Сергей Жарковский – Creature of unknown kind (страница 14)
– How did you say? What is “QZAI”?
– Kapustin's Qarantine Zone of Abnormal Intensities. This is how it will be called… The Zone. And you will be called Pinya.
– Why – “Pinya”?.. – Blinchuk asked dumbfounded. – Where did you get all this…
– Here is what you have to understand right now… – the young lady continued very seriously, and the Father made a gesture, stopping and apologizing at the same time. – One second, – the lass said in a baritone. – Forgive me for interrupting. – The Father took up his trunk and lifted the mask on his forehead, revealing the face. Blinchuk jumped back, almost stumbling on his sprained leg. However, he would probably have stumbled also on the healthy one. – Here's my face as a sign of trust, – the girl said. – Even my daughter hasn't seen me. And will not see. In the Zone, everything that appears to you, according to personal observations or to the words of eyewitnesses or witnesses, any miracles, any wild assertions that you do not dare to repeat officially on the outside, on the Earth, in reports, at night in a bed to Lubov Antonovna, confidentially at the president's ear, is all true. This is real. Khrushchev's five-storey buildings fly, the dead live, the air is harder than steel, and there is only one step to the moon. Next year, on December 25th, President Gorbachev will resign on the eve of official collapse of the Union. Be prepared for this, by the way. You are now a politician. You have a great power, great influence. Big money. You will be hunted.
Blinchuk licked his lips.
– Are you mind readers, or what?
– Yes, – said the lass. The girl. Yana! – But not we are, I am. Yana is just a year old, she cannot even speak yet. And the future on your face is written in black and white.
– My future? – clarified Blinchuk, not believing that he's generally talking about clairvoyance. “As if Kashpirovsky hypnosis311 wasn't enough”, flashed in his head. “The chargers of water, the diggers of souls.”
– Not only yours, the global future. Don't you try to hide an irony, it's absolutely normal. And, in my opinion, Kashpirovsky is a cheater.
– Well, – said Blinchuk after a pause. – Cannot be clarified without a bottle. Who wants to talk to me? Where is he?
– Sasha-Kharon will admirably take you there. All you have to say is that Petrovich is waiting in his den. There you will also find any bottle you want. And Sergey Borisovich, do not punish Sasha, he does not even know himself that he should take you to Petrovich.
– And where is the “den” and this Petrovich he, surely, knows? – asked Blinchuk.
– You are the officer of a rare type, – Yana said in a deep chest voice of an experienced woman on a hunt. Here's what contained no provinciality – her art of the voice changing. This had a powerful effect. And, apparently, it demanded a lot of effort, because her heavy breathing became audible and she started to break off the phrases with an ellipsis. – Chernobyl had changed you a lot. You used to be… Orders, rolling “r” Instant suppression of the interlocutor… No objections from the lower rank or civilian the status below yours… Is it true? And now you accept other's… their right for justice. Even soldiers. Of course, this is Chernobyl. You do not fight for your shoulder straps, especially when no one is fighting you. Yes, apparently, Petrovich is right. You fit.
Blinchuk ate it all with a woman's passionate gurgling as if he ate a shot of vodka with a pickled mushroom. If it was a man talking he would tear that man apart. With rolling “r”. Besides, she was talking quietly. Or “he”? What the hell!
– That is why, – the woman continued, – the second thing you must understand: here in the Zone everyone knows much more than they say. A very important moment for professional and interpersonal communications. Do you understand? – Blinchuk nodded, as a cobra to a pipe. – Well, go now, you are expected elsewhere.
Blinchuk grunted, frowned for suggestiveness and said casually:
– So, accordingly, I’m supposed to send my group back?
– Why? Your protection is their job.
– And the guide? You are obviously in contravention with him.
– Funny expression. Just let it be. I'm not saying goodbye, Comrade Colonel. See you there in an hour.
– You are in the car with me?.. – suggested Blinchuk.
The Father put on the mask in one jerk.
– Me and little Yana will go straight, – said Yana in s child's voice. – Our own way.
Blinchuk easily turned his back to them and went to the car. He was being observed by eight eyes from the truck's body, but he turned to the cab and knocked on a window. The driver, an elderly man in a fishing sweater, rolled down the window. For some reason, clean cotton swabs were stuck in his nostrils.
– I am expected in Petrovich's den, – Blinchuk said to him. – Do you know where it is, buddy?
Kharon raised his eyebrows, not taking his eyes off, and nodded, starting the engine at the same time. Blinchuk climbed onto the back.
– Shultsev, – he said when sat down. – Get the mop out from under the car, take it back and rinse it. Perform. Did you see his face? – he asked everyone when Shultsev disappeared with a mop behind the toilet booth. – This Father?
Glyzin, Nabis, and Korostylyov exchanged glances with each other in two tricks.
– He's in a gas mask, – said Korostylyov.
– He has taken it off, – said Bllinchuk and now Korostylyov lifted an eyebrow.
– No, Comrade Colonel, sir, – said Glyzin. – He hasn't. I paid attention. It's to blame, of course.
Blinchuk blew out a gallon of air through his lips folded as a pipe, sat down straight, for a bit and put on his helmet.
– Mm, yes, – said Nabis.
– It is strange, but my tower cannot be seen from here, – said Blinchuk. – And these excavators are not mine. Seems that they are showing us some kind of a movie here. And again, it is the summer. Well, I will figure it out. With rolling “R”s, goddamn their mother.
Silent Shultsev came back, climbed onto the truck's body, sat down. Blinchuk pounded his fist on the back of the cab. The vehicle moved and, having left the Stand, immediately turned right.