Chapter 23

The telephone's ring woke Konstantin. "What do I need an alarm clock for?" he thought, having grown accustomed to being awakened by phone calls.

"Yes, Max, what did you want?" Kostya asked, picking up the receiver.

"It's still about that matter. When will we finally publish my work?" Newton began anxiously. From the very beginning, he had been obsessed with a single hypothesis of his, which posited that our universe has been expanding at the speed of light since the Big Bang. Newton presented convincing arguments, supported everything with formulas, and even derived factual consequences. Nevertheless, Konstantin doubted the truth of this hypothesis; he did not dispute that Maxim Newton was a genius of physics, but that did not mean he could not be mistaken.

"Max, couldn't you have called me a bit later? Let's discuss this at the office," Kostya said wearily.

"Konstantin, just imagine, if we publish this work under the name of SPRE, it will immediately gain popularity, and this is a good hypothesis—it follows from it that beyond the boundaries of the universe's expansion there is nothing, neither time nor space. And if we purely hypothetically imagine that an observer were moving at the same speed along with the expanding boundary, he would contemplate an eternally frozen picture of the Big Bang. Not to mention that if...," Max rattled on almost without pause.

"Enough, enough... you've told me this a thousand times already. Later, Max..., later," Konstantin interrupted Max's tirade. He said goodbye and hung up.

Kostya glanced at the clock and realized it wasn't all that early. "Actually, it's good that Maxim woke me," he thought and got out of bed. He had barely managed to brew himself some coffee when the telephone rang again.

"Kostya, where are you? What are you doing?" Konstantin heard Henry's familiar tone.

"At home, just got up, why?" Kostya asked.

"We've just returned from the investigation. I think the locals no longer have reason to worry," Henry reported in a somewhat agitated voice.

"Well, that's good then. Did you find the causes of what was happening yourselves, or do you still need the opinions of the other specialists from the society?"

"Enough..., we need to talk. All five of us are waiting for you at the office. The sooner you come, the better," Henry's words this time sounded irritated.

Konstantin entered his office. On the right, Nina and Yevgeny sat on a leather couch. Henry stood directly beside Konstantin's desk. On the left, near the table and leaning against the soft chair in which Seryozha sat, stood Valeria. Kostya was in no hurry to take his seat behind his desk, as he usually did.

"Well, I gather you want to tell me something?" Konstantin posed the question, having read as much in the gazes fixed upon him. No one answered this question; Seryozha was the first to speak:

"So..., we arrived at the investigation site. As always, we started by questioning the locals. Everyone pointed to one abandoned house. For them it was something like a matter of course. Strange sounds? Oh, that's from over there..., something like that. We walked around the surroundings a bit; I must admit, strangely enough, this region is rich in interesting and rare mineral formations," noted Seryozha as a doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences.

"Well, what else was strange there?" Konstantin asked calmly.

"Everything was strange, everything, from beginning to end!" Yevgeny twitched convulsively, while Nina stroked and soothed him in a motherly fashion.

"We found this house," Seryozha continued, "a small house, neglected, overgrown with various plants..."

"Plants that cannot grow in such a climate," Nina interjected, "some of them need a drier climate, others on the contrary need a more humid one," Nina said, herself marveling at such illogicality.

"As soon as we crossed the threshold of the house," Seryozha said wearily, having been interrupted twice already, "we heard a crash from the attic. The stairs leading to this attic were located right in the entrance hall. Sergey and I went first, then Valeria. Having climbed a few steps, we turned at Nina's scream—she was coming last. Yevgeny, who was walking ahead of her, had clutched the stair railing and was staring at the attic in some kind of stupor. We were all frightened; Yevgeny turned deathly pale before our eyes."

Silence fell over the office. Konstantin began to understand what this was about, but chose not to show it.

"Yevgeny, how are you feeling?" Kostya addressed Yevgeny.

"Better now, thank you," the mathematician replied.

"All right, let's suppose. You said that rare plants were growing there—couldn't some species have caused a similar allergic reaction in Yevgeny?" Kostya asked Nina, seeking a rational explanation for what had occurred.

"I don't know..., perhaps," Nina answered uncertainly.

"Then you should have found out. Taken samples of those plants, of your minerals, Seryozha. Why wasn't this done? This isn't your first investigation," Kostya began speaking in an authoritative tone.

"Kostya," Henry addressed him—such a tone never had any effect on him—"Seryozha and I couldn't pry Yevgeny off those damned railings, and just look at him, and at us. Only when we broke the railings were we able to carry Yevgeny outside, where he came out of his stupor, after which he began spouting some kind of nonsense."

"Fine..., what happened next?" Kostya continued asking questions.

"Next..., we left Nina with Yevgeny outside. Seryozha, Valeria, and I continued up to the attic," Henry went on, "in the dusty attic, we found a single parchment scroll."

Kostya turned to Valeria, who had not uttered a word until now. "How are you, is everything all right?" he addressed her.

"Yes..., everything's fine. I did say that I'd manage to deal with demons somehow—it's not the first time," Valeria replied with a touch of humor.

At this, Henry gave Valeria a somewhat suspicious look and continued recounting the results of the investigation.

"We took this parchment, carried it in turns. Everyone who touched it felt a heaviness of soul and sudden depression. At night, when we were traveling on the train, no one could fall asleep; everyone had nightmares. I noticed that Valeria was trying to translate the text of the parchment into our language..."

"And in what language is this scroll written?" Kostya asked Valeria.

"In..., Latin," she answered with some hesitation.

"Well then..., where is the scroll now?" Konstantin addressed Henry.

"Here..." Henry pulled the scroll from his backpack and handed it to Kostya. Kostya took the parchment scroll, yellowed with age. He unrolled it and saw text written in red letters. "This is not Latin," he mentally noted. He knew Latin somewhat. "With the possible exception of this," Kostya noticed the last paragraph, words that were more or less consonant with Latin.

"And this is what Valeria translated," Henry took out some sheets of paper and tossed them onto Konstantin's desk.

"What shall we do?" Seryozha asked. "Inform the others and let them search for a scientific explanation?"

"No..., let this all remain between us," Konstantin directed.

"So..., we search for the causes of what happened ourselves?" Seryozha asked again.

"No..., that's not necessary either..., not worth it. In over half a year of work, we've proven that there is a logical explanation for everything. I'm certain we would find one now as well, but we have plenty of other matters to attend to. So let's forget about this." Kostya rolled up the parchment, took the sheets with Valeria's translation, opened the safe behind his desk, and thrust everything inside. After Kostya had firmly closed the safe, he turned to his colleagues and said:

"I think you need to rest after a sleepless night. Today is your day off; go home and rest," Konstantin decided.

Everyone left except Henry. Henry stood facing him and peered intently at Konstantin.

"You understood what kind of scroll that is, didn't you?" Henry finally said. "You, like me, still remember that story about the monk. I told you that this is how it would all turn out."

"How what would turn out?" Kostya began to grow nervous. "The scroll is in the safe, no one intends to read it, much less summon any entities. Finita..., the problem is solved. The SPRE Society has merely eliminated a disturbance that was frightening people in the village. What more do you want?"

"We've gone too far; the monk was right, people should not meddle in such matters," Henry admonished. "When I tried to distract Valeria from translating this scroll on the train, I looked into her eyes. Kostya..., Valeria wasn't there..."

"Henry, I don't want to hear any more about this. I'm not going to dissolve the society over one scrap of parchment," Konstantin concluded. "We'll talk tomorrow; you need to get some sleep."

"My friend..., don't do anything foolish—you're not seventeen anymore," Henry said as he left.