The Black Relay Race

by ChronoLegion

A stranger approaches you to transport a mysterious box halfway across the galaxy for enough money to let you retire. Do you do it? Of course! Who wouldn't? Except it seems that anyone who gets involved with the box suffers the same fate. Can anyone win this deadly relay race? This is a sequel to "Death or Glory", a translation of which is also available.

7. Leg 6

This is a fan translation of The Black Relay Race (Чёрная эстафета) by Vladimir Vasilyev. This is the second book in the Death or Glory (Смерть или слава) series. I strongly recommend that you read the novel Death or Glory first. Its fan translation is available on this website.

I claim no rights to the contents herein.

---

Leg 6

Pavel Neklyudov, Human, Tau Claudus Turtur—Swarm-72. The moment of Yiri-Yovasi's death

"Have you gone insane?!" General Titarenko screamed. "Who gave the order to fire?"

"The officer of the watch, Captain Sedykh."

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"But General, that ship slipped away from us… And then it came back… We can't track its jumps… What if it went beyond the Barrier again?"

"And what if it's a different ship? What if it's the Swarm? They're going to atomize us if we attacked the Swarm, do you understand that, Captain?!"

"General, it's the same ship. We marked it before it disappeared."

"Right! And now you're going to tell me you had time to read the mark before firing!"

"My fault, General… We read the mark after firing. But it's the same ship. So the risk was justified. And now we have a Swarm ship equipped with a state-of-the-art x-drive."

"Ten days in the brig for the entire watch shift," the General bit off. "And be glad you got lucky… Damned morong…"

The General thought that ten days in the brig was paradise compared to what his commanding officer was going to do to him. It was here on Takhche General Titarenko was god and king. But a colony was just a colony, it depended on the homeworld, and if the headquarters on Selentine decided that Titarenko had screwed up… Well, it wouldn't end well.

After thinking on that, the General contacted the captain of the light cruiser Vagrant.

"Semyon? This is Titarenko… Listen, put our… umm… haul into the tactical hold, load up some researchers, and get the hell away from here in random mode. I don't even want to know where. Until the drive is repaired, sit there as quiet as a mouse. Don't even send out pings to traffic control. Understood?"

"Understood, General," Semyon Kuksevich, the youngest captain in the Takhchean squadron, replied. "Everything is quiet for now, by the way. No particular activity detected on the key Swarm stations."

"And we won't. All we're going to see is a fleet appearing in Turtur. Without warning, as always. And then…"

"Should I get the research group from Orion? Or the surface?"

"Orion. There are also civilians among them. Be a little firmer with them, no comms to their families, no letters or video calls."

"Yes, sir. May I get started?"

"Do it."

---

That dialog was the reason Pavel Neklyudov, xenotechnical specialist, was raised out of bed three and a half hours earlier than usual. It wasn't the alarm screeching as he initially assumed but an emergency call. Still half-asleep, Pavel felt for the button to accept the call.

"Get up, Pavel," the comm said in Shemanikhin's voice. "Going on a business trip. You've got fifteen minutes to get your stuff, they sent a mule to you. Bring only gear. Well, and the emergency suitcase, of course."

"What happened?" Pavel was immediately awake and sitting up in bed, touching the cold floor with his feet. "Briefly."

"The Swarm ball is back. And, well, our brave soldiers hit with a neutron blast. It's been sitting in our zone for almost an hour now and isn't trying to flee. The Vagrant is already near it and a whole bunch of tech boats. I think we'll be tasked with breaking through the defensive systems and locks, and then probably the ship's computer. So get up," Shemanikhin hurried him. "Fifteen minutes isn't a lot."

"All right, I got it. Getting up," Pavel grunted and plodded over to the bathroom.

Someone started pounding on his door about seven minutes later, while he, already in pants and sneakers, was bending over the sink and brushing his teeth. With the toothbrush still in his mouth, Pavel went to open the door. A young space forces sergeant gave him a crisp salute, "Sergeant Ugryumtsev, sir! Your mule is downstairs! The coordinates are already laid in, just start it and go!"

"Shanksh!" Pavel thanked him through the toothbrush. "One shecond!"

The sergeant ran off, and Pavel returned to the sink.

Two and a half minutes later, Pavel Neklyudov, fully dressed, was riding the elevator down to the transportation level. He had the emergency suitcase in his hand and a crimson gym bag on his shoulder.

There really was a mule waiting at the entrance to the residential sector. Securing his things in the trunk, Pavel saddled the mule, started the engine, and turned on the autopilot.

That was it. Now he didn't even need to hold the steering wheel. The mule rolled forward, following a route in its memory.

The closest airlock was a stone's throw away. They intentionally housed technicians working with the military that way. So that they could instantly go on a mission…

To be honest, Pavel had no recollection of such a call happening before. First time in seven… Wait! Seven? Almost eight years now (how time flew!). Well, if he didn't count the quarterly drills.

Funny thing was, during those drills, the "mission" was always kept a secret and only divulged when the drill teams took up their stations on the ships and simulated the launch, the flight, and the mission itself.

But now was the first real mission, and Pavel had been told the basics even before leaving.

Funny. Humans had forgotten how to wage war.

But they used to know. Once, humans armed with ancient peashooters had spent over a standard day fighting off alien attacks. On the planet Volga, two hundred years ago. And then they shook up the alien fleet so hard that the only thing left for them to do was to accept humans into the Alliance. Pavel knew the history of the events at Volga well, as that was where his ancestors had lived. And then his great-great-great-great-grandmother was a part of the crew of the legendary Departed starship.

Her name was Veronica Starodumova, and she was a navigator on Mikhail Zislis's shift. Zislis was a persona known to any human. Pavel had heard the family legends plenty of times, later learning to separate the real facts from the tall tales. But even accounting for the later changes of the retellers, it was clear that the events at Volga and the confrontation between the Departed ship and the combined Alliance fleet were far from ordinary events. As a result of these extraordinary events, the history of the galaxy was the way it was.

The current balance was extremely advantageous to humanity. Then again, Pavel was smart enough not to trust the popular opinion, as there simply was nothing to compare it to. Yes, he also felt that humans had won. But it didn't mean that it couldn't have ended up even more advantageous.

Shemanikhin was already there, talking and wildly gesticulating to a tall Finnish lieutenant with an unpronounceable last name. Pavel mentally called the Finn "Doghairnen" because he always sold military-issued alcohol for cheap.

"Hey," Pavel greeted them.

"Hey," Shemanikhin replied and fell silent. He also ceased gesticulating.

"Terve," Doghairnen answered weakly. It seemed that Shemanikhin had managed to tire out even him, a complete phlegmatic.

"Hey, guys," Pavel nodded to a group of physicists yawning near the still-closed hatch.

Still yawning, the physicists greeted him in turn.

"What do we have?" Pavel decided to occupy Shemanikhin with something, as he looked like he was about to resume pestering the poor lieutenant.

"Listen," Shemanikhin whispered, "remember the hell raised when traffic control let it slip that a shapeshifter came on a Swarm ship? They didn't even manage to tail him right. He just stopped by some store, bought an optical disk reader of our standard, and left."

"So why didn't they grab him at his ship?" Pavel inquired.

"He didn't dock. The bastard left his ship some distance away, got here by walkway, and sent the ship beyond the Barrier. And then, when he left Orion by walkway, called it back. And in a different spot too. Got ahead of our brave soldiers. You know we can't get to Swarm tech beyond the Barrier… The only thing they had time to do was place an isotopic mark on its hull."

"And he was dumb enough to come back?"

"Looks like. Traffic control fell off their chairs when he did. Someone on the satellite monitoring shift hit him with a neutron pulse in the heat of the moment, at full power too. I don't think there are any living bacteria on board anymore, if there were any. They checked the mark and learned it was the same visitor."

"So they shot him before even reading the mark?" Pavel asked in surprise.

"Yeah."

"Idiots," Pavel sighed. "Why are soldiers such idiots?"

Shemanikhin grinned, "It's their default setting."

Doghairnen gave him a sideways glance but said nothing.

In the meantime, more people were arriving; the hatch was opened, and everyone in the room was being led to the shuttle docked at the pier.

There were twenty-six researchers; only two xenotechnicians among them: Shemanikhin and Neklyudov. The rest represented general sciences. They were the only ones specializing in alien technology. In particular, Pavel Neklyudov's specialty was Svaigh and Swarm tech. Then again, a Swarm tech specialist differed from any other technical engineer only in that he couldn't have baseless illusions and knew for certain that humans knew absolutely nothing about Swarm technology. The Swarm built their machines as black boxes. Once opened, Swarm machines ceased to function and sometimes even self-destructed.

"So what now? They've got us all together and think that we can break the secret of the x-drive?" Pavel continued pressing, already sitting in the shuttle.

"Of course," Shemanikhin threw his hands up in the next seat. "We've never had access to a Swarm x-drive before."

Pavel chewed his lip thoughtfully, "You said a shapeshifter arrived in the ship?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm… Strange," Pavel really was surprised. He couldn't recall the Swarm ever working with the shapeshifting race. Until then, the Swarm only ever engaged in official interactions with the higher races: Ayeshi, Svaigh, Aczanny, Zoopht, and, to some extent, humans. Less with humans than with their long-term Alliance partners. The Swarm always ignored the former satellites of the higher races, letting the others interact with them instead. Their own satellites, the Senahe, the Swarm had ceased patronizing in the old way right after humans joined the Alliance, leaving the Senahe wallow in the dumb the size of the galaxy on their own. They did and, in general, managed to make it out. These days, they and the Drra were two of the most prosperous and promising younger races.

The shuttle took off with a barely perceptible acceleration. For some reason, grav-dampers were always not working quite right on military ships. Or maybe the military deliberately set them to partial damping. Was that to retain the sensation of movement? A pilot had once told Pavel that full damping only got in the way, made him feel that the flight wasn't real.

Possibly.

"This is all strange," Shemanikhin sighed. "A shapeshifter on a Swarm ship. Comes to our colony, knowing perfectly well that a whole pack of hunters will be sent after him; buys a disk reader, for some reason, then manages to flee the pack… and then comes right back into death's maw. Something's not right here."

"You think the Swarm is trying to do a minor provocation?"

"Not necessarily a minor one. The Swarm, Pavel, is something about which we only know that we know nothing about it."

Neklyudov chuckled, as Shemanikhin's words matched his own recent thoughts almost word-for-word.

"I don't see the point of such a provocation, Vitaly. The Swarm has never tried to start a fight. On the contrary, there are plenty of examples of the Swarm's unexpected intervention being the only thing that prevented various conflicts. Remember the clash between the Drra and the Upper Shaded. If not for the arrival of a Swarm battle asteroid and the warning that a single shot would result in the Drra squadron and both Shaded departing into the Barrier for good. And even cunning Aczanny diplomacy had failed at the time. And I don't have to tell you what Aczanny diplomats are capable of."

"I remember," Shemanikhin seemed to sadden. "Then again, maybe those ants aren't trying to start a war. Maybe they need a trump card in a game with Earth. Like, 'See what your kind is doing with Claudus Turtur? Now we want compensation…'"

"Don't make me laugh," Pavel snorted. "What could Earth possibly give the Swarm? Waste?"

