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"The Boy with the Lizard"

By Vladislav Krapivin

(Illustrated by E. Sterligova)

(Translated and edited by Invir Lazarev - 2024)

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Editor's note

Dear readers, the book "The Boy and the Lizard" is the third and final book of the trilogy "The Dovecote on the Yellow Meadow." The first book in the series is called "The Dovecote in Orekhov”, the second book is “The Summer Carnival in Starogorsk”.

The series takes place on Earth and Earth- 2, two worlds occupying the same space in two different dimensional planes of our Galaxy and on Planet, a world beyond the Galaxy.

Earth

A world from which journalist Gleb Vyatkin came to Earth-2. The author had in mind the real world of the late XX century or its very close analogue.

Earth- 2

In this world, the plot of "The Summer Carnival in Starogorsk" and part of "The Boy and The Lizard" takes place. Futuristic Earth-2 is similar to how the science fiction writers of the 20th century imagined life in the 21st century. In megacities, life is very comfortable, automated and computerized, but small cities, such as Starogorsk described in the novel, have retained many features of the past, and life there is not so different from what it was in the second half of the 20th century.

Interstellar spaceships (known as a “scaders”) have been created. The astronauts (they are called "scadermen") go into deep space, exploring the Galaxy in their spaceships. Although the project had been going on for many years, brothers in mind have not yet been found in space, with the exception of the Scader-7 expedition, which brought to Earth information about the presence of a crystalline life form in the Galaxy, an attempt to contact it, however, was unsuccessful.

Planet

In this world, the plot “The Dovecote in Orekhov” and part “The Boy and the Lizard” takes place. At first glance, it looks like the twin of the Earth, as it was at the end of the 20th century, but only at first glance. Although in this world, as in ours, there are governing bodies and laws, in fact it is ruled by "Those who command" - creatures that take the form of people, but are not people. When they need something, they appear to people and tell them to act one way or another. Resistance is punished, depending on the circumstances, up to the annihilation of those who disagree, but few decide to resist. Neither bullets nor other ordinal weapons can take on "Those who command." Everyone knows about “Those who command”, but most prefer to pretend that they do not exist. There are many strange things and phenomena, which, however, are taken for granted by the inhabitants of this world. For example, "Invasion." Invasion is the name of a natural disaster that periodically happens in the world of the Planet. A huge black cloud charged with electricity, consisting of small, bumblebee-sized fragments, approaches the city. Wooden houses and trees burn; the surface of stone buildings is corroded; people left in the open, are killed by electric discharges. They wait for the Invasion, having closed off the cellars of stone buildings for two to three days. The Invasion is somehow connected with the activities of "Those who command."

The Empty City

The Empty City is a city on one of the banks of a river on the Peninsula. There are huge stone buildings in the city, it looks recently abandoned, although no one remembers either those who built it, or the fact that someone lived there. Only The Windies live in The Empty City.

The Windies

In The Empty City, on a Tower, on the upper platform, a spell is carved on a stone. A boy needs to cross the River, climb the Tower and learn the spell by heart. After that, he needs to jump from a great height and to read this spell during the fall.

Then the boy will become the Windy - he will turn into a small spiral air vortex, which can fly wherever he wants, and become a living person or the Windy at will. If a boy who passed the rite subsequently dies, he does not die for good, but turns into the Windy forever. Many Windies live in The Empty City. The Windies that survived can become people for a short time - from several minutes to several hours. They also know how to "go into foundlings": to turn into living babies who are living on the doorsteps of a family (and not necessarily in the world of the Planet). Such a child lives an ordinary childhood, not knowing about his past, until the age at which he died at one time. When he reaches this age, he remembers everything, and soon turns into the Windy and flies away.

The Train to the Bridge station

A small, old-fashioned-looking train that can be found on railway tracks or at a station somewhere in the outback, in any of the worlds of the trilogy, but most often in the world of the Planet. On the plate with the name of the departure and arrival stations it appears: “Bridge st. - Bridge st. " Many people saw and rode the train. In the Planet world, it is used as a completely ordinary vehicle, but nobody has ever seen the Bridge station - usually passengers get on the train when it goes in the direction they need, and get off when they reach their destination. In fact, the train is not simple - it goes through several parallel spaces (at least three), so if you get on the train and ride for a long time, you can find yourself in another world.

