Julia ran her hand around and found a strange layer of water, surrounding all her body. It made possible living in the water, without oxygen, and protected her from the enormous pressure.
This water layer seemed to be alive. It consisted of water mussels, which were tightly clasped to each other; however, they were not staying still, but moving, gleaming with silver pearl with blue or coral tint, like small transparent sea eels.
She took only a quick look of at her surroundings. Her movement scared some flat fish, which jumped out from the bottom, raising the sand up, and swam away behind the rock.
Chapter 4
The light slightly intensified, and Julia found herself in a small grotto. She was being slowly and smoothly dragged to the rock. Part of the rock moved forward and then aside, forming a passage. Julia was dragged inside, and the rock behind her was closed at once.
She was in a poorly lit room. The water level was quickly falling down. Soon the water ran off, exposing a wet floor. Then the other part of the rock in front of her moved forward and aside. Julia came into an opening, leading to a big hall. The rock behind her was quietly closed.
The big hall was empty. It was a hemisphere with walls and floor looking as if made of stainless steel, polished to a high finish. On a metal cube in the center there was something like a biker’s helmet. Julia stopped and touched the wall – it was smooth and felt warm.
She heard the same voice:
«Take a seat and put the helmet on!»
Julia sat down on the cube and put on the helmet. The metallic pedestal was slowly caving in under the weight of her body, and soon took the shape of a convenient armchair, flowing around all her body. She felt warm and comfortable. With a light click, the helmet was switched on, and the surrounding scene shifted.
It was the Earth. The sun was hanging in the sky on its trajectory. The alternation of day and night was as usual but there was no moon and the constellations were located in different places.
The earth and the sea were the same, only their colors had changed, while plants and animals were quite different. There were lots of them, and they all were larger and more colorful than those growing on the Earth now.
Real giants with huge wings and oblong heads were flying in the sky.
The sun lighted up the surroundings evenly and not very brightly.
Everything was gigantic – the forest was huge, various large flowers were growing in glades. Flowers of similar sizes were trailing from some trees.
Giant insects of a human being’s height were flying among the trees.
Tremendous lizards and snakes were climbing in bright green grass several meters high.
Here and there some traces of the struggle for surviving were seen – broken bones, skulls, and trees, pulled out of the earth with roots.
The voice said:
«We are the Earth Keepers.
Your civilization is the sixth on this planet. The previous ones were wiped out by the United Civilization of the Galaxy «Milky Way», which includes the Earth planet.
At a certain stage of the mankind’s development, we put forward a fighter for a single combat with the Galaxy Civilization. The fortunes of the Earth’s population – whether they will live on or not – depend on the result of this combat.
It’s a standard procedure of admission to the community of civilizations of our Galaxy for any civilization. They want to know – to what extent we have developed and have established ourselves as a civilization.
Combats are carried out on the planet chosen by the Supreme Council of the Galaxy.
The place where they are carried out is always the same; so, we reproduced its exact copy. It is our training facility now. All scenes of battles we had have lost were built into the program. Besides, we added our own episodes. Now it’s the place where one can learn a lot.
If we win, the Sixth Civilization of the Earth will get a powerful impulse for further development, and, in several thousand years, it will become equal to other civilizations of the Galaxy. Not everything is so simple, though. There exists one more danger.
When all civilizations of the Galaxy join the United Civilization of the Galaxy «Milky Way», the next stage will be admission of our United Galaxy Civilization to the General Cosmic Civilization.
Loss means destroying the whole United Galaxy Civilization.
It will be the last, but the most complicated and dangerous exam. However, it’s still far in the future. Let’s not think about things that will not happen for some time.
We couldn’t pass the first trial – to win in mortal combat – and were thrown back for millions of years; that’s why we can’t use the knowledge of the United Galaxy Civilization.
After millions of years of necessary waiting and detailed analysis of all combats, which were carried out, we worked out a new training technique for our future fighter. The losses of the previous five civilizations gave us an enormous data base to analyze our defeats. This time we must win…»
Julia was listening and watching closely the scene taking place around her, while the voice was commenting on what was going on.
The space around her was transmitting the end of one of the earthmen’s combats for their right to life.
The battlefield took up all the visible space around the fighter. The ground was dug through all around; huge trees were broken or torn up by the roots; pits and gaps were being filled with water, and, in the distance, one could see large woodlands in conflagration.
Flame was coming up to the stars, forming fire whirlwinds. With frightful roaring, they were coming away from the main bulk of fire for a long distance from the burning woodland. The fire whirlwinds quickly died, burning and evaporating everything on their way, and then were soon displaced by new ones.
Large field stones were cleaved by powerful blows and scattered all over the field, up to the horizon.
Everything in view was flooded with thick luminous liquid looking like blood, which was not only red, but also blue, green, black, and yellow.
A big man, about one hundred and fifty feet high, was fighting shadows, trying to win.
It was clear that he was exhausted. His numerous wounds were bleeding, and he himself and the ground around were in blood. Several times the fighter fell down on his knee, and each time he rose up, beating off attacks; long blinding flame was shooting out of devices fixed on his hands.
Everything was in vain, however. His enemies were too numerous…
Suddenly, ambient light started pulsating. This pulsating lighting worked against the fighter.
From an outsider’s viewpoint, it was seen that, in the light, shadows jumped aside, hiding in tall grass. When, for an instant, it became dark, they jumped out of the grass and, as vampires, sucked the lifeblood and energy out of the fighter.
Then, in a moment, the fighter lost all his strength; he staggered and fell first on one knee, then on both, and, finally, collapsed on the ground.
The light pulsation was instantly stopped, and the light became dark blue. Bright red creatures, looking like short and fat half transparent snakes with big teeth, started to devour the fighter.
The combat was continuing. Some earthly web-footed creature with big snakelike head and thick and short tail was fighting the enemy this time.
The fighter was persistently beating off all attacks, setting his back against a rock and not