The story of K. N. Sergeyev, one of the members of the Apida archaeological research group
Not long ago in a popular science journal there appeared an extensive article about the strange events that had taken place between July and August last year near Stalinabad. Unfortunately, the author of the article evidently used second- and thirdhand material (from unreliable hands at that) and unwittingly presented the event and the circumstances that surrounded it entirely incorrectly. His discussions of “telemechanical subversives” and “silicon-based monsters,” as well as the contradictory reports from “witnesses” about burning mountains and cows and trucks being swallowed whole, do not stand up to any scrutiny. The facts of the matter were more straightforward and at the same time much more complex than these inventions.
When it became clear that the official report of the Stalinabad commission would not see the light of day any time soon, Professor Nikitin suggested to me that I should publish the truth about the Visitors, as I was one of very few actual witnesses. “Just put down what you saw with your own eyes,” he said. “Put down your impressions. Just how you presented them to the commission. You could even use our material. Although it would be better if you limited yourself to your own impressions. And don’t forget about Lozovsky’s diary. That’s your right.”
As I begin to tell my tale, I warn you that I will try with all my strength to follow the professor’s suggestion—to give you only my impressions—and I will set out the events as they took place from our point of view, from the point of view of the archaeological research group that was excavating what is known as the Apida Castle about fifty kilometers southeast of Pendzhikent.
There were six of us in the group. Three archaeologists: the leader of the group, “Bossman” Boris Yanovich Lozovsky; my old friend the Tajik Dzhamil Karimov; and myself. As well as us three there were two workmen, locals, and Kolya the driver.
The Apida Castle is a hill about thirty meters tall, in a narrow valley nestled among the mountains. A little river, very clean and cold, flows down the valley, filled with smooth round stones. The road to the Pendzhikent oasis runs along the river.
We excavated an ancient Tajik settlement at the top of the hill. Our camp was at the base of the hill: two black tents and a raspberry-colored flag with a drawing of a Sogdian coin on it (a circle with a square hole in the middle). A Tajik castle from the third century CE has nothing in common with the crenellated walls and drawbridges of the feudal castles of Europe. When they have been excavated, they show a design made of two or three flat squares, split up with walls two vershoks thick. Now what remains of the castle is only the floor. You can find burned wood, fragments of clay pots, and completely contemporary scorpions, and, if you’re lucky, an old green coin.
The group had a car set aside for its use—an ancient GAZ-51, which we used to go on long trips over the terrifying mountain roads, all for archaeological purposes. On the day the Visitors arrived, Lozovsky took the car to Pendzhikent to buy food, and we waited for him to come back. It was the morning of August 14. The car did not come back, and its disappearance marked the beginning of a chain of surprising and inexplicable events.
I was sitting in my tent and smoking, waiting for some pottery shards that I had piled into a bowl and sunk in the river to be washed clean. The sun seemed to be right at its zenith, although it was already three o’clock in the afternoon. Dzhamil was working at the top of the hill—loessial dust was blowing in the wind and you could see the white felt hats of the workers. The Primus stove was hissing, heating up some buckwheat kasha. It was stuffy, hot, and dusty. I smoked and wondered why Lozovsky would want to stay in Pendzhikent, now that he was almost six hours late. We were running low on kerosene; there were only two tins of food left, and half a packet of tea. It would be very unpleasant if Lozovsky didn’t come back today. Having thought up a convincing excuse (Lozovsky had decided to put a call through to Moscow), I stood up, stretched, and saw a Visitor for the first time.
It stood motionless in the door to the tent, a dull black color, like an enormous spider about the size of a large dog. It had a round, flat body, like a pocket watch, and jointed legs. I cannot describe it in any more detail. I was too shocked and scared. After a second it started to move and came straight for me. I watched, petrified, how it moved its legs slowly, leaving little holes in the dust—a monstrous silhouette against the yellow sunlit frangible clay.
