Джора Байрамов
I am Earthman

CHAPTER 1

War

The intergalactic ship rapidly entered the Solar system of the galaxy, called the "Milky Way". The commander of the ship gave the order;

– Slow down. Wake up the earthman, he has been in the bio-chamber for more than three hundred years. We are approaching the planet Earth. Let him admire his planet. This was his wish before going to bed.

The humanoids immediately obeyed the order of the ship's commander and brought the man to the observation cabin of the ship. At the same moment, the man leaned greedily against the porthole. He wanted to see the blue, beautiful, familiar home planet. But behind the porthole, I saw a dark gray, sometimes black, as if charred by a vast, large-scale fire, perhaps even already lifeless, dead planet. Where the blue oceans and seas are located, grayish-dark clouds covered in places. The continents have lost their former shape, have repeatedly decreased in size, we can say they have turned into many large and small islands. He was horrified and numb, began to mutter "it can't be, it can't be, this planet is not Earth", Slowed down after a long and forced artificial sleep, his memory was gradually restored. He really wanted to remember his first and last name, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do it. He only remembered that he was a citizen of the Russian state, as a cosmonaut, together with astronauts from other countries, whose names he could not remember now, as part of five people, an international space crew, he did not remember the exact year, somewhere in the first half of the twenty-first century, they flew to the international space station (ISS) and replaced the previous crew. They worked together on the ISS, conducted scientific experiments, joked, had fun, discussed their upcoming, future flight on a manned interplanetary ship to the planet Mars. The crew had already been on the ISS for four months and they were soon to be replaced by another international crew. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, everything went according to a pre-planned plan. And so, being on the ISS in near-Earth orbit, in an instant they became the only unwitting witnesses of the catastrophe and the destruction of the Earth's civilization. Whether as a result of a fatal mistake of the human factor, or as a result of a successful terrorist attack by hackers on the system of early detection and prevention of an enemy missile attack, followed by hacking the lock and provoking a simulated nuclear missile attack, or because of the geopolitical ambitions of the leaders of the nuclear superpowers, a global thermonuclear war suddenly began between the nuclear superpowers. Of course, over the past decades, interstate relations between the world's leading nuclear powers have been strained and strained to the limit due to many problems and contradictions, mainly over spheres of influence in the world of a geopolitical, territorial and economic nature. In various hot spots of the Earth, undeclared wars of the leading powers of the world have been going on for a long time, in the form of their indirect participation in regional skirmishes, in coups d'etat, in which, defending their economic and geopolitical interests, the nuclear powers of the world supported one or another opposing side, providing them with assistance in the field of weapons, information and support in the UN. In addition, in order to win in the confrontation, the warring parties and their allies have long waged undeclared hybrid wars of an economic and informational nature among themselves, cyber attacks were carried out aimed at undermining the economic basis of the state and at weakening the political institutions of state power and other fundamental foundations of statehood. In an effort to dominate the world, some powerful powers, under the guise of "democratizing the world" or under the guise of "protecting the economic interests of their state" in a particular region of the world, resorting to various sophisticated methods to damage the opposite side, did not disdain anything to achieve their goals. They constantly violated the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and violated other international rules of relations between States developed in the 20th century and established for years. Double standards, economic blockades and other various restrictive measures were widely applied to those who did not agree with the policies of the superpowers. When resolving certain geopolitical or geo-economic disputes, conflict situations in hot spots of the world, even the opinions of some economically undeveloped and militarily powerful states located in that region, whose interests were directly affected there, were not taken into account, and the preservation of their statehood depended entirely on objective solutions to these problems. This, in turn, led to protracted civil wars and the complete ruin of these states in economic and humanitarian terms and the mass migration of their citizens to other countries of the world. Against the background of the confrontations of the nuclear superpowers, skillfully taking advantage of their irreconcilable differences, in addition to this, they were also financially fueled by third forces from outside, international terrorism was also growing everywhere in the world. In a word, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, because of the gross mistakes made, or the deliberate actions of some leading politicians of the world elite aimed at creating so-called "controlled chaos" in certain regions of the world, everything and everything changed in the world. This led to a deep diplomatic crisis in the relations between the leading powers of the world. Another feature of this period of time was that in the relations of states, in solving various international problems, peace politicians, in order to tilt the thicket of scales in their direction, increasingly resorted to the services of brazen provocation and false propaganda. As a result, the world became such that it was as if truth and falsehood had changed places in people's minds, and the truth as such, as if it no longer existed in the world. And it seemed that along with the rapid scientific and technological growth of the world economy in all its directions, people, and in some cases even high-ranking politicians, relying entirely on information distributed by the media or on the Internet, taking various biased, custom-made fake news for the truth, forgot how to see the truth and therefore, as if only lies began to rule the world. But everyone believed, based on the predominance of high human reason, that the leaders of the nuclear powers, knowing what a global thermonuclear war would turn out for the planet, would refrain from a military solution by force with the use of nuclear weapons in solving any acute issues in interstate relations and would agree, as during the Caribbean crisis in the sixties of the twentieth century. In any case, humanity will never know what was the reason for the beginning of a global nuclear war. So, from various points of the Earth, from land, from ocean and sea surfaces and depths, short-and medium-range ballistic missiles and huge intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads were launched in an instant. The vaunted anti-missile, anti-aircraft missile systems of the opponents, although they shot down several missiles that had just launched, were not corrected by streams of thousands of missiles flying at huge hypersonic speeds at the target, filled with nuclear warheads that split when approaching the target. It seemed that the parties used all their nuclear arsenals accumulated during the years of confrontation to defeat the enemy and used all means of delivering them to the targets for this purpose. In addition to ballistic missiles and other means, recently invented, secret, automatically self-loading, super-powerful electromagnetic guns, that is, the so-called railguns, stationary-mine-based, were used to deliver destructive strike nuclear arsenals. Previously, only a few of these electromagnetic guns, and then with the strictest secrecy, were previously used by the military to secretly launch small, barely noticeable for radars, military reconnaissance satellites into near-Earth orbit. With their trunks almost vertically pointing into the sky, these super-powerful electromagnetic guns, with their lightning-fast, sharply repulsive shots, gave an unthinkably high speed to a metal capsule designed and made specifically from particularly strong metal alloys, inside which small-sized, high-precision, so-called "smart" cruise missiles stuffed with thermonuclear warheads were placed, working on tiny nuclear installations. With the shots of electromagnetic cannons, these capsules in the blink of an eye, that is, in a few seconds, overcoming the Earth's gravity at unimaginably high speeds, were directly launched into the low Earth orbit of the planet and continuing to fly at hypersonic speeds in the near-Earth orbit, these capsules were automatically opened and the rockets inside them were separated from them. The missiles immediately at the command of the operators or automatically according to the programs laid down in advance in them, tuning in to the target and in flight sharply and very difficult maneuvering like small swifts, thereby effectively confusing ABOUT the enemy, flew at unthinkably huge hypersonic speeds towards the enemy. When approaching the target, these ultra-precise, small-sized, smart missiles, while still in low Earth orbit, made a sharp turn over the target and as a result of this maneuver, from top to bottom, almost vertically-perpendicular flight to the Ground, without even having time to get particularly heated by the oncoming air resistance, overcoming the lower, dense layers of the atmosphere, vertically and accurately hit the targets. These small-sized, ultra-precise missiles, equipped with nuclear warheads, were designed to deliver pinpoint strikes on small, but strategically important military facilities, deep bunker command posts of the enemy and jewelry hits exactly on target caused irreparable damage to the enemy. The anti-missile means of the warring parties not only failed, due to their small size and unprecedented speeds, and also, especially because of their low visibility for air defense radars, to shoot down these missiles, but did not even have time to detect and distinguish them from many other objects and space debris randomly spinning in near-Earth orbit. Due to the special electronic complexity of the designs of their targeting heads, which did not perceive other people's radio signals or radio interference at all, the means of electronic warfare against missiles were also not effective against these missiles. And not only EW-s, but even powerful anti-missile laser guns of land and ship-based, as well as special anti-missile neutron guns based on special satellites in a high geostationary orbit of the Earth, could not shoot down these missiles. Because these smart rockets during the flight for a second, at unthinkably huge hypersonic speeds, zigzagged more than three hundred meters unpredictably difficult and varied to change the trajectory of their flight. The ISS crew members watched with horror as at huge hypersonic speeds, huge ballistic missiles with powerful nuclear warheads and small-sized cruise missiles filled with nuclear warheads, fired from electromagnetic cannons, rushed to all the edges of the Globe. Several rockets even flew to the Arctic, that is, to the North Pole of the Earth and to the icy continent of Antarctica. Perhaps there were also military bases of the opponents there. At the same time, in order to achieve a final victory over the enemy, the opposing sides also used a new, the use of which is categorically prohibited, top secret, gravitational weapons in the conditions of any war on Earth. Explosions, dazzling bright lights, thousands and thousands of large and small mushrooms from nuclear explosions have grown on all continents and islands of the Earth, where military bases, strategic objects of opponents or their allies may have been located. These numerous powerful nuclear explosions and the use of gravitational weapons, in turn, served as resonant detonators for indescribably super-powerful wave earthquakes, natural disasters and man-made disasters across the entire surface of the planet. One after another, nuclear power plants, oil and gas storage terminals and everything that could explode and burn on the ground exploded and burned. From above, it seemed that super-powerful fires had engulfed the entire land surface of the Earth. Perhaps the echoes of numerous powerful nuclear explosions and the use of gravitational weapons echoed in the deep layers of the planet, as not only active, erupting volcanoes were activated along the chain, but even numerous volcanoes that had once fallen asleep, including the largest volcano Yellowstone, woke up and began to erupt. The titanic destructive forces of all these volcanoes were thousands of times more significant than all the nuclear explosions and, as a result, the man-made disasters that followed them. The oceans and seas were boiling with underwater volcanoes that had awakened in the bowels of the Earth and raged with previously unprecedented giant waves. Before the eyes of the crew, the eternal ice floes of the Arctic Ocean first broke into several parts, and then the ice floes encircling Antarctica and all these broken parts of the ice floes were rapidly moving towards the equator of the planet. And then came the moment when, as in the times of the mythical wars of the gods, huge water streams, swallowing everything into their depths, rushed from the oceans to the continents. From above, it seemed that the water element was about to swallow all the land on Earth. Meanwhile, the devastating fiery explosive waves of nuclear explosions, sweeping away and destroying everything in their path, circled the globe several times. In a word, in an instant, everything on the surface of the Earth was mixed up. It was an indescribable real hell, an apocalypse on Earth, in the literal sense of the word. Despite the futile requests of the crew, the flight control centers and all ground services in general were silent. Apparently, after the nuclear explosions, powerful electromagnetic pulses, in an instant, cut off all means of communication on Earth and it is quite possible that the ground services after that, simply for a purely technical reason, could not establish communication. Perhaps, even most likely, these services, like all other services, probably could not even survive, since, after a series of annihilatingly devastating nuclear explosions, super-powerful earthquakes that occurred everywhere on the Earth's surface, numerous small and super-powerful super volcanoes and a planetary-scale water element completed the complete and irrevocable destruction of Earth's civilization. Time passed, and the ISS with the crew on board was still spinning around the planet. And suddenly, for a moment, the Earth shuddered for a moment and seemed to make a short stop in its rotation around its axis, and then began its rotation again. A moment later, something vast, seemingly similar to a huge wide funnel, a vacuum void was formed in the Earth's atmosphere over the African continent, and an extremely critical cosmic cold poured into this part of the Earth that was not protected by the atmosphere, along with the Sun's harmful rays, radiation, in the form of a silvery haze. From above, it was visible how, due to the attraction of the planet, the cosmic cold spread rapidly on the surface of the Earth, and the already frozen and icy land surface of the whole of Africa and part of the water surface of the Atlantic mirrored and reflected the Sun's rays back from themselves. A moment later, the already polluted atmosphere of the planet again filled this vacuum void. After that, the entire Earth, up to the stratosphere, was gradually covered with thick dust from nuclear explosions and a volcanic ash pall. This meant that from that moment on, a long, critically cold, nuclear winter began on Earth, which was disastrous for biological life. All the members of the ISS crew, being in near-Earth orbit and having personally seen, as a result of the world thermonuclear war, the destruction of the Earth's civilization, not yet fully believing in it and not fully realizing the irreparable disaster that had happened to their home planet, silently looked into each other's faces. In their eyes, one could read an indescribable terrible horror, fright, confusion and deep inner heartache for what had happened and was already irreparable, a disaster on Earth, and everyone was asking questions: "How and why did this happen, who is to blame, was it really impossible to solve all sorts of issues peacefully, by agreement. Did the leaders and politicians of the leading nuclear powers, who are responsible not only to the peoples of their country, but in general to the humanity of the whole world, to the thousand-year-old Earth civilization, knowing in advance how the world nuclear war will end, how disastrously catastrophic its consequences will be for life on the planet, allow this?" A day passed, but the Earth remained dead silent. A month passed after the disaster, the Earth did not show any signs of life, as if there was only a dusty void behind the ashy fog and there was no longer a blue, beautiful planet called Earth in the endless expanses of the Universe. But all the crew members knew that she, the only and native Earth for everyone, there, behind the ash fog, did not leave her orbit, as before, continues her rotation around the Sun, turns around her axis, otherwise the Moon, her eternal companion and completely dependent on the Earth's gravity, would have left the Earth's orbit. However, the moon, as always, was still spinning, in its orbit, around the Earth. Now the crew members did not argue, did not swear and did not blame the leaders and politicians of a particular state. They silently thought about the fate of their relatives, friends, and fellow citizens, and in the soul of each of the crew members there was still a small hope that, although the scale of the disaster is immeasurably large, but the ground services of the states together will be able to localize the consequences of the disaster, because the entire thousand-year-old earth civilization could not perish in an instant. All the crew members almost all the time, without looking up from the portholes, looked out at the Earth in the hope that the ash fog was about to open, and they would see their native blue planet again, ground services would start working, and they would return to Earth. The crew members were silent and no longer discussed this topic, because each of them well understood and knew what a global thermonuclear war was and how catastrophic its consequences could be. Meanwhile, the ISS was still spinning around the Earth, all the instruments and equipment of the station were working properly. The supplies of provisions and oxygen were sufficient. But the hopelessness of their current situation, and although they did not yet know and could not even conceivably determine the scale of the catastrophe, however, the premonition of the global disaster that had already occurred on Earth, the feeling of losing their relatives and loved ones, increasingly pressed on the psyche of each of them. In addition to this, the Earth for all this time did not give any, even the slightest, signs of life and still continued to keep, a terrifying soul, a dead silence. Although there were five of them on the ISS, but they all already felt lonely and abandoned to the mercy of fate, they occasionally communicated with each other, the rest of the time they were silent, and sometimes, hiding bitter tears from each other, someone, remembering their loved ones, and someone, their former life on Earth, silently cried. All the crew members knew in advance that if the situation did not change, no matter how long their life on the ISS would last, although they understood perfectly well that after the catastrophe on Earth, their further life no longer made any sense even for themselves and that such a situation could not continue forever. They also knew that what an unenviable and painfully tragic end to their life paths was waiting for them ahead. At the end of the fourth month after the disaster, one of the solar panels failed, then the second. Fuel and other means for maneuvering and maintaining the necessary speed of the ISS in orbit were also running out, and were used only for maneuvering, so as not to collide with space debris or, already unmanageable and uncontrolled by numerous satellites that were still spinning around the Earth, issuing emergency radio signals on their radio frequencies. And now the moment has come when, due to an acute shortage of energy, the instruments and equipment of the station began to fail one after another. The usual temperature regime inside the station began to rapidly drop down and the ISS gradually began to freeze. The crew members silently put on their spacesuits. Fortunately, there was still enough food, water and oxygen. He, as the commander of the ship, turned to the crew with the question of what to do, to descend to the dead Earth through an ashen veil at random, not knowing the landing point reliably, or with the rest of the fuel, raising the station to an extremely high, geostationary orbit, accelerate and remain forever in space as extinct exhibits of the human race in the Universe. We decided to do the first, that is, in the absence of ground services coordinating flights, we ourselves made the necessary preliminary calculations to ensure the maximum safe trajectory of the lander's entry into the atmosphere and calculations for the preliminary selection of the landing site and descend to Earth. Because, with a successful and safe landing, if of course they suddenly succeed in this, everyone wanted to see firsthand everything that was happening on Earth, and there was still a small hope in everyone's souls that everything was not lost yet. They hoped that after the necessary acclimatization of the musculoskeletal and other organs of the body to terrestrial conditions, they themselves would be able to get out of the lander, and the spacesuits would reliably protect them from the effects of thermonuclear radiation. And then, with the remnants of the reserves of space food, they will be able to survive on their own planet. With such hope in their hearts, they all moved into the lander. However, due to a lack of energy or perhaps for some other reason, the emergency sensors in the descent vehicle triggered. Despite all the efforts of the crew members, they could not establish and eliminate the cause of the emergency sensors, and for the same reason, they could not undock and break away from the station. In addition, while they were in the descent capsule, for some unknown reason, perhaps due to a slightly larger meteorite hitting the outer skin of the station or for another reason, the ISS was depressurized and the air inside the station and, together with the air, somehow the entire oxygen supply quickly flowed into space. The energy on board the ISS was running out and due to the lack of the necessary energy for management, that is, for these purposes, enough necessary energy, the station became unmanageable. In addition, after depressurization, the temperature inside the station dropped so quickly below the critical norm, so even while inside the station, it was no longer possible to open the visor of the helmet of the spacesuit. All the crew members understood the critical irretrievability of the situation that had already come. After a day, the oxygen in the spacesuits also ran out. The oxygen starvation of the brain cells was already felt, there was a noise in the ears, the head became heavy, it was increasingly difficult to breathe. The crew members hugged each other and said goodbye for the last time. Everyone could see such deep emotional pain and sorrow for the mistake made by their relatives on Earth, but never incorrigible anymore. It was impossible to convey this pain and sorrow in words, because each of them understood that there was no more Earthly civilization, relatives and friends, and soon, very soon, they, that is, the last earthlings from the genus of Adam and Eve, would go into an irrevocable eternity. After some time, the instrument monitoring the health status of the crew members showed that two of the crew members did not show signs of life, two were unconscious. He, too, like all the other crew members, already resigned, prepared for them by fate, the tragic end of his life, began to lose consciousness, but at the last moment, before losing consciousness, he felt a slight push and on the monitor screen saw an alien spacecraft smoothly docked to the ISS. After that, he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER 2

