OHIR - English version

OHIR

OHIR SZCZEPAN AUGUST URAWSKI Science fiction

Based on a script draft for a series Bridgehead

by Szczepan August Urawski

OHIR © 2022 by Szczepan August Urawski All rights reserved.

Self-published by the Author Author’s website: szczepanaugusturawski.pl Editors: Kinga Rak, Patrycja Żurek Proofreading: Joanna Kłos COVER and typesetting design: Arnold Kotra Typesetting: Mariusz Bieniek – Pracownia Inicjał Set using fonts Meta Serif Pro and Pressio X-Compressed Second Edition amended Warszawa/Wellingborough 2022 ISBN 978-83-948972-0-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII

7 18 32 37 47 62 70 81 92 106 122 135 153 165 182 200 220

Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII

237 253 264 283 300 315 328 343 360 375 393

I

The stars always called out to me and brought me relief. Even now, when I look at them, I feel peace and lightness. I feel as if I were lying on a cloud, just beneath an empty void of the space. For unknown reasons, I love to look at them most when lying on the grass.

In this little place near Warsaw, finding a meadow like this, where nobody but ants will bother me, is difficult. For a long time, my asylum was a roof of a block of flats, where I could think and look far into the future in peace. I remember the first time I lay there; an awesome feeling. The stars were within reach of my hand. Closer than ever before. I nearly felt their warm touch. Unfortunately, this feeling did not stay with me the second time. The first one turned out to be the most beautiful. It did not matter that my clothes were soiled by the tar-covered roof. Later, I started to use foil, which is simple to handle. Eventually, some idiot padlocked the trap door.

I had not even had any asylum from the oppressing reality from that moment on. The one and only retreat, without the noise of my primary school

so grating to the ears. From that moment on, I have only had a holiday with my family living in the countryside, where I still need to go, as if I had been programmed this way. Even now, when I have been living away from Poland for years. I am now lying down relaxed, wishing to experience that lightness of the space. The ground feels pleasantly cool on my back, and the grass is like a soft sleeping pad. Lost in my thoughts, I forget that I am not alone.

‘Airplane’. The squeaky but melodious voice of my cousin tears through the blissfull silence.

‘No’. It is a satellite’. It brings me back from the space. I am falling back to the Earth, and my body feels it. As if I were back in the past when the world was enormously huge in our eyes and we were so tiny. It was difficult to reach the ceiling. Even now, I cannot reach everywhere. We lie scattered on a meadow, just behind a village road, on the other side of which stands a lonely house of the Pazuras, uniformly fused with one barn for cows and the second one for calves. We also hear a subtle murmur of water in a narrow stream flowing under a bridge just beside the village head meadow.

‘There it flies! It flies! Or rather, falls!’, cries Przemek, our friend, taunted countless times for his low height.

We fall silent and direct our eyes high towards the falling star, which disappears as fast as it appeared.

‘And what now, is that all?’ I am upset.

‘It looks so’, reflectively says Bolesław, my brother.

He scratches a neglected beard on his round face. He has never really taken care of it. His hair is also messy.

A muted sound of a tractor can be heard between our voices, but nobody pays attention to it.

‘I also thought there’d be something more to that’.

‘Maybe something will fall down yet’, Przemek tries to comfort us.

‘In August, definitely’.

‘Why in Aug...?’ Bolek mutters something more, impossible to understand. He is not able to stop yawning.

‘There’ll be more Perseids in August’.

‘And what is that?’ My friend gives me a strange look.

‘Falling stars, or meteors. Or rather, meteoroids that enter the atmosphere and produce the meteor phenomenon. After they land, they become meteorites’. A moment of silence. I feel their looks.

‘He heard a few wise words, and now he’s showing off. As if he could not say it normally’, Joanna’s voice becomes noticeably offended.

I have forgotten that she does not like such interjections. She is constantly upset by them. I have never got an answer why. I look at her disgusted face, but I do not want to go into that again.

‘Here it is! Another one is falling!’ notices Przemek.

‘It is a satellite’, Aśka says confidently.

‘This time it is an airplane’, I respond, without any reason, just to spite her. Because I do not like it when she behaves this way.

The girl’s face is priceless.

They have changed. Now nobody lies down on the grass with me.

Today is an exception; they were tempted to go out with me to admire shooting stars, which were to flash over our heads that night. It was true, astronomers’ forecasts proved true, but the widely announced phenomenon disappointed many people, not only me. It is not a shower that we expected, but random drops.

Even my holiday has changed, but not me. I cannot let this happen to me, too. My dreams have remained the same, although I know that I can never achieve my goal. Neither two degrees in economic sciences nor British pounds can help me here. After five years of studying for a random major and work abroad that my body loathes. Unfortunately, nobody pays to look at the stars, at least not me.

Astronomy has always been a strong magnet for me.

Unfortunately, I was not able to turn it into my profession. You are

not taught astronomy at primary school. The system does not provide for such freaks as I, who want to study what they like and not what they are told to. Year after year, I have been dragged away from my passion by force, and eventually, they disappeared, hidden deep in my subconsciousness. Even now, I find it difficult to tell any strangers about them. They trained me so well that I turned it into an uphill struggle myself. I gaze at the stars less and less frequently. Only during my holiday.

I think that if I did not have a family in the countryside, I would turn mad, locked in an urban cage. Municipal apartment blocks, tiny municipal flats, but they got us through struggles of socialism.

Especially for a single mother raising two small children, it was a real challenge. The only thing I know about my father is that he distributed the Solidarity leaflets. One day he left and has not returned to this day.

The flat in which my Mum still lives was my shelter on the one hand, but on the other, it revolted me. Half of my room. I felt more as if I lived in a prison cell than at home. Yet I can still return there, but I do not want to go back. I chose a different lot, also without a future. Slowly, for the last few years, I have started to realise that I do not differ much from an ant. A small useful creature that can be squashed, even by accident, and does not even feel it.

In the morning, I go with my cousin to bring the cattle in for morning milking. In fact, I do not have to do this, because I am on my holiday. Despite complaints from the agency, I take two months off every year. I go and do not look back. Nevertheless, while I am still here, I can chase some cows. Sometimes, one of them stays behind when it greedily grazes and chews grass stems moistened with the morning dew. I like running but practically gave up on this

need. I lost it somewhere between my work and unfulfilled life. I feel increasingly lost in this rotten reality.

‘Eee! Eee!’ My cousin carelessly rushes slower cows, so they do not block the entire herd.

For him and Joanna, this is their daily life. Farmers’ children frequently help their parents harvest various crops instead of going away for a holiday.

I am half asleep, but the cold air stings me awake.

I am enjoying the view of mountains and forests far away. Bartek yawns carelessly as if trying to catch a swallow flying above him.

‘Stefan!’ Look’. My cousin points to a young bull in a group of calves which left the barn only recently. They spent most of their lives in it, and now, they clumsily try to find their feet in the new reality.

‘What is he doing?’ I find this view funny.

‘I don’t know’, Bartek shrugs his shoulders and bursts into laughter.

‘Maybe he had too much grass?’

‘Possibly!’

The calf suddenly jumps up in a panic and prances, scaring apathetic cows. The animals scatter all over the place. We have to stop laughing and chase them.

‘Stefan!’

‘I see!’

Bartek runs to the right to restore the order among the cows while I run to chase away the mad calf. The eldest cows filled with milk calm down sooner. The calf still prances, stops, and then repeats the cycle. It looks like when he tries to find out where he is after stopping. I run to bar his way back to the herd. Suddenly, I feel a shot of pain in my feet and land helplessly in the grass. During that time, my cousin still carelessly makes traditional noises to rush the herd: ‘Eee! Eee!’ When he notices I have disappeared, he falls silent and stops dead.

I reappear clumsily, and Bartek starts to laugh hysterically, almost falling himself.

I do not find the situation funny, though I know that it can be seen as such. I get up and look at my clothes, the earth is wet here, but the thick grass protects me from mud. I look under my feet.

‘OK, come on!’ He waves his long hands.

I walk towards Bartek but feel that the ground beneath my feet changes. Hard, even... Am I walking uphill? Something is not right here. My knees buckle suddenly when my feet touch the ground sooner than expected. Meanwhile, my cousin disappears from my eyes. He and the meadow disappear behind something that has not been here before and what I cannot understand. My head is spinning, and I fall to my knees, tripping over an unexpected hillock. I support myself with my hands to save my teeth from being knocked out. I do not land on grass as before.

This definitely is not a meadow.

I do not believe my own eyes. I try to understand what is going on...

This is impossible. I am walking in the meadow, talking with Bartek, and suddenly the world I know disappears. I am on an inclined platform that has not been here before. I touch it, see it, but... The rays of the rising sun still fall onto my right cheek. They penetrate the corner of my right eye too strongly. My mind cannot keep up...

I am still in the same place, but what I see in front of me definitely is not the meadow. I must get myself together. See what is going on. This place resembles...

- ... a chamber?

But wait a minute. How on earth has it managed to appear in the middle of the field? I realise soon enough that I cannot answer that question. I slowly move sideways and get off the platform, and then it disappears. Scared, I move away a bit.

‘Stefan.’ What’s going on? How did you do that? You disappeared and then reappeared again’. My cousin stands there, perplexed.

I cannot say whether it is his mouth or his eyes that are open wider.

Despite his natural courage, Bartek was always scared of ghosts and other unnatural phenomena. I remember how once he heard footsteps in the attic inaudible to everybody else and he was hiding under his duvet in panic. Since he was a child, he has loved watching horror films and scaring others, pretending that he was not scared.

‘I don’t know’. I’m scared stiff.

When I look at Bartek’s frozen face, I feel even more scared. It makes my flesh creep, and I shiver. His face alone can scare you. I see that he wanted to come close to me, but then he stopped. He barely starts from his place.

‘Where have you been? You disappeared, and then reappeared again’, he repeats.

Bartek tries to pinch the skin of his hand. He probably hopes that this is all a dream. That he will wake up in his bed in a moment and will have to go to get the cows again. But this does not happen; it is not a dream.

‘Something’s here’. I feel the flesh of my back creep.

‘What?!’

‘I don’t know!’ I reach out slowly, try to find it by touch.

