“We need to leave quickly, it's going to blow!” Sam shouted, grabbing Suely by the arm and dragging her to the shore.

They fled from the place of the fall, made their way through the thickets of bushes and fell in a clearing of green moss. There was a clap, the fire mushroom rose above the river and turned into black smoke. The roar of the explosion echoed through the grotto and caves for a long time.

 “I thought somehow that my life is boring and not emotional. I dreamed of bright adventures, went for new impressions to distant grottoes.” Suddenly Suely spoke. “ Now I dream of that calm and measured life that I had before meeting you!”

  “Is it all that bad!” Sam chuckled. “We are still alive, and your dreams have come true. Everything is even very good.”

They both laughed. Sam sat down. He examined the wound on his leg and saw only a scar. Sam got up, he again felt that some changes were taking place in his body. Suely stood up, twisted her hair into a fist and squeezed the water out of it, turning her back to Sam, took off her wet T-shirt. Sam looked at her beautiful back with pleasure, but when he saw the scars from claws and teeth, he said sympathetically: “It’s not easy for you to live here.” Suely, hearing his words, bit her lip, wrung out her T-shirt and dressed, tying her wet hair with a ribbon.

 “We need to go further.”  She said. “The hunters will be here soon.”

They walked several meters. Suely noticed that Sam slowed down his pace, his face was pale.

  “What's the matter?” She asked.

Sam didn’t want to complain about feeling unwell, he decided to express it differently: “I feel like I’m dead.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because I'm still alive! This is some kind of posthumous nightmare in which my consciousness turned out to be. My wounds heal quickly, I practically do not feel pain. I began to see and hear better. I can feel those things lurking in the dark.”

  “I wonder who then am I in your nightmare?” She asked without turning around.

  “You are a ray of hope for me! Like a pilgrim's song.”

Thank you! Nobody ever called me like that! She answered by turning to him and looking into his eyes.

Her gaze changed, it became soft, a light appeared in her eyes, she walked in front and tried to hide the smile that did not leave her face.

  “What is happening to me?” Sam asked.

  “Didn't Dr. Heng tell you what will happen to you now?”

  “No”

Suely told Sam about her conversation with Heng. After hearing this story, Sam retold his conversation with him.

  “It turns out that I will become as strong as you, the inhabitants of Grotar.” Reasoned Sam.

  “All right, but not right away. Heng told me that it took him a year and a half to recover. You do it faster. “Suely clarified.

  “I still do not understand why Heng urged you to believe in the legends, but he told me that the legends of the pilgrims are just folklore.”

  “Most likely, an unsuccessful attempt to find a common topic of conversation.” Concluded Suely.

  “Where are we going?”  Sam asked.

  “We are following my lizard.” She answered and began to climb the winding path leading to the ceiling of the grotto.

  “Suely, maybe you know where the technique comes from? This technique is not as old as this city, some examples of technology are not more than twenty years old?” Sam asked cautiously.

  “In addition to the hunters who come once a year for the Nemurgs, ambassadors from pilgrims come here with equipment. There is a tunnel near the South Dome. Once every two years, it is cleared of weavers. The great planet keeper is lured out of this tunnel on the planet's surface. While he is not on the flying barge, people and equipment are quickly lowered down the tunnel to the bottom.” Suely replied reluctantly.

  “So you can get to the surface through the tunnel?”

  “No. This tunnel only works one way. There were cases when the barge did not have time to go underground. It happened to Dr. Heng. He was the only one to survive the fall of the barge.”

  “And how did this technique end up with Dugo?”

  “Once a month, a barge flew into the city through wide grottoes and brought goods from the South Dome. Dugo fell out with the South Dome government last year and stole a barge from them. He has installed a drilling rig on a barge and is trying to drill a passage to the closed spaceport. There are rumors that there are spaceships there.”

 “Dugo wants to escape this planet!” Sam chuckled.

  “He will fail. The miners have reached the protective wall, the drill cannot penetrate this wall.”

  “If the pilgrims help the inhabitants of Grotar, then they are quite organized.” Reasoned Sam.

  “Only you can know, you came from the big world.”

 “There are people there who know the ancient language, but I have not heard of secret organizations. It is strange that for so many years no one has attempted to break through to the planet in an organized way.”  Sam wondered.

  “You're wrong. Troops have landed on the planet's surface many times, but to no avail. I was nine years old when the surface of the planet was bombed for several days, there was a terrible rumble in the grottoes. Then one could hear how the surface was being drilled, not far from the obelisk. They chose the wrong place for drilling, there was a hive of darkness. As soon as the drill fell into the grotto, all this black mass of monsters, angry with the roar, escaped to the surface of the planet. Then the volunteers who arrived two years later said that not a single ship had taken off from the planet. “ Said Suely.

  “The longer I am here, the more questions I have.” Sam sighed.

Suely turned around and smiled. “Ask. I'll tell you what I know.”

They climbed higher and higher along a narrow path. Sam walked in silence and thought about something until he stumbled. The stone jumped out from under his feet, only then did he notice how high they had risen. It was a mountain inside the grotto, its top illuminated by the rays of the sun passing through a crack in the ceiling of the grotto. On the right side was the arch of the grotto, in which the city was located, and on the left was the bottom of the grotto, overgrown with bushes and indented by wide and deep crevices. Through the arch of the grotto one could see another grotto with green fields flooded with sunlight and some kind of buildings.

