http://www.philipjosefarmer.tk/

Biography

Literary activity

From the beginning of the 40s he began to write. The first publication - a small realistic story "O'Brien and Obrenov" (O'Brien and Obrenov) - appeared in 1946 in the magazine "Adventure" (Adventure). Over the following years, Farmer wrote persistently, and his novel Lovers, published in 1952, earned him the newly established Hugo Award for Most Promising Author (in 1961 Farmer published it as a separate book). After the publication and success of two of his stories “Sail! Sail! " (Sail On! Sail On !, 1952) and "Mother" (Mother, 1953), Farmer quits his job and goes to "free bread", which at that time was a very bold step (for writing science fiction paid not very much) ... And, as if in punishment for insolence, his beginning of the literary career of a professional writer was not strewn with roses.

His first novel, I Owe for the Flesh, wins the SF Writing Competition announced by the Chicago-based Shasta Press, founded by Melvin Korshak. But the writer not only did not wait for the well-deserved prize of 4,000 dollars, but also did not see his work published. The publishing house went bankrupt and sunk into oblivion. The manuscript of the novel was lost. Later revised portions of the novel were published as short stories. On their basis, the first book "Riverworld" (The World of the River) was later written. Another of his novels, "Animals of the Forest," prepared for the magazine "Amazing Stories" (Startling Stories), never appeared on the pages of the publication, although it had already been announced in one of the issues. The magazine ceases to exist and the reader saw a novel about the hero's love for a centaur woman only ten years later, in a significantly revised form called "Dare" (1965).

The writer's hopes for the book publication of the novels "Lovers" and "On a Woman's Day" did not come true. The latter came out only in 1960 under the title The Day When Time Stood Still. And the last blow was the rejected story "The White Goddess". Again it came out later and under a different title "Flesh" (1960, revised and supplemented in 1968). In the novel, our contemporary finds himself in the future, where matriarchy reigns and immediately turns into a sexual messiah.

The only consolation and real result of his work in the first seven years of professional creativity was the publication of the novel "The Odyssey of Green" in 1957 in the prestigious publishing house "Ballantine".

Due to the difficult financial situation, Farmer is constantly wandering around the United States. First he returned to the factory, in 1956 he left Peoria and for 14 years he lived in many cities, working all this time in the advertising and editorial departments of various companies as a technical editor. In the 60s he collaborated with the Playboy magazine. Only in 1969, having on his account 12 novels and 3 collections of stories, he again went to the professionals. “If I started all over again, I would put in a lot more effort to get my PhD in anthropology. I would love to become an archaeologist ... I have a natural inclination towards anthropology, I read a lot of books on this subject. " Nevertheless, Farmer has produced a number of good works over the years. This is, first of all, a series of short stories and a novel about Carmody's father, published in the Journal of Fantasy and Science Fiction. All these stories were collected in the collection "Father to the Stars" (Father for the Stars, 1981). The main theme of the stories is theological conversation about the strangeness of different religions of the numerous planets of the Universe.

In the mid-60s, Farmer began to publish novels, which subsequently comprised two multivolume cycles. The first of them - "Multi-tiered world" consists of seven novels, telling about a combination of "pocket" universes, parallel worlds, played by their unknown creators. And the main character of the series is the real earthling Paul Janus Finnegan, whose initials are strikingly the same as those of Farmer himself - PJF. But his cycle "The World of the River" is better known, in which the author painted a world that is an amazing country (Garden of Eden) stretched out on the banks of an endless, for a thousand miles, river, inhabited ... by all the resurrected people who once lived on Earth. It turns out that such a fantastic experiment was started by unknown alien "gods", the supercivilization of Ethics. But for what purpose? This is what some of the inhabitants of the River World set out to find out - archaeologist and traveler Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890), Samuel Clemens, better known to us under the name Mark Twain, Jack London ( Jack London), Cyrano de Bergerac and others.

The first novel of the cycle “Return Into Your Shattered Bodies” in 1972 won the Hugo Prize. The latest adjoining novel to this day, The River of Eternity, is an accidentally discovered reworking of Farmer's early work I Owe for the Flesh (I owe a body). It remains to add that in the wake of the popularity of this series, under the editorship of Philip Farmer, two anthologies "The Universe of the River World: Stories of the River World" (1992) and "The Search for the River World" were published, which absorbed the stories of various authors who offered their vision of the River World. In the wake of the youth movements and moral freedoms that opened in the United States in the 60s, such as drugs, hippies, sex, etc., the Essex House publishing house, which specializes in pornographic novels, commissioned the writer to three fantasy pornographic novels. This is how the Exorcism trilogy was born, inspired by classic Gothic novels. The publishing house published the first two books "The Image of the Beast" (1968) and "Explosion, or Notes on the Ruins of My Consciousness" (1969), and the third novel, "Traitor of All That Is," was published in 1973 by another publishing house. The collaboration of Philip Farmer with "Essex House" ended with the novel "The Hidden Feast: IX volume of the memoirs of Lord Grandritt" (1969), which became the basis of a new trilogy - "Lord Grandrit and Doc Caliban", which includes, in addition to the above book, "The Lord of the Trees" and Crazy Goblin (both 1970). The Secret Feast is a brilliant exploration of the sadomasochistic fantasies of most of the heroes of famous science fiction series. The satire on Edgar Rice Burroughs' books about Tarzan (Lord Greystoke) and Lester Dent with his superman Doc Savage is especially vivid. The plot of all the books is based on the ongoing struggle of Lord Grandrit and Doc Caliban against the Nine - a mysterious and extremely dangerous society of immortals.

The series "Lord Grandrit and Doc Caliban" served as a start for a whole cohort of novels, the characters of which are borrowed from such famous writers as Burroughs, Haggard, Melville, Vern, Conan Doyle, Vonnegut, and others. This includes such works as the trilogy "Ancient Africa" Tarzan Alive: The True Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972), Hadon of Ancient Opar (1974), Flight to Opar (1976); and Tarzan Alive: An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke (1972), The Uncertain Life and Troubled Times of Kilgour Trout (1973), Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973), Another Course by Phileas Fogg (1973), Excerpts from the Memoirs of Lord Greystoke (1974), After the Fall of King Kong (1974), The Adventures of a Peer Without Peerage, by Dr. John Watson, MD (1974), Venus in Half a Shell (1975 - as Kurt Vonnegut), The Iron Castle (1976) and Doc Savage: Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Prank "(1991).

Another famous Farmer trilogy, "The World of a Day", was initiated by the famous story of the author "Against Tuesday's World" (1971), in which society is divided into seven categories - one for each day of the week. This was due to the overpopulation of the planet and the subsequent demographic catastrophe. From that moment on, each person was "attached" to his own day of the week, while the rest, against his will, fell into forced hibernation (suspended animation). The three novels that followed developed the original theme of the story.

Bibliography

TV series

The World of Tiers

• The Maker of Universes (1965) Creator of the Universes.
• The Gates of Creation (1966) Gate of Creation
• A Private Cosmos (1968) Personal Space
• Behind the Walls of Terra (1970) Behind the Walls of Terra
• The Lavalite World (1977) Lavalite World
• Red Orc's Rage (1991) Rage of the Red Orc
• More Than Fire (1993) More Than Fire

Dayworld

• Dayworld (1985) World of one day
• Dayworld Rebel (1987) One Day's World: Rebel
• Dayworld Breakup (1990) One Day's World: Breakup

Riverworld

• To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) Return to Your Scattered Bodies
• The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)
• The Dark Design (1977) Dark Designs
• The Magic Labyrinth (1980) The Magic Labyrinth
• Gods of Riverworld (1983) Gods of the Riverworld
• River of Eternity (1983) (early version of the first novel) River of Eternity
• Works adjacent to the cycle:
  • Riverworld (1979) River World
  • Up the Bright River (1992) Up the Bright River
  • Coda (1992) Coda

Father Carmody

Father Carmody's space missionary series from the collection Father to the Stars (1981):

• Night of Light (1957, 1966) Night of Light
• Attitudes (1953) Relations
• Father (1955) Father
• A Few Miles (1960) Few Miles
• Prometheus (1961) Prometheus

Others

The rest of Farmer's works can be roughly divided into several thematic groups.

Race relations

The first explores the full range of relationships between representatives of different races (biology, sex (including alien), and erotica).

• A Woman a Day (1953) (\u003d The Day of Timestop \u003d Timestop!) (1960) End of Times
• The Lovers (1952, 1961, 1972) Love is Evil
• Rastignac the Devil (1954) Rastignac the Devil
• The Exorcism Trilogy
  • The Image of the Beast (1968) Image of the Beast
  • Blown, or Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind (1969) Apotheosis
  • Traitor to the Living (1973) Soul Catcher
• Flesh (1960, 1968) Flesh
• Dare (1965) Deira
• Inside Outside (1964) World Inside Out

This group includes numerous stories and stories.

Literary hoaxes

The second group consists of works that can be defined as "literary hoaxes", a kind of continuation and addition of famous books.

• Trilogy "Lord Grandrit"
  • A Feast Unknown: Volume IX of the Memories Of Lord Grandrith (1969) The Hidden Feast
  • Lord of the Trees (1970) Lord of the Trees
  • Mad Goblin (1970) (\u003d Keepers of the Secrets) Goblin rabid
• United in one volume - The Empire of the Nine (1988)
  • The Wind Whales of Ishmael (1971) Ishmael's Sky Whales
  • Lord Tyger (1970) Lord Tyger
• Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972)
• Time's Last Gift (1972; 1977) The last gift of time
• Hadon of Ancient Opar (1974)
• Flight to Opar (1976)
• Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973; 1975)
• Doc Savage: Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Adventure (1991)
• The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973)
• The Adventures of the Peerless Peer, by John H. Watson, M.D. (1974)
• Venus on the Half-Shell (1975)
• A Barnstormer of Oz (1982)

Selected works

The third group consists of individual works that are not included in the series and the aforementioned groups (the list is not complete):

• The Green Odyssey (1957) Green's Odyssey
• Tongues of the Moon (1961; 1964)
• The Cache from Outer Space (1962; \u003d The Long Warpath)
• The Gate of Time (1966)
• The Stone God Awakens (1970) The Awakening of the Stone God
• Ironcastle (1976)
• Jesus on Mars (1979) Jesus on Mars
• Dark Is the Sun (1979).
• The Unreasoning Mask (1981)

Links

• Philip Jose Farmer in the library of Maxim Moshkov

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

The ghost of a trumpet call wailed from the other side of the door.

