Denis Michailovitsch left the railcar behind him and walked with them for another few minutes.
He and Hunter exchanged a few sentences – intentionally fragmented that Homer wouldn’t be able to decipher them.
“Where are you going to get them?” asked the colonel, grumpily
“They’re going to give me some. They can’t do anything else.” answered the hollow voice of the brigadier.
“Nobody is waiting for you. For them you died. Dead, you understand?”
Hunter stood still for a moment and spoke silently, more to himself than to the officer: “If it would be that simple.”
“To desert from the order is worse than death.” growled Denis Michailovitsch.
The brigadier made a surly gesture with his hand, as if he was saluting the colonel but at the same time cutting an invisible rope that was attached to an anchor. Denis Michailovitsch understood the gesture and remained at the pier, while the other two distanced themselves from the shore, slowly but steadily continuing their journey over the ocean of darkness.
The colonel took his hand from his forehead and gave the helmsman of the railcar the signal to start the motor.
He felt empty: There was nobody that he could give an ultimatum anymore, nobody that he could fight anymore. As the commander of the military of his lonely island in the sea he could now only hope that the small expedition wouldn’t sink, but to one day return from the other side, as proof that the earth was still round.
The last guard post in the tunnel had been directly behind the Kachovskaya, which every human soul had abandoned. As long as Homer could remember the inhabitants of the Sevastopolskaya had never been attacked from the east.
The yellow line seemed to not only separate two parts of the metro but to connect two planets with each other which were hundreds of light-years away from each other. Beyond this line the living area of the earth had changed into a lunar, dead landscape, and both were strangely similar. While Homer concentrated himself to not trip over his heavy boots he heard how his breath squeezed itself through the complex system of tubes and filters, imagining that he was an astronaut that somebody had abandoned him on the far reaches of a far away planet. He allowed his childish fantasy because it was easier to deal with the suit that way, because on this moon there was more gravity. He shivered with the thought that for many kilometers they would be the only living beings.
Neither scientist, nor science fiction writer had been able to foresee this future, thought the old man. In the year 2034 mankind would have already conquered half of the galaxy, or at least the neighboring sun systems, they had promised Homer that when he was young. But the authors of science fiction novels and the scientist had always believed that humanity would act rationally. As if it wasn’t made off a few billions of slow, careless and enjoyment seeking individuals, but some kind of bee hive with collective reason and a focused will. As if they had ever had the intentions to conquer space.
Instead they had been become bored with the game and had abandoned their goal halfway and turned to electronics at first then to biotechnology without getting any halfway impressing results in those areas. Maybe in nuclear physics.
And now he was here, a flightless astronaut, surviving only because of this space suit, a stranger to his own planet. Ready to conquer the tunnel between the Kachovskaya Nad and the Kaschirskaya. He could forget about all others and the survivors, he could no longer see the stars anyway.
Strange: Here past the yellow line his body moaned under gravity but his heart was weightless.
Days before the march to the Tulskaya, when he had said goodbye to Yelena he had known that he had to return. But when Hunter had chosen him as his companion for the second time he knew that this time it was serious. So he had prayed for a challenge, an enlightenment and he had finally been heard.
To be too afraid would have been stupid and unworthy. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to do his life’s work as a side job. But fate didn’t let itself be stopped. A motto said that it will come, maybe later, one last time… there would probably be no last time, and when he didn’t decide now if he weould still live?
Should he spent the time that he still had as Nikolai Ivanovitsch, the fool of the station, an old, slobbering and stupid smiling story teller?
But to transform himself from a caricature of the real Homer to his inheritor, to transform himself from a lover of the old myths to their creator, to raise from the ashes as a new human he first had to burn his old image. He believed that when he continued to doubt to give in to his longing for home and wife, continuously looking back at the past he would overlook something very important that been laying in front of him in the end. He had to cut that all from him. From this new expedition he would if at all not return unharmed. Of course he was sorry for Yelena. At first she didn’t believe that Homer had returned alive and healthy after one day. She had tried to keep him from embarking on this voyage, in vain.
When they parted ways in tears again he didn’t promise anything anymore. He pressed her against him and watched the clock over her shoulder. It was time to go. He knew that. He couldn’t amputate ten years of his life so easily and he would probably get phantom pains from doing so.
He had believed that he would have wanted to look back all the time. But as soon as he crossed the yellow strip it was if he had actually died and his souls had freed himself from the both heavy and unmoving wraps and ascended. He was free.
The suit didn’t seem to slow Hunter down. The clothing had transformed his muscular, wolf like figure into a formless mountain but it hadn’t limited his movement. He walked alongside the panting Homer but only because he didn’t want to leave him out of his sight.
After all he had seen ant the Nagatinskaya, the Nagornaya and the Tulaskaya it hadn’t been easy for Homer to agree on another journey with Hunter. But there was something that had convinced him. The brigadier’s presence had started his long awaited metamorphoses that promised his reincarnation. The old man didn’t care why Hunter carried him around again, let it be as a guide or walking provision.
The main thing was to not let this moment pass, to use it as long as it lasted, to imagine something, to write down something.
And then when Hunter had called for Homer he had felt that also wanted something of him. It wasn’t because he showed him the way in the tunnels or protected him from all possible dangers. Maybe the brigadier took something from the old man without asking for it while he gave him what he wanted?
But what would he need?
Hunter’s lack of emotions could no longer deceive Homer. Behind the crust of the paralyzed face magma cooked, and it shot over the crater of his eternally open eyes from time to time. He was uneasy. He was looking for something as well.
Hunter seemed to be perfect for the role of Homers epic hero in his book. At first the old man had hesitated but after a few tries he had acknowledged him. Even if many characteristics of the brigadier, his passion for killing, his silence and sparse gestures had made Homer careful. Hunter was like those murderers that gave the police cryptic messages so they could be caught. Homer didn’t know if the brigadier saw a priest waiting for a confession, a biographer or some kind of donor of something in Homer, but he felt that this attachment mutual. And that it would soon become stronger than his fear.
Homer couldn’t shake the feeling that Hunter was delaying a really important conversation. From time to time the brigadier looked at him as if he wanted to ask something but he remained silent. But maybe the old man had confused a wish with reality again and he wasn’t an unnecessary witness that Hunter would choke to death somewhere in the tunnel once unneeded.
More frequently the brigadiers gaze fell on the old man’s backpack where the mysterious diary was. He seemed to feel that Homers thoughts circled around a certain object and he closed in it, approaching slowly but steady. Cramped Homer tried not to think about the diary, in vain.
He hadn’t had much time to pack and had only spent a few minutes with the diary. Of course it hadn’t been enough to wet all with blood glued together pages and separate them from each other but he had been able to read a part of the pages. They were all over the place, the writing was in fragments and events weren’t in order, as if the author was in peril as he jotted down the words. So that they would make sense, Homer had to bring them in the right order.
