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Space opened up a mouth of multidimensional figures, and I saw myself as a continuation of this form, inseparably passing from the stone bridge over the abyss into my legs, arms and head. My gaze hovered over all this like a kite, tugging at the string of association with the body. I could see all 360 degrees, so the worm was in my field of vision too. He was also a completely natural extension of my body, decomposed into figures of a larger order as well. I could look not just into its womb, but into all the positions of this womb. And in the middle of it all, an engineer in a brown coat was walking around.
“What a strange thing,” he shook his head, “after all, I should have been in a completely different place. Hey boy," he turned to me.
The kite of my attention descended to his brown hat.
“It will be a stupid question now, but don't be surprised. Have you met a woman named Kuf here?”
“No.”
“A very unusual design,” the man nodded at the worm, “I've seen anything similar, but to do it like this, in the field…”
We watched in silence as the multidimensional creature wriggled, glistening with iridescent facets.
“There could be no mistake,” the engineer frowned, and then grabbed something between the edges and began to pull it onto the bridge.
It turned out to be a middle-aged man in a shabby military uniform.
"You can't get away from me," the engineer groaned.
I was watching the struggle of two unknowns. As in a bad performance on the square, they were twisting with emotions, and what was happening looked more like a farce.
The engineer managed to pull a man in a military uniform out of a multidimensional structure and now he was stuffing him into a suitcase.
"You damn bastards, you're going to pay for this!" the unfortunate managed to shout and disappeared under the lid. His lone shoe was left lying next to the suitcase, expressing the remnants of indignation.
"You all tend get into someone’s soul," the engineer sighed heavily, adjusted his hat and turned the key again. The space collapsed, and I was back in my body.
The bull was looking at us through some kind of device that resembled a telescope.
“Did it work?” Great Mother asked.
"He pulled something out of him," the beast boomed.
I went to the suitcase and picked up a shoe. It was like an electric shock of memories. Now I knew that the bull's name was Chicag.
The Great Mother stood up; her eyes full of tears. She looked at me hopefully.
“Son..." she said.
The shoe fell out of my hands, and I took a step towards her. Everything that had been trembling in me all my childhood was now rushing out. But I didn't have time to take the next step, because my mother's chest jerked, and she began to fall down the stairs right into the recess with the black liquid. And in front of my feet, several bloody metal needles stuck into the floor. I looked up. From above, the military of the Trade Federation descended on cables, along with a huge serpentine armored personnel carrier with a frightening dragon head that was sliding down the stone wall.
Chicag jerked towards the columns, his “children” were already hiding behind them and in some places, there were flashes of return fire. From above, along with the bodies of the wounded soldiers, stun grenades fell, and I lost my orientation. Crawling, I began to move back to the elevator from where I was brought.
Someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged. There was an explosion from behind and the bridge cracked right under my feet. The man who was dragging me flew down with a desperate cry. I felt the stone I was lying on separating from the remains of the bridge. The body clung to the surface with all its might. And then the worm showed signs of life behind my back. Someone died. And I could wish again.
The next moment I was on the other side of the bridge, on which two horned men in armor carried a machine gun. A shell flashed next to them and a deafening explosion threw them to the elevator shaft, and me with them.
Opening my eyes, I began to feel the body. My head was buzzing, but it looked like I was fine. The firefight on the other side of the hall did not subside, but the “children” retreated into the depths of the caves, behind the columns, giving way to the landing party of the Trade Federation. They ran out of the body of an armored vehicle, which was clinging to the edge of the ledge with its tail. Several cables fell on my side of the bridge, and I heard soldiers coming down them to me.
My next wish moved me to an unusual room. The memory data bank consisted of a semicircular interface and a long corridor with compartments. With hands shaking with excitement, I typed May-e-oka's name into the query field. The picture on the screen changed and showed that the painted object 49328A is at the stage of deconstruction and will require another 17 hours for complete decomposition into the original material; and that the crystal itself with the data is not in the library.
Banging my fist on the screen, I decided to just wish her here and now, next to me. Of course, why didn't I think of it right away. I closed my eyes and focused on her image. The wish came true, that's for sure, but I felt completely exhausted. When I opened my eyes, I saw on the floor a clot of that same black liquid with a girl's twisted face sticking out of it.
“Haha, what?” she exclaimed.
“I...”
“What the?” the unfortunate woman's eyes were running around, “Sharaman, what a pervert you are”.
“I...”