Seven notes were faint and distant: an ectoplasmic effusion of a silver phantom, if sound could be the material from which shadows are formed.

Robert Wolff knew that there could be no horn or a man blowing at it behind the sliding doors. A minute ago, he looked into this closet. There was nothing but a cement floor, white plastered walls, clothes hangers and hooks, a shelf and a light bulb.

And yet he heard these trumpets, faint, as if sung on the other side of the wall of the world itself. He was alone, so he had no one to check with the reality of what he knew could not be real. The room in which he stood in a trance was an unlikely setting for such an experiment. But he might not have been an unlikely person to experience him. Lately his sleep has been disturbed by strange and incomprehensible dreams. In the daytime, strange thoughts and fleeting images passed through his brain, lightning fast, but vivid and even startling.

They were unwanted, unexpected, and unstoppable.

He was alarmed. It seemed dishonest to be willing to retire and then suffer a mental breakdown.

However, it could happen to him as it happened to others. So, one thing should be done: let the doctor examine you. But he could not force himself to act the way his mind suggested. He kept on waiting and said nothing to anyone, least of all to his wife.

He was now standing in the break room of his new home in the Hohkam Homes New Buildings, staring at the closet doors. If the horn blows again, it will open the door and show itself that there is nothing there. And then, knowing that the sounds are produced by his own diseased brain, he will forget about buying this house. He will ignore his wife's hysterical protests and see first the doctor and then the psychotherapist.

Robert! his wife called. “Haven't you been downstairs long enough? Come up here. I want to talk to you and Mr. Bresson.

Wait a minute, dear, ”he said.

She called again, this time so close that he turned around. Brenda Wolf stood at the top of the stairs leading to the break room. She was the same age as he was - sixty-six. All the beauty she once had was now buried under fat, under thickly roughened and powdered wrinkles, with thick glasses and bluish-steel hair.

He flinched at the sight of her, as he flinched whenever he looked in the mirror and saw his own bald head, deep folds from nose to mouth, and stars of reddened skin in the form of rays from reddened eyes. Isn't that his trouble? But was he able to adapt to what comes to all people, whether they like it or not.

Or is it that he did not like physical deterioration in his wife and in himself, but the knowledge that neither he nor Brenda had realized the dreams of their youth? There was no way to avoid the traces of rasps and time files on the body, but time was merciful to him, allowing him to live so long. He could not invoke a short period of time as an excuse for not educating himself on the beauty of the soul. The world could not be blamed for what it was.

He is responsible, and only he, at least, he was strong enough to face this fact.

He did not reproach the universe or that part of it that was his wife.

He didn't screech, growl, or whimper like Brenda.

There have been times when it was easy to whimper or cry. How many people could not remember anything about the period before the age of twenty? He thought he was in his twenties, because the Wolves who adopted him said he looked exactly that age. It was discovered by old Wolf, wandering in the Kentucky mountains, near the border with Indiana. He did not know who he was or how he got there. Kentucky, or even the United States of America, meant nothing to him, as did the whole of English.

The Wolves took him in and notified the sheriff. The authorities' investigation failed to establish his identity. At other times, his story could have attracted the attention of the entire country, but the country was at war with the Kaiser and thought about more important things. Robert, named after the deceased son of the Wolffs, helped with the work on the farm. He also went to school, for he had lost all memory of his education.

Worse than his lack of formal knowledge was his ignorance of how to behave. He continually embarrassed or insulted others and suffered from the scornful and sometimes violent reactions of the mountain dwellers, but he learned quickly, and his willingness to work hard, plus his immense strength to defend himself, won respect.

In an amazingly short time, as if repeating what he had learned, he studied and graduated from primary and secondary school.

Although he lacked many years of full time required attendance, he passed the university entrance exams without difficulty. There he began a lifelong love affair with classical languages. Most of all, he loved ancient Greek, since it touched some string in it, he felt at home with it.

After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, he later taught at various Eastern and Midwestern universities. He married Brenda, a beautiful girl with a wonderful soul. Or so he thought at first.

Later, his illusions disappeared, but he was still quite happy.

He, however, was always troubled by the mystery of his amnesia and his origin. For a long time she did not bother him, but then with retirement ...

Robert, ”Brenda said loudly,“ come up here now! Mr. Bresson is a busy man.

I'm sure Mr. Bresson had many clients willing to take their time to inspect the house, ”he replied softly. - Or, perhaps, you have already made a decision that you do not want to buy this house?

Brenda glared at him, and then waddled away with an air of insulted dignity. He sighed, for he knew she would later accuse him of deliberately making her look stupid in front of the real estate agent.

He turned again to the closet doors. Will he dare to open them?

It was not easy to stand there, frozen, as if in shock or in a psychotic state of indecision. But he couldn’t move except twitch when the horn sounded seven notes again, playing from behind a thick barricade, but louder this time.

His heart thumped against his brisket like an inner fist. He forced himself to go to the door and put his hand on the copper-plated notch at his waist and push the door aside. The light rumbling of the rollers drowned out the horn as the door slid open.

The white plastered planks of the wall were gone. They became an entrance to the stage, which he could not have imagined, although it must have come from his brain.

The sun poured into an opening large enough for him to bend over through. Vegetation that looked like trees - but not like Earth's trees - blocked part of his view. He saw a bright green sky through the branches. He looked down and scanned the scene under the trees

Six or seven nightmarish creatures have gathered at the foot of the giant boulder. A boulder of red, quartz-rich rock, roughly shaped like a toadstool.

Most of the creatures with black, shaggy, ugly bodies stood facing away from him, except for one, showing his profile against the green sky. His head was rough, subhuman, and his expression was vicious. His body, face and head had bulges, lumps of meat that gave him a half-formed appearance, as if his creator had forgotten to smooth it out. The two short legs were like the hind legs of a dog.

It stretched out its long arms towards a young man who was standing on the flat top of a boulder.

On January 13, in the assembly hall of the Russian Embassy in Spain, a female choir performed under the direction of Jose de Felipe.
The charity concert was organized by the Russian Embassy and the International Association of Art Citizens (MIGA) with the support of the Russian Center for Science and Culture.
Jose de Felipe Arnais is an outstanding choral conductor and vocal teacher, organizer of a number of famous choirs. As part of the Russia-Spain cross year, as a token of gratitude to the country where he was born and became a famous musician, he prepared a program of Russian choral music with his choir White Voices HDF, which was performed on the stage of the Russian Embassy as part of the traditional celebration Old New Year.
The concert was a huge success. However, this is not at all surprising - delicate taste, passion and love for their profession were present both in the performance and in the presentation of each choral work under the direction of the Maestro, and his love for singing in general and for Russian music in particular could not but convey to the public. Don José not only conducted, but also spoke with humor and undisguised reverence about the works performed by the chorus from the Russian opera, liturgical and folklore repertoire. And during the performance of the folk song "Brooms", this famous choral conductor, a gray-haired Russian Spaniard, took a real broom in his hands and conducted the choir with infectious enthusiasm, which finally captivated the audience. "Brooms" completed the concert program, but the audience did not let the choir leave the stage, forcing it to perform several encore numbers.
Together with the maestro, who took his place at the piano, the lively audience sang with enthusiasm the national New Year's hit “A Christmas tree was born in the forest”. It was pleasant to see how the audience did not want to let the performers leave the stage, how amicably and sincerely the whole audience sang a children's song together with the choir.
On this unforgettable evening in the first part of the concert - solemn and emotionally restrained - the premiere of P. Tchaikovsky's Melancholic Serenade to the words of Mikhail Sadovsky took place. José de Filipe himself was the author of the arrangement of this work for violin and women's choir, and his daughter Miren performed the violin solo. As the Maestro confided from the stage, “she once dreamed that she was performing the Serenade, and her father was conducting the choir. I had to make an arrangement for my daughter's dream to come true "...
On behalf of all the spectators who attended this unforgettable concert, we thank the Maestro and the members of his choir for a wonderful performance.

Our reference
Jose de Felipe Arnais (Jose Petrovich Filippe) was born in Moscow in 1940 in a Spanish family that left their homeland due to the civil war.
After graduating from the Moscow State Conservatory. P.I. Tchaikovsky, specializing as a choir conductor, he began his professional career in the USSR, where for 22 years he was a conductor of a number of famous groups (the choir of the Loktev Ensemble, the Children's Choir RTV, the choir of the Soviet Army). He taught choral conducting at the Academy of Music. Gnesins in Moscow. Winner of prizes in prestigious choral competitions, the groups led by him have given concerts around the world.
In 1979, the musician's family returned to Spain, where he continued to do what he loved. Jose de Felipe - professor, dean of the choir department of the Madrid Conservatory, was the head of the choir department and rector of the Padre Antonio Soler Music Academy in Escorial, the chief choirmaster and artistic director of a number of choirs with which he performed with the world's leading symphony orchestras.
Jose de Felipe lives in the village of Moralsarsal near Madrid. After retiring in 2009, he founded the White Voices female chamber choir. He is also the artistic director and conductor of the Bolshoi Children's Choir, which has over 150 schoolchildren singing. In December 2011, the group took part in a concert at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid, and last June José de Felipe staged for the chorus the children's opera Brundibar by Hans Krasus, which premiered in Escorial.

