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Star butterfly. Bernard Verber “Star butterfly Bernard Verber star butterfly fb2

There is no common sense in the book; it seems to have been placed on the altar of dubious symbolism. That’s why all the time I was reading I wanted the heroes to die as soon as possible, because such reckless people would still not last long in such an adventure (also very reckless) as “interstellar flight on a butterfly colony ship with sails, the control of which (practically alone!!!) is carried out by a round-the-world yachtswoman.” Wonderful, wonderful. The inventor of the ship and the ideologist of all this disgrace is running under bullets after a kitten, when the fate of thousands of people and the entire ark depends on him. Because a kitten is a symbol and you can’t do without it on a ship. There is an opinion that a kitten is a motive unworthy of a great designer and ideologist to run under bullets.

Then this “genius” recklessly, without appropriate training, jumps into open space, if the ship malfunctions outside. It is obvious that the “great designer” did not think through troubleshooting by a specially trained crew, so this problem is eliminated by the pilot and the designer himself. Well, practical. Pilot and chief. the designer does everything for the survival of the ship, the rest stupidly live in the ark. Chic!

In general, it's as ridiculous as possible.

Rating: 3

I liked the summary and enthusiastically decided to read the seemingly popular Werber. I waited the whole book for something interesting, just another page and something interesting will begin, a little more and it will become interesting, well, a little more... nothing happened, nothing interesting turned out to be, and the far-fetched, pseudo-biblical ending is just killed.

Rating: 4

How I liked Werber’s “Ants”. And what a shame it is to read “The Starry Butterfly.”

The phrase “complete bullshit” absolutely fully reflects the content of the book. Rave. Absurd. Nonsense.

While trying to tie his book into the biblical plot, Werber forces the hero to perform an operation on himself in order to speed up the development of the embryo with the help of stem cells. But there is no bone marrow in the rib!!!

Rating: 3

The book was very disappointing. Even if we discard the scientific and technical component (werber was somehow not expected to delve into science), the whole idea of the work and the plot are somehow naive - from the construction of the ship to the landing on the planet. I kept expecting that the absurdity of what was happening would result in something original, like in “Gods,” for example. Nothing. I still don’t understand what prompted Verber to write this novel.

Rating: 3

It would probably be wrong to expect full-fledged Science Fiction from the author of “The Thanatonautes”; real Books, as a rule, differ in that they tell more about the adventures of the spirit. However, I would like to see at least a cursory acquaintance of the author with a school physics textbook, and at least some approximate idea of astronomy and the theory of space flights, at least from BBC films. Just great amount technical absurdities, starting with the rocket body made of “first-grade steel” and ending with plotting a course using a pointing finger. It really distracts from the plot, which, however, also does not bring any revelations.

Disappointed. After “Thanatonauts” I expected something deeper.

Rating: 5

And [the Lord] God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had perverted its way on the earth. And [the Lord] God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh is come before Me, for the earth is filled with evildoings from them; and behold, I will destroy them from the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; Make compartments in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and outside. (Genesis, chapter 6)

Well, something like this. Although, I don’t think it was all that straightforward. Rather, God put some kind of anxiety in Noah: now a gopher tree will catch his eye, now a waterfall, now a sailing boat, now a mouse in the middle of a stream, saving itself on a branch. Two added up to two - here you have four: drawings, hard work and the ark is ready. You can sail away from sinful people, madness and pride.

So our new Noah Yves Kramer could not find a place for himself from anxiety, as well as a place among the crazy world. One to one, incomprehensible anxiety, confidence - everything is over, nothing can be fixed, and there is only one way of salvation - immediate escape. Plant in big ship righteous and innocent creatures and surrender to the mercy of God/Universe/Chance - which of them rules this world? And so the “Starry Butterfly” took flight (I hope you remember what the “Butterfly Effect” reminds of?)

If you take this novel as an ordinary science fiction book about the Star Ark, then nothing will work. You will be perplexed: what kind of nonsense, what kind of “far-fetched” manipulations, what kind of gaps, what kind of fables about technology and space? But this is not science fiction, as such. This is a satire, a pamphlet, where the absurd is designed to peel off the numerous layers behind which we so love to hide from the unpleasant truth, revealing the true essence of the problem.

