The one who will be able to survive (eBook)

Science Fiction novel

Igor Goriatchev (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
210 Seiten
Readers Union / The Science Fiction Book Club (Verlag)
978-0-00-095625-5 (ISBN)

Infos

The writer Victor Nadezhdin, goes to an amazing city, which was formed around the Zone, created by the Guests, beings of the next evolutionary level. The city is separated from the Zone by a Wall. He hopes to see his daughter Dina, who has gone there. The so-called 'runners' are constantly trying to break into the city. They are people who are ready to move to the next evolutionary level, and whom Guests are ready to accept, but ordinary people in every possible way prevent them. Victor's daughter, too, has become a 'runner.' She went to the city two years ago.

Textauszug

1

It had rained heavily during the night. The highway was wet and empty at this early hour, and a foggy haze drifted over it in wisps. Victor pulled the zipper of his leather jacket up to his chin, shivering as he drove, and rolled up the car’s window, leaving just a small slit so that there would be an intake of air inside. It was a gray early morning. A pine forest stretched along either side of the highway. The masts of huge pine trees reached up into the frowning, cloud-covered sky. Rain-wet bushes, puddles of muddy water, rippled with fine ripples from the drizzling rain, passed smoothly by. Victor occasionally turned on the windshield wipers, clearing his view of small splashes. Splashes flew from under the wheels.

A white horse was galloping down the road towards him. Without a rider. Beautiful. With her mane flying in the wind, she appeared out of the misty haze like a vision in some otherworldly dream. Victor slowed, stopped the car and went out onto the road. The horse ran past, snorting and clattering loudly on the asphalt in the morning silence, and he watched it for a long time until it disappeared into the fog again. "What's she doing here?" he thought, getting back into the car and driving off. "She must have escaped from a village. There are some villages nearby. But she seems like a symbol. What does it mean?Almost at the entrance to the city I see a white horse. They say the white horse is a symbol of victory. While in the Apocalypse, in the Bible, there is a "Pale Horse" symbolizing death. But this horse was exactly white, snow-white, and not pale at all," Victor told himself. "So, let's take this as a symbol of victory, and nothing else. By the way, "White Horse" is the name of the famous Scotch whisky. What's wrong with a glass of good whisky? When the above victory takes place.

A sign flashed: "Checkpoint - 7 km, Arka City - 20 km". "Aha," Victor thought, "not far now." He was approaching the goal of his journey. His thoughts flowed sluggishly, clinging to one another. He recalled his life in the Capital and how much trouble it had cost him to get a visa for this trip to Arka City. He suspected it was due to the fact that he was considered unreliable in some higher circles after being dismissed from the university. And, apparently, an instruction was given from above: "Don't let him go in!" He had to use all his connections and channels, go around and call all his old school friends who occupied more or less high positions. Finally the personal recommendation of his friend, Professor Vershinin, allowed him to get this cherished paper with the state emblem, where it was said that he, i.e. the writer and historian Victor Nedezhdin, was allowed to visit the International Institute for Invasion Zone Research to collect information in order to write a book about the history of the Invasion. That was the formal purpose of his trip. But no one knew of his true purpose.

He thought about the fact that his life in the last two years after Dina’s departure had slowly lost all meaning. He could hardly force himself to get up in the morning, sit down at his computer and write his articles on historical topics for well-known magazines. It was his casual work after leaving the university, where he had lectured to students in the history department. Although this work paid well, but it has already bored him to tears. As was stated in his order of dismissal, he, in communication with students, "systematically" allowed himself sharp, critical remarks about the political situation in the country, and regarding even the Super-President himself, which "had a negative impact on young minds". Someone must have informed the dean about his informal communication at elective classes with young historians, where he readily allowed himself to critically analyze the growing absurdity in the life of the country. As a result, Victor lost his job at the university. Students had loved him, and some tried to fight for him. But the most ardent protesters were expelled, and the rest kept quiet, fearing reprisals. Standing for truth and justice has become dangerous again.