Mikhail Sadovsky

A long history preceded these few lines in the manuscript. There she is. In the late 1960s, a new artistic director, Viktor Sergeevich Popov, appeared in the famous Song and Dance Ensemble of the Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren on the Lenin Hills. Not yet famous, not honored and not yet popular, not a professor - it all came later. Soon a new chief choirmaster appeared in the collective - Jose Felipe, Jose Petrovich, as his colleagues and choristers called him in the Russian way. It turned out that we live very close to him, and this in big cities brings people very close, geography is a great thing!

Often after rehearsals, which I attended as an author, we walked along Michurinsky Prospekt to the New Circus past the Natalya Sats Musical Theater with an eternally shining blue bird on the roof, at Lomonosovsky Prospekt we stopped without saying a word, then ... from here we were exactly five minutes before our home to everyone.
Jose was the son of political emigrants in the 1930s. His parents were sentenced to death under Franco, they fled, the son was born just before the war, then studied in Moscow at the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory, graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in the department of choral conducting with Alexander Borisovich Khazanov, choirmaster of the Bolshoi Theater, and professor Vladislav Gennadievich Sokolov, artistic director of the famous Children's Choir of the Institute of Art Education at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, or more simply the Sokolov Choir. And now, a few years after the completion of his education, Jose appeared in the ensemble ...
The early 1970s were the golden years of the ensemble, which by that time had received the name of the former leader V.S. Lokteva: Loktev Ensemble. Wonderful teachers and directors gathered there by the will of fate: Aleksey Sergeevich Ilyin - artistic director and conductor of the orchestra, Elena Romanovna Rosse - chief ballet master and Jose Felipe - chief choirmaster. There was a search for a new repertoire, new performances, each musical part of the ensemble showed their solo works during concerts, and for this a new repertoire was needed, not only pioneer songs, as it was before.
Jose, who grew up on Russian culture, of course, showed in excellent performance and works of the richest Russian choral classics and Russian folk songs, but he also wanted to perform his native Spanish works. His parents raised him as a bilingual person. And he knew from childhood that he must sooner or later return to his homeland - this is how his parents raised him. This happened a year and a half after Franco's death in 1975, when the road was opened. First, his parents left for Spain, and then he himself ...
Jose asked me to make translations. One of the first was the song Boga, boga. This is the sailors' song: “Row, row! Earth, goodbye! The launch is already ready. Beloved land, dear land ... "Then there was Soy de Mieres -" I am from Mieres. " The success of these numbers was deafening - the listeners always asked to repeat them.
I fell in love with these songs and asked Jose: "Let's do some more!" Spain is not a choral country, but its folk songs with such humor, so melodious, with such spicy rhythms, with such bright, but restrained feelings! And in the treatment of maestro Jose for the choir, they became even more aromatic and attractive. Pearls!
The collection was gradually taking shape, there was not enough time. Jose's family lived hard, they had to earn money. For example, he taught Spanish on Moscow television, paid pennies, his children were sick all the time because of the Moscow climate. But still the collection was formed and ...
The publishing house accepted it with pleasure, put it in the plan and was already preparing for release. But at this time, instead of Olga Osipovna Ochakovskaya, an editor with great experience and excellent taste, a Komsomol staff was appointed. No, he did not have a surname, as well as a face, as well as taste and conscience.
The edition plan was immediately redrawn, the collection was immediately thrown out of the plan, and it physically disappeared. The rejected manuscript was not returned. There were good times: Suslov-Brezhnev.
In 1979, Jose left for Spain.
Talent, of course, is noticeable everywhere, since it is a gift from Gd to those living on earth. It is good if those around him, noticing the talent, help him to open up and serve for the common good, and not oppress him and turn him into camp dust. José de Felipe Arnais, an enthusiast and fanatic of the choir, has become a kind of catalyst in the Spanish capital. A few years after his arrival in Madrid, where there was only one choir, there were already more than fifty. He was invited to the National Choir of Spain and became its leader, was a professor and headed a department at the Madrid Conservatory, traveled with the Zarzuela collective as the artistic director of the choir and its chief conductor all over the world. He directed numerous choirs and an extraordinary choir of boys of the Augustinian monastery of El Escorial, in which the heirs of the royal throne have been brought up for half a thousand years (!).
Unfortunately, there are no words to convey the singing of these forty angels under the ancient stone vaults. I can only say that this is one of the unforgettable musical events of my life.
The choir of the Polytechnic Institute, founded by the maestro, has won numerous awards and prizes, traveled all over the continents, and the chronicle of its existence for a quarter of a century has amounted to more than 13 volumes. Maestro Jose himself was awarded the gold medal of this educational institution, which is awarded to professors for outstanding achievements in teaching students and scientific achievements.
There are miracles in the world! There is! We are sitting with Jose in a village near Madrid, it is called Maralsarsal (in translation - blackberry), we are sitting at a large table and sorting out drafts of adaptations of the missing collection miraculously preserved in his archive. What a joy it is to be there again and work together, distracted by the memories of how this or that number sounded in the choir. After all, some of the arrangements presented in the collection were first performed by their author with the children of the choir of the Palace of Pioneers more than thirty years ago.
The restless maestro today leads four choirs, teaches, consults, participates in the jury of choral competitions in different countries of the world, including Russia, loves his Spain and sits behind the wheel for hours, traveling along its roads.
There are several photographs on the wall in his house, where the king gratefully shakes hands with maestro Jose after a concert in the background of the hall or at a reception in the palace.
He says to me, stopping in the middle of the village street: "You know, I'm so proud of my Spain!" And he looks around as if he will now raise his hands - and the mountains will sound, surrounding us in several rows, as if they are standing on a choir stage.
We have finished the difficult return to the past to bring this work back to the present and the future. Jose wrote to me on the title of the manuscript: “Mishenka! "Manuscripts do not burn." Thanks to you this notebook appeared - thank you very much. Jose Felipe ". And the date: April 4, 2007. Now the collection is in another publishing house and is waiting for the turn to be published.
Hope this happens.
Mikhail SADOVSKY, USA

Philip Jose Farmer

Twelve thousand ancestors looked at him from above.

Jagu stopped for a moment. Despite his skepticism, he was shocked and could not shake off a slight sense of guilt. Twelve thousand! If spirits really exist, what a ghostly power is probably concentrated in this dark sacred room! How intense must be their joint hatred focused on him!

He was on the lower floor of the castle in the hall of the Hero-Fathers.

Its one hundred square feet were now lit by several electric torches. At one end of the hall was an incredible hearth. Once upon a time, after the Battle of Taaluu, Vozeg's worst enemy, Ziitia from the Uruba clan, was burned alive in it. Above the mantelpiece were the trophies captured in that battle: swords, shields, spears, maces and several flintlock blunderbuss.

Further, behind this room, in the depths of the castle, was another, decorated with trophies collected over a thousand years. And behind it there was another one, and there from the niches over the tablets with the names and the indication of the place and time of death, the skulls and dried heads of the defeated enemies looked. Now the door to that room was closed so as not to offend the humane feelings of the modern generation. It was opened only for historians and archaeologists, as well as at initiation into clan members, at the Meeting with the Spirits.

Jaga had spent twelve hours locked in that room three nights ago, all alone.

"What a problem," Jagu thought, turned and headed into the dark hallway, stepping softly with four bare paws.

Spirits, or Fathers-Heroes, never appeared to him. There was no one there.

He could not tell his four parents about it.

It was impossible to admit that his ancestors made fun of him, recognized him unworthy of the name Joma, that is, a man. And he did not think at all that the heroes considered him unworthy.

How can you be despised by those who do not exist?

His parents did not know this. They were inspired by the fact that he became one of the few graduates of the Vaagii Military Space Academy. They were happy that their eldest son would pass the long-awaited rite of passage into adulthood. But his confession that he was not yet ready to choose a breeding group from among those clan members who, in their opinion, suited him, made them much less happy.

All four begged. and they threatened him and got excited. He must go to the stars already married. Before starting to fulfill his duty in space, he must perpetuate their kind, leave more eggs in the cocoon.

Jagu said no.

And so late at night he escaped and passed through the line of twelve thousand. But ... they turned out to be only canvases or boards on which colors were combined in different ways. That's all.

He paused at the tall mirror on the wall. There, behind him, the lights shone ominously. He looked like a ghost, emerging from the darkness to meet himself, and where his two incarnations met ...

He was six and a half feet tall. Its upright torso was human-like. From a distance, and even in dim light, when only the tops of his breasts were visible, he could be mistaken for a human. But the pinkish skin to the very neck was hidden by a growth of golden curly hair. The broad-forehead head was round, with massive bones. Cheekbones protruded like bumps on a shield, massive jaws and a deeply split chin resembled the bow of a ship (this was another sore spot for his parents: they did not like that he shaved his goatee).

The nose looked like a bulb and was covered with fine dark hairs sticking out in all directions. The brow ridges protruded outward in Gothic arches. The eyes beneath them were large, brown, framed by a ring of brown wool half an inch wide. The ears were like a cat's, and the yellow hair stood up on top of the head.

At the base of the ridge of his upper torso was an articulation of bones, a natural hinge that allowed his upper body to form a ninety-degree arc. The lower torso rested on four legs, like in an animal at the lower stage of evolution. The paws were like a lion's; the long tail ended in a black tassel.

Jagu was youthfully vain. He considered himself attractive enough and was not averse to admiring his reflection. The string of diamonds dangling from the neck was magnificent, as was the gold plate attached to it. The plate was decorated with diamonds in a pattern depicting his totem - lightning.

