Creature of unknown kind

…this mystery that fell from heaven knows which sky,

this CREATURE OF UNKNOWN KIND

turned this place into a separate country,

into a magic country,

into an evil magic country from a magical alien planet…

When you have eliminated the impossible,

whatever remains, however improbable,

must be the truth.

“The Sign of the Four”

The terms from the novels by I. Efremov,

A. and B. Strugatsky, I. Varshavsky and

F. Herbert are used in the following text…

“Requiem for the Pilot”

PROLOGUE

In the intervals between the vomiting spasms, every second of which was successful, Ensign Bashkalo, standing firmly on all fours on the left of Vadim, proclaimed the following:

– Mother… Aggrr… M-mother-f… Blaeee!.. Never again!… Damn it!… Damn all this crap of unknown kind… Fuck it!.. To hell with it!… Uuuuurrlaaa! Damn it with its gas meteorites, with its fogs, with its fucking heaviness-lightness and transparent vehicles.. damn it, b-bitch, neither bottom, nor tops! Blyuerrrrrgaaa! Fucking Gorbachev!

Senior Ensign Petrovich, who was also barfing on all fours on the right of Vadim, did not utter any understandable words. He was much older, and maybe that's why he was throwing up much more violently. But maybe age did not matter at all, and Mother-Trouble11 charged him for the passage in full, not partly.

Vadim did not feel sick at all. Physically, all was normal for him, no vomiting, no cramps, no bloody mist between the eye lens and the retina, actually he was not even frightened as he was supposed to, such an incredible deed they had accomplished, human fear was just inapplicable. Another level of shock had to be experienced in this case, something like the aura of the first step into open Space, with a view the whole world, when your personal life and death are not particularly significant in the context of this achievement, and you are conscious of it. Like that. Physically Vadim was tired, as if he was rubber and inflatable and he had suddenly been pierced with a needle. No less, but no more either. He was standing between Bashkalo and Petrovich, resting the hands on his knees, and, trying not to move, he looked at the pole number 323, the first one on this side of the railway, and imagined a man who had stuck it in the brown clay of the Astrakhan semi-desert one day (A year ago? A year and a half ago? A thousand years ago?). There was someone who first crossed the royal narrow-gauge railway, who had guessed to step on board of the second railcar passing by, iron only in appearance, but to touch, in the light – it was a ghostly film take, projected by a mysterious unknown type of film projector on a load of tobacco smoke… What is it called?.. “Combined shooting”!21 Someone thought up, guessed, found out about jumping through the iron ghost, and crossed an impassable, deadly, cruelly killing railroad. Someone risked it first. And stuck the pole into a bush of black wormwood. Pole three hundred and twenty-three. The first one on this side. And also, probably, was puking… Most likely Senior Ensign Petrovich personally knows this genius, hero and psycho. Or maybe it was he himself? How it rinses him out! Similar to Vadim himself yesterday on the “neutral” when the Zone was welcoming and evaluating him.

Time was passing, whether a dozens or hundreds of seconds went by, but Bashkalo's vocabulary exhausted itself and Petrovich no longer sobbed weepingly spewing out his afternoon snack, and soon there only were two raucous breaths on the left and right. And the smells, unexpectedly strong as if they were in a small enclosed space. Then everything completely subsided, and Vadim noticed that Petrovich is sitting on the ground in Shukshin's pose32, barefoot, and attentively looking at him from under the long visor of a blue American cap. Looking unkindly, wiping the mouth and under it with a green handkerchief. Vadim straightened up immediately, raised his “forty-seventh”43 by the strap which was clamped in his fist, and fixed it at the prescribed place, ungovernable in ordinary life. Petrovich did not say a word, looked away, folded and removed the handkerchief, quickly stood up and began to shovel wet clay with a heel, covering the eruption. He picked up his “stick” – a broken pole without a disc, also poking the mud onto a puddle of vomit with it. For some reason, he needed to – to clean up the dirt, to cover his shit. But maybe it was necessary? Among Mother-Trouble it is necessary to clean up, always and inevitably, to cover the results of bodily functions, including metabolic products, either rear and front, to hide them, to bury, as nobody knows what could happen to these results and products. What could be the outcome? Not even because they, scouts, can be tracked down, but because the vomit can come to life and eat them, having found and caught them from below.

What Vadim had already understood was that Petrovich does not act in the Zone in vain or for nothing. So he nipped a chuckle “Vomit follows the trail!” in a bud. Everything is real in the Zone.

– You!… What is your name… Sverzhin! – exhaustedly said Bashkalo, laying down on his side. He was also wearing an American cap, but this one was colored in dirty-yellow and had an inscription. He was wearing it backwards. – So you didn't even spit after the vehicle? Just passed through and that's all? As if you, a cub, know the Zone and it knows you? Damned contractor…

Vadim shrugged, feeling the weight of the backpack and the strap of the rifle slipping from his right shoulder. How Bashkalo was obsessed with this contract. Actually it is called “contract of employment for extended service”. Yazov, the Minister of Defense. Signature, date. “It's already the second time the Defense Minister hires you personally to work”, Mumbler54 squeaked the obvious again.

– So here the fuck you are! – said Bashkalo with condemnation.

– Vasya, clean up after yourself, – Petrovich said to him quietly, picked up his backpack, put it on his back, raised his machine gun by the strap, hung it on a shoulder, took off the cap, inspected it, put it on.

Bashkalo, glancing at Vadim and hissing under the breath, was kicking a bump, shaggy with last year's grass. “A chunk”, thought Vadim. A Soviet Ensign is “demobbed” until retirement. At this moment he remembered Ensign Antonov and smiled. Not every Ensign is.

Senior Ensign Petrovich was looking around attentively, Vadim followed his example. On this side of the railroad visibility was “a million per million”, no atmospheric condensation, no precipitation, no light pockets. No ashes, which hellishly annoyed them in the morning. The mound was low and the highway on the other side was also perfectly visible, the poles on it, the sheen of the first frost on its concrete, and even the KUNG6 with the screaming dead people, collapsed into the concrete, was visible in the distance. “However”, thought Vadim, “for some reason they cannot be heard from here.”

And the vehicle, that looked like a mechanical corpse with three passenger railcars, one of which was that “combined shonoting”, had already disappeared.

How much time had passed?

Vadim scraped off the hazmat suit's cuff from his wrist and looked at the numbers on his seven-melody “Montana” exchanged, by the way, with lieutenant Gonza for the phalanx in epoxy on plexiglass not far from here less than two years ago. It was half past eleven in the morning. Today. And from the “Obelisk” site – the place of the previous halt – they left at twelve fifteen, according to the same watch. Today. Damn it. Vadim barely restrained the urge to bring the watch to his ear, to check if they worked.

– Keep going. The way we went before to pole number three hundred twenty-four, – said Petrovich. – Are you ready, Vasily? Sverzhin? Throw away your watch. I told you, the track is biased. Go. This direction.

And turning on the heels, using his stick (the broken pole) he casually showed the exact direction. Along the mound, take the left. “God, what familiar places are these. How many times I have traveled from “seventeenth” to Ten, that means Kapustin, and back. As exactly on this vehicle by exactly this railway, as along exactly this road by bus, and once by “ambulance”, and about ten times with Zhitkur and Doctor Vyatkin in a famous brand new “Willis”, released in '43.”

Vadim moved, meanwhile adjusting the backpack's belts and his rifle's strap, falling from his shoulder. It is strange that wearing a rifle on the neck is forbidden by order. But what isn't strange here… here, ahead, is the old track from the heavy machine, apparently the launcher, and probably it is five or maybe forty years old…

The steppe was disfigured. It was said that when Korolev came here with a platoon of soldiers, here were a lots of tulips, and now only red clay is seen out through the wormwood like a bald bookkeeper's head… “You have to negotiate the tracks carefully. Especially this one!” Vadim suddenly realized (sensed), sharply reducing speed.

– Well, – said Ensign Petrovich from the rear.

The track was “taken out”. For the second time that day and the second time in his life, Vadim has seen this. He expected that, as in the morning, Bashkalo would kick-start his sensible whining that here it is, taken out, that means for sure that a loot72 is firing nearby, it would be nice to look around, to comb the area, because this is a thousand, even divided into three, is falling into the pocket… But now, for some reason, Bashkalo was not whining.

Vadim could feel the look of the Senior with his backpack and did everything by the book: he stopped, lifted an open palm, stopping the group, pulled from under his belt a strip of gauze, threw it on the track and waited with bated breath, and only after stepped over, “having marked the beginning of the movement by the same gesture of an open palm, visible by the wingman”, came to the paired trail and repeated the actions exactly. More to it, it is necessary not to cross it right above the gauze. Hell knows what. The Zone knows what Mumbler said somewhere between Vadim's eyes.

There was nothing to object.

– Look, the track is discharged, without a loot, – said Petrovich from behind. – I picked it up a long time ago. “Gnatyuk” was here, such a cutie. You see, although the trail is taken out, it's littered. And the working, evil track is always very clean, as if someone just passed by. Like on wet sand. But you did everything right, I have to praise you. Keep moving.

They went on down the track. Protective Mumbler in Vadim's head at the point behind the nose bridge, after awakening never shut up, spoke measuredly, mumbling, something like “You never left here, right? Did not demobilize and still live at the famous Range, right? As if you got into the “I am going to army again” dream, right? As if there weren't three years at home, Maika didn't exist, Katty wasn't born…”

– Stop! – Petrovich said sharply.

Vadim stood with a raised leg, then warily lowered it. He didn't turn back. Mumbler became silent. Both ears open, palms open. Ears and hands are required to be open up to the wrists in all weathers, under any circumstances. In winter the hat's ears must not be down! And no gloves or mittens.

– Vasya, fuck! Gnaw your butt! – said Petrovitch in a strange voice.

Here Vadim turned around cautiously – with his whole body.

Bashkalo, the rear-guard and the driver of the group, was looming ten meters behind as required. And Senior Ensign Petrovich, left his pole stuck in the wet steppe, in violation of all charters and unofficial spells, went to him, that means back. He went back, slowly raising his hands on the both sides of the cap. Going right up to the frozen Ensign, Petrovich dropped his hands so vigorously and spread them down there so vexatiously, and in an accent point-blank cursed the Ensign's mother, that Vadim realized: exactly It81, lying in wait for every third neophyte, has come to the first scouting mission of the private contract soldier, Sverzhin, Vadim Valentinovich, into the Zone. The exercise is finished, arms for inspection. Thanks for being alive. This, however, is unknown.

– Didn't get you, Nikolaich! – Hissing, just as with a fright, but also with a challenge, said Bashkalo.

Senior Ensign Petrovich walked around him, as if he was a Christmas tree, and asked in a hopeless-calm tone:

– Vasya, comrade Soviet Ensign! Where is the cart? Where are the poles? Damn your mother in all ways!

Bashkalo whirled himself around so, that even the KHM92 swung on him, slapped both his sides, and from ten meters away Vadim saw how his round face sharply and completely burned, turning exactly the color of a disk on a pole. It became even more crimson than disc painted with iron oxide. Even his facial features disappeared and only the mustache was protruding like swollen scratches. The red muzzle of the Ensign. Vadim had never read a book, but certainly in one there is this: “the red muzzle of the Ensign”.

“Let's not forget, all of a sudden”, said Mumbler importantly, “that Bashkalo has been going to the Zone from the very beginning, that he is a skillful and tireless stalker, and that an KHM, for some reason called by trackers along with AK-47, sings in Bashkalo's hands at the firing line cleaner than a nightingale. You should be careful with him.”

– Nikolaich… – Said Bashkalo. – Damn, Nikolaich! I don't know! Don't remember! I fucked up, Nikolaich!

In the garden cart, gently painted in grey color, Bashkalo was driving fifty poles – sharpened, treated with linseed oil cuttings for mops with numbered disks nailed to them by copper braces. Gently painted in bright red, fiery color. (The whole previous month, Vadim had dedicated two or three hours every God's day to painting carts and poles.) The combat mission of the group of the Senior Ensign Petrovich in today's expedition was formulated as “reconnaissance and designation of the third quarter of the route 'Obelisk – m/u 20224 '.” In that way, the loss of the poles was ruining the task, the mission in general, and Petrovich's reputation, as it is said: “the Senior officer is responsible.”

– As in a dream, Nikolaich, don't remember! – Bashkalo said earnestly. – Missed it!

“The chunk is lying”, thought Vadim. (Or that was Mumbler?) “He does remember. Left it intentionally. There, in a ditch below the embankment. There the cart is standing now, and forever. He was supposed to go last, dragging the cart along the gravel and across the rails, and in horror, and blindly, when the third railcar easily could catch the cart, also pulling him, could knock him down and chew him up under the real wheels… so to hell with it, the cart, and on the other side of the railway – be that as it may. The money for the mission had already dripped in, and next time Petrovich would not take him. And glory to the CPSU101. Missions with Petrovich aren't worth it. They almost draw lots.” For weeks the trackers had been talking among themselves, the rumor penetrated even in the “geese house”, and Vadim knows it, that Senior Ensign Petrovich now goes for terrifying tracks, not around the “neutral” but in the most unknown steppe; beats the wedges in the Zone, in those places where regular three kilometers on a map objectively had became thirty kilometers long time ago. In the most direct meaning – thirty, stretched “by the anomalous intensities of unknown kind near the surface of the planet Earth”.

“The last thing I need is the ability to read thoughts”, Vadim thought with unsighted anger. Now what? They have three complete poles, “connecting ones”: Vadim carried them in the backpack's loop, like swords in a movie with Bruce Lee. Another one, broken, was used by Petrovich instead of a cane (“Instead of a staff!”).

Petrovich silently returned to the middle of the distance between Bashkalo and Vadim. Pulled out the cane-staff.

– Sverzhin, go to the three hundred and twenty-fourth, – he ordered in his usual voice. – Take the next pole on the right, in three meters, and there stop on command. Forward, march.

Vadim took the pole in his right hand after ten minutes. It was sticking out askew, strongly rotated edge-on to their route. Vadim waited for the command, turned to his superior and fell on his knee feeling sweat between stocking of the hazmat suit and breeches. It was hot. Petrovich walked around the pole, made a “spiral” in two turns from it, “inspecting” the air, its density and humidity with his hands, then said pointing to the chosen place:

– Here we rest, have lunch and a smoke break. Bashkalo with me. Sverzhin stay where you are. Watch quietly, as it's done. If you smoke – smoke.

Bashkalo went to the specified place, both with Petrovich they knelt, facing each other, took off their backpacks and began to built the dastarkhan112. A couple of minutes later Petrovich, extending an arm to Vadim, snapped his fingers. Vadim took off and gave him his own backpack. He carried the bulk of the group's rations. He laid his poles next to the Senior Ensign's pole-cane. The Ensigns assembled lunch quickly, observing dozens of a strange little rules, almost imperceptible to the inexperienced eye. Vadim remembered (without any Mumbler) as the association was obvious, the words of cosmonaut Makarov. In the spring of eighty-two his father had another exacerbation (the penultimate one, he did not survive the next one), and Vadim was sent to stay with his mother in Sverdlovsk, accompanied by a special officer. And almost immediately, literally a couple of days after the delivery, in her filthy children's regional library his mother had a pioneer meeting with cosmonaut Makarov, who had come, the hell knows why, for some seminar, perhaps, or a congress. There also was the writer Strugatsky, a huge old man, next to whom the cosmonaut in an incredible leather jacket looked like a Lilliputian from a cartoon. But Vadim did not care about the writer, whereas the cosmonaut interested him, no matter how bad it felt inside, no matter how Vadim's heartache, despair and hatred were strangling him. This was the cosmonaut, after all… So, among all the different things, cosmonaut Makarov equally surprised the ragtag of pioneers in caps and stockings, as well as Vadim in his yellow jumpsuit and sneakers, when he said that the weightlessness is pretty disgusting and he, cosmonaut Makarov, did not like it; and then he said that many years of training before starting can not give as much useful knowledge as a five-minute observation of actions of comrades who were already flying, after launch. And he illustrated this with a scene of going to sleep in the living compartment of the “Soyuz” spacecraft. What kind of tricks there are, unexplainable on Earth. Indeed, the way Petrovich and Bashkalo were making fire, the precautions and tricks with which they were opening and heating the stew, there, outside, you can hardly explain to anybody on Earth.

By the way, in the Pre-Zone area they already began to call the earth beyond the perimeter of the quarantine zone – Earth with a capital letter. “So what did Gorbachev say on Earth?” “Damn, did you hear that Americans are coming from Earth to search for their people… Wish they brought their rations again…”

Vadim was invited to the table. They squatted, facing each other. Vadim always felt uncomfortable sitting this way, both at home in Spartanovka, and at home in Uralmash. The body was protesting, was not accepting the pose. Vadim was stretching out one leg, getting from Bashkalo's hands a Chinese thermos with a little flower, sipping almost warm tea, passing the thermos over the campfire to Petrovich, changing his legs, munching the stew from the can, rising on the left knee, then on the right, so that Bashkalo suddenly grumbled with his throat that he was tired of his, a goose, fidgeting.

Petrovich said nothing, he was squeezing the aluminum thermos lid with his square fingers, silently ate, silently drank, thinking some sort of thought, and Bashkalo quickly fell silent. However, the expectation of a scolding clearly gathered over the fire, and no one was surprised about Petrovich's resulting words after his, Petrovich, coming out of his spell of contemplation.

– You're such a moron, Vasya Bashkalo, – he said heavily. – It would have been better to trust the cart to the cub, and assign you to go as a bumper, behind the group. So what shall we do now, a j-ass band Vasya? Shall we go three poles further from the last one, and sit there on the spot for nothing, wait for tomorrow's vehicle to go back from this side to that one? Such a successful mission you've ditched, Vasya. We were going so well.

