Текст книги "I am Earthman"

Автор книги: Джора Байрамов

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 7 страниц)

Then the author wrote; I woke up and first of all turned on and looked at the time in my smartphone. It was already 10 o'clock the next morning. The earthquake continued, but the strength of the tremors has already decreased. Having woken up the others, he made a roll call. Everyone was alive and well. After waiting a little more time, we decided to go back down to the lake. We came out of the opening, looked around by the light of lanterns, made sure that the cave withstood the earthquake and came to the part of the cave that was open from above. But it was darkly dark there, but the visibility was quite distinguishable. At first, we thought that it was just morning, but the time in smartphones showed the same time, that is, 13 hours 21 minutes of the day. From the open part of the dome's vault, only the movement of gray fog was visible. Then they realized that when the earthquake started, in a hurry to leave the cave as soon as possible, they forgot all the provisions on the shore of the lake. The shore was flooded with water then and now, when the earthquake ended, the water went back and all our provisions went into the lake along with the water, except for two containers with water, which we took with us. Despite the fact that no one from the group had eaten anything for more than a day and a half, they drank only water, no one complained of hunger. I personally had no appetite at all. I think others have too. Everyone had the same idea on their mind "how to get out" They looked around, there was only the water surface of the lake, going deep into a dark cave, an island and high smooth steep stone blocks forming a natural dome. The height distance to the open part of the dome is presumably at least one hundred and twenty meters. With our equipment, we'll never get there. If we assume that a large asteroid or some other large cosmic body has fallen to the Earth and the scale of the catastrophe is large, then we will soon have nowhere to wait for help. Now, if we had left the duty officers on the surface, although there was no cellular mobile communication working here in the mountains, they would have somehow helped us get out of the cave or brought help. In this matter, I blamed only myself, because as the senior of the group, I made a gross mistake to ensure the safety of the group's trip to the cave. Before descending into a previously unexplored cave, I had to anticipate the occurrence of such unforeseen circumstances, such as our current situation, and take measures to ensure the safety of people, well, at least in the form of leaving those on duty on the surface.

If before that we all treated all our difficulties and adventures from the point of view of romanticism, only now has the full horror and hopelessness of our situation reached the consciousness of each of us. One of the girls began to cry, remembered her mother and other relatives that she did not even warn them about the trip, so that later she could surprise them in the form of showing photos and videos taken in the cave. But she was quickly reassured by the other girls. We decided to discuss the plan of our actions to save ourselves. We will never get to the open part of the dome with our equipment. This was no longer subject to discussion. Whether the waters of the lake come out of the cave, and even if it does, how will it check whether the lake is deep, what creatures live in it, whether they are dangerous to humans, in general, there are a lot of questions. Our only hope was a light scuba diver's suit, a mask and a tube that we brought with us to dive into the water and study the wildlife of the lake. But in such circumstances, diving into the lake for a long time for examination and finding a way out of the cave in the dark part of the cave, without reliable equipment, meant certain death. While we were discussing the plan of our actions, small dark heads of some waterfowl animals could be seen above the water surface and immediately plunged into the water, but we did not even pay attention to them now. Since our future fate depended on the right decision we made. It was impossible to delay in this matter, since it was clear that we would not last long here without food and water. Finally, we decided that while the batteries of our lanterns did not run out, we should look for another exit or disassemble the blockage and clear the way back to the exit. Everyone was strictly forbidden not to turn on even smartphones unnecessarily, in order to save batteries, whose flashlights would also be useful. We were divided into two groups. The first group of three guys had to look for another exit from the cave, if there is one, another, a large group of seven people, including all the girls, had to clarify the scale of the blockage and begin to disassemble the blockage and clear the way out. With such goals, both groups simultaneously began to climb up the cave, back to the exit. The groups did not have to split up, since they did not find any branches in the cave before the place where the cave was filled up, which meant that there was simply no other way out. When we examined the place of the blockage by the light of lanterns, it turned out that the path was blocked not only with stones of different sizes, which we could remove, but also a huge oval, almost round stone, the size of a small truck. This large stone during the earthquake probably broke off from the place where it was before and, due to inertia, rolled down from above. And as he rolled down, accelerating strongly by inertia, he immediately got so firmly stuck in the narrow passage of the cave. This was indicated by the fact that the stone, firmly resting on all sides against the side walls, on the floor and on the ceiling of the passage, with its entire mass, like a cork, tightly closed the narrow passage, and it was clear that even if we removed all the other stones lying ahead, we would not be able to remove a large stone that was stuck tightly in the passage. It was so depressing and depressing for the psyche of each of us, as it put an end to our salvation from imprisonment-the author wrote.

Then Adam, closing the notebook, involuntarily remembered the ISS, his crewmates, how they also found themselves in a hopeless situation after a nuclear disaster, because the events described by the author occurred at the same time when they were still on the ISS. The only difference is that the students, while in the cave, thought that the catastrophe on earth was due to the fall of an asteroid or comet to Earth, and they, while on the ISS, were direct unwitting witnesses of a global thermonuclear war and the destruction of Earth's civilization.

