In the previous part of the story, humanity discovered that the solar system had long been divided between aliens and came under their care. The main character, Professor Lloyd, is perhaps the only one who is not happy with this. He decided to complain about the arbitrariness of the aliens to the greatest race of the Galaxy – the mysterious Wise Ones. Unfortunately, before he and his organization of mutants (naturally (!) good mutants) messed up so much on Earth that humanity put him on the Galactic Wanted List. Lloyd and his girlfriend Tarim escape from the alien space fleet on the ship of a crippled but dashing smuggler.
Soronto led us in for landing, lowering the flaps. A stranger sent a rocket at us from afar, but rather as a warning. The mass of the ship forced it to materialize far in space, and the rocket caught up with us only half an hour later, when we were already entering the thin atmosphere of an unknown planet.
We were shaking quite a bit, Tarim turned green and I’m afraid I didn’t look any better. An endless, ashy plain rushed towards us, thickly covered with cracks. Soronto, without further hesitation, dived into the nearest of them – the crack turned out to be a gigantic canyon almost half a kilometer wide. We meandered through the gorge for several minutes, slowing down, and then Tarim spotted a cave on the viewing screen. Cap landed the ship there.
– Camouflage nets, live! – he commanded.
We rushed into the airlock to get our spacesuits – fortunately, the gravity here was barely a third of Earth’s. Somehow we put on this bulky armor, got out and began to pull the camouflage anti-radar network. From the outside, Bougainvillea resembles a flat chocolate bar. The cockpit and cabin were hidden from radiation in the very center of the hull, so that the observation windows on Earth ships can only be seen in Star Trek. We worked hard, but covered the entire metal of the ship with a net.
Exhausted to the limit, Tarim and I were drinking coffee in the only cabin of the Bougainvillea, which looked suspiciously like a former wardrobe, when Soronto returned from the wheelhouse.
– They’re looking… – he smiled tiredly – but they won’t find it! If they figured out where we were landing, they would already be here. But they didn’t have time to release the drones in time, and from orbit you can’t detect much in the canyons! So let’s sit here until they get tired of looking for us all over the hemisphere – and to your galactic Sages!
– “Until they get bored,” that’s how long? – Tarim’s sweaty hair stuck to her temples. – And cap, where are the souls on the ship??
– In such cases they look for two weeks. But since you, Prof, are especially wanted and generally want to step on their tail, let’s wait a month.
– MONTH? – exclaimed Tarim.
– And by the way, my dear, there is no soul on the ship.
These were not the most pleasant thirty days of my life. The ship had enough provisions for a year, the regeneration systems functioned perfectly, but there was only one cabin and two berths. The captain took one, and Tarim and I slept on the second one in turn. The floor was so hard that no blanket could make it any more comfortable.
On the fifth day I adapted to sleep in an anti-overload bed. But at least at night time passed quickly. The days turned out to be endless. At first, the captain stood up, told stories, I talked a little about the operations of the Golden Shield, Tarim – all sorts of stories about his former office life. After one such story, she suddenly closed her eyes, sighed heavily and said.
– I would give anything to go back to work!
It was on the seventh day, and twenty-three were waiting for us ahead.
I achieved incomparable skill in chess, Tarim – in "Heroes of Might and Magic", an old twentieth part of which was installed on the computer in the cabin. The captain fried crowds of demons in some toy about an astronaut in Hell. Alas, when someone was playing, I couldn’t work. The tension grew, little things began to irritate me terribly.
To be honest, relationships with non-modified people have never been easy for me. From our point of view, they think terribly slowly, they reason illogically, in addition, since my school years I began to notice poorly hidden envy.