On Earth, the train sometimes passes through the station of the provincial city of Kolych and stops for a few minutes on one of the distant routes.

On Earth-2, there are two places where you can meet this train - a railway switch in the vicinity of Starogorsk, and the Bridge at a junkyard (also in the vicinity of Starogorsk).

The Bridge

A railway bridge, arising at the full moon on Earth-2, on a desert junkyard in the vicinity of Starogorsk (possibly appears in other worlds). The bridge exists for about 5-7 minutes, after which it dissolves in the air. During the appearance of the bridge, “the Train to the Bridge Station" always passes through it.

The Sparky

It is necessary to mix a drop of blood from three, four or five friends, a little sawdust from the wheel, the ship's anchor and the plane. The resulting mixture must be ignited from the festive fire at sunset. The result is the living Sparky - a tiny luminous dot in the darkness like a firefly. The Sparky is eternal (at least, it can exist for a very long time), and contains tremendous energy. Presented to the axis of a wheel, it sets it in motion. The Sparky belongs to those who created it. It can be gifted, but it cannot be taken by force or stolen. Looking at the Sparky under high magnification, you can see that it is a spiral disk resembling a spiral galaxy. According to the conviction of “Those who command”, the Sparky is a model of the real Galaxy, exactly the one in which it was created, and the model associated with the original: acting on it, you can influence the Galaxy.

The Plot of the trilogy

"The Dovecote in Orekhov” (book I)

Yaroslav (Yar) was an experienced space scout, a person who goes out on an unexplored planet first, expecting the unexpected to happen. He was keeping watch during hyperspace flight when their ship and its crew, strictly speaking, did not exist in the traditional sense. Imagine his surprise when he saw a young boy entering the bridge section. A perfectly normal-looking boy who definitely was not on the ship moments ago. Yar followed him through the nearest door and instead of on the spaceship, he ended up in a world that looked almost like ours - or his. It turned out, from the boy's point of view - whose name was Ignatik (Tik) - he and his three friends (two boys and a girl) imagined Yar as an adult guardian. The adventure, which began as a fun game or an unexpected return to childhood, ended tragically: the old Fortress, where Yar and the guys hid from “the Invasion”, was falling apart.

Yar, who before the collapse of the fortress went to the river to get water, was sure that he alone survived. He embarked on a boat on the River, descended on the other side, near the Empty City, and unexpectedly found living Ignatik in the City - at the time of the catastrophe, he fell into an underground passage, passed it and ended up on the other side of the river. Together they went to the sea, where Yar got work, and Tik settled with his aunt who lived here. After some time, they were found by “Those who command”. Tik was intimidated and strongly advised to stop contact with Yar. The boy escaped by train to the Bridge station. Yar went after him.

Yar learned from a conversation with one of “Those” that all their activities were subject to one purpose - the creation of a Thinking Galaxy. According to “Those”, the Thinking Galaxy is the highest peak of development, the highest achievement that civilization can achieve. It was for the purposes of this project that epidemics, “the Invasion”, and other disasters was arranged. "Those" said that after the collapse of the fortress, not only Ignatik survived. Yar did not manage to catch up with Tik - the boy died on the way, and Yar saw only his grave.

The next day, Yar met Alka. It turned out that he survived almost the same way as Tik, and, having got out on the other side, ended up in a boarding school. Yar and Alka returned to Orekhov town, where, in fact, they found Chita and Dasha alive. Taking advantage of Yar’s momentary weakness, “Those who command” send him back to his starship, but Alka managed to repeat the miracle previously done by Tik: he made his way to the space cruiser and returned Yar to the Planet.

Friends were going to live further on the Planet and fight with "Those who command." In addition, Chita, in spite of everything, hoped that Ignatik was alive. He believed that "Those who command" made a spectacle to force Yar to leave the Planet world and they kept Tik locked up.

