Chunk 29

...the beast can't penetrate the steel mesh rings. I try to strike it with the machete, but my hand is empty—I dropped it when I fell. I punch it in the eye several times—useless: it squinted, hiding the eye deep in folds of skin. I might as well just be hitting the devil-beast on the back. I can't wrench my leg from its teeth either. I'm hoping it will release me for just a moment to try for a better bite, and then I'll break free. Instead, the creature grabs my ankle with one hand-like forelimb and tries to grasp my head with the other. I manage to get my elbow up. The beast, without opening its jaws, jerks my leg and elbow in different directions. The mesh fabric stretches but holds. I think if not for the suit, it would have torn me in half. Then with a muffled growl, the devil-beast pins me firmly to the floor with its paws. I scream desperately, though there's no one here to hear me.

That same second, I feel the forest devil's jaws begin to move alternately back and forth, gradually crawling along my thigh toward my lower back. I try to break free again. The jaws freeze, tightening their grip. But the moment I stop struggling, the devil-beast immediately starts moving its teeth again with surprising dexterity and speed. At this rate, it'll soon reach my neck...

I barely spot the machete, but it's too far away. The shark-like jaws have already reached my ribs. I scream again. The jaws have reached my ribs, and breathing has become difficult. I writhe frantically, realizing I have almost no chance left. Then suddenly the beast opens its jaws. And in the same instant, the paw that was holding my leg easily lifts me into the air.

I don't know how I managed to cover my head with my hands before the devil-beast slammed me against the floor. The impact echoed as pain in my temples and clenched teeth. I felt myself lifted from the floor again, and pressed my elbows to my head with all my might, protecting the back of my head with my palms.

Impact.

My nose filled with blood and I immediately started coughing, choking on it. The floor dropped away from under my feet. I can't take another one.

Impact.

I hit my back so hard that it knocks the wind out of me. For a moment I unclench my teeth to spit out the blood. She's lifted me into the air again, and I brace myself, not knowing if I'll survive this time...

Impact.

13

I came to... In the same place where the female forest devil slammed me against the floor for the last time... She's gone. By some miracle, she didn't finish me off. Maybe she decided to get the hell out of there... Or went to work up an appetite... But I'm not going to check... I get up. My head is a bit dizzy, but it seems I got really lucky...

I pick up the machete... I'm already hurrying out of the room when I suddenly notice in the upper part of the closet a familiar weave of gray webbing. A cocoon! Just like a week ago in Vira's and my bedroom.

And I feel something inside me snap...

I raise the machete. Slowly and very carefully, I cut the cocoon lengthwise. It feels like I'm cutting off my own leg... Never in my life have I been so afraid of seeing what's inside that cocoon. The machete blade reaches all the way to the bottom, and I jerk the cut open. Something large and shapeless, wrapped in a sticky whitish film, falls out like a sack. A bare little foot with pink toes catches my eye. I convulsively suck in air through my nose and cough, choking on blood. No, this isn't Elza. The thing that fell out of the cocoon is much bigger and...

"Oh God! What an abomination!"

It was... Like Siamese twins... Large, but smaller than an adult human. I don't even know what they were fused by, but I saw two heads and four legs... The creature twitched convulsively, gaping with mouths on both heads under the stretched film. As if mesmerized, I reached out my hand and tore the film on one of them. From there, gasping convulsively, emerged... The face of my Vira! Only smaller... As if underdeveloped. One of the chimera's heads stared at me with a wild empty gaze of the whites. And suddenly spoke in a disgusting high voice: "How's Elza?"

I threw up right there on the floor.

---

It had been day for a long time. I have no idea what time it is, since I dumped all the electronics... But judging by the sun, around noon... So eight hours until evacuation. Maximum—eight... Around me, the lost sector sparkled carelessly with fresh snow. This part of the camp was completely empty, as it should be. Dead. I walked among the abandoned cottages with grim determination to do what Vandlyk had hinted at.

I tried to imagine exactly how it would happen... His eyes at that moment... Honestly, I've never killed a person before. On Proxima, there was one situation when I shot at people. But I doubt I hit anyone. They were quite far away, somewhere in the ruins of the power plant. Marauders. I ended up in a group that was supposed to drive them out of the sector. But I was shooting more in the direction of people then. So I didn't kill. Especially not like this, when you also need to plan... Especially when it's someone you know. He thinks life awaits him ahead, and I know that today he'll die before nightfall... No, get that out of your head, boy...

