"Samples seventy-two and seventy-six demonstrate the required parameters, decomposing the aerosol suspension of sulfuric acid into sulfate and water, with the release of free hydrogen for further reaction," the laboratory assistant Allochka dictated, recording the readings inside the laboratory box.
The girl adjusted a strand of hair with the robotic prosthesis of her left hand, took a sip of tea, and continued her recording: "Samples of the 'air' group from twentieth to thirty-fourth have also successfully passed the tests, decomposing carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen, respectively. Successful formation of a soot screen has been achieved."
The research associate opened the valve on the chamber, peering at the instrument readings. "The triggers worked as expected. All samples died, according to the technical specification," the girl mumbled monotonously and added in a more lively voice: "Professor Matthew! Complete success! The controls have passed!"
"Wonderful," the purebred American, about forty years old, grumbled with a slight accent, blinding those in the laboratory with his smile. "I didn't believe until the last moment that the telomere limiter would work, but your geneticists even provided for parallel transfer!"
"Ours, professor. Ours," the girl corrected, thinking bitterly that about six months ago this would have been a good topic for discussion with her friends. Only one of the three friends survived, and even then, not completely.
"I'm not used to this yet," the man said, stumbling over the endings, blushing. "It's funny to say, but what they fed us about you, especially after the emigration to you... The most decent thing was that you drank vodka in the morning, afternoon, and evening. And many believed it! I could never have imagined that I would end up at the Enterprise..."
The microbiologist gestured around the laboratory with his hands and continued: "Let alone conduct experiments... " He fell silent enthusiastically, adding meaningfully: "Yeees. And they planned to defeat you! While we were just learning to make crooked programs for robots, you had already started programming bacteria, and how!!!"
"We, professor," the laboratory assistant corrected him again. "You also contributed to this project..."
The girl caught herself thinking that this was another topic for discussion over a cup of tea, but with no one. She suppressed her sadness so as not to embarrass her supervisor, not to spoil his moment of joy, and only a twitching prosthesis was a manifestation of her emotions.
Only in the "Collective" did it still turn a sad purple color. A second later, a warm image flew to her. Although her friends did not wake up after death, continuing to live in the neural network, their memory lived on – so in a way they were with her. If they could, they would have gathered for tea like this, but unfortunately, memory is not quite personality...
"Cadet Pastukhov, were you assigned anything?" Sergey asked in a calm, quiet voice to the teenager frozen in the center of the office at attention.
"To remain at my post, Comrade Major," Artem, already trained in military relations, reported clearly, straightening up even more. From the outside, it looked like he had swallowed a long crowbar – his posture was so unnatural.
Many would say, looking at him – he's trying to curry favor. I, however, sympathize. The scars from the modification, which the uniform could not completely hide, had not yet healed and stood out on his skin in pink lines. I know firsthand what it's like when every bone and muscle in your body aches. Biologists and cyberneticists know their business, but that doesn't negate the unforgettable pain...
"To remain at the observer post for coordinating the representation's security, cadet," my husband corrected him, without raising his voice, although he himself, when he learned about what happened, uttered a heavy, profanity-laden construction. "But what did you do, Comrade Cadet?"
"Acted according to the operational situation within the framework of the task!" Artem replied briskly, devouring Sergey with a puppy-like gaze.
"Learned," my husband drawled approvingly, but returned to a serious expression. "Cadet. You left your post. I don't dispute that it was justified, there are no claims against you here, but... how do you explain this?"
Sergey took a tablet from his desk, turning its screen towards the young man, showing photos and a couple of short silent videos.
"Our unit is part of CERBERUS, being a special forces detachment of the Defense Aspect. From this, it follows that we must work quietly, even if every reporter knows us by face. But these are all details. Different shit happens... Artem, you just explain to me..."
My husband took a deep breath, while I, trying not to laugh, transmitted a slight condemnation in my emotions.
"How did you find a brothel in the center of London that was still working properly? Not even like that... how did you get the prostitutes to storm that warehouse with you? The truck with pigs was a coincidence."
"I told them the truth," the young man said honestly.
