Chapter 23: Chapter 23. The Humility of Babylon

Restoring the body would take too much time and therefore I transferred my powers to Will while I, in turn, would have to play the role of an extra burden on Stern’s back while experiencing the consequences of infection.

We spent quite a lot of time in the cave waiting for me to feel much better and soon, without waiting for my final recovery, the platoon left the cave heading south, not encountering any signs of intelligent life until eventually the bioscanner detected a group of four natives.

"Do what you want."

I told Will.

Since I could not yet think normally, move, or even fight, Will decided everything for me to my approving nods. He probably didn’t understand whether he was doing certain things correctly and therefore relied on me in some moments, but now he already enjoys the trust of the entire platoon and boldly leads the soldiers as part of the platoon, and not just its commander.

"They will pass here."

Will spoke.

“Me and Sieghard will take cover behind that tree, Itami and Esko wait further in those bushes, Kobe and Iyad are opposite us here...”

Will decided to ambush the discovered natives, ordered the rifles to be loaded with blank cartridges, and also asked Fred to prepare drugs for euthanasia by handing over several syringes to Kobe and Iyad. The task of the capture detachment was to capture the natives and blank cartridges were not the best way to accomplish the task, and yet we did not have an easier option.

The bioscanner showed that the natives were heading strictly in one direction through the thickets, thanks to which it was easy to choose a place for an ambush, which Will eventually did, and I, in turn, was in a safe shelter and watched, looking at the bioscan screen, what was happening and listened at the same time into the sounds of the forest, the rustling of branches and the chirping of birds.

The sounds of gunfire echoed in the distance, and then someone screamed, after which, as a result, the entire four uninvited guests were pinned down and neutralized. As soon as it became difficult to make out the movements of certain persons on the bioscan, I immediately turned to Will, activated the earpiece and asked:

“Will, how did it go?”

"Wonderful. We caught them."

He answered cheerfully, which made me feel a little relieved. After the events with Yasmi and Gobe, I expected big and unpleasant tricks, but apparently these natives did not have them in stock.

“What are you going to do with them?”

I asked a friend.

“We will take them to our fugitives and tie them up. We'll keep them on target if they do the same things as Yasmi."

I didn't quite understand the last thing Will said, so I decided to clarify:

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t guess? What I mean is that there are two men and two women, the latter look like that priestess, well, in general, you understand who I’m talking about. I think they can do abnormal things."

If this is so, then the option voiced by Will was quite reasonable and I could only agree with Will’s actions. I wouldn’t want to deal with yet another magician who can burn a couple of dozen people at once or disappear into nowhere, and then also appear out of nowhere like some kind of ghosts.

After listening to Will, I could only entrust him with his own mission:

“Got it, end of connection.”

"End of connection."

Having turned off the earpiece, I looked back to where, besides me, Stern, the fugitive natives and Lecitus were also sitting, surrounded by bushes in the middle of a dark grove, where we decided to take cover while Will caught our targets. At the moment, my attention was focused on Lecith, who was listening in surprise to my conversation with Will and I had some questions for him.

“You said you were heading north, but how did you get around the lake?”

"Lake? What lake?"

The space builder answered with a voice of not understanding, sitting leaning against a tree trunk.

“When we came here there was only a swamp.”

"Are you sure about this?"

I clarified, to which Lecitus nodded confidently.

“I swear on my eyes! I would never lie, and why would I?”

"It's clear."

I answered and thought a little.

«Another anomaly? Or did he simply lose orientation in space and could not understand where is north and where is south? Either way, it doesn't seem like he's lying to my face.»

Having thought this over, I sighed and turned towards Ripun, covered with a dark blue naval jacket.

This dark-haired native guy seemed to be learning English the fastest of all, but lately he had slowed down a little, and yet he could tell us something, of course not in complex words, but in simple ones, and the words he voiced require careful analysis, especially with Itami.

"Ripun,"

I turned to the native, and in response to my words he raised his head.

“Do you know what this place is?”

"I never here."

Ripun answered, somehow understanding what I wanted to know from him.

«He was never here...»

I mentally translated his words.”

