Chunk 35

"Just stay with her. If everything goes according to plan, I'll pick her up in two hours. If not according to plan—you'll have to save her instead of me. Either way, Alex, you're the only one I can trust. The only one."

"Why me? Because of the powder or what?"

"Because of the powder. Friend, I need help. I think it won't come to plan 'B,' but on the launch pad there's a two-seater boat. Today we shot all the reapers there, and I think new ones haven't run up yet. The boat's ready for launch. If in two hours I don't make contact, get into orbit and be there. I'll give you a synth-nuclear rifle... Heard of them?"

I slipped mine off my shoulder and extended it to him.

"Holy shit..." Alex took it with reverence on his face. "This is a 'Shiva'!"

"Yes. It's quite possible on the cruiser there'll be resistance to evacuating a child... Long story... But anyway, with 'Shiva' you can persuade them."

Alex recoils from me like from a plague victim.

"I'm not, little bro, stealing a cruiser!"

"Gone completely crazy. I'm not asking!"

He's confused.

"Really? Irma went nuts about this. We even had a fight. I promised to turn her in to Vandlik if I saw her again."

I nodded.

"Maybe we'll do just that. Give me two hours. I won't say I have a brilliant plan, but there's a chance today we'll all fly. Absolutely everyone."

Thank God, Alex didn't start asking questions. Instead, the big guy leaned down to Elza so his huge head was at eye level with hers.

"Listen, little one... My name is Alex. And you and I need to help your daddy. Will you stay with me a bit?"

She looked at me. Then at him again. Suddenly threw herself on my neck and hugged so I grunted.

"I'm scared... I want to be with you..."

"I'll be quick... I promise I'll return soon... I can't take you with me."

"I won't get in the way!"

"I know, sweetheart... But you need to go with Uncle Alex. Just listen to me."

She shook her head. Tears glistened in her eyes.

"Let's give Alex your riddle?" I say. "He'll never guess..."

"Don't want to..." Elza whispers.

"By the way, I'm a champion guesser!" Alex joins in with deliberate enthusiasm. "Come on, little one, what riddles do you have?"

She shakes her head and presses close to me.

"What's like a turtle but barks?" I ask instead of her. "Come on, Uncle Alex, strain your brain!"

"Well... It's a turtle that coughs!"

"No, friend, completely wrong!" I tell him in the same tone and conspiratorially peer into Elza's eyes. "Should we tell him?"

She silently presses to my face. You can't tell Elza is crying. Only her cheeks are wet.

"Sweetheart..." I kiss her. "Everything will be fine. I promise you."

Truth be told, I expected hysterics. But she simply stepped back, pressed her lips and nodded. And then extended her hand to Alex, and the two of them went where the lights of the central sector were visible. And I'd already turned away when he suddenly called out.

"Gil!"

I even shuddered. Got scared he'd changed his mind. But no. Alex ran to me with the awkward jog of a heavyweight, and Elza waited for him with her head down.

"What is transmarginal inhibition?"

"What?"

"Transmarginal..."

I stopped him:

"I understood. Long to explain. It's a term in physiology."

"Irma kept repeating it when she was persuading me to bolt from here. Inhibition, inhibition, inhibition. I thought it's important."

I chewed my lips.

"Thanks. Important, yes. But it won't come to that."

He slapped me on the shoulder and ran to Elza. I watched as she gave him her hand, trying to banish the suffocating premonition of disaster.

Irma's cottage windows are dark. For the third time I press the doorbell button. Silence. I take out the radio.

"Irma..."

The radio is silent.

"Irma!"

Finally the speaker hoarsely responds:

"On comms."

I hastily bring the radio to my lips, as if it might change its mind about talking:

"Where are you?"

"At home."

"Open up, it's me ringing."

The airlock this time is activated—it hisses long with vacuum seals, then the lock clicks, and Irma opens. She looks tired and confused. Shiveringly wraps herself in a plaid blanket thrown over her uniform. Her gaze flicked over my face for a moment and rushed to rummage behind my back.

