I sneak my fingers into his damp, tangled hair, brushing his head with my fingertips, as I would have fondled a big red cat, the same one, the memories of which now live in my head. I smile to Eric's lips — if it's a memory and stolen, I feel comfortable with him.

- Did you have a cat? - I ask in a whisper, - Most such, red, as you. And the ear is torn, right here, - I touch the guy's left ear closer to the tip, I run my fingers along the edge, and then, sighing with regret, I step aside.

It is necessary at least to bring overalls, Erikov would also have to be turned out, in order to dry out, to take a helmet and a lantern from the bathroom. Now, when the veil of lightening consciousness has subsided somewhat, the ability to at least something to come back to me gradually returns.

“I'll be right back,” I say to Eric, taking a step back.

And I hear a strange crunch under the heel.

At the first moment I think that I stepped on his deck, and it covers me with such a panic that it takes my breath away. Turning on the other leg, I jerk off so sharply that I almost fall, looking at the floor, at some shapeless lump, do not understand what, but whatever it is, this is definitely not Eric's favorite toy. Exhale The heel is cold and wet, I bend down, touch it with my fingers, feeling cold moisture under them, bring my fingers to the beam of light streaming from the bathroom door - and I see blood. What the hell ... If I cut myself - why is it not painful for me, and why is the blood not warm?

- Stop, don't move - this is Erica. Looking down at my feet, I reach down to his helmet, which we, apparently, at some point dropped on the floor from the bed. Unintelligible chunks of red ice lie in small groups on the floor, dark pools spread around it. Its a little, if you collect all, will come out with a fist. Having sat down, I lift the one that is bigger and look at it in the light of a flashlight for a few seconds. And then, with a cry of disgust, I throw it away.

Red ice on the floor — fragments of a frozen and then a broken heart — I distinctly examined the whitened pieces of arteries and veins and the black, filled with coagulated blood atrium cave. Based on the fact that we are on a spaceship, and not in a butcher shop, this is hardly the heart of a pig. And simultaneously with my cry, the forgotten deck responds with a signal from a received message. In two steps, being next to Eric, I look into the luminous window of the device, instantly in his hand, and I see one single word.

"Traitor".

Eric Lange.

The frantic heat, which Reese was covering all of nature a second ago, subsides as if in an instant - her lips, swollen from bites, had recently been digging into me with such furious ecstasy, touch me unexpectedly gently and carefully, and her fingers are not so much grabbing me then the eyelids look at least relatively decent hair, how much smooth them, barely noticeable scratching. The metamorphosis is simply astounding, and I inquiringly look at the girl, squinting her right eye like a bird and tilting my head slightly. What is she really about? I just managed to tune in to the second round - and here you are. No, in a sense, I am glad that this happened, because immediately after our second intercourse, I would have collapsed with my face in a pillow and slept a day. My endurance has its limits - and this is still praise to all possible gods for the fact that once a month ago, or even six months ago, at that nameless station in my eyes, I guessed to inject myself with a poisonous green energy fluid. As I knew, honestly.

The question of Reese hardly surprises me - for some reason I was waiting for something like that. Sometimes I find myself thinking that after the jump we became somehow ... I don't know, closer, or something. As if we feel each other, as if our neurons are intertwined with tails, and now we think about the same, feel the same - maybe that is why the raging flow of my tactile sensations somewhat changed its course, returning to a more stable and natural for human individuals? I try to remember, in a chaotic manner, shuffling in my files all the images, articles and films I have ever seen red cats, and really - something pops up!

I remember this cat. Yes, before moving to Japan.I lived in Saarbrucken, a small border town, relatively close to Paris - well, if in our century, distances within the same planet make sense to measure. Not that it was my cat - he lived next door and formally belonged to Frau Pfeiffer. I have never seen him come to her house, really. Basically, he lounged around on the street, fought with other cats, drove dogs ... I don't know what happened to him - I moved when I turned twenty, decided that I had nothing to do in this hole anymore and I had to go to Japan. Maybe it still sinks under some kind of bench.

I gently smile and let Reese out of his arms. Where is she? And, damn, overalls the same. I have already managed to forget that we have here, frankly, not a hotel room, and we can’t just order a pizza, ask the courier to drag four more cans of beer and roll on the couch to discuss movies. I hate going back to work right after quality sex, but since the pipe is calling ...

I'm starting to speculate about which films hypothetically might like the bird and whether our tastes coincide - and also that sometimes it's still great to lose memory, how much can you see and read again! The flow of thoughts takes me somewhere very far away, and I fall out of the surrounding reality - just until the moment I hear Reese’s voice, in which the unusual metal is already ringing. It’s good that I didn’t jump on one leg, trying to shake the water that had flowed into the shower from my ear - there is nothing worse than standing in that position in front of a woman to whom you feel a certain character.

I stretch my neck, trying to examine an incomprehensible object that the lieutenant commander holds in his hands - and which he obviously didn’t have here, for all my periodic inconsistency and inattention, I obviously wouldn’t have overlooked such a thing - but I’ve failed. Reese screams, discarding an unidentified object, and I have time to examine it vaguely - this is ... some kind of internal organ? ... I, of course, want to take a closer look, but something tells me that a closer plan will not please me much . But this was the home situation, even the deck ... Stop, deck?

I convulsively grab the most precious of my treasures only to see a dimly lit item opposite the message menu. What's again? The Great Network, it stuck here, said the same thing, that I do not have a keyboard. Some people do not understand until they are ...

My knuckles whiten, and if the deck were not shock-resistant - I swear by the net, I would break it in half, and quite by accident. In the temples, he begins to loudly pound blood, a lump rolls up to his throat - and I can hardly contain an unexpected powerful attack of nausea.

Traitor.

Traitor.

Traitor.

Messages come one after another. I do not fully believe in what happened, I re-read the messages again and again, looking for the secret cipher, some algorithm, a mathematical pattern in them - to no avail. They write exactly what is written. And I know only one person who in the circumstances could call me a traitor.

And the very thought that this person can be here, on the ship, alone with me, plunges me into a state of panic.