I am Earthman
Шрифт:
–Who were your ancestors, how did they get here? Are there other people, tribes still nearby?
– The old men of our tribe told us that there is a mountain gorge behind these mountain ranges. A small river flows through the gorge. There, on the bank of the river, once lived a large tribe of people who once separated from our tribe and formed a separate settlement. It was said that they built houses out of trees on the river bank, hunted and lived there. But according to the stories of our hunters, they were often attacked and eaten by huge predatory animals, two or even three times taller than a person. They called them brown bears and said that they were so strong that it was useless to fight with them or even defend against them somehow, that it was impossible to kill them with a spear or an axe. According to the stories of the elders, these bears cannot cross the ridges of the mountains and therefore, when we are and live here in a cave, we are worried that they will come here, do not. That's why I've never seen these bears myself. I remember that the older ones still said that there was only one narrow path in the mountains, sometimes our hunters used it to go down and make their way into the gorge to hunt fish, and from there they also brought sticks for our axes and spears. According to their own stories, there are big trees growing there, there is always live food in the river, and for the same reason our tribe once divided. Whether any of those people remained alive, if even they remained, then whether they remained there, or moved somewhere later, where they now live, I do not know. At first, when I met you, I thought that you were one of those people. And who our ancestors were, I do not know, I have not heard stories about it, only once I was told that they lived for a long time in the depths of this cave and said that this is why they called themselves cave people. And I also know that there is a walled-up place in the cave, where, according to our people, the things of our distant ancestors who lived in the cave at that time are stored. The elders said that these things would someday tell us about our origin, and while we do not know how to handle these things, all of us were forbidden to go there. When I was left alone, I didn't even think about it and almost forgot about it.
Adam (in the future we will call man Adam) thought about how bears have survived to the present day, reached such a large size and became cannibal predators. But suddenly I remembered that the nuclear disaster on earth happened in November, when the Siberian bears were already in hibernation and it is quite possible that some of them could survive after hibernation and bring offspring by eating the corpses of other animals, people who died directly during the nuclear war and after, because of the consequences of the nuclear disaster. It is well known that after a nuclear disaster, a nuclear winter comes for a long time, and perhaps the corpses of animals, and people, did not decompose for a long time because of the long, strong frosts of a nuclear winter. The bears probably took advantage of this, although according to the stories they heard once in childhood, they do not eat corpses, however, it is quite possible that hunger forced them to do this. They could become dangerous cannibal predators due to lack of food, and in addition, he remembered that bears had been omnivorous predators before. But here the question arises: "If the bears survived the nuclear winter by eating corpses, how did the people of the Eve tribe here and other animals down in the gorge, in the river water, survive the nuclear winter that followed the nuclear war?". After all, the Earth's atmosphere after a nuclear disaster was covered with a thick ashy veil and because of this, the sun's rays could not reach the Earth's surface. For this reason, a long nuclear winter came on Earth and as a result, it froze for a long time. And in addition, the Earth's atmosphere was polluted with radiation. All living things on Earth after nuclear explosions must have been irradiated and had to get radiation sickness, and there was no effective treatment, as he remembered, for this disease. In addition, according to the theory, because of the long nuclear winter, all the plants on Earth should have died. And animals, and people, and in general all living things on Earth had to die from lack of food and heat. He studied all this himself, but he did not find any clear answer or explanation to this question. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with the alien about the territories on Earth that were less affected by nuclear explosions, volcanoes and flooding, and thought that the alien probably meant these places. Perhaps they probably had information about the survivors of the disaster, but they did not tell him about it, and perhaps this can explain their mysterious behavior before parting, as if they were hiding something. Turning over all this in his mind to calm himself mentally, he thought that now, all this no longer matters to him, the main thing is that life is being born again on his home planet. In continuation of his thoughts, he thought that if there are other surviving people on Earth, they will unite and although it will be very difficult now, they will gradually restore the former civilization of the Earth and people will no longer make such mistakes.
Night fell. Adam and Eve spent the night in a cave. Although they slept separately, but both of them already felt not alone in the shower.
