The Blitzkrieg

by Yuri Hamaganov

  “Olga, a car is coming for us. Are you going?”

  “Thank you, Tatyana, but I better walk. It's not far.”

  Someone has said that all the cities under the domes are similar, and if you see one, you’ve seen them all, but Olga knows that isn’t true—every settlement outside the earth is unique; you just have to look closely at it. Having spent a little time reading the scanty guidebooks, she pre-planned a huge cultural and entertainment program, and now firmly intends to enjoy it to the fullest.

  The first step is a border crossing point. A passenger ship, delivering another batch of emigrants to Ganymede, landed at the same time as the Red Star. Quickly passing the checkpoint, Olga goes to the walking gallery, where she watches the reception with interest. One and a half thousand people—men, women, and children—go out of a long tunnel in a disorderly column. They walk uncertainly, swaying and leaning on their companions, and someone mutters something incoherent. This is standard behavior after ten months of hibernation, when the brain is still poorly aware of what is happening.

  Some of the arrivals, having passed the next sanitary cordon, leave for the city; others remain to wait for new ships, never leaving the terminal. For these travelers, New Irkutsk isn’t the final destination, but merely a transfer station where they will board another ship that will carry them further to Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or even the transplutonic land. The human race multiplies, declaring itself more and more in the universe, and Olga, observing this natural process, doesn’t know whether to regret or rejoice over these people who left Earth forever in search of a new home.

  Preferring the old Russian habit of not trusting too much electronic money, she cashes a part of her capital and then goes to the city by metro.

  The suit has been replaced by a biker jacket with the emblem of the ship, attracting looks, like a magnet. Olga likes this attention—everyone sees that she isn’t just another emigrant, one of thousands, but an officer of the famous cruiser, who just won another victory. Despite interested views, no one speaks to her—this is due to the rules of good behavior that have been adopted in these places. Many years of close living have made the colonists very demanding about personal space and solitude: to impose oneself in conversation with a stranger without a particular need for doing so isn’t acceptable here.

  As in other cities of the Union, most of the population here is made up of Russians and Asians. The total number of inhabitants is 1,350,000. Olga only needs one glance at the locals to distinguish them from the newly arrived immigrants or the rare wealthy tourists—the tan speaks for itself. Deprived of sunlight, the inhabitants of New Irkutsk make up for this deficiency in solariums, often excessively.

  “Does the girl want anything?”

  “Yes, I want to sell. Martian bourbon, five stars, 2,500 milliliters, cash only.”

  The conversation takes place at the local exchange market, where all visitors come in order to profitably exchange surplus goods brought from Earth for the local materials necessary for survival here.

  Voronov puts a wide, flat jar on the counter, which Clark handed her before leaving.

  “Sell it for a good price. In the colonies, good spirits are used for cheers, but they don’t do that. I want to make some money on your flight, okay, comrade?”

  “Ok, capitalist.”

  The merchant takes a small amount to test, and in the conditioned air, the smell of strong alcohol is apparent.

  “Well! I’ll take it for five hundred.”

  “Six hundred, and not anything less.”

  “Five hundred and thirty.”

  “Five hundred and eighty.”

  “Five hundred and fifty.”

  “Done. Keep the jar.”

  After completing the deal and aimlessly wandering around the market, Voronov goes to the Alley of Heroes, where the names of all those who by their work, and often their lives, made Ganymede another human territory, have been immortalized. Looking at the numerous names on the bronze tablets, known and not, Olga is proud to think that in Sedna, Varuna, Salacia, and many other distant worlds beyond the orbit of Pluto, there are also monuments perpetuating the feats of her five colleagues. Klimov, Severov, Chernova, Granddad, and Wolff, as well as other earlier Bolsheviks–they are the first, and on Sedna the only, people who have visited those worlds.

  “I also need to earn such a monument.” Olga imagines her name on some distant, yet undiscovered object. Throwing coins into a fountain and buying a set of pennants, the girl takes a few photos on silver plates according to the local fashion. Ahead is the culmination of a short weekend—the famous ski resort Medeo-2.

