The pink ball appeared suddenly, out of nowhere. Or Alexei simply missed the moment of his appearance - setting up a line from a single rubber boat with the suspicious name "Dive" requires undivided attention, there is no time to be distracted.
The first thought is the moon. No, nonsense, what a moon, if an hour ago a young narrow month went behind the spruce, to the horizon. The sun - and even more so not the time, although it does not have a clock, but now it is hardly after midnight. In addition, the sun does not rise in the north. Some kind of fishery inspection? But there has never been a fishing supervision on this lake. There have been no fishermen on it for five years already, it is the first.
Meanwhile, the balloon approached the boat - completely silent, like a soap bubble blown by the wind. Now you can estimate its size. A meter and a half across. A feeling of extraordinary lightness due to the fact that the ball is not immersed in water even on a finger, all outside. The lake was faintly shining through it, the tops of the trees against the background of the bright June sky.
About five meters from the "Dive" the ball stopped, froze. Maybe it's ball lightning? Alexei had heard and read a lot about her, but had never seen before. But if it's lightning, you can expect anything from it. A dangerous thing.
He froze, trying to breathe something imperceptibly. Let it fly away, then … I remembered notes from magazines describing encounters with ball lightning, more and more fatal.
The ball shone brighter, you could see how something dark moved towards it under the water, moved - and slid inside the ball. A fish! Crucian carp, and not small, one and a half kilograms. The crucian jerked once or twice and calmed down, as if asleep.
Alexey looked closely. Three or four more shadows could be seen through the pink haze next to the crucian carp. Fish too?
The ball flew off - or floated away? - to the side, towards the middle of the lake. It would have been necessary to row to the shore as soon as possible, but Alexei was sorted out by curiosity. Looks like he's not the only one fishing in Dark Lake today.
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In the region, the lake is known for the fact that there are almost no fish in it. Therefore, for years, local fishermen bypassed it, since it is easier to do this - there is a lake deep in the forest, there is not even a good path to it, the motorcycle will not pass. And on foot - so six or seven hours. You can’t easily go, especially since there are many quite decent rivers and lakes in the district where fish is caught in abundance, especially in recent years, when the Caustic plant was closed.
In the spring, Alexei came to the lake. Not for fish: he was a herbalist, and a healing, but very rare, relict herb grew in the vicinity of the lake. Alexei did not see the fish, but he heard her play in the fog (there was a fog over the lake then): “It’s like hammering in the water with a shovel - bang! bang!"
The motorcycle really would not have made its way to the lake, but Alexey had a very decent mountain bike, branded, not cheap, and therefore he took a chance. It still took a long time to get there, about three hours, but it was worth it: apparently, there were a lot of fish in the lake.
And now it turned out that not only fish.
For about an hour the balloon circled around the lake. Somewhere it stopped for five or ten minutes, somewhere it flew by swiftly, faster than the wind. Although there was actually no wind, it was completely calm. But when the pink ball approached the boat again, Alexei regretted his curiosity. I would have watched from the shore, or better - I would have gone into the tent and slept a little. Who knows what this ball is. What if he - like a giant amoeba, eats crucian carp? What if - not just carp?
The ball stopped at exactly the same place as before. He stopped and released the crucian carp back into the water. In appearance, the crucian was completely intact. For some time he remained motionless, and Alexei already thought that the fish would emerge with its belly up, but no - the fins moved, the tail hit, and the fish, quite vigorous, went into the depths.
And the ball circled a little more over the lake, probably, releasing the fish to their former places, and then soared into the air - again silently and naturally, like a soap bubble. He rose quickly, and after a few minutes he completely disappeared from sight, lost among the brightest stars - and the dim June night is not visible.
Alexey never fell asleep. I swam to the shore, waited for the morning, checked the lines, but an unusual incident also caused an unusual reaction - I did not want to sleep at all, everything around was perceived brightly, acutely, every detail of what happened was stuck in my memory.
The fish turned out to be enough - six crucians. The smallest pulled at least a kilogram, and all together - and all ten.
He got home closer to noon - he was not driving directly, but turned to another lake, Karasinoe. Why, and he did not immediately understand. And then I realized when, when asked by a neighbor where he was fishing, he answered: “I went to Karasinoe”. He didn't want to share the lake. They recognize - they will tumble down a shaft, no off-road will interfere. And there will be no fishing place. The main thing is not even so much fish, how much treasured, secret.
I gave the fish to my mother, let it fry.
Butchering carp, Alexei's mother was surprised:
- Some strange crucians. This is the first time I've seen this.
This was the skeleton. Instead of the usual abundance of small bones for crucian carp, cartilage prevailed. As if it's not a crucian carp, but a sturgeon.
- Maybe they crossed, a new breed was brought out? - suggested Alexey.
The spirit was excellent when frying the fish, but the taste … It was impossible to eat it. Like chewing wood. Alexei, overpowering himself, swallowed a piece - and immediately deeply regretted it. For a long time already he had expelled the ill-fated crucian carp, and the vomiting kept coming back and forth, however, the general condition did not suffer. More likely from the nerves - he remembers the taste of fish, the mouth will fill with saliva, and the meager, bitter bile rushes out.
In an hour everything was back to normal. He drank a mug of salted water - nothing, he resisted.
He placed the remaining fish in a strong brine. The next day I went to Voronezh, to the university, where a school friend recently defended his Ph. D. thesis at the Department of Biology. He, comrade, he told the whole story, foreseeing that they would not believe: the fishing story has long become synonymous with unbelievability. But the comrade took the matter seriously. First of all, he dissected the fish and, having found a cartilaginous framework, decided to continue research. At the Department of Biochemistry, he performed tissue analysis (not himself, but with the help of another fellow candidate) and even found a practicing geneticist to do chromosome analysis.
- Obviously, we are dealing with a genetically modified breed, but who and why breeds it, I am not at all clear. First, we found an extra pair of chromosomes. It would be nice, of course, to make a full-fledged genetic map, but this is beyond our university's ability. Secondly, proteins were found that are completely uncharacteristic not only for crucian carp, but also for fish in general, they are usually present in some insects. And finally, the third - some proteins are dextrorotatory isomers, which is generally nonsense: all biological structures consist of levogyrate isomers. So if your fish is a hoax, then it is a well-made and very expensive hoax. And if the matter is serious, then you need to contact more equipped biochemical centers than our university. Better, of course, foreign.
Alexey has not yet decided to contact him. Among other things, he had no fish samples left. And go fishing again on the Dark Lake does not pull. At the very thought of this, the urge to vomit begins.
Probably, the fish is indeed modified, and the pink ball seen by Alexei was either an apparatus or a living being carrying out genetic modification. But it is quite clear that this modification is not carried out for the sake of homo sapiens. Perhaps these crucians will be smuggled out to some exotic places. But this is not so bad. But if eaters come here themselves … After all, they may not be limited to one crucian carp and one lake.