Chapter 12

 Somerset opened his eyes. His head was heavy, and the light unbearable. The doctor, who had probably initiated his awakening, was standing on the platform, holding onto the handrail of his "trough."

 - Earth soon? - Somerset said with a tongue that was hard to hear.

 - Thirty-five hours left, - the doctor said, pulling the tube out of his nose, - You'll have plenty of time to get yourself together, cowboy.

 - Cowboy, - Somerset mimicked, grinning, - Actually, I'm not a cowboy. I'm Brazilian.

 - You'll tell me later. Now lie down for ten minutes, - she pointed to the console-terminal screen, - If the green sign lights up earlier, take the package and fly to be processed.

 - Yes, I know, I've been on flights.

 - I never know, maybe you forgot. Okay, breathe evenly.

 It is unlikely that the last phrase was said because Somerset had to maintain a certain breathing rate - the unceremonious doctor threw out a meaningless phrase just like that. Pushing off the handrails, she moved to the next "patient". Meanwhile, the muscles began to thaw - one drug was now replaced by a completely different one - Somerset asked that doctor about it on the first day. About half an hour later, Somerset, who had taken an unceremonious shower, more like a car wash, arranged in the chamber that was called "processing", was already making his way along the tunnel to a compartment that fit the definition of a wardroom. Now it was necessary to climb the ladder that ran along the wall of a fifty-meter vertical shaft. In zero gravity it was just a tunnel, but now it was a mine. Fortunately, the gravity was twelve percent of the earth's. Having completed exercises in climbing and going around safety nets, Somerset reached the internal airlock. - Good morning! - the first to notice Somerset appearing said cheerfully, slightly mockingly, implying a joke, and having become familiar with Dupare.

 - The same to you! - Somerset answered, slightly frowning, - What's up with you? You must have had a good time, didn't you? - he turned to the others, - While we were lying there half-dead, you were eating our food and drinking beer?

 - That's why they put you to bed, - another voice responded, - And it will also reduce the load on the toilet.

 Everyone laughed.

 - Why? - Somerset answered coldly, - You will work out these norms for everyone. This was a typical manner of speaking for representatives of the vanguard of humanity abandoned on Mars. Sometimes this allowed everyone to feel cooler in comparison with the rest of the wimps who never left Earth. Now, however, everyone had the opposite task - to integrate back into the society of those same wimps. There were enough adventures.

 - Okay, seriously now, - Somerset changed his tone, - What and how?

 - Thirty-five hours to the ground. Most of the speed has long been lost. On the way, we got into a storm. It was a real butthurt. It was probably even easier for you.

 - Of course, Somerset answered, - That's what you need. - I came to the conclusion that you need to fly in a storm. I even had dreams. Like I found a mountain of rhodium ingots in a garbage dump on Earth. Someone laughed approvingly.

 - They report from the control room that the computer has entered their, the Earth network, but there is no voice or video communication, - Dupare said. It must be because of martial law.

 - Really? And why is there no civilian communication? Some illegal one? We are already close.

 - Maybe there already is, - answered a rather young communications engineer, whom Somerset barely knew.

 - Then let's fly to the pilots' compartment and find out what's going on? There aren't many people now, everyone's still asleep. There's nothing else to do.

 - No, it's not worth it, - answered Dupare.

He answered in a not very pleasant tone, seemingly softer than usual, and at the same time not tolerating objections.

 - Why is that? - Somerset still objected, - They are the same pilots as... I could have been there, or any of us. I was once given the chance to fly a shuttle. I flew. The computer, after all...

 - So why weren't you there now, in the pilots' compartment, in their place?

 - Well, I don't know... There were others.

 - So stay here and don't bother them, - Dupare concluded, slightly cheered up by the victory he had won.

 - Okay, whatever you say, - Somerset gave in and began to fasten himself to one of the seats.

Then Dolbin flew into the side hatch of the compartment.

 - There you are! Are you awake? - he turned to Somerset.

 - As you can see.

 - Let's play, nobody here knows how to?

 - He's had enough of everyone, - someone's voice sounded good-naturedly. It was Leita - she, like Dolbin, and their entire group, were lucky enough to draw a lot that freed them from the need to fall into suspended animation.

 - A wide gaming phone with a game running immediately appeared in front of Somerset.

 - Why not play. There's nothing else to do anyway, - Somerset agreed and reached for his own.

The rest of those present were bored, looking at the screen in front of them with some half-century-old film.

 Somerset, almost without looking, made the usual movements on the screen and soon was ready to drive old cars along the streets of Paris with Dolbin on various gangster cases.

 In a small window made of thick lead glass, one of several arranged in a less protected compartment, a small Earth with a very tiny Moon was visible. They were approaching.

 The ship was racing along its previously elongated orbit somewhere in the vicinity of the trajectory along which the Earth was floating. The moment of the start of the corrective braking cycle was approaching, when the ship would begin to drop its speed by one and a half meters per second every second. Such a maneuver created a feeling of gravity of about a sixth of the Earth's and this was a rather intense load on the entire ship - a rare case when the acceleration exceeded one meter per second squared. This was supposed to continue for five hours. This was docking to orbit. When the corridor was in a favorable configuration, such a maneuver was reduced to a minimum. This was not the case - no one wanted to tie the escape to navigation conditions with excessive scrupulousness.