Bashkalo twirled his mustache, blushed again, but, of course, not so terribly this time. He slurped from the thermos till coughing. He coughed, letting brown saliva drip between his knees from under his mustache. Shame in people of this kind is usually expressed through passing the buck. That's why Bashkalo gave the thermos not to Vadim, who was the next in the turn, but pointedly returned it to Petrovich.

– Here, Nikolaich, have a drink. And forgive me. This one, – he nodded at Vadim, – hindered us there, at the rails, I nearly knocked him down, twitched, and here, apparently, lost the handle. It's always like this with geese. Sure you know. I'm guilty, of course.

After listening to this Petrovich grinned and began to press an aluminum pancake (the former thermos lid) with his thumb edgeways into the ground near to his foot. Bashkalo was waiting with the outstretched “Chinese”. Petrovich took the thermos and immediately gave it to Vadim.

– Drink it up, cub. And do not hesitate in front of your comrade Ensign on the rails again.

– Can I have your permission to ask a question, comrade Senior Ensign. How did you know about the second railcar? – asked Vadim. As if nothing had happened.

Petrovich, who immersed in forecasting and planning again, first answered mechanically:

– Accidentally, like everything here, by intuition… Didn't understand, what?

The tea in the thermos was running low and the leaves from the bottom climbed to Vadim's mouth.

– No stupid questions in the Zone, warrior! A tourist, damned adulterer! No chattering! – boomed Petrovich, looming over.

Vadim handed him the thermos with the remaining couple of sips and a handful of wet tea leaves, and suddenly Petrovich growled really angrily:

– So you, bitch, dirtbag, weren't at the briefing?

– My fault, comrade Senior Ensign, said Vadim, managing to replace the natural “I don't understand” with “My fault”.

Petrovich pushed the thermos in the ground, unbuckled the gear, pulled out the collar of the hazmat suit and snatched a roll of a blue electrical tape from behind the back.

– You, motherfucker, have a golden ring on your finger! – He said hastily and furiously. – Take it off now! Take it off quickly, you idiot! Is it rooted or what?

– No… – said Vadim, stunned.

– Yes, take off the decoration, turd! – joined Bashkalo, although somewhat lazily. – But where were you, Nikolaich, the old wolf, looking? Here they are, the geese. I'm telling you! And good people die because of them. And poles get lost.

Bashkalo was smiling shiningly, like a toilet in a shop window. The teeth behind his mustache were rare and white as sugar. He was older then Vadim by five or seven years. Vadim could answer him properly, but again he restrained himself and took off the ring. Petrovich feverishly snatched it with a nail, not instantly, hastily picked up the edge of the tape, pulled out a strip, close to an arm's length, crushed it into a ball, put the ring in its middle and began to wrap layer by layer, moving his lips (“Petrovich prays with a guard duty regulations! Ha-ha-ha!”), no longer pulling PVC tape from the roll. He had used up a half. Finally he tore it off. Having formed a ball he weighed it by a hand. And crossed himself twice. Vadim and Bashkalo opened their mouths. Senior Ensign Petrovich, making the sign of the cross is the mosaic of Lomonosov121.

– Here, cub, hide this deeper!

Vadim shoved the tangle with the ring in its stomach (“Happy cake!”, Mumbler squeaked from behind his nose bridge) into the hip pocket. So this is how it is with gold in the Zone.

– Remember, youngster: gold is like a lightning rod in the Zone. Gold catches lightning. And do you know what kind of lightning you get here? Then, if you return, ask your scientists. Who is still alive. Any chains, crosses?

And Petrovich finished the tea in one gulp.

Vadim shook his head.

– No sir.

Bashkalo laughed.

– You should listen to the instructions with your ears, but not with… family guy. – Petrovich said with his usual loudness. – The same was with the poles: it was made from the rod at first, before they got washed with the blood… So what brought you here, damn you, married one?

Vadim was silent. Two (just two!) months ago no one in the world could convince him to return here. Neither for money, nor for the Motherland. He was a happy TV viewer just two months ago, he crawled on his knees to the TV to show Maika that here is the burning bread factory, we used to get bread there, and Americans disappeared right here, exactly here I served… He was a happy viewer. The Range (“Captain Zhitkur!”, interrupted Mumbler) gave him money, fate (“Madness of your dad!”, interrupted Mumbler) gave him Maika, Maika gave him Katty, and Vadim would agree to watch the horrors of Kapustin only on TV. Alex the Ukrainian was choking with tears when in the summer of eighty sixth he read to them letters from Kiev, about radiation, about illicit radiometers, about cops in cellophane. But Vadim would never shed a tear because of the disaster at the Range. He hated and feared it. And now it was the only hope. That which he hated and feared.

It turned out that all this time Petrovich was waiting for an answer.

– Are you silent? Silent-pliant, snotty. Okay. So. This is what we will do in connection with the feat of the comrade Ensign… – He chewed his lips. – So, group, listen to my command. Our mission of reconnaissance, marking a safe track to the “area twenty nine” and inspection of the condition of nuclear weapons as far as is visually possible for such a survey we cannot accomplish anymore. We can't get out without the poles, and will not leave anything for others. Thank you, Vasya, again. We change the route. Take the fallback route. We’ll smoke and go.

Petrovich pulled out the rarity of that summer – a fresh pack of “Rodopi”, opened it and lit up. He neatly rolled the wrapper into a ball (“Puff the ball”, squeaked Mumbler) and shoved it into the fire. The splinters were already burned and cooling, only the tablets glowed blue. Bashkalo breathed noisily and asked for a cigarette with a gesture.

– Where are we changing to? What is the fallback route, Nikolaich?

– Not far, comrade Ensign, – said Petrovich, passing him the cigarette to light up his. – It is a dive for three our poles from here. We didn't manage to do reconnaissance for command… Thanks to you. So let's do science, since the tracks have coincided. Don't soil your pants, Vasya, it's not far. Not far and familiar. My stash is nearby. I want to share it with you. And with this one, the newbie.

– That's it… – said Bashkalo, inhaling. – Share the stash! Pi-iss, not war…

They smoked in front of each other, flicking the ashes in turn into the already totally spirit fluid campfire. It was heavy, sucking, hopelessly-dueling, and Vadim shrugged off the chatter ban again.

– Comrade Senior Ensign… Allow me one more question. To do with work. So all these… weird places… Gitiks. They are all near our equipment, to the railway, as they seem to generate only from equipment, right?

Petrovich laughed.

– He's playing Indians here. Oh, kids, kids… It was true, warrior! And binoculars could be used at first, and sights. But now you will not take a walk along the free-flowing steppe… So you, Sverzhin, of this… thinking kind. For one thousand five hundred per month. How did you say – “gitiks”?

Vadim nodded.

– The “Jackets” in the smoking room were arguing. They call this an incredible place. A gitik. “Science knows many gitiks.”131 There is such an expression.

– Now that's what we call the Red Army. – Petrovich said didactically. – All the personnel of the test site, who are alive and not in the nuthouse, sit and read damned science fiction instead of the Charter! Led by comrade General, the chief of the quarantine. And you are still running to the scientists. You are strange, Sverzhin. But you have flair. And the balance is good… And you shoot, they say… Leather stocking…

– Actually I don't read at all, – said Vadim, but nobody heard him.

– Yeah, he is… a Fenimore. Damn! – Bashkalo cut in.

– Here is your Fenimore… It's a strange thing about your conscription contract, – said Petrovich. – I heard that enlistment offices recruit eighty-six to eighty-nine of the demobilized from here by their polls, and immediately offer one thousand and a half per month. Am I right, Sverzgin? Just asking.

– They also take a non-disclosure agreement, – said Vadim. – A fifteen-year sentence.

– Look where they brought the country… – said Bashkalo unexpectedly, but right in the vein, straight down the line.

– Well, if it's a fifteen-year sentence so then stop the chattering, – said Petrovich. – Have you finished a cigarette, Vasya? And you, have you finished your lunch? Get up now. Sverzhin, take the thermos and fill it with soil. Compress it with your fingers, it should be packed! And put a cork above. And carefully throw it away, but better roll it. And you, comrade Ensign Vasya, my dear man, – you are still responsible for the poles. All three and a half. Ok, you convinced me, I'll carry the broken one. But don't you drop the rest, I dare you in the name of the proletariat. Grab and cradle them. Gently. There will be something that needs a fence.

“A cylindrical hollow of metal or glass, open from one or more sides, tools and everyday items of any length and more than five centimeters in diameter acquire dangerous properties with a 100% probability”, parodying the secret instructor in a fencing mask, Mumbler howled. Vadim even rubbed his nose bridge, “like the following: empty cans and bottles, mugs, shell and anti-aircraft cartridges, and other similar technological objects …”

Vadim was shoving clay into the thermos, and the voice of Petrovich was barely making its way through the mumbling of the little man in his brain. Vadim could not calm Mumbler, before the thermos became “full to the eyeballs”. Fortunately, Petrovich decided to repeat everything, after he waited for the place of a halt to be brought into a safe state.

– Attention, group! Listen to the combat mission. Here we see, – Petrovich indicated the “three hundred and twenty-fourth“, – there is an offshoot from the track. Unknown to authorities. We go this direction. – A wave of the cane-staff. – About four hundred meters according to the land map, and in fact a kilometer and a half. Under the embankment again. The place is weird. – He scratched under the strap on his chin. – “A gitik”, you said, Sverzhin? Let it be “a gitik”. I'll show you the real gitik. Big and complicated. If we come back – do not talk about what you saw. Bashkalo, first of all I'm talking to you. You'll get exactly fifteen years.

– Listen, Nikolaich, you… not so fast, you slow down… – began Bashkalo nervously.

– Shut your mouth, Vasya, damn your leaky hands, I'm talking to you in the presence of the cub. We change the order of movement. Sverzhin, you go close, completely on the “risks”141. I'll be “risking”, and you handing them over to me. Now we go further. This track will be a place where you cannot talk, make noise, stomp out, or pray. No sound! You can only look at me and repeat all my actions. Bashkalo, you are ten meters behind all the time. Is the task clear?

Vadim nodded. Mumbler was attentively silent.

– That's right, it is clear to me, – said Bashkalo, hard at work. – But you should explain at least, Nikolaich…

– We'll get there – you'll see everything yourself. If you don't understand – I will explain to you at home. No questions in the Zone. Or you forgot? It seems that you're not a first timer, Vasya, – said Petrovich, expressing amazement in the last phrase.

– So is there something extremely dangerous? I didn't get. We've been ordered to survive…

Petrovich lost his patience.

– Ensign Bashkalo, stop chattering! The task is set, is clear. Perform the task. It's extremely dangerous everywhere here. And for the Soviet people, you, Vasya, must work your fifteen hundred per month through two hundred for each mission. We seem to have an ideological cub here, I live by the rules, and you have come to talk too much about money lately. Enough, no questions. Right dress, attention. Forward, contract boy. The order of movement is statutory before my command. On the march!

Vadim took one step and tumbled down into a river.

It was good in the river. And the world through which it was flowing was good. Warm, safe, and forever homely. Newcomers have been warned about hallucinations repeatedly. They were advised to recall what happened in them and, if possible, to count a seconds of objective time. One, Mississippi, two, Mississippi, three, Mississippi… And then, without fail, describe the memories in the report. A slow, narrow river in the jungle. The heavy river, the powerful river, flows from afar, for a long time. The Amazon? What the jungle is this? “How do I know”, said Mumbler, “am I a jungle specialist to you, or what?” The river flows majestically, like semolina porridge. There is a feeling of peace and security, peace in the whole world. And crocodiles and piranhas? There are none here. The water is very clean and tasty. Upstream, a half of kilometer away from Vadim, the river made a turn (he perceived it as “the river flowed out of the bend”), and out of this bend some boards with life buoys on the walls, fishing rods and open doors suddenly appeared, all sparkling in the sun, white, like in Chekhov's poem, suburban, theatrical.

“That's right”, said Mumbler, “a houseboat. A square like a box, a house on a raft, with a veranda, wicker chairs, curtains in the doorway… Who is sitting on the veranda? Two people? Or one is sitting down, while the second at the railing, spits into the water?”

It was unclear from the scene.

Two hundred eighty-five Mississippi, two hundred eighty-six Mississippi… Vadim was counting diligently.

– Sverzhin, stop!

Vadim was thrown back. He stopped and slammed himself hard over the eyes, trying to wipe them.

– “Stop” was a command! – repeated Petrovich after all this. – Pay more attention on the track. – Vadim heard his footsteps, and here Petrovich approached and stood next to him on the right. And only then the vision seemed to be cleared from the river of semolina porridge, and Vadim realised that he had almost stuck into the famous fog of the Zone. The atmospheric condensation.

“And I saw it a long time ago, about fifteen seconds”, said Mumbler, “But you force me to count there, to watch here, friends don't act this way with a friend!”

“Oh, shut up!” – Vadim almost said it aloud.

– Hey you, bumper, how you called…, Sverzhin, you need to be more attentive, – Petrovich said quietly and unexpectedly mildly. – Do you see the old “risk”, it is lying right there? I'm throwing a new one next to it.

A small nut, flying for a dozen meters, with a gauze strip, not very long, tied to it, crossed through the air and entered the fog. The fog blinked, at once, totally disappearing for a moment.

– Did you get it, Fenimore?

Vadim completely returned from the river. The taste of water disappeared from the tongue, sharp TV flashes melted in his eyes. An automatic desire to jump on one foot, shaking the water out of the ear, lingered for one more second (By the way, yes, he got water in his ear). His short-term memory kicked in, and Vadim said, focusing on reality:

– Yes. I see. D-damn! What a mess. There is no fog in reality, is there?

– Yes. That’s the thing. Exactly this one does not actually exist. Something happens with the eyes here. These kinds of places lie in wait. Gitiks, damn them. Doctors say it's like a mental leap. We see in some other way, or sometimes do not see at all. But the Trouble forces a special human gut feeling to show itself, if you're lucky. If there is one – even you, young one, immediately distinguish the real fog from… well, from this, from what's in the mind. But it can also happen like now – no fog at all, neither in the brain, nor in reality, but the visibility is still only a few steps. And no hunch will help. Here, take a step backward.

Vadim carefully obeyed. The fog vanished.

– There is no fog, but there are “risks”, right?

– Yes.

– Don't even step back, just lean back with your body.

The “risks” disappeared.

– Understood? Neither exists. Hocus-pocus. But they are there, I see them from here. This is called “to blink the fog away“. Here is what a creation of unknown kind it is, our Mother-Trouble… Hunch is a hunch, but attention and caution are the main thing. Like in a minefield. Listen, Sverzhin, – Petrovich said suddenly, – so you are married; why did you come here, you fool? Have you got kids? Come here.

Vadim was silent. Petrovich turned his head toward him, took up the visor and raised his cap so that the visor overlooked the zenith.

– I have. A daughter, – Vadim said at last. What is that about, boss? Why did you suddenly care?

Petrovich nodded a few times.

– You are after demobilization, boy. Had been serving here, at the Polygon. You are about twenty or twenty-two years old. And the kid is a year or two? No own shelter, no help, right?

– Comrade Senior Ensign…

Petrovich shook his head: be quiet, puppy!

– L-listen to me, you fool, – he spoke in a half-whisper. – Listen to what old Senior Ensign Petrovich is telling you; I'm old enough to be your father. Here's a suggestion. I have friends at the Headquarters of the quarantine, let's make an act of your mental instability, and throw your contract into the furnace, then you can run back to your daughter! People, the “troublers”, are locked up here, perhaps, forever, but you! You are not local! Run away, before you are also registered here forever. I'll give you money, five thousand! I'm serious. If we are still alive at the end – run for your life! There, on Earth, such things begin, exchanges, joint ventures, it turned out that Americans are human after all, we saw them here… You have a head on your shoulders, you have hands – you will get by, and you will have an ability to start over, with my penny! Here's the Zone, son, Mother-Trouble, death, without a choice. Or even worse, prison is around. It will be worse than a war here. It will be blood to the elbows. The Wild West and cinders above.

On his back, under the backpack, Vadim experienced a strange feeling, as if somebody had ran a finger across him with an uncut nail. The feeling was related to Bashkalo, silent behind him. Bashkalo had become strangely quiet on this little detour… Almost delicate, even.

– Hell will come here, – said Petrovich. – I sincerely advise you, I'm not joking. You have a wife, a child.. And you came here…

– Comrade Senior Ensign… – Vadim said again.

– Call me “Nikolaich” Do not argue! Do not argue! – Petrovich spat. – He's creasing the muzzle, you look at this. I'm talking to you seriously and you are pulling a face… In Afganistan all I did was bury guys like you, and here in the Zone all I do is bury guys like you, and soon I'll start to kill guys like you myself…

– Nikolaich, comrade Senior Ensign. Thank you. I understood. I need to be here. Do you understand? Let's go on, comrade … Nikolaich.

– Did you think I'm checking you out through dibs now, puppy? – Petrovich asked angrily.

Vadim was so amazed that he was almost offended. For some reason, he did not suspect the Soviet Ensign was joking – and just got for it being unfairly scolded. Petrovich read this on his face and slouched. Apparently, it was “I'm sorry”.

Bashkalo intruded a non-statutory awkwardness; he had finally got burst. Or got sick.

– Hey, so what are you doing?

– E-e-eh, kids! – said Petrovich, sounding very non-military. – So then fuck you. Forward, left step, to the “risks”, go around them, me on the left, you on the right. Do not step on them. And then – silence. Got it, boy? Bashkalo, from here we silently keep moving. Do you understand?

– As for me, I understand… – Bashkalo responded.

– Another one hundred meters according to the map, half a kilometer objectively. You will see how it is and what's here. He needs… – Petrovich muttered, not to Vadim, but under the breath. And to Vadim he said: – Think about it! And go ahead, come on, next to me.

