It was already late, charcoal went out, music was turned off, and young people, yawning and stretching themselves from time to time, leisurely dispersed to their rooms.
In the morning, Michael woke up everybody very early:
«Enough sleep, or you’ll sleep away your whole life!» he yelled, knocking on all doors.
After such an awakening, sleep was gone for good. All quickly got up and went to take a shower. Julia tore away a disposable tooth brush set from a hanging band. The set contained water for preliminary rinsing, toothpaste and mouth wash. She cleaned her teeth, tore away a new set and gave it to Linda. Having examined the novelty, Linda was impressed – she had never seen such a thing before.
In some time, the girls fixed themselves up and went downstairs.
In the yard Michael was capturing the dogs on video – they all at once were sticking their tongues out, to one side, trying to push something out of their mouths. The dogs tossed their heads, but nothing came of this. Something remained in their mouths.
Michael roared with laughter; the dogs, however, did not reveal any displeasure. It appeared he had stuck some soft sticky candies on the dogs’ posterior teeth. It was incomprehensible how they allowed him to do that.
This silent concert made everybody else laugh, too. Michael suggested:
«Let’s walk the dogs down the street to frighten passersby – nobody will understand what’s happened to them. The candies will take five minutes to melt, and then we’ll stick in some more…»
Nobody agreed, however, and the answer was unanimous – to leave the dogs in peace.
Breakfast was ready. The dining room was waiting for guests, and the company started eating up homemade buns and rolls, baked in advance by farsighted parents.
The sun burst free of the mountains’ grip, and began its visible stalking along the dome of the sky. Morning coolness was gradually transforming into daytime heat. It was better to go to the sea before the sun rose high.
From the mountain one could watch dozens of boats that combined leisure and morning fishing. They were one to two miles off-shore. One could even see rods, and caught fish, which sparkled in the sun near some fishers.
Chapter 3
Walking through the town, the friends dropped in a shop and bought lots of useful and necessary things – beach mats to lie on the sand, hats, water and fruit. In expectation of swimming in the sea, rest and sunbathing, they went to a far beach at the cape edge of the «Crocodile» mountain.
The trip was not long, and soon they came to the beach. Linda went first into the sea, splashing water on herself.
Michael couldn’t keep from sprinkling her wet back with sand. The sand clung to her body, and she plunged into the sea to wash it off. Having bathed, she began to splash water on her friends, who were cautiously coming into the sea. Wet from Linda’s splashes, the friends all at once plunged into the water. Then they all pounced on Linda and shoved her into the water. Linda, who did not want to get her hair wet, was quite wet now.
After long racing and diving for awhile, the friends decided to play beach volleyball. Their ball was well pumped, and, from time to time, after somebody’s heavy hit, it went into the sea. One of the friends, nearest to the water, had to swim to catch the ball not to allow it to be taken away by the current.
After playing and another long swim in the sea, the friends decided to get a tan. They put straw hats on, lay on their mats, closed their eyes, and let the sun work on them.
The sea was still. Only lightly breaking waves stroked the sand, filling the air with the sounds of splashing water and everlasting sand rustling.
Julia looked at her friends, sprawling on their mats, and decided to swim alone. She missed the sea so much, that she couldn’t lie on the beach for a long time.
Having taken snorkeling equipment out of the bag, Julia went into the sea, put on flippers, mask and snorkel, and swam along a man-made levee, built of big boulders and protruding into the sea for a short distance.
Clean cool morning water made it possible to examine the underwater world in detail. Small crabs and fish were fussing near their shelters, and immediately disappeared at the least danger. Larger specimens were there in deeper waters, and Julia fearlessly swam farther from the shore.
On the rock bottom, covered with swinging drift weeds almost everywhere, Julia could see small clearings of pebbles and sand.
Here, at this depth, crabs were larger, and Julia attempted to catch one of them with her hands. The crab was faster, however, and, in a sideways manner, quickly ran away and hid under a big stone.
Thanks to flippers, mask and snorkel she could not only swim at the distance of ten feet from the bottom, but also have a good look at the underwater world, surrounding her. Fish of every kind, swimming next to her and not in the least afraid of a human being, were iridescent. Colors were bright and rich in comparison with those in the air and, on the land, where they seemed to be their poor copies.
