– Don't shoot, comrade Ensign, – Vadim said calmly.
– Or what? – Bashkalo asked oddly, lifted his chin.
– Or then no one will pull living plants out of the hole, which have been dead for two hundred million years. I can't even imagine how much they may cost. Even if paid a penny for a year.
Bashkalo snorted. Vadim sneezed.
– Cheers to you, bitch! – said Bashkalo with a twitch. He was really calm; excited, but not rabid. He was working. – Everything is possible in the Zone, you're right. Piss, not war! Five-storey buildings fly, air cuts people, equipment operates itself. You can walk a kilometer in a month, like at the airdrome, from hangar-three to meteorological booth. And why not to visit the time hole? Science fiction. But if you, Fenimore, don't put the rifle on the damp mother-earth right now, arsehole…
Vadim moved his shoulder, the rifle slipped, balanced against his leg. Vadim moved his leg; the rifle fell.
Bashkalo's cap nodded approvingly. But the rifle did not move; as if it was cast into space. Vadim was already too tired not to blink, his eyes were stinging.
– And everything else. The backpack, the jacket. The knife, the gun. Slowly. Take off your gas mask too.
Watching the disarming of the survivor, Bashkalo sat down on the Alex the Aspirant's chair. Vadim also wanted to sit. But the KHM together with its owner was watching his slightest movement and the fuse was off. The scientist’s chair seemed strong. Bashkalo sat carefully first, but when Vadim was removing a device for measuring the parameters, Bashkalo somehow tested the strength of the chair and, moving the ass, sat freely, spreading his legs, with his whole center of gravity. The distance between him and Vadim was equal to four good spittles, but just as Petrovich's corpse was lying across the directory, so was Vadim's equipment. Only Bruce Lee would be able to jump over this all, dodging the oncoming bullets. By the method of “combined shooting”.
Vadim’s clothes were a blend of wool, with the stockings of the hazmat suit over the celebrated American shoes. He was cold, but he stood motionless, waiting. He was freezing, trying not to tremble. He was sniffing and (already habitually) moving his fingers at the hips, at least so checking the external situation. He sneezed twice, not because of the cold, but because Bashkalo was making his nose itch stronger. Bashkalo suddenly took out a bottle of vodka from somewhere, uncorked it and began to sip gently from the bottleneck, watching Vadim with one eye. Vadim shivered when the bottle became empty. Bashkalo dropped it in front of him and deftly crushed it with a heel.