by Alex Sapegin
“On that note, allow me to take my leave. Volodya, the young man in the reception room, is from now on the commander of the people we’ve provided for you. Starting now, you don’t take a single step without a bodyguard. Until next time.”
“Goodbye.”
* * *
It was quiet in the apartment. His wife hadn’t yet come back from work. Irina, as always, would be back with the rising of the stars. Iliya walked into the children’s room on tip-toe. Olga was drawing. In the middle of the room, on a big piece of white poster paper, she’d drawn a dragon. Kerimov, not bothering his daughter, sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Olga color the mythical beast, her tongue slightly protruding out of concentration. The drawing looked phenomenal. You couldn’t tell it was drawn by a 9-year-old. Bon got up from his dog bed and, his claws clicking against the floor, walked over to Iliya. The dog’s heavy, hairy head laid on Iliya’s knees. The scientist’s right hand was covered in his thick fur as he patted Bon’s neck. The dog heaved a sigh and closed his eyes, enjoying the massage.
“Like that, boy?” Bon gave a loud “pufff” in response. Scratch me, it meant, don’t stop. Kerimov smiled sadly.
Olga set her crayons aside and turned to her father. He saw a puzzled look on her face, then an understanding one. She got up off the floor, sat down beside her dad on the bed and covered his hand with her small palm.
“It’ll be okay, Dad.” His daughter’s warmth and understanding made him feel better.
The door downstairs slammed; they heard keys hit the shelf. Not taking her shoes off, Irina went straight to her room. Never a moment of down time for that girl.
“Go on, keep coloring, my dear,” Iliya said to Olga. “It looks great.”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry, not to work. I’m going to talk to Irina.”
Irina was sitting in front of the mirror, giving herself what seemed like a total makeover.
It was a familiar sight: clothes strewn all over the bed and the floor, a lace bra hanging from the dresser knob, makeup, books, and other objects in every corner and on every surface. It looked like a small tornado had gone through the bedroom.
“Did you need something, dad?” Irina asked, putting on eyeliner.
“We need to have a serious talk.”
“Dad, how ‘bout not right now. My friends are waiting for me.”
“Let them wait. They won’t break.”
“Dad!” Irina jumped up.
“Sit down,” Iliya said calmly and a little annoyed. Irina obediently sank down on the chair. Her father’s heavy glance and tone of voice made it crystal clear that there was no room for antics and did not promise anything good if she disobeyed….
Russia. Somewhere not far from N-ville. Two weeks later…
Two hours dragged on like Monday after a busy weekend. The minibus, with its thick curtains and a driver that was separated from the passengers by an opaque divider, gently swayed from side to side over the potholes, its engine roaring from time to time. Olga hadn’t yet finished watching her cartoons when she fell asleep on her father’s lap. Iliya closed his laptop, carefully folded his coat and slid it under his daughter’s head. Volodya, sitting across from the Kerimovs, smiled warmly. “Will we be there soon?” Iliya asked him silently, just by tapping his watch. The bodyguard shrugged. He was never on site.
Two weeks, unlike the last two hours, had flown by unnoticed. The day after his memorable conversation with the General, Iliya Evgenevich was immersed in the hustle and bustle of re-structuring the institute and forming the research groups. Besides everything else, he still had the responsibility of placement of equipment in the new center, where the first and, on paper, only group was officially registered. Dozens of technicians were once again monitoring the apparatus and the control center. There was plenty of work to do. The next launch was possible no sooner than two or three weeks, weather permitting. Unlike his group, the third group had things already well underway. It was decided to conduct the first major launch onto the planet where Andy was living. Kerimov had handed today’s hustle and bustle over to someone else in order to attend.
Fifteen minutes later, the wait was over. Under the wheels of the bus, the joints of the reinforced concrete slabs knocked. The engine gave a final roar, and the vehicle stopped. Behind the thick curtains, Kerimov could see the shadows of people approaching the bus. A moment later, the side door opened.