 - "This is not clean," - a message appeared in the corner of the display, in the place that was reserved for the internal chat.

 - What are you talking about? - Somerset said, spoke silently, only moving his lips. The phrase read by the camera immediately appeared below.

 - Keep your tongue out, - said the answer.

Somerset tore his gaze away from the screen and glanced at Dolbin. He was watching him. Seeing that Somerset finally saw him, he glanced around the compartment and nodded. Considering that such a simple correspondence could fit into the context of a toy about gangster adventures, Dolbin's ingenuity had to be given credit. - Let's go get a bite to eat, - was another message.

Somerset sent "OK" and began to unbuckle himself. Meanwhile, Dolbin demonstratively took out his tobacco inhaler.

 - What's the matter? - asked Somerset, when they both flew up to the sliding plastic door, behind which was a compartment of one of the galleys.

 - Let's talk now, - answered Dolbin, grabbing the handles of the doors.

Both flew into the galley - a nook slightly larger than an ordinary elevator, with a row of doors from which the selected briquettes were served - simple dishes wrapped in edible film. Eating had to be done behind a closed door, and then it was necessary to "clean up after yourself" - turn on the system of the supply and exhaust, removing all the crumbs and drops. This way you could afford not a jumble in tubes, but something closer to the usual form.

 - Did you know anyone who tried to contact Earth? - Dolbin asked, running his finger along the display, where a list of available dishes was displayed. - Well, someone, sometime, maybe. The optics are blocked, for the radio you need a person with a receiving station.

 - Have you ever wondered why? Three hundred years ago, the Soviets sent probes and photographed the surface. Then American toy cars sent videos to Earth, and we…

 - No one has time to mess around. And there is no complete information isolation. What's the matter?

 - That's how the staff is selected - no one should have time, and in general they don't want to deal with non-core technology. That guy, well, the lanky one, the communications engineer…

 - John Walter, - Somerset remembered.

 - Yes, him. So, he managed to get on the Earth's Internet. A couple of hours ago.

 - What a great guy. And what did he hack?

 - He didn't hack anything. Of course he hacked, but only a communications satellite. It doesn't really count. He would have been blocked as a subscriber with an unknown identifier. He got around it. As a result, he somehow contacted some woman of his through a regular social network.

 - Well done. I'm happy for him.

 - Well, the thing is that no one on Earth knows about our rebellion.

 - Did she write to him?

 - Well, yes.

 - And where does she live? In the city? Or in a village of three houses?

 - Yes, everything has already been confirmed. He contacted someone else later. And she did too. And they don't have martial law, or default. Or any of that crisis at all.

 - And what does all this mean?

 - Who the hell knows.

 - And you don't want us to call him, - Somerset said.

 - Oh, I see. Do you think I've gone crazy or something?

 The training program also included a medical course. In addition to all these methods of providing first and not only first aid, there was such a rather controversial thing as an introduction to the basics of psychiatry. It was a very odious science and they warned that you shouldn't look for all these disorders in yourself. However, further developments showed that it was not useless. In the conditions of space and Mars, moving a little was not something extraordinary. Such people could usually become a little detached, carry all this entertaining nonsense about world conspiracies. At the same time, they performed their work duties exactly the same as before the breakdown, and after a simple therapy of several injections of sleeping pills, they usually returned to normal. The whole point was that these were healthy people. If they were real psychos, there would be no such easy solution to the problem. Although voluntarily staying in that world of the red planet - that was also a kind of madness. Not medical, but some kind of social.

 - I'm just interested in what this Walter will say, - Somerset answered the clearly nervous Dolbin, - Maybe he would let us contact someone. I still have friends. Do you have relatives?

 - Here! One more thing! - Dolbin answered, - I only have a second cousin and an aunt. Have you ever wondered why they started choosing those who had no one? It's a rare combination. Very rare, an advanced specialist and no relatives. There was nothing like that in the first waves, and then...

 - Well, that's a well-known fact. You know it yourself.

It was all really simple and logical - despite all the high-tech, working in a space mining complex was dangerous. So there were lawsuits with payments, and there was just damage to the image. Of course, there would be millions and millions of penniless people all over the Earth who would be ready to fly even on coal traction, but they, the penniless people, in turn, did not fit the necessary criteria.

 Here Dolbin began to outline his plan. Or rather, the plan, according to him, was thought out by three - Him, Leita and this Walter. The idea was to raise as much noise as possible so that on Earth they would find out as early as possible that that separatist rebellion had already taken place on Mars. It was necessary to cling to Earth as tightly as possible in terms of information. It all came down to the former security service representatives present on the ship. They were a problem. They could not be trusted.

 While Dolbin was laying out his plan, Somerset wanted nothing more than to hear something about all this from someone else, from Leita or Walter. While Somerset was lying in the dock and dreaming about the wealth found near the dumpster and some other porn, those who did not fall into suspended animation were apparently subjected to strong and unusual physiological stress - after all, the dashing orbit lay quite close to the Sun, almost comparable to the Venusian one at perihelion.

 With each new point of the plan, Dolbin caused Somerset new and increasing concerns. A radical version of the idea involved hijacking the Shuttle as it was landing and landing it in some relatively crowded place. That way, the secret services would have no way of hiding, as Dolbin put it, an awl in a sack. And in the ass - he added that too.