"That is, you told them about the contents of the warehouse? To civilians?" Sergey clarified.
"Yes."
An awkward silence ensued.
"Once again, cadet. You got prostitutes to storm a warehouse with almost a ton of marijuana concentrate, while your curator and the police special forces were exchanging fire with bandits? " my husband's eyebrow crept up, and his voice simply dripped with irony.
"Exactly!" the young man replied loudly, having learned well how to answer in such situations. If you don't know what to say, answer according to the regulations. You'll be considered a fool, and they'll leave you alone faster.
"Not only that, by overturning the truck, you also distracted the bandits, which the police took advantage of, and under the cover of darkness, you set the warehouse on fire, almost getting all of London high, and ended up in the lenses of journalists with a one-legged black prostitute?"
If I didn't know my husband so well, I wouldn't have noticed the barely perceptible sly smile.
"Did I miss anything?" he finished, barely maintaining a serious face.
"Not at all..."
"Be quiet. Just be quiet," my husband raised his hand. "And you're just a cadet! I'm afraid to imagine what will happen when you become at least a captain..."
Sergei pretended to think, quoting an analogy that came to me when we received the report and read it: "What did they write in those new novels? You steal a spaceship, gather a team of whores, maniacs, and pirates... And with this mob, you save the pan-galactic government?"
"I promise I won't steal a ship..." Artem started, but fell silent under our stern gaze.
"The funniest thing is... we should reward you," I said, transmitting irony, while my husband exuded icy calm along with images of how he would reward the overly zealous young man. "You acted within the operational situation, but how you acted... What should we do with you?"
"Understand and forgive..."
"Get out of my sight," my husband rolled his eyes to the ceiling, while I covered my face with my hand. "You'll get your reward after a month of guard duty... and helping our scientist comrades. An application from them just came in for you, young man."
"Yes, a month of guard duty!" the cadet said, not at all upset. "May I go?"
"Go!" we said in unison.
As soon as the door closed, we burst out laughing, unable to hold back any longer.
"Well done, boy," my husband said, chuckling. "You saved those police officers. Otherwise, they would have been shot like ducks in a shooting gallery. Veresk would have laid them down later, but it wouldn't have brought the people back."
"Artyom reminds me of someone..." I said. "Not one comrade who had that incident with the elk..."
"Hey! There was improvisation there too," Sergei protested. "You yourself played the stewardess..."
"Touche," I raised my hands in a "surrender" gesture. "But we completely neutralized the 'kindergarten,' including our recidivist."
"Catch them later on the shuttles," my husband seconded me. "Or, even worse, searching the Martian dunes..."
"At least the expedition launch is scheduled for tomorrow," I remarked philosophically, rolling the thought around in my head.
"I'm still shocked too," my husband understood what I was talking about. "Still in shock that they got married."
"I'm sitting on the edge of his desk, rubbing my temples, before I say:"
"I can't even comprehend it myself. I... I just got used to having a father at all... And now... Honestly, I thought when he proposed to Mom during dinner, we'd have to save the Wizard."
"Yes, your mother took out a detachment of Germans with a frying pan. What's it to her to knock down an academic?" he agreed. "I don't even know how to help you."
"It'll pass," I shrugged. "I hope they'll be happy. As for me... I need to digest it. Six months is a good timeframe."
"I hope that cunning bug Lebedev didn't torture us for nothing," Sergey grumbled grimly. "I hope we find something in the red sands."
"The main thing is that humanity doesn't fall apart from what we find..." I blurted out. Fragments of that seen delirium, which turned out not to be delirium, danced before my eyes. Even though so much time had passed, I couldn't forget that feeling of horror...
***
Cadet Pastukhov leaned over his tablet, rereading the projected lines. He knew them by heart. Everything was in his installed database, but the young man wanted to understand it better for himself. The knowledge implanted directly into his brain needed to be comprehended and practiced, because a comrade wouldn't always be able to remotely correct your hand or give advice...
The Center for Unified Response of the Bureau of Unified Intelligence (abbreviated as CERBERUS) is the first line of defense of the USSR. Formed from all the intelligence agencies of the old world, this structure was tasked with monitoring threats and their elimination.