In a Foreign land

He woke up in an unusually light-bright space. It was not the cabin of a large spaceship, or a huge hall without windows and apparently even without doors. Nearby, dressed in a cloak of gray material, an alien stood silently, looking and describing very similar to the aliens from the fantastic films of earthlings. But this alien was very taller than the ones he saw in the movies, that is, if he determines by eye, then his height was about two and a half meters. At first glance, the alien's face and gaze seemed to him not terrible, not evil and not ferocious, as in those fantastic films about aggressive alien predators-aliens or about terminators-destroyers, but kind and smiling. The Earthman turned to the alien:

– Where am I, where are the rest of the crew? The

humanoid looked at him and did not frame a word, but at the same moment he somehow telepathically transmitted to the human brain, in the form of thoughts brought from outside, words;

– This is our planet, it is called the Green Planet, our Sun is a Blue star. All the time, without interfering in your life, we are watching you, studying the Earth, the Earth's civilization. However, we did not have time to prevent a nuclear catastrophe on Earth. Unfortunately, the human brain is very complex and does not lend itself to our full study. We can somehow inform you about the upcoming catastrophe of a cosmic scale, change the trajectories of a particular cosmic body, potentially threatening the Earth on a large scale. Even by telepathic influence on the human brain, we can stop him from committing any actions if we establish that he is planning something global, not good, but we cannot predict in advance what he is thinking and will do, even in a minute. Therefore, we could not foresee in advance, and will prevent a nuclear war. And although we knew that every day, step by step, the interstate relations of the nuclear powers of your planet were getting more and more heated, however, on the issue of nuclear war, we fully and completely relied on the high intelligence of humanity. We believed that you would refrain from using nuclear weapons because you invented these weapons yourself, you knew in advance that a global thermonuclear war would lead to what tragic consequences, what catastrophic consequences this war would have for the planet, for the entire Earth's civilization, if not forever, then for many, many times. But as you can see, we made a mistake and this disaster happened. It is quite possible that we, of course, except for you, have lost all our earthly brothers in mind as a result of this catastrophe. We will return to this topic later, since our experts have not yet reliably studied the consequences of a nuclear war on Earth and it may still be possible to save the survivors of your relatives and restore your earthly civilization. Now let's talk about the ISS, where you were and survived the thermonuclear war with the entire crew. So, by the time our ship arrived, other members of your crew had died off brain cells due to prolonged oxygen starvation and their brains were already beyond repair, so we did not revive them. Only you were resuscitated. Fortunately for you, our patrol ship was in your galaxy at the time of the nuclear disaster. Our planet is not suitable for you. Although the atmospheric air and all other conditions of our planet are somewhat similar to your planet, but the inhabitants of the upper layers of our planet are very aggressive for human flesh. Without a special protective suit, you will disappear in an instant into the living, green haze of our planet. For our body, the environment of this planet is not only harmless, it is even useful. Therefore, you can only go outside in special spacesuits. And we will feed you with specially prepared food, just for you, so as not to harm your body and will support all the functions of your body at the level. We ourselves never eat, as earthlings eat. Our body is arranged in the same way as in your science fiction films about the terminators, but at the same time we are not robots, but living beings. Inside our body, a biochemical chain reaction takes place all the time, which carries out a continuous exchange at the cellular level and the body feeds and recovers at the expense of the air of our planet. And in the absence of such or similar air, our body can automatically reconfigure itself to an unfavorable mode of existence and on this mode, too, for an indefinite long time, we can eat and exist at the expense of any gaseous substance of biological, plant or even sometimes chemical origin. However, with a very long unfavorable mode of existence, our body is very weak, but we do not die at all. Therefore, we live a very long time, compared to human life, almost forever, with the exception of …

The humanoid did not finish the sentence and the telepathically transmitted thoughts to the human brain were automatically blocked. But the person immediately thought that humanoids can only be destroyed in some physical way and immediately thought to himself, " why, why do I think so, they saved me, they want good for us. Only for us, that is, for human nature, these qualities are inherent, to kill and take possession." Putting these thoughts aside, he also asked a question;

– And, how long has it been since you took me from the ISS?

"Eight years by your earth standards.

The man asked in surprise and quickly;

– Your planet is so close to Earth. Why did we never know about the existence of your planet, or at least a Blue star?

– No, the distance between our planets is measured in several hundred light-years. But, our ships overcome this path in just eight earth years. Our galaxy is located next to your galaxy, almost on parallel planes of outer space and they rotate equally parallel and only in one direction. Due to the fact that the galaxies are located on parallel planes, your Solar system is always parallel almost next to our Blue star, respectively, and with our Green planet. This explains the proximity of our planets. However, despite this, your telescopes do not see our galaxy, since there is a huge, dark, dusty cosmic-scale nebula between our galaxies, making it difficult for your telescopes to see.

–This is incomprehensible to the mind and according to all the laws of the universe, this is not possible. How is it possible to overcome such a distance so quickly and why have our telescopes, and scientists who make their theoretical conclusions based on a comparison of other scientific data, not yet noticed this dusty nebula and have not discovered your galaxy?

–Your telescopes do not notice the dusty nebula because it is reflected in your telescopes as a dark and huge empty cosmic abyss of the Universe, and for the same reason your scientists have not discovered our galaxy. As for the Law of the universe, we do not understand what Law of the universe we are talking about. The universe has its own comprehensive Laws in this regard, the knowledge of which will allow us in the future to develop the speed of our ships even several times faster than the speed of light. Therefore, it is possible to overcome such a distance even faster. Our time is also measured by other standards and the technology of the structure of ships, their movement in space is completely different…

The alien, apparently knowing the abilities of the human brain for rapid assimilation, remembering and processing of the received information, most likely, even most likely, for a completely different reason, even if in the form of telepathic thoughts, did not want to give out to a person the technological secrets of shipbuilding that they had achieved. It is very possible that they are strictly prohibited by their internal rules, and therefore he stopped for a moment and then went on a little sharply;

–Do not ask any more questions on this topic, you will not get an answer to them yet. Maybe a little later I will tell you our secrets of shipbuilding. Now they will put on a spacesuit for you. Then you will be taken outside, and there you can admire our planet.

– Oh, can I ask you one more question?

And without waiting for the alien's consent, the man asked a question;

–Apart from us earthlings and you, is there life on other planets, in other galaxies and in the Universe in general, do intelligent beings, so to speak, like people or similar to people or like you, beings, individuals, live there?

–There is life in one form or another everywhere, even in many planets of your galaxy and in all other galaxies that we know and there are different, intelligent and non-intelligent, simple and complex in the structure of the organism, small in size, microscopic and gigantically huge, and innumerable diverse living beings by origin. However, we have not met any living beings whose mind and intellectual thinking are similar to our or human minds. All other intelligent beings that we have met are very aggressive and use their minds only to enslave or destroy other living beings in order to satisfy their food needs or to eliminate competition in certain territories of their habitat. We call them beings with a dark mind. However, everywhere, throughout the universe, there is an echo of a high, kind, noble mind, which we feel every day, but by whom and how this good mind spreads throughout the Universe, we cannot establish. Even if living beings are the distributors of this high, kind mind, then they probably live in the vast expanses of the Universe far from us, where our ships cannot yet fly. Therefore, we can definitely not say who or what is the source of this mind, from where, from whom, from a living being or from any cosmic body of the Universe, this good, high mind comes from. Maybe the high mind has always existed, exists and will exist forever in the Universe itself as a particle of it, and moreover, perhaps the bottomless Universe itself is the high mind, from which our, and your brains are more and more exhausted, more and more knowledge and we are developing further. Although we do not know the source from which this intelligence comes, our consciousness and our modern intellectual level of development tells us that if this high intelligence did not exist in the universe, we would no longer develop intellectually, but would stop at the level of development of an innate instinct. And perhaps they would not even have been born. Therefore, we, too, like you, are inclined to believe that the so-called "gods" described in your sacred religious books may be the distributors of this high intelligence and the original creators of all living beings in the Universe. Perhaps we, you and others, unknown to us, living, but intelligent, similar and not similar to us beings of the Universe are projects of even more comprehensively highly developed intelligent beings who, having created us, gave us a chance to exist, live and determine our fate in the Universe. One way or another, we exist and are the owners and carriers of high intelligence, and we must use this right.

The alien, having interrupted telepathy, stopped a little and apparently he was confused to transmit or not to transmit to a person information that is at their disposal and is very important for earthlings. But apparently deciding that this cannot be left for later, but it needs to be done now, he continued;

– Not far away, a few hundred light-years from your galaxy, there is a dwarf galaxy called "Ovf", which means "Disgusting" in translation from our language into human language. We did not give this name for this galaxy because the galaxy itself is like this. No, the galaxy itself is no different from other galaxies, except for the small size of the coverage of territories in the space of the Universe. And, they gave such names and entered them into the registry of the mission control center of our ships specifically, for a quick and unmistakable distinction from other galaxies and determining its location. There are three planets in this galaxy that are very similar to the planet Earth in all their parameters, atmospheric air, vegetation, biological and ichthyofauna and all other conditions, that is, with the locations and periods of rotation around their star, circling around their axis, even in masses, density and diametrical dimensions. The difference between these three planets is that all these planets, being at a uniform distance of remoteness from their star, rotate around their star in the same direction and in the same orbit, at a uniform distance of remoteness and sequence from each other, with absolutely the same speeds and rotation periods. These three planets are inhabited by living, very highly intelligent, but not similar in appearance to us or to humans, but at the same time physically very strong, hardy, too tenacious and very aggressive against other living individuals of the Universe, biological beings. But their mind, the intelligence of thinking, as well as their appearance, are significantly different from our mind, that is, as mentioned before, they have a very aggressive "dark mind". As I have already mentioned, the mind of these biological beings, like our mind, is very developed. They also have modern large intergalactic ships that move them in space at a speed exceeding the speed of light. And in general, in all spheres of life, in the fields of science and technology, weapons, they are developed, just like we are. The difference between their mind and our mind is that they continuously develop and use their mind not for good purposes, but only for enslaving and eating other living biological beings other than them. In a word, they are strikingly highly developed, intelligent parasites-predators of the universe. According to our sources, several thousand years ago, these three planets of that galaxy were previously inhabited by biological beings, not very developed by reason, whose appearance is very similar to you, that is, to earthlings, at an early, primitive stage of human development. But having arrived, unknown to us, from the distant depths of the Universe, these amazingly intelligent, predatory parasitic creatures, taking advantage of their advantage in technological development, occupied these planets without much resistance. After defeating and enslaving the inhabitants of these planets, they drove them all into special reservations. Then, at a genetically high-tech level, their reproduction was put on stream as cattle, they were used to performing everyday work in everyday life, and mainly they were used as food. According to our data, the resources of these planets for the residence and reproduction of predators have recently significantly decreased, because due to the long and incompetent use of genetic technologies for reproduction, the biological resources of these planets, which were the main food for predators, began a mutation, which in turn led to their gradual mass extinction. For this reason, it is very likely that these parasitic predators will soon begin, if they have not already begun, to search for new planets inhabited by biological beings to enslave their inhabitants and satisfy their food needs. It is possible that for this they will choose your Land, which according to all the data, that is, parameters, atmospheric conditions and all other criteria is suitable for them.

–But, neither the Earth's civilization, nor humanity is no more. Why do they need our naked planet Earth now?

– The invasion will not begin soon. According to our calculations, it will take several more centuries, or even a millennium, before the invasion begins. According to the calculations of our scientists, by that time the Earth itself and the Earth's biological, plant life in one form or another will definitely be restored. Whether the human race will recover or not, we don't know yet. Our scientists will work on this.

– How about the guinea pigs?

