S he runs, runs, out of breath she slows down her pace to look behind her. She notes with relief that she was not pursued. But time is short and there is the last train to the port to be taken. There are few vehicles that travel at this time and she feels alone and ill at ease on this almost deserted road which joins the station. In the distance she sees a vehicle coming in her direction which stops going further and makes a U-turn. Her heart hammers her in her chest and she says to herself: “ Shit, they come and there is no place for me to hide! ”

‘Miss, Miss!’ Exclaims the man. ‘Stop, don’t worry and get in!’

Then she recognizes the detective who had already worked for her father.

‘Good evening to you and thank you for coming. You come across on the way here, or is there a reason?’

‘Hello, I just came to your rescue, but I’m glad to see you released.’

‘But they are not the ones who freed me, I escaped. I managed to open the lock, you know a fairly old model, with a hairpin. Fortunately I was already visiting the place with my father and I remembered that there is a secret exit made by monks in the remote times. That’s where I could get out on the road by a chapel dedicated to Zeus. But how did you know they were holding me here?’

‘It’s too long to explain now, we have to hurry up and join the station.’

‘It may already be too late, the train may already be gone. The seats? Are there any for us with this evacuation plan?’

‘Do not worry, I did the necessary. I made the steps at the station and the train will be waiting. Then, in regard to the place, you know well yourself that there is always a cabin reserved for your family.’

Arrived at the station, they find that the train is not yet ready to go. There is a diverse crowd of people and various objects on the platform: men, women, children, luggage, suitcases, chests and even animals that will make the trip in a car specifically designed for them. Most cars are already full to overflowing and here and there voices are arguing for a place to sit down or to deposit their luggage. The station master guides them across the crowd toward the front of the train, where the reserved compartments are. Once aboard, she feels sorry to see that this compartment is also used as a prison cell and is, in despite the efforts of the Railway Company to provide every comfort, welcoming little.

‘But it’s disgusting,’ she shouts, ‘you want me to travel in a prison cell?’

The station master, a little embarrassed by her reaction, says:

‘Sorry Your Highness, but we did not know that you wanted to go to the port by train. We would have added a car for you. But we assure you that this compartment is very comfortable because designed for this dual function. If you miss something, Miss, do not hesitate to ring the controller, he will give you what you desire, we have embarked hot and cold beverages and some food.’

‘Thank you, I think it will go, this unit is not very cheerful, but still comfortable. I don’t like bars in the window, they remind me too much at my detention just now.

‘Do you bring luggage? Does the gentleman accompanies you?’

She wanted to say: “ Luggage? What luggage! Since when are kidnappers concerned about the luggage of people taken in hostage? ” But it’s the detective who came on board with her to ensure her proper installation, who responds in her place:

‘No, I don’t think that Miss has any luggage, kidnappers have taken her hostage from which she has just escaped and I fear that the kidnappers did not have the discretion to deal with any luggage of Miss. I do besides that not accompany Miss because I still have things to finish. I expect the police to go there where she was hidden, hoping they have not yet found her to miss. Thank you very much.’

She looks around her and finds that they have left lecture to read to her intention and a few drinks and things to eat in the cupboard designed for this purpose. She sits down in a chair in the direction of travel and says:

‘You don’t join me then?’

‘Unfortunately, as I said, I still have things to do here. I will inform your father that you are on the way to the port of Amaki. Your father is no more at the palace, but has already joined his ship. Sailors will wait for you to take you with a quick shuttle used as ferry when you arrive at the seaport terminal.

‘You are not part the evacuation plan? Won’t you join the European continent?’

‘Perhaps, if I manage to reach the fishing barge with the team of Leith and Penelope, who will wait for me until early morning.’

‘Take care of yourself and good luck.

‘Have good trip.’

‘You too.’

She had to be asleep because she did not notice the departure of the convoy and has awakened when the train sopped in this countryside station. On the platform are women who chatter, crying children, men who argue, cries of animals who refuse to go on board, the noise of carts of luggage, all this mixed with the sounds of cars maneuvering and the screech of wheels on track. She sees a railway employee. Calls him and asks:

‘What happens? Why do we stop here so long?’

The employee, apparently in a hurry and without realizing the identity of the young traveler, says:

‘There are more people than expected and we add cars to the convoy’, before continuing without waiting for an answer.

She takes one of the magazines offered to her at the departure station, but fails to concentrate on the text. Letters, words and phrases begin to dance and become out of bounds. She could not have been reading for a long long time, well-sealed in her travel armchair she did not realize that she fell asleep with the reading in her hands.

Something has waken her, though she has not been able to tell why. The trip has taken longer than normal, the day starts to rise and shows off the first rays of sunlight pierce the horizon. She can see the port area of the city now that is fast approaching. While the train runs along the port towards the seaport terminal, she sees here the boats dock to be loaded or unloaded, thereby boats in a state of advanced wreck waiting for the coup de grace of a torch and a little further rows of fishing boats and yachts. Suddenly she feels a seismic jolt, then another more violent. The train engineer is trying to halt the convoy, but the soil seems to stall below and despite his desperate attempts to stop it, the convoy accelerates and derails. The young woman clings to the structures of the car during the derailment and cries desperately for help. The last thing she sees before losing consciousness, is that the water goes up and someone takes her by the arm to try to draw her out of there.

Julian, who has difficulty sleeping and is getting ready to drink something in the kitchen, hears screams and cries for help coming from the room of his sister Angelica. Believing her unwell, he enters her bedroom where she continues to cry and call for help as a shipwrecked. He takes her by the arm and shakes her awake.

‘Angelica, what’s going on? Got a nightmare?’

Angelica, unable to respond immediately, breathless as if she had finished a marathon, takes her breath and rubs her eyes.

‘It’s terrible, I dreamed that I was drowning in a train compartment which crashed into the sea during an earthquake.’

She then tells the whole story, the hostage-taking, opening the door with a hairpin, the flight, the encounter on the road with the detective, the train journey in a compartment equipped with bars, until the derailment. Then, she finishes her story with:

‘In this dream I was a princess of Atlantis,’ she says to her brother, ‘but I don’t know who I were.’

‘Come, we’ll drink something in the kitchen, I just wanted to go there too. I find it hard to sleep these days.’

‘Yes I know. Since Melissa has left you; you have sleepless nights, you drown your sorrow in alcohol and you wake up with a painful head. But my poor brother, forget her, there are other girls!’

‘That is easier said than done. Okay, this is not your problem. Not yet anyway.’

In the morning, a morning like all the others, when the sun rises over the city of Osuo, the door of the workshop of Master Amilius opens and his student arrives for his usual lessons.

‘Hello master.’

‘Hello Leith, how are you? Slept well? No nightmares?’

‘No master. Did you plan something special for today?’

‘No my child, I have nothing special planned, but it could be that you have a topic to heart. Or is it that I am wrong?’

‘Indeed master. We talk a lot these days about Arcturus which seems to be back seventeen years too early. You know, many people see in this appearance, signs of the end of the world, as announced in the holy rolls.’

‘Maybe are you making here an allusion to the section describing the destruction of the earth by a star falling on the Earth, followed by very heavy rains flooding the earth to the heights of the highest mountains, don’t you?’

‘Yes master, if I retained my lessons well, the prediction of the star falling on the Earth is one of the seven plagues, isn’t it?’

‘I will read part of this prediction, but do you know how this prediction is composed?’

‘Certainly master, these are the seven signs and the seven plagues. It are the seven plagues which contain the prediction of the star that falls on the Earth.’

‘Well, I don’t ask you to list them, but I will read the first stanza of the prediction. Do you know the difference between the part containing the prediction and the remains of sacred texts?’

‘Yes master, I know. The predictions were written in future tense, while the rest of the texts are mostly in past tense.’

‘Well, but do you know of other passages of text written in future tense?’

Leith, embarrassed, looks timidly at his shoes and dares not to respond that he ignores the answer to this question. His master, Amilius, pretending not to see his discomfort, continues:

‘Come on my dear Leith, I don’t mind not knowing the answer to this question. It’s in fact a small trick question. You may not have realized it, but the seven prohibitions are written orders in future tense which simply one of the most important is: “Thou shall not kill.”

Amilius gets up and goes to the library shelves filled up to the brim with old leather-bound books to take one. He sits down, opens it, puts his glasses and starts to slowly browse through the pages of old paper with a tiny precaution to stop at the section that contains the myth of the end of the world.

‘Listen well Leith, I will read the first verse.’

Amilius raises his head and looks Leith straight in the eyes, as he wanted to emphasize the content of his words by doing so, automatically adjusts his glasses and continues with the reading of the first stanza by reading slowly and thus putting the weight on the most important words.

‘For many generations, the kings heed the laws and remain committed to the divine principle to which they are related. When the divine diminishes in them, as a result of crossing with many mortals, they will fall into indecency.’

Poseidia, with its two million inhabitants, both the capital of the state of Alta and of the federation and named after the god Poseidon, is a city that has preserved its ramparts and defense ditches of yesteryear. Although the legend of its creation and Atlantis says that it was Poseidon who had created it along with the country, the reality is quite different. One might doubt that its defenses are designed to repel attacks from the outside since before the attack, one must first successfully pass the fjord barely sixty stadia large, giving access to the inner sea on the edge of which the city is located. No, these defenses were designed, like all major cities in the distant past; to repel attacks by gangs of bandits. In the past, the city growing, several ditches and ramparts were built. But the city had, unlike other cities which had mostly leveled them to reuse the space becoming free, retained its former ditches to convert them to be a seaport.

Amilius, who got up early this morning of the fourth day of Leo to watch the sky before it comes too light, goes down the stairs leading to the observatory in the shape of a dome housed in a part of the attic, to join his workshop and await his pupil. He puts his notes on the table used for both bureau and worktable. In the room we find tables used as storage along certain walls with various heterogeneous objects, an astrolabe here, a half-disassembled telescope pending repair there, a globe representing the Earth, a book of logarithmic tables open at a page with figures ranging from 10’000 to 10’200, a map of the sky and even a dictionary of mathematical formulas. He goes, after having filed his notes of this morning on the table, to the library shelf to the other side of the room and takes a book with references of celestial objects. Starts to leaf and, realizing that references he seeks are not in there, gets up again to take another book. That’s when his student, Leith, makes his entrance.

‘Hello Master, I’m surprising you at work?’

‘No my boy, I had just checked the coordinates of the stars I saw this morning.’

‘You have to make re-calculations on Arcturus?’

‘Yes, that was my intention in any case, but I could not see everything I wanted.’

‘Without being indiscreet, what you’d expect to see exactly?’

‘There is nothing indiscreet in your question, my boy. I wanted to take accurate coordinates of the big planets to be able to calculate the trajectory of Arcturus, but I should have stayed up all night for it. So I woke up too late this morning. Some of them weren’t visible any longer at the time I went to the observatory.’

‘Did Ar-Arart not already calculated it?’

‘That’s right my boy, but as you should have learned from the newspapers, his workshop-office has been fully ransacked and the most valuable documents have disappeared. Unfortunately I don’t think that he had sent me them yet.’

‘I have confidence in you, master, that you will be able to remake his calculations. You will certainly make other observations coming night, don’t you?’

‘Of course my child, I hope to have all the information and be able to complete my calculations tomorrow. About your math lessons, you advancing well?’

‘Yes master. I learn how to use logarithmic tables and tables of angular conversion to calculate positions and distances of celestial objects.’

‘It’s good, but know that you need a lot of experience and exercise before you master the subject. Regarding the lessons of yesterday, do you have issues relating to them?’

‘Yes master, a very small one. The sentence: “When the divine portion that is in them alters by its frequent combination with mortal elements.” Does this target the frequent mixtures of royal blood with the population?’

‘Obviously! Even if there are persistent rumors about brother-sister-marriages in the past, the truth about it has never been proven. Surely the nephew-niece, cousin-cousin marriages were and are still are common. But over the past centuries, marriages between royal families and children of the people have become increasingly frequent. You can also take as an example the dynasty of Ra-Ta, whose ancestors reigned almost millennium, but at the moment, they reach an age to be little more than mortals.’

‘Don’t you find that it corresponds to the prediction as the sacred texts are teaching us?’

‘Unfortunately yes, my boy. It’s for this reason that I am interested in Arcturus its path. I fear that, as you had already said during your yesterday lessons, he is the falling star from the prediction.’

‘It’s not only that master, but there are other signs that seem to match.’

‘I will read first the seven warning signs before we continue to discuss them. There are the first two who speak both of the bearded knight. Have you any idea what he is?’

‘It’s certainly a comet because that’s how we called them in the old days. It meant for the people then, now for superstitious, the Messenger misfortune.’

‘Yes that’s right. Let’s continue with the reading of the seven signs.’

Amilius gets up, goes to the library shelf, but notes that the book he seeks remained on the table with a bookmark at the place where he had stopped reading the day before. He takes the book, opens it to the page marked, adjusts with an automatic gesture his glasses and continues with reading by making a small pause between each sign:

Leith, who completed his lessons in the morning from Master Amilius, climbs the street passing the small shop of Penelope, who he salutes in passing, and goes to the tavern of Abdubu. “The Gardens” is not very large and is on the corner of the street. The entrance door has a curiosity that it’s at the corner of the building. This building, whose angle is rounded, has apartments on the upper floors with windows having a balcony located in the corner just as the door below them. The owner lives there, as well a student and an employee of Commerce. Leith enters, takes a circular look and sees that, without noting that banal customer, much too banal, seated discreetly at a table in the corner of the room, there are still few customers and goes to the table where Abdubu and Jou-el are in debate. He sits down and asks them:

‘Hello, how are you? I am a little early for lunch, isn’t it?’

‘No, you aren’t,’ replies Abdubu, ‘it’s not you who is too early, but the people are a little late today. What do you take? As usual?’

‘Does it happen that you take something else’, asks Jou-el.

Poseidia, at the headquarters of the BIS, the man known by his code name Aker passes under the porches, goes down the grand staircase at the back of the courtyard and along the colonnades to enter the office of chief of operations of groups “A” and “B” so named because the first letter of the code names of agents. The man, having a grade equivalent of a colonel and only known by code name Seth, casts a cold look at him and waits for a dignified salvation as his rank imposes it.

‘Hello sir, Brigadier Aker to serve you’, he says making a military salvation.

‘Sit down Aker. Do you have news of Osuo. You have been able to convince one of our agents to go there himself to lead the operations?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Which agent did you send there?’

‘Ach, sir. That is all we had available at the time.’

‘You could not release another and send him in his place? This man is capable of committing the worst nonsense. I don’t want to be mean to him, but a bullet, we fire him in his head, will take at least three months to find the slightest trace of brain! All he knows is to shoot and kill.’

‘Yes sir. “Operation Silence” takes a lot of resources in manpower and equipment and we cannot afford to withdraw men from their positions. The state of Mayra poses no major risk, even though the population seems to suspect something. The youth of this state is more concerned about the wars in progress at this time. Regarding Zeta, my agent comes to communicate me that he has managed to recalculate the data of Alpha and draws the same conclusion. We cannot afford to keep this man alive. Its elimination has been decided and will be executed today or tomorrow at the latest.’

‘Well! Have you anything else? Zeta had or still has a fairly good student isn’t it?’

‘Yes sir. He isn’t dangerous for now, he doesn’t know much more than people and his skills are not sufficient to recalculate the data of Zeta’

‘Is he not the same young person that had been reported in the company of the only daughter of King Bel-Ra?’

‘Yes sir. That’s him.’

‘So be careful. According to our information, this girl, she’s called Ussa I believe, will be in love with him. Which could mean that he is in discreet surveillance by henchmen of Bel-Ra.’

‘Yes sir. Ach, I think, with his birdbrain, decided to eliminate them, making it look like an accident because he believes that this girl knows, according to him, too much.’

‘Oh woe. Can’t we recall him and attribute him another task?’

‘No sir. He will only communicate once the process completed.’

‘Do all you can. You know that you are responsible for what happens to this girl. You know very well that only an extraordinary meeting of the ten kings may decide the fate of a member of a royal family. In case of problems, our skin would not be very expensive. Bel-Ra and his cronies are well-aware of our actions. If the slightest thing happens to his only daughter, we will no longer be part of the evacuation plan because dead before. Did you get this right?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You can leave. And recall this dummy before he does too much damage.’

The agent Aker leaves the office and wonders how he can avoid the damage. He walks up the court following the colonnades, goes upstairs and returns to his spacious office near the meeting room. He takes a list of his officers on in the field and finds to his regret that there is no officer in the state of Mayra he can contact in less than two days. He cannot even contact his own agents, who have no means of personal communication, a security measure put in place to avoid the possibility of being located. A decision that proves to be counter-productive in this crisis. He takes the only decision that seems right to him at this moment: he withdraws an active agent in the city and sends him by express to Osuo hoping he finds the so-called Ach before he commits the irreparable.

Leith, Penelope, Jou-el, the Macs and Abdubu are still at the table in open discussion. Customers, accustomed to come to eat the dish of the day at noon, beginning to come one by one or several. Abdubu stands up and apologizes to his friends and begins to serve drinks to those who wish. The five friends continue their usual babbling, to review the different characters of the neighborhood, when suddenly, Penelope, remembering the customer who had just come out, asks:

‘Hey! You’ve seen this person leaving just now? I am sure that he is a spy. He does no other than go back and forward on the street in front of me and the next street, where lives Master Amilius. I am sure he is watching him. What do you think Jou-el, you who knows all and knows everything about everyone?’

‘Yes,’ says Maci who responds in place of Jou-el, ‘I noticed others like him also, it seems that something is brewing. These are perhaps not spies, but surely agents of the BIS.’

‘I agree with you,’ says Macdo, ‘it seems to me that they keep an eye on Amilius.’

‘Sorry for the kick just now,’ says Jou-el to Leith, ‘but I could not do otherwise. It was Abdubu who recognized him first. This is probably an agent of the BIS. It seems to me that I know him and he is not one of their best agents, if that’s him.’

‘Yes,’ says Abdubu who had just submitted another tour, ‘he took a communication with Poseidia. What is suspicious in itself, but I seem to have heard him talking about suspects and execution or executed.’

‘But you wanted to talk about what just now?’ Asks Jou-el Leith.

‘Oh! It’s just about the murder of Ar-Arart. I wanted to know if any of you have anything new in the meantime.’

‘No,’ says Penelope, ‘but I think I have heard of this comet approaching day by day. But the observatory of Poseidia says there is no danger. He, this comet thus, will as usual pass very far from the Earth. Look at the paper of this morning, there is half a page on this event.’

‘I know,’ says Leith, ‘I have heard. But I am not too sure that these articles which appeared recently in newspapers are really coming from the observatory. Normally this comet, whose name is Arcturus, has a path coming between Pisces and Aquarius and leaving again between Sagittarius and Scorpio and does not cross the one of Earth. But the next problem arises, he came back too early and we don’t know why.’

‘But,’ says Maci, ‘wasn’t he supposed to return only in seventeen years?’

‘That’s it,’ says Leith, ‘Master Amilius told me that he also became visible in Aries.’

‘It seems to me,’ says Penelope, ‘that we cannot observe Aquarius at this time and are, therefore, unable to observe the arrival of a comet there.’

‘You may be right,’ says Leith, ‘which is why we saw him for the first time in Aries. What worries me on the other hand is the fact that his first appearance in Aries matches the predictions made in the sacred texts.’

‘The texts don’t they say that the country will be destroyed in one fateful day and a terrible night?’ Asks Abdubu who came back to take the orders and continues without waiting for a reply:

‘Everyone takes the dish of the day? You could also Leith, it’s a traditional dish of the Iberian people which contains only eggs, grated cheese, potatoes and mushrooms, accompanied by vegetables. Is this alright to you?’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘I make one myself sometimes, it’s a kind of omelet, isn’t it.’

‘Five dishes of the day?’ Asks Abdubu, without addressing the issue of Leith.

‘No,’ says Maci, ‘I would like the same thing as yesterday.’

‘Sorry, I have no more, I’ll pass the card?’

‘No leave it, I take the dish of the day.’

‘Drink? A beer for you two’, he says with a head movement to both Macs and continues:

‘Penelope, tea with ice cubes, perhaps,’ he asks her and continues without waiting for a reply from her: ‘Leith, wine, cider, a glass of water perhaps?’

‘Water,’ says Leith, ‘I still have lessons this afternoon and I wish to remain seriously.’

‘Jou-el? As usual?’

‘No, says Jou-el, ‘I will take a carafe of wine.’

The five friends continue their gossip babbling and tells about the inhabitants and shopkeepers of the district until Abdubu returns with the drinks. He says without speaking to one in particular:

‘It seems to me that your texts do not only speak of a total destruction by a star falling on the Earth, but also about earthquakes and a flood.’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘but also that there are survivors.’

‘All those who have fled into the mountains, I think’ replied Penelope to him.

‘You are amazingly well-informed,’ says Leith, ‘how do you know all this?’

‘Well. I talk with my clients, you need to be able to speak about anything if you do my job, my dear!’

‘We do have a similar legend,’ says Abdubu, ‘but he says at the end: “After the flood, a new, less sinner race emerges to repopulate the Earth.”

‘Hey!’ exclaims Penelope, apparently eager to change the subject by turning to Leith, ‘when do you get married?’

‘Me married? Me? How, to get married? With whom?’

‘But our dear Ussa! The beautiful princess of our king! You are lucky to have her as girlfriend.’

‘But,’ replies Leith, a little embarrassed by this intrusion into his private life, ‘you really believe what gossip newspapers tell?’

‘We’ll see you well as a future prince,’ says Macdo, ‘a handsome young man like you would be as successful as your beautiful girlfriend.’

‘No, we are friends, nothing more. I like her, but me being a prince? I don’t know’, replies Leith.

‘But,’ says Penelope him, ‘she is in love with you and doesn’t have a character to let a handsome young man like you escape.’

While his friends continue to tease him for a moment, it’s Abdubu who returns with the dishes and silence settles slowly leaving up to the sound of knives and forks on plates.

Angelica, alone at home, looks a little incredulous, while she eats her sandwich she has made herself, on her computer screen. “Shit, 286’591 answers! ” she says to herself, “I need a year like that.” She begins to watch the sites, first one by one, then others by taking them here and there following the display text. “Shit, still shit.” she says again to herself, “these are gossip sites, nothing to do with what I dreamed.” Then she gets across a site related to Plato’s speeches on Atlantis. “Let’s see,” she says to herself, “there are the speeches of Timaeus and others of Critias,” and notes the references on a sheet of paper. She begins to list the things to check, including dates, as she into time gets across a site detailing the date of a flood, priory given on a zodiac from the temple of Denderah in Egypt, which took place at 9792 years before Jesus Christ. “Let’s see,” she murmurers to herself, “according to this site, Solon lived about three hundred years before Plato and the story he was telling was nine thousand years before that. This leads us to three hundred added to the nine thousand years plus the lifetime of Plato, which was four hundred twenty-seven to three hundred and forty-eight before Jesus Christ, which gives me a range of nine thousand six hundred and forty-eight to nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven years before Jesus Christ.” She notes them, underlines the one of the zodiac of Denderah and adds a comment on it: “to verify”. She continues a moment to browse the various websites, noting the information and then calls the library, from which could be heard the following monologue:

‘Good afternoon madame. Angelica Leblanc talking. The library, is it open this afternoon?’

Master Amilius hears the noise of the door of his office-workshop and goes down the stairs leading to the observatory located in a part of his attic where he wanted to see if we could observe the blue star at daytime, the one that explodes as his observations of that night had confirmed. But he noted that it has not yet become visible to the naked eye by now. When he enters his office, he sees that Leith is already sitting and reading a book that was there. He praises his young student:

‘Hello Leith, did you eat well my boy?’

‘Hello Master, I did, thank you. For once the dish of the day suited me, which is rare. You know, I stand at the belief of our ancestors and I don’t eat flesh.’

‘It’s very wise of you my boy.’

‘You just came from your observatory, master, could you observe something?’

‘No my child, I was going to check if this bright star was already visible at daytime, but I could not see it. It’s a question of day or two, I think.’

‘Another thing, Master. A question. Nothing to do with the lessons. Have you seen this strange person limping in the streets here near you?’

‘Yes my boy, he observes us. Be careful and don’t talk too much in public about what we do here.’

‘But Master, the lessons are quite ordinary. Why do they focus on us then?’

‘I suspect he is an agent of the feared BIS. They monitor all those who work more or less closely on the appearance of Arcturus. They are perhaps the ones who killed Ar-Arart.’

‘Our life, will it be safe? Perhaps you were one of the best students of Ar-Arart, weren’t you’?’

‘I don’t want to be pretentious my boy, but there were many other very good students among them.’

‘It seems to me, master, that most of them have disappeared at this time or were killed by thugs or in suspect accidents.’

‘Yes, unfortunately my child. Then, the fact that they all worked on the project Arcturus is surely no coincidence.’

The Grand Master stands up and looks for the book with the sacred texts, which is since this morning on the worktable among different heterogeneous objects, opens it to the page where they had stopped reading, and says to his student:

‘Let’s continue with the reading of the first five of the seven plagues. We make a separate reading of the last two.’

The master takes his book, automatically adjusts his glasses and starts to read it as usual, slowly building on the most important words and making a small pause between sentences:

‘First plague: the harvest will be eaten by millions of locusts. Second plague: a new disease will appear and make thousands of victims. Third plague: there will be thirst, hunger, sun and heat. Fourth plague: man oppose to man, the region to another regions, religion to another religions and the nation to another nations. Fifth plague: a star falls on the earth. Do you have comments or questions, my boy?’

‘Yes and no, master. I find that with a little imagination the first four could be applied to events as they occur regularly on Earth.’

‘But they should not be interpreted one by one, and here and there, my boy. They must be regarded as a series of consecutive events. Do you remember the invasion of destructive insects in the country?’

‘Yes master. It seems to me that there has been a particularly devastating one a few years ago in the state of Alta. They were lucky that not the entire country had been invaded by locusts. And if I recall correctly, their crops had been lost entirely, for the nine-tenths at least. We can therefore consider that this could be the first plague.’

‘Very well my child, well thought out. Do you have an idea for the second plague?

‘Yes master. The second is not very difficult to guess. It’s the bird disease transmittable to humans and that looks like flu. It’s a disease from the country of the dragon, isn’t it master?’

The long boulevard which goes along the river Osuo and continues, after making a curve, along the port and then the lake Parfa, is normally a fairly quiet artery. During the dry season, the months of Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius, mostly we can find there pedestrians and people on vacation. Traffic there isn’t very dense since the bypass has been built. Only deliveries, public transport and cars of the city inhabitants are still in circulation, which gives an air of tourist to the city. This afternoon, on the other hand, there is unrest. The youth of the city are starting to revolt against the various wars that the federation conducts mainly against the Hellenic people and especially the particularly deadly against the people of Saneid. Even if the demonstration had started peacefully on the part of the artery along the river, disruptive elements begin to intrude among the protesters. The anti-riot units of the BIS are already at the place where the boulevard has a curve, where the mouth of the Osuo is, the park and the harbor entrance. When the first arrive in front of police in battle dress, others try to cross the old city, where the shops are, to reach the boulevard behind the police. In seeing them pass, merchants are beginning to panic. They remember very well the recent skirmishes, many shops were forced to leave their windows or worse. Even though most of them have metal blinds or at least a grid, there are others less fortunate. Among them are many older people who continue to run their shop, more to fill their time then earning a living, but also those who had just managed to open their trade. Penelope’s shop is between the two situations. Because of extensive repairs necessary since the last earthquake, she has not yet been able to afford a store of protection. She has protective panels of wood, built by the two Macs, in case of problems, but she cannot put them on alone. Her latest client parted, she searches desperately the street for someone who can help her. Unfortunately, everyone is busy protecting its own property and she begins to panic. Especially when she sees the agitators move increasingly in her street. Then, she sees her café friend, Leith, and calls him an anxious voice:

‘Oh Leith, you come at the right moment. Help me, please. I can’t hang the panels of protection, they are too heavy for me alone.’

‘What happens Penelope? I have never seen you like this and you have tears in your eyes.’

‘Oh Leith, I am afraid’, she continues with the same anxious voice. ‘There are, what it seems, thugs and racketeers of Belzebub among them. They already had, four years ago, ransacked all the stores of those who did not want to pay an amount of protection. Oh, I am so afraid Leith, I have repaired everything since the last earthquake and I can’t pay for other repairs. What would I be without my shop, it’s all that I have my friend? I have nothing else!’

It’s then that her emotions are becoming too strong. She takes him in her arms, puts her head on his shoulder and begins to cry. Leith, a little embarrassed by the spontaneous reaction of this young woman, barely younger than his mother, lets her cry, keeps her in turn and prefers not to say other than little words of solace. This is how both Macs find them when they move up the street to get to the tavern of Abdubu. It’s Macdo who sees them first, and exclaims:

‘Hey, Leith. you’re courting Penelope now?’

‘No,’ says Leith a little embarrassed, ‘she is afraid and she fears for her shop. She can’t hang her panels of protection herself and she cracked.’

‘Bring her to Abdubu, we take care of her shop,’ says Maci to him and continues speaking to Penelope: ‘the keys to your shop? They are on the door?’

‘Hey guy, do you have a problem?’ Yells Macdo at a young man who was preparing to enter the shop, seizes him by the collar, carries him through the door at arm’s-length as like he was a dirty rag and throws him in the street, saying: ‘go and look a little further on, man, if you don’t want to have problems with us.’

Both young man prefer thereafter to join three of their friends in front of Asian a shop. The Macs enter the store without waiting for the response of Penelope and look for panels in the back room to hang them.

‘Go, Penelope, we await the end of the demonstration and will follow you later’, says Macdo.

‘You are feeling better? You don’t have any more customers, do you?’ Asks Leith after a while.

‘Yes it’s better now,’ replies Penelope, ‘I still have clients, but I doubt they come with the hell they are making at this moment at the boulevard below.’

‘If they come, they would know where to find you anyway. They know very well that you are often at Abdubu’s place and they will get you there, don’t worry’, says Leith. ‘The Macs are making music this evening and you could stay a while with us. You live there and nobody is waiting for you anyway.’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ she says with a little voice, ‘why don’t you have ten years more, I like you. But, did you see that?’ She says, turning her head towards the other end of the street. ‘Such things!’

‘What then?’ Asks Leith.

‘The Asian, the one of the country of the Dragon, who has slanting eyes, the little shop there. He is walking around with something strange, two sticks attached to each other with a chain, which he has just been using to knock out five of those guys in a flash. They did not see anything coming.’

‘Me neither,’ says Leith, ‘I don’t see other than five bodies on the floor with the royal guards around them. In any case what they will see now is a prison cell from the inside.’

‘Let’s go to Abdubu,’ says Penelope, ‘business is damned for today.’

‘You certainly owe a tour to the Macs when they return.’

‘They deserve no less. These are guys that can be relied upon.’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘with the build they have, it’s better not to seek a quarrel with them, as the two young people have done just now.’

They climb the narrow street to the tavern, where she quickly forgets emotions of just now, to continue, awaiting the two Macs, with the usual babbling with Abdubu and Jou-el who has also joined them.

Julian who has got up early this morning to go to the sailing club where he plays the role of instructor, not only to fill his time, but also improve the state of his bank account, hears small noises coming from the room of his sister. He pushes the door, puts his head through the ajar and notes with astonishment that his sister, usually not very early risers, is already at work.

‘Hi my angel, you fell out of bed?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘I woke up after having again a dream where was this boy my age. It’s surely on Atlantis because he is an Atlantean and he was at home.’

‘Got a new nightmare then?’

‘No, but it was so real that it seemed. He lives, perhaps lived, in a studio housed in the attic of a townhouse.’

‘How do you know that he is an Atlantean then?’

‘He told me. I did maybe not tell you, but I did dream before of this boy. I saw him together with a girl a little older than him, about your age then, who is, was perhaps, the only daughter of the king of his country and followed the same course with an old sage. You know, like the guy of the TV game show Fort Boyard in his turret.’

‘You have talked about what then? Based on that I know you, you’ve tried to seduce him.’

‘Seducing? No. We were focused on dates and reference points, as our calendar is based on the birth of Jesus and that reference did not yet exist their days. The names of the weekdays and the names of months neither anyway. He had not understood when I told him that we were in August. Then, he asked me the zodiac sign, Leo thus, then he understood me. He told me that they, themselves, were the fifth day of Leo and they have celebrated the winter solstice a little over two weeks.’

‘They were, therefore, 26 July.’

