January 1, 2001
Keepers - The Beginning
Interactive story
Arrival
Far ahead, a glade faintly shone through the trees. I knew that beyond it my native places began. A warm house awaited me there, tasty food. And in time — a beloved wife. At home we call her simply the Beloved. It is here that wives and husbands are chosen several times, always searching for the most beloved, the most kindred, the best other half. With us it is much simpler — and better. If you love, believe it is forever, and so it will be. That is why we always have one wife for life, and one husband forever. Because it is not just a wife and not just a husband — it is the Beloved and the Beloved. The trees ahead thinned. The outlines of the native swamp would appear any moment. But what is this! The sky suddenly darkened, as if before a storm. A bright beam broke through the veil of clouds — and painfully struck my eyes.
“This one made it fine!” a loud voice rang out, cutting the ear with crisp consonants.
The illusion suddenly melted: I’m not home! I’m flying, not really knowing why, but knowing only that the mission is important. And that voice is a doctor, an alien specialist, I think from Horus, though it doesn’t matter. What matters is that now a new life begins for me — with many important meetings, necessary decisions, and serious questions: I am becoming the Ambassador of the Crystal Swamps.
Crash
The gaze of the man standing by the observation window with difficulty plucked the lilac buildings of the spaceport out of the dense wall of rain. He glanced once more at the runway slabs gray with rain and thoughtfully scratched his chin. Three silver arrows on the wall in the waiting hall insistently reminded him of the time. He looked at his watch. That’s right — half past seven; they should have landed four hours ago. The liner’s landing was delayed because of bad weather, but that was only the official statement — Albatross-class liners could land in any weather and at any gravity. These ships were made right after the Second Conflict from assault cruiser models. The ship could carry fifteen hundred passengers and almost seven hundred tons of useful cargo. The heavy downpour near the planet’s surface would be noticed only in the portholes.
The reason for the delay was different, and Delor had been trying for four hours to understand what exactly. Bluish flashes above the clouds could be anything, from lightning discharges to gravitational explosions.
A flat TV above the bar methodically showed films and news, thickly diluted with advertising blocks. Delor approached the stout bartender — surprisingly he turned out to be a human, not a robot. Robots are more reliable: they don’t make mistakes, but they are not alive and even the latest models can be distinguished from humans. They are not alive.
The bartender turned his head toward the new customer:
“Something to drink?” he asked tiredly. Calm blue eyes reflected the faces of his customers today.
Robots are more reliable, they don’t get tired.
“The liner is delayed,” Delor complained, looking at the half-empty hall. Everyone who remained either awaited the next departure or slept.
“Girlfriend?” the bartender asked sympathetically, pouring a glass of red wine and glancing at the Serenity badge on the chest of the new customer.
“Sister,” Delor said, taking a sip.
Robots are more reliable, there is no sympathy in them.
“They say it’s because of the weather,” the plump man behind the counter continued.
He was bored standing and happy to chat with a customer, which could not be said of Delor, who after four hours of waiting was not in the mood to talk.
“They’ll land,” the bartender said confidently.
“They’ll land,” Delor agreed, reassuring himself.
On TV they were spinning some film again when the Federation Crest appeared — a white eagle in a black circle on a blue flag background. A young announcer, greatly nervous, began to read line by line. Delor listened as if in a dream; he managed to understand only one single phrase: “…the passenger liner ‘Rainbow-M’ of the ‘Albatross’ class suffered an accident in the orbit of Rhein, and in the next minutes an attempt at an emergency landing will be made…” Delor, like a sleepwalker, under the bartender’s cries, walked to the observation window and pressed his nose to it.
The glass of red wine dropped from his weakened hand when the burning nose of the liner emerged from the gray shroud of clouds. Roaring, the flaming ship covered the distance to the ground, and the three-hundred-meter structure carefully touched the concrete half a kilometer from the waiting hall… The spaceport drowned in the fire of the exploded reactor.
Robots are more reliable; it doesn’t hurt them…
Decision
The door was wooden, a large copper handle for some reason attached right by the hinges. But that did not confuse me: I have seen all kinds of Doors in my century. Suddenly a quiet creak reached my hearing; I looked at the Door: the handle turned! Yes, there were indeed few such Doors. The handle creaked further, until it turned 180 degrees, then it went back, there — back, there — back, in the rhythm of a steam engine. I wanted to stop it, reached out my hand, and suddenly my own hand, refusing to obey, sharply recoiled from the handle. My elbow began to tremble, jerk, and suddenly the darkness around parted, opening the way to a blindingly bright light.
“Hey, are you sleeping?” the voice was muffled and came as if from underground. “Time to decide, and he’s snoring here!”