I am hesitating, but if nothing happened to me earlier, I guess I should not lose my hand? But to be on the safe side, I use my left one. I watch carefully and await results that are beyond the understanding of my mind. I just hope it won’t hurt; I try to cover my doubts with hope. I slowly immerse my hand in the air, and my fingers start to disappear as if they were amputated. My body shivers and my breath accelerates, but I insert my forearm. Like calves examining an unknown place, I also fiercely try to learn more. Why does my body disappear?

It does not make any sense at all. I hope I will not start to prance.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice changes dramatically. He tiptoes on a spot as if he were uncertain whether it is already time to run away or not yet. ‘Leave that!’ He gasps in panic.

He tries to make me see reason, but I do not listen to anything. In a strange amok, I push my hand forward up to the half-length of my arm.

‘I don’t know what this is, but you’d better not mess up with ghost.

I don’t intend to’. He lifts his hands up. I believe that he is not talking to me but just showing that he wants to be as far from this phenomenon as possible. Just in case.

‘These are not ghosts’.

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t think so’. ‘I’m not sure’.

Suddenly, I become aware of a danger to which I expose myself.

With one movement, I withdraw my hand and examine it thoroughly to see if it is still whole.

‘Ohhh!’ I feel relieved, although my heart is still hammering in my chest. ‘We have to secure this’, I say, afraid and in awe at the same time.

‘Are you mad?!’

I always wanted to experience something strange. So I cannot simply erase this experience from my life as if nothing has happened. After all, I have seen it, felt it. I want to know what this is and how it got there.

‘I will guard this place, and you bring some bollards and wire’. I hope that he will listen to me.

‘I’m not sure, Stefan. I do not want to have people, police and other scum here. Not to mention reporters. They will turn this into a circus’. He is so concerned that he is out of breath.

‘So say nothing to anybody. At least, not yet’. I see uncertainty on his face, so I add immediately: ‘You don’t want to lose your cows, do you?’

‘No... Don’t do anything. Just wait for me.

I nod my head, uncertain. He walks away, making a great circle around the suspicious area. He takes a shortcut and jumps through successive fences and a dike dividing the Pazuras’ land in half. I wait

and wait, curiosity burning inside me like a flame consuming a dry bough.

I look around the place. Some cows, a bull and an elder cow in calf, circle around cautiously. They sniff the air as if they tried to discover something they could not see. Have they touched the invisible chamber by accident? A moment ago, I almost tripped over it when running. In all this excitement, I have forgotten that my foot hurt.

When I look at the cattle, I discover that the invisible area is larger than I thought.

I cannot say how long I was standing there. Contrary to the common reason, I decide to climb onto the invisible platform again.

I take a few deeper breaths and cautiously find the platform. I move upwards and get closer and closer to the room. Suddenly, I step onto something. I freeze and open my eyes wider. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea? Maybe I should have waited for Bartek instead of walking here alone. I slowly lift my left foot. I am wearing old, worn sports shoes. They are dirty and threadbare, but what else can you wear to chase cows? There is a metal object under my sole. Long, oval. It resembles a metal spike, but it is something else.

It looks damaged, maybe by me. On the first impulse, I want to pick it up but then decide not to touch it, just in case. I take a longer step and put my foot down further away.

I enter something I called the chamber. It is much smaller than I thought, and covered by something resembling dark tiles. I touch them, but I cannot connect what I see with anything I have seen before. The same things lie on the platform over which I walked. I automatically turn around. I see the world I know. The Pazuras' house is far away. I do not even notice when my eyes start to focus on things strange to me. From now on, I am walking more cautiously. I try to glance at the largest possible area of the space surrounding me. My eyes mist over, and I cannot close my mouth. I struggle to see as much as possible because I cannot focus on details.

Through an opening in the wall, I see another, lighter room. I take a step and immediately enter a different world. Shiny screens installed on longer walls attract my attention. This saturation with electronic devices gives me a headache, and the décor is complemented by four black armchairs placed along the left wall.

The enormity of visual stimuli becomes unbearable. My grey cells lose their ability to analyse reality and distinguish it from imagination. At the end of the room, on the right, there is a small enclosed space of a size of a stall or a larger booth.

Stimulated by this extraordinary sight, I am increasingly bolder, taking further steps. I pass through another opening in the wall.

The room is of a similar size as the first one. I march on.

Short, wide and empty. These three words describe the next room.

I do not examine it more closely because I have noticed something much more tempting. The last recess is a real masterpiece. I open my mouth unknowingly and feel my heart beating faster than normal. But how? Which way? When? Why? I am so surprised that I can only grunt, when I try to speak. Staring forward, led by careless curiosity, I walk further in as if hypnotised. I am inside.

Through the pane, I can see the surrounding world in which I walked a few minutes ago. The cows slowly move towards the gate.

Because of milk accumulated in their udders, they do not wait for someone to guide them in. They walk on their own accord, as they know well this path that they churn with their hooves twice a day, in the morning and the evening.

Two armchairs just before the pane, and two in the back, spaced wider at control stations on the sides, are a sign of normality.

Although they look strange, their presence becomes the only tangible sign of reality. I do not feel my legs moving me forward. I stop only when I reach the front armchairs. There is plenty of room here. Various buttons distract my attention. I touch the pane but cannot feel the glass. I try to examine each centimetre closely. But annoyingly, my eyes do not wait but continue to wander here and there. Without a moment of reflection, out of control, they do not

let the brain recognise anything they send. Is it a cockpit? ‘But if this is the cockpit, then where are the pilots?’ I am not sure whether I first said or thought it.

I shield my forehead with my hand, then move up towards my hair.

I have always dreamt about contacting an alien civilisation. To be a captain of a starship, like Jean-Luc Picard, or like during the first contact, to be on the board of Phoenix during its launch. Suddenly discovering that my previous life has just been a long introduction to an interesting novel. Now, when it has come true, I have mixed feelings. Numbed, I stand in a cockpit of a starship. On the one hand, I feel blissful, but on the other, fear wells up in me. I completely lack the necessary knowledge. I do not want to wake up if this is a dream, but I am also afraid of the consequences of things that may be real. What if I found a nest of a sleeping enemy?

‘Where are the pilots?’ I ask myself, but in such way as if I expected to hear the answer. I am not sure if I want anybody to answer. A small plaque attracts me, like a hypnotic pendulum from which you cannot take your eyes off. It looks natural, resembling a decoration.

It is inserted in the wall on the left side of the exit from the cockpit.

There is a short writing on it, and to my surprise, I can read it. Or so it seems to me.

‘O.F.Z.G. OHIR… What is Ohir?’

I assume I am on its board. Or maybe these are not letters at all? I also consider this option. They also may mean something completely different, for example, ’O’ means ’F’, and ’F’ means ’G‘ or ’H’. They also may well be numbers, like in the hexadecimal numbering system. This may also simply be a serial number or something else. I feel like a laboratory rat in a labyrinth without an exit. I quickly walk outside to take a breath of fresh air.

II

My cousin is running from afar, like a warrior with his weapon. In his hands, he holds plastic bollards, and a coil of white string hangs from his shoulder. He struggles to get over the dike and wires of the electric fence. He stops in front of me, out of breath and uncertain. None of us says anything. Racing thoughts paralyse my body. The sun is rising slowly as if it were a typical day. For us, it is a great unknown.

‘I know what this is’.

‘But I don’t want to know. I want it to disappear from my meadow, in the same way it arrived’.

‘It stretches over there’, I let him know and show the direction with my hand.

Bartek throws the string onto the ground and hands the bollards over to me, but he does not want to come any closer. He looks me straight into my eyes as if he wished to ensure that it is really me and not some apparition impersonating me.

‘You went there’.

His words pierce through my heart.

‘I did’, I reply, not hesitating at all. I am ready for his stormy reaction.

Bartek freezes like volcanic rock. I do not wait for him to explode, but take the bollards. It looks that there is not enough of them. I take two and drop the rest onto the ground. I space them roughly to correspond to the width of the invisible entrance.

‘Here is the entrance’, I say aloud, so he can hear me.

‘So huge?’ Has his curiosity been stirred up?

‘Yes... More or less’.

After a moment, my cousin picks up his courage and passes me some plastic posts.

‘Just as I thought, there is not enough of them’.

Bartek surprises me. Without saying a word, he goes for more bollards. We do not need broken noses and hands. And the cattle can also get hurt by this invisible obstacle. I realise how lucky I was

because it could hurt more; I could even lose my teeth if I hit this directly.

‘You maggot! You promised! But you never keep your word!’ Aśka, with her face red, speaks up her mind to her brother.

She raises her chin and walks to the barn carrying a bucket of fodder. It is a bit too heavy for her, and she bends to the right, but she developed some muscles farming land. She still looks feminine, but her shoulders are broader than those of city women. She does not even want to look at him. Awoken unexpectedly by her mother, she pulled clothes over her pyjamas, and they slightly deformed her shapely waist. She quickly tied her lightly curling blond hair and rushed to help her mum. Auntie Stasia is nervously preparing milk cans.

She also adds her bit.

‘Did you really have to put up that fence now?!’ She waves her open palm angrily.

‘Mhm’. He is lost for words, to tell the truth, and his bent head, when he passes under a low door frame, emphasises the situation even further.

‘You were really wrong!’ annoyed with her son’s behaviour, she even does not let him finish. Her heavy body is shaking with a sudden movement when she waves her hands. She takes the milk canes and goes to the cows. Auntie disappears behind the door, and soon a sound of the milking machine started by her can be heard.

My cousin and I are aware now that this thing in the field is not from our planet. Even more! It may even be from a different time.

When I start to discuss this with him, he cuts it short and closes to the world. So we sit in silence. I am disgusted with this. Other

family members see that we have been under the weather since the morning. Bartek’s behaviour can be associated with his morning antic, but why I am so moody?

‘Are we going to tell them?’ asks Bartek unexpectedly.

He scatters overwhelming, strenuously arranged thoughts and developed plans almost like a lightning stroke. He is more pressed than I thought.

‘What about?’ Joanna asks automatically. She is passing by, with her hair undone and still wet from her bath.