“Please exit the vehicle,” a man said.
Iliya took Olga by the hand.
“Volodya, my laptop….” The bodyguard nodded. “Bon, come on.”
The dog got off the bus too. He circled his owner a few times and lifted his hind leg over the front wheel of the stuffy, smelly bus. The guards did not expect to see the dog. A pair of sentries immediately pointed short machine guns on the dog, who was watering the wheel.
“As you were,” a voice said to the guards from the guardhouse. The major general was coming to greet them.
“Hello, Mr. Kerimov,” he said quietly.
“Hello, major general.”
“Let’s go. I hope we haven’t offended you with such a ‘happy’ welcome?”
“No.”
“Excellent. We have a few security checks to get through first; warn your daughter. Then we’ll get down to business.”
* * *
The elevator creaked as it got lower and lower. With a quiet rustle, staircases swept past.
“We’re going way down,” Iliya said to no one in particular. The general shrugged indifferently. A “ding” announced the end of the journey. The doors opened to either side. “Wow!”
The scientist was duly impressed. He had been expecting to see a narrow hallway, not a large room with a twenty-foot-high ceiling. Olga corrected her glasses. She was silent the whole way. Numerous security checkpoints seemed unable to shake her equanimity. The general motioned for them to follow him.
Iliya observed the many people working behind the glass walls. An ideal cleanliness reigned. The floor, ceiling, and walls seemed to have been treated with dust- and dirt-repellent chemicals.
“We’re almost there.” The general passed a card through the reader of the electromagnetic lock of the next door.
“Oh wow!” The view behind the glass broke through Olga’s wall of equanimity. Kerimov remained silent, because he could only express himself with interjections.
An enormous cave, filled with the lighting of powerful projectors, hung over the little people-ants. Fifty yards from the glass gallery, they could see the blocks installed of the teleportation apparatus. Dozens of technicians in pure white overalls were buzzing around the “barrels” which were the accumulators.
“They’re assembling phase two,” the general explained. “They launched the first one three days ago, after fine-tuning.” Kerimov nodded. They’d completed the task 24 hours ahead of the deadline.
“Where did you put the transition chambers?”
“Lower, at the optimal focus point. The transition chambers technically belong to Rudin.”
“Who’s that?”
“You wouldn’t recognize his name. It’s a completely different domain. Let’s just say his employees used to work for Biotab. Most of the personnel from the biological defense sector have been sent here on assignment out of Obolensk.” Iliya nodded in understanding.
“Do they come from the Petersburg Research Institute of especially pure products and Lyubuchany?”
“Plenty of everyone. There are quite a few more biologists and microbiologists here than physicists. Crazy people. I’m sick of them already. They shake tubes and canisters of formaldehyde, yell at me for not letting them into the other worlds, and always need something. They’d only just assembled the apparatus when they started to creep around me like eels already. Some of them promised to be the first to take this center by storm. I had to threaten to shoot them before they finally calmed down. You’ve got it good; they’
ve sent the most experienced microbiologists and bacteriologists to the first group. Although, I really can’t complain. We’re here.” The general opened the last door.
“Well hello, you apes!” Iliya hugged Alex and patted Paul on the shoulder. Olga stepped to the side and watched the happy young men greeting her father, smiling, saying something. Several of them just waved.
Today’s launch was carried out using two teams. The second team only assembled the apparatus, and the people worked together with Chuiko’s group, which was deemed the main group for work on the “aliens” (people from the other worlds). The Bandar-logs were on cloud nine: Remezov became the assistant director of the second group while Oleg became one of Samoi’s leading specialists! Only Alex was needed everywhere. His mathematical mind was necessary on all fronts. As a result, he got the list of commanding personnel at the base. This immediately made him the target of all sorts of jokes. Just because you’re now a higher-up doesn’t mean you get respect!
The new operator’s room was three times larger than the original. The main screen was a compilation of dozens of plasma panels. It took up half the wall. The secret service spared no expense when it came to technical equipment. The brand new servers and computers were a pleasant sight for everyone to see.