So here, technical inconsistencies and outright blunders, which critics love to look for in biblical legends, ultimately bring everything to complete absurdity. The flight of the “Starry Butterfly” from a beautiful pilgrimage of the righteous to the Promised Land turns into a brief repetition of the history of Mankind with all its delights in the form of ignorance, oppression, wars, fanaticism, intolerance and other, other, other things. The story is sad and instructive, but again forgotten and forgotten.

Old vices fell as grains onto new soil, so that everything would repeat itself again: New garden Eden, semi-literate Adam and genetically defective Eve. Well, further - “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the beasts, and over the birds of the air, and over every livestock, and over all the earth.” What if it works this time? Maybe God/Universe/Chance are incorrigible optimists, and they have a lot of time. They can try again and again and again. Until it comes.

And what comes across is said, as in any pamphlet, quite straightforwardly and mercilessly: the root of all our troubles is in ourselves. And until we take care of our inner self, our numerous attempts to correct the outer will be doomed to failure.

I can't recommend this book at all... fantastic work. Rather, like a pamphlet exposing human vices. A satire on our society today, including all those who imagine themselves to be righteous, worthy of salvation and capable of saving Humanity. A game of mocking mind and merciless poisonous tongue. It’s a pity that no one warned me about this in advance, and I spent so much time trying to find the right mood for reading myself, which turned out to be somewhat spoiled.

By the way, Noah, in essence, did not succeed. How long has it been there? Several thousand years? And everything returned to its previous tracks and even worse. Where are Sodom and Gomorrah compared to an ordinary ordinary city, no matter where it stands in our time! Um... just in case, what's the recipe? “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make compartments in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and outside. And make it this way: the length of the ark is three hundred cubits; its breadth is fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.” …Something like this. So where can I get this gopher?

Rating: 7

Ugh, the plot just sucked. :insane: Some kind of development only at the end, which is predictable to the point of disgrace. Nothing intriguing, the characters are faceless. This is the only book that I read for so long (about two months), constantly putting it aside and switching to other works.

Rating: 3

First of all, I'm very... I am glad to see such unanimity of opinion among commentators. I consider myself lucky to have found a site with a thoughtful public, cat’s opinions. I'm really interested.

Secondly, this is the only book in life, cat. After reading it, I immediately threw it in the trash, just so I wouldn’t have to look at it again.

I think my opinion is clear.

Rating: no

The book is unusual in its concept, and like everything from the author, it is so fantastic that you don’t believe it. The plot revolves around a spaceship designer who, with the funding of an eccentric and terminally ill billionaire, develops the Star Butterfly ark, on which people will have to leave Earth and fly to another planet. What is surprising about this spaceship is the principle of its operation... It is a 32-kilometer-long giant that moves on huge sails (with an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers), pushing the ship like a yacht, but not by the wind, as in the sea, and with the help of light, of which there is a lot in space... Since the ship, according to the calculations of the author of the project, will fly for 1000 years, then accordingly a lot of people are needed for their offspring to reach the new planet. And this pile becomes 144,000 people locked in this mega-ark... Inside the ship has its own gravity, there is soil, lakes, houses, mountains, trees and animals, i.e. a whole world inside a spaceship.

The novel has a style typical of science fiction storytelling, where the author describes in detail and tries to prove to us (the readers) that such a ship is possible. Despite this, even my meager knowledge of physics, to put it mildly, allows me to doubt the fabulousness of this project. Therefore, you can criticize this ship for a long time and successfully.

Also, Werber would not be himself if in his novel he had not walked through the ungrateful mother earth of humanity, which destroys itself in wars, pollutes environment etc. Here we see the distant, dark future of humanity, i.e. The novel also shows dystopian tendencies: countries are at war, new form bird flu, terrorism, religion, remedies mass media... That's why scientists are developing this project, which they call "The Last Dream." And these 144 thousand people are fugitives in search of another planet. Verber pays a lot of attention to the concept of “ideal man of the future”, describes what he should be like, how he should live in the new world.

