the broken equipment. On a couch along a wall there lay a naked female corpse, decapitated and disemboweled. And in the middle of the room, tied to armchairs, two more bodies sat opposite one another. They were dressed in once blue, but now brown, stiff from blood, overalls (but they had no footwear, only socks). At the left was a man, and at the right a woman. Her gender, however, could be guessed at only based on her figure, for her face was hidden by blood-stained bandages. More precisely, the remaining part of her face.
"Well, so we have found those who have undressed the pilots," Adam murmured.
"You... do you see, with what they are tied?" Eve squeezed out from herself, trying not to look.
"Yes," Adam calmly answered. "Entrails! But not their own–hers," he nodded towards the couch.
Indeed, no wounds could be seen on the corpse of the sitting ones, at least while they were in clothes. But their heads were sawn practically in half–a rough, inept horizontal cut passing over the eyebrows. The dirty surgical saw by which it had been done lay on the floor between the armchairs. Also, both of the tops of their skulls, still covered with skin and hair, lay nearby. Whoever the unknown fan of trepanations was, he obviously had not taken pains to shave the heads of his "patients." Judging by the blood which covered their faces, they were still alive when it was done to them.
But that was not the most horrifying thing of all. Most likely the one who cut off someone’s skull did not hurt the brain, only bare them–anyway, initially. But here lumps of brain, similar to big dead slugs, were scattered all over the infirmary. And this was not done all at once. The tools used for this purpose were very visible–ordinary tablespoons. One of them stuck out of a skull of the man, as if left in a appalling kettle. The second one lay under his powerlessly hung arm.
"The one who has done this..." Eve began, having first thrown a fast sidelong glance and then having turned away again.
"There was no mysterious murderer," Adam interrupted. "They have done this by themselves."
"What... what are you saying? You mean, tied themselves, then..."
"Not each one–himself. Each other. Look, their heads are firmly tied to headrests, but their right hands are free."
"There is only one saw," Eve observed, having taken one more look.
"Yes, obviously, they had to saw each other's head in turns. But there were enough spoons to scoop out each other's brains simultaneously. Well, otherwise it wouldn't be possible."
"Do you think," Eve squirmed, "they ate this?
"Give me the flashlight."
Adam approached the dead bodies and illuminated the drooping open mouths.
"No," he concluded, "doesn't look like it. They simply tried to destroy each other's brain."
"What for?"
"And for what reason did that guy above beat his head against a wall until his eyes flew out?"
Eve did not answer. She stood, heavily leaning on a door jamb, and again fought against nausea–a nausea from which there was no relief even in vomiting.
"I think, he didn't beat himself against the wall simply because of rage... or pain," Adam, who also felt rather nauseous, continued to reason. His eyes automatically fixated on the terrible mess in the open skulls. It was quite apparent, in answer to his own question, that a significant portion of the brain could be missing before one lost the ability to move a hand. But words helped at least somehow to prescind his thinking from the feeling of hopeless horror entangling Adam like layers of a heavy wet rubber sheet which were closing up his nose and mouth, stopping his breathing. "He wanted to destroy his own brain. And tore at it with his fingers after breaking the skull. But to do such with your own head is... not too efficient. With another one it is much easier. That's why these two tried a more thorough approach."
He looked around in search of bloody inscriptions which, probably, could explain at least something. But they did not present themselves. Here there was nothing.
On a sleeve of the dead woman, sitting to the left side of the door, it was still possible to perceive an emblem–a dark blue circle surrounded by a red ring. Along the top part of the ring the inscription "HYPERION" was curved. On the bottom there was a figure "III." In the dark blue circle a hand stretched toward a beam-spreading star. The designer of such an emblem probably considered that