Джора Байрамов - I am Earthman

–Let's put all these things back in the cache, we still don't know what to do with them now. Then we will think together and decide. We still have to go to the spring, we need to get food.

– Yes, yes.

Eva agreed, but it was clear from her eyes that she was very surprised by what she saw and extremely excited. Adam felt uneasy that he was lying to her all the time and it seemed to him that she even felt it. But all the same, he thought that he should refrain for some time before telling her the truth about his former life, and besides, he still does not know how she will react to his story, believe it or not, and how she will take it all.

After that, the two of them took all the things back and put them in the cache, closed the lid of the cache, but did not close the outer opening of the cache with heavy stones.

Days passed. They were doing their usual things, arranging their homes, getting and cooking food, but they did not part for a single step and both felt inwardly that they could no longer live alone, that they could be together and live so well. And then one day, after dinner, sitting next to Eve, Adam, in a burst of inexplicably tender inner feelings that suddenly appeared in him, unexpectedly even for himself, hugged Eve and kissed her firmly, firmly on the lips. She blushed at first, but did not say anything, or maybe in her heart she also wanted and waited for this. So they got intimate that night and started sleeping together. Life has entered into a calm and normal family channel. However, Adam was haunted by thoughts about the notes in the notebook. He wanted to read the notes as soon as possible, get to know the people from the photo and how their destinies turned out. The only thing that was clear was that the photographs depicted those distant ancestors of Eva, about whom she spoke. But with her, it was impossible to get a notebook out of the hiding place, read and study the notes. She was there all the time. To tell the truth and tell everything, in his opinion, the time has not yet come. He knew that sooner or later he would have to tell her the whole truth about himself. But when will that time come? However, this situation resolved itself.

Many, many days have passed, and maybe even months. Although he knew how many days there were in a month, he did not know from what time and from what month to start the chronology, and in such a situation there was no need for him to do this. According to his approximate calculations, more than 4 months have passed since his return. The days began to shorten. This indicated the approach of winter. The first signs of Eva's pregnancy also began to appear. She got a little fatter in figure, and every day she took a long walk in the fresh air near the cave. They were both so happy inwardly, but they didn't admit it to each other. So the days passed, the weather became increasingly cloudy and cooler. One day, as usual, they came to the spring. She collected earthworms and edible herbs, and he collected firewood between small stunted trees. When the work was finished, Eva said;

– There are already fewer worms and edible herbs here. I will go down, further along the stream of the spring, perhaps I will find other places where we will get food, at the same time I will take a walk, and you, (it should be emphasized that after the night when Adam first kissed Eve, they switched to "you") take all this, get water and go to the cave.

Adam grumbled, barely audible, almost in a whisper, "the matriarchy has begun," however, he nodded his head to Eve in agreement, but immediately the thought flashed through his head that " while Eve is not in the cave, I will take a notebook and read a little." With such thoughts, he came to the cave and quickly got down to business. I lit a torch, went down and took out only a notebook from the hiding place, leaving other items next to the notebook there, I tightly closed the hiding place with a lid. It made it easier for him to hide the notebook, even if Eva accidentally came early. With such thoughts, with a notebook in his hand, he climbed up the cave to the exit of the cave. But Eve was already waiting for him there by the fire. She had on her hands his extraterrestrial clothes and shoes, which he threw away after returning to Earth. Adam stopped and froze. After all the ordeals of extraterrestrial life, he liked living with Eve so much. And although they lived on primitive conditions, they lived in human, mundane conditions of life and now he would never replace this earthly life with Eve with an alien, comfortable, but life alone. He was so happy that he had long forgotten about these things. It didn't even occur to him that one-day Eve would accidentally find his clothes and shoes. She looked him straight in the eyes, and in her looks you could read the question "why was I deceived, did not tell the truth, who are you?". There was no point in hiding the truth from her any further, and he began;

– I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'll explain everything now. I just thought that you would not believe me, that I am a person from the past, i.e. from a past Earthly life. Ya Ya. I'll start now…

Eva sat down by the fire and for the first time since they met, she began to cry. Probably, she was very offended that a loved one was hiding the truth about himself from her. He calmed her down in every possible way and kept saying;

– Dear, beloved, you are very smart and when I tell my whole story, you will understand everything and forgive me.

And without waiting for Eva to calm down at least a little, he put his arm around her shoulders and began to talk about how people used to live on earth, about the earth's civilization, about the peoples who inhabited the Earth, about the animal world, about birds, about the achievements of science and about when and how the catastrophe occurred on Earth. Then he told that he was an astronaut, during the thermonuclear war, he was on the ISS in near-Earth orbit with other crew members, and then he was saved by aliens and after three hundred years of extraterrestrial life, he returned to his native Earth. She listened in silence. Whether she understood all this or not, he did not know, but she did not ask any questions. The story lasted until late at night. They didn't even have dinner. So he finished his story and in his story described in general terms the forever lost human civilization. He understood that there would be many more questions, because to tell in general terms is one thing, but to explain and explain the previous achievements of humanity in detail, to Eve later, is another and will be very difficult. "After all, there is a beginning, and everything else will get better later," he thought and offered Eva a rest, promising that tomorrow he would read to her the notes left by her ancestors, and she would also be taught to read and write so that she could write and read herself.

