Eet and Eola were modestly silent. At this time, the red light on the control panel flashed feverishly.
– Please Elena, – the robot suddenly came to life.
«Oh, I already managed to forget about you,» the astronaut said tartly. MB-20 made an offended grimace. – Well, well, excuse me.
«Oh, I’m not angry anymore,» he answered jokingly and invited me to the exit with a broad gesture. Elena cast a curious glance at the UFOs. They looked at her directly, without expressing any feelings. The robot ran down the steps first. Elena, stepping carefully, followed. Again her head was covered with a transparent helmet. A dilapidated skyscraper appeared in front of her. Darkness reigned everywhere. Piles of stones chaotically piled up between fearsome human skeletons, bones and ash. Elena looked around in fright. MB-20, invited her further, standing on a pile of twisted reinforced concrete slabs. But the woman, backing away, climbed back into the module. In the module chair, sighing loudly, she looked inquiringly at the pilots. Eet was the first to break the silence:
– This is the future of the Earth. If you don’t change your mind, self-destruction awaits you.
– But what should be done?
– I’m afraid to repeat a multiple truth, but the Bible is very clear and
intelligibly, where every word appeals to kindness, peace and philanthropy.
– Yes, yes…, – the astronaut agreed. She lowered her eyes ashamed, she felt embarrassed, but natural curiosity won:
– Tell me, if humanity lived according to biblical precepts, then…
«You would be like Noah,» Eola replied.
– This happy planet Noah?
– Yes, this is your future and it is real, if you change your mind, – Yeet glanced at the incoming MB-20.
– Desert, solid desert. Nothing, no plants, no microorganisms. One
poisonous atmosphere, yes radiation.
– But maybe, at least, somewhere, at least, something survived? the woman asked hopefully in her voice. Eet was already pressing the keys. Soon the red light began to flash again. Elena prepared to leave, but Yeet stopped her with a gesture and pointed to the transparent shell of the module. Newly chilling pictures floated before my eyes. Everywhere destruction, everywhere brown, gray tones of a dead planet. Below there were charred forest trunks, dried waterless riverbeds, empty eye sockets of lakes. In the distance, a strip of sea suddenly sparkled from the thick gray cloud. The module quickly approached the shore. Elena, without asking anyone, jumped out onto the sand. The water, with a thick film of some kind of coating, shimmering in the gray glare of the day with all the colors of the rainbow, was translucent. And the waves rolled with a menacing hiss, again and again splashing anger on the deserted beach. The astronaut hurried to the module. She didn’t want to talk. The gaze wandered behind the transparent shell of the apparatus, bumping into destruction and deserted spaces. Suddenly, the module soared into Space, and stopped at a pile of silvery stones in the middle of a huge field, which consisted entirely of these stones.
– It’s stuff. Rather, the planet is ore-bearing, or closer to earthly concepts,
a space warehouse for raw materials from which the Coalition makes modules. This planet is
the size is equal to the Earth and everything consists of pieces of ore, – Elena looked at the lifeless desert of stones, and her thoughts were far away on that Earth, where death destroyed everything. Is the Cosmic Mind really so cruel, which calmly contemplates the death of an entire planet without interfering? She somehow strangely looked at the UFOs sitting with their backs to her, then into the niche, at the motionless idol of the robot MB-20. The robot suddenly came to life and smiled at her affably. The pilots’ quick speech put her out of her thoughts. Eet and Eola were talking about something, alternately glancing in her direction…
Chapter 5
The song of a lark flew over the breadth of the sunlit field. The bird fluttered in the blue sky like a barely noticeable lump. But the kite, hovering high, almost in rare clouds, was clearly visible from the ground, although it seemed from here the size of a swallow. It seems that the wings are motionless and not a bird, but clouds rushing towards, so unnatural was the flight. Down in the field, the women’s workers bowed their heads in white handkerchiefs together and weeded the tender green rows of green seedlings stretching to the very horizon. And in this invisible harmony, birds, people and plants were intertwined into one. The only difference was that each lived his own isolated life. A sharp thunderous explosion whipped the air, echoing across space, field and sky. The working women instantly straightened up, the lark fell like a stone into the grass, and the kite, folding its wings, flew like an arrow to the ground. High in the sky, in the instant silence, a bouquet of three flowers bloomed with domes of parachutes-daisies. "The bouquet «smoothly, swaying, froze in the sky, but, looking closely, one could guess that the bouquet is moving down to the ground. The women huddled together in the middle of the field, gesturing vigorously, exchanging impressions. A black dot is visible under the canopies of the parachutes. Gradually, it turned into a charred ball. The ball sank onto the field for a long time. When the ground was about a meter away, the rocket landing engines worked, cushioning the impact on the ground. Workers rushed to the ball at a run, even though it was a good kilometer before it. The dust was still falling when the first of them approached ten steps, stopped in indecision. She began to watch, waiting for the companions. Elena woke up from a sharp pain, from the seat belts cutting into her shoulders. From the overloads he had experienced, his head ached, pounded in his temples, and felt sick. It was hot in the stuffy atmosphere of the capsule. For a minute she sat in an armchair, listening, then flipped the toggle switch on the remote control, finding the right one in orderly rows above her head. Slowly, as the shutters of the portholes opened, the cockpit was filled with daylight. The astronaut clung to one of the three, which was opposite the chair almost to the very face, and a smile sparkled on his tired face. With quick and precise movements, she began to perform the necessary actions that she had to do hundreds of times on the cosmodrome simulators before embarking on this first flight. Soon the exit hatch lid was thrown back, and the beautiful face of an astronaut with curls of brown, thick, cropped hair was revealed to the workers standing below.
– Kra-as-avitsa! the first said in a singsong voice. The women came closer, sighing.
– And how did you come to us? – asked the second with a wide tanned face and whitish eyebrows.
– Well, hello, ladies! – Elena said, getting out, already completely out of the cab. Her white spacesuit gleamed dazzlingly in the sun. Barely jumping to the ground, a girl in a blue dress pushed over to her and shyly, hiding her eyes, held out a bunch of daisies. Her tanned little hand held these first flowers of her native Earth in her thin fingers. Tears came to the eyes of the astronaut. For some reason, everyone burst into tears, hiding their eyes in the tips of their handkerchiefs. The girl, laughing, handed over the flowers, started to run, towards a whole band of children, old people, residents who appeared from the direction of the village. The helicopter, throwing up clouds of dust, landed next to the capsule. A military man in a colonel’s flight uniform stepped out of it and quickly approached the astronaut. A country jeep was in a hurry to see the colonel. A man in boots and a cap jumped out of the jeep on the move and blocked the military path. In the chatter of the helicopter’s engines, it was impossible to make out what they were talking about. But, judging by the decisive gestures that chopped the air with their palms, one thing was clear, the men did not agree. the colonel, abandoning the speaker, rushed to the cosmonaut:
– Well, hello, daughter! – and grabbed the woman reddened with awkwardness into a bear hug. Then he took her to the helicopter. The machine, sweeping away the loose layer of soil from the tender green sprouts, rushed into the heights,