Читать книгу Trilogy of Dhana and the Earth. Book one. End of the world - Andrey Prudkovskii - Страница 10

Radek, the son of Raa

An old threadbare photograph: here is our ridiculous old house on the edge of the city. On the left on the third floor is my balcony, behind it is a fire escape, through which, trembling from my own courage, I went down secretly many times at night to the courtyard of the house… I love night, its shadows and smells… This is probably inherited from my father…

But we will return on that sad day when my mother was dying, and I was in despair and did not know what to do. Dad was also there, finally, he decided! He again took on a human appearance and went to my mother. Mom was so bad that she was not even surprised:

“Ah, Rashka?” – She said only, and closed her eyes again.

“May I help you?” – Dad asked.

“Do what you want,” Mom answered.

And we began to do what we want, namely, dad asked me to sit next to him and mom and hold hands. Then he said:

“I will do something, but you, son, do nothing, but just support me, give me strength.”

So we connected – and suddenly I felt how a new creature appeared during this connection: not dad and son, but dad-and-son. This new creature was four times stronger than each of us individually.

“That’s right,” said Papa mentally, “but this creature, unfortunately, was generated by the magic of number two – after all, there are two of us, and therefore nothing good can be expected.” Now I understand how he was right… But then I did not believe him, I was euphoric from my own power.

So, we suddenly became tiny and mentally scurried into my mother’s brain.

“Well,” said Papa, “everything is clear, the familiar black loop.”

“Can I take it off?”

“No, wait,” Dad stopped my attempt to unravel the black noose on Mom’s head. – Look, a black thread stretches down. If we try to remove this loop, then we will not live long, for the thread stretches to the center of aggression, mom will kill us right away. First you have to firmly tie her to the bed.

We tied mom to the bed by the arms and legs, and then connected again. So dad began to unravel the black thread, and my mother cluttered. The rope burst, and mom tried to get her dad with her foot. If she had not been so weak, then she would have succeeded, and so dad managed to dodge. Here the second rope burst, but then dad finally took off the loop, mom calmed down relaxed and, it seems, fell asleep right away.

“Well, son, we have done the main work, but the loop is not the whole cause of my mother’s illness. Look – here’s mom’s brain edema, from which the main pain comes. And her edema is because this part of the brain is as if fenced off from the rest. And here’s the scar on her head – now it’s clear how this ‘fence’ was made… We’ll have to break the fence, but oh, how difficult it is!”

“And from where did our mother get all this?”

“Once, apparently, she got to the sorcerer, and she was enchanted in such a way.”

“And the fence… what’s it for?”

“To let mom remember something, and forget the other things, and maybe so she remembers sometimes, and sometimes, on the orders of the sorcerer, she forgets. And the loops are meant to make her obey the sorcerer and even love him.

We had been breaking the fence almost all night – it was a long, long fence. At the end I fell asleep, and dad did not sleep and treated his mother until morning.

We woke up late. Mom got up by herself and went to work. In the afternoon the doctor called, I told him that my mother recovered and went to work. From his thoughts, I saw that he was very upset, because he still could not make her the correct diagnosis. If he knew what mother’s recovery would threaten him in the near future, then he would be upset much more…

From Alexandra’s unfinished letter to her sister Masha

Mashutka, hello! I have a double joy. Firstly, I recovered, and secondly, you cannot imagine this – Rashka has returned.

How long did I endure my illness, probably for two years. In the end, I could not get up. And one evening suddenly Rashka came. And, perhaps, from the joy of meeting, all of a sudden everything went away. It feels like I have been reborn. I walk along the street and admire the glare of the Sun on the windows, the last yellow leaves on the maples. Why haven’t I seen this before?