Chicag burst into the room, slammed the door behind him and sealed it with a magnetic lock. Holding his wounded arm, he took two steps and froze, staring at me.
“How... Although why I'm surprised, a worm is a worm," he boomed.
"He loves me, haha, Father. Imagine," the head of May-e-oka laughed.
Chicag winced when he saw the freak, I had created. And then he frowned.
“Listen to me, worm, if you want it,” the bull nodded at the black muck, “take it, but get me out of here.”
“Are you just going to give me to this puberty coxcomb?” the face was indignant.
The bull did not answer and showed the crystal in his hand.
“She's here. Wish me away from this place.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to feel if my desires were replenished with deaths. But it looked like no one had had time to die yet.
“Bastard. Freak. A coward," growled May-e-oka’s head, "and you had to strip me of my horns, forced me to stay in the desert for years just to enter into a deal with the worm yourself.”
“He is no longer the man from a launcher. Right? Now there's only that, what's his name, Bike left inside you?” bull asked hesitantly.
“Ouch,” said head.
I turned to the images flickering in my head, but I didn't find any special changes, except that there were…more memories of the person from the launcher. After I picked up the shoe, I began to remember various unusual things about his life, for example, how he hated pistachio Ganymede ice cream.
“Your mother wanted” Chicag began, "wanted you to help us.”
“You see, he's doubting...” May-e-oka's head began, but Chicag stepped on it, and it burst with a firework of black spray.”
"You'll get your whole girl," the bull growled, "whoever you are. Get me out of here.”
I was completely panic-stricken. What to do? Wish that the crystal was in my pocket? Then this thing will just trample me. Wish it would disappear, but then how will I get the crystal. A-a-a-a! And I couldn't figure out if I had any desires.
And at that moment I appeared in front of a flash, followed by a shock wave. As in slow motion, two Federation soldiers and one horned “daughter” were thrown along the balcony. One of the soldiers had his neck twisted when he hit the wall, and his energy essence flew with surprise along the mangled body. I rushed forward and swallowed it. Then the second, whose spine was broken and shrapnel pierced his chest and face. And then something absolutely incredible happened. My consciousness was divided, I swallowed two soldiers at the same time, one of them had a heart stroke out of fear, and the last one hit the rocks in the pitch-black darkness under the bridge, and I was in both places at the same time. I was the worm. A vault was about to collapse on a group of fighting soldiers and horned “children”, and I hovered over them in anticipation, ready to rush for the promised harvest.
“Hey, there, on the bridge!” Chicag shouted in my face, spraying me with his viscous saliva and tapping his hoof on my head.
I came to my senses and indignation got the better of me. With just one thought, I nailed the bull to the wall. He clutched at his throat as the ring of my attention tightened around his veins-inflated neck. Then I raised my hand and the crystal with the May-e-oka was in it. Chicag hummed. Butts were hammered on the door. I looked at the bull, and he disappeared.
I put the crystal in my inner pocket, erased the search data in the memory bank interface, turned to the door and wished to open it. A dozen soldiers tumbled in at once, and laser sight points ran over my body. I slowly raised my hands. Pushing aside the military, Sha Zumm entered the room in the thick armor of the triarch.
“Greetings, Master Bike,” he smiled tightly, “or is it the Great Worm?”
I looked at him, trying to figure out what kind of game he was playing. After all, if he knows, or has he always known… The guess stunned me.
"I'm glad to find you in good health, and now we have to get out of here before those sons of bitches blow up something else."
Deciding to play along with the situation, I nodded.
“You can lower your hands, Master Bike,” the Cyborg said dryly, looking around the interface, “have you seen a bull here?”
“No.”
“Strange," Sha Zumm chuckled, tapping the walls behind my back, and then turned to the military, "you two bring him up to the air, to the headquarters.”
The soldiers walked around me and began to wring my hands.
“As a guest, assholes,” the Cyborg barked angrily.
The soldiers straightened me back and made an inviting and at the same time apologetic gesture to leave.
Almost the entire hall, where the bridge used to be, was now occupied by a serpentine armored personnel carrier, on which we were lifted to the very top, where there was an exit to a wide platform almost at the very top of the mountain. A tent was erected in the very center of it, where the soldiers brought me.
Inside was a well-furnished office full of strange things, and on the desktop was my multi-purpose viewing device. While we were going up, I already understood who I was going to meet, but fate turned out to be trickier.
“The Savior!” Baraman exclaimed and attacked me from behind the screen.
