* * *

The wagon with the big number '3' on the side was indeed a two-story carriage. The first level was devoted to a garage and a workshop. Bertha had gone somewhere on the way, muttering about some documents, so Olga was accompanied by an armored 'monk'.

The centerpiece of the garage was a monstrous machine, a monstrous, tank-like structure that came straight out of World War I. On the sides of the self-propelled coffin hung logs and some sacks, chained together, and a concrete mask seemed to have been put on its forehead. Probably for more protection. Above the disproportionately small and two-story turret protruded three antennas, coiled and tied into a bundle, so as not to touch the ceiling.

The steel box, painted a shabby army-swamp color, inspired reverence and, at the same time, light horror. It was the marks left on the armor plates by some unknown force. It was as if the car had not been shot at, but scratched and torn through the tough metal with even tougher claws. In some places, the steel was a bit 'leaking', as if the APC had been sprayed with very corrosive acid or heated until it lost its hardness. The tank looked like a tired veteran who had seen some crap in his long life. She didn't even want to look at the vehicle, let alone imagine herself inside.

The workshop looked more like an altar. All the tools were crudely engraved with ubiquitous skulls and gears. The workbench was barely visible under a layer of frayed, oil-and-dust-gray paper and seals of the post-office kind. It seemed as if people prayed here rather than worked and repaired. In a farther corner, some sinister tubes on valves protruded from the wall and were locked with barnacles. Under the downward-curved nozzles were cylinders piled in special boxes of welded fittings. And above it was a riveted brass plate with the inscription 'ACID/FIRE', below it was handwritten 'do not twist, you faithless wankers!' at least that was how Olga translated the crooked letters.

"Yours, instead of Smoker," the monk pointed to the cylinders. Or rather, one of the big carts next to it. The two-wheeled dinghies were about shoulder height and seemed solid, at least made of cast iron. Judging by the construction, each was designed to hold two tanks. The cylinders could be removed from the brackets or connected to something with corrugated hoses.

"That's it. There." The monk pointed to the spiral staircase and went sideways, rounding the tank.

"Aaah..." Olga squeaked, holding out her hand after him. The monk did not react at all. The girl was left alone.

She could have followed her escort. She could have stayed where she was and waited for something. Olga shrugged her shoulders and chose the third way - she decided to follow the instruction. After all, if she was in any danger, the bald fat man in the chain mail would not leave her alone. She thought, vindictively, that perhaps the big fart didn't want to climb the steep and narrow steps.

Between the first and second floor was another, what looked like a technical level, very low, with electrical circuits, pipes, and boxes. Here the red and yellow lights were flashing, and something was squeaking and clicking. Olga sat down on the warm metal and took a breath. A slight vibration indicated that the train was rolling forward, and apparently at a decent speed. Soft music could be heard from above, and soft and indecipherable speech could be heard. It was bright, and the warm air flowed in waves, pleasantly brushing a frozen face.

Olga rubbed her fingers again, gathering her thoughts, thinking about what to do next, how to introduce herself, how to "enter the hut". She could not think of anything in particular for lack of appropriate experience and knowledge, so she decided to act according to the circumstances and cautiously.

Thanks to the size of the train, the second (or rather, the third) floor seemed more like a ship's floor than a railway floor. Everything was spacious, iron, solid, with rivets and screws, which, perhaps, could not be unscrewed without a gas wrench. A large room played the role of a wardroom for all, and a narrow corridor stretched onward, with four-class compartments on either side.

Several people were sitting at the big table, almost all wearing the same clothes, like very roughly knit wool overalls. Above the table hung a radio or intercom balloon, which exuded soft music in the style of the forties. Olga was immediately reminded of her favorite Mel Gibson from 'What Women Think. The song with the hat and the wine. Something similar was playing.

The men drank the ubiquitous cognac with a flavor of cheap coffee under the idiotic name of 'amasek,' and played 'regicide. That is strange chess with no fixed rules and no limit on the number of participants. In a corner of the room a dark-skinned big man was kneeling, and on his broad shoulders hung like a cloak, a scarlet vest embroidered with small hand-lettered letters. The big guy was silently and methodically pounding his forehead against the metal wall, not hard, but palpably.

"Hello," Olga said softly, her fingers doing the usual eagle, and added just in case. " The Emperor will protect!"

"No," corrected one of the players, a long-haired, unjuvenated man with a face extremely expressive and yet wrinkled, like Iggy Pop, aged in a binge of alcohol and drug abuse. "Wrong. The Emperor will not protect."

"What?" the girl interrupted, not believing her ears. Maybe it's time to run screaming 'heresy!!!'