Days passed. One day after breakfast, Adam asked Eve to show him the secret place where, according to her, the things left by their ancestors were kept. But, at first, she categorically refused, saying that this is for her ancestors, and, accordingly, now it is a sacred place for her, where adults forbade them to go from an early age. But then, a little later, she still agreed, because perhaps she herself was interested in seeing these objects. And so, with a torch in their hands, they began to descend down the cave. The cave was somewhere wider, and somewhere quite narrow. They walked about a hundred and fifty meters down the slope, deep into the cave and on the left side in a small, dead-end arm of the cave, Eva showed the place where there was a hiding place. The hiding place was tightly closed with a large round, but flat stone. Adam and Eve, by joint efforts, together with difficulty removed this stone to the side. Behind this large stone was another flat stone, smaller than the first one. When this stone was also removed, a small opening opened. By the light of the torch, a little further away, a tightly closed lid was visible, made of several layers of skin, compacted by gluing, around some dry, but apparently tropical tube-shaped reed plant. When they removed the lid, they saw that it was very dry inside the cache. Apparently, who made this cache, took care that the things left in the cache were stored for a very long time. In the middle of the hiding place, wrapped in a cloth, there was a bundle. Adam slowly took out the package. The torch was already burning out and they were climbing with a bundle in their hands to their camp, that is, to a place located inside the cave, but directly right at the exit of the cave. There, near the exit of the cave, where there was a lot of daylight, he put the package on the ground and slowly began to open the package. When he started to open the package, he saw that the material for the package was part of the canvas raincoat of the tent. The canvas fabric of the tent's raincoat became so dilapidated that at the touch of hands, they literally fell down. His heart was beating faster and faster. He felt that this bundle was taking him back to his own distant past. Eve watched all this with surprise and curiosity, but did not say a word. He opened the package, inside the package was a large plastic bottle with a wide neck, tightly closed, by twisting, a hard plastic lid. Taking the bottle in his hands, Adam carefully examined it before opening the lid and saw that there was a small through hole in the neck of the bottle. Apparently, the person who left all this took into account that when things are stored for a long time in a completely closed space, where the air left there does not change for a long time, things lose their properties and become unusable. However, time has done its job, since the object inside the bottle rolled up into a tube from the outside has turned a little black, slightly covered with mold, but it is quite well preserved. Adam asked Eve for a stone knife. He wanted to carefully cut the neck of the bottle, fearing that if he unscrewed the lid with his hand through the necks of the bottle to get the rolled tube, it might accidentally be damaged. Besides, he didn't want to show Eva, who was watching his every move, that he knew how to open a bottle by turning the lid. He cut the neck of the bottle, took out a rolled-up object and carefully unwrapped it. This rolled-up object turned out to be a plump, but well-preserved multi-leaf notebook for paperback notes, and inside the notebook, between the leaves, there was a black-and-white photo of a group of young (girls and boys) people printed on a portable printer. Apparently, the photo was printed right there, by one of the participants on a portable printer from laptops. They were photographed right at the entrance of the cave. From the photo, they were looked at by broadly smiling, self-satisfied, happy young people in the hiking uniforms of the first half of the twenty-first century. Some of them had smartphones on their hands, laptop handbags hung on their shoulders. Nearby, duffel bags were lying on the snow and a faithful companion of almost all such youth hikes – a guitar. All these things were so close to him, so familiar that when he remembered his former life on Earth, his fellow citizens, relatives, relatives, friends, and everything in general, the now forever lost Earthly civilization, he could hardly hold back tears. Eve stared at the photo with such surprise, as if petrified. From there, that is, from the photo, people she didn't know looked at her, in clothes she hadn't seen before. Then Adam noticed that one of the girls with the photo of the face, the look of the eyes and even the figure is so similar to Eve. Surprised, Eva also looked at this girl from the photo very closely, as if studying her, and perhaps also noticed that the face, eyes and figure of that girl looked so much like her, as if this photo was an exact representation of her own face in spring water. It was the first time she had seen a notebook, a photo, a plastic bottle. Adam didn't know where to start, how he would explain all this to her. Therefore, when she looked at him in surprise without saying a word, with a question in her eyes, "what is all this?" he only shrugged his shoulders as a sign that "they say, I also don't know anything and don't understand". He was well aware that it was almost impossible to explain all this to Eva now and thought: "time will pass, we will enter into each other's trust, conversations between us will be ordinary and familiar, I will definitely tell everything, then she will understand everything." He took the photo in his hand, turned it over, looked at the reverse side and saw and not unfounded, but only read the barely noticeable inscription in Russian "New Cave, students" with the movement of his eyes, it was impossible to read the record further, since the end of the record was erased over time. Eva had been watching him and all his movements all this time. Adam, when he only read the note written on the back of the photo with his eyes, suddenly it seemed to Eve that she felt something was wrong in the movements and expressions of his eyes, and he immediately had to make a naive appearance that he was also very surprised by what he saw and put the photo back. Then he took the notebook and began to leaf through it, and as soon as his eyes touched the notes, he realized from the first page that it was a detailed handwritten description of those past, distant events, but he did not continue reading these notes in front of Eva. Now he needed to leave all this for later and quickly gets out of this situation, and for this purpose, turning to Eve, he began;
–Let's put all these things back in the cache, we still don't know what to do with them now. Then we will think together and decide. We still have to go to the spring, we need to get food.
– Yes, yes.
Eva agreed, but it was clear from her eyes that she was very surprised by what she saw and extremely excited. Adam felt uneasy that he was lying to her all the time and it seemed to him that she even felt it. But all the same, he thought that he should refrain for some time before telling her the truth about his former life, and besides, he still does not know how she will react to his story, believe it or not, and how she will take it all.
After that, the two of them took all the things back and put them in the cache, closed the lid of the cache, but did not close the outer opening of the cache with heavy stones.