‘Or 27 perhaps because I believe that Leo started 22 this year, but I am not sure and I have the check it.’ Looking at the time, she continues: ‘let’s have breakfast, otherwise you will be late for the club.’

Once alone in the kitchen because the parents working both are already of to work, they continue their discussion of just now.

Master Amilius is not feeling himself this morning. A sort of profound unease, an evil being, grabbed him. An undefined premonition mobilizes his mind when he observed the sky in the morning to see if the blue star was visible, which was the case. He descends from the observatory and tries, after having noted the observations of the morning, to focus on the calculations he planned to do. That’s when his young student, Leith, enters his office and workshop.

‘Hello Master. How are you? You seem to worry about something. What happens master?’

‘Hello young friend. It’s nothing my child, I just have the impression to be in danger.’

Leith, astonished to hear for the first time the term “young friend,” looks at him with an interrogative eye and says:

‘It’s true that there are strange people in the streets of Osuo in recent days. I don’t know if this has something to do with the controversy around the comet Arcturus, but it may be advisable to stay quiet for a week or two and let things settle.’

‘You are and you keep being optimistic my child. That’s right. But I hope like you do, that we, my master Ar-Arart and I, went wrong in the calculations.’

‘You have anything new master?’

‘Yes my boy, the star which became brighter over the last few nights has become visible in the day.’

‘Which matches the prediction’, replies Leith.

‘Unfortunately yes, my boy, but before continuing the discussion, I will read the seventh plague.’

Amilius raises his head and takes a circular look around him as if looking for something and sees that the book sought-after is laying below a pile of papers with his calculations. He files the papers, takes the book, still open to the same page where they had stopped reading the day before, and continues, adjusting with a mechanical gesture his glasses, reading:

Penelope, just finishing off her last client of the morning, sees to her surprise that Leith is waiting in the corner fitted out as waiting room. She has neither seen nor heard him enter. Leith, sitting there waiting that she finishes her client, is reading, or rather browse, the newspapers, mostly women’s magazines and what is not usual these days, up-to-date. He does not notice that Penelope approaches him and requests:

‘Hi you! It’s for a beauty mask?’

‘Hi Penelope,’ responds Leith as if he were to wake up, ‘it’s Master Amilius who sends me to leave here some files.’

‘Yes I know, he told me yesterday that he would do so. I saw you reading my newspapers. You are interested in women’s magazines now?’

‘No, not really, but you do have, apart from the today’s newspaper what I have already read, nothing else to read.’

‘This is not true Leith, look here, there are water-sports magazines, then there, that one with photos of horses, is a riding newspaper. What do you think, we, girls, do also sports, it’s not only for men.’

Ussa, usually ad hoc, slows to join her parents at breakfast. When she finally makes her entrance, the servants come to serve her, but she casts them a cold look, keeping for herself what she would have wanted to tell them: “Leave me in peace! ”. But comes to whisper:

‘Thanks, Ra gave me two feet and two hands to serve me! Hi Mom, hi Dad, did you sleep well.’

‘Thank you, my daughter,’ responds her mother, ‘you have had a restless night? Is there something that worries you?’

Seeing that she does not answer, her father asks her:

‘Is this the young man, your childhood friend that you’re concerned about, my daughter.’

‘No father.’

She remains a moment silent, loiters at her breakfast, which worries her mother, watching the dishes that she loves otherwise with empty eyes and continues:

‘It’s despicable! He dared! This bastard would kill his own son if it’s to retain his power. But how can we be so vile? Ar-Arart didn’t harm to anyone and making believe that a burglary had gone wrong, is still the height of stupidity.’

‘You have harsh words for the head of the federation’, says her father.

‘Sorry Dad, but one shall not kill! If master-Ar Arart had to stay quiet on a subject, he would have done so, no need to kill him, you see. These are methods of thugs.’

‘What are you doing today?’ Asks her mother who wanted to change the course of the discussion.

‘I don’t have a clear idea Mom, but I could go to the temple of Ozin. I would like to talk to the souls of grandma and granddad, I’m missing them. They may be able to take the stone away of my heart that weighs me since the disappearance of my friend, mentor and master.’

She turns to the servants and calls one of them:

‘Make a reservation for me of a compartment in the next fast towards Ozin, I will be ready in half an hour. Oh yes, tell me a quarter of an hour before departure. I don’t expect people to wait, I must, like them, be on time for departure.’

‘Be careful, my daughter’, says her mother.

‘Yes Mom, I will go and prepare myself now. Have a nice day, Dad’, she says to her father who stood up to continue his activities for the day.

Comfortably seated in her compartment with reading courtesy offered by the Railway Company, she contemplates the landscape that is unfolding before her eyes. The west suburbs of Osuo and the lake Parfa had quickly given way to fields and crops. In a distance she starts to distinguish the first hills and the valley of Saad. But the train does not follow the valley of Saad because he takes the direction of one of its many tributaries, the Ozin. The city and the temple of the same name are located further up the valley, where there are many hot springs, all of a very good reputation. Upon arrival, she feels it as a kind of happiness, well-being. Is it the effect of the trip, the atmosphere generated by this spiritual place? She walks on the transparent pavement way to the temple under which runs a stream. A soft and melodious music accompanies her and seems to escape from the temple. She goes, parvenu at the entrance to the temple with its white columns and a frieze around, through the waterfall of energy that glides silently, like a curtain. This temple is, apart from a place of prayer also a place of spiritual regeneration. Thus, the energy curtain at the entrance is used to symbolically purify the soul. Ussa is, as each time she enters this place, seized by the beauty of crystal. The stone speaks to her. “Be welcome, we expected you…” she hears. It’s a spirit, a very wise soul, the one of her master Ar-Arart accompanying her grandmother and her grandfather. Once arrived at the center of the temple she finds herself in front of the mirror surface in perpetual movement, having an indecisive color that is both transparent and bluish. On the other side are the beings that she loves and who died and they are just three of them who want to talk to her: her granny, her grandfather and her master.

‘Hello Grandma. Hello Granddad. Hello Master. How are you?’

‘Hello my child,’ says master Ar-Arart the first to respond. ‘I see that you are very saddened by my sudden death.’

‘Hello my dear,’ answer her grandparents in a choir, ‘you have done well to come. We welcome your coming, each of your visits is for us a feast. How is your young friend? He is like a brother to you. You need him and he needs you. Bring him the next time with you, we know him well.

‘This next time will be tomorrow at the end of the morning here’, says master Ar-Arart. ‘Can you come my child?’

‘Yes master, and with regard to Leith, do I have to warn him that he comes with me?’

‘No my child, destiny provided to you both because I have a message for you two, but I can only disclose it when Leith is also present. Do not mourn my death my child, stay assured, the perpetrators will not escape their terrible punishment.’

It’s after expressing his words that master Ar-Arart disappears from the screen.

‘You know, my dear,’ says her grandfather, ‘you must be very strong in the following year. But before I continue, did you and Leith not consult a Gallic clairvoyant for fun who told you your future using Gallic playing cards?’

‘Yes grandfather, she told us that we will never leave until death, but that we will never be husband and wife. I remember well, she told us that we will be married to a brother and sister of the same age as us. The only thing I did not understand, is the journey with no possibility of return. Apart from death, you can return from any trip, can’t you?’

‘Yes my dear,’ answers her granny, ‘that’s right. This trip is also coming soon. We would like to warn you that, even that we are forbidden to tell the future to mortals, tomorrow, between late afternoon and early evening, you’ll need all your courage. Don’t panic above all in front of danger.’

They, Ussa and her grandparents, continue their conversation still a good time talking about anything and everything before she is going to reach the station. Thoughtful, she settles into her compartment and reviews the conversation with Ar-Arart and her grandparents. Especially the fact that her grandfather and grandmother prove the Gallic woman to be right is puzzling her. She remembers well the fear she had when she had drawn a card with a skeleton. Because she, the visionary thus, saw a change in there without the possibility of return and not the death that the card was showing. The other card, with a wheel, meaning to her that the changes had already begun and showed that the course of events could not be changed. Destiny is in progress and the wheel turns, she said. The only thing that she had failed to explain, was the number eleven thousand eight hundred. This figure was part of the prediction, but she did not know the exact nature. A distance, perhaps? Ussa, relaxes her legs, takes a women’s magazine in the compartment and begins to read it until the arrival of the train at the station of Osuo where two members of the royal guard are waiting for her on the platform.

The big palace located in the second ring of Poseidia housed formerly a consul or a cleric of high rank and is one of the few to offer a spacious courtyard. This superb building is currently used for less peaceful purposes; because the decision-making center of the BIS is found here. Even the general management of the feared BSO, the Brigade of Secret Operations, have their space allocated in a wing separated from the remaining offices. The weather is fine, no spot in heaven is presage of what is going on inside. Especially that this beautiful sky hides a terrible and dangerous secret, one we try to hide at all costs from the public. It’s for this reason that the “Operation Silence” has been set up. This program is to convince, willingly or by force, any person having an astronomical and astrological knowledge sufficient to calculate the trajectory of the celestial object, to remain silent and not to disclose information other then by order of the King at the time wanted. Unfortunately, there are recalcitrant and zealous low-level employees. It’s mainly those who are the most dangerous because the number of violent deaths where the author hasn’t been identified is growing. An accident here, a burglary that went wrong there, a research center on fire and even observatories vandalized by unknown people. Among the recent crimes, the one that was too many is the murder disguised as a burglary of Master Ar-Arart. The error committed by the gangsters was simple, at burglary we steal the valuables, but; the only thing missing in his home were working documents and calculations on a comet. It’s true that the local press of Poseidia had not played an echo of this event because under strict control of the organs of state. Even the national press of Alta, the main state of the federation and greater than the other nine together, has made this case a small article under miscellaneous facts. The press of other states had, on the other hand, made much noise of this and had put the news on the headlines. The last few days, some nervousness is installed among the population of the main state and precisely because of the lack of response from the local and national press. They believe, rightly, be duped by their local government blindly obedient to the central executive power of the state of Alta. It’s in this climate of incubating rebellion that a crisis meeting is held in the great hall of this mythical place with its thirty-one statues of the Ra-Ta Dynasty. The King has unfortunately not seen the need to invite the other kings and even less their delegates and ministers. He did not come himself, but merely did send his instructions to the direction of the BIS indicating to the director to represent him. The only representatives of the federation present are: the chief of the Army and the Admiralty, as well some guests from other states. The table is topped with a large world map with miniature boats each representing the position of one or more naval vessels. In addition to miniature vessels are here and there figures representing different ethnic groups and their destination. The only group that is not represented are the poeple of Saneid with which the federation is conducting for years a deadly war. The only ones who are notable by their absence are the Air Force and civil aviation authorities. Gossips say they are already requisitioned by Ta-Ra himself to serve himself first and then the noble and wealthy. It’s the director of “Operation Silence”, known to code name Ptah, who opens the meeting:

‘Hi Gentlemen, I thank you for coming. You all know the reason for this meeting and your invitation here. Is there anyone among you who would like to add an item on the agenda?’

‘Yes,’ says the head of armies, ‘I would like to discuss the distribution of people by state and ethnicity. It does not seem fair to me that a quarter of the population is assigned a tenth of transport capacity.’

‘Are there any other points?’ Asks Ptah.

‘Shouldn’t we have better excluded the Hebrew from the selection?’ Asks the prefect of Poseidia.

‘Can you give me the reason for your proposal?’ Requests Ptah, knowing his personal opinion. ‘I know that you don’t particularly like them. But please know that we are not here to discuss the grievances of all, but to develop a crisis plan.’

‘The reason for my request, Mr. Director, is the following: The Hebrew of my city have set up for many years themselves an evacuation plan. It would be better to speak of an exodus. A legend of their sacred rolls speaks of the arrival of a spiritual guide that will emerge in their community in Egypt. Since the rumor spread that the event will be soon, they move all over there as expatriate workers.’

‘Do you have figures?’ Asks Ptah.

‘Alas, I can’t provide exact figures, but from my estimates it could include more than half the local Hebrew population.’

‘Have you been able to count them?’

‘No sir. They come along from all counties to replace the ones who leave and await their turn of departure.’

‘You believe that they are perfectly able to arrange their own departure?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Please send me an estimate of land and sea transport capacity they need.’

The Director of “Operation Silence” takes a circular look fixing each member of the meeting one by one and continues:

‘Gentlemen, the point made earlier was the first item on the agenda. We are going to continue with what had been planned long ago and the date changes we will have to make. So we have seen that one of the twelve communities of the federation takes itself care of the organization. I charge the prefect of Poseidia to give them the means of transport to them within the framework of the operation. As regards the Celts, I understand they want to return nearly all to the land of their ancestors. Can anyone in this assembly affirm me that?

‘As for me,’ says the chief of police of Poseidia, ‘they have begun to desert their places of work and their homes to join their land in the north.’

‘Is there a representative from the Celtic state in the room?’ Requests Ptah with a circular look and noting that no one answers.

‘Mr. Director,’ asks the representative of the state Mayra, ‘is the allocation of means of transport as expected, or is it changed?’

‘Good question, our king has decided that the transport capacity will be distributed according to the number of people and not one hundred twenty vessels by state and ten people per community and ship, as foreseen in the original plan. Therefore, Mr. Minister, your state will be allocated one hundred twenty ships because it represents one-tenth of the population. In addition, our king has ordered the requisition of any vessel capable of carrying fifty people or more and invites his colleagues in other states to do likewise.’

‘How do we select candidates for exile?’ Asks the Chief of Police.

‘The same as the selection of army recruits,’ responds Ptah ‘by drawing lots.’

‘I guess that’s up to us to ensure the right approach?’ Asks the chief of land forces.

‘That’s right, you will make yourself available to the police because skirmishes are to be feared. Unfortunately we can’t evacuate, but one person out of twenty at most. For the others, we simply do not have sufficient transport capacity.’

It’s in inviting everyone present to consider the model representing the evacuation plan that development of its details can begin.

‘Triple six and that for the second time! You’re cheating!’ Exclaims Jou-el. ‘Are you a professional player or what?’

‘Nono,’ says Abdubu, ‘you had a good result just now. It’s a gamble anyway.’ He raises his head and looks at the table in the corner, and then continues:

‘You see what I see?’

‘What then,’ asks Jou-el without looking back, ‘our zoro has come back?’

‘Yes, that’s right. He sits at the same table as yesterday morning.’

‘I fear that our master will have problems one of these days. Leith should be careful to not get caught too.’

‘You think Master Amilius was able to find something?’ Requests Abdubu.

‘Definitely! But where will he hide it because he knows very well that they bring his studio and apartment upside down to find it. He will therefore necessarily hide that information from them. I think that it’s unlikely that he puts the life of Leith in danger. He hides the results of their study therefore necessarily elsewhere, but where, I don’t know more than you.’

‘Have you seen Ajax recently?’ Asks Abdubu.

‘No, but I pop over to Penelope, she may know.’

‘Penelope?’

‘Yes, they often go out together and she seems to know where to find him if necessary. She will warn him of the presence of our client here.’

‘Do you intend to monitor the house of the master?’

‘I actually started to watch, but alone I will not be able to do much. I cannot permit myself to do hideaway at night and work at daytime’, says Jou-el.

‘Couldn’t you inform your friends of the police, requests Abdubu.

‘No, as long there is no crime, they don’t intervene. I also think there is something fishy, as in other similar cases, the police remained silent too many times. I haven’t heard about a follow-up or investigation and neither of the opening of a judicial case. I believe that all cases were closed with the mention: “homicide by person or persons unknown.”

‘The so-called hush up of a case’, says Abdubu.

That’s when the door opens with a bang and it’s Penelope who enters like a gale in exclaiming:

‘Dubu, Dubu. Prepare me three teas to take away. I’ll bring back the cups in a moment.’

Looking discreetly to the table in the corner, she goes to the service buffet where are already Abdubu and Jou-el and goes on with a lowered voice:

‘He is still there. I haven’t seen him this morning, but he returned in the street around noon. Should I warn Ajax? We had planned an evening at the theater, I will see him in a moment anyway. But,’ she continues still speaking in hushed tones, ‘my clients have found others like him. Two them that aren’t member at all of the royal guard follow our dear Ussa everywhere. I fear for her and Leith.’

‘Don’t trouble for cups,’ says Jou-el, ‘I’ll come and take them in a moment. We could talk a little bit at your store.’

‘It’s nice, thank you.’

‘Here are your teas’, says Abdubu coming back after having served other clients.

‘See you in a moment, Jou-el’, says Penelope.

‘Wait,’ says Abdubu, ‘I’ll open you the door.’

‘Can you give me a communication,’ demands Jou-el, ‘I want to ask a friend if he can come here and make a few portraits.’

‘From?’ Asks Abdubu by pointing the thumb to the table in the corner. What Jou-el confirms by making a head movement.

‘Where were we?’ Asks Jou-el watching the dice game dragging on the service buffet. ‘Who is playing?’

‘You, I think. I made a triple six.’

‘Sleek, nada.’

‘Maybe yes,’ says Abdubu, ‘if you replay the five there, you’ll have a chance to make a sequel.’

‘Yeah, but brings us a drink first.’

‘What do you want? Another jug of wine?’

‘You’ll take one with me?’

Penelope has just put the cups of tea she had drunk with her two clients away, when Jou-el accompanied by a person that she does not know make their entry in her shop. The ladies present, surprised to see men sit down in the corner fitted out as waiting room, exclaim in chorus:

‘You’re doing men’s hair now?’

Penelope goes to them to say “hello” and passes her hand in the hair of Jou-el and says:

‘So, since when did you wash your hair? You washed it at least once since your birth, didn’t you. Present me your friend; because I can’t imagine that you just came here to say “hello” to me. Rather, for what is going on right now concerning Leith and Master Amilius, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ says one client, ‘we were in discussion. I have a friend who told me the presence of strange guys here and there.’

‘This is exactly the reason of our presence’, says Jou-el. ‘The gentleman here is not only a good friend, but is also a photo fitter of the police. We want you to stay a little while to help us developing portraits of these men.’

‘Ajax will also come’, says Penelope. ‘We’ll go out tonight for theater, you will, the time I prepare myself, have ample time to discuss the subject.’

‘Ladies,’ says Jou-el, ‘will it be possible to obtain the addresses of your friends. We would like to visit them discreetly and make portraits of these people you mentioned.’

‘Do you know a little astronomy, Jou-el?’ Asks Penelope. ‘We, my clients and me thus, saw a star visible on the daytime, but we are not sure whether it’s the comet or another star.’

‘Me neither,’ replies Jou-el, ‘but from what Leith said, the comet will not yet be visible during the day. According to him, the star we see at the moment is one that is booming and is very bright for a week. He told us that it could be one of the seven signs of the end of the world.’

‘There are already many people, as it seems, to provide for their departure in the coming days’, says a client. ‘But I don’t go away, what do you have me do? Go to live as a wild Indian on the continent with a hunter as husband and making fire as as in the old days. Living without any comfort there, with nothing? No, if the country goes under, I go with it and I have a lot of male and female friends who feel the same.’

‘Yes,’ says Penelope, ‘my parents speak the same. They find that young people can try a new start, but that one does not move old trees.’

‘I am afraid,’ says the designer, ‘that this time is identical to the previous two cases. You know the one that had taken place twelve thousand years ago and then the other of forty thousand years ago. They, the scientists of the time, therefore, had also announced the total destruction, creating a wave of panic. Yet, even if the country has suffered significant damage, the majority of people survived and the country was quickly rebuilt. Rather, our country or our confederation is still an impressive piece of earth and mountains and I find it hard to imagine the disappearance of this total.’

‘Me neither,’ says Penelope, ‘but I think that Leith has another opinion. He tried to explain to me the situation. I did not understand everything but the floor of the ocean that surrounds our country seems very fragile and unstable. He claims that our country has been for very long only sea-mounts. He thinks, this is what his master explained to him, in case of collision between Arcturus and the Earth in the Atlantic Ocean, the soil will not resist.’

‘It’s for when that Arcturus crosses the Earth’s orbit?’ Asks her client.

‘In about a week’, replies Penelope. ‘Fairly early in the morning I believe.’

‘Do you remember what Leith claimed’, asks Jou-el.

‘What then?’

‘That what he had said this morning concerning his dear Gallic girl.’

‘Ah! The girl he regularly sees in his dreams. Yes, he has no idea where she is or where she lives. The places he describes don’t correspond to anything similar. What worries him most is the fact that she doesn’t know our country otherwise as being a myth. She seems to have only a vague idea of its geography and location.’

‘He claims that our island sank deep into the ocean?’

‘No my dear, he never claimed this, it’s your own conclusion. He has claimed that his girlfriend of his dreams doesn’t know our island otherwise as being a myth.’

‘I persist,’ says a client, ‘I agree with this gentleman that the country can’t easily disappear into nothingness. We might lose the lowest plains or we will have quite destructive earthquakes, but I’m not going to change my mind. I stay.’

‘Me too’, says the other client.

‘I think Leith’s family does not want to leave either’, says Penelope. ‘They are, like mine, very attached to their land and don’t leave for whatever reason. These are people of the region, rather die with their land then leave to an uncertain future. Can you imagine rebuild all in Gaulle or in the Celtic country? No, those who leave must be able to rebuild a country, as the conquerors and scientists have done in the past.’

‘So, does it look alike?’ Asks the designer to the client by showing her the drawing he had done on her instructions.

‘Yes,’ she says referring to the location on the sketch paper, ‘I would say he lacks a scar there.’

‘Have you seen other suspicious’, ask the designer.

‘Yes she says, but I have not seen him very well.’

‘Concentrate on what eyes he had’, he asks her by showing his drawings of different eye types.’

She chooses one and the designer continues alike with the other elements of the face. Once finishing the questioning of the client, he continues with the second client present. He realizes fast enough that they saw different suspicious men and decides to make some overall sketches.

‘Are it them who you have seen’, he asks the two customers.

‘It looks like him,’ she says, showing one of the drawings, ‘but the other, there was something that I don’t know or the nature escapes me at this time.’

‘That’s it,’ says the other client, ‘he had an ugly button on the nose. You know a button here’, showing first the drawing and then pointing her finger on her own nose to indicate the exact location.

‘It seems to me,’ says Penelope, ‘that I saw him too and he was headed in the opposite direction. He had a line on the other side and his hair also badly treated as Jou-el has.’

It’s just that the last two customers of the day prepare to leave that Ajax enters the shop in turn. He takes a questioning look to those already present and asks:

‘General meeting?’

‘No,’ says Penelope, ‘but you come at the right moment, while I am preparing, you could chat with Jou-el and his friend who came questioning me and my clients regarding these suspects who are wandering around last days in our city. Look well Ajax, I am sure I saw one of them roam around the library.’

Penelope launches, once the two customers left after having settled their service, to her friends:

‘I will prepare myself. Meanwhile you can review the drawings that the friend of Jou-el has been done. I’m sure you know them’, she says to Ajax. ‘I’ll be back quickly, we will all have a drink at Abdubu’s place before we go to the theater, don’t we? Ajax?’

When Leith pushes the office door of the Master Amilius’s workshop early this afternoon of the fifth day of Leo, he finds his mentor in full calculation. Who ranges the few papers he has been using for his calculations, raises his head and greets his student:

‘Hello Leith. You are well? Eaten well my boy?’

‘Thank you master. Were you able to see something interesting? I could discuss the matter with my friends just now. Both Celtic know the land of their ancestors, but they don’t know a place where the cliffs slope down to the sea.’

‘I thought about this conundrum, my boy. It could be the global warming taking place right now. Of course there are voices here and there who accuse us to have abused the energy sources, but nothing proves this.’

‘The Macs, it’s like that we call them, told me that these cliffs are between two hundred and three hundred feet above sea level Will this say that the sea level will rise as high?’

‘It’s not impossible boy. We have already seen an average increase of one foot over the past two years. The melting of two-thirds of the ice on the entire earth could well result in such an increase.’

‘You are therefore not at all convinced that this is the use of energy resources that is causing this increase.’

‘No my boy, although some attribute this increase to the gas produced by the intensive rearing of cows and pigs, there is no evidence of that because the earth climate has increased at regular intervals and at the last ones, human activity did not generate greenhouse gases yet. However, the increase was indeed there.’

‘Happens this often?’

‘No my boy, once every hundred thousand years on average with some intermediate increases here and there.’

‘Then, master, where lives my white angel might well be three hundred feet above sea level today?’

‘Yes my boy.’

‘I haven’t followed the evolution of this increase, master. It’s how much at the moment?’

‘It’s a trend already under way for some hundreds of years now and it will continue a few hundred years. The melting of ice will accelerate during this time and the sea level could rise up to three feet per year.’

‘The time when the city of my angel will be by the sea, is still distant, and is accordingly in the future, isn’t it, master?’

‘Yes my boy. The city where she, because she is a girl, lives does certainly not exist yet. With regard to the angels, they do not fit our spiritual gifts boy. I thought you don’t believe in the existence of angels.’

‘Yes master, but she told me.’

‘You can have misunderstood her, my child.’

‘That’s what Penelope says master. She believes that it’s her name. She, our neighborhood beautician thus, says that angel is her name and white will therefore be her tribe name.’

‘Yes my boy, she is absolutely right. Also, if I take your description of this morning, the girl of your dreams isn’t often dressed in white. You described to me a person of your age who prefers to wear, like boys, pants of various colors with associated shirts. Then, as regards the name, it may be Angelica, which means like an angel. It’s also likely that her tribe name, a color in this case, is not alone, but preceded by a personal pronoun. Do you remember if she mentioned a date or other references, such as astrology.’

‘Yes master, they had the two thousand and eighth’s year since the birth of their prophet. But I am unable to locate this date.’

‘You see my boy, you remember a lot more than you think. Think carefully. What did she say to you about the legend of our country? I’m sure that there was a date.’

‘No master, but she spoke of a Hellenic philosopher who had narrated the legend to four hundred years before her era and had this from his great grandfather who had made a trip to Egypt. The legend himself said that nine thousand years had elapsed since. Angelica, then it may be preferable to call her by name, did not remember very well the exact terms used. She had to learn more, but it seems that their legend takes a large part of the texts of the sixth and seventh plague.’

‘Well my child, whereas the event foretold by the sacred texts has not yet taken place, the girl of your dreams lives, a quick addition, eleven thousand seven hundred or perhaps eleven thousand eight hundred years in the future.’

‘Oh! Our journey of no return’, says Leith astonished.

‘How journey of no return my child, explain yourself.’

‘This is perhaps nothing master, but Ussa and I had visited an old Gallic woman on a Poseidia fair. It was she who predicted us that we would never leave and we would make a trip with no possibility of return and which was related to the number eleven thousand eight hundred.’

‘Traveling in and seeing other than present is normally not possible my child. Whatever, some ancient texts refer to such involuntary trips. One example is the old shepherd who leads his flock to graze and crosses when coming down an old man, surprised to see him, turns out to be his little son. But tell me, your Angelica, in what kind of world does she live?’

Thus, it’s like this that Leith continues a moment to discuss the world of Angelica with his mentor. These objects who are strange and familiar at a time. Especially the fact that she moves with a device having two wheels placed one behind the other and driven by pedals. They discuss a time by which physical phenomenon this thing stays up and allows moving without falling. They review and discuss a lot of possibilities, backed up by drawings, without finding a satisfactory explanation. When Leith leaves his master at the end of the afternoon, the riddle remained full.

She climbs slowly the sloping street and heads towards the intersection where the street crosses a major boulevard. She continues then on the other side up to a small square with trees to the left. She has a pang of heart when she approaches the library. A crowd of people is there, police officers and firefighters. The first flames begin to leave the windows of the in-between basement. Tears come to her eyes and she says to herself “Oh! Geez, our beautiful library. All these beautiful works several millenniums old. What a drama. How will we rebuild all this? ” To her right, an elderly woman has collapsed in tears, the shock was too great for her. Her daughter and her granddaughter are still inside. They have taken over the management of the library since she handed over. Her family took care of it since her great-great grandmother. All suddenly she hears in the crowd voices that say that there are still people in the basement. A second voice behind her, meets the first and is certain that it’s the princess Ussa and her childhood friend Leith. She moves towards the entrance and attempts to go down into the basement, but a police officer is trying to prevent her from entering. It’s there that she perceives that she is not really of this world because she succeeds, to the astonishment of all, to cross the policeman throughout. She begins to look left, right, goes up a staircase, comes down again, goes down another one and moves into the smoky basement on fire by groping around her. She runs into a reinforced door which she crosses as she did with the policeman and hears voices in the back of the room. She seems to recognize the voices of Ussa and Leith which are not yet aware of the danger. She checks whether the door is closed and hopes that he holds out. She calls, but they do not seem to hear her. Then, she goes to them and beckons to follow her. Ussa and Leith, surprised to see someone enter through a closed door, look a little dumbfounded. It’s Leith who recognizes her the first and greets her. She welcomes him in turn and waves out to the emergency door. Unfortunately, the door appears to be blocked from the outside. Meanwhile, the room where the most valuable works are fills, in spite the fact that it’s supposed to be fireproof, gradually with smoke. She remembers a course is in high school by firefighters that one should crawl on the ground in case of fire. She shows thus the example to be followed to her two friends locked in. They ramp to the back of the room where we can find a cabinet filled with various objects and signals to open and empty it. Ussa pushes a loud cry because in one of the cupboards contains study skeletons. Once the cabinet emptied and cupboards removed, a trapdoor becomes visible. When Leith opens it, wet and smelly air comes up from the narrow, dark and dirty corridor where a staircase down is. She descends and sees that Ussa follows her. Leith, however, returns to the smoky room trying to find the works to be saved at any cost. Ussa, panicking, calls him to hurry up, but Leith in turn gives a sign to his childhood friend to do the same and take with her as many books she can. The door seems to hold, but for how long? It’s hoped that the water and smoke damage will not be too much and that these works stored in the subsoil could be restored. Leith, who does not want to take risk, brings with him the most valuable books. He closes the door behind him and locks it from the inside. They move all three forward by small steps in the corridor where it’s dark as night groping the walls as suddenly, to the astonishment of the two friends, she pulls out her cellphone and presses some button. Leith and Ussa first look at each other and look a little surprised at her to see her amusing herself with a gadget from which they know neither the operation nor the use, before realizing that she uses it, leaking any better, as a flashlight. The descent seems to be endless. The two friends follow her obediently in this maze of corridors and stairways. Suddenly she sits down and waits in front of another trapdoor. Neither Ussa nor Leith remember how long they waited sitting there in the dark on a staircase in this moisten, dirty and stinking corridor, but it’s by hearing the small noises over the hatch that they begin to call relief. The door opens and blinded by the light she exclaims:

‘Finally! Saved.’

‘How, saved,’ says Julian, ‘my little sister is having another nightmare?’

‘No.’

‘Yes! You were gesturing and shouting stuff like “here”, “attention”, “left”, “right” and more. You dreamed of what this time? Yet, your Leith, I bet.’

‘I dreamed this time that there was a fire in their library and Leith was stuck in the basement with his childhood friend, Princess Ussa.’

‘But how did you do to get them out?’

‘I don’t know. I just knew. What was strange, that I could pass through closed doors. There was even a cop who tried to prevent me from entering the library, but I passed throughout without resistance on his part.’

‘You were nothing but a ghost, or alike.’

‘Yes, roughly.’

‘But how did you know where to go?’

‘As I told you, I don’t know. I knew it, that’s all.’

‘You have taken them where then?’

‘I don’t know because at the moment the door out opened, it’s you who lit the light and I woke up.

‘You couldn’t have seen the face of the person who opened it then?

‘No when it opened, a face appeared, but for me it was yours that I saw.’

‘Do you know something about the origin of the fire?’

‘No, but approaching the library, I heard people say that some had seen a suspicious man coming out of an emergency door.’

‘Come, we’ll go and take something in the kitchen whilst you tell me that what you’ve dreamed. You go back to bed after?’

‘I don’t know. What time is it?’ She looks at her alarm-clock and exclaims: ‘half past six! It’s too late to go back to sleep. I remain up. I think I’ll take a small breakfast and I continue my filing thereafter. So I will be well advanced and I can join you at the club.’

‘You’re surprising me, usually you are rarely up before ten and now you start work at such hours. What happens?’

‘I don’t know. I will finish what’s puzzling me. I like this Leith and I’ll be very upset if something happens to him.’

‘But how do you think to help him?’

‘I am looking for the texts of Plato, a reasonable translation, not the pitch we find here and there on the Internet.’

‘And then? What do you do?’

‘Don’t know. Read them aloud in the hope that he sees and hears me in his dreams. So he may write down the most of it as soon he awakes. But I have yet to see how.’

