Section 19 / 39

"You'll hold my legs," Irma explained. "If it's impossible to crawl through there, you'll pull me out."

And she, without wasting time, dove into the passage. I grabbed her ankles.

"Let go!" she shouted and immediately pulled her legs in.

I peered in. Her face appeared in the pipe.

"Lie on your back and climb face-up!" she said. "There's a wall here with the same nests. You can descend like a ladder."

We found ourselves in a gigantic shaft that passages led into from other rooms. Light penetrated from above—there was no roof, and I could even make out clouds. The wall of the shaft consisted of countless octagonal cells. The comparison to a beehive now became obsessive. Besides that, the partitions between nests were thickly overgrown with some local analog of moss and even grass, and water continuously streamed down them from above, which far below joined into streams, and even lower formed something like a completely transparent, more like rain, waterfall.

"Where's the water from? Condensation?"

"Probably," Irma answered. "The building is very tall..."

"So this is still a building?"

"Yes. They use it for their colony, but they couldn't have built something like this."

Remembering our conversation, I didn't dare clarify who "they" were. Probably now it really was better not to know. And we began to descend.

Putting the toes of my boots in the nests was quite convenient, but I had to hold on to the partitions. It was as if we were climbing down a huge bookshelf. Needless to say, my numb hand made the descent ten times harder. I couldn't adequately assess how firmly I was holding on, and each time I squeezed my fingers with all my might. My wrist started twisting with pain after about three minutes. With my left the situation wasn't much better, because not trusting my right, I was forced to load it double... Very soon the prospect of falling down the shaft seemed to me not only inevitable but in some way pleasant—I had almost no strength left to hold on. Water soaked my clothes through, but worst of all—it filled my boots, making them much heavier.

"How are you doing?" Irma asked, as if sensing my condition.

"Haven't fallen yet..." I tried to make it sound like a joke, but I'm not sure I succeeded—this "yet" sounded too pitiful.

I feverishly thought about what I could do. Irma had gotten far ahead of me because I kept stopping, alternating releasing first my right, then my left hand to give my muscles a chance to recover at least a little. Now she was about seven meters below. To my right the vegetation on the cells was thicker than everywhere else. Obviously that wall got more sunlight. There were even shrub branches—the same kind as outside. This should make the descent easier—something normal to grab onto.

"Irma," I warned her. "I'm moving over."

"Be careful!"

Moving sideways actually turned out easier than down, and I went quite briskly. The nearest bush looked reliable, but of course I tugged on it cautiously first. Probably the plant roots penetrated right into the material this cell was molded from, so it was safe to grab.

Things went faster. I could easily grab branches even with my numb right hand. With my left I held onto the nest walls, not relying too much on the root strength. Irma was a bit to the left and below, and I was quickly closing the distance. We'd already covered more than half. To the bottom, as I could estimate, about fifty meters remained. And then everything went wrong. I think it was precisely the numbness of my skin—I didn't realize the bark had rotted and simply peeled off like a candy wrapper. I felt it too late. My hand slipped, leaving behind a bare white branch. I transferred my weight to the left, but my fingers didn't hold on the wet partition. Instinctively I immediately grabbed with both hands at the base of the cursed stem, and firmly this time, but I'd leaned back too far. It turned out I jerked the bush with my full weight. And the roots couldn't hold.

A quiet crack sounded. The bush ended up in my hands. I waved my arms, trying not to let my body separate from the wall, but it was too late. The toes of my boots treacherously slipped off. Breath stuck in my chest. I still tried to grab onto something, when the grass-covered wall suddenly rapidly rushed upward.

"I let everyone down," I somehow thought. "Vira, Elza, and even Irma. I let everyone down..." Flashing by, this thought compressed in me to a tiny glowing ember. Like the first time on a roller coaster, when terror presses you into the framework of "here and now" of each specific second, not

allowing the possibility not only to think but to comprehend. Except on a roller coaster you know everything will be fine...

I could see the sky far above again—I'd finally been flipped onto my back.

She grabbed me by the strap of the load-bearing vest and pressed me against the wall. I kept sliding, and the rough edges of the cells scraped my lips and nose. And then I hung suspended. That same second I clung firmly to the partitions, instantly finding footing. Panic flared up in yellow-hot tongues of flame, spreading through my body in a ticklish desire to act.

