"Completely healthy."

This was the conclusion Fred made after a full examination of my body.

“There’s not even slight atmospheric poisoning, as if you’ve just adapted to the ecosystem of this planet.”

“This can’t be true.”

I was surprised, simultaneously examining myself, unclenching my fingers to better convince myself of Fred’s words.

“Unfortunately, instruments don’t lie.”

«Unfortunately?»

I didn't understand this phrase.

It was hard to believe, but it seemed like what Fred said was true. I no longer needed Will and Stern's help to get around, I was completely healthy and, moreover, somehow adapted to the local ecosystem, although this required me a significant amount of time.

And although internally I was glad that I was not on the verge of death, I was still worried about the issue with Ashwani. Considering what Incartia most likely did to me unknowingly, it is quite possible that someone or something did something similar to Ashwani.

What if he was kidnapped? What if they conducted some kind of experiment on him and then released him into the wild? Or maybe he is already dead and perhaps the consciousness of this Ashwani is too different from the consciousness of our Ashwani? There were too many questions and of course I didn’t know the answer to all of them.

«How the hell I hate it when, in search of an answer to one question, I ask a thousand more questions.»

I complained to myself as I sat eating disgusting-tasting dried meat instead of rations.

According to Fred: I was now contraindicated from eating rations and instead, from now on I only needed the local diet. Even though I was grateful to Incartia for curing me like that, but now I was angry with her for depriving me of civilized food, the reserves of which, although they remained, were in very limited quantities.

Fred is now given a new task: to develop a drug that will re-adapt me to army rations, which is now an impossible task to complete, which means I will have to wait for some time until Fred has a laboratory again, and before that it is obviously a very long time.

What’s even worse is that I had to wait until sunset when Incartia finally calmed down after my threat. Frankly, I felt a little guilty for putting so much pressure on the girl, even though it was natural on my part in the situation that arose at that time.

No one condemned me for that action, not even Sigrun, who lulled the girl in her arms and promised to protect her from us. Unfortunately, when Incartia fell asleep, we lost the only translator among the natives and the machine gunner had to play staring contest with the prisoners while the latter, in turn, communicated with each other, still not understanding what was happening at all.

And now, when the girl woke up again, Sigrun came to her, sitting down next to her and speaking, putting a smile on her face, and meanwhile I stood with my arms crossed on my chest, leaning my back against the tree on the other side and listened to their conversation.

I needed to hear from her the answer to the question and Sigrun promised that she would get the words we needed out of her. I want to know in full detail what happened and decide how to react to it. Can she be trusted or not, should she be killed or should she be spared and released?

«Let's see what she says.»

I decided for myself and fell silent, carefully listening to everyday conversation through the noise of rustling tree branches.

“Hello, little one, how did you sleep?”

The black girl said affectionately, handing into the girl’s hands a green fruit somewhat similar to an earthly apple, and I was slightly surprised to hear in response a confirmation of my analogy.

“This is my apple!”

The girl said in surprise.

"I know. I took it out of this bag."

Sigrun picked up the girl's little thing.

“Is this really an apple? Is it even edible?”

"Yes."

The girl nodded and decided to offer it to the engineer.

"Want to try? I collected them in the teacher's garden. His apples are always so sweet that I even took them on a hike.”

“I already ate, but you slept for several hours, you need to eat.”

Incartia’s stomach began to growl at that moment, after which the girl said in frustration:

“You... you're right. I'm hungry."

“Then open your mouth.”

“Can you untie my hands?”

“Sorry, but this is not my responsibility.”

Sigrun spoke in a sad tone.

“You will have to eat what I give you from my hands. So will you open your mouth or not?”

Their conversation was immediately interrupted by another girl who mumbled something in her own language. Incartia answered her something, and after hearing the words she fell silent, no longer interfering in the conversation between the young sorceress and the ship engineer.

“Did she ask you something?”

Sigrun became interested.

"Yes."

The dark-haired girl nodded.

“She wanted to know when you would let us go.”

Sigrun had to sigh sadly this time before giving a disappointing answer:

“Whether you will be free or not, this decision depends on Boris. He is the most important here and only he can decide what to do with you.”

"I see."

Incartia said quietly with annoyance in her voice and after she took a bite and chewed a piece of apple in her mouth, she asked the engineer a question.

“Miss Sigrun, do you think he’ll let us go?”

I almost grinned when I heard “Miss” from the girl and it seems Sigrun herself did too.

"Miss?"

The black woman giggled.

“Firstly, please, let’s do it without these ancient formalities, and secondly, I think he will let you go. You cured him, and he is kind to those who once helped him.”

«And yet I don't trust her.»

I mentally emphasized to myself that I was skeptical about Sigrun’s words.