Although he enjoyed looking in the mirror, he could not stand here forever. Passing the lancet archway, he went into the hallway. Approaching the door, he saw a mountain of fur, which rose, shook itself and turned into a six-legged animal with a long hairy tail, a long sharp nose and huge round bright scarlet ears. The rest of the saijiyji's body, except for the black nose and round black eyes, was chocolate brown.

The creature sucked in air. Then, recognizing Jaga by his scent, he whined softly and wagged its tail.

Jagu patted him lightly and said:

Sleep, aa. We won't go hunting tonight.

The animal lay down heavily, turning back into a shapeless ball of wool. Jagu slipped the key into the lock and pressed down on the tip.

Immediately after lunch, he deftly removed the key from the hook on Taimo's belt.

Since the other parent, Vashagi, locked the front door, Taimo did not miss the loss.

Jaga regretted doing this, although he enjoyed showing himself as a lucky pickpocket. However, the custom of not giving the young man his own key until he gets married, in his opinion, was of little use.

Today he wanted to leave the house late at night. And since you cannot get permission, you have to go without asking.

The door flew open and immediately closed again as Jagu slowly stepped outside.

Ten years ago, he would have had to bribe the guard at the door or sneak past him. The gatekeepers were now a thing of the past. The factories pay more. The last of their family's servants died several years ago; it was replaced by an electronic device.

The full moon was shining at its zenith - it was the end of summer. She threw her greenish-silver net over all objects and caught their gloomy and grotesque shadows in it. On the lawn towered diorite statues of the greatest Heroes, the one hundred and a half whose frenzy in battle had made the name of Vasag famous.

He didn’t stop and stare at them because he feared that the awe and fear from childhood might shake his resolve. Instead, he looked up, where a multitude of companions made by the joma lined the night sky with bright lights. He thought of the hundreds of them that he could not see, the ships of the space fleet patrolling the space between the planets of their system, and the few interstellar ships that roam the galaxy.

What a contrast, ”he muttered. “On this earth, the minds of people who are capable of reaching the stars are ruled by wordless statues!

He reached a dark spot at the foot of the castle wall, the entrance to a tunnel that led steeply downward. In the past, there was a castle moat on this place. Then they covered it up, but over time they dug it up again and filled it with cement: there was now an underground garage.

Here Jagu used the key again to open the door and enter. Choosing one of six cars, he didn't hesitate.

He needed a long, squat, streamlined Firebird. It was the latest model - one electric motor for each wheel, one hundred horsepower for each motor - with manual control, with a teardrop-shaped cockpit, designed for four passengers. The car was fiery red.

Jagu lifted the bubble and stepped inside over the low side.

He squatted on his hind legs in front of the control panel, resting his backside on a thick cushion attached to a steel plate, then lowered the top. Magnetic clips secured its position on the frame. The electromagnets were charged from a separate small generator.

He shifted the lever, and a flashing light confirmed that the machine was ready for action. The large hydrogen tank was full. Jagu pulled on the three-lever drawer and moved one of them forward.

The Firebird silently rolled forward, up the slope. As soon as the car pulled out of the garage, Jagu pressed a button and the swing gate closed. He drove onto the road, passed the stone ancestors, and then turned right onto a private highway. Winding through the thickets of vex (scarlet trees similar to pine), Jagu drove along it for about a mile. Only when he turned onto the public highway, which went downhill in this place, he pushed the speed lever all the way. The bar of the speedometer - a device similar to a thermometer - in twelve seconds reached a division corresponding to a speed of 135 miles per hour.

When he flew up the hill and began to descend, he had to steer sharply to the left, overtaking the large van.

But there were no oncoming cars, and his signal only chuckled like a goose in response to the indignant beeps of the truck driver.

He wanted everything to remain the same. Earlier, when an aristocrat wanted to travel without delay, he notified the police about it. The police rode ahead, clearing the way for him. To uphold this ancient privilege now would have hindered the powerful development of commerce. Business came first; so he had the same rights as anyone else. Unlike his ancestors, if he runs over or pushes someone to the sidelines, he will be arrested.

It was assumed that he even had to comply with the speed limits. Usually he did it ... but tonight he didn't feel like it.

On the way, he met a dozen other cars, some with outdated internal combustion engines. After a few miles, he slowed down enough to safely turn onto another private road, even though the tires squealed and the car skidded.

After driving a quarter of a mile, Jagoo stopped. Here he had to pick up Alaka. They exchanged a short kiss.

Then Alaku jumped into the car next to Jagu and leaned back on the pillow; the cockpit closed, the car turned, and they sped away.

Alaku unfastened a flask from his belt, unscrewed the lid and offered Jag a drink. Jagu stuck out his tongue in refusal, and Alaku raised the flask to his own mouth.

After taking a few sips, he said:

My parents pestered me again, why didn't I find myself a marriage group.

Well, I said I would marry you, Fawani and Tuugii. You should have heard those oohs and sighs, you would have seen these red faces, fluffed tails, waving fingers in front of your nose! And words! I calmed them down a bit when I said I was just kidding.

But all the same, I had to listen to a long, fiery lecture about the degeneration of modern youth, their irreverence, reaching the point of blasphemy. That humor is a good thing, but there are sacred things that you can't laugh at. Etc. If, they say, the lower classes want to forget about the clans and marry anyone, then nothing else can be expected from them. When industrialization, urbanization, population movements grow, there are mass migrations and so on, the proletariat, of course, cannot maintain the purity of the blood of its clan. It’s not very important for them. But for us, jorutama, aristoi, it means a lot. What will happen to society, religion, government, etc., if the great clans allow everything to mix? Especially if our clan, we Two-Toothed Eagles, set a bad example for others? Why, they told you the same thing.

In agreement, Jagu drew in a sharp breath.

A million times. I'm only afraid that I shocked my parents even more. To question the severity of the choice of spouses is, of course, not good. But to assume that belief in the spirits of our ancestors may - just may - turn out to be an invention, a relic of old superstitions ... you know, until you touch all this, you cannot imagine what it is to offend parental feelings. I had to go through a cleansing ceremony - it was expensive for the family, and it tired me too. I also had to sit for four hours under lock and key in an underground cell and listen to sermons and prayers broadcast there. And there is no way to turn off this muck. It's good at least these chants helped me sleep.

Poor Jagu, - said Alak, patting his hand.

A few minutes later, having crossed the top of the hill, they saw below, at the foot of a long slope, a double beam of light from the headlights of a car parked at the side of the road.

Jagu stopped by his side. Two people got out of the car and climbed into his Firebird: they were Fawani and Tuugii. Fawani was of the Three Lions clan, Tuugii was of the Forked Sting Dragon. Everyone exchanged kisses. Jaga then pulled back onto the highway and pulled the lever, accelerating to top speed.

Where are we going today? Tuugii asked. “I only got the last note. Favani called me, but I could not talk for a long time, and I also had to avoid mentioning tonight. I think my parents are eavesdropping on my phone calls. Dragons have always been known to be overly suspicious. In our case, there is a good reason for this, although I hope they do not know about it.

We're going to the Siikia memorial tonight, ”Jagu said.

His fellow travelers opened their mouths.

Is this where the great battle was? - asked Alaka. - Where are our ancestors who fell in this battle and were buried? Where…

Where ghosts gather every night and kill everyone who dares to roam between them? - finished Jaga.

But it's like asking for it!

So we ask for it, - said Jagu. “You don’t believe in this nonsense, do you? Or do you believe? If so, you better get out now. As soon as you get home, ask for a ritual cleansing and get you a good whip. What we have already done is enough to stir up the spirits - if they exist.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Fawani said:

Give me a bottle, Alak. I will drink to contempt for spirits and to our eternal love.

Jagu laughed deliberately. He said:

Nice toast, Alak. You'd better drink to Vaatii, the genius of speed. If he is, we will need his blessing now. The police are on our tail!

The others turned to see what Jaga found in the rearview mirror. About a mile behind them, a yellow fire flashed and extinguished. Jagu flipped a switch to hear outside sounds and turned the amp wheel. They heard a patrol siren barking.

Another penalty receipt, and my parents will take the Firebird away from me, ”Jagoo said. - Hold on!

He pressed the button. A light came on on the control panel, confirming that the license plates were covered with shields.

The Firebird was catching up with the passenger car: the light of its headlights was approaching, becoming brighter and brighter, and Jag gave a beep. A second before it seemed to everyone that they would collide now - Jagu's beloved began to cry fearfully to the spirits of their ancestors for salvation - he jumped out onto the road right in front of the car. They heard the squeal of tires smoldering with friction, and the plaintive bleat of a retreating car that they nearly rammed.

His passengers were silent; they were too scared to protest. Besides, they knew that Jagoo wouldn't pay attention to it anyway. He would rather kill them and himself than let them be caught. Indeed, it is better to die than to be exposed to general shame, to listen to the accusations of parents and to undergo ritual cleansing.

After half a mile, Jagoo caught up with a rumbling semi-trailer.

He could not get around him on the left, because the double beam of light in the oncoming lane was too close, and if they slowed down, the patrol would overtake them. So he drove to the right to the side of the road.

Without slowing down.

Fortunately, the curb was relatively flat and wide. Just one that fit the Firebird: an inch from the right wheel, the curb broke off, turning into an almost vertical cliff. At the foot of the hill, silver in the moonlight, flowed a stream, He ran along the slope, overgrown with dense forest.

Alaku gasped when he saw from the cockpit that they were on the very edge. Then he raised the flask to his lips again. While he drank from it in large gulps, Jaga had already gone around the truck.

Looking back, Fawani saw a patrol car pulling up behind a truck. Then the light of one of the headlights became visible - the car began the same maneuver that Jag had succeeded in.

But then the ray disappeared; the policeman changed his mind and returned to the highway.

He'll radio the post ahead, ”Fawani said. - Are you going to drive through the fence?

If necessary, ”Jaga reassured him. “But the Siikia memorial is half a mile away.

The policeman will notice where we turned, - said Alaku.