– No, no one is going to conduct any experiments or experiments on you. According to our, but not yet fully reliable and not fully verified data, man is still the only highly intelligent living biological being in the entire Universe, very similar in mind to us. Only unlike our brain, which can be encoded and programmed even before we are born, the human brain is very complex, develops quickly, continuously and does not lend itself to any long-term or even short-term coding, programming. Just think about the fact that your scientists, both biologists and doctors, have been studying your brain for centuries, but in terms of knowing the very process of the human brain, how and how such an accurate mapping, perception and evaluation of the external world around you takes place in your brain, they have almost no achievements. They can only put forward various hypotheses on this topic, passing off these hypotheses as scientific discoveries in the field of studying the brain and stating the fact that a person, unlike animals and other living beings, is made by their mind, which is introduced from outside and contained in the neural cells of their brain. Perhaps they are right in some ways in their scientific works, but your and our scientists are still very far from a full and comprehensive study of the origin of the human mind and the work of his brain in order to reliably draw absolutely correct conclusions in this direction. Our scientists know absolutely exactly what substances, what parts and particles human brain cells are made of, that a human cub acquires an intelligent soul already in the process of its intrauterine development, with the first movement of a human fetus, and from this moment the active development of cells, that is, neurons, of the human brain begins. However, due to the fact that the brain cells of the intrauterine fetus and then the newborn baby are not yet sufficiently developed, although their brain neurons also receive the same information from the mind as the neurons of the adult brain receive, these brain cells cannot process even the meager information received from the mind. The brain performs all this as it develops, until the end of the physical life of brain cells, which occurs in connection with the onset of biological death of the brain and all other internal organs of a person. However, for our scientists, the process of brain formation after the birth of a human cub, its subsequent development, as well as the process of processing information received from the mind by its cells, in contrast to the work of your other organs, remains the most mysterious. And therefore, the human brain for us is still not fully studied and not solved, we can even say a mysterious human organ. Now, if it were possible to separate a person's soul from his brain in a controlled way, then it would be possible to study both the soul and the human brain separately. But in such cases, that is, when the soul is separated from the brain, at the same second losing its ability to think and its other physiological and cellular-metabolic properties, the human brain also dies quickly and irrevocably. And the human soul, in such cases, reliably knowing that clinical death will necessarily be followed by biological, that is, final, brain death, initially without losing its configuration and integrity, already at the stage of clinical death, leaves the brain in a thousandth of a second. However, after the soul has left the human brain, it is in close proximity to the physical body of a person, waiting for the onset of biological death of his body. And with the onset of biological death, the body, finally convinced of this, the soul irrevocably leaves it and after a certain time, gradually losing its integrity and configuration, but not disappearing at all, dissolves in the environment in the form of undetectable particles of the atmosphere. To determine the particles and assemble the human soul into one whole, to study it, after his death, have never been successful before, since the speed of movement of the soul in space is several times greater than even the speed of light and no high-tech equipment will help here. In a word, after the onset of biological death, it is not only practically impossible to do this, but we can say that by now even scientifically proven solid theories on this matter do not exist. But, science also allows for such a hypothetical theory that, theoretically, the human soul can be separated from the brain and studied separately. This theory can be put into practice only if, I emphasize this, if a person is still alive and practically healthy, the work of all his internal organs is stable and his brain cells are fed as usual with a healthy body, but he himself is in a state of passive, regulated artificial sleep. In this case, the human soul, as a whole, intelligent, but as an invisible and elusive being, without losing its configuration, will be guaranteed to know that at any time it can return to its habitual environment, that is, to the brain, where the brain cells have everything necessary for its further existence. Taking advantage of this, with the help of high-tech equipment, it will be possible to artificially squeeze the soul out of the brain, and then study both the brain and the soul separately. After all, science has irrefutably proved that during sleep, a part of the human soul, namely, its intelligent part, for a short time, voluntarily leaves the human body. In this short period of time, this part of the soul, moving in space at unimaginably high speeds, manages to visit everywhere, even in the planets of your Solar system, and at the same time, without losing contact with the brain, transmits everything seen to the brain of a person who perceives all this as a dream during sleep. Our scientists believe that in some cases, for example, when a person falls into a state of prolonged coma or a long lethargic sleep, the intelligent part of his soul, leaving the brain cells, during this allotted time, without losing contact with the brain, manages to visit not only other planets, but even other galaxies. When the mind leaves the human brain during sleep, it sometimes, moving in free space, meets and communicates even with the memorable particles of the soul of their relatives or friends, but long-dead people. Therefore, in your dreams, as if all this is happening to you in real life, sometimes you seem to meet and communicate with your relatives, friends or acquaintances, but people who have long died, and sometimes even receive information from them, in the form of advice or warnings. Our scientists have established that during sleep, when a reasonable part of the human soul voluntarily leaves the human brain for a short time, another, that is, the life-supporting part of the human soul, necessarily remaining in the brain cells, in the absence of a reasonable part, without losing connection with each other, ensures the normal functioning and rest of the entire human body. This whole procedure with the human brain and its soul happens as usual, often and arbitrarily, sometimes even every day, without any artificial compulsions. Moreover, our scientists are inclined to assume that this is an obligatory, everyday procedure of your mind during sleep, so that your brain cells, in addition to everyday visual or other perception of the world, even during rest, receive more and more information from your mind and develop and enrich more and more knowledge of the world around you. But, in turn, your still developing brain, due to the low level of development of the cognitive part of your brain cells, does not yet have time to physically accept, scan and process all the information provided to it during sleep, in the form of dreams, by the intelligent part of your soul. Therefore, when a person wakes up after a dream, filled with different, but not yet processed information, his brain does not immediately think and assess what is happening around him, the situation. In addition, he then quickly forgets everything or only fragmentally remembers his dream, unless of course the pictures seen and transmitted by the mind are previously familiar to him and are connected with his daily life. Sometimes, in such cases, if the dream is very complex and the cognitive part of his brain cells is not previously familiar with the pictures of the dream, he does not even remember what he saw during the movement in space and transmitted his mind to the brain, being in other, far places from the location of his physical body. And, everything else, what he remembers fragmentally in such cases from this dream, is perceived by a person as a nightmare. Over time, that is, as your brain cells develop, your brain will be able to receive, scan and process all the information presented to it by your own mind, and then you will see, evaluate and even know everything that is happening in the Universe without much effort, even without telescopes, without space probes and high-tech equipment. Although our scientists, everything I have said now, has been theoretically proven on a scientific basis, but practical evidence in this direction has not yet been received. This can be practically proved, as I have already said, if we separate the soul of a person from the brain, of course, still alive, and study them separately. But so far, for scientific study, no one, that is, your scientists, and our scientists, has managed to artificially separate the inseparable connection of the intelligent part of the soul and the human brain, without harming the further functioning of the brain. However, we have accurate information that your scientists on Earth were working on a project in secret laboratories, so that later, in any still alive, healthy person, at the right moment, of course, without harm to his body and health, especially without harm to the brain, he would be able to separate the intelligent part of his soul from the brain cells. The ultimate goal of their work was to, after separating the intelligent part of the soul from the brain cells, make the necessary changes in the mind of the person being tested, correct and direct the action of his mind at his discretion and return it back with an altered mind to the human brain and thus control the mind of any person. In a word, this meant attempts to create biologically living, thinking biorobots, whose appearance, body structure, behavior, habits and all other anatomical structures and physiological properties of the body are no different from ordinary people, but programmed and unquestioningly fulfilling all the instructions given to them. What results they have achieved, most likely we will never know now. At the same time, we know that the possibilities of the human brain are infinitely huge and infinite, like the universe itself. Therefore, as carriers of a high, noble mind, we will need each other not only now, but especially in the distant future. And we think, and even know, that all is not lost for humanity yet. It is only necessary to find optimal ways to overcome the consequences of a nuclear catastrophe and develop methods for the maximum rapid restoration of biological and plant life on Earth. Our scientists will help you with this. If, by the time the invasion of predators begins, the human race is restored, we will definitely help you to repel the invasion of these intelligent parasites-predators. And, the human race will definitely recover sooner or later, we believe in it.

– After the nuclear war, were there any survivors on Earth? Well, at least someone, that is, people, animals, birds, vegetation?

– After the nuclear disaster, we study the Earth all the time. Very little time has passed, and therefore it is difficult to assert or deny anything now. But one thing I can say for sure is that in the deep waters of the oceans, where underwater volcanoes did not erupt, the life of waterfowl was preserved in immeasurably small quantities. In addition, when we were saving you, our radars detected one, the only nuclear submarine that survived the thermonuclear disaster in the northern latitudes of the planet, but we do not know anything about the further fate of this boat and its crew. We then unsuccessfully tried to contact the crew to pick them up from the nuclear submarine and save them. However, for some reason, their means of communication for contact did not work, perhaps in order not to reveal themselves, they were in full radio silence, and when our small landing ship appeared for visual contact with the crew, the boat hastily plunged and disappeared under the water, apparently taking us for an enemy. After that and the subsequent time, no signals came from them. Due to the fact that we are well aware of the potential for survivability and autonomous existence for a long period of time of your nuclear submarines, we rate the survival of the crew of the boat after the disaster very highly. This is possible if at the time of the disaster there were large food supplies in the boat, and during this allotted time they found a place on the shore where they can then periodically replenish food supplies. It is still possible that there are living people in government bunkers and billionaires ' bunkers who built these bunkers of life in order to wait out, survive and stay alive in the event of nuclear wars or other global natural disasters and cataclysms on Earth. But the territories where these bunkers were located were subjected to such targeted, furious nuclear attacks by opponents that we even doubt that even if there were survivors there, they have very little chance of getting out of the bunkers to the surface, since in many places they were flooded by ocean waters. And where the water did not flood, there the earth turned into a charred, black lifeless radioactive mess and in these places directly on the surface in the soils of the earth and, accordingly, in that radius and in the atmosphere, a disastrous concentration of radiation for biological life has accumulated, which will persist for centuries. Whether they will survive in such circumstances depends on the reserves of water, food, oxygen and the technical equipment of these bunkers for autonomous existence for very many years. And after a certain time, when they run out of these supplies, their survival depends on the fact that if they have a sufficient number of protective suits against radiation, and if they get out safely, and also if they leave these places safely quickly. In addition, in large megacities or in cities where there were subways, in metro tunnels where water did not flood, a certain number of people who were there directly at the time of a nuclear war could remain alive. But due to the fact that they did not have food and other necessary means of subsistence, all of them may have died long ago. However, there are also territories on Earth that have suffered less from nuclear explosions, volcanic eruptions and flooding of ocean waters. The radiation background in these places, as well as on the entire surface of the Earth, was quite high immediately after the nuclear explosions, but after the passage of time, unlike other places, due to the fact that there were no nuclear charges exploding in the immediate vicinity, the concentration of radiation in these places significantly and rapidly decreases. Therefore, it is very likely that people, animals and vegetation may have survived in these territories. We are carefully studying these territories and if this is the case, we will definitely inform you. By now, most volcanoes have passed the active eruption phases. In addition, our scientists have done everything to ensure that the thermonuclear winter does not last long, that is, that the dust and ash shroud from the atmosphere quickly settles on the earth's surface and the vital rays of the Sun penetrate to the Earth. These works have already borne fruit and the sun's rays in some places pass through the veil and the nuclear winter is gradually receding. And how long will it take for biological life on Earth to be revived again and everywhere? There is no answer to this question yet, since the scale of the disaster was terrifying and immeasurably very large. But the main thing is that the Earth withstood the catastrophe, did not split into parts, did not descend from its orbit, as before, rotates around its star and revolves around its axis, retained its attraction, and as a result, although very polluted, it also retained its atmosphere. However, the widespread super-powerful earthquakes and the eruption of large and small volcanoes that occurred on the surface layers of the Earth subsequently echoed very negatively in the inner layers of the planet. So, after the nuclear catastrophe, some strong changes also occurred in the bowels of the Earth in the form of tectonic shifts, mixing and multiple faults of the lithospheric plates, resulting in subsidence and separation of continents, which led to the formation of numerous, large and small islands on the Earth's surface. But we do not yet know what the further consequences of these shifts and faults will be for the planet Earth, whether it will retain its life-supporting properties for biological beings in the future. I also want to inform you that the Earth rotates around the Sun, in its orbit at the same speed as before, but it rotates around its axis a little faster than before. This was due to the fact that the powerful fiery explosive waves of thermonuclear explosions in the form of hurricanes, which circled the Globe several times in only one direction, in which direction the planet also rotates, increased its rotation around its axis and now the speed of rotation of the Earth by your time-measuring standards is a little more than twenty-three hours.

After listening carefully to the alien's answers, the earthman thought about the people who might have remained in the bunkers, that is, about those people-hawks who started a thermonuclear war, who probably dreamed of a blitz victory and clearly did not expect and perhaps did not even expect the onset of such irreparable catastrophic consequences. Most likely, they expected that the consequences of a nuclear war would not be so catastrophic and disastrously long for the planet, and perhaps they thought that during the time they would sit in bunkers, the Earth would quickly recover, and they alone, then their descendants, would be the owners of not estimated energy and other earthly riches. However, as you can see, this, initially erroneous, calculation of their specialists was not justified, and even if they with their families and with their entire team, servants and their families survived the nuclear war and remained alive, now being in bunkers or even going outside, they are probably already reaping the terrible fruits of their atrocities.

After conversations with an alien (if the telepathic information and the humanoid's answers to human questions and his instructive message about safety measures and precautions can be called a conversation), spacesuits were put on him and another humanoid in spacesuits, standing next to him, took him by the hand, only somehow lifted him up with an eye movement. In the bright space, a small opening opened for the blink of an eye, and he, along with the humanoid, at the same moment found themselves among the green thickets. The alien disappeared so quickly that the man could not even figure out how he did it. He felt the hardness under his feet, the upper layer was soft like a carpet, but it looked green, and slowly began to step forward. There was no one nearby, but continuing to move, wherever he turned his head, a single phrase "north, south, east" immediately sounded in his native language, indicating the direction of his gaze. He sat down on a lonely protruding object that looks like an earthly mountain stone, but is absolutely green in color. I looked around, there was not a living soul around, on the vast and flat expanses of this planet, only greenery, similar to terrestrial algae, was covered. There were no trees, mountains, rivers, there were no mosquitoes, birds, animals, in general, no living creatures and no other vegetation except greenery. There were no cities, factories and factories on the surface of this planet, well, absolutely no infrastructure, there was not even that bright-bright hall where he had recently been, there were no clouds, a cloud like on Earth, but only an unusually clear, pure blue-blue sky. The blue star shone so brightly that it was impossible to look in its direction. There is only an endless green space around. He wanted to touch this green, but it immediately stuck to the suit as if it were alive and immediately retreated. Apparently, the spacesuit has some protective properties that repel this greenery. He repeated this movement several times, but after three attempts, the green, when the person's hand approached, began to retreat. "So, this green is not a plant, but some kind of intelligent living being," he thought. And it also seemed to him that it was green, for some purpose, an artificially created living being by someone. Whatever it was, the monotony of the nature of this planet so quickly tired and his soul was suddenly seized by an irresistible longing for everything earthly. Although he knew that after such a nuclear and subsequent man-made and natural disaster, which he saw with his own eyes, it is not possible for living biological beings to survive there, however, in his soul he did not lose hope for a minute that everything is not lost yet, that all Earthly life will be restored. He missed home so much, his family and friends, although for some reason he no longer remembered their names and could not recall in his memory what they looked like, but he intuitively felt that he was not alone. He wanted so much to return to Earth, his soul was tormented by loneliness, spiritual emptiness. From loneliness, from the thought that there is no more Earthly civilization, that everything is irretrievably lost for humanity, and from the hopelessness of his situation, desperate, no longer able to control himself, he screamed so loudly and began to sob. He didn't even notice that in the same split second, one of the humanoids appeared next to him. Taking his hand, he lifted him up with the same movement of his eyes, and he did not even have time to comprehend how humanoids move themselves by teleportation and move him in space, as he found himself back in that bright hall. Previously, he had read a scientific article about the teleportation hypothesis, but, as he knows, there was no scientific proof of this hypothesis on Earth. And now, although I didn't even have time to comprehend how the aliens teleport, but I myself was a participant, that is, the subject of this action.

While his thoughts were occupied with these questions, the alien turned to him with a question;

– We don't understand why you were shouting and crying. According to our doctors, your health condition is normal. They keep an eye on it all the time. Are there sensors in the spacesuit that also did not detect any deviation in your body from the norm?

– My health is all right. I am a living person and I miss my mother, my relatives and friends, my native Land, which we ourselves destroyed, where everything was, my relatives – earthlings, birds, animals, vegetation, rivers and mountains. Like in the old days, I want to hear the singing of birds, see the joy and laughter of children, the happy faces of couples in love and everything, everything that was on Earth. Perhaps these human feelings are alien to you. I do not know and do not understand how it is possible to live in such a planet where there is only greenery, monotony all around, there are no forests, mountains, rivers, where there are no birds and animals, I have not even seen your children, maybe they do not exist at all. It seems to me that you live a monotonously gray life just for the sake of living. And, we lived on earth, enjoying life, rested, ate, drank, went to concerts, listened to the music of our great composers …

– Yes. And if we add to it that all the time they were dividing the territory and wealth of the Earth, for which they were always fighting among themselves, killing and blowing up innocent people like themselves, and now, being living biological owners of high minds, they themselves destroyed their entire earthly civilization.

The Earthman did not answer, because the alien was right about that.

The alien continued;

– We also have cities where we live, factories where we make not only spaceships and other technical means, but produce everything that we need in life. And we also have children, young people who study, we can say even better than on Earth. The only difference is that already at the birth of each of them, it is possible to determine in advance by the genetic code who he will become in the future, that is, scientists, factory workers, astronauts, and so on, this can no longer be changed. In addition, our children have a very short childhood, since they reach an absolutely mature age in three years after birth, according to your time-measuring standards. Therefore, our children are born not often, but as needed, if for some reason there is a need to replenish our gene pool. At the same time, we do not have any sense of attachment of parents to their children and vice versa, children to their parents. The birth of children and their upbringing are taken for granted by us, the fact that our ranks are replenished strictly to perform work in a particular industry where for some reason there is a shortage of personnel. And, the greenery that covers our planet is only an artificially created living outer protective shell of our planet. This shell is located at an altitude of more than thirty kilometers above the planet and everywhere encircles our planet like a large green ball. The thickness of this living green protective ball, artificially created by us, is more than one kilometer. It absorbs the rays of our Blue Star, regenerates them and illuminates the entire surface of our planet evenly, regardless of whether it is night or day on the back side of the planet. In addition, absorbing the already spent harmful gases, it releases back in a uniform and in the right amount of atmospheric air, which we feed on. But, one of the main functions of this greenery is to protect our planet from the outside. When you came to the surface, you sat down on a green, solid object. In fact, this object is nothing more than one of the devices placed among the greenery, a lot of evenly distributed such devices that control this living greenery and determine "their" and "strangers"in the outer space around the planet. This device, like your radars, telescopes and other technical means of detecting targets in space, detects from afar any cosmic body moving in the direction of our planet, whether it is an asteroid, a comet or an alien ship. Automatically continuously observing these observed objects, it determines their volume, mass and flight path in outer space as accurately as possible and sets objects among them that are potentially dangerously threatening to our planet and transmits this data to our specialists. He opens an opening in the greenery in the right size, freely admits his ships, and when "strangers" are detected, whether it is an alien alien ship, a meteorite, a comet or other small space bodies, this device collects and puts a powerful stopping electromagnetic barrier on their way out of the greenery. This electromagnetic barrier, purposefully affecting the object long before it approaches the planet, first counteracting as a weak repulsive anti-gravitational force, gradually slows down its flight speed, and later catching it in its placed nets, stops their further progress and after that the greenery, dissolving these "strangers" in its depths, absorbs them.

– And whether this green copes with large space bodies. Well, for example, with a very large asteroid or comet?

– No, for this we have special, large and small, security spacecraft that ensure the safety of the planet. After receiving and processing all the data, these ships fly out to meet a large asteroid or comet, potentially and inevitably threatening our planet, long before they approach the orbital boundaries of our planet. Having approached these objects, during a parallel flight with those objects, our specialists carry out the appropriate necessary accurate calculations, and then, by soft, safe contact with subsequent repulsion, they change their flight trajectory to a safe direction for our planet. The number of ships participating in such operations is determined by the size, mass, speed and other parameters of the space body.

– Well, if this protective green, as you said, swallows and dissolves all strangers in its depths, then why didn't this green swallow me, I'm a stranger to them?