It’s difficult to evaluate as equals those who envy you, dislike you and are afraid at the same time. As a result, I never really had friends, even among perfect people. Apparently, Soronto was also no stranger to concerns about what had been committed and was not happy about being forced to spend a month locked up with two of our family. On the fifteenth day, Soronto began to sit alone in the control room and watched TV series all day long. He dryly asked not to come to him and he himself stopped going to the cabin. On the twenty-third day of imprisonment, Tarim and I went out to the airlock, discussed the situation in a whisper and decided to keep a weapon handy. The captain did the same.
On the twenty-seventh day, Tarim caught the captain as he made his way to the toilet with darting, painfully red eyes and a pistol in a holster, and said in a whisper.
– Cap, let’s spit on everything and start!
– To hell with them, let’s start! – he nodded decisively.
I was heartily glad. It seems that things were already seriously heading towards the Bougainvillea turning into a kind of Standing Dutchman with the crew killing each other. It would be interesting to complete the mission of humanity undertaken to prove its civilization to the galactic races.
In the process, the tension and legion of petty grievances were forgotten. We worked like bees all day, checking the engines, and finally left the hated cave. The captain led the ship into orbit, fortunately the atmosphere of the nameless planet was thin, and the ascent consumed very little fuel. When the radars showed that there was not a single alien ship in orbit, the captain even began to whistle out of tune. In the midst of rejoicing, they contacted us.
On the screen, among the static, the noseless face of Gatto appeared.
– “Greetings, Professor Lloyd,” he said calmly in good English, “I’m glad my wait is over.”. At that second, a dot appeared on the radar – a tiny ship that had previously used a cloaking device.
He was quickly approaching. Soronto plotted a course in a hurry.
– “I must say, professor, the crimes of your followers have given the planet Sol a bad name,” the alien continued. “And loud enough for the Earth government to put a price on your head.”.
– You… are a mercenary? – I clarified. If so..
Gatto shook his head in a surprisingly human gesture.
– Don’t try to bribe me, professor. The Gatto are a race that values glory above all else; those are our priorities. And in the modern peace-loving Galaxy we have nowhere to earn the glory of a warrior… except by catching dangerous criminals. Unfortunately, in our part of the Galaxy there are much more lawyers than criminals, and as soon as you get into the Catalog of Violators, one hundred and sixty of the best Gatto Hunters are on your trail. We arranged something like an earthly… – he seemed to check the screen of his smartphone – – a lottery and it fell to me to be the first to catch you. If you manage to destroy me, the line will move forward. Colleagues, take off your disguise.
The radar screen blossomed with dots of small ships, like the village sky with stars. Captain Sorronto gritted his teeth and cursed furiously.
– “We’re still an hour away from the safe jump point,” he whispered.
Gatto slowly caught up – his engines were incomparably better than ours.
– I would like to know, Professor, what forced you to declare a war of terror on humanity? The Organization of the Perfect killed dozens of ordinary people who advocated peaceful cooperation with the Council of the Three Nations. And you don’t seem to me either an uneducated fanatic or someone who only cares about power.
– I did not declare a war of terror on any other people, much less on humanity. Some of the victims are the result of self-defense by members of the organization.
– Naturally, it’s so hard for a perfect person to overcome an ordinary person without killing him,” remarked the gateau with irony, which I did not expect from him.
– Our goal is to ensure that people are recognized as equal to the other races of the Galaxy,” I said sternly.
Gatto looked at me blankly.
– Professor? The Sol race is recognized in the Galaxy as not only equal, but also very respectable. Any discrimination against Sol is a challenge for Hunters. You mean that humanity had to stop researching genetic modifications, don’t you??
I nodded coldly.
– With this you took away space from us.
In response, Gatto silently circled https://heyspin-casino.uk/mobile-app/ our control room and the stars on the viewing screens.
We both fell silent. He innocently, and I angrily, feeling with my skin how closely Tarim and Soronto were watching our conversation.
– Professor, tell me how many people on Sol object to stopping research on genetic modifications?? – asked the Hunter.
I won’t let him get me down!
– Not many people..
– 1.7%,” Tarim said sadly from behind me.
