Pandora's Box. Страница 1

Назар Валеев

Pandora's Box

Chapter 1

The sound of shattering glass burst into the dream with an abrupt, jarring contrast and woke Tadek, who had dozed off unnoticed in his chair at the desk. The cool of night had at last begun mercifully to drive away the remnants of the day’s heat, breathing softly through the open windows. He ran to the window, catching on the fly a small vase that had been mercilessly swept from the sill by the wind-tossed canvas curtain flapping like a sail in the heart of a violent storm. Hastily gathering up the fragments, he tried not to cut himself, driving away the last traces of sleep that still seemed to pull him back into its realm, numbing his movements and making him stumble into corners and brush against furniture.

He still could not grow accustomed to his new and rather spacious apartment, so much larger than his former home. His beautiful wife, who had only recently completed the picture of his family happiness, had, with true feminine wisdom, insisted that they move into the long-vacant apartments of her great-grandmother. She had also inherited from her a love for the ‘more civilized and aesthetic times’, for classicism and the charm of the old.

The uneasy thought that he would now have to find some way to explain the loss of the glass object intertwined with reflections on the latest intergalactic news. Tadek, a professor of linguistics, had little difficulty mastering Galacton, one of the principal languages of the Galactic Union, and for some time he had been closely following the news channels broadcast by the Vriinians to Earth from the orbital Station.

Besides Galacton, he devoted much attention to the other languages of alien races, some of which even allowed him to draw astonishing parallels with the most ancient tongues of the planet, for instance, with the language of the Mayan Indians. Many facts suggested that long ago certain extraterrestrial civilizations had visited Earth and made their own contribution to its development.

Thanks to this new knowledge and the opportunities it opened before him, Tadek had managed to almost completely decipher the ancient Indian script. Now he spent days and nights over the oldest manuscripts, covered with hieroglyphs, logograms, and syllabograms, devouring one text after another, interrupting his work only for brief, almost symbolic meals and an occasional glance at the news.

His wife, who had gone away for a few days to visit her ailing mother, called from time to time, perfectly aware of what her absence could lead to: Tadek, a scholar «to the marrow of his bones», could easily go without food for days once seized by an idea.

She, on the other hand, a lady to the core, accustomed to doing everything by schedule, could never understand «how one could possibly skip an entire lunch and not feel the slightest pang of conscience toward one’s own body?!»

In the light of recent events, Earth had begun to change noticeably. Large spaceports were opening, and from time-to-time curious delegations arrived there from distant worlds. Alien visitors eagerly explored the beauty and landmarks of Earth, and in return brought with them specimens of flora and fauna from their faraway planets for the planet’s greenhouses and zoos.

In the largest educational and cultural institutions, new information and research centers were being established, where one could study alien cultures in detail, learn galactic languages, and explore a vast array of new subjects, sciences and crafts previously unknown to humankind. All this was taught by recently arrived scholars from various corners of the galaxy, who were gradually adapting to life under earthly conditions.

Tadek had made the acquaintance of one newly arrived scientist at the last conference, the first in Earth’s history to be attended by delegates from other worlds. The modest young researcher, a Karinian from the constellation of Karina named Tay, had left his home world for the first time, arriving on Earth at the invitation of the Vriinians who oversaw humanity’s integration into the Galactic community.

Originally, the Karinian was to be assigned to the advanced research center on Ilion, but after the well-known tragic events his posting was changed. And although Fraal lay on the very outskirts of the galaxy, it utterly fascinated him, as did humans themselves, perhaps the most inquisitive beings he had ever encountered.

Tadek, whose linguistic talents were highly valued in the scientific community, helped him settle in and gain a general understanding of Earth’s principal languages, culture, and way of life. Over time they became close friends and began visiting each other with their families. Their wives understood each other perfectly – they cooked together and often went shopping together as well. And this despite the fact that each spoke her own language!

Long ago, the Karinians had been an amphibious species, but over the course of a long evolution all the features essential for aquatic life had gradually atrophied. What remained was only their dense, pale, and smooth skin, marked with faint bluish pigment spots. Yet their subconscious longing for water endured, and the monotonous murmur of the sea’s surf stirred in every Karinian a strange mixture of joy and sadness, delight and wistful nostalgia – all those emotions without which the soul itself cannot always find its way to the beautiful.

Tay’s principal field of expertise was diplomacy and intercultural relations. He had clearance to the major interstellar centers for the exchange of experience among the races of the galaxy, and he was planning to establish such a center here on Earth in the near future. This promised local specialists unprecedented opportunities to work in the distant new worlds, while the visiting guests, in turn, could find ways to apply their talents on the Blue Planet, which, in light of recent events, stood in greater need than ever of innovation and new knowledge.

Like Tadek, Tay was deeply fascinated by new languages and listened with genuine interest to the Earthman’s accounts of deciphering local ancient hieroglyphs that seemed to have even older roots leading to other worlds. More than half of the translated manuscripts appeared to warn of something – to caution against a great danger. Though what exactly they referred to was still difficult to determine, despite the abundance of cryptic instructions.

In some places there were even fragments describing a mysterious path one was meant to follow, but these appeared only in scattered pieces, and the overall picture still refused to come together. Both of them intuitively felt that it might be something of great importance, and the inquisitive Tay requested special analytical equipment for a deeper linguistic decryption. Such a complex could greatly facilitate their work, but in the meantime the diligent and curious Tadek did not sit idle.

A little over a month ago, a ship of unknown origin attacked Ilion, exploding not far above its surface. Neither the planet itself nor any of its moons suffered major damage: besides the global force field, which the strange vessel had somehow managed to breach, the moons possessed their own independent shields that protected most of Ilion’s structures and inhabitants. Yet the shockwave from the explosion was so powerful that, although the defensive barriers held, the backlash caused serious technical failures, malfunctions, and destruction of everything lying close to the epicenter.

All of this was shown and replayed endlessly across the intergalactic news networks. Various versions and theories were voiced, but no final conclusions had yet been reached – no answers offered as to the causes or motives of the attackers, nor who exactly stood behind that monstrous event.