"Where's your daughter?"

"Safe. Will you let me in?"

Irma examines me once more. This time from head to toe.

"Why?"

"To talk. I'm unarmed."

"Where is she?" Irma repeats again.

I ignore the question and silently step inside. She backs away, letting me pass.

I'm immersed in such familiar subtle smells of her dwelling. An intricate weaving of aromas of perfume, coffee and cleanliness. Not long ago, when I crossed this threshold, blood pounded in my temples. Now everything's turned upside down. Blood still pounds, but the reason is different.

She sits on a stool, not taking her eyes off me. I sit too. For some time we're awkwardly silent.

"Irma, what will you do next?"

"And you?"

I shrug. All this doesn't matter, because I came to ask about something else. But I don't know how to put this question. Because it's

idiotic.

"I saw you took the thermos," Irma says, as if in passing. "And what about Vandlik? Was she happy?"

"There was coffee in it..."

She smiled her best smile. I sourly stretched my lips.

"Why do you keep lying to me, Irma?.."

She's silent, and from this silence an ugly worm of fear stirs inside me. Fear that I'm not mistaken.

"What do you want?" I say, but this is again not the right question.

"Isn't it clear? I want to live! See Earth together with you. With your little daughter, whom, if you allow, I'll someday call ours. Ours—yours and mine."

Honestly, most of all in the world I wanted to cast away all questions as far as possible, return with Irma and Elza to the launch pad, get in the boat and execute a plan thrilling in its simplicity...

"What's her name?" I asked, before the almost hypnotic veil of her charm completely covered me.

"Whose?" Irma was surprised.

"What's my daughter's name? The one you'd like to call yours. What's her name?"

She looked at me and blinked.

"And what's my name?" I asked, and from excitement my lips went dry. "Don't remember?"

Irma wandered with her eyes around the room, as if hoping to find the answer on the walls.

"You have problems with names, right? With all the names you heard after coming out of deep freeze. After all, Vandlik's name you remember perfectly... Or were you not even in freeze, huh?"

She was silent.

"I'd ask why you have such problems, but the very question 'why' drives you into a dead end. Right? You either stay silent or say your idiotic 'why—because I say so.'"

I licked my lips, caught my breath and finally blurted out what I should have asked right when Irma opened the door:

"Tell me the truth! Are you a chimera?"

Irma burst out laughing. Honestly, I exhaled. She got up, took two cups from the kitchen cabinet, clicked the kettle and busily rustled with tea bags. I felt like an idiot, replaying my last question in my head. Shouldn't have been so blunt, probably...

"What did Vandlik tell you?" she asked, pouring us tea.

"About you?"

"No, lieutenant. About you."

I shook my head, feeling the meaning slipping away from me. And probably had the look of a complete dolt, because Irma snorted with laughter again.

"Here," she shoved a hot cup into my hands and sat opposite.

"What's funny about this, Irma?"

"I see you really understood nothing."

I wanted to yell at her. So badly that I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms.

"Can you explain everything normally or not?!" I asked this deliberately quietly, restraining my fury with all my might.

Instead of answering she unhurriedly sipped tea—as if specially testing my patience.

"Lemon..." Irma jumped up again, so carelessly, as if there was nothing more important. "Forgot the lemon!"

And patience tore loose.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU MESSING WITH MY HEAD!!!" I poured everything together into this shout—shame for my strange questions, bitterness over her endless lies, fatigue, and fear. "I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ANYMORE!!!"

She turned around as if I'd slapped her. The smile completely evaporated from her face. For a moment she bit her lip, and then said quietly and viciously:

"Now you'll understand."

And jumped at me as if about to deliver a slap. Grabbed my hand—I barely managed to put down the cup, pulled me to the kitchen table and pressed my wrist backside down to the countertop, as if about to tell fortunes by my palm. Only she held too firmly.

"What are you doing?.." I tried to free my hand.

"Watch!"

On my palm were visible white crescents left by nails. In the folds of skin darkened dirt. I remembered how Vera said, like, "you can even tell by the lines on your hand what a stubborn ass you are."