Overall, the novel is difficult to classify as a favorite. The plot is certainly interesting, but as always the execution let us down. Verbera skids. So the ending in the style of the Bible is of course too much, although I liked the idea of man's constant flight from planet to planet. The main drawback for me in the novel was the unevenness of the presentation. So in a 350-page book: 150 pages - preparation for the flight, about 100 pages - the flight of the first generation and 70 pages - landing on a new planet and living on it. No more than 20-30 pages are devoted to the remaining 1000 years of flight. The description is very cursory and sketchy. Personally, I would like to see a more detailed description of the flight of the star ark, their way of life, life, etc.

Rating: 7

The beginning was quite interesting. Despite the lack of novelty of the theme (a ship flying through the centuries has been played out more than once), I was expecting something unusual. Although the selection for the ship was already alarming. He was painfully ridiculous and irrational. I immediately thought that nothing good could happen with such a lineup. And so it happened. And with the crew, and with the book.

Nothing good.

Rating: 4

A very interesting work, written in a bright, lively language, although not all parts are of equal value. For example, the stage of preparation for the flight takes up more than a third of the volume of the novel, and the flight and the history of the descendants of the starship crew are not described in much detail. Of course, in terms of science, there are many complaints about the work, but since the author, apparently, is a 100% humanitarian, we will forgive him interstellar navigation with the help of a pointing finger, and the absence of an autopilot on a starship, and a kilometer-high rocket , which simply could not take off, and much more. In the end, he was not writing hard science fiction but a parable about human destinies.

From what I didn’t like because it looks highest degree ridiculous - the story of Adrian and the Elites, as if written by a feminist man-hater from 9B.

All these arguments in the style of “You all men are lustful animals, and we women know how to restrain our passion much better than you.” Or Elite’s schizophrenic statement that she does not want physical intimacy and may not want it at all. And this despite the fact that they were alone on the entire planet and the fate of the entire future of humanity depended on them. I also laughed at the way she explained to her husband that she was very experienced in lovemaking and had excellent control of her body during it, and after almost a couple of lines, she proudly declared that she was a virgin. And she's only 17 years old. Where did she learn everything then?

As for the rest, it worked out interesting novel. The biblical ending only added to its charm. Personally, I liked this work more than “The Generation That Achieved the Goal” by K. Simak and “The Universe” by G. Harrison, although it is, of course, inferior to the novel “Non Stopping” by B. Aldiss. And most of all, in my opinion, “Starry Butterfly” is similar to “Stepsons of the Universe” by R. Heinlein. So if you want to read something in a similar genre, you should pay attention to the above works.

Rating: 4

The only advantage of this work, like the author’s other books, is a scattering of wisdom. Not all of them are aphorisms, but some are quite interesting and functional. “Caterpillar, change, turn into a butterfly. Butterfly, spread your wings and fly towards the light.”

Rated the book

The bookriver networks brought Verber, whom I had only heard about out of the blue before. Well, I think I’ll join in, it’s time. Moreover, I adore books about little men in confined spaces. Of course, if you put several little people in a locked room, then Mochilovo is not far off. Here they promised something epic: 144 thousand people and a giant spaceship, which flies to the new Earth.
In the end, of course, I laughed. This is such merciless nonsense that it cannot be perceived otherwise, only with humor.
It is written simply. Well, very simple, for middle and high school students school age. It seems that the book is full of violence, but it is somehow rounded, smoothed out, sketched out with light touches, so as not to frighten the audience once again.
To the translator, of course, big and ardent greetings, for example, for “At last their bodies intertwined in a passionate act of love. In a moment of ecstasy, the beautiful red-haired sailor, bending over, roared loudly with pleasure, and this powerful sound was reflected several times from the walls of the Cylinder.”
But the biggest greetings, of course, to the author:
for unexpected plot twists Damn, I was struck by one moment, and in short: the ship takes off, the police are chasing it with an autogen gun, and then the engines froze. The scientist poked the buttons and said that he couldn’t do anything. And then, oops! A kitten bursts in, presses something with its paw... it works!
“Look, the kitten turned on something!” - Caroline screamed.
- Oh, damn! - the inventor admitted. - I just forgot about it! Last week a young designer suggested I add this button. It starts an automatic operation to clean the pumps that supply fuel to the engines, and is designed just in case of frost.”
Don't know what to do? Invite the cat!
for the foresight of the main character when seducing a lady
“Be gentle with me,” Malorie cooed with a smile. Yves tapped the control system keyboard. Slow music started, the volume gradually increasing. The man found candles in a drawer, placed them around the room, lit the wicks, and then turned off the overhead light.”
By the way, the action takes place in the control room of a spaceship, so if you find yourself in similar circumstances, don’t forget the candles!
for deep knowledge of the animal world
“The fact that Domino is a cat became clear after she gave birth to many black, white and red kittens. However, she did not live with the father of her cubs. She was too busy working to achieve her own goal: making breathtaking leaps.”
for morality
littering is bad! killing is bad! having spontaneous and thoughtless sex, even if there are only two of you on the whole Earth, is bad! humanity, this is bad, bad, bad, on the newspaper, not on the floor, and don’t do that again!
Overall, I was left with the impression that I was being pushed into some kind of simple pop-Buddhist philosophy. A kind of naive, semi-biblical porridge-light for boys and girls – adults and not so, impressionable, slightly romantic, and perhaps even anxious.
I read in the reviews: “..it was because of this author that I became more inquisitive and my inner world“Yes, this book was written exactly for you. Not for me.

