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Can you be more specific? For instance, we are flying to Mars – will we find life there or at least did it exist there? – Sergey continued the telepathy session.
Actually, you are not flying just to Mars… And there surely was life there, even similar to yours in some respect, but there is nothing left of it, sounded in Sergey’s head.
But what happened to it?
Almost the same that happened to almost all others, including your form, though not completely, but it looks like they degraded.
I see… the prospect is not very bright, thought Sergey.
But nobody promised that everything would be so wonderful and carefree, said the sad voice again. – All right, I have to go. We’ll talk later.
So long, said Sergey aloud… But there was only silence around.
Sveta flew into the service compartment in enticing and suspiciously small shorts. Her T-shirt reminded of cyclists’ uniform, though a little less tight, but anyway – it emphasized very well her tempting slender waist, high breast and beautiful sportive shoulders.
Andrey was sitting in the working zone of the service compartment and admired the beauty called Sveta which appeared suddenly or not very suddenly, with the corner of his eye.
The working zone of the service compartment included a small and comfortable hollow in the form of a table with the prototype of present-day computers and two armchairs almost like in a plane, and could be separated almost completely from the rest of the compartment with a light semi-transparent and shielded partition.
The shield was necessary to create the gravity like on Earth in the compartment, with a practical difference of about 25 percent. To create more similar and customary conditions, the installation greatly increased in size, and it was a luxury that could not be afforded there.
But it was quite enough to work quietly at the computer for an hour or two and give your body a rest from the zero-gravity it was fed up with.
A larger and more powerful installation that created artificial gravity worked for the living module – the bedroom. There it created the gravity which was practically the same as on Earth for the resting part of the crew to sleep. The crew not only slept but also restored the body from the consequences of a long exposure to zero-gravity.
The beauty flew quite near, almost a meter from Andrey, and he first admired the long and slender legs that went down to the armchair, thinking that there are wonderful aspects of zero-gravity, and here there are two of them nearby!
The legs smoothly turned into shorts – the shorts into a waist outlined by a tight T-shirt – the gaze stopped on the breast… the beauty almost sank into the armchair and tried to settle comfortably in it. The process was not quick and Sveta started to get bored with it.
She asked jokingly: Is the seat free? May I joint you?
You are always welcome! – replied Andrey and switched on a part of earthly gravity.
At last, said Sveta, settling in the armchair almost like on Earth. For complete similarity she crossed her legs and, looking into Andrey’s eyes, slowly put her hands behind her head and leaned on the back of the armchair. Andrey inadvertently stared at her breast again.
Andrey tried to look somewhere else and saw the shorts. If he looked up, it would be like rolling his eyes… so he looked at the shorts involuntarily. They suited Sveta best of all, emphasizing her slim waist turning into hips, then something these shorts were put on, and this magnificence finished with almost ideally slender and strikingly beautiful legs…
Sveta was looking at Andrey smiling, still with her hands behind her head.
The latter suddenly disappeared under the table. She looked at her figure unknowingly– everything seemed to be in order, even beyond that… and suddenly realized! What a jerk!
When high school girls started to wear remade or shortened uniform, boys started to constantly drop pens, rulers and erasers during classes, bending right to the floor to pick them and looking at the legs of their female classmates at the same time.
Andrey seemed to have fully admired what he wanted and appeared from under the table, but it was not a pen or a ruler he had in his hand. Smiling, he put a small mobile hydroponic container on the table with a small bush of bright red roses! This is for you, lady, – said Andrey and moved the container closer to the dumbfounded Svetlana…
She carefully leaned over her favorite flowers and breathed in the long-forgotten scent… Thank you, Andryushka! But where did you get them, I mean the bulbs?
In the same place where I got the rest – on the launch site, said Andrey laughing.
Such roses don’t grow on “Angar”, it is difficult to find them even in Moscow!
It’s a matter of paperwork. I asked the pilots from the first squadron. Once their plane flew to Moldavia on a business trip, and they brought me these, – said Andrey, looking at the dumbfounded Sveta.
She looked at Andrey knavishly: only candles and wine were missing, otherwise it would make quite a romantic dinner!
I hid the wine so far that I still can’t find it, but I can offer you some vodka or brandy.
And you have these, too?! At my choice?! How did you manage to get the whole bar past the control men?
Everything is simple, said Andrey. – I used my position for personal and far-reaching purposes!
Your aims are written all over your forehead, gentleman, said Sveta, smiling and pursing her lips a little. And continued invitingly: so what are you going to do next, Mr. Smuggler?
Andrey replied, undressing Sveta with his eyes: it depends on how much you will drink, my dear lady…
And I won’t drink at all! – laughed Sveta. – Booya?