And at work… I’m scared of myself. I have always loved my work, my dear Semen Andreevich and director Fedor Yakovlevich. And now… now it’s all gone. I became indifferent to work. It’s even funny to me how SemenAndreevich is attentive to his regime of secrecy. Well, what secrets can we have?! After all, this is not a military facility, but an ordinary central bank, where money is taken into account and transferred from one account to another. This, in fact, is my work. I sit at a computer and monitor the database with the accounts of our bank and those associated with it. Only now all this is completely uninteresting to me. And my dear superiors somehow seem gray and boring…

Having finished work, I run to my beloved ones: my son and Rashka.

Yes, and also Rex was gone, I’m really worried about him. But the son and Rashka unanimously reiterate that Rex runs home during the day when I am not there, and runs off again at night. Maybe he fell in love, and he has dates on nights.

Lots of work. And today, at the end of the day, something strange happened. Suddenly my work phone rings and someone says there:

“Violet-356, transfer two from the 8th to the 5th.”

And I, as if understanding everything, open the account 87695 on the computer, and it has a password, I know this password from somewhere and transfer two billion to the account 55387, which is also password-protected and which I also can open. Only after doing all these strange actions, I suddenly woke up, called the director and told him everything, though I was ashamed to say that I knew the passwords. I said that they were also told to me by phone. Fedor Yakovlevich was simply shocked. He also opened all these accounts and began to scream joyfully into the phone that I had saved his reputation, that he had finally hit the trail of some scammers. “Now,” he screams, “I will transfer this money back to our account and will pleaseSemen Andreevich, he was also worried”…

Well, I was not up to it. The working day was over, and I hurried home…

Radek Reksovich, continuation of the story about the last days

of his childhood

These were the last happy days of my childhood. Mom was healthy and happy again. And dad, being Rex, was used to sleeping with his mother and now, too, was not afraid to sleep with her. Mom told me that a long time ago she really offended dad and that since then dad was afraid to sleep with her in the same bed. But now they slept together and were very happy.

They did not send me to school, because classes began long ago and it was already too late to put me there. I spent the whole day with my father again, and in the evening my mother captured my father. She still could not have enough talking to her Rashka.

It all ended one evening when my mother talked about a strange case at her work and wrote about it in a letter to Aunt Masha. Mom told all this as a joke, but Dad was seriously worried.

At three o’clock in the morning the phone rang. The director called, asked to urgently come to work, he was waiting for her in his office. Mom began to pack, but my father asked me to wait a bit. We again joined hands with him and at the moment we were transferred to my mother’s office. The director was dead in his chair, and next to him our darling Semen Andreevich was putting away his gun.

“You can’t go there.” Your director is already dead,“said Papa.

“What nonsense. I just talked to him. How could he die so fast?”

“SemenAndreevich killed him,” answered Papa.

“I do not believe your fabrications,” said my mother angrily, “I will go anyway!”

“Well, okay,” said dad, “call the director again and ask him something; if he answers, go.”

Mom called… for a long, long time, but no one picked up the phone.

“I’m going anyway,” she said.

“Good,” said dad, “but first we’ll do a little test trick. Let Radek and me hold hands, and you turn off light and look out the window, what will happen.”

“Okay,” my mother replied, “but not for long time.”

“Son! Let’s try together to mentally make a doll that looks like mom, let it go out of the entrance instead of our mom,” – my dad told me.

So dad and I created something like a mom’s ghost, and this ghost silently left the door of the house (in fact, it leaked through the door).

“Look,” said mom, “there is a woman like me.”

“Well,” replied Dad, “look what will happen to this woman now.”

Indeed, our ghost did not go a dozen steps, as they began to shoot at it from behind the nearest fence. Dad and I laid a ghost on the ground, as if it had died. And mother screamed in horror:

“They killed a woman there!”

“That would be the case with you if I let you go,” Papa said.

“Is that your bandits?” Mom asked.

“No, these are the bandits of Semen Andreevich, but they will get no good from it too.

Meanwhile, three dark figures came out from behind the fence and headed for the fallen body. As soon as they approached our ghost, fragmentary shots rang out from the neighboring roof and all three figures laid down side by side.