Days passed. They were doing their usual things, arranging their homes, getting and cooking food, but they did not part for a single step and both felt inwardly that they could no longer live alone, that they could be together and live so well. And then one day, after dinner, sitting next to Eve, Adam, in a burst of inexplicably tender inner feelings that suddenly appeared in him, unexpectedly even for himself, hugged Eve and kissed her firmly, firmly on the lips. She blushed at first, but did not say anything, or maybe in her heart she also wanted and waited for this. So they got intimate that night and started sleeping together. Life has entered into a calm and normal family channel. However, Adam was haunted by thoughts about the notes in the notebook. He wanted to read the notes as soon as possible, get to know the people from the photo and how their destinies turned out. The only thing that was clear was that the photographs depicted those distant ancestors of Eva, about whom she spoke. But with her, it was impossible to get a notebook out of the hiding place, read and study the notes. She was there all the time. To tell the truth and tell everything, in his opinion, the time has not yet come. He knew that sooner or later he would have to tell her the whole truth about himself. But when will that time come? However, this situation resolved itself.
Many, many days have passed, and maybe even months. Although he knew how many days there were in a month, he did not know from what time and from what month to start the chronology, and in such a situation there was no need for him to do this. According to his approximate calculations, more than 4 months have passed since his return. The days began to shorten. This indicated the approach of winter. The first signs of Eva's pregnancy also began to appear. She got a little fatter in figure, and every day she took a long walk in the fresh air near the cave. They were both so happy inwardly, but they didn't admit it to each other. So the days passed, the weather became increasingly cloudy and cooler. One day, as usual, they came to the spring. She collected earthworms and edible herbs, and he collected firewood between small stunted trees. When the work was finished, Eva said;
– There are already fewer worms and edible herbs here. I will go down, further along the stream of the spring, perhaps I will find other places where we will get food, at the same time I will take a walk, and you, (it should be emphasized that after the night when Adam first kissed Eve, they switched to "you") take all this, get water and go to the cave.
Adam grumbled, barely audible, almost in a whisper, "the matriarchy has begun," however, he nodded his head to Eve in agreement, but immediately the thought flashed through his head that " while Eve is not in the cave, I will take a notebook and read a little." With such thoughts, he came to the cave and quickly got down to business. I lit a torch, went down and took out only a notebook from the hiding place, leaving other items next to the notebook there, I tightly closed the hiding place with a lid. It made it easier for him to hide the notebook, even if Eva accidentally came early. With such thoughts, with a notebook in his hand, he climbed up the cave to the exit of the cave. But Eve was already waiting for him there by the fire. She had on her hands his extraterrestrial clothes and shoes, which he threw away after returning to Earth. Adam stopped and froze. After all the ordeals of extraterrestrial life, he liked living with Eve so much. And although they lived on primitive conditions, they lived in human, mundane conditions of life and now he would never replace this earthly life with Eve with an alien, comfortable, but life alone. He was so happy that he had long forgotten about these things. It didn't even occur to him that one-day Eve would accidentally find his clothes and shoes. She looked him straight in the eyes, and in her looks you could read the question "why was I deceived, did not tell the truth, who are you?". There was no point in hiding the truth from her any further, and he began;
– I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'll explain everything now. I just thought that you would not believe me, that I am a person from the past, i.e. from a past Earthly life. Ya Ya. I'll start now…
Eva sat down by the fire and for the first time since they met, she began to cry. Probably, she was very offended that a loved one was hiding the truth about himself from her. He calmed her down in every possible way and kept saying;
– Dear, beloved, you are very smart and when I tell my whole story, you will understand everything and forgive me.
And without waiting for Eva to calm down at least a little, he put his arm around her shoulders and began to talk about how people used to live on earth, about the earth's civilization, about the peoples who inhabited the Earth, about the animal world, about birds, about the achievements of science and about when and how the catastrophe occurred on Earth. Then he told that he was an astronaut, during the thermonuclear war, he was on the ISS in near-Earth orbit with other crew members, and then he was saved by aliens and after three hundred years of extraterrestrial life, he returned to his native Earth. She listened in silence. Whether she understood all this or not, he did not know, but she did not ask any questions. The story lasted until late at night. They didn't even have dinner. So he finished his story and in his story described in general terms the forever lost human civilization. He understood that there would be many more questions, because to tell in general terms is one thing, but to explain and explain the previous achievements of humanity in detail, to Eve later, is another and will be very difficult. "After all, there is a beginning, and everything else will get better later," he thought and offered Eva a rest, promising that tomorrow he would read to her the notes left by her ancestors, and she would also be taught to read and write so that she could write and read herself.
She stood up in silence, took a stone thicket in her hand, drank water and looked in the direction of Adam. In the light of the dying torch, it was impossible to see the reaction of her face, but in her gaze Adam felt that his story had made a double impression on her. But without saying a word, Eve went up to Adam and hugged him tightly. There was something about it, an inexplicable pleasant feeling, a feeling of closeness to a loved one, and she suddenly spoke;
"I knew before that you weren't the person you pretended to be. After all, you always shouted excitedly in a dream, uttered various words, including those that I did not understand, "space, ship, crew, planet, war", sometimes even cried during sleep. I really didn't want to offend you, because you are the only person who is close and has already become a family for me, and I don't want to lose you. I was just waiting for you to tell me the truth yourself.