"The Emperor protects. Always," the hairy one explained admonishingly. "He is sovereign in the past and the future."

"The Emperor protects," Olga quickly corrected herself.

"That's right," he waved vaguely toward the corridor behind him. "That way. Make yourself comfortable in the empty spot. Dinner in three rings."

After thinking for a while, Olga decided that this must mean an invitation to take an empty place. The welcome was, to say the truth, not particularly warm, but on the other hand, it was better than some stupid traditional ritual of "residence permit". It was getting hot in the jacket, and drops of sweat appeared on the forehead.

A siren roared overboard, short and angry, like the signal of a warship on a maneuver. No one paid attention to the sound. Olga walked around the table with the players, stepped further, past the galley (or something that looked like a self-service galley) with a plastic sign screwed to the titanium and a sign that said Эstop, you'll crack!" Passed the bathroom with another inscription right on the door "bad shooter worse than a heretic!" Next were the parlor compartments, good-looking and almost as native, from RRR. There were no doors, but instead, there were heavy curtains made of the ubiquitous tarpaulin, which, judging by the ink stamps, were military.

Olga looked into a couple of compartments. In one she saw a short, gaunt man, looking like a white-haired elf with the face of an eternal crybaby wearing a long scarf. In another, a creepy freak with the badly shaved face of a psychopath or a war criminal was sleeping by the light of a battery of candles. Olga shook her head and went straight to the end of the carriage, reasoning that the farther away, the fewer neighbors there would probably be. And so it turned out, the last two sections were uninhabited, it seems, a long time ago, the surface had time to get pretty dusty. Olga chose the left one, where the only thing left of the previous occupant's belongings was a regicide board without pieces, perched on the edge of a plywood table. And also a small aquila, not very skillfully, but carefully hand-carved from a piece of soft plastic of light green color.

Olga was already wearing the symbol of the double-headed eagle around her neck, issued by the pris... ahem, a church ship. The metal stamping cut her skin with its sharp edges, and, twisting in her fingers the work of an unknown carver, the girl decided that this would probably be better. Just find a lace to hang it and ask if such a substitution violated any rule.

Olga threw her travel bag on the bottom rack, her hat, jacket, and scarf on the top rack, sat down, and leaned against the smooth wall with its rows of rivets. The metal gave off a slight chill, but it wasn't freezing. A very narrow window, a couple of palms wide at most, was locked by a powerful flap on three screw-locked latches.

Not even a ship, but a submarine of some kind... Or a battleship.

Olga sat mindlessly staring at the board, enjoying a moment of peace. Everything was working out just fine. No one was bothering her, there was a place to rest, and dinner was promised. A little afraid of the faces of fellow travelers - they all seemed very strange, "non-standard" as if the same troupe took character actors from different sides of the world. But people did not seem dangerous or harmful. The future and unknown work were very frightening, but it was not so close yet.

In general, life did turn on its front to Olga, and it seems that this front was not a scrotum. But, of course, when a man is sure that everything is going well, some kind of trouble is bound to happen. For the Hostile Powers do not sleep.

For Olga the trouble materialized at first in shuffling footsteps, to which the girl paid no attention, overpowering her drowsiness as she waited for supper. The shuffling was approaching, revealing a man who was not too heavy, with a brisk stride, but who had a badly wobbly foot. And then the curtain creaked to the side on rings threaded through the bar, and a disgusted face strode into Olga's compartment.

In fact, this face would have seemed handsome if it had a nose. But there was no nose, so the result could have been photographed for an article on the classic symptoms of syphilis. In the eye sockets, with the lower eyelids turned inflamed whites and black pupils. The air hissed through his mangled sinuses, giving the impression of a large, wild animal breathing. The intruder was bald, and not from nature or a razor. Judging by the sores, his hair had gone out from some disease. Below the neck was a tattered brown cloak of bad leatherette; normal skin could not be so ugly as that.

Olga looked at the intruder with amazement. He rotated his eyes as if he could not focus his gaze on the girl.

"What do you want?" Olga asked bravely.

"Give your share," the leather cloak muttered, in a way that made the girl feel a little sorry for him for a moment. The lack of a nose was causing the poor man a lot of problems, including slurred speech.

"Take it out, lay it out, pay it off," the noseless man blurted out, grinning and making faces. "Hands in pockets, don't keep the goods, show it to the good inmates! It's a burden for a useless guest, but for a decent prisoner it's a joy and a pleasure!"

