The alien, interrupting telepathy a little, continued;

– If you have made a final decision not to stay on our planet any longer, then with your consent, in order to preserve your body in an unchanged state for a long time, we will place you in a special bio-chamber. For your information, I would like to inform you that a bio-chamber is a special equipped chamber where all the functions of a biologically living organism go into a dormant, passive mode of existence. At the same time, during the period of a person's stay in a bio-chamber, his body does not age and does not wear out as during active life, since all this time, a constant, full-fledged cellular exchange takes place in the body at the proper level, pre-coded for each person, taking into account all the functional and other features of his body. The work of all other internal organs is suspended during the dormant mode of the body, but at the same time, so that during the time a person is in the bio-chamber, these organs do not lose their physiological functions in the future, their tissue cells too, without aging and wear, are maintained and fed properly. In addition, the lung and digestive tract, so that they do not lose their functions, are filled with a special, harmless for the body, liquid. This is the only way we can preserve your biological body and your life for many years. Having placed you in such a chamber, we will send you on a research ship with our research scientists, who will make a trip to other galaxies. And if, in those galaxies, there is a planet where the living conditions are similar to Earth, where there is biological life and research will establish that nothing will threaten your life and health there, you will be "revived" for a short time. And after that, while our ship is in the immediate vicinity of that planet or in its orbit, again, with your consent, you will be landed on the surface of this planet for a short time, with a guard.

And also, if your planet is restored by the time the mission of our researchers ends, they will land you there, provide you with everything necessary for your stay for the first time and leave you.

–I agree, but I have one more request. For one reason or another, if even before the time your ship will be in our galaxy and within our Solar system, then I really ask you, flying past, show me my home planet, Earth, I miss it very much.

The alien nodded his head in agreement. After that, after a certain time, three aliens (possibly their scientists in the field of medicine) carefully studied all the functional data and features of his body, placed him in a special bio-chamber. He only remembered how the hermetic door of the bio-chamber was tightly closed in front of his nose and immediately fell asleep.

CHAPTER 4

Returning

So an earthling after three hundred years of sleep, if the preservation of human flesh without change for a long time in a special bio-chamber, and then the restoration of the full work of all organs and all other physiological functions of the body can be called a dream, found himself again in near-Earth orbit. Seeing his native Land in such a state, he was so upset, so grieved and cried incessantly. Bitter tears flowed in sparkling drops and flowed down his pale cheeks, which had not yet been completely restored in colors. At the same time, he recalled the laughter of children, the singing of birds, the sounds of nature, animals, and in general, all his former Earthly life. The thought kept spinning in his head all the time: "God, have we, the people themselves, the owners of high intelligence, destroyed all this heavenly beauty ourselves. Was it really impossible to live just like that, enjoying earthly life, without enmity, amicably. Earth, dear forgive us, forgive us!". And the tears kept flowing and flowing down his still pale cheeks. The humanoids, who were alien to human feelings, did not understand all this and thought: "why is a person crying, because he himself remained alive"

The commander of the ship;

– Life on Earth is just beginning to emerge, it still takes the same amount of time for the planet Earth to recover and be suitable for biological life, while you were in the bio-chamber, we have visited other galaxies where there are planets in which there is biological life. But, having thoroughly investigated and studied them, at least somehow close to the Earth's conditions and, accordingly, for the existence of a person there, the planet was not found. Therefore, you will have to stay in a special bio-chamber for at least another three or four hundred years and wait for the restoration of certain conditions on Earth for the existence of biological life in it. Do you agree?

The man listened in silence at first. He didn't want to fly anywhere anymore. After so many years of separation and loneliness, the feeling of the proximity of his native planet gave him determination and strength, and he, being in Earth orbit, no longer felt lonely. Therefore, he confidently and resolutely answered firmly;

– Let me down to Earth, I can't and don't want to wait any longer, I just want to die on my home planet. If there are no conditions for life on Earth, I will die there. The earth gave birth to me and let it also kill me. I don't need to be persuaded. This is my last request to you and my final decision.

