Владислав Крапивин - I am going to meet my brother

The signal was not repeated. Another half hour passed. The automatic instruments on the ship had been given their final instructions. Sergei closed his eyes with relief. But the red line of figures still danced before him and his eyelids ached with fatigue.

At that moment somebody touched him on the sleeve. The pilot took his hand from his eyes and saw before him a twelve-year-old boy, fair-haired and sunburnt, in an unbuttoned striped jacket, with a gold badge on his pale-green shirt and fresh scratches on his legs. The boy was looking up at Sergei, and wanting, apparently, to explain everything in one breath, said a few words, whose meaning the pilot did not immediately catch.

"What are you talking about? How did you get here?" asked Sergei.

When he had reached the central building, Naal had at once discovered a door and found himself in a long narrow corridor, down which his footsteps echoed hollowly. The floor was as smooth and shiny as glass and reflected the high ceiling. As he walked down the corridor, that feeling of alarm began to ring again in Naal's ears, and became a steady whine. He began to feel anxious again, a lump came into his throat. Naal felt his heart thumping unevenly, like a ball bouncing downstairs.

At the end of the corridor there was a sharp bend, leading to a broad staircase. Naal went up, stopped for an instant with his hand raised, then, making up his mind, pushed open the frosted translucent doors.

He saw a round hall with low walls and a transparent cupola criss-crossed with meaningless white lines. The stars could be seen through the grid of these lines. The floor, which was inlaid with black and white diamonds rose slightly in the centre, where there was a small dais. Three men were standing on it in front of a black cone-shaped apparatus. Not far from the dais a fourth man was sleeping in one of the armchairs scattered about the hall. The men at the apparatus were talking, and their voices sounded hollow and unnatural. Naal heard every word, but could not understand what they were talking about. Fatigue, probably, had made him slightly giddy and everything had somehow become unreal. He walked across the black and white diamonds to the centre, mounted the dais, and took one of the pilots by the sleeve. The man turned, and by the expression of astonishment in his face, Naal realized he had not heard his footsteps.

Then, in order to explain everything at once, the boy said: "I've come to meet my brother."

It was like a dream. Naal was telling his story and heard his own voice, like someone else's echoing and vanishing in the great hall. He did not remember how long he talked. Probably not very long. The lights on the control panels by the circular walls were flickering, and the blue zigzags on the screens were all the time rapidly changing their design.

"What do you think, pilot? He won't refuse to answer?" asked Naal, throwing off his torpor for an instant. A short silence followed. Then someone uttered a phrase which for its simplicity and banality, was quite out of keeping with what was happening.

"What a business!"

Somebody was trying to wake the sleeper. "Misha! Miguel! Get up! Listen!"

Flashes were dancing rapidly on the screens, and the senior pilot, who was called Sergei, said suddenly, "You're asleep, sonny."

He took him up in his arms and laid him in a big soft armchair. But Naal was not asleep. He was watching the dancing lights and heard the words echoing under the dome: "Aman…" "Three centuries…" "He wasn't afraid… And what if?" "He's asleep." "No."

The man who had said "no" asked Naal: "What's your name, spaceman's brother?" "Naal."

He did not hear their question repeated, but he felt the pilots had not understood, so he said: ("Nathaniel Sneg." "Sneg!" he heard voices say. "A strange combination."

Naal wanted to say "There's nothing strange about it. I was named after Nathaniel Leeds, captain of the bathyscaphe 'Light'."

Somebody moved the armchair and said: "He's asleep."

"I'm not asleep," said Naal and opened his eyes. "Pilot, has the 'Magellan' replied?"

Sergei bent over him. "You go to sleep. They said they'd meet you in a week. The crew have decided to land by rocket in the forest zone. Apparently they don't want a noisy welcome. They've missed Earth and the wind, and the forest so much. In a few days they'll come to Summer Coast on foot.

Naal's dream was dwindling fast.

"And me? And the people? Don't they want to meet anyone?"

"Don't worry," said Sergei. "They've promised to meet you in a week, haven't they?"

Naal saw now that the hall of the pilot's station was not so very big. The screens were dimmer and the sky above the transparent cupola had become low and cloudy.

"Where are they going to land?"

"They asked us not to say."

"Can't I know?"

"White Cape Peninsula."

Naal got up.

"Stop here for the night," said Sergei. "In the morning we'll decide what to do."

"No, I'm going home."

"I'll go with you."

"No."

So it was all over. It had been a silly fairy-tale he'd been foolish enough to believe in… Three hundred years…

He did not wait to hear what else the pilot had to say and strode off quickly, then ran across the black-and-white diamonds of the hall, down the glassy floor of the corridor, and along the gravelled path. Once again he found himself in the dark field and went on towards the distant platform.

He walked slowly. Why hurry? "We'll meet in a week." But if somebody wants to meet someone else, he doesn't even wait an hour.

Maybe it would all have ended there. But about a hundred yards from the station Naal passed a stand of "bee" planes. And an idea popped into his head that seemed quite ridiculous at first. But, having walked a little further, he stopped. "Perhaps Alexander couldn't reverse his decision about landing, when he heard everything from the pilot? He isn't alone, after all," thought Naal.

Feeling his heart thump with this new hope, Naal went back hesitatingly to the machines. He would be twelve in only three months and that was the age when you were allowed to pilot a "bee" on your own. Could he break the rule?

Still undecided, he got into the cockpit and pulled down the protective hood. Then he checked the engine. Yellow lights twinkled encouragingly on the controls panel. Then Naal took off on the horizontal propellers and immediately turned the "bee" to the north-east.

The high speed would enable him to reach the White Cape in two hours.

He may have fallen asleep during his flight. At any rate, it seemed very short to Naal. There was only one thought in his head: "I'll go to him and tell him who I am. I don't care what happens."

If he were met with cold stares, he would get into the cabin without saying a word, and take off, and fly south-west.

Trouble started when the "bee", having crossed the gulf with the stars reflected in it, was flying above the dark forest towards the cape. The east was beginning to turn blue, but at the zenith the sky was still dark. Somewhere up there hovered the "Magellan", abandoned by its crew.

Naal tried in vain to see lights down below or, at any rate, the darkcone of the landing rocket. Twice he flew to the tip of the cape just above the tops of the trees. And then the engine began to fail. Its batteries were exhausted. The lad realized he had taken a machine that was not ready for flying. To get a last broad look at the dark forest below, Naal began to climb on the horizontal propellers, and continued to climb until the engine failed. The propellers stopped, and the "bee", spreading its wings, glided to the ground.

Naal realized his mistake too late. Down below was dense forest, and it was quite impossible to make a landing by gliding.

But for some reason he did not feel very frightened. As he watched the trees rushing past right under the wings, he tried to level his flight. But when he saw the black tree-tops in front of him, he automatically applied the brakes. There was a crash, a series of violent jolts, then a softer one. The back of the seat hit him between the shoulders and something hard pressed against them. Some fragrant dry stalks clung to his cheek. "Where's the rocket?" thought the boy, and collapsed on the grass.