No, said Andrey and unzipped Sveta’s “space” T-shirt. While Sveta was taking off her light shorts, Andrey switched off the almost earthly gravity, and the beautiful naked woman’s body started to soar in the zero-gravity – just as beautiful and immense as the whole Universe around them.
So, dear people of Earth, if you did not love in space, you probably did not love at all…
It did not seem a holiday at all: on the contrary, it was a simple and ordinary thing, even a little unnoticed one, when they reached the orbit of Mars. MS 88 made a loop after a loop over the planet that attracted many people who looked at it through those primitive telescopes. They surely strove to set their eyes on it, someone visited it in his thoughts…
Alexey Tolstoy in “Aelita” helped the Martians to make a revolution…
Looking at the surface of the planet flying past below, one could not help looking for the characteristics of their native Earth, but there was nothing similar except for polar ice caps. The planet was dark red and black, silence which did not seem alive seemed to reign there. A great number of big and small craters gave involuntary associations with the Moon, with the only difference in color. Probably all the planets that have no atmosphere look so lifeless and oppressing…
They started to prepare for arrival a month ago, without any hurry. All the equipment was long ready for landing and placement on the surface of the planet. It was necessary to stay in orbit for a week to adapt the body to the gravity of the Red Planet.
Also, Marina had to prepare her chemical set to carry out primary express tests to analyze the composition of Mars atmosphere and soil. It was here in orbit that Marina got a stronger impression that someone absolutely strange and totally unknown looked at her from the side.
Once she shared her feelings with Sveta. The latter frowned a little and said: you know, I feel something similar. Sometimes it seems to me that we are being observed by the whole space around us, something huge, the Space as a whole… At a first glance, there is nothing strange about it: if you remember, the guys who were here before said something of this kind, and psychologists warned about it, Sveta recollected thoughtfully. And let’s say, for example, you are alone in a dark room and you turn off the lights. Someone immediately feels fear, and many have a feeling that there is somebody else in the room. Even though you know you have just been alone in it. It is light here, but the feeling is similar, but it’s much stronger, finished Sveta.
Let’s talk to the boys as they must have the same thoughts, said Marina.
Andrey appeared.
– Hello, beauties, why are you looking so mysterious?
– Hello, rowdy, said the girls in a choir, having unbent brow a little, looked at each other and burst out laughing. After the last Andrey’s ideas they said the same greeting involuntarily. They shared with him what they had been talking about before he came in.
Smiling, Andrey passed his eyes from Sveta’s light blue eyes to Marina’s brown eyes. Calm down, girls, I also have this big feeling, and sometimes it even appears as a voice in my head and tries to ask questions, something like – How are you?
And what about you? – asked Marina.
Once I asked: Will you have some vodka? – And he replied somewhat sadly: I’d like to drink a bit, but to my regret I can’t! And after this suggestion of mine he never appeared again! Finished Andrey, laughing.
Right, dear, you are your usual self, – Sveta put in, laughing as well.
Thank you, guys, now it feels better, we can calmly land, – said Marina laughing.
And what’s so hard about landing?! Zap and it’s done, it’s not the same as flying here for six months, – Andrey summarized.
The first step on Mars… you step and go… They also walked every day in the spaceship using magnetic paths. They are different there, and they are different here, but anyway – these are steps.
The planet, whose surface could be finally observed, looked dismal and sullen. The ground was strewn with millions of stones of different sizes and shapes, sunk in maroon dust which looked more like rust…
Somewhere one could see separate mountains that looked like ruins of pyramids or mounds, and on the other side they formed almost a single chain – a high plateau. Suddenly they got a feeling that they were absolutely lonely here, accompanied by overwhelming dreary desperation that seemed to have been there for millions of years.
This sad picture reminded of a planetary cemetery, where the graves disappeared a long time ago: emptiness, silence, dust, stones and nothing else…
There was also a feeling that a huge fire destroyed everything here, only something that could not burn was left.
They desperately felt like flying away from here at once. They were strange or odd here, nobody had been waiting for them there for a long time, or maybe somebody waited, but they could not fly then because they themselves were not on Earth at that time.
The base was built several kilometers from the place of landing, on the huge valley of Marinera, almost five thousand kilometers long. Though the mobile living module created something like the magnetic field of the Earth, a cave or a lava tunnel had to be found to protect the base from space radiation, solar wind and long and heavy dust storms.
Having spent almost a week on traveling along big and small canyons, Sergey found an ideal smooth and spacious cave in the winding lava tunnel which began in some unknown place.
It took ten runs and a column of two mars rovers with trailers to transport all the modules and equipment for the future Martian base. Mars rovers moved easily, leaving a veil of nasty dust after them. The dust was much finer than on Earth and reminded of reddish-grey flour of oriental spices, and it was nasty because of its size: it was found even in the places where it should not have been…
Ознакомительная версия.