"So be it. This is your decision. We will leave you on Earth, just know that with your death, the human race may end. We can clone and create outwardly similar living beings to you, with artificially grafted minds that can be controlled and stopped at any time, forced to obey and obey us, so that they do not make such mistakes that you, the owners of the Earth, that is, earthlings, have made. And we will definitely populate the Earth with these clones, because we can't leave such a beautiful, blue, beautiful planet, in fact, we can say, perhaps, the only paradise for biologically living beings in the entire Universe that is not inhabited by living biological beings. But these artificially created biological beings, although they will look very similar to a person, will never be able to become them and fully replace a person who has a high, continuously and infinitely developing mind and with its incomprehensible, wonderful and alien feelings. Because no matter how hard our scientists will try, however, we will not be able to clone or recreate a very complicated, most mysterious human organ, that is, the human brain, until we can. So, it's not too late to reverse your decision. And during this time, we will study you comprehensively and in detail, without harm to your body, and our scientists will probably discover the secrets of your brain and mind, and on their basis will make new scientific developments for the restoration of a full-fledged human race. You will again become the masters of your own planet. We will help you.

The man did not answer, because after he decided to stay on Earth, it seems to him that there was no point in answering anymore. And it also seemed to him that the aliens were hiding something mysterious from him, but what they were hiding, he could not even guess or guess. However, he was no longer interested in what they were hiding from him and whatever it all meant, they could not stop him anymore. He firmly decided that if the human race ends with his death, then let it be so, you can't return the past, because humanity itself, endowed with high intelligence, having destroyed itself and the entire Earthly civilization, deserved it.