Jagoo turned off the headlights. They raced along the moonlit highway at 135 miles per hour. After a few seconds, Jagoo began to brake, but when they turned onto the side road, the speed was still 60 miles.

For a moment, it seemed to everyone that they were about to turn over - everyone except Jag. He had driven a car like this more than once and knew exactly what could be done and what not. They drifted, but he leveled the Firebird just in time to avoid hitting the thick tree. Jaga taxied onto the road and gradually dispersed along the narrow pavement, lined with trees on both sides.

This time, he hit 90 mph and drove half a mile, fitting into twists and turns with the ease of an experienced driver who knows the road well.

Suddenly he started to slow down.

On the next half-mile stretch of the road, Jagu turned off the road and dived into a thicket of trees that seemed to others completely impassable. But between the trees there was always a space just such wide that the Firebird could pass between them without peeling off the paint on the sides. At the end of one dark passage was another, at an angle of forty-five degrees to the first. Jagu steered the car into the open clearing and turned off the engines.

There they remained, breathing heavily and peering through the trees.

The road itself was not visible from here, but they saw the yellow flashing light of the patrol car hurrying along the road ahead towards the Siikia memorial.

And nothing that he sees the rest there? Favani asked.

It's okay if they hid their cars like I told them, Jagu replied. He lifted the hood, jumped out of the car and threw open the rear boot lid.

Come here. I have something to leave the patrolman in a fool when he comes back and looks for our tracks near the road.

They all got out and helped him pick up a carefully rolled roll of something green. Under Jagu's guidance, they carried him back to the spot on the road where they turned off.

Having unrolled the roll, they spread it over the car track so that the depressions were not noticeable.

When they did this, the place where the car had passed appeared to be covered with even turf. There were even wildflowers — or so it looked — here and there among the grass. Now, from their hideout behind the trees, they saw a patrol car slowly making its way back, illuminating the bare ground and grass on either side of the road with its headlights.

She drove by, and soon her lights were no longer visible.

At Jagu's command, they rolled the fake grass again into a tight bundle. While they were doing this, Jagu brought the Firebird back. They put the roll in the trunk, climbed into the car again, and Jagoo drove to the memorial.

As they climbed the winding road, Fawani said:

If we weren't going so fast, we would have avoided all this.

And they would lose a lot of pleasure, - Jagu answered.

You still do not understand, - said Alak. “Jag doesn't care if we're alive or dead. No, really, sometimes it seems to me that he would willingly die. Then his problems - and ours ALSO - would be resolved. He also loves to show his nose to our parents and the community they represent - even when it comes to simply sneaking away from the cop.

Alaku we have a dispassionate and objective person, - said Jagu. - He sits on the sidelines, examines the situation and knows why the actors act in one way or another. Although most of the time he thinks correctly, he does nothing about it. The eternal spectator.

Yes, I am not a leader, - answered Alak coldly. “But I can do as much as anyone else. Until now, I have not dodged anything. Didn't I always follow you?

Always, Jagoo said. - I apologize. I said without thinking. You know I'm always too hot.

There is no need to apologize, - said Alaku, and warm notes appeared in his voice.

Soon they were at the gate in front of the Siikia memorial.

Jagu drove by, to the trees on the other side of the road.

There were already cars parked there.

Well, all seven are here, ”he said.

They crossed the road again, forty yards from the main gate. Jaga called softly. They answered him just as quietly; a flexible plastic rope was thrown over the gate.

Jaga was the first to be dragged onto a stone wall twenty feet high - due to the nature of his body, this was not easy. On the other side of the wall was Ponu of the Green-Tailed Shrike clan. They hugged.

After the others got over and the rope was pulled off the wall, everyone stealthily moved towards their destination. From above, stone statues of their great and glorious ancestors looked at them. These were memorials to those killed in the Battle of Siikia, the last great battle of the civil war that once devastated their country. It happened one hundred and twenty years ago, and the ancestors of some of those who gathered here tonight fought among themselves and killed each other. During this war, so many aristoes were killed that the lower classes were able to achieve the rights and privileges that they had previously been deprived of. It was this war that precipitated the coming of the dawning industrial era.

The young men walked past the scowling heroes and steles installed in honor of various heroic deeds performed during the battle. Everyone except Jagu was overwhelmed by their oppressive presence. He spoke incessantly something in a quiet but confident voice. Soon the others were also talking and even laughing.

The place in the center of the memorial, where the outcome of the battle was decided, was considered the most important in the ensemble. Here stood a colossal image of Joma, the mythological ancestor of all Joma.

The statue was hewn from a solid block of diorite and painted. She had no arms or upper torso, only a head and neck connected to a four-legged body. In the scriptures of Joma, or the book of Mako, it was said that Joma was once the same as his descendants. But in exchange for the power of reason he acquired and the pleasure of seeing his children as the rulers of this world and, apparently, the entire Universe, he had to give up his hands, to become like an ugly monster.

God Tuu, rejoicing at this sacrifice, allowed Joma to reproduce through parthenogenesis, without the help of three other partners. (For after Tuu destroyed almost all the creatures in a fit of righteous anger, Joma survived, but was left without spouses.) It was here that Jagu decided to arrange a holiday of love. He could not find a more suitable place to express his contempt for the spirits and beliefs that were considered sacred by the entire population of the planet.

Jagu and his friends met with those who were already waiting for them.

They passed the drinks in a circle, chuckles rang out. Ponu was in charge of everything tonight. He spread covers on the ground and spread food and drink on them - there were eight of these rugs, and on each sat four jorums.

The night ended, the moon reached its zenith and began to set, and the laughter and conversation grew louder and livelier. Soon, Jaga took a large bottle from Ponu, uncorked it and stood between the audience. He gave each of them a large tablet from the bottle and made sure that each swallowed his own. Everyone wrinkled their faces, and Fawani almost spat out the pill.

Only when Jagu threatened that if he couldn't cope himself, he would help drive her down the throat with his paw, did the disobedient put it back into his mouth.

Jagu then mimicked the Mako prayer that the four newlyweds were saying to the family fertility genius of their clan. He finished by taking a sip of wine from the bottle, then smashing it against Joma's face.

An hour later, the first round of the holiday of love ended. Its participants were resting, preparing for the second round, and discussed the charms and some disadvantages of the last meeting.

There was a shrill whistle.

Jagu jumped to his feet.

It's the police! - he said. - It's okay, don't panic! Take your helmets and bibs. You don't need to put them on yet. Leave the bedding here; there are no clan emblems on them. Follow me!

The Joma statue stood on a small dais in the center of the memorial. In addition to striving to commit as blasphemy as possible, when choosing a location, Jagu was guided by the opportunity to observe the surroundings. From there he could see that the main gate was open and that several cars with their headlights had just entered through it. Besides the main ones, the memorial had three more gates; two of them were also open, and cars were also driving into them. He decided that the fourth gate, apparently, was deliberately left closed as a decoy. One has only to climb over them, and they will fall into the clutches of the police, waiting on the other side of the wall.

But if this is a trap, then the police saw how they hid their cars in the thickets. That is, even if he and his friends elude the police, they will have to get home for a long, long time. And there will be no sense in this, because the pharaohs will not have much difficulty in identifying the owners and finding them.

There was still a chance that this was not a planned raid.

The patrolman who was chasing them might suspect something and call for reinforcements. Maybe they climbed the wall, saw people at the monument and decided to figure out what was the matter.

If so, they may have too few people to approach from all four directions at once.

Then the fourth gate, next to which there were no police officers, could be the path to salvation.

He decided to run to the closed gate. But if there is an ambush, he will destroy his friends. But he had already found a place in the memorial itself, where he could hide.

It would be foolish to hope for luck when there is a way out that is almost one hundred percent reliable.

Follow me to Niizaa! - he said. - Fast, but without panic. If anyone stumbles or falls behind, yell. We will come back and help.

He ran; behind him was the dull clatter of many paws and noisy tense breathing.

They walked down the hill on the other side of the main gate, heading towards the granite statue of the hero Niiza. Jagu looked around and noticed that other statues were blocking the approaching policemen. He chose Niizaa because he was surrounded by a ring of statues that marked the spot where this hero fell among the pile of enemy bodies. It took sixty seconds to get there from the center of the memorial, and it took quite a while to open the hatch under Neezah's feet and huddle together in the pit under the statue.

This is the hole Jagu and a few friends dug over a year ago, working on moonless or cloudy nights. Then they installed the beams, made a hatch and covered everything from above with turf. The lid held on tightly: Jagu checked how heavy it could withstand, standing on it with five companions: he had to make sure that on days when whole crowds came here, it would not bend and give away their refuge.

Now he and three others began to lay the sod back.

The hatch was small; they got the job done quickly.

Then, while Jagu held on to the lid, the others jumped into the hole below it, passing to the far side to make room for the next one.

When everyone except Jagu was inside, the police cars were already in the center. Their searchlights searched the memorial.

While several rays alternately ran along the ring of statues, he lay motionless, crouching to the ground. Then it got dark again and he jumped up. Alaku lifted the lid from below just enough for Jagu to squeeze inside. He moved the sod to the raised edge of the hatch.

Now the most delicate part of the whole enterprise lay ahead. After all, no one could stay outside and lay the pieces of turf so that the uneven edges were not visible. But he thought the police would never think of looking for them in such a secret place. When they get out of the cars with lanterns, they will look for the intruders, thinking that they are hiding behind individual statues. They will not carefully examine the grass: after all, they will be looking for young men sprawled on the grass, and not for camouflaged hatches.

It was hot and cramped in the pit. Jagoo hoped they wouldn't have to wait too long. Zotu was slightly claustrophobic. If he starts to panic, for the common good he will have to be stunned.

The luminous dial of his wristwatch read 15:32.

