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Half-naked, we lay together on a mattress drying on the roof of the Citadel and looked at the clouds.
"And what was that?" I asked.
May-e-oka paused, and then replied, "I felt sorry for you.”
“In what sense.”
“The sense that my original felt something similar to the person she loved. It's sewn into my memory, falling in love with losers.”
“Am I a loser?” because of these words I sat down and my gaze fell on the beautiful body of the girl. Embarrassed, I turned away to the sparkling horizon.
“Of course. And who else?”
“I...” I tried to find words, but couldn't. Now, after this waking dream that I experienced in the neurointerface, it was difficult for me to answer. But the mind grasped at the familiar image, “I am Bike. I am who I am, was, was born, even if there is still something in me from this person from a launcher. It's still me. I like to touch the spines of books, I like to look at the waves, although I hate swimming. I like to find out. This whole experience, it's me.”
"I'm not talking about that, but what's the difference," May-e-oka shrugged and turned on her stomach, waving her legs.
"That's what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter if I'm lucky or not. And what to call luck. We're alive...”
“In my case, it's debatable,” the girl giggled.
“In your case, it's the same. Your experience is you, not your original. You were right there in prison. We are really similar.”
“Yes, two of the luckiest copies of this damned world.”
“What is your point with luck…”
“Also an inheritance. I think I already told you that my original wanted to become famous. In a world where almost everyone is immortal, it's a little difficult. Who would be surprised that you gnawed a tunnel through the planet with your teeth if every schoolboy does it. In a world where everyone has already been surprised, it's hard to surprise anyone. But there were also those who succeeded…”
“How?”
“Mostly genetics. An unpredictable combination of genes, for those who still left a part of their dna chain for this. It was mostly in mixed marriages between immortals and sectarians like the Outs. A rare phenomenon, but with statistics in decillions inhabiting dense clusters of stars, it is quite an achievable result. The first full-fledged human-horse. That was the phenomenon. Then, of course, every furry fan changed. But the first one was always on the horse," she laughed.
“I'll never get used to how calmly you talk about it.”
“It's not so calm anymore,” the girl said and stopped waving her legs, putting them back on the mattress, “your stupid thought has eaten into my head and now there is no silence in it. I'm thinking about myself. About what I like and what I don't.”
“Isn't that good?”
“And what's good about the fact that I began to worry that I can't grow longer hair for myself?”
“And why do you need longer hair?”
“Ask about something easier,” May-e-oka grimaced.
“Okay, I'll ask. How much do you think there was truth about the archipelago in that neural network vinaigrette?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was with this thing on my head, I was on an island. Not like this one. It was a huge spaceship. Whole. I wonder how much of these memories are true, and how much of the real data stored in the archive.”
The girl looked at me and rolled over on her back. My head burst into flames from the fire engulfing my body.
“I think it was all nonsense. Although… My original found an old crystal with credits this way....”
“Then we may have a chance.”
“What kind of chance?” May-e-oka squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her horns, “Bastards are itching, you don’t know how.”
“There's a whole ship there, maybe there's what we need.”
“Another archive to make you think again that you can build an engine?”
“I can build an engine, I know how.”
“I saw how you assembled one of the concrete crumbs,” the girl nodded to the edge of the roof, where there really was a pile of concrete.
“Yes, I still need to figure out how to synthesize the necessary alloys in my head. And this information is not in the archives. I only now realized that the processes need to be thoroughly known. At school, under the supervision of Master Akatsin, I was engaged in growing oats, so that’s how I got a real porridge. I need to find at least a blacksmith and then…”
“God, you're still hoping…”
"What else can I do?" I got angry and got to my feet, “Quit everything? Lie down and die? Apparently, the essence of a person from a launcher will be reborn in someone else, like your original and completely forget about who he is and what he is. This is the fate of all immortals who got here. They cannot die, and only are reborn in complete ignorance of how and why they ended up here.”
"You've just deduced the formula of life," May-e-oka laughed and rolled over on her back again.
I sighed and started getting dressed.
"Come on, I'll show you something."
“I've already seen everything.”
“I'm waiting for you downstairs.”
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We walked through the waste ground where Baraman was studying with the children. Savaya watched us carefully and stuck out her tongue at me. I grinned back and stuck my tongue out at her too.
“The children just adore you,” the girl who caught up with me grinned again.
“I don't know when to laugh.”
“Here! Here! Look, you've finally begun to understand my stupid humor.”
“Yours or your original’s?”
“Mine,” smiled May-e-oka and took me by the arm, “the original has not been joking at all for the last thousand years. Or maybe she used to joke, what's the difference. I like your idea that I can be myself. My own black goo, capable of twirling you around as I want.”