At the request of Chita, he and Yar made their way to the abandoned post office, and, through the emergency radio station available there, called Ignatik (Tik). Chita believed that Tik, wherever he was, would hear their call. Thanks to his psychic abilities.

Immediately after the broadcast, Chita and Yar were attacked by a member of 'Those'. No weapon could harm him, not even the emitter taken by Yar from his spaceship. But the enemy was destroyed with hitting an ordinary rubber ball,which was once used in a game of five holes.

Yar, although he did everything that Chita requested, did not believe that Tick was alive. But a candle left by the post attendant on the windowsill suddenly lit up by itself. Only Tik could light the candle by will.

“The Summer Carnival in Starogorsk” (book II)

Earth-2. Provincial town Starogorsk. The time between the expeditions of scader-7 and scader-9. Summer holidays.

Two friends – Gel’ka Travushkin and Yurka - got acquainted with violinist Yanka, robot Jeremy and a young journalist Gleb Vyatkin who appeared from nowhere and settled at the station, in an old wagon on the siding.

From Jeremy, who dreams of assembling a baby robot, Vaska, they learned about the existence of a “PM engine” - an engine whose energy source is the source of the living Sparky. Friends decided to make this magic Sparky to help Jeremy create his Vaska.

When the plan succeeded and the Sparky, very similar to the miniature model of a spiral galaxy, is created, it turned out that some strange creatures really wanted to get their hands on the Sparky.

Jeremy, having learned something about his opponents, died under circumstances most reminiscent of a premeditated murder - on the way to the car he was smashed into pieces by a hit from a metal rod that emerged from an unknown electric locomotive passing through the station.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Frightened by the death of the robot, the station master demanded that the guys and Gleb immediately get out of the wagon. The whole company spent the last night before their eviction on the wagon. Having hold the Sparky close the axis of one of the wheelsets, the heroes moved the wagon, left it by the station and traveled for some time to who knows where. The night went on unnaturally long. Yurka talked about a conversation with his mother, from which he concluded that his father is a scaderman. Our heroes went to a railroad fork somewhere in the steppe. At the entrance to a switch point, Gleb managed to make out familiar places: it seemed they managed to find the point where the rail tracks of Earth-two and the Earth connected. Gleb could return to his world, but he decided that he had nothing to do there and went down the path ahead into the unknown. Yurka left with him. He hoped that there, in an unknown world, he would be able to find his father-scaderman.

Gel’ka and Yanka send the Sparky on a paper dove in the wake of departed friends and returned along the railroad tracks back. Turning back before leaving, they discovered that their old wagon had disappeared, as if it had never been.

Inside the old jacket’s pockets, taken from the wagon, they found Gleb’s notes and full drawings of Vaska’s robot, after which they decided to create Vaska.

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PART I

THE AUTUMN IN STAROGORSK I (EARTH-2)

Autumn was very similar to late summer, except that there were more fluffy white seeds of snowflake grass in the air, and the bright yellow leaves of maple trees fell more often. And there was another sign of the oncoming autumn – the school holidays were over.

Gel’ka only found out on September the first that he and Yanka wouldn’t be in the same grade. Gel’ka was in the fifth grade, and Yanka in the sixth.

Yanka said, a little guiltily: “I’m not very tall, but I'm almost twelve.”

“So Yurka and you would be in the same class,” Gel’ka said.

Gel’ka and Yanka couldn’t stop thinking about Yurka, but they did not talk about him often, as if they tacitly agreed not to dredge up the past with questions - “Where is he? What happened to him? Where did the railroad lead him? Did he find his father? Will he come back? ”

Yanka said: “It’s not so bad. He’s not alone.”

"Today, the school principal asked about him," Gel’ka said and knitted his brows.

"It'll mean trouble," Yanka said.

But the following few days were quiet. At least, no one bothered Gel’ka and Yanka with questions about Yurka.