He will give the police another hour to search and to understand: the whole company somehow climbed over the wall and washed away. Then he will lead his friends out of the pit. If the police don't leave one of their men to watch the road and if they don't search the forest for hidden cars, then everything will work out. A lot of "ifs" ... but all the more interesting.

A few minutes later, someone stepped heavily on the hatch cover.

Jagoo almost gasped. If Pharaoh understands from the sound that the bottom is empty ... but hardly. They probably overlap with each other.

There was another sound, as if someone had put a foot on the lid. Then he held his breath, hoping that no one would give them away by coughing or some other sound, and at that moment he heard something scratching at the wood.

In the next second, the lid slowly slid open. There was a rude cry:

Okay guys. Played and that's enough. Get out. And do not rock the boat. Otherwise we'll shoot you.

Later, already in the cell, when he had time to think, Jagu regretted that he did not resist.

How much better it would be to be killed than to endure all this!

He was in a small solitary confinement cell. He didn't know how long it had been since he got here. There were no windows here, his watch was taken away, and there was no one to talk to either.

Food was passed to him three times a day through a small sliding door that opened at the bottom of the large door. A tray was screwed to the door, into the recesses of which food was placed. There were no cutlery; I had to eat with my hands.

Fifteen minutes after the tray was pulled in, it began to retract back. Jogu tried to pull him in his direction, but to no avail.

The arrangement of the camera was simple. Bed bolted to the floor, no blankets or pillows. There was a washstand and hand dryer, and a hole in the floor for waste. The walls were covered with something soft. He couldn't commit suicide even if he wanted to.

Somehow after the third feeding, when he paced back and forth, wondering what punishment he would have to endure, what became of his comrades, what they told his parents and how they took it, the door opened.

It opened silently; he did not notice it until, walking, he turned to face her. Two men entered - the military, not the police. Without explaining anything, they took him out of the cell.

They had no weapons, but he had the impression that they had excellent control of their hands and paws, that they were experienced fighters and that if he attacked them, he would have a hard time. He had no intention of doing this. At least until it becomes clear where to run. As long as he is inside an unfamiliar building, which probably has hidden television and electronic means of tracking, he will not take risks.

Meanwhile ...

He was led down a long corridor to an elevator.

For some time, the cabin went up, but he could not understand how many floors they passed. Then the elevator stopped and was led down another long corridor, then another. Finally, they stopped in front of a door with a sign on which, in an elaborate script of the last century, was written:

TAGIMI TIIPAAROZUU

(Head, Criminal Investigation Department).

This was the office of Ariga, the officer responsible for the search and arrest of notable criminals. Jagu knew him because Arigi was present at his initiation as an elder. He was his kin in the clan.

Although Jagoo's knees were shaking, he vowed to himself that he would never show fear. When he was introduced, he realized that he would have to constantly remind himself that he was not afraid.

Arigi sat on his hind legs in front of a huge semicircular writing desk made of polished Bini wood. His face was cold and stern, and black glasses made him even more impenetrable. On his head, Ariga wore a quadrangular headdress with a high crown, which was worn by the highest police officials, and his hands were decorated with bracelets, most of which were awarded for various services by the government.

In his right hand he held a stiletto with a grip adorned with precious stones.

I can tell you, little bird, ”he said dryly, pointing his stiletto at Jaga,“ that you are the first of your company to be interrogated. The rest are still in their cells, wondering when the inquiry will begin. Admit it to me, he shouted so sharply that Jagu could not resist and shuddered, - when did you first decide that the spirits of your ancestors did not exist? That these are just ancient superstitions, fiction, in which some fools believe?

Jagoo decided that he would not deny the accusations if they were true. We'll have to suffer - let it be.

But he will not humiliate himself with lies and pleas for forgiveness.

I've always thought so, ”he replied. - Maybe when I was little, I believed that the spirits of my ancestors exist. But I don’t remember exactly that.

It means that you were smart enough not to trumpet your unbelief to everyone. Arigi said. He seemed to relax slightly. However, Jagu was sure that Arigi hoped that he would relax too, and then he would go on the attack again, putting him to sleep.

I wonder, he thought, are my words being recorded on tape, are they showing me now to my future judges? He doubted that the blasphemy trial would be made public. This would cast a shadow of mistrust and shame on his clan, and his members were powerful enough to prevent such a course of events.

Perhaps they keep him here just to intimidate him, to force him to repentance. Then he can be released with a reprimand, or, more likely, he will be arrested for clerical work.

They will be deprived of the right to fly.

But no, blasphemy is not only a crime against the people of his planet. This is a spit in the face of the ancestors. Such an offense can only be atoned for by torture and blood; he will scream, writhing in the fire, and the ghosts crowd around him, will revel in the blood flowing from his wounds.

Arigi smiled again, as if glad that Jagu was finally where he was.

Well, you're not a miss with us. - he said. “You are behaving like Vasaga. At least for now. Tell me, what, all your friends deny the existence of an afterlife?

Ask them.

Are you saying you don't know what they believe in?

I mean, I don't want to frame them.

And didn't you already set them up when you brought them to the Siikia memorial in order to defile the memory of the heroes by committing your illegal copulations and blasphemous prayers? Arigi said. - You set them up at the moment when you confessed your doubts to them and provoked them to express theirs. You set them up when you bought illegal contraceptives from criminals and gave them to your comrades to eat before an orgy.

Jagoo went cold. If no one let it slip, how could Arigi know about it?

Arigi smiled again.

You have no idea to what extent you set them up, ”he said. “Let's say the Wifi pills you gave them tonight are not real. I ordered that in the place where you took them, they give you pills that look and taste like Wifi. But they do not have the desired effect. Now one in four of you will get pregnant. Perhaps you too.

Jagu was shocked, but tried to hide that Ariga's words had such an effect on him. He asked:

If you all knew about us in advance, why didn't you arrest us earlier?

Arigi leaned his upper torso back and folded his hands behind his head. He stared into the space above Jagu's head, as if concentrating his thoughts there.

By now, we joruma have discovered exactly fifty-one habitable planets, ”he began slowly, suddenly changing the subject. - Fifty-one out of 300,000 - this is how their number is estimated in one, only our galaxy. Of these planets - and all of them have been discovered over the past twenty-five years - twelve are inhabited by centauroid intelligent forms similar to us, five are bipedal, six are forms of intelligence that are still poorly understood. All these sentient beings are bisexual, or rather sexually bipolar. None of them has, like us, quadripolar reproduction. From what we now know, we can conclude that Tuu - or, if you like, the Four Ancestors of the World, as the pagans believed in ancient times - favors creatures with a centauroid body structure. Bipedal forms are secondary. And only Tuu knows what other incredible creatures are scattered throughout outer space. It could also be assumed that for some reason Tuu blessed us - and only us - with a quadripolar way of breeding. In any case, until now we do not know anyone who would reproduce in the same way as we, the joruma. What do you think follows from this?

Jagu was perplexed. The inquiry was not going in the direction he expected. He did not hear any formidable denunciations, or annoying teachings, or threats of death, physical and moral punishment.

Where is Arigi heading? Probably, this direction of the conversation was chosen so that he thought that he would go unpunished. And then, when he forgets about the need to defend himself, Arigi will launch a furious offensive.

The Mako book says that Joma is one in the universe. And that the joruma are made in the image of Tuu. No other creature in the universe - so Mako said - Tuu honored with his blessing. We are chosen by him to conquer space.

That is what Mako said, ”Arigi remarked,“ or the author of the book that is credited with Mako. And I would like to know what you think of this.

Now it seemed to Jag that he understood what Arigi wanted from him. He speaks in such a way as to lead him to confess his unbelief. And then Arigi will pounce on him.

What should he worry about though? He already has overwhelming evidence.

What I think? - Jaga asked. - It seems to me rather strange that Tuu created so many intelligent creatures - that is, so developed that they have a language and a word in it to denote God - and all different, but only us - in their own likeness. If he wanted all the planets to eventually be inhabited by the joruma, then why did he create other beings on these planets? And all of them, by the way, think that they were created in the image of their creator.

Ariga's two pairs of eyelids almost closed, leaving only a pale green gap between them. He said:

Do you know that what you have just said is enough to pass judgment on you? What if I present all the evidence to the court, you could be burned alive over a slow fire? True, most blasphemers accept a quick death: they are thrown into a red-hot furnace. Law is law. But I’m not breaking the law if I fry you slowly, so you’ll die for twelve hours, or even more.

I know, ”Jagoo said. - The guys and I had a good time: I spat in the face of these spirits. Now you have to pay.

Once again, Arigi seemed to stray from the topic.

Before his death, Mako said that his spirit would pass through space and leave the meth in other worlds as a sign that they would be possessed by the joruma. But this was 2,500 years before space flights. Such things were not even dreamed of in his time. And what? When we reached the first inhabited world, we found the meta that he promised to leave: the stone statue of Joma, our ancestor. It was whipped by Mako to let us know that he was here, and to stake this world for the faithful, for the jorum; and in five other worlds out of fifty-five that are still open, there is also a giant stone statue of Joma, what do you say to that?

Jagu replied slowly:

Either the Mako spirit carved an image of Joma from a local stone, or ...

He hesitated.

Jagu opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed, making an effort to speak.

Or our astronauts carved these statues themselves, ”he said.

Here Arigi did something that Jagu did not expect from him. He laughed loudly, so that he even blushed. Finally, catching his breath and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, he said:

That's how it is! You guessed it! I wonder how many of you are there? And everyone is silent, afraid!

He blew his nose and continued:

I think not that much. Not many people are born skeptics like you. And on top of that, just as smart.

He looked curiously at Jaga:

You weren't very happy when you found out that you were right. What happened?

I do not know. Maybe, although I did not have faith, I always hoped that it would appear after all? What a relief I would feel if this happened! If the statues carved by Mako were really waiting for our cosmonauts, I would only have to believe ...