"If it weren't for our spacesuit, you would have been dissolved and swallowed up in this green haze in an instant. I warned you about this at the beginning of our conversation. These greens are artificially created and genetically encoded by our scientists to protect and maintain life on our planet. On Earth, a similar function is performed by the ozone layers and other layers of the atmosphere of your planet. Earlier, as on Earth, our planet also had its own atmosphere, similar to that of Earth, which protected us from the destructive rays of the Blue Star, from radiation and the cold of outer space, and from all other, small and large threats coming from outer space. But a thousand years ago, having descended from its orbit as a result of a collision with an asteroid of enormous magnitude, a wandering, huge lifeless planet of our star system passed dangerously close to our planet. This planet, by its gravitational attraction, tore the atmosphere from our planet, and we were forced to artificially create this protective green, which is vital for us, resistant to cosmic cold, harmful rays of a Blue star and radiation. We could not have changed the flight path of this huge wandering planet with all our desire then, and even now, in any way. And therefore, long before the dangerous approach of this wandering planet to us, we calculated its flight path in advance. And only after we were guaranteed that this planet would not collide with our planet, but would fly past, having approximately determined in advance the distance of its flight from our planet and its gravitational force of influence on our planet, we prepared for its approach. So, in a certain, calculated safe depth of the planet, they built extensive networks of tunnels and buildings, and all factories, factories and other important infrastructure and life support communications were transferred there, and they moved themselves so that their gravitational pressure on our planet, this planet at the same time, did not destroy us and our vital infrastructure. A wandering planet, flying past us, ten million kilometers away, that is, by cosmic standards, in very dangerous proximity, without causing any other tangible damage to our planet, tore off its atmosphere and after that, this wandering planet ended its existence in the Universe, in the arms of our Blue star. And we, in turn, continuing to live in the depths, were forced to create this living greenery with artificial intelligence. Moreover, when we created this protective greenery to protect our planet, it was covered directly on the surface of the planet and as it strengthened and multiplied, at first we ourselves gradually raised it to a height, and as the technology developed, we programmed it in such a way that it automatically rises above the planet. At present, there is already a kind of stable atmosphere between the planet and the greenery covering its surface, which, in proportion, has composite gases that are very close to the compositions of gases with the former atmosphere of our planet.

– Does this green mean an artificially created robot by you?

– No, the definition of robot is not quite suitable for it. Our greens are a living being, but at first with an artificially embedded thinking intelligence, and now they are developing independently. Inside this green, as well as in our body, a chain biochemical reaction occurs all the time and due to this, it feeds on harmful gases used in our planet, and from above and the rays of a Blue star. As I have already mentioned, our protective greenery is very resistant to cosmic cold, harmful rays of our star and the harmful effects of cosmic radiation. When creating this greenery, our scientists took as its basis the genetic characteristics of our body, the absorption of gases and its processing to meet the body's need for food.

– As I understand from your stories, artificially created by you, a living protective green-the shell of your planet, protecting the planet and its inhabitants from any external threats emanating from space by dissolving and absorbing them in their depths, growing even more and expanding in size, also has a continuously developing artificial intelligence of thinking? If all this is really true, then are you not afraid that someday in the future it will grow even more, devouring your planet, along with you, turn into a huge and all-consuming dangerous monster of cosmic scale and will not spread throughout the Universe?

– No, we are not afraid. When we conceived and artificially created this vital living protective greenery, we took into account everything that you have just talked about. When creating this greenery, we laid in its genetic basis that we, that is, the inhabitants of this planet, are for it, irrevocably and quickly killing its body, an allergen-a poison for which there is no antidote and it is impossible to invent. In addition, in its existence, this green organically and genetically depends entirely on the gravitational attraction of our planet alone. If trouble happens to our planet, it, in the absence of the gravitational attraction of its native planet, at the same moment ceasing to exist as a living organism, will disintegrate and turn into unnecessary cosmic dust. She understands all this perfectly well, and therefore, in order to avoid her own death, she will never want or even try to absorb at least one of us and will do everything in her power so that nothing happens to her home planet. For these reasons, our protective greens will never turn into a dangerous, all-consuming monster.

– Why are you telling me all this, that is, revealing unknown to others, the secrets of your life and the secrets of the life support of this planet?

– What I have told you is not a secret or a secret, it is our everyday life and the life of our planet, and we are thinking and working on the fact that someday in the future we will completely restore the atmosphere of our planet. In addition, we do not consider humanity to be our enemy. Although we differ significantly from each other in appearance and structure, we are the only brothers in mind. And we value this very much. Surrounded on all sides by an excessively cold, dark and large-scale radiation cosmos that is unfriendly to us, and to you too, which is fraught with innumerable various cosmic-scale dangers visible and invisible to us, thanks to you, that is, humanity, we know that we are not the only soundly intelligent beings in this part of the Universe.

– And yet, why did you not communicate with earthlings earlier? We would have known that there are intelligent aliens besides us, that we are also not alone in the universe, and perhaps, even quite probably, there would not have been a nuclear catastrophe on Earth.

– In this matter, perhaps, you are right. But as I said before, we have been following the development of civilization on Earth all the time, we have not discovered ourselves and have not interfered in your life, so that you yourself, through your evolutionary path of development, know the world, the Universe, the laws of the universe, so that your process of development and knowledge of the world occurs naturally, without any gaps. And if we had interfered with your earthly life earlier, then we already knew for sure that besides you in the Universe, and by cosmic standards relatively close to your planet, there is a planet where intelligent life exists and there is a very developed civilization compared to your achievements, you would not want to develop yourself, but would want to adopt from us all our achievements in the field of science and high technologies. Thus, in the process of the evolutionary development of the human brain, there would be an undesirable gap to develop naturally in the field of cognition of the world, invention and development in all other, different directions. This gap sometime in the future, when making a very important decision on a planetary scale for the salvation of the human race, would have a very negative impact on your actions. After the nuclear war, we had no other options but to interfere in your life, to help revive the Earth civilization that you destroyed and save the human race.

– I am interested in one more question, can I ask it?

– Ask them.

– In the conversation, you mentioned that, without interfering in our lives, you were watching us all the time. Can you tell me how and when life originated on Earth, that is, when and how we appeared there, that is, humanity, the animal and plant world?

– There will be no answer to this question. Earlier, only on the basis of a scientific study of space and a comparison of the data obtained, as well as the hypothetical assumptions of our scientists, we came to the conclusion that there is intelligent life in the neighboring galaxy located parallel to our galaxy, that is, in your galaxy. And we began to observe you since the time of the Sumerians and Orkhons, because we could not do this earlier for a purely technical reason, that is, because we did not have intergalactic spaceships capable of safely and quickly overcoming the distances between our galaxies and returning back. In the early days, when we learned and discovered that in addition to us, in the Universe, by cosmic standards, not far from us, there are intelligent, biological beings like us, we, that is, our ancestors, were very happy about this. Our pioneer missionaries, having arrived on intergalactic ships, for direct communication with earthlings, landed on Earth in small landing ships, but to prevent any possible misunderstandings on their part, they always communicated with earthlings in protective spacesuits and helmets, with dark closed visors. When we communicated with earthlings, that is, not only the Sumerians and Orkhons, but also other peoples who inhabited the Earth at that time, they all took us for the celestials, that is, for gods, deified us and worshipped us as gods. After a certain time, we realized that we had made a big, gross and irreparable mistake, that we were harming their natural development with our appearances and communications, and therefore, without further interfering in the life of earthlings, without revealing ourselves, we only began to observe you from the outside. How and when did life on Earth begin? You will find the answer to this question someday yourself, but now, after the restoration of the Earth's civilization and as your level of knowledge and technical equipment develops, you have reliably studied well first the planets of the solar system, and then the other planets of your galaxy.

– Are there any other types of living beings on your planet, well, say, various living biological or other organisms, as on Earth, that is, animals, birds, fish or other forms of life?

– No, there is no other form of life on our planet except for us.

After these conversations, the alien ordered that the earthman was again put on spacesuits and taken out of the hall. Only this time the person turned out to be on the territory of a large alien city. It was light all around, light, and the light came from above from everywhere, but the source of the light itself was not visible. The alien who was talking to him and the third humanoid, who was waiting for them on the street, put him next to them in a chair of some kind of aircraft and the three of them flew in an unknown direction on this aircraft. There was a huge city below, with various bizarre buildings, and it seemed to a person who was looking at this alien city with special curiosity that the city was so huge and there was no end to this city. Nearby, in different directions, flying machines of different shapes and sizes flew in which humanoids were sitting. There were no streets in the city, there were no alien citizens in sight, only bizarre different buildings without windows and doors. After flying some distance, the device landed on a platform near a building. When they were inside the building, they took off his spacesuit and showed him a room consisting of several rooms and said;

–This is your home, make yourself at home. The dwelling with all the comforts of the earth belongs to you. In our archive, in an electronic version, there are copies of all films and books created or published up to the present time by mankind. So that you can order any book or movie, or even music. It bothers you, no one will be without special need. You can communicate with us at any time by clicking on this button. After that, the alien showed him a tiny red button mounted on the wall, next to the bed.

– No. I will not watch movies or read books. After I saw with my own eyes the destruction of our earthly civilization, I, the only remaining living person, an earthling, being on a distant planet, already knowing that there is no more earthly civilization, I will now never be able to afford to have fun, watch movies, listen to music or read books created by humanity that no longer exists. On my part, this will be an outrage on their bright memory. If you still have copies, then this is good. If, as you have already said, the human race is ever reborn and restored, all this will be useful and will be needed by our future generation. From the cultural heritage of their ancestors, they will know how beautiful our blue planet Earth was, what the Earth's civilization used to be, and how their ancestors, possessing a high intellectual mind, without any interference from outside, destroyed all this essentially heavenly beauty and their thousand-year-old civilization with their own mind and hands.

CHAPTER 3

Knowledge of the secrets of the universe and a long way back home

Some time has passed since these events. No one else communicated with him, but he guessed that he was under the constant supervision of the all-seeing eye of the aliens and in this sense he felt like their prisoner. He did not know when the day comes, when the night comes, how much time has passed since he was on this planet. He didn't even know how long he would sleep, but for some reason he was constantly drawn to sleep. When he woke up from sleep, sometimes it seemed to him that he was sleeping longer than usual and noticed that when he was sleeping, he completely lacked any dreams, and after sleep there was no ordinary human feeling of satisfaction with the next rest of the body. On this occasion, he sometimes thought that " maybe they, somehow remotely acting on my consciousness, make me fall asleep, and when I sleep, they probably study me, conduct some of their scientific experiments at home." But when examining his body, he did not find any suspicious traces on the body and nothing else indicated this either, that is, he felt almost completely healthy, and his psyche without any deviations from the norm, and therefore he tried in every possible way to discard such thoughts from his head. However, he gradually got so tired of such monotony of days and his lonely, boring and aimless pastime in this confined space, in the form of an apartment of a residential multi-apartment city earthly house, that he was increasingly seized with indifference to such, one might say, from the point of view of a living, healthy person, dependent, even pathetic kind of his existence. He was no longer interested in the monotonously gray and boring life of aliens, or even in certain quirks, peculiarities and differences of this planet. He realized that without the inherent environment for humanity, he could not, and did not want to exist at all anymore. He sometimes, than, in such a pathetic way to exist here in a foreign land, just wanted to leave his life, and so he once, desperately and imploringly turned to an alien:

–I can't and don't want to stay here anymore, thank you for saving and sheltering me. But it would be better if I died there along with all my relatives, than to exist here as the only living, pathetic exhibit of an already extinct human race. Loneliness and aimless existence for human nature is worse than death. I want to return back to the Earth, to humanity, to my relatives and friends, to friends. If they all died and I am also destined to die there, then at least I will bow to their ashes before dying. Please bring me back to Earth if possible? And if this is impossible, then I would prefer death than such a miserable kind of existence.

The humanoid looked at the man so calmly and indifferently, without any sympathy in his gaze, and answered;

–According to our data, the planet Earth is currently not suitable for human and in general for all biological, plant life, and therefore, we cannot now, and we will not send you to certain death. You'll have to wait. But you will have to wait for a very long time, that is, for centuries, and no matter how much you want it yourself, your one human life will not be enough for this time. Therefore, we ourselves would like to suggest that you make a decision and give us your consent in order to place you in a special bio-chamber to preserve your body in an unchanged state for a very long time, without compromising your health. And then, when all the conditions for biological life are restored on Earth, they decided to take you there and restore all the functions of your body there again, that is, in other words, it will revive you again. But if you definitely and specifically do not want to stay with us, that is, while in the bio-chamber, to wait out the restoration of the Earth and the revival of life on the planet, then I offer you another option.

He, interrupting a little, added;

