скачать книгу бесплатно
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.