You must realize that I had no idea that this was a Visitor. This was some kind of unknown beast, and it was coming for me, moving its legs in a strange way, silent and without any eyes. I took a step backward. There was a soft clicking noise, and a sudden flash of blinding light, so bright that I involuntarily screwed up my eyes, and when I opened them again, I saw through the red patch on my vision that it was already a step closer, inside the shade of the tent. “Oh Lord!” I muttered to myself. It stood next to our basket of supplies and seemed to be rummaging through it with its two front legs. It sparkled in the sun and suddenly one of the tins of food disappeared somewhere. Then the “spider” turned to one side and disappeared. The Primus stopped hissing; there was a metallic sound.
I don’t know what a hardheaded person would have done in my place. I couldn’t think straight. I remember that I shouted at the top of my voice, either trying to scare the “spider” or else trying to work up some courage myself; I went out of the tent and ran a few steps, then stopped, panting. Nothing had changed. The mountains were dozing around me, the sun flowing over them; the river rang like a cascade of silver, and the white felt hats were visible at the top of the hill. And then I saw the Visitor again. It was climbing the slope, circling the hill, lightly and noiselessly, as if sliding through the air. Its legs were almost impossible to see, but I could clearly make out its strange sharp shadow, running alongside it over the tough gray grass. Then it disappeared.
Then I was bitten by a horsefly, and slapped at it with a wet towel that, apparently, I had been holding in my hand. Shouts came down from the top of the hill—Dzhamil and the workers were coming down the hill and made a sign to me that I should take the kasha off the stove and put the kettle on. They hadn’t seen anything and were shocked when I greeted them with the strange phrase: “A spider took the Primus and the food.” Dzhamil said that was terrible. I sat in my tent and flicked cigarette ash into the pot of porridge. My eyes were white, and I kept looking around me in fear. Seeing that my old friend thought I had gone mad, I started hurriedly and contradictorily telling him what had happened, and managed to convince him that he was right. The workers came to a single conclusion from all of this: there was no tea and there was no chance of getting any. Disappointed, they silently ate the leftover kasha and sat in their tent to play Tajik card games, mostly bishtokutar. Dzhamil had a bit to eat, we smoked together, and then he listened to me again, slightly more calmly.
After thinking for a moment, he said that I must have got mild sunstroke. I immediately replied that first, I only went out into the sun wearing a hat, and second, where had the Primus and the food gone? Dzhamil said that I must have had a blackout and thrown everything into the river. I was offended at this, but all the same we got up and walked out in transparent water up to our knees, occasionally bending down to feel the bed with our hands. I found Dzhamil’s watch that he had lost a week before, and then we went back to the tents and Dzhamil started to muse a little. Was there a strange smell? he asked me. No, I replied, there didn’t seem to be a smell. And did the spider have wings? No, I didn’t see any wings on it. And did I remember what day of the month it was, and what day of the week? I got angry and said that in all likelihood it was the fourteenth, and that I didn’t know which day of the week it was, but that didn’t matter, as Dzhamil himself probably knew neither one nor the other. Dzhamil admitted that he only knew which month it was, and which year, and that we were stuck in a lonely backwoods with no calendars or newspapers.
Then we examined the area. Unless you count the half-erased holes at the entrance to the tent, there were no traces we could see. However, it became clear that the “spider” had taken my diary, a box of pencils, and a package containing all our most valuable archaeological finds, as well as the Primus and the food. “The bastard!” Dzhamil said in annoyance. Evening set in. A thick white fog rolled down the valley, the constellation of Scorpio shone above us like a three-toed paw, it smelled like a cool spring night. The workers went to sleep early, but we lay in the camp beds and discussed what had happened, filling the tent with clouds of stinking smoke from our cheap cigarettes. After a long silence Dzhamil politely asked me whether I was playing games with him, then said that there might be a connection between the appearance of the “spider” and the disappearance of Lozovsky. I had thought of that myself, but I didn’t say anything. Then he went over the things that had been taken once again and made the strange suggestion that the “spider” might be a thief in an odd disguise. I fell asleep.
I was woken by a strange noise, like the howl of powerful aircraft motors. I lay listening for a while. Something didn’t feel entirely right. Perhaps it was that I had been there a month and I had not seen a single airplane. I got up and looked out of the tent. It was late at night; my watch showed that it was half past one. The night was sown with sharp icy stars; the mountains were nothing but deep dark shadows. Then on the slope of the mountain opposite I saw a bright speck of light that headed downward, went out, and then appeared again, but some distance to the right. The howl grew louder.
