Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

remembered her analogy: love and art. And really, it's so similar… Why do you like Yesenin's poems? I don't know, I just do… Why do you love someone? I don't know, I just love… And how united it is by beauty. You like it because it's beautiful. You love because it's beautiful… And it's beautiful somewhere inside and only for yourself. I like it and he doesn't. I love it and others don't.

After these words, Masha breathed easier. As the Sun breathes fire, so we breathe beauty, in love and in art… And Dostoevsky was not quite right when he said that "beauty will save the world". It doesn't. It is already doing it, it is already "saving the world". And even if it didn't stop bloody generals, it nourished people's minds with life. So that they see the beauty, so that they stop their generals, so that there was someone to admire the Heaven.

"It was thunder in the distance, And all is calm again….

All lies in the silence of the night."

Someone sang it a long time ago. And that's how Nature spoke to us, all together, all our good Earth. Showing that she's above us, that she's higher than us. That she loves us… Otherwise she would not be so beautiful, so tender to us. And we drink her water, eat her food, breathe her air, warm ourselves with her fire.

And we can't live without her, just as she can't live without her children. And we love it as we saw it at birth.

That place becomes home.

The earth is big and different. And therein lies the beginning of the soul. It's so beautiful at home. Like art. Like Love. It's beautiful.

Masha thought about that word because of the baby. It would be born very soon. Her and her husband's child. And it will look so much like the one she loves. And he'll be closer, at least one step closer. And there will be someone to live for…

Spider — Prefect Room #113 of Circular 18B.

Dmitri told Prinhru that those who were as interested in the SSchekists as he was would be waiting for him there. He said it was a church.

Everything is dark, and it smells human.

The door slammed shut and the tent froze. In place. To listen to whoever came in after him. In exactly two hours. It seemed to him that was enough time to be here before whoever wanted to set him up. Exactly, he thought, "Who would pass such things through people? Either people, but there's no reason for them to, or someone who has no one else here to rely on. And that's SCK."

Even people he hated less than the Social Security agents. He simply regarded them as useful cattle. But the S.S.C. couldn't even find a word to say. They shoot both their own and strangers. And they gave people "special conditions". Now they want to catch him, accuse him of some nonsense and send him to a camp. A plague camp, guarded by the same S.S.C. guards.

And now there's an opportunity to catch one. Talk to him, play with him, and kill him. That's why he came here— to kill–

Sharp as the edge of the Earth. Steel as a prefect. Dangerous as poison. The knife blade lay across his throat. The handle and hand were out of sight, as was the man standing behind him. Prinhr paled.

— Shi uzy ka sa-da (I suppose we've waited long enough?)," Tikhomirov whispered in the plague language.

— Sok Tuve? (Who are you?) asked the chum. I didn't want to kill anymore, I wanted not to be a fool next time.

— Ku Tobim (Black Stone Service).

— Doh Tim Tuwe (What do you want?).

— Shak tim shinoy vik. Kosba. Shtur… Chvoi tih tush? (I want to kill you. I can't. Need… Do us a favor) — it didn't sound like a question, as if the choice was impossible.

Once done and gone, that's how he thought.

— Szczuch (Yes).

— Vic zhir zhir wak du Kozhaj and zama Torquessim. (You should find out what the Church and especially the Inquisition might be interested in here)

— Torquessim? (Inquisition?)

The blade shifted, stabbing the plague.

— Itu za ba. (You can stay here.)

— Shun. Shak tri-doo (No. I'll do it)

— Ta tubi takon. Leyah shrok (Come back here in exactly one month. Leave a note.) It's been a second. — Boo jusha? (All right?) — Szczuch (Yes).

— Toch (Good) — whispered Tikhomirov and knocked him in the back with all his might. Chum fell to the floor, unconscious. ***

Prefect's office.

Even just looking at him wasn't so easy anymore without some sort of permission. And that's what Tikhomirova thought. What others thought of it — one could only guess. The prefect radiated strength and purposefulness with his one look. One look of his, apparently, was capable of breaking a hole in a concrete wall. And with that gaze he was now looking at his papers. There was something in them that no one could know, but it was something he was about to share.

— Have a seat. — said the Mountain. — We'll be here a long time.

Tikhomirov sat down and made some sort of willful effort not to look at what lay on the table.

— Here, take a look at this. — Gora held out some papers. — A document from Shinhra.

Most were in the plague language, but there were some in Russian. For example, this copy of a report from the call sign "Coyote" to the JCC:

"Secret. Report on the support of the Imperial Army near the city of Kremenchug.

To the head of the East Slavic Column Zakinhr.

I report that our grouping of 28th Hivi Regiment provided fire support to the Imperial Army, as well as a combat breakthrough through the use of three available T-95 tanks equipped with KAZ systems.

In spite of the casualties received, the 28th Regiment was able to take the positions