They reached the destination in twenty minutes, using a dozen of “risks” and finding just as many old ones. Vadim remarked to himself that Petrovich had not ordered any pole to be driven into the ground. On the right the railway embankment also stretched on, and everything was so much the same, was so usual, the steppe, the cloudy summer sky, the embankment, but it lasted and lasted and dragged on, so you, dying of boredom, could imagine yourself inside a “combined shooting”, walking on the spot against the backdrop of a barrel with a landscape painted on it.

The destination was marked with a corpse. Or crowned, as Vadim would say, if he was a well-read guy. The corpse looked eerie. Vadim tried to comprehend in which position the person had died. A heap of broken bones in a hazmat suit. In one lump. Vadim changed his position, took a step sideways, Petrovich muttered mechanically: “Move carefully.” Vadim understood. The victim was sitting with his back to them, stretching out his legs, and these legs were smeared on the ground, like plasticine with a huge finger, for five meters, with fragments of cloth from his pants, intact woolen socks, flattened shoes. And a head in a hat made of dog's skin was torn into the torso. A bent AK-47 trunk stuck out above the hat with a rubber on the flame arrester, as rich Americans do. Hands, like a broken puppet, lay on the sides of an oblate torso, palms up, as if the dying man threw his arms up, and they broke away from the shoulders.

– Who is this? – asked Bashkalo quietly.

Petrovich did not answer straight away, and replied while preoccupied with surveying the area. Squatting down and looking at the nearest square meters of the steppe, he said after about a minute and a half:

– Please meet Candidate for Doctor of Sciences: Malyutin, Alex. From Moscow. We made a discovery with him. For the first time in the world the area of the gravitational locale of an anomalous, bitch, intensity, and this… vector of direction was located and explored. Also, bitch, abnormal. I seem to have said everything right. Well, fine, Alex the Candidate… Can you imagine, he tells me: you see, comrade Petrovich, it's all about gauze. We are, he says, not in a vacuum, the nut is initially heavier that's why, he says, the horizontal, I think, vector of anomalous gravity has time… well, to grab the gauze and to pull it, as I understood him. And the density of the air. And this can be seen with the naked eye. That's what, he says, we have to fix. Now you are going to throw and I will take pictures… Alex used to call this thing “procrustes”. There was such ancient Greek, a sadist. Together we, I mean me and Alex, were here four times. We even settled down a little… There is our fireplace… We dragged down the instruments, but in vain. These were all the measurements he made: the spring scale worked, the flares, a goose feathers and the gauze on “risks”. And some boxes with electricity – not a damn thing. And the camera. It was allowed then to use optics, it did not burn the eyes. But what killed Alex – was actually the camera… Fine. Group, stand at ease. I designate the safe limits. From here to here. A fireplace. Safety. Fifteen meters to the left – is unknown. Did you understand?

– That's right, – Vadim and Bashkalo said discordantly in chorus, and the Senior Ensign took out his pack of royal “Rodopi” and offered one to Bashkalo. Petrovich continued, while smoking:

– But however, Alex used up about ten exercise books, ninety-six pennies each. And you see, you cannot even get them now… – Petrovich coughed. – They were in his backpack… We used to stay here for two-three days. Alex would carry his folding chair with him.

Vadim noticed the chair: a folding structure of steel wire with a wet canvas seat.

– He died and I fell under investigation. I had to bring an officer from special Department here, so as not to go to jail for the murder of one of our leading scientific employees. Half a year ago still, you could have been imprisoned for the loss of a warrior in the Zone, do you know that, cub? That officer drinks now… Drinks a lot, till blackout. They say, right up to the dismissal of the officer's status by the court. And he writes the reports on the upholstery of the room. With his finger.

– Well, that's clear, Nikolaich, – said Bashkalo, who had got bored. (“Interesting, does his mustache smell of vomit?”, thought either Vadim or Mumbler. His nose was itching because of Bashkalo's presence.) – We had admired the view, – continued Bashkalo, cleaning the ash from the cigarette with his little finger. – Rest in peace, soft-boiled bones. So why did you bring us here? To frighten our goose? I heard everything, how you promised him five thousand. And filing for a madman. Makarenko151.

– You say you heard? – Petrovich asked again. – Well, if you heard then you heard. It happens in the Zone. A whisper, like in a church. That's why being delicate is so important. You know, Vasya, like in a prison cell?

He suddenly slammed Bashkalo on the shoulder, squeezed the shoulder with his rake and pushed it towards himself, almost reached his eye with the cigarette.

– No, Vasya, we didn't come here for this, not for fear. We're going to make science, you understand? What Alex could not do, but we will. This is not about heaviness, it's about other thing. Something valuable. You will understand.

Ensign Bashkalo did not try to escape. He didn’t even seem frightened. He was smoking, lifting the cigarette to the side of his mustache and blowing the smoke away, and he did not take his eyes off the boss.

– Alex the Candidate made one calculation and explained it to me, I want to check it, finally, – said Petrovich. – If he has come up with the right thing, we will make money. Scientists will hang themselves. And you, screwy Vasya, will help me. To check.

The sound of the engine was heard. From the other side of the mound, from the concrete. Vadim gave up watching the theatrical scene “who's going to overwhelm whom” and even stood on his toes, trying to see the moving mechanism.

– Comrade Senior Ensign!.. Someone is coming!

The LiAZ bus, the passenger transport serial number 20224, had driven past them during its five-hour trip exactly three years ago, in the summer of 1987. On this bus, next to Doctor Vyatkin, was Vadim himself, sitting with his arm broken and hurting so much that he could even see the white dots. He, an ordinary scoop, was being taken to the hospital, and he did not remember now, but then it appeared to him through the pain, that three armed figures were standing behind the mound. Then the bus jolted, the figures disappeared, his arm hurt, and Vadim forgot, forgot, forgot about them…

Vadim woke up.

Ensign Bashkalo was lying on the ground on his back, calmly looking at Petrovich, who was hanging over him, while still smoking with his bloody mouth. Vadim froze. He missed the fight completely. The standoff in the stalls lasted, probably, for another minute.

The cigarette was finished, the argument had smoldered down to the filter. Bashkalo brought it to the blood-stained mustache, the ash fell from the filter, hissed in the blood; Bashkalo grimaced, spat to the side and crushed the filter with his fingers.

Senior Ensign Petrovich, Nikolai Nikolaevich was silent, standing over him.

– Comrade Senior Ensign!.. – said Vadim. – It seems that the bus has passed by.

– Yes, it happens here, – answered Petrovich calmly. – Sometimes they ride. Ghosts. It is damn clear. Eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-two people. Missing people. Just in the city. In one hour. Not a single body was found. Ghosts, of course. There must be a lot of them here. Eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-two ghosts, including women and children. Plus six thousand two hundred and two officers, ensigns and soldiers on active duty in the steppe. Not counting unregistered farmers and others on their places… And sometimes they're not even ghosts. It happens! Stop chattering, private. Vasily! I am speaking to you personally. Do you understand me, Vasily? Or are you refusing again to follow a combat order?

– Hey you, youngster! – said Bashkalo from the stalls in the same calm tone, and not moving. – He's gone crazy, I mean it. For a long time the rumor was spreading around the quarantine, that Kolya Petrovich has gone crazy. He goes to missions with a group and comes back alone. And, you see, he says, that they stopped imprisoning people for this. They began to believe what people say. “Died performing a rescue or reconnaissance operation in the area of a natural disaster of unknown kind.” And he is telling this now to you and me. Understand, goose? Listen, Nikolaich, I didn't believe this! – said Bashkalo to Petrovich. – I hit one in his face for these words. You know me, Nikolaich, we served in the same military unit! And this is how it turns out. It turns out this is true. Came out with a group, came back alone. Did you kill them yourself? Or had you brought them here and leave?

– Do you refuse to carry out a military order regarding a scientific investigation of this anomaly? – Petrovich asked persistently. – Talk to me straight, why are you fidgeting like a woman, you comrade Ensign of the Soviet army?

– Comrade Senior Ensign! Allow me to go! – said Vadim.

Bashkalo licked his lips.

– Call me “Nikolaich”, youngster, – said Petrovich.

– All right, Nikolaich, all right. I will go, – said Bashkalo. – Everything is fine. But I need to treat the hand with peroxide. Look how it is grazed.

– Then stand up, comrade Ensign. Prepare for the task. Personally yours.

And he turned his back to Bashkalo as if nothing had happened and came to the “procrust” boundary, which was only clear to him. The remains of the scientist were just a step away.

– I remember everything, Alex, everything… – said Petrovich to them. – Hey you, Fenimore! Listen, newbie, what was that.., Sverzhin, be attentive. This… What the fuck was it called? This gitik! According to Alex's calculations it is doubled. It stands in the shape of eight, two glasses back to back. Two zeros. Give me my stick, youngster.

Vadim picked up the stick, handed it over. Ensign Bashkalo also approached, hanging the rifle on his shoulder, tense, attentive, very concentrated. Vadim sneezed as his approached.

The Senior Ensign was drawing on the ground with the end of a brush.

– Here's how that is. This “zero” is – the closest one. Has been founded by Alex. And here's how the second one is located by the first. I'd found it during the first mission when I walked around the heavy one. Like an “eight” on its side. They are only ten meters in diameter each and both are the same. You can bypass it on the left using the “risks”. It is safe. I did it before. Have I already said that? And here, between them, I've noticed the traction, like in a good furnace. It starts at throwing the “risk”. Pulling smoke somewhere. How much we had burned there…

He slipped the stick to Vadim, took out his wallet from one of his pockets, and from the wallet – a piece of a comb, a piece of paper and, continuing to talk, he quickly made a smoke pot.

– And Alex ascertained that where the joint and traction are between these “procrustes”, something strange is present. By appearance – it is the effect of “invisibility”, with air-to-air special effects, with oxygen, with gas. A step forward – there is something, a step back – you don't see anything. Hocus-pocus, as I showed you, Sverzhin, with the “risks” and the fog. “Risks” just disappear in the hole, but nothing thumps as it would if they fell in the heavy stuff, nothing like this. And then Alex thought of throwing “a cat” in there and pulling it back out.

Vadim (“Fenimore, or already Fenimore with a capital F? Huh?”, leaned out Mumbler) was listening to Petrovich as he used to listen to cosmonaut Makarov. Madness is infectious and contagious, and Senior Ensign Petrovich, Nikolai Nikolaevich, judging by his tone and appearance, was now completely out of his mind, like everyone who creates (or imagines he does) a story or a feat.

This time, the wrapper of a cigarette pack, glued on the sides with a blue electrical tape, appeared from Petrovich's wallet. Petrovich first showed it to Vadim, then handed it to him. In the wrapper Vadim saw a dry, bluish flower and the curved stalk of some plant with sharp leaves on it. He stared at Petrovich. Petrovich grinned.

– Bennettit! Did you understand, my Fenimore? An ancient flower, shortly. And even more precisely – a protoflower. That's what we took out with that “cat”. Live protoflower. I personally saw Alex drank two bottles161 like water. Two hundred million years ago… or whenever it was. The Cretaceous of the Jurassic, did you understand, son?.. In this hole is the Cretaceous! Understand?

He suddenly cut himself off, stopped smiling and lifted a finger, and said anxiously.

– Oh! Do you hear? There is a shooting somewhere.

“Somewhere” nearby the fuse had flipped.

Vadim would remember forever that after the first hit, the smile returned to the face of the Senior Ensign, and each of the next four bullets that pierced Petrovich from the back made this smile wider, more cheerful, more sincere.

– There is a time hole, did you understand, son? – said Petrovich, gurgling and dying. – I myself… oh… uh… like water…

And he died and fell on his side, as if at attention.

Bashkalo transferred the smoking pupil of the machine gun to Vadim. Vadim stepped from foot to foot. Bashkalo barked quietly:

– Freeze, sonny! He'd gone crazy. He deserved it. And got it. He's dead. That's all! And now you. A question! How should I finish you, bitch, immediately next to him or with a benefit for science? Huh, contract boy? Want to suffer a bit more? It's up to you, I'll provide that. And meanwhile, put the rifle on the ground slowly. And the twig, throw away the twig too. F-Fenimore, fucking bitch!

Darkness was looking at Vadim with no blinking, with no trembling, the smoke had faded away, Bashkalo's hands were firm, and Petrovich was not killed in hysterics; and he was ready to kill Vadim clearly and consciously. Actually, the lecture about “went out with a group, came back alone” he had read to himself, not to Petrovich. Now they don't imprison you. Vadim sneezed. “You will not die”, Mumbler told to Vadim. You cannot. You have girls. Irka and Katty. And Zhitkur did not order this.

– Don't shoot, comrade Ensign, – Vadim said calmly.

– Or what? – Bashkalo asked oddly, lifted his chin.

– Or then no one will pull living plants out of the hole, which have been dead for two hundred million years. I can't even imagine how much they may cost. Even if paid a penny for a year.

Bashkalo snorted. Vadim sneezed.

– Cheers to you, bitch! – said Bashkalo with a twitch. He was really calm; excited, but not rabid. He was working. – Everything is possible in the Zone, you're right. Piss, not war! Five-storey buildings fly, air cuts people, equipment operates itself. You can walk a kilometer in a month, like at the airdrome, from hangar-three to meteorological booth. And why not to visit the time hole? Science fiction. But if you, Fenimore, don't put the rifle on the damp mother-earth right now, arsehole…

Vadim moved his shoulder, the rifle slipped, balanced against his leg. Vadim moved his leg; the rifle fell.

Bashkalo's cap nodded approvingly. But the rifle did not move; as if it was cast into space. Vadim was already too tired not to blink, his eyes were stinging.

– And everything else. The backpack, the jacket. The knife, the gun. Slowly. Take off your gas mask too.

Watching the disarming of the survivor, Bashkalo sat down on the Alex the Aspirant's chair. Vadim also wanted to sit. But the KHM together with its owner was watching his slightest movement and the fuse was off. The scientist’s chair seemed strong. Bashkalo sat carefully first, but when Vadim was removing a device for measuring the parameters, Bashkalo somehow tested the strength of the chair and, moving the ass, sat freely, spreading his legs, with his whole center of gravity. The distance between him and Vadim was equal to four good spittles, but just as Petrovich's corpse was lying across the directory, so was Vadim's equipment. Only Bruce Lee would be able to jump over this all, dodging the oncoming bullets. By the method of “combined shooting”.

Vadim’s clothes were a blend of wool, with the stockings of the hazmat suit over the celebrated American shoes. He was cold, but he stood motionless, waiting. He was freezing, trying not to tremble. He was sniffing and (already habitually) moving his fingers at the hips, at least so checking the external situation. He sneezed twice, not because of the cold, but because Bashkalo was making his nose itch stronger. Bashkalo suddenly took out a bottle of vodka from somewhere, uncorked it and began to sip gently from the bottleneck, watching Vadim with one eye. Vadim shivered when the bottle became empty. Bashkalo dropped it in front of him and deftly crushed it with a heel.

– Want some? – he asked, taking out the second. – Vodka in the Motherland is really like water, but to you – according to the circumstances – even water is not superfluous.

– No.

– “No, sir”, Anika-warrior. You had to say “no” at home, to your mother. So if it's “no” then get on with the task. Assigned by the heroically fallen Senior Ensign. Let's see what there is for two hundred million… pennies.

– I need to take something, – said Vadim, pointing to Petrovich's corpse, pretty drenched in blood.

– No question, take it, – Bashkalo pressed the bottom of the half-empty second bottle into the ground and aimed, holding the machine gun with both hands.

The dead, Alex the Aspirant and Petrovich, had been absolutely right. Several flares marked the shape of “eight” of the “gitiks” perfectly, as in the class. Smelly smoke was being blown along the boundaries of “locations of anomalous gravitational intensities of unknown kind”, clearly denoting them.

– Two hundred million pennies… Some crooked junior science employee gets four thousand one hundred and eighty-five rubles per month! – proclaimed Bashkalo suddenly from somewhere from another world. There too, a thought process was ongoing, gaining momentum, being born, coming to conclusions and finding the general meaning of things. But Vadim did not even turn around, mesmerized by the almost living twists of smoke. It was akin (not the same, but akin) to the drawing of tobacco smoke in the sun, peeking through the cracks in the dark shed.

– And he sits in his tents – clicks on the scores, did you understand?! Damned JR! Call me formally by name and patronymic, he says… And what about an academic then – a hundred thousand per month? I beat the shit out of their mother together with your Gorbachev! Who marks the tracks? An academic? Who carries devices and cables? JRs? Who carries jars, funnels, loots inside and out? Gorbachev? Fu-cking no! Me! I went out to the airfield, I went to the “Zhitkur” object, reached up to halfway together with Pasha-Maz! (Here Vadim picked up his ears for a second. “Yes-yes-yes”, said Mumbler, “'Pasha-Maz'. I wrote down.”) And to me, to me! – two hundred rubles with deductions for the work. Where round here should I spend it? Quarantine? Fuck your quarantine.

“And maybe”, thought Vadim, appealing to Mumbler, “this is not two gitiks but one?” “Or a system of two”, picked up Mumbler. “The system is even probably better”, Vadim agreed. “But when it is the only one – this is flawed”, said Mumbler. “So you're an astronomer”, said Vadim. Mumbler chuckled, self-satisfied. Vadim lit up another couple of pieces of the comb and threw them; one to the right, filling the gap of the smoky hoop, the second directly into the center of the hole. It then disappeared. Vadim stood on a knee, watching. At the junction of two parts of the “eight”, the smoke drew a pipe from the inside, accelerating, getting denser… and suddenly a hefty, upright circle appeared in front of Vadim. Vadim jumped up and back for a couple of steps, completely stunned.