“What is it?” Dzhamil asked alertly, pushing alongside me.
Something was howling close by, and suddenly a blinding blue-white light lit up the top of our hill. The hill seemed to have ice sparkling at its top. This lasted for a few seconds. Then the light went out, and the howling stopped. Darkness and silence descended like lightning over our camp. Frightened voices came from the workers’ tent. Dzhamil, invisible, shouted something in Tajik, followed by the sound of hurried steps over pebbles. Then there came the loud howling again over the valley, and then it died out and seemed to disappear somewhere in the distance. I thought that I had seen a long dark shape moving between the stars and heading to the southeast.
Dzhamil came over with the workers. We sat in a circle and for a long time said nothing, smoking and pricking up our ears at every sound. To tell the truth, I was afraid of everything—of the “spiders,” the impenetrable moonless dark, the secret rustlings that could be heard above the chatter of the river. I think that the others felt the same. Dzhamil whispered that we were doubtless right in the middle of some significant event. I did not argue. Finally we all felt very cold and went back to our tents.
“Well, what do you have to say now about sunstroke and thieves in disguise?” I inquired.
Dzhamil said nothing for a while, and then asked: “What if they come back?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
But they didn’t come back.
The next day we climbed up to the excavation site and ascertained that not a single shard was left of anything that had been found the previous day: all the pottery fragments had disappeared. The flat square where the excavation had concentrated was covered in little holes. The mound of excavated soil had been knocked flat and looked as if someone had passed a steamroller over it. The wall was broken in two places. Dzhamil bit his lips and looked at me closely. The workers muttered to one another and came closer to us. They were scared, and so were we.
Lozovsky had still not come back with the car. For breakfast we ate stale bread and drank cold water. When the bread was finished, the workers, expressing their wish to send the job to the devil, took their hoes and went up the hill, while I, after discussing the matter with Dzhamil, pulled my hat on and set off firmly down the road to Pendzhikent, trying to hitch a ride in a car.
The first few kilometers went by uneventfully, and I even sat down a couple of times to smoke. The sides of the valley came together and then moved apart, dust blew over the twisting road, the river sang as it flowed. Several times I saw a flock of goats or some cows grazing, but never any people. There were about ten kilometers to go before the next inhabited area when a black helicopter appeared in the sky above me. It flew low along the road, passed over my head with a dull howling noise, and disappeared round a curve of the valley, leaving a blast of hot air behind it. It was not green, like our military helicopters, or silver, like a passenger vehicle. It was black and glinted a little in the sun like the barrel of a rifle. Its color, its strange shape, and the noise it made: all of these reminded me of what had happened yesterday, of the “spiders,” and I was frightened again.
I started to walk faster, then started running. I saw a car around the corner, a GAZ-69, with three people standing around it and looking up into the empty sky. I was worried that they would leave, and so I called to them and ran as fast as I could. They turned round, then one of them lay down on the ground and crawled under the car. The other two, broad-shouldered and bearded fellows, geologists by the look of it, continued looking at me.
“Will you take me to Pendzhikent?” I called.
They were silent and stared at me, and I thought that they hadn’t heard what I said.
“Hello,” I said as I came up to them. “Salaam alaikum….”
The taller of the two men turned away in silence and got into the car. The shorter man said, very grumpily, “Hi,” and went back to looking at the sky. I looked up too. There was nothing there, except a large and immobile vulture.
“Are you going to Pendzhikent?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“Who are you?” the shorter man asked. The tall man got out of the car and stretched, and I saw a pistol in a holster at his belt.
“I’m an archaeologist. We’re excavating the castle at Apida.”
“What are you excavating?” the shorter man asked more politely.
“The castle at Apida.”
“Where is that?”
I explained.
“Why do you need to go to Pendzhikent?”
I told them about Lozovsky and about the situation in the camp. I did not mention the “spiders” or what had happened last night.
