I was looking forward to how slowly the hatch of the automatic transitional pressure chamber closed behind it.
Finally, when the bright rays of the sun gushed through the doors of the exit hatch, he realized himself…
– «Headset?». But the air of the camera instantly mixed with the atmosphere rich in thick aromas emitted by an abundance of bright huge and diverse flowers of bizarre forms that are seen here and there, hiding the panorama of the primeval forest. Leonid was already breathing this fragrant infusion of a strange atmosphere, noticing only that the stuffiness squeezed his chest, that he was breathing with difficulty and that consciousness would not leave him, and he resolutely stepped onto the retractable ramp. Clumsily down. At the foot of the ship, I looked around, eagerly grabbing the open mouth with tart intoxicating odors. His temples pounded. Catching his breath, he moved to the nearest plants that had survived the jet stream of the landing engines. The giant horsetail rose high, like a ten-story house. The impression was as if Leonid had diminished in scale, one hundred to one, and now all the grass had turned into a giant jungle. The unfamiliar vegetation and atmosphere created the impression of an alien planet. But This feeling passed with a detailed inspection of the primeval forest. So it is, the plants correspond to the era of the Mesozoic era on Earth.
– «Is it possible that I was in the epoch that was on the Earth forty million years ago?!!!»
Terrible thoughts began to swarm in the astronaut’s consciousness, tormented by conjectures, interfering, concentrating, interfering with the realization and appreciation of what happened.
«Some kind of absurdity! Where does this forest come from? Where does all this come from?!» Confused thoughts. Leonid frantically began to recollect flight by stage, stage by stage. The flight was normal, there were no failures and failures of the ship’s systems, everything seemed to be normal, and he was fine. A glance slid across the shield of individual medical control on the left sleeve of a spacesuit. The pressure is slightly higher than normal, the pulse is one hundred and twenty beats per minute, the body temperature is normal. The body is overloaded, but there are no changes in it. He again returned mentally to the analysis of flight. How did you find an inexplicable phenomenon?!
– «Oh, yes, during communication with the Earth! And before that? Yes, it seems, it was during sleep. So it is, he slept according to the schedule, there was an hour of rest.» – Leonid looked up. Through the crowns of greenery, the sky appeared in tattered lead clouds, there were distant peals of thunder. Thunderstorm was approaching. Gusts of wind had already burst into the tops of heavy primeval ferns and howled there. Their thick trunks, like the columns of the Egyptian temple, stretched towards the sky. Somewhere nearby there was a crash of a falling primeval tree.
– «That seems to be the way coal is formed.» – Leonid thought. «Maybe this is some kind of lethargic dream?» He touched the glove to his cheek and pinched himself painfully. Completely crushed by what was happening, he glanced gloomily toward the ship.
A strange numbness enveloped his whole being. He was like a robot: without thoughts, without feelings, without desires. He went to the ladder without understanding why it is doing. In the meantime, among the support posts of the ship, it was already waiting for him to lurk huge, reptile, sheltered, as with armor, with thick sheets of scales. The astronaut’s sudden collision with this monster plunged him into a stupor. Fear gripped the movement, and the sense of approaching death paralyzed, making it impossible to assess the situation. Meanwhile, a row of yellow foul-smelling fangs with thick filaments of poisonous saliva hanging down, a multi-toned forge hammer, slammed a centimeter from poor Leonid’s head. Instinctively, he pulled his head into his shoulders and automatically took a step to the side. But, bound by a bulky spacesuit and an atmosphere that was inadequate for breathing, fell to the ground, covering his head with his hands. He heard the earth tremble under the power of his bony paws, how, after suffocating, the animal bent over him and
closed his eyes in anticipation of the inevitable. The first seconds flew like a whirlwind, but there was no getting rid of the realities of the nightmare. He still heard the terrible roar of the lizard, he felt how, in impotent rage, the animal threw the clods of earth mixed with the torn roots of plants in claws, but was invulnerable. He sat down on the ground in surprise, to immediately cover his head with his hands, defending himself from the terrible mouth that was spread over him, which had seized his upper body in an instant. There was a clear clang of fangs locked in furious rage. Cold body swept, but the sensation of pain was not. The gnashing of canines was heard in the chest area, but there was not even a tickling hint of touch. Leonid grew bolder and carefully opened his eyes. The enraged animal attacked him, plunging the sharp hooks of the teeth into the spacesuit and body. The astronaut, suddenly realized that he was invulnerable, that the prehistoric world does not perceive him as a material whole. He felt unwell, he rose to his feet under the mad gnash and clang of the teeth of a foul mouth and long and hard to vomit until he felt some relief. Then, slowly, trying not to look at the assembled flock of mixed prehistoric monsters that had already begun to «sort things out» among themselves, they dragged themselves to the ship directly through ghostly visions. It was only near the ramp that he suddenly found that his feet, shod in his spacesuit shoes, were buried ankle-deep in the sand, not feeling his resistance, as if he were walking on the hard asphalt surface of the spaceport. At the bottom of the stairs lay a charred fragment of the trunk. Having touched it with the hand, there is no sensation of the object. The hand slid inside the barrel as in the air.
– «I am in a ghostly world!» Thought with curiosity. «Maybe I have been at home for a long time already?!…»
Inspired by the hope of the impossible, he climbed into the ship’s command compartment, having previously been disinfected in the transition box and left there a spacesuit and overalls. Sitting in the armchair in a light cotton jumpsuit, began to analyze the situation.
– «In my position, a drowning man clutching at a straw, so am I»
It was clear that the version: «… Maybe I’m already at home?!…» is meaningless. Here something is wrong, then you should thoroughly understand what is happening. Encouraged by the upcoming search for the causes of the phenomenon, Leonid first decided to sleep properly. But the terrible roar of the beast behind the hull of the ship prevented concentration. He hesitated for a moment, then turned on the laser protection imitating the glare of a burning forest in a raging conflagration. Following this came the sound of breaking branches and trunks of the primeval forest. Beasts are invulnerable to the beam, but frightened by bright flashes of a laser gun rushed away from a mysterious and outlandish creature, frozen in the middle of the clearing and so viciously glittering with its only and terrible «eye».
When the ringing silence reigned, Leonid was forgotten restlessly.
Chapter two
Time flies in a dream, does not stretch. And the dream itself, when fatigue tends to the earth, and the upcoming things do not give rest, passes without dreams and it seems one moment. Leonid slept long all day. He did not hear the raised roar of the newly assembled representatives of the Mesozoic, who committed bloody battles among themselves and calmed down only at dusk. Following the sun inclined to the horizon, huge lead clouds began to crawl. There was a thunderstorm.
Both the air saturated with ozone and the excessively humid atmosphere «spoke» about the fact that thunderstorms are not so rare here. And this is confirmed by these heavy lead clouds, which floated so low over the tops of giant fern plants. The beast, in anticipation of the oncoming weather, reluctantly crawled into the lair, breaking branches and trees in its path, filling the primitive forest with a rattle and a long growl. Peals of thunder
