Elaina. In search of a planet.

Aliens, part 15

After a while, everyone was near Striver. Tanya went up to Elaina and asked her:
"Why is Salamana without a spacesuit? How does she breathe? After all, our oxygen mixture suits you."
At this time, the Sadoy beast with Yablonsky were on the sidelines near the Beetle. Janos tried to make contact by talking about technology. Salamana, sitting on the roof, listened attentively to the earthling through her translator and with pleasure showed the apparatus to the technician.
"It was brought to us by cosmic flowers," the alien began to answer. "The beast is surprisingly intelligent and very brave. Learns quickly. Their species lives on Sadoy in a deep gorge, the walls of which go deep into the atmosphere and end in outer space. The sadoians were cut off from the world by a rocky depression, living at the very bottom among swamps, vines and stones. The strong gas contamination of the area adapted them for a long time to do without oxygen. It depended on the season. At some point, oxygen became so small that the leaders resorted to the sacrifices of their fellow tribesmen. Life became unbearable. The gods have turned away. There was a law on the prohibition of rising above the clouds, so as not to anger the gods. Reasonable animals found themselves in a trap, but not in a structural trap of rocks, but hostages of their uninquisitive mind. But once Salamana dared to go beyond the boundaries of what is permitted and frightening. It went high into the mountains. They chased her to kill her, but she went to the end, realizing that her end of the earth did not end. Perhaps migration is inherent in all living beings of the universe. Climbing to the very top, she saw a flock of beautiful cosmic flowers. These were spaceflowers that completed the metamorphosis from giant butterflies soaring in the sky to beautiful flowers with large petals. Spaceflowers were going to migrate through outer space. Salamana hid on one flower to rest and fell asleep, not knowing what long journey it would go on. Woke up when the colony gathered into one organism, hovering in space above the planet. Then it realized that the world is so huge and unexplored. The petals began to close, preparing for a jet flight. It was not possible to return to Sadoy to inform his people about the nature of their land. Cosmic flowers occasionally visited our system, living above the water expanses of Zidon. Since Almatea is a satellite of the water giant, we could observe a passing flock of luminous bioluminescent colors in the night sky. It is not known how Salamana came to us right into hell. Returning one day from a mission, we planted bombs on underground creatures in the caves, I stumbled upon a fluffy white animal. It lay exhausted among the lava flows. Then I took her out. It became devoted to me. Helped in battles. We've been together ever since."
Twilight has come. Infinite myriads of stars appeared in the lilac-pink sky, reminding Elaina of her home, which is so far away that it is hard to imagine in the sky. Everyone went to Striver's for the night.
Amano once again contacted Mission Control. He told about the contact with the alien and her smart beast. Elaina heard this and understood that the Center would want to meet her on Earth. But there is no time to fly to the blue planet. Her world is in danger. It was necessary to return to pick up the remnants of civilization on a rescue shuttle, which had probably already been built. Every day is a battle, every day is someone's life. Then a decision will be made in Almatea where to fly to Earth or Sadoy. The main thing is to keep the correct coordinates of the flight. Tomorrow she will make the right decision.
After the report to Earth, the commander of Striver, watching the updated crew, became thoughtful. Did he do the right thing by telling the Center about extraterrestrial contact? How can a peaceful merging of two civilizations take place in the future? After all, simple representatives of these worlds have already got along with each other. But how will their leaders behave? They have always had problems. Wouldn't our government want to take possession of other technologies, accusing before that fellow minds that those ... Then Maxim realized how perverted the human mind can be. At this critical and historical moment, when technology and culture of different worlds collide, a wise decision must be made.
At this time Janos and Elaina communicated with each other. The earthling was more interested in technological developments, and the almatian was easy to communicate with a male representative, because the man she had last seen was her father. It was in my childhood, at the height of the atomic wars.
But the representative of the Sadoy civilization posed for Johnson. Salamana performed a wild dance to earthly music, and the lady astronaut drew it with a simple pencil and made notes about the hooves of an intelligent alien animal.