We look at her in silence, so her curiosity increases even further. I want to say something, but I cannot find the words. How should they be arranged to make sense?

‘An invisible starship landed in our field’, stammers Bartek.

It is yet another time today when he surprises me. My cousin just gives him a crossed look and goes to the kitchen. She does not pay attention to what her brother has just said. Bartek looks at me. He notices that I am surprised. He appears surprised himself as if he were not sure why he said this. I start to doubt whether the thing I saw really exists.

Maybe it was just my imagination?

I look ahead; my eyes wander around the hall and the kitchen. I see Auntie carefully peeling potatoes, hunched over on a small stool that seems to barely withstand her weight. There in the field, hidden from human eyes, surrounded by the hastily erected fence, there is... Whatever that is, it is definitely a riddle. I know it is a starship, but is it still there? Or maybe its owners have already returned and taken off? Did it really exist, does it? It could well be my hallucination caused by lack of sleep or some flowering herbs.

These thoughts are silly, but this would be a good explanation, just in case.

It would be really sad to be so close to learning the truth about aliens and not be able to talk to them, and see how they look.

Learn who they are, where they have come from, and why they

landed on this exact spot. Stara Białka appears to be of no strategic importance. Or maybe it has some? Maybe there is something here I have not been aware of. I try to arrange all this in my head but fail. If they have not gotten away, maybe it would be good to catch them, to leave them a card with a message? I wonder whether this is a good idea because I do not know what they will do when they learn that one of the billions of insignificant creatures from this planet discovered their existence. Probably in their eyes, we are like ants running chaotically around an anthill. Focused on their own affairs they can’t see the greatness of the world in which they exist. Just like in Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot. Or maybe we are even smaller? Like bacteria invisible to the naked eye. I walk around senseless. I feel as if I had a fever.

‘No! I can stand this any longer’. I have to go there, even if I am to lose my life.

When I reach for the handle, the door opens suddenly. My cousin wanted to enter the room. What am I doing here?

‘Don’t be a fool!’

I look at him and have no idea what it is all about.

‘I know what you want to do. I have seen this in you for the last few hours.

I will not let you go there’. His decided attitude speaks for itself.

We have known each other since we were kids, and he has often said that there is an unspoken link between us, as if we were telepaths he admired so much in his childhood. Nobody else understands me that well.

‘Let it fly away. We will pass it in the distance as long as it is there’.

‘And if it doesn’t fly away?’

He falls silent because he has not expected this answer. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out of it.

‘Bartek! Are you not going to mow the meadow today?’ Ask Auntie, his mother. She comes to us and is eating a juicy apple with green skin.

‘They said it’s going to rain today’, says Bartek, to get rid of her.

Auntie goes to the window in the hall and looks at the sky for some time.

‘Yes, it looks so. It is cloudy... Don’t forget to repair the press. And then she returns to her work.

‘Yyy’. Bartek rolls his eyes, because something more important is now on his mind. He still stands in the doorway. His eyes are full of fear and anger; he is convinced that he is right.

‘Are you coming with me?’ I ask my cousin hoping against hope that he will say ‘yes’. I am afraid to go on my own. My flesh creeps whenever I start to imagine what these strangers can do to me.

Their technologies are certainly more advanced than the atomic bomb, and their ideas will exceed whatever I can imagine. My hesitation also has other causes, I am afraid I will have to use force to get past him. We have not quarrelled for a long, long time. I am ready for the worst because there is nothing worst than an encounter with someone as stubborn as you.

‘Let’s show it to Aśka and Bolesław’. His surprising statement sound like a bell in a wilderness.

The tension disappears, like sugar in water.

‘OK, but it cannot go any further than us’.

Bartek nods in agreement.

It is a weight off my mind, and I guess, also his. Our agreement does not mean that we have no doubts; after all, we are risking their lives, or maybe even life. I have not thought about it earlier, but this ship may emit some harmful radiation to humans and animals.

After a copious warm meal, we go to the field with our bellies full.

We are talking about some unimportant things. My cousin had some sleep, so she is even happy. All their wars ended in the same way. She was the first to hold out an olive branch.

We exchange looks with Bartek. Do we still have anything to show them? Bolesław and Joanna are convinced that they will see

damage made by calves in the fence. They are still separated from the herd, so older calves do not harm them. Probably they are wondering what is so strange about that. Especially Joanna does not expect any surprise; she has seen many fences before.

However, she walks with us, although it took us some time to convince her. Bartek used his manipulative skills for that purpose. I really do not know how he does it. He went to talk to her, and twenty minutes later, they came back together, ready to leave. Of all people, he has a unique talent for that. He could quickly start a sect, for example, of trolleybus or rotten tomatoes worshippers.

‘And what have you done here?’ Surprised Aśka comments on the strangely arranged string on plastic bollards. It is even not well tightened. She looks and looks at this and his jaw drops. She does not see any sense in such action. Also, Bolesław gives it a strange look. A slight smile plays on his lips, ‘It is time to tell them’. I look meaningfully at Bartek, because I hope that he will tell them. After all, he wants it more.

‘What should we tell them?’ asks Bartek, surprised.

‘We have found a starship’.

A moment of silence, strange faces and look of Joanna, which clearly reflects her thought: ‘You must be mad to believe that we can be fooled this way’.

‘And have you seen any lights?’ asks Bolesław and suddenly they both burst into uncontrolled laughter. It is not as I thought it would be. Probably, Bartek too. We stand and watch and then look at each other, and I see his very serious face, as if he has been saying with his whole body that this time it is true.

‘Have you really thought that we are so naive? Oh well, maybe Bolesław, but definitely not me’.

‘I am not so naive either’, adds Bolesław, almost offended.

‘Przemek is naive, you should try to fool him’.

‘So I could not have some good sleep because you were playing some foolish tricks, yes?!’ Aśka is almost boiling inside, like a lump of red coal in an oven.

‘Do you remember?’ I manage to attract attention of all of them.

‘Once Nanny told us what villages had seen’.

‘You were very small then, and you were not even born’, saying this, Nanny indicated to Joanna with her eyes. We gathered around her on a sofa on a dangerous, stormy day which was hard to distinguish from the night.

They have forgotten, even Bartek does not remember, so I tell that story to them.

‘It was the size of a motorbike, but flew kind of sideways. People heard the strange engine roar. Like us, yesterday’, I recall the events of last night to Bolesław and Joanna.

‘It's true. I heard it, too’. Confirms Bolesław thoughtfully.

It is true, last night, when we were lying on the ground, we heard a similar noise. But we did not pay any attention to it, thinking it came from the gravel road at the end of the village head field. ...

We assumed that it was one of the farmers going back home after hard work late at night.

‘Wait a minute! Are you saying that you believe that a starship makes a noise like a diesel engine?’ Bartek’s accurate comment is thought-provoking. Can anything so technically advanced in theory make such a rattle? Bartek many times helped his father and grandfather to repair agricultural machines before their accident.

Uncle was overtaking another car on a winding road, rushing home for dinner, and he did not get back into his lane in time. In a head-on collision with a truck, their legs and ribs were crushed. Firemen got barely alive Grandpa out, but he died in an ambulance. Later, forced by a difficult situation in his family, he learned on his own mistakes. Whenever I came with my brother for a holiday, we helped him to repair something. Of course, it was a change for me, but I have never found any pleasure in this. Bolek was more interested in that than I. For hours, he talked with Bartek about various vehicles and the strangest mechanisms possible. It can be said that it was here that Bolesław

was learning his professional skills, which he later honed under the supervision of an experienced mechanic in the city.

‘I am not saying anything. I am open-minded but not naive’. Joanna automatically grabbed the string to hold something in her hand.

‘Don’t touch this!’ Bartek cries menacingly. His face clearly shows how worried he is. He takes a stance as if he wants to get to her and drag her from there by force. However, he stops when his frightened sister lets go of the string and withdraws her hand in a flash.

‘Take it easy’. In a shaking voice she tries to calm the exaggerated behaviour of her brother and herself. After all, it is just a piece of string.

We all focus on Bartek, like on some madman who waves his hands and screams at people without any reason.

‘Let’s get down to business’, I say, concerned with the tensioned atmosphere.

‘What business?’ Bolesław clearly does not get my meaning.

‘That for which we came here’, I explain I decide that there is no sense in explaining anything, so I walk towards the string. Bartek stops me.

‘Stop!’

‘How can you show it to them in any other way?’

After a while, he nods and lets go of my arm, frightened.

‘OK, guys! Now you have frightened me. You did it, so stop this foolish thing. OK?’ ‘Look’, I say confidently and immediately pass under the string.

‘He will disappear in a moment’, Bartek explains my actions.

I place my feet carefully. The platform should be here somewhere or was.

‘He hasn’t disappeared’, notes Boleslaw, confusing Bartek. His face is even quite funny.

Maybe they really took off? I think immediately, unhappy, looking at Bolek. Have I lost a unique chance to make contact with an alien civilisation? Deep inside, I cannot reconcile myself to that thought.

Somehow, the danger has disappeared. The sense of peace and emptiness collide with each other like two trucks on a motorway.

‘There is nothing there! Do you think I am a fool?!’ My cousin turns to her brother. ‘I’ve thought you have outgrown these foolish, childish jokes!’

Meanwhile, I take another step and walk onto the platform.

‘Here it is! It has not flown away!’ I cry out automatically and turn around to face them, but their behaviour indicates that... They cannot see me anymore, aha! What a great feeling.

‘You and your foolish faces!’ Aśka still screams angrily at Bartek.

‘You could grow up at last! And you, Stefan...!’ She turns around with her finger pointing at me, but instead, she points at the meadow and freezes. ‘Where is Stefan?’ she asks, surprised.

‘He disappeared’, Bolesław replies slightly jokingly, yet thoughtfully, also searching for me with his eyes.

I look around automatically and notice the same damaged object that I carelessly stepped upon earlier. Maybe it was not me, who damaged that device, but it is just a flying thought I do not have time to consider well. I hear a lively conversation.

I turn towards them.

‘Stefan!’ Stefan!’ Joanna calls me. She wants to cross the string, but Bartek catches her quickly and stops her by force.

‘Don’t go there!’

‘Let go of me!’