–Our scientists are constantly studying and exploring the universe, looking for ways to protect themselves not only from intelligent parasites-predators and other, known to us in advance and unknown, monstrously diverse and terrible dangers emanating from the depths of the bottomless cold and unfriendly space, but also from another, more global and especially problematic for us, danger. Such a danger comes to us from the galaxy eaters. On Earth, your scientists call them Black holes. Just as your scientists knew that Black holes are the cores of every galaxy. Our scientists have established that Black holes first create galaxies by the big bang. That is, all Black holes, absorbing absolutely everything that is in its gravitational space, gradually become titanically, that is, unimaginably dense and gigantically large. And then, as a result of an internal thermonuclear or other reaction, expanding, reaching a certain limit size in their expansion, they always and inevitably explode, and when they explode, they throw millions, billions, perhaps even an uncountable number of burning fragments of different sizes into the dark and cold outer space. After the explosion, at the site of the explosion, the remnants of their nucleus are always preserved from Black holes and these remnants are attracted to each other by the force of attraction, immediately after the explosion, connecting, forms small Black holes spinning around their axis. These newly formed Black holes, although they are still not large enough in size, but they immediately have huge gravitational forces of attraction from the moment of formation. Acting with their gigantic force of attraction, they first stop all the cosmic bodies that are close to them from moving further away from themselves, and after that, acting through them in all directions in the form of spiral chains, they also stop all the other cosmic bodies that they have thrown away. And then, keeping these cosmic bodies at a certain distance from themselves, they begin to rotate them around themselves and thereby gradually creating this or that new galaxy. And all the burning fragments ejected by the Black hole after a certain time under the influence of the uniform gravitational pressure of the cosmos from all sides, acquire a rounded, and, some of them even, a convex shape and turn first all into burning bright stars, and then after a certain time, some extinct stars turn into planets. And some small stars that are close to a large star, under the pressure of the latter, while still in the process of thermonuclear combustion, exploding, form a gas and dust nebula in space, thereby creating conditions for the formation of a large star around the still burning one, and others, that is, in terms of origin, it is different from other, various planets. Thus, various large and small star systems with their own planetary systems are born inside this newly formed galaxy. After a certain amount of time, which is billions and billions, perhaps even trillions of years, Black holes, gradually absorbing all the cosmic bodies close to it, again become gigantically large and unimaginably dense. After that, they begin to actively collect all the cosmic bodies of their galaxy back, that is, in other words, they devour them, so that later, again after billions and billions of years, they explode and re-create this or that galaxy. For example, on Earth, scientists believed that some galaxies seen by your telescopes, located close to your galaxy, are moving away from you at such a speed and that it seems that they are about to leave the field of view of your telescopes very soon and will be lost forever in the endless expanses of the Universe. But in fact, they do not move far away and do not go anywhere, as according to the Law of the Universe, there are no free places in the Universe, although it is immensely infinite and bottomless. And, no matter how your astrophysicists claim, the galaxies will never collide with each other. This will not allow them to do their own Black Holes, which strictly control and protect their territory assigned to them in the Universe according to the law of universal gravitation. But our scientists at the same time admit the hypothesis that small or dwarf galaxies, which, in comparison with the Black hole in their neighboring large galaxy, respectively, and small Black holes, during the active process of devouring cosmic bodies by large Black holes of neighboring galaxies, can be completely absorbed by its larger neighbor. Such an absorption from the outside will initially look like a gradual but steady movement in space towards each other of two galaxies and their obligatory subsequent collision. Unfortunately, we, limited by the time frame of observing this, even by cosmic time standards, very long-lasting process, will not be able to observe all the subsequent pictures of such an absorption, followed by the devouring of all the celestial bodies of both galaxies by a huge Black hole. Perhaps that is why your scientists, observing only a certain period of time the beginning of the process of devouring the cosmic bodies of both galaxies by a large Black hole, came to the conclusion that after a certain time, the galaxies moving towards each other in space must necessarily and inevitably collide. However, our scientists do not exclude such a hypothetical version of events that if, after all, sometime in the future there is a violation of the Law of the Universe of the Universe and a chaotic collision of galaxies occurs in outer space, without subsequent absorption of celestial bodies by Black holes, then this may subsequently lead to a catastrophic chaos in the Universe. And this, in the end, again hypothetically, may lead to the fact that an eternal, never-ending darkness will prevail everywhere in space, the onset of which would mean that in the universe, never again, any life forms will not be able to be reborn, born again, and cannot exist at all. But this is only a hypothesis, and our scientists hope that this hypothesis will never find its theoretical, much less practical, confirmations. Well, in the meantime, the stars, planets and other cosmic bodies of those galaxies that you think are moving away from your galaxy are attracted to themselves by the unimaginable giant force of attraction of their Black holes, and therefore it seems to you that they are moving away from your galaxy. And in fact, in these galaxies, neighboring to your galaxy, an active process of devouring stars, planets and other cosmic bodies by their own Black holes has been going on for a long time. By attracting them to itself at a certain distance, Black holes, simultaneously with attraction, without releasing and pressing on them with their huge gravitational force, first turns them into dust, and then devours them all. Eventually, a gigantic gravitational, unimaginably huge, very dangerous and absolutely empty, in the literal sense of the word, dark cosmic void appears in that part of the universe. And in the center of this cosmic void, there is only a gigantically large, predatory, absolutely devouring, invisible to telescopes, Black hole, spinning around its axis alone, and there comes an unimaginably cold, pitch darkness for long and long times, until this giant Black Hole explodes. This is the so-called "Big Bang". This has happened, is happening somewhere at the present time, will happen in the future, with a constant frequency of billions, billions of times, that is, infinitely forever. This is the universal and basic Law of the Universe, and without this Law, the Universe cannot exist in its current form, since after a certain time, having spent all its energy, all the currently existing stars will someday go out. And if there are no explosions of Black holes, then even in this case, chaos will occur everywhere in the Universe and only eternal cold, pitch darkness will prevail. Based on this Law of the Universe, Black holes serve as the only irreplaceable and very important source of periodic renewal of very necessary energy and light in one or another part of the Universe. Maybe this is the endless war of high intelligence and the dark forces of the universe. Of course, we will never save the Blue Star and our Green Planet from such a universal, but absolutely necessary Law of the Universe. In the foreseeable future, there is no such danger for our galaxy, and for your galaxy, although the Black Hole of your galaxy, compared to the Black Hole of our galaxy, has already reached a relatively large size. But we always have to think about this, naturally global and inevitable, but at the same time necessary for the existence of life in the Universe, danger, we always have to think in advance, look for, find ways and ways to confront and save our people. This is what the "High Mind" pushes us to do. Although we have a very developed science and technology in all areas, compared to Earth's achievements, we are also powerless against the attraction of Black holes. Therefore, our scientists on more modernized research ships are sent to distant galaxies, where, according to their calculations, Black holes have reached such gigantic sizes that an active process of devouring the stars and planets of that galaxy will soon begin. Another clear sign of this active process, in addition to reaching the gigantic size of Black holes, as our scientists believe, it is possible to accelerate their rotation around their axis. However, as our scientists believe, these hypothetical assumptions alone are not enough for a comprehensive and complete study of this process, and they have not yet been fully confirmed. Therefore, while there, they study the strength and nature of the attraction of Black holes, when, with what changes inside the galaxy and with what other obvious signs, the active and already irrevocable process of devouring their own galaxies begins. Thus, our scientists are looking for answers to questions about whether we can determine in advance, at least approximately, the beginning of these active processes in our galaxy, and in your galaxy. And our shipbuilders, scientists, designers, inventors and developers, based on the knowledge of the universal laws of the universe, are working not only on the modernization of our intergalactic spaceships, but are working to create completely new ships. This is necessary so that the intergalactic ships we are creating, if necessary, can overcome the gigantic force of attraction of the Black Hole of the galaxy, so that we ourselves will not be late, save ourselves and if such a danger comes to you, then help save humanity and find another planet suitable for life, for the continuation of life in the endless expanses of the Universe. Our scientists have long known that theoretically, from the point of view of the laws of astrophysics and comprehensive other laws of physics, it is possible to build ships that can overcome their gigantic attraction at any time and from any distance from Black holes. This is possible only if we invent and create particularly strong, anti-gravity spaceships running on perpetual motion engines-converters of the energy of attraction of cosmic bodies and the endless gigantic energy of outer space itself, into reverse energy. These engines, the very force of energy, the attraction of Black holes and other cosmic bodies could be turned into the same force of energy, but with the opposite, that is, the effect of influence repelling from them, but necessarily regulated by us. If our scientists, inventors and creators of ships find ways to create such ships, then this gigantic energy converted into reverse force on their engines, with the same unimaginably gigantic force as the attraction of Black holes themselves, would push our ships away from them, like unipolar magnetic fields repelling each other. In other words, our intergalactic ships must be absolutely anti-gravitational, but at the same time, with the help of gravitational energy converter engines, they must have enormous speed properties for instantly fast, and most importantly safe and controlled movement in outer space in any direction. Only in this way will we be able to escape from the absorption of Black holes. However, to do this, it is necessary to comprehensively study in detail the Black holes themselves and their unimaginable force of attraction. Our scientists, both astrophysicists and physicists studying quantum and optical physics, shipbuilders are working on this, but so far our scientists have not been able to closely investigate and study the Black holes themselves, their features and differences from other cosmic bodies and establish at least approximately the maximum force of their attraction. Our research ships, unmanned ships, research probes, which we sent for their close study, having fallen into the zone of irrevocable attraction of Black holes, disappeared without a trace, in other words, they were attracted to themselves by Black holes and devoured. Our scientists believe that even particularly high-frequency beam signals that report the disasters of our ships, wherever it happens, could not overcome the force of attraction of Black holes. Beam signals are specially encoded signals collected from strictly defined several rays into one beam, which, due to their special properties, are not subject to planetary and stellar attractions and are released from the ship automatically when an emergency situation occurs that is incorrigible by the crew. Because of their special properties, these ray signals, as if in a chain, but instantly transmitted through the particles of outer space, travel a distance at a speed several times faster than the speed of light and are reflected only in our special receiving stations, which instantly process them and determine the location of our ship in distress. Hence the conclusion that Black holes in the territories assigned to them attract, without any exception, everything that exists in that part of the Universe, and devour them. Therefore, we do not know where that boundary begins, or, as you put it, the so-called "last threshold", beyond which there is no return and even no feedback. Black holes are not planets, stars or other cosmic bodies that we know, they are something else, mysterious and we have not yet studied cosmic bodies. Our scientists only assume that the core of Black holes are formed from the dark and invisible matter of the cosmos, the specific gravity, density and gravitational force of which is several million times greater than that of the largest stars and planets in the Universe. And Black holes also explode because of an unimaginably high density, no longer able to withstand their own unimaginably gigantic force of attraction and the energy accumulated as a result of this compression inside themselves. So, having reached a huge size and an absolutely critical limit of density and no longer being able to shrink any more, at a certain time, we believe, a large-scale thermonuclear or another reaction, unknown to us yet, is activated inside Black holes, and because of this, the process of their expansion to even more huge, immeasurably gigantic sizes begins. And when the expansion process reaches its critical limit, Black holes for an indefinite, by cosmic standards, for a very short time, radiating outer space with their bright rays, become blindingly bright, titanically larger superstars than all the stars combined. After that, their expansion reaches an even more critical limit and a large, blinding explosion occurs and a whistling melodic sound, reminiscent of the word "Hallelujah", spreads into outer space

The alien, interrupting telepathy a little, continued;

– If you have made a final decision not to stay on our planet any longer, then with your consent, in order to preserve your body in an unchanged state for a long time, we will place you in a special bio-chamber. For your information, I would like to inform you that a bio-chamber is a special equipped chamber where all the functions of a biologically living organism go into a dormant, passive mode of existence. At the same time, during the period of a person's stay in a bio-chamber, his body does not age and does not wear out as during active life, since all this time, a constant, full-fledged cellular exchange takes place in the body at the proper level, pre-coded for each person, taking into account all the functional and other features of his body. The work of all other internal organs is suspended during the dormant mode of the body, but at the same time, so that during the time a person is in the bio-chamber, these organs do not lose their physiological functions in the future, their tissue cells too, without aging and wear, are maintained and fed properly. In addition, the lung and digestive tract, so that they do not lose their functions, are filled with a special, harmless for the body, liquid. This is the only way we can preserve your biological body and your life for many years. Having placed you in such a chamber, we will send you on a research ship with our research scientists, who will make a trip to other galaxies. And if, in those galaxies, there is a planet where the living conditions are similar to Earth, where there is biological life and research will establish that nothing will threaten your life and health there, you will be "revived" for a short time. And after that, while our ship is in the immediate vicinity of that planet or in its orbit, again, with your consent, you will be landed on the surface of this planet for a short time, with a guard.

And also, if your planet is restored by the time the mission of our researchers ends, they will land you there, provide you with everything necessary for your stay for the first time and leave you.

–I agree, but I have one more request. For one reason or another, if even before the time your ship will be in our galaxy and within our Solar system, then I really ask you, flying past, show me my home planet, Earth, I miss it very much.

The alien nodded his head in agreement. After that, after a certain time, three aliens (possibly their scientists in the field of medicine) carefully studied all the functional data and features of his body, placed him in a special bio-chamber. He only remembered how the hermetic door of the bio-chamber was tightly closed in front of his nose and immediately fell asleep.

CHAPTER 4

Returning

So an earthling after three hundred years of sleep, if the preservation of human flesh without change for a long time in a special bio-chamber, and then the restoration of the full work of all organs and all other physiological functions of the body can be called a dream, found himself again in near-Earth orbit. Seeing his native Land in such a state, he was so upset, so grieved and cried incessantly. Bitter tears flowed in sparkling drops and flowed down his pale cheeks, which had not yet been completely restored in colors. At the same time, he recalled the laughter of children, the singing of birds, the sounds of nature, animals, and in general, all his former Earthly life. The thought kept spinning in his head all the time: "God, have we, the people themselves, the owners of high intelligence, destroyed all this heavenly beauty ourselves. Was it really impossible to live just like that, enjoying earthly life, without enmity, amicably. Earth, dear forgive us, forgive us!". And the tears kept flowing and flowing down his still pale cheeks. The humanoids, who were alien to human feelings, did not understand all this and thought: "why is a person crying, because he himself remained alive"

The commander of the ship;

– Life on Earth is just beginning to emerge, it still takes the same amount of time for the planet Earth to recover and be suitable for biological life, while you were in the bio-chamber, we have visited other galaxies where there are planets in which there is biological life. But, having thoroughly investigated and studied them, at least somehow close to the Earth's conditions and, accordingly, for the existence of a person there, the planet was not found. Therefore, you will have to stay in a special bio-chamber for at least another three or four hundred years and wait for the restoration of certain conditions on Earth for the existence of biological life in it. Do you agree?

The man listened in silence at first. He didn't want to fly anywhere anymore. After so many years of separation and loneliness, the feeling of the proximity of his native planet gave him determination and strength, and he, being in Earth orbit, no longer felt lonely. Therefore, he confidently and resolutely answered firmly;

– Let me down to Earth, I can't and don't want to wait any longer, I just want to die on my home planet. If there are no conditions for life on Earth, I will die there. The earth gave birth to me and let it also kill me. I don't need to be persuaded. This is my last request to you and my final decision.

"So be it. This is your decision. We will leave you on Earth, just know that with your death, the human race may end. We can clone and create outwardly similar living beings to you, with artificially grafted minds that can be controlled and stopped at any time, forced to obey and obey us, so that they do not make such mistakes that you, the owners of the Earth, that is, earthlings, have made. And we will definitely populate the Earth with these clones, because we can't leave such a beautiful, blue, beautiful planet, in fact, we can say, perhaps, the only paradise for biologically living beings in the entire Universe that is not inhabited by living biological beings. But these artificially created biological beings, although they will look very similar to a person, will never be able to become them and fully replace a person who has a high, continuously and infinitely developing mind and with its incomprehensible, wonderful and alien feelings. Because no matter how hard our scientists will try, however, we will not be able to clone or recreate a very complicated, most mysterious human organ, that is, the human brain, until we can. So, it's not too late to reverse your decision. And during this time, we will study you comprehensively and in detail, without harm to your body, and our scientists will probably discover the secrets of your brain and mind, and on their basis will make new scientific developments for the restoration of a full-fledged human race. You will again become the masters of your own planet. We will help you.

The man did not answer, because after he decided to stay on Earth, it seems to him that there was no point in answering anymore. And it also seemed to him that the aliens were hiding something mysterious from him, but what they were hiding, he could not even guess or guess. However, he was no longer interested in what they were hiding from him and whatever it all meant, they could not stop him anymore. He firmly decided that if the human race ends with his death, then let it be so, you can't return the past, because humanity itself, endowed with high intelligence, having destroyed itself and the entire Earthly civilization, deserved it.

After that, the commander of the ship gave the command to study the Earth, scan and examine it in order to find at least some corner on Earth where there are at least minimal conditions for biological life and so that it would be possible to land it on the planet without much risk to human health. Scans and surveys have shown that many of the volcanoes that woke up during the thermonuclear war have died out. Some were still smoking and sometimes their fiery-hot breath still threw volcanic magma and ash to the surface of the Earth. Over the oceans and close to the ocean of the earth, there were still, at times, radiation acid rains, radiation at the sites of explosions of nuclear warheads and nuclear power plants was still several thousand times higher than the permissible norm. Due to the melting of glaciers, ocean waters filled all the lowlands of the continental parts of the planet and because of this, and mainly due to the forced and rapid displacement and subsidence of tectonic plates, all continents lost their former shape outlines. In all parts of the planet, many small and large islands have formed from continents. Antarctica, due to the melting of glaciers, was no longer half a glacial continent and also repeatedly decreased in size. The ozone layer around the Earth was preserved, the Sun's rays reached the Earth in many places, this meant the complete end of the nuclear winter on Earth. However, after the catastrophe, the Earth rotated around its axis a little faster than before, and the poles of the planet tilted slightly to the side, but the planet maintained its orbit around the Sun. A natural satellite of the Earth, the Moon was at the same distance and circled the Earth as before. These reports of the crew members and the conclusions made on the basis of these data were simultaneously telepathically transmitted to the human brain. And finally, they reported that they had found a place on the surface of the Earth where active biological life began to arise, where there was air, water and vegetation. The radiation was slightly higher than normal, but not harmful to human health, the average air temperature is about 18 degrees Celsius. But only the atmospheric pressure on earth is slightly below normal, that is, it was about 570 mm of mercury column and this point was indicated on the Earth's map. A person who knew the map of the earth well, although it changed beyond recognition after the thermonuclear catastrophe, easily identified this area. This point was located on the Altai Mountains. A day later, after the restoration of all the functions of the human body, a small, descending landing ship of aliens with a person on board separated from a large intergalactic research ship and delivered it to the specified point on Earth. This area was a large mountain plateau, surrounded on all sides by very high mountain ranges. The aliens wanted to leave him provisions, a spacesuit for emergencies, weapons and other necessary equipment. But he refused all this, he no longer needed anything, because he did not want to live alone anymore and preferred to die on his native, but for biological life, in fact, already unfit, in a dead planet. After so many years of separation, he, with tears in his eyes and with a double feeling, that is, on the one hand, indescribable with words of inner joy for returning home, and on the other, with a sense of guilt before the planet, for the destruction of his relatives of the earth's civilization, set foot on his native planet. The alien ship flew away, the Sun was shining as in the old days, and the sky was clear and clear, blue, blue, even without a single cloud. He looked around. Under my feet I saw small shoots of green grasses and large, by earthly standards, ants, who, like in the old days, did not even pay any attention to the appearance of a person, as always, all worked collectively. In order not to accidentally crush and frighten the ants, he tiptoed away from their ant-like path with a light step. He did not think and even in his thoughts did not allow that he would see shoots of green grasses and ants on the Earth, so he was so happy with what he saw that he even cried out: "hello, my native planet Earth, you are alive and I, your son, have returned home to you." Then he deeply and greedily, with all his lungs, breathed in the pure mountain air, kissed the earth. Then, as if by doing this he wanted to forget everything that had happened to him, he took off all the alien clothes and even shoes that had irritated his body and psyche for all these years, and rolled all these things into a ball, threw them in the direction of the stones sticking out next to him. Then he was barefoot, completely naked, and from the boundless joy that he had returned back to his native planet, he bounced around in circles on the grass, rejoiced, sang and danced. Still, a long stay outside the earth's atmosphere of the body made itself felt and from this a little exhausted and tired, he sat down on the ground, then lay down and lay on the shoots of green grasses. In a word, after a long separation, lying completely naked on the grass, with his whole body and soul, truly feeling all the mother's love, warmth, tenderness, and irreplaceability of his native planet on another and from the joy that he returned back, he closed his eyes for the first time, after many years of extraterrestrial life, mentally and physically so much relaxed, closed his eyes. A little later, lying under the sun's rays on the grass, despite the slightly cool, variable breeze, which, a little unpleasantly penetrated his naked body, as if, like a traveler who was very tired from a distant road, unnoticed by himself, he fell asleep in a real earthly, strong, human sleep. He did not know how long he had been asleep, but he woke up already a cheerful and truly happy person from the fact that after how many years of involuntary stay in a foreign land, he found himself back on his native Land and life was born everywhere, everywhere, and now, having seen all this, he no longer wanted to die. The sun was going down and he, in search of a place to sleep, and tomorrow, in order to calmly decide on the beginning of a new life, began to walk towards the mountain. All around it was visible how life on the planet was being born. Clean air, a small breeze, pleasant, gentle and warm weather, small shrubs, various herbs, but he did not meet any living creatures except ants on the way. Perhaps, in addition to ants, they survived a nuclear catastrophe, and then other species of living beings survived. But, as befits the initial instinctive behavior of the inhabitants of the entire living, wild world, they, perhaps from the moment when he landed on Earth, having smelled his smell, that is, having smelled the smell of their eternal enemy-man, instinctively fearfully hid somewhere near him or immediately left the local places. But even so, let it be so, as long as there are many living beings around. And then, when he finds a shelter in these places for himself to establish a new life, he will definitely see them and try in every possible way to protect them from trouble and even help them. So now he tried not to think about other surviving animals at all. He was so happy that after a forced and long extraterrestrial life, he again returned back to his origins, so now he just wanted to sing, shout, rejoice that life is being born again on his native Land, but suddenly, he stopped, froze, as if it was a dream, could not believe his eyes. Next to a large, high and smooth oval mountain stone, suddenly, eight meters away from him, right in front of him, as if a figure resembling him, a man, appeared out of the ground. He saw before him a tall, by earth standards, half-naked, apparently about twenty, twenty-five years old, a light-skinned, but black-haired girl who was holding a spear with a sharp stone tip ready in her hands, either ready to defend herself or attack him. From fear and surprise, he stopped and froze in place as if rooted to the spot. An incomprehensible, cold shiver of primitive instinctive fear ran through his entire body and he was even speechless for a short time. For some reason, at this time, only one thought was spinning in his head, the thought of the first woman on Earth, and he, unable to move from his place, without taking his eyes off her, even for himself unexpectedly, involuntarily and quietly, but quite audibly, muttering, said;

– Eva?

