Nobody looked up once. It’s ok, these boys are strong enough to face it, and they’ll be grateful in the end.
“So, during the recess, I advise you to,” Professor gave a sly blink, “have a good rest! That’s one! (cries of approval and chuckling); not to lose the knowledge – that’s two! Think once again over your absolutely respectable opinion, yet from a different standpoint, got it? That’s it, see you in the fall.”
Boys and girls, now buzzing and bidding good-byes, began to leave the room, some singly, others in twos. Six of them – three boys and three girls – would never get see it again.
– 3 —
They stood near the edge of a huge plateau covered with dense vegetation. As far around as the eye could see, the ground billowed into hills and cliffs laden with lush greenery. A pit yawned right next to them. Raging hundreds of yards below was the jungle of Central Africa. Mountaineering equipment, clothes and tools lay at their feet.
“So what? That’s it?” they looked at each other in the eye once again. Each nodded silently. The unanimously appointed group leader walked up to the pile of ropes and tools and dealt it into the pit. After looking down to make sure that nothing had gotten caught on rock outcroppings, he turned to his mates.
“Now that’s it. Let’s go.”
The scenery opening before their eyes was completely wild even by African wild jungle standards. There were no predators, as, notwithstanding its enormity, the plateau was isolated, and so long as they had shed their equipment, they had burned their boats.
Instead, there were tons of stuff around they really wanted – cliffs and rocks, tall trees with smooth trunks and lianas hanging unreachably high.
And down they stepped into the mirage trembling over the torrid ground…
– 4 —
A small glassy helicopter hung over the raging green mass. It looked nice and fragile, resembling a soap bubble, which was about to go down, touch the green carpet and collapse.
However, nothing like that happened. A small scientific expedition crew landed safely on the plateau, where the group of six had gone centuries ago. It was a rather routine research, and if anything could add a touch of life to it, it was zero awareness of the area.
Now that the aerial survey was finished, all they had to do was get down, take soil and water samples, examine the slabs piled at the plateau’s highest point, which had caught the inspectors’ attention. Actually, they were located within the landing area.
Getting there proved unexpectedly difficult. Every following step threatened to trigger a rockslide, but finally, two men reached the black holes, which, most probably, led to deep caves. They looked inside and, not daring to climb down themselves, sent down a camera-carrying drone.
That was all so routine. Nobody was ready for what happened next.
All but knocking them over, a huge pale skin-winged creature shot out of the hole and settled itself on a nearby rock outcropping. It sat there blinking myopically at the humans and shading itself from sunlight with its membranous limbs. The copper crew was all eyes…
“It's…it‘s… a human!” the phrase slipped out from the pilot’s mouth.
“Whought?” the creature chirped, cocking its head questioningly. “Whought? Whought?”
Then, considering the inspectors too big to prey on, it bounced up heavily and flipped back down into the hole.