So what then? I can stay on Ix-Chel. Just not fly, and keep searching for my daughter. But then what? Even if I find her—then what? In the best-case scenario, I'll just be beside her when she dies of hunger or a reaper's claws... That's probably better than flying and abandoning her... But worse than saving her. You're in deep shit, boy, and you have no other way out.

I walked rhythmically through the snow, not noticing anything around me. Think, boy... I remember the first combat mission on Proxima—the commander took me into a reconnaissance group. We were walking through the local low-growing jungle, more like overgrown bushes, when we spotted ruins. We circled them according to all the rules, checked, went inside... My heart was pounding like crazy. I was ready to shoot at any second. No one. Then the commander gives the "Watch out!" signal. Everyone froze. We hear—some rustling. I didn't understand right away... And a second later I recognized the sound—in the next room someone was relieving themselves, and the stream was hitting a bag or something. Heart jumping out... Then footsteps in our direction. The commander signals us not to shoot. A guy enters. Very young. About my age then. With a rifle. He was standing sideways to me. And the commander by the door. Then suddenly—sharply pulled him close. And with a knife, a clean diagonal strike—from under the Adam's apple all the way behind the ear.

I remember that guy's eyes. Surprised... Didn't understand yet that he was already dead. And just looking like that... Offended. And his facial expression—childlike. As if he's a little boy and someone tore his sweater, and mom will scold him...

The commander pressed him against the wall and stabbed with the knife again somewhere under the jaw... And he put out his little hand to protect himself... As if he wasn't being killed, but just—getting a beating. And silently slid to the floor... Crouching... It all lasted half a second, maybe. In my head it stretched out to half an hour. We took the second one alive. And I kept thinking about that guy. On the way back—I don't even remember.

...I stopped, returning from memories to a sunny day in the abandoned sector of our colony, which was probably finishing the last preparations for departure. I won't do this. This is madness! Nonsense! I won't kill a person just because he's standing in my way. Ugh, how horrible! I tried to push from my mind the horrific image of murder that had surfaced in my memory. I won't. I don't know what I'll do, but I definitely won't kill! I'll stay here, whatever happens! I'll ask Alex to forget some container of food... And the scariest thing is I don't know if I'll find Elza. After all, I'll be alone. And if I find her—I have no idea how we'll survive here! Though who am I kidding! We won't survive on Ix-Chel.

No, this won't work either... I need to hope for something... And suddenly I understood. Here's what I'll do. I'll go to his home, stick a pistol in his face and demand he cancel the evacuation. Or rather, first I'll talk to him like a human being one more time... But who the hell am I convincing! I won't be able to shoot a person like that—from a meter and a half away. Our army instructor—a mustachioed, hoarse-voiced soldier with three wounds—said that's the hardest thing. "You must be ready to shoot the enemy RIGHT IN THE FACE-E-E!!!" he would roar furiously, bulging his eyes. And then he would say very seriously: "This is damn hard, guys! Especially the first time. So—prepare your psyche in advance. Imagine it in all the details. So you can feel it with your skin..."

And I imagined. I imagined aiming at the commandant's face. And at first he doesn't believe I'll shoot. Maybe he gets angry. Or calls me "son" again and persuades me to lower the gun. But I understand there's nothing more to discuss, and I pull the trigger. With a pistol it should be easier than with a knife. He'll just fall like a lifeless rag doll—I've seen plenty of those on Proxima... And immediately he'll stop being dignified... He'll bend in a stupid pose, and his belly will stick out from under his T-shirt... What a wretched soul! But I just won't be able to do it!

But I have to do something! What? Maybe arrange an "accident"? Though that's even bigger idiocy. What the hell kind of accidents can there be on Ix-Chel! Drop a hairdryer in the bathtub? Or what?

Think, Gil, think... Run him over with an armored personnel carrier? Where would I get one? How to calculate everything? This is something from the realm of fantasy. He said something about an artificial heart—maybe it can be stopped somehow? How? I didn't even notice how I reached the populated part of the camp. I only came to when my way was blocked by a wire with yellow signs "Danger. Do not cross." And I was about to step over it when a solution flashed in my head like a match.

And without letting myself doubt, I resolutely turned back.

---

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi," I count out loud and flip the reaper back to normal position.

Yes! It tucked its scythes under itself, becoming like a dried-up fly. That's the second one. I tuck both inside my shirt. I had to take off the mesh suit because it looked damn suspicious, so I can't say I'm doing all this without fear—the thought persistently pounds in my temple that the reapers might wake up right on my belly. When we transported them to the power plant, the first ones woke up after about forty-five minutes...

