The signal for a two-hour rest break sounded. Auran and Maush, together with the other volunteers and rescuers, made their way to the nearest rabsad and lay down right on the grass. Their bodies remained taut — they felt neither the softness of the moss nor the shape of the soil beneath them. The wind carried dust and the distant roar of machinery, the clang of rubble being cleared — none of it allowed them to let go.

After ten minutes, Maush sat up.

—  “This won’t work,” he said. “Let’s request a flipp with a return pickup and fly out past the city — to the Pao Gorge. I used to wander there as a kid. Better half an hour of quiet than two hours of this strain.”

— "Let’s go! the reporter agreed.

Maush went off to arrange it — a fifteen-minute flipp they would return upon arrival, and another to be sent for them later.

They strolled slowly along the canyon floor, following the bed of the long-dry river. It was the Pao Gorge — an ancient fault stretching for many kilometers. The walls rose in sheer masses, like torn plates of the planet’s crust, and in the center yawned a vast rift that seemed to split the land in two. Once, water must have filled the entire canyon, but now only jagged curves and deep shadowed clefts remained.

Maush said the palladologists had a theory: the river had sunk into these fissures, slipping beneath the lithospheric plates — and, meeting molten rock below, had turned to vapor.

–“Let’s lie down for a bit,” Auran suggested, pointing toward a flat boulder nearby. Its upper surface was wide, slanted at the perfect angle of a recliner.

Pulling himself up, Auran climbed the rock with ease and offered his hand. Maush followed, stepped to the highest point, and stood there for a moment, surveying the view. He drew a deep breath and crouched, one leg stretched forward. Auran was already lying full length, hands folded behind his head, face turned to the sun that crept slowly into the canyon.

Maush began to descend to lie beside him, but then noticed a small pink bottle near the rock.

–“Hm… trash. We’d better take it with us,” said the investigative journalist, lying down. His brow furrowed; he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again with a restless sigh. Rising, he jumped down toward the bottle.

Against the stern cliffs, the bright plastic looked alien — almost defiant. The Pao Gorge was a protected preserve: few ever came here without purpose, and strict rules governed entry. Any trace of human presence — especially litter — carried heavy fines. Maush frowned and turned; in the dry soil beside him were deep prints of heavy supports.

––“Of course — the palladologists have been here, leaving a mess. That’s the print of their tripod kayak,” Maush said, picking up the bottle and stepping closer to the trace.

––“Can’t you ever stay still?” Auran grumbled.

––“Very odd — the imprint’s deep,” his friend replied. “And there are more — grooves, as if from runners.”

Maush began photographing the marks with his tablet, following them down toward the riverbed.

––“Looks like they were studying something here. The place is curious, unusual — naturally of scientific interest,” he yawned. “Get some rest, will you? The flipp’ll be back soon.”

––“All right,” Auran said, wandering back to the stone recliner.

––“Need a hand?”

––“No, I’ll sit here,” Maush said, settling on the ground with his back against the rock.

Suddenly Auran felt the same unease as in the kayak, when that wave of light had passed through him. His chest tightened; his breathing turned ragged, his head spun — the world blurred for a moment, as if he were about to faint. He looked at his hands: faint light shimmered across them, pulsing with the weakness spreading through his body.

––“Maush!”

––“What?”

––“Something’s happening to me.”

––“Me too,” his friend called back. “Something’s not right here…”

Their wristbands beeped; in the distance, the flipp sent for them began its descent. The friends stood and hurried to meet it. They walked in silence — and flew back in silence, too.

Back among the ruins, the weight of noise and motion pressed down on them again: stretchers changing hands, orders shouted, someone cursing, someone else barely standing. Dust hung in the air like a gray veil, and every effort pulled at their muscles with dull heaviness. Auran kept glancing at his palms, half-expecting to see the glow again. Maush worked wordlessly, drawn tight — as if forcing his unease down into the mechanical rhythm of labor.

–“ Aur, don’t you think there are too few police around? Almost none at all. Strange.”

–“All the prisons nearby — here and in the neighboring cities — were destroyed,” said an aidman working beside them. His voice was even, but his shoulders sagged, as if every phrase cost him strength. A film of dust coated his cheeks, and dark streaks of sweat marked the folds of his suit. “Many prisoners escaped. Several groups seized weapons from the guards and have already attacked a few sites. Most of the police have been sent to recapture them and protect the armories.”

A tone sounded on Maush’s wristband — his mother. Her voice was weak but steady, as if she had just enough strength for the essentials. She said his sister and her husband had regained consciousness, that they were fine and were being moved into office spheres for temporary housing, since their home was gone. Her tone carried not joy, but a weary acceptance: the worst had passed; now life simply had to go on.

Maush closed his eyes and exhaled, as though releasing a great weight. For a moment his face softened — and Auran saw his friend, for the first time in days, allow himself a flicker of relief.

Yet as soon as the fear for his family ebbed, another thought returned: the pink bottle, the strange marks in the gorge. For palladologists — scientists who studied rifts and the planet’s formation — such carelessness was unthinkable. More than anyone, they valued the sanctity of preserves: heavy equipment stayed outside the canyon, and instruments were brought in on levitating platforms so as not to disturb a single stone. But here — tripod pits, gouges from runners pressed deep into the soil. Too rough. Too alien.