Clean shells, slightly rubbed with drift weeds and sea sand, were real masterpieces, created by nature – the greatest master.
Julia decided to collect some for her friends. Having filled her lungs with air as she was used to, Julia dived to get each shell that took her fancy and put it into the net, fixed to her waistband. Soon her net was full with shells.
Julia felt a bit tired and had already decided to swim back to the shore, when some unfamiliar voice called her:
«Come to us!»
Julia looked around, but saw nobody nearby. She thought she was hearing things and swam fast to the shore.
Swimming was becoming more and more difficult for Julia; her arms and legs became heavy. Julia thought that she spent too much time in the water for the first time and got tired. She wasn’t by the sea for a long time – she studied in another town, far from her home.
Julia turned over on her back to rest on the water.
The shore was not far, only about five hundred feet. She spread out her arms, slightly threw back her head into the water, and relaxed to gather strength.
At first the rest was pleasant. Julia closed her eyes to protect them from the bright sun, and enjoyed bobbing slowly on the small waves.
Suddenly, her body started slowly sinking into the sea, against her will. She could not cry – the water had already covered her face. Her friends were baking in the sun behind the man-made levee, and nobody saw her. Soon she heard the same voice. It calmed her:
«Don’t worry, you’ll be OK!»
Her sinking was gradually quickening. The sun turned into a small spot, hardly seen through the water above her, and, in an instant, disappeared at all. Her body was swung around and dragged into the depths at a great pace.
Julia was rushing along under the water with the speed of an express train. Fish, like fearful birds, scattered different ways. Larger fish and sea animals swerved to avoid collision.
Her travel was going on above a steep slope, ending abruptly into a fathomless pit. She was sweeping past ship and plane wrecks, which caught hold of the eroded rocky surface of the slope. Julia had no time to descry smaller details of the constructions on the slope.
Her physical state was very strange – she could see, but her body did not feel anything. Moving was fast and painless.
The first fear ceased, and Julia could already examine her surroundings more attentively. The slope ended, but her fall into a fathomless pit was going on.
Lower, the walls of the pit were upright and smooth, with rare bushes of underwater plants, which, by a miracle, caught hold of small hollows or cracks to survive.
Fish and sea animals she met on her way seemed to be brought here from some fantasy novel.
A huge squid, of the size of a carriage, was also plunging into the depth nearby. It was a slow and grand plunging – at least so it seemed to Julia. A sheet of water it let out sharply speeded its motion, tentacles stretched along its body, and the squid was plunging, in splendid solitude, until its motion was slowed down again. Then the whole process was repeated.
Some fish glowed in the darkness; others had only one or several lights, which twinkled in bottomless depths. It would seem amusing to Julia if she weren’t carried past one such visible light. It appeared the light was over a huge large-toothed mouth with prodigious lower jaw, decorated with several rows of sharp large teeth, which stuck out every way. The monster’s body was so long that Julia didn’t see its end. It was lost in the terrifying darkness of this underwater bottomless abyss.
Light did not filter through the water any more, and she was moving in full darkness. At last, the dragging down was over. It was the bottom of the abyss. Suddenly, a pale light appeared, and Julia could look everything over, as far as the lighting allowed it.
She saw that she was on a rocky bottom with small patches of sand in hollows. There was neither mud nor silt – a strong bottom stream carried everything away in this narrow crack. Only in some places on the walls there was dark brown moss, and rare shrubs jutted out here and there.
Julia ran her hand around and found a strange layer of water, surrounding all her body. It made possible living in the water, without oxygen, and protected her from the enormous pressure.
This water layer seemed to be alive. It consisted of water mussels, which were tightly clasped to each other; however, they were not staying still, but moving, gleaming with silver pearl with blue or coral tint, like small transparent sea eels.
She took only a quick look of at her surroundings. Her movement scared some flat fish, which jumped out from the bottom, raising the sand up, and swam away behind the rock.