You wouldn't believe it anyway, ”said Arigu harshly.

Jagu stared at him. "Wouldn't you?"

No. Even if all the facts were for the Mako spirit being real, if you were bombarded with evidence, you still wouldn't believe it. You would find a rational basis for your unbelief. I would say that a correct explanation or interpretation of these facts is not available to us. And would continue to reject the idea of \u200b\u200bghosts.

Why? - Jagu was surprised. - I'm a reasonable person; I think rationally. Scientific categories.

Yes, of course, ”said Arigi. “But by nature you are an agnostic, a skeptic. You were already an unbeliever in the womb. You can be converted only by forcibly changing your nature. Most people are born believers; some are the opposite. It's simple.

Do you mean, - said Jagu, - that faith has nothing to do with reality? That I think the way I think because that is my character, and not because my mind has overcome the dark corners of religion?

Quite right.

Yes, but that, - said Jagu, - what you said means that there is no Truth! That an ignorant peasant, devoutly believing in spirits, has no less reason than myself to claim knowledge of what is true.

Truth? There is Truth and Truth. Here you fall from a high cliff, and until you fall to the ground, you fly first with one speed, then with another. Water, if there are no obstacles in its path, flows down. There are truths that are not disputed. When it comes to the physical world, your character does not matter. But in the field of metaphysics, the truth for you is what you are predisposed to from birth. But only.

At the thought of his death at the stake, Jagu did not flinch. Now he was in awe, for he was offended in his best feelings. Then depression will come. Ariga's cynicism turned him into a child.

Enlightened people - that is, guilty - born skeptics from the Aristoes have for some time stopped believing in spirits. Living in a country overflowing with granite images of their illustrious ancestors, overflowing with admirers of these hewn stones, we laugh. But to myself. Or only among their own. Many of us even doubt the existence of God. But we are not fools. In public, we do not allow ourselves to show even a shadow of skepticism. After all, the fabric of our society is held together by the threads of religion. This is a great way to keep people in check, to justify our power over them. And then, haven't you noticed a certain pattern in that the Mako statues were found only on certain planets? That these planets are somehow similar?

Jagu tried to speak slowly to suppress the tremors in his voice.

These images are absent on those planets where the level of technical development of civilizations is the same as ours. They are found only where there are no intelligent beings or where their technique is less developed than ours.

Excellent! Arigi said. - As you can see, this is not an accident. We are not at war with those who are able to give us an effective rebuff. For now, anyway. And now I will explain to you why I revealed all this to you - or rather, I confirmed what you yourself guessed. Even after we have mastered superluminal speeds, the crew of our interstellar research ships are staffed with people of a certain type. They are all aristocrats, and all are unbelievers. Such do not feel remorse, sculpting statues of wild stone on suitable planets.

Why is this needed?

To validate our principles. To establish our presence there. One day, another mind with technology, the same as ours, or perhaps better, will claim its rights to one of our planets. When that day comes, we need our soldiers and the rest of the population to burn with religious fervor.

So you want me and my comrades to do this for you?

And for myself too, ”said Arigi. “You young people will have to take the reins into your own hands after our death. But there is another reason. We need you as a replenishment. Work is dangerous. Quite often it happens that ships disappear. They just don't come back. They leave the port - and remember what they called. We need new space scouts. Now we need you and your friends. What do you say?

Do we have the right to choose? - asked Jaga. - What will happen if we refuse your offer?

An accident will happen, ”said Arigi. “We cannot afford to judge and punish you. Even secretly. We do not want to dishonor your ancient and venerable clans.

Ok, I agree. As soon as they let me, I'll talk to my friends.

They'll be released, no doubt about it, ”said Arigi dryly.

A few days later, Jaga was sent to the Higher Academy of the Navy.

He and his friends have flown numerous training missions within their solar system. A year later, they made three flights to neighboring planetary systems under the guidance of veterans. During the last flight and the accompanying combat exercises, the veterans only watched their actions.

Another event took place. A new space fighter, christened "Paadzhaa," was launched from the slipway, and Jagu received a red stone, which he, as the captain, was to attach to the brim of his hat. The rest of the group also received various ranks of lower rank, since the ship's crew was supposed to be staffed exclusively with them.

Before the Paajaa set off on its maiden voyage, Arigi summoned Jaga again to his place. Now Jagu was among the initiates and knew who Arigi really was. He not only headed the planet's police department, but was also responsible for its military and space security.

Arigi greeted Jaga as his own. He offered to sit down and poured him a glass of kuzutpo. It was a drink of the highest quality, thirty years old.

You have increased the glory and splendor of our clan, ”said Arigi. - Varzaga are proud of you. But you yourself know that you received the rank of captain not simply because you are from Varzag. Entrusting a spaceship to a young man, whose main merit is belonging to the ruling caste, is too expensive a pleasure. You deserve your captaincy.

He inhaled the aroma of the wine and took a sip from the glass.

Then he put down his glass and said, looking sideways at Jaga:

In a few days, you will receive an assignment to fly on your first research voyage. Your ship will be provided with fuel and supplies for four years, but you will have to return in two and a half - if circumstances permit. For a year and three months, you have to search for planets suitable for life. If you find a planet where intelligent life has mastered the technology that allows it to fly inside its system and use atomic energy, you need to understand at what stage of development they are and whether they are able to withstand our invasion in the future. If sentient beings make interstellar travel, learn about them as much as possible without putting your ship in danger of attack from them. And when you know enough, pick up full speed and fly home straight away. If intelligent life has poorly developed technology, find a place on the planet that is clearly visible from orbit, and place there or carve an image of joma on the rock. And here's another thing. By the time you get back, there will be far more young eggs hatching here than ever before. And the percentage of those predisposed to disbelief among them will also be greater than in previous years. When you reach my age, so many unbelievers will become a big problem.

Discord will begin, morals will change, doubts will arise, maybe it will even come to bloodshed. Until this happens, while the spirit of the times is not yet on the side of the unbelievers, while faith in Heroes and Mako has not yet fallen into decline, it is necessary to have time to establish colonies on different planets inhabited by intelligent beings. We will also have to destroy or at least greatly reduce the number of their intelligent inhabitants, who are at the lower stages of development. We must populate these planets ourselves. Our mode of reproduction is such that no other species of intelligent life can populate the planet faster than we do. And this is good, because our colonies will help us in the upcoming wars. It is also inevitable that we will have to fight civilizations equal to us and, perhaps, even more advanced. When this happens, we will have to be guided by the thought that we have the right, granted from above, to take whatever we want. By then, the waning faith in the religion of our fathers will no longer be able to sustain the fighting spirit of our soldiers. We will invoke a new faith in its place. Our right to be conquerors. At the same time, I will, of course, do my best to suppress all resistance to our official religion. Atheists from the aristoes will be instructed on the path of conscious hypocrisy, and certain measures will be taken towards those who, out of noble motives, refuse such a path. Unbelievers from the lower classes will also be eliminated. They will be branded as criminals. Although, of course, you cannot fight the spirit of the times for a long time. Sooner or later, he will still take his own. But in that era I will already meet with my ancestors - my part of the work will be done.

I will become a spirit, and a statue will probably be erected in my honor. Only now my descendants - except for ultra-reactionaries, without whom not a single generation can manage - will perceive my tomb as a historical and archaeological landmark. And I will have to walk restless among other restless spirits - humiliated, poorly fed, groaning from weakness and impotent anger.

It seemed to Jag that these words were more than an allegory. "Isn't Arigi being deceived in the same way as those he loves to laugh at?" he thought. It seemed that Arigi had created his own personal mythology to replace the old one.

After all, how could he prove his claim that believers are born, not become?

A week later, he returned to the Paadjaa and gave the order to start. A week later, their home star turned into one of many points of light. They rushed into an unknown distance.

A year later, after passing thirty stars, they found two suitable planets. Both of them revolved around an Ao-U type star, but, unlike the first, the second was the third in a row from the star and had intelligent inhabitants.

Paadzhaa entered orbit in the upper atmosphere and aimed its telescopes towards its surface. The resolving power of the telescopes was very high, and the starships could see all the little things as clearly as if they were hovering twenty feet above the ground.

Sentient creatures were bipedal and had almost no hair, except for the thick hair on the head, and in males and on the face. Most covered their bodies with various clothes.

Like the jorum, their skin color and hair type varied; among the inhabitants of the equatorial zone, they were the darkest.

While Paadzhaa remained in orbit, thousands of photographs were taken. From photographs where these two-legged were half-dressed or naked, it became clear that they only have two genders.

Another fact was established. Their technique was nothing compared to the jorum technique. Apart from a few balloons, they didn't even have flying machines.

The main engine was a steam engine. Steam traction turned the wheels of locomotives rolling on iron tracks, and the wheels or screws of ships. There were also many sailing ships.

The most formidable weapons were guns and rifles of a simple design, loaded from the breech.

The locals were at about the same stage of technological progress as the joruma was one and a half hundred years ago.

During the three hundredth orbit, Alaku made a startling discovery.

Looking at the terrain, the image of which was projected with a telescope on a large screen, he screamed loudly.

Those who were nearby also ran up to him and froze, seeing where Alak's gaze was directed. A cry escaped their lips too.

When Jaga approached, this place had already disappeared from the field of view of the telescope. But after listening to the stories, he ordered that the photographs be brought to him immediately.

Glancing at the pictures, he said, giving his face an impenetrable expression so that others would not notice how shocked he was:

We'll have to go downstairs to see it with our own eyes.

Four of them went down by boat, and the ship remained in its stationary orbit, hanging over their heads. The place they were heading to was on a rocky plateau about five miles southeast of the nearest town. The city stood on the western bank of a wide river, along which a strip of greenery stretched amid the desert that covered a large area in the northern part of the continent. It was night, and a full moon was floating in the cloudless sky. It shone brightly on the three huge stone pyramids and what had so excited the Paajaa crew.