"Stubborn person," I corrected.

"A stubborn person is one who persistently defends their views," Verka said in a tone as if objecting.

"Well, right..."

"And when like a ram—that's a stubborn ass!" and rang out laughing. Back then she often laughed. How long ago that was...

Irma leaned down somewhere under the table and pressed even harder on my fingers, bearing down with all her weight. It became painful.

"Look, lieutenant, what will happen."

Then she straightened and with a sudden, sharp movement struck my wrist. A bit above the palm. So sharply and crisply I didn't even have time to react. I thought—with a finger. Only the sound was different. Not a ringing "slap," but a hard and short "bam." I was as if pierced with current—all the way to the shoulder. The sensation was so unpleasant and strong that I jumped back.

"What the!" I exclaimed, pressing my hand to my chest.

Vision with some painful slippage fixed on the huge assault knife sticking out of the plastic cutting board. I don't know where she pulled it from... But on the other side of the black matte blade on the white plastic board... lay in a pool of blood my own hand.

(Section 7)

Stunned, I lower my gaze down, but it seems my eyeballs move amazingly slowly: I manage to feel that my chest is in something wet and warm, and only then—see the neat cuts of bones sticking out of my arm stump. Blood spreads across my jacket in a huge dark brown stain. From the wound beats a bright red elastic stream. I squeeze the wrist with fingers to at least somewhat stop the blood. My vision is already darkening. The knife... Need to take the knife and defend myself...

I step toward the table, but Irma, without looking, pushes me in the chest—so hard I fall and slide across the floor and hit the wall.

"Irma..." I say, but barely hear myself.

The stump... Need to stop the blood. For some reason I don't feel pain... Instead the wound itches terribly. Wildly, insanely itches, radiating all the way to the elbow.

Irma leans down under the table. She has a backpack there, the one we were going to flee with. My gaze fixes on the assault knife sheaths fastened to it. Empty. Irma takes sugar from the backpack. Calmly and businesslike, as if she just thought: "Need to bake a charlotte!"

I must stop the blood... I grip the wounded wrist tighter, but for some reason blood no longer flows. At all. An idiotic thought arises in my head that it's simply run out. No, of course not, because I'm alive.

Rustling loudly, sugar pours—Irma pours so much into my cup that tea spills over the edge, but she doesn't pay attention. "Now that's what I call sweet tea!" flashed through my head, and this thought seems amazingly funny. It's shock, boy. You're in shock.

Something strange is happening with my hand—the wound surface is covering, as if with moss, with the finest white threads. They're growing from the wound. And for some reason they don't hang down, but stick out and sway, like an amazing underwater plant... The threads are already longer than fingers.

Now they resemble thin white hairs. And this slow dance of theirs in space... One could think we're actually underwater... But where's the blood... and why does the wound itch so much? God, how strongly it itches!

Irma stirs the sugar—an almost full cup—with a thin rustling sound. It seems so loud my temples hurt. I'm probably about to faint... Meanwhile the white threads have stretched out about twenty centimeters! Still swaying as if alive, they weave together, forming elastic, thin spirals... One could think a tree is growing from my arm... No, more like coral...

"You're delirious," I tell myself, and this voice seems sober and commanding. I return to reality, but the white threads don't disappear anywhere. They weave into a structure that strangely resembles a skeleton. A hand skeleton.

"Drink!" Irma stands nearby and hands me the warm cup. "You need sucrose."

A thick mixture of sugar that hasn't fully dissolved and water. I'm about to refuse this swill, but with surprise feel I desperately want to drink it immediately. Imagination draws for me how the mixture should taste, where there's more sugar than water. But here's what's strange: this imaginary taste seems to me not disgusting, but quite the opposite. I take the cup with my left hand and bring it to my mouth. I feel on my lips the nauseating liquid with undissolved sugar crystals... And it's so dizzily delicious that the first gulp involuntarily comes out greedy!

