Alien in a foreign sea 1

Alexander Rozov. Alien in a foreign sea. Translation from original by Розов Александр Александрович, Чужая в чужом море. .

This book can be considered as continuation of utopia Meganesia.Deportation. At least, the name of the country Meganesia and some heroes Hernando Torres, Jeanne Ronero, etc.. If some names or other terms specific terms are transliterated/translated into English in different way, this is just fault of translation; please, inform the Editor about the errors.

= Book 1. Fake naturalism. =

1 - RETROSPECTIVE.
Date / Time: February 23, 20 of the Charter. Noon // Location: Meganesia. Tintung. Lanton City, // Office of the Government of Meganesia.

Major Rayven Anders went up to the one-hundred-inch television screen on the wall, and began to work confidently with a pointer, periodically changing the slides, during the course of his review lecture.

- If you take a plane at Alexandria and fly far south along the 30th meridian, immediately after Lake Niika, about 7 degrees south of the equator, you will see at the right of your course - the Itumbo Ridge, and at the left - a single mountain of Ngve, 2500 meters high, and another lake, Ukva. On its northern shore, village of Kumbwa stands, the capital of the unrecognised Republic of Mpulu. If you are looking for trouble - land there, and you get them! The mountains here are very rich in ores of beryllium and lithium. With the rest, things are much worse. The territory of Mpulu – about 50 thousand square km - is mainly a hilly savanna with risky agriculture. The population fluctuates between one and a half and two million, depending on the natural and political events, after which the calculation is made. An average mpuluyan spends only 40 cents a day, but manages to reach (on average) up to 35 years - provided he does not die in the first year of life (and this happens with every tenth newborn). Up to 50 years, only about every twentieth person lives here, half of the population are children and adolescents under 16 years old, and half of the adult population has no job (and has no way to survive). Those who have work, are engaged in the agrarian sector, in transport, or in the army. Industry is absent, education too (but one in five can read in syllables, write in block letters and count to ten). Official language is jokingly considered to be English (it is a mixture of pidgin english with Bantu languages). The form of government is republican. Once there were even elections, but it is not clear how the government of General Vatoto happened from these elections.

- It's all? - coordinator Hernando Torres asked.

Raiven shook his head.

- No, sen coordinator. This is an abstract. And "all" takes about 40 gigabytes, of which half a megabyte is a text with illustrative graphics, and the rest - video materials. I did not have a specific task, so I could not prepare a thematic ...

- I see, - interrupted Torres. - Had you visit that country yourself?

- No. Colonel Akioka believed that in my trip there is no need.

– By the way, why did he resign?

- Because the director of INDEMI leaves office after the change of the coordinating team.

Torres shook his head.

- Major, I ask, why he left not only from his post, but in general from intelligence, although he could return to a major post, or go to a higher special school.

– Budget, – Raiven replied shortly.

The coordinator nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

- You also think that INDEMI can not perform its tasks with such a budget?

- I was not focused on financial analysis, - Riven said.

- But that does not mean you do not have your own opinion, right?

The major replied only after a pause:

- Safety is the same commodity as bananas. For less money you will buy fewer bananas. How much you can buy even for 50 centimes, but is this sufficient to not kick the bucket from hunger, that's the question.

- Do you think that is not enough? Asked Torres.

- I think that if the society has become one and a half times richer in the last three years, then they should increase spending on security or, at least, maintain the same level; but not reduce by one third, as it is done in your program, coordinator. I understand that electoral competitions are won due to such cuts, but I'm afraid, such a savings can bring the society to serious problems.

- My question was not on this, - said the coordinator, - I asked if it is sufficient or not."

- Major Cramot, whom you took on the team, thinks, that's sufficient, – Riven said.

– I know his opinion. I ask yours.

Major Anders paused again and answered very cautiously:

- It all depends on whether his idea of ​​safety security is correct. If you buy bananas for 50 cents, then whenever you do with them, you do not increase its amount. But if you buy potatoes for 50 cents, and spend another 50 cents on fieldwork, then the potatoes will be 5 pounds, the amount increases. I do not know, is the security similar to bananas or potatoes.

- What about the experiment? - Asked Torres.

- Practice is criterion of truth, - Riven agreed, - I wish success to my colleague Cramot.

- Wan't you do something more, than a wish for success?

- I do not resign, - Riven noted, - I will work under Cramot's leadership, and there ...

- He recommended that I do the opposite, - interrupted the coordinator. - Aurelio Cremo is ready to remain a major, if INDEMI's Colonel is Raven Anders.

- Wou! He began to doubt his program on intelligence and security?

- No. He simply thinks that you are the best. By experience, by qualification, and so on.

- Is it somehow connected with the operative development in the Republic of Mpulu?

- To a certain extent, Major.

- It's strange, - Riven said. - To ensure access to beryllium and lithium in this country, Cramot's skills and experience are more than sufficient. Food for minerals, is a textbook scheme, the officers learn it in the intelligence school.

- I was told that you are phenomenally smart, - the coordinator said.

Raven put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling, as if some clue could be written there. It seemed that he was actually reading something from this clean white surface. After a quarter of a minute, he said emphatically:

- Development means something more than just a temporal use of cheap raw materials for the production of lithium and beryllium. In Mpulu, a pilot project will be carried out, checking the idea of ​​breeding in exploration, with reference to active operations.

- I was not deceived, - Torres said, - so you, accept the leader podition?

- Usually, in such cases, one gives a day to think, - the major said.

- You so quick to think, you not need this. Why waste time?

– My answer about INDEMI is no, - Anders said. - The law of the sea: do not change the captain while storm.. But if you and Cremo's colleague consider my experience to be useful, then I could handle the Mpulu project.

- On what terms? - Asked Torres.

- On the usual. I accept business as it is. Who has the full project file "Mpulu"?

– He's right here, - the coordinator said, slapping one of the laptops on the table with his hand.

2 - CURRENT MOMENT
Date / Time: September 1 of the 22nd year of the Charter. Early morning. Location: United States, Seattle, Office "Reporters without Borders".

Cassie Malden took a step towards Jeanne Ronero and gave a graceful bow.

- Thank you for taking the time to go, Miss Ronero.

- "No problem, - Jeanne replied, - I have 4 hours to go to Honolulu. Proceeding from this, Nico apparently asked me to choose the time to meet with you.

- Nico Marconi, chief editor of Green World Press? - said Cassia, and after her nod, added - yes, I asked him. And he, accordingly, asked you. Sit down. Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?

- Coffee, - she said, occupying a comfortable chair in front of the window, from which she had a beautiful view of the Space-needle tower, suggestive of the exotic love between a flying saucer and a giant dandelion.

- Lydia, please bring two coffee, - Cassie said into the selector and walked around the office, as if not knowing where to start the conversation. Jeanne did not like this style, she believed that this way the guest wants to make him reveal himself. She was silent from the principle. Let him speak first. Indeed, he could not stand this long pause.

- You are a brave woman, Miss Ronero. You fly to Meganesia, after making a public statement, that you do not believe their coordinator Torres.

- I did not make such a statement, - she objected. - I just said that I want to test his stories by myself, in his country.

- In my experience, - Cassie said, - when it comes to totalitarian regimes like Meganesian, the stated desire to test the words of the leader ... or the Fuhrer ... is the same as publicly accusing him of lying. Especially since this incident with a nail file in the studio ... I mean, when you accidentally wounded Torres in the neck ...

- It was a scratch, - interrupted Jeanne. - You saw this press conference. - He himself suggested that I make sure that his security collar is not easy to remove. Like the collars of prisoners in the megalnesian penal servitude. This is the way, about the checks. He did not upset, that I did not trust him. And this scratch on his neck was just a pretext for him to flirt with me. In general, the normal reaction of a normal man.

Cassie ran a hand over his beautifully trimmed beard.

- Torres and you..

- There was nothing, - interrupted Jeanne. - Except for a bottle of wine, which we drank in a pub near the studio. I'm already tired of this stupid question.

- I'm sorry, - Cassie lamented, - It's just a reporter's habit ...

A phlegmatic, long-legged girl in a strict business suit came into the office and put a tray with two cups and a sugar bowl on the table.

- Thanks Lydia, - Cassie said to her, and turned back to Jeanne. - I just wanted to say that cunning and cruelty are typical of totalitarian leaders.

- Mr. Malden, this is ridiculous. Coordination authority in Meganesia lasts exactly 1111 days, and not a minute more. Torres already has passed most of this time. Then he'll returns to his travel business. If you want to know, he talked about the suborbital airline project for tourists more than about politics. All six coordinators before him, after the end of the term, returned to their business. Except one, the fifth coordinator went to teach management at the university.

- I will not argue, - Cassie agreed. - You probably know their laws better than I do. But, besides the laws, there is still practice. For example, thermonuclear explosions over the ocean. I suspect, that's why you decided to visit Meganesia right now. I mean, the data on the beginning of the development of a powerful south-equatorial cyclone at 110th longitude.

- Yes, - Jeanne confirmed, - Green World activists inform that the destruction of this cyclone is planned in Meganesia. For the first time they used a hydrogen bomb for this purpose about 10 years ago, and neither then nor now did they make this a secret. Observers were allowed for the shortest safe distance. I hope to join one of the observer groups. In addition, I want to see Meganesia with my own eyes.

- There is information that even then, and the next two times, and now the main goal of the so-called subversions. "L-bomb" is not the elimination of cyclones, but something quite different, - Cassie said.

Jeanne sighed and took a sip of coffee.

- Sorry for being rude, Mr. Malden, but I really do not like these calls from afar. From them a mile smells like lies. I always speak directly and call things by their proper names. If you are satisfied with this approach, let's do it. And if not..

- I understood you. I will speak directly. Every year, in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean dozens of powerful cyclones appear, but usually they bypass the densely populated islands. It's kind of a blindfold billiard: there's little chance of rolling a ball into the pocket, so that, as a rule, a cyclone travels a couple of thousand miles and dissipates over the ocean without harming anyone. But if you destroyed the cyclone, you can always say that otherwise, wandering around the ocean, would destroy cities and towns on some island.

- Is there evidence for the opposite? - Jeanne asked, - In a sense, what do scientists say about how these cyclones would have gone if they had not been destroyed?

- A difficult question, - Cassie said. - I've already said: the cyclones are wandering. Their trajectories seems to be unpredictable. Although some scientists claim they can predict the trajectory.

- In any case, I am against the use of nuclear explosions, - Jeanne said. - But let's clarify: are you proposing me to look for ulterior motives, or ...?

Cassie made a sweep away gesture with his hand ...

- The hidden motive is known. They want to divert attention from the scandal around the "Meganesian bananas". These are mutant plants created in the Nazi laboratory ...

- I know, what it is, - Jeanne interrupted. - In Tanzania, on the market in Mbeya, they are sold, despite the ban. It's just big buttery bananas. Some ransgenic crop, that yields good harvests. What does it have to do with Nazi laboratories?

- Let me put it in order, - Cassie said. - As you know, after World War II, some Nazi criminals fled to the Pacific countries. One of them is Dr. Zygmund Rascher, who conducted barbaric experiments on human exposure to cold and vacuum. He tested the connection of human genetics with resistance to these factors. It was believed that Rascher died in 1944, but recently found fresh traces of his activities in England and Central Africa. These traces lead to Meganesia, where the center of the neo-Nazi organization that he created is located.

- I did not understand something. After all, this Rascher must be more than a hundred years old.

- Much bigger. He is one of the oldest people living now on the planet. But this is only one small detail, and the overall picture ... - Cassie made a significant pause and put a thick, full-color newspaper on the table - read it yourself.

Jeanne took another sip of coffee and ran her eyes over the title and announcement.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Daily Mirror, London. "Criminal genetic engineering. 100 years under the sign of the swastika. " Black bioengineering. The Nazi murder doctor Rasher drinks life from his victims. Meganesia and the Charter of Neo-Fascism. Military patrols Waffen-SS on the "islands of freedom." From Benito Mussolini to Michele Carpini. Italian neo-fascism steps in the leg. Brown communism. "Roman monster" Syu Gaetano deduces the race of superhumans. A horror island in the Pacific Ocean. Black and white slaves for "scientists" - neo-Nazis. Neo-Nazism in the heart of England. The enigma of Dr. Lynx, the ideologist of "scientific" racism. The tragedy of Africa. Who are you, Comandante Hen? Blitzkrieg of the fascist regime in Mpulu. Reaction with "Red Cross and Red Crescent". The "lower races" are food. 5,000 casualties per day. "Clean" mega-bomb of Oberfuhrer Torres. In what world will you wake up tomorrow?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She sighed and put the newspaper aside.

- You surprised me, Mr. Malden. What normal person will believe things written in the "Daily Mirror"? This same ultra-yellowness, in fact - a tabloid, a patterned toilet paper.

Cassie shook his head.

- There are links to serious publications, testimonies of eyewitnesses, official documents, acts of international commissions and, finally, photo-facts. Start with them.

- All right, - Jeanne sighed again and began to view photos. Photo 1: 1943, Nazi criminal, Dr. Sigmund Rasher. Photo 2: 1942, the concentration camp of Dachau. Dr. Rascher kills his victim by freezing. Photo 3: Dr. Rascher today. The oldest monster on Earth. Photo 4: Takutea Concentration Camp, Meganesia. Naked prisoners behind barbed wire. Photo 5: Prisoner of the Takutea concentration camp in the last stage of exhaustion. Photo 6: Takutea Concentration Camp. Skulls of victims dumped on the shore of the island. photo 7: Africa. Bones of 5000 people of the "lower race". Victims of Comandante Hen. Photo 8: Rome. Consequences of the terrorist act produced by Xiu Gaetano. Photo 9: Meganesia. How to deduce the "superman". Woman incubator in the ghetto. Photo 10: Explosion of a meganesian" clean "bomb during the war for Clipperton.

- I already saw the picture number 5! - Said Jeanne decisively. In the photo there was a group of officers in the form of the Navy Meganesia around the electronic scales, on which stood an awfully thin naked black girl, almost a teenager. The scoreboard showed 36.89 kg. The officers cheerfully smiled. Only one (full face to the photographer) looked at the scoreboard with a serious air.

- It's possible, - Cassie nodded. - This nightmare has already been published in several media. If I'm not mistaken, it was even shown on ABC.

- I saw this not in the media. This is a photo from a private photo album. It has nothing to do with the concentration camp, less than than ... - Jeanne thought for a moment in search of an analogy, - Than the Space-needle tower to aliens.

- Um ... In whose photo album, if not secret?

- In private - it means not in public, - Jeanne cut off, - The owner of the album did not give me permission to discuss with the press his photo. I'm sorry, this is ethics.

- You know, Miss Ronero, many Nazi officers in private albums had photos from concentration camps. I want to say that such a photo can not be a private matter.

- Neither this photo, - the Canadian said slowly, "nor the state of the girl on it, have any relation to any concentration camp. Am I sufficiently explicit?

- Yes, - Cassie replied. - But it's unclear, why you are so sure.

Jeanne finished her coffee with a single sip.

– I do not want to seem rude, Mr. Malden, but you have less reason to distrust me than I do-not trusting you. One photo out of ten is exactly fake. Two photos of the 1940s are irrelevant. The attack in Rome, a thermonuclear explosion over the ocean and one of a hundred local wars in Africa - are pulled by the ears. Woman incubator - too. Eight twins were born in the USA: Houston, 1998 and Balfflower, 2009. And what would prevent the same inscription from being made under the photos of their moms? Is that fear that drags through the courts. The pyramid of skulls on the shore of the island is, sorry, Hollywood. Total: of all this pile, only two photos matter, and only together: the long-liver Rasher and these prisoners behind barbed wire. If the former is not related to the second, then we simply have the fact of gerontology (rare, but not unique). In the Nature journal ...

- And by themselves, naked people are behind barbed wire? - Interrupted Cassie.

- I know a private nudist beach in Florida, which is surrounded by the same thorn, and even under voltage, so that no paparazzi climbs. Even a special announcement is posted.

Cassie clapped his hands three times.

- Bravo, Miss Ronero. - You sent the "Daily Mirror" into a knockout in the first round. All this would be true, if not for the reporter's testimony, who was trying to find out what is really happening on the island of Takutea. Zbigniew Gruszewski from Trwam-media. He hardly left alive. He was almost captured by the military patrol Waffen-SS, then it was shot, he had to throw a boat in the open sea. He would surely have died, if he were not pickd-up by the Polynesian fisherman, who pulled him out of the water and took it out, hiding it under a pile of fish.

- And this Pole brought a bunch of photos," continued Jeanne with unconcealed irony. "A patrol of blond beasts in black uniform with swastikas and silver skulls on lapels, a gun barrel aimed directly at the camera and, of course, traces of tracer bullets, as ordered, flying past the goal. By the way, the latter is a typical mistake of such crooks. If the photo-operator is being fired, then the picture of the tracks looks different, namely ...

- Stop! - Cassie lifted the palm of his hand, - Let me answer. Grushevski did not bring any photos. The equipment had to be dropped, and he spent several hours in sea water. Then he surrendered to the meganezian police on the island of Atiu, and waited for a duplicate passport from Poland - that passport that was in his pocket turned into a wet blotter.

- Here's how? And politicians, of course, he did not begin to tell this story?

- On the contrary, Miss Ronero. He all told and wrote an official statement.

- It's doubtful, - she said.

- I just checked it, - Cassie said. - I got a copy of this statement, and the original is in the police station at Atiu without any reaction from the authorities.

Jeanne thoughtfully twirled an empty coffee cup in her hand.

- Perhaps, this is already becoming interesting ...

3 - CURRENT MOMENT
Date / Time: September 1 of the 22nd year of the Charter.

Location: United States, Hawaii - Meganese, East Kiribati, Honolulu, Ala-Vai - Palmyra, the Great Bridge.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №1.
Aloha, foa. On the way to the terrible Meganesia.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Meganesian district of East Kiribati is in contact with the state of Hawaii, the United States, not in 15th parallel of the Northern Latitude, as recorded in the Saipan Pact, but right in the yacht harbor of Ala-Vai, which can be seen from the windows of high-rise buildings in Honolulu. It is here that the light flyers-amphibians of the Meganesian association "Waikiki Mega Rickshas" (WMR) compete with the American company "HAL" for passengers of the southern and western directions. "WMR" is two and a half times cheaper, but "HAL" fly almost twice as fast. Which of them is safer - no one can say for sure.

A taxi driver who takes me from Honolulu International Airport to Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, jokes: "Competition rules! For 10 years, our air carriers have dropped 20 percent of the price, and the Meganezian bookshelves added 30 knots of speed." On my cautious question: "Why bookshelves?" He briefly replies: "You'll see, miss," and laughs ...

When I see this flyer moored to the pier, I decide that it is similar, after all, rather not on a shelf, but on a 30-foot pleasure boat with a glazed salon and a Hi-Tech design. If you follow this analogy, then across the boat, above the stern and above the Foredeck, attached to the oval wing (so that if you look from above, the whole design is similar to the letter "H"). In addition, a high keel protrudes above the stern, and above the fortdesck, there is a pipe, similar to a turbojet engine of a conventional airliner. The shelf stands on the water, at the pier, pretending that it really is a boat. However, on board there is a bright inscription green in white: "US Honolulu - MZ Palmyra-Atoll - MZ Lanton - MZ-Tonga-Nukualofa - NZ Auckland". It is difficult to imagine, that this piece can cross by the air a half of the Pacific Ocean (albeit with three landings), but apparently it can.

Next to this flyer, two Yankee cops chat with a Hawaiian dressed in lemon yellow shorts and a mottled red-white-black shirt. I distract them from this occupation with question: "Where is the registration, control, landing and all that?" It turns out right here. Cops fix my departure from the US. The subject in yellow shorts, who turned out to be not a Hawaiian but a Meganezian pilot, looks at the sheet that I printed, when I bought an internet place for this flight, smiles, and says: "Your place is 3B. This is the right chair on the left side. You may pass and sit down, but you may wait while here, smoke or enjoy the sunshine. We depart.. (he looks at the clock) in 24 minutes."

After standing for a quarter of an hour, and listening to the chatter of the pilot with the cops (about girls and the bars, where these girls are best to pick-up), I climb into the flyer. Inside it looks like a small bus. Five rows of double chairs on the right and left. The driver's cabin is separated from the cabin only by a transparent semi-partition. In the tail, there is a door marked "WC". Below her, a warning: "Do not use the toilet for exit! Hole is too narrow! ". Humor..

I smile, I settle in place 3B, I shove my small baggage under the armchair, I take my laptop and some pieces of paper that I intend to read on the road, and adjust to work. All the same, I'm already on board a Meganesian ship ....

A few more minutes. The pilot occupies the driver's seat, throws a short glance at the saloon (19 seats out of 20 are occupied and, apparently, there is no one to wait anymore), and loudly announces:

"Aloha, foa! We fly to Palmyra, then to Lanton, then to Tonga, and finish in Auckland, on Aotearoa. If someone does not fit this, better tell about it now! ".

Some passengers laugh, others are perplexedly silent. I join the first. Then a quiet buzz is heard. Through the window I see, how quickly the shore of the island of Oahu is being removed. The "bookshelve" separates from the water and, gradually gaining altitude, turns south. I open a new file on my laptop and write: "Meganesia: first impressions."

Yet, no Personal impressions - we have 800 miles to the atoll of Palmyra. Once again, I read the memo from the US government (especially for tourists arriving in Hawaii):  Note: Meganesia, as a country with an extremist political regime, is recognised as particularly unfavorable for tourism. Going there, you put your life in danger! 

Then I start to leaf through the color booklet "Welcome to Meganezia" with photos of atolls. This attracts the attention of neighbors. On the left, by the window - a young guy; judging by the emblem on the T-shirt (a green wheel with a blue rim and the inscription "HPU - Holomua Me Ka Oiaio"), he is a student of the Hawaii Pacific University. On the right, through the passage - a man of about 30, in a business suit, he looks like an insurance agent; he starts the conversation.

- Meganesian propaganda is attractive, ah?" - He said, nodding at the booklet.

- It looks beautiful, - Jeanne agreed.

- Handsomely. Until you come across INDEMI.

- And what is it? She asked.

- Meganesian Gestapo, - explained the insurance agent, - no one ever sees anyone who has gotten into their claws.

- Have you already been to Meganesia?"

- Yes. Transit. I often fly so much to New Zealand. They call it Aotearoa. Our company has a branch in Oakland. Meganesian flights are cheaper. It's business ...

The student, without turning his head, said:

- I am stoned when people talk like experts in Meganesia, although they never left from the hall for transit passengers. It's really cool.

- Are you meganesian? - The insurance agent asked coldly.

- No, American, - the guy said, turning to Jeanne, - I'm from Frisco, California; I study at Honolulu.. Dex Melvin. And you, miss?

- Jeanne Ronero, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

- Too transit through Meganesia?

- No, she answered, - quite the contrary. I'll make a report about the country. I'm a journalist.

- Careful there, - muttered the insurance agent. - You will not have time to look back ..."

– I go for sailing - Dex said, nignoring his remark. – The guys from Avarua University invited me."

- You are not the first time in Meganesia? - Asked Jeanne.

- The second one, - he replied. - Last year, we went to the Gilbert Islands. That time I flew through Tarawa, it was easier. And this time we go from Tintung, on two catamarans, zigzagging along the Cook Islands; first - on the Upper, then - on the Lower, and home we will fly from Rarotonga. The rest of us will catch us tomorrow, but I am in the organizing committee.

Sitting in front of a guy and a girl, similar to the Malays, turned around synchronously.

- Will you go to Aitutaki? - The guy asked.

- Probably, we will. And what?

– Along the way, we live there, - the girl explained.

- Oops! - said Dex, - O vai to oe ioa?

- O Tairi tou ioa, e o Haoto oia, - she answered, and after the bubble she added, - E pai i teie mahana Rapatara, pae i muri iho ua fare, y tiai haere mai oe.

Dex spread his hands (the phrase-book from the tour-guide was not enough here) and said:

- Aita iau.

The young Meganesians laughed, and Haoto explained:

- tairi says: we are now flying to Rapatar for 5 days, and then we will return home to Aitutaki, and we are waiting for you to visit.

- There are 7 of us, - the American warned. - Four of ours and three of yours.

- And we have a canister of moonshine and a full lagoon of fish, - Haoto replied.

Accept! – Dex said, and they slapped his hands.

tairi, meanwhile, turned to Jeanne,

– Do you fly to Lanton?

– Yes.

- Have you already booked an hotel to stay there?

– Not yet. I need to see it first. Yet, I do not know which place will be better.

– If you want, welcome to fly with us. -

– To Rapatara?

- Yes. Why not? This is one of the islands of Tubuai.

- But this seems to be well away."

- It's 800 miles from here, - Dex said.

- Aita pe-a, - answered Haoto, - No problem. We have Reikan-Re. Easy to reach in 3 hours. There is ariki there, I mean, king; he is an excellent uncle, and, in general, there is fun there ...

- King? - Repeated Jeanne.

- By the way, we help him with engineering, - tairi explained, and modestly added – Not for free, of course.

- The real king of the island ... It sounds tempting.

The insurance agent took a folder out from his briefcase and grumbled.

- Look, miss, to be not raped and eaten. About this Rapatar is even written in the press.

– We'll certainly rape, - Tayri promised gaily. - Then we'll eat you without salt, and we'll leave your bones for the sharks.

- Why without salt? - Asked Jeanne.

- For the dramatic effect," Tayri explained.

– Better, head this, it is just the case, - said the insurance agent and gave to Jeanne the printout from the Evangelical Times website.

She chuckled thoughtfully and read aloud:

- Clive Wilson. Terrifying human sacrifices in Meganesia. The mask of ultra-modernization on the "Islands of Freedom" thrives wild rituals of cannibals and demon-worshipers. The author saw all this with his own eyes on the island of Rapatar. The word "Rapatara" comes from the distorted native word "raptor". The island is named so because it is dedicated to the cult of cannibal predators ...

- What, what?! - Haotot and tairi exclaimed in chorus.

- In the process, Rapa-tara on utafoa means: "a place where corn grows" –said one of the passengers.

– I read what's written, - Jeanne explained, showing him the printout.

- What an absurd? - Outraged Haoto and took out of his pocket a miniature military laptop - How is it? Evangelical Times, "The horrific human sacrifice in Meganezia?". - Aha!

- Read aloud! - tairi demanded.

- It's easy, - he said. So that's it. - The island of Rapatar is one of the most remote corners of the notorious Tubuai archipelago. It was here in 1790, the natives were eaten several sailors from the British ship Bounty. The author of these lines, having gone with a scientific and historical mission along the route "Bounty", was able to get to the forbidden island only due to the order signed by the coordinator of Meganesia. This paper served as a security letter: the violators of the coordinator's order here are shot without trial, along with their families ... Joder, foa, stop to laugh! Or read it yourself!..

It was an appeal to a group of young meganesians who sat in three rows ahead. They giggled after the words: "forbidden island", and the phrase about the shooting violators caused them loud laughter, clapping and whistling. The noise subsided, and Haoto continued.

- This paper allowed us to get to the shore of the lagoon on the full moon, when the main and most terrible ritual is held: the sacrifice of a virgin to a large white shark. Before our very eyes, four strong men were dragged to the platform, fortified above the water, desperately resisting the native for 20 years. All the clothes were torn from her. Legs of the unfortunate were spread far to the sides, and tied them to the two crossbars of the bamboo cross. The priest, whose face was hidden under a terrifying shark mask, bent over the young native and checked that she was virgin ...

Here, Haoto and tairi rusted in chorus, and then the young meganesians laughed that they laughed half a minute ago. Four older Meganesians, sitting in the tail of the cabin, also joined. They clapped loudly on their knees and loudly commented.

- Joder! Cuando se encontraron en Meganezia una 20-año virgen ?!

- De puta madre! Autor les trajo una virgen desde America!

- Que en America ningùn jerk podia cogerla? Es ella tal fea?

Under the new burst of laughter, tairi tried to explain for Jeanne:

- You know, to find a 20-year-old virgin in Meganesia is how to catch a live dinosaur in Canada. People say: the author brought a virgin with him from America; she was so ugly, that no one could ...

- Hey! Listen further! - Haoto interrupted her, - ... Having convinced that the native did not yet know the man ... (again, a burst of laughter), ... "The priest gave a sign that the cross was lowered into the water. When the girl was immersed in the waist, a huge male of a white shark appeared in the water, at least 20 feet in length. The sea predator described several rounds around the victim, turned over on his back, and his monstrous male organ became visible ...

Walking between the rows, the girl bent over the fit of laughter, lost her balance, and flopped at a guy from a Meganesian company, who was sitting next to the aisle.

- Ani oe, bro!

- Aita pe-a, - he answered, - where are you from, glo?

– Atafu, Tokelau, - she said, - and you, bro?

- Manra, Phoenix-Kiribati. Almost neighbors.

Haoto regained his breath and continued reading:

- The girl screamed in horror and pain, when the shark's cock penetrated, but after a few minutes lost consciousness; when the shark came to the wild orgasm. Then the cross was dragged out onto the platform, and the priest, with five strokes of a stone ax, cut off the unfortunate victim of the limb and his head. Then he cut the torso. At this time, the male sharks, excited by the smell of blood that got into the water, floated around the platform. The natives began to throw the pieces of the victim into the water, and the shark swallowed them instantly, until the heart and liver were left from the body of the girl. Their natives cut it into small pieces and ate raw. After that, an abominable sexual orgies began. I have no words to describe ...

- Joder, - cursed the girl from Atafu, - he had enough words for the previous part, however.

A young guy from Meganesian company sitting in front, looked closely at Jeanne.

- Iri, glo! I saw you on TV, at a press conference with coordinator Torres in Montreal. You wanted to take off his security collar and perched his neck with a screwdriver.

A nail file, - said the Canadian. - I happened to be. - That thing was slippery.

You, glo, did grab the wrong thing! - intervened the girl, also sitting in front.

The guy objected:

- I've read in "Ontario Scan" about that thing, she got there too.

Jeanne knew that within few days, the yellow press has expanded that case to a porn novel about her and the coordinator of the government of Meganesia.

- Ontario Scan, - she snorted, - it's easy to write anything in that yellow trash.. That the Queen of England was fucked with a Loch Ness monster, why not?

- And I would try for fun, - said the girl.

- With Torres or the monster? - the guy asked.

- Well ... - she thought, -... I would start with Torres, though ..."

Jeanne shook her head and smiled.

- I acted more modestly: I put him a bottle of "viking-vine" after the TV-ether.

- For such a confuse, the whole bottle? - the girl was surprised, - The man should be proud to be scratched by the beautiful woman. Especially, so erotic, right in the studio!

One of the older Megnesians attracted attention with a loud whistle, and asked:

- Eo orivaa pahi-pai flyka hamani-haapii no Rapatara?

"E reira," Tairi replied.

Here, almost all the meganesians who were on the plane shouted something extremely friendly and approving, and some even clapped their hands.

- What's the matter? - Jeanne asked.

- Oldman remembered, that the deck flyer "Orivaa" had been designed for Rapaport. - Tairi explained. – This is a cheap model, popular with fishermen. It can take off from the deck of a mini trawler.

– On a rope, like a kite, - the guy from Munra said, - If there's a headwind or, if calm, at a ship's speed of 7 knots. But the flier is good. At least for such a price.

- The article, it turns out, is custom-made, - Dex said, - In the place of the firm that makes the flyers, I would file a lawsuit against this fucking newspaper. Dishonest competition. I would knock all the shit out of this fucking writer!

- The Yankee has a reason, – The girl from Atafu said.

- I'll have to tell the king, - agreed Haoto. - And you're quick to think, bro.

- Ha! - said the student, - One says, even a cat has a lawyer in our country!

Two young Americans in the front-right laughed uncontrollably.

– tairi turned to Jeanne.

- So, glo, we fly with us to cannibal-shark-worshipers.

- With such an intrigue? Still would! - Answered the Canadian.

...

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №2
Meganesia - the first acquaintance. Children of nature.

From a bird's-eye view, the atoll of Palmyra is similar to a thick, green paper-clip, covered with red spots. In fact, this clip has a length of 5 miles - by ocean standards, this is a hefty piece of land. Green color comes from the dense vegetation, and red specks are the roofs of houses. The roads and kilometer runways of the Air Force base on both sides of the lagoon are dark enough, but they are seen before the landing. The "bookshelve" drops into the lagoon and approaches to the pier of the Great Bridge (an arch across the channel, that connects the western part of the lagoon, that is open to the ocean, to an almost closed eastern one).

Formalities - zero. The pilot opens the door of the flyer and we quietly go into the territory of Meganesia, without showing anyone any papers. The girl in broad breeches, a blue T-shirt with a white "Police" label and a black holster with the handle of some impressive shooting instrument, smiles at us; she says the traditional "Aloha foa" and starts flirting with the pilot.

I ask tairi, what are we supposed to do now, and I get a pragmatic answer: "breakfast, viti-viti, very quickly; in half an hour we'll fly further."

In order to clarify, Hahiri points to a cluster of tables under a canopy near the base of the Arch of the Great Bridge, 200 meters from the pier.

Haoto and tairi are already behaving, as if Dex and I are their guests. Or here it is accepted, or they just like us. Haoto approaches the counter, exchanges two short phrases with the barman guy, throws a few bills into the transparent box (I realize that these are meganese pounds), and tells us:

- Take cups, plates, and dial everything you like. It's kind of like a buffet.

Dex and I pick-up some familiar dishes (salad, scrambled eggs and bacon) and cocoa (on tairi's recommendation). In the process, I'm interested in what the abbreviation "RSE" means at the entrance to the cafe. Tairi explains:

– "Recuzo Sin Explica", Failure without explanation. If the character is antipathetic, then he will not be served here. We have it almost everywhere. The usual thing. In the North America's night clubs, isn't it the sae, yeah?

But it's not easy, to avoid my curiosity. I clarify my question:

- What does it mean, the several crossed out pictograms next to the table?

tairi shrugs:

- It's easy! They do not serve drunk people, people with large domestic animals, Muslims and practicing missionaries.

On my remark that in civilized countries discrimination on the basis of religion is prohibited, the answer is given:

– We are differently civilized.

Dex asks, if the owner of the café is afraid of problems with Muslims because of this badge? Haoto responds:

- Not afraid, there is no Islamist - no problem! - and makes an explanatory gesture with his index finger, while ringing his tongue.

tairi makes a dramatically serious face:

- We have military-fascist tyranny here, you did not know ?!

Dex laughs, I do not understand why ...

That moment, just during discussion of religion and Tyranny, a floating military machine, covered with blue-green camouflage appears at the pier. It looks as 20-foot triangular head of a floating snake from a Hollywood thriller about giant mutants. On the sides of the head are two combs, which further strengthens the association with the Hollywood monster. I share this my impressions with tairi, and she gives an alternative version:

– Ah, in my opinion, not a snake's head, but a cat's: she has ears! This model is called "MoonCat". Smart thing.

On the "head", in the meantime, the hatch opens. From there, the guy in a baggy swamp suit jumps into the ladder, takes from the barman's hands a bag with some transparent containers, screams "Mauru-roa!", Jumps back, and dives into the hatch, which immediately closes. In the guts of the machine, a quiet metallic-rustling sound comes; the machine turns its nose towards the middle of the lagoon, suddenly accelerates and, after leaving the bunch of waves at the calm water, steeply takes off and disappears in the blue-white sky.

Haoto, watching her with her eyes, explains:

- Ocean main patrol. they got for some food. No reason to fly half a day hungry.

Dex and Haoto begin to argue about the comparative qualities of the meganesian "MoonCat" and the new "Sea-Stealth" of the NATO armed forces. Men use any pretext to talk about weapons ... tairi, noticing my interest in scurrying small boats on the lagoon, begins to explain to me the difference between different "proa": traditional "vaa-hoeie" and modern "ahi-reoo". Then she looks at her watch and decisively says "Horo!". Half an hour almost passed.

We return to our "bookshelve". Next to it, the boat is now moored, which looks similar to the "vaa-hoeie", although its 2 floats are inflatable, and not bamboo, and besides the sail, it has a compact outboard engine. The pilot again smokes, but no longer with the girl-cop (she inspects someone's newly arrived seaplane), but with a fat elderly native, dressed only in the silver shawl wrapped around her monumental thighs.

Four preteens, three boys and a girl, carry from the boat to the luggage compartment of the bookshelves some heavy plastic bags. Teenagers are naked, except for bright bracelets on the left shoulder, above the biceps. American passengers (those from the first row) observe this scene with some superiority:

– Savages, - one of them quietly says to another.

– Children of nature, – he agrees, – the natives are utafoa, they are preserved here.

At that moment, something is ringing melodically. The teenage girl stops half a walk from the bookcase to the boat, takes out a bright round thing from the bracelet, presses it against the cheek just below the ear, freezes, listens, and then says:

– Ua te parao este chineese oper-sys joder teie. – Again he listens and says - Clean it up oe bene install kiwi-OS ... Aita pe-a e o maita juntas global upgrade per software compartible.

The girl returns the mobile back to bracelet and runs to the boat. ..

4 - RETROSPECTIVE.
Date / Time: March 25, 20 years of the Charter. Night. Location: Central Meganesia, Futuna Island, Kolia village, fare Carpini.

- My love, if you take-of this fucking military uniform, make some delicious coffee, put it into a nice cup, add a small piece of chocolate next to it ... In general, do what your wife usually does for a little beloved husband ...

- .. Then, during the next hour you will not tell me anything meaningful, - she interrupted.

- I meant at the moment only coffee and chocolate, and the rest a little later.

- And now I understand. Okay, I'm cooking coffee and listening.

– Form, - he reminded, - Otherwise it will seem to me that coffee has a barracks flavor.

- Well, if you insist ...

It seemed to the outside observer, that Captain Chubby Hawk had slipped out of the army jumpsuit ... And in general from all that she was wearing ... Like a pea from a pod with a strong pressure from the sides.

- I insisted only on form," said Michele Carpini (vice president of the association of agro engineers Wallis and Futuna), - but this way even better.

- Very nice ... I'm glad and start to make coffee.

- Michele lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and said:

– You shoted me with this information, like from a machine gun, and even in terrible slang, which in general should be forbidden to be used in decent places ...

- In short, dear, - she asked, including the coffee grinder.