"Are you stable?" Irma's voice sounded from somewhere far away.

"Yes!" I answered. "I need to rest."

And before she said anything, I, surprised by my own agility, climbed right and up to the nearest opening in the cell wall. Fear made me clingy as a lizard, and even my numb right hand couldn't slow my pace. In a few seconds I easily made my way through the narrow passage and immediately fell on top of nests in the same kind of "room with window" as the one we'd entered through. Alive. I'm alive. Blood ran down my lips and tasted sweet. I spat. For some time I just lay there, feeling blood collecting on my chin in warm drops, and tried to suppress an uncontrollable desire to scream. Adrenaline... It's just adrenaline...

Irma rustled with her clothes, pushing through after me. I squinted, realizing my head was spinning, and just lay for a while. Irma was silent. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears and was the only sound and only sensation for another two minutes or so, and then I gradually started returning to reality.

Pain came to my scraped lips. The pounding of my heart no longer drowned out surrounding sounds, and I heard something splash in one of the nests—somewhere by my head. Just in case I sat up. My right wrist ached from the strain, and I began rubbing it, pressing it to my chest.

"How are you?" Irma asked with concern.

"Depends what you compare it to... Considering I'm alive—wonderful. By the way, thank you."

She ignored the thanks, frowned, took me by the chin and looked into my eyes:

"I need you. I can't get out alone."

"I understand..."

"And with you on my shoulders—even less so."

"I'll be careful, Irma. My hand slipped and..."

But she wasn't listening. Without additional explanation Irma took out the plastic bottle and held it out to me.

"Now?" I wanted to at least delay this moment a bit.

"We don't know what awaits us. And you're becoming a burden."

It was cruel, but I'm afraid fair.

"Maybe at least wait until evening..."

"No," Irma shook her head. "It would have been good if you'd taken it yesterday—if you take into respect that prolonged effect requires time."

"Into account..." I muttered barely audibly.

Maybe she's right. Because I'm like that condemned man from the joke:

"Cigar?" the executioner offers him before execution.

"You want me to die of cancer?!"

"Faster," Irma hurried. "This is a creepy place. To put it mildly, very creepy."

And she thrust the bottle at me.

"One press and inhale. Come on!"

It was warm from her body. As if alive...

"Wait, don't pressure me so much... Give me a few seconds to think..."

Blood collected in my mouth again, and I spat.

"No!" she suddenly leaned forward and slapped me on the lips with her palm. "Not with blood!!!"

Irma started examining the floor, trying to see where my spit landed. And then her eyes widened.

"Oh dog shit!!!"

It wasn't about the spit anymore. Blood had dripped into one of the nests while I was coming to, lying on my stomach. And now Irma was looking there as if at the gates of hell.

"How long have we been here... A minute?" this wasn't an exclamation but a question. And judging by her intonation, the answer mattered a great deal.

"Or three," I said uncertainly.

"Let's go!" she jumped to her feet. "They're about to hatch."

"Okay," I got up and immediately realized I'd overestimated my strength. My whole body hummed with strain. My hands trembled from excess adrenaline, my knees were cotton.

"This is a death beetle nest," she said, looking me straight in the eyes. "All this is a colony of larvae. In each nest is a warm-blooded animal. Paralyzed but alive. The larva eats it until it grows, and then crawls out—through the mouth. But it's too big to fit through. The host dies at precisely this moment."

"What are you going on about, Irma! Why this now?!"

"So you understand what will happen to you! This time of year the larvae have just matured. Fresh blood will force them out. If we've been here three minutes, we have that much or less! And then the nests will open and young beetles will crawl out."

"Then let's go!"

"You can't, you dumbass! Don't you understand?! They'll catch up and turn you into an incubator for new larvae! We don't have many bullets! Do you hear me or not?!"

She was breathing hard, as if after running, looking at me with fury and pity at the same time.

Then she snatched the plastic bottle from my hand and thrust it right to my face.

"Come on!" she screamed. "It still needs almost another minute to take effect!"

I took the bottle but still hesitated.

"Please," Irma said. "It's like strong doping... And it's your chance..."

