grass. Nineteen graves. Our new cemetery immediately surpassed the statistical forecast of possible casualties for all three years... Okamura's ashes weren't here—the commandant ordered him buried separately, on another day.

My fingers were somehow "latex," as if it wasn't a "glove" on them anymore, but they themselves had turned into prosthetics... The situation was deteriorating quite rapidly. Yesterday I discovered the "glove" reaches to the elbow, and the fingers became so numb I could stab them with a needle till they bled and not feel pain. Somewhere in the depths of my soul a weak hope still smoldered that this was still a pinched nerve, and not for the first time I thought about the need to go to a neurologist and put a period to these torments. But I still couldn't find time for the visit. And I understood the reason well. Because if it's not a nerve, then you're in deep shit, buddy.

Now I was kneading my hand with my left hand, and it seemed to me a disgusting warm prosthetic. So at the funeral I almost didn't think about the dead. And not even about the cocoon in Okamura's room. I thought about what Father felt when he had the first symptoms. Interesting, did his arm go numb too? I never asked. And another thought: "Will I notice my own mental degradation? How do I know if maybe right now I'm already unable to take an IQ test even for a mediocre result?"

The chaplain conducted three different ceremonies according to the religious beliefs of the deceased. I was surprised to recognize in him the bald guy whose high singing voice three days ago proclaimed in the underground club at the warehouses "Let the fight begin!". So in the prayers I obsessively heard cruel sarcasm, as if they were giving last rites to gladiators who lost, and we all are those who'll be sent into the ring next. You have to break something in yourself to become more perfect...

I found Irma with my eyes—she stood opposite, head and shoulders bowed low, as if some incredible weight was tied to her forehead and arms. So much for Category A mission... "They never pay for nothing," that's what Jokhar said? A safe mission in a private military company is complete nonsense. And Corporal Okamura most clearly demonstrated this truth...

Standing separately were about ten girls, pale, with aged faces—wives. I involuntarily imagined Vira among them, and I shuddered. There were no children at the funeral.

The commandant spoke. Read from a piece of paper—something standard and awkward, like himself. I didn't listen. I thought I could never do what Great-grandfather or Grandfather did. Or Father, if he really consciously stepped through the windowsill. Not because I'm so noble and don't want to cause suffering to loved ones, no. I simply can't—I'm too afraid of death. I love life too much to give it up without a fight. Even for the sake of the Corps' posthumous insurance. I suddenly realized I still hadn't lost hope. Why did I even decide I'd have the same severe form as Father! After all, there are many factors here... As a biologist, I perceived such a category as God very specifically, my ideas about Him would be called heresy by any religion, but that this world has a creator—I was absolutely convinced precisely as a scientist. So if we assume this creator hasn't abandoned us to fate, but at least is a bit interested in our life...

The stream of my thoughts was brutally interrupted by the command "Attention!" and everyone in uniform straightened up, turning their heads. "At ease!" The honor guard company aimed rifles at the sky, the rifles taken off safety shrieked—and the next moment shots tore the air. Soon the urns were businesslike lowered into the holes, and clumps of grave earth thudded dully. Everyone started dispersing.

Already quite far from the just-laid cemetery, Irma caught up with me.

"I know the place," she said without preamble.

"What place?"

"The one where the corporal drove. To the northeast of the camp swamps begin. From the quadrant where he set the traps, there's essentially only one passable direction. Whatever Okamura found there, we'll run into it too. We're leaving in the morning. I already submitted the request."

"Okay," I said without enthusiasm.

"You seem crushed. How's your arm?"

I even flinched, realizing I was just now touching my palm with my fingertips in a habitual gesture. I shrugged indistinctly: "Same..."

"Really, what are you being stubborn about?" Irma asked without clarification, but I understood everything. "Just try, and then decide. One dose definitely won't do anything."

"I'll think about it. First let's figure out Okamura..."

"Fine. Departure at seven."

And she quickly walked ahead.

Another time the upcoming raid would probably have excited me. But not today. Thoughts about the disease had crowded even the mysterious cocoon out of my head.

I spent the rest of the day with Vira, pretending everything was normal, but probably it only came out worse. And I still didn't dare talk to her openly. I think lately she'd felt falseness in my behavior more than once and didn't understand what was happening. But she didn't say anything to me. Only asked from time to time how I was feeling. I didn't find the strength in myself to lie, mumbled some indistinct "more or less," and she frowned.

*

That night I slept poorly. In one of the nightmares I remembered, I dreamed that Elza was sleepwalking again. The eyeballs darted back and forth under lowered eyelids, and her face was