In the lowest parts of the tunnel, small basalt stalactites reminding of a skin of huge pineapples hung from above. Also, there were a lot of lava posts. There was not a single one near the base, but if you walked about two hundred meters inside the tunnel, they appeared even in groups, not like on Earth.

At first they were small and stood in pairs. Then they made groups of four and looked like a regular square, formed in an unknown way. In the depth of the tunnel there was almost no red Martian dust, and lava posts started to sparkle in the light of spacesuit projectors, almost like Bengal lights on a New Year tree.

The number of posts increased at some absolutely unconceivable rate, and the light from sparkles became stronger, there were probably billions of them, merged into a single and blinding flash…

The flash turned into darkness which was just as blinding. It was not in front of the eyes or in the head, it was around the whole body, which disappeared in something strange or became huge like the space. Stars and planets, nebulae and black holes, galaxies and something unrealizable and unclear but quite tangible, was flashing and changing…

The huge and silent space, black and blindingly bright at the same time, suddenly came alive! There was a sound which nobody had ever heard before. There were explosions of supernovas, and it seemed that your body or mind was exploding, and then you become dismembered in the surrounding space and time at the speed of light.

Once, or never or maybe always, these sensations stopped. Everything finished, or maybe nothing began at all. The crew slowly came to… They were again surrounded by the dark red silence of Mars.

Having gathered billions of thoughts and feelings, Andrey felt his body which was like a stranger’s. He looked around the service compartment. It was exactly the same, familiar and unchanged at all!

The monitoring unit was in its place, and all the parameters of the spaceship systems were in order. Everything was as usual.

Sergey, Marina and Sveta also went through all that, and were also looking at their compartments and getting used to them: everything seemed to be in order, as if they were absent for just a few hours.

The crew slowly gathered in the central compartment. Sergey asked everybody: How are you feeling? Is everything all right – are you safe and sound?

Sure, everything is almost in order, Sveta replied.

The reactor and I are in order, Andrey reported.

My facility is also in order, except for the time, said Marina.

Do you have different time in your compartment? – asked the commander of MS 88.

No, it’s the same as here, in the central one, – said Marina, looking at the central on-board computer. It’s November 7, 1995.

Sveta was surprised most of all: during seven years of absence the biological compartment would grow over with ungathered harvest, it would be so packed with greenery it would be impossible to get in!

It’s strange, Andrey agreed. The fuel in the reactor would have finished a year ago, or it could explode or at least stop automatically!

The most interesting thing is here, in the computer! – said Sergey, sorting a heap of files that appeared from somewhere.

Is there anything new besides the time there? Sveta asked.

It seems so… it independently, or someone instead of us, contacted the Coordinator according to the schedule, transferring the data of our or somebody else’s experiments.

Considering the good health of the crew members and reliable work of the equipment, the Coordinator proposed to extend the term of the expedition to Mars, and we agreed! – Sergey summarized the files.

Well… Here's a fine how-d'ye-do! Andrey said in surprise.

I don’t get it! said Marina.

Neither do I, – added Sveta.

– I understand no more than you do, said the spaceship commander glumly. – I will copy all these files to floppies and give each of you to analyze, there is enough work for a week here.

Everybody went to their working compartments and started to analyze the information for almost seven years of their one-minute absence.

They did the job more quickly, in about three days. But these three days were harder than the six-month travel to Mars, construction of the base and research on the surface of the planet. They had to live through everything that happened on Earth in the course of their absence that suddenly turned out to take so long…

They still had to perform their everyday duties, but did so gloomily and painstakingly. They took the hardest the collapse and the subsequent wars and catastrophes of the bigger part of the country that remained from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that had sent them here.

Little by little, they recovered and started to prepare to part with Mars.

When Sergey got the last message from the Coordinator of the project, he frowned a little, read it one more time and flew to gather the crew… He could surely tell the crew via intercom to gather in the central compartment, but he never did so.

They have long become one whole, consisting of different parts, something different…

The evidence of the correctness of his thoughts was the fact that he found the crew already gathered in the central compartment and understood by their faces that they had been waiting for him and guessed what he had to tell them.

Hello to the crew!

On the whole, the matter stands as follows: the Coordinator said that we had fulfilled the program a long time ago, many times, and we know it ourselves better than he does. The political component of the project was conceived in the times of the USSR and in the conditions of another country will look, to put it mildly, different…

Sergey frowned even more and continued: we don’t care a fig about politicians and, the more so, their games, and if you wish, we can land our spaceship right on the Kremlin or better on the lawn near the White House – we’ll show their President a fig, swear at him in Russian and fly back. But what matters is this…

Many space programs have been wound up, and there are a lot of impostors and swindlers in the branch itself. The number of launches has decreased by more than ten times. But the main thing – our people have become different. They are better in some respects, worse in others, and it will be the biggest stress when we return. We flew away from one country and will return into another…

Well, our stress is our problem, and I think we would deal with it somehow, but I cannot say exactly about the whole population as the consequences may be quite unexpected.

In Russia they don't launch more than a couple of satellites to the Earth orbit, and here you are – USSR missionaries have returned from Mars! They also face another presidential election, and the main candidate may have a flop.

On the whole, the Coordinator leaves the decision about the termination of MS 88 project with the crew! – ended Sergey.

So we can decide not to return to Earth? Sveta asked, a little surprised.

Right, said Sergey. We can stay on Mars until we get bored, return to Earth later, we can even leave the Solar System… We are absolutely free to choose.

Andrey raised his hand and said foolishly: and now Cheburashka will make a speech.

We received this absolute freedom as soon as we started… We were only bound by a sense of duty and gratitude towards thousands of scientists, engineers, workers, servicemen and guys from the launch site that worked hard for our rocket in the taiga.

We felt the same towards other people from our country who could live a little better and be a little wealthier if it weren’t for this project… We also had this freedom on Earth before the flight, but not absolute… Even here it’s not absolute, it’s just different, probably like many other things and notions. Well, the rocket should be returned to Earth, and we will stay here…