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"And... you think, it is the answer?" Eve asked, fearfully looking at the curve lines.

"I guess, yes."

"I am so frightened. It seems to me that we shouldn't read this!"

But Adam, of course, had already stepped in the cage. The text began, most probably, from a big blot, from which a dried stream was stretching downward almost through the whole length of the wall. At that moment the writer still had plenty of "ink."

"despair darkness it really darkness dark energy despair only sense and essence of universe my god god doesn't exist there is only despair which created the world what idiots we are we un
derstood nothing when probe explorers began to hop the perch we trusted only to instruments even when it gobbled up ape too late to back away told computer error only changed number all the same biosynthesizer two idiots volunteers save prestige of program for science's sake morons morons we would better be real morons though won't help finally it will absorb all for it is alpha and omega law of increase of despair..."

For Adam it wasn't at all incoherent gibberish. With each word read the wall in his consciousness fell with a crack and a roar of a ruptured dam, the truth uncontrollably rushed outside, and he spoke, spoke, even understanding that he shouldn't do it, that he doomed Eve, that is Linda, to premature–though all the same inevitable–torment, but his own torment didn't allow him to stop, and soon he even needed not to look at the bloody letters, just a view which filled with a pain the scars on his fingers.

"We named it dark energy. Energy of the vacuum which produces particles and antiparticles, the force interfering with the recession of galaxies. In general, all this is true. But its true name is Despair–the essence of the universe and its basic force. Once people considered that the primary law of the universe was the law of nondecrease of entropy. But, be it so, any evolution, any transformation from simple to complex, from interstellar gas to stars and planets, from inorganic molecules to live cells and organisms, would be impossible. Then it had been postulated that self-organizing processes can proceed in unclosed systems where there is an energy inflow from the outside. But that meant that the universe itself is a unclosed system, otherwise from where can it receive the energy? Now we know what this energy is and what law of the universe is really primary: the law of increase of the despair. It is possible to say that the despair is the force making galaxies to scatter in horror, though this run into eternal void will not help...

"But unless galaxies can feel anything?" interrupted Eve, whose consciousness still resisted memory. "They are not alive!"

"It's only a terminology issue. Can we say whether a stone feels heat or cold? But after all they operate on it quite objectively, forcing it to crack or even to melt. But, really, inanimate objects are incapable of feeling despair to the full. Therefore, all processes in the universe develop, eventually, in the direction of the evolution of life and sense. For life, and in particular sense, is nothing else but despair capable of realizing itself and thus to complete the positive feedback and to realize the unique purpose and sense of existence of the universe–the achievement of absolute, infinite despair.”

"But after all despair is just an emotion! Arising in our brain in reply to strokes of misfortune. It is subjective! How can it be any fundamental cosmic force?"

"If a person is forcefully hit on his head, he sees a short flash–the proverbial stars before eyes. It is a subjective illusion, but it doesn't mean that an objective light doesn't exist somewhere. This is the analogy of that despair which we feel in common life. And now compare this flash to a necessity to look with the lidless eyes, with the eyes capable neither of blinking nor of looking away–to look at the Sun, no, at thousand, trillions suns, at all the stars of the universe simultaneously! In comparison with this torment, with the force of despair, on 120 orders of magnitude surpassing the force of gravitation, any of the most horrible physical suffering is only a desired strategy at least somehow to distract, to get relief at least for a moment! And we, we ourselves, drew it nearer! Developing science, improving our mind, aspiring to comprehend the world–that is, to comprehend the despair... Though wise men still in the ancient time smelled a rat and warned others, who increases knowledge increases sorrow. And the statistics accurately showed that the highest level of suicide is in the most advanced countries. But we didn't come to these conclusions even when ‘Hyperion-1’ has returned. The next triumph of human science... automatics completed its mission faultlessly... and then the scientists who worked with the returned probe started one after another to commit suicide, go mad or slip into a coma. And besides this, they have felt only residual emanations of dark energy. But the instruments registered no threat to life for the whole flight time, and even the samples of protozoa, worms and insects onboard were okay. Their organisms were too primitive to feel despair. Therefore, certainly, the fate of scientists was hushed up ‘in order to avoid a sensation in the yellow press that would damage the image of the program’; explaining all as a series of tragic coincidences. But nevertheless, before sending humans to the stars, they have sent one more starprobe with a chimpanzee onboard. And ‘Hyperion-2’ has disappeared without a trace. If it had returned with a dead or mad ape, possibly, our flight would not have taken place. But it has simply disappeared, and it has come to nobody’s mind that the reason could be in the live being who had no access to the control systems. Everything was written off as a failure of the onboard computer. The launch of ‘Hyperion-3’ had been too widely advertized already, and a great deal of money had been invested in the project, so it was too late to give it up. But because of this series of accidents, some changes nonetheless have been made in the flight program. It was planned from the very beginning that people wouldn't land on massive planets of Gliese 581. This role has been alloted to biorobots created and modified according to arising tasks directly onboard, in a biosynthesizer with the protoplasm stock, placed on the second from below level. The miracles of Earth gene engineering... The crew should only process the data collected and delivered to them. But under the pressure of skeptics who pointed out the dangers of the flight for people, it was decided that the most of this data would be processed on Earth. The ship had been already designed and constructed for eleven crewmen, but only two have flown. You still haven't remembered, Linda? There are not twelve corpses here, but much more, this ship is full of them. But actually there is nobody here–except us!"

"You... you’re trying to tell me that all these dead per
sons are biorobots?"

"No, no, everything is much worse! Our technologies don't allow us to create exact copies of a human! Biological mod
els for which our synthesizer is designed are too primitive. But IT doesn't need an intermediary in the form of a synthesizer, for IT is itself the life creating force. And it won't release us."