After school, they usually walked home past the children's clinic, along the old brick wall, where the benches overgrown with grass were hidden in the niches. And each time, they silently remembered how they met here in the summer, but did not talk about it out loud. Yanka smiled silently. Gel’ka angrily waved around his heavy school bag with a bronze lizard on its cover. The lizard was a badge, as long as a matchstick. Once Gel’ka scratched his leg with this badge and after that he removed the lizard from his bag cover and hooked it under his collar.

"Why are you hiding it?" Yanka was surprised. "Can’t you wear the lizard on your shirt?"

“Come on. Guys might say that it’s too girly.”

“It's not like that, it's just a badge. What a good lizard, it is as if it’s alive. Where did you get it?"

"Didn’t I tell you? My dad found it in the forest, in the grass, not far from the well.... Yanka, look at these two, thick as thieves! Well, whatever were they heading for?"

Ahead, about thirty steps from them were Vaska and Alyosha Listov. Gel’ka used to call Alyosha “Twinkle”. Alyosha was in a brand new green second-grader uniform. Vaska shone in the sun.

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“Look at these two hooky players!” Gel’ka said.

“Why?” Yanka asked. “Maybe they are like us....”

For some reason, Gel’ka’s geography lesson was canceled. Yanka was sent home from his gym class, because he suddenly felt dizzy when he was on the climbing frame.

“No, I’m sure that it’s time for their math class. Hey, Twinkle, Vaska! All right, hold it right there! Are you ditching school?”

Alyosha turned around, and Vaska froze, but then without moving his body, he had turned his square head 180 degrees around, which made his ribbed neck creak quietly. His rubber lips stretched out into a smile, and a short antenna on the top of his head moved and spun. But immediately Vaska frowned and said: “So wut? She started all this….

“The teacher was really upset and threw Vaska out of class, and therefore me as well,” Twinkle said it matter-of-factly.

“How did that even happen?” Yanka was surprised.

Twinkle gave Vaska a stink eye.

“Well, what can you expect of him? He had it coming. He’s always telling guys in our class correct results!”

“Hey! It's not my fault they couldn't do even simple arithmetic.” Vaska brought his head and body to a normal position. He seemed to be dancing on his thin duralumin legs.

"Not everybody has your electronic brains," Gel’ka said. "You, Vasily, watch yourself! You keep boasting of your abilities and the guys will call you a smarty pants.”

“The guys don’t mind. They are just glad, but our teacher is always picking on me. She can't stand me. Yes! She hit me yesterday....”

“How's that?”

“Just what I said! She hit me with her plastic drafting triangle,” Vaska rubbed behind his lower part of the convex ferroplastic canister from which his torso was made.

“That didn’t hurt you. It's a very tough armor you have.”

“Really?” Vaska flashed with his purple photocell eyes. “You think I'm not upset?”

Twinkle said to Vaska:” Man, she said she was sorry.”

“Ha! And then she began to pick on me again. “Why did you come to school with no clothes?” I was like: "Hello! I’m a robot." And she said: “You are not a robot, but an ordinary bully! Don’t try to come to school without pants! ”

“I will give him my sailor suit,” Twinkle said.

Gel’ka almost had to laugh, when he imagined Vaska with his big-foot, square head and pipe-legs wearing a little sailor suit.

Gel’ka said in a serious tone: “I’d better get you a jumpsuit.”

“In this heat!” Vaska responded protestingly.

“What difference does it make to you?”

“There is a difference for me. I inserted thermoreceptors into myself.”

Vaska patted with his hand in the rubber glove on his shiny belly where the convex brand “Promneftegaz” was.

"Vaska, did you sneak around the junkyard in search of bits and pieces again?" Gel’ka asked strernly.

“I gave him money for spare parts and he bought them at the Young Engineer shop,” Twinkle stood up for Vaska.

“But our little robot still went to the junkyard,” Gel’ka remarked.

“Well, of course. The rusty witches lured him,” Yanka said.

“It’s got nothing to do with the old ladies,” Vaska snapped. “I just wanted to see where my dad Jeremy lived.”

“Your dad Jeremy lived in the Henhouse on wheels,” Gel’ka reminded him.

"But first he lived in the junkyard, till he had confronted the old ladies. But now they are feeling sorry for him…. But you went in there, too. I know!"