“That’s all,” Papa said, “as you see, you are killed, and there are three bandits next to you. Tomorrow they will announce that the gang of scammers with you at the head of it has been destroyed and that it was you who killed the director of the bank who exposed the whole gang. Now let’s wait for the snipers to leave the neighboring house and then we will get out… only it would be better not through the door…”

“Let’s go,” I said, “it is an escape staircase there, next to my balcony.”

Mom quickly collected money, documents and some warm clothes. Dad took his diary and a pack of mother’s letters, including the last unfinished one. I gathered my clothes and some toys. We went out onto the balcony and went down the escape staircase into the courtyard to the garage. Mom and dad rolled out the car from the garage and manually rolled it down the street, I sat inside and pressed the brake when it was necessary. Then they started the engine and drove very quietly to the border of the city. Having driven away from the city, we stopped the car, told mom to sleep and again joined hands with dad.

Mom was in such a dumbfounded and amazed state that she obediently laid down and immediately fell asleep. And we, as my father said, had to figure out what had happened and how to save mom.

We were a daddyson again.

First, we moved to my mother’s work and saw how Semen Andreevich was making excuses to someone on the phone.

“So he is not in charge here,” Papa said.

In an instant, we were transported along a telephone conversation right into some elegant room.

There was an inscription on the door: Club of 13, and this inscription was repeated in 12 more languages. Inside there were thirteen men in black clothes, one of whom was scolding Semen Andreevich on the phone. When he walked away from the telephone, another man addressed him with a smile.

“Well, you frittered away the annual plan. Starting next year, you will not be the first, but the last… Let’s see how HE will punish you!”

“Okay,” Dad told me, “these are not in charge either. And who is HE?”

In the meantime, quiet conversations were going on in the room. A few men played cards. Two argued and made a bet. As my father and I understood, they were arguing about whose army will capture some oil field.

And our “first”, who abused Semen Andreevich by phone, was walking sadly between the tables and handing out money to everyone. Apparently, he bet someone and now, having lost, he was paying.

But then a quiet musical sound was heard, and in the middle of the hall in a large stone bowl rose a luminous pillar. All the men knelt and pressed their heads close against the edge of the bowl. All of them simultaneously were receiving instructions for further work.

“Here HE is!” dad said.

As if we were pulled into a luminous column and immediately found ourselves in a small room with a TV and a huge number of all kinds of cups, vases… on the shelves. The old man sat with his eyes closed in a huge armchair, and it was from him that all the power creating the luminous speaking pillar in the Club of 13 came out.

“That’s the goal of our journey,” Papa said. “What should we do? This old man seems to be stronger than both of us put together. For example, I can’t make such things.” We left the room by seeping through the door, and found a young soldier with weapon in his hands.

“Let’s use him!” Dad said.

The soldier could not do anything against our joint attack. In the body of a soldier, dad and I entered the room of the main sorcerer!

We saw on TV how to do this. Turn the shutter, point a weapon on the enemy and demand menacingly!

“Stop harking after my wife Alexandra!”

The old man smiled and asked:

“Which Alexandra? You, Pete, have gone crazy… – Then he became serious, looked closely and said: “Sorry, I was mistaken, you are not my Pete, and you only used him. It is a pity; I will have to part with him. So which Alexandra, from which city, which country?”

Dad did not know that, and I was afraid to tell him.

“Well…” he said, “Semen Andreevich wants to kill her, in the same way as he recently killed the director of the bank.”

“Ah, Semochka, of course, he is the gifted guy. But he does nothing in vain. If he wants to kill, then it is necessary for business. And our affairs are very important; the money we collect is used to build the future happiness of all mankind! So do not worry in vain.”

“But I don’t want her to be killed!” shouted dad and pressed the trigger.

I thought that one shot would happen, just like in the movies. But the weapon suddenly started to jump in father’s hands, sending bullets in different directions. And dad still had no idea of releasing the trigger. Then the TV exploded and the fragments of cups and vases from the shelves flew all over the room. I thought that just in a moment a terrible old man would fall dead, but he was not going to fall. He suddenly squealed in a thin voice:

“Radogast! Radogast! Stop this nonsense!”