Waiting until the howling sound of this unit subsides, he said:

- In short, I'll try to explain everything as I understand it, and you, my love, will interrupt me without any false modesty if I make a mistake. So, by the terms of the problem, we have a plot of 5 million hectares in the subequatorial climatic zone, with hilly terrain and large disparate sources of water. If absolutely rude, it is a equatorial crossed savannah, which for the intensive agroindustry requires the organization of terraces with drip irrigation and a thin control of the water-salt balance in the cultural layer and, possibly, the first aquifer. In six months, it is necessary to organize the business so that the harvest is enough for two million consumers. OK?

- NOP, - Chubby replied, dropping coffee into the coffee-pot in an amount that would have brought the World Health Organisation into a state of unbearable horror.

- In that case, why did not you interrupt me when I made a mistake?

- Because, dear, you have not been wrong anywhere. You just missed the point.

- Ah, is that so? And what is important.

- The main thing, - she answered, with a precise movement filling the coffee-pot with water for 3/4, - is war.

- Oh, war ?! I lived quietly for two weeks, believing that you were in Ngorongoro, at an innocuous summit on terrorism, and you were again at war! You have two children, have not you forgotten? And you are home at two in the morning, in a uniform smelling of pyroxylin and napalm ...

- It's not a uniform, it's a jumpsuit. And it can not smell like that. I flew from Ngorongoro to Mpulu for 4 days, and did not participate in active hostilities. I swear to Freya.

She raised her eyes to the sky (more precisely to the ceiling)for a second, and put the jesus on the tile.

- Well, all right, - he sighed, - tell me what the war is, where you did not participate in anything like that. Notice, I took your word for it.

- War, - Chubby said thoughtfully. - It's been there for ages. In Mpulu, there is no a single inhabitant, who knows about peaceful times, even from a grandma story.

- I'm sorry, love, but I did not understand who they're fighting with.

- What's the difference? - she asked, - If I read to you from a notebook two dozen names of African tribes, will this somehow affect the recommendations on agricultural culture?

- What does the name of the tribes mean? - Asked Michele, - I understand that either their army invaded someone, or someone's army invaded them. Rather, the second, because, judging by your information, they simply do not have to support their army.

- You're mistaken, dear, - she said softly. - They contain four of their armies and two more occupation corps from neighboring countries. The military contingent simply comes and takes away from the farmers all the valuable things they can find. Vegetables, grain, meat, cattle, women and adolescents. You can eat food, change the rest for weapons, ammunition and morphine. It is possible in another way: grain and cattle for change, women and teenagers for eating. It all depends on the current market situation ... Your coffee, honey. I'll find a chocolate bar now, it was at the buffet, however, if Fleur and Lucy did not eat it ... Oh, we have Fijian rum!

Michele moved the cup over the table and asked:

- Just to take and to eat, is that alright? -

- Right, not right, - Chubby muttered, searching the inside of the cupboard. – I told them a hundred times that they would not do it, but they still drag and drop.

- To whom did you say?

- I told to one, I told to another, and both at once. Useless. Both, chocolate, and jam ... Do you remember, in Apia, in an Italian restaurant, we were drinking coffee with crackers.. Crackers are here. Do you like them?

- Yes, love. I called chockolate just as one of the options. But the question was not about our girls. I meant, in this Mumbo-Jumbo ...

- In Mpulu, - she corrected, setting a vase of crackers on the table.

- Yes, in Mpulu, - Michele corrected himself, lighting a new cigarette. - Is there cannibalism usual thing? I do not mean ritual, but purely technically.. You mentioned the interchangeability of livestock and people. In my opinion, this is essential.

Chubby sat opposite him on the padded stool, cross-legged in Turkish, poured herself a glass of rum, made a tiny sip and uttered a long tirade.

- You see, dear, we must understand the specifics of the armed contingents in Mpulu, and indeed in this region. The fighters are recruited from more or less healthy adolescents aged 15 to 16, through their planting on heroin. They shoot where ordered, because the commander supplies them with morphine. The authority of the commander is unquestioned, because only he knows where and how to get morphine. Without the morphin, these fighters are turned inside-out by the drug withdrawal syndrome. They are absolutely anti-social. They need proteins, fats and carbohydrates to keep their weapons, because that's the only way they will get morphine and they will still be someone to eat, a pig or a person. If a fighter, because of the development of drug addiction, or for another reason can no longer hold arms, his comrades eat it up. The average fighter lives 3 years.

- But they must be very poor-quality soldiers, - Michele said.

- Very, - she confirmed. - A normal platoon of motorised rifles destroy a battalion of these types in a 15 minutes, without to loss a single soldier, unless, by an accident. But these troops usually do not fight with a regular army, but with farmers or with each other. A drug addict with a gun is stronger than an unarmed farmer; on this inequality, the system stands.

- And farmers, did not idea to buy guns come to their heads?

- It came to somebody else, - she said, - next to you, my jumpsuit is. Take out what's in its big pocket at the right side.

Michele rummaged in the folds of the jumpsuit took out something like a plastic toy gun. For some reason, it seemed to be made no smaller than the original, bit bigger, and, in addition, quite heavy, perhaps, heavier than a kilogram.

– If this is to scare drug addicts, then I would do something more like an American M-16, - he remarked. - They've all been seen on TV. And this thing does not inspire ...

– It's a Spagi submachine gun, - she interrupted, - give it to me.

- Chubby took the toy and quickly disassembled it, putting the parts in a row on the table. The final chord was a standard 5.56-mm cartridge, removed from the box store for complete conviction

- So it is real?? - Michele was surprised.

- You still ask.. The mobster morphinist can not be frightened. It can only be killed. Spagi is far from the best model of its kind, but it is the simplest and cheapest in production. Works on the cheapest mass small-caliber ammunition, which are sold anywhere, as sportive. Plus, the resemblance to a toy. By the way, it has deceived not only you. We put in the Mpula 5000 units for less than one hundred thousand pounds. They are cheaper than many toy guns. There's something funny about this, is not it?

- Probably if you have a specific sense of humor, - grumbled Michele as he watched his wife put the eerie "toy" into a fighting state. - But I do not understand how I can help you. We cannot cultivation machines, like maize; agrobiology has not yet reached this.

- There are enough automatic weapons, - she answered. - People need not only to shoot, but also to eat.

- I understand that if farmers are not robbed, they can easily fed themselves..

Chubby shook her head.

- Farmers are only half a million if counted with their families. A half million do not have farms. They will die of hunger. More precisely, they will storm the farms; it will be even worse than now..

- Wait, - he said, - but did they eat, that half million, before?"

- Humanitarian aid, of course.

- And why cannot they eat it further?

- Because it will not exist, - explained Chubby, - humanitarian aid is given for a reason, in exchange for some things, one of which is the steady sale of morphine. When Colonel Ngakwe and his farm militia mop up the morphine armies, sales will drop, and the sponsors will not be interested in delivering humanitarian aid.

- Beloved, you will not argue that humanitarian aid is supplied only for the sake of marketing morphine.

- Not only, - she agreed. - The human factor also plays a big role.

- In terms of, humanitarian considerations? - Michele asked.

- No. I mean, human trafficking. Someone is sold for spare parts: organs, blood, etc., also slavery. Very powerful humanitarian programs from Islamic funds. They need adolescent boys in detachments of "jihad warriors". Adolescent girls are a running product for the sex industry. Very young children are sold in the underground market of adoptions and in the spare parts market. But the main humanitarian business for 5000 years remains the slave trade. The market of cheap handymen for ports in the countries of Southeast Asia, and for mines in the same Africa, where they supply metallurgical and chemical raw materials to North America and Europe. Look at the UN reports if you are interested. There about it is. And, of course, tens of millions of super-cheap guest workers for developed countries. Formally, they are not even slaves. Trade them, as it is done there, is a legal business. For the sake of all this, in the second half of the twentieth century, independence was given to the countries of Central Africa.

Michele finished his coffee and looked thoughtfully at the bottom of the empty cup.

- What an interesting underside of our wonderful age ... Tell me, my love, but what did your wonderful organisation in this Mumbo-Jumbo forget?

- Mpulu, - Chubby said softly, refilling his cup.

- Thank you ... Of course, in Mpulu. - So that?

- Lithium, beryllium, uranium and thorium, - she answered.

5 - CURRENT MOMENT
Date / Time: September 1, 22 of the Charter. Day. Location: Central Meganesia, Tintung. On the road Kangaroo - in Lanton City

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №3. The Aluminum Revolution. Capital of arbitrariness

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Entry control in Meganesia takes about 10 seconds for foreigners and 5 for citizens. It seems, nobody is interested: who entered the country and why. Electronic Face Control and Stamp. All. We lost Dex at the entrance to the arrival hall: One melano girl (apparently, the meganezian part of his crew) grabbed him like a wasp - caterpillar and immediately sucked away. He managed only to wave to us and shout "Let's meet at Aitutaki". tairi and Haoto shouted "Aloha viti!", and switched to me. tairi took a tricycle in an automatic rent-car, and we went on a tour.

...

Tintung, on which the capital of Meganesia is located, is an atoll, it includes three large islands: southern Motuko, northern Vale and western Katav. They form a triangle with sides about 6 miles around the startlingly beautiful lagoon. Motuko and Vale are connected by the "Kangaroo Road", an arc-shaped dam, about a quarter of a mile wide and 3 miles long, built over the barrier reef. The name was coined at the end of the second year of the Charter, after "The Battle for the Directive of Judge Malcolm."

In that year, the turbulent economic and social processes caused by the technical policy of the government of Iori Nakamura attracted a lot of migrant workers to the country, some of them (so-called cheap laborers) were Muslims from the poor eastern regions of Indonesia and Malaysia. As often happens in such cases, part of the slum quarters that existed around the seaport and the airport on the island of Motuko immediately turned into an Islamic enclave. Slum dwellers, not prone to this religion, suddenly discovered that it is dangerous to trade pork and alcohol in the street, and a woman, leaving the house with a not very covered body, or even just an open face, risks being beaten. Plus, Muslim neighborhoods generated a lot of dirt. Other quarters of the slums were also not particularly clean, but there was some hygiene, and here a lot of food waste roted right on the street. The last straw was, Islamists set fire by one of the Y-clubs (the megnesian version of the visiting house). Residents appealed to the local court, and they asked for clarification from the Supreme Court.

So there was a Supreme Court decision, named after the author of his project, "The Judge Malcolm's Directive." In particular, it contained the following principle:

In the territory and in the waters of Meganesia, the dissemination and demonstration of political and religious beliefs that require the restriction of the freedom of inhabitants beyond the restrictions recorded in the Great Charter or following from it are prohibited. Any attempts of this kind, incl. complicity in association with similar goals is an attempt to establish a state. It must be suppressed by the supreme measure of humanitarian self-defense.

No ideology or religion was explicitly mentioned here, but because of the background on which the resolution was adopted, it was clear that it was primarily about Islam, or at least its orthodox currents. The next day, a young Muslim arrested for casting a stone in an "immodestly decorated" shop window, was sentenced by a local court to the ICGS for 15 minutes, and 10 minutes later he was shot in the courtyard of the police station. The Muslim community responded with a protest. One group of about 500 people blocked the port, and another, about 1,000 people, moved along the dam to the island of Valais, in Lanton City, with rather characteristic posters "Islam will dominate the world", "Stop sinful" Magna Carta, and even: «Death to judge Malcolm».

Whether here Europe or Britain - the government and the court would have wavered. If this were North America, maybe it would have come to hand-to-hand with the police, and then to some sort of compromise. If China were here, there would be a clash with the troops and some casualties, but then a money rain from international human rights organisations: "helping victims of persecution for freedom of conscience." The organizers of the performances dreamed of the first option, they counted on the second, but were ready even for the third. They did not take into account the specifics of Meganesia, as a country of thousands of small islands scattered in a huge water area. The massive power action against the basis of the foundations of the political system, in the three-mile neighborhood of the capital, remote from hundreds of miles in one direction or another from other major centers, is perceived here as an attempt at an armed riot.

Perhaps, it was still possible to smooth the situation, but the death of 2 policemen made it irreversible; two of them tried to detain the crowd on the dam, and another dead in a collision at the port's transport gate. After that, the commander of the Lanton garrison received an order from the Supreme Court: "Stop the armed insurrection, not to enter into negotiations, and take no prisoners."

The garrison of the capital at that time consisted of six 20-meter port taggles "Ville", converted into gunboats (one such boat survived - it is used to roll tourists and to launch fireworks), five 3-meter Japanese tankettes "Type-94-TeKe" (thrown in 1945, restored in a repair shop) and an air squad of ten "SkyEgg".

About SkyEgg I must say a few words. Take a large egg, about 3 meters in length, behind it attach a propeller to it, and on the top - a wing with a span of 7 meters. From the wing, slide back, on both sides of the propeller, two 3-meter shafts, and on them stick the second wing, with a span of 3 meters with two vertical rudders on each side. All done, the machine is ready.

The model was stolen, and many times. Its original version - "Hammond Y1S", was created in the US in 1937. Because of the Great Depression, the business failed, and the only one (and already broken broken) sample sold at a symbolic price in the Netherlands. There the company Schedle, in 1940, made from this design a universal prototype for a whole class of military aircraft for various purposes. Easy auxiliary "Schedle-20" with engine 160 hp had the same silhouette as the high-speed fighter "Schedle-21" with the engine of 1100 hp. After Hitler's attack on the Netherlands, the drawings were taken to Sweden, and this fighter, in the enhanced version, was named "SAAB-21". After the end of the war, the initial documentation "Schedle" came to the United States. In 1987, on its base there was an elegant aviquet "Sadler-Vampire" with a weight of one and a half centners, engine of 30 hp. and a speed of up to 85 knots. Then the Turkish Air Force suddenly discovered its military potential (what a surprise - given that the "Schedle" was a military model). In 1997 "Sadler-Vampire" with the engine of 450 hp. (boosted it to 200 knots), armored panels, 2 machine guns and 4 bazookas under the wings, became a light attack aircraft "Yarasa". In the 21st century, the military-technical bureau "Creatori" of the Meganesian People's Fleet put on the Sadler-Vampire, a 150 hp engine. and six-barrel machine gun M134-Minigun 7.62-mm. This "ratchet" was an old model (created back in 1962, for the Vietnam War), but it gave 100 shots per second. As decided in the People's Fleet of Meganesia: "may worth for the countryside."

By the military standards of the beginning of the 21st century, SkyEgg was only suitable for a museum of technical absurdity, but against a crowd of people armed only with trimming pipes and several shotguns, 10 such flies were more than enough. About a thousand protestors, caught up at the time of the attack on the dam, died before they understand, what is happening. Of the 500 people blocking the port, some people lived longer - the port facilities prevented pilots from firing continuously, and about two hundred participants of the action managed to scatter. In the next half hour, the police, with the support of tankettes, "cleaned" them into the slums. An unknown number of people tried to escape to the sea on two small old seiners, but they, of course, were noticed from the air. Nobody figured out how many there were perpetrators of the riots, but how many - frightened Muslims, who decided to hide just in case. The Seiners were shot and let down a few miles from the shore.

The last chord. Aviation returns to the base. In the air - the chatter of pilots, which the authorities do not stop (the same guys need to relieve tension). And then someone says: Hey, our dam looks like a kangaroo! In Australia, the aborigines paint kangaroos just like that. Well, schematically: tail and back - arc, paws, face, ears. With the submission of this pilot, a three-mile dam from Motuku to Vale and began to be called "Kangaroo Road". And SkyEgg now (as my guides explained) - a popular civilian model, one of the cheapest and safest. Of course, the machine gun is not put on it. Here's a story...

Now the Road Kangaroo is much wider than it was then. On it there is a highway and a monorail for a tram, and from the lagoon there is a strip of half a meter, built up by a line of unusual townhouses. They are multi-colored 40 and 20-foot cargo containers delivered in two or three floors, with cut windows, attached stairs, wide balconies and piers that overlook the lagoon. This housing estate was an experiment of the Aluminum Revolution on the resettlement of slums. It turned out very successfully, so this way continue to build up to now. Now, for this purpose, residential modules are made of materials more suitable for housing, but the "container standard" (the ratio of horizontal dimensions of 20 or 8 feet, and height - 8.5 feet) remained. There are popular architectural solutions for it, which they do not want to part with, although in Meganesia there is a metric, not British, system of units.

For the sake of justice, I must say that container housing was invented not in Meganesia. The first microflat with an area of ​​a 40-foot container (320 sq. Ft. Or 30 sq. Meters) appeared in the middle of the 20th century, in the USSR that existed that time. There they were built of thin concrete blocks and were called "cross-show". In the late XX century in Mexico and Peru began to build townhouses from the decommissioned containers. At the beginning of the XXI century, this fashion was adopted in the Netherlands (for cheap hotels and student campuses). At the same time, compact apartment houses - packages of microflat in the form of 40-foot containers were created in England, as a recipe for overpopulated London. By the way, the name "Lanton" comes from the distorted "London" (before the Aluminum revolution, the current capital of Meganesia was officially called "New South London"). Such grimaces of history ...

From the middle of the "Kangaroo Road" to the island of Katav, an imposing narrow suspension bridge with a mile-long span, "The Queen's Bridge of Laoniroa", is thrown. On the island of Katav, there is a university and a campus - an architectural complex resembling a cluster of frozen bubbles of a mud geyser (the analogy is correct, since the domes of all buildings are blown out of concrete-plastic, and windows and doors are cut in the walls). From the inside, such a structure looks like a well-arranged cave. My guides explained that the absence of right angles and lines should (according to the authors) stimulate the extraordinary engineering creativity. In practice, this stimulated the malicious jokes of students. Thus, the abbreviation MULT (from the official "Meganezian Universidad La Tecnologia") was deciphered as "Motu Urb La Troglodidas" (Island of Troglodytes). Immediately after the revolution, at the time of the Convention, Militar Tecnic Creatori was here. In a joke he was called "Crematori", tk. simple and cheap means of destruction were created in it (there was nowhere to do anything difficult, there was nothing to do). From "Creatori" there is only one small building - there is now "Atomic Autodefenca Museo".

In addition to Vale, Motuku and Katav, the Nelson Archipelago includes two more islands: Toka-Taolu and Ngalevu. The tiny Toka-Taolu is 4 miles west of Katav, and is an appendix of Tintung Atoll. It is built up with a solid "container" townhouse, with some houses standing almost outside the island, on stilts driven into the underwater part of the reef. The island of Ngalev lies 50 miles southeast of the main part of the archipelago. It is a military fort that looks like a stepped pyramid from the air, erected right in the open ocean. Some wit wrote that Fort Ngalev - this is increased exactly 4 times the copy of the Cheops pyramid, but in shape it is closer to the Mayan pyramids in Mexico. This is not a tribute to aesthetics, but functionality. Steps are runways. Lower, long - for heavy aviation. Upper, shorter - for easy. What prose.

Our tour started from the southern island of Motuko (where the international airport and seaport is located). Previously, they were adjacent to slums and antediluvian creek for fish processing. A few years after the Aluminum Revolution, both were demolished, the airport and the seaport were expanded, and the Robot Experimental Fabrica (REF) was built in accordance with the coordination policy of Cyber ​​Revolucion Industrial Machineri (CRIM) on the remaining patch of an area less than a square kilometer. Because of the apparent consonance of "CRIM" with "crime," and because of the similarly explicit orientation of the new policy to the brutal theft of technology, REF was jokingly called "Robbery, Expropriation and Falsify." The joke, however, was a success: due to intellectual robbery Meganesia quickly took the leading position in the world Hi-Tech. Developments are often stolen through the "brain drain" (by enticing young professionals who know important know-how), so around the REF built a quarter "Nido Cereb" (nest of brains), where these guys could be settled immediately upon arrival. A couple of years later, having received good money, they buy more comfortable housing, and their place in the "nest" is a new batch of fresh brains.

At first glance, "Nido Cereb" looks like a bizarrely split honeycombs, out of which honey has leaked out. Each honeycomb is the end of the microflat module with a balcony, protruding at an angle to the plane of the facade (the plane of the facade itself exists only theoretically). As you can see (if you are not too lazy to look into the Internet), this "live" configuration of microflat-house is almost an exact copy of the English "London project" of the beginning of the century. The difference is only in the enlarged balconies (this is understandable: here the air temperature almost never falls below 25 Celsius, so that the balcony is the second living-room). The "REF-Nido Cereb" complex is financed by one of the largest mega-state public investment funds "Hawaika Energi y Tecnica Nova". It is closely connected with the University campus and, according to my guides, continues to be a fairly profitable enterprise. Whatever is written about the development of the meganezian scientific schools, and the evidence suggests that intellectual robbery continues to be an important (if not the main) form of acquiring scientific and technical knowledge for Meganesia.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - ..

Jeanne once again glanced at the fantastic bridge of Queen Laonirua, as if departing from the viewing platform on Kangaroo Road somewhere in infinity (a place a mile from where the bridge connected to the Katav island was not seen).

- The design is also stolen? She asked.

- Along the way, they licked off the Norwegian Skarnsund Bridge, - Haoto replied, - only with the latest achievements ... In general, it turned out to be simpler, cheaper and almost twice as long. Well, I had to make it narrow; again, to make it cheaper. But still beautiful, huh?

- Beautiful, - she agreed. - It's good that you have not been banned from architecture, following the ban of literature.

- What are you talking about, glo? – Tayri said indignantly. - We have literature, as much as you like. If you do not believe me, let's go to Lanton City in the book-shop, where there's literature to ... (the Meganesian held its palm roughly at the level of the nostrils) ... There are books, for which you put in jail at Canada. And we have, please. Because freedom. Charter.

- The Bible and the Koran there, too? - said the Canadian

- Well yes. If you're going to take both at once, bargain. For two books 5% discount.

- It's strange. I read in Human Rights Watch Reports that you are prohibited by the Supreme Court at once, as soon as you have adopted the Charter.

Haoto thoughtfully scratched his head ...

- Ah, understand. This is about literature in the school. The Tribunal banned it. At the Convention.

– And it's still forbidden? - Asked Jeanne.

- Still would. Think about it: how can you teach such things to children in a free country?

- What?

- My mother told me about this, - tairi said. - Like, you read a book, and then you're asked some shit. For example, why did a certain type of a book behave well or badly? And you must learn to think in such a way, that your answers coincide with the standard. 5 years you get into the head, the morality offi, and then you go out with your brain pierced, and you can not live humanly any more. Mom says, even such a question asked: "Why does a person live?" Understand? And, if you answered incorrectly, you get a bad diploma, and you're not accepted for a good job.

- It was prodders, that these monsters were shot right at the Convention, - concluded Haoto.

- No, - Tairi disagreed. - they could have been exiled to Antarctica.

- How? There was not yet our colony there that time.

- Well, if not Antarctica, it could be a floating village. There, they would quickly understand, what they are living for, and what is the real price of their life. In pounds and cents.

Jeanne looked at her guides with complete incomprehension.

– Friends, could you explain, who had been shouted? for what?

- It's very simple, - Haoto said. - When the Tribunal determined, the textbooks where all this crap was made were overprinted, were forbidden to use in teaching. Cops went to schools and libraries, and put seals. On the Internet, a decree was posted. There in black and white: for violation - the VMGS.

- Books can not be forbidden, - added tairi. If you just want to read the old textbook, then there's no problem." But it's forbidden to teach this shit.

- What a freedom, - said Jeanne. - if you can not read literature at school."

- I'm explaining to you: you can read." Even necessary. There is a special subject: the countries of the world. You read in the languages ​​of different countries, at the same time learn about their customs. There's also about Canada. Longfellow Song of Hiawatha. It's about your Indians.

- OK. You read Longfellow. The teacher can ask: what did you understand from this book? What did you like or who did you like? And why?

- It's easy, - replied Meganesian. - Even the test is: choose the right answers. Who was friends with whom, who banged whom, or ate who slept with whom, and who went where. Type, the teacher must see that the guys understand the plot. About liked it - it is optional, in the exam by paraphrase. I retold in English Mowgli Kipling. There's a wise python.

- Python was just advanced, in the sense of knowledge of psychology, - Haoto remarked.

- Listen, - said the Canadian, - I did not understand what it's forbidden to teach.

tairi raised her eyebrows in surprise (the question seemed too simple to her).

- So, morality. Consider: some treif begins to teach everyone, what is good and what is bad. Is it not enough that he personally does not like? And the other do like. Tastes may differ.

- Yes, but all children should be given some ideas of good and evil, - Jeanne said.

- For this, - said Meganesian, - children have mothers and, in general, a family. But school should give the current knowledge. The teacher is paid for this, not for his tastes.

- Consider, - Haoto interjected. - You hired a guy to load the luggage into the boat, and he starts telling you that your boat is shit, the rags suck, and you yourself are slow as a snail. Do you want it? A similar case. Here Convent and reformed the school on the principle: "Ni bu yao, bu yao". What is not needed, it is not necessary.

- In order not to take away the children's time for any garbage, do not hammer their brains with trash and irrelevant information, and do not spend money on it, - tairi added.

- And they teach about the Charter at school? - Jeanne asked.

- Yes. This is in the Fundamentals of Social and Economic Management.

- And what do they teach there?

- How to manage economic objects, security and humanitarian resources, - Tairi replied. - We are taught as an object here and there.

Canadian repeated to herself the phrase she heard, came to the conclusion, that this does not look as any of the school courses she knew, and she demanded clarification:

– tairi, what exactly is taught in this course? What does a person, in the end, knows to do?

- Namely this. Manage the household, or some kind of business. Well, also, the shop, or the factory, or the mayoralty, or the coordinating government, or some sort of socio-economic foundation. Evaluate the work of others. For example, some firm, or the government, or the mayoralty, somehow built a strategy, and what they got, and why. The government, the mayor's office or the foundation publish full reports on the activities, compiled so that it is convenient to disassemble. True, you need to know the mathematical economy, but it runs in parallel, this is part of mathematics.

- You forgot about the court, - remarked Haoto. - The lot will fall on the person, and he or she will have to deal with conflict situations, gather any additional information, and then, make decisions. So, he should understand how everything works.

- In short, - summed up tairi, - if a child can play in X-fenua, then half the work is done. And for the second half, you have to go to school, at least virtually, and do the exercises, at least sometimes.

– Wait minute, "X-fenua", is it some kind of game?

tairi nodded in agreement.

- "Fenua" means "country", on utafoa. Well, along the way, it's a game about a virtual country that is somehow managed. People, resources, farms, factories, the market, laws, culture, around - neighbors, they are traded or are at war. You developed the civilisation during some 100 hours, and then you just look: how quickly all this will crash. Or do not crash. Strategy. If you want, you can see examples. There is a catalogue of ancient management systems, by countries, that have already crashed. Some Assyria, Inca empire, Sparta, etcetera. And you start to think: you can invest a resource in production, to make another resource, and also in education, to increase efficiency. Or into religion, morality, to pay less to workers, but efficiency will soon drop, because they will become stupid from morals. Or invest in the army and rob neighbors. Or racketeering, it's more profitable.

- So, in this game, morality is to pay less to the workers? - Jeanne specified.

- Well yes. Or to impose high taxes. In the course, as in real life.

- Do you think that morals, ethics, culture, serve only for deception?

- Then why in one pile? - Tairi was surprised, - Culture is about everything. How to build a boat, fish, grow vegetables. The right thing. Morality is the fabrication offi. A huge shit. Because of the morale, millions of people became morons, and then died or crippled. And ethics is a basic humanitarian technology. On the "Fundamentals of personal security", this is explained at very beginning, in the 1st grade. On examples. There are two people, one has empty mattchebox, another one has matches. To make a fire, there should be some ethics between them.

- Actually, - said Jeanne, - I thought ethics and morality were almost the same thing.

- The master trick of the office, - Haoto replied. - When they want to cheat you, they mix ethics with morality. Clap - and your money is in their pocket.

Jeanne shook her head and sighed.

- Guys, but you can not all translate for money. There are also values ​​of a different kind.

- For example? Haoto asked.

- For example, love.

- WOU! - rejoiced the Meganesian, - I love tairi. For me it's a value. And Tairi ...

- Also, - concisely confirmed his friend.

- This is cool! - he continued, - It does not express itself in money, and society do not enter in this. But when Tayri and I took the lot, we built a fare, and went into business, the society get interested, because the goods and service appear, which means money. When tairi gave birth to someone, society is also interested, because this means the humanitarian resource. Again money, although in future. But our love with tairi, as it was not expressed in money, does not touch the society; society do not deal with it. And if some moralist interviene into how, where and why we have sex, and tries to impose his rules on us, then society becomes again not indifferent, because the Charter. And a cop, hired by hired the society, catches this moralist and drags him to court, and there he gets a fine of several thousand pounds in our favour.

- And if the moralist does not have enough money? - asked the Canadian.

- Then go to penal servitude before the payment of the sum, or behind bars. Free choice. Although, these types are usually paid by their religious corporation. In the first years of the Charter, money were easily cut off on this. In Avarua, students stripped the Puritan Congregationalists for almost 20 million pounds. Group-sex in the square, in front of the church, a scandal, cops, and the whole of the world's Puritan community had to contribute for fines. Then the world's Puritans were greedy, and the local people, accordingly, sat in the jail, and the topic was gone ... It's a pity, it was a funny deal.

- Didn't the court notice that this was a provocation? - Jeanne was surprised.

- In what sense? tairi asked.

- In the sense that these sexual exercises were made specially to offend religious feelings and provoke a sharp reaction of believers.

- Of course, everyone understood this. But the students had the full right to have sex in a public garden, and the Puritans violated the Charter when they tried to ban it.

- Do you allow sex in a public park?

- Easily. Personally, I do not enjoy it, but someone likes it. A matter of taste. If you want, now we'll catch some nice guy for you, and you try.

Meganesian nodded toward the four guys in bright sports shorts and T-shirts with the emblems of "Meganezian Universidad La Tecnologia", smoking in two dozen steps from them, next to their electric scooters - almost toy-like, plastic cars on small wheels. Judging by the invocatory inscriptions on the scooter bodies "Tantric orgasm magister", "Best smart penis in Pasific", etc., it was easy to implement tairi's proposal, but Jeanne did not burn with such desire.

- Perhaps, we'd better see the city. - She suggested.

- OK, - said Haoto. - You can also take up sex on Rapapar. There, guys are not worse.

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №4.
The Aluminum Revolution. Let my people go.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While we are moving along the "Kangaroo Road" to the northern island of Vale, in Lanton City, the guides give me a historical and demographic reference. Before the Aluminum Revolution, there were 4,000 people living in Tintung, and only about 600 (administration, military police corps, and tribal aristocracy loyal to the colonial authorities) - in a well-organized City. The rest huddled in the slums on Motuko and in the heap of huts on Katava and Toka-Taolu. Now the population, taking into account the campus and the "nest", reached 20,000, but its growth has already stopped. There is only rotation - annually the composition of residents is updated by 10 to 15 percent, and the number of old residents (who live here more than 10 years) does not exceed 5000.

There are not many notable places in Valais. Almost no old building are left because of the specifics of the Aluminum revolution. Slum dwellers, extremists from the Peruvian Tupac Amaru Movement and the Philippine New People's Army, African Hutu mercenaries and Vietnamese military experts, did not seek to perish at the barricades. They moved away from the traditions of revolutionary romantics and, one night, destroyed their political opponents by placing ammonia charges - an explosive mixture of ammonium nitrate and metal aluminum (for which the revolution was called "aluminum") under their houses. If revolutions in the Old World took place under this scenario, we would see the Louvre, the Escorial, the Tower, the Doge's Palace and St. Peter's Cathedral only in the drawings.

Old Lanton, together with a cathedral of the XVII century, villas of the XVIII century, administrative buildings of the XIX century and a military town, completely destroyed. Now, in its place, there is a park with an unimaginable number of bright flowers, among which is a central square with a preserved piece of the cap of the Governor's Palace. This fragment of the old era became a pedestal for the monument to Queen Laoniroa. Some say that she was the heiress of Hawaiian kings from the Kamehame dynasty, others consider her an adventurer who came from America at the beginning of the century. Only two facts are indisputable: she was unusually beautiful, and she died at the age of about 25 years here in Lanton, from the accidental bullet of a colonial policeman when she sang Louis Armstrong's song "Go down, Moses" (now the official anthem of Meganesia). The death of Queen Laoniroa became a verdict for colonial rule. The next day a crowd in the square chanted "Let my people go"; a line from the song, and from the biblical book Exodus. The police responded with water jets and tear gas. In the biblical story, Moses repeated Pharaoh's request "Let my people go" 10 times. Here the story was much shorter: After dark, the insurgents brought 500 tons of ammonal on the barge and mined the city. At night, explosions thundered, and the "old regime" was literally wiped off from the face of the earth ... Monument to Queen Laonirova is a sculptural portrait, cast from aluminum on the 3d model, which is made by processing a video clip shot on someone's mobile phone during that performance on the square. A girl dressed only in a loincloth "lava-lava", and light sandals seems to take a step forward, and stretch out palm in front of her, as if protecting someone. On the rough pedestal there is no name or title, but there are only four words: "Let my people go" ...

Lanton is built mainly 5 - 6 storey houses in the style of "pueblo nova". Classic Latin American pueblos are small fortress settlements: an area surrounded by a wall to which dwellings with a flat roof for resting and for a superstructure along with the growth of the family are built from the inside. If the pueblo turnes out to be successful, then the houses grow to the top of the wall, and stepped terraces emerge from the roofs. Then the houses are already beginning to be attached from the outside of the wall, and there is formed the same system of roof terraces. Fortresses are not needed for residents of Lanton, the police is very effective here, and the style of pueblo allows the permanent upgrade using the roof-terraces. When the composite concrete-plastic (beta-plast) was massively applied, the construction of "pueblo nova" greatly simplified. Of course, in the city it is impossible to expand the pueblo outside the site - there is a street, but, by agreement with neighbours on the other side of the street, you can connect two pueblo bridge at the level of the 4th floor, and then the building continues over the street. On many roofs, something like a back-yard is arranged, which makes the pueblo look like a hill overgrown with greenery. Because of this, some of the residential areas of Lanton seem very old, almost medieval, although the first "pueblo nova" began to be built on these sites only 20 years ago. Many buildings in the business center are also built, like a pueblo, because firms tend to expand as they develop.

The tallest building in Lantone is the 1000-meter "Hawaika Air Tower" (HAT). HAT exactly repeated the fate of the Paris Eiffel Tower: It was erected only during the technical exhibition, but the residents insisted that this miracle be preserved. Now there is a TV-repeater studio Lanton-online.

Up to this point, it was only about history and architecture, but it's all just scenery for the bright and some fast-paced lifestyle of people in this small, very densely populated city. My guides say, that for visitors (assuming to stay in Lanton for a long time) it is much more difficult to get used not to the density of residents (several times higher than in any other city of the country), but namely to the speed of life adopted here. Joke: the guy returns from Lanton home to Funafuti, and says: Well, we met, went to her, started make love. In the course, she dials SMS on the mobile - okay. I started talking on the second mobile - okay. With toe (along the way make love) she switches on a video with Japanese lessons - okay. The third mobile is ringing. She says "This is Tutti, chat with her, while I look in the e-box, that did Bla-Bla inc answered on our resume."

This is a hyperbole, but here is the real picture: a guy with a girl is riding on rollers, while watching a movie on a laptop in the hand of a guy. The girl is simultaneously chating with someone by mobile. Its second mobile flashes in a transparent case on the strap around the bicep, and on the belt, in a similar case, there is another communicator. Here it is in the order of things.

Would be some cars there, the clinics would be overwhelmed with injuries. But cars (as such) are not here. Only light "minivans" and "kvadry", or "trikes" like ours, mini-scooters, bicycles, and rollers. Cargo wheel transport exist, but it is small, and move slowly and very carefully. Right above the houses, the cargo-bubbles are rapidly moving, the 30-meter thermal airships with remote control are the main means of delivery of

cargoes to the resident zone of Lanton City.

A separate theme is the clothes of Lanton residents and visitors. About this, too, there is an anecdote. The French fashion designer had bet that he will dress so defiantly, that this will be notices at the Lanton-Ramble (the local central street). Arriving from Paris, he strips naked, puts on the head a Halloween pumpkin with slits for eyes, draws red stars on the whole body, black swastikas and blue skulls with crossed bones, boots in bright green female shoes with a half-heeled heel; to complete the composition, he fastens a bracelet clock on the penis, and in this form he goes to the Ramble. Nobody pays attention. He walks back and forth for half an hour, and ... good luck! A lady in a business suit looks at his cock puzzled ... And says: "bro, maybe it's none of my business, but you did not update your watch from the European time to Hawaiian."

By the way, the lady in a very elegant business suit we met. She was driving a scooter. Behind her, there was a gentleman, completely naked, except for the bracelet with the mobile, and "blown" polar overalls on his shoulder. Of course, such contrasts are rare. Most passers-by are dressed in the most usual shorts and t-shirts, or in lava-lava (bright strips of cloth, tied in one way or another, or fastened on velcro around the body, usually on the hips).

In the "Britanica T-guide", in the info about Meganesia it is said: "in the streets of Lanton you can be shocked by the abundance of naked people." In fact, this abundance is observed only in the park (mostly schoolchildren or students lying on the grass with a laptop, or older people - with a newspaper or a magazine). Naked people on the street are quite few. They are mainly near the beach strip - those who do not want to wipe themselves or dry after bathing, and go home, to a store or to a cafe with clothes in a bag or in hands (swimsuits are rarely used here).

In general, it is clear that the amount of clothes on the average pass, here, less than in America or Europe. However, small children do radically without clothes. My guides, to my question briefly answered: "So hygienic". Only on self-running children there are radial patterns. For very small offspring, "Tamaete" is used here - inflatable backpacks-cradles. Future mothers with fair tummies bear the so-called "Tiaiho" - in fact, it's inflatable life jackets, made quite elegant. They serve for safety not in the water (there they just do not need the local ladies), but in the city, on the street. It's enough to see the lady-teenager once a month on the 7th or 8th, rolling along the street on an electro-skate to understand: without this protective bubble, she would not be allowed to leave from her home. The same goes for rukzaks for kids - local young parents do not consider it necessary to abandon two-wheeled motorcycle toys.

Young people on roller skates, mini-scooters, etc. are most notable, because of their mobility. Most often this category of the public is dressed only in sports shorts or in something like a loincloth, plus - a belt bag or a handbag bracelet buttoned over the left biceps (roughly the size of a communicator, player and purse).