  "One hundred and eighty-five kilometers per hour!"

  Olga makes another turn, bending so low that she almost touches the ice with her knee pads. The wind whistles in her ears; the ice covered with a thin layer of snow crunches under the snowboard—the simulator diligently adds the special effects missing in the vacuum. The glacier Medeo-2, descending almost a hundred kilometers, lies before her in all its grandeur. Rushing swiftly down the winding descent, Olga easily beats the records of Earth athletes—the low gravity and lack of air resistance are in her favor.

  “Ski jump ahead! Two hundred and ten kilometers per hour.”

  The girl bends her knees and leans back; another second and she soars into the black sky, as if trying to reach Jupiter.

  “Five seconds, normal flight!”

  After flying thirty meters, Olga hangs for a fraction of a second in the void and then falls down, twisting into loops and somersaults, and barely levels the snowboard before landing.

  “Contact!”

  The snowboard lands on the tamped ice, and Olga loses her balance from the impact and falls. The security system automatically throws the snowboard aside; the sports suit instantly swells, becoming one big airbag, allowing Olga to quietly roll out of the route. Climbing to her feet, the girl giggles gaily for a couple of minutes, after which she can barely breath.

  “I must try again!”

  The next eight hours in an extraordinary resort are among the best in her entire life. Olga goes ice skating on mirror lakes; descends in a sleigh through narrow gutters, stretching for dozens of kilometers; climbs to the icy mountains; and jumps on skis from giant springboards. Having an excellent time, she stops at the resort hotel, having rented a suite for the night. For the first time in many long months, lying down on a real bed with satin covers and a feather duvet, Olga admires her naked reflection in the ceiling mirror, pondering the events taking place. It seems that everything is going well—hitting the prison for war, she is still alive, with work and money, as part of an extraordinary and famous crew.

  “This is the life!" She smiles at the mirrored double and gradually plunges into sleep.

  * * *

  The next point on the route is Callisto, the farthest of the major moons of Jupiter and the center of heavy industry. This stop takes more time than Ganymede, as the Bolshevik goes for repairs in the Union orbital shipyard. The injuries received in the battles were fixed by the crew in a hurry, and now it's time for a complete overhaul.

  When the repairs come to an end after five days, Olga gets a leave on shore, but her joyous mood is spoiled by a message from Mars.

  During the next air raid, Clark's father died in battle. His mother had died a year earlier, so now he has been left alone. Olga thinks for a long time about her answer, repeatedly reprinting long letters, and then erases everything and answers: “Hold on. Wait for an opportunity and get your revenge.”

  Taking her place in the shuttle, Olga goes to Callisto. She doesn’t want to have fun or go on excursions, so the girl cancels all her planned events and decides to spend the whole day off walking on the crests of the gigantic crater Valhalla, just to be alone.

  * * *

  After leaving Callisto, the convoy takes a course to Io, the large moon closest to Jupiter. The stop won’t be too long, because this world doesn’t like guests very much.

  “On Io, the
devils are mining sulfur for their enterprise,” Olga recalls the old saying, watching the black and yellow surface periodically flickering through the gray clouds. She has heard about the harsh reputation of this moon; there is no other such place in the entire solar system. The remaining moons of Jupiter are just ice balls with rocks, long ago cooled, and neutral to people living on their surface. But on Io, everything is different—its bowels are warmed by the all-powerful attraction of Jupiter, so this moon isn’t going to cool down.

  Two hundred and fifty permanently operating volcanoes unceasingly throw out giant columns of thick sulfur smoke, leaving an extended stub of gas behind the moon. Earthquakes and new eruptions occur constantly, in addition to strong radiation, so there aren’t many people who want to come here, but it is necessary—the local mines are unusually rich. Thus, there is practically no permanent population; most of the colonists live in orbital cities, periodically descending into some very unique settlements. The exclusiveness of these cities is that they aren’t tied to any point on the surface—they can move, going to a new rich mine or leaving the next volcano. The Red Star is headed to one of these towns, appropriately named Wandering Twinkle.