At this scream, Dad was very frightened and dropped his weapon on the floor. The ghostly figure of a second old man arose in the middle of the room, leaner and taller, but with a long beard.

“Well, well” he said. “It’s you, Ra, behave outrageously here. And completely in vain. None of the people can damage Upyg!”

“So this is your ambassador?!” Upyg asked venomously. “He made a hole in my robe! He broke all my Chinese porcelain! The vases of the Ming Dynasty! Nobody had such, I collected them for five hundred years, and now I have only fragments!”

“No, no,” said Radogast. “Not mine. Your cosmonauts from Dhana brought this pest to Ra, and I took his life, as expected.”

“So you did it badly!” screeched Upyg. “Now I will take up the matter myself and will certainly finish him and his wife. And because you, Radogast, have allowed such an outrage, I demand from you to let me bring another person from Dhana. I need him for research for the month or two, and then I will order him to be killed. Do you agree? After all, for the next 50 thousand years I have to work on Dhana, so I must know in advance what kind of monsters are there. But if you don’t agree, I will complain to the Supervisory Board, and you will be as good as dead.”

“Okay!” Radogast agreed. “As you wish!”

“Then I give order to Semushka to urgently catch and kill this flier. Unfortunately, I cannot do this on my own; the status does not allow it.”

“I do not mind,” Radogast said, “but I doubt that he has a body that can be killed. The last time I saw him was only in the form of a spirit.”

“That is ok, my Semushka, with the help of the imprint of thoughts, finds not only alive, but also the dead. Such a talented boy! And I’ll send him the imprint right away.”

And then dad, apparently, realized that we were wasting our time, and sharply yanked us back to our bodies, to our car.

“Well,” he said, “the number two never leads to something good. Now, not only Semen, but all the main sorcerers of the country of demons will hunt for us. Both Upyg and Radogast are against us. Let’s urgently wake up mom, we’ll go to aunt Masha, maybe at least you can be saved.”

We woke up mom.

“What? Can we already go home?” Mom asked.

“No,” Papa answered, “the road to home is closed to us forever!”

As if in response to his words, two huge dark shadows drove to the intersection on the border of the city we left.

“Now the roads are blocked,” Papa said, “if you want to save your son, and then let’s hurry to aunt Masha.”

And we rushed off. We arrived the same night. Aunt Masha immediately realized that a rouble had happened. She fed us and put our mother to sleep, but my father and I refused. Dad had an idea how to save not only me but also my mother. He did not think about his own salvation, since this, he said, it was the fourth occasion, and he must necessarily die at the spell of Radogast, completely and irrevocably.

To save mother, he decided to conduct an anti-witchcraft to that witchcraft that separated my mother from aunt Masha at birth. He asked aunt Masha to lie down next to her mother. Then dad and I again connected and began to mentally bring together the two bodies lying in front of us: mom’s and aunt’s. Combining their second and third bodies, dad disconnected from me and said:

“Now hold them together, and I’ll try to unite mom and aunt Masha completely… We did it!” Sleeping mother easily passed from her body into the similar body of her sister. Dad carefully carried mother’s body away and put it into the car.

While we were doing this, aunt Masha dozed off, and dad suddenly saw a bundle of mom’s letters on her shelf. He collected them all, tied it together with the rest of the letters and his diary, packed everything in a bag and, having thought a little, put his favourite horn there too.

“That’s it,” he said, handing the bag to me, “goodbye, son! Go to Aunt Valya, give all these letters to her too and she will figure out where to hide them.” After that, he got into the car, quickly drove off and took mother’s body away.

I went to aunt Valya’s house. There was only Lyubochka. I said that we have trouble and that dad sent me to aunt Valya. Lyuba quickly contacted her mother mentally, even though her mother was many kilometers from home. Then she said that aunt Valya ordered me to go to bed and give letters to her. That’s exactly what I did.

