– So you, bitch, dirtbag, weren't at the briefing?
– My fault, comrade Senior Ensign, said Vadim, managing to replace the natural “I don't understand” with “My fault”.
Petrovich pushed the thermos in the ground, unbuckled the gear, pulled out the collar of the hazmat suit and snatched a roll of a blue electrical tape from behind the back.
– You, motherfucker, have a golden ring on your finger! – He said hastily and furiously. – Take it off now! Take it off quickly, you idiot! Is it rooted or what?
– No… – said Vadim, stunned.
– Yes, take off the decoration, turd! – joined Bashkalo, although somewhat lazily. – But where were you, Nikolaich, the old wolf, looking? Here they are, the geese. I'm telling you! And good people die because of them. And poles get lost.
Bashkalo was smiling shiningly, like a toilet in a shop window. The teeth behind his mustache were rare and white as sugar. He was older then Vadim by five or seven years. Vadim could answer him properly, but again he restrained himself and took off the ring. Petrovich feverishly snatched it with a nail, not instantly, hastily picked up the edge of the tape, pulled out a strip, close to an arm's length, crushed it into a ball, put the ring in its middle and began to wrap layer by layer, moving his lips (“Petrovich prays with a guard duty regulations! Ha-ha-ha!”), no longer pulling PVC tape from the roll. He had used up a half. Finally he tore it off. Having formed a ball he weighed it by a hand. And crossed himself twice. Vadim and Bashkalo opened their mouths. Senior Ensign Petrovich, making the sign of the cross is the mosaic of Lomonosov121.
– Here, cub, hide this deeper!
Vadim shoved the tangle with the ring in its stomach (“Happy cake!”, Mumbler squeaked from behind his nose bridge) into the hip pocket. So this is how it is with gold in the Zone.
– Remember, youngster: gold is like a lightning rod in the Zone. Gold catches lightning. And do you know what kind of lightning you get here? Then, if you return, ask your scientists. Who is still alive. Any chains, crosses?
And Petrovich finished the tea in one gulp.
Vadim shook his head.
– No sir.
Bashkalo laughed.
– You should listen to the instructions with your ears, but not with… family guy. – Petrovich said with his usual loudness. – The same was with the poles: it was made from the rod at first, before they got washed with the blood… So what brought you here, damn you, married one?
Vadim was silent. Two (just two!) months ago no one in the world could convince him to return here. Neither for money, nor for the Motherland. He was a happy TV viewer just two months ago, he crawled on his knees to the TV to show Maika that here is the burning bread factory, we used to get bread there, and Americans disappeared right here, exactly here I served… He was a happy viewer. The Range (“Captain Zhitkur!”, interrupted Mumbler) gave him money, fate (“Madness of your dad!”, interrupted Mumbler) gave him Maika, Maika gave him Katty, and Vadim would agree to watch the horrors of Kapustin only on TV. Alex the Ukrainian was choking with tears when in the summer of eighty sixth he read to them letters from Kiev, about radiation, about illicit radiometers, about cops in cellophane. But Vadim would never shed a tear because of the disaster at the Range. He hated and feared it. And now it was the only hope. That which he hated and feared.
