- Who else was dragged here? - Dragovich thought with irritation.
It seemed to him that he was allowed to - he was drinking with friends and went to get some fresh air. And what about the workers? They have to work, why did they bring them here for nothing? The bosses also have no business in this grove... It turns out to be a civilian, we'll have to be stricter... It turns out to be a superior officer, we'll have to say that we needed to go to the object on the other side. Just right: like we needed to, and there's a path here...
As we approached, the outlines of a human figure began to appear more and more clearly... Dragovich took out a monocular that was in his pocket - he had been taught not to walk with a flashlight in the first weeks after his arrival.
- Wow! Madam, what are you doing here? - Dragovich said with some severity in his voice.
Surprisingly, it turned out to be Haldoris Landskricht.
- Did you hear that the Shuttle was hijacked? - Madam began instead of answering the question.
- We'll deal with the shuttle later. What are you doing here?
- Am I not allowed to be here?
- You yourself understand perfectly well how strange your presence here is. Did your SBSE refuse to evacuate you before the invasion, and you decided to hide on your own?
- Who would ask!
In general, he did not want to attack her now, but she was clearly provoking. Dragovich also had a strong feeling that he had done something wrong. Not in the sense of something bad, but in the sense that there was some very obvious reason for all these oddities, and the reason for this was something that he had just done? Did he drink a hundred grams of vodka or something? His eyes did not even glaze over from this.
- I just did not expect to see you here, Madam. And without a group. Where are all yours? - Dragovich said sternly, hiding the monocular in his pocket.
Despite the fact that it was happening at night, there was no impenetrable darkness. Not only did the nearby mast shine, but the light from the other lamps was also reflected to a certain extent by the clouds, which seemed to shine with a barely noticeable light, making them much brighter than the clear night sky. This happens in cities. Be that as it may, the path and Landskricht were visible.
- Yes, that's right, there is no group, - Landskricht answered the puzzled question. - Don't worry, I can handle it on my own quite well.
- With what? Have you come to check if we've set up slavery here? - Dragovich grinned, slightly relaxed. - What do you think about the Lebedevtsy invasion? I, like the others, think that this is a serious threat. What do they say about this?
- Let's discuss the Lebedevtsy later, - Landskricht answered. - I want to show you something.
- What do you want to show?
- A very interesting natural phenomenon, follow me, - she turned around and moved towards the grove.
- So, Madam, I want to warn you, - Dragovich said, standing at attention. - All this looks suspicious. I mean your appearance, Lesoposadka is surrounded on all sides by construction sites. The sites are full of workers. The sites are full of military personnel. If you assist saboteurs or saboteurs in hiding, they are already surrounded and doomed. I have a weapon and you know it.
Landskricht turned gracefully and stood before Dragovich with her hands raised, for some reason moving her fingers in black gloves.
- What saboteurs? Am I a threat to you or something, - she said with her accent, after which her face depicted annoyance.
- Madam, tell me in words what you want to show! I don't need surprises and I don't want to make a wow, don't you understand that?
- Okay, as you wish. I'll explain. Look behind you and you will see your construction site. I'm far from you, and I won't attack you from behind. And if you follow me, you won't see any construction site, but you will see the moon.
- Is that all? What a miracle, to see the moon, although what kind of moon is it now, you look at the weather. Okay, I'll take a look at the construction site now...
Dragovich left the path, stood sideways to Landskricht, so that he only had to turn his head. Suddenly she really had something in mind.
As expected, the silhouettes of houses with a mast hanging over them were dark on the hill. The sky was covered with heavy autumn clouds, so if the moon had been in that direction, it would not have been visible.
- Well, Madam, I've looked. Cabins, a mast and sausage on the mast.
- Sausage? - Landskricht asked cheerfully.
- A lighting thing. That's what they call it.
- I'll know. Well, shall we go?
Dragovich finally agreed and moved forward behind Landskricht. The path led into a thicket consisting entirely of bare maple branches and bare branches of some other trees. All the leaves had long since fallen. The path made several turns this way and that, but in general the direction was maintained.
Landskricht, who was walking ahead, was dressed in a thick gray coat. A pass-board hung from her belt - the kind worn by the SBSE men, or, as they were also called, the interventionists.
- Now we can take a look, - Landskricht announced and only then turned around and slowed down.
- As you say, madam, - Dragovich answered without much enthusiasm, stood sideways and turned his head back.
- In the direction where the mast with the sausage should have been sticking out, there was a full moon. The sky was clear, starry.
- I don't understand something, - Dragovich said. - The weather conditions... There are stars in the sky... Where are the clouds?
- And the moon, too, - Landskricht answered.
- It's not so much the moon, it could have come out... - Dragovich continued to reason out loud, puzzled.