– Hell yes, 1.7%! But if everyone around is brainless idiots, I simply have to lead them to better things… Common people..
– Oh, yes,” Gatto nodded with an innocent look, “when everyone around you is an idiot, it’s so familiar..
I gritted my teeth and suppressed the urge to cut off the communication channel. Turning the knob I just admit defeat.
– You strive to improve your race, don’t you, Professor??
I nodded, expecting a catch.
– “What is perfection is a difficult question,” Gatto said thoughtfully. – Each race evaluates moral perfection in its own way and sometimes strives for it so much that they quarrel and even shed blood because of different interpretations of the writings of ancient sages. Therefore, we will talk about perfection as a physical way to adapt to the environment. Do you agree, professor??
The last thing I expected was to have to engage in a philosophical argument with an alien hunting me!
– Believe me, the eternal pursuit of genetic perfection is a thankless task. Someone is always worse than others in at least some way, and in our society this is a heavy burden… – my interlocutor said sadly.
I said nothing. Shoulders slumped. Gatto was approaching, and the indicator for the chance of a safe jump showed only twenty percent..
– Unfortunately, the road to perfection may not lead you to where you expected. Let me note that no one and nothing is stopping you from exploring that part of the Galaxy that is no one’s property. Or are you claiming someone else’s real estate planetary property??
He paused for a second and continued in a completely different tone.
– So your ship has entered my range of fire. I suggest you turn on the braking motors and allow the magnetic cables to be attached. Bring a crew of robots aboard and I’ll escort you to Sol. I count to five, in case of disobedience, I will be forced to open beam fire.
– We fought, we were not stupid, and yet we lost,” the captain turned to us. “Sorry, Prof, but I…” he reached for the control panel.
I looked at the captain, at the calm face of the gatto on the screen… and something seemed to break in me.
Apparently it was common sense.
My fist hit Soronto in the jaw, and then with a pathetic roar I rushed to the remote control and pressed the jump key. The chance of success indicator showed twenty-two percent.
The world has turned grey, the colors have faded, and space has shrunk. I listened to the cry of Tarim; in slow motion, I saw the captain’s stunned face, all the senses worked as if under a thrown blanket.
It dragged on endlessly, it seemed like days turned into years, and years into centuries. Although my brain worked very slowly, I had time… an abyss of time. Thousands of years have passed, and my furious mind has come to terms with this colorless prison from which there is no exit: the prison of curved space-time.
And then we were thrown into the ordinary world.
For several minutes I stared blankly in front of me. Then he turned to his companions. Tarim ran her hand through her hair again and again in a detached manner. The captain shook himself and swore.
– I will no longer enter hyper with a chance of less than a hundred – even if an armada of Vacuum munchers were chasing me! – he exhaled furiously.
According to normal time, we were there for less than a millisecond. The hyperengine burned out, but we got there!
A gigantic stretched sphere, full of light, hovered in front of us in the void, far from the planets and suns. House of the Wise.
The captain plotted a course towards him, although his hands were still shaking.
– This is probably worse than Hell… – Tarim whispered more to herself than to us. – Emptiness and in it only you and your mind..
– Exactly, – confirmed Gatto.
– You could be stuck there until the end of time, while remaining conscious. Among some peoples of the Galaxy, being sent into curved space with a one percent chance of returning is considered execution for especially bloody and hateful individuals.
His ship emerged from the void just a hundred kilometers behind us.
– So I counted to three. Four… and five.
In a vacuum, laser beams are invisible, but no less destructive. Our tail section was cut off along with the engines. A fan of debris, scattering, inertia took us off course and the house of the Wise moved away from the front viewing screen. We were carried into an abyss without a bottom… until the gatto took us on a magnetic tug.
– So I have to take you to your destination. The wise wished to speak with you, since you showed such determination to see them,” he remarked calmly.
I didn’t believe my eyes. The House of the Wise was approaching, occupying all visible space with an ocean of light.