“I know Lozovsky,” the taller man said suddenly. He swung his legs out of the car and lit his pipe. “I know Lozovsky. Boris Yanovich?”
I nodded.
“A good man. Of course we would take you, comrade, but as you can see we’re cooling our heels ourselves….”
“Georgey Palich,” came a reproachful voice from under the car, “you know it’s the driveshaft….”
“Stop your nonsense, Petrenko,” the tall man said lazily. “I’ll fire you. I’ll fire you and pay you nothing….”
“Georgey Palich…”
“There it is, there it is again!” the shorter man said. The black helicopter came over the hill and hurried down the road straight toward us.
“Lord only knows what kind of vehicle it is!” the shorter man said.
The black helicopter lifted up into the sky and hung over our heads. I didn’t like this at all, and had already opened my mouth to say something, when suddenly the tall man said in a strangled voice: “It’s coming down!” and leaped out of the car. The black helicopter came lower and a wicked round hole opened up in its underside, and it came lower and lower, straight for us.
“Petrenko, get away from the damn car!” the taller man said, and grabbed me by the sleeve to pull me away.
I ran, and so did the shorter geologist. He shouted something, opening his mouth wide, but the roar of the motors covered all other sounds. I crouched in the ditch by the side of the road with my eyes filled with dust, and was able only to see Petrenko hurrying toward us on all fours and the black helicopter settling on the road. The updraft of the powerful rotors tore my hat off and surrounded us with a cloud of yellow dust. Then there was the same blinding light as before, brighter than the sun, and I shouted out from the pain in my eyes. When the dust settled, we saw that the road was empty. The GAZ-69 had disappeared. The black helicopter flew up along the valley…
…and I never saw the Visitors or their craft again. Dzhamil and the workers saw a single helicopter that day and two more on August 16. They were not flying particularly high, and kept to the course of the road.
My further adventures were only connected tangentially to the Visitors. Together with the traumatized geologists I managed somehow to hitchhike my way to Pendzhikent. The taller geologist spent the whole time looking at the sky; the shorter one swore to himself and said that if this was a “trick by his friends at the flying club,” then they’d get what was coming to them. Petrenko, the driver, was completely stunned. Several times he piped up to say something about the driveshaft, but no one listened to him.
They told me in Pendzhikent that Lozovsky had left on the morning of the fourteenth, but that our driver Kolya had come back that evening and had been picked up by the police, because it was obvious that he had stolen the car and dealt with Lozovsky, but he didn’t want to say how and where he had done it, and all he did was to try to explain himself with some rubbish about an attack from the air.
I hurried to the police station. Kolya was sitting with the duty officer on a wooden bench and was suffering greatly from human injustice. According to his account, about forty kilometers outside Pendzhikent Boris Yanovich had decided to make a detour to look at a tepe, a mound that he suspected covered an archaeological site. Twenty minutes later the helicopter turned up and took the car. Kolya ran after it for about a kilometer, didn’t manage to catch up with it, and came back to look for Lozovsky. But Lozovsky had also vanished without a trace.
Then Kolya went back to Pendzhikent and on his honor told people what had happened, but things got out of hand….“You’re going to catch it!” the duty officer said angrily, but just at that moment my two geologists and Petrenko came into the police station. They came to make a statement about the disappearance of their car, and asked with mild irony which department it was that dealt with acts of aerial hooliganism. Kolya was released within half an hour.
This was not, I should add, the end to Kolya’s troubles. The Pendzhikent district attorney announced that he would be opening an investigation into the case of “the disappearance and supposed murder of citizen Lozovsky,” and cited Kolya as a suspect, and Dzhamil, the workers, and myself as witnesses. This case was only shelved after the arrival of the commission under Professor Nikitin. I don’t want to write about this and I am not going to, because what I am talking about here is the Visitors, and new information was being turned up about them every day. But the most interesting information was provided by our “Bossman,” Boris Yanovich Lozovsky, himself.