Eve came in and Adam put down his notebook. She looked at Adam. Although she did not ask Adam any questions, however, in her look you could read "did you read the notes, what is written there?" He did not wait for the question;

–I haven't read everything yet, but one thing is clear, the notes were made by your ancestors, but I don't know how they survived the disaster, I'll read everything, then I'll tell you.

Then, as gently as possible, he added;

–Now we will go with you to get food for lunch and dinner, you need to eat a lot, because our baby needs vitamins.

– That they are needed. Did I not understand?

–Well, this, how to explain it, is also the same food, but they are, that is, vitamins that are not visible to our eyes, and there are a lot of them inside green herbs. When we eat green herbs, they get inside us with herbs. These are such trace elements, then, without finishing his thought, what he wanted to say, he stopped, quickly pulled himself together. "Reading the manuscripts, completely immersed in the old world with my thoughts, I forgot where I am and what century I am living in now," he thought and continued;

"I can't explain it all. So they used to write in books, and doctors, that is, former doctors, recommended this to pregnant women.

Eve didn't bother asking Adam any more questions. She understood that it was very difficult for him to forget all his past and turned the conversation to another topic;

–We will go now to the spring and go down the stream, there are a lot of worms and fragrant herbs. We need to stock up on food for the winter. We will also collect root vegetables there.

– And, how will we save them until winter?

– Very simple. We will drown green herbs and worms in fat, they will be preserved there, and root crops will be preserved anyway. We just need to stock up a lot.

– And, where can we get root vegetables?

– Down there, along the stream of the spring, the root crops grow there and are just beginning to ripen.

Adam suddenly remembered the big ants and asked Eve;

– Oh, can I eat ants?

– I don't know, I've never tried it. Even if they can be eaten, I will never be able and will not want to eat them. Because they are harmless to us, and they are also my friends. When I was left alone, they were the only living beings around, with whom I communicated, talked, played and felt not alone here.

Adam felt uneasy, not only because he asked Eve such a question. Ants were the first living creatures that he saw after returning to Earth from a foreign land. He remembered that when he saw them, how happy he was, as they were the first messengers who gave him hope for the revival of life on the planet. How inexcusably quickly he forgot this. Therefore, as if in a guilty tone, he answered not only Eve, but also the ants, too, with only one word;

– I'm sorry.

– I didn't understand why you're asking for forgiveness?

– Yes, I just did it, he replied in a guilty voice.

Part 2. Lessons on survival and life

After lunch that same day, Adam continued to read the manuscript.

The author wrote: After seeing and realizing that there was no way we could move a large stone, we mentally depressed went back down to the lake and came to our temporary camp. Everyone was silent, because they understood the difficulty and hopelessness of our situation in which we found ourselves. But still, the optimism and the idea that we would somehow soon get out of here did not leave us all, because we were young, strong, our bodies were strong and none of us wanted to stay in the captivity of the cave and die just like that. Evening came, then night. Worried, either by our appearance on the shore of the lake, or for other reasons related to the disaster, the inhabitants of the lake occasionally made whining, plaintive sounds. These sounds were sometimes joined by the warning sounds of our smartphones that the batteries in them were running low. Being psychologically depressed and unsure of the future, sitting in pitch darkness, pressing our bodies against each other, we spent another night in a cave on the shore of the lake.