Rated the book

Frankly, Bernard Verber managed to puzzle me.
In the process of reading, I stored the most terrible nonsense and nonsense in a separate file and now I simply cannot decide which ones to choose as an illustration.

In general, I’ll start by saying that I really love books/films in which the action takes place in a confined space. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a murder in a classic setting or a group of experimental homo sapiens who begin to gnaw at each other like spiders in jars. Watch people in extreme situations extremely interesting and informative. Therefore, even though I knew who Werber was, I still became interested in the blurb, which promised a spaceship with 144 thousand passengers flying to a bright future. Actually, all the positive things about the book ended with the annotations. Although no, I’m lying - I laughed for a long time at certain quotes (see below).

A short list of my complaints:
1) complete lack of knowledge of physics (and I, by the way, am a humanist);
2) speculation on topics of terrorism, pedophilia and other violence;
3) disgusting scenes: in order to attract a disabled person to cooperate, you must first torture him to your heart's content, drive him into hysterics and force him to crawl around the house (!); no, well, it’s, of course, for her own good that you are!, but... you should have walked through the forest with such good;
4) absolute unreliability and Hollywoodism: the heroine is running out of oxygen in her tank, and she is actively arguing, or when dying, she pronounces a heartfelt monologue on the topic “don’t forget to pass on our knowledge and your books to the children (hereinafter the list)”;
5) complete inconsistencies: sometimes they have promiscuity there, sometimes you take me for... an easily accessible person; but it’s hard not to accept if she is the only woman on the whole planet and she herself chose the man; By the way, she will teach later things like caresses, foreplay and leisurely pleasures(along the way, the Kama Sutra was docked somewhere on the ship);
6) the evolution of humanity over a thousand years of flight, here I will go into more detail.

Mister author, where is the moral of your story if people at the beginning of this journey look no more disgusting than at the end?.. Our beauties began their acquaintance with the new planet by devouring a dinosaur, possibly an intelligent one.
- What if these extraterrestrial creatures really turn out to be intelligent?
- Well, then we will try to find the stupidest ones and begin to eat them, and only them.
...
- What if they want to pay us for it? After all, if I understood correctly, we may have “tried” an envoy representing the population of their planet.
- We will apologize.
Yo Mama....