We spent a long time musing about possible answers, trying to work out where the Visitors had come from and why they had come. There were a huge number of contradictory opinions, and things were only cleared up when, in the middle of September, they found the Visitors’ landing site and Boris Yanovich’s diary. They were discovered by a border patrol that was investigating the traces of witness accounts of the black helicopters. The landing site was in a hollow surrounded by mountains, fifteen kilometers to the west of Apida Castle, a smooth space with melted rock at its edge. It was about two hundred meters in diameter, and the ground was scorched in many places, and all vegetation—grass, thistles, two mulberry trees—had been charred beyond recognition. One of the missing cars was found there (it was the GAZ-69), clean and serviced but without any fuel, as well as a few objects made of an unknown material and of unidentifiable purpose (they were handed over to the research group), and—most important of all—the diary that the leader of the Apida research group, Boris Yanovich Lozovsky, had kept, containing many surprising handwritten notes.
The diary was lying on the backseat of the car, and it had not been affected by the damp or the sun, it was only a little dusty. It was a standard exercise book with a brown cardboard cover and two-thirds of it was filled with descriptions of the Apida Castle excavations and notes on further archaeological exploration in the surrounding area. But at the end there were twelve pages filled with a short account which, in my opinion, is at the same level as any novel and many scientific and philosophical works.
Lozovsky wrote it in pencil, always (to judge by the handwriting) very quickly and sometimes not in a particularly connected manner. Some of what he wrote is incomprehensible, but lots of it also shines a light onto certain previously unclear elements of what happened, and the entire document is extremely interesting, especially insofar as its descriptions of how Lozovsky faced the Visitors are concerned. The notebook was handed over to me in my capacity as the temporary head of the Apida archaeological research group by the Pendzhikent district attorney immediately after the case of the “disappearance and supposed murder” had been closed “for lack of evidence of a crime.” I give the whole text below, making comments at a few points that need clarification.
[There is a drawing of something not entirely unlike the cap of a fly agaric mushroom—a severely flattened cone. Next to it are drawn for comparative purposes a car and a man. The caption reads “Spaceship?” The cone has several spots marked on it, and these have arrows pointing to them and the caption “Exits.” At the top of the cone is written “Load here.” To one side: “Height, 15 m. Diameter at base, 40 m.”]
The helicopter has brought back another car, a GAZ-69, number-plate ZD19-19. The Visitors [Lozovsky was the first person to use this word] climbed into it, took the engine out, then loaded it into the ship. The hatches are narrow, but the machine went in somehow. Our car is still down on the plain. I unloaded all the food and they are not touching it. They don’t pay me any attention at all, it’s a little offensive, even. I suppose I could leave, but I won’t go just yet….
[Here there is a very bad drawing, obviously supposed to show one of the Visitors.]
I can’t draw. A black disk-shaped body about a meter in diameter. Eight legs, though some have ten. The legs are long and thin, like a spider’s, with three joints. The joints can turn in any direction. There are no obvious eyes or ears, but it is clear that they can see and hear very well. They can move very fast, like black streaks of lightning. They can run up an almost vertical cliff, like flies. It’s odd that their bodies are not divided into thorax and abdomen. I saw how one of them managed, while running, without stopping and without turning its body, to move rapidly to the side and then back again. When they come close to me, I can detect a fresh scent like the smell of ozone. They chitter like cicadas. A rational creature […the phrase is left unfinished.]
The helicopter has brought a cow. A fat, stupid, Jersey cow. As soon as she was down on the ground she started to nibble at some of the charred thistles. Six Visitors surrounded her, chittering and apparently arguing with one another. They are extremely strong—one of them grabbed the cow by her legs and easily turned her over onto her back. They loaded the cow into the ship. Poor creature. Are they gathering supplies?
I tried to start up a conversation: I went over to them face-to-face. They ignored me.
The helicopter has brought a haystack and loaded it….There are at least twenty Visitors and three helicopters….
They are following me. I walked behind some rocks. A Visitor came after me, chirruped, paused….
This must be a spaceship. I sat in the shade of the cliff and suddenly the Visitors came running over from all different directions. Then the ship suddenly lifted a few feet up into the air and then came down again. Light as a dandelion. No noise, no fire, no sign that there are motors working. But the stones complained as the ship came down….