Girls, as everywhere in the civilised world, dress more diverse, than boys. On them, you can see silvery jerseys from a large mesh net, or iridescent ribbons, incomprehensible as fixed on the body, or "lanton-style": a silk handkerchief with a bright pattern or pictogram folded in a triangle and tied with a dashing knot above the right thigh. This is fashionable not only among young people. Some respectable ladies weighing 150 and even 200 pounds, too, are flanked by Ramble in "lanton-style", usually in the company of small kids (perhaps, grandchildren).

At men the checkered Scottish "kilt" are popular; a third of passers-men use them. This modification of kilt is much lighter (which is understandable in the local climate), and is fastened with Velcro on the belt. More often, however, men are dressed in shorts and bright t-shirts with the emblem of a college, firm or sports club.

In the "Britanica T-guide" you can also read: "Due to militarism, there are always many armed soldiers in the streets of Lanton, but they usually do not show aggressiveness." In fact, there really are a lot of people in the marsh-spotted "tropic-military" - simply because the meganesian military uniform is convenient and quite cheap (I could not resist, and bought a kit for myself). There are very few of soldiers that can be distinguished from reservists (which are many) by strips on the form. Many of them are armed with short machine guns, but this does not cause trouble for passers-by. Police also armed with machine guns; cops uniform differs from the military one only by the colour. Reservists are a separate topic, not mentioned in «T–guide».

The regular armed forces of Meganesia are not numerous, only about 10 thousand at population of 11 million. But, besides them, there are even more than 100 thousand contract reservists. They spend 60 days a year in the army, for which they receive a scholarship of £ 5,000 a year. In the "outback" for this money you can live and, (as my guides say), someone does that. But usually, reservists are students and young people of "free business", or shift work / seasonal employment. Haoto and tairi "dabbled in the reserve" a few years ago and met at the military camp.

..

We land in a small Chinese cafe under a plywood canopy with paper lanterns in the corners, that look as big red pumpkins. We order the china-food (the same on the whole planet, and perhaps in the whole galaxy). Across the street, in front of us, there is a typical Lanton pueblo: the basement and the first tier (reinforced concrete); 4 tiers on top form a light beta-layer. There is no point in talking about any planning - the lines were built and expanded as the need for a new area, and their color and style were determined by the tastes of the user of this piece of pueblo. Somewhere, along the walls and light openwork designs of balconies, vines with thick foliage curl. On one of the relatively wide terraces above, a miniature bamboo grove grows, and two tiers above, from a terrace of 7 meters, a 2-meter-wide balcony with a canopy of a piece of bright cloth sticks out (the last haven of the paraglider wing, Tairi explains). In another place, through two tiers, there is an external staircase, more precisely - a metal ladder. On the terraces formed by flat roofs, and on balconies, the density of people is the same as on the street. Residents even spend most of their time outside the home, partly because of the very warm climate, and partly because the apartments in the pueblo are not much larger than the microflat in Nido Cereb. There is no so much space in the capital of the "Isles of Freedom" ...

Having a bite, and looking at the city from the top platform of HAT (from there, from a height of 1000 meters, Tintung atoll seems tiny), we moved to the Piazza Che Guevara, adjacent to the lagoon. In fact, the area with the adjacent water area is the inner airport of Lanton City, focused on light and ultra-light aircraft. From the place, the piers run as rays to all sides, to hundreds of small fliers moored. Here, avia-rikshas work, on which you can fly almost anywhere in Meganesia. The rate depends on the distance, the complexity of the route, and the quality of the flyer on which the ricksha flies. There are also benches where you can buy a flier of almost any model - from the latest to the replica of a hundred years ago. From afar, it all looks like a country bazar. Namely there, I became acquainted with the daily problems of the Lanton police.

An energetic man of about 30, dressed in light jeans and a T-shirt with the emblem "Ballista matai partnership", probably a manager, waved his hands almost in front of a phlegmatic young policeman.

- How about your video system, puta madre, the scans? What for do we contribute to the police equipment!

The policeman also did not climb for a word in his pocket. Adjusting the shoulder of the submachine gun on his shoulder, he asked:

- And where did the robbers got your uniform, her mother, ah? Do you think we keep the regiment of telepaths in the police to distinguish thieves from your employees?

- You did not have to be a fucking telepath to understand that it was a robbery! - Answered the manager.

- Oh, how clever you are! Look, damn, record! These guys changed one module to another. How do we know that this is not a preventive maintenance?

- To what, damn, the other! There are cardboard boxes with sand!

- They do not say a damn about them, they're with sand!

Jeanne pushed closer, took a video and a few frames on the portable camera, then turned on the microphone and asked Haoto, who managed to get into the front rows a little faster:

- Can not you explain what happened here?

- Robbery at the air market, - he replied. - Some guys in brand-name overalls arrived in the early morning on the boat, quietly screwed-out the engines from under the hoods of eight brand new fliers, and washed away. 10,000 pounds as the herring tail brushed off.

- The trick is that these new mods are modular, - tairi said in time. - All tripas are just rectangular boxes. - Convenient for repair or for assembly.

- And to steal, too, - Haoto added.

Then the manager noticed Jeanne.

- Oh, the press! Excellent! Girl, come here! – He waved his hand at the row of eight small seaplanes, swaying on the water at the pier," please remove what's under the hoods now. - Let the police chief explains, how this shit can be confused with the power module!

– That's it, - the policeman readily agreed, - come here! And you (he turned to the manager) bring from your office a real power module. To also hit the photo. A flag in your hands to prove that one shit looks different from the other! Jeanne crossed sharply across the orange ribbon and headed for the pier.

- What kind of press are you from? Asked the manager.

- "Green world press", Halifax, Canada.

- Well! - he exclaimed, - Let the Canadians also know, what a mess in the Lanton police. And then pontoons for the whole world: the best tracking system, blah blah blah ...

- Carry the module here! - Snapped the policeman.

- Yes please! Diaz, Ogan, stop counting crows! Bring here the engine from "Ifrit-4; here the movie is filmed for the Canadian criminal chronicle.

- Now I'll show you the security cameras, - said the policeman, gallantly taking Jeanne under his left arm. - And you yourself look, wether possible or not, to understand from there, what's put in the hood, or not.

- By the way, - the manager added, going to his right, "Ifrit-4" is one of the best fliers in the modern market, in terms of price-quality-safety criteria. And, of course, ease to handle ... Ray! Ray! Make a trial circle on Ifrit. Do not pull it! Throw the fucking fucking cigarette and take off, the press takes off!

..

- He drives the price-quality, - tairi said after a quarter of an hour, when Jeanne, finally, got out from the ribbon, – Ifrit is certainly a good machine, but that's all. But it has price, as if it can fly into space.

- Our Reikan is not worse, added Haoto. - The speed is lower, but the payload is twice as high, and there's nothing to say about reliability. Reikan built for the war in the ocean, count!

- I do not know much about planes," Jeanne said.

- What is there to understand? Flier is flier. It takes off, and everything is clear..

– In short, let's go, - Tairi said.

...

6 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: April 1, 20 of the Charter. Noon. Location: Central Meganesia, Alofi Island. Latifundio Carpini ..

- Darling, I know that spying children is very exciting, - Michele said, - but if you digress from this session, I'll tell you something about Mumbo-Jumbo.

- I'm not spying, I'm controlling, - Captain Chubby Hawk explained, dropping the 80x binoculars she was using to look at their house on Futuna Island across the strait (reaching nearly four miles in that place), - I need to make sure, Flair prepares dinner, and does not intend to feed Lucy with some chips and condensed milk.

- All right, - he answered, climbing back to the ATV seat. - In that case, I will not distract you, but I'll take terraces under Grass Cocoa. I'll tell you later, if I do not forget ...

- Stop! - Chubby shouted and, putting the binoculars on the table, quickly moved off the flat roof of the garden house along the rails of the steep staircase. - Well, I'm listening to you.

- Sit here, - he said shortly, slapping the palm on the seat behind him, and explained: - Since I decided to do some work, I'll get on with it, and I'll tell you in parallel. If you, while listening, at the same time help me, it will be nice, though, I do not insist on this.

A scene that took place in a quarter of an hour later, on the steep eastern slope of the majestic 400-meter-high mountain of Kolofau, one and a half miles from the garden house standing on the shore, would have enthralled any of those romantics who enthusiastically celebrate the ideals of simple life in the bosom of nature. An industrious farmer on a small bulldozer skillfully turns an inconvenient oblique slope into a beautiful ladder of the future field. His equally smart wife, armed with a simple shovel, makes round holes on already prepared horizontal strips under the seedlings. At work, these two talk about something, probably, also simple and close to nature. But, if such romance was available to the sound track for this video series, then he might not have enough domestic supplies of valerian ...

- Dear, these are holes, you know, not trenches.

- What are you hinting at, Mickey?

- I'm not hinting, just take you a better moto-digger.

- I'm already doing very well. And anyway, where is the promised operational information?

- Please leave this creepy slang and do not dig it so deep. They are not to hide from shouting, but to plant vegetables.

– You're kidding me, are you?

- What are you beautiful when angry ... And do not pretend that you throw a shovel in me, I shall not believe it. Would a good investigator harm, in your nasty slang, "an important source of information"? My message will be brief, but very valuable. Listen: I have solution of your problem. About Mpulu. Well, our problem. We need a man named Max Lynx. I think, I also could to it by myself, but he can do it better. And faster. He's a homeless drunkard, he lives somewhere in Bristol. He has no address, as you understand. That's all.

Would Chubby be a character of any other profession, the stupid questions would begin, such as: "Why the hell do we need a homeless drunkard?". But she was an INDEMI officer, one of the best analysts there, and she lived with Michele for fifteen years, so she learned to see when he is joking, and when he speaks seriously. There was a second case.

– Where is Bristol – She asked.

– United Kingdom.

– Do you have his photo?

- Yes, from the site of the University of Bath. But, I'm afraid, poor Max could have changed a great deal in the past two years.

- Aita pe-a. If he's alive, we'll find him, - she said firmly, and only after that, as if by accident, asked: - How is he related to our case?

– He worked with triffids, - Michele replied. - More precisely, it was he, who made them.

- Triffids, - Chubby repeated. - Somewhere I've met that word.

Michele shut off the engine of the quadricycle and took out cigarettes from his pocket.

- This is a long story, so put the shovel, sit closer to me and guess, in the beginning, a riddle: what should I do to hear how the grass grows?

- Elementary, - she answered. - A high-sensitivity microphone is to be inserted next to the grain, recording three days, and then scrolling in an hour. Surely something will be heard. Only you need to drive away all the pads before that, so they do not stomp.

- Brilliant! - Exclaimed Michele. - I would not have thought of it in my life. But I know a much simpler way: plant a bamboo and be near when it starts to germinate. On the first day, the sprout is elongated by a millimeter per minute, and one can hear a rustle as it pushes the clumps of soil and pebbles. However, then the speed decreases, and for a month the bamboo grows only by 20 meters in height and by 15-20 centimeters in thickness.

Chubby stuck her shovel into the ground.

- Joder! I forgot, that bamboo is grass, otherwise I would have figured it out. Khmer partizans have such a method of interrogation: They tie the suspect as a starfish over bamboo sprout, and sits down to drink tea. In a couple of hours he, becomes very talkative ... True, these scums still do not untie him and for a day the bamboo grows up right through.

- Phew, how uncultured, - Michele said.

- Uhu, - she agreed. - Talking about bamboo, when you are asked about Triffids, it's also uncultured.

- That was an introduction, - he explained. - Are you aware of the problem of salinisation of irrigated lands?

- Yes. In outline. In an arid climate, if you to pour on the field too much water, then it draws the salt up to the surface, and it turns out something like a wet solonchak.

Michele nodded.

- In general terms, that's it. Similarly, in the tropical and subequatorial zones, millions of hectares of fertile land are lost. In developed countries one treated the salinity with the intensive washing; and in countries like your Mumbo Jumbo, the saline area is simply abandoned.

- In Mpulu, - Chubby reminded her once more, - yes, there are many such abandoned lands.

- But the irrigation canals survived? - he asked.

- Of course. But what's the use of them? If you put water there, it turns into brine at the field. In salt water, as is known, nothing grows.

- What about seaweed?

- Do not cling to the words, Mickey. I meant terrestrial cultivated plants.

- You forgot about mangroves. - They grow on the shallow sea, in the tidal zone. Entire forests. Remember, in Samoa, on the island of Upora, we dived in such a forest, and you said: it would be great, if on these crazy trees, the apples would grew.

Chubby smiled and nodded.

- And even without apples it was great. But what does the Triffids have to do with it? And by the way, what is it?

- The triffids were invented by the British science fiction writer John Wyndham, - Michele informed, - in 1951 he wrote the novel "The Day of the Triffids". Such an apocalypse is about a disaster that comes from genetic engineering and cosmic xenobiology.

- Alarmist, - she sniffed scornfully.

- Still what! The Wyndham triffid became, I'm not afraid of this word, the totem of bio-alarmists. Alien culture, extremely unpretentious, growing almost like bamboo, and rich in oil, suitable both for food and for technology. A plant is a dream. Devilish temptation, as both, the Roman's Pope and Teheran's Ayatollah say.

- And what is the trick? - Asked Chubby

Michele paused to light a cigarette, which he had just twisted between his fingers and, releasing a ring of smoke from his mouth, solemnly announced:

- That plant is predator, ogre!

- De puta madre ... How?

- Listen. It grows on three roots-legs (three feets - hence the name triffid). As a normal plant. Then, millions triffids dug out and their begun to destroy the human civilisation; they have special poisonous stings, growing on them at the top of a three-meter stem.

- Wow! That's what happens if you smoke marijuana for reading the Apocalypse ... And then?

- It's completely boring in the novel, - he said. "Only a few patriarchal communities remain, which the author describes with love.. In real life, it is more interesting. It took almost a century after Wyndham's novel, and another Briton, namely, Dr. Max Lynx, have implemented the Triffids.

- Y una polla! - Cried Chubby in amazement. - Does it really walks, an ogre?

- You're like a little girl, - grumbled Michele. – Of course, no. Lynx triffids on three legs, fast-growing and eatable. But they, of course, are not walking and completely harmless. They do not attack humanity, but the "Defenders of Humanity" attacked them. More precisely, they attacked Max Lynx. He, you see, had the imprudence to write an article in "Nature" too.

- About your Triffids? - She specified.

- No, about prohibitions on transgenic cultures. These prohibitions repressed him, and not only him. It was during the next worldwide hysteria against the transition from expensive mineral hydrocarbons to cheap fuel alcohol and biodiesel. The oil and gas lobby, as usual, bought up the media; they begun to talk about morality. The claim was, that the scientists suggest to cover Africa with fuel crops, and doom Africa to starvation.

- Okay ... So, Max wrote in this article, that if international humanitarian organisations did not hinder the spread of the already known types of food transgenic corn and potatoes in Africa, there would be a surplus, not a food deficit. He cited the yield tables of these crops in the subequatorial belt, and about their own Triffids mentioned only as an example of new, promising crops that not only yield extremely high yields, but also require little maintenance. The summary concluded: humanitarian organisations consistently make Africans a steward, instead of giving them the opportunity to provide themselves with food.

- As if they just have descovered this, - Chubby said.

- Do not forget that he came to this conclusion, being in a social society, where such statements are tabooed. Max and I exchanged with messages during than five years, and he has always criticised my statements of this kind. His article was the result of a very deep rethinking of social reality ... Sorry for the pathetic, but here it is appropriate. And the article was very strong and convincing. After that, he was accused of racism, incompatible with the activities of a teacher and a scientist. He had to leave the university; from the disorder, he began to drink a little more than he should. After a year or so, his wife said that she was filing for divorce, and he was even more upset, left the house, and stopped answering letters and calls.

- How long ago did this happen? - Chubby asked busily.

- I have already mentioned. About two years ago.

- I just clarified. And why do you think that he is still alive?

- Just intuition. In addition, I heard rumors, that few months ago he was in prison for some nonsense like stealing a pie in a shop.

- It's an important addition, - she said. - If it's true, we'll find it very quickly."

7 - CURRENT MOMENT.
Date / Time: September 1, 22 of the Charter. Evening. Location: Sky over the Pacific Ocean, Cook Islands.

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №5.
Features of the reincarnation of combat aircraft.

The Japanese Air Force's F1M airplane "Reikan", a 1940 model (in the Pacific Fleet codes of the United States - "Pete") had been machine designed for maritime reconnaissance by combat, and resembles a hybrid of a 9-meter trimaran with a biplane of approximately the same length. More than a thousand such machines had participated in World War II. In the Coral and Philippine Seas, during the battles several hundred Reykans were shot down, killed along with aircraft carrying ships, or were thrown by Japanese troops when retreating from military bases in Oceania. Those that fell into the hands of Meganesian amateurs more or less intact, received, as the Buddhists would put it, a new incarnation in the form of civilian flags.

tairi and Haotot gave me a brief lecture on how this particular Reakan was subjected to specific innovations, why its body instead of the original 19 centners began to weigh only 7, and how the initial constructive basis was preserved. On the last fact, tairi especially stressed the point of view, arguing that this original design is extremely successful, and provides an absolutely colossal reliability of this machine.

Despite all the talk about reliability, soon after Haoto lifted the flyer into the air, I felt uneasy. Previously, the concept of "air holes" was familiar to me only on the trip 30-seat "Havillands" of the domestic Canadian airlines, but they are ten times heavier than the "Reikan". The failure in the air of "Reikan" can be compared to riding on a large swing at Disneyland, and the first such a dive was completely unexpected for me. The support under the ass suddenly disappeared somewhere, and the stomach jumped roughly into the pharynx. From surprise, I almost parted with the Chinese dinner, but then - I'm used to it. Whether the body has adapted, or the dinner has been digested. Most likely, both. Otherwise, it is unlikely that I would have dignifiedly come out of the test that my guides arranged for me …

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

tairi pushed Joan into the shoulder.

- Do you want to take a picture for your reportage?

- Plasher? - She asked.

- The planktonic farm, tairi explained, - well, it is that's why your greenpeasts howls on the whole planet.. Go ahead, aim forwards and to the left ... Haoto make a pique, and then she does not make a good perspective.

Jeanne took out her camera and began to catch in the viewfinder a light blue spot of irregular shape on the blue-gray-green surface of the ocean. At that moment, Haoto briefly said "we are ready - begin to film", and the flyer, sharply turning on its side, began to fall. In the movie, Jeanne saw many times how dive bombers perform this maneuver, but she never thought about what to be inside the plane ... Despite the strong desire to close her eyes, clasp her head in her hands and clench in a ball, she clenched her teeth and held the camera, removing rapidly growing in size multi-kilometer "fields" fenced with bright chains of buoys, small almost round crafters, similar to snow-removing machines, awkward 500-meter tankers, and floating platforms of shift camp ... And then, the disappeared weight sharply returned, and Jeanne nearly dropped the camera. More precisely, she dropped it, but Tayri's watchfulness picked up the device on the fly and returned it to her mistress, with the words:

- I see, you are just a monster of extreme journalism. You did not even yell.

- Was I supposed to? - Jeanne asked, wiping sweat from her forehead with her trembling hand.

- Actually yes, - admitted Tairi, - About 6 years ago, when we first met, Haoto threw this feint with me. I cried so! All herring in the ocean scared.

- It's not on purpose," he remarked. - I just bought this incubus and I wanted to test it a little.

- Incubus? - asked the Canadian, - Incubus is, like, a demon - a hypersexual?

- Well no. This is a flyer, "InCub-Api". If, honestly, another plagiarism from your American "Piper Cub" of 1930, only strongly advanced.

- Nothing new has been invented since the thirties of the last century, - tairi added.

- Damn! - He was indignant. - And motor hang gliders?

- "Demoiselle, France, 1907," she replied instantly. The same ragged planes on the frame, and without the fuselage. The author is Alberto Santos-Dumont.

- More say that space shuttles were invented in the 30s.

- Yes. "DFS-194", Germany, 1937. The first demonstration flight is June 1940. The author is Alex Lippish. After WW II he made for the USA all the prototypes of space-shuttle.

Haoto thoughtfully scratched behind his ear and, turning to Jeanne, said:

- She's an intellectual terrorist! - Every time after such conversations I have nightmares. I dream that computers were invented by Archimedes ...

- It's not true, - interrupted tairi. - The navigational computer was invented by Hipparchus, in the second century BC, and Archimedes lived a hundred-odd years earlier.

- Tell me you joked, - he said.

- OK, I was joking. But the site of the Athenian National Museum exhibits an ancient computer from the island of Antikytera. It was found in 1900 and reconstructed in 2006.

- Oh, Mau and Pele, holding the world! - Exclaimed Haoto.

- Pagan, - stated tairi, - imagine, Jeanne, he reveres 16 Polynesian gods and goddesses, he even wrote down their drawings to the mobile.

- Than to scoff, you better pour coffee, - he said, and turning to Jeanne, added, - tairi mocks that I'm so religious, and the Catechism itself is in the mobile.

- Which?

- Catholic, - said Haoto.

Jeanne turned to meganeziks in surprise:

- Do you risk so much because of your faith?

- What? - She asked, manipulating the thermos and a plastic mug.

Catholicism in Meganesia is forbidden, - explained Jeanne.

- Fake! This is at the level of the article of the pastor, whose shark fucked the girl.

- But I read it in the UN Reports on Freedom of Religion and Belief in the World.

- It's cool, tairi said, unfolding her laptop to her. - It's on www.UN.org? -

- Yes, - confirmed the Canadian, - Just there I read.

- Yeah, look ... Meganesia. 144 place out of 172 on the level of religious freedom. Estimate, Haoto, we are between Iran and Laos. Discrimination against Muslims, police crackdown on demonstrators. The seizure of the property of the Catholic Church. Another reprisal, and deportation of the mission of the World Council of Christian Churches. Clear! Now, I'll explain everything to you.

...

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №6.
People's Catholic Church of Oceania.

In the XVII - XIX centuries, the population of Oceania (or Hawaii, as Meganesians often say) were almost completely converted to Christianity. In the beginning, Catholic missionaries appeared, and later Protestants. These missionaries brought more benefit or harm - a controversial issue, but Christianity clearly was not suitable for the ocean life.

By adopting Christianity under the pressure of the authorities, the inhabitants ruled it under local conditions (however, it was not advertised in the colonial and neo-colonial period).

After the Aluminum Revolution, the massacre on Kangaroo Road, and the Tiki-Foa program, the problem emerged from the shadows and developed into a loud scandal. International organisations claimed that the genocide of religious and ethnic minorities takes place in Meganesia, and "Tiki-Foa" was compared to the "Cultural Revolution" in China. Coordinator Nakamura with icy calm invited the emissaries of these organisations to visit the country and check the case by themselves. The International Commission worked for a month, and concluded that there is no genocide here, but religious and ethnic minorities are deprived of cultural rights. Nakamura, in response, issued the bill "Purea aita foa" (the church is not the people): «The Charter recognises only the human being as the subject of rights. If a group of people wants to declare their collective rights, they creates a corporation that represents only those who have entered it, and only on the issues that it delegated to it. Ethnic or religious affiliation is not an affiliation to a corporation. This means that no one can declare the rights of an ethnos or religion and act on behalf of all persons belonging to them.»

This bill of the first Meganesian government had been approved by the Supreme Court. Its firs victim was the Roman Catholic Church, when another papal encyclical about bioethics qualified the gene modification (without which it is impossible to imagine the agro-culture of Meganesia) as service to Satan. The Meganesian Catholics revolted this encyclical, and they assembled the congress in Samoa, in Apia (where the then residence of the Catholic Archbishop of Polynesia was located). Congress hired an "expert from a competing firm": a theologian - a Protestant, an Oxford graduate, and he conscientiously worked out his fee. In the report, the Roman Curia was called "a gathering of thieves and impostors", and the report was accompanied by: "A project of the Catholic Ocean Catechism" in 5000 characters, project of the "Popular Oceanic Catholic Church" (POCC) on 10 pages and "The theses of the Roman pontificate in Oceania" on 20 pages.

Congress immediately approved all the proposed documents, and the chopper of bill "Purea aita foa" spun. The next day, the archbishop was invited to the mayor's office of Apia, where (at the request of the POCC) a meeting of the Supreme Court of Meganesia took place. In the case file was a 50-page register of real estate archbishopric, with instructions of this type: "The building is located on communal lands seized by the colonial authorities in favour of the Roman Church in such and such a year. The building was built and is supported by local Catholics." The court proposed that the Roman Church, within two weeks, voluntarily settle property relations with the POCC, otherwise they will be settled compulsorily.

Returning from the court, the archbishop waited until 9 pm (9 am GMT) and contacted Rome. The Holy See reacted nervously, or rather, thoughtlessly: the next day issued an appeal "To the Christian Nations of the World," in which Meganesia was compared with Babylon, and the Apocalypse was quoted: "For one day, executions, death and mourning and famine, and it shall be burnt with fire." Later, the pontiff explained that this is an allegory that has a spiritual meaning, but the Supreme Court managed to understand this in a material sense.

All the movable and immovable property of the Roman Catholic Church in Meganesia was confiscated, and the staff of the Archbishop's office were detained and deported. For all the protests, the court replied that this was a measure against the Vatican, as a state officially declaring war on Meganesia. Religious rights of Catholics are not violated, for example, there is the People's Oceanic Catholic Church, to which the religious buildings are transferred, and which enjoys complete freedom of worship in Meganesia.

To discuss the difference between the doctrines of Roman and Oceanic Catholicism, the court refused, because "There is no evidence base in religious concepts that could be evaluated by the court, but other participants in the events "oceanic catechism" aroused a clear interest. Its first feature is brevity. It is placed on two sheets. The second is primitiveness. It is authentically translated into any language by an ordinary computer translator.

As for content, it is little associated with Catholicism. At the beginning of the text it says:

«The higher being (Jah) created the world, so that man was happy in love and spiritually committed. For this to happen, Jah gave a person a sense of beauty, intelligence, training and empathy. If this were not enough, Jah would give further instructions. Jah in the form of Kri came into the world. He was born a woman Mari, she gave the name Jesu. The Jesu man became spiritually perfect. This means that a person has everything to become spiritually perfect.»

This concludes the metaphysical part. Further, the text of the catechism, roughly in the same style, describes a simple ethic, an even simpler policy, and several rituals. In the finals there are 3 dozen words about the immortality of the soul (which is shown not metaphysically, but experimentally: since we sometimes see in the sleep of dead people, it means that they somewhere are). This, incidentally, well corresponds to the traditional views of ordinary Polynesians.

In the world Catholic press, the oceanic church is called "coatollic" (a paraphrase from the Italian "cattolico", compiled so that in the middle, the word "atoll" appears).

Probably, not a single heresy caused such anger in Rome as the "Oceanic Catechism". Incendiary speeches were made about his depravity. He was called a vile, idiotic, blasphemous product of the totalitarian inhuman technocratic regime.

The parishioners were forbidden not only to read it, but even talk about it. It is clear that the text, which consumes so many curses, could not but arouse interest - and the "Oceanic Catechism" became a bestseller translated into all languages ​​of the peoples of the world. Then, the People's Oceanic Catholic Church treated the Bible. Before that, the shortest version was the English "Bible for 100 minutes" of 2005 - 150 thousand characters. After processing by Meganesians, it was packed in 25 thousand, and also had been automatically translated, as "the oceanic catechism". It can be read in 15 minutes, although in some countries it is classified as "three X", because of the simplified presentation of a number of stories, including "Song of Songs" (poetic love story of Solomon and Sulamit).

The People's Oceanic Catholic Church unites almost 10 million people in South America, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Meganesia itself (where, however, Tiki cults predominate, and half Megasians are agnostic, or do not include yourself to a particular religion).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jeanne Ronero shook her head in some perplexity and asked:

- tairi, do you really believe that? I mean, these Jah, Kri and so on ...

- Well yes. It's cool: someone created the universe so that its inhabitants learned to be happy. I did not create them at once happy, like rubber pu-pus, but ... There is some philosophical zest in this. In his place, I would do the same. Consider: other creatures. I cannot understand why it's good. Only they can understand.

- Along the way, it's like designing flyers, - Haoto shot in, - you can draw a pretty machine, delphinic contours, a trendy hat, all the cases. And the consumer says: "it sucks." Then you sell him a kit: pick it up, whatever you want. He collects the flyer - flies as shit, looks as shit.. But he likes it, imagine! It is what he wanted, not that you wanted.

- And again: this is our national mythology, - added tairi, "the Aluminum Revolution, the anthem ... True, the plot is from your American history, but ...

"What American?" - Jeanne was surprised.

"Well, about Moses." The guy who raised the Negroes to the fight against slavery in the southern states, "explained meganesian, and sang: When Israel was in Egypt land, Let my people go! Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go! Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land, tell old Pharao to let my people go! "Thus spoke the Lord", bold Moses said, Let my people go! "If not I'll smite your first-born dead!" Let my people go! Go down... Your foes shall not before you stand, Let my people go! and you'll possess fair Canaan's land Let my people go! Go down... You'll not get lost in the wilderness Let my people go! with a lighted candle in your breast. Let my people go! Go down… - Actually, it's not about America, but about ancient Egypt and Israel, - the Canadian remarked.

- That's right, - said Haoto. - It's when the Utahs kicked out the Egyptian Islamists from Sinai."

- You're kidding, - tairi suggested uncertainly, - why would Armstrong sing about it?

- Since the Yankees were for Israel. Look on the Internet: "The Suez Crisis, 1956".

Jeanne clutched her head.

- What are you talking about? This is about ancient Egypt! Ancient! Well, the sphinx, the pyramids, the mummies ...

- The Sphinx lived on the other side of the Mediterranean, - retorted tairi. - Otherwise, he could not speak to Oedipus. And the pyramids and mummies are in Mexico. We flew there last year. Now I'll show you. Haoto, how did we call the catalog of pictures, with pyramids?

- Teotihuacan.

- Damn, how to spell it?

Haoto spelled it, then added:

- But, in Egypt, offi also built up pyramids. In these pyramids, the Egyptian offi also came to bankrupcy.

- Right! - Remembered tairi. - they did!

- … But that, in any way, is not the topic, - he continued, - because the Utahs came to Sinai from Utah only after the Second World War.

- Where did they come from? - Jeanne asked in surprise.

From Utah, – he repeated, – it's the State in America, east from California.

- No! - She said. - The Hebrews, the Jews, or Utahs, came to Sinai before the new era! "

- It can not be. - Tairi, knock on Smiths, they know for sure about the Utahs.

- They know, - agreed Haoto and took out the mobile, - as we go, we'll find out everything now. Jeanne, look at our pictures with the pyramids, they're funny.

- tairi rattled the phone for a quarter of an hour, then happily reported:

- Nathan Smith said so. In the ancient era of the Utahi lived in Babylonia, on the Persian Gulf, and there were 13 of them. Then 12 went by land to the west, and got to Sinai, and 1 went by sea, to the east, rounded Hindustan and Malacca, crossed our ocean, and got to California, and there, along the Colorado River, climbed north to 38th degree. It's now Utah, and their main city is still 200 miles to the north, to Salt Lake.

- Uh ... - the Canadian said. - And these Smiths, aren't they Mormons, by a chance?"

- Mormons, - Haoto confirmed. - So I thought that you should ask the Utahs from them.

– We are neighbors, - tairi explained. - The Smytes live on Rarotonga, a hundred miles south of our Aitutaki. But their ancestors are from Utah, and in their family legend says it was so.

- Uh, - Jeanne said again, - the Mormon tradition is actually ... How to say ... Not quite a reliable source.

- Well, yes, - Meganesian agreed easily. - The history before the typographical era is generally the whole curve, because the historical documents were altered at copying.

- ... But in any case, America was discovered only by the Vikings, in the 10th century.

- It's from your ocean, - retorted tairi, - and from our side, 3 kiloyears ago, or even more, the path from Tahiti to Nui-Fenua- Khiva through Rapa Nui and Motu-mo-ter-Khiva was opened by the great seafarer Pakhi-Ngaru. So wrote in 385 the bard Kama-Hua-Lele, who was a chronicler of Nana-Ule, the first ariki of Tahiti. We have it in the 5th grade.

From such a waterfall of unfamiliar names and names, the Canadian for a few seconds lost her speech and could only utter an inarticulate:

- ... Mmmmm ...

- By the way, - said Haoto, - in the museum of the history of Oceania, in Raiatea, one can see a battle proah like the one Pahi-Ngaru used to go. It dates from 1200 BC. He was recently found on the bottom of the Sea Coro by a team with Kiribati. This is about the reliability.

- And how to check, whether this proah went to America? - She asked.

- A week ago, it is confirmed, – he replied. - Six children passed from Tahiti to Funafuti on a copy of this proa. This is the same 2000 miles that from Motu-mo-ter-Khiva to Peru or to Chile. And it took only 10 days. All filmed, the videos are posted on the Internet.

- Why I do not know? - Tayri said indignantly. - Where are they now?

- On the museum's website, of course. I thought you already saw.

tairi ran her fingers over the keyboard, half a minute was silent, looking at the screen, then sniffed like a very angry cat, and contemptuously reported:

– Is this called a copy? Floats: fiberglass, length 20 meters. Frame: dural, 10 to 10 meters, flooring: fiberglass. Mast: dural, 20 meters, sail trapezium: dacron, area max 220 square meters. Fun group: plastic-dural. De puta madre! What is this, in a fig, a copy? It is a modern oceanic catamaran with retro trifles.

- They kept all proportions and the configuration of the hull and sail, - said Haoto.

- No wonder, if nothing better for 3 kiloyears did not come up. Do you remember when you showed up?

- It seems like 8 kiloyears ago.

- Here! So, 5 kiloyears passed from the first proah to that. on which Ngara walked. During that time, all non-best designs have already sunk. Darwin's evolution: a trial and error method.

- Again you are for yours, - he grumbled in an offended manner. - Everything, you see, has been invented long ago, and there is nothing new under the Moon. Oh, by the way, such things, when, in your opinion, were invented?

- Jeanne looked in the direction where he pointed. Far ahead and to the right, much lower than their plane, crossing the course from west to east in the air floated a rare chain of several thick silvery sausages. As the distance shrank, Jeanne began to understand how big those objects were. She happened to see big ocean liners, but they were much smaller than that.

- What size are they? - She asked softly.

- The length of 500 meters, and the volume of about 10 million cubic meters. These frameless thermal airships are robots. The cheapest air freight in the world.

- And Alberto Santos-Dumont invented them, - tairi added. - The guy who in 1907 made the prototype of a motored hang glider. The soft airship of its design in 1901 flew around the Eiffel Tower, received for this prize 100 thousand francs, good money for that time.

- Oh, Maui and Pele! Is it really all been long?

- No. The thermonuclear reactor with laser ignition was invented recently, about 15 years ago.

- Does he already work?" - he asked.

- Works, - tairi replied. while, it is only a bomb, but good and cheap.

- Well, if that's the case, then yes, he agreed.

..

8 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: 20 -21 April 20 of the Charter. Location: United Kingdom - North Polar Circle Surroundings of Bristol - Surroundings of Spitsbergen.

After 9 pm at the railway station Stoke Gifford people are few, and a drunken "hobo", peacefully asleep on a bench in the waiting room, does not bother anyone. Of course, his appearance can offend someone's subtle aesthetic sense, but not to such an extent as to call a police. Nevertheless, the cultural citizens breathed a sigh of relief, when two slightly more decent-looking drunkards approached the hobo, amicably grabbed his arms and, grumbling "well, you are absolutely drunk, old Max", dragged him away. "Old Max" did not mind, but only languidly walked with his lower limbs, obsessively asking the escorts where they hide that bottle of schnapps, which (as he supposedly accurately remembers) was not finished last night.

Perhaps the cultural citizens would be somewhat surprised at how quickly these two pushed the unlucky hobo into the back seat of the moderately-used "ford-focus", and how quickly this car (behind the wheel of which sat, again, a non-notable man of about thirty) left the the station. However, the driver drove strictly by the rules, and half an hour later he stopped the car near the private piers of the yacht club on the bay. Here an attentive observer (if he had followed this company from the station itself) could suprprise, that only three of them came out of the car, and there was no one left in the cabin. Probably, he would have linked this arithmetical discrepancy with the huge suitcase, which was pulled by two of the three (already not at all like drunkards). The driver of the car was light, except for a small bag over his shoulder. He exchanged a few words with the yacht club employee, after which all three went to the end of the last pier and boarded a small boat with their heavy luggage. A minute later, the boat departed from the pier and disappeared into the darkness.

Even this sequence of events would have been enough for an attentive observer (would he exist) to suspect three characters in a crime, but what happened in a quarter of an hour, far from the shore, almost in complete darkness, smelled of something more serious than just crime. The boat approached a certain dark mass, swaying on the water, three in the boat opened the suitcase, pulled out of his womb that same hobo (which was there in the embryo's pose), and vigorously prophesied him in cold water, having previously torn all his clothes. After that all four of them quietly disappeared inside the dark mass, and the boat, suddenly losing its buoyancy, went to the bottom. As for the further evolution of the dark mass, they, in this dense darkness, looked almost supernatural. That's just what she was - and after a couple of minutes it disappeared without a trace, as if dissolving in a dull starless sky, like sugar in hot tea.

...

Waking up, Max thought that he was lying on a stretcher in the cabin of a compact minibus of ambulance, moving along a perfectly dark highway. Above the windshield, there was an electronic clock, indicating 3:08 am.

- Heh ... Mmmm ... Guys, who are you? - He asked four young men (one of them was driving, and three played cards and talking English with an unfamiliar accent).

- Are you Maximilen Lawrence Links? - said one of the players, small, but strong young Mongoloid, whom the rest called Nong.

- Well, I am. - He agreed, and thought that these guys were not very similar to the doctors. - Are you from the police, or what?

- No, we, on the way, from military intelligence.

- Wow! What did I do?

- Nothing special, just slept at the station. And we picked you up.

Then Max discovered 3 more features of his condition. Firstly, he did not remember the date, the year, or the day of the week, but only remembered that it was spring now (though it had already happened to him). Secondly, he lay naked, but covered with a woolen blanket (however, this also had happened before: once he woke up at the medical unit of the police station in the same form, after falling into the river from the embankment). Thirdly, despite the strange liquid that he was slurping with some hobo at the station, he did not have colored circles in front of his eyes and there was no nasty dryness in his mouth, and there was a terrible crystal clarity in his head. He raised himself on one elbow, looked out the window and saw nothing. Solid darkness.

