Шрифт:
Prologue
We haven't seen our creators and we don't know where they came from. We don't know anything at all. Twenty-four years ago, the first of us woke up, and then the other seven thousand. We are the second generation to live on this earth without knowing the details.
That world that has been entrusted to our care has very few colors, and its main one is gray. We see gray on this planet everywhere outside of our station. We can breathe freely only when we are on the station itself, and even the ability to walk normally is only on our station too. And outside of it, we will die without spacesuits, and our ability to move around turns into light jumps on the surface.
The one who left us all this didn't even bother to tell us what we were all doing there, or what our task was. Let alone explain to us why we were treated so cruelly – left alone without the right to live a full life.
Now we are ruled by the Supreme Council of Elders organized by ourselves. In the beginning, everything was decided by a general meeting, but we quickly realized that it was inefficient and caused more discussion than practical use.
Natalie
The main dining room, where Natalie was eating now, was quite spacious, unlike most of the other rooms in our large common house, Appollo-24. That's what we call it, because the word is written literally everywhere – on the seal doors, in the headers of the bulletin boards, on dishes, clothing, and exterior paneling. We all know for a fact that this is the name of our station. And this name bored us so much that already on the first clothes, which we began to make ourselves, and not to get from warehouses, we wrote anything else or nothing, as long as not to write this ubiquitous Appollo-24, the meaning of which nobody knew.
Natalie had synthetic porridge and two sausages on her plate. Despite its humble appearance, she found it delicious, from the beginning to the point of satiety, a clear sign that it was not only hunger that made her appetite grow, but also the food itself. I always want to go and ask for a refill, but we all know we're not entitled to a refill; each of us has been assigned an exact portion by a decision approved by the Council of Elders.
There were separate conversations about this, of course. After all, none of us saw what would happen if we didn't eat as much as we were allowed. We had a case three years ago when one of us, Wyatt Maverick, lost a family member – after a few days of a strange fever, one of the waking twenty-four year olds died prematurely. The grief was such that Wyatt stopped eating, and despite entreaties from administration, friends, and even a few Council members, continued to do so for nearly a week until he collapsed. He didn't look very healthy before that, but after he stopped eating, he began to pale, lose strength, and sleep longer than usual. Thus we learned what can happen to us if we stop eating – we become pale, lack strength and faint. Some have suggested the opposite in that if we eat more than allowed – becoming red, powerful and with insomnia. The picture is not much better. And since that is the case, it is better to listen to the elders once again – since they were the first to wake up, they know best.
At Natalie's table was Taylor from the extraction department, a guy three years younger than Natalie – she was thirty-two now, and like him, she was of the generation that woke up as a child. He'd been hitting on her for a while now, and once she'd even heard him rave about her breasts, calling them "firm balls" that he'd love to fondle. She had heard a lot about her figure, and she knew very well how many desires men had when they passed by – the jumpsuit fit her breasts and hips very tightly, and even though it was a little tight in places, she didn't think of changing the
size of her clothes. She loved the fact that she was attracting so much lust, though she wasn't attracted to Taylor at all. He was too much of a pushover, and that, as always, only served to repel. But as a conversationalist, he was very nice.
– Nat, you know what I found last night? After lights out… I was up all night. – Taylor would sometimes start talking to her like that, thinking he could get her interested, and sometimes he did.
Natalie didn't say anything back-she knew it was worth it to pretend to be interested, and he'd drag on with the story, as if it would give him some points in her personal conquest. As if her interest in his story would make her want him more than not at all. And there's no way to explain it. We've all learned that multiplying 0 by any number is useless, it's still 0. Or maybe he doesn't realize he has a 0. He thinks there are other numbers after the decimal point.
– Or are you not interested? – Apparently, Taylor was beginning to realize over time that the tactic wasn't working and needed to be changed. Or at least try.
– Tell me if there's anything. I'm all ears. – The girl still didn't show that she was really interested, continuing to realize that it was the only thing that protected her. After all, learning something new was always something she wanted to do, because the knowledge itself was almost nonexistent. She had long believed that the elders knew much more, but they just didn't tell the others for their own, probably far-fetched reasons. Or maybe they were waiting for something. And if that's the case, then you have to be able not to pretend that you are waiting for some moment that may never come. You are waiting for the truth, which may not be there, but certainly won't be if everyone sees that you need it so much.
– Starcraft. – He finally announced very quietly and conspiratorially, so that no one could hear but her. – I found Starcraft yesterday…
– What's that? To brush your teeth? Back scratching? What do you do with it? – From time to time, everyone found different objects, and then they worked together to figure out their purpose, leaving it for the use of the one who found it. Sometimes it happened to find a thing together with a manual, and then the elders copied it, rewarding the finder separately for the find.
– No…" Taylor said even more quietly. – It's a game… On a computer…
Now that was a crime. In school, from the very beginning of education, it was taught what a crime was and how it could be punished. There were two kinds of crimes: negligent "misdemeanor" and intentional "felony". The former concerned mistakes made in one's work, or accidentally slipping out a forbidden phrase that could be overheard. For example, one could not publicly question the assigned lessons of our history. Since we were taught that our planet was third from the sun in number, the smallest in the solar system, then it was. If we were told that we had once polluted it to the point where it was no longer safe to be on the surface without a hazmat suit, then that was also true. Since we were taught that all other planets were uninhabited, there was no point in doubting it, at least not publicly. No one told you not to think what you want to think. The elders directly said – you have freedom of thought, it is a very important gift, no one can take it away from you. But don't break other people's thoughts – keep your own to yourself. For breaking other people's thoughts you could get a warning from the elders, as an unintentional crime.
The second category of crimes, intentional, concerned those things that were done with the purpose of violating the foundations of our society, such as hiding found materials. Whether it was information on a computer or a separate medium, when found, it was supposed to be immediately handed over for study by the elders themselves, because it could be something sacred, which was supposed to be known only to them. Otherwise, one could be imprisoned in the so-called prison of longing or simply "Toska", a separate structure from the main station, where one could be placed for a period of time equal to the crime committed, which was also determined by the elders.