She stood up in silence, took a stone thicket in her hand, drank water and looked in the direction of Adam. In the light of the dying torch, it was impossible to see the reaction of her face, but in her gaze Adam felt that his story had made a double impression on her. But without saying a word, Eve went up to Adam and hugged him tightly. There was something about it, an inexplicable pleasant feeling, a feeling of closeness to a loved one, and she suddenly spoke;

"I knew before that you weren't the person you pretended to be. After all, you always shouted excitedly in a dream, uttered various words, including those that I did not understand, "space, ship, crew, planet, war", sometimes even cried during sleep. I really didn't want to offend you, because you are the only person who is close and has already become a family for me, and I don't want to lose you. I was just waiting for you to tell me the truth yourself.

After these words of Eva, he knelt down in front of her, hugging her waist, uttered a single phrase;

– I'm sorry.

CHAPTER

5

History of survivors

We woke up in the morning and Adam no longer felt guilty for lying to Eve all this time. Together they cooked food and after breakfast, Eva, as usual, went out for a walk. Adam began to read the notes. The notes were made in a very small handwriting (apparently the person who left this manuscript treasured the paper very much) and began as follows: "I, Sokolov Andrey Leonidovich, consider it my duty to leave to posterity detailed information about all the misadventures that happened to us, because after the catastrophe on Earth, in incredible conditions, we survived, and the human race continues on Earth."

From this, Adam concluded that these notes were made by the author much later than the nuclear disaster. In addition, the handwriting of the manuscript, although the notes are made in a very small handwriting, seemed very familiar to him. Since Adam did not fully remember his biography, he thought that perhaps he had studied at the same school with the author of these records in the past, or it seemed familiar to him from the fact that he had not read the manuscripts in his native language for a long time. But, this was not the main thing, the main thing now for Adam was the content of the notes left, and from the fact that the handwriting was very familiar and legible, the notes were read to him without much difficulty, even very easily.

Further, he learned from the records that a group of students from Moscow State University consisting of ten people came to the Gorno-Altai Republic to see firsthand and, if possible, study the so-called "New Cave" recently discovered in these places. The cave, as described in media reports, existed before, but speleologists learned about the existence of the cave only after a series of small earthquakes that recently occurred in these places, when the entrance to the cave accidentally opened due to earthquakes. After hearing about the new cave on television and reading about it on the Internet, they decided to see this cave with their own eyes and explore it. Before them, for a very short time, only speleologists who study caves visited here, and they accidentally discovered this cave when they were studying other caves in these places and made a sensational message on television that there is a large underground lake in the cave, that previously unknown waterfowl live in the lake. This message of speleologists was so interested in this group of students who were romantically inclined, who, at the call of their hearts, gathered from different faculties who had not even known each other before, but met later, that is, directly during the hike. And in order to get ahead of other specialists, that is, biologists, historians, geographers and speleologists, who were also going to explore a new cave soon, they quickly equipped themselves, in their opinion, with the necessary equipment for descending into the cave and came here to see the underground lake and the animals living in it with their own eyes. According to the author of these recordings, it was so interesting and romantic that they felt like pioneers and discoverers of something, from their point of view, very important. Inspired by such romanticism and enthusiasm, as the author writes, they did not even take simple precautions and safety measures for descending into the cave and in cases of possible unforeseen circumstances or emergency situations directly inside the cave. So they did not even leave those on duty on the surface, as it is necessary and necessary in such cases, and took with them only a small amount of necessary equipment and auxiliary things, that is, a small axe, two lengths of rope, 15 and 10 meters long, a light scuba diver's suit and a knife. And from food, water in three 5-liter plastic bottles and not a large amount of canned provisions, and then just in case they stay there a little longer than they expected and they will have to eat there, in the cave. And everything else, that is, all the rest of the food, all the outerwear and other things they brought with them, except for smartphones and other personal things that they habitually carried with them, were left in tents in a temporary tent camp, set up outside on the surface, at the entrance to the cave. According to the author, they were not going to stay here for a long time and distributed their time in such a way that they allocated only a day to stay here in the camp and descend into the cave, just to see the underground lake and if it turns out to see waterfowl animals there, fix them on the cameras of their smartphones. Then take a collective photo in the cave, as a sign of proof that they, after the speleologists who discovered this cave, were the pioneers here. After that, they had to return to study at the university and brag about this campaign in front of friends, peers and students. That's all, they set aside four, five days, for an extreme case, a week, if it suddenly turns out that they are delayed on the way due to weather or other reasons. Only in this was all their youth optimistic and adventurous romanticism. That is why, and also because they had not previously studied new caves and for the same reason did not know and did not even think that they might encounter various kinds of difficulties in a previously unexplored cave, so they did not prepare seriously and thoroughly for this event. They were driven only by energetic youth enthusiasm and romance, and they took the descent into the cave, a kind of romantic-adventure extreme game.