“What’s in the stash that Strelok keeps here?” Tarasov curiously asks.
The Doctor shrugs. “Ammunition, some canned food, a few grenades… nothing particular.”
“Grenades could be useful,” Hartman says.
“Not here and now.”
Tarasov drums his fingers on the table, thinking. Strelok, Strelok… where are you hiding?
Pete uses the momentarily silence to ask a question. “And what have you been doing here the whole time, Doc?”
“I don’t mind showing you around my abode until tea is ready. There’s a room with a few mattresses where you can sleep, and my laboratory is next.”
The Doctor takes a petroleum lamp and leads his guests into the neighboring room. Except Tarasov, all are surprised when they see metal shelves loaded with artifacts, the apparently more dangerous in radiation-proof, scientific containers. There is a surgery bed in the corner, together with an old-fashioned hospital lamp and a white cabinet on which all kinds of medical tools lie neatly arranged. Below the window, where the room is apparently brightest during daytime, there is a large table loaded with vials, retorts, dosimeters, calculators and even a laptop — as if a medieval alchemist’ apparatus had been mixed up with a modern scientist’s high-tech equipment. A brochure in English lies on the wooden chair next to it. The Top picks up and opens it.
“H&H Tools Catalogue, 2012,” he reads out the title. “Twenty Years of Excellence. Says it’s a company from Nevada dealing in medical and surveillance robotics… Not my kind of stuff.”
“They make a device called My First Infirmary. A truly marvelous machine. I’m trying to build something similar but still have a long way to go. Until then, artifacts and healing plants will have to do the job.” The Doctor opens a wall cabinet. “This is my herbarium.”
“Wonderful,” Nooria says with excitement looking over the small pots and jugs filled with aromatic herbs. “Will you tell me more?”
“Plants like marjorie, wolf’s bane and marigold grow to bigger sizes here than in the Big Land, thereby multiplying the amount of curative substances one can extract. For example, a few capitula of wolf’s bane grown in the Zone produce enough thymol derivatives to imbue a whole bandage, which can be applied for speeding up the healing rate of bruises and non-open injuries. Like anti-inflammatory drugs would do, but then one can’t harvest ibuprofen from plants.” The Doctor chuckles.
Sawyer and Nooria look at him in awe as he hands them a bandage.
“Can I keep this?” Nooria asks with eyes sparkling.
“Sure. Then I also try to save some Stalker lore from becoming oblivion lost. For example, I drop a Pellicle artifact into a Springboard anomaly and in about four hours, the Springboard spawns a new artifact. I just call it Skin because it boosts cell growth, meaning that the body will be less vulnerably to chemical burning and acid. Alas, it contains physical uranium which makes it radioactive.”
“Our friend Finn might be a good apprentice,” Tarasov says and pats the Australian on the back. “When we were crossing the river, he threw a Shell into a Whirligig!”
“You threw my rucksack in first. Why dontcha tell him that, huh?”
“And?” The Doctor’s eyes shine up with curiosity. “What happened?”
“He almost got us killed.”
“All research has its risks,” the Doctor replies laughing. “Anyway, what I’m really proud of is this.”
Expecting something strange, perhaps a machine with flashing lights powered by glowing artifacts, Tarasov frowns when the Doctor shows him three rusted buckets filled with earth. Tiny plants grow on the surface.
“I see nothing out of the ordinary,” he says.
“Each bucket has a Jellyfish inside,” the Doctor proudly explains. “I thought, if this gravitational artifact is able to attract and absorb radioactive particles from a human body, why not using it for purifying soil? Measure the radiation!”
Tarasov takes a Geiger counter from the table and holds it to the buckets. The device doesn’t indicate any radiation.
“I vot, Misha! Vegetables grown in this soil will be eatable—oh, sorry—I mean edible. In a few weeks I’ll have fresh carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. As you know, fresh and healthy vegetables is what Stalkers miss most from their diet.”
“You could make powder from Jellyfish and use it to clean more earth,” Nooria says, “and purify a whole garden.”
“Pulverizing an artifact?” the Doctor says bemused. “Wish that were possible!”
“I do it with mortar and pestle.”
“I admire your enthusiasm for artifact lore, young lady, but…”
Seeing both Hartman and Tarasov smile and nod, the Doctor doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Misha, by everything that’s holy, who did you bring into my house? She puts me in shame!”
“Please don’t say so, Doctor,” Nooria says blushing. “I wish I could stay and learn from you.”
“Well, if you don’t insist on leaving at dawn tomorrow, there might be an errand you could assist me with.” The Doctor looks at the quartz watch in the table where the red digits tell that it’s past midnight. “Actually, today. Let’s have a cup of tea and go to sleep.”
“Best idea I heard today, Doc,” says Sawyer and stretches his arms, yawning. “Your place looks like a comfy Russian home. Got a sauna too? Please say you do!”
“We call it banya,” the Doctor says. “But what you’ll need to live with is called water from buckets. Don’t look so gloomy, it will be hot enough.”
Hartman smirks at his disappointed companion.
“No worry, Finn. Just toss a swag into it and you’ll have the biggest jacuzzi on earth!”
41
Each area in the Exclusion Zone has its own character. Some even have a certain dark beauty to them. Zaton, however, is probably the most desolate and appears even more so in the mist and drizzle falling from the dark dawn sky.
Once there was a river meandering through the area, which by now has turned into marshland amidst arid hills. Dilapidated port facilities, ship wrecks and industrial ruins are a reminder of the times when Zaton was thriving. One of the ruins is that of a waste processing station and next to it, a bridge spans over the former riverbed about sixty-seventy meters below. Back in Soviet times it had been called Preobrazhensky Bridge, named after a Bolshevik economist of the Twenties.
It was littered with wrecked vehicles among a cluster of anomalies, with sections of it in complete disrepair, until a powerful emission cleared off the anomalies and army high command decided to set up a permanent outpost in the abandoned ranger station not far away. The bridge was repaired, allowing for the odd supply truck to pass through.
On this dark morning, a convoy of two army vehicles is passing over the bridge. A BTR-80 personal carrier is driving in front of a mighty URAL truck. Strelok is sitting in the truck, facing Captain Maksimenko and resting his feet on his rucksack. Of the dozen men travelling with them, five are Spetsnaz, all wearing heavy combat suits that make them appear like toughness incarnate. Their sergeant’s folded-up visor on his tactical helmet reveals a lean, hardened face. The others are regular army soldiers in much lighter armor but looking equally grim.
“You heard the news, Captain?” Strelok asks.
“What news?”
“Looks like the New Zone is spreading. There was some kind of emission that hit the southern border of Uzbekistan. Novosty said mutants are all over Termez.”
Maksimenko shrugs. “That’s far enough for me to give it a damn.”