She slapped me on the back of the head and ran across the waste ground, laughing and kicking up dust with her feet.
We went out to the south pier, where there was a pile of scrap metal, and I stood in front of it, closing my eyes.
"The orchestra is frozen in anticipation," the girl whispered in my ear.
I clenched my teeth and imagined before my eyes the ship, the structure of which I retook three times as a term paper. The metal in front of me creaked and broke. Rust flew into my face. But I persisted in imagining the structure of the ship and remembered every detail of it.
When I opened my eyes, I saw something on the water. It resembled a ship very vaguely. It turned out to be wider and flatter, more like a barge, and smaller, five times than what I imagined. Rusty and crooked, it barely kept on the water.
“Bravo, bravo,” May-e-oka clapped me,“ an undeniable achievement after the concrete engine. Look, it seems to be sinking.”
Indeed, the ship began to list, there was a big hole in the side. I closed my eyes and imagined how the water flowing into the hole poured out on the girl, and patched the hole itself. There was a splash, a creak, and I was doused with seawater. When I opened my eyes, we were both soaked to the skin.
“Revenge is low, and it always hurts you," May-e-oka grinned.
"But it's not sinking now," I pointed to the semblance of a ship.
“This is the strangest thing I've seen in my life and not in my life too. How are you going to sail on it? Will you give the children paddles? A supporter of slave labor?”
“We will erect a mast and make a sail.”
“And then?”
"That island was at the southernmost tip of the archipelago. We will sail for sunrise.
"And if it's not there?"
“So, it's not there.”
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“And what do you think we should stay here?” Kolitar frowned, “No, we will sail with you. How do we get food? How to feed all these mouths?”
She poked Lieutenant Lipovaska in the shoulder.
“Yes, Master Bike, without your magi... that is, without your technology, we will not be able to feed the children.”
"And if we can't go back?" I asked.
“All the same – death. So at least there is a chance.”
I lowered my head. I had to agree. But together we quickly found the right amount of fabric and sewed a sail. I miraculously managed to put a mast on my “ship”, and we began to load.
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We sailed at night, so that we could orient ourselves by the stars longer. I couldn't build a normal sextant out of the wreckage.
“Savior, what do you call it?” Baraman asked me, hanging from the mast. He turned out to be irreplaceable and jumped on the ropes as if he walked on the ground.
“Hope," I shouted to him.
"Bad name," he replied.
“Why?”
“The ships should be named after the winners or something great, huge, like the moon. So that the forces of life could not turn it over during a storm.”
“Okay, what name would you give?”
“It's too complicated for a Baraman. Baraman knows how to steer a sail, but not how to name a ship.”
“But he knows how to comment on other people's names.”
“Yes, Baraman knows that.”
"Then I won't name it in any way.”
“You can't do that.”
“I can. Then the forces of life will not know what to turn over.”
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We were heading due south, as far as I could tell. And the contours of other islands began to appear on the horizon. They were appearing in groups of two or three, and all seemed to be made up of the same debris as Pleya. It was hard to make out at night, but we didn't try to get close to them, so as not to lose our course. According to my estimates, it was at least two or three-days’ journey to the edge of the archipelago.
In my neural network dream, I studied the composition of seawater in detail, and pretty quickly learned how to create fresh water from seawater. What was my surprise when my thought experiment worked in reality. This proved once again that there was hope to meet the island-ship.
On Nameless, everyone found their place. The children were scratching a map on the deck as we progressed. Baraman settled down on Mars and all the time corrected Lipovaska, who was sitting on the steering wheel with Colitar. His unusual vision, as it turned out, allowed him to see the stars even during the day, which greatly simplified navigation. May-e-oka settled on the nose and if it were not for the fluttering hair, then she could be taken as a nasal figure. I spent most of my time in the hold, doing my experiments.
So far, I've been able to wish for a semblance of rusty metal that crumbled in my hands. I could also wish for some ashes in the form of a six-shot needle gun, but it didn't last a second. This is from failures, and there were also successes, but not where it was required. For example, I learned how to summon ears of oats, and also repeated my experiment and called for a festive school dinner. And then a separate wooden table and decent table china. All this was the result of my passion for crafts in the later years of my studies. The food was still inedible. But I got some wood. I made a bowsprit and a figurehead with the face of May-e-oka out of it.
When I got on deck, I went to the starboard side, closed my eyes and imagined a boat made of wood. I heard a splash, opened my eyes and saw a boat with a small mast moving away from the ship. I jerked overboard, but came to my senses, wanted to shout to someone, but no one was looking in my direction. So, I looked back at the boat once more and shrugged my shoulders. Internally, I promised myself to learn how to create strong ropes.