I wash my face with snow, because my whole mug is covered in blood after the fight with the devil-beast. Too bad there's no mirror—my appearance should be more or less... I run through my simple plan in my head again. I'll say I have a brief conversation with him, and he'll let me into his quarters. I'll ask one more time to cancel the evacuation. He's unlikely to agree, of course. But I'll give him a chance. And when he refuses, I'll just leave two reapers in his bathroom. That's all. The reapers will come to, start making noise. The general will run into the bathroom, and they'll most likely sense his artificial heart. The battery there should be much more powerful than in my kidney... And if the general is lucky and stays alive—so be it. This way I'm kind of leaving the final decision up to fate. It's easier that way. Shifting responsibility is always easier...

The commandant was standing outside, near the entrance to the building, and I had to pass by him at a considerable distance, circle around and...

...return in five minutes. But when I saw the general's cottage from afar again, he was still outside! This didn't work for me—the general might not invite me inside if I start the conversation on the street. I made another circle. Without a watch, I was very afraid of miscalculating. How much time has passed since I put them to sleep? I'm afraid, no less than twenty minutes.

On the third circle, nothing changed. The general was unwinding a rocking chair and packing. Judging by the open can of beer, he wasn't in much hurry. I broke out in a sweat.

Once—I was about five then—I found a dead wasp in the yard and put it in the pocket of my sweatpants to take home. The wasp was very beautiful, like an expensive and precise mechanism. I imagined playing with it, how the dead wasp would attack toy soldiers. But the wasp wasn't dead. Father later said it might have fallen into such a state from the night frost... It warmed up in my pocket and, when it couldn't get out, stung through the fabric several times.

I remember the pain and my fright, I remember the repeated wasp stings and how I started crying and hysterically hitting myself on the pocket. Now in my shirt I had two deadly dangerous alien predators that would wake up at some indefinite time. Even a nest of sleeping hornets would be a more innocent cargo...

I came out to the general's house for the fourth time. Nothing had changed—he was still messing around near the door. Probably need to do a fifth circle and then decide something. Approaching while he's there is pointless in any case... Then the general picked up a box with the packed chair and went inside. I wanted to run to his house, but restrained myself—I didn't need someone to notice me. Forbidding myself to look around, I walked up to his door and knocked.

The general opened and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Uh... Lieutenant?"

"Sorry to disturb you at home, sir... Didn't catch you at your workplace, and... I need to discuss one important matter... Sir..."

"I'm listening to you," the commandant leaned against the doorframe, preparing to hear me out at the door.

"First, I want to apologize for saying you have no heart..."

The general waved it off, but it was clear he was touched.

"I really didn't mean to," I said.

"No need, don't apologize. Many fathers in your place would have strangled me, and here... I understand, and..."

"Will you let me come in, sir? I need literally ten minutes... Maximum... Maybe you can advise me on what to do..."

"If you don't mind, Gil, let's talk here. Inside I have—box on top of box, nowhere to even sit."

I shifted on the spot. No point starting a conversation from outside...

"I'd sit down, to tell the truth," I began, feeling my plan crumbling before my eyes. "Haven't slept for who-knows-how-long, and..."

"Son," the general said firmly, "tell me what you wanted to ask."

He wasn't going to let me in.

"About my daughter, of course," I answered. "And... Fine... I'll sit here then, you don't mind? Because I really feel awful."

And I sat right on the snow where I was standing, pretending I felt really bad. I think my appearance was appropriate—from the fear that the reapers might wake up any moment, I broke out in a sweat and my mouth went dry.

"This won't take long," I said, slightly exaggerating my shortness of breath. "I went to the lost sector again..."

"Wait," the general interrupted me; he looked around, evidently feeling awkward that I was sitting at his feet like a puppy, right on the melting snow. "Get up, please, it's wet and dirty there..."

"I might just collapse in the middle of the conversation, and it's very important to me that you hear me out to the end," the crazy heartbeat was indeed interfering with speaking, and this only helped.

"Come in," he finally said. "Come in, don't sit on the snow."

Holding the reapers so they wouldn't accidentally slip out, I entered. The general brought me a stool from the kitchen.

"Sit down. Want something? You're all green."

I asked for a glass of water because my tongue was stuck to my throat. Finally I drank, and the general sat down across from me.

"Sir, postpone the evacuation for three days," I began.