‘Did you think of going to Monique, the visionary who works with a crystal ball?’

‘I don’t know. Do you think it would work?’

‘You can always try. Especially convincing her to offer you a friendly price.’

‘Maybe. But I want to drink my coffee with milk now and then I see what I can do.’

‘So, come and take breakfast. Thereafter, I do a little jogging before going to the club.’

Leith got up early this morning of the sixth day of Leo. He sees, by looking outside, that it has rained during the night and the sun begins to emerge. Leith still takes care to bring, contrary to his habits, his records with him, even if his master has, apart from a few geographical checks, planned nothing special. He slowly descends the stairs, thinking about everything and nothing. He has the unfortunate impression that something has happened and that the day will not be like any other, without being able to put the finger on the exact nature of events. It’s when he closes the entrance door behind him that he sees an unusual animation in the street. There is an unusual number of police both uniformed and civilian. Upon approaching the house of his master, it’s the detective Ajax who comes towards him and takes him aside and says:

‘Hi Leith, I fear that the news is not good this morning.’

‘What is?’ Asks Leith with an anxious voice.

‘Here, sit down there on the stairs.’

‘But what is wrong?’ He asks with a little voice.

‘They found Master Amilius stabbed in his office. This is the same scenario as the assassination of Master Ar-Arart. They, the false burglars thus, have ransacked his office and his library and nothing of value seems to be missing. They didn’t touch the cash-box with his money neither. According to initial investigations books and documents of the owner are lacking.’

Leith looks at the detective with tears in his eyes and does not know what to answer. He observes with great sadness the house of his master when the police comes out with the remains on a stretcher covered with a white cloth. Then, he gets up and says to Ajax:

‘It’s too painful for me to stay here watching the police. I guess you take care of this case, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I planned to get involved more. There is something fishy in all this. You know, this is not the first case in our country. I don’t know if you remember it, but there was this case in the south where two physicists were burned alive in their laboratory. Again, they wanted to make us believe in an accident, but according to firefighters, the fire had taken too quickly. In addition, it appears that there were several centers of fire, with the emergency exits blocked from the outside.’

‘I think that I’m going to the temple to see if I can get in touch with him. If I hurry up, I could be there with the express that arrives over there at noon and return by the evening. Could you bring this bag at Penelope’s place in the meantime, she knows where to hide Master Amilius his documents. It may be that Master Amilius took precautions and has put the most important documents elsewhere.’

‘Could someone have seen you with his documents?’

‘No, they are hidden in files where Penelope keeps her accounts he was doing for her. Then, in my case, I walk all the time around with a bag full of school books from him.’

‘Alright, I’ll go to see Penelope in a moment.

‘You’ll take care of it then? I dash to the station, the train leaves in half an hour.’

Ussa, who does not know that her childhood friend is also on the way to the station, takes this time special care of her appearance. She has confused feelings, it’s like something is, a meeting may be, preparing. She likes Leith, but not like a girl loves a boy, he is for her especially the brother she desired so much and never had. Her maid had told her what they are telling about her friend in the beauty shop she is attending. She told her that he would be very infatuated with a Gallic girl that he doesn’t see but in his dreams. It upsets her a little, but she must still admit to herself that more and more when she thinks of Leith, another image is superimposed filled without she can identify him. This boy is like him, blond, shorter hair, more muscular and has a more athletic look. She now thinks about the reaction of her maid, a peasant’s woman, when she told her that what the fortune teller at the fair of Poseidia had foretold them: “But for sure, you will marry a brother and sister. So you’re becoming brother and sister-in-law! ” “So,” she says to herself “this handsome young man that I see from time to time in an indefinite way, would he be the brother of this Gallic girl of Leith?  No,” she continues “this exists only in stories for children that begin with; once upon a time… Stop dreaming Ussa” she thinks, “it’s ridiculous.” In light of the image of this young man superimposing the one of Leith she leaves her room to go to the station, but not without saying goodbye to her parents. Arriving at the station, with a pang of heart she sees Leith on the platform. She calls him and when approaching him she sees a great sadness in his eyes.

‘What is happening?’ She asks.

‘They murdered Master Amilius’, he says, and then tells all he had seen and heard this morning. Ussa, seeing that he is very saddened by the death of his master, puts her arm on his shoulder and says:

‘Come with me, we could chat a little during the trip.’ Seeing the station master, she takes the ticket of Leith and gives him it by saying:

‘Reimburse it! This young man is traveling with me!’

‘But I miss ....’ but the station master fails later in his sentence because Ussa says in a dryly tone that suffers no opposition:

‘Do what I order you!’ She turns then with a big smile to her childhood friend and asks him: ‘Leith, tell me all about your beautiful Gallic girl. How is she alike? Does she have a brother as beautiful as you?’

‘But how do you know?’ Asks Leith surprised.

‘Ah! If you knew, I am aware you see,’ she says making a break and continues: ‘it’s my maid who told me. She regularly goes to a beautician in your neighborhood. So, tell me.’

As they climb in the car, he tells all he knows about Angelica, where she lives, her strange lifestyle, the strange way of dressing herself, the strange device with two wheels which she uses to travel, the cliffs and many other things. Ussa, happy to have managed to divert his attention on something else, raises him lots of questions, to which he is not always able to respond. Finally, they arrive at the station of Ozin before Ussa could satisfy her curiosity.

Abdubu, very surprised to see Ajax enter accompanied by Jou-el at such an early morning hour, wonders if there is not something serious going on and questions his two regular customers:

‘What’s happening? You have been falling out of bed? I don’t usually see you so soon. You take something for breakfast?’

‘Yes willingly’, answers Jou-el.

‘Me too’, says Ajax. ‘You haven’t yet learned what happened to Master Amilius?’ He asks Abdubu.

‘No. What is with Amilius?’

‘They, the unknown then, have murdered him.’

‘WHAT?’

‘Yes. We found the apartment open early this morning, the inside upside down and the lifeless body of the master lying bloodied in the middle of this all.’

‘But who could be interested in it,’ asks Abdubu, ‘he did harm to anyone.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Jou-el, ‘this is surely to be classified in the series of unexplained murders in recent days.’

‘It’s curious that these crimes affect especially the scientists’, says Ajax.

‘Hey Jou-el!’ exclaims Abdubu, ‘your friend, hasn’t he made portraits of suspicious customers?’

‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘he has taken them with him to the police.’

‘You didn’t retain a copy by chance?’ Asks him Ajax. ‘While these killings are a matter of state, primarily a matter of state of Alta, you will not see any investigation.’

‘Why then?’ Asks Abdubu.

‘Because they seek to hush up some of these crimes’, answers him Ajax.

‘That’s it,’ says Jou-el, ‘they all worked on the same subject: the comet Arcturus.’

‘I think they want to silence anyone who knows too much about this subject,’ says Abdubu. ‘I don’t know if you made the connection between this comet and the sacred texts, but Leith and his master have and they are certainly not alone in having done so. One could imagine that the central government of king Ta-Ra seeks to avoid a stampede in order to evacuate smoothly his family, nobles and wealthy.’

‘And forget the rest of the population’, says Jou-el.

‘Well. That’s right’, meets Ajax.

It’s then that Penelope enters as a draft and cries to Abdubu:

‘Prepare me a tea and a chocolate to take away please, I’ll bring the empty cups back in a moment,’ and continues speaking to her friends: ‘hideous isn’t it. I fear for our Leith. If he is not very careful, he will have the same treatment as his master.’

‘Hi Penelope,’ launches Jou-el to her, ‘you are early this morning.’

‘No. I have two clients and offer them something to drink, isn’t it normal? By the way, you know that Leith took the train with his childhood friend just now? I’m sure they go to temple of Ozin to speak to his master.’

‘How do you know this,’ asks Ajax with some surprise, ‘you never left your shop since I came to see you just now.’

‘Hey! Says so, I do have customers you know. One of them is servant at palace and she has accompanied Ussa at the station. It’s where the two met and took the same car towards Ozin. You should also have seen how she had sent away the station master. She had demanded him to repay the railway ticket to Leith. But I hope that these guys of the BIS did not put the temple on surveillance because in this case Ussa and Leith will be in great danger. What do you think Ajax?’

‘So you think it’s they who killed all this man?’

‘But of course, who else. Don’t you see that nowhere valuable items are missing and only scientific papers?’

‘Yes,’ says Jou-el, ‘it’s the same thing at Master Amilius. At his home are lacking books, others have been punctured, the observatory was ransacked and his cash-box with his money and values is still there, they have not even touched it.’

‘It was the same at Ar-Arart his place in Poseidia, the same modus-operandi’, says Ajax.

Abdubu who came back serving in the meantime gives a small plateau of service to Penelope and says to her:

‘Don’t worry for the cups, you can bring them back at noon if you come to eat here.’

‘See you in a moment,’ she says, ‘I will join my clients, otherwise they will think I spend the day at the bistro.’

‘Hey Abdubu, you haven’t seen back our killer of service by chance?’ Asks Jou-el.

‘About whom you’re talking? This strange customer we saw the other day?’

‘Yes. Who else?’

‘Do you really think that he made up?’

‘I don’t know,’ replies Jou-el, ‘but there is a strong chance that this will be him.’ And continues addressing Ajax: ‘Hey! Ajax, couldn’t we discreetly monitor Ussa and Leith when they return from Ozin?’

‘That’s what I planned to do.’

‘Okay, I’ll contact my friends from the royal guard and see what they can do.’

‘Why the royal guard?’

‘First, it’s not suspect that Ussa is guarded by them, and secondly you can have full confidence in them.’

Going up the street that passes in front of the tavern, “The Gardens” of Abdubu, we are crossing the Grande Rue, which goes through the upper part of the city. This street starts at the west, where it joins the Boulevard Parfa and ends on the other side at the Place Royale. The street we just climbed, continues on the other side passing the library, which is the pride of the city, and the small place with trees next to it, then passes over the railroad tracks and ends in the northern part of Osuo. Once at the Main Street you can turn right where you pass by the great city hall, which is also theater. Farther away is the great temple of the city with its columns who look like supporting the sky next to government building with a roof like a reversed boat hull and covered with blue slates. Beside this and above the old city walls we can find the royal palace, a building rather classical and sober. At the other side of the place ends a street that, passing over the railroad tracks, comes from the northern part of the city. The railroad tracks, they, continue eastwards passing over the Boulevard Parfa and the river of the same name as the city, the Osuo. This railway divides the right bank in a residential and small industrial zone. This line joins then the main line going north-south towards the port city Amaki. On the other side of the Grande Rue, up to the hall, is the railway station with its typical shops orientated to traveling customers, as we can find in all train stations and airports. But there are other things, other buildings, including one, which is the home of the prefecture of the region and the police. Then, today, this morning the sixth day of Leo, the prefect Assen-Ni summoned the chief of police in the region, Ax-Tell, in his office.

‘Hello Mr. prefect what did you desire?’

‘Hello sir, sit down please.’

‘It’s about the events of recent days and especially the killing this morning that you called me?’

‘That’s correct, sir. Could you identify those responsible for these crimes? Where are you?’

‘For now, we do have only a few sketches collected from the population, but we do not have the slightest indication.’

‘Well, I just received a communiqué from the Federal Bureau of Posseidia asking us to be very discreet about certain crimes.’

‘What do you mean, they ask us to hush up cases?

‘Yes that’s it. I think if we stick to our career, we are obliged to take into account.’

‘How then? If we refuse, it’s over with our career and on the contrary, if the King learns about it.....’ and he does not finish his sentence, leaving it up to the prefect to guess what might happen.

‘Close them as a homicide committed by person or persons unknown.’

‘You can put a little pressure on the press because it’s feared that they will pick up the affair and we will be forced to continue in this case.’

‘I will see what I can do sir.’

‘Goodbye Mr. prefect.’

‘Goodbye, sir.’

At the end of this Tuesday morning, Angelica and Julian meet their friends again, some, like them, leaving soon on vacation in August, while others, Rodolphe, Philip and Audrey, are already back. Angelica, currently storing its surfing board, is launching to her brother:

‘I return home to take a shower and eat a little, will you come with me?’

‘Wait, someone must keep the place. There are still these two English girls who return at noon.’

‘I’ll stay here with Philip and Audrey,’ says Rodolphe, ‘I’ll be eating here. I can keep the house if you want.’

‘Thank you, I’ll return around half past one.’

‘Hey!’ Exclaims Alicia, who came on the scene in between, ‘when do you go?’

‘Saturday,’ says Julian, ‘my father took a day off and will go to pick up the sailboat the day before at Chérbourg and bring it to Fécamp.’

‘Sailboat? What the hell are you going to do with a sailboat?’ Asks Rodolphe.

‘Well, it’s a bit Angelica’s fault,’ says Julian, ‘she has been folding our ears so much with her Leith, Alantis and the Azores, that we decided to go there by sailboat. Only mom was not very hot for this trip, she prefers S-T. But dad is delighted, it’s been years that he has not navigated and he wants us to learn it. We, Angelica, dad and me, will take the helm in turn.’

‘S-T,’ asks Rodolphe, ‘what is it?’

‘Oh!’ says Julian, ‘it stands for Silly Tanning. Mom is a follower of grilling like a sausage on a Mediterranean beach. We managed to convince her that she could be total tanning on the deck and no one could see her.’

‘Is it not too expensive to hire a yacht?’ Asks Alicia.

‘Indeed, yes,’ replies Julian, ‘but we pushed the buy of another car into the next year. A new car isn’t essential for the few that we’re using it.’

‘Is it large, this sailboat?’ Asks Alicia.

‘Yes quite. It has three cabins, a kitchenette and enough space to be comfortable all four. We even included a satellite TV. We have, on the other hand, no phone, just a short wave radio or VHF.’

‘You will be away for how long?’ Asks Rodolphe.

‘Two weeks. We rented the yacht for two weeks in any case’, says Julian. Then, looking at his watch he says, ‘damn, we need to go home. See you in a moment.’

‘See you in a moment’, says Angelica.

‘Bon Appetit and see you in a moment’, reply the others.

That’s when Angelica and her brother Julian take the way home. Once at home, Julian goes to the kitchen warming up a pan of water to cook spaghetti. He begins to prepare a salad and heats the contents of a box of spaghetti sauce. Angelica, who does not like the salt on her skin, is, pending the preparation of meals and awaiting the parents to come, taking a shower in the bathroom.

At the end of this morning of the sixth day of Leo, Ussa and Leith, who made the trip together and have taken the advantage of travel time to eat a small thing, are walking up the alley in the direction of the temple. Arriving at the temple, Ussa uses her authority to reserve the exclusive access time on the screen of dialogue. They go, time to wait until they are given access, to a section for prayers. Although Leith meets the requirements of his religion, he is not too pious. Ussa, she, much more devout, wants to make prayers, mainly for her grandparents. Leith follows her, more to please her than for the prayer itself. Once the prayers ended and the dialog screen available, they go in the central part of the temple and see that Ussa’s grandparents are already awaiting them.

‘Hello Ussa. Hi Leith. We are pleased that you came together. How are you Leith, you are very saddened by this horrific murder of Master Amilius, aren’t you?’ Asks the grandfather?

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘I should be a big boy and not cry, but it’s difficult to hold back.’

‘It’s not good to hold back, my boy,’ says the grandfather, ‘that makes the sadness even more painful. The masters Amilius and Ar-Arart will come in a moment to speak to you.’

‘But Leith,’ says the grandmother who wants to change the topic by seeing the sadness of the boy, ‘you haven’t even noticed that Ussa has dressed up for you. Did you say nothing to her? A girl likes to hear it, especially from her best friend.’

Leith, very embarrassed by this remark, begins to blush and does not know where to look and replies:

‘Of course I’ve seen, but I did not dare tell her. I once made the comment “you are good looking today” to Penelope and she answered me: “thanks for the other days.” Thereafter, I no longer dared to say that I find her beautiful.’

‘Never mind, grandmother,’ says Ussa, ‘Leith speaks with his eyes. The way he looked at me at the station goes on every word. But I don’t know myself why I did. I had a sort of premonition that something is going to happen.’

‘Yes my angel,’ her grandmother says to her, ‘it’s for just now, but I don’t want to tell you now.’

Then Ussa takes over and talks to her grandparents where Leith remains rather spectator. Her grandparents remain, on the other hand, rather vague on the meeting the two young people will have and end with these words:

‘Goodbye my children, it will be in five days for one last time.’

This is where Ussa’s grandparents will make room for their master educators, Ar-Arart and Amilius who greet their former students:

‘Hello Ussa. Hi Leith. It’s our pleasure to see you together.’

‘Hello Master Ar-Arart. Hello Master Amilius’, says Leith.

‘Hello to you’, says Ussa.

‘Do not cry my disappearance my child’, says Amilius addressing Leith. ‘My death is more painful for those left behind then for me. I am very sorry to see you sad, my child. What happens should happen my child, we cannot change the course of history, we must accept it as is.’

‘Thank you master,’ says Leith, ‘but could you calculate the new parameters of the comet.’

‘Yes my child, it’s in seven days between six and half past six and the likelihood of a collision with the earth is ninety-three per cent. I, on the other hand, could not calculate the exact location of the collision. We have neither the measures nor the instruments of sufficient accuracy to calculate it. This is where your beautiful Gallic girl can help. She needs your data, the precise positions of all the planets within seven days and those of hundred three years ago. You can find this information in the books in the basement of the library. This is where Ussa can help you because it’s she, her family and confirmed priests who have access there.’

‘Is there something else master?’ Asks Leith.

‘Think provide her seemingly insignificant details’, says master Ar-Arart. ‘Such as the inclination of the axis of the Earth’s rotation, the position of the north pole and the spring equinox compared to astrological signs. Or even better the true position with respect to the constellation’

Leith and Ussa still continue a moment to chat with their masters of the past, who are eager to tell Leith to use technology which Angelica can provide him because she can, according Master Ar-Arart, search the whole world for information with her calculating machine.

Angelica, unsuspecting, takes the same time of day a shower in the bathroom. Suddenly she hears little noises and does not look at what is happening and shouts:

‘Hey! Julian, what are you doing in the bathroom? Pass me a towel since you are there.’

By failing to obtain a response, she repeats her appeal without further success. Irritated, she leaves the bath where a shower has been built and is about to take her towel herself. It’s then that she sees that what she thought to be Julian and a girlfriend are actually Ussa and Leith. Embarrassed, she thinks on the fast as possible. She then decides to adopt the strategy of “attack is the best defense” and says to Leith making a little turn in front of him:

‘Hi my love, I please you?’

Ussa watches, amused, her childhood friend, who knows, embarrassed, no more where to look. The latter remains embarrassed without being able to say something and cannot take his eyes off of some parts of the body of Angelica. Julian, who had heard his sister call enters in its turn in the bathroom. This is where the eyes of Ussa and Julian cross. Both young people remain there as hit by lightning, temporarily off on another planet. Angelica, who had time to dry and put on her underwear, her jeans and a T-shirt, says to Leith:

‘Come my love, you were certainly coming to see me for what I could find isn’t it? Let the two lovers get acquainted.’

Leith, himself, recovering hardly from the treatment suffered, follows her in her room and looks with great astonishment the objects found there. He is pointing to the television on the end of the bed and asks her:

‘Your Bioscope?’

‘Bioscope?’ questions Angelica, ‘you mean perhaps television. That’s how we call them over here. They say Bioscope at your home?’

‘Yes,’ says Leith and continues by pointing his finger to a device on her desk, ‘that is also a television?’

‘No it’s a computer, a calculator if you want, with memory and linked to others through a network that we call the Internet.’

‘Ah! It’s Ar-Arart who told me about that just a moment ago. According to him we use it to exchange information, don’t we?’

‘Yes, that’s it.’

Angelica soon begins to work, she enters the information provided by Leith and seeks to coordinate them with her own. During this work she notices the weird eyes that her Atlatean boyfriend throws at globe functioning as office desk lamp.’

‘What’s wrong?’ She asks. ‘Is there something not right?’

‘Yes! Even two things. My country is not there and the poles are not in the right place. They should be there’, he says by pointing somewhere on the continent of Greenland. ‘How much is the earth tilt?’

‘Twenty-three,’ she says, ‘why?’

‘Well. It’s only ten at home. It makes a difference of thirteen degrees, which is enormous. You really told me that you had nine days more in the year, didn’t you?’

‘Perhaps, we have three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days per year.’

‘So that’s correct, it’s nine more than we have. You have to have shorter days I think. Your device knows how to calculate dates from the astrological positions of the planets?’

‘Not mine, but there are sites on the Internet where it can be done. Give me your details and we will see what we can do.’

On making the calculations, which unfortunately confirm the worst fears of Leith. Angelica, who smells a bad smell spreading, cries addressing her brother:

‘Hey! Lovers! Monitor the kitchen anyway, something burns.’

By continuing to seek information for Leith and noting hers in a spreadsheet, they do not notice time passing and it’s Julian who calls if she does not want to eat. That’s when Angelica takes leave of her friend and says him:

‘You’re really gorgeous Leith, I’d like to see you back, but in the flesh! You come see me, don’t you?’

‘I hope. I hope that the Seer of Poseidia was right with her prediction of the journey of no return and the number eleven thousand eight hundred.’

‘Eleven thousand eight hundred?’ Asks Angelica, ‘but wait a little, we are here in two thousand eight and you are nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-two before Jesus Christ, our spiritual guide, you see, which makes a total of eleven thousand eight hundred. But they are there your eleven thousand eight hundred. And your journey of no possibility of return will surely be in time, which is fair because we cannot retrace our steps. So tell me about this seer, all that what she has told you, everything.’

It’s when she takes the direction of the kitchen in order to eat something there with her brother and their parents who can come in any moment that Leith tells her their journey in Poseidia, the visionary of the fair, strange trip she had foreseen, that they would become brother and sister and what Ussa understood.’

‘You see, my love, I am, as Ussa, your childhood friend, convinced that we will see us again, in the flesh. I can unfortunately not kiss you with your device that enabled you to come and see me, but I do it mind. So big kisses, goodbye and take care of Ussa.’

On the way back, they walk silently side by side, each immersed in his thoughts. It’s Ussa the first to break silence:

‘So you are as impressed as me. She is really good looking your Gallic girl and rather muscular for a girl. She must have a physical activity like her brother.’

Noting that Leith does not answer, she continues:

‘Don’t worry Leith. I’m sure that her reaction earlier on was her way of hiding her embarrassment. I’m sure she was as embarrassed as you. She was quite embarrassed by your reaction, she became all red anyway.’

‘My reaction,’ he says, ‘but I said nothing.’

‘Yes, even if you said nothing, the reaction you had was clearly visible for us girls. I am sure you love her and she loves you too.’

‘Yes,’ says Leith who does not want to discuss his reaction at the moment and continues: ‘I still have her image before me, I can’t detach myself from it. But, tell me, you, you were also very impressed by her brother. You were on a cloud when you watched him. It took you in any case an impressive amount of time to return to the Earth. What did you do? We haven’t seen you while Angelica was fiddling her calculating machine.’

‘Calculating machine? I thought it was a Bioscope, but when I think about it, Julian had already one running, what they seem to call television, and where we could see a game that resembles the Pelote, with the only difference that the players are face to face and not against a wall. He told me that they say Tennis. The other device was, as you say, equipped with a board full of keys, but it did not run because the screen was black.’

‘Yes, Angelica is using it for lots of things. She uses it to make documents, search for information on the world. Then, that’s what Angelica told me in any case, these machines are interconnected through a network they call the Internet.’

‘Do you have seen something interesting?’

‘Yes. It seems that masters Amilius and Ar-Arart are unfortunately right. Our country no longer exists in their time. Then, the most crazy theories circulating there. There are so much of them that it becomes difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. But a thing what worries me is that they have nine more days in the year. What it means: an Earth which turns faster and shorter days. This unfortunately can only be the result of a collision with a large celestial body, such as Arcturus.’

‘For when crosses it the Earth’s orbit?’

‘In a week, in the morning hours, local time.’

Arrived at the station in the meantime, they go together in the dining car where they take a light menu. After eating a while, it’s Ussa who breaks the silence and asks:

‘There is something that I don’t understand. From what you say, they are eleven thousand eight hundred years in the future. I do well, but I always believed that the future doesn’t yet exist, then how could we communicate with people who don’t yet exist?’

The man, discreet, too discreet, enters the library, climbs the stairs to the reading room and begins to search for books to consult. That is what he wants us to believe because in reality he monitors the reading room and the access to the borrowing room. After a while, he goes from rank to rank in taking a book here and there, putting them in their place once consulted and continues until he reaches the emergency door, where an evacuation map is. On this map appear all the rooms, including those of the in-between ground and basement. He tries to remember well the rooms, access points, their locations and emergency exits. Then, he goes to the desk and asks the person that what he should know right now; where the toilets are. He wants to ensure that his presence in the in-between basement is not suspicious. We can make the mistake to open the wrong door in an unknown building, isn’t it? He descends the grand staircase and faces a series of doors. By pretending to be wrong, he opens one. Alas, it was a broom cupboard. Suddenly he sees two young people enter a room using their keys. He goes, for a diversion, first to the toilet and waits that they both entered the room because he knows that it’s they who should be eliminated. He knows that it’s against the orders received from Poseidia, but he does not want to take any risks and says: “an accident happens quickly.” When he hears a second door close in this room, he decides to enter. Unfortunately, the young people have closed the door behind them. He tries to open it with tools for the perfect little thief he has on him. Success! The second is causing him more problems because equipped with a newer security system from which only the priests, the staff of the library and the royal family have the keys. He is trying hard to harp on the lock, but it resists and the door remains closed. Then, an idea comes to him. The room below has no ventilation to the outside and the smoke of a fire will inevitably spread across the tiny openings in the door and the ventilation ducts. Both young people are currently locked in this room in the basement and cannot leave, but by the emergency exit. He checks that the emergency exit of the room whether it works well and is not equipped with an alarm. He checks the outside and finds that there is a small staircase that goes up and below he sees another emergency door, the one from the room where the two youths are. He comes secretly back in the basement where the toilet is and goes to the broom cupboard and takes just a few tools at random. Then, he returns again in the archives room, closes the door, put a cloth soaked with a flammable product in a line of books, empties two bottles of rum on the floor and puts the fire. He then leaves the room by the emergency door, goes down the staircase to the other door and jams the opening mechanism with the handle of the broom, he had cut to the proper measure. He leaves the rest of the stolen equipment on site, goes quietly up the stairs and imagines not to be identified, which is, unfortunately for him, not the case.

The city of Osuo has, like any town of any importance, a library of national prestige and a reputation known throughout the federation. It are especially the in-between ground and the basement which are housing the most prestigious works, some of which are several millenniums old. The building itself has not always been a library, but once housed a high-ranking person of state. The in-between ground and the basement have been used as now as storage of archives and rare documents. However, even if security was reinforced, a scandal was triggered by a journalist. He had managed to get into supposedly secure rooms using rudimentary burglar tools bought in a hardware store. The fact that the rooms communicate through ventilation ducts is also a source of criticism. The argument is: if there is a fire, the fire could spread through the ducts, despite that rooms should be fire-retardant, of which many doubt the effectiveness. So at the end of this afternoon of the sixth day of Leo the first passers alarmed, there’s smoke coming out of the in-between ground. Some run to warn the police and firefighters, while others go to get out the people still inside. The system, which is supposed to make the rooms fireproof, is actually ineffective. The first flames are coming through the windows of the in-between basement and the smoke becomes visible in the reading room above it. While firefighters and police secure the area, the rumor spreads that Ussa and her childhood friend are just in the basement where the fire is. An old woman cries and collapses, she no longer bears the spectacle of desolation. She came to forward the management to her daughter and her granddaughter. It’s her family who has managed the library for several generations.

Locked in the basement, Leith and Ussa do not notice anything initially and continue their research by taking the oldest books one by one. It’s Leith who notes that strange smell of smoke and says to his companion:

‘Don’t you smell anything?’

‘What then?’

‘It seems to me that something is burning.’

‘Yes, I smell too.’

That’s when Leith goes to the door, but when he opens it, the smoke enters the room and says:

‘There is a fire Ussa. We must leave by the emergency door.’

Ussa runs towards the door, but can’t open it and shouts at Leith:

‘Lock the door and come help me open it, it’s too hard for me. I can’t open it.’

Leith comes to her rescue, but he does not succeed either and he says:

‘They blocked it from the outside. We can no longer get out of here Ussa. Even if the reinforced door resists, we will die suffocated by the smoke.’

For Ussa emotions are just getting too strong, she puts her head on the shoulder of Leith and begins to cry. Leith seeks to console her by saying that there is still hope, but she refuses to believe it. Suddenly he sees a pretty unusual spectacle, a girl comes through the door as it did not exist and comes to meet them. It’s now that he recognizes her, it’s Angelica. Angelica moves her lips to say something, but they do hear nothing. Angelica, on the other hand, seems able to hear their words, she reacts in any case on what he says. The smoke, which comes by the ventilation slots, begins to come thick enough in the room and Angelica shows how they should move forward on all fours to avoid being bothered by the smoke. She guides them towards the back of the room and signals to open a cupboard.

‘Iiiiih’, exclaims Ussa when two skeletons falling when opening the doors.

Leith transports them immediately by crawling to the reinforced door. Opens it, while Ussa cries to him to stop and come back, and tries to put the two skeletons, in despite the heat and smoke, on the other side of the door. What he finally, with some difficulty, succeeds to do. Back to the girls, remained in the back of the archives room, he sees that Ussa has meanwhile cleared the cabinet and tries to open a trapdoor. As he opens it, she turns around and asks him:

‘But you’re absolutely crazy, what do you want to do?’

‘But it’s logic ...’ But Leith does not get any further, Ussa interrupts him and says:

‘Logic? What logic? That of making us burn?’

‘No, don’t you understand that this fire is not normal and there is someone who wants to kill us. So I give him satisfaction in putting these two skeletons, those of a man and a woman, on the other side of the door. They will believe that it are ours once the fire extinguished and the few remnants of bones found.’

And he leaves again to great despair of Ussa and Angelica who begins to worry too. Looking back he says to Ussa:

‘Come, come look for the most valuable books and take as many with you as you can. I do this, so we could consult them and they might be saved.’

‘But hurry up! Angelica dies of concern’, says Ussa. ‘So come, take what you have now and look no further, we have no more time. I want an alive Leith without books rather than a death Leith with books. So you’re coming? Do not play the hero please, Angelica is waiting impatiently. She also entitles to a living Leith. So come on!’

Once the trapdoor closed, they see that Angelica has, like them, a communicator, what she calls a cellphone, and from which she uses the light of the screen to light. They follow her in this narrow, smelly and gloomy corridor without they know where they are. On the right, left, down a staircase, up another until she sits down on a small staircase just below a door and waits. The wait seems endless and when they hear small noises, they call for help. After a moment the door opens and the surprise is complete. Not only that Angelica dissipates into the air, but they see the head of a person well-known to them in embrasure of the door, she, also surprised as they are.

When Penelope enters, as usual, as a draft in the tavern of Abdubu, she sees the sad faces of the people present. Addressing Abdubu because she came to pick up drinks for her last client and herself, she asks:

‘Hey! Guys, what‘s up? Is this the burning of the library what puts you in this state? By the way, if you see Ajax, tell him to come and see me. I saw a strange guy coming out of the staircase leading to the exits a while ago when I was passing by the library. But I said, what‘s going on? Why have you sad faces?’

Abdubu who prepared a tea with a double ration of rum for her, says:

‘Sit down. You must be very strong now.’

‘But,’ she shouts, ‘you’re crazy? I have not ordered a tea-rum. But what are you doing?’

‘Sit down and try to be very strong.’

‘But what’s going on?’

‘It’s the burning of the library,’ says Abdubu, ‘it’s terrible.’

‘Yes,’ she answers, ‘it’s a real tragedy. All these beautiful works burned. Up in smoke. Pffft! Gone! Terrible.’

‘It’s worse than you think,’ says Abdubu, ‘did you know who were inside?’

‘No,’ she says very worried, ‘who then?’

‘Ussa and Leith,’ replies Abdubu, ‘the fire was contained while ago and after initial investigations, calcined bones of a woman and a man were found at a closed and locked door. They were trapped. The more that at the entrance, according to the police, the remains of a flammable product were found.’

Penelope can no longer hold back her tears and starts whining incomprehensible little words. Abdubu sits beside her, pushes the tea-rum to her and says:

‘Drink this! They have certainly joined the realm of the beautiful Gallic girl and her brother they dreamed of. Even if they never imagined that it would be this way.’

