It’s a matter of paperwork. I asked the pilots from the first squadron. Once their plane flew to Moldavia on a business trip, and they brought me these, – said Andrey, looking at the dumbfounded Sveta.

She looked at Andrey knavishly: only candles and wine were missing, otherwise it would make quite a romantic dinner!

I hid the wine so far that I still can’t find it, but I can offer you some vodka or brandy.

And you have these, too?! At my choice?! How did you manage to get the whole bar past the control men?

Everything is simple, said Andrey. – I used my position for personal and far-reaching purposes!

Your aims are written all over your forehead, gentleman, said Sveta, smiling and pursing her lips a little. And continued invitingly: so what are you going to do next, Mr. Smuggler?

Andrey replied, undressing Sveta with his eyes: it depends on how much you will drink, my dear lady…

And I won’t drink at all! – laughed Sveta. – Booya?

No, said Andrey and unzipped Sveta’s “space” T-shirt. While Sveta was taking off her light shorts, Andrey switched off the almost earthly gravity, and the beautiful naked woman’s body started to soar in the zero-gravity – just as beautiful and immense as the whole Universe around them.

So, dear people of Earth, if you did not love in space, you probably did not love at all…

It did not seem a holiday at all: on the contrary, it was a simple and ordinary thing, even a little unnoticed one, when they reached the orbit of Mars. MS 88 made a loop after a loop over the planet that attracted many people who looked at it through those primitive telescopes. They surely strove to set their eyes on it, someone visited it in his thoughts…

Alexey Tolstoy in “Aelita” helped the Martians to make a revolution…

Looking at the surface of the planet flying past below, one could not help looking for the characteristics of their native Earth, but there was nothing similar except for polar ice caps. The planet was dark red and black, silence which did not seem alive seemed to reign there. A great number of big and small craters gave involuntary associations with the Moon, with the only difference in color. Probably all the planets that have no atmosphere look so lifeless and oppressing…

They started to prepare for arrival a month ago, without any hurry. All the equipment was long ready for landing and placement on the surface of the planet. It was necessary to stay in orbit for a week to adapt the body to the gravity of the Red Planet.

Also, Marina had to prepare her chemical set to carry out primary express tests to analyze the composition of Mars atmosphere and soil. It was here in orbit that Marina got a stronger impression that someone absolutely strange and totally unknown looked at her from the side.

Once she shared her feelings with Sveta. The latter frowned a little and said: you know, I feel something similar. Sometimes it seems to me that we are being observed by the whole space around us, something huge, the Space as a whole… At a first glance, there is nothing strange about it: if you remember, the guys who were here before said something of this kind, and psychologists warned about it, Sveta recollected thoughtfully. And let’s say, for example, you are alone in a dark room and you turn off the lights. Someone immediately feels fear, and many have a feeling that there is somebody else in the room. Even though you know you have just been alone in it. It is light here, but the feeling is similar, but it’s much stronger, finished Sveta.

Let’s talk to the boys as they must have the same thoughts, said Marina.

Andrey appeared.

– Hello, beauties, why are you looking so mysterious?

– Hello, rowdy, said the girls in a choir, having unbent brow a little, looked at each other and burst out laughing. After the last Andrey’s ideas they said the same greeting involuntarily. They shared with him what they had been talking about before he came in.

Smiling, Andrey passed his eyes from Sveta’s light blue eyes to Marina’s brown eyes. Calm down, girls, I also have this big feeling, and sometimes it even appears as a voice in my head and tries to ask questions, something like – How are you?

And what about you? – asked Marina.

Once I asked: Will you have some vodka? – And he replied somewhat sadly: I’d like to drink a bit, but to my regret I can’t! And after this suggestion of mine he never appeared again! Finished Andrey, laughing.

Right, dear, you are your usual self, – Sveta put in, laughing as well.

Thank you, guys, now it feels better, we can calmly land, – said Marina laughing.

And what’s so hard about landing?! Zap and it’s done, it’s not the same as flying here for six months, – Andrey summarized.

The first step on Mars… you step and go… They also walked every day in the spaceship using magnetic paths. They are different there, and they are different here, but anyway – these are steps.

The planet, whose surface could be finally observed, looked dismal and sullen. The ground was strewn with millions of stones of different sizes and shapes, sunk in maroon dust which looked more like rust…

Somewhere one could see separate mountains that looked like ruins of pyramids or mounds, and on the other side they formed almost a single chain – a high plateau. Suddenly they got a feeling that they were absolutely lonely here, accompanied by overwhelming dreary desperation that seemed to have been there for millions of years.

This sad picture reminded of a planetary cemetery, where the graves disappeared a long time ago: emptiness, silence, dust, stones and nothing else…

There was also a feeling that a huge fire destroyed everything here, only something that could not burn was left.

They desperately felt like flying away from here at once. They were strange or odd here, nobody had been waiting for them there for a long time, or maybe somebody waited, but they could not fly then because they themselves were not on Earth at that time.

The base was built several kilometers from the place of landing, on the huge valley of Marinera, almost five thousand kilometers long. Though the mobile living module created something like the magnetic field of the Earth, a cave or a lava tunnel had to be found to protect the base from space radiation, solar wind and long and heavy dust storms.

Having spent almost a week on traveling along big and small canyons, Sergey found an ideal smooth and spacious cave in the winding lava tunnel which began in some unknown place.

It took ten runs and a column of two mars rovers with trailers to transport all the modules and equipment for the future Martian base. Mars rovers moved easily, leaving a veil of nasty dust after them. The dust was much finer than on Earth and reminded of reddish-grey flour of oriental spices, and it was nasty because of its size: it was found even in the places where it should not have been…

Force of gravity… well, this could hardly be called a force as it was three times less powerful than on Earth. But for this reason heavy containers with equipment and outfit were pulled into the cave with unusual easiness.

Heavy protective spacesuits became almost weightless, without them one could probably fly over Mars like birds above the Earth, if it weren’t for the rest of local “delights” which were deathful for humans.

Even though it was easier to work, they got much more tired than on Earth or on board the spaceship. Having returned from the last run from the base to MS 88, having been cleaned from dust as thoroughly as possible in the pre-airlock chamber, and finally having got rid of the spacesuit which tired one out during the day and breathed the almost real air, Andrey and Sergey used their last efforts to take a shower of damp reusable napkins, had a quick meal and went to bed.