- Listen, where are we going?

- 200 miles to the southwest of Spitsbergen and the same south-east of Greenland," answered another player. "If you want to know more precisely, we'll ask Ufti ...

- N74.04 W06.30, - said the black pilot, who was apparently called Ufti, without turning around, and added, - Count Ron, we'll meet the dawn almost over the pole.

- Hence, we should take a picture for memory, - remarked Nong, - I'll show my wife!

- Commander, do you always think about your wife? - Asked the Scandinavian who was sitting next to him.

- You asked a hundred times, he grumbled. - I have a beautiful wife and I think about her. What's strange? You, Kirk, talk about women, and it does not seem strange to you.

- It does not seem. But I'm talking about women in general.

- You did not read the Eu Dao treatise. - It says there are no women "in general", but there are each ...

At this point, Max reached the point of the reply, addressed to him.

- Listen, are we flying in a plane?

- In a flying-boat, to be precise, - Ron replied, - we were not completely legal in England ..."

- Completely illegal, - Nong corrected, - so we could not use the airport. - In addition, you, Dr. Lynx, have no any document. As far as I understand, you were stolen ...

- Yes, about two months ago. Either stolen, or just fell out ... Wait, we left from the UK illegally? How??

- Very easy. We passed at low altitude, and sat down on the bay. in the same way we took off.

- But you said you were from military intelligence!

- Yes. But not British one.

- In other words.. - Max paused trying to utter the only logical conclusion, that follows from what he just heard. "... Is this a kidnapping?

- Something like that.

- But why!? Why the hell is someone's military intelligence ... Whose, by the way?

- Meganesian, - informed Nong.

- Especially! Why some kind of Papuan intelligence ...

- There's only one Papuan here, - interrupted Ufti. - That's me. Thoroughbred Papuan. Mike Loh McLaud himself would have confirmed this, but he has already died.

- Mikluha Maklaev, - corrected Nong, - He is Russian, and Russian names are pronounced like this.

- Wou! I thought, he is from Scotland. But talk about other thing. You, Dr. Lynx, forget, that 10 kiloyears ago, we, Papua, had invented bananas, sugarcane, corn and pumpkin. We had an ancient productive culture, when the British, no offense to you, say, still lived in caves, wares skins and ate shit of extinct mammoths.

Military scouts amicably amazed. However, without malice. Apparently, the theme of the ancient highly developed culture of the Papuans has already surfaced in this company. Max sat on his stretcher, wrapped himself in a blanket, and coughed to get attention.

- You see, a young man, even if we do not consider a novel about mammoths ...

- It was for a psychological effect, - said Ufti.

- I'm saying not consider it. Anyway, the hypothesis about the origin of the pumpkin from New Guinea is, to put it mildly, exotic. All comparative studies of genes of different pumpkin varieties indicate its origin from the Pacific coast of China. Corn probably originates from the Mexican Highlands. This so-called. The hypothesis of Beadle had been put forward in the 30 years of XX century, i.e. long before the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick, and today looks not convincing enough, but its defects are not a reason to place the origin of corn anywhere. Regarding the banana and sugar cane - Dr. Links made a spectacular pause, - Most likely, Ufti, here you are, just right.

Waiting for the enthusiastic cries of listeners, he continued:

- Now I would like to return to my question. Why the hell with your military intelligence to kidnap a drunk molecular geneticist?

- Do not worry about the drunkard, - Kirk said. - You'll think you got drunk a couple of times. Now, our cap once got drunk, it was something. In kind, towels had to be knit ...

- Are you a medic? - Interrupted Max.

- military doctor, - the Scandinav said.

- Then you should understand that I have not gotten drunk a couple of times. I have alcoholism. The second stage, perhaps - on the verge of the third. The fact that you brought me for a time in a human form with the help of hemosorbent and some kind of psychotropic stimulant ... which, by the way?

Peotl. I mean, the extract of cactus-lophophora.

- Simply put, did you pour me with mezalin?

- No! - the paramedic was indignant. - Would I had to interrogate a captured eneny during the fighting, then yes, I should pump him. And to you I gave 6 drops. Peyotl is an Aztec folk tonic. In the Tarahumaro tribe, there is a legend: one man walked through the desert, walked for a long time, without water, without rest, in short, was already going to lie down and die. Suddenly, a voice: "I am the god of Uktli, I will help you, lean over and eat me." He bent down, saw a little Lofofor, and ate. I sat on the sand and thought: "why am I going to die? By dick, this desert! Life is Beautiful!" A man got up and went to his house. In short, Lophophora extract is a useful thing in any army medicine chest.

- Yes, - Max sighed. - Well, you have methods. However, it does not matter anymore. It will take several hours, and everything will return to its original state, and repeat this trick ...

- Your initial condition is a healthy man about 40 years old, - Kirk protested.

- Do not cling to words. You perfectly understand what I mean.

- Explain to me, Dr. Lynx, - the Vietnamese intervened. - I'm not a medic. I do not understand.

Max sighed and wiped his sweaty forehead with his hand:

- You see, Nong, alcoholism, unlike just drunkenness, it's a disease. - Alcohol is built into the system of metabolism, and a person is forced to use it.

- And if not, what then? This person will die?

- If a person has a weak heart, then yes, he may die.

- You have a normal, healthy heart, - Kirk interjected.

- Do not climb, - Max snapped, - I was asked a general question, and I gave a general answer.

- Then you will not die because you will not drink alcohol, - concluded Nong. - Then, this is not a terrible disease. - It will pass.

- Yes. It will pass. If you have the iron will and not touch the bottle for several years, although you are turned inside out of a desire to drink. I can not do this.

The Vietnamese shook his head in disbelief.

- No, Dr. Lynx. - It does not happen that such a great person could not do such a simple thing. It would be even I could. You just need to want, and you will be healthy.

- What are you babbling, Nong! - Max exclaimed. - What a great man? Nong, that's funny, but you kidnapped the wrong guy. Probably there is another Maximilen Lawrence Links.

- You are Max Lynx from Bath University, the developer of the Triffid, - he replied.

- Oh, that's it! - Your superiors decided that the Triffids are a biological weapon. Guys, this is a mistake! They are named after the monster plant from the Wyndham novel, but it was a joke. Their only similarity with the Wyndham Triffids is the three root-supports. They are not more dangerous than carrots. It's just another poly-transgenic agro-culture.

- You know, Dr. Lynx, - said Ufti, - we are certainly not biologists, but not completely stupid. Wile flying for you, we read about the Triffids, yeah. Grow in salty water, like mangro - first. With the speed of bamboo - second. And bear fruit like bananas - three. So that I see, it is not some "just one more ..." blah blah blah. Well, you get it.

– The triffid grows twice as slow as Madaka's bamboo, - Max said, - only a foot and a half a day. - And the nature of the development of the Triffid is closer to the fast-growing banana, which, in fact, was taken as a basis. The root system, of course, has the same type as the red rhizophora: the classical mangrove. Although, keeping water due to high concentration of sugar is not typical for mangroves. In general, this is a new mechanism that, for some reason, has not developed in the course of natural evolution, nor during breeding, or in plants. This determines the specificity of the triffide biochemistry ... Um, why am I saying this?

- Well, you explain about the Triffids, - Kirk reminded (thinking the last question is not rhetorical, but meaningful), - it's still understandable. Sugar syrup absorbs water vapor from the air and dilutes. Here, in the course, the same trick, but inside the plant. Well, Do I catch correctly?

- In general terms, yes, you caught. But I still do not understand, why the hell you stole me ... By the way: where here a toilet? Physiology, you know ...

- Of course, - said Nong, - Do you see the door at the stern? There's a toilet and a shower. The only, do not pour a lot of water, we still have a long time to fly. And if you want to get dressed, then there is a "koala" on the left shelf.

- I'm sorry, what?

- Some suits are like that. Called "koala". And slippers in the same place.

... Max expected to see in the mirror a much more slovenly and dirty human being (taking into account the lifestyle that he led recently), but everything was not so scary. Kind, of course, unhealthy, cyanotic skin, black spots under his eyes, and a tattered beard ... "I wonder why I'm not very dirty, and where are my clothes? - he thought, and then remnants of memories surfaced - "yes, they took off my clothes and wetted me into the bay before dragging me into the plane. However, to hell with them." After a short, hot shower (which could have been accepted by crouching in a small booth), Max decided that it was time to dot the "i" about the motives behind his kidnapping. After some difficulty having dealt with the "velcro" short overalls, went back to salon. As soon as he entered, as Kirk and Ufti almost chorus asked.

- Doc Lynx! How about the Lophophora: and in general in cacti, there is no syrup. How do they survive?

- Yes, - he confirmed. - Cacti have no syrup, but they have a colloid. Something like jelly. This is also an effective method, but different. Unfortunately, it is incompatible with rapid growth.

- That's it, - said Ron. - Doc, what do you say about coffee?

- With pleasure. But, en fin, tell me: what are you going to do with me?

- Breaking Dawn! - Ufti suddenly shouted, pointing his finger to the right.

Nong, flipping through a magazine, pulled out of his pocket a mobile phone with camera. And almost immediately through the windows of the portholes a bright golden beam struck. For 10 minutes everyone was jingling, changing places, taking pictures of each other. Everyone wanted to film against the background of the polar dawn in an embrace with Dr. Links - that had to be conceded (it was easier than explaining why he did not really want to get into the frame in this form). Then everyone calmed down slightly, Nong took a place at the helm, Ufti moved to his place, and Ron gave out to everyone a large mug of hot, strong aromatic coffee, and a pair of sandwiches.

- So, finally, will they explain to me what's next, or how? - Max asked.

- Next, - said Ufti, - We cross the Arctic Ocean, we go South along the 169 meridian, over the neutral zone of the Bering Strait. We deviate slightly to the west, we go through the Aleutian islands and continue South along the 178 meridian. We leave Hawaii at our east, and the Marshall at west, and cross the Equator near Kiribati. At 13 degrees south latitude, we see the island of Uwea, (also called Wallis) on the left, and at 14 degrees we find ourselves over the islands of Futuna and Alofu. Between them - the strait, miles 3. We land in the strait near the village of Kolia on Futuna, we moor this boat the pier, and there our colleagues meet us. A festive dessert, girls, lambada on the beach, and so on.

- Max took a sip of coffee and inhaled.

- So. I again do not understand. You're taking me through half the planet ...

- Through 5/12 of the planet, - Nong said from the pilot's seat.

- Well, in 5/12. By the way, how long should we fly?

- A little less than a day. - We keep the economical speed of 500 km per hour.

- And all this is for the sake of dessert with the girls and the lambada?

- But Triffids! - he reminded, correcting the tinted glasses.

- Where? - Dr. Links asked. - The planting material had been trashed long ago, and all the reports and the full log of the work have remained in the university archives. You had to get that archive, not me! Someone else could repeat it.

- Maybe it is so, - the scout agreed. - But you, anyway, you'll do it better. Of course, we also have stolen the archive, too.

- Oh shit! Have you stolen the entire archive of my group?

- Hot to explain.. we got the whole university archive, - Ron confessed. - We did not have time to understand, what is yours and what is not yours. And anyway: what if there is something else interesting there?

- Nearly two terabytes were pumped out, - boasted Ufti.

Dr. Links silently tried to understand the meaning of the last statements and possible sequences for his future life. The sun, low above the horizon, sparkled so that bright bunnies jumped from all glass and metal surfaces throughout the salon.

- White silence, - Kirk said, looking down at the icy hulks, - like Jack London.

- I've red, in 20 years everything here will melt, - said Ufti, - Global warming. It will be possible to sail on a polar day on the Canadian islands even beyond the 80th latitude. Well, like, like we do along the MBL in December, only here, on the contrary, in June.

- There was such a guy, Fridtjof Nansen, fellow countryman of my great-grandfather," Kirk began. - At the end of the nineteenth century, he sailed to 79 degrees.

- So what is next?

- And then his yacht "Fram" froze into ice, - the Scandinav replied. - Can you imagine?

The «Thoroughbred Papuan» figured and expressed his opinion:

- Horrible! I said, we have to wait for global warming ... Doc Links, is it possible to invent something for MBL? Some cold-resistant banana? There rent of latifundio 50 square kilometers is almost free. There is a real chance to raise good money.

- What is MBL? Max asked.

- Marie Byrd Land. This is our piece of Antarctica, it is roughly like Greenland. There, some land is not covered with ice, and the temperature in summer is above zero. Nong, where is that magazine with info?

- Under my mug,- said the Vietnamese, - by the way, give it to me here.

- Ufti transferred the mug to Nong, and the magazine to Lynx. It was "Notas de explotacion agricolas y agro-tecnica Meganezia" with article "Productividad la MBL en cara de calentamiento global".

Lynx studied the article for a quarter of an hour. Then he qualified the author with terms "ignorant" and "moron", and gave to everyone a brief lecture on the life cycle of higher plants in general and with reference to the climate of the coast of Antarctica in particular.

Epilogue was that only plants with an ephemeral or, at least, efemreroidal cycle can be cultivated on MBL. They begin to grow at the beginning of a relatively warm and humid season, and pass the entire vegetation cycle in 3 weeks, and leave the fruit before the colds.

- Look closely at the tuberous ephemeroids from the deserts of Australia and the plants of the Lapland and the Siberia tundra, - he concluded, then he felt suddenly drowsy and closed his eyes. Ron and Ufti moved him to a stretcher. Kirk examined him, covered his rug, and said:

- Sen Dr. Lynx sleeps a good, healthy sleep. Do not touch him, don't make noise. -

For some time the scouts were silent in deep thoughtfulness, unusual for such young people (and even more so for young meganesians). There was only the buzz of the air cut by the plane. Then Ron with a crunch stretched and said in a low voice:

- Think, foa, one such guy, like the dock Lynx, can give life to a thousand islands and feed a million people. And he slept at the station, he ate garbage and drank the shnyaga. I do not understand what is up there in that country?

- Fucking barbarians, - said "the pure-blooded Papuan" Ufti.

...

9 - CURRENT MOMENT
Date / Time: September 1, 22 of the Charter. Evening. Location: Meganesia, Sotsiete, o. Rapatar.

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №7.
A small island, like a pizza.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I fell in love with Rapatapa at first sight. It looks like a charming-green, almost round pizza, lying on a bright blue saucer with a white border in the middle of a grey tablecloth of the ocean, and already someone slightly bitten from the south. On closer inspection, it turned out that the white border of the saucer is a surf on the strip of coral reefs, and the nibble is a small lagoon (600 meters from the eastern corner to the western and about 300 meters from the reef barrier to the middle of the shore).

Rapatapa is a volcanic cone with a diameter of the above-water part of about two miles. In the center is Mount Mowa-Uta, about 300 feet. On volcanic soils, everything grows at an unthinkable speed, so that local residents (there are about 1200 of them) do not have problems with providing agricultural products, although no more than half are processed from 900 hectares of the island (bright roofs of houses and small squares of fields and kitchen gardens can be seen from the air). Fishing for local residents is more of a hobby than work. On the island there are 3 settlements: western, eastern and southern. South, Moutuaura, located on the middle of the lagoon's shore is the capital of the island, and on the cape in the extreme western point of the lagoon is the three-story residence of arica (the king), built so that its terraces hang over the water.

The «Reikan» rolled on the water and braked, slightly tapping the central float in the bamboo floor of the T-shaped pier from the western cape, into the gap between the light gyroplane, painted "a military", and a large white proa. Half a dozen steps from the pier, the company of naked teens chased the ball along the pink sand of the beach. Judging by the time and by the bustling bright backpacks, these were schoolchildren, who relax after class. As soon as we moored, they interrupted the game and ran to meet us. It seems that these guys only expected to see tairi and Haoto, and my appearance was a surprise to them, and for a couple of minutes I was in the spotlight ....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

...

- And you in Canada, it is customary that husbands throw their wives into the sea? Asked a brisk girl about fifteen.

- No, of course, - Jeanne said indignantly. - Such savagery is simply impossible for us!

- Here! - the girl was delighted, - Means, I correctly speak, that in the civilized countries so do not do!

- Along the way, last night Limo threw Ritie into the sea, - one of the boys said.

- Really? - surprised tairi, and casually explained to Jeanne - Limo is the ariki of Limolua Haamea, the king of Rapatar.

- It was, - confirmed another girl, about the same age as the first.

- For what? Haoto asked.

She silently shrugged her shoulders.

- Is this usual here? - Jeanne asked anxiously.

- What exactly? tairi specified.

- Throw a human into the sea.

- Well, how can I tell you ...

- Coming! - loudly said one of the teenagers, and they all, as if on command, jumped from the pier into the water. Only the heels flashed in the air.

Along the path to the lagoon, a large man of about 45, dressed in a lava-lava of a bright green color in a lemon-yellow speck, descended a rapid step. It was quite full, but, as it happens with people leading a mobile lifestyle in the fresh air, this fullness looked natural and did not falter at all. Seeing that he was noticed, he waved his hand in the air and shouted:

- Aloha foa.

- Aloha Limo, - Haoto shouted back, and they and tairi moved toward the king. Jeanne had no choice but to follow them, although communicating with the ruler, throwing people into the sea without even explaining why, did not cause her positive emotions. The king alternately embraced tairi and Haito, and then extended his hand to Jeanne and asked.

- Is it true that the inhabitants of Nova Scotia prefer the beer "Alexander Cates"?

- You are well informed, she answered, shaking his hand.

- It's just the Internet, - he said cheerfully. - The truth is, I have only Glenora whiskey from your home country. It's me that before dinner you can drink a glass.

- Even necessary, - added tairi, - for calming the nerves. - And then, they say that some people here without reason throw their wives into the sea.

- Have you already told? - - asked the king, casting a frown in the direction of the lagoon, where a hundred meters from the shore splashed teenagers.

- You though no?

Limolua turned to Haoto.

- You are well, you have one wife. And by the way, I had reasons.

- Do you really think that you have the right to throw a woman at sea? - Jeanne asked, trying, to look calm.

-So, - he said, - first of all, what a woman she is, she's a girl.

- Especially.

- ... Secondly, I arrived yesterday from the testing ground tired, like a race horse after competition.

- And you decided to through your bad mood on ..?

- Yes, I was in a good mood! - interrupted the king - but I wanted to sleep damnably. And she, you see, wanted a big and hot love, and right now. I suggested: let it be in the morning. but she wanted now!

- You could explain to her, - said Haoto.

- She did not listen! Try to sleep, when you grabbed for dick! In general, I suspect that she specifically did this, so that there was something to gossip about. This Rity now portrays that she was offended and left for Mama forever. And tomorrow Pau will remember that the day after tomorrow the test on the engineering is scheduled, and they will start to lick me together. Because lazy, both. They would have begun to ask the same from Uiraiti or Feivi, but one is now on Nuku-Khiva, and the other is at the Hull training ground. As for Ailoo, it is vain: she believes they should learn on their own. I'm the only one left. Then again begins about love. In short, then again I can not sleep well ...

The king sighed, turned to the lagoon and, with his hands clasped in his mouth, shouted:

- Riti! Pou! Quickly get out of there! Why the hell am I the one who amuses the guests?

Seeing that this had no effect, Limolua shouted, again ... From the fourth time the result was achieved. Two girls separated from the company and quickly sailed to the shore.

- I do not understand anything, - Jeanne confessed. - Whom did you throw into the sea?

- Her. - Limolua pointed to the one that confirmed the report of the rogue riots, and added, - from the balcony of the second floor. I took her in an armful and ... A very comfortable balcony, up to a water of 6 meters and the depth under it is about the same.

- But she could have drowned! -

- Polynesian? Drown?

- Anyway, in my opinion, you can not do this.

- Yes, - he agreed. - Ailoo said the same thing. She taught psychology, so she is smart in this. On the other hand, I can not always ask her advice before to do something.

- Ask her to write you instructions, - tairi suggested.

- It's an idea, - the king agreed, - perhaps ...

Here he was interrupted in the most radical way. Two girls jumped out of the water and hung on him at the left and at the right, like koalas on eucalyptus. The king passed this test, although it is not so easy to stand on his feet, when two hundred pounds of live cargo falls on you at once. Jeanne could not resist: she pulled out her video camera and looked inquiringly at him. Limolua nodded in agreement.

- FIlm it.. Let the whole world know, how these unscrupulous women mock their king ... and her husband, by the way. Maybe then they will feel a little ashamed ...

The girls snickered.

- … In Canada, you probably do not have your wife riding her husband like that, - he added.

- In Canada, polygamy is not accepted, - said Jeanne.

- How about the Mormons? - asked Rity, - in Canada, there are Mormons.

- I know that you have a Mormon temple in Halifax, - Pou added.

- It would be better if you taught mechanics and computer science, than read all the nonsense, - grumbled the king, - and in general, get off me, take your things, and run home. Tell Ailoo that we are already on the way, and help her to organise some kind of dinner.

Pou and Riti, crawled to the ground, picked up their backpacka sandals and lava-lava and walked briskly along the path to the royal residence. Walking barefoot on a rather stony ground did not cause them a drop of discomfort, and the idea of ​​dressing probably did not occur to them at all.

- Mormons seem to have given up polygamy in the last century, - said Jeanne.

- Come on, - said Haoto, here are our neighbors, Smythe, real Mormons. They have a family: two husbands and three wives. 1.5 wives are already polygamy, right?

- 1.5 wives? The Canadian asked, stunned.

– Look, if three are divided into two, the result is one and a half, - tairi explained.

You should not count so, - said Limoloy, "At such a count, it turns out, that I have three and one sixth wives, or two and two thirds, while I should have exactly five wives, otherwise it's just a scandal.

- Hor can it be? - Jeanne was surprised

- Look, - said the king, - Ailoo and Feivi have one more husband besides me, and Wyrayati has two more. For the present I am the only Riti's hizband, except for small romance with her boyfriends. Pou meets one guy, but I do not know is it serious enough to say count him as a husband to not.. Better, but let them decide, this, ah?

- I finally ceased to understand anything, - the Canadian admitted.

- Let me explain to you while eating? - suggested the king, - so it is better assimilated (he did not specify, is information better assimilated for food, or vice versa)

...

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Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №8. Revolutionary history of one royal family.

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Approximately half a thousand miles north of the two main New Zealand islands, there is volcanic archipelago of Karmadek (also the territory of New Zealand). The booklets say, it consists of three islets: Curtis (area 0.6 sq.km), Macaulay (3.1 sq.km) and Raul (29.4 sq.km). Among these patches of land, only the northern island of Raul is of some interest. In the center of the island, there are two small lakes (one of which is a crater of an active volcano), and at the north shore, there is a weather station, a small hotel, a helipad, a hospital and a diesel generator. There are no permanent residents here. Few people wishing to settle in this picturesque place were spared by a short volcanic eruption in March 2006.

A mile to the northwest of Raoul Island, there is island of Meyer, an area of ​​0.2 square km. This is a land length of 800 meters and a width of 250, cut in half a narrow bay, and adjacent to it a chain of coral reefs. The islands of Meyer are marked on maps, like rocks dangerous for navigation. They are absolutely useless for anyone ... except Meganesian. There is such an anecdote: a realtor, jokingly gives a couple of meganesians a drawing of a tennis table 5 by 9 feet, for an island plan. They say: "We buy!". The agent is surprised: "what will you do on such a patch?". The Meganesians answer: "Everything is marked here: in the left half there is a place for the house, and in the right one for the backyard, so that the children have where to play."

In 400 miles north of the Meyer Islands, there are the borders of the archipelagic countries of Fiji and Tonga. Before the Aluminum Revolution, Fiji had a feudal republic, and Tonga - a constitutional monarchy. In these backward and unstable states, large and small scammers were looking for a fast cash. A couple of young people, Panto Coyo, a 20-year-old mechanic, and his girlfriend Omiani Ngani, a 17-year-old college student, were small ones. At that time, they turned a small scam to Fiji with credit card numbers, and fled from the the Fijian authorities at the neighboring Tonga, on the outskirts of Nukualofu. They believed that the Tonga police had already forgotten the similar scam, performed in Nukualofu a month ago, but they were in the database.

They were supposed to be captured, but an accidental acquaintance with the young but determined sergeant Chris Prodi, who had recently deserted the Tonga army and also had problems with the police, gave them a chance. A daring plan was invented and implemented.

Late in the evening, Omiani arrived in the old jeep (in which the carefully selected "Robinson set" was loaded) and, portraying a very light-minded girl, distracted attention of five guards of the small training aerodrome. Panto, meanwhile, made his way to the hangar and prepared for the flight an ancient but reliable "Cessna 140H". When the guards, hearing the sound of an air motor, rushed to the aircraft leaving the hangar, Chris met them with an accurate grenade throw and no less accurate turns from the M-16 automatic rifle. The epilogue to this scene (and the epitaph for the guards) was Omiani's words: "If we are seized now, they will not be imprisoned, but will be turned up." Without losing time, the companions reloaded the "Robinson set" from the jeep into the plane, added something from the military property that fell under the arm, took off and headed south.

The next point of their plan was the development of the abandoned New Zealand islands of Meyer.

Successfully getting to the place, companions, before dawn had time to hide the plane in a very narrow closed bay and unload the baggage (less than 200kg). Early in the morning, they put a portable wind generator at the water source on the northeast (invisible from Raul Island) slope, then ensambled a 6-meter catamaran, and checked its seaworthiness running it to the island of Raul. There got a lot of useful things, thrown out by the personnel of the New Zealand weather station, like garbage. Returning to Meyer, the companions set up a small bonfire, had dinner with fish (which they caught on the drifter line) and started building bungalows of plastic barrels, old boats, sheets of plywood, large polyethylene packs, and other building materials used by the poor Polynesians. By evening, the house was ready, and it even had a "radio plate" with internet connection. Companions, thus, could follow the events in the world and look for the necessary contacts in it. They intended to establish a specific business on the Meyer Islands - this was the third, main point of the plan.

In search of the right partners, the companions went over all their acquaintances of the adventurous warehouse, and Chris found on the Internet Ailoo Vaikato: a lively 19-year-old Maori, with whom he once spent several merry weeks at the Ogea atolls in south-eastern Fiji. After completing two courses at the Design and Arts College of New Zealand, she was engaged in commerce and lived with a guy named Limolua, a perpetual student of Auckland University of Technology, the youngest son of Ruane Haamea, the king of the island of Rapatar in French Polynesia.

Limolua in the Haamea family was considered infant terrible. Instead of all the other children of the king, quickly finish the agro-technical college in Avarua at Rarotonga or Papeete in Tahiti (and then, just 300 miles from Rapatar), and develop agriculture, he went to 17 years in 2000 miles, to New Zealand, to learn fashionable technical tricks, completely irrelevant for the national economy of the native island. He was not seen at home for 6 years, he communicated with his family on mobile, once a month, and the king sadly said: "What he lives there is not clear; when he takes his mind and will return home - it is not known."

Limolua did not plan to return at all. He was not at all amazed with the prospect to spend his whole life, dealing with the boring affairs of the rapartar farmers (whose welfare he had to arrange, according to the Haamea family tradition), to deal with cute but also boring wives, and to breed numerous potentially boring offspring. After meeting with Ailoo, he even forgot to think about returning home. In New Zealand and the surrounding area, there were many opportunities for decisive people; and this couple was decisive. On the "gray market", Limo and Ai gained fame under the nicknames "Fatty" and "Baby" - and not because of the build, but in honor of the two atomic bombs, which under these nicknames were dropped on Japan in August 1945.

"Fatty" Limo and "Baby" Ai flew to Meyer two weeks after Chris's call, on the plane, which, even compared to the "Cessna-140H" companions, looked prehistoric. It was hydroplane on the base of Vickers Vincent of 1932, decommissioned from the New Zealand Air Force Fleet in 1943. Powerful biplane plunged heavily into the water and, roaring with an overheated engine, hardly crawled into the narrow gates of the eastern bay. Stepping on the shore of the islands of Meyer, Limo uttered historical words: - Aloha, foa! La prehistoria feliz era finito, se inicio la joder epoca moderno. (Hello, audience! The happy primeval era is over, the fucking epoch of modernity has come).

Ai added:

- Joder amen, de puta madre »(Fucking Amen, so his mother).

In response to the word "amen," (in a somewhat unusual context), Omiani phlegmatically asked:

- Que tu joder misioneros catolicos? Y polla no parece! (Are you fucking Catholic missionaries?) Do not look like dick!)

The friendly laughter of five healthy young sips announced the expansion of the company and the beginning of the glorious deeds of the future Meyer factory.

The previous two weeks life on the islands of Meyer and the truth was close to the primitive. In anticipation of "Fatty" and "Baby", the three companions idled, they caught fish and other seafood, bathed, rode on the island to Raul (to pick up more discarded useful things), and had sex three times a day. Omiani generously donated her love to both the mechanic and the sergeant. In general, there was an almost idyllic Robinsonade in a house of old barrels and household garbage amidst bright tropical greens and a warm ocean with corals and fish.

With the advent of Limo and Ai everything changed dramatically. On their ancient Vincent, they brought almost 2 tons of all useful things, which immediately went into action. 10 comfortable 4-person tents were installed. They mounted the field kitchen, mobile water supply, combined generator and mast local TV. Marked a field for mini-football. North-East Meyer beach acquired the look of a modern camping. There were collected 5 promo and 5 ultra-light New Zealand flags "KiWing".

A week later, two Indian workers from Fiji and several girls from one of the small atolls of Tonga arrived, and then the first ten tourists arrived. The "gray" tourist business began. The islands of Meyer lie exactly in the middle between New Zealand and the atolls of South Tong, and even next to the very picturesque and almost deserted island of Raul. Well-organized transport in the middle of wildlife, the relative comfort of camping, the lack of monitoring institutions and taxes, as well as arrangements with the leaders of small Tongay atolls for "girls on call", provided the companion's business with rapid commercial success. It is not known how the business of the Meyer Factories would develop, if the Aluminum revolution would not break out wuthin a year. Flushing on the atoll of Tintug, it advanced through the archipelagoes of British and French Oceania as a tsunami, sweeping away the neocolonial and traditionalist regimes. The Revolutionary Tribunal stamped the proscription sheets at the speed of the typewriter, and the Praetorian Corps and the People's Navy of the Convention spared no ammunition and cartridges for the "enemies of the revolution".

At the beginning of the revolution, the island of Rapatar was formally under the jurisdiction of the French neocolonial province of Tubuai, but in reality there officials there have not been seen for years. The 65-year-old ariki (king) Ruaneu Haamea, for a quarter of a century of his reign, de facto restored the independence of the island. In the mayoral election, the residents could not make sense - the old and pretty sensible customs, followed by the Haamea family, quite satisfied the rapappers. The Convention, whose envoys arrived in Rapapart a couple of months after the Aluminum Revolution, on the contrary, considered the aristocracy "the backbone of neo-colonialism," with which the conversation is short: "The supreme measure of humanitarian self-defense" is execution or deportation. Despite this prejudiced attitude, the Commissioner of the Convention, after more than two hours of proceedings, was forced to agree that there was absolutely no reason to shoot the king. Ruaneu strictly observed the customs, and the custom of «tapu ariki rave titoe y hape» (holly king provides plans and protection) did not allow to oppress any of the habitants, but even to do those small operations with other people's property that were in the way of residents in relation to each other. The king could not go into the neighbour's house without an invitation, borrow a pound of salt or even take a boat whose owner does not go to sea today. The king could touch someone only in strictly defined cases, and he could not accept gifts at all. Products and things the king had to buy in the market, at a common price, and pay right there. For management (including the review of litigation, the organisation of small community trade expeditions, and leadership in emergency situations, including when protecting the island from pirate raids), he received 1/20 of the "gross island product". Having come to the conclusion that there was no visible oppression on the rapatar, the Commissioner of the Convention displayed revolutionary humanity: he confined himself to deporting the king and his family from Meganesia, and confiscating their property in favour of the people of Rapatar. The people were categorically opposed, but what could he do? The people have a hundred pomp guns. The platoon commandos - machine guns and mortars.

The king listened to the decree and said: "Do as I do." He left the house, and laid down on the ground all the few jewelry and all the clothes, except for the loincloth. His example was followed by all the domestic and all residents who considered themselves the relatives of Haamea. Then the king rang the cell phone and said: "Son, I ask you to receive in your house 36 people from the Haameah family who no longer have a place on Rapatar." After hearing the answer, he put the phone to the rest of his things and asked the Commissioner of the Convention: "A thousand miles across the ocean can not pass without a boat. Can my people take one big old proa with a supply of food and water for a week? ". The commissar, in the past - an ordinary Polynesian fisherman and, in fact, not an evil man, answered in the affirmative.

The inhabitants of Rapapar watched in silent horror as the satellites of the king loaded cans of fresh water and boxes of canned food on board. The Commissioner said that children under the age of 13 (there were eight) can stay. Ruanet only shrugged his shoulders - Haamea did not take handouts. By the end of the loading, the voltage reached the limit. They waited for the farewell words of the unjustly expelled King. If he uttered a ritual curse: "Aitoa tajoro teie motu", all 900 inhabitants would leave the island today. King Ruaneu stood silently for a few minutes in the stern, looking over the heads of the gathered, to his house and to Mount Uta. Then, in complete silence, disturbed only by the noise of the waves, he said slowly and clearly: "My proah will depart from the shore. You, without diverging, will choose the mayor. He swears to govern as if he were from the Haamea family. I've said everything. Ia orana i te fare (happiness to your home)."

The king waved his hand, the moorings were dropped, and the sail from the mat unfolded. Proa slid away from the shore, and within an hour turned into a barely noticeable point on the horizon.

The Commissar of the Convention, once again announced that the house and all the belongings of the former king belong now to the inhabitants of the island. Nobody paid attention to this. The heads of the families, under the soft cry of women, chose the mayor, and he swore exactly as the king ordered. Then all went to do ordinary things. The things of the Haamea family were left lying where they were thrown - no one touched them and walked closer to the King's house than five steps. The commando officer scratched thoughtfully at the back of his head, adjusted the shoulder strap belt, and said to the Commissar of the Convention: "In my opinion, we have done some bad shit."

The Meyer Islands are located 1100 miles to the west-south-west from Rapatar. Overcoming such a distance, even with an old proa, is not too difficult for such innate seamen as Polynesians. Of course, Limogua could not refuse to relatives, but the arrival of 36 new colonists required an urgent change of business doctrine. The first year of "newcomers" had to be fed through fishing and "humanitarian assistance" young Prince Limolua, but for a year five partners managed to expand business, finding employment for all. The Meyer Islands became the center of a diverse but suspicious commerce.

A year later, in the "Britanica T-guide" in the "New Zealand" added a paragraph:

"In the exotic village of Maori on the islands of Meyer (northern Kermadec) developed an active rest: Polynesian naturistic snorkeling, sailing and gliding sports, fishing, traditional erotic dances and folkloric parties with a peace pipe. In the village there is a trading post, where it is possible to buy products of folk crafts at very moderate prices: souvenir weapons, sailing catamarans, and modern ultra-light motor-gliders and hang-gliders. In the film library of the trading station you can buy or order CDs with records of ancient magic rituals of Oceania."

Two more years passed, and the scale of the activities of the Meyer Factories was honored by the New Zealand authorities. At a meeting of the executive council, a certain representative of the right-centrist party outrageously laid out on the table a set of items purchased at the Meyer Factory and a set of photographs, after which he began to ask rhetorical questions:

"Does this dagger look like a souvenir weapon? But such a tomahawk? How do you think the participants in this folklore party smoke? And how far did eroticism go in this erotic dance? Have you heard of "naturist snorkeling"? Let them swim in masks naked, but what does this have to do with the sex-party on the reefs? Or the orgy on the boat? And what do you say about illegal video CDs and marijuana from Tonga to Kermadec?"

The speaker was coolly: from the press it was already known, that besides the illegal Meganesians, more than a hundred local (New Zealander) Maori working for the good money

at the Meyer Factory. Here they officially registered the Raul-Meyer Club, which dealt with "traditional Maori sea tourism". It was difficult to prove, that in fact this club is run by the dubious guys from the Meyer Islands. And it was extremely difficult to separate the legal activities of the club from underground operations of the "Factorium".

The fact of the development of the abandoned island Raul was presented by the press as unambiguously positive. No one wanted to attack the Maori club: because the defenders of the rights of the indigenous population of New Zealand, together with the representation of the Maori people in the parliament, would arrange the government a strong flap, and the tomahawk trading, sex tourism and smoking grass will seem like a children's matinee comported to it. Nevertheless, it was clear to everyone that this hotbed of petty disgraces should somehow be closed.

In Meganesia furing the 4 years since the revolution, the following events occurred:

In a year, the Tribunal was replaced by the Supreme Court, and the Convention - the government of the "nuclear coordinator" Iori Nakamura. Three years later, according to the Charter, he was succeeded by the second government coordinator Ashura Khareb. It was a period of euphoria: after the "Atomic Incident", there was no permanent threat of war over the country. Rapid development began, which became and remains the "visiting card" of Meganesia. Realizing its well-being and strength, the society began to correct the "revolutionary excesses" of the Tribunal and the Convention. In particular, the Supreme Court considered the claim of the residents of Rapatar in defence of the Haamea family and issued a verdict:

"Within the meaning of the Great Charter, residents have the right to freely choose the form of local government that they believe will best ensure their well-being. If the activity of the local authority does not contradict the Great Charter, then no one has the right to limit this freedom. If residents want local power to be inherited, as a social function of a particular family, according to local custom, it is their free choice. Proceeding from this, the court will cancel all sanctions against Ruanet Haamea, King Rapatar, and his family. The court orders the government coordinator personally to find the family of Haame, and offer her property compensation, and assistance in returning home if they wish to return, or help at their location if they prefer to stay there."

In Meganesia, the Supreme Court's order is unquestionable. Ashur Hareb demanded from military intelligence immediately to find Haamea, and in just a few hours, he received exhaustive information about the colony in Kermadec, and even the number of New Zealand's mobile king Ruaneu. The call of the coordinator turned out to be very useful for the colony, because the New Zealand police were all set to slam the "Meyer Factories". Ruaneu explained without too much modesty what help the Haamea family needed, and the coordinator, because of the categorical nature of the Supreme Court ruling, could not refuse him.