I drink and noisily exhale into the cup. Shock retreats. The devilish itch in the wound subsides. My head clears more and more. Without tearing away from the swill, I glance at my wrist. Among the white threads have grown some whitish tubes, and the cavities are now filling with the finest white fluff resembling either cobwebs or mold.

"More," I tell Irma, and am myself surprised at such a request.

"Enough," she takes the cup. "Later."

Through numerous tubes blood suddenly starts running, as if someone opened a tap. The hand instantly colors in all shades of red, burgundy and pink, gaining volume and seeming to—fill with life. The finest white cobweb wraps the "hand" from above, like a glove... No, like skin... Burgundy tubes seem bluish through it, and the white cobweb now seems pinkish... This is definitely a hand. Not cobweb with tubes... An ordinary human hand. Except the skin is gently pink, slightly wrinkled, like in newborns. Or—like on a healed wound when the dried skin has just fallen off. But the strangest thing—I

feel this new hand. I try to bend my fingers, and they immediately obey. I touch the palm—the sensations are completely ordinary. The hand doesn't itch, doesn't hurt, and generally now it's just a hand. My new hand.

"Irma..." I look at her.

She awaits the question. Calm. Even serene. The severed hand is still on the table, and dark blood drips in a thin stream to the floor.

"What's happening to me?!"

"Don't shout."

"What have you done to me?"

"I made you perfect, lieutenant. Unfortunately only the body, not the brains..."

"The powder," I mutter, stunned. "It's because of the powder..."

How many times have I used it? About two times... Yes, it seems, twice.

"Don't talk nonsense! Powder only connects a person to the mycelium, and I made you its part," Irma leaned forward. "You're now one of us, lieutenant. And you have no choice. We're already giving you a chance to save your daughter. So now you'll raise the boat to orbit, and we'll fly to Earth."

I don't quite understand yet what's happening.

"You can't go to Earth," I say and stare at my nauseatingly pink new hand.

She approaches and lifts me from the floor, taking me by the loops. With one surprisingly strong movement. Lifts and presses me to the wall so my feet dangle in the air, and the tunic painfully cuts under my armpits, preventing me from breathing.

"Listen to me carefully. You were pathetic and worthless. Every night you dreamed of drooling, having become a vegetable. And at most in half a year that's exactly what would have happened. Now you're unique. The only one in the Universe. Because of your syndrome, because of that defective protein in your head, the mycelium copied you together with consciousness. Couldn't suppress the human 'I.' And you retained personality. At first I almost killed you. But now I understand you'll become the link that binds the mycelium and humanity. And this means you'll live thousands of years! Tens of thousands! All you have to do is stop whining, get in the damn boat and fly!"

She released me. Deliberately sharply, so I didn't keep my feet and crashed on my knees.

"How do you know what I dream?"

"Are you an idiot?!" her eyes flashed with such fury I thought she'd hit me. "Of everything I told you, only this interested you?!"

"You're not human?"

Irma worked her jaw. Then took a stool and shoved it at me.

"Sit."

And when I sat on it, continued:

"I was mycelium before becoming human, and will transform into it again when I die. When I sleep, I know everything the mycelium knows, and it learns everything I learned. But when I'm not sleeping, I'm a separate personality. Separate. Not the Irma who was the prototype for this body. Understand?"

"Royal chimera..." I exhale, remembering Vandlik's words.

Unlikely she understood, but didn't ask again.

"You were supposed to become the same as me. And fly to Earth instead of me. But four hours after transformation your consciousness suppressed the new personality. We were already returning, were two steps from base, when I realized. And you didn't realize. At all. Didn't even notice you were 'not at the wheel' for some time. Understand, no?"

"I don't understand anything, honestly..."

