– Do you refuse to carry out a military order regarding a scientific investigation of this anomaly? – Petrovich asked persistently. – Talk to me straight, why are you fidgeting like a woman, you comrade Ensign of the Soviet army?
– Comrade Senior Ensign! Allow me to go! – said Vadim.
Bashkalo licked his lips.
– Call me “Nikolaich”, youngster, – said Petrovich.
– All right, Nikolaich, all right. I will go, – said Bashkalo. – Everything is fine. But I need to treat the hand with peroxide. Look how it is grazed.
– Then stand up, comrade Ensign. Prepare for the task. Personally yours.
And he turned his back to Bashkalo as if nothing had happened and came to the “procrust” boundary, which was only clear to him. The remains of the scientist were just a step away.
– I remember everything, Alex, everything… – said Petrovich to them. – Hey you, Fenimore! Listen, newbie, what was that.., Sverzhin, be attentive. This… What the fuck was it called? This gitik! According to Alex's calculations it is doubled. It stands in the shape of eight, two glasses back to back. Two zeros. Give me my stick, youngster.
Vadim picked up the stick, handed it over. Ensign Bashkalo also approached, hanging the rifle on his shoulder, tense, attentive, very concentrated. Vadim sneezed as his approached.
The Senior Ensign was drawing on the ground with the end of a brush.
– Here's how that is. This “zero” is – the closest one. Has been founded by Alex. And here's how the second one is located by the first. I'd found it during the first mission when I walked around the heavy one. Like an “eight” on its side. They are only ten meters in diameter each and both are the same. You can bypass it on the left using the “risks”. It is safe. I did it before. Have I already said that? And here, between them, I've noticed the traction, like in a good furnace. It starts at throwing the “risk”. Pulling smoke somewhere. How much we had burned there…
He slipped the stick to Vadim, took out his wallet from one of his pockets, and from the wallet – a piece of a comb, a piece of paper and, continuing to talk, he quickly made a smoke pot.
– And Alex ascertained that where the joint and traction are between these “procrustes”, something strange is present. By appearance – it is the effect of “invisibility”, with air-to-air special effects, with oxygen, with gas. A step forward – there is something, a step back – you don't see anything. Hocus-pocus, as I showed you, Sverzhin, with the “risks” and the fog. “Risks” just disappear in the hole, but nothing thumps as it would if they fell in the heavy stuff, nothing like this. And then Alex thought of throwing “a cat” in there and pulling it back out.