Struggle: The Path to Power - стр. 19

It's the spirit that works. It's a strong, free, miner's spirit. It moves both hands and feet, and it doesn't let your eyes blink from the dust. It sticks in your head and says one all-moving word: "Forward!".

Gora squeezed between all of them and pressed into the very center of the beam. He had to move it forward almost half a meter to get it upright and into place.

For a moment it seemed that everything was falling apart, that it was time for this land to take away half a thousand of its sons. But no – all as one, as a single gust of wind, tearing down everything in its path, as a mighty sea that wanted to take an island far away from the big land, as a long-dormant volcano spewing lava, as an 8848-meter mountain standing on both legs. This is power, and nature herself is happy to see her children inspired by it.

All moved forward, and the beam moved, and Nature smiled, proud of those who do not fail her and endure her trials.

Kostya stood next to Gora, out of breath. His face was badly twisted from exertion, but happiness peeked out through the rest. His voice was quiet, but confident and satisfied: "Now they won't fight, my friend. Now they know what friendship means."

And then he remembered that Hora had gone out of the block that night, and before that he had ordered a change of posts in the mining sector. He'd been gone for hours, and he'd come back out of breath. And now his eyes looked special, as if no one could know what he now knew.

You couldn't mistake that look for anything else… Calculating, purposeful, intelligent....

Gora smiled slightly with the tips of his lips and, with a nod to Kostya, headed for the

exit of the sector.

It's been another half a month.

Today Masha got up earlier than her grandparents and sat down on the bench by the porch.

Everything was green in the neighborhood, and the sun was about to come out. There was a slight breeze, and for a moment it seemed that everything was fine and there was nothing to grieve about, but I didn't want to think so, because it wasn't.

She put her hand on her stomach, feeling what was left of her husband. She had thought many times about what to name the child, but they couldn't come to a single decision, she wanted him, Rafael, to like it.

"If it's a girl, it's Christina. – thought Masha. – He liked that name. But if it's a boy… He never told me what his favorite boys' names were. He never told me anything, not even his own. So what do I do with that?"

She closed her eyes and remembered how she'd met him, how she'd first seen his eyes, how she'd breathed in his scent. Her heart had beaten like never before, and the air had felt not just different, but like nothing she'd ever experienced before.