«This is bad. If those natives whom Will caught do not know their language, then we are unlikely to be able to establish normal peaceful contact with the local civilization. They simply won’t understand us and they won’t understand them either. And then what should we do in this case?»

After thinking a little about the current situation, I decided to wait for Will to approach our dark camp. A couple of hours later, Will's squad returned to us with four hostages. He did as he said, tied them around a tree trunk and set up a machine gun emplacement opposite them.

I didn’t see them, or rather I couldn’t make them out, I manage to make body movements with great difficulty and all I could do was greet Will when he was here:

“How was the hunt?”

"As easy as pie."

The fighter grinned and sat down opposite me.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m recovering little by little. Shit. How bad I feel.”

"I understand you."

Will patted me on the shoulder and made fun of me.

"You look like an Egyptian mummy."

“Are you bullying me again?”

“If a joke from a friend is bullying, then I’m your maniac.”

“Am I really a mummy?”

“Yes... all that’s missing is a cool backstory of love and the halofilm is ready.”

I smiled and Will laughed for both of us. Of course I felt bad, not only in my body, but also in my mind. I still can’t get out of my head that dream with my sister and that musty stone building I found myself inside. It’s strange that I still remember everything very clearly, as if it really happened. I didn’t tell anyone about this dream, I didn’t want them to take care of me like I was a mentally ill idiot. Moreover, that dream has never been repeated to me and is unlikely to ever happen again.

And despite this, I didn’t give up, I wasn’t going to give up on my goal: to return home. Whoever it was in that dream, she won't convince me to give up. Humanity did not give up when the Pantorian destroyer of worlds entered the solar system, sweeping away hydrogen gases and the rings of Saturn, and I will not surrender, to anyone, not to the Pantorians, not to the natives, not to the Zemptzpens, not to anyone. I simply have to return home with my guys because I am a human... and I promised to return to her, my sister.

«I'll be back.»

“Rest, Boris, and I’ll go talk to the guys.”

“Yeah, go. And make sure they behave well."

“Hah! Exactly.”

Will said and went to another part of the grove.

"Don't get sick."

Fred, meanwhile, sat down opposite the captured natives and took out a medical scanner to check their health. Will and the rest of the fighters sat down to rest and discussed a couple of issues that we had already begun to encounter.

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“My rifle has three magazines left, one hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition, everyone else most likely has even less. There is also a shortage of food. A week... that's all.”

«So that’s what he wanted to talk about.»

“In 19 hours my exoskeleton will run out.”

Stern intervened, showing 3% on the display in his right hand.

“You won’t leave me when this happens?”

"No."

I said with a dry mouth and, after taking a sip of some water from the flask, I continued.

“We have lost too much to abandon anyone else. We must help each other in any way we can, and this is the only way that together we can return home.”

I didn’t want to lie to them, but I didn’t want to see the dejected faces of my fighters, my guys, my friends even more. Our situation now is much more desperate than we could have imagined. I even began to think about Kobe’s words so that we could join this Empire even if we had to learn the distorted Latin language of the locals for a very long time.

Joining their society and waiting for salvation, you will agree, did not sound very reassuring. Even under the most optimistic scenario, we will be able to get out of here in at least twenty years, but in the current situation only in fifty, and if we decide to settle here, then only our descendants will be able to see the Earth in about two generations.

“It is critical that we take advantage of the support of the natives.”

Itami said.

“Without them, unfortunately, we will be stuck here, possibly for the rest of our lives.”

"To hell!"

Anzhey blurted out.

“I’m not going to die on this planet!”

"Nobody is going to."

Esko said calmly and confidently.

“That’s why Boris says that we should help each other in any way we can so that we can finally get out of here. So guys, let's not be nonsense."

"Ha~!"

"What's so funny, Inias?"

"Honestly... just... nothing."

The machine gunner waved him off, but Itami did not like this answer.

"Speak."

The signalman said sternly. Inias, seeing Itami’s condemning look, sighed and nevertheless decided to tell what was on his mind.

“That person who disappeared, his name is Ashwani? He did something stupid when he decided to approach that stone, didn't he? Can anyone even guarantee not to do anything stupid? Nobody. Any mistake and we’re all dead.”