I woke up because of the noise of motors outside the window. The street was full of soldiers; especially a lot of them were around the house of aunt Masha.

“If they come to us,” said Lyubochka, “crawl under the table and be silent. I will talk as my mother will tell me. Do not forget to put up protection, as in the game of hide and seek.”

Heavy steps were heard on the porch and who do you think came in? Semen Andreevich. In horror, I darted under the table.

“Hello, Lyubochka,” he said gently, “and who is it under your table?”

“This is my little brother,” Lyuba answered, “he is afraid of all strangers!”

“Where’s mom?”

“Mom is in the city. She passes the exam to become a doctor. She is a whole week there. And by the end of the week she asked us to go to her for the holidays. My brother has never seen a city.”

“Hm, it will be difficult for you to leave now, the whole village is cordoned off. However, I will give you a letter and an accompanying person; he will lead you to your mother.”

“Oh thank you! How kind you are! Mom always said that you are the most wonderful person in the world!” Semen Andreevich smiled:

“Well, see you!.. Hey Fedka! Here’s a pass for you, you will lead tomorrow these children to their mother, she in the city.”

Fedka saluted, looked indifferently at us and left after Semen Andreyevich.

“Now,” said Lyubochka, “we will save aunt Masha. Let’s join hands and try to make sure that no one receives a single reasonable word from aunt Masha, let everyone think that she is a complete fool. Then she will not be touched.”

That’s what we did. This turned out to be much easier than we thought. Aunt Masha was tired and really wanted to sleep, so it was very easy to get her to answer irrelevantly.

“Yesterday I was very tired. The calf was born. Spotty and funny like Pestruska. And then, at night, I dreamed of my little sister, as if she had come to me… Why are there so many dirty dishes on the table? I don’t have time to wash the dishes, at the weekend I’ll immediately wash everything… The shoes under the bed are sister’s, but if she actually was here at night, why did she leave the shoes? So she went barefoot or what?.. If you visit our farm, I’ll show you a calf, it is so funny!..”

Eventually, the interrogator spat:

“What can you expect of the fool!”

But events on the street continued to unfold. Three small cars skidded right through the meadow with great speed and sped off into the distance. These cars had no wheels; they seemed to fly above the ground.

“These are my beaters!” Semеn Andreevich said with pride.

He was sitting almost under our window in an open black car, and next to him was a general who answered:

“I prefer helicopters. Just in case, I called one. A volley of missiles is the end of all problems.”

“I want to take her alive. They say that she has a very unusual assistant, so the main thing is to get to him. Have you heard about the possibilities of a mental attack?”

“Well, that’s all fairy tales.”

“Not really, not really… A criminal who knows these methods is doubly dangerous. He can put into your head that he is not he at all, he can make you perform an action that you were not going to perform, and then forget about it. So don’t stop me from taking them alive. Now, if he mentally strikes me down, haha, then you can act by your own methods.”

Lyubochka and I nestled against the window and listened attentively to this whole conversation.

“Now he will be catching my dad,” I whispered softly to Lyubochka.

“Let’s unite, like you and dad,” Lyubochka suggested, “and come up with something.”

We connected. Lyubochka held our common defense, and I sent a thin ray to search for my father. I saw with his eyes a country road rushing madly at me. The car was flinging in different directions, but dad did not slow down. I said that he was chased by three cars without wheels, which are much faster than his own.

“Then,” Papa said, “help me create a ghostly copy of my car. We will put on the road, let them hunt after. And we ourselves will turn into the forest.”

So they did. And on time! Five minutes later, I heard Semen Andreevich talking on the walkie-talkie with his hunters.

“Well,” he told the general, “they’ve already caught him up, in five minutes they will immobilize him and brought here to us. The guys are persistent and protected from mental attacks.”

Five minutes passed, then another ten, Semen Andreevich began to lose patience. He was shouting into the phone:

“How can you not catch up with him?! Shoot the wheels!..”

“How can’t you shoot?!”