Gel’ka and Yanka looked at each other.

“We were there on business,” Gel’ka said and looked at Vaska hard. ”Nothing goes in here, right? And don't talk back to me!”

“What is the big deal?” the small robot shook his antenna boldly.

Yanka supported Gel’ka.

“Come on, Vaska. We are just like a family. We stuck our fingers with a needle because of you. Then my finger hurt for two days, I couldn’t even play the violin.”

"I stuck my finger for this, too," Twinkle said.

“Alright, listen to your bro Twinkle,” Yanka said tactfully. “Otherwise he will have trouble at school.”

“I'm already in trouble” Twinkle sighed.

Vaska began to snuffle angrily with his nose made from a kettle spout, and said:

"Three on one.... Well, that's not fair!"

Vaska lived with Twinkle.

“Let's go,” Twinkle said to Vaska. "I’ll ask my grandmother to tailor my sailor suit for you."

Vaska was short; he barely reached Twinkle’s shoulder.

Gel’ka grinned, holding his gaze as they walked away.

"I never thought I’d be able to make such a speech, just like Aunt Vika!"

“I guess, you and I have built a good robot,”Yanka said.

Gel’ka laughed: "Without your grandfather's help we may not have…."

"Well, I mean, we built him together: my grandfather, you, Alyosha-Twinkle and I."

"I thought your grandfather was merely a luthier, but he just turned out to be a jack-of-all-trades.”

"Yes, but it wasn’t so difficult. After all, we had all the drawings ... And most importantly, all the stuff was in old Jeremy's trunk!"

“That's what was so surprising,” Gel’ka said, sighing. “Our wagon was in the same place - as if it had never gone. Even the rusty wheels were stuck to the rails as before. Too bad our wagon was destroyed on the order of the station master.”

Yanka said thoughtfully: “I probably would've thought that I dreamt all this if it weren’t for the second jacket. One jacket was on me and the other was hanging on the nail in the wagon. As if it had never been taken from there. I was even scared. Do you remember?”

“Yes, but I was very happy. I thought, "Well, it’s good that Jeremy’s drawings are now in duplicate."

Yanka smiled softly. "And Gleb's diary. Gelka, have you read all its pages?"

” Of course, more than once...."

"Me too. I can even remember his poems by heart.... I have his diary with me." Yanka pulled a pack of tattered sheets of paper from his school bag. "Let's sit down ....»

They cut through the thickets of wild dill to a bench in the brick niche wall.

The niche was narrow, and they had to sit squeezed together, so Gel'ka saw Yanka’s brown knee was covered with the pink patches. A red firebug from somewhere fell on Yanka’s knee. A pattern blackened on the back of the bug. The pattern looked like a human face, or rather, a mask. Gel’ka blew the bug off; he remembered the motionless mask of the Clown.

"Gel’ya Travushkin, give me the Sparky...."

"Yanka .... What if the Clown keeps hunting the magic Sparky? What if he takes it away from Vaska?"

“No way. He cannot do it without his permission.”

“Yes, but he would take the Sparky by fraud.”

“Well, Vaska is no fool.”

“Yes, I suppose he’s not.”

Vaska really was not a fool. For two weeks of his life, he read a bunch of books and all the textbooks from the first grade. He learned English and physics through a college radio program. It was no wonder that the principal allowed him to go directly to the second grade. But by his nature, Vaska was ill-mannered and, in addition, too independent for his age. He was quite similar in character to his “father” Jeremy when he was a young robot.

Gelka said to Yanka: “Here's what I thought…. We need to find that drumstick that caused the gypsum rower in the park to fall apart. It is probably still lying there in the bush. Vaska should carry it around with him.”

“Sure. We'll find it together, you and me…. Well, we can go in the park right now if you like, but first I want to read you a fragment of Gleb’s poem. Now, listen….”

Yanka’s lips started moving. He did not read loudly, but the words of the poem (or the song) plucked Gel’ka’s heartstrings; he knew them by heart.

“In the starry fall darkness

I am flying the nest.