He frowned and crossed his arms on his chest. At that moment I felt one of the reapers stir under my jacket. I froze and stopped...

...breathing, listening. Waking up? Or did I imagine it? The general looked at me with concern. No, it seems everything's still okay. Anyway, I need to wrap up the conversation quickly. Then ask to use the toilet and unload these guys.

"Gileleh, we already talked about this," the general said, not taking his worried gaze off me.

"Yes... I think I shouldn't have come at all... And it's not for nothing I started with apologies... It's not about the absence of a heart, of course. It's just a muscle, right? It's about something bigger that allows you to put regulations on one scale and a child's life on the other. But I wanted to try..."

I stood up, about to ask permission to use the toilet. I'll throw the reapers there and leave. And not a drop of doubt anymore. Callous bastard.

A deep wrinkle formed over the general's nose. His gaze became heavy and sad.

"Sit down," he said quietly; I sat. "You can insult me all you want. And I'll probably let it all pass, despite the difference in rank and age... After all, you're a father... And a father will never just accept it... But when you talk about me as an indifferent soldier, you should know that if there were any reasonable plan... The hell with the plan! If there were the slightest hope that your daughter is still alive... Forgive me for saying this..."

Then the reaper suddenly pressed into my side with its legs. Into my right side, the same one where an implant with a tiny battery inside was diligently playing the role of a kidney. I held my breath, and almost instantly beads of sweat appeared on my forehead.

"I would have spit on everything, Gileleh," the general continued, but I was no longer listening, focused on the sensations.

Maybe a random movement? Or did it actually wake up?! And then, painfully scratching my body, the reaper jerked from under the jacket like a frightened cat. I jumped up, frantically unbuttoning my jacket before it could slice open my chest. It plopped on the floor like a huge black grasshopper and immediately rattled its chitin, raising its scythes high.

"Goddamn it!.." the general barked and jumped up, knocking over the stool.

The reaper tucked its legs, ready to jump. Judging by the direction of its body, of the two of us it definitely perceived the commandant as the enemy, though I was standing closer. I glanced at the general and saw a pistol in his hand! Bad, very bad!

"You okay?" he shouted to me.

It didn't even occur to him that I brought the reaper, and not that the reaper attacked me.

And then I take out the second one from my shirt and throw it at the general's face. He jerks back sharper than necessary, catches on the stool and falls—clumsily, with his whole body, helplessly waving his arms, not like a combat general but like a pensioner who slipped on the first autumn ice. The sleeping reaper flies into a corner, but having fallen, it stirs and also begins to unfold. I silently rush to the commandant, who still seems to have understood nothing, and kick the pistol that fell from his hand on the run, sending it toward the front door.

"What are you doing?!" he's still reaching out his palm to me so I'll help him up.

I glance at the first reaper. It nervously clicks its legs on the floor, scythes raised, but isn't rushing to attack. Whatever happens, happens. If they don't kill him, I'm screwed. But without Elza I don't want to live anyway.

"Help me up!" the commandant's words rang out like metal. "Lieutenant! That's an order! Gil! Gil! Gi-i-il!!!"

I resolutely head for the exit and don't intend to stop, but there's such bestial despair in his voice that I can't stand it and turn around: the general managed to get to his feet, but the reaper is already on his back. The old man stands hunched, not knowing if it's safe for him to move, looks pleadingly and with unspeakable thirst for life. The reaper climbs onto his head, a black drop of thick blood runs down the general's forehead from under a sharp claw... But then the reaper seems to doze off. Apparently, the battery in the commandant's heart isn't powerful enough...

Absently I lower my gaze. His pistol is right at the threshold—one step away. I bend down and pick it up, taking it with my jacket sleeve. I freeze for a moment, weighing everything one last time. If I leave—the commandant will have a great chance to survive. If he survives—my daughter will die. Leaving it all up to fate didn't work out.

"Catch!" and I throw him the pistol.

I see how afraid he is of not catching it and with what relief he catches it. The commandant manages to bring the weapon up, aiming at the reaper on his head, but the creature instantly slashes his arm with sickle-shaped claws. Simultaneously, the second reaper wakes up and makes a precise jump onto the old man's chest, deeply embedding its scythes to get to the artificial heart. And only in that instant does the general's finger convulsively pull the trigger. The bullet pierces the ceiling.

...As if in a trance, I watch the disgusting picture. After a few seconds I come to and turn back to the door. Elza, my little Elza! I'll forget this horror when I can bury my face in your fragrant hair...