- Are we going back? - Landskricht immediately suggested.
- Okay, let's go back, - agreed Dragovich.
Here the branches were illuminated by white moonlight, but then, as expected, the light disappeared - it was shaded by a hill - the moon hung quite low above the horizon, and besides, the path several times slightly dived down by half a meter - a meter, after which it emerged again.
Another turn appeared, and now they were at the exit from the grove. The path led to a hill with cabins and a mast. There was no moon, and there couldn't be - only dense clouds and no stars.
- So, I don't get it, where is the Moon? - Dragovich said somewhere into the darkness, more irritated than perplexed.
- Obviously, the moon is there, - Landskricht answered cheerfully, pointing her hand at the grove.
- Now, madam, you don't understand what you just said, - Dragovich grinned. - The moon was there, - he waved his hand towards the mast, - and where you showed us we saw it.
- The moon was shining for us there, and here is your mast, - Landskricht answered. - In general, indeed, you are right. Shall we watch it again?
- Yes, we will watch it again, maybe we will figure it out.
He again followed Landskricht, who was walking towards the grove. In general, there was a feeling that someone had taken one piece out of the puzzle in his brain, and now he, Dragovich, could not understand a damn thing.
Again the path dove into the branches and twigs, ran up and down, turned, and then white moonlight appeared on the branches.
Again, in place of the expected sausage and clouds, there was the moon and stars.
- Some kind of optical illusion, - Dragovich exhaled.
Landskricht grinned.
- I don't know what to call it, - Dragovich muttered thoughtfully in response.
- Maybe we should go further, - Landskricht suggested, - It's not that far from here.
Dragovich agreed and walked after Landskricht. He no longer considered the idea of saboteurs hiding in the grove - some real devilry was happening here, which had little to do with everyday affairs.
- I still can't figure out what's going on, - Dragovich began again.
- Now we'll see and figure everything out, - Landskricht answered.
- And yours won't be evacuated?
- No, they won't. This power station itself is a fortress. Lebedev won't storm everything in a row. - Only now Dragovich noticed another oddity - earlier Landskricht always answered in English at the slightest opportunity, and listened to Russian or any other foreign speech through an online translator and, accordingly, through an earpiece. She understood Russian and sometimes pronounced something. Whether she had a translator now was not the main thing - now she was talking, that is, answering in Russian much more freely than before, although she still spoke with an accent.
- You speak Russian better and better each time. Soon you will probably be able to do better than me.
- You do well, too, - Landskricht answered. - Do you feel that it has become colder?
Underfoot, the ground was indeed frozen into stone, and the grass glistened with frost.
- Is it because it is colder in the lowlands? - Dragovich thought out loud, - Although after the moon, this is not particularly surprising.
- Look where we've come out, - Landskricht announced, clearly hurrying towards the darkness ahead.
The path came out onto a field where there was not a soul. There were no traces of work, either, not a single one. The grass was completely covered with frost, glittering in the light of the low-hanging moon, and overhead stretched a dark, cold and enchanting starry sky.
- This can't be, - Dragovich muttered somewhat regretfully. - What's going on? Do you have any ideas?
Landskricht stood with both hands behind her back. She looked triumphant.
- And you didn't want to go. I don't have any assumptions - I'll explain it to you, it's not your business to argue. We're on another Earth now. Have you heard about parallel worlds? You know? Well, that's it.
- Hhu see, - muttered Dragovich and immediately apologized.
- Yes! - Landskricht nodded several times. And you said "wow" won't happen. Surprising, right?
- Of course, - answered Dragovich. And what about here, Dragons, elves and other things?
- I'll disappoint you, but no. Even the countries are almost the same. They say that nature likes to repeat itself, so this is another example.
- Is there a war going on here too?
- Not now.
- How cool.
Something hummed in the distance, either a highway or a railroad. There shouldn't have been any of them nearby, and what highway would make that much noise during curfew?
- Let's look at them? The locals? - Dragovich suggested hopefully.
- It's a long way to walk, and that's the most obvious reason, - Landskricht answered. - Don't worry, I'll show you later, but now let's go back.
- Maybe such a stunning discovery will somehow help our armies, - Dragovich made a gesture that has lost its popularity, putting his left fist on his chest and making a "V" sign with the fingers of his raised right hand, - Well, that and all that...
- Any other ideas? - Landskricht answered, feigning irritation.
- No, there won't be any, - Dragovich answered, feeling a bit sad in his soul.