“Wow, you’ve really outdone yourselves,” Iliya joked caustically. “Who’s overseeing the launch?”
“Chuiko is the senior-level staff member on it,” Remezov answered, glancing at the major general.
“He’s moving up in the world, that Paul Chuiko! How long till we begin?”
“Twenty minutes. Will you help us, fairy girl?” Denis asked Olga. The nickname stuck.
“Tell the operators to take their stations. Let’s get ready, people,” Paul’s voice blasted over the loud speakers.
* * *
Iliya and Olga were standing in front of the main screen. Olga squinted at the giant disk of the light-blue planet emerging from behind the mountains. There was a different exit point this time. Instead of a Sequoia forest, the spectators saw a wide, sparkling river.
“He’s not here,” Olga said.
“What do you mean? Where’s Andy?” Iliya said in surprise. The operators and the technicians all looked at Olga questioningly.
“There!” The blue planet shining on the world disappeared behind a large cloud. “He’s there,” she repeated, pointing to the planet that had disappeared behind the cloud.
Nelita. Andy…
Bright stars above his head and cold, cruel, intense cold penetrating throughout his whole body. Not a drop of heat. The amulet had sucked up everything, up to the very last drop. Andy struggled to crawl ashore. Where had he been thrown this time?
Clinging to the thin branches of shrubs that resembled Earth’s purple osier and slipping over the moist clay, he pulled his disobedient body to the dry leaves that covered the ground on a small hillock. Targ! His teeth chattered. The wings of some nocturnal bird rustled overhead. He heard a gurgling sound coming from the right, about five yards away. It sounded like large bubbles bubbling up out of something. Bul, bu-bu-bulp. His numb muscles tightened; his trembling subsided for a while. A strange creature came into view, sitting right on very edge of the water where it met the clay shore. It looked like a cross between a toad and a fish. If based on the hind part of the creature, you thought it was an amphibian, the wide fishtail and small scales beginning immediately behind its webbed feet, which raised the toothy mouth upwards, would teach you otherwise. The “foad” (fish-toad) puffed up its throat sac, making another loud bubbling sound. The call of the ringleaders was picked up by a whole regiment of the throaty beasts; the song the foads rang through the night.
The tension that held Andy subsided. He laid down on the leaf-covered ground and turned over. Again! I’ve made ANOTHER unexpected leap! Who could have guessed it would turn out like that? The stupid hunk of metal! His right fist beat his chest.
“Hrr-r-r, aaah.” Pain like a bright flash pierced the interworld traveler from head to toe. It was so intense he curled up in the fetal position. A red-hot volcano flared up in his chest. “Ah, hr-hr,” Andy tried to catch his breath.
Hearing the sounds he was making, the foads fell silent for a while. A few minutes later, the “bulp”-gurgling sounds came back from somewhere far off. The water was lapping onto the shore softly, and the many voices of the choir broke the silence once more.
After waiting for the flame of pain to go out, Andy cautiously raised himself on his elbows and examined himself. He seemed okay, except for the fact that his chest and stomach were covered in some dried mud. A moment later, it became clear that it was not mud, but dried blood. Where could he have gotten wounded? Memory refused to suggest anything. Between the moment when he was literally sucked into the funnel of the portal and the moment he woke up on an icy hummock at the very edge of some strange lake, or a swamp, there was a gap. Interesting: how many carcasses of self-taught magic artisans are lying in the ice and slippery mud? And where did the ice come from? You gotta look hard to find and get into a block of ice in the middle of a warm summer. Although, the ice could have appeared as a residual phenomenon from the transfer spell. That’s probably it.
But still, I don’t get where the blood came from? I woke up on my back….
He carefully laid down again on his back. His chest ached. The pain came in waves. Andy listened to his body attentively. He got the impression that he wasn’t himself, but just a small part of the former were-dragon. The lion’s share of his “I,” that energy, his attitude and understanding of the world around him, that he was used to and melded with while in dragon form, was left behind. He felt these were all left in his “pocket” in “the reverse side,” where he used to keep money, weapons, and important objects. His soul strove to recover the losses, but all attempts to find what he’d lost hit a wall.