  Looking from a ten-kilometer height to a flat pentagon, Wandering Twinkle is a chaotic pile of residential and industrial buildings, illuminated by the crimson glow of volcano erupting lava fifteen kilometers to the west. At the moment, the city has been anchored for five months, dropping a lot of shafts and wells into the yellow soil under its bottom.

  Visitors aren’t frequent guests, so the colonists look at Olga, Boris, and Natasha with unconcealed surprise when they come to the only city bar. However, there is no hostility toward strangers—life on the volcano has made the local residents very patient and calm. The main thing is to observe elementary politeness. After a bite to eat, the Bolsheviks go to the local training center, hoping to rent a few special spacesuits for work on the surface.

  “So, folks, since you thought to walk through our hospitable spaces, let's keep friendly safety rules, agreed? Otherwise, your deaths will spoil my quarterly reporting, and I want to complete this watch without any unnecessary dead bodies.”

  A high-scrolled woman, the center’s senior technician, welcomes them thus.

  “The program guide will arrange a tour of local attractions, bypassing dangerous areas. If the program says it's time to return—be so kind as to obey immediately! I hope that your ship has taught you discipline, because these lands don’t like fools. And remember, soon we will anchored, the volcano began to roughhouse, so as soon as you hear the first warning, go back Frankly, we won’t be particularly pleased to look for you. Sign here; the document certifies that you are aware of the danger and won’t file a claim in the event of anything. Have a nice walk!”

  Olga lowers the heavy helmet, the on-board electronics turn on, and the car is ready to exit.

  “Ready?”

  Voronov raises her hand inquiringly, waving a heavy claw.

  “Always ready!”

  The air is pumped out; the floor goes down the elevator shaft. Sixty seconds later, the crate rolls to the side, inviting them outside.

  “Ladies first.”

  Olga glances from the neutral to the first gear and rides forward; the wide black caterpillar tracks of the centaur carry her to the edge of the platform.

  “Rawhide!”

  She hasn’t seen such cars in reality before, although she has read their description. The centaur is one of the most bizarre vehicles in the history of transport, a hybrid of a heavy mountain suit and a caterpillar all-terrain vehicle that can overcome almost any obstacle.

  The girl drives up to the edge of the platform, increases speed, and easily jumps to the ground. The landing turns out to be soft, and the caterpillars beat the clouds of volcanic ash, which immediately settle. Olga switches to the second gear and rolls to the border of the city, leaving behind two clear tracks and maneuvering between the giant shafts.

  “Catch up!”

  Having left Wandering Twinkle, they are directed to the nearest volcanic lake, over which flashes illuminate dull twilight. According to the local time, it is midnight. owever, the darkness is dissipated by the dim light of Jupiter, hanging so low over this world that it seems that just a little closer, and it will be possible to reach out to it. Constantly falling large flakes of gray ash are reminders of a snowfall on a moonlit night on Earth.

  Olga slows down and scoops up a handful of local soil with a metal claw, dropping a thick layer of ash. The earth here is soft enough and remotely resembles Earth's soil; it is a pity that plants can’t grow on it—the sulfur content is too high. It is clear why the local suits have half of the tank instead of the legs—on such loose ground, it's easier to move around on caterpillars.

  “Girls, do you feel it?”

  “Yeah.”

  The ground beneath the centaurs shudders a couple of times, and through the metal, Olga hears a low, prolonged buzz.

  “Natasha, should we come back?”

  “Well, the warning system hasn’t given a return order, so I propose that we take a chance and go to the lake while we have time.”

  “Let's go!”

  Increasing their speed, the tourists begin to climb on the road at the foot of the volcano, periodically circling huge boulders. Flashes of blue light are getting closer.

