Eden: a novel

The crew of a six-person spacecraft crashes on an unexplored planet. After the crew manages to get out of the rocket, they try to repair the damaged ship and at the same time begin to explore Eden. Returning from the raid, the Earthlings discover that a creature climbed into a rocket and inexplicably launched one of the power units. . Authorities forbid the study of information theory outside special institutions, and all public information comes from the dictator and the ruling circles, which "do not exist" ...

Book reviews:

"Edem" by Stanislav Lem: Problems of cognition of other civilizations (author Igor Yaroslavsky)

Eden: heaven or hell? (author Sofia Andriychuk)

Translated from Polish by Dmytro Andrukhiv

Illustrations by Rostislav Kramar

An error has crept into the calculations. Instead of going over the atmosphere, they encountered it. The ship entered the air with a roar, which burst the eardrums. People stretched out on nylon nets could feel the shock absorbers squeezing, the front screens flared and went out, a cushion of hot gases pressing against the ship's nose obscured the outer lenses, braking began too late and proved ineffective. The cabin was filled with soot from burnt rubber, under the pressure of overload people were blind and deaf, it was the end, but even none of them could think about it - not enough strength to lift the chest, draw air - it did for them oxygen pulsators. who were still working, pumping air into their chests like bursting cylinders. Emergency lights flashed, six on each side, people stirred, a red alarm was burning over the torn and flattened accordion, the rags of insulation, Plexiglas rolls rustled on the floor, the roar stopped, everything was swallowed by a deafening, growing whistle. >

- What is this? .. - The doctor croaked, spitting out a rubber mouthpiece.

- Lie down! The Coordinator, who was watching the last surviving screen, warned him. the highest point, then there was a deafening roar

Muscles that tensed in anticipation of the last blow, suddenly softened. The rocket, standing on a vertical pillar of the final fire, slowly descended, the nozzles rumbled soothingly; it lasted a few minutes, then the partitions trembled. The vibration became stronger and stronger - apparently, the bearing suspension of the turbines shook. People looked around, but no one said a word. They knew it all depended on whether the rotors could stand it. The thick, convex lens of the last screen was instantly covered with a thick web of cracks, its phosphor disk was extinguished, and in the dim light of the emergency lamps below, people could see their own magnified shadows on the sloping walls; the roar turned into a long roar, under them something cracked, broke, shredded with a metal grind; the body, shaken by terrible shocks, fell, fell, blinded, dead; people squinted, stifled breath, complete darkness, chaos ... Now their bodies stretched a force along the entire length of the nylon ropes, but people did not reach the broken panels, which would be crippled, and hung diagonally, slowly swaying like heavy pendulums. ..

The rocket overturned hard, like a giant mountain; this time the roar was distant and dull, the lumps of discarded soil tapped weakly on the outer skin and slid down.

Everything froze. Pipes were hissing below, something was bubbling terribly, water was flowing fast, and the noise was mixed with a piercing hiss that repeated at regular intervals, as if some liquid were dripping on the red-hot iron. "" Alive, "said the Chemist in complete darkness

He saw nothing hanging in a nylon net, as if in a sack hanging by four horns on ropes. This meant that the rocket landed on its side. If she stood, the net would hang horizontally. Something clicked. The pale petrol flame of the old Doctor's lighter ignited.

- Crew? The Coordinator asked.

One of the ropes in his hammock burst, and the Coordinator swayed slowly, helplessly; Reaching into the eye of the nylon mesh, he struggled in vain to grab anything protruding from the wall. "First," said the Engineer. "Second," said the Physicist. "Third," said the Chemist. "Fourth," said the Cybernetic, holding his forehead. "Fifth," the Doctor finished. Everyone. Congratulations, ”the Coordinator's voice was calm. "Machines?"

Silence answered him.

- Automata !!

Silence. The lighter began to burn the Doctor in the finger. He turned it off. Darkness enveloped everything again. "I always said we were made of the best material," said the Doctor at dusk. "Which one of you has a knife?"

- I have. Do you want to cut the ropes?

- If you can get by without it, it's even better. I can't.

- I'll try.

There was a commotion, rapid breathing, something slammed, the glass creaked.

- I'm on the floor. That is on the wall, - said the Chemist. His voice came from below. "Doctor, take a moment, I'll help you." "Just hurry, because you're running out of gas." The chemist stumbled to the Coordinator's hammock, reaching only to his feet. He finally managed to spread the side lightning a little, and the Coordinator fell hard on his feet. The two of them worked faster. Soon everyone was standing on the sloping, semi-elastic wall of the cabin.

- Where do we start? The Doctor asked. He pulled the edges of the wound on Cybernetics' forehead and applied the band-aid he had found in his pocket. The doctor always carried various unnecessary things with him.

- From the statement of the fact whether we will be able to get out of here, - the Coordinator answered. - First of all, we need light. Well, what do you have there? Already? Doctor, tell me here, maybe there is current in the terminals of the panel, at least in the alarm circuit. This time the lighter only wiped out the spark. The doctor unsuccessfully turned the wheel, but only wiped the skin on his fingers, illuminating the fragments of the torn panel, in which the Coordinator and the Engineer copied on their knees.

- Is there? Asked the Chemist, who was standing behind them, because he no longer had enough space.

Nobody has matches?

- The last time I saw matches was three years ago. "In the museum," the Engineer muttered indistinctly, trying to rip the insulation off the end of the wire with his teeth. - Now some light bulb.

Someone found an undamaged light bulb in the alarm over the side panel. A blinding electric light illuminated a cabin resembling a part of a tunnel tube with conical walls that rises obliquely. High above them, in what was now the ceiling, was a closed door. "More than seven meters," said the Chemist melancholy. - How do we get there?

- Once in a circus I saw a living column - five men on top of each other, - said the Doctor.

- It's too difficult for us. "We'll get there on the floor," the Coordinator replied. "He took a knife from the Chemist and began to make wide cuts in the spongy floor."

- So.

- And why not hear our Cybernetics? The Engineer was suddenly surprised. Sitting on the wreckage of a broken switchboard, he applied a voltmeter to the outgoing cables. "He was a widower," the doctor replied with a smile. - Because what is a cybernetic without automata?

"They'll still work for me," Cybernetics said, glancing into the holes in the broken screens. Muttered the Physicist.

The engineer stood up:

"It seems so." At first they got into the corridor, and from there - to separate rooms. A pocket flashlight was found in the Doctor's cabin. The doctor liked to carry a lot of extra things. The flashlight was taken away. Everything around was ruined and gutted. The furniture attached to the floor survived, but from appliances, tools, aids, food supplies, a real mess was made that reached people above the knees. "Now let's try to get out," said the Coordinator when they found themselves again. in the corridor.

- And the spacesuits?

- They are in the pressure chamber. I hope nothing happened to them. And yet, we don't need them: the atmosphere on Eden is quite tolerable.

- Has anyone ever been here?

- Yes, ten or eleven years ago, a search probe space probe killed Altair and his ship. Remember?

- But none of the people?

- No, no one.

The inner sluice hatch hung sloping over their heads. Strange first impression, caused by the fact that in the familiar rooms everything has acquired a completely new look - the walls are now floors and ceilings - walls - slowly passed.

- Here we really can not do without a living ladder - said Coordinator, carefully illuminating the hatch with a doctor's flashlight. A spot of light circled around the hatch. It was airtight to the sluice. "Well," the Engineer agreed.