It was then that Olga realized that, apparently, she had been visited by some local superfly, not too respectable, but aggressive. It was so typical behavior as if it hadn't happened in thousands of years. The girl hesitated, painfully choosing words of a foreign language, and the guest interpreted the pause in his own way. He muttered something and with unexpected dexterity threw forward his skinny arm, for which the sleeve of his cloak was too short. A very painful flick on the very tip of Olga's nose followed.

Fuck off! - The girl cried out, pushing the hated hand, and jumped up, looking around in terror. Was it really a prison again? And all those men in the corners are "men" for real?

"You've got to be kidding me!" The convict wailed, turning himself on, hysterically opening his mouth with droplets of saliva in the corners of his cracked lips. It seemed as if in a moment the noseless man would grind his yellow-gray teeth like an overgrown wolf.

"You don't know what you're doing, you're a first-timer! You have no respect for the decent guys.! I'm not a fool, I'm a Savlar, I've sewn up a Grox's ears to arbiters, stomped out the red moon, passed the green one, ran away from the red one! I'll...

In fact, he said all this in a slightly different way, in other words, but the general tone and scraps of words that Olga could understand were forming a familiar and understandable pattern from her childhood. He was a flamboyant, a bit of a dabbling kid, who had memorized the right words and had learned how to arrange them in a virtuoso way appropriate to the moment. But something in the fiery and twitchy tirade of the 'Savlar' seemed wrong to Olga, a little unnatural.

Eyes... A man in or near hysteria has a rather peculiar look that cannot be confused with anything else. And the pupils of the noseless prisoner seemed almost normal, not corresponding to the aggressive hysteria that was about to burst into a violent outburst. However, the thought flashed at the back of the mind and disappeared, the mind did not appreciate it and did not even remember it properly. Because Olga was possessed by a single desire.

So that it would finally be over. Any way it wants, but it's over.

And then lie down, at last, close the eyes, forget about everything. And the hell with dinner 'in three rings,' whatever that meant.

She looked into the Savlar's face, concentrating on the wet gap between his upper lip and the bridge of his nose, on the translucent drop that trembled in time with her breath, ready to tear down.

"We'll fix that," said the girl, keeping her eyes on the drop.

"A-a-a... what?" Asked the inmate stupidly.

"We'll fix it in a moment! - Olga put her right palm forward as if to slow down the Savlar's already deflated pressure. She no longer cared what she had to say, any word seemed very funny and appropriate. And the noseless man seemed to be setting himself up for one well-thought-out scenario, but as soon as things went wrong, the outlaw was confused, not knowing what to do next.

From the outside, it looked... unusual, in a way that would have left the casual onlookers dumbfounded. The short and retarded girl, who looked like a confused chicken thanks to the yellowish fluff on her haircut (though of course, only natives of agrarian planets could appreciate this resemblance) suddenly with a wild, animal scream slammed the regicide board in the face of an intruder. She was so violent that colored plastic stickers indicating playing squares were sprayed with blood.

The girl had never been heavy, and now she had, well, maybe fifty kilograms. Nor was she particularly strong. She had the not right constitution, and Olga had not acquired the habit of exercise. On the other hand, her opponent, too, was quite subtle, just taller, and the board was quite solid. The result was pleasing to the eye, at least to Olga's eyes. The convict squealed in pain and surprise, recoiled, shielding his arms, but it was too late. Olga was already clawing at him, not like a chicken, but like a skinny cat. Her sharp teeth, still unspoiled by the excess of sweets and Coke and the rations of the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy, clacked at the Savlar's eyes. The girl mechanically tried to bite his nose, making no correction for his absence.

"Aaaaah!!! Take the psycho away!" The savlarian shrieked, trying to hold back the distraught Olga, who was intent on nibbling at his face.

"It's too much," one of the new colleagues reasoned aloud. "It's time to pull them apart."

"She's going to maim him!" Another voice, much more concerned, answered.

For Olga, the world was reduced to the size of a tiny tunnel about the diameter of a drainpipe, at the end of which the hated face of the Savlar was red and yellowing. Only at that moment girl saw there a very different face with very distinctive and familiar features. The 'brother-in-law' was also a felon and liked to "ask for the stuff" and everything. Olga firmly remembered his gaze, the disgusting watery eyes that always had a nasty grin in them. A disgusting sense of superiority, an obvious "you won't tell anyone"! The same look as the fidgety jerk with the ulcerous bald spot.

"Hey, break them up!"

The savlerian managed to squeeze his eyes shut, or the distraught foe would have torn them out. The short-cut fingernails scratched his eyelids, leaving deep abrasions. The convict's wild howl melded with the freshman's uterine growl. Then a violent blow under her ribs lifted her into the air and tossed her aside. Something angular, cold, and hard struck beneath her shoulder blade, finally knocking out her spirit. Olga shook her legs, feeling only pain and a heavy thought:

Again... Again I am beaten... when will it all end...