A few days later, the New Zealand police forces that landed on Meyer were suddenly met by the meganese commandos (who already had a scary reputation at that time). The cops were smart enough not to engage in a hopeless battle, and the commandos generally pretended that they had flown here "with a view to a 5-day rest for the personnel." Then, at a friendly dinner (shark fin soup, tuna fillet, salad with colored algae, and excellent Fijian coffee), order-keepers, as if by accident, explained in an extremely benevolent manner that the issue of the Meyer Factory is not a criminal police officer, but international-political. This should be done not policemen, but politicians, let them do it. There was a quiet, good-neighborly diplomatic scandal, which was quickly resolved economically. The government of Meganesia bought 0.2 square kilometers of abandoned land from New Zealand at the market price of agricultural land, and the parties were satisfied with each other.

Then came a new incident: the inhabitants of the colony of Meyer considered Ruaneu Haamea as their (and not someone else's) king, and refused to release him to Rapatar. Ruaneu himself believed that it was wrong to go back, but recognised that the Rapartarians, who had made so much effort to rehabilitate his family, also had the right to have a king of the Haamea clan. The way out was found: Limapois was appointed King of Rapatar. The Meyer people did not want to let him go, realizing that the colony owed him and his companions economic prosperity, but they agreed, provided that he remained president of the "Meyer Factory" for the "transition period".

Without delaying the matter, the five companions settled in two Aviets, and in five hours they were in the lagoon of Rapatar. Local residents have already been warned by mobile. Seeing the meeting (almost the entire population of the island), Limo said this speech:

«Aloha foa! I am Limolua ta-Ruaneu Haamea. It happens, that I am appointed here as king.. However, but if there is a more suitable candidate, then, of course, I will not insist.»

The Rappatians appreciated the humor: they were all laughing. Then Limolue was taken to his house (which for all these years was maintained in excellent condition). The mayor, taking the opportunity, handed over his authority to the king - he was glad to get rid of this burden. Observance of royal customs and restrictions was for him, a simple rapatar faaapu (farmer), a pleasure below the average. Fortunately, the residents did not demand that Limolue takes 5 wives into the house, and take all the Raparctic teenagers for training in the basics of naval affairs (as required by the custom of the king of the Haamea clan).

At the holiday of "hauoli", the king was introduced to the course of rapartar affairs, which were so-so. The economic upsurge, which in particular captured the islands of Raratonga, Raiatea and Tahiti, barely touched the small provincial Rapatar. Here, as before the revolution, they lived, mainly, in subsistence economy. At midnight, after hauoli, the king assembled his companions in his living room (which became something of a factories headquarters).

- Friends! - He said, - we built good business on Meyer, although we had close to nothing there. Here we have a legal territory, workers' hands and most importantly - people's trust ....

Omiani asked sarcastically:

- It seems, you want to build a Rapartar economic miracle?

Limolua answered that yes, he wants, and will certainly build. A business conference began, in the midst of which a young lady named Uiraiti (which means "small lightning") came to the house, sent by residents to the king, to enjoy him at night.

- Very handy! - Limo announced, - now we will arrange an examination.

Uiraiti threw lava-lava (the only thing that was on it) and, not hiding enthusiasm, asked in which room (or where in the fresh air), the king intends to take the exam.

- Absence of complexes is a plus, - said Ailoo, - but how about education?

After an hour it became clear that the formation of a 13-year-old girl was exhausted by the elementary skills of writing and counting - the level of two classes of the secondary urban school. Uiraichi almost cried: she could not understand what they wanted from her. Here, ex-Sergeant Chris intervened - he already faced this level of knowledge among soldiers from the outback.

- It's buulshit! Intellect they have OK.

He drew a square of 9 cells, wrote figures in 3 cells and asked her to fill in the remaining cells so that the sums for any row, column and diagonals were the same. The girl solved the problem in 10 minutes.

- And if so? - Omiani asked and drew another version of the same problem.

10 minutes - and Uiraiti again issued a decision. Panto turned on with the tests with matches on ingenuity ... At 4 o'clock in the morning, Uiraiti fell asleep at the table. Limo took her to sleep on the couch and companions, discussing everything over a cup of tea, ruled: for an economic miracle, you must first put in order the local school.

At 9 am the king reformed education: he struck out half of the items, and on the remaining ones he ordered to replace the basic megalosian program with the one according to which in the colonial XIX century the islanders recruited into the army were trained. The teacher (he was alone on the island) first objected, but then surrendered - not so much because of the authority of Limolue, but because of the iron arguments in favor of old army textbooks. All the subsequent reforms of the business headquarters of the King carried out just as quickly and radically. During the year, Rapatar was modernised so much that students from Raratonga from the Takamoa campus began to travel here. This was what the king's team wanted. "The process has gone," said Ailoo, when several of the guys from the next issue settled on Rapatar. In the third year of the rule of Limogua Haamea, there was a long-awaited breakthrough: a business idea was born:



Encyclopedia Oceanica: «Tekhnosaure (Tecnozaurito) - an engineering application of cyber-life, proposed by S.Hopkins (circa 2010, USA). Virtual animals that model the evolution of household or technical devices in the struggle for effective satisfaction of the complex of consumer requests. The starting population of technosaurs is a set of already existing models of devices, the final population is one or several new promising models. A biological prototype of technosaurs is the tobacco mosaic virus, the cybernetic (computer science) prototype is the expert system Eurisco by D. Lenata (circa 1980, USA). To control the development of technosaurs, testing of physical copies made on a fabber (3d printer) is used.

See also: Theory of Darwin. Reproduction, variability and hybridization in the evolution of viruses. Expert systems. Designing by natural selection. Fabbers ».



In the developed countries of America and Europe, technosaurus, for a number of socio-political reasons, did not come to court. But, they were claimed by the military-technical center "Creatori" of the Meganesian People's Fleet for the rapid development of cheap weapons systems. The idea of ​​the competition of virtual monsters as a battle, in the strictest sense of the word: the power struggle for destruction, fully owned the minds of users. Nobody even thought of using technosauruses for peaceful purposes (for the design of something household) - for the time being until the time. The force that changed this stereotype was love. Love Yueo Auguska (23-year-old graduate of the Technical University of Rarotonga), to Feivi Eamar (17-year-old third wife of King Limolua).

Coming to the conclusion that "the guys are serious," the king recognized Yueo as his companion for his wife and, in comradely way, told him:

- Look, bro: Feevi is almost an adult girl, and sensible, but she did not see the world. Avarua, Utiroa and Papeete, and once I flew with her to Lanton, that's all. Take care of her outlook. For example, go to Australia. Not the biggest but still the continent, and the regime we have visa-free with them..

An hour later the young couple had already booked tickets for the next flight of Tubuai - Sydney, and was busy collecting things for the trip. In the megalopolises of Australia, the people dress a differently from the style in the villages of Meganesia, and the guys ran to the capital (to Mutuaura - the capital of Rapatar), bought there some of the rags, in which one can go to Sydney Opera House and the Powerhouse Museum, without recourse to to the puzzled attention of cultural Australians.

The next scene is tragic: Yueo is lying on the mat, on the terrace and is going through, watching his beloved woman deal with unusual (and therefore because uncomfortable) clothes. His look drifts between Feivi and a micro-caliber pistol "Lem-4.5 mm", hanged on the neck of a bamboo figure akufare (spirit-keeper of the house). His thoughts are not about shooting himself, but about something else. "Lem" is the first successful engineering work of Yueo: an ultra-compact and efficient pocket automatic weapon. "Yes," he thinks. "Lem is inferior in combat qualities to such famous brands as the Austrian Glock and the German Walter-PP, but it is stamped on a conventional thermoplastic robot and contains a minimum of moving elements. Simplicity and automatism are the motto of the technologies of the 21st century. At the pocket weapons concept competition for Air Force pilots, the "Lem" model lost to other samples by private criteria, but won over the integral utility criterion, and was eventually recognised as objectively better. Yuo took good money on this. Joder! Why this simple and natural way of choosing models does not apply to rags? And what idiots project such impractical models? ".

The next two weeks, Yueo not only rested (at the same time acquainting his young wife with the nature and culture of Australia), but also twisted in his brain the idea of ​​clothing design. By the day of return, he had a plan in his head, how to push out different configurations of rags in the fierce struggle for existence in the world of technosaurs. The idea infected companions with its unexpected novelty, and unprecedented in the history of wars, the virtual battle of rags began. Out of several digitised costumes that survived on the battlefield, the Factory chose for the "full-scale experiment" a model with the working title "koala" - a figure cloth on Velcro that was made on a home sewing robot in a couple of minutes. "Koala" was brought to light through an online shop, and it went through the market of youth clothing, like a tank. First, it spread through the mega-student campus, then it was rated by older students, and six months later, the Koala was worn all over Oceania, from Australia and New Zealand to Hawaii and California. Authoritative fashion designers scolded the youth for bad taste, clothing manufacturers urgently put the koala on the flow, and the companions were removed from the cream theme. "The holiday was a success," said Ailoo.

Later, Yooo gained wide popularity in narrow circles with other engineering work: poket-machinegun "Spagi-5.56 mm". It was the adaptation of the Soviet submachine gun Shpagin (the most reliable and cheap model of automatic weapons of the Second World War) to the technologies of the 21st century. Spagi in shooting was inferior to such famous brands as the Austrian "Steyr-TMP" and the Israeli "UZI", but it could be stamped with mass and cheap automatic equipment, from common and cheap materials, and at the same time it worked even at bad treatment. Spagi became the third (after Mauser and Kalashnikov) of the small arms brands included in the national emblems of developing countries - but this is a completely different story.

Passing some more spectacular projects of transformation of simple household things, we turn to a kind of culmination that occurred when the Factory received a proposal from Freefisher Union to design a deck flier for mini trawlers. None of the flyers were placed in their economic hold (2x3x2 meters) and, for want of a better one, the fishermen used folding float moto hang-gliders. With a weak wave, they flew off the water, and at a stronger one - they were launched from the deck on a rope, like a kite (an extremely dangerous focus in the open ocean). For a full-fledged mini-fliers, which would fit in the farm hold in its assembled form, the fishermen were ready to pay serious money for it.

The most compact of the mass fliers (the French Cri-Cri of the 1973 model) have a length of 4 meters and the wingspan is 5. All previous and subsequent attempts to create a more compact but reliable and safe Avietka have brought nothing but trouble. Limolua understood that the Factory was offered a task that ordinary contractors refused (finding it impossible).

- If we do this, then Rapatar will wipe noses to everyone: Tubuai, Rarotonga and even Raiatea!" - he said, referring to his companions and volunteers.

- What, and Tahiti too? - Asked one of the volunteers.

- Yes, and Tahiti too! - Limolua answered firmly, and after a pause, added, - We lack only one thing, namely, a person who can solve such a task ... "

The meeting between King Limo and ex-Sergeant Chris with tairi and Haoto could be attributed to those coincidences about which the Kanaks say: "E Paoro teie" (This is Fortune). From the atoll of Aitutaki, where they lived, to Rapatar, less than 300 miles away - not a distance for such guys. tairi, recently graduated from the home in Aitutaki, the college of computer design of mobile objects, and Haoto learned from the four-year program "engineering hydro-aeromechanics" at the University of Raiatea. After listening to the terms of the "fishermen and flyers" task, Tairi nodded slightly, and Haoto asked: "Well, what will we do for it, in monetary terms?" Limogua called the approximate amount of the contract, and the share of new partners, and then asked: how they intend to force a fly with such dimensions. tairi replied: "Have you seen a beetle? How many of his wings are wide, when he folds them? ". Haoto added: "Insects have one mechanic for folding their wings, and for controlling the angles of attack in flight. Half a billion years work, figure it out?"

Of course, everything was not so simple. The volunteers of the project had to first digitise the sketch of the machine, then a month to play with its numerical variants on the computer, and with the radio-controlled toy prototypes stamped on the fubber.

The result of these exercises resembled a hybrid of a frivolous butterfly with a paper airplane. This model was named "Orivaa" (on utafoa - "dancing boat"), and someone cynically called her "origami for kamikaze".

Toy "Orivaa" flew perfectly (however, children's paper birds also fly perfectly), but a manned pattern ... Before the first tests Limo told the pilot: "You jump in any doubt, this is an order." For the guy-utafoy jump into the sea from 20 meters is not a danger, which can not be said about falling into the water from the same height in the cockpit of the aircraft. I did not have to jump, however. The machine easily took off from the water, made a couple of laps at low altitude and just as easily faded. Then there was a lot of routine, and each new test confirmed the excellent flight characteristics of the flyer. As later, authoritative experts explained, there was nothing strange about this. Just before, no one has tried to organize the bearing planes in this way. Rather, none of the people have tried, and Rhyniella (a distant ancestor of grasshoppers and dragonflies) flew with the same wings scheme more than 400 million years ago. Nil novi sub Luna.

After the hauoli in honor of the success of the project, the partners and partners gathered for the meeting, and the king said another historical phrase:

"The economic miracle we've worked on for so many years can be considered accomplished, but we will not move a step forward until here at our Rapatar will not have his own technical university."

The essence of the problem was clear: while Rapatar has no center for professional growth, young smart guys, potential engineers, scientists and managers will look for such centers elsewhere: in Tahiti, Rarotonga, or in general somewhere in Samoa, and hardly when -or come back home. Rapatar, like many other small peripheral islands with a good basic secondary education, will be a donor of promising young people for district centers, and the reverse flow of specialists will be an order of magnitude smaller. No social benefits will change the direction of this process.

With this attitude, Limogua went to another conference on the development of small islands, and arranged a grandiose scandal there, because he clearly formulated the idea that had long been played in the heads of many sensible provincial mayors. He did not have to say anything else - everything else was done by others. In the next elections, equal access to higher education in all points of the Confederation fell into the "top list" of the public inquiry card, and the government team began to organise a system of virtual higher schools. But the companions were not going to wait a single day, and immediately after the return of the king, they created Cyber-life architecture college (CLAC) on Rapatar.

"Clac" for lingua-franco is a conical hat-Vietnamese. It was decided to make it the emblem of the college: a hat-logo, hats for students and the college building itself in the form of a hat. To build a hat-cone in 3 floors by modern technology is not difficult, but how to make it not just a hat, but a Hat (with a capital letter). "There must be a drive in this Hat! - said Ailoo (once again remembering her Bachelor of Arts and Design), - It should be such a hat, before which I want to take off my hat!"

To create a drive without violating the strict simplicity of the "Vietnamese", a third of the circle of the 2nd floor was turned into a terrace, and above it a wide balcony of the third floor was made. The Vietnamese hat itself, repeating this design, was transformed into a grotesque conical umbrella for wearing on the head, with a slit across from the face and a visor. If desired, the owner could bend the fields up, and the "Vietnamese" turned into an analogue of the Mexican sombrero.

Companions did not expect, that a surreal umbrella hat would be anything more than just a "bouquet" for students and a souvenir for guests, but these hats proved to be very convenient to protect against the combined effects of sun and sea spray.

First, the sales agents began to buy them in bulk, and then E-mail came from General Commander Earo Taobati with a proposal to supply a party of umbrella hats for the Navy ... By itself, the "hat business" did not have a long-term perspective (it was clear that through year, these things will be produced by everyone who is not lazy). Much more important was the fame that the college acquired, and business contact with Comandante Taobati. Thanks to this acquaintance, a year later the Navy headquarters recalled the successful model of the "orivaa" flyer, and included CLAC in the list of engineering and engineering centers engaged in developments in the field of light-engine deck aviation.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

..

- Mata-i-rahi-roa may come to Tahiti in 5 days, - said King Limo, moving the glass on the table. - Forces wants to use it before it crosses FOL.

Haoto nodded, scratched behind tairi's ear (who had managed to doze off, putting her head on his lap), and replied:

- I know that there will be 12 Beauforts, but this is not a reason to conduct FOL. Why would?

- There are twelve Beauforts in this water area three times a year, at least, - tairi muttered sleepily, settling comfortably. If every time to perform FOL ...

- Why are you making a noise again? - Said the youngest son of Ailoo, a five-year-old boy, who had completely exhausted his motor activity, dabbling in the course of dinner, and now, curled up, lay almost between tairi and Haoto.

- You know, Tlali, - Ailoo, sitting in the deckchair, responded, and stretching out her hand, tickled the little heel of her son. - I suspect that it's time for you to go to sleep in the nursery. - If you want my suspicion to turn into confidence ...

- I do not want to, - he answered quickly, and began to pretend to be asleep.

Ailoo chuckled and, answering Tairi's question, explained:

- We are promised 5 Saffirs. And this, as you know, is already serious.

- Are you joking? - said Haoto, incredulously.

She shrugged.

- If you want, let'a get in touch with Uiraiti. She is with Lysanto and Arno in Tai-o-Khai, at Nuku-Khiva.

Jeanne, desperate to understand what is at stake, raised her hand to draw attention.

- Can I ask for a comment for the press? Who are these Beauforts, Saffirs and ...

- It's very simple, - interrupted tairi, finally waking up. - The Beaufort Scale of wind. 12 points is a storm with a wind speed of 30 meters per second or more. For them, there is the Saffir-Simpson scale. 5 points on it give at 70 meters per second and higher. If such a hurricane passes through a populated island, this is a complete asshole.

- 70 meters per second? - Asked the Canadian.

- 70 is the lower limit for 5 points, - said Haoto, - it maybe 100, even 120.

Limolua finished his glass, took a laptop from the shelf, and sat down next to Jeanne.

- Now I'll explain it to you normally. - The picture is loading ... This is our map, as they said under the old regime, French Polynesia. Cyclone Egle was born here, in the open ocean, about a thousand miles to the west-south-west from the Galapagos, at the 6th degree of south latitude. As other cyclones, it moves from east to west with a speed of 250 miles per day, and then began to gradually deviate to the south, and ...

"Something does not come out with arithmetic," she interrupted, "a meter per second is about 2 miles per hour." And if you multiply by 70, you get 140 miles per hour. So, for the day ...

- No! - the king loudly slapped his hand on the bare thigh, - This is a completely different speed! Hey Pou! ...

- Do not bother the girl, - Ailoo stopped him, - she is with Kiango there. They are occupied.

- Aah, - drawled Limo, and after a short pause, shouted, - Riti! Take some laptop, and bring it here! ... E faaroo oe Riti? ... Viti-viti oe!

- I teie nei! - was heard in response from the third floor.

The king slapped his thigh again.

- I have to repeated three times until they hear ... And so, a hurricane, and scientifically, a tropical cyclone, is an air funnel, up to 12 thousand meters in height and a diameter of 400 miles. The funnel itself creeps over the ocean at the speed of the boat, but inside it spins like a madman, and in the middle it has an eye 20 miles wide. Type as an axis around which everything is spinning. In this eye there is a negative pressure of one tenth of the atmosphere ...

Riti appeared, dressed in a chain of luminescent plastic rings of different colors, thrown over her left shoulder to her right thigh (where on one of the rings hung a mobile).

- There is no negative pressure, - she said, putting the laptop next to the king, - and what's in the cyclone is called a "low pressure zone". Do you still have some coffee?

- Yes, - limo grumbled. - There, a whole coffee pot. As for the pressure, I said so to make it clearer. And, since you're here, find a view of Egle from the satellite.

- ,I think I'll call the guys in Tai-a-Hae, - said Ailoo thoughtfully, - I worry about them. At the beginning of a century ago, such a cyclone nearly knocked Vanua Lava.

- It's been a long time, - said Riti, flicking the keys.

- Right. But the physics remained the same. At 5 Saffera from fare there are only piles.

- But now we have a bomb, do we, Ai?

- Yes, - agreed Ailoo. This is some exit.

Ritye turned her laptop to Jeanne and, pouring herself a cup of coffee, proudly announced:

- Online from the satellite, which watches Egle. You see, it's like a funnel with sleeves. And to the left and below the funnel are the Marquis Archipelago. Here is the island of Nuku-Khiva, it's 1200 miles away from us on the North-East. There's Wyr, Lis and Arno. They are cool! Ai and Limo just call them.

- And what about the bomb? - Asked Jeanne.

- Yeah. If the hurricane reaches FOL, they will drop the L-bomb. Like, here it is. - She pointed her finger at the cyclone's eye in the satellite image.

- And FOL is ..?

- Frontier of liquidation, - explained Rity, having sipped coffee, - In order that the hurricane does not hit a motu with many inhabitants. If a hundred or two, they are evacuated, and if more, they beat the hurricane with L-bomb. It will loses the low pressure zone, and it falls apart. We went through physics. I can even draw! And Limo simply bzz that I poorly learn at school.

– Do not be impudent! - bellowed King Limolua, and explained to the receiver, - It's not for you, it is for Riti.

Let's go back to the bomb, - the Canadian suggested. As I understand it, it's a hydrogen bomb.

- It's a type of hydrogen, but it's clean, - said Riti. - There's no fission. Only synthesis. Damn, how to explain? At school, the nuclear physics only on the finger level. She's being taught in college.

- And in the press they write that it's just a powerful hydrogen bomb, - said Jeanne.

- They're lying! - I explain: it's clean. Do you want me to find a FAQ about it on the Internet?

Without waiting for an answer, she pounded on the keys, and titlrs appeared at the screen: "L-BOMB: destruccion de huracanes para proteccion de isla pueblos. FAQ ». "L-BOMB: Iriti-tapu e mata-i-rahi-roa mea oe motu fare-fare tia-i. FAQ ». "L-BOMB: destruction of hurricane for protection of island villages. FAQ ».

- You click there "engli" or "lifra", as you prefer, - explained Riti, moving the laptop closer to the Canadian, - and I'll leave the mobile for you? If the call-call, say that i-haere-fare viti-viti.

Leaving this instruction, she pulled up her chain with the mobile and put on the mat, then ran short and jumped over the balcony fence with a swallow. Heels flashed in the air, and a second later a loud burst came from below.

- It's horrible, - Ailoo said, following her flight. - It's good that my daughter never does that.

- He does not, - confirmed Limolua, and after a pause, added, - When you look after her.

- So ... Would you like to say that ...

- And you did not know! What did she do at her age?

- How would you know? When we met, I was already almost 19.

- Well yes! At 19 you already jumped from the flyers. If, to put it scientifically, extrapolate into the past, then the jumps from the balcony will be exactly 13 years.

- I jumped from the flags? Ailoo asked indignantly. "I jumped myself, did not I?" Who was at the helm and podnachival? Kon-Tiki? Fernao Magellan? Ah, I remember! Limo Haamea!

- No! At the wheel was Chris, and you yourself came up with a jump, and suggested the same for me!

- Okay, there was Chris at the helm, but you said «Y que si saltar desde aqui»!

- I said "what if ...". I did not think of doing it, but you jumped. What was left for me?

- Okay, we'll check now, - Ailoo said calmly, slipping off the chaise longue, lightly touching the clasp on her shoulder, and her bright red-blue sarong flew to the floor. - Hey, Rity, sail away from the balcony!

Of course, Ailoo was considerably larger and bigger than Riti, but in her figure and movements there was a peculiar heavy grace, peculiar to 40-year-old women - "melano" - Tongaykas, Fijians or Maori originating from the islands not far from Papua. For Europeans, such dimensions would mean unaesthetic obesity, but here there was a complete roundness of the forms, which was not spoiled even by folds on the sides. Ailoo quickly walked to the fence and jumped it, strongly pushing her hand away from the edge. The ensuing surge was not louder than the previous one: the "clean" entrance to the water.

- These are not wives, but mockeries, - the king said, getting to his feet and untying the knot in his old-fashioned lava-lava. - They will some day drive me crazy, like it happened with the great John Nash. I watched the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about him. Nearly did not cry.

- The mathematician-economist Nash had one wife, - Jeanne informed.

- Well yes. He had enough and one. He was just urban, but we are rural. We are stronger.

After this thoughtful observation, Limolua started suddenly, like an attacking rhinoceros, and soared above the fence, like a heavy stone core from an ancient mortar. Then "Plyuh !!!" was heard and, in a few seconds, a loud and booming contented snort.

...

8 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: April 22, 20 years of the Charter. Morning. Location: Western Hawaii - North Kiribati. Showroom. The height is less than 3000 meters.

Max Lynx slept for about 10 hours. When he woke up, it was early morning again. The sun was still quite low, but it was already felt how big and hot it was. Below lay a blue-gray uniform canvas of the ocean, separated from the azure, as if painted sky, a little blurred white stripe on the horizon. Nong and Ufti slept, reclining on the seats. Ron was at the helm, and Kirk could hear the ukulele, a pocket (more precisely, half-meter) Hawaiian guitar, and he sang softly, but not in soft Hawaiian or utafo, but in some hard language.

"Kjoll ferr austan, koma munu Muspells, um log lydir, en Loki styrir; fara f; flmegir med freka allir, peim er brodir Byleists i for. Surtr ferr sunnan, med sviga lavi, skinn af sverdi sol valiva ... ».

- How did you sleep, Doc Linkes? - He asked, putting down the guitar, - how do you feal?

- I slept well, but well-being ... It seems that the magic of your cactus is exhausted, and I have a natural hangover. Do not pay attention, okay? And what are you singing?

- This is Veluspa. The oracle of Velva, from the "Elder Edda". Epos of the Vikings. Century IX, probably. The language is Old Norse. Type of the current Icelandic. And the guitar is just for rhythm.

- It looks like some sort of spell," - Max remarked. - What's this about?

- About Ragnarok. A battle that will destroy the old order. From the east in the boat, Muspell, people are floating on the waves, and Loki rules; The sons of giants are riding with a wolf, Booleist's brother is riding in a boat with them. Surt rides from the south with a ruining branch, the sun shines on the swords of the gods...

The Englishman forced himself to smile (which was not easy) and jokingly asked:

- And, suddenly it was a prototype for "So comrades, come rally, And the last fight let us face?

The first rustled Ron, and after him Kirk.

- Are you out there, oherli? Ufti asked sleepily.

- Imagine, Doc Linkes likened the wicket from the Elder Edda to the Internationale.

Papuan burst out laughing almost in Nongu's ear. He yawned, took a cigarette out of his pocket and, lighting it, calmly asked:

- So what? Everywhere they write about the last battle the same way. And nowhere is it the last. This is Ho Chi Minh said, but he did not invent it himself, but somewhere he heard it.

- You should not smoke in the middle of the cabin, commander, - said Ron, - come here, under the swiller.

- All right, - said the Vietnamese, and climbed forward. - By the way, Kirk, you asked me to remind you that the dock stuff was in the bag under the stretcher. I remind you.

- Jo! Said the paramedic, took out the parcel and put it on the table, - here, Doc Links. Here everything that you had. Except clothes. Hot to say.. For hygiene reasons. Ah?

- Correctly. Probably, and this is not necessary, but I want to keep something?

What can stay in the pockets of hobo? One and a half pound trifle. Knife-opener for beer bottles. Plaster roller. Electronic clock - cheap stamping. Ticket from the station turnstile. A spare shoe lace. Another lace tied to be worn around the neck, and on it - a flat key from the French lock and an electronic notepad with the advertisement "Bristol beer factory".

- It's funny, - he said, shaking the tied string on his index finger, so that the objects on it were quietly tinkling together - a notebook nut nothing to write down there and a key that has nothing to open. The former wife quickly changed the lock on the front door. I could have demanded the key through the court, because the apartment belonged to both of us, but at first I did not want to, and then - you understand. I found out, that we were divorced, only when I landed in jail. And my share of the apartment is gone due to payment I do not remember what. Maybe alimony? And in the notebook, I drew the devils there. I was not so lonely with them.

- Can I see them? - Asked Ufti.

- It's unlikely," said Dr. Lynx, - the battery is dead long ago..

- And I can deflate them on leftover-traces. There is an apparatus for this. But if you are against ...

- Not at all.

Max untied the bundle on a string, took off his notebook and handed it to the Papuans. Then he took off the key and turned it in his hands.

- Probably, it is necessary to throw out somewhere.

- What are you saying, doc! - Kirk was surprised, - There is aku there!

- As you said?

- Aku, - he repeated, - it's like the spirit of an amulet.

- Some kind of nonsense.

- Kirk is right, - said Ufti, connecting something to the laptop, - Without aku, the knot would have been untied, and everything would have been lost. He was almost not tightened!

- Um ... And why is this spirit in the key, and not in a cord or in a notebook?

- Because in synthetics aku does not exist, - Nong said authoritatively, approaching them, - it's said in any book on feng shui. And in metal objects, aku is often, it is called a "white tiger". This key must be hung in the westernmost corner of the house.

- That's right, - Ron said. - And in the east corner, you have to put a dragon.

- Azure dragon, - the Vietnamese specified punctually, - it should be made of wood. So, all search in pockets, he should be somewhere.

- Do not fumble, - said Ufti. "The dragon is with me."

Papuus handed Dr. Links a 4-inch-long, bamboo cylinder with holes.

- It's the same thing. A real yap bamboo peeple. I bought it before departure, on the Ulysses atoll. I thought, just like that, but it turns out, here it is. Hold it.

- Thank you, - Max, took a strange instrument, turned it in his fingers and gently blew. There was a low hum, as if a thick, fluffy bumblebee had flown through the cabin.

- It's really a real Yap, - Kirk said appreciatively. - Now everything's OK with you. Put it into your pocket and sit down to drink coconut milk. Pure-natural product.

- Information for tourists! - Ron said. - The Midway Atoll, the US National Wildlife Refuge, will soon be visible at right. Very beautiful. And after it, Kirk promised to change me for helm. I just remind, for a case.

Max took from the hands of a paramedic a huge mug of a dull white drink, thanked him, made few sips (ok, drinkable), and turned to Nong:

- We decided that the arrival point is Futuna. And what will I do there?

- And what would you like to do there?

- H'm ... Strange statement of the question. I was not even going there.

- And where were you going?

- Where? - asked Dr. Lynx, - Yes, nowhere, probably. I would try to find something to drink and, maybe, something to eat. However, it is possible that I would be taken to the police station and fed there. But I would have to search for booze, in any case, independently. And what was the meaning of your question?

- I try to understand, why the Bristol area can be better for you, than other places on the planet.

- You do not understand, - Lynx said, making a few more sips, - because it's no better. Honestly, after the events at the university and in the family ... Did you probably read my file?

- Yes, - the scout confirmed.

- In that case, you will not be surprised to hear, that everything there is disgusted for me.

– I am not surprised.

– … But that does not mean, - continued the doctor, - that it does not matter for me, where to be and what to do. Yesterday I did not care, but now - another situation. Do you understand?

- Of course I understand.

- In that case, why the devil do you keep me suspended? What is you goal and interest? What will be with me?

From the opposite seat the voice of "purebred Papuan"

- By the way, doc, I downloaded your :devils". And not only devils, but all you had there. Can I see everything or only devils? ..

- Look what you like, Ufti, - Max answered, and went back to talking to Nong. - So, I, like any other person, I want to know why they're taking me somewhere.

- I told. Because of triffids.

- Please, explain. Triffids. The archives is stolen. I am kidnapped. So, what is next?

- Perhaps, you are supposed to make triffids again. But I do not have enough knowledge in biology to explain this. As soon as we do not need radio silence anymore, and you'll talk a colleague who can explain everything in scientific language.

– And when will this need cease?

- I'll tell you for sure. Ron, how much do we have left to the North Tropic?

- About an hour and a half, - was heard from the pilot's chair.

- What does the Northern Tropic? - Asked Max.

It's the "Meganesian red frontier", Nong replied. - We've been a bit naughty in Britain, and after this line we're under the cover of our Air Force, and we can no longer disguise ourselves.

- Well. I understood this part. Let's say there are special questions of biology. But the question: to whom and for what purpose should I, according to your thoughts, have to work, it no special question of biology.. Please, answer.

The Vietnamese lifted his palms in front of his chest and, clearly sharing the words, said:

- Dr. Maximilen Lawrence Links, in Meganesia, you do not owe anything to anyone. You can work for anyone, or for yourself. True, you will be required to pay contributions at the place of business, but in another country you would pay taxes. And if you decide to leave for another country, this is your right under the Charter, and no one will detain you.

- I do not understand a damn thing, - sighed Max, - In Futuna, then I can get from your plane, I can get to the nearest airport ...

- You can even get there walking, - said Nong, - three miles from Kolia to Velen airport.

"Walk to the nearest airport.. - the doctor repeated. But I have neither documents nor money, and I can not fly away, right?

- Not at all. If you want to fly, then go 3 miles in the other direction to Malaae, and there go to court. The court will send you where you say; all expenses will be withdrawn from the intelligence budget. I will personally be fined for voluntarism.

- But I have no documents. -

- So, much the worse for us. The court will restore the documents you need at our expense.

- Do not forget about coconut milk, - the paramedic intervened. - You may drink the whole mug.

Dr. Lynx nodded, took a sip, and asked:

- So, you expect, that I will not go to court, and I will not demand sending back?

- Yes, - the scout answered shortly.

Oh, mein Gott! - muttered Max,

- E foa! - Ron shouted, - look to the left and forward, the Midway Atoll is seen. Beauty!

One could admire the atoll during during almost a half an hour. The lagoon looked like a salad heart, painted on the blue-gray surface of the ocean. Two islands on the reef barrier from this distance looked bright dark green triangles.

- Futuna and Alofi are still better, - Ufti said afterwards, "Just more beautiful, that's all!"

- The most beautiful is Kwajalein atoll, there is nothing better, - Kerk said, replacing Ron at the helm.

- Disagree! - Ufti was indignant. - The biggest does not mean the most beautiful. If you want to know, the most beautiful island is Raiatea. Aesthetic fact!

- For me, the most beautiful place in the world is the Takunalaiu atoll, - Nong said firmly.

- It's different, - Ron said seriously. - It's psychology. - For us, Takunalau, it's like ...

- As Thao for Nong, - said Kirk without turning round. <-- replaced Thai to Thao to avoid confusion !-->

- What sense is to compare my wife to atoll? - Asked the Vietnamese.

- Sense is the following. You look at it subjectively. Another woman is less beautiful for you, simply because she is not Thai.

- Kirk is Freudian, - Ron snorted. - He considers a ring atoll is a female symbol.

- He said a clever thing, - Nong observed.

- Aha! - agreed Ufti, - Freud would approve you! is it true, Doc Links?

Max Lynx shrugged his shoulders.

- To be honest, I did not catch the subject of the dispute.

- Well, we participated in a humanitarian operation on this atoll, - he explained. - We have all kinds of memories about this ... By the way, doc, you would look at your devils.

In the notebook there were not only devils. There was a very rough sketch about which Max did not remember, but before it instantly realized what it was. Gene transfer with the participation of marine algae and ferns. Probably, when he painted, he meant something like that. But what? "I'll deal with a more peaceful moment," he decided. In addition, there was a short text in the notebook. Three-instinct in the style of Japanese hokku: It's crash in the sky Hopelessly and brightly Small star falling down

- Yours, doc? Ron asked, looking at the screen.

- Mine.

- Did you write under a bad mood?

- Worst mood, - Dr. Links said glumly.

- Hey, what's a reason for that? - Ufti intervened. - Life is beautiful! Kirk, will I take the ukulele while you still spin the bagel?

– The Scandinavian nodded, and the "purebred Papuan" took a mini-guitar, ran his fingertips over four strings, slightly adjusted the instrument, and announced:

- Warm-up: a folkloric Papuan ballad about the love of a large old blue whale and a small young glowing deep-sea cuttlefish, in my translation to basic-en.

...

He sang songs one by one, with incredible ease, and Max thought that this guy belongs to the category of people for whom singing is as natural as breathing. Then a tone came from the speaker. Kirk touched the tuner, making the sound almost two times louder, threw up his hand with a clenched fist, and shouted:

- Joder! We did it!

Ron and Nong plunged applauded, and Ufti, striking the strings, recited:

That the speedy dark-brilliant dragon comes, Nithhogg flying from dark peacks Nithafjoll, Platoon of the strong men on his wings he bears, The serpent bright, that's the line of airwall!

- De puta madre! You perverted the Wiccan from the Elder Edda! Kirk protested.

However, it was evident that the indignation was faked. Ufti winked, put the ukulele and two palms with his fingers spread out, showed him a "long nose", as they do in children's games. Dr. Lynx, in complete perplexity, looked at this fun, not understanding its cause. Nong, having calmed down first, touched his shoulder and explained.

- Everyone is happy that we are already at home. We did a good job, returned, everyone is having fun, and so Kirk shouts, waves and swears with Ufti.

- I'm arguing because this Papuassian pseudo-skald has distorted the text that has high culturally value.

- I translated it well, - retorted Ufti, - and this aggressive, rude Icelandic idiot swears, because he himself does not know how to literally translate ftom native epic.

- He translated, how! - Scandinavian snorted contemptuously, - Especially the last words.

- And what? - Ufti asked innocently. - The Vikings knew tornadoes, hence the airwall.

- Do not listen to him, Doc. "Thats the line of airwall" is just a message from the board computer. - Kirk tapped the panel in front of him. - We were detected by border patrol drone, we entered the guarded airspace of Meganesia. And Ufti is a falsifier.

- I'm a populariser of the epos, - he protested. - You know, Doc Links, the myth "Makemake o-o toona kohu" in my treatment, even published in the French "Revue historique". Then, however, they wrote that it was a mistake, but nevertheless ...

Max shook his head.

- I'm sorry, Ufti, but I do not know the oceanic languages. -

- This is in the dialect of Rapa Nui means: "As the first god entered his shadow". By the way, that God made love with his shadow, and this gave birth to the universe. Life-affirming ancient myth. In addition, it can be sung, listen, - he again took a ukulele, sang a short song in a melodic language, similar to Hawaiian, and asked: - Well, how about you, doc? Tell me honestly: is it really cool?

- It's beautiful, - agreed Dr. Lynx. - But, sorry, I do not understand the words ... (he turned to Nonga) ... we agreed that as soon as we were in the territory of your country, you would let me talk with someone who could explain the essence of the matter to me.

- Aita pe-a, - said the Vietnamese, smiling, - no problem. Now I'll call him.

...

11 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: April 22, 20 years of the Charter. Day. Location: Central Meganesia, Futuna Island, Kolia village, fare Carpini. Online: flyer over Kiribati.

- So ... Children! Go away, take a walk outside. You absolutely do not need to hear how we'll swear with your mother ... Fleur, Lucy, did you hear what I said? How many times do I have to repeat? ... I see you watch the movie, you may take the TV with you and watch it in the garden ...

- It is necessary? - Chubby asked.

