Morgan, pouring himself a glass again of whiskey and something else in there, nestled himself as before next to her:
— Natalie… I started by saying that everything around here is very strange. And our station in particular. The view out the window, which should be the Atlantic Ocean, is not. Elders who do their best to hide all information and only give out what they deem necessary. And for violations, they send them away and may never return them… And that's just the visible part. What we can't see is shown by these cases — people can kill themselves, as if they were not people at all… We just don't know anything about what is behind what. And even this version that we slept there for many years and then woke up, even that doesn't look real….
— Why doesn't this seem real to you? — She could feel herself starting to calm down, just from the fact that they were talking about something other than killing themselves.
— Dust. It's all about the dust.
— In the dust?
— Yes. Dust. How often do you see dust settling on your furniture, on things? How often do you have to wipe it off?
— Once every daylight hours, I guess… All in all, it works out to be an average of twice a month…..
— Yeah, I have the same thing Now imagine how much dust there must be if we've been
sleeping there for thousands or millions of years? A lot. Roughly speaking, there must be a lot of it…
Do you remember in those days, when you were still a ten-year-old kid, how it was all around? I was a little kid too, but I remember very well. Very well, how everything was shining. How it was shiny, and I was sliding on my butt on different slopes, rolling around, just for fun. And no dust So tell me,
what do you think? Someone was cleaning the station while we were asleep? Is that what happened?
— It doesn't seem " Natalie was beginning to see where he was going with this.
— Yeah, it doesn't look like it Everything was shiny because we hadn't slept for a million or a
thousand years, but less than a daylight hours. We're being lied to about everything. Just about
everything. That's why it all stopped surprising me. Because when they find out why those crazy people were really cutting themselves, and with such calmness, they will lie again Nobody will tell
us any truth. They'll tell us what's convenient for them. What is convenient for them to keep us in line and not to give us a chance to think about anything. So they'll keep telling us what's convenient. And we can't hope that this "convenient" will be true at least once….
— You're right… You're really right, Morgan " Natalie leaned back on the couch, still staring
into his eyes. She was getting tired of all the talk about lies and truth, about crazy people and how the Council of Elders was deceiving us all. After all, whether it was true or not, it wasn't going to make her feel any better. Morgan was definitely more interested in talking to her about intricacies and politics and deceit and murder than he was in his feelings for her, which apparently weren't there. She'd thought he'd been looking at her breasts and ass, but it had come down to him sitting close to her and not even trying to touch or stroke her. He clearly had interests on other levels. Still, she wanted to relax.
Okay, he may not want her as much as she'd like. But he definitely wants her as much as she wants him. Otherwise he wouldn't be talking right now. And if it's more for her than for him, then she's okay with that. Let it be. She needs it more. But if it finally happens and he's good, then she'll be satisfied. And that's more important than whimsical feelings. And if he doesn't want to, let him say so, and then she'll go home at once.
— Morgan, will you answer me one question that is bothering me right now? — Natalie asked.
— Which one?
— Are you gonna finally fuck me tonight?
Heddock
Charlie Haddock was one of those who woke up first on the station. That day, unlike most, he didn't scour all the rooms looking for living people, answers to his questions, or anything of the sort. He found the captain's compartment, highlighted on the map by two bold letters "HQ" and began to look at the contents of what appeared to be the main computer in the room. Of course, he didn't remember anything after the cryosleep, like everyone else, but something told him he should look there instead of all over the station.
And he was right. And then he often wondered whether he had been right and therefore had become the real ruler of the station, or whether he should have become the real ruler of the
station by virtue of his character, because he had found all that was paramount in this new life, which he knew for sure was on the Moon, not on Earth.
It was he who had once come up with the idea of considering the place where they were to be planet Earth, so that it would be succinctly written out in anything they could find on any medium on the station. That was the only way to convince everyone that this place was autochthonous, indigenous to man. Because this was the only way, in his opinion, to prevent possible psychosis from the realization of being abandoned.
Charlie didn't know why they were all alone on this station, and after a dream that had wiped out all their memories. What he knew was only a few things: first, they were on the dark side of the moon, and therefore could never observe the Earth in the starry sky; second, they had been in cryosleep for an hour or so. This point was surprising to him — it appeared that everyone had voluntarily climbed into these capsules to be put into a sleep that would take away all their memories. As time went on, he became more and more convinced of this, because of all the material that had been found over time on the station, and which he thought had been brought for study under pain of being sent to prison to begin with, there was nothing that could shed any light on the reasons for all this.
And so the answer was that everyone had voluntarily made such a decision. It is not clear what they were guided by, but only voluntarily could they remove from all their carriers the truth that was forbidden to be known.
Charlie had thought about it a lot, and he had no other answer. And it turned out that he himself was among those who had voluntarily given up the truth and sat in that capsule for an hour to forget everything… But, on the other hand, that suited him just fine, because he was now the real ruler of the whole world. That's exactly what he thought he was.
I mean, who was he before? Anyone, but certainly not who he was now. He certainly wouldn't let everyone forget the rules he enjoyed forming so much. And improving them over time. He made everyone think they were ruled by an entire council, a council of elders who guarded society with their wisdom. And what it was like for him when he organized it… He gathered the eldest among all, revealed to them the "secrets" of the station and convinced them of the need to preserve them.
He told them that the place they were at was a temporary station on the Moon, a satellite of the Earth, which had been given to him until they were taken away. They must be taken under a set of conditions known only to him. And only he knows how to give a signal, after which the Earthlings will check the necessary conditions, and if they are accepted, will take the people back to Earth.
How he had to go around and around, making up those very conditions almost on the fly, constantly arguing that without him there would be no salvation in any case. After all, the first condition was the preservation of his life and health with full and unconditional obedience to him. It was really hard to argue with this, because he was the one who had revealed the first secret for them — where they were. The secret that was hidden to everyone else, and that the elders could keep within themselves. Especially since it was the elders who were the visible power to everyone else — in this Charlie Haddock was not wrong. He felt that he would only be able to keep his shadow power if the visible power was held by a group of individuals who would become steadfast to leave their rightfulness collectively. Where each elder would rely on something special on his part, inventing his own sacred esoteric knowledge that he could not share with others.