Something banged loudly under our feet. The lid of one of the nests cracked, and two pairs of black chitinous legs immediately grabbed the edge. Irma whipped out her pistol and shot into the nest.

And I resolutely stuck the spray nozzle into my nostril.

"Svits—sh-sh-sh."

26

Something happened to my vision—that was the first thing that changed. Hard to describe... It's like the difference between a two-dimensional image and three-dimensional. Or—between a three-dimensional image and reality... I don't know how else to explain it. Vision seemed to move to a higher level. I saw everything in minute detail. Could determine distance by eye with mathematical precision. Shadows separated from texture, play of light—from form. And while I was turning my head, trying to get used to the new perfect vision, sounds emerged.

At that moment I began to hear so much all at once that it seemed the previous thirty-five years I'd been deaf. How larvae moved in nests (and could say exactly which ones), how wind swayed leaves (how each individual leaf rustled), how some creature unknown to me breathed on the overpass outside the window. Irma's heart beat so loudly that I think I'd hear it through three walls. And finally, smells. This is completely impossible to describe. Because I began not to sense them but to read them...

"Are you okay?" Irma asked.

"Okay," I answered, looking at my hand.

I could feel again. No, the numbness hadn't disappeared, but it had retreated—my fingers could feel touch again.

"Okay," my mouth said, and I realized I'd only said it now: the tiny fraction of a second between thought and word stretched out a thousandfold.

"Then let's move. The effect will pass soon."

She said this unbearably slowly, and I managed to read the words on her lips long before she uttered them, guessing from the first syllables.

"Better be quiet," I asked. "It's unbearable."

And while my lips said this, I managed to think I'd better be quiet too. It was as if I sat in a huge unwieldy cargo shuttle rather than being in my body. One of the nests above our heads cracked loudly—somewhere in the middle of the word "unbearable"—and I quickly took Irma by the elbow, barely pushing. Everything's not so bad—if I apply a bit of effort, the body moved quite quickly, though unusually smoothly. Irma was still raising her eyebrows in surprise when a young death beetle fell from the ceiling, slowly, like a balloon—right onto the spot where she'd stood a moment ago. I kicked it still in the air, hitting the soft abdomen with my toe.

"Back to the shelves?" I asked.

"We won't make it," Irma shook her head, and strands of her hair swayed slowly, like in all those tearjerker movie scenes. "There's a tree outside the window. Under the pollen you can easily jump that far."

While her lips pronounced the words "under the pollen," four more dozen nests cracked simultaneously—like popcorn. Many—right under our feet.

"Let's run," I said and rushed to the "window," guiding Irma along.

Nothing compares to this feeling. Never before, neither in low-gravity zones on other planets, nor even in dreams, had I felt so agile and strong. So alive. Very remotely this can be compared perhaps only to sensations of school childhood, when you run at full speed down a narrow long corridor to at least somewhat shed accumulated energy, and the flickering of lights overhead creates the feeling that you're about to break the sound barrier on a speedway.

I practically flew, launching like an arrow toward the window. And though thought outpaced body, it no longer seemed to me a cargo shuttle. Rather—a powerful fighter jet. Irma fell behind just a bit, leaving behind the rain of death beetles. I caught myself thinking I wanted to feel like this as long as possible.

I had to jump seven and a half meters. No "close" or "approximately"—I saw quite clearly that from the "window" to the branch I needed to grab with my hand was seven meters and fifty-one centimeters. Even fifty-one and change, but that was no longer important. I took the last two steps a bit shorter to push off with my right leg, unerringly choosing the jump angle. Wind blew on my face. In my heart sweet languor tickled with the feeling of freedom. I was about to grab the branch with my right hand, not fearing at all that it would fail me. Dry rough bark slapped my palm. I squeezed my fingers just a bit harder than necessary to compensate for insufficient sensitivity. Inertia turned my body, slap—and my left also grabbed its branch. God, what bliss! I easily pressed my feet against a projection on the trunk. Irma jumped weaker, so she landed two meters lower and seemed to hit, flying chest-first into the trunk. She'd used pollen half an hour ago (the clarification immediately flashed in my head—twenty-seven minutes ago), which means by this time the effect substantially weakens.

"Down!" Irma shouted. "Death beetles will jump too!"