I'm not even talking about the fact that all this is impossible to read, because at least the rudiments of style are completely absent:
The car was driving at a decent speed, as the scientist was once again late for an interview.(well, just a ready-made template for an explanatory note)
the biologist-psychologist thanked the girl with turquoise eyes for her agreement to join the meeting(turquoise is important!)
Following this, he entered a period of frantic search for female caresses.(ugh!!)
logic:
The poorest countries, often led by dictators, protested the most. These states demanded that the project be placed under UN control and that the crew members must include representatives from each country.(no, what bastards these dictators of yours are! This should be proposed: under the control of the UN and equally for everyone!)
From here, from afar, the astronauts saw more and more clearly that all state leaders acted together and sought to limit the freedom of peoples.(and then Kim Jong Il spoke on the phone with Barack Obama and together they decided..)
but it’s full of hackneyed cliches:
Spring reigned all around, and nature was eagerly awaiting a signal to awaken.
ok, I admit, I’m being picky, here’s a worthy example of Verber’s creativity:
The iron could not scratch the salt crystal. The salt withstood the pressure of the iron.
creepy pictures:
Gabriel McNamarra tried a small bird roasted on a spit. It seemed like she was fluttering around in orange puree until the last moment.(if I imagined this... damn, I would definitely go hungry for half a day)
and outright stupidity:
The engineer knew that light consists of a stream of photons.(no, well, can you imagine!!! By the way, I know this too; but I’m not an engineer, if anything)

Bernard Werber

star butterfly

Dedicated to Claude Lelouch, thanks to whom I made my first film - “Our Friends”

Dream shadow

1. The power of water

In the beginning there was breathing.

The mighty breath of the salty wind.

He drove sailing ships across endless oceans.

And the fastest among all the sailing ships, without a doubt, was the one that belonged to Elizabeth Malory.

A young woman with turquoise eyes gained fame as a champion by winning two times in a row in a solo round-the-world sailing race - a competition in which until now only men had the right to participate.

Standing alone in the bow of her catamaran, the Flying Fish, she gripped the wooden rudder as she steered the long, pointed aluminum structure.

Her light boat shuddered with its entire hull, now cutting through the foamy crests of the waves, now soaring above them, like a real flying fish.

Faster! Stronger!

Covered in a continuous veil of iodine-saturated spray, she sang awkwardly despite the storm, risking losing her voice. This was the secret of her victory: to sing in tune with the wind in order to merge with the raging elements.

It seemed to her that she herself had turned into the sea - bubbling salt water, rising in sharp waves, framed by laces of foam.

Elizabeth Malory was wonderful.

All the men were fascinated by her - they even said that during the break between the two regattas, a regiment of her admirers had arrived quite a lot. And now she, as if fed up with insignificant pleasures, needed to find herself completely alone in the middle of a watery desert, where clouds and fish were her inseparable companions.

2. Lightness of air

In the beginning there was a dream.

A dream of new horizons.

She excited the sublime imagination of Yves Kramer.

He headed the “Innovations and Advanced Developments” department at the prestigious Space Agency and was responsible for drawing up new projects related to space flights. So far, he has not been able to bring any of them to fruition, although he had whole mountains of folders with diagrams of new rockets piled up in his office, orbital stations and even cities that were supposed to be founded on nearby planets. Yves Kramer did not stand out in any way among the numerous day laborers who toiled in the bowels of aviation laboratories. He was of average height, with thin hair on his head, and his gaze was always directed somewhere into the distance through thick glasses.

Engineer Kramer never left his white coat, whose pockets were stuffed with non-writing pens and unreliable calculators.

His job consisted mainly of sending out letters of veiled refusal, which invariably began like this: “Thank you for the submitted project, but it does not fit into any of our current programs, and the funds at our disposal do not allow us to pursue it further.” promotion." And they ended with these words: “We ask you to accept the assurances of our deepest respect. Keep us updated on your new developments."

Yves Kramer took his work to heart. He studied most of the projects, even the most fantastic ones, from start to finish. And therefore he became a desirable interlocutor for journalists: he shared with them the most bizarre projects that fell into his hands.

Casually, he knocked over a stack of rejection letters and began collecting them one by one. Then the phone rang, and, rushing to pick up the receiver before the answering machine started, he swiped away another stack of letters - they also had to be collected and then sorted.

They called him a klutz, but he called himself a dreamer.

They called him a lump, and he called himself absent-minded.

They called him a bungler, but he called himself a dreamer.

Yves Kramer understood that money to implement at least one of the projects submitted to him for consideration was hard to come by during the day. Meanwhile, he did not lose hope that someday something would work out for him. He was not at all happy to remain, as his first wife once put it, “a philistine, stuffing newspapermen with all sorts of tall tales.”

At night, with his eye glued to the rubber eyepiece of a personal telescope on the balcony of his house, wrapped in a blanket, he imagined how one fine day some of his projects would be brought to their logical conclusion.