The girl looked at him in surprise and spoke in his own native language, quite clearly and clearly;

– How do you know me, you are not from our tribe and we have never met before. Who are you?

When he heard his native language, he came to himself a little, but still stuttering and very loudly;

"I… I … am from your tribe, I came in peace, I just left you a long time ago. I am infinitely happy that I have returned to my native places.

Then he, directing his eyes upwards and raising his hands, as if addressing the almighty, joyfully began to utter words of gratitude to God; Oh God, forgive us, your children, I will never, never leave my native Land created by you, because there is no other such planet in the entire Universe. Forgive all my fallen relatives.

The girl did not understand why, raising her hands up, this naked stranger was happy and shouting at the top of her voice, and she thought: "maybe this man is crazy, but, in any case, he does not pose a danger to her with his behavior." So thinking, she turned around and started to leave, because she needed to get at least some food for food by the evening. When he saw that the girl was leaving, he immediately fell silent, lowered his hands, following her with a confused look, at first he stood as if rooted to the spot, but after realizing that she was moving away from him, he stumbled after her, and on the run he turned to her;

– Please, girl, don't leave me here, I don't want to be alone anymore, please take me with you.

The girl stopped, and at first he approached her a little timidly, but at the same time a little shyly. She turned away and said;

–At least with something to cover up.

Only then did he realize that he was completely naked and blushed shamefacedly. She took out a battered, terribly smelling flap of skin cloth from a bag for collecting food and gave it to him. He somehow covered himself with this skin flap. After that, they went on together in silence, and came to a mountain spring, around which there were stunted trees and many different herbs. There, the girl, taking a stone knife in her hands, with the usual movement of her hands, excavated the earth around the spring, extracted earthworms and collected them in a small bag. He hung around her awkwardly, wanted to help her, but didn't know where to start. After that, she gathered fragrant green herbs around the spring. After collecting earthworms and green herbs, she sat down by the water, washed her hands, face and, looking at her reflection in the water, put her long hair in order. It was felt that the girl already feels awkward with a man. Then she filled another leather bag with water from the spring and gave the bag into his hands. When it was dark, they came to the cave where Eve lived. The entrance to the cave was small, the entrance opening was like a corridor, about three meters long, one and a half meters wide and two meters high. As we entered inside, it was felt that the cave itself is quite wide and the ceiling is high. In the middle of the cave, around a small black stone, a light smoldered. Eva put dry twigs on the fire, quickly built a fire. And then, by the light of the fire, he saw that in the middle of the black stone on top there was a natural, smooth, oiled dimple that served as a cauldron for cooking hot food. When the stone was warmed up, Eve cooked hot food from worms and greens in its dimple and put the food into a stone cup with a wooden spoon. Eva, putting the wooden spoon to the side, began to eat food with her hands and at the same time made a tin in his direction, "eat". Only after that, he also began to eat with his hands, like Eve. They ate in silence. It seemed to him that he had never eaten such delicious food. He could hardly believe that he was seeing all this in reality, and not in a dream. He shed tears of joy and almost cried.

After finishing the meal, Eva asked;

– What is your name, stranger?

– Call me Adam.

– Why "call me Adam". Isn't that your real name?

He blushed because he was lying. His name wasn't Adam, but no matter how hard he tried to remember his real name, he couldn't do it. At times, and then for very short moments, he remembered only the good-natured face of his mother. Every time he remembered his mother's face, the same picture appeared before his eyes, as his mother addressed him and began his name with the letter " A " a, then only the movement of her lips without a sound. Even when he was with the aliens, he thought that this amnesia of his memory would never pass, that he would never again remember his name, his loved ones, and always, and then for a very short time, only the tender and kind face of his mother would appear before his eyes. When the aliens brought him to Earth, he could not even imagine that he would meet a living person here, especially a woman named Eva. Now, having met her, that is, the earthly Eve, he also wanted to become Adam, that is, the first man-man after the thermonuclear catastrophe. Therefore, he quickly regained control of himself and replied;

"That's my real name. I don't have another name.

The girl looked at him suspiciously and continued to ask questions;

–When we met, you said that you are from our tribe and speak our language, but why have I never seen you, and you are small in height, not like us, and your name sounds somehow not like ours. Where do you live, how did you get to these places?

At first, he did not know how to answer this question of the girl, because more than three hundred years have passed since he, after a nuclear disaster, involuntarily left the Earth. During this time, everything has changed on Earth. He is an ordinary person, like other former earthlings, of average height. And it can be, most likely, it has become high, perhaps due to a decrease in atmospheric pressure on Earth after a nuclear disaster, or because of the long-term influence of an increased dose of radiation on the body of its ancestors, which then echoed on their descendants. According to the definition of the eye, her height was about two and a half meters and compared to his own height, at one meter eighty, she looked like a giant. But, for obvious reasons, he could not say all this now and would explain it to her. All that he thinks about this, leaving for later, he replied;

–It's just that since I left you, I was in very distant places and I didn't feed as important as here, so I probably became small in stature.

–After all, why don't I remember you, you look only a little older than me, or did you leave very young when I was very young, who were your parents, where are they now?

–Yes, yes, I was very young, I almost don't remember my parents and relatives, they are no more. And I don't have a place to live. I am lonely, I lived far from these places, I got lost in search of food and accidentally ended up here. I ask you, if you can, to shelter me for a while. I'll leave later, I won't be a burden to you.

The girl looked at him again and thought that this man did not pose any danger to her from the look and conversation. Moreover, when she saw his pale, pitiful state, she thought, "poor guy, probably really fed is not important" and replied;

– Stay, you're not bothering me. But, you will get your own food yourself.

"I'll do anything if you don't send me away."

She didn't press him any further. After these conversations, he began to explore the cave with curiosity. It was a large karst cave. He could only see the part where the light from the fire fell. It was felt that the cave was very large in size, deep and long in length. The shelter of Eve reminded the shelter of the life of primitive people.

Eve, noticing this;

–I still don't know where the end of this cave is. My ancestors have lived here since time immemorial. When I was still a little girl, I learned from the conversations of my elders and remembered that somewhere far down there is a large underground lake and one end of the lake opens into an open area surrounded by a high mountain with steep, smooth rocks, and that it is impossible to go up and out of the cave from inside the cave. They said that there, the mountain, with the inside, supposedly resembles an open dome a little bit and only the blue sky is visible from the open part of the dome, and at night the stars are visible. And, in that lake there are all kinds of animals that smell terribly, and our distant ancestors, that is, cavemen, once lived there. I've never been down there myself.

– And, where are your parents and the rest of the people?

–They are no longer alive, they are all dead.

After being silent for a while, she continued with a sad tone;

–My mother's name was Elena, my father's name was uncle Kolya. I got the name Eva in honor of my grandmother, who died shortly before I was born. Our tribe was small, I never counted the number of people. Everyone knew everyone by sight and by name. This is not the main thing, the main thing is that people were close, lived together, got food together, children were friends, played together, rejoiced, had fun. It seemed to me that this would go on forever, because my parents were there, many children and their parents, other people. But there was a disaster. It was a long time ago. Once, when I was still a little girl, that is, I just learned how to collect worms and herbs, I got sick. My mother said that it was a cold and would pass quickly, I just needed to lie down. That's why they left me alone in the cave that day. The others all went to get food. It was everyone's daily work. The children also went to help the elders, collect worms and herbs. The mothers took the infants with them. The male hunters also did not go hunting that day, but left together with everyone. As usual, when everyone left to get food, in the evening, and sometimes even earlier, but they always returned to the cave. But none of them came back that day. I was terribly scared and that night I did not close my eyes, waiting for the return of my mother, father and other people. Three more days and three nights passed, but they did not return. I was very hungry, because I had already eaten the food that my mother left me the day they left. Then, although I was very ashamed of my actions at that time, I fed on the leftovers and food supplies of others, drank water, no longer fresh, but unpleasant-smelling, from the water supply, stored in special leather bags just in case. All this time, although I was afraid to stay alone in the cave, I was also very afraid to leave the cave. I was afraid I wouldn't find them and would get lost like them. And I was also very afraid of losing the fire, my only protection from the dark forces, and I supported it in every possible way day and night. In those distant times, when I was left alone, there were still enough coal reserves collected by our fathers, and therefore I did not present any special difficulties for me as now. Although I was still a little girl, I remember well the day when all our people left and never came back. The day was sunny, bright and warm, but after a while after they left, a strong hurricane wind suddenly blew, dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky, it quickly darkened around, and then a heavy downpour poured. I went to the exit of the cave and saw how the earth boiled during a downpour. The old people said that earlier, too, sometimes, once every two years, there were such rains, after which the worms and herbs died out, and then after a while they reappeared. Such times, and not only such times, and sometimes as needed, as our grandfathers, old men and our grandmothers told us, that is, children, male hunters went down into the depths of the cave and extracted terribly smelling animals from the lake and we fed on them. Our mothers made bags for collecting food and clothes from the skin of these creatures. And the fat of these animals, for cooking in winter and for a torch, was stored in a stone pit covered with a blanket made from their own skin. I will show you this pit later, there is still a lot of fat stored there and the fat has not yet deteriorated. So, since then I have been living alone. As I have already said, at first, that is, the first time when I was left alone, I was very afraid to leave the cave, and then, gradually, the fear was replaced by the need to find food, feed and survive, and I began, at first fearfully, and then more and more boldly, coming to the spring. This is the spring you saw where we collected food. The spring comes out directly from the belly of the mountain, slightly deepened inside, and perhaps that is why, even in winter, despite the fierce frosts, it does not freeze. The water was clean then, as clean as it is now. I drank only water from the spring every day and chewed skin flaps with an unpleasant smell, there was no other food. Sitting by the spring for a long time, I cried every day and waited for my parents, my friends and other people, but they were not there, as if they all fell through the ground at once. Coming to the spring in the morning and spending days at the spring, I returned to the cave every day in the evening, and then putting pieces of coal in the fire so that it would not go out, I hid between the stones and fell asleep there. I was so scared and lonely, but none of them ever came back. Especially at night, I was afraid of the dark part of the cave, as if dark forces from my mother's fairy tales were about to come out of there and take me deep into the cave, then to take over my soul. But this did not happen, and the fear gradually also passed. The worms appeared quickly. Maybe not all the worms died out, and I started feeding on them. After a while, herbs appeared around the spring. So the days passed, and I gradually, although it was very difficult for me to accept the fate that fell to my lot, but I got used to being alone and to surviving in these difficult conditions. When I became an adult, I went around everything and then I found out that when that bad day began a strong bitter downpour, all the people of my tribe were hiding in a small cave located just below, not far from the spring. But there they were all covered by a dirty mudflow formed after that bitter rain and they all died there. None of them escaped. When I went into this cave, I saw their bones there. That's how I've been living alone ever since. To this day, as if it were yesterday, I remember the last, tender look of my mother before leaving and as if I hear her, soothing my soul, tender words. I also remember my friend Sissy. She wanted to stay with me so much that day, but her mother took her with her, telling her "you will play with Eva in the evening when we return". Here, the Sissy would have stayed with me that day, even if she had also been alive.

Here Eva paused, then continued;

– Fortunately, there were no more such bitter rains, only sometimes there are good rains, after which there are more worms and herbs. But, still, when it starts to rain, I am very afraid and quickly hide.

From her stories about bitter rains, he realized that it was about acid rain. It was obvious that remembering all this, Eva was very sad, but she held firm and did not cry. And he was also very surprised inwardly how, after so many years, the girl preserved her language and culture of communication at a very high level, because she lived and lives in the conditions of primitive man's life, for a long time, that is, from an early age, she did not communicate with anyone, lived and survived alone. Interrupting his thoughts, he asked;

–Who were your ancestors, how did they get here? Are there other people, tribes still nearby?

– The old men of our tribe told us that there is a mountain gorge behind these mountain ranges. A small river flows through the gorge. There, on the bank of the river, once lived a large tribe of people who once separated from our tribe and formed a separate settlement. It was said that they built houses out of trees on the river bank, hunted and lived there. But according to the stories of our hunters, they were often attacked and eaten by huge predatory animals, two or even three times taller than a person. They called them brown bears and said that they were so strong that it was useless to fight with them or even defend against them somehow, that it was impossible to kill them with a spear or an axe. According to the stories of the elders, these bears cannot cross the ridges of the mountains and therefore, when we are and live here in a cave, we are worried that they will come here, do not. That's why I've never seen these bears myself. I remember that the older ones still said that there was only one narrow path in the mountains, sometimes our hunters used it to go down and make their way into the gorge to hunt fish, and from there they also brought sticks for our axes and spears. According to their own stories, there are big trees growing there, there is always live food in the river, and for the same reason our tribe once divided. Whether any of those people remained alive, if even they remained, then whether they remained there, or moved somewhere later, where they now live, I do not know. At first, when I met you, I thought that you were one of those people. And who our ancestors were, I do not know, I have not heard stories about it, only once I was told that they lived for a long time in the depths of this cave and said that this is why they called themselves cave people. And I also know that there is a walled-up place in the cave, where, according to our people, the things of our distant ancestors who lived in the cave at that time are stored. The elders said that these things would someday tell us about our origin, and while we do not know how to handle these things, all of us were forbidden to go there. When I was left alone, I didn't even think about it and almost forgot about it.

Adam (in the future we will call man Adam) thought about how bears have survived to the present day, reached such a large size and became cannibal predators. But suddenly I remembered that the nuclear disaster on earth happened in November, when the Siberian bears were already in hibernation and it is quite possible that some of them could survive after hibernation and bring offspring by eating the corpses of other animals, people who died directly during the nuclear war and after, because of the consequences of the nuclear disaster. It is well known that after a nuclear disaster, a nuclear winter comes for a long time, and perhaps the corpses of animals, and people, did not decompose for a long time because of the long, strong frosts of a nuclear winter. The bears probably took advantage of this, although according to the stories they heard once in childhood, they do not eat corpses, however, it is quite possible that hunger forced them to do this. They could become dangerous cannibal predators due to lack of food, and in addition, he remembered that bears had been omnivorous predators before. But here the question arises: "If the bears survived the nuclear winter by eating corpses, how did the people of the Eve tribe here and other animals down in the gorge, in the river water, survive the nuclear winter that followed the nuclear war?". After all, the Earth's atmosphere after a nuclear disaster was covered with a thick ashy veil and because of this, the sun's rays could not reach the Earth's surface. For this reason, a long nuclear winter came on Earth and as a result, it froze for a long time. And in addition, the Earth's atmosphere was polluted with radiation. All living things on Earth after nuclear explosions must have been irradiated and had to get radiation sickness, and there was no effective treatment, as he remembered, for this disease. In addition, according to the theory, because of the long nuclear winter, all the plants on Earth should have died. And animals, and people, and in general all living things on Earth had to die from lack of food and heat. He studied all this himself, but he did not find any clear answer or explanation to this question. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with the alien about the territories on Earth that were less affected by nuclear explosions, volcanoes and flooding, and thought that the alien probably meant these places. Perhaps they probably had information about the survivors of the disaster, but they did not tell him about it, and perhaps this can explain their mysterious behavior before parting, as if they were hiding something. Turning over all this in his mind to calm himself mentally, he thought that now, all this no longer matters to him, the main thing is that life is being born again on his home planet. In continuation of his thoughts, he thought that if there are other surviving people on Earth, they will unite and although it will be very difficult now, they will gradually restore the former civilization of the Earth and people will no longer make such mistakes.

Night fell. Adam and Eve spent the night in a cave. Although they slept separately, but both of them already felt not alone in the shower.