"Who knows?.." Shemanikhin shifted his fingers vaguely. "Maybe energy."

"The Swarm is working with resources an order or two of magnitude greater. It's not going to ruin its relationship with Earth over morsels. We're weaker, but there are more of us. And the Swarm is well aware of that."

The shuttle was moving at sublight, and the acceleration was still present.

"Are we not jumping?" Pavel asked, turning his head. The passengers were behaving as if they were flying from Orion to Takhche: some were talking, some watching the news, some pounding on the keys of their travel terminals, some were taking a nap, leaning back in their seats, and those physicists were excitedly playing even-odd.

No one particularly cared about the Swarm's maneuvers. No one particularly cared about the dead shapeshifter. The expert researchers were simply waiting for the chance to work off the bonus they'd get for the mission, and it was unlikely that any of them was going to work too hard on it.

Routine.

By the way, Pavel thought. It's not even clear if that shapeshifter died. Maybe there's no one aboard.

Apparently noticing where Pavel was looking, Shemanikhin once again confirmed his thoughts, "Yeeeeah… Everyone's relaxing. You and I are the only idiots worrying about the fate of the galaxy."

Pavel chuckled, "Pay no attention to them. We're the only xenotechnicians here, and we all know how the rest feel about aliens."

Pavel knew that the most precise answer to that question was, they didn't. They couldn't care less about aliens. And the reverse was also true, for the most part.

"Whatever," the low acceleration was lulling Pavel to sleep, and he yawned. "No point in theorizing. We'll find out when we get there. Let's get some sleep, or, I'm telling you, those soldiers are going to demand overtime. Won't get much sleep then."

"All right," Shemanikhin agreed reluctantly. He clearly wanted to talk some more.

Pavel actually managed to fall asleep almost immediately.

He was awakened by a jolt, as the shuttle docked to a large ship and, again following military tradition, the pilots weren't that concerned about the comfort of the passengers. When the shuttle hit the end of the docking tube, everyone was shaken up.

"Ah…" Pavel jumped up and then remembered where he was. "Are we there?"

"We're there," Shemanikhin confirmed, unstrapping himself.

The shuttle was unsealed without any damping, and their ears popped from the change in pressure. A thin, dark-skinned lieutenant appeared in the open hatch.

"Scientists!" he announced in a surprisingly deep voice. "Before you're escorted to the hab sector, Colonel Semyon Kuksevich, the captain of the Vagrant, would like to speak with you. Please follow me."

Shemanikhin grumbled quietly, "Whoa! Our soldiers learned to say 'please'."

Pavel ignored his colleague's snarky remark. He simply pulled out his emergency suitcase from under the seat and grabbed the red bag from the upper shelf.

We're on the Vagrant then, he thought. And the Vagrant is probably making an immediate jump somewhere far away. And then again. And again, just to be sure. Or maybe it's going to keep jumping. And that would be the smartest, but, unfortunately, not a perfectly safe decision.

The cruiser pulsated even before the researchers reached the conference room. The strange moment of duality felt like either death or rebirth. Pavel was always tormented by doubt whether it was him who appeared with the ship at the arrival sphere. Or was it a perfect copy? It seemed scary and logical. The original disappeared, while a copy that hadn't existed before began to consider itself to be the true Pavel Neklyudov. Except the real Pavel Neklyudov had long ago disappeared into the oblivion after the first x-transition in his life.

The only thing that helped comfort Pavel was that a human's atomic composition changed completely every few years. Meaning they basically became their own copy. But that happened gradually, whereas an x-transition was instantaneous.

The research team was asked to leave their things in the hallway before the conference room.

The captain of the Vagrant turned out to be a stocky red-faced man in his mid-thirties. He appeared to be composed entirely of right angles: a square face, a square jaw, broad stubby shoulders. Even the tips of his officer's shoes were square. Everyone, including the restless physicists, went silent after seeing that geometer.

Pavel and Shemanikhin sat down at the very end, closer to the exit.

"Gentlemen! Allow me to greet you aboard the cruiser Vagrant."

Pavel couldn't shake the feeling that the captain wasn't so much giving a speech as building an invisible wall from the square words he was dropping.

"By order of the Takhche armed forces commander General Titarenko, a state of emergency has been declared aboard this vessel. Each of you will be issued individual tasks. I will not go into the details of what the coming work entails, as I'm certain everyone is already aware. Strategically important alien technology has fallen in our hands, and we will attempt to understand the principle of the trophy's operation."

Shemanikhin snorted immediately, "If we were capable of understanding the principle, we'd already be building our own drives…"

"Keep it down, Vitaly," Neklyudov pulled him back.

"All right…" a major with an exhausted look dove out from behind Kuksevich and dumped a pile of plastic envelopes onto the table from an archaic valise. The captain took the top one. "Altered state physics team… Victor Pasulko."

One of the physicists rose, and someone passed him the envelope.

"Andrei Cherkasov…"

Another envelope moved through the rows.

"Ferenc Santor…"

And another.

"Bagrat Sairetdinov…"

"Vladimir Vasilyev…"

"Michael Kiryakidi…"

More envelopes spread through the room.

"Technical engineering team. Rainer Eastwig… Olga Chusovitina… Manfred Kaltz… Xenotechnological team. Vitaly Shemanikhin… Pavel Neklyudov…"

The envelope was nearly weightless, and Pavel thought that most of the weight came from the huge wax seal. For some reason, the seal gave Pavel a feeling of nostalgia and vague associations with coachmen, carrier pigeons, and messages in a bottle.

Out of principle, he decided he wasn't going to unseal the envelope until he got to his cabin.

He had to admit that the military didn't waste any time. As soon as the envelopes were handed out, the familiar dark-skinned lieutenant offered for them to "proceed their accommodations".

Obviously, the lieutenant was simply reciting the phrases he'd memorized earlier, not even bothering to delve into their meaning. In general, such automatism produced excellent results in emergency situations.

They were given double cabins. Naturally, Shemanikhin and Neklyudov bunked together.

Pavel dropped his bag on the floor and carefully set the suitcase down between a narrow bunk and a nightstand.

"Yeah. Just look at the way they live here…" Shemanikhin drawled in disappointment after looking around.

"What did you expect? It's a cruiser," Pavel shrugged. "They save on personal space. Be grateful there's a bathroom in a separate room, or they might've just placed one right here…"

Shemanikhin chuckled. Meanwhile, Pavel clumsily broke the seal and, swearing, managed to get the envelop opened. Inside he found a single sheet of thin plastic with text that was partially printed and partially handwritten.

"To Pavel Neklyudov, Omega Team researcher.

Top secret. The information below may not be disclosed to anyone under any circumstances. Violation falls under the Violation of Technological Nondisclosure Act and is punishable by death regardless of motives."

"Violation falls under the act of violation…" Pavel snorted. "Damned stylists…"

"You are hereby charged with the responsibility of taking part in research of captured equipment located aboard a Swarm scout ship organized by team leader Vitaly Shemanikhin. A successful accomplishment of the task will have a colossal significance for all of humanity.

General Titarenko."

A sweeping signature followed.

Below it was, "The primary task of the xenotechnological team, as well as of all the others, is an attempt to comprehend the physical and technological principles of operation of the Swarm-designed x-drive.

This document is to be destroyed after reading.

Colonel Nadtochiy, head of intelligence of the Takhche Squadron."

The second signature wasn't sweeping. Instead, it was written calligraphically, like that of a model schoolgirl.

"I have no idea why they bothered giving this to us," Shemanikhin exclaimed in anger. "Do you have the same bullshit I do?"

"No doubt," Pavel sighed and glanced at his watch. "We should probably go."

Five minutes of the ten allocated for the settling in had already passed. And they still had to put the plastic sheets along with the envelopes into a shredder and get back to the ship's central stem.

Fifteen minutes later, the entire research team was standing in front of the hatches to the cargo hold. In general, Pavel knew what he was going to see inside. A matte sphere thirty to thirty-five meters in diameter.

And he did. Along with a whole bunch of various equipment. Entire racks of it, almost without any gaps. There were also tables with portable terminals. In the middle of the improvised research center stood the dome of a powerful multithread processor.

"Whoa!" Shemanikhin exclaimed, looking back at Pavel. "I had no idea that cruisers had these."

"They probably just loaded it up. If I'm not mistaken, there are only two of them on Orion: in colonial intelligence and search-and-rescue."

"You're not mistaken, technician," an incredibly heavy-set colonel informed him, appearing from behind an equipment rack. "There really are only two such processors on Orion. Actually, only one, the one in intelligence. This is the other one."

The colonel's face was puffy, and his face color was strangely unhealthy. Like that of a ball of bread that had been kneaded in sweaty, dirty hands for a while.

God! What, he couldn't go through rehabilitation in time? Pavel thought with sudden dislike. Naturally, he said nothing out loud.

"All right, gentlemen, first allow me to introduce myself. Colonel Nadtochiy, head of Takhche Squadron intelligence. Much obliged. You're looking at what has unexpectedly—I'm not going to puff my cheeks and try to misinform you—ended up in our hands. A small Swarm-made scout ship. We are aware that it's equipped with a state-of-the-art x-drive, one that can bypass the Barrier without disturbing the fabric of space or creating gravity field disturbances. Everyone knows that only the Swarm can build such drives; the other allies among the higher races are using the previous model. We have a fortuitous opportunity to figure out the secret of this drive. Possessing it will inevitably have positive consequences for the Takhche colony and humanity as a whole. You've been given all manner of equipment. You are specialists, each in your own field. I hope that together we can overcome all obstacles on the path to success. And now I will leave you to it. Address all questions and requests to my adjutant Lieutenant Hardaway."

Their dark-skinned escort took a step forward and nodded. The cap on his head didn't even shift as if nailed.

"I will remind you that the concept of a 'workday' temporarily doesn't exist for the research team since time is working against us. We don't know what the Swarm, which doesn't like losing scout ships and sharing its technological secrets, will do. Good luck, gentlemen. Good luck to us all."

Colonel Nadtochiy didn't say another word. Putting on his cap (bigger than the adjutant's and with a bright band), he left and didn't even turn once on the way to the hatch out of the cargo hold.

Lieutenant Hardaway simply stepped to the side, sat at a separate table with a terminal, and immediately started typing on the keyboard.

The twenty-six researchers were left at the spherical ship. A collective consciousness. One on one with a product of an alien mind.

"All right then, people," Victor Pasulko, the head of the physics team, announced, throwing his hands up. "We've been thrown into battle. Any ideas? Where do we begin?"

Someone snorted sarcastically and suggested in a tone that was very much like Shemanikhin's, "Undoubtedly, we're going to try to get inside."

A few people laughed.

"Doesn't the military know how to do it?" a tall power technician named Bohdan asked. Pavel had run into him many times in the residential sector. He didn't remember his last name.

"The military doesn't," Lieutenant Hardaway informed them from behind his terminal. "Otherwise we would've already opened it."

"What will our xenotechnicians say?"

Twenty-four pairs of eyes stared at Shemanikhin and Pavel. Only Hardaway and the guards at the hatch continued staring where they had before: Hardaway into the screen cube, and the guards into nothing.

"About time," Shemanikhin grumbled in satisfaction. "We're up, Pavel."