With difficulty prying open my eyes, I realized that the voice did not come from underground, but from somewhere under my feet, and my elbow was not trembling on its own — it was being tugged with all its might by the tentacles of the small owner of the voice.
“What decision?” I dared to ask; it came out unnatural, hoarse, a nasty whistle instead of my usual bubbling.
“Oh, you decided to lose your last support? Forgot how you lost the previous three pseudopods?”
“Oh come on, you remember that!” I had to feign offense.
“So, do we open the Door or not?” the creature, whose name I did manage to recall — Afanasy — seemed very good-natured. At least to my faceted eye.
“Of course, of course!” to brush it off with such simple words seemed the easiest way out.
“What, are you brushing it off?”
Since when did the Fanasians learn to read minds?
“How could you think such a thing! To insult a hazelnut, and a pureblood at that!” I hoped the hiss sounded like indignation.
And what kind of Doors are these? I can’t remember no matter how I try. It’s always like this when I’ve just woken up. Well, whatever. One doesn’t back down from what one said. True, pureblood hazelnuts.
Guests
Night fell suddenly. It descended on the city in a dense wave of darkness, swiftly flooding the streets. Closer to the center and along the roads, blue sparks of streetlights fought the night, leaving wounded shadows that lay like fallen heroes of invisible battles.
A dark silhouette of a car darted along the empty street. Its tires rustled on the night asphalt, and it disappeared around the corner. One of the shadows slowly separated from the wall of a tall building and, with cautious steps, began to move away from the road into the depths of a dark block.
The car was new, a “Scorpion-112” glinted a little in the light of nearby lamps. Zarin approached it and, carefully opening the door, sat down. He took a videophone from the inside pocket of his coat and dialed the number of the Serenity Service.
“Serenity,” said a well-trained male voice.
“Keeper of Serenity number one hundred twenty-three,” Zarin did not like mentioning his rank: people ceased to behave naturally in his presence, “Report to the center that Guests are in the city.”
“Understood, executing,” the dispatcher answered quickly.
Zarin cut the connection. The night outside the windows seemed even blacker.
Something dark flashed before the windshield of the car. Ilya Zarin had been a Keeper for more than ten years, and none of his colleagues could call him a coward, but what he saw outside made even the veteran flinch. You don’t stay a Keeper too long; you either leave or die — luck cannot last forever. Checking the charge of his blaster, he moved the power regulator to the maximum mark. Anything could be expected — there were Guests in the city.
Sharply throwing open the car door, he aimed the short barrel of the blaster into the darkness. With his free hand Ilya took night-vision goggles from his pocket and carefully lowered them onto the bridge of his nose. The world transformed, filling with a greenish palette of colors. A warm spot of a living being glowed in the corner of the courtyard thirty meters from him. The blaster pleasantly weighed down his hand, adding confidence. Zarin slowly got out of the car, which gently swayed, unwilling to let the human body go. With the silent gait of a Keeper he moved forward. Somewhere nearby, with a light ring, a drop that had fallen from the roof shattered.
Ilya reflexively turned at the sound.
From somewhere to the right came the sound of crumpling metal; the brand-new “Scorpion” was turning into a heap of useless scrap. The engine still glowed bright green as it cooled when a huge cold mass jumped from the hood of the mangled car to the ground a few meters from Ilya. Zarin quickly looked back, fixing the position of the creature in the corner of the courtyard. A cold, wet maw with a smacking sound closed over the Keeper’s body.
The coat unpleasantly squeaked against the teeth, but it held for now. Ilya Zarin had been in tougher situations; fear of the unknown passed — the danger was concrete, and it could be fought. Zarin tore free from the monster’s mouth under the scratching of teeth against the coat. The blaster flared twice with blue plasma, and the yard filled with thunderclaps in which hung the acrid smell of burnt flesh.
First Ilya stepped back three paces and, with a professional habit, shot another clump of plasma into the fallen Guest. Then he pulled a dark-green videophone box from his pocket. Quickly dialing the familiar number, he said to the screen:
“Keeper of Serenity number one hundred twenty-three has made contact with the Guests.”
“Stay on the line,” the dispatcher was the same, and he was very worried. “I’m connecting you with headquarters.”
“Why does Serenity never use video communication?” flashed through the Keeper’s mind. The answer was simple — so as not to distract from the surroundings, which often only wait for you to stop paying attention.
“What kind of contact?” at headquarters they seemed to have forgotten about politeness. “Keeper, report the situation.”
“Contact of the first kind, situation stable, hostile life form neutralized.”
“By what means!?” the dispatcher nearly shouted. God knows what was happening at headquarters.
“With a plasma blaster,” Ilya allowed himself a slight barb in response to the lack of politeness.
