No Way Out at the Entrance

Gaining strength with the lion, Yara pulled Rina like a carrot out of the puddle. “We’ll be there soon. You’re okay? You’ll take Icarus in?”

“Aha.” Rina caught up with Icarus and sprung stomach first onto its back. She rode along this way – head on one side, feet on the other – slapping the horse’s rump. Gentle Icarus, they could get away with such things with it.

Ul and Yara had already rushed to Kavaleria.

* * *

The office of the director of HDive somewhat resembled Beldo’s apartment. Not by the presence of sofas swallowing like quicksand and chatty skulls, but by the rigidity of the clearly defined zones. A tub with a dwarf pine tree, a seedling Kavaleria brought back from Duoka, divided the office into two clear poles.

The garden bloomed in the south. The seedlings spread over multi-tier glass stands: violet leaves in little glass jars, young boxwood, newborn eucalyptus, and yellow roses. Between them lay shovels, pruning shears, watering cans of different sizes, and other miniature equipment. Countless china figurines of ducklings, kittens, and human children were also crowded there.

The northern part of Kavaleria’s office began from the palm tree. Even an ordinary pencil had the right to be here, only based on necessity. The minute this necessity disappeared, the pencil also vanished into thin air together with it. If a chance violet strayed into here, Kavaleria would personally send it a steel ball from a schnepper. She had no time for violets here, because now, in the northern part of the office, Kavaleria was raging. Detecting the approach of dangerous minutes in the barely noticeable vibration of her voice, clever Octavius tucked in its tail in advance and hid behind the bushy liana.

“May we?” Appearing in Kavaleria’s office, Athanasius, Ul, and Yara, as experienced hdivers, first of all found out in what part of the office its mistress was. It turned out to be in the business section. Octavius hid behind the tub, solely the tail was spied outside. Kuzepych was sitting at Kavaleria’s. His eyebrows like brushes were moving angrily. He was like a boatswain flying into a rage. After exchanging a couple of words with Kavaleria, Kuzepych left.

“Someone wrecked the beehive at night. Boards scattered, honeycombs trampled. Now Kuzepych is knocking everything together anew. But honeycombs, it goes without saying, are beyond his abilities,” said Kavaleria, not looking at anyone.

“And the bees?” Ul began to fret.

“The bees didn’t suffer,” Kavaleria interrupted. “Nevertheless, the beehive is destroyed. Nowhere for them to live and nothing to eat. That the bees are golden doesn’t mean that they feed on diamonds.”

Octavius began to growl agreement behind the tub. “Don’t echo, emperor!” Kavaleria told it. The emperor subsided.

“Kuzepych is sure that it’s Gorshenya. Its tracks were around the beehive. One can see that it was trampling there all night… And as ill luck would have it, the bees only recently began to depart for novices! Now they’re worked up, angry, and it’s also incomprehensible how it’ll be. Possible they’ll gather much fewer than the usual four teams of five.”

“You think that Gorshenya…” Yara began.

“I think nothing!” Kavaleria dryly cut her off. “Gorshenya has been in HDive for three centuries. It chases lovers, creates the necessary extreme sports for the novices, and prevents them from trampling the flowers! In general, Gorshenya is Gorshenya. It’s the symbol of HDive. No other like it.”

“What do we do now with Gorshenya?”

Kavaleria began to snuffle. “For the time being… I emphasize, for the time being… nothing. But if it continues to go on doing such things, we’ll have to part company with it.”

Athanasius became agitated. “Has Gorshenya explained anything?”

“I killed an entire hour in conversation with it,” said Kavaleria with annoyance. “Babbles something incomprehensible, ‘Walked, walked, touched, touched! Belly hungry does not eat!’ Likely we should be grateful that it didn’t guzzle the hive! A bow to the ground to him!” Kavaleria said with irritation and, after opening the upper drawer of the desk, handed an envelope to Athanasius. “Hold this! You’re the best of all to take care of this. Here’s the name of the girl chosen by the golden bee. She left yesterday, before all these events. Find her and establish the circumstances… Ul and Yara, you get busy with the beehive! Help Kuzepych! I don’t worry about the hive itself; the honeycombs trouble me. Also protection. If Gorshenya comes again at night, where is the guarantee that it won’t ruin the new one too?”

“And if…” Ul began.

“Let’s do without the ‘if’! You’re not a spartan!” Kavaleria cut him short. “Set up a spatial trap by the beehive! Only don’t get carried away. I still haven’t forgotten how Kuzepych was left high and dry for a week on the island in the White Sea.”

“Rodion set it up then,” Ul gave it away. “I was only in charge. But then he himself asked to protect the cases of condensed milk.” Yara grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to the door.