The blue star - on my helmet,

The blue blades - on my breast.

The blue bird’s always ready for a furious fight,

And my horse won’t betray me, feeling storms in the night.

The red drum – to my saddle,

Put the bullet in your gun….

But right after the battle,

At the campfire light,

I keep dreaming about

Beginning a new time

Where all pains are forgotten,

Clear and calm in mid-sky,

Over meadows and forests,

In the silence of a friend,

Only songs tell us sadly

Of the war in the land.”

“Yanka, why did Gleb write that the star on the helmet is blue? The stars were always red.”

“Yes, red enamal stars…. But each type of the troops had a star of its own color. The infantry - raspberry, the artillery - black, the cavalry - blue .... Horsemen, in those days, were the fastest. But they did not wear helmets on their heads, but budenovkas. Budenovka is a military hat such as an old helmet, but made of felt. Gleb told us.... I’ll draw it.”

Yanka took a blue marker pen out of his breast pocket, laid the pack of paper on his lap and made a drawing on the back of the pages. He showed his drawing to Gel’ka. Gel’ka saw a pointed peaked cloth helmet with a visor, flaps and a large star shaded blue.

“It's just as I had imagined,” Gelka said.

At home, Gel’ka took the crumpled pages of Gleb’s notes from the shelf and read the song lyric again. It was not a song but rather a poem or a ballad.

“It is as if the song was talking about Yurka,” Gelka thought once again.

Sparrows were quarrelling outside the window in the grass under the birch trees.

Duplex barked lazily at them. The autumn leaves shone golden in the sunlight. The thin rays of light fell on the windowsill and on Gel’ka through the foliage. Gel’ka took a thin felt-tip pen from his breast pocket and wrote in the margins:

Yanka

Gel’ka was still short in breath wen he and Yanka were sitting on the veranda with colored glass half an hour later. Two identical pages from Gleb's diary lay in front of them on the unpainted floorboards. There were the same two drawings on the back of each page - the blue budenovkas with the large stars, and the exact same writing: “Yanka”

"So what?" said Yanka, as if he wanted to calm Gel’ka. “This is understandable. You know, it is the same sheet of paper. But.... as if it has a dual existence.... Their nature is completely the same. Technically, it is a single sheet of paper.”

“Well, that’s unexplainable,” Gel’ka sighed.

“It’s unexplainable but true. There are many such things in the world,” Yanka said. “What is music, anyway? And what about electricity? Scientists still do not know what it is. But people have been using it for a long time. If people were afraid of all the things they didn’t understand, what would happen then?”

“There are some things they are really afraid,” Gelka said sadly. “The ultra-deep well closed down, like.... like everything else. My dad has been living in the city for a month; he is trying to get permission to continue the drilling, but they do not allow it.”

"But why?"

“It’s not allowed, and that's that.”

Gelka said in a bored voice: “Due to the ambiguity of the results and the possibility of unforeseen consequences, the drilling of the ultra-deep well should be suspended for the period necessary to develop a new program ...”

“What kind of program?”

“No one really knows.... But they have poured cement down the well.”

“Gel’ka, what have they discovered in this well?”

“But I don’t know anything.... The drill got jammed against the side as if it had hit an armor. They lowered a microrobot with a camera, and it showed the stars on the screen...."

“As if they dug through the earth and saw the sky?”

"Well, it’s not. They saw the very sky above their heads and the same star constellations. It was at night.... And then everything went out and the robot did not return. They sent another, but there was only darkness on the screen.... "

“Maybe this well is a direct tunnel to other galaxies, or to other spaces ....”

“You mean, like those rails?”

Yanka nodded and they were silent for a long time, thinking about Yurka and Gleb, who had gone beyond the switch point of the mysterious rail track.

Gelka leaned against the wall and put one of the twin-pages with the drawing of the budyonovka in his lap. He looked at the drawing.

“We don’t even need a phone anymore.” Yanka smiled.

“We can write on these papers. This is the fastest and most secret way to communicate.”

“Yeah. You know, my aunt always hears my phone conversations.”

To be continued...