They didn’t answer immediately; either headquarters was discussing the sharpness of their Keeper, or…
“Maintain your location,” the dispatcher advised. “You will be contacted later.”
The videophone fell silent. Probably, if a younger specialist were in Zarin’s place, he would have waited. But Ilya had worked in Serenity long enough to translate the beautiful formulation into the language of Serenity: you failed an important operation and will be eliminated; the capture group will arrive any minute.
“Shouldn’t have mentioned the blaster,” Ilya thought. “Now they know I’m almost unarmed: the blaster will recharge in about twenty minutes.”
He smirked and inserted a new power cell. “Let’s give them a little surprise.”
Elephant
Swaying slowly, I walked down the street. Well, walked — in my view. To anyone unprepared, such steps could cause a heart attack. They did, in fact. But I have a permit to walk this way, don’t worry!
This time the street was empty. Partly because my approach is sensed from afar by more developed organisms, brazenly claiming it is my swamp origin’s fault, and partly because on this issue less developed ones fully trust the more developed. But empty streets are even convenient, while the Parliament hall, where you have to put on a hideous sealed overall, is another matter entirely. But no pureblood hazelnut fears difficulties! Though, of course, the comfort with which you lie in your native swamp is far better and more useful than their silly Parliament with its dreadful chairs.
But now I was occupied with something else. So, swaying slowly, I walked down the street. A light squall wind pleasantly chilled the last pseudopod, threatening to tear it off at last. As a true hazelnut, I despised all manner of transport so popular among other races — the shells of flying turtles from Kunatomi, cars from the planets of Terra, and the local miserable sound-jumpers proudly called by natives “hovercraft boats.” Now my thoughts were entirely focused on the most important mission ever assigned to the hazelnuts. The entire further life of our race depended on it.
I speak of Feeding. Of course, there were various responsible posts like the Ambassador of the Crystal Swamps, by which I was obliged to attend boring meetings, make no less boring decisions and ask even more boring questions, but those were worldly missions, and any hazelnut knows from childhood that all worldly things are secondary, and only what the Gods bequeathed to us matters. For example, the main commandment of hazelnuts — if you are hungry, you are not a hazelnut. And another — if you are not hungry, you are not a hazelnut. Our philosophers wrestled long with the meaning of this. In breaks between meals. And, by the way, they concluded that one should feed constantly.
With a light heart and an empty stomach I was headed for a snack. The little planet was pitiful, despite being the capital in the Antechamber, and the Gods were clearly not honored here — there were no open eateries. True, I came across one on the way, but when I approached the owner for some reason began to close up, despite the early hour. I found a cheap diner only after half an hour of fruitless searches. Anticipating the joys of Filling, I waddled over the dirty threshold…
An hour later I stood at an indifferent pie machine, finishing my second dozen. In five years on the planet I could have learned that the main clock of the natives is me. It is by my arrival that they determined it was time to close. Strange customs they have. But what can you take from them — barbarians. And their memory has issues too — once I forgot to take off my overall after a session, and in the very first canteen they didn’t recognize me and didn’t close…
Each time after Filling I faced the same problem — due to damaged, well, okay, torn pseudopods I couldn’t normally hold things — only in sleep did I have a pair of hands. So I had to invent various ways to get rid of extra heaps of pies. Well, those that were unpleasant even for my stomach — with uranium isotopes, amaya and other very nourishing in an energy sense substances. Since I couldn’t reach the intake slot of the waste container, I had to hide them behind the machine or toss them up and run away… And today I was trying to decide what to do with them.
“Why do you always buy what you don’t eat?” the voice sounded so sharp that I even jumped in place. Several bricks immediately fell from the column standing nearby.
“And how else would I know what’s new in these machines?” my confident voice did not match what I actually thought.
“Oh, this eternal greed of the Swamp,” the still unseen interlocutor continued to grumble. “Instead of delegating food buying to one of the local servants.”
“What greed!? You don’t understand that we, hazelnuts, honor the Gods and try to heed their commandments. If I buy a lot of food, then among it there will necessarily be something extra, what can I do? I have no hands, and the machines here are too fragile. At least they replace them quickly,” did this stranger really imagine he could command hazelnuts?
“Alright, alright, stop driving it,” his voice suddenly changed, as if he had been struck on the head with a sharp object. About ten times. “You are a nothing! Sleeping in the Senate when the most important world issues are being decided! And we give such people veto rights! It’s scary to imagine what will happen if the Emperor lets you take seats in the Supreme Presidium. Slackers!”
No mortal has the right to insult a hazelnut. Thus says the second commandment of the hazelnuts. Therefore I answered:
OR
(c) burt, Leaver, 2001