Free The Visitor by Boris TZAPRENKO Page B

this main structure’s wall of kilometric dimensions, were adjoining constructs containing motors of ventilation systems, water inlets, puree pumps and other equipment. The door to one of these small appurtenances was ajar, no doubt by one of the maintenance employees’ negligence, or by a lock malfunction. As he approached this opening, Etos sensed that there was water. He passed his head, but was unable to enter more. His shoulders didn’t pass. Trying to sneak in sideways, he was surprised when ‘the hole’ grew as soon as he had put a little force on it to achieve his end. One more strange thing! But he wasn’t at a loss for surprises. Here, the laws of nature were different, he had no choice but to accept it; he did so all the more easily that he was too thirsty to bother with physics. It was the first time that he had opened a door.
    Inside, there was almost total darkness. He distinguished vague shapes, but his senses confirmed the presence of moisture. An idea came to him to enlarge the opening so he could get a little more lunar clarity. Initially, he tried to push the door with his upper body, as that was how it had worked the first time, but he quickly realized that he could rotate the strangeness by hand. When it was opened wide and his eyes became adapted to less light, he distinguished a small puddle on the flat concrete. Not even taking time to wonder at this marvel, this unlikely sort of rock, he got down to lick the surface. That’s when he felt drops of water falling on his head. He looked up and saw a wall faucet leaking, which he saw as a kind of small grey branch with a bent end from which trickled a little water. Without questioning the nature of this piece of surreal wood, he began licking it with greed shaking it in the hope that more liquid would fall. His hands jerked it so much, every which way, that eventually he unwittingly opened the tap by an additional one third of a turn. This was a paradise of flowing substance. He drank until his thirst ceded its place to a feeling of heaviness in his stomach. A lesser evil for sure! Body and nature having their requirements and mysteries, he was overcome with fatigue. It was as if something stronger than him had decided now that the most urgent need had been filled, it was important to deal with the second: rest. Moving away from the flowing faucet and, with the intermittent hum from a pump or other motor, he fell asleep on the floor without further ado.  
    Suddenly it started raining again. It riddled nature with large drops that from the multitude of impacts rumbled with more and more clatter.
     
    *
     
    Mahisa had moved away from the road, but, still keeping it in sight, she walked in the forest. She could just make it out in the moonlight. It was more comfortable for her feet to make progress on the undergrowth’s soft soil and she felt safer under the trees than completely out in the open. An hour earlier, she had seen an extraordinary thing. Quite extraordinary, Yes, but very scary! It started with two spots of light far before her. She was walking on the earthen path at the time. She had already seen glowworms in the grass at night and of course the stars in the dark sky and also the moon, as was the case at the moment. But these spots of light didn’t look like any of those phenomena. First, they were necessarily much brighter than glowworms since they appeared clearly from much further away. Also, they were visible under skyline unlike the stars. And above all, she was seeing them approaching at high speed. As a precaution, Mahisa had gone into hiding in the forest behind a tree while observing the phenomenon. The lights grew while gradually a noise that she had heard before was getting louder and louder. Something passed in a cloud of dust. A strange and frightening beast resembling that which had took Etos on its back and a lightning-slayer in its hollow head. Mahisa had discovered that, to add to its monstrosity, its eyes glowed at