glowing signs the arrows.
The car stopped, smoothly sinking into the sand, finishing his move.
– Get the condemned man out! – There was a rough electronic voice of the senior group of the conclusion, party Defense.
The pleasant fresh air with the smell of salt water enveloped Zef Seth’s.
– The captain of the party Machinery, the Aik Semis! – Said low growth the man in the brown form, hiding the face under the helmet. His shoulder had the sign of the party, in the form of the atomic structure. – You are late.
– Some problems with the port, we had to drive here through the Farms… – Said a senior representative of the Defence unit. – There, now, your colleagues are working on it.
– Not fortunate – you will eat in his sector. Use. – Said Aik Semis to Zef Seth, and shouted to the servants of Defense that fussed at the cargo tank:
– Take this bastard!
Two young men ran up to the prisoner, and led Zef Seth, taking him by the shoulders, to his car. Because of the pulse guns on the sides and their work, in the form of transportation of large loads over long distances, the machine was called “cargo tank”. Such were only in Career, other continents did have this technique as unnecessary.
Zef Seth’s driven a car like this before, being still a Lieutenant, but in the detention compartment, he to visit for the first time.
The compartment was small and uncomfortable, it was necessary to settle down directly on a cold floor of armor of the tank, having bent under itself feet. A request: do not close the previous three sections are, ex colleagues Seth’s refused.
The road was long. The car was humming and shaking as if it was not moving through the air, in the perfectly smooth space of the bridge, but driving over bumps and bumps. Zef was constantly tossed so that he could not sleep.
How much time passed, Zef Seth didn’t know, but he felt no less than a day – when he heard the whistle of shot guns – it was the soldiers Defense, they fired the guns in wild birds that live in these parts. In Abyss wild animals could not get because of an invisible wall of plasma cells, which the hood covered the mainland, dont allowing the winged creatures to leave him, recognizing at the genetic level the structure of the fugitive. People, and other living creatures, it did not concern.
Soon ended with the whistle of shells.
The airbag broke out under itself fragments of a stone and a brick, loudly hitting them on the tank bottom under the prisoner. The car started shaking like she was standing on the vibrator, but soon all was quiet – the tank stopped.
The automatic doors of the compartments are opened one by one, and Zef in the beginning, stretched out his feet, after, stretched out on the floor in full growth.
– So you’re just gonna lie there? – the electronic voice of the soldier of Defense on other end of the car sounded again. Most likely, it was an officer, but without wearing a helmet, or turning off the internal chip, it is impossible to recognize the insignia, only chevrons with the sign of the party on his shoulder. – Come on out!
Bending like a snake, Zef Seth crawled to the exit, turned over and got to his feet.
The soldier of Defense, only touched handcuffs and those connected in a tube which was easily placed in a small hip pocket of the soldier.
“In this part of the planet, the sun has just appeared above the horizon. If we assume that we drove three hours, and the time difference is seven hours, then I must be in the third sector of the Abyss, – thought Zef – still ocean, felt his breath and the stone bridges over the sandstones. I’m definitely in sector three.”
Through a veil of twilight somehow were visible outlines of the aborigines. They came out of the building – the building looks more like an abandoned factory, or the home Community, only unkempt and less practical than in World. With a dozen people approached the cargo tank, headed by an old man, he talked about something for a long time with the Defense, while the new society looked at Zef Seth.
The elder patted the senior Defense detachment on the shoulder and approached the new man deposed by the Society. The short old man looked to be about one hundred and fifty years old: gray straight hair fell below his shoulders, slanting eyes the color of coal (they drowning in their darkness), a narrow wrinkled face, with a long beard sinking to his chest, owl’s eyebrows. He was dressed in a satin robe with wide sleeves that was belted woven from different skins of the beast with a belt.
– My name is Go Yang. – Introduce myself old man. – I’m the head of sector three. Come with us Zef Seth. We’ll figure something out.
Large containers, from the tank, were piled on the platform of the loader, and in return returned empty. Go Yang explained to the recruit that he will not work today, as Zef needs to sleep and rest.
As Zef Seth supposed, the building was an old house Society. The first floor consisted of some columns. It would be empty if it was not used as a garage: of two loaders, one column – a car and a double carrier, but they occupied only a corner at the end of the floor, in the opposite corner there is a warehouse of containers, but there were few of them.
The second floor (according to Go Yang’s explanation) was intended for joint pastime. There were departments: kitchen, living room to socialize, the gym. “Fortunately, though the toilet and shower in the rooms of the third floor.” Zef Seth Thought.
The third floor consisted of fifty rooms, most of which were empty, but twenty-one were occupied – the twenty-second was for Zef Seth.
It definitely resembled an apartment in the Community, except that instead of four residents, there was only one. The kitchen has been modernised to a high standard, or even the pantry, but still got here with nothing but a knife that gave him Go Yang from the guards. The knife cut not only the blade, but also at a distance of a meter of plasma-rays, like a cap over the mainland. This beam did not recognize the DNA of the essence, so it could be used both against an animate object and against an inanimate object, it was only necessary to press a small blue stone at the blade itself. The beam was extinguished carved metal sheath, painted black and gold flowers.
Zef Seth put his knife on the nails nailed to the center of the white wall of the empty pantry.
Hall, shower room, toilet, bedroom and storage room of this apartment have got was not even in Society. Sitting on a soft bed, not even disassembling it, Zef Seth fell asleep quite calmly, and would have slept until the evening, but he was awakened by a tall, two meters tall, black man. The man introduced himself to Tato Alya. He asked Zef to come downstairs for dinner. The face his was clean-shaven. Brown-eyed man with long arms, looked funny, with his lean physique, and a round curly head of hair on his head.
While going down to the second floor, Zef learned a little about Tato Alya. At the time, he was a Technician in the World, when he was thirty-nine years old, Tato decided to experiment with robots – he wanted to facilitate the work of Technicians, programming robots on their own repair, thus Tato reduced, in the number of people, his party. But someone upstairs thought it was a diversion, and Tato Alya was here. He is now Fifty-three years old. In a year that promised liberation and transfer to the island of old laymen. It was common – those who left the Abyss could not get into the World, so he was sent to the Islands, where he ended his life the old people of the parties in luxury. Zef checked the Defenses of such Islands, which were not far from the Farms, and seen waiting (as, at that time, Zef seemed) his relaxed old age.
Tato Alya spoke quickly – chattered incessantly.
The table was covered with all sorts of dishes: salads, meat of different kinds and preparations, sausages and lush bread. Such food, he did not like, his liking was more usual: in tubes or capsules, in extreme cases suspension, is at a meal