‘Yes,’ says Jou-el, ‘tomorrow or after tomorrow we will all go to the temple of Ozin and talk to them.’

‘Oh,’ says Abdubu, ‘I give you drinks for your client and you, you can bring me cups tomorrow if you want. Hey!’ He says, addressing Jou-el, ‘accompany her to her shop, and stay a moment with her waiting for Ajax.’

They walk silently to her shop. Penelope still cannot control her pain and becomes concerned about her client. How to say Mélia, also a very fervent admirer of Ussa and her companion, without having her collapse in tears too. Once in the shop, Mélia doubts already that something terrible happened and looks at Penelope with a worried face.

‘What’s happening my dear?’ She asks her.

‘Oh! Melia it’s terrible, the library was burnt, which is already terrible in itself, but they have found charred skeletons of a man and a woman in front of a door. We believe, as Ussa and Leith were in the basement to see the old works, that they are theirs.’

It’s at this point that Ajax enters the shop and sees this little spectacle of two ladies crying and asks:

‘Hey! You don’t have rum at your place, Penelope? You really need it. Stay with to your client, I will look for it.’

When he returns with the bottle, he makes a good bumper in their cups of tea and says:

‘Penelope Tell me, what you have seen exactly when you’re passed by the library this afternoon?’

This is when she gains control of herself and begins to tell everything she saw, the man who appears to be the “client”, the other two being the lookout. It’s at this point that Ajax requests Jou-el to get copies of drawings made the other day. The time it takes Jou-el to return, she recounts the details of the afternoon. The client of Penelope, Mélia, gets involved in the conversation and she has also seen suspected man in the vicinity of the library. Jou-el, who came back in the meantime, shows the drawings to Penelope and Mélia, which both recognize the “client” and the other two being the lookout. While Penelope is recovering slowly from her emotions, she remakes her client’s mask and requests Ajax kindly to pick up other teas in Abdubu’s place, but without extra this time.

Angelica and her brother Julian have talked until late into the night. Both were very impressed by the untimely visit of their Atlantean friends. Angelica, she, is very worried, she remembers very clearly her dream of the previous night. Then, she recalls all too well what Ussa and Leith have told them at noon; that they were planning to go to the library after their meeting to consult books in a room from which only Ussa and her family has the keys. Her brother, more pragmatic this time, is trying to consolidate her a bit by saying:

‘But you told me that in your dream of last night that it was you, who was able to help them escape. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she says with a little voice, ‘but I’m afraid, very afraid that something terrible will happen.’

‘Keep hope my little sister, the night will give you advice. Have a good night and try to sleep. Do not turmoil. It’s going to go. You’ll see tomorrow what are telling you your dreams. Don’t forget to put a piece of paper and a pencil next to your bed. So you could note your dreams as soon you wake up and try now to think of something else and sleep.’

‘And you, you don’t think about your dear Ussa. Don’t you worry for her?’

‘Yes. Of course. But I am for nothing. I can’t do much. Of course it upsets me, especially the fact that they live behind a barrier of eleven thousand eight hundred years. I would like to believe, as you you do, that we will meet in the flesh as the gypsy on fairground had told them. But for now I don’t know by what miracle they can cross the barrier of time. But my little sister, focus yourself may be on important facts, as they seem to be able to see you in one way or another. Try to sleep now and do not worry, otherwise you’ll spend another sleepless night and have nightmares.’

‘Good night, my big brother’, she says emphasizing the word “big”.

‘Good night, my little sister. Sleep well and see you tomorrow.’

But sleep will not be for resale, not for Angelica anyway. Turn left, turn right, sleep on back, stomach, back on the back, right side, from left, then she ends with great difficulty up falling asleep in the “fetus” position. As soon asleep, she begins a new dream. Angelica is suddenly in a nicely decorated room, apparently the work of a woman with taste, where Ussa and Leith are sitting around a table waiting for a meal. It’s Ussa who first sees her and greets her. But it’s for her the same as for the previous night, she cannot say anything. What she is trying to say is not perceived by the others. Once again it’s Ussa who speaks and says to Leith, who has not yet seen the presence of Angelica:

‘Look Leith. It’s Angelica who comes to visit us.’

‘Ah. Well’, he says looking around to see where she is and says: ‘Hello my love. It’s nice to come and see us. Can you hear us? We can’t hear you.’

‘Hey,’ says Ussa, ‘I will prevent Penelope, otherwise she will believe that there are ghosts in her house.’

Alone with Angelica, Leith continues:

‘It’s great that you can come to see us, but how are you doing this? You don’t have communication devices as we have the temple of Ozin.’

She does answer with a shrug and lips that move, but without sound. There, he understands that the presence of his girlfriend is not complete and that he should ask questions such that she may respond with gestures. When asked if she understands him, she noddles.

‘Thank you for saving my life last night, how did you do it?’

She responds with another shrug to say that she does not know it.

‘You don’t know yourself?’ Asks Leith.

She nods.

‘So I will explain you what I believe. The henchmen of Ra-Ta, the BIS therefore, seek to silence anyone who knows something about the upcoming events. For now, we don’t know how they knew that Ussa and I would visit the library. But it’s clear that they are not afraid even when it comes to eliminate a member of the royal family. They probably fear of panic when the news of a global catastrophe is spreading. I don’t know if you have noticed, but the murders of masters Ar-Arart and Amilius are part of their plans. Then, it’s us now who know too much according to them and that’s why they tried to burn us alive. I gotta say that putting these two skeletons on the other side of the door was not for fun and I needed a lot of courage to do so. But I think it was a good idea; because everyone now believes, because of these few burnt bones, that it was us. I am sorry for the trouble I’ve caused to the people, but we have no alternative. They are just Penelope and Ajax, who will come in a moment, to be aware of. Now I ask you something, Ussa, even if it’s painful to her, could not agree more. You don’t say anything to anyone, not even to the Dad of Ussa, King Bel-Ra. Tell them that we are safe, that’s all. You say nothing to anyone else. I hope you have understood. I am also sorry for what has happened this night, especially since you and Ussa even more, very worried, feared for my life. See there, Ussa and Penelope, who come back with the dishes. I can unfortunately not offer you because you’re not physically there.’

While the three friends settle around the table in the dining area, Penelope says to Leith:

‘She is good looking your Gallic girl, Leith. She has the same age as you I believe, hasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘a little more because she is a Taurus and I am a Gemini.’

‘And you Ussa,’ asks Penelope, ‘your Julian because that’s how he is called, isn’t he? How old is he?’

‘Eighteen years old like me and not only that, he is a Libra like me. Two Libra’s together, you realize?’

‘And you, your name is Angelica, isn’t it’, she says in addressing a translucent Angelica.

Which she confirms with a noddle.

‘You don’t have a good friend in his thirties for me? No? If you know one, I will come willingly with them in your country, even if I don’t know how we can go there.’

Then she begins to question Angelica on her parent’s friendships, the parents of her boy and girlfriends by asking questions such that Angelica can always respond with yes, no or I don’t know. It’s at the same time as the ringing of the door bell that the image of Angelica begins to dissolve and disappears. Penelope goes down to open and returns in the room with Ajax because it was he who rang. He can only believe his three friends by saying that the beautiful Gallic girl was there, just before he came to enter.

Angelica, awakened by a ringing noise, feverishly tries to write down what she dreamed and finds that she had been awakened by the ringing of her cellphone, which warns for an incoming text message. “Shit,” she says to herself, “a wrong number! ” And deletes the message. She looks furiously at her alarm clock, showing the figure “03:32”, and tries to re-sleep.

It’s early this morning of the seventh day of Leo that the man known by his codename “Aker” has put on his desk the message received earlier this morning from the state of Mayra and files it with the newspapers from the same state because the news is not good. This is the time that a female employee, his secretary, puts down the newspapers originating from Muri, the state of Celts north of the federation. Here, the titles are clear. They include drawings of all their agents in the states of Muri and Mayra with the words in their language and red on two lines: “WANTED, dead or alive” and below in bold and underlined “PREFERABLY DEAD.” He reads then the little message received this morning where is written with a disconcerting ease, “three suspects eliminated.” He regrets to not have been more clear in giving instructions to the agent supposed to intercept the so-called Ach. He knows now he should have given him the possibility, or rather have given him the order to produce a fatal accident to the officer Ach, if this was the only way to stop him. He fears above all, the reaction of his superior, Seth, who is not an example of compassion and tenderness, but rather the opposite. Then, there is not just Seth, but also King Ra-Ta himself, who does not tolerate that one will take on the royal families. Especially the fact that the so-called Ach was able to burn alive two teenagers, the very popular princess Ussa and her companion and childhood friend Leith. He arranges the papers and leaves his office for the meeting with his superior, Seth, who should be at the office in the meantime. He fears above all that meeting, as Seth, as King Ra-Ta himself, do not enjoy what they write in the newspapers. Especially the newspapers from states Muri and Mayra which are not under the control of state and free to write whatever they want if that is the truth. He knows that in case of problems, he is the fuse and it’s for him court-martial with its predictable verdict. He leaves his office, downs the grand staircase, crosses the courtyard along the columns and knocks on the door of the office of his chief.

‘Enter!’

He enters the room and by seeing who is there, his heart tightens. Apart from his chief, there is the King himself and awaits him with the newspapers laying ahead on the desk of Seth. King Ra-Ta, in his full uniform, stands behind Seth, and leaves him no time to stand with dignity and says clearly very unhappy:

‘On your knees! There! Shut your mouth, wait and do not respond but to the questions we ask you. The king seizes one of the newspapers on the desk and continues:

‘We have all received this morning a little message saying: “Three suspects eliminated”. You call it suspects! The future queen of Mayra and her friend! Two teenagers the more they are! And to make matters worse, this is not enough! He must burn man’s former works several millenniums old, some of which copies were unique and irreplaceable.’

‘But…’ The king does not allow him to end his phase, and launches:

‘I told you not to talk but in case of a question and not otherwise. Shut your mouth. You’re an incompetent. Instead of mounting a section of a Secret Service worthy of the name, you collect criminals organized in gangs who do not know other than to steal, defraud, destroy and kill just for the pleasure of killing. It seems to me that the “Operation Silence” is drowning into the water. The entire population is considering the strange events that have occurred in recent months. The operation has made too much noise these days and they are your criminals who are the main culprits. Do you know what we do in the state of Mayra with these kinds of people?’

‘No sire’, he says.

‘Well, I’ll tell you. As you know, people of “law of one” cannot kill themselves, their religion forbids them. Or ants for example have no such constraint. In particular the red, which are organized into federations of several nests, just like us. It’s not easier than attaching a convict on an anthill. The ants will warn the whole of their federation and feast on his flesh leaving only the bones and tendons. The agents, your criminals thus, as we can see on the pictures in this newspaper, will all undergo this treatment and I can assure you that their death will be slow and very painful. I have sent a very strict order to all police officers and the public services not to oppose it. The Celts reserve also special treatment to such individuals; they attach them to poles and leave the work up to the crows and other birds of prey. So get up and come here!’ He says, referring to the desk where there is a sheet placing him under investigation for the court-martial and a small hand gun with one bullet.

‘Then,’ says the King to the so-called Aker, ‘take one of these two. You can withdraw in the next room there behind that door. If you choose the court-martial, this will be the shame of your family, otherwise there was an unfortunate accident, and the honor of your family remains saved. Did I have made myself clear?’

‘Yes sire’, he says, and seizes the weapon and goes into the room designated by the King a moment ago where one could hear a snap and a thud of a body falling to the ground.

‘Seth,’ says the King, ‘evacuate the body in the next room and organize him a nice funeral with all honors and tralala. Then, in regard to the “Operation Silence” try to avoid the damage, tell the public that it will be like the two previous cases. Tell them that there is no great danger, but that time will be hard. There are enough scientist’s miserly to money to confirm this thesis, especially as they are told the importance of having to avoid a wave of panic. Am I clear enough?’

‘Yes sire. At your service.’

‘Guards, we’ll go, prepare me my car.’

It’s not the joy this morning at the royal palace. The atmosphere is rather cumbersome. In the private apartments of the royal couple, Selena and Pâris Bel-Ra take their breakfast alone in silence, without the presence of the servants they have sent away. The queen, Selena must regularly dry her tears with a handkerchief, which she left beside her plate. She chews without much taste her toast with jam, a delicacy that she loves otherwise. The king, Pâris, is not better off, he has finished his plate no more than half. He pushes it away and watching his wife he says:

‘What did we do to offend Ra in such a way that he takes our daughter and her partner?’

‘It’s terrible,’ she moans, ‘being burned alive. I hope they have not suffered too much and they were dead suffocated by the smoke before being burned.’

‘Do you agree, dear wife, to give her friend and companion Leith a royal funeral. I prefer to bury them together. They were inseparable from their lives, let us remain them together in death.’

‘Do you want, dear husband, to give them a posthumous marriage?’

‘This will be a good idea, I will discuss it with the clerics.’

In this moment a servant enters with a message from which the King does not recognize immediately the emissary.

‘An urgent message sire’, he says.

‘Go, I’m not there for anyone.’

‘But ...’ The king does not allow him to finish his sentence and says:

‘Go and leave me this message, I look at it later.’

It’s when the servant puts the roll with the royal seal of Ra-Ta on the table beside his plate, half finished, that the King understands that he should better read it immediately and not wait. He breaks the seal, rolls out the royal parchment and reads:

Dear colleague,

I am also saddened as you and I offer you my sincere condolences for the loss of your daughter, the future queen, and her friend.

I gave the order to all law enforcement officers, police of state security and military not to oppose the popular anger. I encourage you to identify those responsible for this heinous attack, as they have appeared in your newspapers and let the population do whatever they want. But beware, most of these so-called secret agents prove to be gangsters from the former Belzebubs organization and are very dangerous. Knowing the quality of your services, do not hesitate to pursue them, including in my state, I give you Carte-Blanche.

With regard to your child and her companion, I guess you will bury them together. Do you accept my presence at the funeral? If yes, communicate me the date, I will attend in person at the ceremony.

Receive, dear colleague, the expression of my respectful friendship.

On behalf of my people, Ra-Ta.

Pâris Bel-Ra lifts his head and looks at his wife, who does not stop wiping her tears and says:

‘I’ll cancel all my appointments for the day and I intend to visit the temple of Ozin. Would you come with me, Selena? We could talk to our loved ones. They are perhaps the ones who know best what to do now.’

‘I don’t know if I have the force my dear’, she says between two sobs.

When he looks toward the door, Pâris Bel-Ra sees that there is a royal guard which waits patiently with a person, apparently an officer of the forensic science, to be granted the right to enter into the room.

‘Come in, what news you’re bringing me?’

‘A difficult topic sire,’ says the man, ‘it’s about the bones that were found in the basement.’

‘I don’t want to know about it. Put them each in a coffin and leave us alone.’

‘But sir this is not possible because…’ But the King does not allow him to finish his sentence and says:

‘Go! Our sorrow is too great at this time to discuss these kinds of things.’

‘But listen to me sire, please.’

‘I don’t want to discuss the subject now, if you like, give me a written report and I will read it later.’

‘Yes sire.’

Once the officer of the forensic science has left, the King recalls his guard and says:

‘Prepare us a car, we go to temple of Ozin. Make us an exclusive reservation of the central room where the communication screen is.’

‘Yes sire, when do you leave?’

‘In a half-hour.’

‘Selena please, come with me to talk to our children, it’s very important.’

What the couple does not yet know is that a surprise awaits them at the temple.

Angelica, angry being awakened at night by a bogus text message, tries to bring order, not only in her notes, but also in her head. The place she was dreaming of, was surely the lounge of the apartment of Penelope, she knows now. She suddenly hears a noise behind her in her room. She turns around and is as surprised as the royal couple Bel-Ra is, who’s there.

‘Hello,’ she says, watching the two visitors a little more carefully and says: ‘you are the father of Ussa, spat his portrait.’ And speaking to the lady, ‘in this case, you’re the Mom, aren’t you.’

‘Yes indeed,’ says Pâris Bel-Ra, ‘we are her parents and we expected to talk to her. We don’t understand why it’s you who has come to talk to us.’

‘Me? Come? But it’s you who have just landed in my room. I just started to sort my notes because I was in touch with Ussa and Leith just now. The only thing that I am authorized to tell you, is the famous phrase here in Normandy, the region where I live thus, “maybe yes, maybe no” or the “neither yes nor no.”

‘You want to tell us that our children are not dead?’ Asks Selena.

‘That’s precisely what I meant’, replies Angelica.

Julian, who hears talking in the room of his sister, enters without knocking and stays surprised at the show and says to Angelica:

‘You still do have visit? But present them to me.’

‘Monsieur Bel-Ra, madame, this is my brother Julian, the lover of your daughter. Julian I present you Mr. and Mrs. Bel-Ra, your future parents-in-law.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you.’ Says Julian.

‘I’m happy to have got your acquaintance’, says Selena.

‘Me also’, says Pâris.

‘I’m sorry Pâris,’ says Angelica, ‘I can use your first name, can’t I? But I can’t tell you more, for your own safety, the one of your daughter and her companion. The temple where you are at this time may be monitored by people not too honest. I’m sure that my words can’t, contrary to yours, be listened to. So pretend to be very saddened by the death of your daughter and arm your guards. It’s for your own safety. Don’t leave this temple before your guards return with weapons and return only thereafter at your palace.’

Julian, after listening for a moment passively while his sister continues to discuss with a royal couple as they were high school buddies, looks at his watch and says:

‘I can leave you? I must go to the sailing club. They are awaiting me there. Goodbye to you, goodbye my little sister.’

‘See you in a moment my big brother’, says Angelica with an emphasis on “big”.

‘Bye Julian, says Selena, ‘you must appeal much to Ussa. She likes boys like you.’

‘Bye Julian,’ says Pâris, ‘you’re much like Leith. Ussa was folding our ears with her journey of no return to an unknown kingdom where she and Leith would marry a brother and sister. I am very pleased to meet you, although I have no idea where you are.’

‘Eleven thousand eight hundred years in your future in a country you call Gaulle’, replies Angelica.

She continues to tell him what she knows about the future of their country and upcoming events, but she does not show herself too optimistic about the consequences of the collision of the comet with the earth.

‘Do you mean by this that the theory advanced by the master Ar-Arart and Amilius is not an invention of their own and a real disaster will occur?’

‘Yes my dear Pâris, in five to six days at most.’

This is the time that the King throws a look at the globe-lamp on the desk of Angelica and requests by designating her desk lamp:

‘I see that an important change took place in the meantime. I don’t see our country on this globe and the poles are not in the right place either.’

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Leith had the same reflex. You must seek contact with the masters, they will be able to provide you with more details. But say, as a precaution, yourself the least, let them talk. We, my friends, girlfriends, my brother and I are going tomorrow see a psychic who works with a crystal ball to get in touch with you and yours.’

‘See you tomorrow then’, says Pâris.

‘See you tomorrow Pâris, goodbye Selena’, says Angelica. ‘Oh yes, before I forget, make sure to analyze the calcined bones by experts of the forensic science, you will get a surprise. Then, in regard to your sorrow, play the comedy a few days and especially don’t talk here in the temple about your daughter or Leith. Wait to be at home or in a safe place. Outside, surrounded by your guards for example.’

The royal couple, after having sent the guards pick up their weapons, have a long conversation with the masters Ar-Arart and Amilius about upcoming events and possible action. Once outside and sufficiently far from the temple, Selena launches at her husband:

‘I am very saddened that we could not see Ussa and her companion. Normally, in this temple we can communicate with those who died, right?’

‘The temple only allows communication with the dead. This could mean that Ussa and her companion are not dead. I notice by the way that this temple apparently allows also communication with beings elsewhere, in other, how to say, presents, maybe.’

‘Angelica, why did she not say where the children are?’

‘I think,’ answers the King, ‘that Angelica is right. She, Angelica thus, cannot give us the place where the children hide and that for their and our security. I should have listened to the police officer just now. I hope he made a confidential report, otherwise I will convene him. Remind me that I will convene the prefect Assen-Ni for the afternoon. I’ll give him Carte-Blanche to clean our country of these criminals.’

‘Don’t forget to contact Ajax. He is the man for the job!’ Says Selena.

Penelope, feeling very uncomfortable this morning, loiters at her breakfast she eats without much taste, She eats because she must have eaten in the morning to do her work. She hopes to have a little support, compassion from her clients, who, like her, have difficulty because of the death of the Crown Princess and her companion. She leaves a part of her plate and then goes down one floor to open her shop. She begins, like all other mornings, by getting out her utensils out of the cupboard, when suddenly she hears cries for help under a different wardrobe. She remembers that there is a door and a staircase to the cellars in the basement, but to free access, she must clear the cupboard and open the door that’s there at the bottom. She starts to empty, while the cries for help continue and finally manages to open the hatch. It’s the shock. There below are three people, Leith, and two girls from whom she recognizes one, Ussa, but the other, a big blond girl having a rather athletic look and still young, about the age of Leith, she does not recognize. The height is that the girl begins to dissipate slowly in air and disappears. Leith and Ussa come with her help rather difficult out of the hatch, which is quite narrow. It’s Leith who speaks first:

‘Hi Penelope, is there something wrong? You have a sad face. What happens there?’

‘But,’ replies Penelope, ‘we are all convinced that you were dead. We found your charred skeletons. But, how is it possible that you are there? Tell me.’

Leith and Ussa tell her what happened to them. The fire, the emergency door blocked, the appearance of Angelica guiding them to a secret exit, the crazy idea of Leith to put these two study skeletons on the other side of the door and leave the door closed and locked, the journey through the corridors and finally the waiting beneath the door. Leith ends with these words:

‘Don’t say anything to anyone, play the comedy of a woman in pain and call urgently Ajax.’

‘You can, if you don’t mind of becoming intimate,’ says Ussa, ‘hide us a few days I hope. For now only Angelica, Ajax and you know where we are. Let the rest of the world believe that we are dead. It’s better for our security. I’m sure my parents after the first moments of sorrow will try to contact us at temple of Ozin. This is where Angelica will explain the situation to them.’

‘Help us to bring up the books,’ says Leith, ‘we have brought a few. The oldest and most valuable.’

‘A few?’ Says Ussa, ‘tons. I still have pain in my arm. You should have seen the show. We, Angelica and I, died of worry and the gentleman, here, strolls quietly in the smoke in the search for books, as if he were having a walk of health in the fields.’

‘The most difficult,’ says Leith, ‘was to put these two skeletons on the other side of the armored door. There was already a hellish inferno with a lot of smoke, but it should be staged. It was not enough to just put the skeletons, they should be put as it looks like two people trying to flee the fire.’

‘Then,’ says Penelope, ‘you have succeeded. One hears in the city nothing else then talking about you and your death. Then, it seems, the rumors circulating in any case, that Ra-Ta does not oppose to the anger of people, which means in plain language that the agents whose drawings have appeared in newspapers were declared outlaws.’

‘We can stay here for some time then? You can hide us, can’t you?’ Asks Ussa.

‘Sure, but help me first to put everything in its place. I don’t want my customers to suspect something. Ah yes. You must mount your books first. Mount them in the attic. This is where you will install at the moment and then we’ll see. You will see this is not the royal palace, but there is comfort. I lodge there my visit when the family of the campaign too far to go back on the same day comes to see me. I just warn you when you can come down for dinner. I will try to contact Ajax and invite him for dinner, so we could discuss a little. You can stay here in my apartment, provided that you don’t make noise, otherwise go to the attic, there you will be quiet.’

Ussa and Leith then go up with books and Leith’s student bag in the attic where they remain to dig into books and continue the work started the previous evening in the basement of the library. Leith has, even if the research remains unsuccessfully until now, the opinion that the so-called myths aren’t and that they are the result of calculations based on long-term observations made by the former prior to the last date of destruction. This is precisely the reason that he had brought the older works. They don’t see the time pass by and it’s Penelope who calls them for dinner.

‘So you aren’t annoying yourself too much up there?’

‘No,’ says Leith, ‘we did not see the time pass by. Reading these books takes time, you know.’

‘Then you have found what you were looking for?’ Asks she Leith.

‘No, not yet, but we remain hopeful.’

‘But what are you looking for exactly.’

‘References and calculations made by the elders,’ answers Ussa, ‘because Leith is believing that they had higher knowledge of astronomy and mathematics than we have now. He thinks that these so-called myths are nothing more than their warnings to their descendants.’

‘Warnings disguised as myths?’ Asks Penelope.

‘Yes’, says Leith.

Penelope then goes to the kitchen to prepare dinner and hears the two discussing in her living room as there was a third person.

It’s Ussa who comes suddenly in the kitchen and says:

‘Can you come for a minute, you have to know a person.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s not a ghost who is in your living room, but Angelica repeated her feat of last night, she came back to say us hello.’

‘Take these two dishes there, the dinner is ready’, she says to Ussa.

When Penelope enters accompanied by Ussa her living room, dishes of food in their hands, to settle at a table with others, she sees a girl, blond and fairly big, almost as big as Leith. She and he are talking, in other words he speaks and she responds with gestures without being able to speak. She says her hello, and then Angelica replies with gestures. It’s then that Penelope begins to question her so that she can respond with yes or no by head movements. Penelope is especially pleased that she replies in the affirmative the question if she does not know a buddy for her in the thirties or forties. The conversation ends with the ringing of the door bell because Angelica becomes, as she did in the trap, more and more transparent to dissipate completely. Penelope, who went down to open the door, comes back with Ajax.

‘Hi everyone,’ he says, ‘you’re okay?’

‘Yes,’ says Ussa, ‘it’s okay, but there is better.’

‘Who of you who had the idea to put these two skeletons behind the door? The whole country believes now that you were burned alive.’

‘Oh! That’s me,’ says Leith, ‘I’ve noticed that there were people, you know who, who wanted to kill us at any cost. So I wanted to make them believe that their trick worked for the time necessary to identify and neutralize them.’

‘Yes, there you have succeeded’ replies Ajax, ‘but the coup was a little hard for Ussa’s parents, they have great difficulty and do still not believe that you are alive.’

‘I am not only sorry,’ says Ussa to him, ‘but very sad for them to undergo such treatment, but I think Leith is right. It’s better for our safety and that of my parents.’

‘That’s what Angelica has told them’, answers Ajax.

‘Angelica?’ Asks Ussa, ‘how then?’

‘Well, they went to the temple of Ozin to seek contact with you and it was she who came to talk to them. She did not want to tell them if you were alive or dead or where you are. She also told your father that he should arm his guards and not to talk about the events but in a safe place.’

‘Yes, we just talked ourselves to Angelica a while ago’, replied Ussa. ‘She is of the opinion that we should shut down our communicators so that they cannot find us through it.’

‘I will take the necessary steps and try to convince your parents that you are safe.’

It’s then that Penelope calls from the kitchen, where she went to pick up something, to ask if anyone of them cannot put a dish more on the table for Ajax. They talk during meal of different things and especially the event just now that Angelica had come to talk to them. It’s Ussa who feels rather uncomfortable and becomes red when they begin to question her about Julian, the brother of Angelica. She is on the other hand, very pleased to know that her parents have made his acquaintance in the temple while they talked to his sister. What makes her smile is the fact that she didn’t care about the protocol and spoke to her parents as she does to her teachers, friends and school buddies.

When he arrives at “The gardens”, Ajax sees that his accomplice Jou-el is already there in great discussion with Abdubu. He sits down at the same table as they, guesses the subject of their conversation and asks:

‘It’s about the fire in the library?’

‘Yes,’ says Jou-el, ‘there are several people who saw our “client” in the vicinity when the fire broke out.’

‘Yes,’ says Ajax, ‘this is what Penelope said just a moment ago. I come from her home, she offered me dinner. We ate both and discussed this dastardly attack. She also saw that same individual who dragged in the streets, just before the murder of Master Amilius.’

‘Was it not she who had seen our man come out of the staircase leading to the emergency door?’ Asks Abdubu.

‘I think,’ says Jou-el him, ‘that she had talked about this yesterday afternoon, when we had to bring her home.’

‘I have heard,’ says Abdubu, ‘that the emergency exit of the basement was blocked with a broom handle cut to the right size.’

‘It’s possible,’ says Ajax, ‘but I have no confirmation of this rumor.’

‘Wasn’t it there any more?’ Asks Jou-el.

‘No, when the police came to inspect the premises and environments, they found nothing suspicious.’

‘It’s curious that they could not escape through emergency exit. Ussa had the keys to the basement and they could go down there and wait for help, what do you think?’

‘This is the problem,’ says Ajax, ‘the room of the basement, even considered fireproof, was filled with smoke. Then, there is something else that does not stick. It’s that the cabinet at the bottom was emptied, as if someone was looking for something.’

‘The lock on the emergency door of the basement, has it been inspected?’ Asks Jou-el.

‘No, I don’t think so, but I have to check with the forensic science.’

‘Have fingerprints been taken in the basement?’

‘Yes, but they are those of Ussa, Leith and the staff of the library, which is normal, as they have access and go there regularly.’

‘But I don’t understand why Ussa and Leith have not returned to the basement if they had the keys?’ Asks Jou-el.

‘This is the problem,’ answers Ajax, ‘the door was closed from the inside so that it could not be opened from the other side.’

‘Now another thing, what will we do with our shooting Zoro?’

‘Have you seen the newspapers of Muri?’ Asks Ajax.

‘No.’

‘So read!’ Says Ajax in throwing a newspaper of the state of Celts. ‘Not a bad as title, huh?’

‘We could make posters and distribute them on hand, people will do the rest.’

‘Yes, that’s it,’ says Ajax, ‘I wish the red ants good appetite and that they not hurry up too much by eating them.’

‘What do you think to do presently,’ asks Abdubu, ‘who silently listened to the conversation.’

‘It may be a good thing if we started the hunting’, responds Ajax. ‘You can join us Jou-el?’

‘Of course, but I must first see my friends of the royal guard, if you know what I mean.’

‘So Abdubu, bring us another round.’

‘The same thing?’

‘Yes, that’s fine’, says Jou-el.

‘I’ll take a beer’, meets Ajax.

When Abdubu returns with the drinks, he asks, without going to someone special:

‘I have heard that several people saw an apparition of a blond girl, details of which could correspond to those Leith has made of his Gallic girl.’

‘I’ve heard this also,’ says Jou-el, ‘I was told that she has crossed a police officer, wanting to stop her, throughout.’

‘A firefighter has also seen her going through the door of the in-between basement on fire without opening it’, says Ajax.

‘I know that neither Leith nor Ussa believe in angels, but this phenomenon is very similar,’ says Abdubu. ‘Perhaps she had come to look for them. Not then?’

‘I don’t know,’ replies Jou-el, ‘but it seemed to be her ectoplasm who came to rescue them.’

‘Ectoplasm? What is it?’ Asks Abdubu.

‘Her soul, if you want,’ says Jou-el, ‘but it’s only people with a gift of medium that are capable of. The Gallic of Leith is perhaps one. It’s even possible that she does not even know it herself.’

‘How? Doesn't she know? How is it possible?’ Asks Ajax?

‘For her, as for most of us,’ responds Jou-el, ‘it happens in dreams, it’s where the soul parts to go wander elsewhere. Never heard of this old man who came every day to sit on a bench in front of the city hall?’

‘Yes, vaguely,’ answers Ajax, ‘why.’

‘Then,’ says Jou-el, ‘he once said to a kid, he came in dream from another planet whose light takes four hundred years to come to us. One day he left early and has not been seen back since. He is maybe dead.’

‘But,’ asks Abdubu, ‘how did he come and leave?’

‘We never saw him coming, but when he left, he dissolved into air. Pffft, like that’, Jou-el responds by making a gesture with his hand in the air.

Once their drinks consumed, the two friends go each in a direction to take care of the “client” and his associates.

When the King goes up the double staircase of his palace to join the royal apartments, first he does not find his wife, Selena. He finally finds her in a room at the end, beautifully decorated with oriental carpets, where their daughter Ussa has her neighborhoods. She sits there on Ussa’s bed crying with a little girl’s dress in her hands. The king, sorry for the pain of his wife, sits down next to her and tries to console her.

‘Selena, dear wife, why are you weeping? Keep hope! She is certainly not dead.’

Selena Bel-Ra, surprised that her husband starts to be intimate with her, looks at him and replies in the same way:

‘How can you remain so unmoved by the sorrow, my dear? I cannot believe that she is still alive. You see this dress? It was passed from grandmother to daughter and mother to daughter, each time for the eldest. I have great trouble accepting that Ussa was the last to be baptized in that dress.’