Pavel sighed, walked up to the closest table, and placed his suitcase on it.

"Guys!" Pasulko addressed the others. "Let's figure out the equipment for now. See what we've got…"

The guys scattered, immediately starting to produce the quiet hum of work.

Pavel suddenly felt very distinctly that the research team was starting to become one. United, almost like a single organism, where each knew what he was supposed to do. He liked working in such a team. No matter which way he put it, each of the was a fairly narrow specialist. He had no idea how the military had managed to limit themselves to only twenty-six people for this team of experts. By Pavel's estimates, any serious research effort required at least three hundred.

And there were only twenty-six of them.

Shemanikhin had already gotten ahold of a scanner.

"All right, Pavel… Ready?"

"One second."

Pavel was attaching devices to his belt and securing sensors.

"What does the Swarm typically use again?" Shemanikhin inquired.

"Testing me? Segmented semimembranous hatches. Usually quasiorganic."

It was difficult to catch Pavel in not knowing his basics.

"And what follows from that?" Shemanikhin asked slyly.

"That you're lazy," Pavel grunted amiably. "Let's go sniff around…"

Actually, what followed from that was that one of the few places on the surface of this seemingly uniform sphere had a somewhat different structure. The "shell" had sensors, emitters, a few small hatches and ports. And at least two large airlocks: passenger and cargo.

At first, Pavel couldn't figure out why a scout ship needed a cargo hold. A scout ship had to be small, nimble, without anything unnecessary on board. But the Swarm was the Swarm. What humans had initially taken to be a cargo hold turned out to be a chamber for a junior queen and her servants. The stationary cargo antigrav was actually key to the normal functionality of the queen's fragile body. The cockpit was the place of the operator, a spiderlike Swarm drone that was mindless on its own. Naturally, it was connected to the queen. Not telepathically, some other way. Something having to do with enzyme metabolism, pheromones, and rapid biochemistry.

Three times such scout ships were seen having a crew of a queen, an operator, and two junior workers. Once there were three workers, with another Swarm drone in the cockpit with the operator. They were unable to determine its specialization. The general consensus was that it was something like a living relay, duplicating the ship's comm systems. But the human experts could've been mistaken.

Four times, only four times in their two hundred years in the Alliance had humans been granted the opportunity to take a quick peek at Swarm scout ships.

What humans called the cargo airlock was, in fact, simply the scout ship's main airlock . And the thing they habitually called the passenger airlock was actually the backup airlock for the servants. But xenotechnicians, including those studying the Swarm, decided not to change the terminology. Those who knew would know, and no one else cared.

In ten minutes, Shemanikhin and Neklyudov quickly examined the surface of the sphere, occasionally rotating it in the invisible hands of the grav-clamps. Lieutenant Hardaway relayed the commands to the cruiser's techs tersely and sensibly.

"Here and here," the xenotechnicians finally came to a unanimous opinion. "This is for cargo, and this is for passengers."

It took some time to mark the found airlocks, as it turned out that ordinary chalk didn't leave a trace on the sphere's surface. And it was pretty obvious to anyone that the scout ship's shell couldn't be scratched, wetted, and a whole bunch of other methods.

They ended up having to secure the scout ship in grav-cramps and mark the cargo hold's floor by the airlocks.

"Now for the locks…"

Every airlock was controlled by an autonomous servo-muscle — human engineers had been hesitant to call it a motor at the time. The muscle obeyed signals, either internal ones, from the airlock control panel or from the central captain's console, or external ones from a passcode sensor or a remote-control device.

Shemanikhin and Pavel Neklyudov couldn't make use of the airlock control panel. Or the captain's console. By virtue of being outside the ship. The only thing they could do was try to trick the external sensor that was likely coded to the owner's biomatrix. The owner (or, to be precise, what was left of him after the blast), if the military were to be believed, was also inside the scout ship. Therefore, his matrix was inaccessible to them.

Shemanikhin and Neklyudov spent almost forty minutes working on the shell, tracing the nerve used to control the servo-muscle. Another half an hour went to connect to it, requesting help from the physicists and a specialist in subatomic scanning and diffusion infiltration.

When the muscle's microprocessor produced the invalid signal code, and the illusory holographic indicator of the universal measuring device twitched noticeably, Shemanikhin proclaimed, "Phew! Halfway there!"

Then he requested the full processing power of the multithreaded monstrosity the military had requisitioned from search-and-rescue for at least two hours.

The device registered the return of an invalid code over a hundred and seventy-two thousand times per second. Naturally, the indicator wasn't showing it, as the human eye simply couldn't see it. The indicator was simply stuck at the peak position.

"Lieutenant!" Shemanikhin addressed Hardaway. "What computer does the cruiser have? I mean the primary one."

"A Black Corall, of Svaigh manufacture. It's weaker than this one, of course…" he nodded at the silently working dome. "But still."

"If you give us its processing power, we can get it done faster. Ask the captain."

Hardaway reached for the microphone bead over the terminal's keyboard without hesitation. He spoke English quickly and indistinctly. Finally, he turned to Shemanikhin.

"They're actually calculating the next pulsation. But the captain agreed to give you most of the processing power. He's also removing the combat lock, which almost doubles the power compared to the normal mode. Link it up through the bus, you're getting sudo access."

"Thanks for not giving me root access," Shemanikhin grumbled, sitting down at the keyboard of the nearest terminal and opening the command prompt. "I'd never live through it…"

Pavel chuckled. Had they given Shemanikhin root access, he'd definitely crashed the entire ship's system. And then yet another human cruiser would've disappeared beyond the Barrier without a trace or hope for a return…

Visually, nothing changed after hooking up the ship's computer to the calculations. Minutes were passing and disappearing in the entropic flow.

Pavel was screening the incorrect options and was excluding the obviously incorrect code arrays, as they could be forecasted based on the results they already had. Soon he had to get two geneticists involved because Pavel could no longer keep up with the growing arrays.

He hadn't even noticed two hours fly by.

At some point, the terminal beeped and displayed a green mark on the primary screen cube. Something like a small funnel appeared in the matte side of the ship that looked like a drop of dusty mercury before closing in again.

"Got it!" Shemanikhin exclaimed excitedly. "Pavel, rewind it and isolate!"

"Rewinding!" Neklyudov's fingers danced feverishly on the keyboard. He didn't like using bioattachments: a moment's distraction, and the commands started to blur, the computer got confused and started requesting clarification all the time… The keyboard was more familiar and reliable, if slower.

Pavel found the right code fairly quickly. It probably didn't match the matrixed passcode of the shapeshifter one hundred percent, but the servo-muscle controls reacted to it, and that was the important part.

"Throwing the code," Pavel warned and sent the isolated code to the nerve.

A funnel once again appeared in the mercury drop. It was maybe fifteen centimeters deep and twenty-five in diameter. It didn't pierce the ship's hull all the way, but it was a start.

"We have the size," one of the biologists informed them, knowing perfectly well what was happening. Naturally, the condensed expert team consisted of people with multiple specialties.

"Track it…" Pavel warned and sent several test codes.

"Stop!" the biologists shouted in unison. "It's getting smaller! Invert!"

"Got it," Pavel started changing the codes in the other direction, glancing at the biologists. Meanwhile, Shemanikhin was holding and neutralizing the ship's nervous signals, which was the only reaction to the not quite proper codes.

"It's growing!" the biologists were commenting happily. "You're digging well, xenos!"

Soon the funnel pushed all the way through the ship's hull. A tiny opening opened with either smoke or steam streaming out from it. It was glowing with a soft light, like a cat's eye. For a moment, Pavel thought he saw the smoke condense into a ghostly figure in a yellow robe, but he shook his head, and the illusion was gone.

After reaching half a meter in diameter, the opening stopped being perfectly circular. It was no longer growing in width, only in eight, and was more and more reminding them of an irregular ovoid ellipse, with the sharp end being at the top. Stretching the opening to its maximum size of a meter and three-quarters was trivial.

"That's it, Vitaly!" Neklyudov exhaled shortly after. "Secure and freeze it…"

Shemanikhin manipulated the signals and cut the servo-muscle's nerve from the ship's system. Now the airlock was stuck open.

"Done!" Shemanikhin clapped his hands in satisfaction. "Who's up now?"

"We are," Captain Kuksevich, whose appeared no one had noticed in the heat of work, informed them. Then again, based on some haziness of his figure's outline, Pavel realized it was a hologram. The captain was currently somewhere else and was monitoring their work remotely. "Surgical work, gentlemen, if somewhat slow. And now I ask that you all step aside and do your best to not touch anything while the ship is being inspected…"

A column of marines in combat vests were entering the cargo airlock. Each was holding a snubnosed blaster at the ready.

As it turned out, they'd had time to place a shield in front of the scout ship's open hatch. Not even in front of the hatch, as the opening in the side of the ship was apparently covered by a dual dome-shaped force field. Just in case there was something dangerous inside.

The marines were walking through the force field one at a time, as Hardaway was alternating the membrane mode between the outer and inner layer.

Pavel was doing his best to try to picture what the marines were looking at. He'd never been to a Swarm ship before. To be honest, he had trouble picturing anything.

The marines spent less than five minutes inspecting the ship. Apparently, the captain was receiving their reports because he kept making brief comments on occasion. Then he said, "Good! Security team, take your positions, everyone else, out!"

Most of the tension was gone from his voice. It seemed that the marines had found nothing dangerous.

Some of the marines left the ship, while others remained inside.

Now they were supposed to make a decision regarding the atmosphere inside the scout ship and either accept it as neutral or replace it with such.

Both biologists sat at their terminals. Their verdict was unanimous: the atmosphere didn't need to be replaced.

"Remove the force field," one of them turned to Hardaway, who was coordinating the assault.

They did.

Pasulko clapped his hands and announced in a loud voice, "All right! Initial examination group, let's go!"

The group consisted of six people: Pasulko himself, both xenotechnicians, and the three in charge of the remaining teams: a physicist, an engineer, and a power technician.

"Remember to comment as you go," Captain Kuksevich reminded them. "How are we with the video?"

"Almost done!" a military tech, who'd appeared in the cargo hold with the marines, reported. He was attaching miniature cameras to the clothes of the experts who were supposed to enter the ship first. First after the marines, of course.

Pavel got two camera beads: on his chest and right sleeve.

"Go!"

Bending his head, Pasulko walked through the airlock.

The inside of the ship looked like the innards of some alien organism. Or a giant beehive. The walls were uneven, with projections and protrusions, the general pattern of which seemed chaotic but cyclical — the pattern repeated itself every so often.

The airlock opened into a short oval chamber; the chamber was adjacent to another, one very similar to it but larger. That one was, in turn, adjacent to three others: to the right was probably the cargo hold, also doubling as the queen's chamber; straight ahead was the cockpit, and to the left was probably the facilities. The cargo hold was separated from the rest of the ship by an inner airlock, while the cockpit and the facilities were simply divided by arches.

They could see that a marine was stationed in the facilities, the cockpit, and the intermediate chamber.

The scout ship's floor was virtually flat; it separated the sphere into two uneven parts: the smaller section was under the floor and undoubtedly hid grav-generators, the x-drive, and power storage devices; the larger part included the cabin. The ceiling in each compartment remained uneven, matching the outlines of the sphere's dome exactly.