– We have talked to the guys for a long time. Many are unhappy! Because this is not right. We are here, in the Zone, in the middle of the Trouble, the main ones, so you pay us well. And here, you see, you're driven. We teach you, drag you, share the combat experience with you. And here we are now! You are living off us along with the same psychos as our resting Senior Ensign Petrovich. Wanted me to go as a bumper, b-bitch! Me! So “a thousand and a half” goose made sense to him. And me, the old stalker… he decided to appoint me as a bumper in a tough place. And for what? The poles were lost! I did not lose them… So, what's up with you, contract boy? What the hell!

Vadim turned around. Bashkalo was standing, his gun lowered, staring at the smoke arch in space, his jaw hanging as far as the chin strap allowed. However, he recovered faster than Vadim.

– Stop, sto-op! – he said, taking Vadim on sight again. – Calm down, son. Ye-e-es… Fucking gitik! – he exclaimed softly and cheerfully. – The time hole. Well… Fine. Are you ready for work and defense, comrade traveler to the past?

Vadim imagined how Bashkalo saw him, Vadim, in general, so to speak. Against the background of the smoke patterns, in the center of the main arch of the system of gitiks “The Time Hole -1”. A beautiful target. (Mumbler laughed.)

– As for me – I'm ready, – said Vadim loudly, cutting off this laugh, which nobody except him could hear. – And what about you, a chunk, are you ready?

– So you're not a pussy, right? A brave one, right? – said Bashkalo grinning, with pleasure. – Well, say it, say it, bumper. Last speeches. The Senior Ensign Petrovich was kind, but Ensign Bashkalo is evil. No damn way, puppy, you will not understand me. And you did not understand the meaning of the situation. For you it won't make a difference if I was lying as a corpse now and Petrovich was drinking vodka. Do you think he's better than me? He has done in more of ours here than guerillas in his Afghanistan! He was a beast, his soul was dead!

Vadim stopped listening to him. Bashkalo noticed this immediately.

– So you're a brave one, right? – he said over the gunsight. – Well, come on, come on, come on, go ahead… you sensitive leather stocking. Bring me some prehistorical loots, my two-legged cat. Some flowers. Dinosaurs. And will see, what we shall do with you later. But if you don't get out, then you don't. A grenade after you. You don't know, right? Exactly “procrustes” explode very well. How do you think we made it almost halfway to the airfield? So many of these tough places were there… Stand down, – he said to himself. – Come on, Sverzhin. Farewell.

Vadim turned away, looking at the hole, that means looking at the steppe, framed with a smoke frame. “Slowly, try it with your hand first”, timidly suggested Mumbler, who became serious. Vadim shook his head. No. He rummaged around the belt, pulled out another strip of gauze from the clamp.

– Hey, hey, warrior, no jokes!.. – proclaimed Bashkalo expressively.

Vadim showed him the gauze over the shoulder. Bashkalo went silent. Vadim tied several knots at one of the ends, one above the other, put the formed ball in his mouth and began drooling on it. The wet ball weighted the strip rather well for something homemade, making the “risk” manageable, but without a sinker, without a nut. For some reason here and now it seemed important to be iron-free. (The thought about the first one who ran through the second railcar flashed again.) Keeping the “risk” in his outstretched hand, Vadim began to swing it forward and backward. Here the ball touched the hole, like the surface of a vertical puddle, no waves ran, but the gauze immediately stretched out. Vadim unclasped his fingers and the hole sucked it in. And Vadim, without a farewell sigh, bent and stepped after it. And disappeared.

Having waited a moment, ensign Bashkalo licked the mustache, sticky with blood, lowered the barrel of the machine gun and said into space:

– And what now, bitch? Is that all, bitch?

Meanwhile, two hundred million years ago Vadim was smothered by an enormous sun, by overwhelming heavy, damp odors, making his knees weak, knocking him down and tossing at the same time. And he fell with his eyes shut, not painfully but heavily on the left side and left shoulder, as if somebody had snatched him back and thrown him to the left. He knew for sure that he had already fallen, struck the ground, but inside everything continued to fly, to churn, howling with cold in the lower abdomen… and a huge wet rough palm grabbed him in that place between the ears, where the balance control center of the brain is located, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it to another huge wet rough palm. And back. And forth again. And he was aware of all this, with no sign of fainting. His head was ringing clearly, and this ringing clarity was thrown from side to side.

He waited. The panic of the five senses subsided with his eyes shut. Signals from the periphery appeared: “It's wet!”, they informed him. He opened one eye and immediately saw a prehistoric bennettite flower on its stalk, bent in front of his nose. Vadim shook himself up. With one eye open, somehow the head wasn't spinning.

He was sitting in the thickets of Wollemi, his last “flare” was giving off smoke in front of him, dirty gauze strips were hanging on a stems of strange grasses, including his own, the clean one with the ball, wet with drool. There were also a few rusty nuts thrown by Alex the Aspirant. The sun was pressing from above, it was sweltering, the air was bitter, and one had to literally drink it, rather than inhale, so dense it was.

– July 14, 64, 765, 563, 122 BC, – said Mumbler aloud, without hiding. Not two hundred million, but also nice. Please shave, like dad said.

Vadim looked around. Behind him was a pile of some kind of a fern, from which some kind of bamboo tree protruded. Not bamboo. Dinosaur-like, with scales. On the left, in an Ilex's embrasures, which was not focusing in the eyes, glistened either a hairy lake or a Savannah, simply flooded with water. Everything was sparkling unbearably, everything was wet, everywhere were rainbows. On the right there were impenetrable bushes. Not bushes. Something green and impenetrable. The Lost World, the “black” Conan Doyle in eight volumes. All this did not interest Vadim; he had already come to his senses. He was interested in the way out. From here, from this side nothing clearly indicated the time hole, but even in this heat there was a feeling of heavy chill on the sweaty back, cold from the Zone. The hole was there and the hole was open. Vadim was surprised: the temperature difference was very high, dozens of degrees, there must be steam, it should be steaming like bath doors in winter. But there was no steam. Vadim looked at his wet dirty hands. Seemed like he was sitting in the puddle. The ground under his ass was deeply slushy, saturated with wet humus; brown water flooded the dents from his palms right before his eyes. Something buzzed past his face like a slow bullet, Vadim twitched the head away. His vision still could not cope with the general focus, the huge green sunny world fell on its side every time he opened the second eye, the dizziness was still there, as strong as ever… Something in the stomach slurped loudly and gave a nasty taste in his mouth; but it pleased him. “Now I am going to vomit”, thought Vadim, “And it will become easier, as on the “neutral” with the first “kiss”. Yes, yes, it is already getting easier.”

Then it began. He did not have time. The hell knows why “Montana” on his hand started to play.

Tam-ta-tam-ta. Ta-ta-tam. Never let me go. Tam-tadam-tadam…

The first organized melody played on planet Earth, the Solar System, Milky Way, God's World, by the very first tune attracted to the confused, disoriented Vadim the keen attention of a young Triceratops, who had just left his group of hatchlings in the morning of this ancient day. The young Triceratops had gone into the jungle because it was now time for the heroic and dangerous adventure of searching for the mother of his offspring. He was equally scared and uncertain, but male pride was burning at his intimate parts and forcing him on, and he was ready to snack on flint and rape T-Rex females. So, is it possible to blame him for the fact that the squeaking of the watch, inaccurate in its electronic annoyance, and the general light-headedness of the melody infuriated him to the point of “kill immediately, bite!”? The young Torosaurus walked through the Jurassic, looking out for the moos of young females, and here we go – music by Poulton, words by Fosdick, performance by Elvis Presley. Who would not be furious? Everyone would be furious.

Vadim did not immediately distinguish the attacking horned hippo from the surrounding flora. And that actually saved his life, when he finally did, like a bunny on a mysterious picture, and realized that the tenth chapter of “The Lost World” had already begun.

PART ONE

1990. DIFFERENT OFFERS

Archive of Shugpshuits (Book of the Trouble)

File “Blinchuk-4”

A fragment of self decryption, pp. 1-5

(Spelling errors fixed)

(For the previous meetings, we had developed a little communication ritual, I do not want to decipher the reasons behind. Blinchuk, scarcely seeing me and scarcely saying “Hello”, started whining again and again, with the peevishness of a helpless sick man, how it nags at him, on his deathbed, that he never visited the Zone. But he could have. Oh, he could have! His rating would crush any Wobenaka. Or Gena the Genious, now deceased. But it didn't work out. And even now, when it doesn't matter anymore, the evil troublers, trackers, they are also selfish smugglers, and related others – the little boozers, the clumsy beggars, and border-hoppers, allowed him to go only to the “neutral”. But he still didn't reach the exit, he was banned. He, who had been working as a god of the Perimeter for fifteen years! And here is your regard, here is your glory. And what is he supposed to do, whom to ask so that he will at least be buried there, in the Trouble. In the park of the Old Tens. That is his dying wish. If only you, comrade writer, could put in a word for me before your aliens. It is not the Ass, his former subordinate and protégé, that the old General and Major Blinchuk should ask. And so on so forth.)

– Sergey Borisovich, this is now the third time you're trying to wring a tear from me, saying how unfortunate you are, nobody needs you, old retired General-Major; damned Maloroslikov pranked you, the bloody Putin hadn't given a hand.

– And what, is it so hard for you to listen to the whining of a dying man once again? I should have finished you, such an insensitive shit you are, right at the moment you appeared in my Pre-Zone on April 6^th, 1998 on a thirteen-hour bus. I would have sent someone, and – you would be finished like a gnat. Actually, get out of here! Now I'll call Dr. Vyatkin, and he'll expose you. Doctor Vyatki-in! Come here!

– For the third time, Sergei Borisovich. This is already recorded and will not disappear.

– Got out of it. Well, give me some water.

(Drinks)

– So they set me up as the Commandant at the Trouble in 1990. In November. After the putsch, the mess, the bickering, that time I was a Colonel. And then Pasha Grachev called me from Ukraine, and… And until the end, until the fifteenth, until last year… Did you at least know this, writer?

– The whole world knows this, Sergey Borisovich. But the putsch was in 91. And you were appointed as a Commandant of the Zone in 1990. By the Gorbachev’s decree.

(Pause)

– You know what? Fuck you, smart ass!

(Drinks)

– The whole world… I did my job badly if the whole world knows me!

(Drinks)

– On the other hand, though I was like the Governor-General… How can you not know me… And everybody knew… Ones who needed to know and who didn't need to… So, I didn't tell you yesterday, I didn't tell you the day before, but I will tell you today. I was, Shug… pshug… pshuitz… Stierlitz171, damn it! I have been watching you carefully, from that day, when you came to my Pre-Zone on a fake visa. Ufologist-conspirator! I know exactly who you are. That's why I agreed to talk to you, as I'm dying. I know that the “troublers” trust you, that the trackers care of you and that you had your hands on the Trouble Radio and saved many in the Trouble through this matter. And that you're kind of a priest-confessor here… Although you're a boor.

– Sergey Borisovich.

– Quiet and “yes, sir”, you scribbler! Damned putsch in ninety-one… Well yes, in ninety-one! And you say “yes” and list-ten, what if there is a reason why I, an old stub with the brain cancer, am telling you the same for the third time. About death, about funerals, about the fact that I have never been in the Zone, never stood a foot. So get this, writer! Maybe repeating makes sense, think about it. And you tell me about your putsch.

– I'm listening.

(Finishes the water)

– Is Antipov still flying?

– Still flying.

– Pour some more water. The water from the “neutral” is delicious. Where was I? Yes. Accordingly, we are very fortunate that the Americans fall under the Lightning182, that's the thing. There was no way to hide the Zone because of them. Although Gorbachev, and then even Yeltsin, gave their civilian subordinates instructions to submit such proposals, and then Yeltsin even delegated the question to the General Staff. I know this for sure. I had been transferred from Chernobyl to Kapustin not just because, I was present at all their tea-drinking meetings, have been wasting the time directly from the Lightning, from Ryzhkov's commission. That one, you won't remember. At all, starting from the first, on New Year's eve in eighty-nine…

– Sorry, you said “we are very fortunate with Americans”, Sergey Borisovich. Who are “we”?

(Pause)

– Humanity, damn it. Such an ufologist you are.

(Pause)

– I'm listening.

– So then yes, sir, listen. The Americans… Now what…

(Highlights “now”)

– …we are fortunate – it's understandable why. The internationalization of the Zone, albeit under a moratorium, is not going anywhere. But even then! In ninety-one, when I ran out of money all at once – Americans helped out. And earlier, straight away. In all the editorial offices of the Commission for the Zone affairs there were Americans. There are, for example, Yeltzin, Gorbachev and Nazarbaev sitting down and here is Matlock in a corner, rubbing his glasses. He went there like it was his work. Although, of course, there were secret meetings too. I'll tell you later… maybe. I remember that time I was agreeing with all of them, say, that would be good if the quarantine would be tight, up to the idea that the administrative border with Kazakhstan, at that time still a republic, should be moved for at least thirty kilometers off the exclusion zone around Kapustin and the rest of the test-site, like in Chernobyl, for fifty kilometers – even better. To decide something about the river, to start a project for a bridge across Ahtuba near Kotly, the highway and the railway to Astrakhan through it, through the floodplain… and total unity in military command. And of course, all this is sponsored by Americans. That's what was the politics… In the Soviet Union, until it was over, it would have still been possible, at least at the level of decision-making. We did not have enough time.

(Thinks)

– Actually, later the bridge was built somehow, but with the rest, with the quarantine, it didn't work out…

– Sergey Borisovich, sorry to interrupt, I didn't ask yesterday, the most interesting in all those meetings with the presidents for me…

– So you always interrupt! I have already told you: you can interrupt. Interrupt. You see, I confuse the dates. Enough apologizing. You're not a gentleman, and I'm not a monsieur.

– Have you there, in the Kremlin, considered at least some of the Lightning's other possible reasons? I mean – seriously. Because from the January 1990 there were already regular film shoots at the “thirteenth hostel”, the phalanx was also filmed in the garage cooperative, and things with time-space were already reliably recorded. And there was not a single corpse in the city – that was known from the beginning…

– Exactly so. But in general, there wasn't any talk about aliens, you know… They avoided it. And, accordingly, me too. What damn aliens, they said? Unknown kind and that's it. A gaz meteorite, it’s final. How can serious people talk about this?! Such words aren't even invented…

(Drinks)

– When Gaidar began to drag his father-in-law, the writer, Strugatsky, to these gatherings, I could see how they were jarred. Everybody was jarred. And it jarred me. Fiction writer at the meeting of a top-secret government commission! What a story… What are you staring at? The writer was invited not to a bathhouse for some culture, but to a serious adult meeting, with minutes… Gaidar, yes, he seriously considered it, but kept silent. He was a cunning, clever guy. And this Natanovich, although he's a science fiction writer, he used to be in the military, moreover, he was in our military, special one… He also acted smart. That was impressive. Like, he was just sitting with his stick, but whatever he says – everything is right to the point. He actually recommended announcing an indefinite quarantine, to build the camp for the troublers and not let anybody out… And those who had already left, to relatives maybe, following the resettlement program – make them come back. Notwithstanding the h2s. Such a mess started there, whoa! Everybody was stunned. But I was ready to put a candle for him191 because of this for so many times! In the beginning – how they were all barking at him…with one voice. I was also barking, such a fool. Like, it's not nineteen thirty-seven anymore. Democracy, human rights. New thinking. Those times nobody even knew these words, that's what it is about.

– And Matlock? Was he there at the time?

– And Matlock was listening, sipping tea… Or whatever was in his thermos. Coca-Cola. We always kept his own thermos. And an interpreter. He spoke Russian, but not very well.

– And then?

– And he says: I think, he says, the opinion of Arkadiy Natanovitch is a deeply thoughtful opinion (it is full of thoughtful thought). And everyone immediately became silent. Impressive! It's horrendous what would have happened if there had been no quarantine.

– M-m, yes… And Strugatsky, did he also say nothing about an aliens, about UFOs?..

– I'm telling you, ufologist: with Gaidar they were birds of feather. Smart people, but father-in-law was experienced, been there. A drinker, a person who understands. But they both also knew how to keep quiet. And this book… About stalkers… He did write it, invented it in his head! When I was reading it, I did not believe my own eyes! Ten years before the Lightning… even more! With his brother… The book itself spoke for him. Even Yeltsin read it afterwards, I know this for sure… His brother, a scientist, was also at the meeting once… And in general I had a strange feeling that he, this Arkady, somehow knew something more, and knew it in advance. After all, Gorbachev reported object to the Commission about Zhitkur-9 not instantly, but when he had already signed his resignation. In January of ninety-one… The soviet Union was already finished.

(Laughs)

– That moment everybody lost the gift of speech. Yeltsin whacked his chair into the wall, consequently Primakov dropped the glass with kefir… And Gorbachev is just sits there, calm, blinks, fidgeting with a pen in a hands… So, this Arkady Strugatsky, in my opinion, didn't even change his face expression… Set that aside. Listen, ufologist, I lied to you, listen! Gaidar was not even there, at the first meetings! But Strugatsky already was present. He already attended the meetings in eighty-nine, Pavlov was there, Ryzhkov, Khryuchkov, of course, and no Yeltsin in sight, I had been flying from Ukraine… At Yazov's call.. Exactly!

– It is strange.

– Do you understand? Even I do not know everything, okay? Officially, I was transferred to Kapustin on the fifteenth of November, and on the twentieth, the first meeting of the Commission was held with Yeltsin invited as the president of the RSFSR. Because this was still the Soviet Union, not CIS… But Nazarbayev, yes, was already the president. Of the republic. And he was worrying a lot. Such a horror was happening in the Kazashsky Corner of the Zone. The terrifying walls of the fire, this plasma lava… Well, you saw the movie.

– Mm, well… And the name “Kazashsky”, did everybody call it so from the very beginning?