And then he will hit the road.

And he will leave this Earth, where he increasingly feels like a stranger.

3. First wave

The meeting of breath with a dream, or rather, Elizabeth Malory with Yves Kramer, did not happen under the most fortunate circumstances.

The engineer was driving in the car and listening to rhythmic music, pressing on the gas, because he was once again late for a meeting with some journalist.

Meanwhile, the conqueror of the seas was crossing the street, heading for the office of her new benefactor, who promised to put her sailboat in order for participation in the next solo round-the-world regatta.

It was raining, and the windshield wipers in the car were barely working. He had been meaning to go to a car repair shop for a long time and have them repaired, but he never had the time.

In addition to his sluggishness, he had another drawback - sluggishness. The ability to put off until tomorrow what can be done today. And then just have time to catch up.

As he turned, he stepped on the gas.

Elizabeth, under an umbrella and with an earphone from mobile phone in her ear, she was talking with one of her admirers, who made her laugh, trying to seduce her. Which, however, he did well.

That’s why she didn’t hear the roar of the car that appeared as if out of the ground in the middle of the night. Noticing the silhouette of a young woman, Yves sharply slammed on the brakes. The wheels locked and lost traction on the slippery asphalt - the car went into hydroplaning. And beforehand she hit the conqueror of the seas on the knees. Something crunched, as if dry wood had cracked. Elizabeth felt herself being thrown slowly, as if in slow motion, into the air, high, high. She soared up, felt the rain, saw the ground from a considerable height, fell down like a stone and never got up again. She lay there on the ground, writhing in pain. And then she became completely quiet.

4. Salty fumes

They thought she was dead.

And she was alive.

It took Elizabeth a long time to recover. She lay buried in hospital sheets, like an animal in its den before hibernation.

And when she came to her senses, she realized that something had died inside her. Pain shot through my spine below. She could no longer stand or walk. From now on, she was destined to move only in a wheelchair.

Elizaet lost all desire to sing. It seemed that fate had betrayed her. She agreed to intensive rehabilitation and psychological support sessions.

Slow down! Weaker!

The physiotherapist assured that soon she would be able to walk again, on crutches - however, during her life she had listened to plenty of all sorts of idle talk and scoundrels and realized that he said this only to console her.

A sports career is down the drain. Fury is limitless. There is only one thought in my head that fits into one word: “revenge.”

That unfortunate driver who crossed out her life will still pay. He will pay dearly.

5. Impenetrable darkness

Camera flashes. Microphones extended forward.

At the court hearing, which was reported by all the media, Yves Kramer spoke little. He admitted his mistakes before the court. And he mumbled an apology, addressing his main accuser.

He was condemned to the fullest. He had to pay maintenance to the young disabled champion for the rest of his life. In addition, he received a one-year suspended sentence for causing bodily harm through negligence. Moreover, he was forever deprived of the right to drive a car, motorcycle and scooter. Now, by law, he could only travel on a bicycle, and to top it all off, the court found it possible to recommend that, taking into account the degree of his absent-mindedness, he should only ride on country roads.

“If you don’t see where you are going, stay at home so as not to be a threat to others,” the judge concluded and, calling the room to order, she hit the table with a mallet.

At the end of the court hearing, the engineer caught up with the young conqueror of the seas at the exit and sincerely apologized, face to face, then muttered that he was very sorry and wished a speedy recovery. However, Elizabeth did not allow him to finish speaking: as soon as Yves Kramer leaned closer, she clenched her fist and, with all her might, punched him in the jaw with the final chord. But before he had time to pull back, she jumped up from the wheelchair and, with crooked fingers and foam on her lips, grabbed his throat.

The engineer did not even try to defend himself, he just closed his eyes and humbly waited - preparing to say goodbye to life. Only three people managed to pull the crippled athlete away from her victim, whom she finally rewarded with spitting.