“Cure?”

Incartia was perplexed.

"How? I don't know how to heal. Master never taught me the way of healing. I... I don't understand."

“Me too, to be honest.”

Sigrun answered seriously.

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“Perhaps your teacher did this?”

"No."

The girl answered affirmatively.

“Then he wouldn’t have sent me to you.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“The teacher would never do this... probably.”

“Still, you're not sure.”

Sigrun grinned, handing the girl a flask of water.

“Don’t worry, all questions will be answered sooner or later.”

"Huh?"

Incartia was surprised by something.

"So strange. You... that is, you said it also as a teacher.”

"Is it true? So he and I are similar?”

“Well, no... he... he's just very old.”

Sigrun just laughed out loud this time. She was greatly amused by the girl’s words and made Sigrun almost fall backwards laughing onto the thick grass of the captivating grove.

“Ha-ha-ha~! Of course, that’s not what I meant, but thanks for clarifying.”

The black woman spoke.

While the young sorceress and the ship’s engineer were joyfully communicating with each other, standing on the other side of the tree, I thought:

«If it wasn’t her, then who healed me? Moreover, who was able to protect her with these tricks? Are there really outside observers nearby? This is unlikely, otherwise the scanner would have detected them, but then what was it? Maybe someone is still watching us, albeit in a slightly different way?»

I continued to stand, leaning my back against the tree, perplexed by what was happening, and soon decided to leave the captivating grove, returning to the camp of our platoon, where Itami was waiting for me, teaching at that very moment a native couple in the form of Alza and Ripun new English words, sitting under a huge oak tree on its own root .

Surprisingly, Itami now began to teach the natives how to construct complex sentences. Despite the fact that we have a translator in the person of Incartia, it seems Itami decided not to immediately trust the girl and continued teaching the natives English in order to further try to establish contact with the local civilization.

I came out from behind the bushes and greeted the trio, waving my palm:

"Hi guys."

"Greetings, Boris."

Alza and Ripun answered in unison, turning in my direction.

A grimace of surprise was reflected on my face when they said these words. They said it so clearly and naturally as if they could actually learn English, and the orange-eyed Ripun even continued with a more complex sentence, albeit pronouncing each next word with a strong accent:

“Boris, should you be healthy? Brasahrun to treat?”

“Brasahrun?”

I raised an eyebrow, not understanding the word from the native.

Itami and I looked at the couple strangely, and Ripun, apparently realizing that we did not understand the word he spoke, went to explain:

“Brasahrun uses power sahrun. Brasahrun can blow, burn, float, heal, revive, disappear and another."

“These Brasahrun of yours can do a lot.”

Itami said and suddenly realized something.

"A! So Brasahrun is essentially a magician, and sahrun is magic.”

«What? How did he come to this?»

I was perplexed while Ripun nodded in the affirmative in response and continued:

“You speak magician. The magician does everything with the power sahrun, that is, magic on your tongue. Magician to heal Boris?”

Ripun asked turning his head towards me.

“Perhaps it is so.”

I answered thoughtfully.

«Maybe the magician healed me, but she said it wasn’t her doing... maybe she lied to me? It’s unlikely that her tone and facial expressions indicated that she was telling the truth, and her fast pulse was quite stable. She didn't lie to us, which meant that it really wasn't her doing.»

It was I who decided to voice Ripuna:

"She said she couldn't heal."

Ripun, hearing my answer, tilted his head to the side questioningly.

"Couldn't? Is she apprentice? Or is she not magician? Does she heal like doctor?”

The native asked and I answered.

"She's a apprentice."

«Indeed, she was talking about her teacher. Maybe he is somehow connected to all this, and we just don’t know it? But if it was he who healed me and at the same time protected his student, then why is he hiding? Doesn't he trust us? Then why did he send his student to us? Maybe he is confident that he can protect her? Or maybe he doesn’t have friendly intentions towards us at all, and not only towards us, but also towards his student, leaving her to the mercy of fate?»

At that moment, I remembered the words that Incartia said.

«He knows that we came here from space. How does a native know this? Has he already seen people like us? Who are these dark ones mentioned in the message? I don’t know, but he definitely knows the answer to this question. Now I'm starting to guess... he just wants to make sure that we can be trusted.»

I thought and decided to do something and returned to the grove, where the prisoners continued to sit under the gunner’s gun.

At that moment I approached Incartia and hovered over her. Frightened blue eyes widened at the sight of my serious face. She opened her mouth trying to say something, but instead of words she just swallowed saliva and looked away.

«She is afraid of me... if only you knew, just as we are now afraid of all of you.»