Days passed. One day after breakfast, Adam asked Eve to show him the secret place where, according to her, the things left by their ancestors were kept. But, at first, she categorically refused, saying that this is for her ancestors, and, accordingly, now it is a sacred place for her, where adults forbade them to go from an early age. But then, a little later, she still agreed, because perhaps she herself was interested in seeing these objects. And so, with a torch in their hands, they began to descend down the cave. The cave was somewhere wider, and somewhere quite narrow. They walked about a hundred and fifty meters down the slope, deep into the cave and on the left side in a small, dead-end arm of the cave, Eva showed the place where there was a hiding place. The hiding place was tightly closed with a large round, but flat stone. Adam and Eve, by joint efforts, together with difficulty removed this stone to the side. Behind this large stone was another flat stone, smaller than the first one. When this stone was also removed, a small opening opened. By the light of the torch, a little further away, a tightly closed lid was visible, made of several layers of skin, compacted by gluing, around some dry, but apparently tropical tube-shaped reed plant. When they removed the lid, they saw that it was very dry inside the cache. Apparently, who made this cache, took care that the things left in the cache were stored for a very long time. In the middle of the hiding place, wrapped in a cloth, there was a bundle. Adam slowly took out the package. The torch was already burning out and they were climbing with a bundle in their hands to their camp, that is, to a place located inside the cave, but directly right at the exit of the cave. There, near the exit of the cave, where there was a lot of daylight, he put the package on the ground and slowly began to open the package. When he started to open the package, he saw that the material for the package was part of the canvas raincoat of the tent. The canvas fabric of the tent's raincoat became so dilapidated that at the touch of hands, they literally fell down. His heart was beating faster and faster. He felt that this bundle was taking him back to his own distant past. Eve watched all this with surprise and curiosity, but did not say a word. He opened the package, inside the package was a large plastic bottle with a wide neck, tightly closed, by twisting, a hard plastic lid. Taking the bottle in his hands, Adam carefully examined it before opening the lid and saw that there was a small through hole in the neck of the bottle. Apparently, the person who left all this took into account that when things are stored for a long time in a completely closed space, where the air left there does not change for a long time, things lose their properties and become unusable. However, time has done its job, since the object inside the bottle rolled up into a tube from the outside has turned a little black, slightly covered with mold, but it is quite well preserved. Adam asked Eve for a stone knife. He wanted to carefully cut the neck of the bottle, fearing that if he unscrewed the lid with his hand through the necks of the bottle to get the rolled tube, it might accidentally be damaged. Besides, he didn't want to show Eva, who was watching his every move, that he knew how to open a bottle by turning the lid. He cut the neck of the bottle, took out a rolled-up object and carefully unwrapped it. This rolled-up object turned out to be a plump, but well-preserved multi-leaf notebook for paperback notes, and inside the notebook, between the leaves, there was a black-and-white photo of a group of young (girls and boys) people printed on a portable printer. Apparently, the photo was printed right there, by one of the participants on a portable printer from laptops. They were photographed right at the entrance of the cave. From the photo, they were looked at by broadly smiling, self-satisfied, happy young people in the hiking uniforms of the first half of the twenty-first century. Some of them had smartphones on their hands, laptop handbags hung on their shoulders. Nearby, duffel bags were lying on the snow and a faithful companion of almost all such youth hikes – a guitar. All these things were so close to him, so familiar that when he remembered his former life on Earth, his fellow citizens, relatives, relatives, friends, and everything in general, the now forever lost Earthly civilization, he could hardly hold back tears. Eve stared at the photo with such surprise, as if petrified. From there, that is, from the photo, people she didn't know looked at her, in clothes she hadn't seen before. Then Adam noticed that one of the girls with the photo of the face, the look of the eyes and even the figure is so similar to Eve. Surprised, Eva also looked at this girl from the photo very closely, as if studying her, and perhaps also noticed that the face, eyes and figure of that girl looked so much like her, as if this photo was an exact representation of her own face in spring water. It was the first time she had seen a notebook, a photo, a plastic bottle. Adam didn't know where to start, how he would explain all this to her. Therefore, when she looked at him in surprise without saying a word, with a question in her eyes, "what is all this?" he only shrugged his shoulders as a sign that "they say, I also don't know anything and don't understand". He was well aware that it was almost impossible to explain all this to Eva now and thought: "time will pass, we will enter into each other's trust, conversations between us will be ordinary and familiar, I will definitely tell everything, then she will understand everything." He took the photo in his hand, turned it over, looked at the reverse side and saw and not unfounded, but only read the barely noticeable inscription in Russian "New Cave, students" with the movement of his eyes, it was impossible to read the record further, since the end of the record was erased over time. Eva had been watching him and all his movements all this time. Adam, when he only read the note written on the back of the photo with his eyes, suddenly it seemed to Eve that she felt something was wrong in the movements and expressions of his eyes, and he immediately had to make a naive appearance that he was also very surprised by what he saw and put the photo back. Then he took the notebook and began to leaf through it, and as soon as his eyes touched the notes, he realized from the first page that it was a detailed handwritten description of those past, distant events, but he did not continue reading these notes in front of Eva. Now he needed to leave all this for later and quickly gets out of this situation, and for this purpose, turning to Eve, he began;

–Let's put all these things back in the cache, we still don't know what to do with them now. Then we will think together and decide. We still have to go to the spring, we need to get food.

– Yes, yes.

Eva agreed, but it was clear from her eyes that she was very surprised by what she saw and extremely excited. Adam felt uneasy that he was lying to her all the time and it seemed to him that she even felt it. But all the same, he thought that he should refrain for some time before telling her the truth about his former life, and besides, he still does not know how she will react to his story, believe it or not, and how she will take it all.

After that, the two of them took all the things back and put them in the cache, closed the lid of the cache, but did not close the outer opening of the cache with heavy stones.

Days passed. They were doing their usual things, arranging their homes, getting and cooking food, but they did not part for a single step and both felt inwardly that they could no longer live alone, that they could be together and live so well. And then one day, after dinner, sitting next to Eve, Adam, in a burst of inexplicably tender inner feelings that suddenly appeared in him, unexpectedly even for himself, hugged Eve and kissed her firmly, firmly on the lips. She blushed at first, but did not say anything, or maybe in her heart she also wanted and waited for this. So they got intimate that night and started sleeping together. Life has entered into a calm and normal family channel. However, Adam was haunted by thoughts about the notes in the notebook. He wanted to read the notes as soon as possible, get to know the people from the photo and how their destinies turned out. The only thing that was clear was that the photographs depicted those distant ancestors of Eva, about whom she spoke. But with her, it was impossible to get a notebook out of the hiding place, read and study the notes. She was there all the time. To tell the truth and tell everything, in his opinion, the time has not yet come. He knew that sooner or later he would have to tell her the whole truth about himself. But when will that time come? However, this situation resolved itself.

Many, many days have passed, and maybe even months. Although he knew how many days there were in a month, he did not know from what time and from what month to start the chronology, and in such a situation there was no need for him to do this. According to his approximate calculations, more than 4 months have passed since his return. The days began to shorten. This indicated the approach of winter. The first signs of Eva's pregnancy also began to appear. She got a little fatter in figure, and every day she took a long walk in the fresh air near the cave. They were both so happy inwardly, but they didn't admit it to each other. So the days passed, the weather became increasingly cloudy and cooler. One day, as usual, they came to the spring. She collected earthworms and edible herbs, and he collected firewood between small stunted trees. When the work was finished, Eva said;

– There are already fewer worms and edible herbs here. I will go down, further along the stream of the spring, perhaps I will find other places where we will get food, at the same time I will take a walk, and you, (it should be emphasized that after the night when Adam first kissed Eve, they switched to "you") take all this, get water and go to the cave.

Adam grumbled, barely audible, almost in a whisper, "the matriarchy has begun," however, he nodded his head to Eve in agreement, but immediately the thought flashed through his head that " while Eve is not in the cave, I will take a notebook and read a little." With such thoughts, he came to the cave and quickly got down to business. I lit a torch, went down and took out only a notebook from the hiding place, leaving other items next to the notebook there, I tightly closed the hiding place with a lid. It made it easier for him to hide the notebook, even if Eva accidentally came early. With such thoughts, with a notebook in his hand, he climbed up the cave to the exit of the cave. But Eve was already waiting for him there by the fire. She had on her hands his extraterrestrial clothes and shoes, which he threw away after returning to Earth. Adam stopped and froze. After all the ordeals of extraterrestrial life, he liked living with Eve so much. And although they lived on primitive conditions, they lived in human, mundane conditions of life and now he would never replace this earthly life with Eve with an alien, comfortable, but life alone. He was so happy that he had long forgotten about these things. It didn't even occur to him that one-day Eve would accidentally find his clothes and shoes. She looked him straight in the eyes, and in her looks you could read the question "why was I deceived, did not tell the truth, who are you?". There was no point in hiding the truth from her any further, and he began;

– I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'll explain everything now. I just thought that you would not believe me, that I am a person from the past, i.e. from a past Earthly life. Ya Ya. I'll start now…

Eva sat down by the fire and for the first time since they met, she began to cry. Probably, she was very offended that a loved one was hiding the truth about himself from her. He calmed her down in every possible way and kept saying;

– Dear, beloved, you are very smart and when I tell my whole story, you will understand everything and forgive me.

And without waiting for Eva to calm down at least a little, he put his arm around her shoulders and began to talk about how people used to live on earth, about the earth's civilization, about the peoples who inhabited the Earth, about the animal world, about birds, about the achievements of science and about when and how the catastrophe occurred on Earth. Then he told that he was an astronaut, during the thermonuclear war, he was on the ISS in near-Earth orbit with other crew members, and then he was saved by aliens and after three hundred years of extraterrestrial life, he returned to his native Earth. She listened in silence. Whether she understood all this or not, he did not know, but she did not ask any questions. The story lasted until late at night. They didn't even have dinner. So he finished his story and in his story described in general terms the forever lost human civilization. He understood that there would be many more questions, because to tell in general terms is one thing, but to explain and explain the previous achievements of humanity in detail, to Eve later, is another and will be very difficult. "After all, there is a beginning, and everything else will get better later," he thought and offered Eva a rest, promising that tomorrow he would read to her the notes left by her ancestors, and she would also be taught to read and write so that she could write and read herself.

She stood up in silence, took a stone thicket in her hand, drank water and looked in the direction of Adam. In the light of the dying torch, it was impossible to see the reaction of her face, but in her gaze Adam felt that his story had made a double impression on her. But without saying a word, Eve went up to Adam and hugged him tightly. There was something about it, an inexplicable pleasant feeling, a feeling of closeness to a loved one, and she suddenly spoke;

"I knew before that you weren't the person you pretended to be. After all, you always shouted excitedly in a dream, uttered various words, including those that I did not understand, "space, ship, crew, planet, war", sometimes even cried during sleep. I really didn't want to offend you, because you are the only person who is close and has already become a family for me, and I don't want to lose you. I was just waiting for you to tell me the truth yourself.

After these words of Eva, he knelt down in front of her, hugging her waist, uttered a single phrase;

– I'm sorry.

CHAPTER

5

History of survivors

Part 1. A new cave and a stone trap

We woke up in the morning and Adam no longer felt guilty for lying to Eve all this time. Together they cooked food and after breakfast, Eva, as usual, went out for a walk. Adam began to read the notes. The notes were made in a very small handwriting (apparently the person who left this manuscript treasured the paper very much) and began as follows: "I, Sokolov Andrey Leonidovich, consider it my duty to leave to posterity detailed information about all the misadventures that happened to us, because after the catastrophe on Earth, in incredible conditions, we survived, and the human race continues on Earth."

From this, Adam concluded that these notes were made by the author much later than the nuclear disaster. In addition, the handwriting of the manuscript, although the notes are made in a very small handwriting, seemed very familiar to him. Since Adam did not fully remember his biography, he thought that perhaps he had studied at the same school with the author of these records in the past, or it seemed familiar to him from the fact that he had not read the manuscripts in his native language for a long time. But, this was not the main thing, the main thing now for Adam was the content of the notes left, and from the fact that the handwriting was very familiar and legible, the notes were read to him without much difficulty, even very easily.

Further, he learned from the records that a group of students from Moscow State University consisting of ten people came to the Gorno-Altai Republic to see firsthand and, if possible, study the so-called "New Cave" recently discovered in these places. The cave, as described in media reports, existed before, but speleologists learned about the existence of the cave only after a series of small earthquakes that recently occurred in these places, when the entrance to the cave accidentally opened due to earthquakes. After hearing about the new cave on television and reading about it on the Internet, they decided to see this cave with their own eyes and explore it. Before them, for a very short time, only speleologists who study caves visited here, and they accidentally discovered this cave when they were studying other caves in these places and made a sensational message on television that there is a large underground lake in the cave, that previously unknown waterfowl live in the lake. This message of speleologists was so interested in this group of students who were romantically inclined, who, at the call of their hearts, gathered from different faculties who had not even known each other before, but met later, that is, directly during the hike. And in order to get ahead of other specialists, that is, biologists, historians, geographers and speleologists, who were also going to explore a new cave soon, they quickly equipped themselves, in their opinion, with the necessary equipment for descending into the cave and came here to see the underground lake and the animals living in it with their own eyes. According to the author of these recordings, it was so interesting and romantic that they felt like pioneers and discoverers of something, from their point of view, very important. Inspired by such romanticism and enthusiasm, as the author writes, they did not even take simple precautions and safety measures for descending into the cave and in cases of possible unforeseen circumstances or emergency situations directly inside the cave. So they did not even leave those on duty on the surface, as it is necessary and necessary in such cases, and took with them only a small amount of necessary equipment and auxiliary things, that is, a small axe, two lengths of rope, 15 and 10 meters long, a light scuba diver's suit and a knife. And from food, water in three 5-liter plastic bottles and not a large amount of canned provisions, and then just in case they stay there a little longer than they expected and they will have to eat there, in the cave. And everything else, that is, all the rest of the food, all the outerwear and other things they brought with them, except for smartphones and other personal things that they habitually carried with them, were left in tents in a temporary tent camp, set up outside on the surface, at the entrance to the cave. According to the author, they were not going to stay here for a long time and distributed their time in such a way that they allocated only a day to stay here in the camp and descend into the cave, just to see the underground lake and if it turns out to see waterfowl animals there, fix them on the cameras of their smartphones. Then take a collective photo in the cave, as a sign of proof that they, after the speleologists who discovered this cave, were the pioneers here. After that, they had to return to study at the university and brag about this campaign in front of friends, peers and students. That's all, they set aside four, five days, for an extreme case, a week, if it suddenly turns out that they are delayed on the way due to weather or other reasons. Only in this was all their youth optimistic and adventurous romanticism. That is why, and also because they had not previously studied new caves and for the same reason did not know and did not even think that they might encounter various kinds of difficulties in a previously unexplored cave, so they did not prepare seriously and thoroughly for this event. They were driven only by energetic youth enthusiasm and romance, and they took the descent into the cave, a kind of romantic-adventure extreme game.

Adam, for a short time, closed the notebook, picked up a photo of the students. I looked at the photo. Only nine people were captured there, that is, four girls and five guys. And in Andrey's notes, it was about ten students. "Where is the tenth? Perhaps he, that is, the tenth person who photographed all the others, did not enter the frame himself? " thought Adam and then, putting the photo aside, began to read the notes further.