– I do not understand.

– “Kazakh” would be correct. Kazakh Corner, Kazakh Curve.

– Fuck knows. It just happened so. Actually, I never thought about it.

– By the way why did the main word not catch on if everything was by Strugatskys?

– What main word?

– Stalker.

– Stalker? Is this your question? A-a-a fuck kn… Set that aside, I remember! This Natanovich also asked me… it was disturbing him. That is when we were drinking with him later, already in ninety-five or ninety-six, when I was in Moscow for the last time… Why are you smiling, writer? Understandably that it was interesting for him… It did not catch on because of Americans. It's something offensive, from English slang. Wanker, or something like that. Sat that aside, I remember. A peeping tom. A sexual blackmailer, accordingly. Rubbish. So it did not catch on. And then you, ufologists, immediately appeared in the Pre-Zone, at that time there was an extraterrestrial craze among the people, and there, among you, ufologists, climbers and tourists of all sorts, so the “track”, “traverse”, all this, too. Well “track” is “track” and, accordingly, “trackers”. And it happened. In my opinion, therefore that is how. As for me, I prefer “walkers”, as we, military men, used to say. And aliens. Although there is a subtlety. Well, you know.

– I see. I'm very interested in the intensity called the “Mother's cracks”.

– How did you say?

– The “Mother's cracks”.

– It’s the first time I've heard it. And what is this called scientifically?

– I don't know.

– The first time I've heard it. I bet trackers told you tales again, right, writer?

– It seems not.

– Ok then. Don't you hammer my dying head with nails. Ask precisely, about me.

– Yeah… Who did you meet with first regarding the aliens? Surely with Petrovich? The famous conference in Two Pipes?

– Well, yes. No! I had the aliens to the fullest from the start, almost choked; faced the Father and his terrible daughter. The same day, to be honest… It was on the next day as I presented myself to the personnel at the Commandant's office upon arrival. On the seventeenth of November of nineteen ninety.

– And your “kiss”, by the way, if it's not a secret…

– Pour some water. A single “greeting”, no tongues. Good timing. Fucking paralysis of the fucking eyeball. The left one. My intuition is weak, you can count I don't have it at all. Accordingly, the “kiss” is alike this, incomplete. Just like “get off”.

– And you say that you have never been in the Zone…

– I haven’t been in the Zone, I haven’t. This is the truth. You think I'm kidding you? I'm not kidding. I guess I should tell you, right?

– I haven't seen the Father… Very interesting! Legendary times.

– For now maybe they are legendary. But then, I did not make a step out of the Headquarters without a jar of bromine… When you are sitting in a meeting with the citizens on Thursdays and Fridays, only bromine can save you. No vodka. Straight to the grave. People would drink to death, die in a mouth. Because a day lasts for a year… The same in the Zone and outside… “A hundred meters – ten miles” Yeah…

(Drops the plastic glass. I get under the bed to take the glass.)

– Sorry, slipped out. Yes, so the Father… Even CATU201 did not exist at that time. Two years before CATU. And the Zone wasn't even registered as QZAI212 yet in Russian documents. Only locals called it the Trouble. The Trouble, they said, the Mother-Trouble. And outside it was “the emergency zone”, and that's it. The gas meteorite. There was an order to provide an exclusion zone, and strict one, at least for ten kilometers around.

– And ZONA, Z, O, N, A, – when is this?

– This is when Yeltsin and Clinton signed the Memorandum. But who's gonna call it like this here? The Zone is the Zone. Kapustin's quarantine. Blue houses!

– Oh, already then?

– Yes. When else? They are deeply Soviet, these Finnish trailers. They found a few at the warehouses in the Middle Akhtuba, dismantled, still lying there from the seventies. Helped a lot. Exactly two families, two entrances. I myself had been living in one with my wife for about four years.

(Pause)

– It was detected from the tower in the city. Do you know about the tower? Later it burned like a candle. It was built behind the highway, opposite Volgogradsky checkpoint, right in the middle of the Dog's village, where they demolished a residential complex. Almost on the “neutral”, oh God! That time the “neutral” did not get to the center of the Dog's village yet, only the first line existed… Didn't you hear about that tower? Really didn't? One hundred and fifty meters? By accord! Five hundred thousand rubles down the drain! I was absolutely amazed when they showed it to me. Ostankino223 lookalike! Then they tried to sort out the paperwork for a long time, and then it burned down when the “neutral” spread in '93. Shame on you, historian… So he was walking along Severodvinsk street, the Father with his girl. During the night wooly had eaten the fog on the Terminal Square, so the visibility through the summer part of the “neutral” was perfect. Right above district thirty-nine. And he was wa-a-alking right down the roadway. I had just come to the Maldavanov's office, haven't even opened the vault yet. And they give me a call from the tower: this, they say, and this, comrade Colonel. We are informing you, according to the instructions. A person with a child is walking in the city, on the territory of the disaster. Do you understand? D-damned watchers, caught me up, as if I was new. “Turn on the video system, comrade Colonel!” And broadcast an i from the camera on the TV in my office.

– Was the Father wearing his cloak?

– O-oh, was he in his cloak? This cloak was the one and only in the whole world… And toy guns on it, like on a Christmas tree. And the girl in a cradle on his back. Call “Kashchenko” mental hospital231. So I was hooked. Grabbed the duty guide and ran into the Zone, not listening to what he was trying to yell. A hero, heroic among other heroes. Also dragged my own guard with me, an idiot.

(He crosses his heart twice, as all locals do: from the left to the right and from the right to the left)

– “Give a horse to the Colonel!” It is funny to remember. Pour some more water.

CHAPTER 1

About twenty minutes later the fisherman241-Colonel finally exclaimed that his eye is, kind of, healed, damn your mother this and, accordingly, that way. Then he said that this is, as such, an outrage, comrade guide, because Devil knows where the man in the black cloak down to the heels could go with the child along a terrible street of the dead city; and that it is necessary, damn you, to warn your boss about the special effects of the “neutral” that violate the rescue operation in its very beginning.

Comrade guide, a young man named Matveev, and nicknamed Nabis, was silently listening to the high-ranking fisherman. Because it is no reason to console him, a scumbag, and it is definitely no reason to argue him, a scumbag, when it's too late for former and latter alike, when they are already here, already on the “neutral”. Let him yell. Yell that the transformer is buzzing behind the back wall of the tent, that the Colonel is now puffing and loudly expressing his horror with bold words. Mad, though. Ran to the Trouble, to a psychotic bayonet, as soon as the drunk jolly fellows have showed him the movie with the Father from the tower. As if a year and a half did not pass after the Lightning, as if people did not die. So let him, a scumbag, yell,. Let him yell. Moreover, the general tone of the claims is concrete – “he yells with relief”, and thankfully he is not jumping at least, still sitting in his armchair, does not run from the body… Well, Nabis keeps silent. Diplomatically. He was waiting for the end. Patience. In this sense alive (that means – good) tracker is no worse than any Assol. Or a sniper.

The other trackers, that is the guard and the retinue of the Colonel consisting of: the Ensigns Shultsev and Glyzin, and Korostylyov, the Major, – also kept silent, albeit for a non-diplomatic reason, but for a physiological one. The Ensigns were being “kissed” passionately, that means Shultsev was vomiting, and Glyzin has been struck from behind. As for the Major Kororslylyov, he did not get anything shoddy as a “kiss”, like the Trouble just shook his hand. that means either he is the first-time tracker of a rare potential, or he is an experienced tracker, but is hiding it. And keeps silent. Pale, but silent. “This one is an interesting fisherman”, Nabis decided, “dangerous one. But the Trouble will redeem anyway. Let's write it down…” And Andreich Nikiforov, the driver of the “sixty-sixth”, nicknamed Kharon, the master of transferring die-hards from the Earth to the Trouble, was not considered as tracker. He sat in his bus cab and could not been seen or heard. He was not taken by the “neutral” into account. Here he was a familiar figure. You pay to the “neutral” just once, and Kharon was not asking for more. Seventy-five for leaving the checkpoint, ten per hour for all the time of the trip. And not a single step into the Zone. Three children, a wife, no one was lost, all are well.

– Well, why don't you say something, comrade guide on duty? – asked the Colonel, furiously twirling his freed eye, blinking it, massaging it with all his fingers in turn. – You could try to get out of it or just say “My guilt, sir”, at least. The old Colonel almost lost the vision! And you, understandibly, didn't give a shit. What is your surname, I did not hear?

Diplomacy…

– Сivilian Matveev, – Nabis said after a pause.

– And why the fuck of unknown kind did you remain silent, guide?

Diplomacy. Nabis “switched on the library”.

– Your mission is a complete unprofessional adventure, comrade Colonel, – he said quietly, – I tried to warn you earlier at the Headquarters. You did not give a sh… You did not listen to me. And you, comrade Colonel, are not ready for the mission. And the aim of the mission is not fucking clear. So I'll just try to bring you back alive. Without explanations. Who has the ears – will hear… Although we did not walk out there yet. We are not yet in the Zone…

– How is it that we are not in the Zone? – Colonel was surprised, pressing a damaged eye with his finger.

Diplomacy. Nabis spit from the car on the white hot concrete of the Stand. This is the kind of people we have as our bosses. And Kharon slammed the slightly open door of his cabin. Heard everything, the old dog.

– What is it, comrade guide, searching for the words so you can politely tell the boss that he's a moron? – the Colonel asked suddenly and grinned.

– Between the Trouble… It's like a barrier between the Zone and the Earth, the “neutral”, a neutral band, – Nabis said, holding the tone. – As a trace strip. Here earthly works as earthly, and the Trouble's works too… But nothing kills. No dangerous gitiks. And a “kiss”… well, vomit, some things with the eyes, bleeding from different parts, – these all are normal for the first time. The Trouble looks at you in the “neutral”, who you are, where from. What you here for. And then registers you. It's like to enter the cell.

– Have you ever been jailed? – asked the Colonel, but not in a “shrewd” way, somehow normally.

– No, – answered Nabis.

(The Colonel noted the guide has a strong incomprehensible and unpleasant accent, although his Russian is correct and he himself is Matveev. In the “waiting room” of the checkpoint they had time to tell Colonel a little about him. He is the best on-duty guide of the rescue service personnel available today, said the issuing, Captain Mazin, he took over twenty tracks, has been serving on contract for a year. Local, a refugee. The village bully in the past, did not serve in the army, after the army he seemed to be a boilermaker, freelanced at the Polygon. Tall, a young boy of thin bones with a very dense mane of small curls on his head, blue-black, lambskin-like. In winter, might be, he does not even wear a hat. Small mustache. The day before yesterday – on the day of arrival – and yesterday Blintchuk saw him in the smoking room next to the Headquarters three times, and every time Nabis was reading a book. They all read here. God forbid such soldiers. Or even simple subordinates.)

– Yeah… How can it be fucking “neutral” if such a thing happens here with people? – asked the Colonel.

Nabis shrugged his shoulders.

– It is what it is, – he said. – It doesn't kill. Thanks for that.

– Who are you by nationality? – asked the Colonel.

Nabis stared at him, then realized and smiled a little.

– You think I have an accent. This is a speech defect, comrade Colonel.

– I beg your pardon, – the Colonel muttered distinctly odd words for him and turned pale, which evidently replaced his “flushed”. – Guilty… But you do not understand the aim of the mission… What isn't clear about it? To detain a person with a little child seen from the tower, withdraw from the disaster zone, interview and provide assistance.

– Comrade Colonel, this is the Father, – said Nabis quietly.

– What does it mean – “the Father”? Does it mean he is a known person?

– He is the only one who survived in the Lightning. I mean they are only two. He and his daughter.

They were sitting side by side on the ebonite armchairs with folding seats, installed on the floor of the aboard Kharon's “shishiga”251. (Kharon stole the chairs in the cinema hall of the Dog's village club, four in a row on the iron rack.) Nabis was sitting on the edge. From the Earth they left through the Second, “Volgogradsky”, checkpoint and for the “greeting” of the pioneers Kharon immediately turned to the Stand, a concrete pad where two cars quietly rusted in the endless sun, dryness and heat. Door to door, white “Volga” of the missing Chief of the Polygon and “Zaporozgets” of some, probably also missing, Ensign. Neither Dog's poachers, nor bottle-women, nor even cops from the guard towers allowed themselves to touch these cars.

In the areas of housing (“The Dog's curve”) the weather inside the “neutral” had a specific behavior. A hot June day was reigning in this part of it in the middle of a cold November of the Earth. The “time of midges”, which was terrible in the Lower Volga region. But of course there were no midges in the “neutral”, as there was no other local living creatures, including cockroaches. They say, there were not even bacteria here. The dead ground, the zero circle. It was very quiet here, there was no sound from the human side, although running red and green excavators, literally a hundred meters away, were visible beyond the Volgograd-Astrakhan highway, ragged by the Zone. Well, on the alien side there was no one to make noise.

(But stupid TV tower was not seen from the “neutral”. What to show and what not to show the “neutral” chooses by itself. “Interesting, when the Colonel notices this”, thought Nabis, “will he rush back to figure it out? They say, one million rubles was stolen during the building of this tower. It was not created by a fool, of course. There was enough to carve up.”)

Behind “zaporozgets” there was a green camouflage American bio-toilet, and also an American plastic can with a tap hung on a concrete column with holders for a barbed wire. The first thing, as soon as he stopped the engine, and the colonel had not yet yelled that his eye had burst, Kharon dragged himself out of the cab with a canister and filled the can with the water after pouring out the old one. This was a responsibility of all drivers on the Dog's curve of the “neutral”. The water on the Stand was always useful. Some need to wash their top, others need to wash their bottom. And some need both. The Colonel, whom, of course, no one dared to inform about the rituals and peculiarities of going out to the Zone (or dared not to inform, or did not have time to dare to inform), and who himself did not inquire, just saw Kharon with the canister and started to command, allegedly: keep moving driver, I do not get why we stopped, quickly go to where the man with the child is walking in the Zone… here's when the hassle with the Colonel's eye started, and the orders soured in a mid-word, being replaced by the questions, vaguely translucent through the obscenities, “what the hell is that, what is happening to me?!”. Runny shit Ensign, in general an assembled and attentive man, only asked Nabis: “Is the toilet okay, safe?” – and saw a nod, dashed from the car like into a pit, holding the stomach but not forgetting, however, as many before him, weapons. The vomiting Ensign decided not to rush from the car. He fell from the chair on the floor to the left, and boasted to the Stand of his breakfast from a mechanized hill, lying at the feet of the chief. And the Major Korostylyov, as it already had been said, withstood the “greeting” without special effects, but was very surprised and worried about the resulting discord of the rescue team. But had been bravely enduring wonderment and worrying. He only put his machine gun a bit more comfortable on the knees and adjusted the black knitted hat. “This one read the instructions and did not swap fables with instructors. Or, still, it is not the first time he is out here. From whom he is hiding, from me or from his own guys”, Nabis was thinking.

– So this is, must be, such a check, damn it, – said the Colonel, taking off his helmet (a simple combined arms helmet in case), putting it on its top at the feet and pulling out a large handkerchief from the pocket of the tactical vest. His Colonial irritation has already extinguished, only the human remained, which was not interfering with the work of the brain. A fright is necessary in the Zone. You can even pump in pants, it's not forbidden, the main thing is that the brain then starts to work.

– Most likely it's a ritual, – said Nabis. – Something took a look at you. And you rushed into the Zone in vain, comrade Colonel.

– So the old Colonel, the whole Commandment… was fucked over, that's how it turns out.

– You did not want to listen to anything… Yes you are not the first. And the circumstances.

– What circumstances? – asked Blinchuk unkindly.

Nabis was silent, looking at his stomach. Blinchuk blew his nose. Looked around.

– Ensind Glyzin! – he barked and, immediately lowering his voice, asked Nabis: – Is the screaming forbidden?

– Me! – Glyzin muffly responded from the booth. And banged something, apparently with a trunk, against the wall. – It's to blame, it's not over!

– All is allowed on the “neutral”, comrade Colonel, – answered Nabis. – For now. Only the Trouble knows what will happen in a week. But it's better not to scream. Everything should be quiet in the Zone. Hands should be bared, and ears should be opened.

– The Trouble – that is how you call it… – Blinchuk shook his head towards the housing estate “Kapustin” in particular and the Polygon in general. Towards the Zone. Nabis nodded. Blinchuk frowned and began to fold his handkerchief. The vomiting Ensign Shultsev finished etching, lay a bit in waiting, slid from the car almost to his puddle, but happily missed and, stepping unsteadily, headed for the washbasin. Blinchuk, Nabis and Korostylyov were watching as he was pottering with the tap.

– And you, comrade Nabis, are you local? Civilian under a contract? – asked Blinchuk.

– Yes, I lived in the Dog's. One street away from your tower.

Blinchuk chuckled. Hid the handkerchief.

– Where did you serve? Ah, yes…

– I worked at the Polygon, as the inspector of heating plants. And the main occupation was a poacher. Cathroughr.

Blinchuk raised the rare eyebrows.

– The past life, you mean, – he said. – Is it the way it works here? To confess?

– Yes. The Trouble wrote off.

– I don't like poachers, – remarked Blinchuk.

Nabis shrugged the shoulders.

– And I don't like fishermen, but what can I do?

– Well, ok. The Father, you say… I need to get him out and question him. A living child is with him! She’s alive, right? – he appealed to the Major. Kororstylyov nodded the head.

– She is, I clearly saw.

– Accordingly, – said Blinchuk. – This is our aim. To find and to bring out. What shall we do, comrade Nabis? How do we solve the task? What do you know about the Father? What will be your essential advice?