Without hesitation, Victor Pasulko headed for the cockpit. Shemanikhin, following him, also didn't linger in the intermediate chamber. Pavel was the third to enter the cockpit, and, considering there was already a marine there, it was now getting cramped. Then again, two more experts still managed to squeeze their way in, but the sixth person no longer could, instead, heading towards the cargo hold's airlock to see what was there.

The first thing Pavel saw in the cockpit was an ugly pile of metamorphosed organic matter. That which used to be a shapeshifter. And it had to be one, as only their body reacted this way to a neutron pulse. Only they possessed such crazy cellular variability. If there had been a human in this loser's place, they'd be able to at least identify them, even if they were disfigured by he neutron blast. An Oaonsz's body reacted differently.

"Commentary," the Vagrant's captain reminded them forcefully.

"Ahem…" Pasulko pulled himself away from looking at the shapeshifter's remains and gave Shemanikhin a pointed look.

The latter didn't look surprised or overwhelmed.

"We're in the cockpit. I'd like to immediately point out that, as expected, this ship is probably not meant for Swarm drones. It's clearly been adapted for the needs of another race or maybe several morphologically similar races. In any case, either a human or a shapeshifter would feel fairly comfortably here."

"How have you come to this conclusion?" the captain inquired. "It's not that I don't trust your experience, I'm just trying to understand."

"The chair," Shemanikhin explained and turned to make sure the camera on him saw the pilot's seat. "Looks like an ordinary chair, doesn't it? Swarm drone don't need them. That's one. And two, the general control panel and particularly the manipulator design. They're adapted for an anthropomorphic hand. Humans, Svaigh, Zoopht, Aczanny, Oaonsz — any member of these races would be able to use these manipulators. Well, not quite, an Aczanny would need a perch in front of the controls instead of a chair. Same for a Svaigh — the back of the chair would have to be a different shape, one with an opening for a tail…"

Pavel saw that Shemanikhin was still in the throes of passion for his work. He was thinking out loud, making conclusions, and sharing them with the others.

"This means that the scout ship has been adapted for shapeshifters, humans, or Zoopht. Possibly Rateo too, but the cockpit would probably be too cramped for a Rateo. Next, the controls themselves. I see that the computer has a broad periphery and drives for all data storage standards known to me. Specifically, this is a bioattachment for Swarm memory organs. Then there's a drive for the rods used by the Aczanny and the Zoopht. Here's one for our laser disks. By the way, which model did the shapeshifter buy on Orion? Looks like this one. Let's keep going. This is a reader for Svaigh platters. And there, at the end, is an Ayeshi resonance drive. Honestly, captain, I've never seen the drives of all possible standards in the cockpit of a small craft before."

Naturally, Pavel had figured out everything Shemanikhin was talking about. That was why he was able to take a minute to look around.

When he looked down, his first impulse was to yell out, but something kept him from doing that.

A disk was lying next to the wall, leaning against the barely noticeable molding. A human disk for one of the drives on the console. Probably the one the shapeshifter had purchased on Orion. The disk was lying with its working surface facing up, and it looked like a small mirror.

With some difficulty—it was very cramped—Pavel crouched.

He was expecting to see his own reflection in the "mirror." In fact, he initially assumed that was what he was looking at. But when the reflection put a finger to its lips in the universal gesture of silence, Pavel was at a loss.

Then he realized that he was seeing a shapeshifter in the "mirror." The shapeshifter was staring right at Pavel and continued to urge him to silence.

What should I do? Pavel thought in confusion.

He was crouching with his left side to the disk, so his chest camera was currently showing the curved wall of the cockpit, while the one on his sleeve was probably aimed at someone's butt. No one but Pavel saw the disk.

He hesitantly reached out for the disk, and the shapeshifter's reflection nodded in agreement.

Feeling very strange, Pavel took the disk, surreptitiously slid it into a jacket pocket, and, still unnoticed by anyone, got back up.

Working with alien items had trained Pavel not to be surprised by anything. It seemed that this disk only looked human. Otherwise, how else would a psychologically normal human see some shapeshifter in an ordinary optical circle instead of their own reflection?

Could it be a recording? Pavel thought. The shapeshifter just happened to nod, and I decided that he was approving my silence and wish to hide the disk for now.

The wish had appeared on its own, when the alien's finger touched the thin, barely noticeable in the tiny "mirror" lips.

But Pavel had no idea why. And he wasn't trying to understand it, simply accepting it as a given.

Pavel occasionally remembered the disk and carefully felt for it through the thick fabric of the jacket during the next eighteen hours of work, until the captain sent them to bed. The irrational desire to keep it hidden only grew.

They were allowed to sleep for no more than six hours. Efficient, silent stewards brought breakfast right into their cabin. The previous day's work aboard the captured scout ship couldn't have passed without a trace, of course, and Pavel saw a gloomy and disheveled man in his thirties in the mirror with dark circles under his eyes and a noticeably tired look. He ought to get at least another six hours of sleep, but Pavel had no doubt that the military wouldn't let him.

Shemanikhin looked about the same. Yawning constantly, he managed to get washed up and pounced on his breakfast. While the previous day's sandwiches had kept the hunger at bay, they were still not a complete meal.

"What do you think, Pavel?" Shemanikhin inquired while chewing. "Are we going to figure it out?"

"Doubt it," Pavel answered. "A typical black box. We weren't even able to measure anything. And no xenotechnician would recommend opening it."

Shemanikhin nodded ruefully.

"Yeah. Those bastards! How do they do it? If only we had a tiny hint to know in which direction to move…"

Swallowing his portion, Pavel couldn't help himself and sat at his portable terminal. Especially since Shemanikhin, having finished his meal, fell deep into thought, slumped onto his bunk, and decided to have a nap for the minutes remaining until the start of the second workday (which, according to the military, didn't exist).

Just in case, Pavel shut off the screen cube and put on the projection goggles.

The drive swallowed the find without a problem. The disk didn't just look like a human one, he data was written according to the human standard. Pavel quickly realized that the disk contained a standard astrogation program suite, prepared jump calculations, and a bunch of latest adjustments to gravitational paths. Pavel wasn't that well versed in this, as he hadn't done much piloting.

Then he found the instant mail browser and was shaken by the "paid without restrictions" flag.

His palms immediately grew sweaty. First, he was now in violation of the rules, as the Takhche Squadron's expert team was working in complete isolation. Even their personal cards had been taken away, so they didn't feel tempted to get through to any comm node via the nearest relay. And here was an instant comm unit with unlimited distance! Yet another product of an alien mind. Naturally, Pavel knew how to use such comm. And, just as naturally, he had absolutely no idea how it worked. And, again, naturally, he'd only used it once or twice during training, paid for by the colonial administration. Personal calls were unimaginably expensive, and a simple xenotechnician obviously couldn't afford them.

The flag on the disk indicated that any calls would be paid for any duration for an unlimited time period.

He'd struck it big! With such a disk, Pavel could easily leave his work and live out the rest of his life in luxury.

Something's wrong, he thought dubiously. He didn't believe in such a free lunch.

He looked closer and realized what it was.

The browser was hardcoded to a single address.

The disappointment wasn't too great. Pavel Neklyudov was used to thinking that manna from heaven didn't exist, and that the only place with free cheese was a mousetrap. Life's experiences only strengthened his certainty in that.

Pavel decided not to use the browser. There was a ban in place, after all… Who knew if the Swarm could track instant comms? The poor Vagrant was hopping around the galaxy like a flea on a horse just to avoid being found. And then good xenotechnician Neklyudov went and used instant comms and exposed the cruiser with the priceless trophy. There you go, ants. Get your stuff back. And then take the Tau Claudus Turtus colony for the impudence and such.

In the end, Pavel put the disk into his bag and headed for the cargo hold after yet another military runner had arrived to get him and Shemanikhin.

Day 2 didn't result in any progress by the research team. First, Shemanikhin and Pavel were asked to examine a scaly brick that looked like a fallen wardrobe in the scout ship's cargo hold. They did. One thing was obvious: the wardrobe had nothing at all to do with the x-drive, the drive systems in general, and probably the scout ship in its entirety. "It's probably just cargo," Shemanikhin said, and Pavel was in agreement with the conclusion.

They were unable to open the wardrobe, not that they were really trying. They just left it there, leaving a marine with a blaster to guard it.

Leaving the compartment, Pavel turned and once again thought he saw a ghostly figure in yellow clothing floating over the scaly object.

As before, Pavel shook his head, and the illusion vanished.

I need to get more sleep, he thought.

Then all twenty-six experts spent over fifteen hours fruitlessly trying to find any sort of clue as to how the x-drive worked.

It was pointless. Not working with equipment and not operating the ship's computer had led to the desired result, as the matte monolith produced by the Swarm was drastically different from the machines familiar to humans. It didn't radiate heat, or anything else, for that matter, and didn't make any noises. It also didn't react to anything besides commands from the captain's terminal. It was simply ready to throw the scout ship beyond the Barrier at any moment and then re-surface a hundred light years away. There was nothing to measure, nothing to compare it to. And the drive couldn't be disassembled.

There was nothing to be done. Pasulko honestly told Colonel Kuksevich that the thing could not be understood with traditional human scientific methods. Kuksevich sighed, frowned, suggested they not make any rash conclusions, and then gave the experts twelve hours to rest, suggesting that they rest physically but keep their thoughts on the task at hand. They assured him they would.

Then they went back to bed.

Shemanikhin collapsed onto his bunk as soon as he walked in, without even bothering to undress. Pavel threw a sad look at the mirror, touched his stubble, and thought that he would be a complete idiot if he started shaving now. So he took a quick shower and also got under the covers. While he'd been showering, Shemanikhin had somehow managed to get undressed without waking up because all his clothes were lying in a pile next to the rack, while his shoes, one of which was partially on top of the other, looked like cows mating.

Pavel slept for five hours and then suddenly woke up. He wasn't having a bad dream, and no noise had awakened him. Sleep had simply fled away. Pavel tossed and turned for a short while, even tried to follow Kuksevich's advice and think about how to overcome the cunning x-drive. But sleep wouldn't come.

And then Pavel, not really understanding why, quietly pulled the disk out of his bag, inserted it into the drive, grabbed his portable terminal along with the goggles, and climbed back under the cover.

The screen cube opened silently. With a dull, strange sadness, Pavel opened the menu of the mail browser and spent some time gathering his courage. Then he finally put on the goggles. After all, Shemanikhin could also wake up unexpectedly. The illusory cube vanished as soon as Pavel plugged the goggles into the right port.

The cursor jumped to the address menu on its own. The only address the disk could contact was highlighted. Pavel was unable to determine the destination by the prefixes and extensions. All he could tell was that the address was clearly located beyond human space. Then again, there were exceptions, like embassies that used their own addresses through the homeworlds since they were using instant comms.

Pushing his doubts aside, Pavel pressed the illusory button with the short text "Call."

Somewhere in the galaxy, maybe thousands of light years away, or maybe even in the next cabin over, an identical or a very different terminal rang out. And someone—human or alien—was supposed to click an illusory button the same way, only that button had a different text on it. Or a different symbol.