"It?”

"Despair! Aren’t you listing? Despair! It is capable of organizing life from lifeless matter, but that requires millions of years because it doesn't have its own mind. But with such a gift as an already-existing protoplasm all happens much faster. All these creeping creatures are the life which has evolved here onboard! Consequently they are so ugly and clumsy. They didn't pass through natural selection, apparently. The majority of them are even not capable of eating and breeding. But the main thing is both of us, Linda, we! The microcosm is a similar to the macrocosm! A soul actually exists, and it is not an ethereal angel with wings. It is a steady matrix of dark energy, or, that is to say, a structured despair. For the whole time that we tried to investigate dark energy in depths of space, it was in ourselves! But the accuracy of our instruments was insufficient to detect it. We after all searched only for the gravitational component, which is ten to the one hundred twentieth power weaker than the true essence. The Kalkrin generator was required to transport us to the phase of dark matter and thus to tune our despair to resonate with the great despair of the universe. The theory predicted that switching off the generator would lead to a spontaneous return to the initial condition, but it was true only for an inanimate probe. When there are animate beings onboard, the Kalkrin generator only starts the process which then becomes self-sustaining. In a dark phase it is not necessary for us to eat, to drink, even to breathe. The dark energy feeds us directly."

"I breathe!" the woman interrupted.

"I too, because it is a reflex, but I am not sure that we really need to. It's like a sailing ship which was equiped with an engine. And all systems of the starship is fed with the energy of our despair. Therefore, when it grows, light becomes brighter, and what has gone dead, turns on again.

"But corpses..."

"That's just it! We cannot die! We have tried already numerous times! But every time when we kill a body, on the matrix of our soul a new one is recreated! The law of increase of despair won't allow us to escape! Neither us, nor anyone else. Sooner or later all will fall into despair. At first, the crews of interstellar ships like us, then the whole civilizations, whose sense will reach an adequate level to enter into resonance with universal despair directly. Probably sooner or later even stars and galaxies will evolve to the same level, and in the whole universe nothing will remain except dark matter filled with infinite despair. Actually this process is already closer to the end than to the beginning: There is already four times more dark matter than what we consider normal."

"And bandages?" asked Linda, clutching at a straw. "Well, let us assume we revived without clothes. It is logical, but didn't somebody bind us up? And why did we need it in the first place?”

"They are not bandages," Victor sighed. "It's dead skin. Our subconsciousness tried to save us from the truth, representing it as just dried bandages. Look! Look at them attentively!"

The woman brought her bound up arm to her eyes. Now she saw that the edges of the "bandages" were actually ugly peel
ing scars, and on the cadaverous-gray surface of the "bandages" it was possible to make out pores and some separate not yet fallen out hairs. That means, her head also... her face actually wasn't wrapped. It
became
these terrible rags.

"A soul it not just personality," Adamson continued to explain. "The energy matrix stores the information about the body as well, otherwise resurrection would be impossible. Natur
ally there is no information about clothes there, nor about putrefactive bacteria. That's why bodies don't decay here. Small wounds don't influence this matrix, but those that are really serious and cause especially severe pain are reflected in it. That's why we revive with dead skin or, at least, with scars in place of such wounds. However, even this won't help us die. We tried. Oh my God, how many times we’ve tried.

Linda shuddered and with a groan fell to her knees, clenching her head with her hands. Now she too could not escape the memories which rushed on her like a torrent. She now re
membered how she had torn her own face and squeezed out her eyes–how with all her force had pushed off her feet from the floor, empaling herself through the stomach and breast on pipes, cut out the schematics of the damned ship on her own body, hung, stretched on wires, while the man now speaking with her skinned her slowly...

"Remember how you crucified me?" she dully asked.

"No," he answered. These memories were probably too awful, and his subconscious still tried to hide at least them. "Could it be that I... though, of course, who else... what for?"

"I begged you myself–to torture me as long and painfully as possible. I couldn't do it myself, I have tried already. I hoped that I would go mad. That such pain would destroy my mind, and I wouldn't revive any more."

"And I had agreed, though I understood that there would be nobody to render me the same service. But all the same it was no go. And then we tried to achieve the same goal by destroying our own brains. But it also didn't help. Only the amnesia after revival was deeper. Maybe the point is that the nerve tissue of a brain itself cannot feel pain."

"But why did we destroy all equipment? Simply out of despair?"

"Not only. The devices would quickly reveal the truth to us. We tried to prolong the pleasure of ignorance after the next revival. After all, in order to feel the whole power of despair it is necessary to realize it to the full extent."

"And now? Are we realizing? I myself feel awful and frightened, but I wouldn't again go in for that, about what I've asked you before."

"Still not realizing to the full. Some time is required. It's like an automatic tuning... but later even that pain will seem to you the lesser evil, than the despair! We already have gotten rid of tools because of fear of the pain which we would cause ourselves with their help later, and when ‘later’ came, we damned ourselves for having done so."

"I've told you, we had not to read it!"

"Sooner or later the despair all the same would cover us–even without hints. It happened already many times, since the very first time when we didn't know what was what yet. And beyond that, with each new death and revival this period is reduced."

"Thus, we haven't much time." Linda stood up. "We should do something!"

"We can do nothing." Victor shook his head. "We or anybody in the universe. Despair is not a god, not any sentient essence with which it would be possible to negotiate. The most cruel god can be cajoled with prayers and victims. But we deal with an absolutely stupid natural power–with the fundamental law defining the direction of all processes in the universe. Against it everything is impotent."