‘Dear wife, I have just now an appointment with the police and the prefect and I will come to see you and say what the mid-legal institute was able to find.’

‘But how can you be so hard, my dear husband?’

‘I am beginning to believe that this Gallic girl, we saw this morning, is real and tries to protect us. Let us therefore trust her. If Ussa and Leith are still alive and still with us, they eventually resurface in a timely manner. Try to calm yourself down a bit. Would you that I call a doctor?’

‘No, that’s fine.’

‘I think it’s best that you can sleep a little this afternoon. I call a doctor and I return at the end of the afternoon to see if you’re feeling better.’

The king descends the grand staircase and turns right towards his office. The convening of this afternoon does not require huge meeting spaces, which are normally held on the other side of the ground floor. He might therefore receive the prefect and the few police officers in his spacious office. Awaiting the guests, he opens the document that the officer of the forensic science wanted to show him this morning and reads it. “Damn,” he says for himself, “I should have read it this morning. It would have spared us much of the sorrow.” The document is formal, the calcined bones found at the door could not be in any case those of Ussa and Leith. They were, first, too old, at first sight several centuries. Secondly, there are small holes made to attach bones to each other, as for a study skeletons. When he raises his head, he sees a guard accompanied by the prefect waiting for permission to enter.

‘Come in and sit down.’

‘Good morning Your Excellency.’

‘I don’t hide you my discontent regarding the events of recent days.’

‘I am sorry, Your Excellency, but the crimes are difficult to investigate and require a lot of patience.’

‘I am sorry,’ he says in a dry tone, ‘my dear prefect, but there you lie to me, I am in fact been informed by my secret sources that you asked the police to hush up some cases. The murder of Master Amilius for example, which has affected very much my daughter and her companion. You know, you have no orders to receive from Poseidia. All that the federation decides first passes first by me and I take the provisions in our country. There is, therefore, no police or prefect or other person to receive orders from Ra-Ta and his secret police. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes Your Excellency.’

‘Good! I don’t want you to undergo the defects which Ra-Ta prefers to use; then, he would have put in front of you a sheet placing you under investigation for the court-martial and a firearm loaded with one bullet. The only thing I ask you, is to hunt those people already identified and to identify others. I just received Carte-Blanche from my colleague Ra-Ta. You can hunt on his territory because he has more confidence in our forces as in his own. So, also Carte-Blanche and focus mainly on the Belzebubs because it’s they who are the most dangerous.’

‘Yes sire, on your orders.’

‘You can leave and bring in these two police officers who are waiting out there.’

The prefect bows and leaves, as he should, by backing out of the office.

‘Come in and sit down, he throws to the two policemen who have been patiently waiting to be received. What good news do you bring me?’

‘Does Your Excellency has been able to read my report?’ Asks the officer of the forensic science.

‘Yes, I just read it. Do you accept my regrets not having listened this morning?’

‘It’s just nothing Your Excellency I understand your pain. I would have reacted the same way.’

‘Drop that “Your Excellency” and please tell me rather what has happened. Do you have any idea where my daughter and her companion hide?’

‘No sire, no idea. They were probably in the basement when the thugs set fire to it. But we don’t know how and where they were able to escape.’

‘Through the emergency door. Didn’t they?’

‘No, it’s precisely here we have a problem. The mechanism was unlocked, but we have found traces of wood on the outside of the lock and on the wall on the other side. The door has been blocked and someone has removed the device just after the fire. We interview at this time all those who witnessed the sad spectacle to see who could have removed the device. What is certain, is that your daughter and her companion could not get out by there. With the number of spectators that were there, surely one would have seen them. The conundrum we have left to solve is to know where the secret exit is because so far nobody has been able to find it.’

‘Continue your research and be very discreet. Don’t say anything to the press. For them, Ussa and her childhood friend must remain dead for as long as you don’t put your hands on the gangsters of Ra-Ta and Co.’

‘Thank you sire, we’ll do our best.’

‘Okay, you can leave.’

The King leaves his office at the same time and accompanies them to the staircase. He goes then back to the royal apartments to tell the good news to his wife, who is still in the reserved rooms from Ussa and watches with tears in her eyes the little girl’s clothes.

‘Selena, dear wife, don’t cry’, he says sitting down next to her. The forensic science has been able to identify the charred bones.’

Selena collapses in tears again keeping a little dress from Ussa in her hands and says:

‘Don’t tell me more of these poor children, I cannot stand it any longer.’

‘But listen to me,’ says her husband, who starts to get excited, ‘that’s just what I wanted to tell you. These bones are several centuries old and cannot be those of Ussa nor those of Leith. This is certainly a crazy idea of Leith to suggest to everyone that they were burned alive. He wanted to hide with Ussa the time required to neutralize the thugs who travel these days in our country. Remember, what this Gallic girl had told us: play comedy for a few days and see.’

‘But. They hide. So where and why are they hiding?’

‘Where? I don’t know more than you or the police. For whom? Yes I know. They hide for the henchmen of the BIS, former members of the rogue group Belzebubs. I also planned to go again to the temple to talk to this Gallic girl, if she wants well, to learn more.’

‘Her name is Angelica, isn’t it?’ She asks.

‘Yes. And Ussa’s lover, Julian, which is a Roman name I think. A beautiful boy. If she ever goes there where he is, we can no longer speak to her or him or with great difficulty because she will be, like him, eleven thousand eight hundred years into the future in a country, which is now only tundra and covered with ice and snow.’

‘I fear for Ussa she is quickly homesick. I hope Julian and Leith succeed to support her in her difficult times. I don’t fear for Leith, he adapts to everything. He keeps both feet on the ground and tries to do best.’

‘Yes, he has kept his head cool if it was he who did put the skeletons on the other side of the door.’

‘Of course he is. This is certainly not Ussa, she dares not do these kinds of things. She fears the fire first.’

‘What grieves me most is that in a week everything will be finished here, no more cities, no more people and a country that is twelve thousand feet below the level of the sea. That’s what says Leiht’s girlfriend, his Gallic girl. She does not say so directly, but in her present, our future thus, our country is not there any more.’

‘It’s heartbreaking to know this in advance.’

‘It’s may be better, so we can organize and prepare an evacuation plan.’

Angelica, who did not return to the club after dinner because the weather is not to good, is at home with her girlfriend Alicia and are searching on the Internet to find information about Atlantis. Alicia continues a chat on MSN, while Angelica phones the library to see if it’s open this afternoon. The manager says: In principle no, but she could come at half past three. Angelica closes the cover of her cellphone launches to Alicia:

‘It’s Okay, we have the lib for us alone.’

‘Do we go immediately?’

‘No, in an hour, she, the manager thus, is not there yet, she comes at half past three.’

‘Then,’ says Alicia, ‘once you have the texts, what do you intend to do?’

‘I know that my guy often dreams of me, I will therefore read the most important texts of Plato and hope he is listening.’

‘You say “my guy”, you’re already sure of him? You’re sure you’ll meet him in the flesh?’

‘But I told this morning what had happened to me yesterday afternoon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, the poor guy. I bet he has never seen a girl naked and you find nothing better than to do a striptease.’

‘I have to confess you that I was as ashamed as he was. He had just landed in the bathroom while I took a shower. What do you want me to do? I didn’t know what to do, so I chose the frontal attack. I felt myself come all red when I noticed his reaction, he said nothing, but he had responded in a clearly visible way, you know what I mean. Then, I hurried up to dry myself and put my clothes. You should have seen my brother and Ussa, when their eyes crossed. It was love at first sight, but not as struck by lightning, more like a short-circuit in a nuclear power plant. It took them quite some time to come back on earth.’

‘And you,’ asks Alicia, ‘weren’t you too impressed as they were with your guy.’

But Angelica feels ashamed, and does not answer and just looks dreamy at ceiling of her room. Alicia noting that she does not answer, changes the subject and returns to what they were looking at and says:

‘Regarding your Atlantis, didn’t you look for something else?’

‘Yes, I forgot, places where they were able to escape, or rather what remains there as traces. Like Basques, Berbers, for example. Then, not only that, we should find where this darn comet fell. Leith seems to think that it must be somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.’

‘I’ll ask my father,’ says Alicia, ‘he sometimes plays billiards.’

‘Billiards? Where did you seek that?’ Asks Angelica her, ‘what have billiards to do with a shift of the poles?’

‘I don’t know if you’ve seen someone play billiards,’ replies Alicia, ‘but to make a twisted stroke, they make the ball rotate on itself, what they call an effect’

‘I still can’t see where you’re getting’, says Angelica.

‘Then, to achieve this,’ says Alice to her, ‘they hit the ball offset from the center and this makes it turn on itself. That is certainly what happened to the Earth, in my opinion. It has received this big rock, this comet thus, in its face and that’s what made it change the angle of rotation. I don’t see otherwise. On the other hand, to achieve this, it, the comet thus, should have struck the Earth at an angle and offset from the center, as this is done with a billiard ball’

‘But, how do you mean?’

‘Well, in order to displace the poles, you will have to displace the angle of the Earth’s rotation!’

‘Very good, my math teacher, I thank you for the lesson’, says Angelica who does not feel to go on with the subject. ‘We therefore seek a hole or a submarine crater and ask my guy to check whether this hole exists in his time and they may be in deep trouble if the hole does not exist yet.’

‘Say So, you didn’t you tell me something about the Bermuda Triangle, where boats and aircraft go lost. I am sure that your guy and his childhood friend, Ussa, come to us this way, but in the opposite direction.’

‘But how do you see that?’

‘But, it’s simple,’ says Alicia, ‘in the time that everything drowns in the water, their power plants explode because of short-circuits and projects them to our time. Don’t worry Angelica, they will finally arrive. Remain optimistic. We will have a small celebration when they are there, what do you think?’

‘I don’t know. I will see. So, do we go?’ Asks Angelica looking at her watch. ‘Save me all that what you have found and turn off the computer. I read the texts tonight and every night before going to sleep, so he could write it down when he dreams of me.’

Penelope, who goes often in Abdubu’s place after closing her shop, is now too much in a hurry to go up to her apartment. She does not want to leave her guests alone and wishes to keep them company. When she climbs the stairs to her attic, she sees them still immersed in their books, peeling them carefully by taking notes here and there.

‘Hey lovers, did you find something? I see that you take notes.’

‘How, lovers?’ Asks Ussa.

‘Well! You’re both of you in love with a brother and sister? Aren’t you?’

‘Oh, if you see it like that. Yes!’ Says Leith.

‘So you’re becoming brother and sister-in-law later. But I don’t see very well how you will make the trip.’

‘We neither,’ replies Ussa, ‘but it might not be a walk of health in the fields.’

‘About your books and notes you seem to take, did you find something.’

‘It’s heartbreaking, but even if some details are not there, Angelica seems to be right. Hey, Ussa, pass me that book, there is a world map in there. You see,’ he tels Penelope by opening the book to a page where it shows a map of the polar area, ‘our North Pole is here, but Angelica had on her desk a lamp shaped as a globe and the North Pole was there’, he says by pointing his finger somewhere in the middle of a sea between Greenland and Siberia. ‘It makes a difference of thirteen degrees. The Arctic and our country are for this reason thirteen degrees further south and the movement was made on this longitude’, he says by indicating a line with his finger on a map of the Atlantic with their country. ‘Now we seek the point of impact the more likely in this area’, he says, by making a circle with his finger on the Bermuda Triangle and the coast of North America.

‘How do you want to find the place, then?’ Asks Penelope?

‘Well,’ he says, ‘Angelica must have an impact crater somewhere in this area, where we have not.’

‘You think it falls into the sea?’ Asks Ussa.

‘Of course,’ says Leith, ‘an impact on the continent would have the same effect as the one who killed all the dragons sixty-five million years ago. The fact that Angelica lives at eleven thousand eight hundred years, indicates to me that the comet will fall inevitably into the sea, creating a flood. Then, if it falls into the sea of Bermuda, the crust will not hold, too fragile and too thin. The impact of the comet will push the Earth’s crust in the areas most vulnerable to the bottom and brings our country with it.’

‘Good,’ says Penelope who wants to change the subject, ‘you come for dinner in a moment. I’ll close the curtains, it’s more discreet.’

While Penelope goes down to dress up the table and begins to prepare dinner, the two friends continue to search and browse the books until she calls that the table awaits. Once at the table she asks:

‘You will stay here, or would go elsewhere?’

‘I think it’s better that we go somewhere else’, says Ussa.

‘Yes, I believe,’ says Leith, ‘that it’s better for your safety and ours. I know that Master Amilius has built a room in the attic, like yours. This piece has a secret entrance, but you can access it from the rooftops. It’s comfortable and I am sure that the henchmen of Ra-Ta wont find the access.’

‘Okay, you can go through the roof in my attic, I leave the window open. So you could come and see me, if necessary. But it would be better that Ajax checks if the way is clear.’

‘That’s it,’ says Ussa, ‘I don’t think that someone will be looking in a house supposed empty.’

‘We will see tomorrow, isn’t it?’ Asks Penelope.

‘Yes,’ says Ussa, ‘we can stay here for tonight and even tomorrow. We will be discreet, but we cannot make the light up there. It will be too visible.’

This beautiful morning of the eighths day of Leo, our two compatriots, Ajax and Jou-el, are in a back room of the tavern “The Gardens” awaiting other clients. They preferred in fact to meet here rather than in a more visible place. Especially now that the hunt on tugs has started. An unusual come and go to the police station will necessarily be suspect, but in a pub like Abdubu’s place such comings and goings are quite normal. On a table is a map of the city, marked with small dots as fly-shit. They are the places where individuals have been seen by the population, which is very cooperative. Some do not hesitate to contact Abdubu in his café in order to leave him a message or a hint, which he puts on the table in the improvised meeting room.

‘Hi you two,’ says Abdubu, ‘you take something?’

‘Me a coffee with hot milk and some pieces of toasted bread and jam if you have any,’ says Ajax, ‘I haven’t eaten this morning.’

‘How can you swallow this Abyssinian shit?’ Ask Jou-el.

‘Nothing better to take shape in the morning’, answers Ajax.

‘And you,’ Abdubu request to Jou-el, ‘as usual?’

‘Yes, that’s fine’, he says.

While he is looking for drinks and a few things to eat, the two friends begin to plan strategy. It becomes clear that some of these individuals they are looking for, hide in going from hotel to hotel, where they stay rarely more than two or three days. They decide to contact colleagues of Ajax in other cities. Ajax is convinced that they do not even want to be paid for the work, if it’s for the interest of the country. Whilst waiting for the contacts of the Royal Guard and the forensic science to come and join them, they set up a list of hotels and hostels to watch, even to pay a small premium from the royal accounts because Ajax is convinced that the King is so mad that he will not hesitate to pay the premiums and belows the table. It’s this moment that Abdubu comes back with drinks and a few small things to eat and joins them a moment.

‘If you see Penelope,’ says Ajax, ‘can you tell her to come here.’

‘Of course,’ says Abdubu, ‘she will certainly come as she usually does, as a draft.’

‘We want to ask her something,’ says Jou-el, ‘she sees a lot of people, you see.’

The prefect, Assen-Ni, awaits in his office Ax-Tell, the chief of police in the region, which he convened at the behest of the King. Ax-Tell does not need to come from afar, as the police office is in the same building as the prefecture of the region. The prefect has spread in front of him the various newspapers where most of the suspects are appearing. Especially the newspapers of the neighboring state, Muri, the state of the Celts, leave no doubt of the fate that awaits them there. The order to close the borders, especially those with the state of Alta, is already given. All trains, roads and air-crafts are controlled. It’s while he reads the report of the forensic science that the police chief arrives and salutes him:

‘Hello Mr. prefect, you want to see me?’

‘Hello Ax-Tell, sit down. You probably guess the subject of our conversation, don’t you?’

‘Indeed, my dear Assen-Ni, we took too many risks in listening to the orders of Poseidia without going to the King.’

‘Did you read the report of the forensic science concerning the fire in the library?’

‘Yes, my friend. What you need to add is that the remains of the bottles indicate that they contained rum with a high degree of alcohol. In addition, but this was marked in the report, traces of a flammable product were found.’

‘Do we know how he or they could enter, I think the door is supposed to be secure, right?’

‘I don’t know if you remember, but there was a journalist who had managed to open the door with tools purchased from a hardware store. Then, thieves and agents of the BIS, which are no other than recycled thugs, have no problem entering.’

‘The charred bones, how could they get to where they were.’

‘We assume that it was the companion of the princess who had done this. He had probably realized that it was they who were targeted by the attack.’

‘We can therefore assume that Ussa and he were in the basement, then locked up because if I read the report, the emergency exit had been blocked. I also note that nobody saw them coming out from there. What I do know that there were several people who had seen suspicious individuals corresponding to this drawings coming out of the fire escape.’

‘Do you know where Ussa and her companion are hiding at the moment?’

‘No, I have no idea. We don’t know how and where they could get out of this room in the basement. The only strange thing that a police officer reported me, was that he saw a girl enter the library and wanting to stop her, she crossed him throughout as if she did not exist physically. A firefighter also reported that the same girl went through the door of the in-between basement on fire without opening it. Of course she was it who rescued Ussa and her companion, but where and how, nobody knows. We suspect that there is a secret exit in the basement from the feudal era, but nobody has yet managed to find it. Then, there is also below our town a maze of corridors, staircases and other accesses, such that only a knowledgeable person can enter there without getting lost.’

‘Put yourself on the hunt and find me these individuals sent by Ra-Ta. The King gives us Carte-Blanche. Perhaps try to contact the Royal Guard. They have an internal secret service that works primarily with private detectives. You may be able to put officers in civilian on the job, what do you think?’

‘Carte-Blanche you tell me? We should not bother to imprison them in this case, we have some informers who know what to do. We avoid diplomatic problems with Ra-Ta this way.’

‘There is no problem with him, the suggestion to do what you say comes from him. It’s in these words, he has given Carte-Blanche to our King, including on its own territory. I have unconfirmed information that the head of the secret operations had an accident with a firearm.’

‘Yes, I heard it too. He had the choice between suicide and court-martial.’

‘Apart from these individuals, former employees of the BIS, we must take care of the Belzebubs. It’s they who the most dangerous. They could try to obtain a safe conduct to appear on the evacuation plan since no money nor other will still have any value in a week.’

‘In a week? So this story of a star falling to earth is true?’

‘Alas, yes.’

‘But this evacuation plan? Who takes care of it?’

‘This happens on the direct orders of the King and the army takes care of it. The bulk of the troops have already returned home. We have a hundred warships at our disposal. I am also certain that the King will commandeer commercial vessels. But back to our subject, now contact the detectives and journalists who worked on the subject. They are well-informed and you can save labor and forces and concentrate on the essentials.’

‘Have you something else, my dear Assen-Ni?’

‘No, that’s all for today.’

Angelica turns around in her room. She is unclear with what to start nor where nor how. She had read the texts of Plato, the day before she went to sleep, but would like to know if Leith, her guy like she is calling him now, heard her lecture. She has made an appointment with the old Monique and awaits now Alicia and her brother who wanted to come too. She is a little upset against herself because she would have had time yesterday to make a return trip to Le Havre, seeking a maritime map in a specialized store. She spent this morning searching the web, but without much success. All information she could find lack precision. It’s as if the geographical knowledge stops beyond a few miles offshore. It’s on the moment that she wants to get back to research on the Internet, that she hears her brother enter along with Alicia and Audrey, who wanted to come too.

‘Hi my dear’, says Julian.

‘Hi Angelica, say Alicia and Audrey in chorus.

‘Hi,’ she says without speaking to someone special, ‘what did you do this morning?’

‘Oh. Nothing special,’ says Julian, ‘it’s pretty quiet.’

‘We have the appointment at what time?’ Asks Alicia.

‘In a half hour’, she says looking at her watch. ‘We must go now, if we don’t want to be late.’

They discuss, while cycling up the street leading to the small building where Monique lives, about everything and nothing, even if the main subject is that what they will see. Once arrived, it’s Monique who attends them already on her doorway and greets them:

‘Hi, young people, what good wind brings you here?’

‘Hi Monique,’ says Angelica, ‘it’s nice to help us.’

‘I have the impression that you want to help your Atlantean friend, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she replies blushing a little, ‘it’s to help my guy. But communication is rather difficult. Do you think it will work with your ball?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Monique, ‘I have never been asked such questions. These days it’s in order, the money, the job, love, and sometimes they want to know if their partner was the cuckold, but I send those to a buddy who has an office of private detective. I don’t do his job and he doesn’t do mine, everyone his own thing, isn’t it? But talk and talk, enter and let’s try to contact Angelica’s guy.’

Whilst the young people enter, Monique takes her utensils to lay them on the coffee table because her office, which is located in a former bedroom is too small to receive all of them. She puts a few sofas and chairs in a semicircle around the coffee table where she lays a purple table carpet. She carefully places the crystal ball in the middle and two chandeliers, lights them. Once the blinds down, she invites the young people to take place:

‘Angelica, you sit there, next to me. Julian you sit down on the other side. Alicia and Audrey you can choose to sit next to Julian and Angelica, as you want. You must choose your position such that you don’t see the candles in the bowl, but only their glow. Then’ she continues, addressing Angelica: ‘did you explain to them how to concentrate?’

‘Yes Monique, that’s done. Can we can start?’

‘So, focus on the whereabouts of your friends. They are still in the house where lives beautician, isn’t it?’

‘I think so,’ says Angelica, ‘they had planned to go elsewhere, but this isn’t done yet.’

‘Then,’ says Monique, ‘we’ll go.’

After making a few unsuccessful attempts, an image of a beautifully arranged attic, where you can observe two young people in the process of leafing through old books, becomes visible. After a while all group members cannot only see, but also hear them. It’s Angelica the first to attempt to call:

‘Leith, do you hear me, it’s Angelica who speaks to you.’

Leith, who hears Angelica, looks around him to see where she is, but it’s his companion who responds first:

‘Oh I hear the voice of Angelica who is calling you.’

‘Yes, I heard,’ replies Leith, ‘but I see nothing.’

‘We see you,’ says Angelica, ‘don’t you see us?’

‘I don’t see anything anywhere,’ he replies, ‘but what means we?’

‘Well! Me, my brother Julian and two friends, Alicia and Audrey. Damn, I forgot to mention Monique, our medium. But I have a question for Leith. Could you hear me tonight when I have read the texts that you asked me. I will read them this night again, focus yourself so that you don’t miss the reading.

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘I heard just a part, I will try to listen again tonight. One question, if you remember well the texts, is it marked “one day and one night” or “one night and one day”? I don’t remember well.’

‘No,’ replies Angelica, ‘it’s first the day and then the night, but why do you ask that?’

‘Because the comet crosses the Earth’s orbit early in the morning. But could you find a crater somewhere?’

‘No,’ replies Angelica, ‘I broke my head all morning on that, but in vain. It are the details that I‘m missing. I need a good map of the sea, such as marine uses because it lists all depths.’

‘But we will have one after tomorrow,’ says Julian, ‘when we take the yacht at the Fécamp port.’

‘Hi Julian,’ says Ussa who hears his voice, ‘I don’t see you, but it’s so good to hear you. I look forward to be near you, hold you in my arms and to feel me in yours.’

‘Angelica,’ says Leith, ‘don’t say anything yet to the parents of Ussa and to anyone else, say that we are safe, in good hands and that we come back tomorrow or after tomorrow. Okay.’

‘Yes my love’, she says.

It’s then that the young people talk for a moment together, but suddenly it’s the image in the crystal ball which begins to change. They see the inside of a temple and what is more worrying, is that a technician seems to fiddle circuits of the screen. What he is fiddling with looks more like a sneak then a circuit that must be present. After a while, they see a couple enter that Angelica and Julian recognize as being Pâris and Selena Bel-Ra.

‘Hello Selena, hello Pâris,’ says Angelica, ‘how are you.’

‘How could you see us,’ asks Pâris Bel-Ra, ‘we don’t yet see you, the screen doesn’t work yet?’

‘We are seeing you in a crystal ball’, says Julian.

‘Yes,’ says Angelica, ‘it‘s not just that what we see, there is also a technician who records everything you say and do. He is located in the basement, below your feet. Then, say the least, he does not seem to be able to hear us. Answer, if possible, only with yes or no, and try not to show your emotions. We had just now been in touch with Ussa and Leith and they asked us to communicate only the news that you will have tomorrow or the day after a sign of life from them, the time necessary to eliminate the dangerous individuals.’

‘Thank you, Angelica,’ says Selena, ‘we see you at the moment and you should see us without your ball.’

‘But you see that,’ exclaims Monique, ‘I have never seen such alike. Look at this. They are in my living room. Who are are they Angelica, present them!’

‘May I present,’ says Angelica, ‘his Excellency Mrs and Mr Bel-Ra, Selena and Pâris for friends. Madame, sir, here on my left Alicia, on my right Mrs. Monique, our medium, then my brother as you already know, right from my brother, Audrey. Our crew is not complete because it lacks Andrew, Philippe and Rodolphe, who remained at the sailing club.’

Pâris and Selena Bel-Ra, prepare their journey by car to visit the temple of Ozin. King, Pâris Bel-Ra, was able to convince his wife to accompany him. Even if they know they cannot communicate with their daughter, they can with Angelica and her brother, who promised to be there. He hopes that she can give some guidance or at least news about his daughter and her companion. Suddenly he remembered his dream that night because he saw the Gallic girl that told him to take guards with him to inspect the temple, but failed to say more. Since, obviously important to her, he takes the precaution of inviting an official of the police who has taken identification drawings with him.

‘Selena, are you ready?’ He asks his wife.

‘Yes my dear husband, can we go?’

On the way, they pass in front of the stud farm and equestrian center of the family of Penelope, the Axarz’s, overloaded with history because that is where Ussa and Leith have made acquaintance. His mother was often coming with him from the neighboring immense property of the Ajahel’s, producers of apples, pears, cherries, plums, cider and various spirits. Selena for now prefers to forget the circumstances that led her to rest in the countryside with Ussa being only six years old at the time. This is where Ussa took a little boy for her little brother she had lost. A friendship of two people who became inseparable and which lasts until today. Arrived at the temple, the couple passes between the great colonnades and through the purifier curtain at the entrance. It’s just that they entered the center of temple and even before the communication screen could be activated that they hear the voice of Angelica who welcomes them. Once the screen activated, they see that Angelica is accompanied by friends and is in a woman’s place who uses a crystal ball to communicate. It’s after the first informal introductions of those present that the King asks her:

‘Angelica, I can call you by your first name, can’t I? Do you have good news for us or is it still too dangerous to talk about?’

‘Regarding Ussa and Leith, you will receive news in two days at most. They made me anyway promise to say nothing because the suspects are still not identified. But before I continue to talk, I would like to tell you that this temple is tampered and all that you say and do is recorded. Don’t answer other than no, yes or say the least. On the other hand, we, my friends and I have just seen, by using this ball there, individuals who are in the basement of the temple and they are the ones you’re searching for. Did you take enough guards and police with you to act?’

‘Yes.’

‘So don’t show emotions, which also prevails for Selena, and do as if you know nothing. I suggest, once outside you inspect the building from top to bottom. It might be nice if you can disconnect all the links to the outside, including the one that provides the operating power. Connect it to an independent source, such as those that provide energy for your ships.’

‘Yes, it will be a good idea,’ says Pâris, ‘concerning the event, it’s for when?’

‘There is Leith who has more information because mines are too vague, too remote in time to calculate the day closely. He said that this will be in six days, early in the morning, you have thus five days left to prepare.’

While Angelica gives him a few more details, it’s Selena which starts a chat with Julian and the other two girls present, while the King continues to talk with Angelica about upcoming events. It’s suddenly that Monique intervenes because she had drawn, under the incredulous eyes of the couple Bel-Ra, tarot cards, telling them:

‘I see in the cards that you will have a painful separation, get ready. Nor your daughter nor her companion will be in danger, even if it will be a frightening experience. Prepare her waterproof suitcases, capable to float with all her little girl stuff and all that what she needs in her new life, and entrust it to her companion. Do it, it’s very important and do anything as for a major trip. I see homesick problems for her.’

‘She had such problems in the past,’ says Selena to her, ‘I know what she needs.’

‘It’s strange what you do,’ says Pâris, ‘Ussa told me about a person on a fair that was like you and used the same types of cards. What else do you see?’

‘She will become, sorry Julian, very old. Well beyond hundred years. Her companion, Leith will have, as Angelica in the ninety years of age and will die with a gap of six months only. Your daughter will have more children, but I am not saying when and how because it’s not good to know in advance, isn’t it Julian. It’s best to keep the surprise because the first, she will be a surprise and come by surprise.

‘You talk in female tense,’ asks Julian, ‘will it be a girl?’

‘Yes my dear, but you will see it when it’s the right moment.’ Then watching the couple Bel-Ra, she continues: ‘even if communication is difficult, you will stay in regular contact. My guarantee you have, if it does not work otherwise, I am able and I will bring you news from here from time to time.’

It’s after a few terms that the royal couple takes leave of the friends present at Monique’s place. They promise to resume contact as soon as possible. Once the royal couple comes out of the temple, he launches his guards:

‘Check me everything. Close all accesses and bring anyone with you that they don’t know over here and especially those contained in drawings.’

P enelope knows well the tearoom of the park, an octagonal glazed building with a terrace on the front with tables and chairs made of iron, painted, as the construction itself, in white, held by Mélia, daughter of a client of her. She does not often go there because a little too far from her shop. But today she has scheduled a little time. She goes there with her client, Mélia’s mother. When they arrive, they see Ajax, Jou-el and two other men sitting around a table and talking, leaned over a map of the region, another of the city where the points fly-shit have increased and also a lot of cards with drawings. On her way to their table, Penelope says to her client:

‘Go say “hello” to your daughter and order a tea with ice cubes for me. I have a few words to say to them.’

Whilst her client goes to see her daughter, Penelope sits down at the table with the others and greets them:

‘Hello, you’re okay? They are friends of you, Jou-el’, she asks in identifying the two men she only knows vaguely.

‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘they are Midas and Laïos, two members of the royal guard. The only one we expect to come is Jason, a fellow of Ajax. He must come from the other side of the lake.’

‘Oh,’ says Penelope, ‘there is a boat that has just arrived in port, it may be him.’

‘It’s possible,’ says Ajax, ‘he has a boat he shares with others. He can cross as fast as making the contour of the lake by train or car.’

‘Is there anything new concerning our “client”?’ Asks Penelope.

Ajax, after having settled his note, leaves the park, crosses the boulevard to go up, accompanied by Laïos and Midas, the little street with lots of small shops to the crossing where the shop of Penelope and the office of Master Amilius can be found. He sees that the police and the locksmith that he had asked to come, are already waiting. He greets them by saying:

‘Hello, did you have to wait a long time?’

‘No,’ replies one of the policemen, ‘we have just arrived.’

‘It’s okay,’ says the locksmith, ‘I was already afraid of making you wait.’

‘Then,’ says Ajax, ‘have you taken a new secure lock with you? The one that is here now can be opened with a hairpin.’

‘What should we look for?’ Asks a policeman?

‘Fingerprints, traces such as hair and other small dust to allow us to identify the culprits.’

‘Wasn’t this already done by the other team?’ Asks a police officer.

‘No,’ answers Midas, ‘it has been deliberately neglected on the order of Poseidia.’

‘How, orders from Poseidia?’ Asks Laïos, ‘since when do we obey to orders of there?’

‘It’s precisely here that there is a problem,’ replies Ajax, ‘the prefect responded after receiving strict orders from the federal capital. He believed that the King was aware without checking it and he gave the order to Ax-Tell, the chief of police, to remain silent and classify cases. There was for this reason no serious research. We need to start over from scratch and secure the building for some reason we cannot tell you at this time without putting people in danger.’

‘Ah yes,’ says Laïos at the policemen, ‘try to catalog the books and especially those who seem to lack. Total the missing weight because it could be that Amilius has hidden books. According to reports, there was no movement of cars on the morning of the murder. The gangsters therefore did come on foot, which means they could not take many books with them.’

‘Should we inspect all the rooms here?’ Asks a policeman.

‘Yes, including the observatory in the attic,’ says Ajax, and then continues by addressing one of the policemen: ‘you are going to start with the observatory. Take all the usual signs and tell me when you have finished up there. Let us start with the kitchen and continue with his living room’, he says, addressing Laïos.