"Answer."

The browser's interface cube dissolved to be replaced by a three-dimensional image.

A human. No… An alien. A shapeshifter. Definitely a shapeshifter, one transformed to look very much like humans.

Pavel was very good at telling aliens apart. It was in the job description, as a creator's appearance always reflected in the tech they made. Pavel was a xenotechnician, and a good one at that.

Pavel had prudently shut off the sound before making the call. So now he only saw the shapeshifter's lips move.

Pavel pulled up a text window and switched the keyboard's language to Inter.

"I can't hear you. Type your answers," he told the stranger.

A reply appeared almost immediately.

"Who are you?"

"A human."

"Where is the sarcophagus?"

"Sarcophagus?" Pavel asked then realized, "That scaly wardrobe?"

"Yes. Is it intact?"

"Probably. Who are you?"

"Are you sure it's intact?"

"It was when I saw it last."

"How long ago was that?"

"Maybe… hmm… Twelve hours ago. Earth hours…"

"I see. Who are you?"

"A scientist. A researcher."

"Are you studying the Swarm scout ship where the sarcophagus was?"

Pavel tensed. The shapeshifter was clearly in the know!

"Yes. The sarcophagus is still there."

"Do you have access to the scout ship?"

"Basically."

"Go to the scout ship, seal the hatches, and launch on any course on this disk."

The suggestion sounded insane.

"Even if I agreed, it won't work. The scout ship is aboard a larger vessel."

"It doesn't matter. The scout's drive is capable of calculating and operating with such an insignificant margin of error that the jump sphere is only a few millimeters larger than the scout ship itself."

The alien suddenly gave Pavel a very odd look that made a chill run down his spine, "Earth millimeters, of course."

Now that was news to Pavel. The drives used by humans had margins of error in hundreds of meters.

After a moment's hesitation, Pavel typed, "Maybe you'd also like to give me a reason why I should do that."

"Forty-five million pangals. A million now."

Pavel's eyebrows rose.

"Enter your deposit code."

Pavel stared at the other person as if hypnotized. A million. A million pangals.

The researchers' ID cards had been taken away, but it was possible to deposit money on the account without it. One just had to remember the code and the number. Withdrawing money without the card was impossible. But depositing wasn't as restricted.

He adjusted the goggles and reached out towards the keyboard… Like many others, Pavel had memorized his code, even though it had twelve digits after the eight Inter symbols.

Pavel had a premium account with additional services. A smaller cube opened marked "Transfer."

Within human space, banking operations were traditionally done in English.

Still in disbelief, Pavel watched as exactly a million pangals appeared in his account.

Holy crap, he thought in some confusion. I'd just made more than in the ten years after the Academy…

"Well? When you jump and will be away from anyone else, we can discuss the terms under which you'll be able to receive the rest of the money, which is another forty-four million. I'll warn you ahead of time that the sarcophagus must be on board, and it must be undamaged."

Pavel was still confused.

"Sir," his fingers refused to obey, so he had to keep correcting the text. "I'm a scientist, not an adventurer. I don't even know how to shoot."

"You won't have to. You just need to set the scout ship to follow a calculated course and arrive to the destination. Afterwards, you get your money and can go wherever you want."

"I've never flown ships before."

"It's easy. You'll have the disk, and any consultation will be available at a moment's notice."

"I need to think about it."

"Hurry. I'm not going to say another word. It would be better if you called me from somewhere in deep space and alone. And with the sarcophagus, intact and undamaged. Then we'll talk."

Pavel hadn't been entirely honest. He did know how to fly a ship, it wasn't that difficult. True, he lacked experience, but any engineer knew how to start pulsation calculations, figure out that the calculation didn't have any fatal errors, and then initiate the jump. And Pavel thought himself a good engineer. Especially since that disk already had precalculated courses that only needed to be prepared…

Pavel suddenly realized that he was thinking about how to fly rather than whether to fly. As if he'd already accepted the offer of the alien shapeshifter located who knew where. Maybe in a distant star system… probably not in the next cabin over.

A few millimeters, huh, a thought spur around in his head. It would be interesting to test…

But there are marines in the scout ship, another thought appeared.

Still, Pavel shut down the terminal, rose quietly, and started to get dressed. Shemanikhin was snoring evenly on the other bunk.

Pavel removed both cameras from his jacket and left them on the table.

Already at the door he suddenly remembered, The disk!

He hurried to remove the shiny circle from the drive and stuck into the same jacket pocket.

Well, Pavel thought. We'll see…

Pavel decided not to clarify what this "We'll see" meant. After all, a million pangals just to get up and take a walk to the cargo hold was a pretty nice fee.

No one he ran into on the way to the central stem and from the stem to the tactical hold paid any attention to him. Some greeted him, although Pavel recognized only one soldier. All of them probably knew the experts by sight. A single bored marine was standing guard at the hatch to the cargo hold, leaning on the bulkhead. Pavel noted that his suit was shut off.

The marine simply nodded to Pavel, "Did you have a sudden insight?" he asked in a knowing voice. He probably knew what it was like to go to his post at odd hours. But he did it anyway because each chose their own work.

"Yeah, I had a thought… But I don't want to get everyone excited in case I'm wrong."

"It happens," the marine sighed, opening the hatch.

The cargo hold was illuminated just as brightly. The scout ship's surface was glinting dully in the light. Pavel pictured the ball disappearing beyond the Barrier in an instant. Bright lights, confusion, then the guards in a panic, Kuksevich in a fit of rage…

The picture was so vivid that Pavel had to shake his head to push it away.

There were three marines near the scout ship's open hatch. All were staring at the approaching Pavel with curiosity.

"What, professor?" one of them asked. "Can't sleep?"

"And you'd happily take a nap," Pavel zinged, "but duty forbids it. Or maybe you've already snuck one in when no one was looking."

"Screw you," the marine hissed angrily before adding something that was barely audible and most likely unprintable.

"Anyone in the ship?" Pavel inquired in as neutral tone as possible.

"Why?"

"I don't like when people look over my shoulder."

"Nope, just us here. You can seal the hatches and try to escape!"

The marines burst into laughter, and Pavel initially felt a chill. Then he realized they were just having some fun. They couldn't even imagine a ship jumping from inside the cruiser instead of the space void, after moving away from any sufficiently large gravity source.

"I definitely will. Just don't be surprised if the hatches close."

Then he entered the open maw of the hatch where yellow light was pouring out from, light whose spectrum matched the shapeshifters' home sun Oao.

First thing first, Pavel went to take a look at the sarcophagus. And why was it a sarcophagus? Was there really a sleeping beauty sealed in there? Then it made sense why the philanthropic shapeshifter was so concerned about the sarcophagus's integrity.

These were the times! Someone saw a human for the first time, then offered to steal a captured scout ship and immediately given a whole million! And promised even more!

Think about it, Pavel, his inner voice was whispering. Do you really think they're going to pay you those damned millions? If the stakes are that high, then it involves someone way larger and more important than some provincial xenotechnician. They'll eat you up and not even notice it.

But someone else inside him, a greedy gambler, was countering, But a million is already in my pocket! Who knows, maybe I can earn the rest too.

The sarcophagus was in the hold, AKA the queen's chamber. Intact. Its scales were glinting mysteriously…

Well, yeah! If someone was promising millions for this unassuming wardrobe, then it just had to look mysterious!

The second thing Pavel did was check the food chamber that adjoined the cockpit. There were plenty of vacuum-sealed bags of standard protein-carbohydrate rations of shapeshifter manufacture. Human could safely consume them, although the taste was hardly something to write home about. At a glance, there looked to be about three months' worth of food, if not more. As far as Pavel knew, water was recycled aboard the scout ship, so there didn't even need to be any supplies of it on board. Besides, he also found several packs of synthetic juice. Also made by shapeshifters and also suitable for humans.

Hmm, Pavel thought. Is there going to be at least something to make me reject the alien's offer?

He lowered himself hesitantly into the pilot's seat and, just as hesitantly, turn on the computer. He inserted the disk into the appropriate drive and gave the guidance system the appropriate task.

"The ship will be ready to jump in fifteen minutes," the system informed him. "Reading adjustments."

That was quick, Pavel thought.

He hadn't yet made a final decision. But the system was already calculating the pulsations along the course on the disk.

"Warning! The ship is not sealed. Close the hatch?"

The text was blinking.

We plugged into the nerve, Pavel was thinking feverishly. Is it going to mess with hatch control? It shouldn't…

Pavel wasn't one hundred percent certain of that, so he was ignoring the alarm signal of the ship's monitoring systems.

"The ship will be ready to jump in fifteen… ten… eight minutes."

The numbers in the cube were changing slowly. The time to the jump was melting away. Pavel was sitting in the pilot's seat.

It seemed as if an entire eternity had passed before the guidance system informed him, "Jump calculated. Confirm?"

"Warning! The ship is not sealed. Close the hatch?"

With an unsteady hand, Pavel confirmed sealing the hatch.

The text continued blinking. Something changed imperceptibly in the pattern of indicators on the control panel, and, five seconds later, the blinking text changed to a steady one, "The ship is sealed."

Outside, the three marines threw questioning looks at the shut hatch.

God, what am I doing? Pavel thought, moving the cursor to the jump button. What am I doing?..

Jump.

A moment of cold and duality. Birth and death. Reality and fiction.

The marines in the now empty hold of the Vagrant continued to stare in confusion at the spot where the captured ship had been firmly secured in the gravity clamp only a moment earlier. Now the scout ship was gone, and the offended clamp was howling from the vector overload.

A few seconds later, one of the guards remembered to sound the alarm.

The cruiser Vagrant seethed like a disturbed anthill. But it no longer mattered. The tiny spherical ship had disappeared beyond the Barrier and found itself back in three-dimensional space two hundred sixty-four and a third light years from where it had been. It hadn't left a detectable trace. It hadn't caused a gravitational disturbance upon arrival. It was like a disembodied shadow without weight and volume, one that didn't know any obstacles.

In many ways, that was true while it was jumping.

Only Pavel Neklyudov, a highly qualified xenotechnician, still had no idea how the Swarm's engineered were able to do it, even though he'd just personally gone through all the twists and turns of the jump.

He spent some time sitting in the seat trying to get ahold of himself. Gradually, a single thought crystallized in his head.

Time to call the shapeshifter…

Pavel didn't notice the hazy shadow that was barely visible in the yellow lighting sway near the cockpit arch.

He launched the browser and called the alien. He barely had to wait, as the stranger answered right away, as if he'd been waiting next to the terminal.

"Well, any luck?" he asked calmly, but Pavel thought that the shapeshifter was worried but didn't want to show it.

"I'm in space," Pavel informed him dryly. "I have no idea why I just did that."

"Excellent," the shapeshifter glowed in a very human way. "You're not going to regret it, I assure you. I think it's time we got introduced. Please, tell me about yourself."

Pavel shrugged vaguely, "Is that important? All right. My name is Pavel Neklyudov. As you've been able to tell, I'm a human, a citizen of the Tau Claudus Turtur colony. Xenotechnician. I'm thirty Earth years old. Anything else?"