One of them, it seems, does have eyes—five shining buttons on the edge of its body. They are all different colors: from left to right, turquoise, dark blue, violet, and then two black ones. Maybe they are not eyes, because their owner spends a lot of its time walking in the opposite direction from the way in which they are pointed. The eyes sparkled in the twilight.
I slept very little last night. The helicopters kept coming and going, the Visitors ran around and chirruped. And all of this in absolute darkness. There were occasional bright flashes….A fourth car, another GAZ-69, number-plate ZD73-98. Again without its driver. Why? Do they pick a moment when the driver has left the car?
A Visitor caught some lizards, very skilfully. It ran on three legs and with the remaining ones picked up sometimes as many as three lizards at a time….
Yes, I could leave if I wanted. I have just come back from the bottom of the cliff. From there it’s only a stone’s throw to Pendzhikent, only about three hours on foot. But I don’t leave. I need to see how this ends….
They’ve brought a whole flock of sheep, about ten of them, and a huge amount of hay. They’ve already managed to find out what sheep eat! Clever things! It is clear that they want to take the sheep and the cow back alive, or else that they are laying in stocks of everything. But I still cannot understand why they are ignoring people so absolutely. Or are people less interesting to them than cows? They’ve loaded up our car now.
…they also understand. What if I were to fly off with them? To try to get them to take me or else just sneak into the ship. Would they let me?…
…Two propellers, sometimes four. Can’t count how many blades the propellers have. About eight meters long. Made of some matte-black material, without obvious joins. I don’t think it’s metal. Something like plastic. Don’t know how to get inside. No hatches that I can see….[This must be a description of the helicopters.]
I must be the only person in the area. It’s scary. But how else could it be? I need to fly, that’s clear….
Hedgehogs have appeared at the top of the ship again. [This makes no sense. Lozovsky mentions hedgehogs nowhere else in his account.] They spin round, give off sparks, and vanish. A strong smell of ozone…
A helicopter came back, fist-sized dents in its side. It landed, sunk in on itself [?], and just now two of our fighter jets have come over the hills. What happened?
The Visitors have carried on running around as if nothing has happened. If they do end up fighting […phrase unfinished.]
[…] theoretically […unclear…] must explain. Of course they don’t understand. Or else they think it’s unworthy of them….
Astonishing. I’m stunned. Are they machines? Not two meters away from me two Visitors repaired a third! I couldn’t believe my eyes. An unusually complex mechanism, I can’t describe it, even. It’s a shame that I’m not an engineer. But maybe that wouldn’t have helped. They took off the base plate, and underneath there’s a star-shaped […unfinished]. There’s a storage space under the belly, but how they get all their things in there, I don’t know. Machines!
They put it back together, leaving it with just four legs but adding something like a gigantic claw. As soon as the repairs were finished, the “newborn” ran off and hurried to the ship….
Most of their body is made up of a star-shaped object made of some white material, like pumice or sponge….
Who is the Controller of these machines? Maybe the Visitors are being controlled from inside the ship?
Thinking machines? Nonsense! Cybernetic objects, remote controlled? Amazing either way. And what stops the Controllers from coming out? They understand the difference between people and animals. That’s why they don’t take people. Humane. They must have taken me by accident….My wife won’t forgive them….
…never, never to see her again—that’s terrifying. But I am a man!
The chances of survival are very small. Hunger, cold, the cosmic rays, a million other accidents. The ship is clearly not designed for stowaways. Maybe I’ve got a chance in a hundred. But I don’t have the right not to take it. I have to make contact with them!
Night, midnight. I’m writing by lamplight. When I turned it on, one of the Visitors came running up, grumbled at me, then left. The Visitors have been building something all evening, like a tower. First three wide gangways came out of three of the hatches. I thought that the controllers would finally come out. But what came down were lots of components and metal [?] bars. Six Visitors set to work. The one with the claw was not among them. I watched them for a long time. Their movements were exact and sure. The tower was built in four hours. How well they coordinate things! I can’t see anything now, it’s dark, but I can hear the Visitors running around on their landing site. They move perfectly well without the light, they haven’t stopped working for a moment. The helicopters are still flying around….Let’s suppose that I […unfinished.]