Athanasius turned the envelope in his hands, an ordinary envelope with the hydroelectric power plant on the printed stamp. And not sealed. “What to do with the new girl?” asked Athanasius.

“As usual. Purely voluntary with a minimum of violence. And especially don’t get tangled in a lie: you yourself know, any lie will echo when you pass the swamp,” answered Kavaleria.

Octavius began to growl behind the tub, made a timid sudden move, and tried to attack the leaving Athanasius with a nip at his heel.

* * *

Athanasius carried out Kaleria Valerevna’s commission the very same day. He had to dash off to the university for this, about which he was only glad. Trips to the city did not happen to him particularly frequently, not counting the evenings when he arranged fake meetings with the cryptographer from Honduras.

Moscow was humming in a businesslike manner, like the hive of the golden bees. The cars recently gathered from the spaciousness of cottage country bellowed restlessly and, interfering with each other, crawled along the gas station. Everyone was hurrying somewhere, everyone’s eyes were clustered together. Even babies in strollers looked surly. Only the sun tried to cheer everyone up, but did not manage and was sad, wiping the damp-looking clouds.

Officials sat quietly on the Internet. The prisoners of offices smiled appropriately at their bosses and chose a country for the next two-week vacation. Schoolboys had their eyes on the new teachers, groped their weak sides, and mentally composed a list of tasks, which would not need to be done, and topics, which would not need to be studied. The same spirit reigned also at the university. The euphoria of beginning-of-school-year meetings had already died down, and now the students, spitting out marble aggregate, gnawed on the foundation of science.

Athanasius went out of the first humanities building of Moscow State University and stopped at the front entrance, not recognizing Moscow. It turned out that while he was walking, outside had time to have a downpour. The most surprising was that it was already not raining now. The sky had cleared. The horizon had teethed with precise rectangles of high-rises. It seemed the capital was smiling with that uncertain, freshly washed smile, the kind that appears on the face of a person just finished crying.

Along the asphalt flowed streams of water, in low places reaching halfway up the shin. The storm drains became seething pools. A stalled car stood in a pit. Water reached midway up its headlights. Other cars carefully travelled around it, scrambling onto the curb. Exactly like a herd going around a cow killed by lightning.

Athanasius continually met victims of the rain. Umbrellas, damaged by the downpour, did not save them. Many, despairing, went around barefoot, after throwing over the shoulder shoes with laces tied together.

After picking a long skirt up above her knees, a girl with a bag on her head walked towards Athanasius. The handles of the bag were dashingly tucked behind her ears. He moved aside, passing her, raised his head, and was immediately hailed. Athanasius looked around. He recognized the geometrical half-circle eyebrows and wheaten hair. It was Gulia. She grabbed his sleeve and, twittering, dragged him through the puddles. The sensation emerged in Athanasius that they had parted not three months ago but only yesterday.

“Where did you come from?” asked Gulia, trying to shove his head into the bag with hers.

Athanasius resisted, partly from dignity, partly because the rain had stopped. “From the university!” he said.

“You study here?”

“No.”

“And rightly so!” approved Gulia. “Suspicious place! Here friends speak well of each other. It’s unnatural.”

In the middle of the road full of cars splashing water, it came into Gulia’s head to stop and, arms akimbo, pose the question, “Where did you disappear to then? I waited for your call!”

Knowing that he would not be believed nevertheless, Athanasius craftily lied with the truth. “Was injured. Lying in the clinic. Supovna cursed me ninety-two times. Fed me regularly as much as… That’s because I never finished eating. Dealt her a blow.”

“Everything is clear, reindeer!” said Gulia in the magnanimous voice of a person willing to be taken in.

A car swept past. A canopy of water appeared above it. Athanasius hurriedly shut his mouth and eyes. It was already useless to cover the rest.

“Jerk!” Gulia yelled, jumping like a sparrow. “A natural jerk! Look where you’re going! People are walking here!”

Athanasius carefully grabbed Gulia with both arms and moved her onto the grass. But even on the grass Gulia continued to jump and threaten the cars. Her howls were laughable and silly. Like that of a child who beats the table for hitting him with a corner.

She finally calmed down. “I thought about you,” said Gulia, not making an acknowledgement but simply informatively.

Athanasius began to feel uneasy. He was not used to someone thinking about him. “How is your bear doing? Is it still so green?” he asked in a hurry.

They agreed to meet the next day. This time without excuses.

“I’ll bring a friend. And you’ll also bring one of yours!” ordered Gulia. “I’ve now adapted myself to finding in supermarkets bottles with winning codes! Felt one yesterday, but a woman already had it in her cart.”

“And your friend is also…” Athanasius carefully asked.

“Also what?”