"Not really, Pavel," the shapeshifter replied in a surprisingly proper and amiable manner. "If you like, you can call me Colleague because I'm also a scientist, in a manner of speaking. Sorry, but I won't tell you anything else about me. I consider the sum promised to you a sufficient enough reason for that. Even the million already in your account is a sufficient enough reason, don't you think?"

"Whatever, Colleague. You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to. Besides, I'm not certain I could even pronounce it. I'm a xenotechnician, not a linguist."

The Colleague took the joke in stride and bowed his head, "I like you more and more, Pavel. I think we're going to work well together. All right, here is what I need you to do. Bring the ship with the sarcophagus to the place indicated on the disk. Someone will meet you there and give you the money. From that moment on, you will no longer be bound by any obligations and can buy yourself a ticket anywhere you want. Or buy a ship, a nice yacht, for example, you'll have enough money."

"And where exactly should I bring the ship?"

"I don't know," the Colleague threw his hands up. "It's on the disk. Right now, you're located…"

"Just over two hundred and fifty light years from the edge of the Claudus Turtur cluster. Earth years, of course. I haven't yet looked around, so I can't tell you in which direction and towards which magnetic pole…"

As a scientist, Pavel felt it necessary to clarify the terminology.

"All right. Launch the astrogation program, it's going to tell you everything. Pavel, I'm going to give you two… no, three pieces of advice. First piece of advice: don't try to open the sarcophagus. Don't do anything to it, let it stay exactly where it is. Second piece of advice: don't try to deceive us. Go where the disk tells you to. It's going to be best for everyone, you included. And the third piece of advice: hurry. We're already late…"

"Tell me, Colleague" Pavel asked, following a vague guess. "I'm not the first to be ferrying the sarcophagus to you, am I?"

"No," the Colleague admitted. "You're the sixth. Maybe even seventh, if we include… But that doesn't matter. You know, Pavel, I think I'm going to give you yet another piece of advice. During the flight, there can be some… hmm… strange things happening. So don't believe your eyes. And then you'll be fine. See you soon."

The Colleague ended the call.

Strang things. So Pavel's gut wasn't lying. This story wasn't as simple and straightforward as it had seemed. He was number six or even seven in someone's relay race, and this sarcophagus was probably the baton. And they—whomever the Colleague represented—really needed it. More than likely, Pavel thought, the Colleague was probably a criminal rather than a scientist. And probably one who is very high up in the food chain. Then again, it was also possible that he was still scientist, just one working for some important criminals.

Pavel suddenly felt very clearly that it was too late to back out. He was already in trouble, deep in trouble. Although the task didn't seem complicated.

Uh-huh, the inner voice butted in. The previous five (or even six) must've also thought that it wasn't complicated. And yet they were unable to complete it.

Pavel only knew the fate of his immediate predecessor, the shapeshifter. Not a fate to be envied. Turning into a pile of mindless organic matter from a neutron blast… He shuddered.

Had the fate of the others been just as unenviable? Had he been far too hasty in absconding with the alien scout ship with a scaly relay baton on board? He had to think about it…

But instead, Pavel recalled the Colleague's second piece of advice and decided to follow it.

He also decided to remember the fourth piece of advice well.

As later events would show, it was a very good decision.

Pavel once again addressed the astrogation programs. He found the final route and gave the command to figure out where the ship was. The computer spent some time referring to the gravitational chart, then calculated the adjustments and laid out a dotted line.

"Twenty-seven pulsations," Pavel whispered, staring at the screen. "Three days in the best-case scenario, probably five, if nothing gets in the way. Or even a week. Nice."

On a galactic scale, the distance to the target wasn't great, a little less than seven thousand light years. What Pavel didn't like was that the target was located at the very edge of the galactic disk, in an old globular star cluster known as Swarm-72. The name made it clear that this part of space was controlled by the Swarm. And Pavel really didn't want to show up in a stolen ship to the beings that had built it. Pavel justifiably thought that these beings might have a few various and not necessarily pleasant question for him, Pavel Neklyudov, a human from Tau Claudus Turtur. He didn't feel he'd be able to answer those questions adequately. On the contrary, he definitely wouldn't be. And that worried him greatly.

On the other hand, the Colleague had said that someone was going to meet Pavel there. Except the Colleague hadn't specified with what. The Colleague's fellow shapeshifter had been greeted with a neutron blast at Takhche. Pavel doubted that such a meeting would be a nice thing for him.

Still, he confirmed the final calculation of the dotted line and, feeling hunger, decided to consume at least one ration pack. It would also tell him how edible shapeshifter food was like. And what it tasted like.

As it turned out, it was fairly edible, and even the taste was new. Then again, if he spent a week straight eating such rations, he'd probably grow sick of them. But Pavel didn't despair, even though he was a foodie by nature. For one, he didn't expect to eat the rations for more than week, and two, he noticed that there were several varieties of ration packs in the food chamber. He hoped they differed in more than just the package color.

Finishing off something that looked like a protein puree, Pavel washed his first meal aboard the scout ship down with juice, which also tasted pleasant, and cheered up noticeably.

All right, he thought. Once I bring this bubble to Swarm-72, if they give me the money, then great. If not, then I already have a million.

Then Pavel realized that his personal card was left on the Orion. It had been taken before he boarded the shuttle, so that the experts didn't think to quietly contact someone from their personal terminals. Idiots, who would pay such obscene amounts of money for some stupid conversation?

Yeah, getting the card back is going to be a problem. Then again, what's to stop me from claiming that I went inside to test out an idea, and the drive suddenly engaged? Who could've known that its jump sphere was so small and precise? I certainly didn't. And it's not like anyone knows about my conversation with the Colleague, not even Shemanikhin…

Anything that couldn't be verified was easy to claim as the truth.

Pavel spent a few minutes trying to come up with a plausible story, then decided that time would tell. After all, the money could be placed into a trust account, and he could get a single-use card without identification. He'd be able to sneak into Orion — with money, one could slip by any customs. The same money could also be used to free his card from the military archive and patch it up… Because Takhche was probably going to treat Pavel Neklyudov as a war criminal. Basically, with forty-plus millions, he could build himself a new identity. To his own taste.

I'll call myself Edward, Pavel thought dreamily. I'll need a tricky last name too… Like Roerich. Edward Roerich. Streamlined and significant.

His thoughts were interrupted by a computer beep, as the guidance system was done with calculations.

Pavel moved back from the dining table to the controls, gave the jump command, and was split in two for an imperceptible moment.

There was something addictive about jumps. Something at the instinctual and reflexive level, something physiological. He'd heard that spacers got addicted to jumps like a drug. And they often went mad after losing the ability to jump.

Pavel hoped he wouldn't be able to get addicted so much. Pavel didn't want to buy a yacht, as the Colleague had suggested. He also didn't want to travel the inhabited galaxy. On the contrary, he was planning on finding a quiet world on the outskirts with a resort climate and settle down there for life. Well, at least until the money ran out.

The scout ship jumped three more times before Pavel started nodding off. Each jump was touching something deeper inside him.

There was absolutely nothing for him to do, so Pavel had no intention of fighting the drowsiness. He stretched out the hammock he'd spotted earlier, and happily climbed into it like a snail into its shell. Then he fell into oblivion while waiting for the next jump.

He was seeing a really weird dream. A reproachful Captain Kuksevich was wagging a finger at him and sending hordes of cruisers identical to the Vagrant after the scout ship. Lieutenant Hardaway was commending what was happening with the blunt language of military orders. Pavel frowned in displeasure, probably in reality, without waking up. Then Vitaly appeared, gave Pavel a sad look, and informed him, "I can't pay for my home on Takhche…" Pavel was about whoop wildly and go for his credit card, when he remembered that all the experts' cards had been confiscated. Shemanikhin waited for a little bit, then waved his hand hopelessly, and walked away along the Vagrant's stem towards the cargo holds. But, instead, he somehow ended up in the scout ship's hold. Straight from the hatch, he suddenly took a running start and, like a professional swimmer, leapt forward with his arms and head. The sarcophagus swallowed him up, momentarily rippling with scaly waves before regaining its hardness. Pavel stood next to it, tapped on the sarcophagus, and called, "Vitaly! Come out!" But Vitaly wouldn't. Shrugging, Pavel decided to scan the sarcophagus with something, but then a three-dimensional image of the Colleague condensed in the middle of the hold. The Colleague shook his head sadly, clicked his tongue (Pavel even thought that the shapeshifters had the same tongue as humans), and said, "I did advise you not to touch the sarcophagus." "But I didn't open it!" Pavel objected. "So what? You shouldn't scan it either. I guess you're going to have to atone for your actions: get inside yourself!" "But Vitaly's in there!" Pavel was surprised, although, if the sarcophagus's walls weren't too thick, then Pavel might be able to fit in there along with Vitaly. There might even be some room left for the Colleague himself. "Vitaly's not in there," the Colleague said malevolently. "You scanned him. Just like your military did to my fellow shapeshifter." So, wait, Pavel thought with alarm. Did I kill Vitaly then? My boss and only friend? "You did," the Colleague confirmed. "Deader than dead."

Then Pavel woke up in a cold sweat. There was twilight in the cockpit, as the helpful machinery had extinguished nearly all light sources. Only a screen cube full of jump calculations was dimly glowing over the main controls. The three-dimensional numbers flowed, jumping from one illusory cube to an identical one below, until they reached the "bottom" layer. After that, the layer's contents disappeared off the screen, but Pavel knew for certain that the data was being recorded into an indestructible log file.

He sat up in the hammock and exhaled.

"Phew," he muttered in relief. "That was a weird dream…"

Pavel's whole body ached, as he'd never slept in a hammock before.

He got free and threw a quick glance at the controls; lights turned on as soon as Pavel stepped on the floor. He really wanted to stick his head into some cold water to wash away the viscous recollections of the recent dream. Holding back a yawn, Pavel headed for the bathroom.

Splashing some water on his face and glancing into the oval mirror, Pavel froze.

He didn't recognize himself. His face looked different. Instead of narrow cheekbones, a hooked nose, piercing gray eyes, and thin, almost colorless lips, Pavel saw completely different features. Someone with a round face was looking at him from the mirror. A stranger. With a bulbous nose and bow-shaped lips. With abundant bald patches and small eyes like those of a well-fed boar. He looked like some smug denizen of Falkau or Basler-Schiwede.

Pavel was at a loss. He'd never been more lost in his life. His hands reached for the strange face and started feeling it: nose, cheeks, lips… The familiar scar on the left cheekbone — a trace of a teenage fight.

His fingers felt the scar, but Pavel didn't see it in the mirror. He also felt the hook on his nose… But the nose in the mirror looked more like a potato.

The mirror's lying, Pavel thought, suddenly filled with anger. It's fake.

Suddenly, on an impulse, he slammed a fist into the mirror. He'd never struck anything this hard in his life.

The mirror cracked and shattered into several pieces that fell into the sink with a jingle. The stranger's face was gone.

His knuckles hurt, so Pavel glanced at the hand. Tiny silvery shards were sticking out of the already bleeding skin. Pain was pouring into the hand in pulses.