Further, the author wrote that Before going down to the cave, so that the descent into the cave and our entire further excursion would be clearly organized and successful, all the members of the group, after consulting among themselves, despite my objections, chose me as the leader of our hiking group. So, under my leadership, the descent into the cave began. We, by the light of lanterns, going down the slope down the cave and walking about one kilometer, and perhaps a little more than a kilometer, reached the shore of an underground lake. On the shore of the lake, we found traces of a camp of speleologists, where they stopped for a short time and then apparently turned back, since they trampled only there, within a radius of twenty, twenty-five meters, and the tracks did not go further to the right or to the left. After making a short stop here, we decided to continue our journey further. At first we wanted to go along the lake shore to the right, but the flat surface of the lake shore continuously narrowed as we moved forward, and very soon, according to my approximate calculations, after walking about forty meters, we came across a high, insurmountably steep stone block hanging over the water. This meant that there were no paths further along the coast in this direction. We came back where we started on the right. Here one of the girls, probably very tired of walking, suggested to stop, there is a camp here, from here and start exploring the lake. However, many people did not agree with her opinion and proposal. We, that is, everyone else wanted to go further, to see and learn more than the speleologists who had been here before us. With such intentions, we continued our way along the shore of the lake, to the left side. The surface of the lake shore was stony flat, but with turns and bends sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and the distance to the side walls of the cave on the way of our journey then narrowed, then widened, however, we no longer encountered insurmountable large obstacles on the way in this direction. And after walking along the shore of the lake for about eight hundred meters, we came out into a wide, daylight-lit area. It was a wide area on the shore of an underground lake, surrounded by very high mountain rocks, which, in its outline, resembled a very large, one-tenth open dome, observatory, with a diameter of about four hundred meters at the base. Moreover, the open part of the naturally created dome was located in the southern side of the mountain and the sun's rays penetrated and fell in a narrow strip on a small part of the lake shore, on the water and, as if reflected by a plume from the water surface, one end reached a small island located in the middle, that is, by daylight of the visible part of the lake. On the island and on the shore of the lake where we were, there were densely growing some exotic, tropical small plants that we had not seen before and unknown to us, similar to reed plants that grow closer to the equatorial part of the earth, but significantly different from them in their appearance and shimmering with a very transparent bluish-green appearance, leaves. The water in the lake slightly smelled of some strange smell to us. The air in the cave was a little moist, as after a short rain in the spring, but we were very easy to breathe, which meant that there was a little more oxygen in the air than usual. Despite the month of November, the cave was very warm and cozy. Before we had time to look around properly, such a bright glow was visible from the open part of the dome that it became blinding light under the arches of the dome of the cave. At that moment, all the members of the group thought that a meteorite had fallen near the cave. Without paying special attention to this event, we decided to set up our temporary camp here, so that we could then start exploring and exploring the cave and the underground lake from here. However, after some time, when we had not even had time to properly settle in and distribute the responsibilities of each member of the group, a powerful earthquake suddenly began. The tremors sometimes intensified, sometimes decreased. Waves began to rise in the lake and the water began to flood the shore of the lake where we were. Under such circumstances, it was very dangerous to stay in the cave. We should have saved ourselves. Under these conditions, we urgently decided to climb back to the surface as soon as possible. On the way back, after going up the slope almost half of the way, we learned that the narrow place of the way out of the cave was filled up with stones during the earthquake. So the way back was closed for us, and the earthquakes continued with strong, then small tremors. We didn't have time to establish the scale of the blockage on the way back out of the cave, since the ground was shaking all the time under our feet. Occasionally, from the depths of the earth came muffled, but at the same time reflected in our body with unpleasant sensations and premonitions of a terrible disaster that had already occurred on the surface of the Earth, dull, muffled sounds, as if the Earth was moaning in pain. By the light of lanterns, we found a narrow, not deep opening in the cave with a low integral stone ceiling and entered it. So they protected themselves from falling random stones on their heads. Everyone was wondering "is it really so catastrophically bad there, on the surface, maybe an asteroid or a large comet fell" Cut off from the world, being in a cave, we could not know what happened on the surface and we could only wait. The earthquake continued. We were rocking from side to side, as if we were at sea in the cabin of a ship during a storm. Time passed, but the earthquake continued and it seemed that there would be no end to it. Therefore, in order to save the batteries on the lanterns, we turned them off. No one asked any questions, they sat in the pitch-black cave darkness, pressing their bodies together, in silence. Sitting in the pitch darkness, without waiting for the earthquake to end, from fatigue and from the nervous strain we experienced, we all fell asleep there.

Then the author wrote; I woke up and first of all turned on and looked at the time in my smartphone. It was already 10 o'clock the next morning. The earthquake continued, but the strength of the tremors has already decreased. Having woken up the others, he made a roll call. Everyone was alive and well. After waiting a little more time, we decided to go back down to the lake. We came out of the opening, looked around by the light of lanterns, made sure that the cave withstood the earthquake and came to the part of the cave that was open from above. But it was darkly dark there, but the visibility was quite distinguishable. At first, we thought that it was just morning, but the time in smartphones showed the same time, that is, 13 hours 21 minutes of the day. From the open part of the dome's vault, only the movement of gray fog was visible. Then they realized that when the earthquake started, in a hurry to leave the cave as soon as possible, they forgot all the provisions on the shore of the lake. The shore was flooded with water then and now, when the earthquake ended, the water went back and all our provisions went into the lake along with the water, except for two containers with water, which we took with us. Despite the fact that no one from the group had eaten anything for more than a day and a half, they drank only water, no one complained of hunger. I personally had no appetite at all. I think others have too. Everyone had the same idea on their mind "how to get out" They looked around, there was only the water surface of the lake, going deep into a dark cave, an island and high smooth steep stone blocks forming a natural dome. The height distance to the open part of the dome is presumably at least one hundred and twenty meters. With our equipment, we'll never get there. If we assume that a large asteroid or some other large cosmic body has fallen to the Earth and the scale of the catastrophe is large, then we will soon have nowhere to wait for help. Now, if we had left the duty officers on the surface, although there was no cellular mobile communication working here in the mountains, they would have somehow helped us get out of the cave or brought help. In this matter, I blamed only myself, because as the senior of the group, I made a gross mistake to ensure the safety of the group's trip to the cave. Before descending into a previously unexplored cave, I had to anticipate the occurrence of such unforeseen circumstances, such as our current situation, and take measures to ensure the safety of people, well, at least in the form of leaving those on duty on the surface.

If before that we all treated all our difficulties and adventures from the point of view of romanticism, only now has the full horror and hopelessness of our situation reached the consciousness of each of us. One of the girls began to cry, remembered her mother and other relatives that she did not even warn them about the trip, so that later she could surprise them in the form of showing photos and videos taken in the cave. But she was quickly reassured by the other girls. We decided to discuss the plan of our actions to save ourselves. We will never get to the open part of the dome with our equipment. This was no longer subject to discussion. Whether the waters of the lake come out of the cave, and even if it does, how will it check whether the lake is deep, what creatures live in it, whether they are dangerous to humans, in general, there are a lot of questions. Our only hope was a light scuba diver's suit, a mask and a tube that we brought with us to dive into the water and study the wildlife of the lake. But in such circumstances, diving into the lake for a long time for examination and finding a way out of the cave in the dark part of the cave, without reliable equipment, meant certain death. While we were discussing the plan of our actions, small dark heads of some waterfowl animals could be seen above the water surface and immediately plunged into the water, but we did not even pay attention to them now. Since our future fate depended on the right decision we made. It was impossible to delay in this matter, since it was clear that we would not last long here without food and water. Finally, we decided that while the batteries of our lanterns did not run out, we should look for another exit or disassemble the blockage and clear the way back to the exit. Everyone was strictly forbidden not to turn on even smartphones unnecessarily, in order to save batteries, whose flashlights would also be useful. We were divided into two groups. The first group of three guys had to look for another exit from the cave, if there is one, another, a large group of seven people, including all the girls, had to clarify the scale of the blockage and begin to disassemble the blockage and clear the way out. With such goals, both groups simultaneously began to climb up the cave, back to the exit. The groups did not have to split up, since they did not find any branches in the cave before the place where the cave was filled up, which meant that there was simply no other way out. When we examined the place of the blockage by the light of lanterns, it turned out that the path was blocked not only with stones of different sizes, which we could remove, but also a huge oval, almost round stone, the size of a small truck. This large stone during the earthquake probably broke off from the place where it was before and, due to inertia, rolled down from above. And as he rolled down, accelerating strongly by inertia, he immediately got so firmly stuck in the narrow passage of the cave. This was indicated by the fact that the stone, firmly resting on all sides against the side walls, on the floor and on the ceiling of the passage, with its entire mass, like a cork, tightly closed the narrow passage, and it was clear that even if we removed all the other stones lying ahead, we would not be able to remove a large stone that was stuck tightly in the passage. It was so depressing and depressing for the psyche of each of us, as it put an end to our salvation from imprisonment-the author wrote.

Then Adam, closing the notebook, involuntarily remembered the ISS, his crewmates, how they also found themselves in a hopeless situation after a nuclear disaster, because the events described by the author occurred at the same time when they were still on the ISS. The only difference is that the students, while in the cave, thought that the catastrophe on earth was due to the fall of an asteroid or comet to Earth, and they, while on the ISS, were direct unwitting witnesses of a global thermonuclear war and the destruction of Earth's civilization.

Eve came in and Adam put down his notebook. She looked at Adam. Although she did not ask Adam any questions, however, in her look you could read "did you read the notes, what is written there?" He did not wait for the question;

–I haven't read everything yet, but one thing is clear, the notes were made by your ancestors, but I don't know how they survived the disaster, I'll read everything, then I'll tell you.

Then, as gently as possible, he added;

–Now we will go with you to get food for lunch and dinner, you need to eat a lot, because our baby needs vitamins.

– That they are needed. Did I not understand?

–Well, this, how to explain it, is also the same food, but they are, that is, vitamins that are not visible to our eyes, and there are a lot of them inside green herbs. When we eat green herbs, they get inside us with herbs. These are such trace elements, then, without finishing his thought, what he wanted to say, he stopped, quickly pulled himself together. "Reading the manuscripts, completely immersed in the old world with my thoughts, I forgot where I am and what century I am living in now," he thought and continued;

"I can't explain it all. So they used to write in books, and doctors, that is, former doctors, recommended this to pregnant women.

Eve didn't bother asking Adam any more questions. She understood that it was very difficult for him to forget all his past and turned the conversation to another topic;

–We will go now to the spring and go down the stream, there are a lot of worms and fragrant herbs. We need to stock up on food for the winter. We will also collect root vegetables there.

– And, how will we save them until winter?

– Very simple. We will drown green herbs and worms in fat, they will be preserved there, and root crops will be preserved anyway. We just need to stock up a lot.

– And, where can we get root vegetables?

– Down there, along the stream of the spring, the root crops grow there and are just beginning to ripen.

Adam suddenly remembered the big ants and asked Eve;

– Oh, can I eat ants?

– I don't know, I've never tried it. Even if they can be eaten, I will never be able and will not want to eat them. Because they are harmless to us, and they are also my friends. When I was left alone, they were the only living beings around, with whom I communicated, talked, played and felt not alone here.

Adam felt uneasy, not only because he asked Eve such a question. Ants were the first living creatures that he saw after returning to Earth from a foreign land. He remembered that when he saw them, how happy he was, as they were the first messengers who gave him hope for the revival of life on the planet. How inexcusably quickly he forgot this. Therefore, as if in a guilty tone, he answered not only Eve, but also the ants, too, with only one word;

– I'm sorry.

– I didn't understand why you're asking for forgiveness?

– Yes, I just did it, he replied in a guilty voice.

Part 2. Lessons on survival and life

After lunch that same day, Adam continued to read the manuscript.

The author wrote: After seeing and realizing that there was no way we could move a large stone, we mentally depressed went back down to the lake and came to our temporary camp. Everyone was silent, because they understood the difficulty and hopelessness of our situation in which we found ourselves. But still, the optimism and the idea that we would somehow soon get out of here did not leave us all, because we were young, strong, our bodies were strong and none of us wanted to stay in the captivity of the cave and die just like that. Evening came, then night. Worried, either by our appearance on the shore of the lake, or for other reasons related to the disaster, the inhabitants of the lake occasionally made whining, plaintive sounds. These sounds were sometimes joined by the warning sounds of our smartphones that the batteries in them were running low. Being psychologically depressed and unsure of the future, sitting in pitch darkness, pressing our bodies against each other, we spent another night in a cave on the shore of the lake.

The next morning, we woke up, looked around. There are no changes around. Only on the island in the middle of the lake, we saw a pandemonium of amphibious animals, similar to seals, but with a slightly elongated neck and a small head, from a distance similar to a cat's head. Now, after we had accepted our situation a little, everyone began to feel hungry, which was further reminded by the sounds of rumbling in our intestines. The water also ran out. Without food and water, we will not last long, we need to get food and water. There is water in the lake, but is it suitable for consumption? After cutting off the neck of one of the plastic bottles, they made a bucket out of it and filled it with water. The water was warm, as in the tropical zones of the Earth. At first, none of us dared to drink. But the use of this water was in this case the only real and non-alternative necessity for us, and in order to survive in the future, we had to somehow get out of the situation. After asking the others to refrain from drinking water a little, I tried the water first. The water was not salty, but a little muddy and smelled a little strange to us, and it tasted like Caucasian mineral waters, but if you gradually get used to the smell, you can drink it. If the water is bad, it should soon affect me. They decided to get food from the lake, there are simply no other solutions. Here, of course, the question arose, and how to get it, because the animals are amphibians, and, accordingly, waterfowl. If they sense danger, they will go to that part of the lake where it will be impossible to reach them in the pitch darkness of the cave. Besides, how do we get to the island where the animals come out at night? You can swim, but we do not know the depth of the reservoir, whether there are any other animals living in the lake besides animals, and if there are any, do they pose a danger to us, what other dangerous tricks are waiting for us in the lake water and how the lake will behave, will the lake water pull a person down? There are a lot of problematic issues that have arisen before, when we discussed the plan of our salvation. But then, an idea came to mind, if at night the animals come out of the lake to the island, it means that they used to go out and in the future they should also go to the shore, where we set up camp and spent the night last night. Perhaps they did not go ashore last night because we were staying and spending the night on the shore of the lake, and they instinctively stayed away from previously unknown, unforgiven guests, such as we are here. We decided to check this option and discussed our action plan for hunting the animal. According to our plan, as a group, in this case consisting of three people, we need to ambush the animals, for which, armed with an axe, a knife and a stone, it is necessary to hide between the stones somewhere close to the approximate place where the animals come ashore. And given that the animals on the land move slowly, wait for them to come ashore for the night and suddenly attack them. But this plan of ours will work only after dark and we had to sit hungry for another whole day. Meanwhile, we learned that lake water can be used for drinking, since my body did not even feel the difference between ordinary and lake water, unless drinking because of the smell was a little unpleasant. This was already our first success on the way to survival, and the members of the group drank plenty of water. Long before the evening darkness, we, that is, three guys from the group, including me, took a predetermined position, hiding behind rocks on the shore of the lake, in order to hunt a seal of such an animal. I had a knife in my hands, the second had an axe and the third had a stone weighing about three kilograms. Looking ahead, I will say that at the time when they decided to hunt the animal, I did not even know the names of these guys who participated in the hunt with me. As we later met, one of them, who armed himself with an axe, was Sergey, and the second, that is, the one who armed himself with a stone for hunting, was Kostya. Therefore, further describing in detail the event of our first hunt that took place in extreme conditions of the cave, I will not name the names of these guys who participated in the hunt for the animal in the future. And the rest of our group, at the time when we were preparing to hunt the animal, so as not to disturb us with their presence, retreated into the cave in advance. Evening has come, it is pitch dark, there is no visibility at all. In such conditions, we waited for about an hour. However, as we intuitively determined by the sounds, not a single amphibious animal ever came ashore. But then, when we felt from the sounds made by the animals that they were coming out to an island that was located not far from us, and I suddenly appreciated the idea that maybe they could smell us and determine our location in advance. Perhaps that is why the animals, having determined our exact location and having smelled the danger threatening them with their animal instincts, do not come to our shore. What to do in such situations and how to make sure that they do not smell our smell, because we so need food, without which we will not last long here? After consulting among themselves, we decided to wet our clothes in the lake water and thus, at least for a short time, prevent or weaken the spread of our smell through the air. We did exactly that, and it gave us results. After a while, sitting in ambush, we not only felt, but also began to hear, characteristic noises, that is, barely audible meowing, the rustle of water and rustles. All this meant that these animals, crawling out of the water to the shore, shaken off, crawling along the shore, looking for a place to sleep. They talked in whispers and decided to attack one of them at the same time. Making sure that the animals were already on the shore, instantly turning on the flashlights, we rushed forward at a run to cut off their path to the lake. Many of them, while we blocked their way to the lake, hurriedly jumped back into the lake, but the rest, suddenly baring their teeth, showing us sharp fangs, took a defensive pose. By the light of the lanterns, it was clear how viciously and full of determination to repel our attack and defend themselves together, their eyes were burning. We didn't know what to do in this situation, because we were all hunting for the first time. At the slightest approach to them, they aggressively rushed to meet us with the whole group. At the same time, we noticed that where the lantern moves, they turn their whole body towards the light source, without losing sight of the switched-on lantern, quickly and as a whole group move in the same direction. Leaving only one lamp on, we decided to take advantage of this. This gave us a positive effect. I quickly moved to the left with the flashlight turned on, and all the animals, turning their whole body in my direction, growling angrily, again took a defensive pose. In such a situation, in order to completely confuse their naive defensive animal instincts and at least for a short period of time distract their attention from other guys, I started making circular movements with a flashlight in my hands. The animals stopped for a moment, but baring their sharp fangs, they froze in a defensive pose. Taking advantage of this and catching the moment, one of us, that is, the one with the axe, quickly approaching them from behind, hit one of them on the head with the butt of the axe. The animal fell to the ground with a plaintive squeal, but continued to move forward slowly, with chaotic movements, towards the water. Then, with a repeated blow to the head, our three-kilogram stone overtook him, and the animal expired. Seeing this, the other animals immediately fled in all directions. Then we began to examine the prey by the light of lanterns. In front of us lay an amphibious animal, not previously seen by us, more than one meter long, with a strip on its head that looks like a skunk, the rest of its body looks like a seal. But only the dorsal part of the body of this animal was covered with very hard scales. The front paws of the animal, between the claws were connected by webbing, like ducks, and instead of the hind legs there were fins. A disgusting unpleasant smell was coming from the animal. So for the first time, we involuntarily became hunters, and perhaps the first hunters of a rare animal of this underground lake. But we were forced to do this by need – the author justified himself.