"There was a great civilization here. Far more advanced than yours. It was precisely to overcome it that the mycelium had to create chimeras. But then... Then we got access to the knowledge of intelligent beings. To their dreams, desires and visions. And everything changed. Before it was enough for us to populate the planet with clones who would live by local nature's laws: hunt, eat and multiply, thus increasing biomass and making the mycelium stronger. Now mere biological existence isn't enough—we too have dreams! But it turned out the mycelium isn't capable of copying a high-tech civilization, even having obtained all that knowledge. Technologies are incomprehensible to us. We think completely differently. Take humans and that word 'why.' For you life is a clear chain of causes and effects, and for us—almost everything has a hundred equivalent causes, and the question 'why' makes no sense. There are plenty of such examples... In short, the mycelium captured cities and cosmodromes on this planet, but got another nature reserve, so the opportunity to get to another planet had to

be waited for thousands of years. Then you arrived.

"That's it? The mycelium needs the Universe?"

"Everyone needs the Universe, lieutenant. And now we'll form a symbiosis. You'll stand at the head of humanity and give us your technologies. In return people will have eternal life. Eternal health, absolute strength. Regeneration, rebirth. Everything you dreamed of."

"Just like the real Irma? Her body was devoured by the mycelium—that's your 'eternal life'?!"

She recoiled as from a slap.

"Nothing was devoured!"

"Then what? You yourself said—the mycelium sucks out the body completely. After all, that's what happened with my Vera?"

"Your wife became a chimera!" Irma's face flushed.

"And Irma? What happened to the real Irma, if you're just a blathered clone?"

And then something flashed in Irma's eyes. As if her pupils barely noticeably flinched. I noticed this and tried to focus: I asked something important and don't even understand what exactly.

"Not everything can be explained just now. She... Lives through the same life as me..."

"Only she's 'not at the wheel,' as you said. Right?"

Again that imperceptible eye movement.

Her pupils seem about to flee, but at the last moment came to their senses. Now she looks at me distrustfully. As if trying to understand whether I've guessed or not.

"No time for talk," Irma answers vaguely and gets up. "Time to fly."

I'm silent. I also get up from the stool. Pour myself water from the kettle and drink. My heart pounds madly.

"Last question," I say, though answers no longer concern me. What's important is to keep her talking.

Because she won't just let me out.

"Only quickly," Irma says and tenses.

I try to hide how strongly I'm now focused on what I see with peripheral vision. I need her "Shiva"... And also—for her to

keep talking.

"What about Capybara and the rest?"

"I went from the launch pad in the other direction," Irma shrugs.

She killed them. I don't know how I understood. Felt it by the confidence with which she said the boat hasn't gone anywhere—she killed Capybara and those seven guys.

Now I openly probe the room with my gaze. Her "Shiva" is on the bed, a few steps away.

"Are you ready?" Irma asks even more warily. "You still haven't said where your daughter is."

And then I lunge for the rifle. Shrieking briefly, Irma lunges after, but I manage to press the stock into my shoulder and turn around. The magnetic coil hummed, ready to spit a synth-nuclear charge in her face.

"Nobody's flying anywhere, Irma."

I don't know if you've ever had to aim at the face of someone you considered your closest friend that very morning... Yes, since then everything's gone to hell, and mentally I was ready to shoot off her head without extra hesitation. So "nobody's flying anywhere" sounded as it should—weighty and menacing. But shooting mentally and killing in reality aren't the same thing.

She recoils, and there's surprise in her eyes. Need to shoot—I understand this as clearly as the fact I'm holding a loaded weapon, having "worked" the trigger halfway. Moreover, I need to shoot simply now, without warnings and preambles—this very moment. But those few millimeters the trigger of a synth-nuclear rifle needs to move transform into insurmountable light years. Then Irma's lips curl with disgust. She leans back slightly and jerkily and briefly moves her head. As if forcefully exhaling.

Something sharply hits my face. Only after the fact do I realize I managed to see something white flying at my eyes. She spat something... Finally I press the trigger, and a sharp crack like the lash of a whip merges into one with a blinding white-blue flash that hits my eyes even through eyelids, and that white filth on my face. Too late... Too late and inaccurate. I try to tear off this viscous substance with my free hand. Understanding I'm defenseless, I back up and shoot again... This shit on my face—it's like alive: seems to flow, trying more and more