– Most likely, we do not need to move anywhere. We must sit right here and wait, – said Nabis. – Most likely, he is coming to us. Most likely, he got caught in your TV camera intentionally. He wants to meet you. He or the Zone… This I don't know. He can walk fast, but today he has nowhere to hurry. After all, because of him you rushed into the Trouble, without preparation, on personal orders, with only one guide. So that means you can also wait now, when the Trouble stooped you a little.

– Ding-dong, – said Blinchuk. – Stay down. Not ding-dong, but holy shit. And who the hell is he?!

Nabis shrugged the shoulders.

– He is local. I remember him before the Trouble. He was a doctor in a hospital.

– Military doctor? – Major Korostylyov asked after a pause.

– I have not seen him in military uniform, – Nabis answered. – I have seen him in a white coat.

The Colonel and the Major stared at each other. The Major fixed the machine gun on the knees. The fact that the Major took AK-47 on a mission Nabis also noted. Not a general “short” like a Colonel, not a fashionable “screwdriver”, like high society Ensigns, but the real 47th, the gun for aliens. Very interesting inspector Major Korostylyov. Don't you turn your back.

The washed wet vomiting Ensign returned to the car and took up the floor of the back, looking at the authorities from the bottom up.

– So who is he right now? – asked the Colonel. – Is he dangerous?

– Very, – said Nabis. – He lives inside the Trouble. There all are dangerous. Even I am dangerous there, and how dangerous you are, I cannot even imagine.

– Hey you, intelligence officer, – said Shultsev authoritatively, – enough chasing the darkness. Right, Sergey Borisovich?

– Shut up, Shultsev, – said the Colonel thoughtfully. – And never leave the weapon.

– It's to blame! – exclaimed Shultsev, jumped into the vehicle body, picked up his rifle, sat down and, curving a little the slender body under the bulletproof vest, began to look as good as he could.

– Comrade Ensign, you need to clean up your vomit, – said Nabis. (Shultzev stared at him as an Ensign at a soldier.) – There is a mop and a bucket of water behind the toilet. Right for these purposes.

– Excuse me?! – said Shultzev.

– That's the way, – said Nabis. – Necessity. Internal order. Hide your shit from the Zone. Shit in the Zone can also bite.

– Comrade Colonel! – Shultsev turned to Comrade Colonel as to his own father.

Blinchuk sharply scratched the shaved head and looked toward the Earth. “Exactly now Chingachgook will notice that his tower had been screwed up”, thought Nabis. The most suitable moment. And the scandal at once will begin. And in the midst of hazing that occurred on the basis of personal animosity, the Father with his little Yana will approach us. But how does he not even notice that from the autumn we got in the summer?

– What is your name, comrade guide? – asked the Colonel. – I heard… Nabis?

– It is the nickname. This is the way it is here.

– The nickname. Good. So what is that?

“Now I will say my name and Shultsev will say “Fuck you, Sergey!” And I will kill him. And will go to live with the Father. And will live fast and long.”

– Okay, don't say if you don’t want to, – said Blinchuk, having decided something following Nabis' silence. – Shultsev, clean up after yourself. Then we will figure out what is the charter here and what is a jeer. At the double.

– Yes, sir, – said deadman Shultsev, also making himself some notch in the memory.

– If the Father had showed up himself, – Nabis said as if nothing had happened, – that means, comrade Colonel, that he needs to talk.

– So what's that? Did he show up directly for me? – asked Blinchuk unkindly. – Why are you twisting tales to me, comrade Colonel? How does he know personally about me? And what, is he a contacting party? Folk deputy? But of what kind of folks?

– In the Zone all the calculations are based on the result, – said Nabis. – And the result is obvious. The Father had showed up to you. You came. “Greeting” on the “neutral” is mandatory for beginners. It is minimum half an hour on the Stand, but usually an hour. (“The Stand” is this area.) And there is a time to look at you, there is a time to assess you. – Then he paused, looking at something in the distance. – And everyone knows that the new commandant is appointed and arrives today, Comrade Colonel. It's been known already for two weeks.

Here came Shultsev with “masha”261 at the ready, like death with a scythe. The clout dripped. He slapped the clout over the puddle and started to rub a slurry on the concrete in this and that directions, frowning his face.

– Glyzin, damn it, where are you?! – yelled the Colonel. He yelled again. Deadman.

Glyzin jumped out of the toilet, deftly maneuvering the barrel of the rifle in the doorway.

– Doesn't he need to clean up after himself? – Shultsev asked Nabis.

– He does not, – Nabis replied, and this answer angered Shultsev forever. But Korostylyov intervened.

– Ensigh Shultsev!

– Me! – automatically exclaimed Shultsev.

– Cut the crap! – the voice of a two-year-old girl pronounced what the Major intended to tell the Ensign very loudly, deafeningly, the clear bell-like.

And now the Colonel, Korostylyov and the Ensigns, – both jumped up in the truck's body, one, sharply turned around with a mop, so drops splashed from it into the space in a vane, and the other, quickly stood on his knee at the back wheel and put the rifle in the voice's direction – and simultaneously saw the Father.

(Nabis spotted him about three minutes ago, right during the utterance of the phrase “And there is a time to look at you”, and Kharon saw them (for sure) even earlier.)

If the current moment wasn't being described by me, Zharkovsky, but by the correspondent of the local newspaper “The Star”, Klyuvkin, it would look like this.

Courageous full face photo “the look into the distance” on a quarter of the page.

Heading “THE MAN IN HIS PLACE”.

The text: “Forty-six year old Colonel frontier Guard Blinchuk, Sergey Borisovich has seen a lot during his service. He also saw the death of his comrades, being the head of the outpost on the Afghanistan border in the late seventies. He saw the grief and misfortunes of people during his hard work in the area of liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. The experience has tempered Sergei Borisovich's will, his subordinates and colleagues in one voice speak of his ability not to lose his head at the most acute moments. Academician Velikhov spoke warmly about him. Sergei Borisovich was one of the first candidates for the permanent position of the military commandant of the special quarantine district around Kapustin, and his appointment was unanimously approved at a joint meeting of the Government and the Commission for Elimination of the consequences of the meteorite attack in the Astrakhan region.

But here he freaked out“.

That would sound bitingly blunt, in perestroyka style, in the spirit of a new times, i.e. new trends, non-trithroughl words; and the old editor-in-chief of “The Star” Martysheva, with a heavy heart would approve it for publishing, and then would suffer, waiting for destructive phone call in the night, and then herself would call to the printing house in the morning, would torment the proofreaders all the next day… But Klyuvkin, as usual, would be wrong. After Chernobyl Blinchuk couldn't be freaked by anything to the extent of making a reckless decision twice a day.

– Glyzin, don't you shoot!

The highway (if counted on the left bank of the Volga) Volzhsky-Astrakhan (about two and a half rows in width, the asphalt is from medium-poor to almost-good, indistinct roadsides with deep ditches, a good Soviet road of of the Union significance) runs almost parallel to the Volga's arm, Akhtuba, and dissects in half the secret city of Kapustin (postal address “Leninsk-1” until recently) and the adjacent ancient village Kapustino. If you go from Volzhsky, there will be the actual city, marked Volgogradskiy check point (in fifty-seventy meters from the highway through a faded, well-shot wasteland) on your left. Further the highway gnaws into the private sector, once or twice, the 85th kilometer, and you are on wide Russian operational space, and ahead you have freedom, the Caspian, Persia, massacre without restrictions, pearls, and carts and canoes full of mysterious princesses. There are are two fences between the checkpoint and the outer street of Kapustin (Enthuziastov): the first is right at the checkpoint, barbed wire on a concrete pillars, however, quickly coming to naught, – and the barrier of concrete slabs right aside Enthuziastov stretches along five-story buildings and Komsomoltsev park to the north-east corner of the city. A year ago, during evacuation (panic escaping) of people away the sparkling, burning, exploding in the night Kapustin, this barrier was destroyed in many places. It has been rammed by buses, by boards and by personal “zhiguli” cars as well. And even one brave armored vehicle broke and brought down a rather long piece of this fence behind the hospital, and drowned in asphalt at the nearest intersection right after that. At the Volgogradsky check point, the distance between the outer fence of the wire and the concrete fence is minimal, two dozen meters, here was the main flow of the refugees, and there is only one concrete section left in the working condition, that means standing upright, – the constituent part of the Stand perimeter. Right out of it, just in a few steps from “shishiga”, the Father appeared in front of them. Appeared, arose as a character of a magic TV-show of David Copperfield, an American Kio, broadcast before and after midnight by Channel One of the central television. As if the Father was sitting there since night, waiting for the moment, most effective for “Abracadabra” and “voila”. It was impossible to believe that he, such as he was, could sneak in some other way up to Blinchuk group, even if it was stricken with diarrhea, stomach colic, and diplopia. Moreover, Nabis, who had trodden the Dog's Curve of the “neutral” in every way, knew for certain: near the Stand there is not a single, even the most wasteful, even wiped, air mirror. It's impossible to hide here. Hocus-pocus.

“Such as he was” – and the Father looked like from American trick, but more precisely – as in American action movie from a video salon in Sheremetyevo, where Colonel Blinchuk recently waited for the flight. “Blade Runner” came to Blinchuk’s mind. But suddenly Korostylyov distinctly muttered: “The Uryupinsk theater of the young spectator” – and instantly the grandeur and brilliance of manner and clothes of the mysterious alien in the eyes (aching, by the way, brutally rubbed) of the Colonel Blinchuk was suddenly shedding to the i of some robot Werther from our TV show.

– Ha. Ha. Ha, – the Colonel said aloud unexpectedly to himself.

– And what the evil beautiful man Seryozha is doing here? – from behind the Father's hood asked his strange daughter, or who she is to him. This time, with the voice of a fully mature, young, but mature, ripe high school girl. She looked exactly like one as well. Very small, plump, ripe round schoolgirl. In the cradle behind the monster’s back. Do not sit on the stump, do not eat the patty.

– I am in the squad, Father, – Nabis said because he was the subject of conversation. – Bad luck for you.

– Or bad luck for you, – the Sitting on the Back remarked. And accompanying gesture was made by the Father.

– We have one and the same Trouble, – Nabis countered. – And that's enough, Father. Get off me. Speak to the one with whom you came for. I'm doing my work here. Sitting and not glowing.

The Colonel suddenly realized: he, the Colonel, is sitting on a chair on the floor of “GAZ-66” body, in more than two meters above the ground. And the Father is trampling on the ground with his huge rubber boots. But his face is above the face of the Colonel… It turns out that he's two and a half meters tall! And the girl on top. A young woman.

However, the Father's face was hidden behind a helmet-mask of the insulating gas mask IP-5, new sets of which, by the way, literally filled up all the rooms of the Headquarters and pile of which collapsed right on Blinchuk not long ago when he tried to open documents' cabinet in his new office… The pipe wasn't connected to the mask, there was no respiratory bag. Flickering in the sun of the “neutral” with the PVC edges, a large hood visor blocked the masked face from above. And lower, the thick, damned leather at first glance, the blackest black coat was falling down. Fakely sparkling in different places too.

Obviously, the clothes have been hand-made. And it was less than a half of the damned leather in it. The braided wire coarsely sewed the parts of the pattern and in the most important places we could see the fasteners with self-made brackets made of thick copper wire. The cloak looked strong but homespun, not brand design. This significantly reduced the greatness of the huge figure, behind the Hollywood superman, freely walking through the world's most dangerous territory, you could see the diligent, inept Soviet man, the direct descendant of Ellie the Cannibal from that hysterical movie by Mark Zakharov271. Major Korostylyov – Blinchuk remembered him as a Lieutenant on the 16th outpost – had a sharp eye and a quick mind. He also was well-read. An intelligent officer. That is if you did not know how many people he had put in a battle. But further on, it is about the Father.

The sense of provincial dress was sustained by the kind of weapon hanging on the grand cloak like decorations hanging on the Christmas tree. Out of the dozen of guns, strapped, tied, taped and almost nailed to leather in different ways, was the only one real – a shabby KHM with a box store, hanging on the Father's chest like a “schmeisser”. All the rest were the toys. There was plastic bazooka shooting balls and the green barrel of plastic “maxim”282, and white and grey ugly with a grenade spring-loaded rocket carrier, with which Blinchuk's son once flatly refused to go into the yard to play war. Moreover, there were obviously self-made guns made of wood. Even the ignite, the size of a sawed-off shotgun from the movie about Pavka Korchagin293, was there. Knock-knock on the glass… “Who's there?” Bach!

The basis for the girl's seat was also self-made. They were a couple of bicycle frames, a basket from a baby carriage, a pile of wire and a massage attachments to the car seats. (Blinchuk could not see the girl fully: plump naked arms were hugging the shoulders of a gigantic coat, a short bare neck, a round, attentive face over a bald of the mask, several rich strands of hair flowing down the cheeks from under the ski cap. Suddenly, Blinchuk remembered that now it is the middle of November, and felt how hot he was, and realized that it was strange, that this was also a special effect…)

– In appearance, my father and I are nothing but clowns, right, comrade Colonel? – Said the lass-girl in the voice of the old witch. Father stepped from foot to foot. – Club props, folk festivals organization. Profession – a master entertainer! But do not be upset. Hello! As an old resident, I welcome you on our planet!

Blinchuk cleared his throat, removed the SKAR's304 belt from his shoulder and rose to his feet. The seat beneath him slammed, lifting. And it seemed to him that the Father grew taller at the same time as it slammed. Blinchuk was looking at him from the bottom up again.

– Good day to both of you, – he said. – May I come closer to greet you?

– Why not? – The lass asked. The girl. – You are much more radioactive than we are.

At this moment, Blinchuk jumping out of the track's body landed wrong and sprained the leg, the ankle. Kept the cursing to himself. Limping, he approached the alien couple. Somehow, while he was walking the Father suddenly diminished. Blinchuk wanted to rub his eyes, especially since it had just become a habit. Father was not two and a half meters tall, of course, not even two. He was only half a head taller than Blinchuk. An illusion, or what? And with this heat… What the hell is happening to me?!

The Father was stretching the hand to meet him. The only thing Blinchuck had time to notice was an engagement ring, deeply rooted in the thick ring finger, and a deafening handshake followed, which, incidentally, was easily met by Blinchuk, his hand was like a shovel too.

– It's nice, hello, – said the lass from above. – Here they call me the Father, and according to the passport, my name is Kalitin, Valentin Andreevich.

She also stretched a hand to Blinchuk. As a girl, palm down. Blinchuk gently squeezed the palm. The girl lowered her eyelashes, led her chin down, in a word, created an expression of a curtsy on her face.

– Hello, -she said in the same voice. – This is my daughter, Yana. She was born during the Lightning. She cannot walk on the ground, this will kill her.

During the last phrase, Blinchuk decided to play by their rules. According to the reports and the testimonies, what was happening during the Lightning was horrible, many and many refugees also needed psychiatric help. Those, who were lucky to get out of the Zone. And seems that this two stayed in. “How could I not hear that someone was not missing in the Lightning? How many more lies were in reports? We must evacuate them, of course”, he thought nevertheless.

“Now the Father will hit him with all his guns”, thought Nabis, who was listening attentively.

“Something is wrong here”, thought Korostylyov, “they are not lying and they are not crazy.”

Ensign Glyzin wasn't thinking anything, he was covering the chief, but Shultsev, who still had not decided where to put this damned mop, yes, he was thinking. And here is what he thought: “I'll throw it, say, under “shishiga”, while it's noisy and insane here. And I’ll find this poacher later.”

– Sergey Borisovich, it is a suicide to evacuate me and my daughter, – said the young lady, smiling kindly. There were dimples on her round cheeks with a curl near the nose. The word “evacuate” she denoted as a quote by intonation. – Because for you this is the abduction, and for us this is resistance and then certainly your untimely death. Why am I sure of that? Me and my daughter are not able to leave the Zone. And we will fight for our lives. – The girl hugged the Father by the neck and leaned her head on her shoulder. – The main thing is that it’s not about me and Yana. We just came to hand you an invitation. There is an opinion that you are going to be a commandant here for a long time. You will have a good nickname. I was asked to call you. So I strolled under your surveillance camera. – The Father thoughtfully nodded with the stump of the trunk on the gas mask, and the lady continued: – I was nearby, and this is not a big favor, here in the Zone we have plenty of time. On other days, even in buckets. Will you go to talk?

– With whom? – asked Blinchuk hoarsely.

– With responsible and knowledgeable people.

– Here, in the Zone?

– No-no, – said the Father through his daughter. – Sergey Borisovich, Comrade Colonel, personally you cannot go out into the Zone at all. You will perish, and your death will be very violent. You have it written on the face. Even one step into the Zone will kill you. And this will be a pity. A pity not even because of you: death is a girlfriend in the Trouble. But a pity because you seem to be the very useful man as the commandant of QZAI.

– How did you say? What is “QZAI”?

– Kapustin's Qarantine Zone of Abnormal Intensities. This is how it will be called… The Zone. And you will be called Pinya.

– Why – “Pinya”?.. – Blinchuk asked dumbfounded. – Where did you get all this…

– Here is what you have to understand right now… – the young lady continued very seriously, and the Father made a gesture, stopping and apologizing at the same time. – One second, – the lass said in a baritone. – Forgive me for interrupting. – The Father took up his trunk and lifted the mask on his forehead, revealing the face. Blinchuk jumped back, almost stumbling on his sprained leg. However, he would probably have stumbled also on the healthy one. – Here's my face as a sign of trust, – the girl said. – Even my daughter hasn't seen me. And will not see. In the Zone, everything that appears to you, according to personal observations or to the words of eyewitnesses or witnesses, any miracles, any wild assertions that you do not dare to repeat officially on the outside, on the Earth, in reports, at night in a bed to Lubov Antonovna, confidentially at the president's ear, is all true. This is real. Khrushchev's five-storey buildings fly, the dead live, the air is harder than steel, and there is only one step to the moon. Next year, on December 25th, President Gorbachev will resign on the eve of official collapse of the Union. Be prepared for this, by the way. You are now a politician. You have a great power, great influence. Big money. You will be hunted.