"You can't be left unattended for even a few minutes," said a familiar voice somewhere far and high up.

In a few convulsive sighs, Olga managed to get her breath back and even look around. It took her a few seconds to recognize Big Bertha in the broad figure that hovered under the fluorescent lamp. The bodybuilder looked ominous, her ugly and large face not promising anything good. Savlar crouched at his mentor's feet, crying loudly and tearfully. Bitter tears mingled with pink streaks.

"Again?" the Mentor only asked, looking down at the convict. He curled up, even more, wailing more pitifully, but his sincere grief didn't seem to resonate in Bertha's soul.

"He... started..." Olga exhaled in two breaths. She had no desire whatsoever to cover for the legless bastard. And she stops caring about such bullshit like "real [insert as appropriate] don't snitch" a long time ago.

"The Savlar wanted to test the new girl," the man, who looked like an Indian in a wide-brimmed hat, suddenly entered the conversation. His shoulder-length hair was divided into many strands by silver beads, and his skin was an earthy brick color. As if the "Indian" was not enough of a hat, he had a ribbed helmet around his neck, like a tank helmet, with wires from a laryngophone.

"But he gets too much."

"I've told you so many times, you degenerate prisoner," said Bertha, pulling back her right foot in a heavy shoe that looked like a cross between a soccer boot and a mountaineer's shoe. 'Don't drag your old habits into a place of worship."

Apparently, the short tirade did not imply response, being purely rhetorical, one might say admonitory. For the next half a minute or so, Olga tried somehow to collect herself and get up, while her mentor kicked Savlar's with both feet. Without the classic top-down jumps right onto the body, but competently, quickly, and brutally. Just enough to cause maximum pain without injury. It looked impressive, Olga even admired it. Until the Mentor turned her attention to her.

Bertha lifted the frail newbie with one hand, like a kitten by the scruff of the neck, before shoving her face into a puddle of her own. She gave a second slap, quite relaxed and clearly at quarter strength, but Olga felt her teeth falter.

"All novices in the Order of the Purifficators undergo the test of faith," Bertha said in a dull voice, shaking Olga. "They all stand in constant readiness to sacrifice their lives for the Emperor and Humanity. What is the meaning of this?"

The iron fingers loosened, and Olga sank to the floor. She rested her palms on the floor, feeling the stiff nap of the rug and unable to get up. Bertha, meanwhile, looked around the gathered members of the squad with a very heavy and unpleasant look that none of the novices dared to meet directly.

"It follows that it is unacceptable to introduce into the daily life of the Squad strange, malignant, and ungodly habits that deprive its members of the beacon of faith."

Bertha did not give the impression of someone with a flair for oratory, so the woman was probably quoting some statute.

"Simply said, you can only die in service. And you are supposed to fight against His enemies. He who starts swinging fists isn't just breaking regulations. He is challenging the very essence of our service. And therefore, he sows the seed of heresy."

Bertha paused for a long moment, giving everyone time to absorb. Judging by the silence, everyone had been touched.

"So is the one who indulges in an unworthy act."

Another kick drove Savlar under the bottom rack.

"All week long you've been cleaning the tambours, shoveling snow and ice, filling all the cylinders," Bertha sentenced the convict. "And if it happens again, I'll make you drink a glass of water from the cooling circuit."

The noseless man muttered something unintelligible, but, judging by his tone, extremely agreeable. Despite the rumble in her ears and wobbly teeth, Olga thought that prison concepts in the distant future were somewhat unstable. Or the Order knows how to drive even the "bluest" person into life by the "red" law.

"Tomorrow night we train on the roof," the bodybuilder sentenced the others in utter silence. "Because St. Clarence would cry when he saw his children."

No one dared to challenge the punishment.

"And you..." Berta's fat finger pointed at the girl.

"I am," Olga grimaced in pain but thought it best to somehow signal her involvement in the process of communication. Judging by the faces of her colleagues and the silence - "heresy" was not to be messed with even a quarter of a fingernail.

Fucking cellmates... you fucking jailbirds, goddamn it.

"In the case of an act of hazing, you should go immediately to a superior," Bertha quoted again. "That he resolves the conflict and determines the appropriate punishment for each. Anyone who engages in self-inflicted abuse defies the rules, hence the Ecclesiarchy itself, body and spirit of the Ecclesiarchy."

Olga became quite sad, mainly because she did not know how to behave next. Whether to fall at her feet, begging for forgiveness, or silently imitate universal repentance. Bertha glared angrily at the newbie subject, and then, at last, she took pity.