It appears quickly that all important books are missing, as well are some notebooks from which the master had dozens. A little calculation learns Ajax that it was virtually impossible, even for two or three men, to carry such a weight, not to mention the volume it represents. At the same time, one of the police officers responsible to inspect the office, reports him that rather bulky and heavy objects seem to be missing. Among these items is a globe with a size of two feet. A police officer remembers having seen it in the master’s office. It’s therefore impossible to have taken it without being noticed. But the surprises don’t stop there, the telescope found in pieces at the observatory, is being dismantled and not broken. Moreover, that some indefinable small parts found in the office were belonging to the telescope in the observatory, where they seem to lack. The question “where” remains. Where could he hide all this equipment and books? For the books, Ajax has his own idea, which he does not communicate to the others because he will see Penelope in a moment and it’s she who knows something for sure. He likes to seek access to the so-called cache that the master had built, but it’s necessary that the police finishes their investigation and leave with Laïos and Midas. For the rest, only Jou-el, of who he awaits the arrival, was placed in the confidence and they would seek access to this hidden room, the master had built in the attic, to check its security.

Penelope, finishing off her last client of the day, is not much surprised to see Ajax enter. She actually awaited him to see what she should do with her two guests. While she puts her client under a hair-helmet because she had only done her hair, she launches at Ajax:

‘Sit down there’, by appointing a hairdressing chair.

‘But,’ replies Ajax, ‘I didn’t come to give me haircut or a beauty makeover.’

‘Have you seen your hair,’ says Penelope, ‘it’s a bird’s nest. You call this being cured? I don’t go out with a guy who doesn’t know how to treat himself. So’ she continues making her client smile, ‘let you do that, I’ll arrange that.’

While Ajax sits down in a hairdressing chair to get his hair washed and cut, the conversation resumes fairly quickly the subject started in the park a few hours earlier. This client seems to have seen suspicious individuals who could, according to her descriptions, be the same as those on the pictures of Jason. She had seen them around the station and concluded that they had come from there. She does not know where they went, the only thing she remembers is that they went on foot along the Grande Rue in a westerly direction. Ajax decides to take her name and address and return with his colleague Jason for a formal identification. Penelope who has finished in between her client, asks Ajax whilst she finishes his haircut:

‘It’s okay Ajax, I closed the door. You can talk now. Could you secure the room in the attic of Amilius’s house?

‘Yes, there is no danger. The henchmen of Ra-Ta found no access. The telescope, the globe, two astrolabes, most of the missing books and notes are there. It seems to me that there must be a will stating that Leith is his heir.’

‘Take in a moment a look in my office, he gave me important things to keep. They are hidden in filings with the accounts and are mixed with mine.’

‘Really? It’s you who has them?’

‘Yes,’ she answers him, ‘he gave them to Leith in an account files, who brought me them. But let’s go up a floor, I will prepare a small dinner for the four of us and then, after dark, we can accompany them to the attic of Amilius.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ He asks.

‘Yes, it will be better. That way you can assure them a little. They fear being seen and unmasked.’

While Penelope goes in her kitchen to prepare a light supper for herself and her three guests, Ajax goes to the attic and takes a surprised look around him. He was not expecting to find a beautifully arranged room there. The two youngsters have not even heard him enter and are surprised to see him so suddenly appear before them. It’s Leith who greets him first:

‘Hi Ajax, how are you?’

‘I’m okay,’ he says, ‘always in your books, aren’t you? What are you looking for, still this darn star?’

‘No,’ replies Ussa, ‘we are just curious how a trip across eleven thousand eight hundred years may occur. We look at the moment the ancient texts if there have been similar cases in the past.’

‘Have you found any?’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘at least one story in the sacred texts of an old shepherd grazing his sheep amount; he would have found by going down his grandson at the age of eighty years, telling him that everybody thought he was dead or had disappeared.’

‘Don’t forget this story that had appeared in newspapers a few years ago’, says Ussa. ‘There was a guy who had come to see an Amaki newspaper, telling them he had seen the city and the port sink into the sea. He said it was awful to see, all these people in the process of drowning. There were also a train who derailed at this point, of which only the few first car passengers were rescued, thanks to the fact that it disintegrated during the derailment. He saw passengers floating on pieces of the car being carried out to sea. What remained him in memory was that one of the castaways were rescued by a sailboat who came out of nowhere, which in addition, went of into nothingness shortly after having rescued other passengers from a boat apparently in difficulty.’

‘Yes I remember vaguely,’ answers Ajax, ‘we all thought that it was a crazy wanting to be interesting.’

‘This is perhaps not as far-fetched as thought,’ replies Leith, ‘we now know that this is the one that could happen in five days in the early morning.’

Suddenly they hear someone climbing the stairs. It’s Penelope who comes to seek them for dinner. She did not want to call down from the stairs, as too intrusive. She says by putting her head in the opening of the door:

‘So, do you come for dinner or what. You don’t live on old books. No? Don’t hurry yourselves to leave because we must wait for nightfall before going to the home of Amilius by the roofs.’

The four friends do not speak during the dinner other than banalities and facts mentioned by the colleague from Ajax, Jason. Discussions are drifting quickly enough on the novelty that he had used, his device to take pictures using small plates with an emulsion sensitive to light. Suddenly, it’s Leith who remembers that Angelica has a similar one, except that she uses neither a plate nor other support. This, according to Leith, that the unit remembers the images itself, we can then print, using a suitable device. The discussion continues on the strange device with two wheels driven by a crank that Angelica and her brother are using to get around. Ussa, who is involved in the conversation, says she and Leith do not understand how one can stay up on such a mechanics. Ajax, he, is of the opinion that there is surely a trick, as with magic. Penelope, who had cleared the table meanwhile, returns with four glasses and different bottles. After having enjoyed quietly the products, part of which are coming from the fields of the Ajahel’s, the family of Leith, Penelope says:

‘It’s time children, we must go.’

‘I’m afraid’, says Ussa.

‘Don’t look down,’ says Ajax, ‘Leith will hold you.’

‘It’s not so serious,’ says Penelope, ‘we don’t go at the edge of roofs. Ajax, did you unlock the window in the attic of Amilius just now?’

‘Yes, it can be opened from the outside.’

‘The people who live between the two houses, don’t they might hear us?’ Asks Ussa?

‘No,’ replies Penelope, ‘they left in the north with their families for a few weeks.’

‘They would not return in this case’, says Leith.

‘That’s what I think,’ says Penelope, ‘it’s like the two Macs, they will not delay and leave soon too. Those who stay put, as my family and that of Leith, their fate in the hands of Ra.’

Having completed their journey over roofs, the four friends enter the attic above the apartment of Amilius, right next to the observatory. The place is not as comfortable as that of Penelope, but is, like hers, equipped with a little place to dress and wash yourself, a toilet and a small kitchenette. Penelope has prevailed for food for a few days such that they do not need to leave. Leith and Ussa find that Amilius was aware of the danger and has put several objects, in his eyes, of value in this room. It’s Ajax who sees that the large telescope, the globe of his office, astrolabes and apparently its notebooks are there. Leith begins to inspect the contents of the cabinets where are different books including the one that the master has used to read the myth of the end of the world. Ajax inspects the door giving access to the observatory to see if it has not been violated and that the locking mechanism works well. He then shows them the spies in which we can see the room below and the observatory.

‘Won’t you get bored?’ Asks Penelope?

‘No, this is why we took the books, then Amilius has left enough others. We will continue our studies here and we don’t risk boring us.’

‘Ussa you feel able to come to my home alone over the rooftops?’

‘I’m not sure, but I will try it when needed’, she says.

‘For me, no problem’, says Leith.

‘So, I leave the top window open, so you can come to see me if there is a problem’, says Penelope without going to someone specific.

‘Then Ajax,’ asks Leith, ‘have the henchmen of the BIS been able to find this place. Are there microphones, spyware or other stuff in here?’

‘That’s what I am trying to verify’, says Ajax.

‘Hey!’ Says Penelope to Leith, ‘the master left me a letter for you, it should be opened if something happens to him. I think he felt something coming because he gave me this letter already some time ago.’

Leith opens the rather thick letter, sees that it contains a sheet looking like a will and a list of objects, as well a letter to Ussa to be given to her on her nineteenth birthday.

Dear Leith,

when you read this, is that I am no longer of this world. I don’t know how I will leave this world, but be sure that where I will be, I will be fine. Having no family, I can have no heir other than you. You are the person able to continue my work, to deal with my clients, making their official letters and approaches, guiding people in the neighborhood in their lives and provide the necessary support in sorrow and pain. They have as much confidence in you than me. Apart from an inheritance, this document promotes you officially to the rank of Journeyman, which means you are allowed to perform a baptism, to perform a religious marriage and lead a worship burial. Needless to remind you that you have already won the right to guide people in their path to wisdom. You should read this letter aloud in front of two witnesses at least; so it takes effect officially.

I master Amilius Axis gives and bequeaths to Leith Ajahel all movables and immovables, all rights and obligations related to my function, which makes up my estate without exception or reservation. I further declare that I revoke all wills and other provisions that I have taken previously.

Done and written entirely in my hand at Osuo the fifteenth day of Gemini, 12’206.

Amilius Axis

Leith, when finished reading the letter, explains to his companions what this letter is and reads it again, but this time aloud. He finishes by saying:

‘This letter is already a little over two years old since now we have the eights day of Leo, 12’208.’

It’s Ussa the first to react by saying:

‘You can marry me then! You do, don’t you, Leith? You owe me that!’

‘I’m recalling you,’ he says, ‘that we have the same rights now. So you could marry me in return.’

‘Well!,’ Says Penelope, ‘the brother-in-law marries his sister-in-law and the sister-in-law marries her brother-in-law.’

‘What do you mean?’ Asks Ajax, who is clearly not on the same page.

‘Didn’t you know it yet?’ Asks Penelope, ‘they are both in love, but in a brother and sister.’

‘Then,’ says Ajax to Leith, ‘your good looking Gallic girlfriend has a brother.’

But it’s an Ussa becoming red who replies:

‘Yes, it’s in the temple of Ozin that I met him, rather astounding. I was completely lost when I saw him for the first time. I was not expecting that. I knew from Leith that Angelica, his Gallic girlfriend thus, has a brother, but that he produces this effect on me, I didn’t know.’

‘You’re obviously very much in love, what is well visible,’ replies Penelope, ‘especially the red color on your cheeks.’

‘Don’t tease her any further,’ says Ajax, ‘you never know what will happen to you.’

‘You should have seen Leith,’ says Ussa, ‘when we were in her bathroom. Angelica washed herself under a faucet pouring water into rain, she was all naked. She came out this little cabin in the belief that her brother was there. When she realized it was me and Leith, she felt very embarrassed, but didn’t want to show it and performed a pirouette to Leith by asking: “I’ll please you? ”

‘So,’ requests Penelope, ‘she was really beautiful? She pleases you?’

But it’s Ussa who answers: ‘he did not say anything, but he responded well as a healthy mind and body should react to the girl of his dreams when she is naked before him. Thereafter, she dressed and we left everyone in a room. He followed Angelica, whereas I followed Julian, this is how he is called, in his room.’

‘You have talked about what then?’ Asks Penelope.

‘Everything and nothing, I don’t remember well. All I remember is that he is at a sailing club at the sea. They have small sailing vessels, but also things we don’t know, a kind of plank along six to seven feet capable of carrying a man having a sail on it.’

‘What wood was it made?’ Asks Ajax.

‘I don’t know because the one that Julian had in his room was painted white. I think that it should be of balsa or other very lightly matter. He came to lift it with one hand, or a plank of wood is usually too cumbersome to do so.’

While they discuss different topics as they come up in their minds, they do not see the time pass by. It’s well after midnight that Ajax and Penelope take leave of the two young people who are quick to go to bed.

Ussa, half awake, does not realize where she is this very early morning of the ninth day of Leo. The day is just beginning to break and it’s a light and small noises which awoke her. By believing home, she calls her mother:

‘Mom!’ Since she receives no response, she calls again, but louder: ‘MOM!’

She turns in her bed and tries unsuccessfully to re-sleep. But she cannot fall asleep and angry for not having received an answer, she shouts again:

‘MOM, what do you do in my room, you look into my affairs now, you have no more confidence in me?’

It’s at this moment that Leith, surprised by the calls of Ussa, realizes that his companion feels at home and says:

‘Ussa! Ussa, you’re not at home! Wake up!’

Ussa, who has not yet returned from the country of her dreams, rubs her eyes and watches her companion and asks:

‘What are you doing so early in the morning? Couldn't you let me sleep a little? I don’t usually wake up so early!’

‘Sorry Ussa,’ says Leith to her, ‘but I’ve got to write that what Angelica has read me a while ago, before my memories of this dream evaporate.’

Ussa, who understands that it’s absolutely necessary that she should not disturb her friend while he writes, stands up and goes into the washing room to wash and dress. Leith meanwhile continues to write and completes the information provided by his girlfriend of his dreams. He cares little what happens around him because he must have written everything he had dreamed in the minutes after waking up. Ussa, having finished washing and dressing herself, comes to him and reads what he wrote. Surprised by the context of the story, she goes to the shelf with old books of Amilius and starts taking a look, browse, restore and re-start with another. Leith who sees her digging into old books, asks her:

‘Ussa, what are you looking for.’

‘Well! What you have written sounds familiar to me. Even if a part of what you have written is contained in the seven plagues, there is one that sounds familiar. I don’t know if you looked well, but this story speaks of an army equipped with horses, knights, and others like javelin man, whereas the one we have now has many other weapons. It seems to me that the elders had already buried in the temples information about our society, as scientists and sages have done a few years ago.’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘I remember. It seems to me they did the same as in the olden days; in the countries of Yuk, Egypt and in the pyramid of Sus.’

‘That’s it,’ says Ussa, ‘the situation described in the stories that you’ve just written is matching the life of a few hundred years back. I would say three to five hundred years because technical change has been quite fast these last two centuries.’

‘I think,’ says Leith, ‘that the story of the end of the world has been transmitted orally, as it refers to a war with the Hellenic people, which we might have lost, but not the one with the people of Saneids, which yet mobilizes all our efforts at this time.’

‘You may be right because we have repeated problems with the Hellenic and especially with those in the county of Athens. The survivors had surely conveyed the story of the disappearance orally and added one plus one equals two when they found the writings of the ancients in the Egyptian temple.’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘this also means that the information hidden a few years ago, hasn’t yet been found by the contemporary of Angelica.’

‘What I find bizarre,’ says Ussa, ‘that the society, in which Julian and Angelica live, could not find our information nor our footsteps. What I don’t understand, is that the people of Yuk could not convey the slightest clue. Didn’t they find it? Did they destroy it, perhaps.’

‘I think,’ answers Leith, ‘that you’re right to believe that some traces and clues have been destroyed. You know, any new religion considers the old ones it replaces as heretical and stories relating to it are often destroyed. This is what probably happened to the ancient texts hidden in the land of Yuk. It’s hoped that the pyramid of Sus resisted and that the information in there remained intact.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Asks Ussa.

‘Because a society able to dive and look at a depth beyond thousand five hundred feet, is necessarily as advanced as ours today and has certainly the wisdom not to loot and destroy the knowledge of the elders.’

‘I hope you are right.’

‘How?’

‘A technically advanced society has not necessarily developed its cultural and spiritual level. It’s even possible that the technological and industrial development has led to a loss thereof.’

‘Do you know,’ asks Leith, ‘what kind of religion Angelica and Julian have? Angelica didn’t mention this when we discussed together, but she does not seem to be very pious. What upsets me a bit is that she isn’t vegetarian. Her brother, I think, isn’t either.’

‘I believe,’ replies Ussa, ‘they worship a single god and their religion is derived from the Hebrews.’

‘I think you are right’, says Leith. ‘They have a calendar that counts the years since the birth of their spiritual guide. Then, what is curious is that they use astrology not as a calendar, as we do, but as a means to predict the future. Furthermore, they haven’t adapted for a long time the positions of the signs so they have a discrepancy of two thousand one hundred sixty years at the time they live. I noticed it when I tried to re-calculate data. The information Angelica has already been able to provide me is on the other hand correct. It are the astrological positions that are not sticking well. She therefore had to use a basis other than astrology.’

‘How discrepancy?’ Requests Ussa.

‘You should remember that the relationship between the spring equinox and the astrological calendar shifts a day every seventy-two years. Where Angelica lives, they haven’t done this adaption since two millenniums and find themselves with a little less than a month of difference. So that the sign of Cancer is their position of Leo, Leo at Virgo, Virgo at Libra, and so on. Which means that a person born Libra, like you, is in reality a Virgo.’

‘But this is not serious,’ says Ussa, ‘they have not noticed the error?’

‘Surely, but this has no importance since they don’t use it any more as a calendar, but only to tell nonsense.’

While Leith continues to study his notes he had made, Ussa begins to dig into cabinets of Amilius without seeking something specific. She wishes only to satisfy her curiosity.

Ajax, who has come early to the shop of Penelope, finds it still closed and surprises its owner at her breakfast. Penelope is also surprised to see him come at such a morning hour. Above all they have finished rather late the night before, or rather early in the morning because after leaving the two young, they still took a few drinks at her place before he went home. As they climb the stairs leading to the apartment of Penelope, she asks him:

‘So? You’re not too tired? I haven’t seen you as early at my home. What happens there?’

‘Oh, it’s fine. I have seen worse than that. I quite often have to ensure shadowing several nights in a row. Our job is not easy, you know. And you? Don’t you risk mixing comb and scissors?’

‘Come off it, you know that I still bear shortcut nights, or should I make you a drawing?’

‘Certainly, but the other times we went out, you did not work the next day and you could stay in bed in the morning.’

‘You know, when we are used to get up early in the morning, we wake up anyway. I pick a nap early in the afternoon in these cases.’

‘Do you have news about our friends? Did they sleep well? What are they doing right now?’

‘But! We just left them rather late last night, they are perhaps not up yet. We can’t go there anyway because too visible during the day. You should come back this evening when it starts to come overnight.’

When they arrive in her flat on the second floor, she puts her breakfast, she has taken in the kitchen, on the coffee table and adds a plate and asks:

‘You get what? A tea? Or do you prefer something else?’

‘You have some coffee?’ He asks.

‘Yes, I have this Abyssinian shit, I take it sometimes myself. Nothing better to cut sleep. You take it with warm milk, don’t you. That’s what I remember anyway.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I am going to grill some toasts? I think you like it with jam. Don’t you? ‘

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘You know,’ says Penelope, ‘I do still not get used to that everything will be finished here in a week. I was talking to Mom a moment ago, then she believes, as the family of Leith who lives next to them does, that we would have a good chance to get away with it. What do you think?’

‘No one knows, apart from Ra. Master Amilius had calculated that the comet crosses the Earth’s orbit in five days in the early morning and the chance to get away with it was seven percent. On the other hand, the officials of Poseidia aren’t altogether wrong when they say that this is like the last two times and that the island will certainly suffer damage, but that the majority of the population will survive.’

‘This is what my family thinks. They want to go along with the Ajahels to the temple to pray Ra to save them or to grant them a favor for the next re-birth.’

‘You believe in it?’ Asks Ajax.

‘I don’t know, I am personally not practicing, but my parents and especially my mother is very religious and pious, like those of Leith.’

‘Me neither, but I still hope to get out. Your cousins, don’t they want to go north? Don’t you leave with them?’

‘Yes, I have planned so. We will join the Macs, they still have land on the other side where you can graze sheep during the summer. Then, the area is very good for fishing. We are not likely to die of hunger over there. You could come with us, if you want. But you have to be in port in the morning at the latest. It’s, unless unforeseen, in four days, which is a bit late, but still not too late.’

‘But it could be,’ replies Ajax, ‘that I have a possible alternative. You know Jason, perhaps? He has with two other friends a large boat on the lake and he wanted to do the same. His boat has a machine purchased from the Saneid, which works with oil and has an autonomy of around two thousand nautical miles. He simply wanted to await in the middle of the lake the sinking of the country and then go of north. I know it’s risky, but he has a chance to succeed.’

‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘but I made some time ago a dream, which is puzzling me. In this dream I woke up in a poor state in a very sophisticated hospital. There were machines everywhere, I was attached to a bunch of different devices with wires, hoses and others. A technology I have ever seen over here. I am convinced that this was the land of Gaul where I was. You think I’ll make the trip with them?’

‘I don’t know my dear, you never know. Remain hopeful!’

‘Hey!’ she shouts watching the time, ‘we need to hurry. I have customers! Me! I work now you know. End of the world or no end of world, customers require serving. Many are still unaware of what will happen or simply don’t want to know. They should be served. Don’t they? So, you come tonight to see our two guests?’

‘Yes, tonight at the closing.’

‘See you Ajax, at this evening and thank you for your visit.’

It’s when he leaves the shop of Penelope, that he sees Jou-el going toward the tavern of Abdubu and decides to do the same.

When Jou-el joins Abdubu, he sees that there are not many people yet this morning. There are some shopkeepers who take their breakfast failing to have taken it home. Then, a few regular customers, retired for some time already, seeking to fill their free time playing domino or dice. Jou-el sits down at the table as usual and waits until Abdubu has time to serve him. Just sitting, it’s Abdubu who calls him because he had received a communication asking to speak to Jou-el or Ajax and leave a message to call the police station when they arrive. As it seems, they both switched off their personal communicator for not to be identified by the BIS. It’s Ajax who just comes to enter as Jou-el takes a communication with the police station. Abdubu greets him:

‘Hi Ajax, how are you. You seem to be a little tired, you had to watch?’

‘Hi Abdubu,’ replies Ajax, ‘I actually stayed up late, but not there where you think. I finished the evening with Penelope, we discussed late into the night.’

‘You end up marring her, don’t you think so?’

‘You know very well that no one, not even Penelope, will replace my late wife. I had too much pain when she left me to join the Kingdom of Ra. A sorrow that endures. Maybe that time heals me, but for now, I have sought to live with it.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you’, replies Abdubu.

‘It doesn’t matter. You bring me a coffee with hot milk, please?’

‘Small breads, toast and jam?’

‘No, it’s all right, I have just eaten at Penelope’s place. I came to say “hello” to her in passing and she was at her breakfast.’

‘Oh, hello Ajax,’ says Jou-el, who comes back at the table, ‘we have news. We have to go to identify someone. The police has picked up early this morning a severely mutilated body out of the marina and fishing port.’

‘They don’t know who it is?’ Asks Ajax.

‘Yes, they have an idea, but they would like a formal identification because it may be our client. In addition, they caught four others, we must also identify.’

‘Then, do we have news from Jason?’

‘No,’ replies Jou-el, ‘and you?’

‘None either, but it was yesterday we left in the afternoon. I know he works quickly, but as quickly as that. Then, our two rogue supreme of the Belzebubs, is there anything new?’

‘Yes,’ says Jou-el, ‘they live effectively in “Bel Horizon” and are monitored by agents of the Royal Guard.’

‘But, well really, they don’t bugger themselves, they steal and extort money to lead the good life.’

‘I think they are hiding. They seem to think that these palaces as the “Bel Horizon” are safe.’

‘Surely,’ says Ajax, ‘but it was without counting on the curiosity of a client of Penelope.’

‘Concerning her customers, do they come for the identification?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Ajax, ‘it’s not sure that they dare to come. I know that the suspects don’t see us, but is this adequate for clients of Penelope.’

‘We could ask her,’ replies Jou-el, ‘what do you think?’

‘Abdubu! Hey! Abdubu where are you?’ cries Ajax, ‘just bring us another round, then we go off.’

It’s a bit later that Penelope sees, to her surprise, her two bistro friends enter and greets them:

‘Hi guys, it’s for a beauty mask or a haircut?’

‘Hi good looking,’ says Jou-el, we have a question to ask you.’

‘Ask! I am not sure to answer, but you can always ask.’

‘So,’ says Jou-el, ‘it’s to identify suspects at the police station. Obviously, the suspects cannot see people on the other side of the mirror, but we are not sure if your clients are likely to come. Do you think we can ask? It’s better that they come on their own rather than being called. We will be with them to provide for the identification. It might be nice if you can get yourself to the police station too, as you have also seen them around the library, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she replies, ‘I will go there later in the morning, when I have free time. I need to do my shopping anyway. With regard to my customers, I think they would agree if you are there too.’

In this moment a client gets involved in this conversation and asks:

‘You want me to come with you to identify the individual they have picked up this morning?’

‘They picked someone up this morning?’ Asks Penelope.

‘Yes,’ says Ajax, ‘this is probably our “Cient” and he isn’t a pretty sight. Not for sensitive souls. You can madame, but we warn you that it will be pretty painful to see. If you have seen other suspects, don’t hesitate to come with us. We can wait a little while Penelope finishes her work.’

‘Yes I will, it seems to me that I have seen other zozos that have nothing to look around here in our city. But if the one they have just recovered this morning is really horrible to see, I prefer not to have to identify him.’

‘No,’ says Jou-el, ‘there is no problem.’

‘We’ll do it’, adds Ajax.

While Penelope finishes of her client, Jou-el, Ajax, Penelope and the client discuss a little of everything and anything where the subject that hurts are still the events to come. It’s surprising that some have the same ideas, the client also has family in the north and goes there within days. She argues that this distant family has, as the two Macs, land on the continent. She knows that to survive as do the wild, is perhaps not very amusing, but we need someone that can rebuild a society.’

‘Then,’ she says, ‘I’m ready, I come with you?’

‘We’ll go off now,’ says Ajax and continues speaking to Penelope, ‘you come in a moment?’

‘Yes,’ she replies, ‘but don’t wait for me, I come later in the morning, I have a client who may come at any time.’

When they go along the street to the upper part of the town, all immersed in their thoughts, they exchange few words. Passing the city hall, they all look to see if the old man might have come back, which is not the case. When they enter the police station, they give a sign to the lady to wait while they go to the morgue where the body of the “Client” is stored. It’s Ajax who recognizes him first.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘that’s him. I recognize him from the scar left on the face. It’s a mark and not an injury.’

‘But there is no great thing left of him,’ exclaims Jou-el, ‘and it’s not just ants that have done this.’

‘Well,’ says Ajax, ‘we will identify the others to see if we know some of them.’

Passing through the reception, where the lady awaits them patiently, they go to the identification room where the suspect must be chosen from among the false suspects through a one-way mirror. Of the four suspects, three were formally identified by the three people.

‘You join me?’ Asks the lady the two friends.

‘Yes, why not. You come with us? We go to Abdubu’s place.’

‘Abdubu?’ The lady asks them, ‘who is it?’

‘Ah,’ replies Jou-el, ‘it’s at the tavern “The Gardens”, it’s like that how we call it.’

‘It’s the name of the owner,’ says Ajax, ‘he is originated from Persia. We eat very well at his place.’

‘That’s it,’ says Jou-el, ‘even Leith, a student of Master Amilius, who is vegetarian, finds there something for him.’

‘So I come with you, I have not yet had my breakfast.’

‘Really?’ says Ajax, ‘but even if it’s a little late, Abdubu manages it, he always has something for his customers.’

The conversation, going down to the café of Abdubu, is very fast diverting to the neighborhood’s inhabitants on reviewing all the little gossip that is told about them.

Ussa, in systematically exploring the cabinets of Amilius, came over a device that she recognizes. This is a small pedestal with different buttons and settings having a crystal ball mounted on it. She remembers that her grandparents had one. They used it formerly to communicate and receive messages. She gets the old machinery out of the cabinet, puts it on the table and starts to fiddle. But the device, not being used for a long time, has no more power and the feeding cartridges, containing a zinc and graphite electrode in an acid solution, no longer exist since some time.

‘Hey! Leith! You know how to operate this thing?’

Leith, very focused on his texts turns surprised by the call of his companion, asks:

‘What thing?’ Seeing what Ussa is doing at present, he says: ‘Ah! An old Biovox, it works with cartridges we called once batteries, they no longer exist.’

‘We cannot make them?’

‘Oh! It’s simple, two different metals in a receptacle containing acid or salt water. But look good, Amilius may have old appliances that feed on sunlight. You could disassemble the cell for use on the Biovox.’

‘I will look.’

While Ussa continues to search systematically the cabinets to see if there is something, a tinker or other usable utensils until Leith calls her and says:

‘Hey! Ussa! Look in the cupboard there, Amilius has his books and utensils for his physics lessons, I saw them just now when you were digging in this cabinet.’

‘I don’t like lessons of physics’, she says.

‘Look well, there is certainly enough stuff to run your Biovox. But what do you intend to do?’

‘I don’t know. But if I recall correctly, this device uses telepathy and it’s precisely the technology that is used by the temple of Ozin where we contacted Julian and Angelica. We can always try. We can only win. We have nothing to lose, let’s try.’

While Leith continues to write what he remembers, Ussa got an old trunk out of the cupboard and managed to open it despite the fact that she hasn’t the key. It appears that the trunk contains objects that the master was using for the lessons in physics and, as Leith suspected, there are various containers, plates of zinc and copper, all very corroded, different wires and a small tool to test the presence of electricity. A device normally used in physics courses to test the presence of current if quenching two different metals in an acid solution or salt water. Ussa who has meanwhile dismantled the compartment for the cartridges and verifies that there are terminals for attaching the wires, asks her companion:

‘Hey! Leith, it requires how many zinc-copper units to replace four cartridges?’

‘Half of it more, I think. But check it, you have a physics book just beside you. It certainly marked, look in “galvanic elements”, it’s like that how we are calling them.’

‘We have to plug which wire on the red terminal’, asks Ussa who in the meantime has filled six receptacles, not having any better, with salt water and has put the plates of zinc and copper in it.

‘The copper one and the zinc on the blue terminal, then you attach every time a plate of zinc to copper.’

‘That’s what I did, it was just to know how to connect that thing.’

‘Note maybe exactly what you all do and in order, you never know what it can serve’, says Leith.

‘Yes master’, answers Ussa with a smile.

Leith continues to make his notes and looks here and there the information in the old books of his master, while Ussa pursues mercilessly her fiddling. She has completely disassembled the unit to remove a circuit that was used to identify other side’s equipment and without forgetting to note carefully her actions. Suddenly, after many unsuccessful attempts making her more and more nervous, she exclaims relieved:

‘Leith! It works! Come and see, we see Julian and Angelica on a pebble beach. They are dealing with customers who want to use these boards with a sail on it. Angelic sleeps, she lays on a mattress in front of the cabin of her brother on the beach.

‘Call them, maybe they hear us’, says Leith.

‘Julian! Julian, you hear me? It’s Ussa who speaks to you.’

Julian, surprised, throws a circular look, but not seeing anyone he asks:

‘Where are you? I don’t see you.’

‘It seems to me that I heard his voice,’ says Leith, ‘you could not ask Angelica something.’

‘But just ask her it yourself,’ says Ussa, ‘she will be glad to hear your voice.

When Leith perceives in the crystal bowl that Angelica sleeps, he says: ‘Angelica, don’t wake up right away. I have something to ask. Listen well and note my questions as soon as you wake up. The first thing is very simple, do you always use degrees of latitude and longitude? If yes, how is the earth divided into degrees? Second thing, from what you have read me, the highest mountains of our country are still above the level of the sea. Can you get me the coordinates of the highest mount that should be in the middle of Atlantic. The third thing, the coordinates of the columns of Hercules, which are certainly not called as such with you. This is how we call the Strait between the Iberian Peninsula and Africa. Once found, go to your psychic, so we could chat a bit.’

‘Julian quick! Bring me a pen and a piece of paper. It’s Leith who asks me to verify things and go to Monique for response’, exclaims Angelica.

‘But,’ says Julian, ‘he hears and sees you, you can say “hello” anyway. Ah yes! Before I'm going to forget. Ussa hello, a big kiss my beautiful. I don’t see you, but you seem to be able to see us. You are where? In the sky?’

‘Yes, above you’, says Ussa.

‘Big kisses my love,’ says Angelica, ‘referring to her Atlantean boyfriend.

‘You too Angelica, big kisses’, he says.

Julian and Angelica watch, while they talk to their Atlantean friends, a little incredulous into the sky without seeing something. After a while it’s Ussa who says: “Yes, it’s here, you look in the right direction now.” Alicia, who came to arrive on the scene with her board says: “Hey Angelica, I heard your boyfriend. Where is he? I cannot see him! ” Ussa, good observer, watches them a moment and thinks by herself: “Oh la la, Angelica is jealous as a tigress and Alicia would like to pinch her boyfriend. That promises! ” And turns off the device.

‘I’m hungry and want a tea or coffee with milk,’ says Ussa, ‘do you want also? I’ll look what’s in this cupboard.’

‘Cupboard?’ Asks Leith.

‘Yes this little corner there that serves as kitchen. It’s hardly larger than a cupboard, don’t you think so?’

