– So, what do you think about this?

Whitehouse cautiously took the stone, turned it over in his hands, scratched it with his fingernail and even smelled it:

-It’s confusing…

-Okay, let's go to Aguilar, drink a sip of maize and have a bite, I have had nothing more than Malaga in my mouth since morning. There we will talk.  We won’t be able to make it out without booze – said Mackliff, rising.

They went past the corral, where in piles of half-baked eggplants pigs were languid with the heat; past wicker baskets with fading in the sun tobacco leaves, which two children were hanging out to dry; passed the canopy under which three very old men knocked the dominoes, bypassed the adobe building that resembled a miniature fort with loopholes facing the jungle, where sat a thin bored young man in a mangy sombrero, with an aged Brazilian IMBEL rifle in his hands.

Astronauts walked round a pile of empty boxes from sardines, instant coffee, cigarettes, and stew, and plunged into the narrow entrance of one of the huts, screened by a mosquito net.

The host was not home.

Without much ado Mackliff opened the doors of a coarse buffet and pulled out a bowl of guava, a bottle with a worn label "Amoretti" and sat down on the floor:

– I think old Aguilar will not mind if I leave him a fat rabbit instead of this sour stuff.

Dybal and Whitehouse also sat on the mud floor, legs folded, and Ponce settled near a small window and started snapping the rifle trigger, out of which Mackliff has prudently taken the magazine.

Having made a sip from a bottle of corn vodka, Dybal perched on a hammock, causing it to sag almost to the floor and said dreamily:

-It’s nice here. Maybe I should stay… Marry some fawn with brown eyes and a passionate spirit. I would shoot parrots in the forest and write memoirs.

-Look at him. Do not relax. You will come with us.

-Where to, John?

-We’ll find a way. – Mackliff, wincing had half a cup of vodka with sweet guava and took the stone from Whitehouse:

Let us return to our muttons. I would say it's a piece of basalt, exposed to extremely high temperatures, combined with some chemical catalyst. Look, it is porous like a sponge, as if it boiled.

– Maybe it is a result of volcano activity. – The navigator asked uncertainly.

– Well, if we consider that the nearest Rouse volcano is a hundred miles to the south. No. It is too far. And the magma does not have such texture. Hey, Al, do you have more of these stones?

-As much as you like. The canyon is full of them.

– I think that this is the work of a man. I'm sure of it. It is some kind of experiment. This must be a proving ground for testing new weapons. It’s either that or the SAU’s or Islamists, or all of them together. The place is suitable. Whitehouse moved the jaw muscles and shook his fist at blank space:

– So, it is the base. Now I understand why they kill hunters at the canyon. Once I had to deal with an Islamist base in the Turkish Eskshihone. We must do away with them. I'm going. What about you? John, Al?

Mackliff frowned:

– If the war is on, then it is logical. And what if there’s no war? Imagine what hell the BIG’s will raise: a terrorist group of Americans, a German and a Russian attacked their military object. What if they're producing a fertilizer instead of guns? So do not get excited. We should wait for Aydem and the Colonel to talk things over. I think we should gather more information about the Canyon, try to communicate with Central Office get the instructions and find out the situation in the world.