If the Army Corps responds to aggression, becoming an iron wall, then CERBERUS will strike with a stiletto at the hand that is just making a swing. Society entrusted it with cleaning up the remnants of the old era, so that evil could not return to our world.
The first article of the "Collective" code declares a complete ban on slavery and other forms of violence against a person that could lead to their destruction. Modern society is humane. It will try to correct the criminal, not punish him, but there are things that cannot be forgiven.
The world, on the verge of total enslavement, will no longer turn a blind eye and maintain a semblance of decency. Only the truth, however terrible it may be. Therefore: a slave owner will be burned, a dealer of intoxicating poison killed, and a rapist will know all the pain he inflicted on the victim. It is CERBERUS that hunts such monsters, giving them no rest day or night.
But CERBERUS does not only punish. It is he who goes with expeditions into the depths of the unknown. He who has looked into the abyss is no longer afraid to step beyond the threshold of the known. Space is full of horrors that can break an ordinary person, but an operative who has seen and felt all the horrors of the old world.
It is he who will go into battle first, bypassing the enemy's front lines, striking at the soft underbelly. And he will be the last to leave the battlefield...
A knock on the classroom door distracted him from his textbook. Even though he felt the approach of another mind, he was unforgivably focused on one thing, losing sight of the surroundings.
"Studying," Blesna stated the obvious, leaning her back against the doorframe. She exuded a little warmth and curiosity, with a slight hint of disapproval. "That's good."
The woman attached an image of how she could eliminate a careless cadet, to which the cadet parried with his own image, projecting a calm, glowing stubbornness with a hint of resentment. Such skirmishes accelerated thinking speed, allowing the brain to act faster in real combat situations.
"Already better," Blesna assessed his counter-attack, correcting the errors in his image. "But not enough."
The woman grunted, reading the young man by his emotions like an open book, seeing his indignation perfectly. Glancing at the set-aside tablet, she said affirmatively:
"Understood."
"Not a fool. I did the right thing, but I endangered civilians and drew extra attention to our work. They just wanted it themselves. Justice."
The young man attached an image of what he felt when he found this very brothel. The cadet went through all the pain and humiliation of the involuntary victims of the old world's atrocities and simply did what they wanted.
"It's a question of price," the woman said. "You're ready to pay. I'm ready. They clearly don't want to pay with their lives, even with a guarantee of posthumous existence, for this very justice. You understand what you were doing. The little ones won't understand and will cause trouble. You're much older than you look."
"I understand, but it's a shame..." the cadet stretched out.
"That's a reason to improvise and argue your actions better," Blesna remarked, adding at the end. "Don't promise what you can't guarantee. I'm talking about hijacking the ship. Anything can happen in our line of work... Sometimes you have to put out a fire with napalm."
The woman left the classroom but stopped, as if realizing she had forgotten something, saying, as if addressing the emptiness:
"And if, during our absence in the "kindergarten," nothing happens that distracts the instructors from the senior recruits, then we will... not only take someone on the next expedition... but the rest of that someone will find out when we return from Mars. It will be clear then what reward he will receive..."
Pastukhov, who was very envious of the detachment's operatives who would go to Mars tomorrow, understood: he was being offered a proposal he couldn't refuse.
***
Ships launched from the cargo platforms of the orbital elevator. The moment had come to implement the next step of the "New Dawn" project.
Five "Whirlwinds" and three "Burans," unfurling their sails, rushed to the red planet, not just to land a person on Mars, but to establish a colony. The graphene sails made them almost invisible against the backdrop of the cosmic abyss. Gaining speed, the shuttles disappeared in barely perceptible flashes as the warp bubble was fully formed and gained sufficient stability.
Following them, towed by tugs, four clusters of "OKO" satellites rushed into flight, which were to ensure not only stable communication for the expedition but also to map the red planet. The Council and Conclave were particularly interested in a series of coordinates obtained from the fragmented visions of two operatives who found themselves in the right place at the wrong time.