I was thinking and squatting in front of Incartia, I voiced out loud my thoughts that I had been holding in my head for a long time:

“On Earth, on my home planet, I still have a younger sister your age, her name is Christina. The last time I saw her, she was tiny, barely reaching my belt. She has beautiful blue eyes that glow in the dark and snow-white curls of hair, like our mother. Even when she was little, I knew that she would become a beauty and that she would have the best life that she could live. Maybe she will become an actress, or maybe a journalist, or maybe she will follow in her parents’ footsteps and even become a professor, researcher or something else. I don’t know what she will choose, what path in her life she will choose, but I hope she will not follow in the same footsteps as me, stepping on the same mine.”

Incartia raised her gaze in my direction, listening carefully to my story. She was curious to know why I was telling her this. However, not only did such a question arise in her head, but also the machine gunner behind me back.

“I am the most clueless son in my family.”

I continued.

“No talent, no abilities, not even worthy friends. I was afraid that I would disgrace my parents with my mediocrity, that I wouldn’t be able to become as smart as them, and I really couldn’t. I am a slow-witted person whom the universe has never seen before, I was shamefully thrown out of the Academy of Natural Sciences and I had nothing left to do except vegetate through life as an unemployed, absolutely useless mouth among billions of working people with goals and desires in their lives. This is not the kind of son I wanted to be, not at all, and that’s why I decided to go serve in the great army of humanity.”

This is how I remember the moment when my parents consoled me, said that I still have roads along which I can go and find something to do with my life, and I sat in my room and watched holographic films out of idleness. I didn't want to live like that, without leaving the confines of one box, I was given life and I didn't want to waste it.

What have my parents achieved, what will my younger sister achieve, and what will I achieve? I am a stupid idiot, incapable of banal natural sciences. This depressed me: everyone has roles in their lives, everyone is happy with it, but I couldn’t do anything, didn’t know how to do anything and was wasting my time. What could I do in this case? Only military service.

My parents were silent for a long time when I told them this, and Christina, due to her age, did not even understand whether this was good or bad. Mom and Dad knew very well that being a soldier is very dangerous, especially in an era when a full-scale interstellar war with Fucult could break out at any moment. They were afraid that they would lose me and I understood their feelings, but at least I had a purpose, a meaning for my life.

If I could not benefit people, then in that case I will protect them, that’s what I decided for myself, that’s why I’m here far from home: I protect them.

“Let our planet be the safest place in the universe, but this is only now. Who knows, maybe in the future our world will be besieged by a fleet of black ships, and the destroyer of worlds will fly after them and, with just its threatening appearance in the sky, will bring all of humanity to its knees, forcing all people to desperately pray for their own enslavement for the sake of survival. This has happened before, and no one... no one wants this to happen again, and I don’t want it either. I don’t want any war, that’s why I serve in the army as a simple soldier. Therefore, I am here on your planet looking for a way to get out of here, return home to my family and continue to protect them in the far corners of our state of the Republic of Earth. Each of us is here precisely because of this, and therefore I ask you, the inhabitants of this planet, to help us get out of here.”

Incartia's face at that moment showed shock at what she heard. She clearly had no fewer questions for us than we had for her, but the words that we, her captors, needed her help clearly unsettled the girl.

“W-what?”

All she could do was stutter and say Incartia.

"What do you want from me? And why me?”

I answered her with a sigh:

“Because only you know our language. It is very important for us to establish contact with your people so that we can safely return to space to our home. We on your planet have already come into contact, but those with whom we met attacked us and killed many of our people. Because of this, we grabbed you, because we were afraid of you, afraid that you could do the same to us. We have lost confidence in our superiority to your people, and therefore, despite the hostility shown, I decided to offer cooperation. And when I told you all this, what will you answer me?”

Incartia became thoughtful, darting her eyes from side to side. With my words, I suddenly made her very important until she asked me something in confusion.

“I... I have to talk to my friends.”

"Fine."

I nodded, fully understanding that they needed to discuss this, but before Incartia could begin the discussion, I turned towards the machine gunner and gave the order.

“Put the safety on and remove the barrel. Will, untie them."

“Hey, what are you thinking?”

Will suddenly objected, and meanwhile I, looking at the vegetation around me, answered.

“We have been tested all this time.”

“What are you talking about?”

Forn intervened and suddenly aimed his assault rifle at the rustling bushes from which a new figure emerged.

"Stop!"

“So you finally showed up.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, seeing in front of me an elderly native dressed in a gray robe with a long gray beard and a strange large hat hiding his gaze, holding a long wooden staff in his right hand

"Greetings, guests from heaven."

The old man said while behind Forn the platoon formed a line and aimed at all kinds of weapons except me.

“I’ll introduce myself to you right away, my name is Granid.”