Hearts beat furiously, we didn’t say a word. Something unknown to any of the people was waiting for us. Shining domes surrounded us, the crowns of some plants were visible under them, then the gatto led us on a cable into the airlock. The analysis showed that the air outside is breathable. Tarim smoothed her hair with a comb, Soronto disappeared into the cabin and returned (an unprecedented thing) in the ceremonial uniform of the Earth Fleet. I realized with bitterness that I, as the first representative of the Earth among the ancient races, would do well to shave.
Gatto was waiting for us outside, wearing something between a kilt and a loincloth with a large pocket in the front. Silently he led us forward.
The airlock walls and corridors were made of transparent material. They seemed to be hanging in the air, beneath them stretched a strange jungle of huge, translucent bubbles. The vaguely visible bodies of bizarre creatures moved between them – some were simply giants. Legions of small creatures flew. I have not seen any intelligent inhabitants.
– They live right in the forest? – Tarim asked the Gatto.
– They? – he asked again in bewilderment. – You don’t know? There is only one wise man in our part of the Galaxy.
– One? – I asked stupidly.
– What you see is part of his body. Lateral processes.
Realizing that we did not understand anything, Gatto explained.
– Wise – mushroom life form. Intelligent mycelium growing and absorbing. Great mind, commanding myriads of fused bodies.
We came out onto a transparent platform hovering among the mushroom jungle. Waiting here were several Traji politicians, a group of Gatto, to whom our guide bowed with deep respect, and a chrome-plated robot containing another copy of the personality of the Six Troikas. They were all waiting. The mirrored doors opened and the Voice of the Wise came out to us.
The huge creature clumsily moved its six legs as it approached. It was blind – its head and body were covered with mycelium, to which a forest of antennae and shoots stretched. Tarim recoiled. The captain turned green, and to be honest, I almost disgraced humanity at the first contact.
Then a Voice enveloped us, quiet and delicate, it seemed to be born inside our minds, now gaining clarity, now disintegrating into strings of images.
– Wise is glad to welcome you, Sol. And I see your goal and aspirations. You have come a long way for the good of your people. You blame the Gatto, Tradziev and Laan for the oppression of humanity? So?
I nodded decisively. The prepared speech remained unspoken. Why does it matter to someone who reads minds??
– I accept your complaints. And I will answer them. Listen up, Sol.
The voice turned its head and seemed to look at us all with a face without eyes.
The Tradzia stopped talking and froze, the Gatto giants politely bowed their heads, even the robot Laan made a solemn gesture.
– It is curious that the inhabitants of Sol were wary of other intelligent forms simply because they were born under a different sun and did not resemble them in appearance. As a result, humanity interpreted all the actions of strangers as selfish and hostile,” said the Voice, as if in thought.
– Professor, there are things you should know.
The wise man paused for a second.
– Dark centuries ago, long before your peoples, Doctor, began to keep a written history, on the planet that you call Earth, and we call Sol, there was already a high civilization.
In those days, glaciers covered a significant part of the land, existence was difficult, but your ancestors turned out to be an inquisitive people and trials pushed them along the path of progress. About twenty thousand years ago, a center of a powerful, talented civilization arose in the northern hemisphere. In a matter of millennia, she went all the way to the era of conquering the stars. It was a culture that survived on a cold planet where resources are scarce, an unusual society built on the principle of a swarm.
The voice fell silent for a couple of moments.
– Your people believe that benefits should be distributed among people more or less evenly. The first race, Sol, believed that the few best things should go to the most worthy, and those lower should serve them. In those days, I, responding to the signals that the people of those centuries sent into space in search of fellow humans, arrived on Sol. The voice disintegrated into a string of images, crowded and shimmering in our minds.
