Plot: 5/9. This is a witness report from the perspective of Sergeyev, one of the members of the Apida archaeological research group.
The group’s camp was at the base of the hill they excavated.
At the morning of August 14, Lozovsky, the head of the group, drove for Pendzhikent to buy food, yet he didn’t came back in time.
In the afternoon, Sergeyev saw a big black spider sacking their food, supplies, his diary, their valuable findings in their tent before it disappeared in broad daylight directly. He escaped out of the tent and saw the spider again climbing the slope lightly.
Sergeyev told his colleagues this thing. At first, they didn’t believe it until all of them saw strange blue white light shining from the top of the hill to the southeast sky. Their excavation site was found sabotaged by the alien and people were too scared to work any more.
Dzhamil and Sergeyev saw a helicopter reminiscent of yesterday’s UFO while hitching a ride to Pendzhikent. Upon hearing Lozovsky’s big name, Palich agreed to take them along. But their car was usurped by the UFO at one fell swoop in broad daylight.
In Pendzhikent’s police station, Sergeyev heard from the driver of Lozovsky that a strange helicopter took the car and Lozovsky vanished without a trace. They reported a robbery committed by a UFO and the poor driver was released immediately.
In the middle of September, Lozovsky’s diary was found reporting his first contact with aliens:
Aliens didn’t mind his observing and completely ignored him after examining him. So he watched aliens carrying cars, cows, lizards, etc to their spaceship and even wanted them to carry him, because he was curious about more information related to these creature made of machine.
So he left the diary conveying his last words to his family and volunteered to go with aliens.
Core: 2/9. This first contact was strange but interesting. These aliens robbed people’s property to serve as their souvenirs but didn’t show any further intelligence or indication to communicate with human. Why? If they were machines, then what kind of civilization ordered them to take the specimen on Earth? I would give a higher score if the purpose can be delineated more.
I’m impressed how they could add the comic flavor to a story with a tedious core.
Character: 7/9. Characters here were hilarious and intelligent.
Dzhamil asked Sergeyev whether he could remember the day clearly to check his mentality. Sergeyev retorted he’s quite sure of Dzhamil didn’t know it either.
Palich argued over the cause of their car with Pentronko even after the car was robbed.
Palich asked Police which department were responsible for aerial hooliganism.
Lozovsky was annoyed by the fact that those aliens ignored him instead of that they abducted him! No doubt he volunteered to observe the dangerous aliens and eventually decided to fly with them.