He was in the middle of a big career.

Hiding their boat in a deep and narrow ravine, all four moved into a half-track all-terrain vehicle. A minute later, Jaga turned off the engine, and everyone came out to watch.

They were silent for a while. Then Jagoo, slowly choosing his words, as if afraid to compromise himself, said:

It seems to be Joma.

He is ancient, - said Alak. - Very ancient. If Mako did it, it was soon after death. Probably, he immediately headed here.

Don't jump to conclusions, Jagu said. - I would say that another ship has already been here before us. But we know that no ships were sent to this sector. Although…

Although what? - asked Alaka.

You're right, he's ancient. Look - there are mountain ash on the stone. This is probably from the sand that the wind brings. Take a look at his face. It's erased. Yet it could have been made once upon a time by local residents. This is most likely.

Silenced again, they got back into the vehicle and slowly rode around the huge statue.

He looks to the east, - said Alak. - This is exactly what Mako promised to put up his statues.

The intelligent inhabitants of many worlds in a primitive state orientate their temples with the entrance to the east, and the faces of their idols and the dead are also often turned there, ”Jagu said. - It is natural to consider the rising sun, which rises from nothingness every day, as a symbol of immortality.

This is possibly the largest depiction of Joma, ”Fawani said. “But it’s not the only one on this planet. There are others in the photographs. They seem to be ancient too. This is probably just a coincidence. They were made by the locals themselves. These are idols, symbols of their religion.

Or, - said Alaku, - the locals founded the tradition of worshiping Joma after Mako visited here and carved this statue out of stone. Maybe he even converted them to our religion. And then they built the temple that we saw in front of the statue. I'm sure these ruins were a temple. Then they made other images of Jom, smaller ones. And many centuries later, they stopped believing in Joma ... like us. Although the testimony of the truth remained standing before their blinded gaze ...

Jagu understood - no matter how much they argued about it among themselves, they would not get to the bottom of the truth. I had to find someone who knew her.

He turned the rover towards the city.

In the suburbs, they began to come across houses standing apart.

Before he had traveled a mile, he found what he was looking for. A group of local residents was heading towards them. All of them rode on animals that closely resembled the gapos from the deserts of his home planet, except that they had only four legs and one hump.

Gap-like animals scattered scattered out of fear; some of them threw off their riders. Jorum was fired at them with jet darts, the tips of which were smeared with a paralyzing compound. Having ripped off the clothes from his victims to make sure there were specimens of both sexes (he knew that zoologists would want to investigate them at home), the jorum was chosen by a male and a female. They were loaded into an all-terrain vehicle and taken back to the boat.

In a few minutes the boat was on its way to the Paadzhaa.

Returning to the ship, they put the sleeping natives on the bed and locked them in the cabin. Jagu examined them carefully and wondered for the thousandth time: did Tuu really endow the joruma with natural superiority over other creatures?

Probably, they really were created in the image of Tuu.

These bipeds seemed lanky and weak and, most importantly, very unproductive in terms of procreation. Representatives of one of the sexes were not at all able to lay eggs or carry juveniles. This flaw reduced the ability of the species to reproduce itself in half. “And in general, he thought, retaining the ability for humor even in the half-drowned state in which he was now, - this deprives them of three-quarters of their pleasure.”

Perhaps other intelligent beings were, as some theologians thought, simply the fruits of Tuu's failed experiments? Or maybe Tuu has prepared the role of lower beings for the Nejorum?

However, to ask such questions is the business of theologians. He had to guess a much more important and urgent riddle.

In addition, Alaka worried him.

The imperturbable Alaku, an agnostic whose only and unchanging passion was the exercise of his own mind, what he saw shocked much more than the others.

Jagu hadn't forgotten what Arigi had told him. We believe in what we want to believe. Metaphysical questions cannot be resolved with facts.

This is just one of the opinions, - Alaku told him. - We considered ourselves very smart, and our fathers - ignorant and superstitious. But Mako knew that one day we would get here and find out the truth. He knew this even when there weren't even our great-great-great-grandfathers in the world.

We have two natives, ”Jagu said. - We will learn their language. From them we can find out who sculpted Joma - that is, this statue, so similar to Joma.

How would they know? - said Alak, looking hopelessly at him. “They know about it only thanks to the testimony of their ancestors, as we do from our words.

This conversation with Alaku was the last one.

Soon after, Alaku did not appear on duty on the bridge when he was on duty. Jaga began to call him on the intercom.

Receiving no answer, he went to his cabin. The door was locked, but Jagu, as the captain, had the key. Alaku was lying on the floor, all blue from drunk potassium cyanide.

He left no explanation. However, everything was clear and so.

This event upset and saddened the entire crew. Despite some alienation to Alaku, everyone loved him. He fertilized many of their eggs, and those fertilized eggs that remained in his body were placed in the refrigerator for quick defrosting upon returning home.

A few hours later, the natives killed each other. The bigger one strangled the smaller one. But before that, the smaller one had a bite of the larger veins on the wrists. After the smaller one died, the one that remained began to actively move in order to increase the bleeding.

Jagu decided to start all over again and catch other representatives of the intelligent race from the same place. But something prevented him from doing it. Come back and see Joma again, this is an ancient creation made of stone, awe-inspiring by its mere appearance…. who knows who will go crazy next? Isn't he himself?

For several days Jagoo paced the bridge. Or, having come to his cabin, he was lying on the bed, staring at the bulkhead.

One day Jagu climbed to the bridge when the third shift was on duty there. Fawani, with whom he was especially close, was also there, performing the duties of a pilot, which at that moment did not require much effort from him. Seeing Jaga, he was not surprised; Jagu often came here when he was supposed to sleep.

We haven't been together for a long time, ”said Fawani. - A statue on this planet, abandoned by Tuu, Alaku's suicide ... all this ruined our love. Everything was destroyed, there was only one question ...

Everything is clear to me. I know he was sculpted by the natives. I know that, it simply could not be otherwise.

But can this be proven? Favani asked.

No, Jagu replied. - And therefore, before returning home, we need to think carefully about what to do next.

What do you mean?

We have several options for further action. The first is to report on everything that we have seen here. Let's leave the authorities to decide what to do with this - let them think for us. The second is to forget that we were here. Only report the discovery of the first planet. The third is not to return home at all. Find a planet suitable for colonization, so far away that it will take a good hundred years before the ships of the jorum find it. All these options are dangerous, continued Jagoo. “You don’t really know Ariga, but I do. He will not believe that this is a coincidence, because his mathematical probability is too small. He will not believe that the author of the sculpture is Mako. He will think that these statues were made by us to make a monstrous joke.

How can you believe this?

It's hard for me to blame him, - Jagu answered, - he did not forget about our past exploits. He might think that we again wanted to misbehave. Or that a long journey has shattered our psyches, that we have become converted, become superstitious, have resorted to deception from the most pious motives, wanting to convert him or people like him. But you never know what? He'll decide it's our job. He will either have to come to this conclusion, or admit that all his ideas about life were wrong. If you destroy all documentary evidence, photographs, logbooks, there is still a risk that someone will let it out. Even for sure. It's not customary for us to keep our mouths shut. Or one of us will be moved by the mind and blab everything as it was. Personally, I think we should use the third opportunity. Fly away to an unexplored area, somewhere so far away that we could not return. There we will be beyond the reach of modern ships. If sometime in the future someone finds us, we can always say that we had an accident and could not return.

What if we run out of fuel before we find a suitable planet? Favani asked.

It's not the most pleasant choice, but we don't have a better one, ”Jagu replied.

He jabbed into the lower left corner of the star map on the bulkhead.

There are only a few Ao-U stars here, ”he said. - If I now, this minute, order you to send a ship there - will you carry out this order?

I don’t know what to say, ”Fawani replied. “I only know that we can argue about how best to act, all the long way home, and never come to any decision. I trust you, Jaga, for I believe in you.

Do you believe? - Jaga asked. He smiled. - So, there are those who are born with faith in their own kind? And those who are born to be believed in? Anything can be. And what about the rest of the crew? Will they follow me without hesitation?

Talk to them, Favani advised him. “Tell them what you told me. They will do the same as me. And I won't even wait for the result. I will deploy the ship now. They don't need to know about this until they have decided to just talk to them before the end of my watch.

Excellent. Expand it. Keep heading for that area. We will choose a specific star later. We now have little choice: find her or die. We will start life anew. And our children do not learn anything about spirits or about long-dead heroes.

There is a full reversal, ”Fawani said. He took up management and began to insert data cards into the computer. Then he asked: - Can a person live without religion? What are we going to replace the old creed with?

They will believe whatever they want, ”Jagu said cheerfully. “Besides, we still have a lot of time to think about all this.

Looking at the stars behind the window, he was silent. He thought of the planet they had just left. Its intelligent inhabitants will never know what they owe him, Jag.

If he returned to base and told about everything, a fleet would be sent to this planet - regardless of what was decided regarding Jagu and his team. They would continue to hunt the natives to test their response to infection with disease-causing organisms specially bred in the laboratory. In a few years, only those who had natural immunity to them would have survived. Their planet would be ready to populate the jorum.

Now the two-legged have been given a reprieve. If they manage to go into space in a fairly short time and master nuclear energy, the next jorum ship will declare their planet unpromising.

How do you know? Perhaps his own descendants will regret this decision. One fine day, the children of these creatures, whom he unwittingly spared, may appear on the very planet that Jagu will choose for her children. Perhaps they will even attack the jorum, exterminate them, or turn them into slavery.

Yes, such a fate could await him and his descendants.

He pressed a button to wake the sleeping people and collect them.

Now he will tell them everything.

He knew that what had happened would weigh on them until their death. And he swore to himself that their children would not know anything about it. They will be free from the past with its fears and doubts.

They will be free.