…To the person who finds this notebook. I request that you send it to the following address: The Central Asia Department, The Hermitage, Leningrad.
On August 14 at 0900 hours I, Boris Yanovich Lozovsky, was taken by a black helicopter and brought here, to the Visitors’ camp. Until today I have tried as best I can to make a note of all my observations […a few lines are erased…] and four cars. My basic conclusions. 1. These Visitors are from elsewhere, from Mars or Venus or some other planet. 2. The Visitors themselves are extremely complex and perfectly put-together machines, and their spaceship works automatically.
The Visitors have examined me, undressed me, and, I believe, recorded images of me. They have not caused me any harm and after their initial studies they have not paid me any attention. I was left in complete liberty….
The ship is, to all appearances, preparing to depart, since this morning all three black helicopters and five of the Visitors were taken to pieces in front of me. My food was loaded on board. All that has been left on the landing stage is a few pieces from the construction of the tower and one of the GAZ-69s. Two Visitors are still scrabbling around under the ship and two are strolling around nearby. I sometimes see them at the top of a hill….
I, Boris Yanovich Lozovsky, have decided to climb on board the Visitors’ ship and fly with them. I’ve thought it all through. I have enough food at least for a month: I don’t know what will happen then, but I need to fly. I think I will climb on board the ship, find the cow and the sheep, and stay with them. First of all, they will be company for me, and secondly, they are a source of meat if necessary. I don’t know what to do about water. But I have a knife, and if necessary I can drink blood….[Crossed out] If I manage to survive—and I am pretty sure I will—then I will use all my efforts to try to make contact with the Earth and come back along with the Controllers of the Visitors. I think I should be able to come to some agreement with them….
To Mariya Ivanovna Lozovskaya: My dearest Mashenka, my love! I hope that these lines will reach you when everything is already sorted out. But if the worst does happen, then do not judge me. I can do nothing else. Just remember that I have always loved you, and forgive me. Give Grishka a kiss. When he grows up, tell him about me. Maybe I was not such a bad person after all, not so bad that my son will not feel proud of his father. What do you think? That’s it. One of the Visitors who was running around on the cliffside has just come back to the ship. So. Lozovsky, time to get to work! It’s scary. Or maybe that’s nonsense. They are machines, and I’m a man….
At this point the manuscript breaks off. Lozovsky obviously never went back to the car. He did not go back because the ship took off. Skeptics may talk about an accident, but then they do that: they’re skeptics. Right from the start I was sincerely and perfectly sure that our “Bossman” is alive and is seeing things we have never dreamed of.
He will return, and I will envy him. I will always envy him, even if he does not return. He’s the bravest man I know.
Yes, it’s a fact that not everyone is capable of such a feat. I have spoken to a lot of people about him. A few of them have said, openly, that they would be too scared to do what he did. Most of them say: “I don’t know. It all depends on the circumstances.” I would not be able to act as he did. I saw one of the “spiders,” and even now, now that I know they are nothing but machines, I still don’t feel I could face them. And the terrible black helicopters…Imagine yourself in the bowels of an alien spaceship, surrounded by unliving mechanisms, imagine yourself flying over an icy desert—without any hope, unsure where you are going—flying for days, months, maybe even years, imagine all of this and you can see what I’m thinking.
And that is all. A few words about some things that happened a long time ago. In the middle of September, Professor Nikitin’s commission came from Moscow, and all of us—me, Dzhamil, Kolya the driver, the two workers—were made to fill reams of paper and give answers to thousands of questions.
It took us about a week to do this, then we returned to Leningrad.
Maybe the skeptics are right, and we will never know anything about the nature of our guests from the beyond, about how their spacecraft was put together, about their marvelous machines that they sent to visit us on Earth, about—this is the most important of all—the reason for their unexpected visit, but whatever the skeptics say, I think that the Visitors will return. Boris Yanovich Lozovsky will be their first interpreter. He will know the language of these distant neighbors perfectly: he will be the only one who can explain to them what caused a car in perfect condition to end up alongside fragments of a pitcher sixteen centuries old.