After that, the commander of the ship gave the command to study the Earth, scan and examine it in order to find at least some corner on Earth where there are at least minimal conditions for biological life and so that it would be possible to land it on the planet without much risk to human health. Scans and surveys have shown that many of the volcanoes that woke up during the thermonuclear war have died out. Some were still smoking and sometimes their fiery-hot breath still threw volcanic magma and ash to the surface of the Earth. Over the oceans and close to the ocean of the earth, there were still, at times, radiation acid rains, radiation at the sites of explosions of nuclear warheads and nuclear power plants was still several thousand times higher than the permissible norm. Due to the melting of glaciers, ocean waters filled all the lowlands of the continental parts of the planet and because of this, and mainly due to the forced and rapid displacement and subsidence of tectonic plates, all continents lost their former shape outlines. In all parts of the planet, many small and large islands have formed from continents. Antarctica, due to the melting of glaciers, was no longer half a glacial continent and also repeatedly decreased in size. The ozone layer around the Earth was preserved, the Sun's rays reached the Earth in many places, this meant the complete end of the nuclear winter on Earth. However, after the catastrophe, the Earth rotated around its axis a little faster than before, and the poles of the planet tilted slightly to the side, but the planet maintained its orbit around the Sun. A natural satellite of the Earth, the Moon was at the same distance and circled the Earth as before. These reports of the crew members and the conclusions made on the basis of these data were simultaneously telepathically transmitted to the human brain. And finally, they reported that they had found a place on the surface of the Earth where active biological life began to arise, where there was air, water and vegetation. The radiation was slightly higher than normal, but not harmful to human health, the average air temperature is about 18 degrees Celsius. But only the atmospheric pressure on earth is slightly below normal, that is, it was about 570 mm of mercury column and this point was indicated on the Earth's map. A person who knew the map of the earth well, although it changed beyond recognition after the thermonuclear catastrophe, easily identified this area. This point was located on the Altai Mountains. A day later, after the restoration of all the functions of the human body, a small, descending landing ship of aliens with a person on board separated from a large intergalactic research ship and delivered it to the specified point on Earth. This area was a large mountain plateau, surrounded on all sides by very high mountain ranges. The aliens wanted to leave him provisions, a spacesuit for emergencies, weapons and other necessary equipment. But he refused all this, he no longer needed anything, because he did not want to live alone anymore and preferred to die on his native, but for biological life, in fact, already unfit, in a dead planet. After so many years of separation, he, with tears in his eyes and with a double feeling, that is, on the one hand, indescribable with words of inner joy for returning home, and on the other, with a sense of guilt before the planet, for the destruction of his relatives of the earth's civilization, set foot on his native planet. The alien ship flew away, the Sun was shining as in the old days, and the sky was clear and clear, blue, blue, even without a single cloud. He looked around. Under my feet I saw small shoots of green grasses and large, by earthly standards, ants, who, like in the old days, did not even pay any attention to the appearance of a person, as always, all worked collectively. In order not to accidentally crush and frighten the ants, he tiptoed away from their ant-like path with a light step. He did not think and even in his thoughts did not allow that he would see shoots of green grasses and ants on the Earth, so he was so happy with what he saw that he even cried out: "hello, my native planet Earth, you are alive and I, your son, have returned home to you." Then he deeply and greedily, with all his lungs, breathed in the pure mountain air, kissed the earth. Then, as if by doing this he wanted to forget everything that had happened to him, he took off all the alien clothes and even shoes that had irritated his body and psyche for all these years, and rolled all these things into a ball, threw them in the direction of the stones sticking out next to him. Then he was barefoot, completely naked, and from the boundless joy that he had returned back to his native planet, he bounced around in circles on the grass, rejoiced, sang and danced. Still, a long stay outside the earth's atmosphere of the body made itself felt and from this a little exhausted and tired, he sat down on the ground, then lay down and lay on the shoots of green grasses. In a word, after a long separation, lying completely naked on the grass, with his whole body and soul, truly feeling all the mother's love, warmth, tenderness, and irreplaceability of his native planet on another and from the joy that he returned back, he closed his eyes for the first time, after many years of extraterrestrial life, mentally and physically so much relaxed, closed his eyes. A little later, lying under the sun's rays on the grass, despite the slightly cool, variable breeze, which, a little unpleasantly penetrated his naked body, as if, like a traveler who was very tired from a distant road, unnoticed by himself, he fell asleep in a real earthly, strong, human sleep. He did not know how long he had been asleep, but he woke up already a cheerful and truly happy person from the fact that after how many years of involuntary stay in a foreign land, he found himself back on his native Land and life was born everywhere, everywhere, and now, having seen all this, he no longer wanted to die. The sun was going down and he, in search of a place to sleep, and tomorrow, in order to calmly decide on the beginning of a new life, began to walk towards the mountain. All around it was visible how life on the planet was being born. Clean air, a small breeze, pleasant, gentle and warm weather, small shrubs, various herbs, but he did not meet any living creatures except ants on the way. Perhaps, in addition to ants, they survived a nuclear catastrophe, and then other species of living beings survived. But, as befits the initial instinctive behavior of the inhabitants of the entire living, wild world, they, perhaps from the moment when he landed on Earth, having smelled his smell, that is, having smelled the smell of their eternal enemy-man, instinctively fearfully hid somewhere near him or immediately left the local places. But even so, let it be so, as long as there are many living beings around. And then, when he finds a shelter in these places for himself to establish a new life, he will definitely see them and try in every possible way to protect them from trouble and even help them. So now he tried not to think about other surviving animals at all. He was so happy that after a forced and long extraterrestrial life, he again returned back to his origins, so now he just wanted to sing, shout, rejoice that life is being born again on his native Land, but suddenly, he stopped, froze, as if it was a dream, could not believe his eyes. Next to a large, high and smooth oval mountain stone, suddenly, eight meters away from him, right in front of him, as if a figure resembling him, a man, appeared out of the ground. He saw before him a tall, by earth standards, half-naked, apparently about twenty, twenty-five years old, a light-skinned, but black-haired girl who was holding a spear with a sharp stone tip ready in her hands, either ready to defend herself or attack him. From fear and surprise, he stopped and froze in place as if rooted to the spot. An incomprehensible, cold shiver of primitive instinctive fear ran through his entire body and he was even speechless for a short time. For some reason, at this time, only one thought was spinning in his head, the thought of the first woman on Earth, and he, unable to move from his place, without taking his eyes off her, even for himself unexpectedly, involuntarily and quietly, but quite audibly, muttering, said;