Bernard Werber

star butterfly

Dedicated to Claude Lelouch, thanks to whom I made my first film "Our Human Friends"

Act I

Dream shadow

1. THE POWER OF WATER

In the beginning there was a breath - a powerful breath of salty wind. It filled the sails, and the yachts glided across the endless ocean. The fastest among all sailing ships, without any doubt, was the ship of Elizabeth Malory. This girl with turquoise eyes earned the fame of a champion after she committed two times in a row. circumnavigation on a single-seater yacht. Before her, only men could do this. Sitting at the front of the Flying Fish catamaran, Elizabeth gripped the wooden steering wheel tightly and confidently steered the long, thin ship made of aluminum and waterproof fabric. The seemingly fragile ship shook from stem to stern, cutting the crest of the wave into pieces or soaring above the surface of the water. "Faster, stronger!" Time after time, the girl was doused with iodine-smelling spray. The howls of the storm intertwined with Elizabeth's singing, causing her to mercilessly misinterpret the tune. This was precisely the secret of her success - in order to defeat the raging elements, you need to mix your voice with the howl of the wind. At such moments, it began to seem to the girl that she herself was becoming the sea - ever-moving salt water, swift, all-crushing waves, dressed in lace made of foam.

Elizabeth Malory was beautiful. All the men around fell under the power of her spell. It was rumored that during the breaks between regattas she changed lovers like gloves, and then, as if tired of these insignificant pleasures, she remained alone in the vast water desert, where only clouds and fish served as her companions.

2. SWEETNESS OF THE AIR

In the beginning there was a dream - a dream of new horizons. It was to her that the very refined imagination of Yves Kramer was drawn. He headed the Innovation and Foresight department of a prestigious agency space research and was responsible for the selection of new projects related to space flights. True, to date he has not yet managed to bring any of the projects to a successful conclusion, but folders with drawings of new rockets, orbital stations or even settlements that could be built on the planets closest to Earth accumulated in his office. Yves Kramer did not stand out in any way among the numerous ordinary employees who filled the aerospace laboratories. Average height, thin hair, thick glasses and a gaze directed somewhere into the distance. This designer never parted with a white coat, in the pockets of which there were many pens with dried ink and several completely or partially broken calculators.

Due to the nature of his work, he was often forced to send letters with polite refusal. They invariably began with the phrases: “Thank you for submitting your project. Unfortunately, it does not correspond to any of the currently implemented scientific programs. In addition, the funds at our disposal are not sufficient to implement your proposal.” The ending of the letters was also standard: “Please keep us informed of your further research. Let me express my deepest respect to you."

Yves Kramer took his official responsibilities to heart. He carefully studied most projects, even the most fantastic ones, from cover to cover. The scientist quickly became an attractive figure for journalists, with whom he shared the most original ideas sent to the agency.

One day, Yves Kramer accidentally knocked over a stack of letters with successive refusals and began picking up the envelopes from the floor one by one. At that moment the phone rang. Trying to pick up the phone before the answering machine started, the designer pushed another stack of messages. He had to pick it all up and sort it again.

They said that Yves Kramer had the wind in his head, but he considered himself a dreamer. He was reproached for tactlessness, but he believed that he had no time to pay attention to conventions. He had a reputation for being an absent-minded person, but the designer justified himself by saying that he was always immersed in thinking about extraordinary subjects. Yves Cramer knew that no one would give the amount necessary to implement any of the projects considered by his department. However, he continued to desperately hope that he would still be able to catch luck by the tail. The scientist did not want to forever remain “an ordinary observer recounting to journalists the pipe dreams of other people.” This is exactly what his first wife once said about him. At night, wrapped in a blanket, he clung to the rubber-covered eyepiece of a personal telescope installed on the terrace of his house. At these moments, he could allow himself to dream about the day when one of the projects would be successfully completed. And then Yves Kramer will go there - into the distance that opens up before him. “No, even further, much, much further.” He will leave Earth, where every day he feels more and more alien.

3. FIRST WAVE

The meeting of breath and dream, that is, Elisabeth Malory and Yves Kramer, took place in conditions that were very far from ideal. The designer drove his own car while listening to fast rhythmic music. The car was driving at a decent speed, as the scientist was once again late for an interview. At that moment, the navigator was crossing the street, heading to the office of a new sponsor. The latter was ready to finance the upcoming circumnavigation of the world on a single-seater yacht. It was raining. The windshield wipers on the car did not work well. Yves Kramer knew for a long time that it was necessary to go to a service station and fix the problem, but he never found the time for this. In addition to absent-mindedness, the scientist had another drawback - a tendency to delay making unpleasant decisions. Time after time, Yves Kramer, with masterly skill, put off boring tasks until tomorrow, and when that day came, the designer had to rush around like crazy trying to catch up Lost time. Therefore, entering the turn, Yves Kramer increased the gas.