The wall that separated him from the lost half of his “I” stood firmly. In order to break the barrier to his consciousness, he had to break through to the astral, but in the state he was in, he could only dream of great feats. His fist hit the ground. The movement was rewarded with a new serving of pain. He felt as if someone had poured boiling water on his chest. How long would it last? How much could he endure? The decision to dull the sensation capabilities of his nerve endings made itself. As soon as he thought of it, it was done. As much as possible, he relaxed and dove into settage. In a flash, he fell out of it again.
A few seconds was enough to go into shock from what he saw, use up all his current powers of concentration, and remember a few details of the recent past. It was a sight to see. His internal store of magical reserves was empty. Not a drop of mana was left. Not a single drop! He felt as if he’d been sucked dry and then dried off with a blow dryer to boot. Compared to this discovery, the black sun-shaped scar on his chest where the amulet had ripped itself to freedom seemed like just a detail. The walls of oblivion cracked, opening the way to scrappy memories.
...The runes, arranged in strict order, looked like the facets of a crystal changed from raw crystallized carbon into a stunning diamond. As an experiment, he activated the first rune. The power nodules lit up with a blue flash, the facets began to twinkle…
In the center of his chest, just like a volcano erupting, the medallion with the red stone tore its way to the surface, breaking his skin.
Where is that stupid thing now? Andy once again dove into settage. The “stupid thing” was there. The yellow piece of crap had messed things up real good and then spread all over his ribs in a lifeless blotch. Strange, he couldn’t sense any magic in the medallion. The red stone that had grown into his body where there was now a mark like a sun with rays, looked like a bony knob, not a magical artifact pulsing with endless power. So that was it…. but where did that leave him, exactly? Andy tried feeling the external energy sources and almost fell out of his trance again.
The world was full of energy. The magical field was bursting with mana. The measly
streams that he fed on in Ilanta could not compare with the deep-water rivers flowing here. Only the astral could give more, but it wasn’t possible to scoop it out of the “river.” Mana didn’t want to be “handled.” It seemed to move away from Andy, slipping out of his grasp like water between his fingers.
Neither his second nor third attempts yielded results. The sources of magic did not want to feed him. What should he do? Without mana, it was impossible to change hypostasis. Andy rendered himself into his true essence…
His cry, full of pain and despair, made the swamp’s chorus fall silent. The foads deftly vanished into the protection of the lake’s depths. The animals that had come to the watering hole, invisible because of the mist, decided to wait to quench their thirst. The pitter-patter of feet and paws and the crackling of broken bushes testified to their hasty flight from an unknown danger. The yellowish-silvery light of the night-time luminary, better known to Andy as Helita, flooded the small clearing on the shore of the lake with its bright rays. The Eye of the goddess of death tried with curiosity to examine this strange being, something like a human. The creature differed from members of the bipedal race by two short stumps protruding from its back, an elongated neck on which it tried to hold its massive head, and large scales that cut through the skin on its arms and legs. Falling to the ground, the creature sobbed and gradually took the form of an ordinary person. The goddess’ Eye moved along the dome of the sky in its eternal path, while the man remained to lie on the ground in an awkward position. The deep furrows of the earth, tilled with sharp claws, preserved the memories of the chimera that visited the shore of the lake.
The lake surface near the very cut off went rippling, and a wrinkled face appeared on the surface of the water. The round froggy eyes looked from side to side for a minute. Then, not identifying any danger, the first member of the foad race crept up onto the shore. Hundreds of fellow foads followed. They invaded the moist clay bank. The concert continued. Thirsty animals returned to the watering hole like so many silent shadows. The human figure didn’t budge when set upon by a host of blood-sucking insects. But the blood they drank did not nourish the little beasts; they parted from the still body and fell down dead.