Blinchuk licked his lips.

– Are you mind readers, or what?

– Yes, – said the lass. The girl. Yana! – But not we are, I am. Yana is just a year old, she cannot even speak yet. And the future on your face is written in black and white.

– My future? – clarified Blinchuk, not believing that he's generally talking about clairvoyance. “As if Kashpirovsky hypnosis311 wasn't enough”, flashed in his head. “The chargers of water, the diggers of souls.”

– Not only yours, the global future. Don't you try to hide an irony, it's absolutely normal. And, in my opinion, Kashpirovsky is a cheater.

– Well, – said Blinchuk after a pause. – Cannot be clarified without a bottle. Who wants to talk to me? Where is he?

– Sasha-Kharon will admirably take you there. All you have to say is that Petrovich is waiting in his den. There you will also find any bottle you want. And Sergey Borisovich, do not punish Sasha, he does not even know himself that he should take you to Petrovich.

– And where is the “den” and this Petrovich he, surely, knows? – asked Blinchuk.

– You are the officer of a rare type, – Yana said in a deep chest voice of an experienced woman on a hunt. Here's what contained no provinciality – her art of the voice changing. This had a powerful effect. And, apparently, it demanded a lot of effort, because her heavy breathing became audible and she started to break off the phrases with an ellipsis. – Chernobyl had changed you a lot. You used to be… Orders, rolling “r” Instant suppression of the interlocutor… No objections from the lower rank or civilian the status below yours… Is it true? And now you accept other's… their right for justice. Even soldiers. Of course, this is Chernobyl. You do not fight for your shoulder straps, especially when no one is fighting you. Yes, apparently, Petrovich is right. You fit.

Blinchuk ate it all with a woman's passionate gurgling as if he ate a shot of vodka with a pickled mushroom. If it was a man talking he would tear that man apart. With rolling “r”. Besides, she was talking quietly. Or “he”? What the hell!

– That is why, – the woman continued, – the second thing you must understand: here in the Zone everyone knows much more than they say. A very important moment for professional and interpersonal communications. Do you understand? – Blinchuk nodded, as a cobra to a pipe. – Well, go now, you are expected elsewhere.

Blinchuk grunted, frowned for suggestiveness and said casually:

– So, accordingly, I’m supposed to send my group back?

– Why? Your protection is their job.

– And the guide? You are obviously in contravention with him.

– Funny expression. Just let it be. I'm not saying goodbye, Comrade Colonel. See you there in an hour.

– You are in the car with me?.. – suggested Blinchuk.

The Father put on the mask in one jerk.

– Me and little Yana will go straight, – said Yana in s child's voice. – Our own way.

Blinchuk easily turned his back to them and went to the car. He was being observed by eight eyes from the truck's body, but he turned to the cab and knocked on a window. The driver, an elderly man in a fishing sweater, rolled down the window. For some reason, clean cotton swabs were stuck in his nostrils.

– I am expected in Petrovich's den, – Blinchuk said to him. – Do you know where it is, buddy?

Kharon raised his eyebrows, not taking his eyes off, and nodded, starting the engine at the same time. Blinchuk climbed onto the back.

– Shultsev, – he said when sat down. – Get the mop out from under the car, take it back and rinse it. Perform. Did you see his face? – he asked everyone when Shultsev disappeared with a mop behind the toilet booth. – This Father?

Glyzin, Nabis, and Korostylyov exchanged glances with each other in two tricks.

– He's in a gas mask, – said Korostylyov.

– He has taken it off, – said Bllinchuk and now Korostylyov lifted an eyebrow.

– No, Comrade Colonel, sir, – said Glyzin. – He hasn't. I paid attention. It's to blame, of course.

Blinchuk blew out a gallon of air through his lips folded as a pipe, sat down straight, for a bit and put on his helmet.

– Mm, yes, – said Nabis.

– It is strange, but my tower cannot be seen from here, – said Blinchuk. – And these excavators are not mine. Seems that they are showing us some kind of a movie here. And again, it is the summer. Well, I will figure it out. With rolling “R”s, goddamn their mother.

Silent Shultsev came back, climbed onto the truck's body, sat down. Blinchuk pounded his fist on the back of the cab. The vehicle moved and, having left the Stand, immediately turned right.

Archive of Shugpshuits (Book of the Trouble)

File “Fenimore-1”

A fragment

Own decoding

(Orthographic mistakes of decoding corrected – S. Zh.)

(…)We are meeting in Bezhensk, in the park in front of the factory of Madam Lebedeva in the afternoon of 1^st May year two thousand and one. Of course, we knew each other before, that is not possible to live in Akhtubinsk Prezone and not to know Sverzhin-Fenimore, and if not to know him personally, then at least to know about him. Our acquaintance with each other was not at all the superficial, but he agreed for an interview for the first time, though on regular terms. The tracker with the “King Kong” rating, author and co-author of the most famous official tracks, conqueror of dinosaurs, co-author of the discovering of the Staggering Forest. A year ago he went from the Zone to Kazakhstan, poling321 the only known for today passage through the Hot (also known as Kazashsky) Corner. Naturally, no one except him would know how many unofficial tracks he knows. A good phrase.

He dresses casually, real jeans, good leather jacket, in his hand can of real beer. He is not armed. We say hello to each other, discuss the latest news about Antipov crew, who only have half-tank of fuel left for today, and there along with Valov they are starting to worry and suspect something. We do not talk about Earth matters, though there is an issue of Komsomolka rolled up, as it seems is showing from opened Fenimore's jacket.

– Okay, this way we’ll end up talking about the weather. – he says. – So, my ink slinger, a jackal of copying machines. Turn on your voice recorder and ask. What if the weather gets worse. See the clouds?

– You have been in the Zone since 1990, right?

– That’s right. Since the 30^th May. Only a few people here are older than me.

– And the regular military service, in fact, you served at the Polygon.

– That was it.

– Tell me about the ”Mother's cracks”.

– And what is that, Shugpshuits?

– What you all call me… Okay. Then tell me about captain Zhitkur.

– Why is that? I don’t know him. How can I know him? This was a legend.

– Vadim, I’m begging you. For real. Stop tricking, since you agreed to talk. “I don’t know this, I don’t understand that…” All the Ten knew captain Zhitkur. The man who walked the city with SMP332 and drove a “Willys”.

– But I didn’t serve in the Ten, my dear world dove. I served… No. I signed confidentiality agreement. For twenty- five years. Let’s say I served where now is the Second Epicenter.

– Okay, and doctor Vyatkin?

– I was familiar with him, of course. He was a doctor in Bezhensk till ninety-five, then he disappeared somewhere. But I knew him even before the army. He was deployed at the same time as me, you can say, we were hanging out together. In my unit. He as a Lieutenant, me as a private. Biennial from Chelyabinsk, doctor. Pediatrician, that is characteristic. Awesome guy, wearing glasses, lower lip dangling till navel, all he was dreaming was his rock collection of seventies… Totally civilian person, he was referring to the Commander of the section as: “Comrade Commander of the section”.

– But wasn’t the “headless Corporal” in your section in eighty-seven, in fact…

– You will not manage to live to the old age, Shugpshuits. Hmm… He was. How did you know?

– And wasn’t Captain Zhitkur raking there?

– I don’t have a clue. We could not leave the barracks. First of all, we were locked up there. Secondly, we ourselves were so scared to come out, that we covered the windows with blankets and would tear up any German.

– German?

– An officer. An officer – German, a goose – a cub, a youngster.

– We didn’t have the same words.

– You served?

– Well… yes.

– Local type of slang.

– Did you see that Corporal in person?

– Yes.

– Will you tell us?

– No. Bad memories.

– Terrifying?

– Well… no, just bad. Not for this sun. That cloud gone. And the beer is tasty. Some other time.

– Well… then Petrovich.

– And what is wrong with Petrovich?

– How did you get to know him, for real.

– As a matter of fact, he took me for the first mission. I was a “Yazov contractor”. And he was one of the best scouts, this Senior Ensign. And I happened to join his group.

– And did it go?

– Few of us survived. (Mockingly.) In fact.

– It just got stuck in my head. Talked yesterday with one muscovite over the phone.

– But you are yourself a muscovite.

– I am a troubler.

– In life, it seems you are a troubler. But the one who haven't been in the Zone. You are a magacitl341, this is who you are.

– Blinchuk also hasn’t been to the Zone.

– Blinchuk is a fisherman.

– I was prohibited by the Father.

– But what a liar you are, a fantast! The Father and Yana were dead a year before you! Or two…

Already habitual moment of my triumph. I am doing it not for the first time, and it always works brilliantly. Thank you, the Father. It is difficult to amuse a tracker. But I can. I am getting out moleskin from my bag, from moleskin – a grey envelope with typographic contour for stamp, in which letters S and A inscribed very ingeniously in five strokes. From envelope I am taking out the letter of the Father, addressed to me. Passing it over to Fenimore. The letter is short, he swallows it in a seconds. Shockingly he is cursing in the form I cannot translate in acceptable lexicon. Who, which, whom. To correct. He’s returning me the paper, stares at me, giving me back the can.

– Wow.

– Here it is, for real. Am I a magacitl?

– Okay, okay. The beer is yours, all what is left. Take it.

– Thanks. Zhenya-Turanchoks passed me this letter. Am I a liar?

– That’s already over. Over. You killed me and decided not to revive, left me as it is. And the Father. What a monster he was! The only survivor, what do you want… I was acquainted with him even before the Zone. He used to work in the hospital at the Ten, as a senior TB laboratory assistant… or a chief assistant … a Head of the laboratory, this is it! I stayed at the hospital for a long time in autumn of eighty-six, I broke my arm meanwhile there. And it was difficult not to notice him. Two meters tall, looking as a hybrid of Goga and Magoga. And since I'm a drawer, a calligraphist, so they asked me to make him some kind of a poster for the laboratory. And he happened to be a great guy. Alcohol, food, music. Call mama. And then we met already in the Zone. He recognized me straight away, rushed to me and hugged, almost dropping his Yana. She looked about ten then.

– But what happened to him in the Lightning, why he was in such a way in fact, and such a daughter? .. Was he telling you? How he survived? Where people disappeared? Or at least how they’ve gone?

– You know, yes, he told me … But I don’t know if I can tell this to you. You yourself know that he got you from the grave. And now I will return home – and there is some sort of telegram from him. “You are fucking over, barber’s cat”, for example, “die in agony…” In general terms: at the night of the Lighting they were covered in the maternity hospital by one of the “red rings”, that were burning that region of Kapustin. I don’t know details about his wife. But all were dead there, apart from him and his daughter. But was she his daughter actually?…

– So, they all just died? “Missing” is an official version.

Fenimore is keeping silent for quite a while. I already feel that the interview will soon be over. His face even got one-sided by a nervous tic. There was something deep, very deep.He had tried the Father’s story on himself long time ago, some of their wounds coincided, and now, I unintentionally opened the biggest one. What do I really know about Vadim Sverzhin, apart from the fact that he is a super tracker, mega-looter and a centenar?

– You are right. Caught me. They are missing. Now, I'm telling you the story. You already know about the “rings”… The fire on the “hoop” of the “ring” is from phosphorus, and inside, in the “eye”, all is getting burned into the ash, and time is not working properly. As I understood, he stayed with a newborn baby girl in that ash of the “eye” for a year, or more… What they ate, what they drank there? May be for them it counted to hundred years by the time the “ring” burnt out. He made up a cloak there for himself, and a stretcher for a girl. Created for himself some sort of a world, some myths… You know when I first ran into him in the Zone, we talked a little, and then suddenly he opened his cloak in a way a mute person is offering to you porno, and said: “Look, lining is clear asbestos!” And exactly, his cloak was covered by plates of asbestos from inside… He said it so proudly, as if he was glorifying his track to the Moon…

(The ones missing were confirmed as dead less than a year ago. No dead bodies yet were found anywhere in the Zone, town, the steppe, or the river. Fenimore – just like the rest of old trackers – also escaped a direct answer. In principle, they all are eager to talk about the missing ones when questioned about domestic animals, but you have to ask it cleverly: how is that possible that no one, none from the list of survived at the Lightning night didn’t remember about their home pets, animals; neither adults, nor children. And then they were tearing their hair: how could I forget my cat. Or didn’t try to save the cow, which was in the backyard. But I stopped asking this question after a lady, who was ten at the time of the Lightning night, and who hit my eye with a coffee cup remembering that she forgot her favorite hedgehog in her flat. What is more, later she told me that she saw a hedgehog when her mother was grabbing the documents from the sideboard. The hedgehog was sitting in his box near the entrance door, in the hall, and there was no panic yet, her dad was a Colonel, and her mother said: don’t forget your Klyopa, here is a basket. Girl took the basket, but not the hedgehog. And this happened to everyone. A famous aunt Alisa Rybakova, the owner of “Chipka”, is still mourning her goats. She even went into the Zone, into impassable private sector next to her house in order to see how they were. Nothing. Both people and animals went missing without a trace.

So that I didn’t start catching Fenimore as well.)

– And did he prophesy anything to you?

– No.

(And I can see that here Fenimore is not lying. And the Father was not trying to give him any predictions, and Fenimore himself was not asking for anything like that. Yes, I very abruptly lost initiative, letter didn’t work out even ten percent of time from usual one hundred and fifty and I, in dismay, was trying to change the subject.)

– You joined the “important ones”… in what time?

– In a year?..What am I saying? Less, of course. I spent a summer off from the army. Met autumn and New Year on the marge of the Staggering Forest… And this is it, already in February I put in a “notice of resignation” to Blinchuk. And he put his stamp.

– And why was Blinchuk signing these applications for “Yazov people”, do you know?

– I know it perfectly well, but this is not my secret. Here is a hint: talk to Petrovich, as you are in good relations with him. For real. By the way, they were introduced to each other by the Father! I remember that day very well.

(Pause. He looks at me, considering something. Smiling.)

– I will tell you. Autumn of nineteen-ninety. That time I wasn't in the “Pipes” myself, but I was close. And there was a story… Accidentally there happened to be a local guide in Blinchuk’s guard, from that area… hmm… Seryozha Nabis.

– Nabis?! Precisely Nabis?

– Well yes.

(He is smiling.)

– Nabis is a nickname, I already don't remember his surname. Such a dark-haired guy, curly, handsome up to the point of taking and killing him, casting a gypsum statue from him, and painting him instead of Socrates in the art shops. He was local, it seems.

(…)

CHAPTER 2

As all knowlegeable people Nabis went to the “Two Pipes” bar more than once, he knew when they were going there, – and was following the road, fully relying on Kharon. The “neutral” was safe in a sense of gitiks and attacks, may be only “shopototams” could reach a human here, as they have reached the Colonel today. And also everybody was always having a back thought, scared that the Zone border may move here and following Murphy’s law you may be caught. Just like under an icicle from the roof. Right now “shishiga” was moving slowly along the driveway of apartment block number 9. And number 9 (Volgogradskaya st.) itself was already in the Zone, and its corners were all covered with mushrooms, looking like the oil bubbles and statue’s eyes at the same time, watching you, wherever you go. And in the flat number 17 of this house (on the third floor of the middle entrance) in the middle of a totally ordinary room, Misha Bulygin, tracker-the Sergeant, had drowned to death. Drowned as he was the first who entered that living room. As soon as the “neutral” slightly moves, here you are – in the town Zone. And then almost certainly straight away – it is over. There were a huge number of different shit of unknown kind, from identified by “risks” still “heavy” and “light” places to very aggressive, totally unpredictable animals and insects, in Kapustin. The city was passable, of course, and very rich with loots, but the most of the trackers who where known by Nabis still preferred to hunt for loots and mark with poles the tracks, ordered by the army and scientists, only in the steppe. The city was swallowing the trackers very greedily, and also the following fact was recorded there: the power and intensiveness of local anomaly in the steppe was going down gradually, gravitational intensives degraded, shrunk and even became passable through, killing climate anomalies were slowing down, and you could meet fewer and fewer of vacuum pockets. But in Kapustin, at the airfield and at the premises of the army divisions, where civilization and technology concentratedly were continuing to crap the planet, all was staying the same as on the next day after the Lightning… And village Kapustino, nearby to which general Voznjuk and academic Korolyov built the rocket city Kapustin (officially – Leninsk, to confuse adversaries as there was one more Leninsk not far away, but totally civil) was deadly impassable, hardly a fews were saved from there, and no one knew what is happening there in the labyrinths of the private households… The only part the Zone didn’t touch was a small part of the village after the Astrakhan road, called the “Dogs’ village” since the beginning of times. Twenty thousand people lived in the town. There were almost six thousands in the village. Almost fifteen thousands from the city survived. From the village – less than a hundred.

“Shishiga” turned left from the courtyards, onto the actual Volgogradskaya, town’s external north street. On this road, you may drive half a kilometer almost until the turn towards the stadium. The car was buzzing softly, you could hear how the steering wheel is spinning, speeds are getting switched, how Kharon is knocking with the back of his hand on the cabin ceiling expressing some specific driver’s feelings. Accompanied ones were silent, trying not to look to the sides, not turning their heads. With his peripheral, the main tracker's viewing, Nabis saw that the vomiting Ensign aimed his attention towards him not only once or even twice, probably imagining elements of targets on a silhouette of a new, freshly and sharply smelling enemy. This vomiting guy seems not a bad fighter, but a total fool. A fisherman.