‘He’s probably hidden in the dike’, deduces Bolesław.

He comes closer but is surprised to see only grass.

‘Don’t be afraid! Come here!’ Their lack of any action and endless talks start to worry me. Why do they not answer me?

How is it possible that I hear every word they say, and they cannot hear me at all? For Bolek and Aśka, this is a completely new experience. Bartek has seen this before, but he is still uneasy. Their

war of words becomes increasingly stormy. I do not wait any longer but rush back to the meadow. Their gestures and words fade away almost immediately, and their terrified faces are frozen, like in mummies.

‘Couldn’t you hear me?’

Their silence is eloquent enough. Wide-open eyes and mouth are relatively normal in these circumstances.

‘How did you do that?’ my cousin eventually stammers out, although I am not sure what kind of answer she expects.

‘I will show you’.

‘No! You don’t know what this is’.

‘And do you know?’ asks fascinated Aśka.

‘We only wanted to show this to you. Nothing more’, Bartek quickly explains, almost adding, ‘... that’s why I wasn’t there for milking’. As long as I have known him, he always tried to appear arrogant and insensitive, not to lose his face in his opinion. With this attitude, he managed to survive time spent at educational institutions and ’friends’ from his class. Unfortunately, it has stayed with him, and he has not managed to get rid of it so far.

‘In fact, what is this thing?’ asks Bolesław, shaken.

‘A starship. I think so’.

His eyes and mouth open even wider, and it is visible that he is out of breath.

‘You think so? Stefan, I cannot see anything here!’ Her voice is like an instrument that is out of tune but simply must play on.

‘I am not sure, but if it has a cockpit, then it must fly, mustn't it?’ I cannot explain this more clearly.

‘I cannot see a thing here, do you understand?’

‘Then come here, and I’ll show you’. I show her the direction.

‘You’ll show her nothing! Nobody will go there’, infuriated Bartek breaks in.

‘You will not tell me what I can and cannot do!’

‘I’m your older brother and you have to listen to what I say!’

‘You can be my older brother, but you will not order me around! I have been of age for some time now! I know myself what to do!’

She waves her hands, just like her mother.

‘You don't know shit! You are to go home immediately!’ With his finger, he points towards the house and does not give his sister any choice.

‘You can go home yourself!’ Joanna rebelliously folds her arms.

‘Maybe Stefan should describe what he saw there!’ Bolek gets his voice back. His words seem reasonable.

They fall silent and focus their sight on me.

‘Nice mess you’ve gotten me into’, I think to myself. I will be lost for words for sure.

‘There are several rooms there and a cockpit’.

‘What kind of rooms?’ asks Bartek interested.

‘Smaller and larger. There is a lot of electronic equipment there.

Come on, have a look yourself’.

‘Don’t you even ask her to do that, Stefan’.

‘So is this a starship or not?’ Bolek wants a clear answer.

‘Inside it looks like a starship, so I assume it is a starship’.

To be honest, all this is slowly getting on my nerves.

They ask unnecessary questions instead of seeing themselves.

‘Are there any aliens?’ asks Aśka.

‘No’.

‘So where are they?’ Bolek asks quickly.

Their faces turn pale frighteningly fast; their eyes dart around them. They begin to realise that a strange creature may appear in front of them at any moment. Maybe they are here even now, invisible like their ship, watching us. They point at us with their laser blasters or other advanced weapons. They want to kill us or, even worse, subject us to some painful examinations. I understand their fear because their thoughts are almost the same as mine, their fear spreads to me, and my legs shake increasingly stronger.

The heated exchange of worries goes on and on, feeding the fear that has now become enormous. When I try to present my opinion,

I feel as if I were excluded from the conversation. After all, I am not standing inside the ship. I am outside, just beside them. Yet surprisingly, they behave as if they cannot see or hear me at all.

‘Maybe it is controlled remotely or automatically?’ wisely supposes Bolesław.

I have started to consider this option. But no, wait a second! I saw the armchairs and the damaged object. Unsuccessfully, I try to present my observations to the group and direct the discussion toward the discovery of the truth. They are egging each other on.

Maybe this. Maybe that. You can draw in this sea of suppositions.

‘Lets go from here. Quick’. I do not want to wait for their return.

To my surprise, Bolesław and Joanna follow him; they go away like a frightened herd of antelopes They look nervously to the sides.

‘Hey! Wait a moment!’

‘If you want, you can stay here!’

Are they gone? It has happened so fast I cannot understand this. I turn around to face the invisibility. I look around, almost in a panic.

Should I follow them? I do not want to end like Nanny. Wondering all the rest of my life what would happen if only... I am afraid to stay, but I do not want to make her mistake. Simply, I cannot leave this like that. I start to walk home, and then I turn back to the ship, trotting here and there, oblivious to the flowing time. I calm down a bit. Suddenly, a shower starts to fall from the cloudy sky. I do not want to stand here in the rain like some idiot. I walk inside, disappearing in thin air.

I am afraid to touch anything. After all, I can unknowingly explode something, and I am also afraid of the reactions of the owners of this beauty. Nobody is happy when other people go through their things. I have never liked it myself. Maybe it is a kind of paranoia, but I am also afraid to sit down in any of the armchairs. Of course, not because I will explode, but... I am not sure why. I just do not want to do that. I will stand at the open entrance. I have done just as I thought, and focus my eyes on the raindrops, that fall down on

the platform and probably disappear from the sight of any onlooker.

‘Interesting’. If I can touch the ship, then it is not permeable, but just invisible. Anything that is tangible stops other matters and resists them. I will wait for the rain to become heavier and then will go outside to see the silhouette of this invention. Well, I will have to wait a bit for the heavier rain.

Waiting and waiting, always waiting. I hate this. Meaningless sitting, standing or lying until some idiot tells you what to do. At work or at a school desk, the pattern is always the same. I even notice that I copy it thoughtlessly to my private life. I am becoming such an idiot only to wait. Just a moment. Fifty moments. Not yet.

And all of them lost. And I could have done so many things during that time. Learn more about black holes and other scientific theories.

I am milling things over in my mind, waiting for my encounter of the first kind. Since I saw the first film about space travel, I have been dreaming about them. Even now, in my imagination, I am travelling through space, visiting different planets and meeting unknown races on my ways, like in Star Trek or Star Gate. I shudder every now and then when I resurface to reality.

I recall where I am. I lean against the wall, then sit down on the floor, tired from standing. I look outside; the rain is increasingly heavier and noisier. The drops hit the wet ground. I come back to reality and shake my thoughts off. I decide to try it.

Far away, the sky is crossed with delicate flashes. I take the first steps onto the platform. Cold water pouring over me shakes me now and again as if I touched the electric fence. I hug myself. The Tshirt and worn down sweatpants do not protect me against moisture, I do not even try. I could have taken a jacket, but I did not plan to walk in the rain. It is not very new, but it would at least protect me a bit. I want to see the ship from the outside so that the rain or the cold does not stop me. I quickly go to the string, walk

along with it, and stop more or less in the middle. I turn around, getting ready for the fascinating sight.

My face falls. I cannot believe this.

‘But how?’ After all, contrary to my assumption, water does not stop on the ship and does not show its shape, for example, like paper covers a bottle of spirit when you want to hide it. Even more, raindrops fall on the meadow, as usual. I shake like a banner in the wind and make sounds manifesting my surprise. Suddenly, I notice some obvious thing.

‘What an idiot I am.

How could I have not noticed it earlier?’ But nobody noticed it.

Even the grass does not show that anything stands on it. It grows normally.

‘What an idiot I am’, I repeat again to make it clear, and still do not understand.

If anything were there, the grass would be crushed. It is a rational approach, isn’t it?

‘So how? How is it possible?’ I wipe my face now and then to see anything.

I find it difficult to determine how close I am to the ship. I stretch my hand in front of me and walk in the rain like a fool. With each step, my heart hammers stronger and stronger. Suddenly, out of the blue, my hand meets a significant resistance. Regardless of the noticeable hardness of the ship, the rain is falling everywhere.

Many drops hit my hand and flow down following gravitation. I walk closer and place my other hand on the ship. I move my hands to the left and to the right. The nerve ends in my skin feel something that my eyes cannot see.

III

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock... Sounds of a wall clock pierce the night’s silence. I should be asleep, but I cannot. I am just lying there, looking at the ceiling and wandering in my imagination. My brother sleeps on the other bed, which headboard touches mine.

Unaware, I fall asleep deeply. I have things to dream about tonight.

My dreams are vivid, almost real, scary and serious. Stories woven of possible events, sometimes completely out of context. Once I am on the ship, then on another planet. At one moment, I talk with aliens and we are great pals; at another we are deadly enemies.

You can get lost in all these.

Fortunately, they are just dreams. When I wake up, I learn that Auntie also knows about my discovery.

‘They will trample the grass! We’ll have no pasture for our cows!’

The Pazuras do not want crowds of officials at their place because their presence will disrupt the normal functioning of the farm on which they make their living. I am not sure what they are more afraid of, the aliens or the government. At the moment, we can

pretend that everything is all right, that nothing happens, that it is just a story for children.

My cousin drives off to mow the meadow, and everybody else goes to the city to do shopping. I think that only I am not afraid to stay here on my own. Maybe this is a foolish idea, but I use this opportunity. Despite the recommendations of my family, I decide to visit the invisible ship. This time I take a sheet of paper torn out of a notebook. The writing on it reads: ‘Welcome to Earth. My name is Stefan Murawski. I would like to meet you. Talk, if possible’. I wonder whether they will agree to that. I would be thrilled, even just to see them.

This time this small damaged object is still in the same place.

Nothing has changed. The pilots have not come back because they would pick it up. So I will leave it there for the time being. I will start to worry when it disappears.

‘Where should I leave my message?’ I am thinking hard. ‘I know!’ I go to the cockpit.

I try to foresee their possible height and angle of vision. I place it in a visible place and pedantically correct its position many times. I want to be sure that they notice it before they get off. After all, you must notice an A5 sheet directly before your eyes! I suspect they must have them. There is a window, so they must look outside through it. At least, I think this is a window pane. I am not certain, but I can see clearly through it. I bend over it out of curiosity to look at its fixing. Automatically, I support myself. One of my hands lands on buttons, and I notice this quickly. I jump up, just like when I touched an electric fence. I look around to see if I did not switch anything on by accident.