- Unfortunately yes…

- Well, if it's necessary ... Girls, it will be good if you still tear off your beautiful eyes from the screen and go to the garden. There is no worse than here. If you believe that I'm wrong, then tell me what. And if not, I would like to see you there in 30 seconds.

...

- They obey you right away, for some reason, - said Michele in half a minute.

"I have experience working with young personnel, - she answered. - I'm not going to stop you from arguing, if I start to cook a little dinner?.. Since we will have guests ...

- It's called "guests"? Let me clarify: these are your four thugs and the Man whom they have kidnapped, using his helpless condition and their bruteal force ...

– You might think they had beaten him. - Chubby snorted, spreading a variety of vegetables and fruits on the table from a large basket in the corner.

- Could they beat him?? Do you even understand that this is perhaps the most promising molecular geneticist in the whole of Britain? And the British school is not the last in the world! This mind is not understandable, treat a man like ... Like a vegetable! Here!

- What is here? - Chubby asked, at a dangerous speed, using an amphibious knife, so that the skin of eggplants and potatoes scattered in all directions. - How do you imagine the correct treatment of a man drunk to such a state that ...

- Humanly! He interrupted.

- And more specifically?

- Specifically? When once your men brought you drunk in trash ...

- I had returned from a military operation. -

- I do not say that you had no reason to get drunk. I tis not the topic.

- And what is the topic?

- That I, as a normal cultured person, washed you in the shower, listened to your, frankly speaking, not so coherent chatter, laid you off to sleep, and in the morning fed you a hot sweet and sour sweet mashed potatoes with butter, and poured a glass of good Chinese vodka, so that by the evening you were like a new.

- You are a wonderful man, - she said. - The cleverest, the most affectionate ...

- I'm very glad that you think so, but ...

- But, - interrupted Chubby, - how would you suggest to organise the rapid extraction of an inadequate person from the territory controlled ..."

- Please leave this monstrous slang! - It can justify any shit. It seems to me that it was invented for this.

- All right, darling. How to get a drunk to insensibility person from a country where there is a very good police and a very serious military counterintelligence service?

- I do not know. It's a professional question, and I have a different profession. But when the mobile calls, and the person to whom I have the deepest respect, as an expert, as a brilliant scientist, as a teacher ... So, when this person says: "You know, Michele, what happened to me? I was grabbed by some people, shaken out of clothes, rinsed in the bay like a dirty rag, thrown on the plane like a sack of potatoes, and said that you will later explain everything to me ... ". What should I say to him, Chubby?

- Did he say that to you? - She asked.

- He softened the expressions. But it is not important.

- And what did you answer him?

- That's not important either. - I got out, but do not think it was easy.

- And still?

- Is this an interrogation?

- I'm sorry, dear. This is ordinary female curiosity. You see, we women ...

- If you're interested, I said: You know, Max, I'm terribly ashamed, and I do not know how to justify myself, so I'll just tell you one short story. In some country, a small institute grew rats from zygotes, in the chromosomes of which several human genes were built-in. This was learned by representatives of an authoritative religious organisation and arranged a "blocking picket" in front of the building of the institute. The head of the institute called the police, and they arrested all the picketers and organisers of the picket and took them to the local court. A panel of three judges sentenced all those arrested to death and sent this decision to the district court. The condemned men spent the night on death row, and in the morning, the district court replaced the execution with deportation. They were kicked out of the country, leaving them only clothes, shoes and a toothbrush. The courts here always act this way, but the shooting is not always replaced by deportation. In a few hours you will get to this country, but it's good or bad there - you decide.

- And what did he say? - Asked Chubby.

- He said: I'm very sorry ... - Michele paused, - ... that the verdict has been revised.

--

Dr. Lynx turned away from the porthole, which he had silently looked at for a few minutes before, rubbed his temples with his hands, and asked:

Can either of you lend me an electric razor? Do not think for the whim, but I do not want to meet Michele in this beard. I've never worn it before.

- Nothing strange, - Kirk said. - I do not like to walk with my beard either. - But there is a small problem: none of us use an electric shaver.

- Well, well, - Max sighed. - An old-fashioned razor with a blade will suit me.

- OK. Can I help you, doc? And then you have a little trembling hands.

- They tremble tremendously, - he said. - But to hell with this, I'll cut myself a little.

Kirk shook his head.

- Do not, doc. A razor of this design ... (he extracted a knife with a six-inch blade from the shoulder cover) ... causes very deep cuts.

- There are things a man must do himself, - the doctor said firmly.

Kirk looked inquiringly at the commander. He shrugged, then nodded.

...

12 - CURRENT MOMENT
Date / Time: 1 - 2 September 22 years of the Charter. Night. Location: Meganesia, Sotsiete, o. Rapatar. Residence of King Limoleua Haamea.

From the corner where they slept, curled up in the pose of Chinese dragons in love, tairi and Haoto, there was a displeased chorus grumbling.

– What the hell is that? Who arranged the barks? .. And where are all?

- Everyone jumped from the balcony into the sea, - the Canadian replied, - first Rity, then ...

- Ah, I see, - interrupted tairi. - It's a family tradition. -

- They either jump themselves, or shove someone, - Haoto added. - In general, it's not on the subject. We fell asleep, these swam away, and you are bored.

- I do not miss, I read the FAQ about the L-bomb. I mean, I just started reading.

- Do not, suggested tairi. - I'll explain it easier. By the way, it's just a hydrogen bomb with a laser ignition. A ball of lithium-6 deuteride is heated and pressed from all sides by a laser pulse. When the required temperature and density are reached, a multistage thermonuclear synthesis of tritium begins in the ball, and then helium begins. Well, everything goes on like in a conventional hydrogen bomb. Theoretically, this trick was invented in the middle of the 20th century, but then the thermonuclear process was able to be launched only by a nuclear charge, operating by the fission reaction. I mean, on uranium-235 or plutonium-239. Well, an ordinary atomic bomb, from which remains a huge pile of shit, in the sense of heavy radioactive isotopes of strontium, caesium, iodine and further by Mendeleev. The L-bomb is quite another matter. No radioisotope contamination. There are few induced radiations in the remnants of the bomb itself, and light radioactive isotopes with an atomic mass of less than 8. This means that beyond the blast radius, the L-bomb is safe. This is the whole thing.

Meganesian, weary with her long monologue, said "Uff" and fell silent.

- And what is the power of this bomb? - Asked Jeanne.

- Better to say not "power", but the energy released, – tairi corrected. - We are not a rich country, so we made all the bombs of the same energy, one hundred petaJoules.. If you are more accustomed to the TNT equivalent, this is 24 megatons.

- But this is something terrible! This can completely destroy any city!

- Better to say, several cities at once.. It is possible; but here, no one is going to do this.

- By the way, the French offi, in the middle of the last century, in our city of Mururoa, blew up a 20-megaton bomb, - Haoto interjected. - And dirty, which is typical. It's 800 miles east of here, you can fly and see. There, even the atoll cracked. They have tested 10 different bombs there, hammered everything you can. Morons! They would be blown over the ocean if they were impatient. American Offi also did. Atoms of Enewetak and Bikini. Dirty hydrogen bombs of 20 megatons. Freaks. We do not have much land ...

- And what's there now? - asked the Canadian, - I mean, on these atolls.

- How "war"? Normal. The people live. Of course, some places had to be cleaned. Fucking testers did not take the shit out with them. They had enough land but they are used to ...

- Wait! How can this be cleaned?

- Usually. The robot runs on the gradient of the radioactive background. Finds the source and begins to collect this staff. Washing out, filtering, distilling, and so on.

- Lotu amoto, company "Playa Artificial" made good money on this, - Ailoo said, climbing the balcony along the ladder. - They were mining unburned nuclear fuel. The efficiency of those ancient atomic bombs was lower than that of a locomotive. Up to 97 percent of the charge remained and condensed in the form of micro-dust. Amigos, throw me that thing.

Haoto rose, took off a large fluffy towel, hanged on the ledge of one of the beams, and threw it across the terrace. Ailoo caught it in the air, and, wiping herself on the move, went to the one of the laptops on which the path of the cyclone Egle was traced.

- Where's Limo? - tairi asked.

- Swam along with that hooligan to race across the lagoon and back. In general, they booth are hooligans, and Riti, in addition, is a bisexual. I am mother of two children, but they dragged me into group sex, practically in front of civilians. By the way, about the children. Tali, go to the nursery! ... Tairi, push him out of the rookery, he will not get up.

- Yes, I already got up! - said the boy, and really stood up (although not immediately) - Ma, and what does "bisexual" mean?

- Well, this is such a girl. I'll explain to you tomorrow if you do not forget this question by morning.

- And if I forget?

- So it's not very interesting to you. Goodnight, dear. I dream to admire your beautiful straight back, climbing the stairs, if you understand what I'm talking about.

Ailoo watched her son, stretched her whole body, and asked, – Jeanne, why are you interested in the old nuclear tests?

- It is not a case, I'm interested in new ones. This L-bomb ... It's like a hundred Hiroshimas! You can not do it this way!

- Not a hundred, but seven hundred, - Haoto corrected. - And why not? - It's a pure bomb.

- Does not matter. It's a nuclear bomb!

- So what? - tairi asked, handling the boiler. - I have an idea: to make cakao.

The idea was met with an approving rumbling. Jeanne, meanwhile, found an argument.

- Marine animals and birds will be killed. They will not know ...

- They have known; for a long time, - interrupted Haoto. - They leave from the path of the hurricane. Arno and Lisanto user this to drawing their forecast for Egle's movement. Meteorologists claimed that the center of the cyclone should pass north of the Marquesas Islands at latitude 6, then, between the Line Islands, at latitude 8, and there, losing speed, would turn south and disintegrate 500 miles north of Rarotonga. Our Reno and Lysanto listened to whale conversations, and decided that the situation would develop differently: the center of the cyclone would immediately begin to deviate to the south. It will pass along the 7th latitude, describe an arc about a thousand miles long, counterclockwise, moving south-west, and in full bloom, will be at the 17th latitude, between Tahiti and Raiatea. And, it seems, our guys guessed the first point.

Correctly, – Ailoo corrected, – Egle should pass it within a day.

- Lieutenant Arnaud Elmer is smart, - tairi added, dealing with the coffee pot. - His communicative ecology has already killed many of professors ...

- Actually, the professors were defeated by the talking whales, - said Haoto.

Canadian raised her hands:

- Guys, I do not understand even a half of what you say.

- They're just poofs, - Ailoo said, reassuring her. - I'll explain it to you on the fingers, as Riti says. According to forecasts of meteorologists, in its strong stage, Egle was to go to the west, hardly deviating to the south. Then it should touched only the sparsely populated Northern Marquises, and after them would have gone to that part of the ocean where there are no islands, and there it should dissolve. But Egle goes as our guys have predicted. He will touch the Central Marquises: the islands of Nuku-Khiva and Ua-Huku, where 20 thousand people live, and from the newly populated small double northern island of Eiao-i-Hatutu sweeps everything except the rocks.

- It seems that you discussed something with Arno about the evacuation of Eiao, - tairi remarked, pouring a huge cocoa cup to everyone, - but I was almost asleep.

- With evacuation everything is ordinary. - The inhabitants were taken to Mokhotani, 200 miles to the southeast. The trick is that our factory offered to build a new pueblo for them.

- Like, Rapater-2? - Haotoo winked, - is Haamea's new microeconomic miracle?

- More precisely, Meyer-2, - said Ailoo cheerfully. - Haamea-fenua will expand for 2500 miles, from the Marquises in the northeast to Kermadec at the southwest, and the CLAC will become almost a trans-ocean college! Joder! In this there is a drive! Residents all figured it out and agreed. We need agreement from the technical experts, if you understand whom do I mean ...

- Fast and the Furious! - tairi interrupted admiringly. - We will participate, yes, Haoto?

- Still would! - he readily confirmed, - And how much is planned for this to weld?

Ailoo burst out laughing and, clinging to the excess of emotions, clapped her hands.

- You are absolutely unique! You drug us far array.. What did I stop at?. Oh yes. Leaving the Marquises, Egle will pass over the uninhabited water area, and will encircle an array of islands, among which are Tahiti and Raiatea. Hundreds of thousands of people will be 50 miles from the center of the cyclone, where the vortices are up to 100 meters per second. In 1906, 11 thousand people died from the hurricane in Tahiti. Papeete became ruins. But now, when there is an L-bomb, no one will allow this to happen again.

- But people can be evacuated, - Jeanne said. - In 2005, there were more than 400,000 residents in New Orleans, Louisiana, and they were evacuated before Hurricane Katrina.

Haoto scratched his head and suddenly asked:

- Had you visit the island of Newfoundland? Island, that's next to your Halifax?

- Not really close, 300 miles. Yes, I've been there; of course!

- Beautiful. Green ... This is in the summer. Small, touching old towns. The capital, St. John's, is the most ancient city in North America. It was founded in 1500 year. It's like the university campuses of England. Like Oxford. Although, Oxford is one and half times bigger. In St. John's, there are only a hundred thousand habitants. In 60 miles, there is Placentia, also a very old city - quite tiny, but there are dizzyingly beautiful hills on the bay. On the other side of the island is Corner Brook, a living exposition of the 18th century. Newfoundland, across the entire 250 miles, could have been reached by car, but there is a problem with roads. So, through the airport. Yes, there are still beautiful fjords on the north shore. And lakes with waterfalls in the center of the island, they just ... Do not describe in words! The whole island is a magical reserve, and it can be inspected in a few days ...

Jeanne suddenly noticed that her listeners exchanged strange glances.

- Guys, did I say something wrong? -

– How to explain - Haoto told, - All the land of Meganesia will fit in that reserve. In sum, area of our islands and atolls is smaller than area of the island of Newfoundland. That is the matter.

- We have the largest country in the world, - tairi added. - But it's very small. - There is room for maneuver, but there is no room for retreat. Well-being here is achieved only when we continue advancing.. This is not what I came up with. I quote Rocky Mityat.

- That's you quoting Van Horn, - Ailoo corrected. - And Rocky said so, or not ...

- I'm sorry, - said Jeanne, - but I'm completely confused. Here everything is so different ...

Ailoo nodded, agreeing.

- It's clear. Do you want some advice? Read "Atomic autodefence" by Obo Van Horn.

- Atomic self-defence? Autodefence? What is it about?

- Artistic Chronicle of Meganesia, - Tairi replied for her, - Like a historical novel-meditation. It's not very big, but there ... Haoto, how to explain this?

- Elementary, - he said. - In the process, this is Meganasian folklore. - More precisely, a monologue about folklore. About Van Horn - this, like, our Herodotus and Richard Feynman in one person. In the first days of the Civil War he came from New Zealand, to help our revolution. He fought two weeks, and then the administration realised, that he was a scientist, and transferred him to Tintung, in "Creatori" ... In short, it's better to read. Now he is at Tokelau, at the University of Fakaofo, teaches physical chemistry and something else there, and writes like that, as a hobby.

Ailoo listened, and said:

- Now this sea frog will come out, and we'll send it to the library, search for Van Horn. -

- Frogs are not marine, - Riti said authoritatively, appearing on the balcony. - They live in fresh water, and there are ... Oh!

This Limo, who followed her up the ladder, slapped her slightly on her ass.

- Aloha, foa, - he said, snorting. - What do you need Van Horne for?

- It's for me, - Jeanne specified, - well, since I'm writing about the country, then ...

- Ah, I understand ... Rity, run to my office and bring "Atomic Autodefenca". She is most likely in the left closet, the shelf is about the fourth ... or the fifth. Magazine format, thickness one inch. Red cover. If not, then on the shelves above the table. What if..

- In short, everywhere, - concluded Riti. "What is it about?"

- About everything. About revolution, science, war, love, trade, politics ...

- Like Mark Twain?" - interrupted the girl, vigorously jumping on one leg to shake the water out of her ears.

- Well, like that, - said the king. - You want to read it, too.

- Is not it early for her? - Asked Ailoo. - It's not childish, actually.

- Wow! - offendedly exclaimed Riti, - I'm almost in college studying!

- You still have six months until college, - Limolua snapped. - In short, run for the book.

She padded across the terrace, leaving behind pools of sea water, and, already from the stairs, she shouted cheerfully:

- I'll read it anyway! I read even the "Dance of Death" by Kyoko Hayashi. This way! – and Riti run away.

Ailoo followed her gaze and twirled her finger at her temple:

- The youth has gone bad. Read only what, you strongly disadvise.

- What's new with Egle? - Limo asked, stretching out on the mat, like a fat sleeping tiger.

- Meteorologists recognised a 1 degree shift at the Marquises, but the forecast will be updated only when the center of the cyclone crosses the 142nd meridian. They believe that before that it is impossible to say whether there it turns or not. Forces announced FOL on the 11th parallel. If everything goes as our guys say, the blast will be about 200 miles north of Rangiroa.

- Um ... And when do they want to test RedYeti?

Ailoo shrugged her shoulders.

- I think not later than a day before the explosion. - I would not take them longer. Whether it is not enough.

- It's logical, - he agreed. - I hope they deign to inform us not on the last day.

- Could you tell, what it's about? - Asked Jeanne.

- A new deck flyer for the Navy's boats, - tairi explained. - Named after a joke, in honour of the humanoid, who lives in Tibet. The soldiers want to test it inside the hurricane. Not a humanoid, I mean, but a flyer.

- Fly inside a hurricane? - But this is suicide!

- By the way, RedYeti is done especially for this, - said Haoto. - I mean, not for suicide, but for such flights. I say this, as co-author of the concept design. Imagine, you have to look for someone and save him in a storm. Any way, on the first tests, Ele Tiki will be at the helm; of course, no hurricane can scare her.

- Is she crazy?

- How could she be crazy? ... - he began. That moment, but from the stairs, jumping over three steps and waving a bright red paperback in the air, Riti appeared:

- I have it!! I got tired until I found it! Here you are! - and she handed the book to Jeanne ...

..

-********************************* Obo Van Horn. «Atomic Autodefenca». Sam Hopkins and military equipment. -*********************************

Each nation, formed as a cultural and economic community, has heroes - founders, id est, people who had formed the way of life specific for the given nation, the society, from others. In many countries, "lists of national heroes" are compiled by the government officials, by leaders of the ruling church, by the ruling party. In Meganesia, there are neither those, nor others, nor the third (All them were executed in the time of the Convention). The textbooks, in accordance with the "Bill of Culture", do not contain estimates of the role of specific individuals in the development of the country. In other words, the question of the founding heroes is completely given to the folklore, and everyone may interpret it, according to own personal preferences. I write about those people, who, in my opinion, played a key role in the formation of Meganesia. If someone wants to check the reliability of my presentation - no problem: most of the characters are alive and (at the time of writing these lines) feel good. I warn that the result of verification can be negative: sometimes I wrote down rumours, and sometimes witnesses describe the same events in different ways. Somewhere in the text I pointed to the unreliability of the source, somewhere - no. This is my right, because this book is a historical novel, a work of art, not a documentary one. I got many negative reviews on the draft of the book; mainly, because I have included Olivier Briak and Sam Hopkins into my "list of heroes" Maitre Briace, allegedly, has nothing to do with business, and Dr. Hopkins is a generally fictional person, like Santa Claus. Namely from them I begin my book.

...

Olivier Briak and the Renaissance of Culture "Tiki"

Nobody knows why this is suddenly Olivier Briak, a showman from the cult Parisian cabaret "Moulin Rouge" (Red Mill), abandoned commercial choreography and started tourism business on the islands of Tahiti and Moorea. It was in the 3rd quarter of the XX century, when the water area and island massifs of Hawaii (Oceania) were still under the power of powers, who immodestly considered themselves "great."

That time, it was believed, that the only progressive culture is the Romano-British one, and all the others serve only to entertain the West-Europeans and the Anglo-Americans with their backwardness. These backward cultures were allowed to exist only in reservations (i.e., in territories designed for the exotic tourism). One of such territories is the so-called "Tiki Village" had been created by Olivier Briak on the island of Moorea.

Maitre Briac explored the old black-and-white photographs (more precisely, the brownish-yellow ones) of the times when the family-household way of Kanaks (utafoa and Maori) had not yet been destroyed by slavers and other Christian missionaries; Briac collected the surviving records of ethnographers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mixed them, boiled them, took off the scum, drove the rest through the distiller, and got the "ancient, primordial-Polynesian tiki culture". There were proud, independent, relaxed, funny and beautiful people walking through life with incredible ease. In "the Polynesian village of Tiki" that had been "authentically recreated" by Briak on Moorea, the ethnic kanaks hired for a specified fee, used to play the sensible, healthy and cute guys and girls, especially for the tourists, day after day.

They demonstrated freedom from the nauseating culturological slops in which "civilised" Europeans, British and Americans floundered from birth, and from which they crawled out only to the grave. The "western" tourists, who came to Moorea, looked at the carefree, healfy and sexy "true Polynesians" with envy, tried to imitate them, and rejoiced in a childlike way, if they could get at least a bit of success in this.

Of course, Tiki Village had very little to do with the real past of Hawaii. In that real past, probably, there was a lot of shit, but the historical memory of it was exterminated by the "civilised" colonisers, who for 300 years burned, destroyed and forbidden under pain of death everything that was at least somehow connected with the primordial culture and religion Oceania. As a result, by the beginning of the 21st century, there was only one picture of the past in this region - a magnificent mythology created by the brilliant talent of Maître Briac. The master's pupils completed his work: "clearing of distortions" the code "Mae-mala-oe" (the historic code of laws of the Hawaiian King Kamehame First, who ruled at the beginning of the XIX century), they received the "primordial" code "Paruu-i-hoe" of the mythical King Mauna-Oro, the unifier of ancient Hawaii. It is clear, that the laws of Mauna-Oro corresponded to the entire culture of tics-they were simple, natural and easy, and were best suited to the happy life of uninhibited and independent people.

The last touch (last but not least) to the "reconstruction of the Tiki culture" was added by the Indian mathematician Ramadjan Ayar, who created an SMS-pseudoalphabet for a virtual keyboard 4x4, which allows you to quickly write messages from letters of different alphabets, numbers and simple pictures. How this pseudoalphabet became the "pictorial system of ancient Hawaii", and then the general-meganesian alphabet "Rapik" – is a mystery, covered in darkness.

Tiki-myth spread throughout Oceania, as a good game, attracting tourists. It did not occur to anybody that this myth forms a very simple view of the history of Oceania among the locals: there was a happy country of Hawaii, with beautiful laws and customs; but other rulers came along, with their crappy culture, shoddy religion and trash laws, and all messed up. Of course, the tiki-myth, in itself, could not lead to an aluminum revolution - the revolution is guided by economic motives. But the tiki-myth gave key reforms that trend, which will be discribed in the following chapters.

...

Sam Hopkins and the principle of economical war
It is said that he was born somewhere in Nevada, 4 years he studied at the California Institute of Technology, and then went to prison for sleeping with a 16-year-old girl. He overlooked that in California, unlike Nevada, the "age of consent" is not 16, but 18 years. After leaving the prison, Sam Hopkins found, that, because of the stigma of a "pedophile", he has no chance of "making himself" in the United States. Being upset, he began to publish in youth magazines harsh articles about the activities of the US government. One of these articles - "Mystic weakness" - was published under the signature of "Sam Hopkins" in the magazine "Free Cyberpunk" (Carson City, Nevada) shortly before the Aluminum revolution in Meganesia, and this is a historical fact, there is an archive of the journal. Here is the text of this article:

«Ordinary citizens of developed countries live in complete ignorance of how ineptly they spend huge foundation allocated to the military programs and how defenseless their countries will be in a military conflict with a cruel and pragmatic enemy.

Take for starters such an important part of the armed forces as the navy.

In the mid-1980s, Douglas Lenat developed the EURISCO expert system, which could use human knowledge of practical sense (so-called heuristics) and generate its own new heuristics, improving the experience of solving problems. Among the episodes related to EURISCO, there was this: in the staff game simulating a military conflict at sea, it was required to determine the optimal composition of the flotilla. The expert system chose only small ships capable of conducting a quick attack and very small ultra-high-speed vessels. This approach ran counter to the fundamentals of military theory, but the EURISCO flotilla over and over again for three years won in virtual battles flotillas, compiled according to the usual principles. The vexed organisers of the game tried to prevent this, changing the rules. EURISCO responded with a minor change in the parameters of its flotilla, and again won. The conclusion was that the principles on which the fleet was traditionally organised today serves to nothing.

The piquancy of the situation was also in the fact, that the flotilla in the style of EURISCO (be it built realistically and not virtually) would cost of order of one percent of price of the traditionally organised flotillas, that it won in the staff games. The American and British press began to leak some data about the scandalous game. The newspapers published articles with unambiguous allusions to the fact that the military budget should be reduced by an order of magnitude, or even more. There was a real threat that a lot of serious guys in the military-industrial complex would be removed from the feeder. In the face of this obvious threat, the allied military headquarters of the alliance decided to stop the virtual military games with EURISCO, to abandon the expert system itself to the civilian sphere, and to delete the data on scandalous games, - those, that have not yet been published.

The military-industrial complex continues to build floating dinosaurs (each - for a billion dollars), that can only turn out the pockets of taxpayers, and in a sea battle will be ineffective against much smaller, technological and high-speed warships which cost less than a million dollars apiece.

Similar, but even more dramatic wasting is observed in military aviation. Modern jet attack aircrafts and fighter planes cost ftpom 10 to 20 million dollars each, and at least a billion is spent on developing the next (even more expensive) model. In support of these exorbitant prices, the taxpayer is told tales of some super effective tracking and controlling computers, which are crammed with such aircraft. But these are the same computer systems used in ordinary civil (and even everyday) technology. Their price nowhere exceeds 10 thousand dollars. As for the jet machines themselves, the estimate for their construction, as proved by the amateurs, can be reduced to 50 thousand. Even the price of light business jet jets (comfortable, safe, extremely automated and very simple to manage) is only a million dollars.

But the main thing here is not even that the taxpayer cheats with prices 20 times, at least. The main thing: for a combat aircraft operating at speeds of 3 or more times higher than the speed of sound, the time for making decisions drops to hundredths of a second, the pilot in the cabin is a burden, a piece of useless and fragile protoplasm. For the sake of accommodation of the pilot, the designers sacrifice the compactness of the machine. In addition, in order to prevent this protoplasm from becoming a steak, it is necessary to abandon a number of extremely effective maneuvers simply because the acceleration in the bends exceeds 10g. During the demonstration of the Australian Steal-Storm system, it was convincingly shown that a compact and cheap unmanned vehicle, due to its maneuverability, would destroy in the air a manned military aircraft of price of 20 million dollars in 20 seconds: it would be simply shoot out by a high-performance machine gun from a short distance. Due to the limited acceleration of maneuver, the manned plane is difficult to escape from the attack of a very cheap missile launched from the shoulder and guided by thermal radiation.

What is the point in an expensive combat aircraft, while it is practically defenseless against a thousand times cheaper devices? What is the sense if, in addition, each take-off of this aircraft costs a hundred times more, than all the targets, that it could potentially destroy?

A few years ago, the whole world got around the caricature. In the photo, the F-119 attack aircraft strikes an East African pirate with an air-to-sea missile. Next to each object (attack aircraft, missile and boat) are the prices, and below the question: Who won?

Let us rise even higher. The space fleet (if the shameful show of technical absurdity that state corporations arrange in space, can be denoted with the beautiful word "fleet") is the most mediocre economic project in history, since the time of the pyramid of Cheops. At the end of the XX century, the X-prize fund announced a competition for a private space shuttle, and in just 7 years there were 23 aircraft projects of this class, each of which was an order of magnitude simpler and more reliable, and two or three orders of magnitude cheaper in construction and operation than any of NASA's Space Shuttle. Competition won SpaceShipOne company Barta Rutana. It seemed that now everything would fall into place, and the shuttles would be built for reasonable projects, for commensurate money. But nothing of the kind. State aerospace agencies have a different logic. For them, the rapid achievement of goals for small money - this is pure ruin. It is more profitable for them to blast billions for new replicas of German missiles, which Werner von Braun came up with in 1943 to satisfy the unwholesome ambitions of Adolf Hitler.

Let's return from heaven to earth, to the technique of war. The most striking example of the dementia of the military policy of the developed countries is the attitude towards nuclear weapons and measures of protection against it. If you count in dollars per unit of destruction, nuclear weapons are fabulously cheap. It did not supersede other types of heavy weapons only because of cultic reasons. After the application of two A-bombs of 13 and 22 kilotons of TNT in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a global god-bomb cult emerged. In the era of the Cold War, the use of bombs of 10 megatons of TNT in the densely populated areas (purely religious, devoid of military meaning) was advertised. This led to nucleophobia (the irrational horror of the population of the so-called West before the A-bomb and generally the energy of the atomic nucleus).

In 1955 - 1995, many promising models of A-bombs with a capacity of 0.1-10 kt of TNT were developed, but none of them was used (although the A-bomb owners participated in this period in hundreds of local wars). All practical considerations were swept aside by the cult fear of the A-bomb, and instead of the A-bomb, much more expensive non-nuclear warheads were used. The cult attitude to the A-bomb was also expressed in the neglect of cheap means of delivery. At the beginning of the 21st century, not a single one of them went to the series from a whole series of the A-bomb projects delivered to the goal by cheap planning mines or short-range missiles. In the late XX - early XXI century, only A-bombs of high power (0.1 - 10 megaton TNT) are mass produced, delivered by extra-expensive ballistic and cruise missiles.

In the field of anti-atomic defence, by the beginning of the XXI century, all the systems are focused on intercepting of just such a pair, bomb-carriers. The cult motifs clearly dominate practical considerations. Even the developers of defence systems (not to mention politicians and voters) do not believe that the "weapons of the apocalypse" - rockets with megaton ammunition - will ever be practically used. The industry of means of nuclear attack and defence became a simple machine for dividing the budget money of developed countries. In the meantime, nuclear technology is rapidly becoming cheaper. At the beginning of the 21st century, obtaining low-power A-charge is no longer a particularly difficult problem, and the control over the spread of these technologies and fissile materials suitable for the production of A bombs has long been lost irrevocably by the "atomic club of great powers."

Now imagine an A-bomb of the order of 1 kiloton of TNT, which is delivered to the target by a very simple and cheap small-sized carrier. Even if this carrier is at a technical level half a century old, none of the modern super-expensive protective systems can effectively stop it. It simply is not designed to combat such primitive devices, it does not see them. A developed country, attacked by such a weapon, is doomed to failure, not so much due to the ineffectiveness of the available technical protection, but because of psychological factors. Real destruction from A-bomb of a 1 kiloton is not so terrible. In 1944, London was bombed by 2,000 FAU-2 missiles, which in total carried almost 2 kilotons of explosives, and hit not one but different points of the city. As you know, this did not have fatal consequences. On the other hand, the bombing of Tokyo on March 10, 1945 with conventional incendiary bombs caused the death of more than 100,000 people - the same order as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 (even taking into account the victims of radiation that died before 31.12.1945). In the West, only historians remember that bombing of Tokyo, and everyone knows about the explosion of the 13-kiloton A-bomb in Hiroshima (the bomb's capacity for cultic reasons is rounded to 20 kilotons, and the blast is blown to a world catastrophe more horrible than the Second World War itself).

From this excursion into history (more precisely, into the modern interpretation of history), it is clear that the society in the so-called. "Developed countries" perceive the A-bomb not as a weapon (comparable in destructive power with other means of warfare), but as an all-destroying divine wrath that is not measured in numbers. The decisive factor in the defeat of a typical developed western country in a possible conflict with a technically weaker (but more practice) enemy would be a volitional unpreparedness to fight against the God-bomb, i.e. against a phenomenon to which socio-political myth attributed not physical, but supernatural destructive power. »

...

One says, that "Mystic weakness" caused so much anger in the defense department, that Hopkins had to hide himself at an abandoned farm, and then escaped from the US to Mexico, and then to Meganesia. There he appeared to the executive director of the Convention, Ugarte Armadillo, with his project for the rapid creation of extremely cheap and efficient armed forces. The project was so obviously brilliant, that the Convention immediately appointed Hopkins the head of the "Creatori" center. Due to this, the modernisation of the armed forces of Meganesia did not follow the path of buying or copying obsolete (and still prohibitively expensive) American and European models of weapons (like most of the third world countries), and along the way of developing their own combat vehicles - a hundred times cheaper, but very efficient. Engineering and technical ideas were still borrowed from companies from developed countries, but the development of these ideas went more economically.

Sam Hopkins disappeared into the sea while surfing, they say, about 5 years after the revolution, but during this time, Creatori has already grown into the national consortium Robot Experimental Fabric, and further its design concept has already developed by other specialists.

My critics have stated, that the presence of the signature "Sam Hopkins" does not say anything (in this magazine the authors signed any pseudonyms), and the absence of any traces of Hopkins in the archives of the California Institute of Technology proves that the stories about him are a myth. To this, I reply, that it does not matter what the name of Sam Hopkins really was, whether he was a student of C.I.T., whether he had a penchant for young women (as folklorists insist) and whether he was imprisoned in the USA for this. It is important that there was a man who created the trend of cheap effective military equipment, and this allowed Meganesia to resist serious external threats in the first years after the revolution. One way or another, this person remained in the memory of the people precisely under this name. In Tahiti-Iti, near the shipyard of Waierei on Phaeton Bay stands an aluminum monument with the inscription:

"American Sam Hopkins, a great scientist and an amazing man - from the sailors and pilots of the People's Navy free Hawaii. We will fight, and we will win! ".

Sam is depicted as a nude athlete with an erect penis. In his right hand he holds, in the manner of a spear prepared for casting, "Argo" - a diving mine, which, 3 years after the revolution, put a fat signature under the act of the rights of Meganesia at the water area of ​​the Polynesian Triangle. And students of the college of Marquetes, after each session polish the penis of Sam to a mirror shine and in the evening, using laser flashlights, let him shoot beautiful bright bunnies. This is a kind of act of recognising the merits of Sam - our young people will not polish the penis to anyone.. "

-*********************************

...

- Exactly, - said Riti, glancing over the shoulder to the Canadian. - I was in Tahiti on New Year's Eve, and I saw it myself. I mean, how the bunnies started up. And dick had been polished in advance, I did not catch that.

- You have a very selective concentration of attention, - said Haoto.

- That's as it should be, - she answered confidently. - It's my age, like.

- Ah, well, then everything is OK ... Listen, foa, can we go to bed, huh? My vahine is already out. We have been flying since yesterday.

- And where, by the way? - Asked the king.

- From Midway Atoll to Oahu-Waka, then from Honolulu to Lanton, and then to here.

- And what's interesting?

- There, Limo, there are semi-finished products for your entire order for retro flashers, - muttered tairi sleepily, - four Japanese aircraft carriers with the remains of deck aviation-half a dozen planes each, and 250 planes scattered, one American aircraft carrier, there are about half a plane, and another 150 aircraft in bulk. Remains from the sea battle in June 1942.

- How heavily broken? - Limolua asked quickly.

- Differently, - Haoto answered, - Tomorrow we will show the pictures. But they will have to be carried from the bottom at night, otherwise the US Coast Guard will seize our robot, and there will be a loss.

- On the outer side of the eastern barrier, 40 meters away, lies the F4U Corsair, almost the whole, - Tairi said, without opening her eyes, - Let it be mine. It can not be confused with anything, it is alone. It was not supposed to exist that time. But it is there. I think, it is a prototype.

The king stretched, yawned and asked.

- And what is it?

- The best US combat aircraft in WWII. Deck fighter, attack aircraft, and bomb. He was called "Whistling Death", and another 20 years after the war yuzali in different countries.

- Um ... How about the size and weight?

- Length 10.3 meters, wingspan 12.5, flight weight 6.5 tons.

- Not so much. And do we have a scheme of patrolling by the guard shore?

- I had mentioned this, - said Haoto, and climbed into the communicator's menu, - one moment ...

- Stop! - Ailoo interrupted him. - Remember where we stop; let us return to this in the morning. - Serious plunder should be planned on a fresh head. Now let's better come up with a cultural program for Jeanne, and send everyone to sleep.

- And what is there to invent? - asked Rity, and quickly clicked the keys of her laptop, - Here you are! The finished program for 4 days: Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora. If Limo gives us "Subjet", then we reach Tahiti in an hour, and there ...

- Just a minute, - interrupted Limolua, - who are "we"?

- Well, I mean, I'll be a pilot and a guide, - the girl explained.

- And I, you think, the day after tomorrow and the fourth day, I'll go to school instead of you? - he asked.

- I'll take a laptop with me, and I'll be there remotely. - Here Bimini appears at school once a week, instead of three, and she is only 13 years old. Why can she, and me ...

- Chris is engaged with Bimini every day, - Ailoo cut off, - and we are not yet crazy to let you pilot a jet flier.

- "Subjet" is not reactive, but impeller! And I already flew it twice!

- Yes, - confirmed Limolua, - but there was not a passenger next to you, but me. Learn first to fly well on a regular fly, OK? You see (he added, referring to the Canadian), "Subjet" is a high-speed flyer of a paramilitary sample, you have to be careful with it.

Jeanne nodded vigorously in agreement and noted:

- You see, my friends, I do not want to get acquainted with the country according to the scheme from the booklet for tourists. A journalist who writes about the country must wander with the wind. Go where circumstances lead. At Rapaport, I got this way. And the next point I'll get the same.

- Aha! Said Ailoo and turned to Rityi. - Frog, are you going to go anywhere tomorrow? - I mean your plans before Jeanne's appearance.

- Actually, Poe and Kiango and I wanted to get to the ranch. I mean, to see Panto and Omiani. Moreover, Chris specially invited Kiangguo, but why should he refuse?

- Indeed, why would ... - Ailoo turned to the journalist, - do you think this can be considered a circumstance?.. I mean, for wandering with the wind?

- Probably, yes, - said Jeanne carefully. - And what is this ranch?

- The polygon of our factory, - Limo explained. - It's on Hull Island, a hundred miles to the west. There we experience all moving and noisy technique. Well, you see ...

- Still would! - she exclaimed, - In my opinion, this is what I need.

- Well! - concluded Ailoo, - Riti, how about taking Jeanne into the company?

- Cool! - the girl was delighted. - Flamable!

- Have agreed. From this moment and up to special orders, the guest is on your conscience. To begin with, it will be quite good, if you show Jeanne a comfortable room, let she sleep properly ... Tairi, Haoto, the attic tower is yours. If there are Kyango and Pou there, throw them into the sea. Limo, help me clean up the disaster here we made..