Chapter 4
The light slightly intensified, and Julia found herself in a small grotto. She was being slowly and smoothly dragged to the rock. Part of the rock moved forward and then aside, forming a passage. Julia was dragged inside, and the rock behind her was closed at once.
She was in a poorly lit room. The water level was quickly falling down. Soon the water ran off, exposing a wet floor. Then the other part of the rock in front of her moved forward and aside. Julia came into an opening, leading to a big hall. The rock behind her was quietly closed.
The big hall was empty. It was a hemisphere with walls and floor looking as if made of stainless steel, polished to a high finish. On a metal cube in the center there was something like a biker’s helmet. Julia stopped and touched the wall – it was smooth and felt warm.
She heard the same voice:
«Take a seat and put the helmet on!»
Julia sat down on the cube and put on the helmet. The metallic pedestal was slowly caving in under the weight of her body, and soon took the shape of a convenient armchair, flowing around all her body. She felt warm and comfortable. With a light click, the helmet was switched on, and the surrounding scene shifted.
It was the Earth. The sun was hanging in the sky on its trajectory. The alternation of day and night was as usual but there was no moon and the constellations were located in different places.
The earth and the sea were the same, only their colors had changed, while plants and animals were quite different. There were lots of them, and they all were larger and more colorful than those growing on the Earth now.
Real giants with huge wings and oblong heads were flying in the sky.
The sun lighted up the surroundings evenly and not very brightly.
Everything was gigantic – the forest was huge, various large flowers were growing in glades. Flowers of similar sizes were trailing from some trees.
Giant insects of a human being’s height were flying among the trees.
Tremendous lizards and snakes were climbing in bright green grass several meters high.
Here and there some traces of the struggle for surviving were seen – broken bones, skulls, and trees, pulled out of the earth with roots.
The voice said:
«We are the Earth Keepers.
Your civilization is the sixth on this planet. The previous ones were wiped out by the United Civilization of the Galaxy «Milky Way», which includes the Earth planet.
At a certain stage of the mankind’s development, we put forward a fighter for a single combat with the Galaxy Civilization. The fortunes of the Earth’s population – whether they will live on or not – depend on the result of this combat.
It’s a standard procedure of admission to the community of civilizations of our Galaxy for any civilization. They want to know – to what extent we have developed and have established ourselves as a civilization.
Combats are carried out on the planet chosen by the Supreme Council of the Galaxy.
The place where they are carried out is always the same; so, we reproduced its exact copy. It is our training facility now. All scenes of battles we had have lost were built into the program. Besides, we added our own episodes. Now it’s the place where one can learn a lot.
If we win, the Sixth Civilization of the Earth will get a powerful impulse for further development, and, in several thousand years, it will become equal to other civilizations of the Galaxy. Not everything is so simple, though. There exists one more danger.
When all civilizations of the Galaxy join the United Civilization of the Galaxy «Milky Way», the next stage will be admission of our United Galaxy Civilization to the General Cosmic Civilization.
Loss means destroying the whole United Galaxy Civilization.
It will be the last, but the most complicated and dangerous exam. However, it’s still far in the future. Let’s not think about things that will not happen for some time.
We couldn’t pass the first trial – to win in mortal combat – and were thrown back for millions of years; that’s why we can’t use the knowledge of the United Galaxy Civilization.
After millions of years of necessary waiting and detailed analysis of all combats, which were carried out, we worked out a new training technique for our future fighter. The losses of the previous five civilizations gave us an enormous data base to analyze our defeats. This time we must win…»
Julia was listening and watching closely the scene taking place around her, while the voice was commenting on what was going on.
The space around her was transmitting the end of one of the earthmen’s combats for their right to life.
The battlefield took up all the visible space around the fighter. The ground was dug through all around; huge trees were broken or torn up by the roots; pits and gaps were being filled with water, and, in the distance, one could see large woodlands in conflagration.
Flame was coming up to the stars, forming fire whirlwinds. With frightful roaring, they were coming away from the main bulk of fire for a long distance from the burning woodland. The fire whirlwinds quickly died, burning and evaporating everything on their way, and then were soon displaced by new ones.
Large field stones were cleaved by powerful blows and scattered all over the field, up to the horizon.