time they were silent, and sometimes, hiding bitter tears from each other, someone, remembering their loved ones, and someone, their former life on Earth, silently cried. All the crew members knew in advance that if the situation did not change, no matter how long their life on the ISS would last, although they understood perfectly well that after the catastrophe on Earth, their further life no longer made any sense even for themselves and that such a situation could not continue forever. They also knew that what an unenviable and painfully tragic end to their life paths was waiting for them ahead. At the end of the fourth month after the disaster, one of the solar panels failed, then the second. Fuel and other means for maneuvering and maintaining the necessary speed of the ISS in orbit were also running out, and were used only for maneuvering, so as not to collide with space debris or, already unmanageable and uncontrolled by numerous satellites that were still spinning around the Earth, issuing emergency radio signals on their radio frequencies. And now the moment has come when, due to an acute shortage of energy, the instruments and equipment of the station began to fail one after another. The usual temperature regime inside the station began to rapidly drop down and the ISS gradually began to freeze. The crew members silently put on their spacesuits. Fortunately, there was still enough food, water and oxygen. He, as the commander of the ship, turned to the crew with the question of what to do, to descend to the dead Earth through an ashen veil at random, not knowing the landing point reliably, or with the rest of the fuel, raising the station to an extremely high, geostationary orbit, accelerate and remain forever in space as extinct exhibits of the human race in the Universe. We decided to do the first, that is, in the absence of ground services coordinating flights, we ourselves made the necessary preliminary calculations to ensure the maximum safe trajectory of the lander's entry into the atmosphere and calculations for the preliminary selection of the landing site and descend to Earth. Because, with a successful and safe landing, if of course they suddenly succeed in this, everyone wanted to see firsthand everything that was happening on Earth, and there was still a small hope in everyone's souls that everything was not lost yet. They hoped that after the necessary acclimatization of the musculoskeletal and other organs of the body to terrestrial conditions, they themselves would be able to get out of the lander, and the spacesuits would reliably protect them from the effects of thermonuclear radiation. And then, with the remnants of the reserves of space food, they will be able to survive on their own planet. With such hope in their hearts, they all moved into the lander. However, due to a lack of energy or perhaps for some other reason, the emergency sensors in the descent vehicle triggered. Despite all the efforts of the crew members, they could not establish and eliminate the cause of the emergency sensors, and for the same reason, they could not undock and break away from the station. In addition, while they were in the descent capsule, for some unknown reason, perhaps due to a slightly larger meteorite hitting the outer skin of the station or for another reason, the ISS was depressurized and the air inside the station and, together with the air, somehow the entire oxygen supply quickly flowed into space. The energy on board the ISS was running out and due to the lack of the necessary energy for management, that is, for these purposes, enough necessary energy, the station became unmanageable. In addition, after depressurization, the temperature inside the station dropped so quickly below the critical norm, so even while inside the station, it was no longer possible to open the visor of the helmet of the spacesuit. All the crew members understood the critical irretrievability of the situation that had already come. After a day, the oxygen in the spacesuits also ran out. The oxygen starvation of the brain cells was already felt, there was a noise in the ears, the head became heavy, it was increasingly difficult to breathe. The crew members hugged each other and said goodbye for the last time. Everyone could see such deep emotional pain and sorrow for the mistake made by their relatives on Earth, but never incorrigible anymore. It was impossible to convey this pain and sorrow in words, because each of them understood that there was no more Earthly civilization, relatives and friends, and soon, very soon, they, that is, the last earthlings from the genus of Adam and Eve, would go into an irrevocable eternity. After some time, the instrument monitoring the health status of the crew members showed that two of the crew members did not show signs of life, two were unconscious. He, too, like all the other crew members, already resigned, prepared for them by fate, the tragic end of his life, began to lose consciousness, but at the last moment, before losing consciousness, he felt a slight push and on the monitor screen saw an alien spacecraft smoothly docked to the ISS. After that, he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 2
In a Foreign land
He woke up in an unusually light-bright space. It was not the cabin of a large spaceship, or a huge hall without windows and apparently even without doors. Nearby, dressed in a cloak of gray material, an alien stood silently, looking and describing very similar to the aliens from the fantastic films of earthlings. But this alien was very taller than the ones he saw in the movies, that is, if he determines by eye, then his height was about two and a half meters. At first glance, the alien's face and gaze seemed to him not terrible, not evil and not ferocious, as in those fantastic films about aggressive alien predators-aliens or about terminators-destroyers, but kind and smiling. The Earthman turned to the alien:
– Where am I, where are the rest of the crew? The
humanoid looked at him and did not frame a word, but at the same moment he somehow telepathically transmitted to the human brain, in the form of thoughts brought from outside, words;
– This is our planet, it is called the Green Planet, our Sun is a Blue star. All the time, without interfering in your life, we are watching you, studying the Earth, the Earth's civilization. However, we did not have time to prevent a nuclear catastrophe on Earth. Unfortunately, the human brain is very complex and does not lend itself to our full study. We can somehow inform you about the upcoming catastrophe of a cosmic scale, change the trajectories of a particular cosmic body, potentially threatening the Earth on a large scale. Even by telepathic influence on the human brain, we can stop him from committing any actions if we establish that he is planning something global, not good, but we cannot predict in advance what he is thinking and will do, even in a minute. Therefore, we could not foresee in advance, and will prevent a nuclear war. And although we knew that every day, step by step, the interstate relations of the nuclear powers of your planet were getting more and more heated, however, on the issue of nuclear war, we fully and completely relied on the high intelligence of humanity. We believed that you would refrain from using nuclear weapons because you invented these weapons yourself, you knew in advance that a global thermonuclear war would lead to what tragic consequences, what catastrophic consequences this war would have for the planet, for the entire Earth's civilization, if not forever, then for many, many times. But as you can see, we made a mistake and this disaster happened. It is quite possible that we, of course, except for you, have lost all our earthly brothers in mind as a result of this catastrophe. We will return to this topic later, since our experts have not yet reliably studied the consequences of a nuclear war on Earth and it may still be possible to save the survivors of your relatives and restore your earthly civilization. Now let's talk about the ISS, where you were and survived the thermonuclear war with the entire crew. So, by the time our ship arrived, other members of your crew had died off brain cells due to prolonged oxygen starvation and their brains were already beyond repair, so we did not revive them. Only you were resuscitated. Fortunately for you, our patrol ship was in your galaxy at the time of the nuclear disaster. Our planet is not suitable for you. Although the atmospheric air and all other conditions of our planet are somewhat similar to your planet, but the inhabitants of the upper layers of our planet are very aggressive for human flesh. Without a special protective suit, you will disappear in an instant into the living, green haze of our planet. For our body, the environment of this planet is not only harmless, it is even useful. Therefore, you can only go outside in special spacesuits. And we will feed you with specially prepared food, just for you, so as not to harm your body and will support all the functions of your body at the level. We ourselves never eat, as earthlings eat. Our body is arranged in the same way as in your science fiction films about the terminators, but at the same time we are not robots, but living beings. Inside our body, a biochemical chain reaction takes place all the time, which carries out a continuous exchange at the cellular level and the body feeds and recovers at the expense of the air of our planet. And in the absence of such or similar air, our body can automatically reconfigure itself to an unfavorable mode of existence and on this mode, too, for an