  “What is it?”

  “Gas geysers! Here, look.”

  They leave on a plateau: in front of them is a narrow ravine, over which rises a glowing cloud of smoke. The earth shudders periodically; another couple of seconds, and a taut pole of blue flame rises above the ravine—inert gases heated underground to a thousand degrees are torn out of the stone vents. Boris drives off the road and rakes a pile of small stones, having fished out a piece of native iron.

  “Now the master will show the class!”

  The centaur's arm lengthens, bringing an iron nugget to one of the small geysers that continuously beats out of the crack in the rock. A minute later, when the metal has been softened in a hot gas stream, Boris takes it out and bows like a piece of plasticine.

  “Now, it will cool down a little more, and voila!”

  The smith shows them his product—a rough metal mug with a thick bottom. Natasha and Olga politely applaud with their claws.

  “Turn off your enterprise, smith. Let’s go look at the lake.”

  After passing the gas ravines, the Bolsheviks descend to the volcanic lake that has spread in a small crater. At the edges of the crater, the magma has cooled, covered with a thick crust, and in the center, a fountain of a dark cherry liquid flame is swirling, over which gray clouds swirl. The warning comes—it's dangerous to come nearer. Olga, without moving, stretches her right hand and then throws out a long geological drill that cracks the hard crust of the frozen lava. Gently lifting the drill, she looks with interest at a large bright drop of basalt lava, gradually darkening as it cools—959 degrees.

  The siren interrupts their walk—Wandering Twinkle is preparing to disengage its anchor. Voronov lowers the cooled lava drop into the sword belt and turns the centaur; Boris and Natasha are already leaving for the road. The earth shudders much stronger than the first time, the sirens are howling, and the Bolsheviks spur the caterpillar horses to thirty kilometers per hour.

  “The volcano is really a roughhouse,” Boris says, glancing at the fire-breathing mountain. At the top of the cone, high flames rise, then one after another, there are several violent explosions. A red-hot lava stream begins to erupt from the breaches, and the first volcanic bombs fall to the plain.

  Wandering Twinkle finishes its road charges: above the giant caterpillar chassis, next to which their centaurs seem small rodents, clouds of hot gases are rising—the engines are warming up. The Bolsheviks enter the elevator at full speed; Olga sees a few more elevators taking on board the last batch of miners and workers. Already coming out of the training center, they are caught by a warning signal, followed by a strong push, and then an
easy pitching begins—Wandering Twinkle has gone on another journey. The self-propelled city slowly turns around its axis and then starts moving east, leaving behind an erupting volcano.

  * * *

  "I have no words," Olga says uncertainly. "So much water gets on my nerves."

  A lone figure stands on the edge of an icy field near the border of the cosmodrome. Before her, as far as the eye can see, the dull gray plain of the polar glaciers of Europe extends. There is nothing to catch on to—the surface is as smooth as a billiard ball. There are no elevations, no cavities—nothing. The second moon of Jupiter has no hills higher than three hundred meters.

  “It seems that our water specialist is a little embarrassed.”

  Another time, Olga would have easily found an answer to Nastya's taunt, but at the moment, she misses the mockery. All her attention is drawn by the water. When the half-life is engaged in extracting clean water, which turned into a scarce commodity on their home planet, it’s difficult to accept the fact that there are places where water is abundant—lots of water that is clean, fresh, and absolutely free.

  The surface of Europe is completely covered with water. From above, there are thirty kilometers of ice armor. Under it are one hundred kilometers of ocean, twice exceeding the whole ocean surface of Earth. There is nothing other than frozen water, so almost everything has been made of ice, including the capital town of Snezhinka, built at the northern pole. Voronov remembers that earthlings used to make houses of ice—igloos. Here, the production of huge “igloos” is put on the conveyor belt: the thick ice walls enclosed in a hermetic antiradiation shell reliably protect the colonists from the external cold. The temperature at Europe never rises above fifty-three in Kelvin.