"But you're still at the beginning of your path, so the punishment for the first time will be moderately severe," Bertha finally showed mercy. "You'll clean out the hangar."

The mop was too long and heavy, the bucket was small, the water was scalding cold, the ribs hurt, and the fingers ached. The hangar with the tank seemed enormous. But the girl thought she got off easy. Just a couple of slaps in the teeth. Just a sleepless night with a floor rag. Slushy mud mixed with oil and some other chemical crap.

Just...

I wish you were dead, Olga asked the universe once again. She especially wanted Kryp to die, preferably of cancer and AIDS at the same time.

"Are you a new one?"

It sounded with an emphasis on "you".

"Well, I am," Olga said unfriendly, looking at another new face. She looked and straightened up.

All the people she met on the infernal train were of a respectable age. Only Savlar seemed younger than the others, but his ugliness immediately added another dozen years to his age. And now a young man stood before Olga, young and fabulously, unbelievably handsome.

In the world of a distant and by no means happy future, the girl met many people, but among them, there were surprisingly few who could be called handsome. No, they were not ugly (at least, most of them were not), it was just that these faces did not fit into the usual canon for Olga. A slightly different ratio of features, long or short noses, frog-like eyes... All of this created a lingering sense of something strange, wrong, and as a consequence, ugly. And this guy was... perfect. As if he'd come off the pages of the Catholic priests' annual calendar.

Perfect and very young, tall, thin, but not scrawny, with brown hair trimmed just below the ears. It might have seemed overly feminine, especially with such a pretty face, but somehow it didn't. Even the tattoo of the Latin letter 'I' on his forehead did not spoil the young man. However, under the circumstances, Olga's attention was attracted not only by the semi-divine beauty of the young man but also by the bowl in his hands.

"Take it."

Like an angel who appeared to the tormented sufferer in answer to her pleas, the handsome brown-haired man handed the girl a bowl of something that looked like porridge. A spoon, wooden for some reason, but with an inventory number and a ubiquitous aquila, was stuck in the thick, cereal-like slurry.

"Shank you," Olga thanked, working her jaws furiously, because first the spoon jumped into her mouth and filled it with hot and spicy food, and then the sufferer realized how hungry she was and how grateful she was to her unexpected benefactor.

In spite of its disgusting appearance, the mess was very tasty. Most of all, the food resembled a thick soup with a very greasy broth and mashed potatoes. It was probably the tastiest thing Olga had ever tasted. Although she could not say that she had such a wide choice.

"Thank you," she repeated, just in case, after the first third. Even though she had learned the basic 'Gothic' quite well (Thank God. The basics of ancient Earth languages were more or less intuitive, it made the process easier), she still had problems with pronunciation, and she wanted the guy to appreciate the gratitude.

"You are welcome," he said and smiled.

He smiled very well, kindly somehow. With surprising sincerity, as if a bowl of munchies for a stranger had endowed the benefactor with complete happiness. It was the sincerest smile Olga had ever seen since she had been here, and the girl automatically snarled, following an old rule and a tried-and-true principle. If one holds out an open hand, one holds a stone in the other. And the handsome man was now more likely to inspire suspicion. Too pretty, too sweet. The syphilitic Savlar, the mangy BiBe, and the other faces in the cockpit were all in their proper places, appropriate to their surroundings and the infernal locomotive. Even the elf with the scarf and the eyes of the unfortunate rabbit. This cover boy was not.

She turned as if to protect the bowl, working the spoon even faster, squinting at the guy.

"You're Olla, I've heard about you," he said as if he hadn't noticed the change in the girl's attitude.

Olga only sighed, trying not to choke on her soup. She had already realized that no one here was going to pronounce her name correctly. And that was another point in the list of grievances against Kryp, alas, seemingly useless, in principle unrevenged. And it was at his suggestion that Olga was recorded in the interrogation documents as "Ollha" and was not going to change it.

Still, she didn't want to be a pig to the end. After all, the sweet, handsome man had brought her something to eat, and that was worth something. So far he'd treated her better than anyone else aboard the rumbling mad train.

"Yes, that's me. What's your name?" she asked between two spoons.

"Demetrius," the young man said, embarrassed for some reason. His cheeks were marked by cute dimples, and his face was flushed, the kind of blush you can't put on with regular makeup, the kind you'd have to be born with.

The name said nothing to Olga, so she shrugged and, scraping the tin bottom with a wooden spoon, answered simply:

"Well, nice to meet you..."

Well, not only you can distort the names.

"...Demetrij"

* * *