There was a reason for that - such a promising show and a mysterious meeting with something supernatural could end in nothing. For some reason, Dragovich had the idea back there in the grove that this was not Landskricht at all, but some otherworldly or alien intelligence, perhaps a ghost. Then she would disappear, and Dragovich would not be able to use his discovery in any way, to brag about it in any way. And the real Haldoris Landskricht from the CSCE is probably packing her bags right now, or sitting with everyone else in the shelter under the complex of their unfinished power station.
- Let's go back already, - Landskricht repeated somewhat insistently, came up and took him by the sleeve. - They'll probably lose you.
Dragovich did not object and moved back.
- It's some kind of enchanted forest, - he said thoughtfully.
- In a sense, yes, - Landskricht answered. - In general, this entire region of space is a kind of enchanted forest, well, figuratively speaking. Do you see the stars above your head? The Dipper, Orion, Corona - these stars are not in parallel worlds, they are the same here and there, and your region of space looks like a dark nebula from there. And if you fly from there, then navigation will not work correctly.
- And if someone goes along the path, will he get lost?
- It's funny that you asked that. You went from astronavigation to paths. Although the question is reasonable. If someone goes, then he will not get here, but will come out to your construction site, well, to your opposite trenches, that's where he will start from. Everything will be as usual for him.
- How does it work then?
- That's how it works. No portals and no special effects like... well, like they like in movies... You know what I mean.
- Yes, indeed, nothing like that.
- There is one local film, a Soviet one, maybe you saw it? Some aliens on the earth, in several territories, did God knows what, and people explored, then stalkers got there... The conversation went on about the film and about science fiction. Once again Dragovich proved to the arrogant and at the same time simple-minded foreigner that she did not understand anything about the Russian mentality, about a deep philosophical topic, and that she should not hang disparaging characteristics on a culture she did not understand.
Soon a mast with a "sausage" appeared ahead.
- How quickly we got back, - Dragovich was surprised, - it seemed to take longer to get there.
- Look, I can still talk your ear off, - Landskricht answered with a satisfied smile. - While you were arguing, you didn't notice how we arrived.
- Yes, that's right, - Dragovich agreed.
- Here, - She glanced at the grove, - an anomalous zone. Mine, - she chuckled, - And no one will get through, - she continued to chuckle and began to approach Dragovich. For some reason, he also began to laugh. From the side, it all probably looked like they both smoked something, or were planning some kind of dirty trick. Or both. She also conspiratorially pushed him in the shoulder with her palm. Finally, the laughter died down.
- Well, let's go where you came from. They're probably waiting for you.
- Oh, what's the matter. I can disappear for half a day, - answered Dragovich, - more precisely for half a night.
- And I know what you want to ask, - said Landskricht. - Now I'll show you another trick.
- And what is it?
- You probably have a feeling that something is wrong. Something strange.
- Of course, we went there and back to a parallel world, - answered Dragovich, beginning to understand that she meant something else - that very fragment that flew out of the assembled mental puzzle.
- Well, maybe you have a feeling that you forgot something.
- And how do you know?
There were about twenty meters left to the trailer, no more.
- We'll fix it now. The key to the riddle is in your right pocket. Look what's there.
Dragovich slowly put his hand in his pocket. There was something there. It didn't seem like a phone - the thing was wider and thicker.
- Well, take it out.
Dragovich pulled the thing out and finally took a look. It wasn't easy to see the thing - it was night outside after all. He turned towards the light coming from the mast with the sausage and finally understood what kind of orange plastic box he had in his hand. Now he remembered that he had taken a pill from a first aid kit with a very dubious reputation. The mystery now was how he had forgotten it.
- Wow! - how is that possible? - he muttered and turned back.
To his relief, Landskricht stood where she stood and didn't think of disappearing anywhere - at least, she wasn't a capricious hallucination.
- You know, right, what this is? - Dragovich said with disdain for the crappy first aid kit. - Don't get me wrong, I just have a bad cold, and the guys... they came up with such a stupid thing, - he immediately picked up some awkward words that were understandable to a foreigner, replacing the normal swear words with the word "stupid".
- Yes, I know what kind of first aid kits these are, Landskricht answered.
- Do you want to go inside? It's warm there.
- No, I have to go.
- Can I show my colleagues the anomalous zone? It's a world discovery, - Dragovich asked hopefully, realizing that there would be no discovery here.
- No, you can't. We'll meet again later, don't worry.
- As you say, - Dragovich answered with annoyance in his voice.
- You're about to lose consciousness. Don't be angry.
- And you're Landskricht? - Dragovich muttered, feeling that something was wrong with his legs. Landskricht, standing a few meters away from Dragovich, silently raised her hand, as if saying goodbye, and meanwhile everything around seemed to start shaking. The disobedient earth for some reason began to move closer, after which it hit her in the face. It became dark. Someone was tugging at her sleeve, then began to paw her through her jacket at her torso.