Pavel spent a few moments standing mindlessly in front of the sink, then he found the first aid kit (yet another argument that the Swarm hadn't built and equipped this ship for itself), managed to remove the shards from his hand, then washed and treated it. The first aid kit buzzed quietly, scanning the damage, then injected him with something analgesic that made the fist instantly stop hurting. Finally, the cuts were covered in physiological paste.

Getting back to the cockpit, Pavel thought about it. What had happened couldn't be explained in a rational way. Pavel didn't suffer from hallucinations or delirium and couldn't really be hypnotized. As a scientist, he laughed at mysticism and other superstitions that were in fashion for the past three decades. That was why the episode with the mirror had brought confusion into the typically balanced soul of Pavel Neklyudov. Pavel didn't like unexplained things, again, as a scientist.

Then, he suddenly recalled the Colleague's warning. "During the flight, there can be some… hmm… strange things happening. So don't believe your eyes. And then you'll be fine."

Pavel sat up straighter.

Strange things. There they were. Strange things. It seemed they'd already begun.

Pavel remembered striking the mirror and decided he shouldn't have done that. He hadn't believed the reflection and destroyed it.

I can't give in to surprise, Pavel thought. I'll try that… What else is there to do? But does that mean I can expect more such surprises?

Yeah, his internal skeptic noted sarcastically, this is a great start to a week! Stole a scout ship from under the nose of the Takhche military and broke a weird mirror in the bathroom. You're a hero, Pavel!

Pavel snorted and decided not to answer.

The guidance system was studiously loading the ship's computer with calculations for the next jump. Out of twenty-seven, the scout ship had already completed four and was finishing the calculations for the fifth jump. Between jumps three and four, the margin of error had ended up being higher than some arbitrary critical value, so the computer spent ten hours shuffling the corrections and stuffing them into the right places of the new calculation. According to the logs, the fourth jump had been normal.

Pulling away from the keyboard, Pavel glanced at his past-covered hand, sighed, and wondered what he could do on the ship.

The options were limited. He could get some more sleep, but first, he didn't want to, and second, Pavel was somehow certain that he was going to see another weird dream. He could eat, but he could rarely stomach anything in the morning besides coffee. Unfortunately, there wasn't any in the kitchen. Sitting and staring at the working computer and guidance system was just dumb.

Then Pavel remembered the sarcophagus, the cargo he was bringing to Swarm-72. Of course, the Colleague had forbidden him to wonder too much about it. But it wasn't going to get damaged from Pavel taking a look at it, was it?

So, cheerfully leaping off the comfortable seat, he headed for the hatch to the cargo hold, the Swarm queen's chamber.

On the way, Pavel wondered if the compartment was locked by the previous pilot's code. Pavel didn't know how it had been opened during the research, but he knew the two xenotechnicians hadn't been involved.

His concerns were unwarranted, as the hatch opened as soon as Pavel touched the sensor on a small control panel. An oval opening grew quickly in the wall.

And then there were stars. Darkness and stars were all Pavel saw.

A whirlwind of disheveled and disordered thoughts passed through his head.

At first, Pavel thought he'd gotten it wrong and opened the outer airlock instead of the hatch to the cargo hold.

Then he realized that he hadn't been thrown out into the vacuum surrounding the scout ship by a torrent of air. In fact, he was alive and well, which couldn't happen if the outer airlock was opened.

Pavel reached out a hand and confirmed that there wasn't any force field blocking the opening. No membrane either. Pavel just didn't know where he was reaching out: into the cargo hold or outside.

He didn't have time to think about that, as, following a sudden and unexplained impulse, Pavel simply stepped through the doorway.

And found himself in the cargo hold. The stars had disappeared as if on command, replaced by the familiar yellow lighting of the scout ship. The gray-brown brick of the sarcophagus was resting in the grav-clamp. At the very center of the compartment, maybe thirty centimeters from the deck.

Pavel spent several minutes examining it, trying to convince himself that he really wasn't curious about its contents.

Then he got closer and walked around the sarcophagus.

Each scale on it seemed perfectly smooth, but the scales were fitted to each other in such a way as to make the surface seem rough.

Pavel reached out and easily felt the joints of the scales. To his surprise, the sarcophagus was noticeably warm, and the heat was somehow deep, primordial. The warmth of a living being, not a heated machine. A barely noticeable line stretched across the entire upper surface. Pavel assumed it was a slit between the doors. The sarcophagus's corners were curved; one of the ends was just flat, while the other one had a strange cylindrical tube sticking out of it, far too short to call it a pipe or a hose. The scales at the end of the tube looked ill, withered, and flaking. Pavel crouched and looked closer. He reached out and grabbed a scale that was sticking out. It separated with a surprising ease. There didn't look to be anything special about the scale. Gray-brown, a lot lighter in shade than the sarcophagus, somewhat like a matte shard of glass. Pavel looked it over, then placed it into his jacket pocket.

He spent some time near the strange cargo but wasn't able to add anything to his observations. The sarcophagus had hidden its secrets deep and wasn't about to reveal them to anyone. Pavel thought that his predecessors had probably been also examining the strange object someone was willing to shell out millions for and then stepped away, unable to figure out its secret.

What makes me think that the sarcophagus is hiding a secret of some kind? Pavel thought. What is really unusual about it? Just a box, even if a scaly one. Maybe some mafia types are smuggling a few tons of drugs. And I'm standing here and wondering about some secrets and mysteries…

He tilted his head and listened to his inner opponent. He was silent. Not getting a mental reply, Pavel drew his head towards his shoulders and walked away.

The answer came later, after the scout ship had jumped two more times, and Pavel had rifled through the onboard computer.

There isn't much strangeness about the sarcophagus itself. But very strange things keep happening around it.

Pavel ate dinner without any appetite, climbed into the hammock, and started waiting for new strange things.

He ended up having to wait half the night.

He woke up from a keen sense of someone else's presence. Pavel felt trapped and didn't have the strength to even move. The most he was able to do was open his eyes slightly.

The cockpit was illuminated by the weak emergency lights of a dull yellow hue. Tilting his eyes painfully, Pavel looked around but saw no one. Then he quietly turned his head.

And he saw her. A woman. He immediately realized that it was a woman in the cockpit by her outline. She was either naked or wearing something tight-fitting. Bending over the pilot's seat, she was rifling through the clothes Pavel had tossed there. More specifically, through his jacket pockets.

Pavel was so shocked that he twisted and literally fell out of the hammock. The lights came on as soon as he touched the floor, except this time he touched it with his entire body instead of just his feet. Despite the fall, Pavel didn't look away from the night visitor.

She turned at the sound, and Pavel saw her face.

He'd seen that face before and recognized the woman immediately.

There was an old holograph kept in his family that had been brought from the legendary flight of the Departed ship by his great-great-great-grandmother Veronica Starodumova.

Five humans. On the left was a broken-looking guy with sad eyes and a neat mustache. Mikhail Zislis. Senior navigator.

Next to him stood his ancestor Veronica, young and pretty, with a thick braid on her shoulder, looking slightly away from the camera.

In the center was a swarthy dark-haired man with a very stern expression and a hard, concerned gaze. He was probably about as old as Zislis, but Pavel would never call him a "young man." The captain, Roman Savelyev.

Next to the captain stood a man Pavel didn't know. His great-great-great-grandmother hadn't been able to remember his name, only recalling that he died during a clash between Savelyev's crew and the flunkies of the Volgan directorate.

And to the right was her. His visitor. Julia Jurgenson. Wearing the same tight-fitting jumpsuit she had on now, only Pavel's jacket had, of course, not been in the picture. Senior pilot. A thin woman with close-cropped hair, an imperceptibly asymmetrical face, and a completely disarming smile.

Pavel pictured the holograph incredibly vividly, down to the last detail, as if he was looking at it now.

Pavel leapt to his feet; the woman tossed the jacket onto the seat and, quickly backing away, stepped to the doorway arch to the scout ship's central chamber. The lights there didn't come on.

"Hey!" Pavel called in a strangled voice and carefully moved closed to the seat. He tried to peer through the doorway, but the central chamber couldn't be seen well from that angle.

Sighing, he clenched his fists decisively and left the cockpit. The lights came on obediently.

There was no one in the central chamber. The hatch to the cargo hold looked shut and indeed was when Pavel checked it.

Also, right on the uneven segments of the semi-membrane someone had written two letters in red: "J J."

The text smelled a little of raspberries.

Pavel spent a long time examining the letters and shifting from one foot to the other.

First of all, where had the woman in a pilot's jumpsuit come from, if not from the sarcophagus? Second, what had she been looking for in Pavel's jacket pockets? Third, was this all a dream?

Pavel shook his head furiously, then shut his eyes firmly and opened them again.

The writing was still there. And he, Pavel Neklyudov, a solitary novice adventurer, was standing in the Swarm scout ship's central chamber, barefooted, wearing standard-issue military underpants and undershirt and wondering when he was going to go completely insane.

Deciding to think coolly and sensibly, he postponed visiting the cargo hold for a while and went to get washed up and dressed.

The first splashes of cold water burned his heated face, and Pavel suddenly realized exactly what the woman from the sarcophagus could have been looking for in his pockets.

The scale. The one Pavel had taken from the tube and stuffed into his pocket.

What else was there?

Drying his hands in a hurry, Pavel nearly ran back to the cockpit and grabbed the jacket. He stuck his hand into the pocket, left one, he remembered that well.

The pocket was empty, except for a few ordinary lint balls that could be picked out from the corner of any pocket in the universe. But no scale.

The fact that the scale wasn't there actually made Pavel calm down, finish washing up, and spend some time sitting on the toilet, thinking gloatingly that if someone decided to burst into here, he could rightly yell out "Occupied!" and wouldn't even think about hurrying. Calmness seemed unexpected and illogical but still pleasant. Anyone would find it pleasant to remain calm when there was craziness happening around them.

Then he had breakfast without rushing and only then looked at how long he still had to fly. The strange things the Colleague had promised were becoming bothersome. He didn't even want to fear them. Maybe because the woman, a visitor from the past, his affected subconscious, or actually the sarcophagus, had run away from Pavel, even though he'd been very much afraid at first, and those fears were like the pointless childhood fear of something under the bed.

The scout ship's equipment was calculating the eighteenth jump out of twenty-seven. So there were ten left. Which was between half a day and three. Unless, of course, there were any errors, but, according to Pavel's observations, the Swarm's drive was handling errors a lot faster than others. So he didn't have long to wait.

"No way," Pavel grunted aggressively, instinctively turning towards the cargo hold. "I'm not going to go crazy."

He searched the control menus and inquired whether the hatch to the cargo hold could be locked. Supposedly it shouldn't exist in scout ships made by the Swarm for its own use. Well, if it did exist, then it would have to be inside the cargo hold where the queen was. But this scout ship had clearly been adapted to the fact that the thinking being and the pilot were one and the same, and their place was in the cockpit.

It turned out to be simpler than that. The lock did exist, but from the local controls at the hatch, not in the cockpit, and it was oriented exactly the way Pavel wanted: he could seal the hatch, so as to make it impossible to open from inside the cargo hold.

So, Pavel Neklyudov, feeling victorious, did that.

"I don't need you! I don't! I don't need your damned scale eith—"

He didn't finish, as the scout ship jumped for the eighteenth time. A few moments of duality, and again no perturbations. Not even a hint at the ship shaking.