Elizabeth had her cell phone headphones in her ears. Sheltering from the rain under an umbrella, the athlete chatted with one of her fans. He tried to make the woman he wanted to seduce laugh, and, by the way, was quite successful in this matter. Perhaps because of her own loud laughter, Elizabeth did not hear the noise of the car rapidly approaching her in the deepening twilight. Yves Kramer finally made out the silhouette of the girl in front and sharply pressed the brake. The brake pads tightly blocked the wheels, but the grip of the tires on the rain-wet asphalt was insufficient, and the car began to skid. The bumper hit the traveler's knees. There was a dry crack of breaking bone. Elizabeth felt that some powerful force lifted her high into the air. The world around seemed to stop. She rose higher and higher, felt the raindrops on her face, and saw the asphalt quite far below. Then the course of events accelerated again: the woman suddenly fell backward and was no longer able to get up. For a moment she lay on the road, writhing in terrible pain, and then froze without moving.

Bernard Werber

star butterfly

Dedicated to Claude Lelouch, thanks to whom I made my first film "Our Human Friends"

Act I

Dream shadow

1. THE POWER OF WATER

In the beginning there was a breath - a powerful breath of salty wind. It filled the sails, and the yachts glided across the endless ocean. The fastest among all sailing ships, without any doubt, was the ship of Elizabeth Malory. This girl with turquoise eyes earned the fame of a champion after circumnavigating the world twice in a row on a single-seater yacht. Before her, only men could do this. Sitting at the front of the Flying Fish catamaran, Elizabeth gripped the wooden steering wheel tightly and confidently steered the long, thin ship made of aluminum and waterproof fabric. The seemingly fragile ship shook from stem to stern, cutting the crest of the wave into pieces or soaring above the surface of the water. "Faster, stronger!" Time after time, the girl was doused with iodine-smelling spray. The howls of the storm intertwined with Elizabeth's singing, causing her to mercilessly misinterpret the tune. This was precisely the secret of her success - in order to defeat the raging elements, you need to mix your voice with the howl of the wind. At such moments, it began to seem to the girl that she herself was becoming the sea - ever-moving salt water, swift, all-crushing waves, dressed in lace made of foam.

2. SWEETNESS OF THE AIR

In the beginning there was a dream - a dream of new horizons. It was to her that the very refined imagination of Yves Kramer was drawn. He headed the Innovation and Foresight Division of the prestigious space exploration agency and was responsible for selecting new projects related to space flights. True, to date he has not yet managed to bring any of the projects to a successful conclusion, but folders with drawings of new rockets, orbital stations or even settlements that could be built on the planets closest to Earth accumulated in his office. Yves Kramer did not stand out in any way among the numerous ordinary employees who filled the aerospace laboratories. Average height, thin hair, thick glasses and a gaze directed somewhere into the distance. This designer never parted with a white coat, in the pockets of which there were many pens with dried ink and several completely or partially broken calculators.

3. FIRST WAVE

The meeting of breath and dream, that is, Elisabeth Malory and Yves Kramer, took place in conditions that were very far from ideal. The designer drove his own car while listening to fast rhythmic music. The car was driving at a decent speed, as the scientist was once again late for an interview. At that moment, the navigator was crossing the street, heading to the office of a new sponsor. The latter was ready to finance the upcoming circumnavigation of the world on a single-seater yacht. It was raining. The windshield wipers on the car did not work well. Yves Kramer knew for a long time that it was necessary to go to a service station and fix the problem, but he never found the time for this. In addition to absent-mindedness, the scientist had another drawback - a tendency to delay making unpleasant decisions. Time after time, Yves Kramer, with masterly skill, put off boring tasks until tomorrow, and when that day came, the designer had to rush around like crazy in an attempt to make up for lost time. Therefore, entering the turn, Yves Kramer increased the gas.