“It’s not a fact that this Ashwani even existed.”

Fred said seriously as he continued to examine the prisoners.

“He could be a collective invention, another anomaly that Boris’s squad encountered.”

“If you say that again, you’ll have to insert your teeth yourself.”

Will snapped sternly, clearly angry at Fred's words.

"I can only trust what I see."

Fred said, putting the medical scanner into his bag and turning towards Will.

“I have never seen your Ashwani in my life. First prove that such a person exists at all, and only then defend his honor from his own stupidity.”

Will gritted his teeth in response, he clenched his fists and seemed about to fulfill his plan.

"Will…"

I tried to dissuade my friend from hasty actions.

"I know."

He said, unclenching his fists.

“We should help each other... but this is simply unbearable.”

“I understand you, but keep your anger to yourself.”

“Better let him hit me.”

Fred said.

“Otherwise he risks chronic stress.”

“Got you, got you.”

Will waved it off and sighed sadly.

“Being forgotten by everyone is probably even worse than just dying... I feel so sorry for Ashwani.”

At such a sad mention of Ashwani, I began to think. Almost a month has passed since he disappeared and literally the whole world, if not the whole universe, forgot him. Only those who were close to that strange tree at that moment remembered him. It is still marked on the map as an anomalous area, and I’m honestly not sure if we will ever be able to visit that place again and finally find it.

«I will remember you... so you won't really die.»

At that moment, I decided to rise from my sleeping bag and look at the captive natives whom Will and his group had captured. Two girls and two men. They were all different and would hardly have been a family. Most likely travelers.

One girl of about fifteen with snow-white hair in a red robe with a lot of gilded jewelry, like her, should probably be called a shaman, although I am not well versed in primitive cultures. The second girl of the same age already had dark hair, but apparently played the role of an assistant to the first, already dressed in a blue robe.

Next was a young guy of about twenty and the last was an adult man of about thirty, both dressed in some kind of combat garb made of leather and rags. Fred, examining them with a medical scanner, concluded the following:

"All four creatures are not human."

Said the senior medic.

“One of them seems to have lost her memory, and the other has strange impulses coming from her chest.”

The conversation was about a white-haired girl and a young guy to whom Fred nodded.

“Strange... they look like people.”

Itami commented and glanced towards the fugitive natives.

The views of our local friends on their relatives were curious, but not fearful. It seems they didn’t even know who they were, but they often talked to each other about them. Unfortunately, we did not know what they were talking about, but they often turned to us expecting something from us.

Niana, having talked about something with the men, began to be wary of us, distrust of us literally seeped through her gaze, and Alza continued to look at me with a certain amount of trust, but alas, not as much as before. I don't know what they're thinking, but it seems like our actions have changed their opinion of us.

“Do you know who they are?”

Itami asked the natives, to which all four shook their heads from side to side, and Itami in response only sighed in disappointment.

"It is sad."

To be honest, I didn’t know what we could expect from them. Both the captured natives and the fugitive natives looked like people, but the latter were paler, and the former slightly more plump. Apparently, unlike Alza, Niana, Zaden and Ripun, they did not experience hunger and had, one might say, a completely healthy standard of living by the standards of their civilization.

Maybe I’m just stupid in this matter, believing that since people here live on the same planet, they are most easily susceptible to mixing between peoples. I keep forgetting that on primitive planets there may be completely different rules and laws of nature compared to what I am used to observing on Earth.

There on Earth, hundreds of parsecs from here, people, no matter what corner of the globe they live in, are practically no different from each other, similar skin tone, language, cities, food, growth and all this is the result of mixing, the result of the long-past policy of globalization, the unification of humanity under a single command.

Two thousand years ago, there were some racial differences between human races such as Mongoloids, Caucasians and Negroids, but then, when the borders of states were finally blurred, people uncontrollably began to mix forever, destroying human racism on Earth as such.

However, racism was destined to appear again, it was also interhuman, but now it was also interplanetary, but this time the human inhabitants of different planets cannot be mixed due to cosmic distances.

No matter how hard the propaganda of the republic tried, there were still idiots who would discriminate against their own species because of a slightly different appearance obtained as a result of living in different conditions on another planet.