The six "Whirlwinds" did not unfurl their sails but simply used the power of their engines, heading for the Moon. In their bellies lay construction equipment and robots, which were to lay the foundation for the first lunar city and clear the sites for the installation of planetary-class weapons. Earth's natural satellite will not only become a home for people, a science city, and a base for the already established space fleet, but will also be, from now on and forever, the penultimate line of defense for the cradle of the USSR.
And another three "Whirlwinds" escorted the cargo ship "Pioneer," towed by tugs, towards hot Venus. The cargo ship's belly contained not only modules for the future scientific orbital settlement. In inconspicuous soft containers lay dehydrated concentrate of programmed bacteria, which were to accomplish the previously impossible - to begin terraforming the planet.
It was enough to add water from the five ice comets kindly delivered by "Mule" tugs, whose substance had already been heated to a liquid state. The bacteria, brought back to life and having received the necessary material, would be dropped into the boiling atmosphere. It would not take long before the little workers would be carried by air currents across the entire planet, beginning the transformation process.
A small bacterium, whose DNA had been altered in the laboratory, could do what even a hundred giant machines could not. They would break down acid and carbon dioxide, and then leave the stage as soon as the acidity of the environment decreased and carbon particles appeared in the atmosphere.
Then their replacements would take over, who would also complete their task, making hell a little more like a world where humans could live in comfort. According to scientists' estimates, it would only take twenty years for the planet to transform beyond recognition. Years would pass before forests and fields would sprout, but even then, humanity would have a place it could call home besides Earth.
Work was also bustling on the cradle of humanity itself. Even with the naked eye, when viewed from orbit, a point was visible in the center of the Pacific Ocean. It was barely noticeable, but no less majestic for that - if you knew what it had started. Not much, but there, from the depths of the water, a man-made island began to grow, which would soon be connected to the mainland by a thread of road. In forty years, a new branch of the orbital elevator would extend into the sky, and a new patch of land the size of England would appear in the ocean.
***
The warp jump was not impressive. It's cool, of course, to realize that a journey that would have taken at least four months you completed in an hour, but that's all. It could have been faster if not for the caution of the scientists, who decided to reduce the speed of the bubble for the first manned flight, but I won't complain...
Chuckling mentally at the thought that came to mind about a cosmic commuter bus, which no longer sounded so outlandish, I tried to calm my jitters. It's not every day you land in the first wave of an expedition to Mars. No one had done it before! Therefore, I enjoyed the sensations, trying to remember this first time. In the future, such flights would become commonplace...
And I also don't like landing! I can handle takeoff fine, but not landing, even though I haven't fallen in a burning plane... I don't even want to think about it! If I wanted to die in the air, upside down, I would have become a pilot. It was fashionable then... Not to die in the air, of course!
My husband, who perfectly sensed all my emotions, placed his hand on my palm and squeezed it, smiling encouragingly. The anti-gravity seats of the shuttle allowed this. His brighter calm dispelled my anxieties.
I just smiled weakly, pulling myself together, gently pushing the jitters to the back of my mind, but not completely getting rid of them. A little adrenaline would only improve my reaction, not hinder it.
The shuttle engaged its landing engines, smoothly descending to the planet. Only after checking the spacesuits was the landing ramp opened, revealing a view of an alien sky and a landscape never before seen by human eyes.
The first to exit the shuttle and step onto the surface of the red planet was the commander of our expedition, the first cosmonaut of Earth – Yuri Gagarin. Flying video cameras, released slightly earlier, captured this step from various angles, broadcasting the image directly to the neural network.
The cosmonaut, who was slightly younger than us, beamed with such sincere happiness that he seemed like a guiding star. I just felt how glad he was to have his wings back. Locked away in a golden cage for political reasons, he who was born to soar languished on the ground. He was forbidden to fly himself, and for a pilot, that's like death.
Now he not only returned to the light of the stars but was the first to step onto the surface of a beautiful and dangerous world, whose secrets we still have to unravel and learn.
"We took a step," he said with a smile. "But our journey is just beginning. As expedition commander, I say: there will be a city here. From now on and forever, this place will be called Zarya! Time will pass, and the walls of the city built at the site of the first landing will witness new achievements and discoveries of man..."