‘Ohhh!’

I visit this wonder many times every day. I wait and wonder where they are and why they do not return.

‘Why do you keep going there? I told you not to’. My worried Auntie keeps on pestering me.

‘Maybe they are watching us, or went to the Śnieżka Mountain, for some sightseeing?’ Bogusław suggests, half-serious half-joking. He tries to diffuse the tension in the conversation.

How long can you wait, stand, and sit on the deck? I walk forward, backward, and from wall to wall. I run in circles, aimlessly. With my constant visits to the deck and waiting, I ceased to be afraid. That is, I am still nervous when I think about the meeting, but the ship does not feel so alien anymore. It slowly becomes routine, so I simply sit down in one of the armchairs. I do it rather automatically rather than purposefully because I am tired and lost in thoughts.

The armchair reacts, and I jump, surprised, but it does nothing bad to me. In a flash, it adjusts to my shape, weight and curves of my back. These changes are small and hardly noticeable, but my body can feel them.

And I have been refraining from this for so long. It is so comfortable that I could have fallen asleep in it. Maybe it is a good idea?

I notice some anomalies in the largest room, a slight damage under one of the screens. Should it look like this? From that moment on, I found a new occupation for myself. I start to examine the interior more closely. Inch by inch, over and over, I look for any deviations from the standard. I notice this time that the screens are not screens at all. The equipment looks like a fused structure. In fact, it all looks as if somebody snapped their fingers and simply created this ship. I do not see any bolts or other connections. The screens are not hung on the wall; they are the wall. It is the same with keyboards, or rather, touch panels. I am more and more tempted to press something on them.

Altogether, I have found three minor damages in the large room, two in a smaller one, and three more in the cockpit. Of course, I am not dumb, so I have some idea what the cockpit is for, but the other rooms are a mystery. Maybe I should call them compartments? I am pondering over that issue for a long time.

Eventually, I give it up and give my own names to them. A cockpit,

an atrium, a smaller room, a larger room, and a boot. So that is one problem off my mind.

I have lost hope that anybody is going to help me... Can anybody really give me any tips? What is the sense in working on them, only to be bored together? I have almost managed to convince my cousin to go with me to the ship, but she decides against it just before she steps onto the platform. She turns paler than me, and my family used to say that nobody can be paler.

‘I’m not sure, Stefan’. Aśka is still afraid to accept my invitation.

‘I was there many times, and nothing has happened to me’.

‘And haven’t you wondered why they have not flown away yet?’

‘I have!’ ‘And?’ ‘I don't know the answer for that. I don’t know why they’ve come here, and why they haven’t flown away, and I don’t know where they are. I don’t know many things, but I know one thing, it’s here, and while it is, it’s a chance. Do you get it?’

‘A chance for what?’

‘For anything’. I see her confused face, so I add, ‘to explore, to learn’. I find it difficult to sum it up in one sentence. ‘Here are the answers, and I do not think about the obvious ones, like whether we are alone in the space’. Here are answers to the questions that you don’t even know how to ask.

Do you get it?’

‘Maybe your...’, Aśka noticeably breathes the air out, but does not finish the sentence. It may be a good sign; I have pestered her long enough, so she will enter the ship just to have some peace.

‘But only for a moment’. She looks me straight in the eyes as if she is trying to check that I am not possessed.

I lead her to the entrance, but she waves my hands away like a swarm of bees.

‘I’ll manage on my own! I can walk!’

‘OK. Then walk’.

She looks around, slightly confused. She can see only the meadow; I find her behaviour a bit amusing.

‘This way’. I indicate with my hand. ‘It is slightly uphill, so lift your legs high’. I show her with my hand so she gets it right. But maybe I should let her bruise herself a bit; it would serve her right.

No, no, better not. Then she will tell later that the aliens attacked her and the game is up. I push this funny thought out of my mind as fast as possible.

Aśka slowly swallows, but then she walks bravely on. She lifts her knees up, as not to trip, and I lose her from sight. I know it was to be like that, yet this sight makes a great impression. I follow on her heels. Aśka is just regaining her balance and freezes. She mumbles under her breath with frank admiration.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

‘Yhm!’ If her jaw could drop down even farther, it would definitely have already landed on the platform. She walks out quickly and goes straight home.

Surprised, I throw my hands up helplessly. I cannot understand her behaviour.

‘Hey!’ I run after her, but I can only see her back. She rushes away.

‘Wait!’ I catch up with her and stop her. ‘What happened?’

‘It isn’t for us’.

‘What is not for us?’

‘This!’ She points to the meadow and adds, scared, ‘This isn’t for us’. I look at her, surprised.

‘Stefan... This is powerful technology. So powerful that we will not be able to get it, do you understand? Let’s leave it as it is. Humanity is not mature enough for this’.

Wise words from a smart girl; however, this conclusion is too hasty.

‘OK. If you talk about the entire humanity, I agree with you, but...’.

‘Stefan!’ There is no “but”!’ Her voice becomes frightfully serious.

I do not know how to reply to that. What I think in one second seems to be meaningless in another.

IV

During the next few days, I am possessed by many considerations and worries. I do not even want to talk with anybody because I am tired of the same words repeated over and over. They irritate me with their bothering. Especially when my Auntie and cousin learnt that I took Aśka with me.

‘Pack your things! Bartek will drive you to a train station! Bolesław can stay’. Auntie is shaking, her face red, and waves her hands as if she was trying to drive away a swarm of hornets.

So I go out because I cannot bear listening to this. I go to the only place where I can find some peace. I go back to the ship. Although I am mad with anger, first I check whether the small object is still

lying on the platform. Nothing has changed inside, too. Nobody came here. Nobody can guarantee that it will stay this way. I sit down in the cockpit, taking the front armchair for the first time. It reacts in its specific way. This only happens once, on the first time, as if the seat remembered the last user.

I sit there for an hour, or maybe longer. I try to master my thoughts and focus on the here and now. When I only recall their behaviour, my hands start to shake. There is only one thing to do, but no matter how hard I have tried to find a solution, I still do not know how to contact the pilots. But I must do it, because of how long you can wait. The buttons all look the same. I stick my finger out and select one at random to touch it, and then give it up, and so on.

Each can be the last one I will ever touch. I close my eyes and lower my finger like a blind man. My forehead and temples become wet. I open my eyes, but nothing happens.

After a long while, I realise that further waiting is pointless. I repeat my attempt, and still, nothing happens. These tactics are useless.

So I keep my eyes open. I press a different one once, then again, and then yet another. Still, nothing happens... Once again, and again. I lose my count. I do not even remember which ones I have already pressed and which not. Meanwhile, I push the sheet aside because it gets in my way a bit.

‘Communication! Am I asking for too much?’

I must look like a caveman who saw a wheel for the first time and has no idea what it is for. The anger wells up inside me.

‘He would probably put it on his head and dance. Or maybe he would even try to summon aliens this way! He would use the wheel as a satellite dish instead of aluminium foil’. I make the moves that I describe. ‘And I am also talking to myself’. It is hopeless.

I do not know what to do. However, I know that sooner or later I will have to leave this place. And this is what I am most worried that I will not be able to return here. Ever again. Eventually, people will learn about this, the wrong ones too. They will come in their limousines with flashing blue lights and take whatever they want.

Or maybe I should give it to them. My body rapidly reacts to this thought. As if some maggots crawled over me.

‘Sooner or later they must return, even if only to haul this wreck’. I strike the dashboard with my fist. Maybe you should do it this way, to switch anything on? I repeat this, again and again. I barely stop myself from hitting it with my head.

‘Oh, great. It rains again’. Everything irritates me.

In films, it all goes so efficiently, and the operations are so simple.

You walk in, press some buttons, and do whatever you want.

Here.... here it is just like this. Nothing works or does not want to work. Maybe it is broken? That is why they left it here and hitchhiked away on some passing starship.

‘I’ll be damned’. I nervously drum my fingers on the panel like a piano but do not hear any sounds.

Eventually, I give up. My hands fail me because I am losing hope. I shake my head helplessly. I get up, look around, and do not even want to think anymore.

‘Oh well, I guess it’s time to face the truth. I found a wheel, and maybe I know its use, but don’t know how to use it... I just wanted to phone. Maybe their card is empty?

I am hungry, so I start towards the exit. I move my hand along the backrest of the armchair, feeling as if I was never to return here again. Because what else can I do? I have waited, and waited, and waited, and they did not come. I look at the small plaque with its strange writing. I sigh sadly.

‘Ohir... I need to communicate’.

I hear a sudden short sound. I look around, but the room is silent again. I left the card untidy, so I go back to readjust it.

Subconsciously, I feel as if something has changed.

‘But what?’

I notice an illuminated button. I look at it, perplexed because it did not look this way before, I think... It is really illuminated. I cannot believe it. Have I overlooked it? I look at it like a TV screen when

nothing interesting is on, yet it still shines and attracts attention.

Finally, I, an idiot from Earth, start to understand what it is.

‘Is it a communication system? The communication system is on, yes? Yes?’ I am waiting for the answer, which is a dumb thing to do.

I almost jump up and down with joy. Bravo, almost like a caveman, I have just discovered that the wheel can turn. That was intense!

Now I just have to learn how to fix this wheel to a wheelbarrow to use it.

‘Let’s see!’

Nothing thoughtful comes to my head. I look around senselessly like an ape that looks at a banana through a window pane. Or maybe I simply have to talk? Maybe I already am on the line? I sit down in the armchair, lean towards the light as if it was a microphone, and shyly try to say something.

‘Hello?’

Silence.

‘Hello, is there anybody out there...? It is me, Stefan Murawski from the planet Earth’.

What an intelligent message. Ashamed, I put my head in my hands.

By the way, it is good that I am here on my own, or... I will try something different. I must think it over. Ohir has switched on their telephone, or so I think, and what is really surprising, that it did it when I said ‘Ohir... I need to communicate’. It appears that these may be key words. I must say ’Ohir‘, then ’I need‘ and then tell what I need.

