D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,132

the image had come out proud and encouraging. However, it seemed to Adam that this was the hand of one drowning, vainly grasping at air in a last desperate gesture.

On the left breast pocket of her overalls there was one more emblem, but it couldn't be understood under a crust of blood. Adam had distinguished only the large letters ISA and remembered that it meant "International Space Agency." Lower there was a rectangular stripe with a personal name. Lida... no, apparently, Linda... A surname was not distinguishable at all. He was going to try to clean off the stripe but heard splashing sounds from bare feet behind him.

"Where are you going?" He turned back. There was already no one in the doorway. "Eve! Stop!"

"I... I cannot" came from a corridor. "I cannot be stopped. It seems to me that I'm at the edge of remembering. I am so frightened! Anything, only not this horror! Not to think! Nottothinknottothinknottothink!" Judging by the sounds, she ran like mad along a corridor towards the lift.

"Eve! Come back!" Adam shouted. "You shouldn't wander here alone! You have absolutely no weapon!"

But she probably didn't hear him–or could not conceive words.

"No," Adam thought gloomy, "I won't abandon everything to run after her just because she has womanish hysterics. Right now I should exlore everything here."

He put the skull shard on the lap of the dead woman and unbuttoned her left pocket. What's here? A comb. Oh yes, to preen feathers is the most important thing for him now–especially taking into account that there is no mirror nearby. He put the useless thing back. And what is in the right pocket? It appeared to be empty. No, there is something. A pen. Nowadays it is seldom necessary to write by hand (he remembered this), but, obviously, such a thing is still included as part of the outfit of astronauts. Could a pen be useful to him? Who knows, but he had neither a third hand nor pockets. He considered dressing in the overalls of the dead man, but he felt no desire to put on those bloody rags–all the more so because all who did this before have died.

Adam realized that all this blood did not belong to one person, or even to two. These two in the infirmary were not the ones who had undressed the pilots. They had obviously removed overalls from other dead persons, and those, possibly, from others. And here now the relay reached the last survivors. Is it possible that the clothes somehow influenced what was going here? No, that's madness. But what was not madness here? He had better not repeat any of the actions of these predecessors, madness or otherwise.

Adam turned to the male corpse. He pulled out the spoon from yellowish-crimson jumble in its skull. He could not look at it. He had the feeling that the spoon was biting into his own head, so he flung it into a far corner. Then he moved on to the pockets. The right one was plump.

There was something like a scroll inside, which was not just barely twisted but also folded so that it could be pushed into the pocket–a scroll with some drawing... or schematics.

Unfolding it Adam understood that it was not paper. And not fabric as it had seemed to him for just a moment. As the scroll was rolled open completely, Adam understood instantly just exactly what he was holding in his hands.

It was human skin which had been cut off from a stomach. The hole of the navel and the top shred of dark pubic hair were clearly visible. But the rest of the area of the skin was glabrous. The stomach was female.

And on this skin, while it still belonged to its mistress–a living mistress, who bled when it was being done to her–someone had cut out a certain rough drawing. The clotted blood had distinctly depicted its contours and some short inscriptions. At the first moment they seemed to Adam a cabalistic abracadabra, but then he realized that he simply held the drawing head over heels.

Now he understood that what he looked upon was a simplified schematic drawing of the ship. Not all compartments were labeled, and inscriptions resembled a wedge writing, but nevertheless they could be spelled out: "CONT R", "LIV COMP", "GEN", "BIOS." BIOS is, apparently, an abbreviation connected with computer technology. But why had it been labeled at the infected level with the crucified woman? Also what is "gen," which is situated,