After a minute of stunning jumps from branch to branch I easily landed on the ground. Somewhere above, death beetles jumped onto the same tree in a line of black dots. Like frightened turkeys. However, they deftly clung to the trunk with their claws and immediately ran down. I caught myself thinking I wasn't afraid at all.

Irma came down. We tore off down the wide street of the neglected alien city. Last year's leaves flickered under our feet, we jumped dizzily over heaps of something old and man-made—maybe even mechanisms—and I was filled with rapture and lightness. The feeling of my own strength. We easily broke away from the death beetles and allowed ourselves to just walk.

After a while Irma confidently turned a corner, I followed... And we both froze in shock. Rapture and lightness were displaced by the eerie spectacle that appeared before us.

This was, probably, an avenue—a wide passage between towering buildings. A gorge flooded with midday sun. And this was a battlefield—one glance was enough to understand. The field of the last battle. The death hour of an entire civilization preserved by time. Corpses were easy to make out, even buried under dust and wilted leaves. There were many of them. Huge, over two meters tall, mutilated, hidden behind barricades of fanciful machines—the masters of this city, and once of the entire planet. I crouched by one of the bodies, carefully examining the dried mummy. Six eyes, broad chest. Something like armor worn on torso and shoulders.

"Who could destroy an entire civilization!" burst from me, and at that second I was, of course, thinking about our tiny camp behind the Contour wall.

"That's the wrong question," Irma said gloomily. "The right one is: 'Why the fuck did they bring over five hundred families with children to a place where someone destroyed a civilization?!'"

"Maybe they just fought each other? Until they killed everyone..."

"That's the first thing we thought when we found this city. But no. What killed them is still here. And believe me, it's interested in us too."

I stared at Irma. And it wasn't just the last phrase, no. It was precisely this part: "...the first thing we thought when we found the city." I looked at Irma's deserter bracelet, at her herself, at the street that had become a battlefield... And then finally said:

"You've been here before. And we're not just surveying a dead city, are we? You're leading me somewhere?"

Irma silently nodded and looked at me attentively, long and piercingly.

"Contact our people. Say the track broke. We'll fix it by evening and spend the night, and in the morning—back."

"So you've thought everything through... And where are we going?"

"Not far now—you'll see for yourself. If we're lucky, there'll be a charged battery there. Or even a whole transporter."

And she walked along the street. I won't say I didn't want to find out everything immediately, but if she really was leading somewhere, it was worth being patient... Something banged loudly ahead. I involuntarily shuddered and put my hand on the holster. With satisfaction I noted I could feel the hard ribs of the lock button with my fingers. Irma bent over the fallen leaves and pulled out something rectangular and flat. She tapped it against the metal side of a damaged battle machine on the roadside, and the find responded with a tinny clatter.

"You can look," Irma held out the rectangle to me.

It was a sign. Old, judging by the peeling paint, bent metal-plastic sign with writing in English: "NORTH DIRECTION—0.5 km." And an arrow.

We turned (precisely north, as far as I could orient myself) and already around the corner of the next street we saw a fence. High, mesh, only here and there damaged by rust and absolutely terrestrial, with Bruno coil on top. Neither ivy nor other plants even approached the fence—along the posts neat rows of numerous insulators were lined up. And judging by the barely audible hum, solar batteries still worked, though the complex itself had a neglected appearance. Gray monoliths of buildings lurking under alien overpasses were thickly covered with dry branches and leaves. Everywhere possible, ubiquitous shrubs had sprouted.

A white sign with writing faded by time announced:

"Government Space Research Agency

OBJECT № 00"

27

"So you lied to me?" I looked at Irma closely so as not to miss even the slightest movement of her eyes.

She calmly and somehow wearily shrugged:

"Essentially, no."

"No?!"

"We wanted to find out what happened to the corporal. All the answers are here."

"But you knew about the city! And you pretended you were seeing it for the first time!" Inside me it was as if a huge kettle was boiling, and individual bubbles of anger were already rising to the surface, making it hard to speak.

"Really?"

"Irma!"

"Don't yell," she snapped. "I didn't pretend! You stood there with your mouth open, and you imagined I was equally stunned."

"Except Okamura never drove here! And didn't delete any tracking data! Isn't that right?"