‘Ohir, I must contact... Ohir, connect me with... the pilot?’ No, go back!’ Oh well. It is on the tip of my tongue. Now I am going to shine. ‘Ohir, I need to contact members of the crew’. I gesticulate feverishly.

‘The members of the crew will not respond’. Out of the blue, I hear a voice of a man sitting behind me.

I quickly look around in panic, but I cannot see anybody.

So there is someone here, invisible like the ship itself. My legs are shaking, but well, this is what I wanted. Now I have to say something clever. Maybe I simply ask?

‘Why will they not respond?’ I feel my voice shaking even more than my legs.

‘The crew is dead’. The alien’s voice is flat, devoid of any emotions.

All in all, I think that in this case, emotions should affect the voice of someone that informs about somebody’s death.

Now my throat feels tight.

‘Are you a crew member?’

‘No’.

I am pale normally, but now I must look like an albino. My legs cannot support my weight and buckle, as if they were made of paper.

Does it mean that this invisible person killed the crew? Oh yes, this is why the ship is damaged. Maybe by the shots. Blimey me! I put my head in my hands. Maybe this is why he did not fly away? He is repairing the ship or hiding. Oh no! I found a space serial killer.

I try to hide behind the armchair, although I am aware that I cannot see him at all, and he sees me. Equally well I could try to hide from a gunner behind a paper target at which he aims. He certainly prepared a laser blaster or other weapon. And he probably killed the crew the same way. He holds it in his hands and will pull a trigger at any moment now. Looks like it is time to say farewell to my life, but what about my family? It is great that they do not come here; maybe he will leave them alone. I feel like an hour has passed, but in fact, it was just a second, maybe two.

Nothing happens. I slowly exhale the air, but it does not calm me at all.

‘Who are you?’

Nobody replies. It is strange that he declared himself this way.

‘What’s your name?’

'Ohir’.

‘What?’ Wait a second, I need to get my head straight’.

Are you the ship?’

‘No’.

‘You are not the ship’. Oh yes, that has explained a lot to me, really has. My statement also does not add anything.

‘Are you alive?’

‘No’.

‘Then you are the ship’.

‘No’.

‘So what are you?’

‘The onboard computer’.

I feel as if somebody has just taken me out from an oven a moment before I am roasted alive. It is an immediate relief because I do not think that computers are killers.

‘So you are not an invisible space killer?

‘It is not in my software’.

‘Your voice sounds like a real one’ I breath regularly.

‘My voice is a real one’.

‘I mean, it sounds like a real voice, not an artificial one’. I cannot express myself better.

‘My voice is artificial’.

‘If you really are an onboard computer, then I am not surprised.

I've just wanted to say that I thought you were an alien’.

‘I am the onboard computer’.

‘OK, let’s leave it for a moment’. Gosh, I really feel like this guy is standing at my side. Maybe it is because of the speakers? ‘What happened to the crew? Why are they dead?’

‘Classified information’.

I nod my head like an idiot listening to the music he does not understand.

‘Yhy... Why?’ ‘Classified information’.

‘Why is this classified information?’

‘Classified information’.

‘Have you got stuck or do you say the classified information is classified, because this is what it is? I am not sure whether I have said it clearly.

‘Please, clarify your question’.

‘So you are not stuck’. Super!

I slowly relax my muscles and get up. Just in case, I want to make sure as to one more issue bothering me.

‘Is there anybody else in the ship?’

‘I do not detect any ships’.

I feel distracted.

‘Is there anybody else on board? Alive?’

‘No data’.

The computer evokes an unpleasant feeling in me that somebody may still be lurking in ambush for me.

‘Is this information also classified?’

‘No’.

‘So why cannot you answer me?’

‘Classified information’.

‘Oh, brilliant!’ I’ll be damned.

Really... I do not know; I want to smash something. I think I would prefer that invisible space killer. How can I learn anything if everything is ’classified information?’ Wait a moment; something has downed on me. Is this onboard computer speaking Polish?

Because I do not think I speak Alien.

‘Ohir, which language do you speak?’

‘I use the computer language, in accordance with programs recorded in it’.

‘That’s not what I meant’. How should I put this question? ‘Which language do I speak?’

‘The language recognised as a variant of early Polish’.

I am speechless. ‘What an idiot I am! I have just understood that this is not a starship. It is a time machine. That’s it! This is why it said it is not a ship.

‘Are you a time machine?’

‘No’.

‘Why not?! Wait a moment, why not?!’ Perplexed, I am not sure at all what to think about it. ‘So what are you?’

‘The onboard computer’.

‘Oh, let somebody shoot me’. Then I realise that I’d better avoid such exclamations, because it may turn out that I condemned myself. ‘Or rather, don’t shoot. Ah. You know what? Yyy... I don’t know how to talk to you’.

After a longer silence, I decide to check whether we are still talking, if this exchange can be called so.

'Ohir?’ Are you alive?’

‘No’.

Oh yes, it is clear. What other answer can a computer give?

I have truly shown off asking this question. But wait a minute. I need an explanation.

‘If the crew is dead, then what are you doing here? Just don’t tell me that this is classified information’.

‘The information is not classified’.

‘Then tell me, what are you doing here?’

‘I am completing emergency life saving protocols’.

‘Whose life?’

‘The crew’.

Hearing these words, I inadvertently look around, searching for the already mythical crew. Or at least their bodies or any other traces of their existence. The armchairs do not count.

‘So, where is the crew?’

‘Classified information’.

‘No... this way, we will never get anywhere’. I am trying to think, but pacing around the cockpit does not help. ‘Listen, you... onboard computer.

I want to help you’.

‘Nice to hear that. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this information’.

‘So who can confirm this information?!’ I feel anger stirring up in my chest.

‘A crew member or an authorised senior officer’.

‘And when can I find one?’

‘Classified information’.

‘Oh, I’ll be dammed!’ Oh, for pity’s sake!’

I try not to swear. I intend not to do it, but I think I will start in a moment. I clench my teeth.

Another hour passes. Our conversation takes a long time and is unsuccessful. I sit and think. Is anybody calling me or is it just my imagination?

‘Stefan…! Steeeefaaaan!’

Yes, Joanna is calling me many times. She does not sound happy with that.

‘I’m here!’

‘Stefan!’ Call out!’

‘I am calling out!’

Oh yes, I have forgotten that when I am inside, nobody outside can hear me. Outside, Bolesław and Przemek herd the cows for evening milking.

‘Oh, they are herding cows, it is already that late. And it stopped raining, even the sun is out’.

Przemek is clearly interested in the strange discovery, but he does not even know where he should look. The awareness of the thing present here still makes our flesh creep. Nevertheless, the Pazuras and Bolesław have got used to this place. Well, possible except Auntie, who looks more after the house and does not go for cows.

I get up and walk outside.

‘Stefaaan!’

I walk straight towards her. Her piercing scream and fear almost immediately turn into anger.

‘Are you mad or what?! I nearly had a heart attack!’ She sounds incoherent.

‘It was not on purpose. You were calling me, after all’.

‘Can you warn me next time, before you reappear?!’

‘I was speaking, but you did not hear me’.

Bolesław comes closer. Przemek is afraid to come; he even takes a few steps back.

‘So what are we going to do with the ship? I must go back to my workshop soon; my holiday is almost over.

‘Then go! Nobody stops you’. Aśka is in a really tempestuous mood today.

‘Bolko just meant that he wants to help’.

‘Ahhhh’, she calms down a bit.

‘OK, but I have to know, what with’.

Joanna wants to say something, but it looks as if this thought was too frightening for her.

‘For now on, let’s leave it as it is’. I quickly realise that it may be better if, at the moment, nobody will do anything with it.

‘Maybe we should hide it in the garage?’ Bolek is wandering.

‘It is not necessary, it is invisible’, emphasises Joanna.

‘Then maybe we should bury it?’

‘Calm down’. I interrupt their conversation.

‘Stefan.’ If they don’t come back, then what do you think will happen, eh? What do you think... that this will just stand here? And how long will it stand here, eh?

‘Aśka…’

‘What, Aśka? What, Aśka? It’ll be discovered, sooner or later’.

‘So let it be discovered! Let them take it and let the government deal with it! At least they will do something useful’. Bolesław is clearly angry with this secret and this subject. He seems to wish to forget all about it.

Somebody is riding a bike. They should not hear us, but automatically we fall silent.

‘Can we discuss it at some other time?’ I try to postpone the matter.

‘And when do you want to talk about it?’ Within a week, Bolesław is going back to Legionowo, and in four weeks, you are going back to England. And we will be left with this on our own? Try to put yourself in our shoes, Stefan. Can you imagine what will happen here?’

‘So let’s not inform them’. Bolesław supports his cousin, but it does not calm her down.

‘So let’s not inform them? It does not solve anything’.

‘You’re right. The cows are wandering away’, I change the subject.

Eventually, we drive the herd to the barn.

V

That night I cannot fall asleep again. I am lost in thoughts. I toss and turn maybe forty times and finally, get up to use the bathroom. A moment later, I go to the kitchen to look through the window. It is too dark to see the field. Unlike in the city, there are no street lamps or other artificial lights here. Today, there is no moon or stars. There is only darkness; the window pane has turned into a mirror. I am thinking about going there, but what can I achieve this way? I am examining my slim face. I look into my eyes. They say: ‘Who am I trying to fool? After all, I haven’t achieved anything in my life, none of my plans have worked’.

There is nothing like bringing yourself down.

After the morning milking and breakfast, I go to visit Ohir.

I have a new plan, and I am perfectly aware that this is my last chance. If I do not manage to reach an understanding with it now, I will never be able to do that.

'Ohir’. Is the layout of rooms a piece of classified information?’

‘No’.

Immediately, a light smile appears on my face.

‘Can I see it?’

‘Yes’.

It is great that this conversation is going in the right direction; I stand here happy as a fool. After a moment, I recall the keywords and understand that I have to indicate a specific request and cease asking questions, or I will stand there forever.

‘Ohir, I need a layout of rooms, mmhhhmm’. If I say ‘ship’, then this may result in a long and fruitless discussion, so I shyly add, ‘Here’.

I hope it will understand. However, I do not hear the answer, only a short sound. I look up as if I wanted to talk to God. 'Ohir?’

