Now, you bear enormous responsibility for future generations and their lives, and the lives on Earth.
You are
SUPER
QUEEN-MOTHER.
It’s your call whether your civilization will live or die.
YOU ARE THE LAST HOPE.
Now we’ll send you back. Time is drawing on. You have only three days to make a decision».
Julia took off the helmet from her head and got up from the metallic armchair. Her surroundings took on their previous form, shot with cold metallic luster.
Julia slowly went to the exit. She could hardly digest all that fell upon her.
The rock moved aside, and Julia came out of the hall.
Before the scale moved back to its previous position, Julia heard the voice of the Earth Keepers, which said once more:
«ONLY THREE DAYS!»
The room she came into was quickly filling with water.
Julia saw as water layers, reminding her of cable stitch, were enveloping her body up and up, while water was filling the space. When it filled in the whole room, the outer part of the rock, walling the room from the external world, opened.
Julia was carried up. The rock behind her was closed.
She tried to snatch at a bush hanging over, but it was so stiff-leaved that she, wary of injuring her hand, released the branch, and was immediately dragged upward.
Her rate of rising was gradually increasing. She saw a small glowing spot overhead, which was growing little by little, and then turned into the bright sun.
Chapter 5
Julia came to the surface at the same place, looked around and, having seen nobody nearby, slowly swam to the shore.
She was not tired but shocked by what she had heard and seen. It made her view everything around her in a different light.
She reached the shore, took off the mask and the snorkel, rinsed her face with sea water and came up to her half-sleeping friends.
They were still sunbathing, and even had not noticed her absence. Julia silently joined them, pondering over recent events.
One could not see this even in the wildest dreams, and here it had happened in reality.
The company, overheated in the sun and awakened by Julia’s return, with a stretch and a yawn went swimming again. She emptied the net with collected seashells, divided them into equal parts and put them on each mat.
In her thoughts Julia relived her trip once more, beginning with falling into the abyss and up to her coming back, and …decided to take her mind off things for a while, up to the moment when she would have to make a decision, though she understood quite well that she had no choice.
She had only three days for a rest before the inevitable event.
Her friends came out of the sea, stayed in the sun for some time, and decided to go home.
William noticed that Julia was concerned about something, and directly asked her about this:
«Julia, you are unlike yourself, has anything happened?»
Julia could not tell him the truth, so she dismissed the matter with a joke:
«Maybe I was diving and swimming too much», and then changed the topic:
«What shall we do in the evening, why don’t we go to the concert?»
There was a good concert hall in the town, and many famous musicians came on tour there. To switch off disturbing thoughts, she had to busy herself with something. And what could be better than good music?
They chose seats closer to the stage, next to the aisle, to have a chance to dance during the concert.
The concert of the rock group was wonderful; Julia liked the soloist in particular – he was short and plain, but his voice made people spellbound to it.
They came home well into the night and dispersed to their rooms.
In the morning, soon after breakfast, they went on a planned mountain trip.
The day was nice. Small clouds were covering the broiling sun, and the walking was quite easy. Part of the way was along the channel of the mountain stream. Small waterfalls and rapids enlivened the climb up.
In some time they came up to the object of their trip – the emergent top of the hill. Here they took off their rucksacks and halted.
Michael and William got busy with the fire. They went to gather some brushwood, and Julia and Linda started to lay out the food they had brought.
Their purely woman-to-woman talk concerned Michael and William. The girls liked them: Julia was fond of William, while Michael was more to Linda’s liking. They were discussing their habits and courtesies they paid to the girls, but soon the boys came with the brushwood, and they stopped talking.
The fire blazed up quickly. The flame was greedily swallowing the dry brushwood. The young people grilled their sausages on thin whittled sticks and warmed the bread.
After lunch they stretched out on the grass watching the clouds floating across the sky. They were constantly changing their shapes and all the time distantly resembled something familiar. It was so relaxing that the friends took a nap.
The evening coolness was coming in. Clouds grew dark. It was time to go back. The small fire burnt out; there was not even a bit of charcoal left.
The friends gathered the trash into a package and set out. The air was cool, and the way down was much easier and faster.
Several times Michael tried somersault, but bumped his back against a creeping burr and after that stopped his peculiar descent of the mountain.
The short stay of the friends at Julia’s was coming to an end; they all had to go home.
The three days that the Earth Keepers gave her to think over what they had told her, were over.
Among friends, the days went by quickly and without being noticed.
In the evening the friends flew away to their homes. Julia saw them off, then closed the iron gates and went down to the house. Nobody even suspected what could happen.
She did not say anything to her friends, because she did not know much herself. What will she do, and how should she act? She did not know who to ask for advice.
Julia was watching some film on TV, but her thoughts were far away. Did she have another way out? No, she did not. She had to do only one thing: to act in a right way in this new real-life situation. Nothing else.
Julia watched the film to the end and went to her bedroom. She was walking around the room for some time, then went to the bathroom and soon went to bed. She was lying for a long time with her eyes closed, mulling over unknown and incomprehensible events that could happen to her. At last, she opened her eyes and said, loudly and positively:
«YES!»
«We knew that!» the familiar voice of the Earth Keepers sounded. «The training will start tomorrow, in the morning, at our base. Good night!»
A quiet, pleasant melody filled the room; light multi-colored rain poured merrily from the ceiling. It was impossible to look at that for a long time, and Julia quickly fell asleep.
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