Victor didn't want to get an official work anywhere else. Of course, he could have gone to high school to teach history, but he felt that it would be the same everywhere, and he couldn't and didn't want to be dishonest. History was now being tweaked and remade everywhere to fit the present political moment. No one was interested in the search for the true historical truth, and history imperceptibly began to turn into an endless glorification of great past victories and personally the super-president. It now seemed that even those victories that our great ancestors won 50, 200 and even 1000 years ago, were partly due to his modest merit.

It would be good to disconnect from everything and sit down to write a new book. But there was a vacuum in his head, like in open space: there was no plot, no inspiration. And there was also a longing after Dina’s departure, an underlying longing that haunted and tormented him all the time – when he got up and went to bed, when he sat at the computer and typed articles for magazines, or, without feeling the taste, ate soup and chewed a cutlet, drank beer from a bottle, gazed at the TV, having ceased to be surprised at the degree of degradation and shamelessness that the domestic mass media had reached.

And there came a moment when he realized that he couldn't live like that anymore. It was either to go into a noose, to jump headlong from the nearest high-rise, or to do something radical, to break the established pattern of meaningless routine. And then he wrote to Professor Vershinin and, having overcome all the obstacles, secured a visa to the international Arka City, got in his car and started for the place where Dina had gone.

What would happen when he got there? He didn't know. He couldn't get Dina back, he knew that for sure. None of the "runners" had ever returned from the Zone. He had some crazy thoughts in his head, like getting in a helicopter, taking off over the Zone, and jumping down to them, i.e. to the Guests, there, straight down into the Crater. But he supposed that would be pure suicide. An act of final despair.

The backstory of the events described here and of his current trip began about 30 years ago when the Extraordinary Incident occurred in the N. region. People of the villages in the area were suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by a deafening rumble and looked out to see bright light illuminating everything around them. And in the morning it was discovered that in a clear field, about fifteen kilometers from one of the villages, suddenly appeared a shallow crater, the size of a football field. As if from a meteorite fall. But with a meteorite one would expect debris from the impact, and scorched grass around, and there was none. It was as if a huge hand of an unknown giant scooped up a handful of earth, the size of the crater, and went away. And it left the bewildered lilliputians to speculate on the mystery of its origin.

The first person to spot the crater was a pilot of an agricultural plane, who came to spray fertilizer on the fields the next morning nearby. He flew over the crater several times, but did not dare to land close by. And, as it was realized later, he did the right thing, because it would have resulted in his imminent death. It was he who first reported about the Crater to the The Regional Administration.

First they sent helicopters with military and scientists there. And the surprises began, which no one expected, deadly surprises. The helicopters tried to land next to the crater and suddenly, as they descended to an altitude of about forty meters, they hit an invisible wall, and as if pushed into an invisible press, were flattened, twisted and, in the form of huge warped pieces of metal, crashed to the ground. All the people who were inside died. A column of cars was at the same time heading towards the Crater, also with scientists and military personnel. The head of the column was maintaining radio contact with the helicopters. The dispatchers from the helicopters reportedthat they saw a Crater of a regular oval shape with a smooth white bottom and that they were going to land next to it. The last thing the head of the column heard was the desperate screams of people, and he realized that something terrible had happened.

The column of cars hurried towards the scene. But 10 km from the Crater, all the cars suddenly stalled at once. The drivers and mechanics could not get them to re-start. No mechanical or electrical reason could be found. Moreover, all devices stopped working: clocks stopped, radiation dosimeters, radio equipment, and telephones. A chill ran down the backs of many of those present. It began to smell like outright devilry. Nevertheless, the leader of the convoy decided to send a walking expedition to the Crater.

Now the physiological problems began: every step was taken with great difficulty; severe headaches, dizziness, unbearable aches all over the body began; body temperatures rose to 40 degrees and above, and with each step towards the Crater, the effects were stronger. No protective suits helped. The walking expedition was able to move only twenty meters away from the cars when all its participants suddenly collapsed unconscious.

To bring their comrades back out of the "danger...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.6.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-10: 0-00-095625-2 / 0000956252
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-095625-5 / 9780000956255