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By the end of the third day, we saw an unusual island on the horizon. It stuck out of the water at an angle, and looked not like the others, but also hardly resembled what I saw in my dream. Peeling pieces of the sheathing exposed the cushioning materials, dried and perforated by birds. Pieces of the ship stuck out in all directions and were overgrown with clams. But they still resembled a single whole, with a certain effort of imagination.
We drop anchor right under the huge canopy created by the bulging part of the ship, which looked like a promenade deck, if such existed in space. But we could not find any entrance or a hole into which we could descend.
“What are we going to do, Captain?” May-e-oka asked, slapping me on the back.
“Can you swim?” I replied, looking with disgust at the huge thing going under the water.
"Probably," the girl shrugged.
"We could go down together. You won't drown, and I won't die.”
“As always, great offers. But you seem to hate swimming.”
I lowered my head, trying to think of a funny answer, and heard a splash.
“What are you waiting for?” she shouted to me from the water.
I wanted to undress, and then I spat and jumped into the water after her in what I was.
“What should we do?” Lieutenant Lipovaska, who ran up to the side, shouted.
“I don't know, Shae, don't die.”
“That's right, Master Bike,” the discouraged lieutenant saluted.
The deeper we went, the darker it got. I was terrified. Beyond five meters it became quite difficult to distinguish the surface of the ship. And it was huge. I was distracted from my panic by the fact that here I could already distinguish the shape that I remembered from my neuro-dream. May-e-oka was moving along the side. And I had to catch up with her and pull her to the place where I thought there was an entrance where Yon and Gwon invited me.
And then I ran out of oxygen in my lungs. At first, I had an even bigger panic attack, and I almost inhaled water. But I immediately concentrated and imagined my lungs full of air. The fear receded, and bubbles came out of my mouth. May-e-oka looked back at me. I swam towards the entrance and beckoned to follow me.
The entrance was open, and a corridor sloped down behind it. The upper part of it was free of water, and we surfaced.
“What a rubbish” I wheezed, gasping for air.
“Where to next?” the girl asked.
“In my neural-dream, we went down there, took the elevator to the great hall.”
“I'm afraid everything is flooded there. We'll have to swim in the dark for a long time, without light we won't find anything.”
“Yes, I agree. Let's climb up first.”
She nodded, and we crawled up the corridor, clinging to the ledges and fasteners on the walls. Fortunately for us, the light came from the black mold. I remembered that those microorganisms that entered into symbiosis with the fungus had the opportunity to emit a faint glow. It was enough not to get lost in a flooded ship. After about five minutes, we reached an open elevator shaft, along which it was possible to move at an angle even higher. So, we did.
Floor by floor, everything was the same, dampness and black mold took over the entire space, occupied what used to belong to happy smiling people in cracked pictures lying here and there. Families, teams, identical suits, stars on pockets. Like carbon copies of each other. Where did they go? We haven't seen a single corpse in all this time.
The elevator shaft ended in a large room with glass walls. Completely empty, it was also half flooded.
"It looks like some kind of meeting hall," I said wearily, sitting down on the corner of a table attached to the floor.
May-e-oka said nothing and dived into the water. I overcame my disgust and was about to follow her when the worm moved me to the mast of the Nameless. The essence of Baraman froze in front of the worm and bowed.
"Don't grieve for me. Baraman will serve the Savior even after death," he smiled like a cat, and the worm swallowed him.
For a moment I managed to see my metal ship and the submarine moored to it. A rifle was smoking in the hands of sailor Fig, who was standing on the upper deck.
"Red Moon," I exclaimed, returning to my own body.
Twitching, I fell off the table and plopped into the water. Diving, I saw something unexpected in front of me. Two oddly shaped big elongated objects. They occupied almost the entire darkened space of the hall. May-e-oka appeared from behind one of them and swam towards me.
"These are airships," she said, already on the surface of the water.
“They killed Baraman.”
“Who?”
“Figs, he fired from the submarine.”
"Did they follow us? Why?”
“How do I know. What are these ships?”
“They look like military fighters. But some painfully old. My original saw something like this only in halofilms about ancient Earth.”
“Okay, that's very good. That is, everything is just terrible of course.”
“No one else died?”
“No, I would have noticed.”
“What are we going to do, Captain?”
“I think…”
“Would you be able to learn how to control such an airship with the help of your wormie?”
“If I had at least a book on how to do it ...”
“Okay, go back to the ship, detain them,” said the girl and dived back into the water.
I didn't have time to answer anything, patted the water with my hands, turned around and swam to the floor that was raising out of the water. With difficulty, clinging to the table, I pulled myself up and, running upstairs, clung to the entrance to the elevator shaft.
ns 15.158.61.7da2