‘Bof! This is not a palace, just a place to troubleshoot. Mine is hardly any bigger.’

‘I prepare us a breakfast. I’ll call you when it’s ready.’

Ajax and Jou-el are, after having left their company in Abdubu’s place and having traveled to the city of Ozin, in “Au Bon Accueil”, where they wait for the technicians and other members of the royal guard. They have just finished a light meal because they could not eat before they went off on trip. They are accompanied by two priests of the temple, who took care of closing it to the public with the words: “Closed for technical maintenance”. The two clerics have not understood why such inspection is necessary, neither why someone would like to know the words and gestures of the visitors. For them it’s clear, Ra decided to destroy the country and its population, as it has become too sinful. They think that one can’t escape his destiny, it makes no sense to panic, they should have thought earlier about it and continue to respect the divine order. It’s when they ended their drinks that the people expected enter and sit down at their table.

‘You take something’, asks Ajax them.

‘Yes,’ replies Laïos, ‘the same thing as you.’

‘What same thing,’ asks Jou-el, ‘beer, wine or tea?’

‘No tea, I’ll take a beer,’ says Laïos, and continues: ‘but what are we looking for up there?’

‘There seems to be listening equipment installed by the henchmen of Ra-Ta and then for security reasons of the King, you must unplug the power and put it on a generator. You have taken one with you?’

‘Ah! It was for that! We did not understand why we should take one with us.’

‘Let’s go now’, says Ajax after having finished the tour ordered and without forgetting to review the steps to follow.

Upon entering the whole of the land surrounding the temple, Laïos says to the priest: “look well around you and notify us all that seems unusual to you.” It’s one of the priests, intrigued by a strange-looking stone, who calls them:

‘Tell me, it’s normal that thing there? I haven’t seen it before.’

‘No, that’s not normal,’ says Ajax, ‘we’ll be better to see it up close. Can you do that?’ He asks to one of the technicians and continues in the direction of the temple without waiting for a response from him.

‘Along where can we take the generator,’ asks a technician, ‘it may be too heavy to pass on these tiles of glass.’

‘Take the first left and then the second,’ says the priest, ‘there you run into a service grid. We’ll going there to open it.’

‘Laïos, Midas,’ says Ajax, ‘you can accompany Mr. priest and take a walk in the garden because I see another one of these boxes there. Look, there are certainly wires leading to the basement of the temple.’

‘I come with you to inspect the temple’, asks Jou-el.

‘Yes. We’ll first inspect the contact room and then we continue in the basement and the technical rooms.’

After a painstaking inspection, they found a dozen pick-up points and two of this points were taken images, all connected to a box in the basement. This box is connected to the electrical supply system coming directly from Poseidia. The box has been disconnected and removed, then the power has been disconnected from the network and connected to the independent device.

‘It works with what this machine?’ Asks one of the priests to whom they give a small handling course: how to start, stop and fuel up.

‘It’s oil,’ says Jou-el, ‘most boats are equipped with. The majority of these machines come from the country of the Saneids, they have invented this technology. It works always, everywhere, on condition that we put the oil in of course, and does not depend on the proximity of any power station.’

‘Can we re-open now,’ asks the priest, ‘there are people at the entrance, who want to come pray and talk to their ancestors.’

‘For me it’s okay,’ says Ajax, ‘what do you think Jou-el?’

‘For me too, we will eventually eliminate all these wires and we go after. The technicians can take care of the rest. They don’t need us nor you. I think we should perhaps go to the palace and inform the King. What do you think Ajax?’

‘Yes, it may be best to inform him personally, but we need to go now. We can’t come too late there. And’, he continues by contacting the team of technicians: ‘We have to leave now, you can take care of it yourselves, can’t you? Place the removed equipment maybe at the forensic science to be analyzed.’

‘So Ajax, here we go?’

‘Yes, it’s as if we were already gone.’

It’s in saying “hello” to the priests and technicians that they went into their car to take the way home.

The Macs finish their day as usual; at Abdubu’s place. It’s there where they wait for their friends at their usual table consuming their first tour of mugs. To everyone’s surprise, it’s Penelope who, in-usually early for a regular afternoon and a face a little pale, just comes in and sits down at their table and exclaims:

‘Geez! You should have seen this butchery.’

‘What then,’ says Macdo, ‘you’re still pale. What happens there? What did you do to be so moved?’

‘Well! I come from the police station to identify suspects, including the one in the morgue. They told me not to go, but I insisted and it’s not a pretty sight.’

‘They have caught our “Client”, or what?’

‘Yes,’ she responds to Macdo, ‘they recovered him in the marina and fishing port in a terrible state. A butchery. Even if it’s well deserved, they could have saved him a little. It’s just that they did not cut him into pieces.’

‘Don’t have mercy please’, says Maci. ‘He has burned alive two teenagers, has brutally killed a scientist and other so on. No, for me it’s like that. With us he would have been tied up to a pole and left to the crows and other birds of prey.’

‘But it’s also disgusting’, says Penelope.

‘What would you have done then?’ Asks her Macdo.

‘I don’t know? Have left him may be locked up? In a week he would eventually be drowned in a jail cell.’

‘This is what is going to happen with the others, I think’, says Maci. ‘Because they further caught others, what it seems.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ replies Penelope, ‘I had to identify them. They had four of them, but I think there are still some very dangerous individuals in the wild. One client of mine perceived two of them that Jason, a fellow of Ajax, knows and who are the godfathers of the Bezlebubs in the region.’

‘We can’t lock them in, those’, asks Macdo.

‘I don’t think they have enough evidence against them’, answers Maci.

‘Say so,’ says Penelope changing the subject, ‘it’s when, when you’re going north.’

‘Tomorrow,’ answers Macdo her, ‘it’s in the afternoon with the night express. So we will be with ours after tomorrow early morning. Our wives await us at the boat.’

‘Wives? You are married? Both of you?’ Asks Penelope surprised.

‘Yes,’ replies Maci, ‘what do you think? We are here to work. Did you not notice that we were going home sometimes on weekends.’

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘now you said, I never paid attention, especially since I go myself often see my family on weekends. But you know the stud of my parents, next to the field of the family of Leith.

‘Yes! Of course we know,’ replies Maci, ‘we have done work at your home. Don’t you remember?’

‘Are you drinking something?’ Asks Abdubu, coming to their table in the meantime by addressing Penelope.

‘Yes,’ she replies, ‘tea as usual.’

‘Does it happen that you drink something other than your tea-something?’ Asks Maci.

‘Yes, of course, it depends on time of day.’

It’s in this moment that the door of the tavern opens to let Ajax and Jou-el pass, returning from the intervention in the temple of Ozin, who head to the table where the others are already seated and sit down as well. Jou-el throws a newspaper on the table where we can see an image of a man brutally mutilated on the front-page. The title of the related article, too, is unambiguous: “Finally”. Beneath the article there are drawings of the wanted people and which have not yet been found. Abdubu awaiting that they order him drinks, asks:

‘What do you take? A beer, perhaps?’

‘Yes it’s alright for me’, says Ajax.

‘A jug of wine for me’, says Jou-el.

‘You’re going?’ Demands Penelope to Jou el.

‘Go? Where?’

‘You don’t join the continent?’ She asks?

Jou-el makes her big eyes and does not seem to understand what about she speaks and asks again: ‘but where do you want me to go and why?’

‘But according to Leith and Amilius, everything will be finished here in a week’, says Penelope. ‘The Macs leave tomorrow in the afternoon. We, my cousins, a few nephews and nieces, are leaving in three days. I don’t know where yet, but we go.’

‘But,’ says Macdo, ‘it was expected that you come and join us, right?’

‘You still have much work to finish in a moment?’ She asks him?

‘Not so much, why?’

‘So you could pop over to my family‘s place, they are already all there. You can explain it to them, how and where to contact you. I think it will be best if we go directly to the location of your land. But tell me, did you plan to hide your animals during the storm that follows the collision of the comet with the Earth. Because, if I remember rightly, Leith’s Gallic girlfriend said that a deluge will follow. Then, your boat, is it big?’

Angelica who has yet called Leith a few times more without obtaining a reply, concludes that they probably turned off their communication device. She begins to dress and prepares to go home to look for what her friend asked her. Alicia would also like to come with Angelica to Monique to chat, but does not dare to ask. She begins to understand that this time it’s serious for Angelica and that she has no intention of sharing her love. Angelica takes her phone and tries to get an appointment with Monique by explaining the situation. She closes the clap of her phone and turns to her brother and says:

‘I will come and get you by an hour and a half?’

‘No, I don’t have the time’, says her brother.

‘But you’re a bastard!’

Her brother incredulously, watches her, surprised by her words and without understanding her answer, asks her:

‘Bastard? You call me a bastard in front of everyone now? What did I do to you so that you treat me this way?’

‘For Ussa, of course! She is dying of wanting to see you and to talk to you! She will be terribly disappointed if you don’t come. You have no right to disappoint her. You cannot set her aside for a few unfortunate surfboards! You think the King of the beach hut cannot leave his kingdom for an hour to someone else for him to go and see his favorite princess! Philippe or Rodolphe may well keep it for a while. See, they are coming this way, ask them!’

‘Yes,’ says Alicia, ‘I think she is right. It would be better if you come with us.’

Although the phrase “with us” has escaped to Julian, Angelica has well recorded it, but prefers not to say anything at this time. She feels very nervous, tense and, very worried about her Atlantean friend, does not want to pour oil on the fire.

‘So I’m going home to search for that little information that Leith asked me and I’ll be back later.’

She jumps on her bike and goes toward the neighborhood where they live. This is when Julian turns to Alicia and says:

‘It’s maybe not a good idea to come with us. Have you seen how Angelica responded when you said the phrase “with us”. I think Angelique is right. I don’t want you to feel offended, but I would like to talk myself alone to Ussa with Angelica. I hope you understand.’

‘Sorry,’ replies Alicia, ‘I had not imagined. But tell me, you think it’s serious this time. She reacts like a tigress whenever I talk about her boyfriend. Is she afraid that I am going to steal him, or what?’

‘Yes,’ says Julian, ‘I find her changed in recent weeks since she works like a dog for him. Imagine that she paid half the rent of the yacht. She is so convinced that we will meet that she absolutely wanted to go, making the happiness of my father who has not navigated for ages.’

‘Me too, I find her changed,’ says Alicia, ‘it’s like, if she became an adult.’

‘ So what are you waiting for’, says Julian.

‘Wait? What? You talk about what now’, asks Alicia.

‘Well! Become an adult. Don’t you think that you should become a little more serious. If you continue as now, you’ll end up like your mother. Drop your loves and look for something more serious.’

‘Yes papa,’ says Alicia, ‘you speak like my father, he keeps repeating me the same thing.’

But before she could even say anything, it’s Rodolphe who arrives and greets them:

‘Hi the band, what’s up, you look all serious. You don’t dispute I hope. Angelica, she’s not here?’

‘No,’ replies Alicia, ‘she has things to check for her boyfriend. You know, her Atlantean friend who is almost as beautiful as Julian. She will surely come back in an hour because she and Julian go to Monique to talk to their loves.’

‘Then,’ answers Rodolphe, ‘do you want that Philippe and I keep the house until you’re back?’

‘Thank you, my sister will be relieved.’

‘And especially your dear princess,’ says Alicia, ‘as it’s for her that you’re going to Monique, aren’t you?’

The band begins to take care of some clients who are coming in the meantime and wait for Angelica to return. It’s after a while that Julian receives an SMS from his sister who tels him not to wait and go directly to Monique.

When Julian arrives at Monique’s address at the scheduled time, he sees that Angelica is not there yet, but that Monique awaits him already and says:

‘So you in love, you make your dear princess wait?’

‘How? Wait?’ He asks, ‘I’m even ahead of time?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Monique replies while getting into her apartment, ‘they came to talk to me first. They, or rather she has cobbled together a device similar to mine and contacted me first, just to chat. I have managed to see them and it seems they are still hidden, but in another attic this time.’

‘You talked about what with them?’

‘Oh! Everything and nothing. They especially need to be reassured. And she is so eager to talk to you, she really loves you. Her companion is still in his books, he fills his time pursuing his studies. Ah! I hear the doorbell, it must be Angelica.’

‘Hi good looking,’ says Monique, ‘come in, your friends are already waiting for you.’

‘How, already?’

‘They have contacted me a half hour ago, we chatted a little bit of everything and nothing. You know, like neighborhood gossip and more.’

‘Hi my love, big kisses’, says Leith to Angelica.

‘You too, big kisses Julian,’ says Ussa, ‘you’re well?’

It’s after this introduction that Angelica prefers to start with the topic for which this meeting takes place.

‘So my love, as regards to your first question, the division of land; it’s divided into three hundred sixty degrees to the equator, then ninety south and north. I bet it’s the same with you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ says Leith, ‘but I think you have certainly not the zero meridian at the same location as we do. But that does not matter if you give me the coordinates of the two places that I have asked you.’

Pâris Bel-Ra is still in his office, when they announce him the arrival of the detectives. He is not in a very good mood and has a lot of work. The planning and development of an evacuation plan is not done off-the-cuff at the last minute. He asks to bring the two detectives in, he knows well.

‘Good afternoon Your Excellency’, says Ajax.

‘Good afternoon Your Excellency’, says Jou-el.

‘Hi Gentlemen, drop your “Your Excellency” and please sit down. What good news do you bring me?’

‘Well! Sire, I am not sure if this is good news, but we just come from the Temple of Ozin. It seems from the initial investigations that the temple has been tapped. We found a dozen sound taking devices and two for taking pictures inside the temple, in the communication room. All those who came to pray or talk with the elders were recorded. This is how they knew that Ussa and Leith wanted to go to the library. That’s an act of the henchmen of the BIS, the secret services of Ra-Ta’, says Jou-el.

The King says nothing, but becomes red and explodes:

‘This despicable individual dared to attack my daughter. An act which my wife has still not recovered from. I know, even though it’s hard to believe, from the friend of Leith that they are alive and safe, but my wife does not believe it. She believes them dead. She shelters in Ussa’s room and passes and re-passes her little girl’s clothes in her hands. She has lots of sorrows you see!’

‘I can assure you,’ says Ajax, ‘and Jou-el is witness that they are alive and greet you well.’

‘What do you mean, you know where they are?’

‘Yes sire, there are only three people who know, we two and the beautician who upheld them.’

‘Why not have said something,’ answers the King, ‘am I not entitled to know what happens to my daughter?’

‘We had to promise it to your daughter herself, sire,’ says Ajax, ‘hand on heart. She feared for her life, the one of Leith and yours, then I think she is right to believe that. You have seen the newspaper? The individual who appears as a prime suspect? It was he who organized everything. Four of his close associates are in the hands of the police. We leave them for the time being in prison, they will drown with the country. Regarding the others, we are looking for them, but the risk that people will find them before the police, is very high.’

‘When can you bring my children here?’ Asks the King?

‘Tomorrow or after tomorrow at the latest’, replies Ajax.

‘Okay, I’ll say it to Selena, she will be happy to know. Can you keep me up personally? Oh yes, before you leave, send me my secretary. I will convene an extraordinary meeting of the ten kings to discuss the steps to follow.’

‘You will go to the city of Sus,’ asks Jou-el, ‘it’s still a bit far, don’t you think so.’

‘No,’ replies the King, ‘for an informal meeting we may use a screen of communication. A screen like the one in the Temple of Ozin, you know. All royal residences are equipped with. I’ll send the invitation right now and we could hold the meeting tomorrow.’

‘Regarding Ussa and Leith,’ says the King, ‘you give me the news as soon as possible, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ says Jou-el, ‘of course, but there is a but. We have identified the two godfathers of the Bezlebubs here in the city and we fear, as the prefect does, that they could try to take Ussa or Leith as a hostage in order to extract a safe conduct for the evacuation plan that you are setting up at the moment.’

‘Can’t we lock them in as a precaution?’ Asks the King?

‘This is perhaps not very prudent sire, they don’t know that they are monitored by your guards. We were able to place some of your staff among the staff of the palace where they live. I think if they are locked, the lieutenants will take over and it would make the situation even more dangerous. No, it’s better to watch them. They have a den near the temple and the priests are willing to inform us of all that what they are doing.’

‘Well, good evening, then see you tomorrow if you have something new.’

‘You too, sire, good evening’, says Jou-el.

‘Good evening sire and good luck to your wife’, says Ajax, ‘I commend Ussa and Leith from you, I will see them in a moment.’

‘So say “hello” to them from my wife and me’, says the King.

The King stands up and accompanies them to the great door. Returning, he calls his secretary to follow him in his office because Pâris Bel-Ra believes that it’s better to discuss the approaches for dealing with events taking place within four days. Especially the one that will take place in four days in the early morning.

It’s just at daybreak that Penelope hears already the doorbell at the entry. She hasn’t even begun her breakfast and just leaves the bathroom. When she goes down to open, surprised, she sees that Ajax and a member of the royal guard is at her door. She greets them and asks:

‘Hey guys, you’ve been sleeping outside my door? What good wind brings you home?’

‘It’s for our friends up there in Amilius’s place’, replies Ajax. ‘You think we can disturb them or should we wait a bit.’

‘It’s still a little early,’ she replies, ‘I understand that Ussa never rises so early. Come and have breakfast with me, which I just started. So I have an excuse not to eat standing in the kitchen. It seems that we must take our time in the morning and especially not hurry. This is not good for morale as it seems. But present me your friend. It seems to me that I have already seen him, but I don’t know where.’

‘Then,’ says Ajax to Penelope, ‘this is Midas, he is a member of the Royal Guard. You must have seen him the other day in the Tearoom of the park, but I did not present him to you. Midas,’ as he continues, addressing the man who accompanies him, ‘this is Penelope.’

‘Nice to meet you’, he says.

‘Nice to meet you too,’ she says, and continues: ‘you come up with me because I don’t think you can go to see them through the house of Amilius. I believe they have locked the access to the attic from the inside. You’ll be forced to go over the roofs from my attic.’

Arrived at her home in the living room, she installs her breakfast on the table and adds two plates and asks them:

‘Ajax, coffee with hot milk, I bet. You sir, you want tea or as Ajax, a coffee?’

‘Call me Midas and drop that “sir”. I would like tea if you have any.’

‘Of course I have tea, I drink it myself. For the rest, toast, butter and jam?’

‘That’s okay for me’, says Ajax.

‘Me too’, says Midas.

‘Take your time, I have a client in an hour and a half. We have enough time to eat and pop over to the friends up there. But why do you want to go and see them?’

‘We believe that the danger is fading away, it may be preferable that they, especially Ussa, return to the palace. In addition, we wanted Leith to come with us to the library to see what documents they must save and take with us during the evacuation plan.’

‘So it’s serious,’ she says, ‘he is implementing an evacuation plan?’

‘Yes, that’s it,’ replies Midas, ‘the King is currently working with other Kings and their services on the development of it.’

‘But is it not too dangerous for Leith’, she says, referring to the preceding topic.

‘This is precisely where we need you,’ says Ajax, ‘you must turn him in a manual worker of the Royal Guard. You can do it, right?’

‘No problem, I will.’

It’s just that Ussa woke up when she hears the sound of the roof window that opens. She looks out of the door of the bathroom and sees that Ajax, Penelope and another man she vaguely knows come in. She says to Leith, who is already up since a certain time:

‘Hey, Leith. Serve them something while I dress.’

‘Okay,’ says Ajax, ‘we just took a little lunch at Penelope’s place. Don’t bother Leith.’

But Leith has already left in the cupboard, as his companion calls the kitchenette, and begins preparing breakfast.’

‘We haven’t yet taken any breakfast, I make for us and three cups more won’t make a difference. You take what, sir,’ he continues, addressing Midas, ‘it’s a tea for Penelope and coffee with hot milk for Ajax, but you? Coffee or Tea?’

‘A tea,’ says Midas, ‘I would not dare ask for something else because you have definitely neither beer nor wine here.’

Ussa who finished in the meantime her washing and dressing comes out of the bathroom and greets them before sitting down at the table with them.

‘Then,’ she says, ‘is this a visit of politeness?’

‘Yes and no,’ says Ajax, ‘we wanted to see if you are well and if it was suitable if you go to the palace today.’

‘YES,’ she says, ‘when are we going?’

‘We come to pick you up in the afternoon, but there is a but. We would like that Leith would come with us. We go to the library where books must be identified to be carried away. It’s him alone who can do that, he is the only one to know.’

‘But is it not too dangerous?’ Asks Ussa.

‘I will dress him like a worker of the Royal Guard’, says Penelope. Ussa looks very anxiously at Leith and asks:

‘You dare to do that? Think of Angelica! I wouldn’t do it.’

‘I am sure she would’, says Leith. ‘It’s you who is and was targeted, me alone, I don’t have much value in their eyes.’

‘But,’ she says, ‘I still fear for you Leith. And don’t leave me here alone, I am afraid.’

‘Then,’ says Penelope, ‘come home with me I’m all morning at the shop and at noon and we can eat together. What do you think?’

‘So I come with you, our things, we collect them later on.’

Selena Bel-Ra contemplates the view on the left bank of the Osuo, the river of the same name as the city and regrets not having a good view on the lake because partially blocked by the roofs of Parliament and the great temple of the city. She knows from Ussa that even the small studio of Leith has a better view than her apartment, which is in the southeast corner of the palace. She is happy to see her daughter again, who is coming back in the afternoon. Selena intended just going to inspect the wing where the rooms of Ussa and Leith, who comes, even if he is not a member of the royal family, so often visit Ussa at the palace that he has his own room. Selena suddenly hears her husband swear like a sailor. Surprised, but outraged, she goes down to the ground floor where the office of her husband is and asks him:

‘PÂRIS! I forbid you to swear as alike! What’s happening?’

Pâris Bel-Ra, being very angry, doesn’t hear or doesn’t want to hear what his wife tels him and continues:

‘Manure! The bastard! The trash. Thunder of Ra, this pain in the ass is pulling us all a leg. He buggers us all with his supposed secret services and now when we need everybody, he is gone. Pfft! Like that.’

‘But,’ asks Selena, ‘of whom are you speaking?’

‘But this motherfucker Ta-Ra of course’, responds Pâris without realizing that Selena talks intimately to him, something she almost never does. ‘Who else?’

‘Departed? How departed? Where? Calm down a little and explain yourself.’

‘So when I wanted to meet the ten kings to discuss upcoming events and make some points clear, it appears that this gentleman had already developed its own evacuation plan. All civilian and military air vessels were taken by him to serve him and the wealthy of the state of Alta. He left himself three days ago already, when the Bardera started in his home sate. And then what seems, he will be left with all air ships capable of travel into space towards a planet of the star Vega. It’s disgusting to let people behind in this way. We are there for them and not the opposite. It’s now that they need us.’

‘The other air vessels, those who do not have the ability to go into space, where they left then.’

The family Leblanc rose up early this Saturday, as they, with the exception of Angelica who fiddles an old laptop that she borrowed from a girlfriend, should pack their bags, load food and other utensils necessary for a stay at sea. Armand, the dad of Angelica and Julian, left the day before picking up the sailboat from Chérbourg in order to bring it to Fécamp. The place must be released before ten, eleven at the latest. What Cecilia, the mother, does not understand is that Angelica absolutely wanted to take food and water for several weeks or several additional people. As regards fuel, the boat was delivered with full tanks and must be returned so. Cecilia is angry against Angelica, who instead of loading bags fiddles her computer. It’s Julian who was able to calm his mother because he knows that his sister takes all that what she has collected of data with her. He knows his sister well enough to know that she manages to predict the unpredictable. Hence, the astonishment of her mother, who is a nurse, when Angelica had asked her to take as much first help materials with her as possible. Her argument was simple: she must be capable of treating someone awaiting the rescue, if for example one of them falls and bumps his head in such a way that he remains in a coma for an extended period.

‘Angelica, what are you doing’, asks Cecilia her.

‘I need my documents and I can’t take my computer. I load everything on this old laptop. I also put games on it, if ever we get bored.’

‘You can still help us! Don’t you think so?’

‘All I need is already in the car and you’re three to walk on each other’s feet. Remain cool Mom, the boat will not sink for ten minutes late and if there are others to take the place, they’ll wait.’

The road from Étretat to Fécamp is certainly not long, but someone must bring them to the port, as it’s impossible to leave the car there for the two weeks they go on sea. It’s Bernard Mercier, the dad of Alicia, who brings them to the port and thereafter their car back to Étretat. It’s also him who watches over the house during their absence, a service they render each other during the holidays. Empty the publicities in the mailbox, open the shutters in the morning and close them at night and move the car from time to time.

Loading the boat, once in Fécamp, turns out not to be as easy as expected because the boat is a bit away from where they can park their car. Fortunately there are carts for transporting luggage and other things to the dock. The installation takes less time than was originally imagined and Bernard has the time to visit the boat before they go to leave.

‘But,’ he says, ‘it’s large enough, I thought you wanted to take a smaller one.’

‘Yes,’ says Armand, ‘that’s what we had planned, but the one we had reserved was damaged and is on the way of being repaired. So we could take a larger model for the same price. This one has four cabins and is scheduled for eight in place of six as the other. In addition, I think he has greater autonomy for fuel, if there is a lack of wind.’

‘Armand,’ says Cecilia, ‘I go quickly buy some crossword magazines. You don’t mind, I hope?’

Angelica, who has managed to find how to connect her computer, switches it on and searches for a document that she had made the previous day. She opens it and a check-list appears on the screen. It’s she and her brother who begin, under the astonished eyes of the adults, to systematically check all the items on the list, one by one.

‘You talk about efficiency,’ says Bernard, ‘that’s Angelica, she goes never by half-measures. None of us thought of doing that because once at sea you could not quickly go back and buy something.’

‘Yes,’ says Armand, ‘I am afraid that there are no floating shops on the path.’

‘The mobile satellite antenna,’ asks Angelica, ‘where is it, then does it work?’

‘It’s there,’ says her father, ‘but I have not tried it, connect it and look.’

‘The satellite subscription card,’ asks Angelica who is busy unpacking the antenna and connect it to TV, ‘it’s you who has it, Dad? Otherwise, we could only watch free channels and weather reports.’

‘No darling, I’ve taken it with me. Can you imagine your mother without TV for two weeks?’

‘Oh,’ says Angelica, ‘there she is, it seems to me that she bought the complete shop. She has at least a month of lecture with her. She might not be bored.’

‘Do you hoist the sails in the harbor here?’ Asks Bernard.

‘No,’ says Armand, ‘we can’t do that but once outside. Have you seen how this port is? No we leave on engine, and we hoist the sails once well outside. It’s a job for men. Isn’t it Julian?’

‘Oh,’ says Cecilia who came back in the meantime, ‘you know that old guy there.’

‘Yes,’ says Armand, ‘we called him “the captain” at the time. He just might say “hello.” It’s been years, we haven’t seen.’

‘Hi old friend,’ he says, ‘you’re leaving at sea, but that’s good. It’s a pleasure to see you leave and with your family moreover. You go where? Based on that I know you, you gonna do a tour in the Azores with them. Don’t you?’

‘Yes that’s right,’ replies Armand, ‘but I must confess that I owe this to my daughter. She has convinced us to make this trip.’

‘When do you go then?’

‘Now. Our friend Bernard Mercier, here, deposited us here and brings the car back to Étretat. We cannot leave it here for two weeks.’

‘Are you going for two weeks?’

‘Yes, that’s what it takes for this trip, I do not race you see, just a stroll with the family.’

While Bernard gets of the vessel, “the captain” drops the lines, which Julian collects. Armand, who has already started the engine, engages the reverse gear while the others are greeting. Those remaining at the dock are wishing the Sunday sailors a good wind. The friends have their last farewell while Armand pilots the boat to the exit of the port towards the English Channel. Angelica sent a pang at heart when she sees the Alabaster Coast fading away. “Things are getting serious”, she says to herself.

‘Angelica,’ says her father, ‘take the helm for a moment while we raise the sails. Thereafter, we will cut the engine. You can keep the cap I think? Don’t you?’

‘Yes, captain, I’ll do’, she says with a smile making a military greeting.

Leith, after Penelope has smeared him, as she calls it, and turned into a worker, has joined with Midas a cleaning team charged to rid the basement of the library. It’s they who are responsible for assessing damage and possibly leave these works that can still be saved. Among the other workers are police officers, who usually work in such conditions. They received the task to put aside all the evidence, even if a trial is no longer within the probabilities. For the simple reason that the number one suspect was picked up from the marina and fishing port, moreover that a trial may not take place but in a few weeks. However, all police officers know what will happen in four days in the early morning, as being common for different reasons. For the other workers, it’s simply a cleaning task like any other.

‘Ulysses do you have the keys to the basement with you?’ Demands Midas to Leith who still has the keys on him.

‘Yes, I will open it.’

After several unsuccessful attempts to open that door, apparently locked from the inside, they manage to open it. It’s Leith, working under the false name of Ulysses, which signals to Midas to close the door.

‘You have drawings of the suspects on you?’ Asks Leith?

‘Why?’

‘But, you haven’t looked good, there are among the workers two individuals as shown on your drawings. Look good! You’ll see!’

‘What do we do?’

‘Contact perhaps Ajax. We should follow them and see where they have their nest.’

‘It’s not stupid as idea, I had the intention to arrest them, it may be better to monitor and let it up to the population to act.’

Midas takes his communicator and contacts Ajax and explains the situation. Ajax feels that it’s indeed better to shadow them in order to see where they hide and then monitor this location to see if there are others around. After completing the communication with Ajax, Midas contacts Laïos and communicates him the zozos to follow, but not to take action immediately. He says that it will be better if he contacts Ajax first. Leith, who does not pay too much attention to the conversation starts to go around the basement to inspect the works stored there. He notes, taking one here and there, that, in spite of the appalling filth, most works have withstood the smoke well. Water damage is limited too because it seems that water has passed by spears into the same labyrinth they had taken the day of the fire.

‘Hey! Midas, you could not ask the carrier to park in front of the fire escape? We could load the books faster. We would not need to go around in the in-between basement and the library entrance.’

‘I’ll do it. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, it might be better to make these two suspects work here while I make an inventory of what remains in the in-between basement, what do you think?’

‘This is what I just wanted to propose to you.’

Leith meanwhile begins a tour of the shelves containing the precious holy rollers. He notes that the idea of putting them in cardboard tubes turns out to be invaluable. These tubes have relatively well resisted and the entire rolls of sacred texts have been spared. The next shelf contains old leather-bound books which have suffered and obviously need a good cleaning.

‘Then,’ says Leith, ‘you can begin to evacuate the row of rollers, they did not suffer and can be stored in the state they are. The books of this row is to be transported to a place of cleaning. The paper has not suffered, but the books are in an appalling state.’

‘I begin immediately, or should do something else first?’

‘No just help me here, these books are perhaps not as valuable as others, but they have water damage and need to be repaired. They should be put with caution aside and it may be better to carry them separately.’

‘But tell me, where did you escape out of here? I don’t see any hatch, or any other way to get out of this sub-ground other than the emergency door.’

‘By there, in this cupboard opens a door if we apply a specific manipulation. It’s Angelica who knew how, but I can’t remember exactly the manipulation to be done. Then, the maze below there, you go lost for sure. I don’t know how she came to find her way there and I think she doesn’t know it herself. So if you could get our zozos to do the job, I go out by the emergency door and if you open me the other, I could enter the in-between basement without these guys would see me.’

Once arrived in the in-between basement, Leith begins the work for which he came. He notes that there are remaining, although most works have almost completely been burned, copies of which only the cover or binding burned here and there. It’s one of the police officers of the forensic science who explains why. The work takes great care and he does not notice that lunch hour is very fast approaching.

‘So Mr. Ulysses,’ says Midas, ‘you come eat with me at Penelope’s place, the beautician, she invited us to come eat at her home.’

‘Yes I come with you,’ replies Leith, ‘we can resume our work in the afternoon, can’t we?’

As agreed, Leith and Midas go at noon down the street, pass the tavern of Abdubu and enter the shop of Penelope who is awaiting them to wash Leith. Midas climbs the stairs to the apartment of Penelope and sees that Ussa is busy setting the table for dinner. Midas, very surprised to see her busy, asks:

‘Hey! Good looking, it’s you who makes the dinner now?’

‘Yes, why not? I cook you know. I like to look after manual tasks, cooking, sewing, crafts, drawings and even painting. I don’t know if you noticed, but I know how to use my hands.’

‘Yes, I know. Already in the palace, no lock is safe for you, if we had lost the keys, we should call Ussa. Who taught you that?’