Here on this anomalous planet, it’s not that there are boundaries; they haven’t even been formed normally yet, at least here in this part of the planet. It is unlikely that before this, some natives could meet others, have contact and, of course, mix with each other. No, they will also differ from each other due to geographical features, not only appearance, but also due to cultural and linguistic characteristics.

Alza, Niana, Zaden and Ripun had paler skin colors due to the fact that they lived to the north-west of here, and these in turn lived in a more temperate region. And although Fred said that they all belonged to different species, this does not mean that they could not be people. It's just that the bioscanner is not yet configured to distinguish local creatures as one species, Fred has already talked about this.

«In this case, they will simply have to be called natives. In the end, we are like them too. At least until we find out whether they are really people or really belong to a completely different species, we will call them natives.»

Soon after a few hours, one of the natives Will caught began to wake up. It was a dark-haired girl in a dark blue robe and a green dress underneath. She opens her blue eyes with a quiet groan and quickly realizes that she is chained to a tree trunk.

With fear on her face, she begins to look around and mutter something in her own language. The fugitive natives looked at her and exchanged glances among themselves, and then in our direction, and then I realized that they did not understand her words. This clear understanding was literally read in their glance in our direction.

«That's what I was afraid of.»

I sighed sadly.

"Keep her at gunpoint."

Will says, and the machine gunner removes his machine gun from the safety, pointing the muzzle towards the girl.

She clearly doesn’t know what it is and therefore slightly tilted her head to the side, again saying something, although I think she just said: «What is this?», but I’m not sure.

“Approach, but be careful.”

Will said to the signalman and he began to carefully take cautious steps towards the native woman.

Itami kept a serious expression on his face as he approached, and the tied up native woman, meanwhile, seeing Itami approaching her, shrank slightly, at the same time closing her eyes and starting to say something, and then I sensed something was wrong. I was seized by deja vu, I had already seen this somewhere and instantly realized where and when exactly.

«Not this!»

"KICK HER!"

I immediately shouted towards Itami, guessing what could happen now.

"NOW!"

Itami, hearing me, immediately jumped up and rushed towards the native woman, raising his fist to strike, but he didn’t have time. The girl, apparently hearing a strange rustling, opened her eyes and, having finished speaking the words and seeing Itami’s fist poised to strike, closed her eyes and, unexpectedly for all of us, shouted:

"NO!"

Itami froze a couple of meters away from her. Everyone around was in shock.

«What she said?»

I was perplexed, also completely surprised by what happened.

She, still turning her head to the side, closed her eyes, expecting a blow, but Itami did not move from his place with a surprised face, looking at the girl, and instead of finishing what he started, he unclenched his fist and slowly approached her, bent down and put his left palm on the top of her head.

«Huh? What are you doing? »

I wanted to say.

"I won't hit you."

Itami said calmly.

"Do not be afraid of me."

The girl opened her blue eyes and saw a soldier in camouflage uniform hovering over her. With one hand he stroked the top of her head, and in the other hand he held the barrel of a pistol on her chest, ready at any moment to tear her heart into pieces. The girl blinked her eyes and said the following:

"H-hello."

Itami nodded his head and answered her:

"Greetings. What is your name?"

"Incartia."

"And I'm Itami."

The signalman answered calmly and, stopping stroking the top of her head, rose to his feet, continuing to hold her at gunpoint.

“Nice to meet you, now explain the hell why you speak English?”

Instead of answering, the girl only remained silent, her eyes bulging, she was clearly in shock and could not find the right words to answer, but eventually, having calmed down a little, she looked down and said something:

"I didn't think it would work."

“What will work? Answer otherwise I will kill you."

Itami said sternly, and the girl’s pupils shrank and she trembled, frightened by the signalman’s words.

“How long are you going to remain silent?”

Itami continued to put pressure on her. The girl rolled her eyes and looked up at Itami with her frightened gaze. She chattered her teeth, barely saying:

“I... I... I cast the spell «Humility of Babylon», it allows me to understand you and s-speak y-your language.”

Everyone was shocked, especially the senior medic, who pushed Itami aside and shouted in her face:

“What did you do?!”