I hear the sound again. Finally, I see a picture on the window pane, which has not been before. It is visible against the background of the space behind the window.

‘Thank you!’ And silently add: ‘Wow’. Then I notice something strange. ‘One more room?’

I am shocked. But I have visited all of them... Ah, yes! I run fast to the larger room. Interested, I examine the walls of the enclosed space. I cannot see any door. Previously, I suspected that the onboard computer, a kind of power supply, or an engine is located here. Anything can be inside. I return to the cockpit. I cannot understand some things. The diagram seems simple, but it is not completely clear. I only recognise spaces that are clearly drawn.

‘Ohir, are there any hidden entries here?’

‘No’.

‘No?’ Is it lying? It is a machine, so can it mislead me? After all, it said that I had to be confirmed by an authorised senior officer.

Maybe it is protecting some secrets, because why should it tell me the truth? I think it is a question of software.

‘Ohir, I need to get to the hidden room’.

‘There are no hidden rooms on this vessel’.

‘So what is this?’

‘Please, expand your question’.

‘I see a hidden room in the diagram’.

‘The vessel diagram does not show any hidden rooms’. Either it tells me a brazen lie, or I do not read the diagram correctly. I am not sure. And maybe it is a dream? Maybe I have been tied to a bed on a funny farm for a long time? If it is so, then I can question my entire life. Am I really not able to distinguish between reality and illusion?

- But I can complicate my life.

I recall that the ship is damaged. Maybe this is why our conversation is so strange?

'Ohir’. I try to speak slowly, almost syllable by syllable, so the computer understand the question correctly. ‘How. Can. I. Get. To. The Room. That. Is. Separated. In The diagram?’

‘Through the door’.

‘What door? What are you talking about? There is no door there’.

‘There are eleven doors in the vessel, including two entrance doors’.

‘What? How many?’

‘Eleven’.

I personally counted precisely zero. Of course, I do not count the rear entrance in. I look around and still cannot see them. Suddenly, I freeze, motionless. I jump up to confirm my theory. Probably they are somewhere there; I just have not noticed them. I run into the large room and examine the walls but still cannot see any door frame. And if I find bodies of the crew there? Maybe this is why it does not want to let me in there? Is it the computer that killed the crew? But why should it do it? If I discover the truth, will it kill me too? OK, take it easy.

‘Don't wind yourself up, don't wind yourself up’, I whisper and master my rushing thoughts. It takes me some time, my curiosity got the better of me. ‘Ohir, I am sorry but I cannot see any door here, and I do not know how to open it’.

‘In a standard way’.

Oh yes, I have forgotten that for the computer, this knowledge is obvious. But not for me! I try a different approach... I will use keywords.

‘Ohir, I need to know where the doors are. Show them in the diagram’. I return to the cockpit.

‘They are marked in it’.

Where? With an invisible line or what? At least now I know what I am looking for. I try to discover those invisible doors in the invisible ship.

‘They are apparently here’ I say quietly with my teeth clenched.

Bolesław would be useful here; he would possibly find them because he is good at diagrams. Or at least has been. After years of the primary school, he abandoned his dreams, though he still moans after technical drawings that gave him so much pleasure once.

Eventually, I notice some wavy lines in the diagrams. They are visible in all passages between individual chambers, and on the ship body, on both sides of the atrium.

‘One, two, three, four, yyyy... One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, this here probably too. Eight, nine, ten and a kind of eleven.

There are exactly eleven wavy lines’. That is, exactly as it said. I go to those places to make sure and everything is great, but for one small problem.

‘I cannot see any door here!’

There is no trace of a door frame connecting the cockpit with the atrium or the atrium with the smaller room. I also cannot see them in the smaller room or on the sidewalls of the atrium, or, as I should correctly say, on the external bulkheads. I am searching and searching; I stroke the wall and still cannot feel anything. I go to the boot. In this opening between the two chambers, there is also no trace of the door. I go and again closely examine the walls of the booth. And still cannot see anything. Am I really so blind? Or maybe I am as dumb as a post. I think I must have wandered this way between the cockpit and the larger room about fifteen times. At least I have something to do, but this is very annoying. The only entrance that is visible is the rear hatch, which is open. The problem is that this is not a door but a hatch. I will go mad in a moment!

‘OK, Ohir. I need instruction on how to open the door’. It sounds stupid when said aloud. Even more! It seems foolish even to think about it, but what can I do. I really cannot do anything without it.

An animation of extraordinary quality is displayed on one of the displays in the cockpit. Only on the second time I stop to admire its

quality and focus on the text which, as I have suspected from the beginning, is translated into my language.

‘Is this a handle? Is this supposed to be a handle? It is not a handle’.

I am shocked.

It looks more like a touch button. It does not differ much from the wall. This reminds me of a documentary on the experiences of a group of Poles from a large commercial vessel. Somali pirates arrived on the boats, started to shoot, and eventually bordered the container ship. Members of the crew talked about the pirates running around the ship as if it was their own. But when they got to a door, they could not open it. They recognised all entrances but had another problem. They grabbed a handle of the lock and struggled with it angrily. It looked as if they did not know how to operate it. People accustomed to this technique do it automatically. Even small children can use it because they are naturally in contact with this mechanism. I do not know how the Somali people close their houses, but now I feel like one of them.

The pirate of the cosmic space on the planet Earth.

I return to the larger room, stand in front of the hidden room and look for the ‘handle’. I know what I am looking for, so I find it quite fast. Without hesitating, I touch it immediately. To my surprise, a part of the wall opens. It is not a wall, but the door hidden in it. A brightly lit room is revealed to my eyes. It is a simple room; I cannot see any computer, power supply or anything else of this kind here; it is empty. There is nobody on the floor. I take one step forward, and unconsciously move my hand across the wall. I automatically examine the edge, but I would not call it a frame. At least, not much as I am used to. I am trying to find a trace of a door frame, but unsuccessfully. The same mechanism is also on the side of the room, so I press it, and the door closes. Oh great, I managed to imprison myself. I nervously press it again, but despite my worries, I have no problems here. I repeat this action many times.

‘Hurray!’ I have learnt to open and close the door.

But nobody applauds me. My earthly brain cannot recognise how it works. Like a child playing with an electrically controlled window, I am also having fun. I do not find anything in the hidden room to attract my attention. So I check bulkheads between the rooms. I find the handles and the door is much wider, with two sections. It looks like a wall. Fortunately, they did not separate me from the rest of the ship at the beginning because without access to the cockpit, I would not get far.

After a series of tests I finally can recognise the difference between the closed door and the wall. I would not bet that I could recognise them at a glance, but I know now what to look for. Now I want to learn more.

I have another conversation with the onboard computer. I ask many questions but get understandable answers only to some of them. The buttons fail to work not because they are damaged but in a standby mode. During a few days, I manage to learn several basic functions of the displays. That is their correct name. It does not matter that I can feel a real button under my finger. In fact, it is an illuminated display. Holograms used on the Earth are archaic compared to this. I even manage to find options for the free arrangement of all buttons, sliders, and indicators. Smart people, or rather, smart aliens, designers, made everything possible to ensure that their operation is as easy as possible. Users have been given the freedom of adapting settings to their needs and possibilities. At the moment, this level of technological advancement exceeds my cognitive abilities. I barely see the beginning, and I still have many miles to travel. Entire light-years. It looks easy, but first, you have to learn it. Oh well, nothing that is good comes easy. To have certain skills, first you have to know how to do it, how it works, or actually that something like this exists. If you are building a fence and do not know where the hammer is, you will not reach for it.

I recall when I bought my first computer for carefully saved money.

I was saving for a long time but finally decided on the purchase. I

was so happy when Mum brought the equipment from her friend, who assembled it together. Unfortunately, I had to face a dark reality. Years passed, and the computer became increasingly hard to operate. Problems with its normal functioning increased.

Updates and new applications were beyond their capacities. The processor could not cope with a great number of calculations and hung up increasingly often. I could not find any normal work in Poland, so I went abroad to the UK. After a few months, I decided to buy a laptop. It was not very expensive, it cost about half of my monthly salary. When I started that long-awaited purchase for the first time, I was speechless. It had a new operating system. Such a technological leap can be shocking, and there were only ten years between those two computers. I was sitting there surprised and did not know what to do with it. Fortunately, I used an older version of the same software, so the problem solved itself.

Ohir was like higher education in no-hands riding on a great pink elephant that flies because its ears are so large. Without an option for talking with it, I still would not know how to open the door. I would probably be lying on the floor, howling in distress. If you compare me to a troglodyte who learns how to operate a computer, then I can already recognise a mouse, a keyboard, and even a screen. I still do not know their name, but I am making progress. I learn how to switch the workstation on, not just the screen. I can already operate the mouse, but I still mix the buttons.

But I still do not know what they are used for.

Meanwhile I learn that the key words do not contain the password, ‘Ohir I need something’, so I do not have to say ’I need’ each time.

It is enough that I give a simple command, for example: ‘Ohir, say this and this’. At the moment, this is all I know about it. You have to start somewhere.

When I get back for dinner, I hear that somebody called the police.

They informed them about a mysterious starship that landed ‘somewhere near the village’. Apparently, they came only because that person called the police station several times a day. They had a

look at the meadow, but fortunately, they were mistaken and walked around the wrong field.

Some villages still have not believed in that story. They laugh at the policemen, that they decided to check these reports at all. They started to call them jokingly ‘men in blue’. They did not have black sunglasses, but they wore black rubbers.

Their visit has startled the Pazuras. They walk around the village, knocking on the doors, and ashamed, asked about “strange things”.

‘I don’t know, madam. It’s just an order’, they explain.

‘What is a prize for finding an UFO? asks Bartek jokingly.

‘There is none’.

‘Not yet, but maybe there’ll be something’, adds the second policeman.

‘Eh, officer! Nobody will pay attention to any fantasies. If they damage our field, then yes, I would definitely notify you’.

‘They did not make any crop circles’, adds Auntie and laughs very, very loud.

‘Oh! That would be something, but we have no crops, just cows and weeds in the field. If you wish, you can go there. I walk there every day, and saw no flying saucers’.