14

Irma flung open the door. Like you open your eyes after a nightmare, when you can't free yourself from the suffocating embrace of sleep for a long time, and then finally you break free: jerkily sit up in bed and stare into emptiness, still not believing that reality is here, and not in the wild images that filled it just a second ago.

That's how Irma opened the door for me. As if all the most terrible things were supposed to end as soon as electric light rushed into the snowy twilight, in the middle of which I stood, torn apart by my own deed.

"Where were you!" she exclaimed, and her voice sounded genuinely joyful. "You don't have a phone!"

"What?" I asked, because it was hard to understand.

"Come here!" she suddenly shouted, as if she and I were separated by at least a volleyball court. "Quickly!"

And before I understood that her words were not addressed to me, she appeared from behind Irma's back. My tiny princess with inexpressibly deep eyes and a sunny little face.

Elza.

I think I pushed Irma aside, not realizing it, just like you push aside a branch in the forest. And rushed forward. And fell on my knees before my little daughter, pressing tightly against her, as if wanting our souls to merge and become one forever.

"Elza..." I pulled away from her only for a moment to gently kiss her beautiful little face. "My Elza..."

Transparent, pure happiness flooded me to the very top. It bubbled, rippled inside with small bustling waves and splashed out of my eyes in hot drops.

"Your cheeks are wet," said Elza, touching my face with her palms.

"It's from joy," I said and laughed to keep from sobbing.

And then I pressed my nose to her head, inhaling the smell of her hair. I didn't smell that magical aroma that all small children have—only the light scent of Irma's shampoo. Because at that moment a wave of despair caught up with and stunned me, depriving me of the ability to feel anything except pain. I killed a person. Killed for nothing. And continued our imprisonment on this planet with Elza. Tomorrow we would have flown away with her forever. Would have flown.

"I ruined everything, Irma," I said. "I ruined everything."

15

In my thoughts I was still embracing Elza. The warmth of her little body was stronger than anything in the world. Gradually it displaced even despair, shame, and awareness of the mistake I had made. She's alive! I blinked, emerging from memories. She's alive. This gave me strength. And seemed to sharpen the surrounding world. Added meaning.

Vandlyk was silent. Obviously, giving me time to reconsider. Her faded eyes were as impenetrable as the mask she had been sitting in earlier.

"And what will happen?" I finally asked.

"When?"

"When I tell."

"You'll go home to your daughter."

"And that's all?"

"And that's all. We only need the arsenal. You hid it well, credit where it's due. We turned the whole camp upside down."

"I'll just go?"

"You think I'm lying?"

"What about your words about my ribs?"

"About what?"

It was clear she really didn't understand.

"'I'll have time before morning. And then with him in any case—it's all over.' That's what you said to that doctor? By the way, what time is it?"

"You think we're going to kill you?" her surprise seemed genuine. Or she was acting well.

"Do you have another interpretation of the phrase 'then with him in any case—it's all over'?"

She smiled indulgently:

"For example, 'in any case, I'll finish interrogating him.' Gileleh, what's in your head?"

"The fact that there's no reason to finish an interrogation 'in any case.' Especially if officially I'm charged with murder."

"And what should be the reasons to kill a detainee? Do you realize that's a crime?"

Vandlyk spoke convincingly. Weightily. As if she were an adult and I was a boy gaining life experience from movies based on comics. I don't know what stopped me. Perhaps the memory of the tall guy in the "Party or Die" T-shirt who lay in this same room and shrank like a punctured air mattress while his clothes melted, as if drawn... Or—about the enormous spider, elephant-sized, composed of the intertwined bodies of Rosalyn Dilan, killed half a century ago. They were like from comics. Dark, bloody comics marked "18+". And at the same time, they existed in reality.

"I don't know, Nicole," I answered, deciding it was time to acknowledge we're on familiar terms. "Probably, the reasons to kill must be as weighty as those for which you betrayed fifty people with whom you ate in the same cafeteria. And fled, stealing their last hope of salvation. Oh, I almost forgot—you left your best friend to be torn apart by chimeras!"

"No!" bright red spots appeared on Vandlyk's cheeks.

"It was she who persuaded me to flee! I would never have been offered such a thing, I didn't even have the required access level! They needed a biologist, and Rosalyn had died. And they offered it to Irma. That I flew and not her, they realized when I was already on board!"

"What are you saying..."

"Irma knew that on the 'Artillerist Gans' the quarantine compartment was designed for one patient. One! So they would never have..."