  “Be careful!” Suely warned.

Sam looked at Suely, who had Rсhod's staff hanging from her back. Sam carefully examined the staff, it was covered with a thick layer of paint that resembled wood. The paint began to fall off in chunks after the staff was in the water. It was now clear that the staff was made of metal with many inscriptions.

  “You know where the cave with the statues is. There is a cave with a staircase that leads to the exit to the surface.” Sam asked.

“I know where it is, but I won’t go there! Above the cave, the guardian of the planet.”

  “By the way, who is the guardian of the planet?”

“This is a huge creature, it is almost impossible to kill. They are sitting in the tunnels, eating everything. Young predators sometimes go down to hunt. With the help of weapons they are driven back into the tunnel.”

  “At least get me there!”

They reached the top of the mountain, illuminated by the rays of the sun. For the first time in those few days underground, Sam saw a piece of sky on the ceiling of the grotto. A lizard lay on the lit stones; from time to time she turned her head and grabbed the centipedes running past. Suely went to the lizard and stroked her large head, the lizard squinted contentedly.

When they decided to make a halt, the sun was no longer illuminating the tunnels, it was dark, only the glowing plants created a fabulous landscape. The pattern, weaving from bluish-green dots, climbed the walls to the ceiling of the grotto, merging into a single shimmering canvas.

  “Let's stop here! It is dangerous to go at night.” Suggested Sulie and pointed to the rock, at the base of which there was a cave. “In the morning I will take you wherever you want.”

The cave in which they stopped turned out to be the wheelhouse of the wrecked ship. It was so overgrown with climbing plants that Sam did not immediately understand it. Suely lit a fire, removed a small pot from her saddle, and began to cook supper. Sam decided to inspect the remains of the ship, he went down the stairs, lighting his path with a torch. The ship was very old, inside it was completely dismantled, the inhabitants of the dungeon removed everything that they could carry from it. The ship now looked more like the bony corpse of a sea monster, half filled with water.

Sam returned, sat down by the fire and asked: ” I found something, a symbol in the form of a cube with support on one of the peaks. What is it?”

  “A symbol of evil, because of which the ancient civilization died. A small group of colonists escaped, they founded the current civilization. Many years later, part of the colonists, having violated the law, returned to the place of the death of civilization and there they found fragments of evil.” Answered Suely.

  “I wondered all the time where the pilgrims came from.”  Sam said straightening a branch in the fire.

  “The pilgrims and colonianc all descended from the first colonists, only the pilgrims practically did not settle anywhere except for the star cloud. Since then, there has been a division.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “This is all from ktab. Much has been written there about history and culture.”

Suely walked over to the saddle and pulled out a dark gray tile, just over her palm, from her bag. She sat down next to Sam so close that he could smell her hair.

 “Look here.”  She ran her finger along the edge of the tile.

Suddenly, the surface of the tile changed, showing a grid pattern with tiny cells. The cells were combined with each other to form symbols that were lined up in columns and rows.

  “It looks like a book.” Sam pointed out, yawning.

  “I have kept this ktab since childhood, there are many legends and tales here.”

  “I wonder who Rhod is. According to Cap, the legendary Rchod, saved the pilgrims from death and plunged civilization into the Stone Age.”

  “Many people here know this story. We call it the Great Rhod. He was not a pilgrim, he was a colonianс who earned the honor and respect of the pilgrims. When the colonianс discovered an ancient evil, they became infected with that evil. The disease began to spread rapidly among the colonianс, some perceived the disease as a blessing, while others began to fight it. One of these fighters was Rhod, he was a scientist who created a medicine. He tried to cure his compatriots from this disease. But evil spread very quickly, it changed people.”

  “Is it possible to create a cure for evil?” Sam interrupted. “ As they say, evil is a manifestation of the negative qualities of consciousness”

  “It was a tangible evil, and a person with negative qualities is a breeding ground for him. Rсhod also contracted this evil, but fought against it, tested the medicine on himself. He managed to create a medicine, he named it dizab. A medicine that brought sorrow to a colonianс. It killed evil and freed from evil. Rсhod passed the medicine to the Pilgrims so they could distribute it throughout the galaxy. Colonianсs executed Rсhod for creating a medicine and gave it to the pilgrims. His body was found by the pilgrims and buried here as a great warrior who died on the battlefield with a sword, a symbol of struggle, and a pilgrim's staff. The medicine has saved the lives of many people in the galaxy, not just the pilgrims.”

  “So the medicine is the cause of the war between the Pilgrims and the Colonianсs.” Noticed Sam and continued.  “I wish I had asked Heng about the DNA anomaly.”

  “He told me that the appearance of the anomaly is associated with the struggle of the virus for survival, the process has become uncontrollable. He spoke in terms, explained something, but I am not a doctor, I do not understand this. The only thing I understood was that the pilgrims had some kind of plan, but his compatriots, the Nodians, ruined everything. Heng also said that they should correct their mistake.”

  “Nodian Empire! “ Sam chuckled. “There is only one name left from it. They say that civil wars and corporations squeezed all the juice out of the empire. History no longer remembers when emperors died of natural causes. Heng loves this planet because it is not so noticeable from here the deplorable state of the Nodians.”