The next morning, we woke up, looked around. There are no changes around. Only on the island in the middle of the lake, we saw a pandemonium of amphibious animals, similar to seals, but with a slightly elongated neck and a small head, from a distance similar to a cat's head. Now, after we had accepted our situation a little, everyone began to feel hungry, which was further reminded by the sounds of rumbling in our intestines. The water also ran out. Without food and water, we will not last long, we need to get food and water. There is water in the lake, but is it suitable for consumption? After cutting off the neck of one of the plastic bottles, they made a bucket out of it and filled it with water. The water was warm, as in the tropical zones of the Earth. At first, none of us dared to drink. But the use of this water was in this case the only real and non-alternative necessity for us, and in order to survive in the future, we had to somehow get out of the situation. After asking the others to refrain from drinking water a little, I tried the water first. The water was not salty, but a little muddy and smelled a little strange to us, and it tasted like Caucasian mineral waters, but if you gradually get used to the smell, you can drink it. If the water is bad, it should soon affect me. They decided to get food from the lake, there are simply no other solutions. Here, of course, the question arose, and how to get it, because the animals are amphibians, and, accordingly, waterfowl. If they sense danger, they will go to that part of the lake where it will be impossible to reach them in the pitch darkness of the cave. Besides, how do we get to the island where the animals come out at night? You can swim, but we do not know the depth of the reservoir, whether there are any other animals living in the lake besides animals, and if there are any, do they pose a danger to us, what other dangerous tricks are waiting for us in the lake water and how the lake will behave, will the lake water pull a person down? There are a lot of problematic issues that have arisen before, when we discussed the plan of our salvation. But then, an idea came to mind, if at night the animals come out of the lake to the island, it means that they used to go out and in the future they should also go to the shore, where we set up camp and spent the night last night. Perhaps they did not go ashore last night because we were staying and spending the night on the shore of the lake, and they instinctively stayed away from previously unknown, unforgiven guests, such as we are here. We decided to check this option and discussed our action plan for hunting the animal. According to our plan, as a group, in this case consisting of three people, we need to ambush the animals, for which, armed with an axe, a knife and a stone, it is necessary to hide between the stones somewhere close to the approximate place where the animals come ashore. And given that the animals on the land move slowly, wait for them to come ashore for the night and suddenly attack them. But this plan of ours will work only after dark and we had to sit hungry for another whole day. Meanwhile, we learned that lake water can be used for drinking, since my body did not even feel the difference between ordinary and lake water, unless drinking because of the smell was a little unpleasant. This was already our first success on the way to survival, and the members of the group drank plenty of water. Long before the evening darkness, we, that is, three guys from the group, including me, took a predetermined position, hiding behind rocks on the shore of the lake, in order to hunt a seal of such an animal. I had a knife in my hands, the second had an axe and the third had a stone weighing about three kilograms. Looking ahead, I will say that at the time when they decided to hunt the animal, I did not even know the names of these guys who participated in the hunt with me. As we later met, one of them, who armed himself with an axe, was Sergey, and the second, that is, the one who armed himself with a stone for hunting, was Kostya. Therefore, further describing in detail the event of our first hunt that took place in extreme conditions of the cave, I will not name the names of these guys who participated in the hunt for the animal in the future. And the rest of our group, at the time when we were preparing to hunt the animal, so as not to disturb us with their presence, retreated into the cave in advance. Evening has come, it is pitch dark, there is no visibility at all. In such conditions, we waited for about an hour. However, as we intuitively determined by the sounds, not a single amphibious animal ever came ashore. But then, when we felt from the sounds made by the animals that they were coming out to an island that was located not far from us, and I suddenly appreciated the idea that maybe they could smell us and determine our location in advance. Perhaps that is why the animals, having determined our exact location and having smelled the danger threatening them with their animal instincts, do not come to our shore. What to do in such situations and how to make sure that they do not smell our smell, because we so need food, without which we will not last long here? After consulting among themselves, we decided to wet our clothes in the lake water and thus, at least for a short time, prevent or weaken the spread of our smell through the air. We did exactly that, and it gave us results. After a while, sitting in ambush, we not only felt, but also began to hear, characteristic noises, that is, barely audible meowing, the rustle of water and rustles. All this meant that these animals, crawling out of the water to the shore, shaken off, crawling along the shore, looking for a place to sleep. They talked in whispers and decided to attack one of them at the same time. Making sure that the animals were already on the shore, instantly turning on the flashlights, we rushed forward at a run to cut off their path to the lake. Many of them, while we blocked their way to the lake, hurriedly jumped back into the lake, but the rest, suddenly baring their teeth, showing us sharp fangs, took a defensive pose. By the light of the lanterns, it was clear how viciously and full of determination to repel our attack and defend themselves together, their eyes were burning. We didn't know what to do in this situation, because we were all hunting for the first time. At the slightest approach to them, they aggressively rushed to meet us with the whole group. At the same time, we noticed that where the lantern moves, they turn their whole body towards the light source, without losing sight of the switched-on lantern, quickly and as a whole group move in the same direction. Leaving only one lamp on, we decided to take advantage of this. This gave us a positive effect. I quickly moved to the left with the flashlight turned on, and all the animals, turning their whole body in my direction, growling angrily, again took a defensive pose. In such a situation, in order to completely confuse their naive defensive animal instincts and at least for a short period of time distract their attention from other guys, I started making circular movements with a flashlight in my hands. The animals stopped for a moment, but baring their sharp fangs, they froze in a defensive pose. Taking advantage of this and catching the moment, one of us, that is, the one with the axe, quickly approaching them from behind, hit one of them on the head with the butt of the axe. The animal fell to the ground with a plaintive squeal, but continued to move forward slowly, with chaotic movements, towards the water. Then, with a repeated blow to the head, our three-kilogram stone overtook him, and the animal expired. Seeing this, the other animals immediately fled in all directions. Then we began to examine the prey by the light of lanterns. In front of us lay an amphibious animal, not previously seen by us, more than one meter long, with a strip on its head that looks like a skunk, the rest of its body looks like a seal. But only the dorsal part of the body of this animal was covered with very hard scales. The front paws of the animal, between the claws were connected by webbing, like ducks, and instead of the hind legs there were fins. A disgusting unpleasant smell was coming from the animal. So for the first time, we involuntarily became hunters, and perhaps the first hunters of a rare animal of this underground lake. But we were forced to do this by need – the author justified himself.

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