The collective erupted in joy and ovations, which here, on Mars, were audible and even distinguishable, but as if there was a small layer of water or thin glass between Earth and this world. The "OKO" satellites had not yet taken their positions, fully bringing this place into the zone of stable coverage.
"In the name of the Motherland, comrades!" Gagarin said, thereby writing a new line in the history of all mankind...
***
Five local days have passed – sol. During this time, we set up camp, fully unloading equipment from the shuttles. The satellite constellation occupied the required orbit and began detailed scanning of the new planet.
The "Burav," dropped from space, was already digging into the body of the red planet, striving to deliver its load to the core, to ignite it and restore the magnetic field to this world.
Scientists had already managed to make two sorties, not venturing too far from Zarya. Each group was accompanied by military personnel and one of us. There were serious concerns that the world only seemed dead. After everything that happened in "Mendeleev," no one would have sent a group without guards.
There were three of us from the detachment in the expedition: myself, my husband, and Lakmus, so the escort was a relaxed pastime. The only thing was that we couldn't relax and enjoy the still-unfamiliar alien beauties.
"With this food, I'll definitely gain a couple of extra pounds," our new acquaintance Louis Anderson complained. "I only saw this much meat on a general's table during my time as a marine. We were fed decently in elite units, and the salary was paid on time. And in civilian life or somewhere simpler – well, it was luck. It's good that my native Ohio has become as good as in the fattest years. Mom recently boasted about how much she bought at the store."
"It's not meat. It's essence," I corrected my acquaintance, cutting off a piece of well-fried steak with a knife. You wouldn't even say it was restored from a dried form.
"Essence?" the American asked again.
"Essence is artificially grown meat," my husband explained, chewing a piece of the same steak. "See how the fibers go? In circles, like a tree? That's because it was grown in a nutrient broth, like a carrot. It tastes like the same meat, but, in essence, it was never a living animal. And it's healthier. Less harmful fats, more vitamins."
"Indeed," the former marine looked closer at the contents of his plate. "My neighbor would be delighted. Old Wendy in my town was known for not eating meat at all. As the pastor told us in Sunday school: "Blessed in her love for animals." But it's tasty. I thought we'd be eating like in the movies here – astronauts from tubes, not like this."
"Science doesn't stand still," I shrugged.
"So, will farms only grow corn now?" our interlocutor clarified.
"No... It's not that simple," Sergey answered him. "Cowboys won't lose their jobs for a long time. And it's not entirely clean production. You need to get biomaterial from someone, and it tends to run out. You can't take it from grown material. It'll turn into slime. There will be too many errors in the DNA. It's more profitable for farms to pursue quality, not quantity. And collecting material doesn't require killing an animal."
"But there's another alternative to regular meat. Meat mushrooms. The size of my hand, they look like champignons, and they taste like a mix between chicken and beef. There are fish ones too, but I don't really like them. The texture is specific," I grimaced, recalling the taste. "But they grow fast. Perfect for colonies."
"And the worst thing," Gagarin grimaced from his memories, "is meat printed on a culinary printer. I remember being treated to a fully printed aspic at a research institute. What a disgusting thing that jellied fish was! I'm not a big fan anyway, but this..."
It's not that Yuri and I became friends, but with his kindness and sincerity, he naturally endeared himself to people. Having personally communicated with him, I now understand why he was made the first cosmonaut.
"Exactly. It's like eating rubber with the taste of not the best meat..." Sergey confirmed, reading a message that had just arrived on his tablet. "Okay. We have to excuse ourselves. The satellites found an artificial object under the sands. The robots have already moved out there."
My appetite immediately disappeared. I don't remember what I saw then. As Academician Lebedev explained, it was a protective reaction of the psyche... I understand why he doesn't tell us what he saw when analyzing our memories. I have enough of the horror imprinted in my mind, and try to get that bug, who has his own agenda, to talk. Well, Katya, are you ready to find out how deep the rabbit hole is into which humanity has fallen?