Near Prostokvashino (unfinished block number 36) Kharon slowed down and knocked on the cabin’s roof. Nabis coughed. Worth getting a cape. But these don’t have capes…

– Comrade Colonel, comrades officers and warrant officers, – he said in a guide’s voice. – The thirty-sixth quarter. Ahead is the steppe. A corner of a housing estate. Here the “neutral” expands, both climate and time is changing in it. Now we will enter into a very big air mirror. Objective, it is a barrier, not a hocus-pocus. – They were watching him with the same face expressions. But no, even with the same faces. Nabis looked down. – On the other side there is other time and rain, – he continued. – Keep calm. In the end, there where we are going will be a place to get dry. But this is not the most important thing. – Nabis was trying to find the words. – Further down the road we may meet aaa.. illegal guests of the Zone. Practically, all of them are local citizens. We are going by invitation, comrade Colonel, I am asking to keep your patience. Otherwise we may end up in a battle. Everyone we can meet here is armed and is very high-strung. And they all shoot well.

– Talks roundly, yes? – said Shultsev with perfectly tuned hysterics. – Who do you work for, contractor, who pays you? Where will you turn your gun? He is having a hocus-pocus here…

– Shultsev, set aside, – Blinchuk announced without raising his voice. No, he is definitely, not an armchair Colonel. Not a checking type, but a doing one. – So, the air mirror, rain and illegals accordingly… Well, let it be. Guide, and we are definitely going to meet some illegals?

– We may meet, – answered Nabis. – I warn you just in case. And, comrade Colonel. We don’t say here a “guide”. Either a “guiding” or a “heading”. – He shook his palm in front of himself, looking for explanation. – Well that’s a local specialization.

– Sorry? – re-asked Korostyloyv.

– Specialization. Did I say it wrong?

Korostylyov delayed for a moment, looking up.

– “Specifics”, in short.

– Anyway, a “guide” sounds offensive, – said Nabis implacably. – Politeness values in the Zone. With all respect. But everyone should remember about this.

Blinchuk cursed. Laughed.

– So informative today, right up to gut-wrenching. If “heading” then ”heading”.

Glyzin snorted.

– For all the times I’ve been here, I’ve never heard anything like this… But well. Particularly local, – Blinchuk singled out “local”, – illegals? May we meet them?

Seems that these military trackers were not informed that their superior is going to ride on the “neutral”… But Nabis didn’t want to risk. Guiding will be demanded. And he said vastly:

– There may be contract soldiers. And even professional soldiers. In their free time.

– Korostylyov, did you hear this? – said Blinchuk with a laugh.

– Yes sir, – the Major replied. – Corresponds to our information.

– So, okay, group, listen to my command, – said Blinchuk. – I am ordering in advance to set aside any actions to stop illegal slash poaching visits of the Zone.

His group almost in one voice responded with “yes”, and not Nabis, but Blinchuk himself whacked his fist into the cabin. Kharon loudly pulled the lever, “shishiga” drove into a huge mirror standing here, into the rain sector of the “neutral’s” Dog’s curve.

The accompanied ones at the same time and in identical manner responded together “yes”, no worse than ten seconds ago, and cursed. Rain turned into the wall straight away, behind the clouds the sun from noon jumped off to three o’clock afternoon. Nabis once again held back his desire to take out a cellophane raincoat from his backpack and throw it over himself. “I’d feel bad. Somehow it wouldn’t be a Russian way of behavior.” And to offer to the fisherman-Colonel to cover up together – he also would rather not. Fuck it. Though… Perhaps, he would share it with the Major.

– Where does all this water go? – asked Blinchuk, spitting, in human voice.

– Into the storm drain, – replied Nabis and managed to point with his finger, and Blinchuk managed to notice the storm drain grill, which was greedily swallowing clear flows. The street asphalt was the purest. Even the mud was the purest, washed through hundred waters, sparkling as new. “Shishiga” crossed over the curb, slid on left starboard, getting out to the wasteland, and started passionately, snuggling, buzzing to overcome the mounds and ditches of the wasteland on the site of an old hospital. Clinging by wheels over broken bricks in wet ground, over leftovers of former asphalt roads and pavements. Everyone went quiet, clinging to armrests.

– And where to from the storm drain? – Blinchuk asked, when it stopped throwing them around.

– And this question is for scientists.

– Huh! – Blinchuk said and went silent.

– No question. It evaporates on the dry side, – Ensign Glyzin said suddenly.

The car shook on rails. The group grabbed their wet slick armrests again. Kharon was forcing it through Astrakhan piece of Privolzhskiy railroad, lost for the world. Ahead, a carelessly sketched out by a skillful hand in three moves with a wide brush and a white ink on a wet dark-grey paper, was a gigantic four-story building belonging to town boiler management. Above it two pipes flaunted in rainy mist. At the empty parking in front of the facade of the management Kharon turned around, aimed carefully and neatly passed in between piles of concrete slabs, which were not on purpose but surely blocking the entrance to the courtyard of the management “bypassing the checkpoint”. The accompanied ones even stood up on the carcass watching how many centimeters are left from the board till the plate, armchairs banged by short burst. And straight away they’ve met the first illegal. It was a woman. A simple Russian woman.

Woman was returning from the a farther mission. To Nabis it was clear as a classic vodka. Nabis knew this woman. In the “Bezhensk” camp everyone knew everyone, but in the Zone everyone knew everyone for certain. The woman’s name was aunt Alise, her nickname was Fisherwoman, and her surname was Rybakova. On earth she was a Senior Cashier in a village council, her daughters and husband died in the Lightning, and only a young son-in-law survived, who had cancer from before the Trouble times. Americans told her, that there is a hope to cure him in Germany free of charge. There they say, such patients survive, and live long lives. So aunt Alise was collecting and treasuring cash for an abribe. But not for German doctors, it was for those who could allow to her son-in-law away from the quarantine. Yesterday its cost was fifteen thousand dollars from poachers above the river Stoypka. For two large “rainbows”, which aunt Alise was carrying now on the beam in two bags Petrovich pays one hundred fifty each, and at the external border of the Pre-Zone, at Tsarevsky checkpoint, for example, – it could be paid up until two hundred on a good day. Profit! Aunt Alise was wearing a hazmat suit, her head was tied in a pirate way with a nylon kerchief, rented AK47 was heavily bending aunt Alise down towards the earth surface, hanging on her chest in a wrong way. Noticing the car, she calmly and indifferently gave the way, waited till the mechanism passes, and moved again, continuing her journey, which began no less than yesterday morning. She will return to the camp by the evening, will pass the machine gun to a skinner (most probably to the extra-term Sergeant-Major Palkin), will take back the deposit from him, which he always wants to keep, will reach the tent, feed her son-in-law, clean up after him, and then, without undressing, will fall on the bed, into the dream that is stronger than death. And the day after tomorrow, she will walk for thirty kilometers to sell the loots… Everyone on the carcass, turning their heads, watched her go. Kharon slid to the warehouses, aunt Alise disappeared from view behind the corner of the town hall, and then suddenly major Korostylyov sat straight and began cursing through his teeth, hissing and spitting, and no one stopped him, until Kharon parked near the warehouse hangar overpass and switched off the engine. And even then, no one stopped Korostylyov, he calmed down himself.

– Arrived! – Andreich Kharon prononsed from the cabin his first word for today.

Blinchuk was staring at Nabis unkindly.

– Arrived, – Nabis confirmed. – It’s here, in the hangar.

– What’s there?

– Some sort of hotel with a bar. It's called “Two pipes”.

– Poachers?

Nabis signed.

– “Smugglers”.

– Why so? – Blinchuk asked.

– In America it's “smugglers”, comrade Colonel, – Korostylyov said. – mean contrabandists. Slang.

– Fuck this, – Blinchuk said. – Trackers, smugglers.. Troublers, damn them all!.. Good, and who are the “magacitls”?

– These are for example, you and me, comrade Colonel, – Korostylyov said.

Blinchuk cursed.

– Say, Nabis, do our American friends after all are also illegally treasuring in their free times? – Korostylyov asked. – Why not to say now? We are already here. We ourselves can notice it unexpectedly.

Nabis wiped his wet face with his wet palm and jumped off the carcass to skyway under the tent. He made his deal. There was a bench near the door, cut in the closed hangar’s gate. He sat on it, took out cigarette case with chopped Astrakhan’s “astra” inside, and lit a cigarette, thinking that this is the third for today, which means there are three more left. Nabis was trying to quit, gently cutting his habit step by step. He was planning to live long. And in America.

Just like they had forgotten about him, all four passed him one by one on the way to the door. Blinchuk was walking first, right into the battle, Korostylyov was the last, covering the backs… And still he nodded to Nabis when catching up with him, before disappearing in the bar waiting room. Yes, the most dangerous of them is the Major. Especially because he is humane. Time passed. Nabis was smoking. Rain was roaring, “shishiga” was cooling down under it, you could neither see nor hear Kharon behind the flooded windshield. Suddenly there were safe steps on the right, shoes were splashing through the puddles. Nabis looked up. Welcoming him from far by a show of hands, familiar contractor Fenimore was approaching “Two pipes”. Here Kharon blinked headlights, Fenimore without even lowering his arm, made his next step to the right and disappeared in some gap in between the building extensions. Nabis smoked till it reached his lips, threw cigarette butt into the rain and leisurely went to search for him.

He was glad that he met Fenimore precisely here and now. They had some business, including one urgent, trade negotiations, where Fenimore was a buyer and Nabis – a broker. “But the main reason of his satisfaction was in the other matter”, though Nabis, “not being a reflexive person, didn’t recognize it.” All the morning he had to behave diplomatically, which was against his nature to the point of disgust. He was a person of a brood, he spent all his childhood and adolescence in a village brood, where his speech defect didn’t matter, as well as his intelligence, honor and conscience. Then suddenly the brood was over, when his friends and buddies started to get arrested and little later the ones left were called in the army. Nabis didn’t get on court trial for murder out of pure luck, and didn’t get into the army due to child disability, but loneliness and suddenly appeared necessity to earn for life crashed him. There was the only one way to make cash here for people of his level: fish-cathroughr. And a poacher always is an individualist and a loner, doesn’t matter if the crowd is going for a concrete deal. And all his poaching life Nabis was tormented by memories of long days and even longer evenings of sweet, full of sense, adventures, pride from inevitable victories and glorious defeats in the village brood of the “sixes”. The year 66 was rich for boys in Kapustino, their generation was unsurpassed in numbers, even in Volzhsky people heard about them. They had been visiting it once a month for a year, to have fights with locals at the discotheque, squeezing out oil from them, scratching their skins. Brothers’ circle, familiar subjects, health and easiness, search, chase, destruction and triumph. They didn’t even drink a lot. The loss this lifestyle was painful, as untimely arrived old age. The Lighting scared Nabis, but also suddenly gave a hope for return of the brood, adult, long-term brood, as those survived, locked in the strict quarantine, instantly (from the beginning) became relatives, were holding on to each other as a family. And a few demonstrations which took a place after the first months of the Lighting, gathered everyone, who could walk, and there was a power, and there could be a stone thrown at the head on anyone, – this could well be. Especially, look what is happening in the country: self-governance, exchanges, joint ventures, self-management. But once hopes died, military pressed down, and Americans didn’t come to help, bitches, didn’t step in. He had to get hired as a guide, in order to have more than daily allowance for refugee. To yield for daily ration. For good ration, though, so that the yield happened to be a deep one, a breaking one. And then the Zone called, discovering in Nabis an excellent flair, registered him, beckoned him. The very first loots sold – foolishly over the counter – suddenly brought a fat take in. Nabis risked treasuring on the black market and in a few walks – he's not an aunt Alise, after all, to carry only two “rainbows”. So at once he was able to buy a “zhiguli” car. But was not allowed to buy it. And realized that he aggravated his defeat, got himself into the army trap so deep, firmly caught in necessity of diplomatic intercourse, necessity of compromise. He wasn’t stupid, he managed to live like this, but this was giving him nervous spasms in the evenings, his professional hatred, his core of a street guy, his memory about the deadly “encore” kick to the man’s head began to rust slowly, and rust thins out. He was afraid to lose it, and to lose it with military – his employers – meant to die physically. (The vomiting Ensign today was, of course, on the very edge of death, but Nabis was at the very same place, and much closer to the cliff.)

He didn’t understand that time should pass, new life should find its habitual track. But he was lucky again, he lived through the first months of his nervous breakdown, he had enough of nerve, he didn’t collapse into drinking, didn’t kill anyone. And so, about a month ago, some movement in between illegals began, to unite into artels, and objectively this central purpose had a future, was suggesting some sort of collective, habitual power of signature in circle. And all diplomacy, all literal squiggles, all luxury of human communication went at last to hell. Because a gang is a gang, back is covered, all bitches will die today, and we will never die. Reset your old age, you have reached, felt the bottom.

Fenimore was a prominent member of this movement, even though yet staying in the military tracker status. And he was a guy. He could talk and do, and he understood. So, after the stress from inability to strangle Ensign Shultsev scot-free the very thing was to talk with some understanding guy, even though not a local one, but without masks, without decorations, without show off. And with benefit. Long time there were no such opportunity, everybody Is either creatures without concepts, or police people without a law. Or suckers, ordinary people.

Fenimore settled down in a “hut with green table”. Lots of hidden places like this were near the bar, some were preserved since earth days, some were made by trackers. What was there to make really. Putting over a head piece of slate or tar was the only thing you have to do to climb up in between technical booths or factory walls. And no one really worried about getting wet, the “neutral” – is not the Trouble. Put a tar or something similar under your feet, boxes or chocks for a sitting place, and here we go – a badly prepared meeting room or a room for celebrating the outing of the mission without extra ears and not under vicious sharp dead eye of Petrovich.

– Hello, Seryoga, – Fenimore said.

– Hi, Vadik.

– I didn’t get it, I walk, and they give me signs.

– I am a guiding on duty today. Brought a newbie. – Nabis threw a broken box away and took out the new one from the pile. Sat down, moved his buttocks. Reliable. Put the gun down on the table (piece of wood, top of which was marked by green paint), close to exactly the same gun of Fenimore. Only that Fenimore’s magazine was from a machine-gun, the fortieth.

– You mean that Blinchuk?

– Well yes. Petrovich lured him.

– Petrovich’s plans – plans of people, – Fenimore said chuckling.

– Petrovich is smart up to his ass of course.

– Met aunt Alise?

– Almost ran her over by car. “Rainbows” are so huge and colorful, where does she dig for them?

– That is her deal, Seryoga. I will not cross her road.

– Yes, no talk here.

– But didn’t you go to the bar?..

– I am a guiding, not a fisherman. I am not with them, I'm only guiding them on duty.

– Clear, – Fenimore said. – In all, Seryoga, we crossed each other at the right moment. Have you seen your friend?

– Friends like this should be stomped by goats. In school he was always in the way, that is all friendship. Four-eyed schmuck. Mother from connection point, dad… – Nabis held himself back. – But here, nothing to say, lucky bastard, with flair, not a cheater in the Trouble. Have to admit. In short, he made his points. He was there for real. And he described the red house with no help, and confirmed writings on the checkpoint.

Fenimore rubbed his face hard with both hands.

– Is the track lags in timing?

– He says, in places. He walked one leg objectively for a week. And it is strange there also…

– What?

– He was fed up trying to explain, and I – trying to get it. Muttered something. Just as I said – a schmuck, cannot steal or lie in wait. He still reads Phonics by syllables. Said that he had sort of to jump on a springboard. And there is a couple kilometers at a jump.

– You mean, there is a springboard?!

– Exactly. A difficult track. But was given to a fool.

Fenimore thought. Rain was knocking on the tent, like someone was throwing peas into the pan.

– Okay, won’t be clarifying all particulars, it’s your body. But did he enter the point itself?

– He says, he got scared. That means he really didn’t enter. What are you assuming there, Vadik? And how much is for me?

– Slow down for a second. One more question: was he there at daytime? In the evening?

This was a very precise question, based on the honest answer Fenimore could buy a Nabis’ guy. That is why Nabis crossed his hands on the chest, slightly leaned back on the box and stayed silent waiting for the answer to his question, which was surely more important.

– I am looking for a life water there, – Fenimore said.

Nabis shrugged his shoulders a little, and smoothly (not too much) shook his head: what did you say? Keep it simple, as for the horse.

– A place where you can collect and take out some health.

Fenimore was talking seriously.

– And my stake in it?

– But don’t you need just some health? – Fenimore asked with an interest. – Pour into a flask and carry with you. Someone injured you, you take a sip, and here you go – alive again. Genghis Khan would die for such a thing.

– And then would strangle you. Not funny, Vadik.

– Not funny, – Vadim agreed. – In short, I am suggesting you a artel. I am the head, you are the main. Collecting people by agreement. We have veto right, all that shit. Ours seventy percent are always half-and-half. And we are not walking by bumpers, neither beak nor huz.

– And your contract?

– I promised to Petrovich not to jump off till February. Here he is right, everybody needs phones in the Zone, and we will need them.

– Am I in the share with phones?

– Next month they will bring honey ointment for your back, Lida Lebedeva told me.

– Not a shitty partner you are.

– Very much so. Not giving you or me a change to scrounge.

Diplomatic lever got switched in Nabis off the point.

– It sounded ambiguously, – he noticed.

Fenimore was silent for few seconds.

– Well, let’s discuss the work of Stanislav Lemm. You said, Sergey, that you had the thickest volume at home? – He drummed on his teeth with nails, like in the movie about “ShKID”351. – Or shall we move directly to women, Nabis? Where to get them from, how to touch them?

Diplomacy, fuck it. If Nabis was happy to see someone in his brood, that was Fenimore. Or himself in his, in worst case scenario. He had to sit down at the same place where he stood up. And to pay penalty, straight away until it became rough.

– Okay, Vadik, sorry. Colonel with nerds got me into political correctness today from early morning. Yes Sir, happy to serve, thanks, I am so grateful. Just loaded off some extra dirt, but not to where I should. Sorry.