In the morning they crossed several dark grottoes and found themselves in a narrow grotto with old abandoned houses. The walls of the houses rose to the ceiling of the grotto. There were many multilevel bridges and crossings between the houses, which formed streets. The lizard with passengers descended to the bottom of the grotto, to the foundations of buildings and an underground lake. The lizard stepped into the water and swam towards the gaping black tunnel.
“This tunnel will lead us to the cave with the statues. And don't put your feet in the water, predatory fish are found here.” Suely warned.
“What about the lizard?” Sam asked.
“The lizard is poisonous, it has no enemies here.”
They swam towards the arch of the tunnel. A cold, damp wind blew from the darkness. The splash of water echoed under the arches of the tunnel.
“I have your container with the nemurges. Take him.” Suely took a container with beetles out of her bag.
Sam took the container, twisted it in his hands, opened it and threw it into the water.
“Why did you throw away the container? After all, you flew here for this!” Exclaimed Suely.
“Nemurgеs must not leave this planet! So said the ruler of Dugo.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No, but its ban makes sense. There is something we don’t know about. The doctor told me that it is not enough to treat the consequences of the disease, but you need to look for the reasons. There are a lot of questions. Only answers outside this planet. For some reason, the pilgrims hid the bugs in an inaccessible place for humans and for robots. Let everything remain as it is for now.” Sam explained.
The lizard swam slowly towards the exit of the tunnel. Sam saw the legs of the statues in the distance and immediately recognized the place. Somewhere off the coast, Cap left a powered off drone. When the lizard reached the shore, Suely looked around, looked up at the ceiling of the grotto, and carefully descended to the ground.
“The guardian dwells here.” She said in a whisper.
Sam looked around, in his eyes, in the grotto nothing has changed since the moment he was here the last time.
“I cannot see anything. What the guard looks like.” - He asked.
“I saw him once briefly, his shell looks like a stone.”
Seeing Suely's wary face, Sam smiled and walked into the bushes where Cap had left the drone. Sam dragged the drone onto the stone slab, opened the armored cover, and reached the drone's electronics: “At first I did not understand why Cap pulled out the battery and ammunition from the drone. He knew the drone was dangerous and turned it off. It is necessary to remove the memory card, there will be evidence against the customer.”
“Are you sure the ship will be waiting for you?” Asked Suely.
“According to the regulations, if there is no signal from the planet within forty days, the ship will leave orbit. The customer will have to fly in and pick up the drone and no one will know what is happening here. If we get out of here alive, we pose a threat to the customer.”
“Sam, you can't get out of here. You are not the first to try to leave this planet!” Suely wanted to convince him.
“By the way, I guessed how Cap wanted to get out of here!”
“Staff of Rсhod, this is the key of the planet!” Sam smiled, finally pulling out the memory card from the drone.
“Doesn't it seem strange to you that no one has used this key during all this time?” Suely chuckled.
“No, it doesn't seem.“ Sam stood up and took the staff that hung behind Suely's back. “Look how the staff has changed since it got into the water. It was disguised as a tree, but now the paint has begun to flake off.”
Suely took the staff and examined it carefully. She took the sword and tore off a large piece of paint from the staff. “Congratulations, this is a detail from some ship. It was necessary to give something into the hands of Rсhod before the burial, they found it and painted it with paint.”
“I also thought so at first, until I saw the inscription.” Sam jabbed a finger at the staff. “ What is written there?”
“I do not know what is written here, some kind of set of numbers and letters that do not make sense.” She answered.
“The fact is that there were no changes in the spelling of numbers, unlike letters, although they are pronounced a little differently, their meanings remain the same. These are designations for systems and planets along the galactic spiral.” Sam turned staff slowly, running his finger over the symbols, then stopped abruptly. “ K-2t9 - designation of this system. The navigation charts used on ships remain the same as they were 400 years ago.”
“You are not a pilot, how can you understand navigation charts?”
“Yes, I'm not a pilot. But with us, each briefing begins with the designation of the location of the target on the map.”
Suely shook her head skeptically. "How will the space map get you out of the ground?"
“Come with me and find out! “ Sem smiled and went towards the stairs.
Climbing the stairs, they found themselves in a small grotto with a stone portal. On the left side of the entrance, Dave's grave is made of stones. Weapons were stuck into the stones, and Cap's damaged helmet was worn on top.
“The hunters did not come here.” Sam pointed out.” Otherwise they would have taken Dave's corpse.”
“Nobody goes here.” Suely added angrily and climbed onto a high rock next to the cliff. “Come here.”
Sam climbed onto the rock and stood next to her. He looked closer and saw on the stone floor of the grotto symbols and the familiar outline of some beast similar to what he had seen on Dugo's golden crown.
“What is it?”
“This is the symbol of the guard.”
“We made a lot of noise here with the guys. So if the guard was here, we would definitely notice him.” Sam jumped off the rock and held out his hand to Suely.” There is no one here except us.”
Sam walked confidently toward the entrance to the corridor. Suely followed him.
“If returning is dangerous, why do you want to return?” Suely suddenly asked.
“There is a medicine on this planet that the galaxy needs. There are people who can solve this problem.”
“In the same way as your client did it?”
Sam stopped and walked over to Suely. “No. We will have to try to find the pilgrims who are sending volunteers here and find out. Because the DNA abnormality is a big problem for the inhabitants of the galaxy, only a few survive to old age, and the common cold takes ten years of life. While on this planet, it turns out, there is a cure. It is hard for me to think that now, having got rid of the disease, I will hide here underground.”
Suely lowered her eyes.
“Come with me! “Sam suggested again.
Lifting her eyes and looking intently at Sam, she spoke with excitement. “This is none of my business! Here is my home. Yes, they consider me damned here, but I'm used to it, and who will I be in your world? Why do you need me?”
“Born under heaven, cannot live underground. I will disappear into the darkness of the cave without you. You are the light for me, I cannot live without you!” He replied calmly, looking straight into her eyes.
Suely smiled, then walked over to the lizard and unbuckled the saddle straps. She stroked the lizard's head and walked over to Sam. “You changed my life. If you leave, I cannot be the same. You don’t want to stay here, but I cannot and don’t want to let you go.”
“Trust me! We can get out of here.”
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