‘Maybe you should ask the cows? Maybe they saw something’, Bolesław, standing in the back, adds suddenlyy.

‘Oh! Talking cows! If you find any, they are definitely mine!

I take ninety percent of the profit!’ laughs Bartek, immediately joined by Auntie, Aśka, Bolek, and policemen. They told me to hide in the hall and not even breathe, so I did not say anything by accident. Especially Auntie insisted on that.

A gossip usually does not have even a grain of truth. Changed a hundred times, it gets out of control. Some do not even know where is that meadow. For this, we can thank a disinformation campaign conducted by cousin Bartek, supported by our confirmation. The majority of people wrongly say that the landing place is on one of the mountains surrounding the village; others

specify different locations. There are also some who think that it was near Czech villages at the border, not the Polish ones. Others say that it was actually a huge flying saucer, and it flew away a long time ago. There is also a theory that the ship crashed down somewhere nearby, but, strangely enough, it is the least popular one. Spreaders of these stories are also pranksters.

Increasingly often, my family reminds me not to go to the ship when there are any people around. Because when somebody notices that I disappear or reappear, then the case will be lost. I would understand if they wanted to make sure that I am aware of the danger. But no! Stefan must be bothered; Stefan must be reminded! He spends there days, and is not able to see it, oh no!

He sees nothing but the ship.

‘Stefan, don’t go there now, when the police is driving around the village’.

‘Stefan, don’t even think about it, when the neighbours are...’, ‘Stefan, if somebody comes, you’d better not say anything’.

As if they could not see that I am aware of it. Since my childhood, they must think that I am a fool, who does nothing with his life, just staring at the stars. When I wanted to read books about astronomy, I was forced to read poetry and mandatory reading books. Eventually, this completely put me off books and reading.

Even if I got my hands on a book on astronomy, I felt like a criminal, who needs to watch his back all the time, and I lost the pleasure of reading.

Blimey me! I feel down. Somehow, I do not know why, I have an impression that they blame me for this situation. Even now, when the visitors leave, they give me sideways looks. And then they say that I look tense and do not talk to people. And what if I am also from a different planet? Could Ohir come for me? But then, who were its crew?

I feel bad. I decide to lie down; I simply want to rest for a moment; I let my imagination fly. After some unspecific time, somebody

enters the room and starts to move around it. I suspect it is Bolesław.

‘Stefan? I haven’t notice you, are you going to watch the film?’

‘No’, I murmur, drained.

‘It is to be about aliens, apparently it is good’.

‘No, I’ll pass’.

‘Are you OK? I am talking about a film about aliens, and you refuse?

Are you unwell?’

‘No’.

When men in blue disappear, I cross the invisible threshold again.

‘Ohir, show me the names of rooms and their use’.

I decided to finally learn what they are used for. It turns out that I was only right about the cockpit but was not that wrong about the boot and the atrium. The boot is called the hold. The atrium is an atrium, but it is called a corridor. Call it what you want.

The most important thing is to understand each other.

The smaller room is a dining room that is also used for rest. I am not yet quite sure what it means because I have not found any table or chairs apparently they are somewhere on the left. On the right, there is to be a toilet and a cabinet with supplies. Previously I thought that it was just a well-designed wall, but I was wrong once already, so...

The larger room is a laboratory, but it only takes the space on the left. On the right, closer to the hold there is a dispensary. To be honest, I do not see any difference, it all looks the same to me. And the recently discovered room is the crew cabin. I wonder where you sleep there, because I could not see any beds. Instead, I learnt where the toilet and the shower are. The entrance to them is on the wall between the cabin and the dining room. I open the door, and behind it see a person staring at me. Large eyes and open mouth. Frightened, I realise that it is me standing there, or rather

my reflection in a mirror. Is it really a mirror? It resembles one, although a display also resembled a windowpane.

‘So they have mirrors here, too’, I say without any sense, under the influence of accumulated impressions.

This room is small. On the left, there is another entrance of a different design, and yet another one on the right. They look much more delicate. I touch both handles at the same time. These doors fold differently, like a fan to the wall, and do not disappear in it like the others.

‘This thing on the left looks like a shower, and that on the right is probably a toilet, hm. I wonder where they get water?’

Wait a minute... If they have a laboratory and a dispensary here, are the stories about abducted people true? Maybe they really conducted experiments, possibly on cows. I hope they did not spoil the milk because I always drink it by litres when I am here.

During the supper, I learn from Aśka that Bolesław went back to Legionowo earlier today and that he cancelled his trip to the seaside.

‘But he was to leave next week’. I am completely surprised.

‘Stefan, that week has already passed. Today it is Saturday’.

‘Is it Saturday already?’

‘Yes!’ He comes here for such a short time. It is not enough for me; I need more space. I always wanted to be close to that vast wilderness, uninhabited hectares of land, which I could only see in American films. The countryside fills me with it.

‘Your mum wants you to come’. Auntie places a telephone receiver under my nose.

According to our plans, before I fly back to the UK, I am to visit her first in the city. The family expects that. I am tired of this, of meeting the expectations of other people. I have been taught that since I was a child. First, finish school, then go to university, and now get married. I am not to think about anything else. This drains

my energy and time for living my own life and making my dreams come true. That it is why I always lose.

Each time I go to the English factory to work with green mush and dough, I lose the stars. In food production, you just stand at a belt, stick your hand out, and some green mush falls on it. Then you tilt your hand and throw the mush onto the dough. After two hours of work, you finally look at your watch. And it turns out that in fact, only five minutes have passed. You get mad with all this. I do not want to go back there and yet still do it. Working there has one sole advantage that I cannot disregard. This way I can have my holiday.

For convenience, I took the easy way. I am sitting in warm manure up to my ears and do not know how to get out.

Once I wanted to please everybody because I thought that when I finally do it, they cease to demand and I will be able to look after my own affairs without worrying about ceaseless complaints.

Unfortunately, their expectations are like a bottomless pit that nobody can fill. So I cannot think this way anymore. I must take my own way, despite their wishes. I must change, too, but not like they, but for the better. I wish to immerse myself in my life so much. Actually, what is my plan? I am sitting, heartbroken. The whole day is wasted, and I cannot find any road signs. But maybe Ohir is an answer to my prayers? Can I rest in it and get away from my worries? It is warm, comfortable, pleasant and mysterious. My brain is working, learning, and developing. For the first time in my life, I experience all this on such a scale. The only problem is that I cannot take it with me. By the way, if I learn to pilot it, I do not have a ticket for the plane. Maybe I will not have to go back to work? Good question.

‘I have a starship’.

In theory, I can go anywhere, to the Moon, Mars, and even further.

My eyes shine just on the thought about these travels. This is a challenge I want to take. After all, I have always dreamt about it.

But am I not chasing a carrot on a stick? Although the pilots are dead, this does not mean that nobody will claim them. Sooner or

later, other people of their kind will come for their property.

Paradoxically, this is what I count upon. Maybe I will not only be able to talk with them but what if they take me by force? After all, I know a lot. They might worry that I stole something to earn billions.

Would they bring me back home one day? Would the allow me to come back if only to visit? My head is buzzing with these questions.

Earlier I pushed them away, but now they return with double force.

I have started the war I cannot afford to lose. I am waging it against myself. My gaze is lost in reality. What should I focus on? Maybe I should close my eyes?

‘No, no. Now I have Ohir.

At last, I have tools. I just have to be firm and not let anybody’s whim pushing me off the road I want to take. And what if I am wrong? If Ohir does not take me to the stars? If it is a time machine, not a starship? Talking to the onboard computer is difficult. It is tailored to the mind of the knowledge exceeding that of an Earthling. Earthlings? If it is a time machine, then so are they.

Or at least, they were. So why do not travel back in time and take it? I would be very tempted to change the past, but if I do it once, I will also change the presence and the future. Exactly. Of course, I always wanted to see what was in the past and what would come in the future. To see the first humans, dinosaurs, various ages, or even historical battles of Grunwald, Kałuszyn, naval battle of Oliwa... By the way, I am not sure that it would be a good idea to watch people suffer. I feel ashamed just thinking about it. But I would like to see what people were like in those days, especially those who came down in history as creators, thinkers, inventors, heroes, tyrants, and even saints.

Actually, it makes sense that the ship is invisible. After all, it would be foolish to go back in time and reveal yourself to the natives. The past should only be watched from the shadows, in a way unnoticeable to the eyes of those being watched. Assuming the worst scenario, the travellers could be killed and their ship could become an object of worship be destroyed or simply taken by

somebody. Who knows what would happen? Damages to the ship indicate that it could have been involved in a fight. It cannot be excluded that in ancient times the last of the crew members with their remaining strength sent the ship somewhere to another time, and thus it landed on the Pazuras’ meadow. This may prove much more complicated, and thinking about this makes my head spin.

‘Ohir, tell me what this vessel actually is?’

‘It is a space shuttle. A research vessel adapted to a specific task’.

‘So I can simply call it a starship?’

‘Such description of the vessels of this type is acceptable’.

‘Then you are the ship’.

‘I am the onboard computer’.

‘It is you that is called Ohir, and what about the shuttle? Has it got any name?’

‘The shuttle took the name of the onboard computer and is called the same’.

So it can be said that the ship is you?’

‘Yes’.

‘So why, when I asked you earlier, you insisted that it is not so?’

‘Due to damage to some interpretation protocols’.

‘Are you damaged?’ I know the answer, but to hear it from its ‘mouth’ will confirm my suspicions.

‘Yes’. The repairs continue’.

‘Repairs? What repairs?’

I look around in shock; I strain my eyes; I cannot understand this sentence.

‘Cyberspace repairs’.

‘Who has started them?’

This is a new thing. I suspect this is a trace that can lead me to the crew or those who killed them.

‘Autorepair started in accordance with the emergency procedure.

The progress report is available now. Do you want me to stop autorepairs?’

‘No! God forbid! Why are you damaged?’

‘Classified information’.

OK, I will not ask inquisitive questions now because it will end as before. I must think.

Szczepan August Urawski + 44 744 815 13 79 UK sau@op.pl kontakt@szczepanaugusturawski.pl https://szczepanaugusturawski.pl/