"A week ago we drove here together. At night. Remember when we caught the fish-lizard? We got pretty lucky with samples, and no one would ever have suspected it wasn't just a raid... But he got scared when I rammed through the fence of the restricted zone. I had to turn back. I deleted the tracking data. Everything almost like I said."

"Almost? Almost like you said?!" now I was really yelling.

"Sorry."

There wasn't a hint of apology in her voice. It was as if she'd stepped on a stranger's foot in a crowd where everyone was on each other's heads anyway, and purely for form threw over her shoulder: "Excuse me!" From such insulting indifference my inner kettle instantly boiled over. I could have said many things to her, but all thoughts turned into clouds of pure senseless fury. Such cannot be depicted in words, only expressed in action. And I furiously kicked the electric fence. Between the mesh links a cascade of sparks crackled.

"Careful," Irma said calmly.

"Go to hell!"

That's the only thing I could formulate at that second, and I walked along the fence. I felt her gaze on my back, but wanted her to catch up to me herself and try to somehow explain everything. Or conversely, start proving she was right, and then I'd pour all my fury on her to the last drop. But she was silent. I slowly counted step by step, trying to dampen my emotions. You're just offended that someone's manipulating you, and then so easily says "sorry" as if that's how it should be... Offended that because of her you're in shit up to your ears. Irma doesn't have a daughter who needs a future secured!

And even before I mentally got from the word "future" to the word "fool," the fingers of my right hand involuntarily rubbed my wrist. The touch responded with a thousand finest needles. This morning everything had been worse. Mustn't forget that this morning it was much worse.

"And how would you have wanted it?!" Irma suddenly exclaimed, as if we hadn't interrupted our conversation. "Hey, let's go to an alien city, it's not far from here!' Should I have said that, Lieutenant?"

"For starters, you can start calling me by name!" I shot back, spinning on my heels.

"This is the army, not a dating club!" Irma answered in my tone and blushed.

"And I thought we were friends!"

"And that's why you tried to fuck me?! In a friendly way?!"

We both fell silent. I involuntarily remembered how my head spun from the smell of her hair. And these thoughts strangely calmed me. As if cold water had been poured into boiling fury, and it immediately stopped seething, sedately swaying as cooled soup. I turned back to Irma. The blush hadn't left her cheeks yet, but there was no anger in her gaze either.

"When we return to base," she said, "you can tell everything as it is. Where we were and who dragged you here. No one will punish you because I'm higher in rank. And I could formally have given an order. But then we'll all die. Not immediately, of course. But soon. I think at the latest—in half a year."

I looked into her eyes. Irma believed what she was saying. Believed it as in something completely comprehensible and absolutely unquestionable. With the same expression

she could have said: "Today the sun will set below the horizon. I think at the latest—in about eight hours."

Irma waited for me to answer, but I was silent.

"Or you can help me," she said slowly, and this sounded not at all as confident as the phrase about death.

"Help with what?"

"Do what I'm here for. And save everyone who was deceived, lured into this mission."

"Will you tell me in more detail, or first I need to sign in blood?"

Irma chuckled.

"First you need to give an answer. Not even to me, but to yourself. What will you choose—to live as if there's no dead city, no strange cocoons, no corporal crawling on the ceiling like a fly... To live and wait for how all this ends. Or—to go to the end to save people. Your family, other families, just guys who didn't plan to die on this planet... And between these two decisions—nothing. No compromises, no third options. Either save—or wait."

She fell silent, raising her refined chin questioningly.

"Isn't it too early for a choice?"

"Have you seen too little? Do you still believe in a category 'A' mission?"

I frowned, shoving my hands in my pockets. "The degree of risk in the mission is assessed by minimum category," a woman's voice sounded in my memory. Interesting how they imagined this... After they found a city that died in battle. After they collected thousands of units of weapons there that didn't help an entire civilization survive—how the hell did they imagine these minimal risks?! And the people now hatching from cocoons—in what category is that even described! And our Contour, which isn't equipped with all these plasma barriers and protective screens...

Irma silently waited. She was right. Even if she's a hundred times an adventurer and a liar, all this long ago stopped being a quiet mission for those who don't need problems.

"Fine," I said. "But you don't lie to me anymore, don't manipulate, and don't decide for me. Agreed?"

"And you?"