We fell to the floor and in panic and disgust I began to push the madman away from me. In this twitching, I saw with horror for the first time how slippery and repulsive the image of Baraman was. Wiry, with sickly skin, with completely whitish eyes and short yellowish fur on his back and head, he was the hero of my nightmares.
“Get off, freak, get off!” I shouted.
Baraman, flapping his eyelids, crawled away, rubbing bruised limbs.
“The Savior wouldn't have shouted at Baraman like that if he knew how Baraman helped him. After all, it was he, and he alone who led the Feds to the Savior.”
“Yes, my boy, is that how you thank your friends?” Master Eleanor's voice rang out above me.
I jumped to my feet.
“Master, dear sir! O moons! I'm so ashamed, I should have…”
“Stop it,” the man waved his hand, passing by and seating his heavy body in the chair opposite, “you can be understood. So much stress. What a miracle that you're alive, my boy.”
“I am so grateful... to you,” I looked specifically at both Master Eleanor and Baraman, “for my salvation. But tell me, how did it happen? How did you find me? And why?”
The Master looked at me and then at Baraman.
“Your friend woke up in Minea not far from the place where this girl again wrapped you around her little finger.”
“Yes, the master is telling the truth,” Baraman nodded, “the vile girl deceived the Savior and led him into a trap. Baraman didn't know what to do, watched the cave, looked for the entrance, and then went along the Minea Ridge, where Baraman was caught by iron man.”
"The Cyborg found him near the Ilari delta, where the first moon was born. It was a real miracle after we lost you in the reactor, when you... uh... moved to Minea.”
"You were following me," I said quietly, feeling that the guess was not mine.
“I had no doubt that you would guess,” nodded Master Eleanor, “From the first day you got to the orphanage, I noticed how you, such a frail, clumsy boy, was favored by all the nurses. Like older guys who wanted to offend you at school always got into a mess, someone's pants were torn by themselves during a blow, a bird flied to peck the top of someone’s head when he was hiding with a bucket of slop meant for you. All my life I have been studying the phenomenon of the Great Worm and the legends associated with it. And then I see you in front of me, the luckiest child in the world, stolen from a Salat Sarai before its complete destruction.”
“And the whole expedition, and the attack of the sailors…”
“Yes, all this was just to make sure that you are Ogunter Lag.”
“The Savior!” Baraman exclaimed.
Both Master Eleanor and I looked at the blind man with contempt.
“Your abilities had to prove themselves in order to be sure. But after the hidden room and its secrets," the man nodded at the device on the table, "I no longer doubted. By the way, thanks for the recordings. Your scanning of this library is now the subject of my sleepless nights. Your disappearance from the reactor turned out to be a complete surprise; we were waiting for you in the hidden section. But then luck itself brought us together with your friend.”
“What about the whale plague? He's sick," I remembered, looking at the blind man again.
“Of course, when we found out that slavers had taken you and put you in a cage with the plague, Sha Zumm advised us to forget about the whole idea,” the master burst out laughing, “but to forget is not about me. We immediately requested experimental antidotes, but I had no doubt that you would be all right. When we found him," Eleanor nodded at Baraman, "he was perfectly healthy.”
“Okay, then why all this?” I asked in confusion, feeling that I was just playing someone else's notes and it was time to come to the denouement.
"I need a weapon," the man replied, looking me in the eye carefully.
“But why? Do you lack the wealth that the federation already has?”
Master Eleanor got up and headed for the tent's exit, beckoning me to follow him. Baraman started to follow us, but the chain rattled, and I saw that he was chained to one of the pillars on which the structure rested.
We came out on a windswept mountain. It was early, only a small luminary rose from the horizon, the warmth and light of which was not enough for these mountain peaks. The fifth moon, the red one, born in the war between Iria and the Khanate of the Dial, dominated the sky. In the federation, she was called Ishatri. I shivered, finally feeling how much comfort and warmth I had lacked in recent days. My teacher walked to the edge and raised his hand pointing to the sky.
“Look, over there, on the red moon.”
"I don't see anything," I shrugged.
The master took a telescope out of his pocket and handed it to me. I pointed it at the moon. There were flickering dots right on it. Some of them were larger, and those that were smaller arced away to the surface of the celestial body.
“What is it?” I asked anxiously.
"This is your friend, Rob. He is preparing to land on the planet with a military capable of trampling the federation into the dust. And you, my friend, are the only thing that can stop him.”
ns 15.158.61.6da2