Nine pulsations were left. He was two-thirds of the way there.

He managed to get a nap in the seat until the nineteenth pulsation. While Pavel was in the seat, the cockpit's machinery kept the lights on. While the twentieth pulsation was being calculated, he kept walking in circles near the controls, first in one direction, then the other.

After the twenty-first jump, he fell asleep again, this time on the floor under the hammock.

It seemed that all the strange things happened on this ship while the pilot was asleep.

A sudden sensation of nausea interrupted his sleep. Pavel gulped and spread his hands, unable to find anything to grab onto. It was almost dark again in the cockpit, and Pavel was both horrified and amazed to realize that he was floating between the kitchen and the hammock that stretched diagonally from one wall to the other.

The weightlessness was having its fun with him, leisurely moving him around the scout ship's cockpit like a fish in an aquarium.

Why weightlessness? Pavel was alarmed. Is the equipment shut off or something?

With great effort, he managed to reach the hammock, which took at least fifteen minutes. From there, pulling himself closer to the wall and floating over to the seat by the controls was immeasurably easier. And the seat was, of course, equipped with straps.

Strapping in, Pavel reached for the keyboard and was amazed to find out that the equipment was showing normal gravity that was slightly above Earth's. Apparently, it was the average gravity suitable to the species for which the Swarm had prepared this ship.

As soon as Pavel glanced at the dial, the lights came on immediately; his body was pressed against the seat. For a moment, he felt as if the gravity was now increasing but didn't have time to get properly scared.

Five jumps remained, according to the computer.

This was probably the last memorable event of this short trip. Everything else was helpfully shredded by his memory, probably saving Pavel from a mental disorder. All that was left were scattered recollections, like a woman who looked like Julia Jurgenson walking through the sealed hatch. Pavel remembered scattering the contents of two ration packs in front of the outer airlock, for some reason. There was a hammock thrown over the seat, as if he'd been hunting an animal with a net. His jacket burned in the central chamber. Pavel couldn't recall why he'd done that or how he'd managed to get a flame going since he knew for certain that he didn't have a lighter. A fruitless attempt to copy the contents of the Colleague's disk onto the ship's computer and to adjust the address of the instant mail browser. A few other minor memories.

But the main, incredibly clear recollection had Pavel standing in front of the open sarcophagus and seeing that it looked more like the open carcass of a huge beast: ichor-oozing flesh, veins of blood vessels… Something like an ancient spacesuit ingrown into this flesh, and inside the suit was her again, the woman from the holograph, looking a little scared. Suddenly an opaque helmet fell over her head, and the sarcophagus snapped shut.

A very clear recollection, and then darkness.

And then, like a flash, awakening.

Half-entangled in the limply hanging hammock, Pavel was sitting in the seat and staring dumbly at the screen cube. A single word in Inter glowed in the cube: "Arrival."

Pavel spent some time trying to figure out what it meant. Maybe that mental effort was what helped him finally come out of his nervous stupor.

Arrival, he thought. Does that mean I'm there?

Reaching lazily for the keyboard, Pavel pulled up the astrogation program and, still surprised that he remembered how to do it, made an inquiry.

"The route has been completed within estimated time. The system is awaiting further instructions."

The scout ship along with Pavel Neklyudov, a fugitive xenotechnician from Tau Claudus Turtur, was at the target given to him by the Colleague. Inside the Swarm-72 cluster.

I need to contact the Colleague, Pavel realized. I need… D-damn, my head is killing me…

The computer complained that the required disk wasn't in the drive. Pavel searched the console and found the disk under the keyboard. Feeding it to the drive, Pavel loaded the browser and pressed the "Call" button.

As usual, the Colleague appeared almost immediately.

"I'm here," Pavel informed him quietly.

"Yes, we've already noticed," the Colleague replied, not bothering to hide his satisfaction. "I'm glad that you have followed my advice precisely, Pavel. You have, haven't you?"

"Yeah," Pavel said just as quietly.

"I trust that the sarcophagus is intact," the Colleague inquired.

"It is. At the very least, I didn't open it."

Throwing his head back, the Colleague burst into laughter, as if Pavel had said something very funny.

"You've done well, Pavel. To be honest, I believed in you more than in any of your predecessors. Wait there, not much time left. You'll be picked up within an hour or two." The Colleague gave Pavel a familiar look. "Naturally, I mean Earth hours."

"I'm waiting," Pavel said and cut the link.

For some reason, he'd really wanted to have the final word in that conversation.

At least he'd managed to do that.

He ended up waiting for just over an hour; Pavel spent that time in the cockpit, slowly returning back to the land of the living. He even had some juice. The strange things that had failed to drive him insane during the flight seemed to have accepted their defeat.

The navigation system beeped a warning, and Pavel was thrown against a wall. The scout ship remained on its side for only a few seconds then gently compensated for the new gravity field and adjusted its spatial orientation to match the new source. The floor smoothly returned to its original position, and Pavel slid down the wall quietly. All that was left for him to do was turn on the external view and the grav-orintation.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, after looking at the big screen half a minute later.

Right next to him, within a few dozen kilometers, a monstrous matte sphere had appeared from beyond the Barrier. It was an artificial Swarm planet. The tiny scout ship was starting to fall onto it. Pavel was habitually amazed at the incredible precision with which the Swarm was performing such delicate maneuvers. After all, this monstrosity had appeared from beyond the Barrier almost touching him on a cosmic scale, and its movement vector and speed matched those of the scout ship almost exactly.

It would be a very long time before human technology was capable of such precision…

He was falling right into the center of a kilometer-wide funnel-shaped hatch that opened in the hull of the Swarm station. The fall was rapid and inevitable, like a ship with malfunctioning engines falling onto a metal star.

The station gobbled up the scout ship; he could only see the stars now in the top-view screen and only in the circle of the hatch edges. The funnel was closing gradually.

Pavel Neklyudov's adventure was coming to an end.

Naturally, he didn't feel the contact between the scout ship and the ground. Then again, what ground could there be on a Swarm station? Probably a deck.

A signal on the console rang out; both of the scout ship's airlocks opened on their own, probably obeying a remote command. Pavel sighed, got up from the seat, pulled the disk out of the drive, and headed for the exit.

It was bright outside, but the spectrum of the illumination differed from the already familiar yellow light inside the scout ship. Pavel paused at the exit from his recent abode and looked around.

The small ship was resting in a grav-clamp very close to the deck, less than a meter. As expected, instead of the sky, there was a solid surface pockmarked with light panels, and walls could be seen not far away. The scout ship seemed to be in a hangar, and that hangar was definitely not a spacious one, even by the standards of a modest human station like Orion. Out of the corner of his eye, Pavel noticed the closing hatch and a figure of a Swarm drone moving beyond the membrane. Three shapeshifters stood in front of the scout ship's open airlock. The Colleague was one of them.

"Welcome," the Colleague greeted him.

Pavel jumped down to the deck without a word. He was gripping the disk in his hand.

Two Swarm workers that looked like giant ants were carrying out the sarcophagus through the cargo airlock. It was closed and, thankfully, intact. All three shapeshifters immediately stared at it, forgetting about Pavel for the moment. Meanwhile, the workers dragged the sarcophagus a little away from the ship and placed it on the deck.

The Colleague reached into the inner pocket of his French tunic — at the very least, his clothing's style looked very much like a human French tunic that had once again recently gone out of fashion. He pulled out something that was either a portable computer or a strange-looking device — a flat black box.

"Hmm…" he said. "Everything is good. O—"

"Wait," another shapeshifter in a similar French tunic interrupted him. This one was transformed into a shape that was a little different from the Colleague's and could only be mistaken for a human in low lighting. "Later. First we need to deal with this one."

Yeah, Pavel thought wearily. That would be nice.

He wasn't feeling particularly afraid, probably from the same weariness. He suddenly felt that he didn't care about pretty much anything in the world: the forty-four million pangals, the best way to return to Takhche, and how to get his ID card back… Except for one thing. The burning desire to peer inside the sarcophagus.

He wanted that more than anything in the world.

"Him?" the Colleague asked and once again reached into a pocket. Probably to put the box away.

Unlike the others, the third shapeshifter was wearing something like a hooded robe. He got close to the sarcophagus, shoving away a worker that was nearly four times his size, and started to examine the scaly surface carefully.

"All right, Pavel," the Colleague spread his hands. "You've completed your side of the bargain. It's time for us to do our part. How would you prefer to get your money? Cash? Precious metals? Transuranic elements? Speak up, don't be shy."

Pavel licked his dry lips.

"Tell me, Colleague," he said in an unusually hoarse voice. His throat was itchy from the unusual smell that was characteristic of a Swarm nest. "Tell me, what is inside it? The sarcophagus. Or who?"

The shapeshifters exchanged glances.

"He's just like all the others," the second one sighed in disappointment. "Exactly the same."

After that, the shapeshifter nimbly pulled out a flat combat uncipher from a tunic pocket and shot Pavel in the head. The dead human xenotechnician didn't even have time to register surprise. Blood didn't even have tie to appear on the edges of the microscopic wound. The one who'd completed the black relay race dropped dead onto the deck of the Swarm station a dozen paces from the relay baton. The disk rolled away with a quiet rustle.

"Manarra!" The Colleague threw his hands up. "Why?"

His partner folded his hands in a vague gesture; the uncipher was no longer in his hands.

"Were you really going to pay him?"

"Of course!" The Colleague clearly disapproved of his partner's actions.

The third shapeshifter continued examining the sarcophagus; what had happened was of no interest to him. The Swarm workers frozen like statues cared about it even less.

"You're always like that," the partner said crossly, picking up the disk and examining its iridescent surface critically. "You need to be tougher… I've told you that thirty-five times already."

The Colleague didn't answer; instead he threw a questioning look to the shapeshifter in a robe. The latter shifted his shoulders affirmatively. Then the Colleague pulled a communicator from a pocket and told someone, "Let's get started!"

All the hatches in the hangar opened at the same time; dozens of Swarm workers started bringing devices and organs to the sarcophagus, putting them together into a complex organism. They were working harmoniously and quickly. The Colleague and his partner were watching them; the robed shapeshifter was busy in the center of the activity.

"Well?" the Colleague asked impatiently, when the bustle and the movements quieted down somewhat.

"Ready," the robed shapeshifter replied. "Everything is ready."

"Then open!"

As if on command, all the Swarm workers scattered.

"Opening…"

The sides of the sarcophagus, until that moment firmly shut, opened, and the Oaonsz shapeshifters saw…

Then again, Pavel Neklyudov, would-be adventurer, no longer saw any of it.

His body was taken away by Swarm workers some time later; his flesh became a part of the nest planet's flesh. His name was forgotten, which was the inevitable fate of those who crossed the finish line of a relay race they hadn't started in a spurt.

---

A Small Author's Afterword to the Indignant Reader

Yes, dear reader, you have the right to be indignant. The insidious author never explained what was hidden in the sarcophagus. But I think an attempt at an explanation would only have ruined everything. The truth is always too mundane and invariably brings disappointment. That's why I decided to leave everything as is. I will only provide a small hint: those who've read the novel Death or Glory carefully might be able to guess at the contents of the sarcophagus…