..

13 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: April 22, 20 years of the Charter. Day. Location: Central Meganesia, Futuna Island, Kolia village]], fare Carpini.

Ufti Warraber, Sergeant Dante Pafimoto, Corporal Feng Toruyeva, Private Ribopo Maapiti, Private Laea Lafao, an ordinary reservist Toko Saokeo, private reservist

Michele looked up from the screen, where there was a list, provided with brief biographies and colour photos, and reached for a cigarette.

- Chubby, it looks like your bosses have gone mad and sent me your official document.

- It's unlikely, - she said, - that there is probably a cover letter with an explanation.

- The letter? - Is that what? ... Well, what's there ...?

From: Rayven Anders, major general of intellegento-de-militar (INDEMI).

To: Dr. Michele Carpini, vice president of the Agricultural Engineers Association Wallis and Futuna.

"Sen Michele, I beg your pardon for my mistake, because of which you and your whole family are involved in the special operation INDEMI (and not only your esteemed wife, for whom such operations are work). I assure you that neither you nor your children are subject to any kind of special risks. The base of Somalama-Futuna is focused on your cover. Lieutenant-commandant Paul Aguweru was ordered to block any suspicious activity in the local water area and react instantly to any signals coming from you, regardless of whether they seem to be grounded to him personally. This measure does not obligate you to anything and is undertaken in accordance with the Charter. If you go to court with a claim for my negligence, I will accept this with full understanding. I also have children and, perhaps, in your place, I would like to teach a lesson to an officer who does not perform his contract carefully enough. But I take the liberty of addressing you with a personal request (it's personal, because I do not have the right to ask you for such things on the lines of service). It's about taking a general conceptual leadership team that will work with Dr. Links on the island of Alofi on a site leased by INDEMI next to your latifundia. This is not the management of any current affairs of the group, but only consultations and instructions on agro-engineering issues in which you have immense knowledge and experience. Of course, your work will be paid at the captain-commandant's rate of the military engineering project. The subject of the group's activity is the liquidation of emergency situations (audio-video material about it is available in the file-attachment to the letter). If you agree, I ask you to comment on the composition of the group, which includes two of your students (currently on reserve camps), two very young people with a conscious interest in the subject and two other sensible young men with combat experience. If you find it necessary to change the composition of the group, then your word will be decisive. Sincerely yours, Riven Anders."

Michele lit a cigarette, quietly, but very rudely, cursed and said:

- Do you know, my joy, that your boss is self-confident and brazen beast? But he did not attack that. If this jodido thought that I would leave everything and watch his fucking file, then he was profoundly mistaken. A photo gallery of African children with starved stomachs is for an average pizza devourer with incomplete secondary education or for an archetypal professors who are mind-boggling partial differential equations, but do not know the scheme of an elementary deception of a type of game in a thimble. Tell Anders that he can put his file in his ass with his list. About Lae Lafao and Toko Saokeo, tell him, that they are my students, not his, they study my program and will continue their studies after reserve fees, and not at the time. I hope that the influence of Senator Anders will not spoil their brains. All! Basta ya! Atira!

- There are no children with swollen abdomen on the disk, - Chubby said calmly.

- Did you look at him? -

- No. But I know the major. He's not such an idiot as you just imagined.

- Well, maybe not children, - said Michele, - maybe a common grave of an open type.

- There are no images intended for psychological pressure, - she clarified.

- Do you want me to look?

Chubby shrugged her shoulders.

- It just seems to me that the engineer does not tend to refuse information.

- Rough agitation is not information, - he snapped.

- I told you, there's no rough propaganda.

- Bet? - he asked.

– OK, - she agreed, - but not for money, but for fancies. If you're right, I'm leaving the shop and will be a full-fledged partner in the farm. But if I'm right, you take on this project.

- It's tough, - he growled, - and who's going to be the referee?

- You, said Chubby laconically.

- Here's how? You are very risky. It's your favourite work, although I do not like it.

- I'm not taking any risks. If I was wrong, then I, and the boss, are not proficient for intelligence.

- Well, be it your way. We have agreed to.

She nodded, placed on the table a spoon, which the salad just stirred, wiped her hands and went out into the street, explaining on the move.

- The file is addressed to you, not me. Service ethics.

...

A stream of rough warfare in a mixture of lingua-franco, English, utafoa and Calabrian Italian dialect, sounded from the open window in 10 minutes, left no doubt as to who won the bet.

- "It's cool," Fleur said with envy, as the flood dried up. "I could not do it."

- And I wrote it all down! - calmly and proudly told Lucy, releasing a button on the hull of his mobile. The youngest daughter in the Hawk-Karpini family grown similar to her mother.

...

– Should I tell you what happened there? - Michele asked.

- You're the commander, it's up to you," Chubby said (doing the next salad).

- Stop it, - he grumbled. - There will be no barrack in our home. None of these army things like "you - the boss, I'm a fool." Everyone will participate in the discussions, but if this cunning beast (I mean your boss) does not like it, then let him command himself or even roll himself in the ass. So that. I'm doing business, not playing rituals.

- You think completely army-like, darling. I just meant that the commander can not discuss everything with the team. This simply does not have enough time. Besides, I'm not yet on the team, I still have two more days off from the week, which is put to me after the raid. And your group is still there. - Chubby waved her hand to the northeast, where Uwea's island (also knoem as Wallis) was located 125 miles. - I believe they're pulling out the ready-made modules on the airship. We will recognize them when they begin to maneuver over Alofi.

- Are you going to run to the roof with binoculars?" Michele asked.

- No, I asked Lucy to look at what's on at the radar.

- Good, - he agreed, - and when Dr. Lynx arrives?

- An hour or so later, - she said, gently lifting the lid of the ten-liter boiler on the stove, looked around at its contents, then set the lid back on. - While Vegetables with bananas and shellfish approach the condition, and we have time to drink on a mug of cocoa and chat.

Michele stood up, stretched and stroked a slightly-outlined abdomen.

- Hint understood, my love. Cocoa is my prerogative. And you sit, and quietly admire my yin liao kung fu. In addition, I promised to tell you what was in the file. The main thing is the data on the salinity area. It turns out that about 15 years ago, because of the flood, the shutter dam was washed away by one of the artisanal irrigation networks. The dam was never restored, and there was a re-erosion, with a salinity of 60 square kilometers.

- Ah, - said Chubby. - I myself saw this swamp. It is in the lowland between two gentle hills, fifteen miles in length and not less than a mile wide. From there, an ambre is so strong, that even not fastidious local guys avoid approach it from the leeward Side.

- I'm happy for them, - he said, - and now, my love, please take a pen and a piece of paper. Let's do some arithmetic. Assume, that because of technological driveways, from 50 square kilometers there are 50, i.е. 5000 hectares. In the plants of interest to us, the yield is about the same as that of the feed banana, i.e. about 100 tons per hectare. Half a million tons is one harvest ... Are you recording?

- I'm writing down. But you have to cultivate bananas to get such a harvest.

- Yes. Bananas - it is necessary, but the Triffids are not bananas. As far as I understand from Dr. Lynx's reports, the Triffid gives from four to eight such crops a year. We count on a minimum.

- Two million tons a year? She asked incredulously.

-You yourself thought, - remarked Michele, - I have, as you noticed, hands busy, I cook cocoa. Do you admire me?

- Still would! - Chubby readily confirmed, - Of course, I admire! But I did not understand: If we count correctly, it turns out, that one stinking swamp can feed almost the entire population of Mpulu!

- Let's take it further, - he suggested. - A young active organism needs about 4000 kilocalories per day. One kilogram of bananas has 900 kilocalories. In the fruit of Triffids, by the reports of Dr. Lynx, much more; about 2000. These fruits, unlike bananas, are rich in vegetable fat. You can not eat only bananas, because of the lack of fat in them. To eat only Triffids ... Also, of course, not, but not so ... In general, you understand what I want to say.

Chubby sighed, took out a mobile, called a calculator and a minute later she reported.

- I get 1.46 million kilocalories per person per year. Let it be a half million. Hence, a person in a year needs 750 kilograms of these very Triffids. If we have two million tons, then we can feed 2,666 million people. So?

- Young men of massive build, who are daily engaged in manual labor, - said Michele. - By the way, cocoa is ready. I even pour it into cups, although according to the Romanesque tradition, this is done by a woman.

- Woman can not. At least now, - answered Chubby, - she's in arithmetic shock. The woman wants to take a machine gun and shoot all the bio-alarmists, especially politicians.

- Now you understand what the dock Lynx was experiencing, - Michele said, sitting opposite her and lighting a cigarette. - Drink cocoa, my love, and listen to what the old fat cynic Mickey tells you.

- You do not ... - she began, but he interrupted.

- Do not bother me from entering the role. So, even if you, as they say in your nasty slang, "neutralise" a million bio-alarmists, nothing will change. What is a million if more than a milliard people live in developed countries and bio-alarmism is hammered by half a century of propaganda deep into the brains of three-quarters of them? But if someone does not care about the opinion of this billion, he will tackle another milliard, the starving milliard, and, due to modern bioengineering, will feed all of them, then he will kill bio-alarmism without any shot. He will destroy the political economy base of...

- It will not work without a shot, - Chubby objected. - Do you imagine the political economy base beeng waiting for it to be slaughtered without a knife? Hell no. It will fight. And these triffids, as I understand it, will not be able to protect themselves. Consequently…

She was interrupted by the piercing whistle of the boatswain's pipe. Michele slightly flinched.

- Heck! Why do our children have so loud toys?

Chubby shrugged her shoulders.

- Somehow it happened historically. By the way, this is Lucy signaled. Your team approached, minus Ufti. He's in the carriage with Dr. Lynx.

- Oh, this Ufti, - grumbled Michele. - I think he thinks we are something like his older cousins.

Okay, you. You are the commander of this gang. But why me?

- Is it so hard for you to help him once a week with college courses? - She asked.

- I'm not at all difficult. But for some reason he considers this a matter of course.

- But, darling, for him it is natural. You know the story of his family. If a child grows without parents, then their place in the psyche is occupied by older comrades. I assure you, if you ask him do do something, then he also will consider it as a matter of course.

- Do what, for example? Hack someone's computer or cut someone's head off?

- Well, why so? - said Chubby in an offended manner. - He's a good boy.

- Good. I do not argue. But his knowledge and skills, basically, refer to ...

- By the way, - she interrupted, - Ufti just once cut off someone's head once; got a reprimand for it and promised not to do it again. What for to focus on the error that the fighter has long realised and no longer repeats? Errors happen at all, especially, in a youth.

Michele spread his hands.

- You sound like you're talking about a pumpkin torn in a neighbour's garden.

- How am I supposed to talk? - It was an operation against terrorists who ...

- So, - Michele interrupted her, in turn, - It remains to be hoped that those three on the list, whom I do not know, also had time to realise and abandon the primitive remnants.

- There are biographies there, - Chubby said.

- So ... - he turned to the screen, - ... Dante Pafimoto, corporal, 21, place of birth: Raiatea. Education: basic school, Uturoa electronic college, noncommissioned officer courses. Missions: El-Shana, "Pride of Hilo", Waiang ... Judging by the track record - Ufti number 2.

- Mickey, why are you so fond of Ufti? By the way, do you know how he respects you?

- I am very well with Ufti, but in the 21st century young people need to learn, and not run through the jungle with a machine gun. Go ahead. Feng Toruyeva, Private, 17 years old, place of birth: Elauseeste. Education: basic school, Marx biotec college. Missions - a gap ... H'm ... Ribopo Maapiti, Private, 17 years old, birthplace - Elaussester. Education: basic school, Marx biotec college. Missions are a gap. What kind of a couple of young friends of nature?

- I believe that these are the living consequences of the communist baby boomers, - she replied.

- The first time I've heard about this, - grumbled Michele.

- Elausser, sweetheart. Do you know that there are seven children per vahine?

- Yes, - he agreed. - I have a sharp marasmus. The brain reacts to the military post that I accepted. I hope, in my case it is temporally. Unlike that subject who has included boys with fake biotechnical formation in the real project.

- First of all, not boys, but girls, - Chubby corrected. - In the column "sex", there is letter F.

- Well, girls, what, in this case, the difference?

- ... Secondly, - she continued, - Marx biotec college, MBC, is considered a very good secondary special school. By the way, it's not so easy to find full-time soldiers with biotechnical education, during the week that was assigned to the formation of the group.

- I'll arrange a written examination for them and post the answers on the Internet, - promised Michele, - this charlatan shop will remember me for a long time.

- Bet? - Suggested Chubby.

- Bet, - he agreed, - but only reasonable, say, 20 pounds; without any your fancies.

- Are you afraid?

- I? I'm afraid? Nothing like this! But to play for fancies with a coolie ...

- Who's the coolie? - She was indignant.

Тhe discussion was interrupted by by the piercing whistle of the boatswain's pipe. Vigilant Lucy, having broadly interpreted the task, notified the appearance of another aircraft. A few minutes later, in the strait, something resembling a rhinoceros beetle grew, almost like a rhinoceros beetle, grown in the size of a minibus, dyed in a marshy color and growing at the top of its horn another pair of wings in addition to the usual bug wings on its back. When the flyer was padded to the pier, the resemblance to the beetle almost disappeared. Just a very unusual design, and only ...

The commander of the assault group, as expected, was the first to jump onto the pier.

- Saint Captain Hawk ... - he began.

- Aloha, Nong, - interrupted Chubby. - I cannot get your report, I'm still on vacation. The top officer here is Michele, he is in the rank of captain-commandant.

Nong nodded and started again.

- Saint Captain-Comandante Carpini ...

- Stop it, Nong, - Michele interrupted. - What kind of a captain am I? Just say: Is everything okay?

- Yes. No problem.

- Well, I'm glad. Unload your stuff and go under that canopy. Chubby had prepared so much food, especially salads, that ... – Michele interrupted in half the sentence when the man who was the target of the raid stepped into the pier from the salon. He was still only in the middle of a step when Ufti slipped past him and took a position slightly to the side, in case Dr. Maximellen Laurence Links suddenly losses his0 balance.

– Aloha, Max, – said Michele, holding out his hand to the British. - It's good to see you at Futuna.

- Hi, Michele, - answered Dr. Lynx. - I really did not think that we would meet in the real world ... Especially, like this.

They shook hands, and Michele felt that his fingers trembled tremendously.

- How do you feel, Max?

- Lousy, to be honest. I really want to lie down, but I'll be satisfied with the sitting position.

And I, as a hostess, will be satisfied, if the guest is comfortable, - Chubby interjected, - come with me, Max, or my husband will start to torment you with clever talk before I have time to pour you my brand fruit juice from a mixture of mango and sweet pepper. Guys, serve yourself. Here is the table. The food is in the kitchen. Bowls, mugs and spoons - in the buffet. Mickey, are you going to make a campaign for us, or will you be tyrannising the younger ones?

- I would prefer to tyrannise, but I can not, - Michele replied, - so I'm with you.

The western half open mansard of fare Carpini was a comfortable place, equipped with semicircular semi-winches, a low bamboo table and a kitchen corner. From there, there was a fantastic view, on the right - to the bank of Futuna, going almost strictly to the west, and only slightly bent to the north, to the left - to the strait and strip of coral reefs at a distance of three miles, already off the coast of Alofi. In the pauses of the conversation you could hear the soothing soft rumble of the waves, periodic, as a metronome.

- When we have a romantic mood with Mickey, we meet here sunset, - Chubby said, passing a large glass of thick reddish orange juice to the guest.

- If my wife does not carouse somewhere at the other side of the Earth, - Michele said, - you cannot imagine, colleague, how drifty is she.

- Do not reveal our secrets, - Chubby said. - And do not discredit our family. - I read somewhere that the British do not approve women to leave home affairs for work. I think, the story is by Richard Aldington. True, he described the first half of the last century, but suddenly Max is conservative and we fall in his eyes below the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

- I'm not a conservative, - he said, taking a sip from the glass. - And again: I would not want to sound impolite, but is not it time for us to move from a sweet flame to a prose of life?

- To the prose of life, - Chubby repeated thoughtfully. - You are a pessimist, Max. - It is immediately evident that. you grew up in a country where about 250 cloudy days a year. Calling life prose ...

- Prose, too, is different, - interrupted Michele, - For example, Exupery ...

- Exupery is not prose, - she snapped, - it's poetry without rhymes. Max, do you agree?

The Briton took a couple more sips and put the glass on the table.

- You know, Chubby, I'd love to talk about literature, but your office kidnapped me not for this, but for something involving Triffids. I would like to know what is it about.

- Well, then, - she said, and with a sudden, flexible movement, jumped up from the chaiselongue. - Be your way. This is one small country in Trans-Equatorial Africa. Do you think Max, is that a poor country or rich?

- I'll venture to assume, it is rich, - he answered, - otherwise you would not have asked this question.

- And you're damn right! - he announced, lighting a cigarette, - She's bigger than Kuwait, smaller than the United Arab Emirates, and richer than both of them together. It has huge mineral reserves; compared to them, the Arabian oil is a small coin, which is not even worth bending over. People walk about this wealth, beggars and hungry people. They seldom get more than half a dollar a day.

- And who gets the minerals? Asked Max.

- No one. They lie in the ground. Because of the idiotic policy of the previous decades, the situation in the country is such that it is impossible to extract all this. A pool of commercial partnerships has been created in Meganesia, whose goal is to gain access to all these riches in about 10 percent of the market price. Piggy, ah?

- Like colonial commerce in general, - the Brit agreed. - Blacks will be beggars. - I did not expect anything else.

- Poor, - Chubby corrected. - If all this works, then the average income for a family of four people next year will be about five thousand dollars, which corresponds approximately to the level of the annual income in Bulgaria, if compared with the countries of Europe.

- And what will prevent your businessmen from robbing these Negroes more radically?

- Lust for money, - she said. - Rational investments in development give more income than vulgar robbery. Concentration camp with slaves and supervisors is much less profitable than a territory with a self-sustaining infrastructure and a moderately educated population working under a contract. The system has long been known. For its implementation in this country, is not enough only weapons and food. With weapons there are no problems. Soon it will be there so much that you can shoot half of Africa. With food - more difficult. It should not be some kind of humanitarian aid that exists today, but tomorrow there is not. It must be its own source, not dependent on external political forces.

- Triffids on African solonchaks? - he asked.

Chubby nodded in agreement. Dr. Lynx again took the glass, took another sip and, with a sigh, said:

- Nothing will come of it.

- If your brand of Triffids does not fit the African soils .. - began Michele.

- No, colleague, - interrupted the Briton. - You read the reports and you know that the Triffids, in essence, are indifferent to the composition of soils. Within reasonable limits, of course. But you will not be allowed to do this. You are here on the opposite side of the planet, you can not even imagine what a colossal business is built on the fact that the food problem in backward countries remains. Otherwise, everything would have been decided long ago with the help of transgenic cultures of beans, corn, soy and potatoes. Triffids are a more elegant solution, but it's purely theoretical. In practice, anyone who touches the business potential of hunger will be crashed.

- I wonder how? - asked Chubby

- Look at me, - Max suggested. - Five years ago I was an active, healthy person, I had a reputation and contracts with firms in the US, India, Brazil, Canada, France and Britain, of course. But I got involved in the topic of my own agro-industry of backward countries and now I'm a poor alcoholic. I'm talking to you, trying hard not to ask for a glass of whiskey. Only what I know holds me back: you will not give it to me, even if I kneel.

- Do you want me to call Kirk, and he'll give you something to keep you from worrying?

Links slowly shook his head.

- No, Chubby. Thank you but no. Otherwise, I will depend on another drug.

- I have one drug in mind, which works without fail and does not cause addiction, - she said. - A reliable thing, I checked it a couple of times.

- A good start to give a placebo. But it works only if you do not know about it.

Captain Chubby Hawk shook her head.

- No, Max, this is another means. - It is called the taste of victory.

- Ah, there you are about ... - he thought pensively. - It sounds beautiful, but the machine that rolls trillions of dollars is too much for your service; and even for your small country. Poor and small can not defeat the big and the rich, sorry for the banality.

- I remembered an old story, - Michele said. "About four thousand years ago, there was such an ancient Egypt state. It was believed that he is invincible, because he has a lot of gold and many priests who control supernatural forces. But there came simple guys, called "Hyksos". They did not understand the value of gold, did not believe in the power of the Egyptian priests, and recognised only such real things as the fertility of the soil and the power of arms. And Egypt fell. Iron was stronger than gold.

- Este fuerte ammonal real que oro nominal, - added Chubby, - The aphorism of the Aluminum Revolution. The real ammonal is stronger than the nominal gold. The trillions that you are talking about, dear Max, are not even gold. These are just numbers on paper or in the memory of a bank computer. They are not in nature. You said the word "placebo" yourself. Trillions of dollars or euros are the same pacifiers, only for whole nations.

- An unexpected turn, - said Dr. Lynx. - Do you want to say that money has been canceled in Meganesia?

Chubby was about to say something, but Michele stopped her.

- I'm sorry, my love, but you'll get it all mixed up. - You see, Max, my wife, as an intelligence officer, speaks a terrible slang, and I'm a faaapu, a simple farmer, and I explain things simply. - He put his hand into the drawer of the nightstand, pulled out a dozen blue-green banknotes, and handed it to Dr. Lynx, - It's 1000 meganesian pounds, colleague. My voluntary contribution in support of your journalism. A sign of reader sympathy. I mean the article "On the real causes of hunger in Africa".

- Something like a fee? - asked Lynx?

- Yes. It is customary for our readers to pay such private prizes to their favourite authors.

- A good custom, - the British agreed with a smile, thrusting the pieces of paper into the breast pocket of his "koala" (he had already mastered this funny clothes), - means that the money has not been abolished, after all ... Do not consider it immodest, but what does it mean roughly equivalent?

- Not roughly, but precisely, - corrected Michele. - It's written on a bill.

- Hmm, - Lynx said, taking one of the banknotes back. - ... Ah, that's how ... So, these papers are receipts for 100 pounds of weight of technical aluminum?

- That's right. Pound to pound. And if you are interested in the exchange rate ... "Michele took out his communicator from his pocket." ... A minute ... Today, on the London Stock Exchange, a ton of aluminum costs 2800 US dollars. So, the pound goes for 1.26 dollars.

The Briton thoughtfully twisted a piece of paper in his fingers.

- Witty ... And why aluminum? Why, for example, is not copper or nickel?

- Tradition, - Michele replied. - Besides, it is convenient amount. The rate is usually somewhere between the US dollar and the British pound.

- But with significant fluctuations, is not it?

- Yes, about as much as other regional currencies. Brazilian real or Mexican peso. At the same time, we do not have financial crises, in the absence of financial instruments.

- The exchange economy? - Max specified, - The goods are against the goods? And how about loans?

- With credits - in any way. But you can take "mutu".

- I'm sorry, Michele, but I do not understand the oceanic way.

- It's not oceanic, it's Latin. "Mutu" is just a loan. Chubby, your office can give a colleague Max a loan for the arrangement?

- Are you, darling? INDEMI is a government agency ...

- I meant the pool of partnerships for which all this porridge is welded, - he interrupted.

- Why borrow? - She asked. - To let Max to pay the interest?. No, really! I will call and pull out the advance for 3 months.. Max, if you agree to 96 thousand pounds a year, the advance will be in you in a quarter of an hour.

- And I'll spend it for drink, – said the British calmly. - Did you forget that I'm an alcoholic?

- I do not forget such details, otherwise I would have left work, - ... Ufti! Stop eating! Come here, it's ... O! Joder!

"The real Papuan" did not even think of using the door and the stairs. After 5 seconds, he just appeared on the fence of the attic - as if materialized from a light warm breeze, smelling of the sea and seaweed.

- Yes, Chubby. Here I am! What's the matter?

- Take a car in the hangar and ride with the dock Link in Malaae. Your legend: this is Uncle Max from California. He came to visit, and on his way a suitcase was stolen. He must buy all sorts of things. Well, do you imagine that tourists have a suitcase? But we must watch that he does not buy sugar, alcohol and chips, he has a liver, and he can not.

- And pistachios, peanuts and shrimp? - Asked Ufti.

- Ufti, you know it's not a matter of the liver, but of alcoholism, - Lynx interjected.

- I do not know, doc. - I'm not a doctor, but Cap Hawk says you have a liver.

- You can, only not overcooked and not very salty, - Chubby decided.

- I got it. And for how much to buy?

- Uncle Max stayed in his pocket of 1000 pounds, he will figure out what to do with it. One more thing. If Uncle Max wants to go to court, then, without any dispute, you will bring him to the judge on duty and get back here.

- I do not intend to go to court, - said Dr. Lynx.

- It's up to you, - she explained, - But you should have that opportunity.

- It's all clear, Cap, - said Ufti. - Do it already?

- Go ahead, - she said, and turned to the british. - Max, you may spend the full amount. While you ride, I will arrange an advance.

...

14 - CURRENT MOMENT.
Date / Time: September 2, 22 of the Charter. Night-morning. Location: Meganesia, Sotsiete, o. Rapatar. King's residence and provincial farmers.

Jeanne Ronero, Green world press. Reporting №9. Family and business. Polygamy in a royal way.

We climb by the stairs to the second floor, and Riti, trying to make a tragic face (which, however, it does not work very convincingly), shows me the bedroom of King Limolua and the balcony from which she was thrown out last night. It's just as modest and cozy as in the first floor living room where we've just been. The only difference is that rookeries here are not in two, but in all four corners, and the walls are hung with different weapons. There is a dart-sword (so called Assegai), a short Papuan hunting bow, a battle machete and a tomahawk hatchet. Firearms are represented only by modern models: an assault rifle, a compact submachine gun and a pomp pistol of a terrible caliber. In addition to weapons, there are many bright colour photos. It seems that Limo traveled half the globe, no less. Riti calls me to the balcony. Some 6 meters to water.

- Imagine, I'm all so romantic, and he grabs me in an armful - and drops dorn. And I, like a sack with pumpkins - slap. Hardly ass beat. Do you think it is possible to treat a wife in such a way?

I agree that it is impossible, and we go further. Of the other rooms on the second floor, she only shows me the King's office. The arc-shaped desktop with two computers, a huge screen on the left wall and a rack with books, the width to the entire right wall, you notice only after a few seconds, and the airplane occupying the greater part of the room. It is similar to a short kayak boat, equipped with a flat keel-like stem, on which, like the bow of a Viking dragon, the engine with a meter propeller is raised. Above the center, there is a tubular structure, like a buggy cockpit with a fastening for planes resembling the wide wings of a giant grasshopper. I understand that they easily fold over the stern and just as easily unfold into the working position ... Apparently, I have a very stunned look. Riti giggles and says: "This is Orivaa. The factory on it made good money. Limo put this flyer in the office, like an amulet, for good luck." From the office we go to the attic hall. At the beginning, my guide shows a long balcony, overhanging meters at 9 above the sea, and very optimistically reports: "And from here you can also jump! In the morning it works well, instead of gymnastics."

I look down, and I understand that I will rather do exercises twice in the morning than jump from here. In the meantime, Riti will explain to me the other features of the floor plan.

"We are now in the south hall. Behind - the bathroom, and next to the ladder to the tower. There's a cool bedroom-living room, tomorrow I'll show. Haoto and Tahiri live there when they come. From the west, Pau's bedroom, she is now with Kiangguo, tomorrow I will introduce, and mine - from the east, there is enough room for two. But if you want - there are guest bedrooms, north-east and north-west. True, there you have to put things in order a bit, well, like, if you want. "

I understand that Rity is radically too lazy to put things in order there, and I agree to a sociable version in her bedroom where we immediately go. This turns out to be a corner room of almost square shape with an oblique ceiling. More precisely, the room is triangular: the second half of its square is a triangular balcony. The furniture is exhausted by rookery, three bright round ottomans and a bedside table (where Riti immediately throws a laptop and a mobile). On the balcony I notice a plastic table and deckchairs. The walls (there are actually only two of them) are covered with photos - mostly the sea, youth, sailboats and flyers. I think, where to put my travel bag, and I throw it in a corner, next to the bright backpack of Riti.

"It's just a test site on the Hull Islands," she says, seeing my interest in the photo. "The one we'll fly to in the morning." It's a pity that Limo did not give us the "Subjet", otherwise we would slap it, and vzzik, and there. Are you going to sleep now or reading a book? If you read, then I also read. But first I'll go to the shower, otherwise I'm all in salt, like dried kelp. Let's go together?".

The shower comes with a surprise. It is enough to step on the orange panel on the floor and atwo-bucket portion of very hot water drops into you, and then the same portion, almost icy. Riti "forgets" to tell me about this and now makes a guilty look, as if she was going to say in advance, but did not have time. She immediately shows me a normal, human shower, and the responsibility for the surprise shifts to Yueo Auguska (Comrade Limo's companion for the 3rd wife - Feivi) who invented this contrast-water-jet device. Taking this opportunity, I ask Riti about her own relationship with the king and, while we are washing, I get a detailed answer.

...

So, in some very ancient and authoritative book written by some oceanic deity on the shell of a sacred turtle, the king should have five wives. If there are more wives, they will become too distracting to the king from management affairs. If the wives are less, then this occult way will negatively affect the fertility of the island and the welfare of the inhabitants. Hence it is clear why the residents are closely watching that the king did not have less wives than it should be. Any of the king's wives can leave his house at any time (he has no right to keep it, it's a taboo), so the residents monitor his family affairs. If one of the wives spent less than 111 days a year at home (that is, as if she did not fulfill her role), then they immediately demand that he take a new wife. Priority is given to local women aged 111 to 222 lunar years (ie from 9 to 18 ordinary, sunny years). Local good rules dictate the king choose a new wife closer to the middle of this interval, while taking into account the opinion of other wives, especially the elders. The girl's desire is a necessary condition. On the same tortoise shell it is said: if the king takes a wife against her will, then an occult curse will fall on his house, his kind and the whole island.

The role of the king's wife is to multiply his kind, but this is not limited to procreation. There is another way: to bring the comrades to the king. According to European concepts, this means that the queen is looking for promising favourites that become for the king cousins-in-law, and strengthen the ruling dynasty. Sometimes one of the royal wives generally goes to the favourite house, but the business relationship is preserved, so the royal family (or the family business corporation) still benefits. It is clear that for effective hunt for personnel requires a good psychophysical training and versatile education - these qualities the king is obligated to develop in every way in his wives. Accordingly, for the family of Raparat farmers to attach a growing daughter to the house of the king - this is how to win a grant for ultramodern education.

Riti and Pou became wives of the king a year and a half ago, when Limolua Haamea suddenly had a deficit of two wives at once. Two young and active women lived with their favourites and together with them owned the partnership "Tibu-Upoo" (polymer microprocessors) on a fairly large Ataa atoll, in Central Tumaota, 900 miles southeast of Rapatar. The Rappatians hinted to these two ladies: "Hey, have a conscience! You are already settled in life, and our girls - no! Let's get divorced already, free up space for others!". The formal act of divorce was only discussed, but commercial factors interfered. The Tibu-Upoo partnership took a contract in Guatemala to electronically equip the port of Quetzal, and both businesswomen hung there, failing to meet the annual rate of 111 days of compulsory attendance at the king's house. Alert Rappatars immediately reminded the king of the occult forces that ensure the well-being of the island only with the presence of five wives. Probably, Limoloy managed to prepare for such a turn, and immediately made a choice: went to Pau and Riti and asked if they agree to take vacant seats in the fare-te-ariki (royal house) ...

We leave the bathroom on the balcony, overhanging the sea. A little in the distance, on the reef barrier, the surf rumbles rhythmically. In the velvet-black sky, huge bright stars burn. Almost on the horizon, a falling star screeches across the sky, only for some reason from the bottom up. Seeing my surprise, Riti shrugs her shoulders and says: "This is SkyFrog. Patrol rocket-dron. Heard about the protection system Space-lasso? This is it. "

I recall that coordinator Torres also mentioned the Space-lasso aerospace protective network and for a moment I think about how much this is a frequent network, and then I return to the theme of family life with King Limo: "Tell me when Limo made an offer to you and Pou, you immediately agreed, or thought, or asked something?". Riti shakes her head vigorously: "What is there to ask? This is cool! We immediately agreed, went home, took some of the things and dragged here, in fare-te-ariki."

Trying not to blurt out anything not tactful, I am cautiously interested: was not it early for Riti to marry a year and a half ago. She obviously does not understand what I mean, and begins to complain about how the king, his older wives and wife companions, immediately began tyrannizing her and Poe in terms of studying (saying, like that - right away for lessons or tests). Then I clarify that my question was about sex (and gently note that Limo is older than her for about 30 years). She immediately tells me a few technical facts about the king's king's royalties (Playboy magazine rests). Then I, already rather tactlessly, are interested in: was it not too early to have sex with her a year and a half ago?

"Aha! It's a bit early", says Riti." In the beginning, when I pestered Limo with this case, he told me so. Then Pau and I pestered Were ... Well, to Wiraiti, to his second wife, Limo. More precisely, we first stuck to Ailoo, but she said that we would learn the materiel. Arikhine Ailoo always requires that we all learn by ourselves, from books and i-net. Maybe this is right, but about sex somehow uninteresting by books. And we pestered Wear. She's just awesome, you have to see her! She explained to us in a simple way, when it is better for a woman to start make-love. We did so ... ".

After this confused but essentially understandable explanation, I have only one "family" question - already completely tactless: is it unfortunate for her to share her husband with other women? She pauses for a few seconds, and then she nods: "Yeah, of course, a little offended, but you have to share with friends, how else? Sometimes I'm sulking at Limo and running to other men, but still I like him more, because he's so big, cozy and familiar. Uira says that she used to, when she and Limo met only, so it was. Maybe it's an age?.. ".

Noting in memory that it would be interesting to really get acquainted with Uiraiti, the King's 2nd wife, I turn off the "family" theme. I have to admit: I was not able to understand the local sexual representations from the first try. After a contrasting soul and casual chatter with Ritie's unconsciousness, I feel a surge of energy. I do not want to sleep at all and, having taken a suitable position on the rookery, I open a book about Van Horna. Ritie settles down next to read through my shoulder. I suspect that the girl is interested not so much in reading, as in my reaction to certain episodes of this semi-literary chronicle. I think, in my place, it would also be interesting.

Atomic Autodefenca
-** Obo Van Horn. «Atomic Autodefenca». Fate and naval love -**

A little north of Fiji and Tonga, approximately equidistant from both of these island systems, is the Nomuauau atoll. It consists of an extensive trapezoidal lagoon and half a dozen tiny island-motu, with a total area of ​​half a hectare. On each motu, there is a village: a dozen bamboo fare on stilts. From time immemorial (no one remembers which), the atoll was ruled by kings of the Tatokiya clan with the title tu-i-hele (literally "the master of the blade"). They analysed the economic disputes of the inhabitants, and during small wars (which occurred every 4 to 5 years), they decided who to fight for: Tonga against Fiji, or vice versa. If the decision was successful, then the inhabitants of the atoll later divided the rich (according to their notions) prey. If not - then ran to neighboring atolls, and returned in a week or two. Sometimes, it was necessary to build new fare instead of burned, such are the vicissitudes of war. In peacetime, the locals were engaged in conventional marine fishing and petty trade with neighbours.

When the Aluminum revolution reached this place, King Fuopalele Tatokia decided that this was another regular war, and after reading the rongo-rongo, he declared: Nomuauau is fighting on the side of Tonga. 30 young men took Chinese and Chilean guns (the only modern implements in their daily life), and moved to the nearest Fijian island of Lakalemba, where there was a small port with a commercial depot that was subject to total looting in the wartime tradition. The case was in full scale (the Guardsmen of the King frightened the guards with weapons, gave them to the neck and, breaking the containers, began to load 2 cargo: nylon fishing nets, synthetic sailing cloth, jackets, stew, whiskey and other valuables), then a Coast Guard boat arrived with a platoon of Fijian soldiers.

In such a situation, King Fuopalele could, without losing his face, declare force-major and flush away with his people on light canoes, throwing the loot together with cargo proas. But the king was young, believed in his luck, and had experience of successfully participating in small wars 6 years ago and 2 years ago. He decided, using the surprise factor, to attack the Fijians, and drive them away or even (what fate does not joke) to capture their boat and weapons. As soon as the boat approached the pier, the King's guards opened a heavy fire on it and immediately took out half the enemy's personnel. The Fijians, too, were not born yesterday, and they responded from assault rifles and heavy machine guns to the nasal turret. Fuopalele Tatokia understood: it's rubbish. His men were pressed by machine-gun fire to the shelters and cut off from their canoes. Retreat nowhere. It remained to fight.

The paradox was that the Fijian soldiers were not interested in the robbery of the warehouse. They were from that part of the army, which, in the course of the revolution, was on the wrong side. Now, taking with them the property of a dozen jewelry stores, they fled to Western Samoa (where, according to rumours, the old regime still held). At Lakalemba, they came only for refuelling, and they would not interfere in anything if they were not attacked. They not care about such stupidity as policing law and order. They feared chasing, and they had reason for this.

Half an hour later a motor-boat with a four-color pennant on a flagpole came to Lakalemba Bay at a frenzied speed, and the line from the recoilless gun converted the pier to pieces. The King and his people (those 17 out of 30 who were not among the dead and seriously wounded) welcomed this with cheerful cries. An acquaintance with the fighters of the People's Fleet of the Charter took place and joined in its ranks. The first task was to search for jewelry at the bottom of the pier - fortunately, the depth was only 4 meters. At the same time, the King's people took out submachine guns, a box of cartridges and some of the trifles. On Nomauau, they sent rich prey and wounded men. They conveyed to the tribesmen the message: King Fuopalele won the first victory, and continues to develop success.

Six months later, 14 men from 17 returned to Nomauau with a new message: the king and his allies won the greatest war. As Mauna-Oro in antiquity, they united Hawaii. Oceania from Tuamotu in the southeast to Palau in the north-west is now Me-a-siana - common to all people (to the lingua franca - Meganezia). True, New Zealand, the Chilean Rapa Nui and American Hawaii did not enter there, but this is a trifle. Fuopalele ordered the elders to govern for himself on Nomauau while he would visit from time to time. Now the king guards the sea routes of Meganesia on a special proah, from which planes can fly, as from large American warships. For clarity, there were photos that left no doubt: the king is busy with something very important, and there is nothing to distract him for everyday and simple economic squabbles.

