In a distant future humanity achieved such a level of technological advancement it was able to breach the borders of three-dimensional reality and move to the multiverses of multidimensions. But some of us were too afraid to move on. So, they stayed...
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The army of the Trade Federation was anchored on the Miney Ridge on the same peaks that once served as the last line of defense for the Khanate of the Dial. Privates gossiped about it in tents and were unhappy that we were following in the footsteps of the losers. After all, the idea of Master Eleanor to explain the need for my long-ago escape from the camp by the fear of superstition, had solid ground.
No one was following me, and I could move from camp to camp unhindered. Only sometimes, when I met Sha Zumm at one of the posts, I noticed his piercing gaze, as if telling me: "I'm not taking my eyes off you, Master Bike."
Death in the army, even when there is no clash, is a common thing. Only now I knew it in every detail, because I was present at every one of them. One was poisoned by fish; another fell off a cliff, looking at the butterfly wings; the third tried to escape and fell into the clutches of the duckhorses, which were found here in abundance.
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I also discovered a limitation related to my absorption of the dead. On average, to feed on death, I had to be about four hundred meters away from the event. But sometimes I could devour someone from a kilometer away or even two. But this rarely happened.
The remains of the Out laboratory, or "the headquarters of the horned", as ordinary soldiers called them, were declared safe after about two days, and I was able to go down again to the hall where my purification ceremony was taking place.
I stood at the place where my mother fell and tried to remember if I had seen her, while devouring the energy of the dead. But my memory didn't draw anything like that, and I had a hope that she was saved. Of course, indignation also lived in me. I was very angry at her for doing this to me. But the one the engineer pulled out of me really existed. Moreover, if the worm was an extension of me, then this hidden-settler was somewhere between the edges. Maybe I'm cured, at least partially?
"No, my friend, there is nothing to cure" a familiar voice said in my head.
"Rob!" I almost shouted in surprise. And two soldiers looked back at me from the other side of the hall.
"Be quiet. Don't give us up just like that, right away," my invisible interlocutor laughed, "especially since you absolutely don't have to speak out loud so that I can hear you."
