“Please hurry up,” mumbled the guard, not even trying to be polite.

“I just had to inform my friends that I’m fine,” explained Azhi with an expression of worry, pointing to his LiqWatch.

He followed the guard without any questions. On the way across the tropical garden, he observed a thicket of leaves and listened for the incoming sounds from his surroundings. For every movement, tweet or flap of a bird’s wings, he reacted with a quick glance in that direction. That way, he could distract himself from his thoughts and at the same time, reinforce his alertness.

Fury at his collaborators for not falling in with his plans simmered in his veins. He’d given them a simple task which they could not execute, rather they’d exposed his career. He experienced a sensation of cold shivers at the thought of the committee members, and their increasingly blatant demands cooled his emotions quickly.

Morons. They want to bury their goldmine.

As he got into the vehicle, his LiqWatch pinged with the notification of an incoming message. He fastened his seatbelt and turned on the display.

We had complications.

Azhi squinted and sniffed with annoyance. He wrote:

Morons, you had one and only one simple job: to catch the girl.

He raised his head to make sure that the guard was not observing him. Sighing, he deleted the furious torrent of words and carefully tapped every letter. He wrote:

To plan B

He felt a smooth wobble as the vehicle moved on.

Leaving the orbit of Ernef, the cargo ship activated the ring which generated the gravity sphere. The space in front of the vehicle compressed and extended behind it which allowed the machine to cover enormous distances faster than light.

Cerridwen lay on the crate for two hours. She was not sleeping, but she could not move, the numbness had frozen her entire body. Her mind drowned in a hollow void as if the recent events had never taken place, but she still felt a sense of fear looming over her, the same that accompanied her earlier. For the first time, she’d faced a mortal danger and almost lost the clash. Everything that Delian had taught her faded away from her mind, replaced by a pervasive shock.

She opened her eyes when she heard the grinding sound of the back hatch being drawn back. Light, cautious steps approached her.

“Are you okay?” asked Nadee, closing the door behind her. She knelt near Cerridwen and touched her arm. She noticed a dark red stain over her knee and spoke again, “Stand up, you got hurt. I need to take a look at it.”

“I’m fine. Don’t bother,” muttered Cerridwen and closed her eyes again.

“Do you want to catch an infection?” The Kehrian woman got up, picked the limp Celestian girl up and sat her on the chest. Cerridwen leaned against the wall and raised her head to look helplessly at the girl. Nadee sat down next to her and rolled up her trouser leg above her knee.

“You don’t need to…” moaned Cerridwen. She shut her eyes, wincing in both pain and irritation. “I’m fine.”

Nadee ignored her comment and removed a bottle of clear liquid out of her bag. “Watch out,” she warned, pouring a few drops on Cerridwen’s dried wound.

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The Celestian girl hissed and growled, “Stop it!” She straightened up and opened her eyes wider. “I told you, I can handle it. By myself.”

“You’re shocked,” observed the Kehrian woman. She squeezed white paste out of the tube and spread it on the Celestian girl’s knee. She began rummaging through the bag. “Soon it’ll pass.”

Cerridwen’s mind cleared up little by little. It brought back a memory of Nadee’s fight, the chase through the shrubbery thicket and the escape from the masked men in the tunnels and then the incident on-board. Around that time, she’d stumbled and hurt herself but not noticed it. Because of the firm, cold ground, a throbbing pain spread over all her muscles and left flank. It was only now that she paid attention to the metallic smell and stuffiness, wafting inside the vehicle. She stretched out her arms and straightened her spine. She grimaced, hearing the crunch of her joints.

The Kehrian woman took out a syringe and grabbed Cerridwen’s hand.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“A regenerating-sedative,” explained Nadee and located the vein on Cerridwen’s forearm. “When you wake up, you’ll be able to at least stand on your own.”

“Wait!” broke in the Celestian girl and tugged at her hand. “How can I be sure you don’t want to kill me?”

“Because,” the Kehrian woman lifted the syringe and shook it, “this substance isn’t cheap.”

Cerridwen did not resist anymore. She wished so much to fall asleep, to relieve her mind from the recent memories of fear and dismay and wake up without pain. She let the Kehrian woman inject the liquid and lay down on the crate again.

Nadee got up and headed towards the door.

“Wait,” mumbled Cerridwen, “why do you have to do this?”

Nadee halted. She gazed at the floor and tightened her lips. After a moment of silence, she replied, “I just have to.”

She walked away leaving a nearly asleep Cerridwen.

Inann Ishme received a message from his boss. Since leaving the underground office of the ArtEvo company, he’d stuck around in the aisle between the vertical gardens. The hood of a heavy, ripped cloak hid his face, only his eyes glowed in the dark. The Ifrit put his hand in his pocket to make sure that the little disc was still there. Turning off his LiqWatch, he popped up from behind the pile of boxes. He sneaked out into the street and headed towards a sleek skyscraper. He attempted to wander easily like other pedestrians, but one thought bothered him all the time.

Is this really a good idea?

He kept asking the same question repeatedly. For all the insecurity that plagued him, Inann blamed stress, which was more intense than usual, and awareness of the consequences of his act. His career, proceeds and even life depended upon this task. He had not worked for thirty years of his life just to mess it up now. He pulled the hood over and covered his face with a dark head-scarf. He entered the building and found a lift.

Why did I have to work with losers like this? he thought, observing the rising number on the display counter, and sniffed with budding impatience. They only had to catch a young Celestian girl. Now I would have to do it by myself.

He touched his pocket again. The item was still there. The Ifrit breathed harshly at the sound of an alarm. The door drew away. He stepped ahead. At first, he looked left, then right. The empty corridor on both sides appeared the same – greyish walls, illuminated with glaring white light, pots with plants near some doors, hanging from the ceiling, longitudinal lamps every few metres.

The Ifrit turned the light off to feel more secure and walked to the right, paying attention to the numbers above the doors. He arrived at the dark brown door and crouched on a doormat. When he reached for the object in his pocket, he felt his throat constrict as if his trachea and digestive tract were going to shrink to the diameter of a single hair. He took out a small tin, wrapped in grey tape, and placed it between the leaves of the shrub growing in the pot at the door.

What a ridiculous idea…

He got up, passed several doors and halted at the bend. He stuck his head out from behind the wall and closed his third, transparent eyelid. Delian was approaching. Inann stood still in the same position until the sound of the lift reached him. The Ifrit drew back and depended only on his hearing. He waited for the right time.

Hurried steps became louder and finally died away. The silence lasted until a yellow flare blazed and a deafening bang resonated in the corridor. Inann turned around and sprinted to the closest lift. He got to the ground floor and escaped from the building via the backdoor. He turned to the side street, crossed a shadowy park, made a few more sidesteps like that and stopped in front of the rubbish bins. Breathing heavily but quietly, he took off his cloak and dumped it in the bin. Under the filthy rags, he was dressed in what was a common fashion for an Ifrit, a simple coat and baggy trousers.

Looking like a casual pedestrian who was searching for entertainment, he returned to the main street and continued the walk.