And what really? At the height of the war for the Charter, junior commanders with combat experience were in great demand. Tatokia was promoted to lieutenant, commanded a platoon of marines in battles for New Caledonia and Loyalty, and gained the reputation of a desperately brave officer. After the war, the modernisation of the armed forces began, and the lieutenant, who could hardly read and write, and could only count on his fingers, turned out to be, to put it mildly, not in accordance with the educational standard. He would be dismissed with an easy heart "for a citizen", and he would calmly return to Nomauau, if not for one circumstance. This circumstance was a young active woman named Joy Prest.

Joy was born on the small island of Kosrae, in the eastern part of the Carolina islands, in the family of the white American pastor of the Evangelical mission. At the age of 17, she left from Kiribati with a scandal and, after 3 years of studying at the Tarawa Institute of Technology, got a job as an engineer for a screwdriver assembly company. As a fan of Siqueiros, she contacted the left underground, and was sent to prison for participating in a project of very efficient mine activated through Internet. Then, the Aluminum revolution threw Joy Prest into the group of innovations of the People's Fleet. Arriving on matters relating to new technology, to the fleet headquarters in Fiji, she quite accidentally saw King Fuopalele.

- Who is this guy? she asked.

- This is Foo Tatokia, the special forces lieutenant, full of scumbags, - replied the commandant of the staff.

- Where is he involved?

- Already nowhere. He is demobilised.

Joy again looked at the king and said:

- He's what I need. He is an atoll-man, which means he can lead the life of a ship.

The commandant confirmed:

- Yes, but why on a test ship is a captain who hardly knows the alphabet?

The answer was:

- My captain must manage the ship and the actions of the guard platoon. I see, behind this guy, my specialists will be like behind an armored wall. I do not care if he knows the letters.

So, Fuopalele became the captain of the experimental aircraft carrier "Icamanu", where, under the leadership of Joy, tests of ultra-light deck flyers (ULDF) were carried out.

If there was someone else in her place, Foo would have refused, but at Joy he fired from the first glance.

"Ikamanu" was a catamaran with a displacement of 400 tons. On two floats was installed almost rectangular deck 30x40 meters. In the left corner at the stern, above the engine, there was a construction with a control room and a household block, along the diagonal there was a runway 50 meters long, and the entire space to the right of it was occupied by a hangar and mechanical shop. The crew consisted of only 35 people (including the flight crew). By naval standards, such a ship was a dwarf freak, but the revolutionary armed forces of Meganesia lacked basic resources for anything more.

When Ikamanu descended on the water in Tahiti-Iti, Joy joked: "There is no real aircraft carrier, so we learn to fly with a toy, and really fight on plastic airplanes." There are cheap machines, that have enough 50 meters of a strip to take off and land with a cargo of 2 centners - it's light gyroplanes, but their speed is 80 knots, half what it takes for a patrol flyer. Light aircraft give the necessary speed, but require a strip of 100 - 200 meters. To combine all the necessary qualities in one machine, active guys from Creatori dazzled the WiRo hybrid project (Wing + Rotor). The idea was stolen from the American project "Canard Rotor / Wing" of the first years of the XXI century. A wide two-bladed rotor rotates on take-off, landing, and, if necessary, hovering. With high-speed flight, it rises across the fuselage and turns into a fixed wing. The project "Canard Rotor / Wing" was intended for a hybrid aircraft-helicopter with jet thrust, and the transfer of this scheme in a very simplified form to the hybrid aviette-autogyro did not pass painlessly. Ultra-light WiRo took off, sat down, and performed manoeures in the mode of gyroplane, at a speed of 80 knots. But as soon as the rotor was switched to wing mode, WiRo began to behave (in the words of one pilot) "like a heavily drunk seagull".

There was no question of doing any maneuvers in this mode. When trying to return to rotor mode, the car lost control, and the pilot, according to the instructions, left it, jumping the water. The machine, of course, crashed. During the next flights, the pilots repeatedly tried to cope with problems in the wing mode, and repeatedly landed on the water, getting minor injuries and damaging the cars. Then someone had the idea to change the shape of the keel and the stationary auxiliary wing. WiRo was made on LEGO-principle, from plug-in modules, which allowed making some changes right in the ship's workshop "Ikamanu". The modified WiRo took off normally, but when I tried to change the rotor mode, I suddenly turned over. The pilot managed to leave the car and stay alive only thanks to a good reaction. Joy cheerfully joked: "The trials are turning into a championship in diving."

After that, there was a conflict. The pilots in the passion demanded to allow the experiment with another modification of the WiRo. Joy was reminded of instructions: first of all, to protect people. She was told that there were no cowards, at least among the pilots. In response to this rude hint, Joy threatened to replace the entire flight crew. From the collapse of the team suddenly saved Cap Foo.

- Guys, I look like a coward?

- No! - the pilots replied in chorus. They were heard about the record of their captain.

- So, if I look at your flights and tremble with fear, then something is wrong, - he concluded seriously.

After that, everyone laughed together, and an hour later Joey announced:

- The crew is given several days of vacation, while the specialists are studying our report and reworking WiRo for the second series of tests. And we go to the island of Bora Bora. Order: everyone should rest and ...

The continuation of the sentence drowned in joyful yells. These guys did not have to learn how to break away on Bora Bora - one of the most reckless resorts in Oceania.

Foo had never walked in a peaceful, civilized resort town in his life, and Joey undertook an excursion to Vaitapa, the administrative center of Bora Bora. In addition to a number of ridiculous events, on this walk two episodes occurred, which were of immense importance for the further life of the experimental aircraft carrier.

Miracles began in the toy store. Foo saw there a half-meter radio-controlled helicopter model and asked: "Does it really fly?". The seller showed him how a toy operated from the console flies.

– Do you sell them for 30 pounds? - asked Foo and, after the affirmative answer, immediately bought 3 of these helicopters. A few minutes later, he bought 5 toys in the next department, "Spy-agent" (a micro-camera that transmits a video signal to a monitor, removed by a mile). Joy's perplexed question, why he needed toys for schoolchildren, Foo responded laconically: "later" and, going into the department for the youngest, bought three rubber punks the size of a finger.

Joey decided that Lieutenant Tatokia had several wives at home, at Nomwaau Atoll, and a bunch of children of different ages. Then his purchases looked quite natural. Nevertheless, in the order of a small friendly revenge, she dragged Fu's cap into a sex shop. To begin with, Foo showed the biggest dildo and asked: "From what beast is this dick cut off?" The saleswoman, with great difficulty, retaining a serious look, replied that no animal had been injured in the manufacture of this thing. She explained: "This product imitates for women a sexual male partner. There are also products for men imitating a female sexual partner. " Here, Foo, suddenly became interested in 1.5-meter inflatable dolls. Choosing the cheapest (for 25 pounds) doll (sitting ugly with painted eyes and sloppy stitches) he put the saleswoman into a dead end question: "What happens, if you pour water into it?". She did not know. Then Foo bought this product and filled it with tap water in the toilet. The doll did not burst, even when he picked it up and threw it a couple of times. Expressing his joy with a loud exclamation, Foo poured water and bought another 4 of the same dolls. To Joy's question, why the hell did he need these rubber monsters with a nearby live woman, he again said: "Later".

She began to worry (either for her sex appeal, or for his mental sanity), but Foo dispelled this anxiety as soon as they reached the hotel. Actually, it was about throwing bags of shopping in the house-room, and go for a walk on ... But after about 2 hours Joey realised that she should forget about the continuation of the walk. To the sea, which began just outside the threshold of the house, She crawled with difficulty. After that, lying down on the water in the pose of a starfish, she cheerfully announced: "I guess, I look like an inflatable doll, like the ones you bought for some devil. By the way, why do you need them, after all?"

Foo (who was lying side by side in a similar position) expressed deep surprise: how could such an educated and intelligent woman not understand such simple things? It was not for nothing that he poured water into the doll! With water, she looks and weighs like a man. It can be planted to cockpit of ULDF, and you can take as many risks as possible: the doll does not mind, 25 pounds is not the money. Joey sarcastically noticed that this doll can somehow fuck, but do not control the ULDF. "The pilot manages," answered Foo, "he has a remote, and the doll has an eye on the forehead, and the pilot sees the same as the doll. We will make a strong magic, and the pilot will think that it's him in the cabine."

Joy wondered whether the cap had said nonsense, or, on the contrary, something genius. He, seeing that Joy did not understand the crux of the matter, unceremoniously extracted her from the water, dragged her into the room and, unpacking some of the purchases, explained the basis of the magic technique in detail. A doll (a small puppet or a large inflatable one), after a witchcraft ritual, will become not just a doll, but an alter ego of a particular person, animal, or spirit. Between "ele tiki" and the original there will be a special occult communication that can be used. Radio exchange through the console and spy camcorder, of course, will enhance this magic. The pilot, as if being at the helm, will be able to perform any maneuers without risk to life.

Clearly, Joy demanded evidence. Foo made an ele tiki for her in an hour, anointing the pups with a droplet of her saliva, and sticking a camera on his forehead. After that, the doll was placed in the cockpit of a toy helicopter, and Joy received a console and a monitor. The sensations that she experienced during piloting showed that the ancient Tongaic magic, damn it, works. She did not feel the navel with her second "I", but some strange sympathy appeared, and the fate of the funny figure in the cabin became not ignorable to her.

After some thought, Joy called the Creatori and persuaded the designers to supply the new WiRo samples with a radio control unit that duplicated the control from the cockpit. There they grumbled a little, but agreed. In the morning, she collected all the flight crew (pretty crumpled after a stormy night) and outlined the essence of the magical innovations that will be included in the next series of tests. Joy waited for skeptical comments, but the pilots took the information seriously. They demanded that Foo teach them to enchant and disrupt the dolls, and then take all three sets of toys to train a little from the console, looking at the monitor.

The second series of tests, too, was not very successful. By increasing the keel and installing the keels on the auxiliary wings, it was possible to achieve that the controllability of the WiRo in the fixed rotor mode was somewhat improved, but at a speed of more than 120 knots the machine behaved unpredictably. The transition to the rotation mode of the rotor was now possible, but was obtained through time. For this series were lost 4 WiRo, 3 of them - in risky flights with "ele tiki" at the helm. Sex dolls, even enchanted, could not jump, and died together with the aircraft. The report had been sent to the "Creatori", and the crew again received a vacation on Bora-Bora, where they replenished the stock of sex dolls and "spy-agent". It turned out, the data obtained during the risk flights, allowed finding and eliminating the main defect of the machines. The WiRo-III was made very different from previous series. Keels from the auxiliary wings disappeared, the wings themselves increased, and the rotor, on the contrary, decreased and became four-bladed. When moving to a fixed mode, the rotor turned into an X-shaped wing. Despite the resulting grotesque appearance, WiRo in this mode showed better characteristics than the light patrol aircraft of the Air Force Malaysia and Indonesia, which at the beginning of the tests were taken as the benchmark.

The WiRo-IV series (with some modifications, including a turret for an automatic grenade launcher) arrived after the next vacation, accompanied by the sub-commandant of the People's Fleet and a group of future instructors who were to teach the pilots how to use the new machine. There was a demonstration of aerobatics, spectacular firing at floating 200-liter barrels of grenades - "lighters" with white phosphorus, and a banquet with the awarding of the crew of "Ikamanu." Then, the authorities left, and the final stage of work began. The next morning, one instructor, looking through the test log, exclaimed: "Joder! How many people you lost, driving this machine!".

The piquancy of story was, that, during tests with the participation of "ele tiki", their fate was reflected in the working journal. There were records like: "With an ascending spiral - stalling, emergency landing. The keel and the left auxiliary wing are damaged. Ele Tiki died.".. "What do you think that means Ele Tiki," Cap Fuo asked. "Probably, Master Pilot", - the instructor suggested. Cap snorted, went out and came back a couple of minutes later, carrying a water-filled sex doll with a felt-tip pen on his shoulder: "Potius mori quam foedari" (Latin motto: "It's better to die than disgrace"). There was a lot of laughter, but the instructors appreciated the puppet method of mastering new machines, and Ele Tiki appeared in all the training departments of the Air Corps of the People's Fleet.

The word "wiro-plane" (and the abbreviation "WiRo") soon became a collective one for all machines of this type, and the WiRo-IV entered the People's Fleet under the code "Ute Ape-Tapu" (UAT), in Utafoa, this literally means "Moulin Rouge ","Red Mill". The irony of fate: Maitre Briac, author of the "Tiki culture" came from the cabaret "Moulin Rouge".

UAT soon showed, what they could do. The operation "Barrido del mar" (naval mop), went down in history as the most effective and most brutal campaign against "naval bandidos" (pirates). But the starry hour for "Ikamanu" was the next project "ARGO" ...

-*********************************

...

After reading up to this place, Jeanne found out that Riti was already sleeping on her side, putting a hand under her cheek. In a dream, she looked completely childish, and dreamy. Apparently, she dreamed something romantic. Looking at her watch, the Canadian found out that it was almost 2 o'clock in the morning, put down the book and quietly turned off the light. Huge stars glittered through the glass door of the balcony, and the ocean was quietly rustling .... She herself did not notice how she fell asleep, and she also dreamed of the ocean - a huge and, as if, alive. At least in this dream, he seemed to be a living being, playful, but a little frightening

...

In the morning, she was awoken by a shrill shriek, and she followed the splash, Judging by the sun, low above the blue-green ocean opposite the triangular balcony, it was quite early in the morning. Glancing at her watch, Jeanne made sure: yes, even earlier, at a quarter to seven. Again there was a splash, only this time without a preliminary squeal, but with a subsequent loud chuckle at two voices. Wrapped in a towel, Jeanne went to the balcony to see, what was happening, and in a moment glanced at the long balcony of the hall. The 18 years old guy was standing there; then he jumped put. His lean, swarthy body, seemed to be hanging in the air for an instant, then flew down. Plyuh! Below, it turns out, already rattled off with Riti and Pou, and just jumped the guy, apparently, was none other than Kiangguo - at the moment he emerged to the surface. Riti, meanwhile, noticed Jeanne and waved to her.

- Hi! Sorry to wake you up. It's their fault. I was not going to scream loudly, I would have jumped quietly, but they threw me back!

"There was no need to tickle," replied Kyango. "You know, I'm afraid of tickling."

- Jeanne, jump to us! - cried Pou, - we'll swim, then we get some alcohol and fly.

- I will not jump, I'm scared, - the Canadian admitted.

- There's a ladder on the side, like, a ladder almost to the very water, - said Rity.

- OK, - said Jeanne, - wait a minute.

In the process of a three-minute visit to the bathroom, she decided whether to wear a swimsuit or not. The struggle between the rules of decency and unwillingness to look stupid, ended in favour of the second, and Jeanne descended the ladder in its natural form, without rags. Diving into the azure water, she realised that the first time is in the megalonesian ocean, yes even in the campaign of the real Aborigines. Boyfriend Pou, on closer examination, turned out to be a fraudulent Creole mestizo. In the "Britanica T-guide" it is written, that this is the most common ethnic type of inhabitant of the meganesian province.

- We go to the eastern side, - Poe suggested. - We'll buy some fuel at once.

- You could warn, - muttered Kiangguo, - I did not take the purse."

- Well, take it, it's a matter of minutes.

- All right, - he said, - then you swim, but without fanaticism, and I'll catch you up.

To the target point of the eastern shore of the lagoon, on the other side of the metropolitan settlement, was 500 meters, and they swamed.

Jeanne, realising that the warning "without fanaticism" does not apply to her swam as quickly as possible. Riti and Pou frolicked around her like a pair of small dolphins, as if she were lying motionless at all on the water (only the sight of the approaching eastern shore was convincing her to the contrary). "Utafoa learn to swim before walking," she recalled. Kyango caught up with them before the middle of the road. Now, a bright green plastic bracelet-case was fastened over his left bicep. When they reached the goal of the water walk, they climbed onto one of the public piers, which had several proaches, boats and light flags, and moved towards small farms starting a hundred steps from the shore. The public already worked - in this climate people try to use the cool time of the day immediately after dawn.

- Are we naked, and go to the country? - Jeanne asked, realising thatit was not only bathing without clothes, but also a walk.

– Here, in the course, the sandy soil, – said Riti. - so do not worry about your legs.

It was vain, to explain to the girl something about Western customs; in addition, the Canadian noticed that the farmers are not worn much: kilt or lava-lava, or nothing at all. Seriously (in shorts and T-shirts) were the drivers of quadricycles (these machines, as Jeanne understood, replaced mini-tractors and mini-combines in such small fields).

- Let's go to Lotia Nakonao, - Poe suggested. - He promised a discount to us the day before yesterday.

After a few minutes, they went out to the farm, where a dozen Raparez people of different ages and sex, with the support of two ATVs, dug up and collected some root crops, similar to a titanic carrot, a meter one and a half to two long.

- It's yam, - explained Reeti, - it does not grow in the north. This is a type of potatoes. It is good to make brew. But not always. The one that is unsuccessful is only in the fuel tank.

In the meantime, Kyango and Pou exchanged greetings with the farmers with the chefs, and they grew louder and louder. Riti too has started to giggle and, in reply to a questioning look of the Canadian, has commented:

- Estimate, yam is like dick. Well, not that very much, and yet. Therefore, the custom: if a guy collects yams, then they want him to be as big and fat, and if the girl - then she wants that such was her boyfriend. Meanwhile, one farmer chose the most impressive tuber (almost two meters long and thick with her leg), barely raised it with both hands and, turning to Kiango and Poe, to the laughter of everyone else, pronounced a long tirade. "A special wish to the children for tonight," Rityi translated succinctly, "yes, by the way, we are invited to have a snack."

As Jeanne soon realized, farmers made a "technological break" right now, for the sake of chatting with a person from afar - ie. with her. The audience sat around a mat table, on which were laid out local fruits and vegetables, pieces of something like seafood, and almost hot round homemade cakes. In the center of the mat stood a canister with a light coconut wine (which is sometimes called palm beer).

Later, remembering this cheerful chatter, Jeanne realised, that it was the most amazing. Rapartars did not care a single bit about politics in general, and relations between Canada and Meganesia in particular. The questions relied mainly on what is interesting to see in Canada, where it makes sense to go there, and that it makes sense to buy there. The only time we talked about politics was when one of the raprapists asked: why can not we fly from here to Canada, which is of interest to us, on our flyer.

- We only need to look at Niagara, - he explained. - We would have arrived in the morning from Clipperton, right on the waterfall, and in the evening we would have flown back without giving anyone any trouble.. Why these visas, airliners, hotels? Why to spend so much time and money?

Jeanne tried to explain something about immigration policy and the prevention of terrorism, but very quickly realized that she was carrying some kind of nonsense. One glance at these farmers was enough to understand: neither to emigrate to Canada, nor to arrange terrorist acts there, they will never come to mind. Then the Canadian resorted to inversion:

- Imagine, I rent a plane in Canada, and I will fly to some megalonesian atoll, not asking anyone for permission.

- Well? the interlocutor asked.

- If the police find me, they'll arrest me, will not they?" She explained.

- For what? - he was surprised.

- You mean the police will not pay attention to me? - Here Jeanne sneered skeptically.

- I will definitely turn, - Kiangguo said. - I am first year in the reservists, and I was sent to patrol the atolls of the Tsernralnogo Tuamotu, where a crowd of divers and tourists. Many come from Hawaii and from California by their own transport. If it seems to me that they are foreigners, I, according to the instructions should, without giving them trouble, make them on video from twoangles, and send it to the data bank. If something is hanging on them, then in 15 seconds a file and an order will come to me and to the local police. And if not - then I just need to make sure that they do not need help. Is it not enough that, suddenly they have a flail or a boat broke, or something else. Then I must help ...

- And if they do not need help? - Asked Jeanne.

- Do not need - so do not need. Why stop people from resting if they do not bother anyone?

After chatting a little more, they paid for fuel, asked to bring it to the pier, exchanged with farmers a few more jokes about yams and set off on the return journey. A minute later, Riti suggested:

- And let's go through Mutuary, at once we'll show Jeanne the College."

- By the way, yes, - said Kyango, - I'll just buy cigarettes.

- You took the mobile? Asked Poe.

- So in the same bracelet, along with the wallet, - he replied, - Why?"

- Give it to Jeanne, she's a reporter. She needs a picture.

– OK, - he agreed, and held out a small communicator to the Canadian, - It's certainly not a pro camera, but it looks like a good one. The button on the left side, and the zoom and any setting right in the menu. If anything, I'll tell you. And at home I'm load it to your laptop.

...

15 - RETROSPECTIVE
Date / Time: 1 - 2 September 20 of the Charter. Location: Central Meganesia, Futuna and Alofi. base INDEMI and fare Carpini

Maximilen Lawrence Lynx wiped the sweat from his forehead (he could not get used to the local 27 degrees Celsius), and continued.

- Now we will talk about bio-ballistics, the most effective of modern methods of transformation of plant genetic material. Who knows what ballistics is?

- Can I, doc? - asked Ufti, waited for a nod of Lynx, began to expound, - If I need to cover that reef with a tuber, then I estimate the distance and the elevation. Better, with the range finder, but it is possible by eye, and I look.

- Now the Tubers are already going with a ballistic computer, - said Corporal Pafimoto.

- True, Dante, - the real Papuan agreed. - But in this computer is the same science, only automated. - And, in any way, you need to be able to drive without a computer. Here, for example, covered your position from the EMR gun, and you do not have that comp, you even have fake quartz watches do not work. All electro-chains are in shit. And, if you do not know how to guide manually, according to the table, then sushi fins.

Max Lynx clapped his hands.

- Explain for a purely civilian that there is a "tuber".

- It's simple thing, dock, - said Ufti. - A pipe is about a meter long, there's a plate on the tail, and a support and a screw-elevator with a scale on the tail to set the angle of fire. And as you put it, you throw a mine into the pipe, it booms on the plate, the ignition, and pouf! The mine, on a hinged trajectory, flies to the top of the enemy's head. And it contains a pound of nitroglycol.

- In a mine, not in the top of the head, - Ribopo Maapiti explained.

- In short, Doc, this is a portable mortar," Laea Lafao added.

- And ballistics is the science of how to direct it, - Ufti traced the line.

- Thank you, young people, - said the British. - We'll dance from this example. Ballistics really got its name from a military device. It was in ancient times the siege weapon of the "ballista". Perhaps it is the ancestor of the mortar, which Ofty told so emotionally. And the history of bio-ballistics begins in the medieval Czech Republic, from the legend of a free shooter who sold the soul to the devil for 7 magic bullets. Based on this legend, in the 19th century, the opera The Free Shooter was written in Germany, which gave an impulse to the idea, more precisely, to the dream, in the head of a chemist Paul Ehrlich. The dream was to create a substance whose molecules, like magic bullets, will hit pathogenic microorganisms without causing any harm to human cells. Ehrlich acted intuitively, and he managed to make only one magic bullet, the drug "salvarsan", against syphilis ... Hand on heart, he was not even very successful, the drug was so-so, but the idea took root. In 1928, the British Alex Fleming, who was so careless that jokes about it, accidentally brought a spore of one of the Penicillum molds into a cup of bacterial culture. A day later, he found in the cup circles of solid extinction of bacteria and remembered the "magic pool" of Ehrlich. So the antibiotic penicillin was opened, and antibiotics in general, as a class of pharmapreparatov. And at the end of the 20th century, an idea arose to shoot at the nuclei of cultured plant cells with magic bullets stuffed with foreign genetic material to implant this material into the genes of the plant and obtain a transgenic hybrid. This is "bio-ballistics," or "biolistics," as Americans say, adored to amputate bits of long words. In the beginning, this practice was not like shooting snipers, but hunting for ducks from a shotgun. Clusters of tungsten with DNA fragments deposited on them were fired from the electric micro-gun into the nucleus of the cell, getting to the desired point of the gene only by chance. With the development of the configurational submolecular thermodynamics, which, from the filing of journalists are called "molecular robotics" and more often - "nanotechnology", things have gone smoothly. It became possible to cut out a strictly defined fragment of DNA from one chain, and shoot them in a strictly defined place of another DNA chain. It's not even a sniper shot, but ... Young people, what is the name of that small hand-held missile that planes shoot down? It is often shown in action movies.

- Our "Jojo", the Chinese "Zanway", the American "Redeye", the Siberian ​​"Igla", and your, the British "Starstreak" - answered Ufti.

- And the most famous is the American "Stinger", - Feng Toruyeva flashed her erudition. Dr. Lynx raised his finger to the sky.

- Right! In the movie, it is always called "Stinger". Tell me, Fang, how does it work?

- I do not know, - she shrugged. - I did not shoot it. - But there is an instruction there too.

- Elementary, - interrupted Ufti. - Turn her toward the plane. On the screen, the point will light up. This means, the locator found the heat engine. If the distance is working, there will be a frame around the point. Then click the button, and that's it. Our one works up to 5 miles, and the american ones - up to 8, but they are ten times more expensive. Take ours, anyway, you usually shoot miles from two to three.

- Thank you, Ufti. - If I need to shoot down the plane, I will definitely support your local manufacturer. But the question was, not how to use it, but how it works.

- Aah, - extended the "Real Papuan", falling into the unusual for him meditation.

- Let me? Said Toko Saokeo.

- Do you understand rockets? - Max was surprised.

- A little bit, - the student answered, - but I think to understand your question.

- Oh well. Go ahead.

Toko stood up, leveled a small patch of sand with his bare foot, drew two diamond with his finger and in it - the diagonals. Then he painted the Pi-shaped crosspieces, and explained:

- This is a two-channel sensing bridge. These four sensors give the two signals to the circuit, proportional to the thermal radiation detected. The unevenness of these four signals gives an electric pulse, that moves the rudders and rotates this thing toward a potential increase. If the potential is zero, then the rocket's nose is facing directly to the target. It is very stupid scheme, it does not make any anticipation of position of the target. But, at the great excess of speed, this is not a big deal, it hits the target at its back. I understand that a molecular robot acts in a similar way, only on the thermodynamic potential, which is different for different rotations of fragments of a large molecule.

Dr. Links three times slowly clapped his hands.

- Bravo, young man! - If I ever overcome my terrible laziness and write an introductory course on molecular bioengineering, I will certainly include this example with reference to you. All right. To transfer a fragments of a gene, we only need to perform the thermodynamic adjustment of the robot, and then the process will go, simply as a chemical reaction, at the output of which there will be genes with given properties. Natural evolution has solved this problem by creating viroids - ideal quantum-thermodynamic machines, the most compact systems of bio-information transfer, multiplying in the host cells. If the virus consists of a shell and a nucleic acid polymer containing at least one and a half thousand links, the viroid is a ring RNA oligomer of 250-300 units. The viroids were discovered in 1971, but they were sorting out these machines for another 40 years. At the same time, we found out amazing things ... About which we will talk at the next seminar.

A minute later he was sitting alone, surrounded by scattered pieces of clothing scattered across the sand, and his listeners were tossed into the sea, which began ten steps from the "lecture hall" formed by the crowns of a small group of palm trees growing on the shore, between an installation of residential containers to the left and field laboratory to the right. Max knew that in a quarter of an hour someone (most likely Fang or Ribopo) would get out of water and brings some coffee and coconut milk to shore. Then someone else (most likely, Dante or Ufti) will start to cook dinner. Then there will be some table fleim, and then one more day will end. This order had been established by itself, about three weeks ago. Breakfast. Work on the experimental field site. Dinner. Work in the laboratory. Coffe-break and discussion of tasks for tomorrow. Another hour on the experimental site or in the laboratory (not work, but satisfaction of curiosity). At the end of the day - a seminar for those who wish: "Popular - about genetic engineering".

The seminar was Dr. Lynx's invention, he missed working with students almost more than the actual scientific work.

When he was drinking on the outskirts of Bristol, he did not think about this. Earlier, when he was kicked out of university, even less. It was a desperate struggle - unequal and meaningless, as he now understood. Now she was replaced by another, even more desperate struggle - with his own alcoholism.

The first two weeks on Alofi Max remembered, now as a nightmare. Max almost could not sleep; instead of sleep, there were short gaps, similar to syncopes or somnambulistic state. He also could hardly eat. He almost all the time wanted to drink. His body insistently demanded ethanol, blackmailing the owner by strikes and sabotage. The organism could, at the most unexpected moment, disable any function - motor, sensory and even respiratory (for a short time, which, incidentally, was enough for the owner to feel all the joys of slow suffocation). A couple of times it came to emergency medical care - however, rather as a reinsurance. The organism was fighting the opposite way - suddenly including some functions, so that its owner was in a situation that makes clear the thoughts about diapers. Against this backdrop, brief periods of clear understanding happened, but they were filled with severe depression, when you just wanted to die (and the sooner, the better), or anger at others (with a great desire or hit someone, or hurt as much as possible). Somewhat less often, with clear reason, Dr. Lynx suddenly began to see himself from the side. At such moments he was deeply disgusted with himself and pestered the first one who came to his eyes with an obsessive question:

- What the hell are you doing to me? Don't you hate me?

The answers were very different in form, but identical in meaning. The longest was the reply of Corporal Dante Pafimot. Or rather not the answer, but the story:

- We had a case for an operation in the Waiiang point, this is in the northwest of Papua, near the disputed border with Irian Jaya: two of our guys were blown up by a flamethrower-trap. This thing is put on the roads, and it spits out 25 litres of a burning mixture of gasoline with engine oil for a hundred meters. Champ walked first, and Tezi - the second. They both were covered. Then we dragged them through the jungle, to the river Imboro, more than ten miles. They shouted all the time. Even promedol did not help me. When the "yule" flew to pick them up, Champ had already died, and Tezi was transferred to a hospital on the island of Lorung. He scrambled out, although half of his skin was burnt. Now he is the police chief at the Nikaupar Atoll. He is very respected, he is a great guy and all that. And then, after he was covered with fire, he looked much worse than you, doc. What is here to explain?

- I'm sorry, Dante, - Max objected. - It's one thing, your comrade-in-arms, and quite another, some degraded alcoholic from the other side of the world.

- You, Doc, behave exactly like Tezi, - replied the corporal. - When we dragged him through the jungle, he cried: "Shoot me, idiots, anyway, I'll die!" If you are interested in my opinion, doc, I'll say this; it's always the case: some worthy people get into a situation and demand that they be finished off or thrown, and other worthy people pull them out. This is what keeps everything. If somewhere they start throwing their own, then there's an ass. The winner is the one who drags his own to the last. Such a law of nature.

- How do you know that I am your? - Asked Dr. Lynx.

Corporal scratched his head at first with his right hand, then with his left hand, and then he said:

- What interesting people, scientists. Can come up with a question that a simple guy like me, even in the head does not come. Type, if a person says: "I'm lying", is it true or not? We did this in college, logically. In general, it seems to me that the science is coming from here: to come up with a question that no one has asked before.

- So where did you get that I'm yours? - Lynx insisted.

- So in life it turns out, - answered Пафимоту, - And as theoretically to prove, I do not know. To be honest, the theory is not my strong point. I somehow more on practical application. And about these paradoxes you better ask Laea Lafao. She boasted that she had a course work on relational data models. Maybe she knows.

Then Max got angry and, picking up a shovel (the conversation took place on the experimental site) hit the corporal on the head. More precisely, he struck the place where the corporal's head had just been, but she had already moved, the shovel cut into the solid trunk of the palm tree and Dr. Lynx earned the bruise of the right hand. The anger evaporated, giving way to resentment and depression. The rest of the day he did not talk to anyone, he answered all attempts to contact with slang, and refused supper. Similar episodes occurred several times. Half a dozen young people, meanwhile, worked on the materials of stolen university archives, trying to get from Lynx at least some instructions in those short periods when he adequately responded to questions. If nothing came out, they turned to Michele Carpini for instructions. So, step by step, some results were achieved. It was moving at the speed of an old turtle.

One day, once again being in a state of resentment to the whole world, Linkes looked through the working journal on the computer, found a series of gross missteps and, with great pleasure, detailed to all the team members his opinion on their intellect, the level of education, and the degree of understanding of the material. He excelled in insults for two hours, alternately and diligently poking each with his nose into his mistakes (the entries in the journal were personal, which allowed in each case to establish the author). He asked each professional questions, found holes in his system of knowledge, called "dumbness" or "moron," and went on to the next. Having exhausted all the reserves of eloquence, he concluded his speech with the following tirade: "I hope, now you understand that you are all a bunch of idiots capable only of washing test tubes, so now everyone will receive tasks from me for recording, and I will demand that these tasks be performed scrupulously and literally, and if you have any questions, then look for time when I'm not busy and ask them in a clear form, better even in writing, because verbally you do not know how to formulate what you think your thoughts."

For the next four weeks, Dr. Lynx was writing out the tasks "from and to" to the most stupid laboratory technicians, and in the evenings, sat for hours on the computer, answering written questions. Sometimes they went beyond his knowledge and had to rummage around the Internet in search of answers. He was tired, he did not sleep, he yawned in the middle of the day, he slept several times and the guys fed him "on special order", already about noon. With some questions he was busy half-a-night and popped up after dinner, after which he demanded coffee in such huge quantities that it already seemed risky. He quarreled with Toko Saokeo (who served as a paramedic and tried to somehow limit coffee craziness). To bother him, Dr. Lynx began smoking cigarettes demonstratively, and even hung on the walls prints from the Internet, with rough mockery of anti-tobacco propaganda. The top of his work was a computer gallery of portraits of celebrity smokers with cigarettes, cigars and tubes.

At this stage, Max suddenly found that he was interested in working, that he was surrounded by people who have a good sense of humour and, in general, good professional skills and basic knowledge. He tried to answer himself to the question: why he behaves so boorishly with them, and came to the conclusion that this is just silly. Then he changed the form of planning assignments and moved from answers to written questions to evening seminars for those who wished. Those who wanted to find themselves were all but those who were absent on that particular day ("was on leave in the city", as it was called here; after all, INDEMI's special base and the lexicon corresponding).

A month has passed and relations in a small group, the "Triffid project" have changed dramatically. If at the beginning Dr. Maximilen Lawrence Lynx was more of a load on his own working archive, and at the second stage he was perceived as a morbid (albeit extremely valuable and efficient) mentor, now he became the soul of the company. A young half-dozen people not only tried to organise the work on the project efficiently (by following simultaneously the master's health and providing him with appropriate living conditions), and tried to make all possible to make the Doc Mack feel comfortable.

The daily routine was chosen so that Lynx would get up when he was comfortable, ate when he had an appetite, worked when he was in a proper mood, and paid attention to his health (he sailed to the sea and did something like physical exercises) when he did not very lazy. Over the past three weeks, the project quickly overcame the rest of the distance to the intermediate finish. The last few days, for lunch and dinner, there was a dish of bananas-overgrown fruit of Triffids. They were added to the soup in a salad with seafood, baked with meat, they were finally put in a sandwich for "corporate color." Now little could be improved without data on the growth of Triffids directly in the target region - in the African Republic of Mpulu. Different versions of the map of this small country already hung on almost every wall. Even the screensavers on computer screens represented, in the main, Mpuluanskie landscapes. Schemes of the future Triffid plantations were painted in a couple of dozen versions, depending on one or the other outcome of the first "field experiments" ...

Despite this optimistic excitement, Dr. Lynx was uneasy. He had not consumed alcohol for more than three months, but his thoughts kept coming back to the bottle. Being in the artificial environment of the Alofi base, he had no idea what would happen if this bottle was again available to him ...

- Doc Mac, I'm going to make coffee! - Ribopo shouted, swiftly flying out of the water, - Should I bring you a cigar?

– Yes, if possible, - he said, involuntarily smiling.

Ribopo (as, incidentally, Fang) could not at such times not cause bright positive emotions. They were very similar, although Ribopo was dominated by Maori blood, while Fang had Malayan blood. The main thing is that they were both born in Elaussere, and there it was accepted from an early childhood to give exaggerated attention to physical culture. No overeating, but no diets, pumping muscles in the gym is excluded, as well as a cognitive way of life. The person eats, how he eats, works, how he works, and rests as he rests. A natural being in a natural environment. Minimum of artificial recommendations, minimum of artificial objects. Ribopo is neither a cultress, nor a model, nor an athlete, nor a ballerina, but when she moves in the sea or on land, without a single garment on her body, when she slides almost effortlessly in the water, or when she runs, barely touching rocky ground soles of bare feet - it is almost impossible to tear off it. Toko and Laea, meanwhile, swam almost to the middle of the strait. These are real utafoa. They are just born for the sea. Of the campaign, only "real Papuan" Ufti can compete with them on an equal footing. Dante, similar to the Baskonian mountaineer (much more powerfully built, compared to them), appears awkward in the water, and quickly retires from the competition, after which Fang pulls him ashore in order to fight properly. She, you see, in his spare time studying Capoeira.

It's hard to watch this show without laughing. Fang pounding on the corporal from all sides. She does not hesitate to beat in full force - flashing legs, fists, elbows, the girl turns like a top. Dante stands almost motionless, but the blows somehow slip off by themselves, so that all the power invested in them (considerable, I must say) goes into the air. After three minutes, he just tired of standing - he makes a light foot movement, and Fang flies to the sand, as if she were being pulled by the invisible man's legs. But she is not at all discouraged, and again rushes to the attack. Now the corporal moves his hand slightly - and again the flight to the sand. In fact, Dante is extremely cautious. That's when he plays this game with Ufti (during the morning warm-up), everything is much more real: no posturing - short, extremely sharp and economical movements. Even the boxers in the professional ring would look like flanking dudes in the background of this couple. Although, Ufti and Dante also only play. It's just that they have more serious games of this kind ... Then, Fang is tired and goes to the sea to wash off the sticking sand, and from the side of the container houses Ribopo is already returning, with careless grace carrying a balanced tray with all sorts of things on his head.

- Hei, foa! - she shouts, - who is late, he will see only the bottom of the cup and the breadcrumbs from the cookies! Dante, turn on "Lanton-online", they report about Mpulu. Like, let's go!

Warning
Yet, this is only part and only draft. Communicate the Author for the fill version

Synonyms
Paptapa Rapapar

Maximilen Lawrence Links -> Maximilian Lawrence Links Briac -> Briak

Keywords
INDEMI (INvestivation DEpartment of Meganesia Intelligence), Meganesia.Deportation

Меганезия.Депортация, Розов Александр Александрович, Розов. 60 лет победы, Созвездие Эректуса