I saw a planet, familiar and different – the Earth of hoary antiquity. Gigantic ice masses stretched far to the south, the outlines of the continents and the seas absorbed by glaciers were different. The entire planet was plunged into darkness, except for the archipelago sandwiched between Eurasia and North America, where electric lights bloomed like a warm bouquet.
I saw cities protected by shining walls of steel, where among the wonders of science and art lived the proud at-la, the aristocrats of humanity, who built rockets and conquered the eternal cold of the stars.
Their majestic cities were surrounded by miserable villages of fishermen and miners, who extracted what the at-la needed and lived from hand to mouth among the slowly receding ice. On the outer belt of the world lived barbarian tribes who barely knew how to process stone and bone and were slaves of the slaves of at-la.
– Humanity retains a vague memory of those times in legends about the founding gods, whose power was equal to their cruelty. Sol of those times was a harsh place and the atlas rushed en masse to the stars, but found that the best planets, as always happens in the Galaxy, were already occupied. Victory over the races of that age was no more possible for them than victory over the Gatto’s Golden Fleet was for you. Then they began to adapt. The unoccupied planets were hostile to the life nurtured on Sol; the very emptiness of space brought death. The people of Sol have followed the same path you want to follow. Genetics helped them change their bodies, adapting to different gas mixtures for breathing, pressure and radiation. Many of the people chose ocean planets and followed the path of the inhabitants of the bottom..
Tradzii raised their combs and looked at us importantly.
– Others wanted to preserve the essence of man away from the Earth, preoccupied with the endless improvement of their bodies and minds. – The giant gatto bowed his head in a restrained bow.
– Still others chose life among the debris of dead planets, in the land of radiation, eternal night and resource-rich asteroids. At first they enclosed themselves in mechanized spacesuits, but as generations passed, eventually this branch of humanity realized that living bodies were just useless appendages to machines. They managed to digitize their mind and transfer it to secure data centers.
– Nowadays, most of our people live in the wilds of the artificial digital environment, living thousands of amazing lives there,” Six Troikas said thoughtfully. We, laan, have been chosen as Guardians of sleeping minds and provide for the needs and safety of millions of individuals of our fellow humans.
We were silent in shock.
– Generations and millennia passed; each branch of humanity followed its own path to perfection. In the end, Sol began to seriously fear that in pursuit of the elusive image of the best, humanity would lose itself, its essence, traditions and even appearance.
– Then the planet Sol was declared a reserved world, a nursery for a pure, unaltered race of people. The proud at-la who lived there were unhappy with this, war broke out, and thermal shocks on both sides led to the melting of the glaciers, the Voice said detachedly. – The battles of the gods shook the earth, and old pantheons gave way to new ones.
The war destroyed most of the machines and knowledge, as well as the very memory of travel to the stars.
The branch of the Sol race on their home planet was deprived of the temptation of artificial perfection. to this day. Humanity has changed and blossomed again, but retained its craving for the eternal night, strewn with lights.
– Now you understand, professor, why I cannot satisfy your request?
– You can’t… but why… – I said hoarsely.
And the Voice modestly finished. – There is no oppression of an intelligent race by outsiders. There is only discord within the ancient race Sol. It so happened that part of your race was ahead of the earthlings… quite significantly.
– It seems to me that the ancient agreement protecting the ancestral home of the Sol race is still in force. However, I want to note that the Guardianship Council is too… one-sided. I would recommend abolishing it and giving the natives of the planet equal rights in the management of Sol. After all, this is their homeland, and they, unlike you, live there.
The voice died down, and then said almost affectionately. – Don’t be upset, professor. You want to find a way into space… for yourself, right?? So maybe there is no need to drag the good of humanity into your desires? The Universe will be open to those who wish it, the Earth will be a protected forest for humanity, and not a prison at all.
– If you three are interested in a guarantee for a position in the Golden Fleet, you can contact me,” and the giant Gatto extended his palm in greeting. – I think, professor, you will take root among us.
In the comments I suggest you guess, what games inspired me.
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