“Well, some kind of nonsense turns out. They can’t catch up with an old clunker!”

“Not otherwise than psychology pulled the rug out,” the general smiled. “Well, that is a thought.” Semen Andreevich closed his eyes and concentrated. “But it is true, there is no car there. They are chasing a ghost. But where is the car? Half a moment and I’ll feel, I’ll feel… Here is the necessary trace!.. 45th square.”

“Dad, he felt for you!” I shouted desperately.

“I can’t do anything with him,” Papa said, “his defense is impenetrable. Could you somehow distract him? At least make a small bonfire in his car.”

“Good! I will try!”

I focused towards the sun and thought about where to make a fire. And suddenly the nose of Semen Andreevich caught my eye. It was bulbous nose and I wanted to decorate it with something… After a minute his nose was fuming! I felt that both Lyuba and even her mother mentally support and help me. Semen Andreevich grabbed his nose in horror. And then all four of us (along with dad) dealt a mental blow. Semen Andreevich swayed and fell to the bottom of the car. Soldiers and doctors wererunning around. I heard someone say:

“It seems like a stroke.”

Semen Andreevich was wheezing, the foam was coming from his mouth. He was quickly put on a stretcher and taken away.

The general commanded on the street. He spoke with a helicopter.

“A car, not far from the road in the 45th square. Find it and destroy! Square has to be cordoned off!

“Dad,” I shouted, “fast get out of the car. They will destroy it.”

“I’m trying to get mom out.”

“Quicker, quicker!”

High in the sky above the village, hung a helicopter, and a smoky stream went from it towards dad.

“Lie down!” I shouted to him mentally.

“Well,” the general said with satisfaction to his assistant, “the car is destroyed, the square is cordoned off. If they are still alive, we will find them.

I contacted dad again, he was alive.

“But mom’s body died,” he said.

“You couldn’t save it anyway. Your forest is cordoned off and you have nowhere to run.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Papa said and turned off.

“So,” the general said a little later, “only fragments left from the car, a criminal is killed, but her accomplice disappeared. What will we do?”

“What if he hid in a square or got through a cordon?..”

“It’s simple. Shoot the internal cordon! Fill the square with poisonous substances! You can do right now from the helicopter.

“Dad, dad,” I cried out mentally, conveying the whole conversation I heard.

“I’ll try to survive,” dad’s voice came softly to me. “Leave the village and don’t look for me. If I survive, I will contact you in six months.”

This ended our conversations. Lyubochka and I were incredibly tired. We can barely hold our eyes open. We woke up only the following morning, when Fyodor, the adjutant of Semen Andreevich, entered our hut, rattling his boots.

“Well, small fry, get ready! You have five minutes. I’m waiting for you in my car!”

The next day, we were already at the hotel where aunt Valya met us.

Aunt Valya said that she will be my mother now. We spent several interesting days in the city, went to exhibitions and museums. And then we left for aunt Valya’s new job in the forest hospital. There was a whole town in the forest, with a school, shops and gyms. I immediately went to school – first grade. Although I missed the first half of the year, I was able to read and write, so I could do it no worse than others.

Six months passed, there was no news from dad, and I realized that he is dead.

A doctor, who treated my mother, was brought to a closed hospital block. I caught a glimpse of him when he was carried on a gurney, but I immediately recognized him. Then aunt Valya secretly told us that he had been tortured for a long time, they were asking how he managed to cure my mother, but he did not know anything. They will cure him. But it is still unknown what will be next.

A month later, aunt Masha was brought to us and put in a psychiatric ward. It turned out that aunt Masha could no longer cope with her work, she confused and forgot everything. In addition, as the doctor said, she has a serious illness – a split personality. Well, I knew that this was not a split, but actually two personalities: aunt Masha and my mother. Aunt Masha did not fully recover; she stayed to work at the hospital as a cleaner. I often visited to her, and together we thought of our dad and a happy life until his death.

Meanwhile, in a poisoned forest, a strange, unlike anything tree slowly died among other trees of the forest…