by majors, captains, colonels and various military men and everyone asked her the same question, how she started from a reusable ship in an emergency capsule. And why I stayed in orbit for seven days. And for the umpteenth time she repeated the same thing, that she immediately lost consciousness and did not remember anything, that she woke up only on the ground. Yes, to be sure, and the rescue capsule with a man on board spent seven days in Earth orbit and remained unnoticed, this has never happened in astronautics. No matter how the departmental services tried, there were no perpetrators of what happened, and there was not for the only reason that nowhere in any corner of the world was the capsule recorded by the international tracking service for space objects. It turned out that Elena appeared from Space. Suddenly from nothing and a capsule? General Fedorov, appointed responsible for the investigation of the incident, stood on the firm positions of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, where the principle of the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness is clearly formulated. Therefore, miracles do not happen. And since miracles do not happen, it means that the capsule with Elena was simply not noticed. Sighing heavily, and burying his blind gaze in the instructions and prescriptions neatly laid out on the desk, he was senilely worried about the fact that had happened. But an incomprehensible shiver ran through his cheeky face and sleek bald head, and a sigh of relief escaped the general’s thick lips. But the intelligence of Western countries does not confirm the discovery. So there are no guilty ones. A stupid expression hardened on the general’s face, reflected in the stubbornly knitted bushy eyebrows and a firm gaze above the eyes that looked like bones from smoked prunes.
─Yes, ─ the general dropped. But in the practice of the military, and even in his department, there are no guilty ones, just as there are no reasons that give rise to these guilty ones themselves. Bushy eyebrows parted, eyes regained their usual melancholy, diffuse smoked prune color, and the general pressed a button. A moment later, the door opened to admit the chubby captain. The staff secretary, as in the old pre-revolutionary times, the adjutant of His Excellency, was helpful and transformed, trying his best to resemble his master, both in appearance and in habits.
─Colonel Smirnov’s case?! ─ the general barked as he entered. The captain, not at a loss, in a coolly obliging tone in his voice, gently remarked:
─It is on your table, comrade general, ─ Fedorov fussed. The captain, with lightning speed, with some catlike movement, ran up to the general’s table, throwing on the go:
─Allow me? ─ and took out what was needed from the pile of cases.
─Thank you, captain. You are free.
─ There is! May I go out!
─ I said go.
The secretary went out noiselessly. The general leafed through the gray folder with the «SECRET» stamp on the cover for a long time, step by step studying the colonel’s record. Secret reports of informants ran before my eyes. Characteristics of the commanders of the units where the colonel served and not a single case of violation of discipline. The general snorted in displeasure. Even in his personal file there is a report from the deputy for the political part of the squadron, in which officer Fedorov began his service, that he allegedly, having got drunk with his colleagues, sent him, i.e. Major so-and-so, what the Major’s name was, he no longer remembered. And along with it, the entire leadership of the army in three letters of the expression, famous from Slavic Russia. How beautiful, then, the major inflated – this is the case. He had no doubts of success, that, finally, the generals themselves would envy his vigilance. But the naive major did not take into account that this pimply lieutenant, stupid in appearance, the illegitimate son of the Commander of the Air Force of the Central Asian Military District, General of the Army Comrade Chervinsky, a hero of the Soviet Union, a participant in the Great Patriotic War. Recalling this fact, General Fyodorov smiled maliciously, then again, dissatisfied and angrily, began flipping through the colonel’s file. The report of the major, the future colonel, Smirnov, that he had a personal meeting with a creature of extraterrestrial origin, caught my eye. In the report to the command, Major Smirnov described the incident in detail. The general looked up in hope, staring unblinkingly into the space of the room. However, the hope of bringing the colonel to administrative responsibility for negligent service, with the addition of a tendency to periodically visited hallucinations, was not justified. Since the change in policy regarding the secret study of UFOs did not allow the colonel to be recognized as a nutcase. Oh, how would it be now. What prospects for the service would loom ahead. In Moscow, at the headquarters of the Armed Forces. Business trips. Hunt on government grounds. Young soldiers in the bathhouse with massages and other non-traditional services. Dreams intoxicated the imagination, and Fedorov, with the ferocity of a gambler, began to delve into the colonel’s personal file, looking for possible clues to unreliability. A sharp phone call brought the general out of the «mines» to the mountain. – Yes! he almost growled into the phone. I’m busy! – He briefly threw and slammed the pipe, hammering into place. The phone chirped plaintively. The call was repeated immediately.
– What else?! Five minutes? – he sighed, then added with a suffering look on his face, – Let him come in.
A young lieutenant in a white medical coat over his tunic entered the office. The lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles gleamed persistently. The general measured the newcomer with an angry glance from head to toe: – Well, what have you got?! – the imperious tone in his voice would have made anyone lose confidence in their own strength, but not the lieutenant:
– Allow me to hypnotize Major Gratsis! – he blurted out outright. The general was taken aback, he was not accustomed to without a «magic»: – «Allow me to turn?» – immediately the subordinates were talking about business.
– This is why?! – the general’s bushy eyebrows went up in surprise.
«You see, the United States Air Force has been searching for and studying Unidentified Flying Objects for a long time,» and the lieutenant bravely, akimbo, stepped closer and threw the «Young Technician» magazine onto the general’s desk with an open article about UFOs from the United States. The general looked as lean as after a heavy hangover with expressionless eyes. Contemptuously measuring the puny lieutenant from the toes of his boots to his uniform cap and fatherly remarked:
– My dear, not a single fact of the existence of UFOs has been accepted by science. And what’s there write these magazines, reacting to the provocative attacks of our opponents, let it remain on their conscience. We need to be more vigilant and not succumb to this kind of provocation.
– What do you call a provocation? An article in a magazine? And what happened to
Elena, how do you think it is?
– Young man, why didn’t you give a nondisclosure agreement?
– I did! But I came to you, not to the policeman at the crossroads! AND
in addition, even a schoolchild today knows that modern services
tracking, both in our country and in the United States, can almost instantly detect any
object in near-earth space. In short, the facts indicate that the major
Gracis has been kidnapped. The general looked at the medical lieutenant with almost bestial hatred: – Are you serious? – why, to some brat, a two-year-old, it occurred to him, and not to him, General Fyodorov. He hesitated for a minute, doubting his materialistic philosophical convictions, then suddenly realized that according to all the laws of physics this could not be, and said aloud:
– Do