‘Oh! For the locks? An old man to do all when I was a very curious little girl. It was he who gave me the worm for crafts.’

Penelope, who finished up to remove Leith’s make-up meanwhile, goes accompanied by him up the stairs to her apartment and says at Midas:

‘Our Ussa defends herself as a chef in the kitchen, don’t you think so? I did not expect that she is capable of. In addition, she had the time to repair two locks on cupboards that didn’t close well. But,’ she continues, addressing Ussa, ‘who did lteach you to cook like that. You don’t only know more than me, but you do it as a true chef.’

‘Our personal cook,’ she replied. ‘I assisted her often, against the advice of my mother who found that it’s not a task for a heir princess, in our kitchen of the apartment. We have a kitchen aside for us alone you know. Even if we take most of the meals prepared by the kitchen of the palace, we have a personal cook to prepare our meals separately. She taught me to cook. I fortunately have a good memory for recipes and I don’t need to note them.’

‘Will I prepare drinks?’ Asks Penelope. ‘Is there someone who takes an aperitif? Ussa, you just take a fortified wine I think? Don’t you? Leith, I am not asking you, I know you don’t drink alcohol if you work after. Midas, a fortified wine as well?’

‘Yes, that’s alright’, replies Midas.

‘Yes, a fortified wine’, replies Ussa.

During the meal, the two men narrate their morning, the water damage, the books covered with dirt, the sacred rolls remained intact in their cardboard tubes, these books which miraculously escaped the flames, the two suspects among workers, making shudder Ussa, who fears for the life of her friend, and others. It’s especially Leith, who is happy that the damage in the basement proved to be less serious than had been imagined.

‘Your father will take all these books with him during the evacuation?’ Asks Penelope Ussa?

‘I don’t know, ask Leith’, she says. ‘He is certainly better informed than me.’

‘Personally,’ Leith says, ‘I thought of the sub basements of the Temple of Ozin. It’s built on basalt, being very resistant. All that is important and refers to our present society, can be stored there for millenniums. The only problem that remains unresolved is the tightness of the coffers. Then, if I have to believe the information obtained from Angelica, the area where we live will be in the tens of thousands of feet under water. I had thought to fill the coffers with a preservative liquid, so that sea water cannot penetrate. Like the one used to repair and preserve old books.’

It's then that the discussions are focusing on the upcoming events and why not to hide the books at the surface. Leith is of the opinion that it's better to hide in a safe place until a new society is again able to appreciate the ancient texts of another society without wanting to destroy them.

Assen-Ni, on the way to his office after taking his dinner at home, decides to change his program for the afternoon and does not, as usual, go directly to the prefecture, but first enters the police station where he asks the man at the counter to warn Ax-Tell. The Chief of Police, already present, is not surprised because he expected an invitation from him.

‘Hello Mr. prefect’, he says when Assen-Ni enters his office.

‘Hello sir, you may have guessed that I would come to see you, didn’t you?’

‘No sir, I was expecting an invitation from you. It’s about the individuals that we have found that you came to see me if I’m not mistaken.’

‘You are where, at the time being?’

‘To begin, I don’t need to present to you the number one suspect. We have all seen him in the headlines. He was formally identified by at least three people, one saw him leave the library by the fire escape, just before the fire. We have four others, identified also, in custody, from which we are awaiting the results of the forensic evidence in relation to communications at the same number in Poseidia.’

‘Same number you say?’

‘Yes, it’s suspected that this is a number of the BIS.’

‘Do we know whether the suspect number one has made communication at this number?’

‘Yes, that’s right. He did make most of his communications in the tavern “The Gardens”, held by a Persian named Abdubu. Again, he contacted the same number as the others. They are, therefore, agents of BIS.

‘What will we do with them now? A trial?’

‘Officially, yes. They were indicted and said that legal proceedings will begin the twentieth this month.’

‘But that is after the fatal date, they were actually sentenced to death by drowning. Do they know what will happen?’

‘I don’t know. Probably. But it’s not sure whether they know the exact date. Then, I believe that even within the BIS, the number of people knowing the date is limited.’

‘This is the case with us I think’, says the prefect. ‘Most of the population is unaware of the extent and date of the disaster. Perhaps it’s better like this. Then, I think that only a very small part, Princess Ussa, her parents and friends know the details. Master Amilius has not had time to communicate it to others or to the press.’

‘We know where she hides? Because officers of forensic science are undeniable, the bones found are in no way the ones of the two young people.’

‘Only two detectives working for the King are aware and no one else. It’s better, so they are safe. Nobody would have the idea to search for people supposed to be dead. An interesting thing is that Ajax has identified two other members of the BIS, who are currently working as a laborer in the basement of the library.’

‘Should I,’ asks Ax-Tell, ‘question them?’

‘No,’ says the prefect, ‘you’ll put some plainclothes officers at the disposal of the royal guard. They want to monitor their nest whether there are others in nature. The approach is interesting because we can in this way know where they go and arrest them within two days.’

‘And offer them a simple way in the direction of the kingdom of Ra, isn’t it?’

‘No, I thought rather the one of Hades.’

Penelope, who has done the makeup of Leith again, asks him:

‘You come tonight at Abdubu’s place?’

‘No,’ says Leith, ‘probably not. I am sure that the mother of Ussa will be very disappointed if I don’t come with her tonight. I am sorry for both Macs, they are very nice, but I think they are still unaware that we are not dead. But you can say goodbye to them in my behalf, can’t you?’

‘Yes, I think is better. I will say “hello” and wish them a good trip on your behalf, they will understand. It’s actually better to stay with your beautiful girlfriend and her parents because they are aware that there are only a few days left before the big event.’

‘But tell me,’ asks Leith, ‘the Macs, they leave early, right? I thought they left at the end of the afternoon?’

‘Yes that’s right,’ replies Penelope, ‘I have goofed when I told you tonight because they pay a general tour around three in the afternoon. It would be nice if you can come. You're coming? Finish your work a little earlier, those who are there may very well get along without you. Then, come just about half past two or quarter to three to me and I’ll will remove your make-up.’

‘Hey Midas,’ launches Leith at his companion of work, ‘our two zozos, they come back this afternoon? If so, they should be working to clean the in-between basement, so I could finish the classification of books in the basement. What do you think?’

‘Yes because I understand that you wanted to leave early, don’t you?’

‘That’s right. I haven’t more than an hour of rankings to be done, then it’s the work for real workers. Ussa,’ he says, addressing his companion, ‘you can perhaps pick up the Biovox at the attic before the guards come to take you. There are boxes you can use to save the material and I am sure that Penelope will give you a hand, don’t you Penelope?’

‘But,’ says Penelope, ‘what do you want to do with this fiddled thing? You use it to do what?’

‘But,’ says Ussa, ‘it’s clear, we would like to chat a little with Julian and Angelica.’

‘Ah yes, I forgot it,’ says Penelope, ‘then, will we pick up the machine before the arrival of the guards?’

‘Then Penelope,’ says Leith, ‘see you in a moment’ And speaking to Ussa: ‘see you this evening my beautiful and say already hello to your parents on my behalf.’

It’s on the way that Leith notes that Penelope has done a good job because many people he knows well are greeting him by saying “hello sir.” At the library, Midas first sends two agents from the BIS to work in the in-between basement and gives a sign to Leith that he can enter through the emergency exit. Whilst working, Midas remarks the absence of certain books and asks Leith after checking that the door is closed and designating empty spaces on the shelves:

‘Do you know where these books are?’

‘Oh yes, I forgot it. We must go around in Amilius’s place. He also has very important things that must be stored in a safe place. You could ask Laïos to join the team that picks Ussa up and secure the office of Amilius? I’ll go there before moving to Penelope in a while.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s I who took these books when we had escaped the night of the fire. There are some books at his home that are copies or duplicates that I want to take them with me. You never know. If this trip to the kingdom of Angelica is real, I might need them.’

‘Do you really believe it?’

‘Yes all four of us.’

‘Four?’

‘Yes of course, Ussa, Julian, her love, Angelica and me.’

‘How do you plan to travel? With what? So far, none of our scientists could figure out how to travel in time.’

‘Yes and no’, says Leith. ‘However, we must not forget that what appeared in the newspapers a few years ago. You remember this guy who has seen the sinking of the port of Amaki into the sea.’

‘Yes,’ says Midas, ‘I remember. You think he has done a round trip of a few years in the future?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I checked the old stories and archives on this subject and there were others. What is curious, they happened all in the same places: the proximity of the port of Amaki and in the middle of the lake. I don’t know if you remember, but there have been boats that have disappeared. As if by magic.’

While they still chat for a while they continue to work there until it’s time for Leith to go to Penelope passing by the office of Amilius.

Penelope, who has just finished her last client of the day, sees that Leith comes, always disguised as a laborer, in her direction to be washed. She beckons him to sit down while she accompanies her client to the door which asks her a little surprised:

‘ You cuff men now?’

‘Just friends, I am not making it a habit, but it happens to cap my friends. Good by madame and see you the next time’, she says, even if they know both that there will be no next time.

Laïos, who knows Leith vaguely, comes back from the second floor with Ussa and greets Leith:

‘Hello sir, we know each other?’

Ussa which retains herself not to laugh out, says to her companion:

‘Hi Leith, it makes me laugh to see you as this. We’ll take you for a worker if we don’t know. Penelope has done a good job of makeup, it’s really successful.’

Laïos, looking at both with an interrogative eye, still does not recognize Leith and searches in his memories where he could have seen this man. His trouble is complete when Leith greets Ussa and more, becomes intimate. It seems, he knows the voice, but still does not know where to put it. Suddenly his face lights up and says:

‘But yes, I’ll see. You are Leith, the companion of Ussa. But who is it, who has you disguised this way? We don’t recognize you at all.’

‘It’s Penelope’, replies Ussa and continues speaking to Leith: ‘You’d maybe keep the makeup while you finish with the remains of Amilius his office. We must go through the roofs to open the door to the attic because it’s still closed from the inside.’

‘Hey, Ussa! We should take Biovox we tampered with us to the palace, we could use it tonight.’

‘Yes Leith, that is what we have foreseen.’

‘How are you going to the palace?’ Asks Penelope. ‘You’re not going to walk, I hope. It’s too visible.’

‘We will move in the carrier car that is parked in front of the house of the master while we move the most important books’, replies Laïos. ‘Then they come back tomorrow or after tomorrow to pick up the rest. We have the most dangerous individuals in custody. Meanwhile we are going to use, with the blessing of Leith, the master’s office as office of the Royal Guard to organize the evacuation.’

‘So? Shall we?’ Request Ussa and continues speaking to Leith: ‘you come and join me later at the palace, don’t you.’

‘Yes,’ says Penelope, referring in the place of Leith, ‘he will accompany the Macs at the station and Leith may join you later.’

When Macdo and Maci see Peneope and Leith enter the back room, they had reserved for the occasion, they exclaim in chorus:

‘But we thought you were dead. This is the return of a living dead.’

‘Hello everyone, you’re all right?’

‘We? Yes! Where were you hidden with your princess?’ Requests Macdo.

Thus Leith tells their misadventures at the library. The fire, the emergency door blocked, the appearance of Angelica who allowed them to get out of the basement by corridors existing under the city, the trapdoor in a cabinet of Penelope and the days they have spent in the attic.’

‘Yes,’ replies Maci, ‘we participated in, when the master constructed his attic.’

Abdubu, coming into the back room in the meantime to see if the guests want something, is relieved to see Leith alive. He asks them nevertheless what they want:

‘You drink something? A few appetizers, perhaps?’

‘You have any?’ Asks Macdo.

‘Yes, I have prepared. I knew you were going to give a party. Are there still many people who will come?’

‘Ajax is still awaited, Jou-el, Jason, Midas and Laïos too. And then, if you see others that we might have forgotten, send them as well. But Abdubu tell me, don’t you go away?’

‘Go? Where? No, I do like most people here, I give my destiny in the hands of the lord. Let him see what he wants to do with me. I am alone and I have no family, both here and at home. I see what happens. The King needs people capable of building a new society. A manager of a tavern is certainly not a priority and that’s all I can do. I am not,’ he says addressing the two Macs, ‘a hands-on as you two.’

‘And you Leith? Where are you going?’ Asks Maci.

‘Oh, I will surely join the Royal ship with Ussa, even if we believe all four that will meet in the flesh. According to Angelica, it’s the two of us who will finish at her home and not the reverse. But to tell you if it really happens and if so, how, that remains a mystery.’

‘You’re believing swear, don’t you?’ Says Penelope.

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘all that I know is that, according to Angelica, you are playing a very important role in there without being able to say why.’

‘Me? Why me? I’ll join my two friends present here in two days. You could come with us if you are not able to join Ussa and her parents. There is enough room on the boat you know. One more or less.’

‘But take Abdubu with you,’ says Macdo, ‘if Leith goes with Ussa.’

Abdubu who came back in the meantime to put some drinks that he knows that everyone consumes, asks:

‘Are there people who drink something else?’

‘Yes,’ says Penelope, ‘a fortified wine, please.’

‘WHAT,’ says Ajax, who came to enter in the meantime, ‘you drink something else then your tea-something?’

‘But yes,’ she answers, ‘I finished my day and we celebrate the departure of our friends. I don’t want to stay to drink tea whilst you’re amusing yourselves. But tell me, where are the others? Don't they come?’

‘Of course,’ says Ajax, ‘they are still in the palace to unpack and sort the goods which must be transported to the temple of Ozin, and besides that Jason must come from the other side of the lake.’

‘Temple of Ozin?’ Asks Maci, ‘why there?’

‘I don’t know exactly, but it was Leith who had the idea to hide everything in the sub-terrain of the temple built by the elders.’

‘Yes that’s right,’ says Leith, ‘it’s basalt over there, the region is stable and can withstand major earthquakes so that the objects stored there are under cover. The only thing that remains to be done is to enclose all in sealed boxes filled with a preservative liquid to protect them.’

‘Won’t it be better to transport them to the mainland?’ Demands Maci.

‘It has already been done some years ago by scientists. And then at times of Angelica the caches have not yet been discovered. What is perhaps better.’

‘How? Why hide the knowledge of ancient texts?’ Asks Maci.

‘But,’ Macdo replies, ‘not all religions do respect the wisdom of others. It’s likely that they are imposing their views in arms, as Ra-Ta does.’

‘Did,’ adds Penelope, ‘he left, what seems, to a star where a scientific basis exists. But,’ she continues speaking to two friends leaving, ‘are you the only ones leaving or are there others to go with you?’

The discussion focuses primarily on the organization, the venue and other details of their flight, but it quickly drifts to other subjects. Amongst others is the long awaited trip of Leith and Ussa, which clearly puzzles Penelope because she does not hide her desire to come with them. But also the upcoming events and possible consequences because nobody dares to imagine that the country will sink completely. In time, everyone gets up and leaves towards the station. Everyone takes over a hand luggage of the two friends because they have a few. Arrived in the square outside the station, Leith slaps them on the shoulder and points to a window of the palace where Ussa greets them. Arriving at the platform, they all give a hand to the Macs helping them to settle down and exchange a last greeting when the station master gives the sign of departure. The Macs throw then a final word to Penelope, noting that she wipes her eyes with a handkerchief before the train starts moving.

‘Hey Penelope, you’re coming, don’t you? We are awaiting you on the continent!’

‘I hope,’ she says, ‘but I have, like Leith, a strange feeling, which doesn’t leave me, that I’m going elsewhere, perhaps even with them. Have a good trip and good luck in your new lives.’

‘You too’, they say all with tears in their eyes.

Everyone quietly leaves the station. Some, including Penelope, with tears in their eyes because they know all they will ever see again. It’s with this big stone, called sadness, in his heart that Leith goes towards the palace where he will spend these few days that remain before the final event. Suddenly a window of the palace opens and it’s Ussa who shouts:

‘Hey! Leith, invite Penelope to come with you, my parents love to talk to her and thank her.’

Penelope, who heard what she yelled to her companion, turns around, leaves the group and goes to Leith by asking:

‘Are you sure that I can come with you?’

‘Yes, come,’ he replies, ‘they will not eat you.’

What he had not noticed is that there are two men in the street who, despite all the precautions and monitoring by the royal guard, took note of the fact that Ussa and Leith are alive and head to the street where “Bel Horizon” is located to inform their patrons.

When they ascend the stairs of the palace, it’s Ussa who awaits them already at the door. She comes to them and sees that Penelope has wet eyes. Intrigued, she asks:

‘But what is going on my dear? Are you crying? Why? Why this sadness?’

‘Oh,’ says Penelope, ‘I am very sad, we all come from the station. We have said goodbye to two of our friends who return home. It’s like a funeral I’m sure I’ll never see them back and it makes me very sad.’

‘Then,’ says Ussa to her by putting her arm on her shoulder, ‘my parents love to meet you. I told them everything that happened. But why are you sad, didn’t you plan to go at their home within a few days?’

‘This is the problem, I believe in my dreams because I do sometimes have premonitory dreams that have the unfortunate tendency to become true.’

Then she tells, while they are going up to the royal apartments, her dream to her two friends and doesn’t forget to mention the hospital, the sophistication of care, her waking up with this terrible headache, the visit that had made her four friends, accompanied by a handsome man who is apparently the father of a friend of Angelica. The three friends have in the meantime reached the floor where the apartments of the royal couple and Ussa are. It’s Pâris Bel-Ra who awaits and wishes them welcome.’

‘Hello my friends, thank you for coming. It’s you who we call Penelope?’ He asks her.

‘Yes Your Excellency, Penelope Axarz to serve you’, she replies with a small curvature.

‘Let these formalities please, you are here at Ussa’s parents home, the King has his office one floor down and it’s there where he is hearing people. You are our guest and we must thank you for what you did for our daughter and her companion. You stay with us for dinner? You have someone waiting for you?’

‘Thank you,’ replies Penelope, ‘I will stay gladly for a moment because I have, unfortunately, nobody who waits for me.’

Selena, who has noticed the sadness expressed by this saying, decides to learn a little more and says:

‘Call me Selena’, and then continues pretending to ignore the large eyes that Ussa makes her:’ You don’t mind that I become intimately with you, don’t you?’

‘You realize,’ says Ussa to her, before her mother could respond, ‘my parents became more intimately since they have known Angelica. I was myself very surprised when I heard that. But we do between us. When there is no staff on the floor.’

‘Penelope,’ says Pâris, ‘you can call me Pâris. We are now under us, we gave leave to staff and it’s Ussa who prepared us something.’

‘Yes I know, she defends herself very well in the kitchen,’ Penelope replies, ‘and not just the kitchen. Since she spent a few days at my home and in the attic of Amiluis, I have no more problems with locks.’

‘We know something about that,’ he says, ‘it’s the same here. She is very skillful with her hands and she makes a lot of her clothes herself.’

‘She even made me a ceremony gown’, says Leith, who silently listened to the conversation. ‘I am the contrary, if something goes wrong I call a specialist. I can do small things, but as Ussa does? No!’

‘And you,’ says Ussa, ‘don’t play yourself down. You read ten pages once and are capable of re-writing them as is. Angelica, for example, dictated you a dozen pages in a dream that you have faithfully copied once awakened. If I remember a dream I write just a dozen lines and you easily blackened a dozen pages full of details.’

‘Well Ussa,’ her father asks her, ‘you leave us without anything to drink? And snacks? Where are they?’

‘Let Ussa,’ says her mother, ‘go and look for snacks that you have made in the kitchen, I take care of madam Penelope.’

‘It’s still miss, Selena. It does not matter, my clients also call me madam.’

‘You like what? I suppose an aperitif.’

‘I usually don’t drink but tea during the day, but I no longer work hereafter and I can drink something else. You’… Then she stops and restarts saying in becoming more intimate, ‘you have fortified wine perhaps because I like it.’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘I don’t need to ask the others, at least if one has changed his mind.’

‘Hey! You call that snacks,’ says Penelope to Ussa who came to put her creations on the coffee table, ‘we won’t need a dinner if we have finished all that!’

‘That’s what I intended to do. Isn’t it fun? I still have bowls of mushroom soup for those who want and beignets that I keep warm for the time you finish the entries. Ah! Yes, I would like to contact Julian and Angelica after that, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, it’s a good idea’, says Leith.

Everyone agrees that an attempt to contact will be made after the meal. The topic of conversation during the meal of snacks quickly becomes, after that Penelope has narrated her dream once more, the common past. The first time they have met Penelope, who came to open her business when a Selena spent her days off campaigning with her parents. The fact that Ussa brought a little boy she took for her little brother. They discuss the situation until the middle of the evening where Ussa rids, assisted by Penelope, the table and installs the old tampered Biovoix. Ussa shows all the manipulations to her parents and shows them the paper, describing the mode of employment, she had done. She begs her parents to deal with this device better than any gold and diamonds, as it’s invaluable.’

L eith gets up, prepares himself in the bathroom and goes, as he usually does when he is invited to Ussa’s place, to the room arranged as a dining room to have his breakfast. Ussa’s mother, Selena, is still there and has already finished her breakfast. Both are surprised that Ussa has not arrived yet, not any noise can be heard coming from her room which could indicate that she has got up. Selena decides to see if there is no problem. When she goes to the apartment where the two young people live, she hears little noises coming from the bathroom and asks:

‘It’s you, Ussa?’

But Ussa does not answer and groans incomprehensible words. Her mother, very worried, enters the bathroom to see what has happened to her daughter and sees her wetting her forehead and head with cold water. Ussa, hearing her mother enter, turns around and looks at her with a burial face. Her mother, still worried, asks her:

While his wife, daughter and Leith babble in the dining room on a late breakfast, Pâris Bel-Ra already puts chairs and a table in the meeting room at the ground floor for this purpose. The King who awaits the clerics on the steps of the palace, greets them and accompanies the priests and priestesses because there are priestesses among them, personally one by one in their place. Most already know about because the comet can be observed during the day with a long view. What the people ignore is the extent and the exact time of the disaster. The clerics already suspect what difficult task awaits them because evacuating everyone is not feasible because of the transport capacity available. This meeting should clarify how to allocate those leaving and those who remain. It should at this time to reassure the people and especially bring non-practicing crib back and convince them that there is another life after life. This is, according King Pâris Bel-Ra, the only way to avoid panic.

‘Hello all,’ Pâris says, ‘I guess you know why you are here. You have on the table before you a detailed document made some time ago by the companion of my daughter and his master. You will see that the star, becoming visible since this morning through a long view, tears along right at us and the hope it misses our planet is minimal. I know that such accidents have occurred in the past and that the country coped with it. I cannot, as yet, raise my sources without ridicule me, but it’s a certainty that what will happen to our country is what the seven plagues have predicted. I must, how distressing it may be, add that it’s not like the country Lémuria, who disappeared seventy thousand years ago, a slow descent allowing the evacuation of the population, but a quick imperil.

‘Do we know the date and time?’ Asks David Levy representing the Hebrew.

‘I’m going to come to the point,’ says Pâris, ‘the time was calculated by three different people and it’s for day after tomorrow early morning with certainty of ninety-three per cent.’

‘What criteria do we use to select candidates for exile?’ Asks a representative of the movement of Belial.

‘You will see quite well yourself,’ replies the King, ‘we need everyone, but especially those who work the land and feed those that build new cities. Don’t forget that the resources are scarce in the future and that adaptation of the society will be required. The scientists who know everything and teach the wisdom and expertise of the former must be listed. Don’t bring especially wealth and devices used for personal comfort, they will be of no use.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to focus on those who remain and volunteer to help those who cannot leave?’ Asks the head of the temple of Ozin representing the followers of “The Law of One”.

‘This is exactly the reason I’ve called you here’, says the King. ‘Are there those among you who fear problems? We must ensure that people who can’t leave won’t clog the roads in the direction of the ports to not prevent others from accessing it.’ He continues by addressing the responsible of the Hebrews: ‘it seems that you have your own evacuation plan. Do you have many members of your community left to evacuate?’

‘Most of us have already reached Poseidia for embarking on the fleet that we have at our disposal. Those who remain will volunteer to assist those in pain who cannot or don’t want to leave.’

‘The organization that you have done, is it an evacuation or is there another reason?’ Asks Pâris.

‘It’s an exile,’ answers David him, ‘our community expects, indeed, a guide who will be born among us in Egypt to lead us to the country promised by our God.’

‘We can therefore consider that your community is already safe, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed sire.’

‘Communicate them anyway that the danger of a flood is very high, even in Egypt, and that they need to shelter men and cattle for a few weeks.’

‘You may be right, our holy rollers mention it indeed. I will contact my nephew Noah Levy, who is already in Egypt, and tell him he must take the necessary measures, if he hasn’t already taken. He wants, in fact, to construct an arch.’

‘Tell him to hurry up, he has only a few days left’, says Pâris to him and continues addressing the Celtic community: ‘You, you have many of your citizens left who should still leave because as I understand they have already left for the most part in direction of the continent at their own means, didn’t they?’

‘We have some who are married to people here or those who no longer want to leave. Much of them say that if our country dies, we die with it.’

‘This is the case for many of us,’ says Helena, a beautiful priestess of the movement of “The law of One”, ‘they don’t want to leave. Some feel too old, others unable to re-start from scratch and those who are simply attached to their land and want, as my colleague said, die with the country.’

‘The big problem,’ says Djen, a representative of the movement Belial, ‘is that many of us have lost their faith and they believe nothing. It’s quite dramatic for them not to leave and go to a certain death. We are trying to put the maximum number of people still having faith on the job to assist them in finding the path to their destiny.’

Then the discussion begins on the modalities of where and how, but especially on how to support those who remain. All guests are all in agreement that we must avoid panic and foolish popular movements, who don’t benefit anyone. The decision was taken to regulate traffic at the next morning. The agenda continues then with the meeting points and there are even some who want to make a draw as it’s done in the state of Alta and its capital Poseidia. Most consider however, that people should be sorted according to their need. It should be explained to the willing of exodus that start over and rebuild a society from scratch is not a case of everybody. The Assembly considers that it’s highly likely that the society must return to flint stone and wooden tools because the lack of other resources, especially minerals, metals, coal to extract iron ore and others.

Leith was surprised to see Hector, the astrologer and astronomer of the King, enter their private apartment. The man, who Leith knows of view, says him that it was the King himself who told him to go see him in the apartment on the first floor. The man by the name of Hector is indeed curious how Leith was able to know the displacement of the axis of the Earth’s rotation. He and his colleagues have just determined that a fatal meeting Earth-Arcturus is more than probable and would likely take place at dawn in two days, but the accuracy of their calculations do stop there. Leith, on the other hand, would like to calculate the new location of the north pole, but cannot because the calculations considered work only for a flat surface and are not valid for a sphere, which he explains to Hector.

‘You see, I tried to calculate the new location of the poles, but my formulas don’t work for the system of latitudes and longitudes such as is used for navigation and mapping.’

‘But, how do you want to recalculate? You must know therefore at least two positions on the earth of which we know the old and new coordinates. But to get the new ones, we should be able to watch and measure in the future. And this is where we have a problem. Until now, nobody who has been able to do so.’

‘It may be curious and will probably work against our scientific knowledge, but Ussa and I are in regular contact, becoming more as just friends with two young people, a brother and his sister, of our age living in the likelihood of eleven thousand eight hundred years in the future.’

He then tells in a few brief lines their history, the first contacts interposed by dream and the interview in the bathroom of Angelica. The contact using a tampered Biovox, the meeting of Angelica and her friends with a psychic and others.

‘So if I summarize, it’s she who provided you the information needed?’

‘Yes, that’s it. However I have left my notes in the attic of Master Amilius. Do you want me to come with you to pick them up? The place is secured by the Royal Guard at this time.’

While they go down the street to the office of the master, Leith tells him that what he can remember. What astonishes Hector most is the fact that Angelica, Leith’s girlfriend, has nine more days in their calendar year. Which is enormous and requires a significant impact of unprecedented violence. He quite agrees with his young friend that the country has no chance of escape if the comet strikes the earth west side of the Atlantic Ocean. Once in the house of Amilius and having welcomed Penelope in passing by, they ascend the stairs to the attic.

‘This is where the pole was on a globe which stands on the desk of Angelica,’ says Leith, pointing a finger on the globe of Amilius. And continues by pointing his finger on their country, ‘and then all this was gone. The coastal regions here and there had also disappeared under water’, he says, referring to the areas concerned.

‘Where do you have your figures’, asks Hector?

‘Ah! Yes, I would forget them. Here they are’, he says in presenting him a school notebook where he has scribbled his notes.’

‘I can take your notes until this evening? I would like to copy them, check your comments and information of your friend with mine. By the way, does she know where the comet struck the earth? There must be a crater, given the size of Arcturus, of several hundred nautical miles.’

‘No, she didn’t find it, she promised to look at her maps while coming here. What means, they will come to the place where our country should be. In her society they have an annual rest period they call vacation, and then it’s precisely during their holiday they will be on a symbolic visit to us. We, Ussa, her parents and me thus, planned to talk to them this afternoon at the Temple of Ozin.’

‘But, what makes you say that the comet will fall into the sea and not on the continent?’

‘But for me it’s clear because, according Master Amilius, such an impact on the continent creates a ball of fire burning everything in its path. The mere fact that Angelica lives at eleven thousand eight hundred years, means to me that not everything has been destroyed. Otherwise, she would have lived much later, millions of years perhaps, or even not at all.’

‘As the one who has burned most of the dragons sixty-five million years ago’, adds Hector. ‘It’s assumed that there was a comet or asteroid that fell on the country of Yuk at the time.’

‘Do you think the flood announced will be the result of the fireball of the impact that will be absorbed by sea water, thus evaporate a large amount of water falling elsewhere as torrential rain?’

‘May be. We have, alas, not quite accurate stories of previous floods to see what had happened. We just know that there have been other floods before.’

‘You probably think,’ says Leith, ‘of those of twelve thousand two hundred and forty eight thousand years ago. Many people believe the country will survive as the two previous cases.’

‘Does your friend know how much time we have during the day?’

‘No, nothing specific,’ said Leith, ‘however, she speaks of a terrible day and a terrible night.’

‘It’s in that order? Not vice versa?’

‘No, that’s right, I’ve had the same reaction and she had to check.’

‘I see you noted that the highest mountain of our country, is called “Pino” at her place, a thing you’ve changed to “Pico”, which is two thousand three hundred meters high. What is a meter?’

‘Oh! It’s their unit of measure, it makes up one ten millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator.’

‘At approximately seven thousand feet then’, he says after a moment of mental arithmetic. ‘This means that our country is in their time at more than twelve thousand feet under water. To believe their story, we have forty-eight to sixty hours to organize, after that we have to be far from shore. It’s better to return to the palace and inform the King that there is urgency. The exact location of impact will determine how much time we left for the day, let’s call it “Day-J.”

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well! If it falls near our shores, we would have a little time. If it falls on the other side, on the coasts of Om thus, we would still have a little time during the day.’

The prefect Assen-Ni, who attended the meeting of the King and religious, enters, before going to his office, the police station and asks to announce him to the chief of police, Ax-Tell, which receives as soon. He greets him:

‘Mr prefect, be welcome. Is there something I can do for you?’

‘Yes, my dear, there are a few things that must immediately be executed on the orders of the King. The first thing is to requisition all commercial vessels that can carry more than fifty people or a hundred tons of goods. Secondly, you have from this moment onwards the ability to command the military and the navy. Their ships are already waiting for orders. You just apply the evacuation plan now. Which brings us to our third point, which is the regulation of traffic. People will no longer be allowed to move freely. Everyone can go and visit his family and go back, but can no longer go to the port area without a permit or when necessary to go to his own boat. Everyone who owns a boat, sailboat, fishing boat or other is invited to take the maximum number of people and goods with him. The modalities will be available early in the afternoon.’

‘The Railway Company, is it informed?’

‘Yes, they will make every effort to facilitate people to travel to the ports.’

‘What about those who are in prison right now?’

‘We leave them there, they are offered a single trip to the kingdom of Ra or Hades depending the case.’

‘What about the rioters, if they exist?’

‘The soldiers will take care of. Every rioter automatically falls under martial law. There is really no time to lose because of them. The military do whatever they like, don’t deal with them.’

‘They are who, who will select those who leave and those who remain?’

‘Religious leaders have agreed on modalities. But it seems to me that they want to select those who are able to live in conditions close to the stone age. Those who are able to cope with it.’

‘Do not tell me that it’s as dramatic as that!’

‘In what appears. Yes! The King was able to obtain this information from friends of Ussa, apparently living in the distant future. Their stories of our country and its destruction is beyond all imagination. It’s far worse as you can imagine.’

‘Do the people know what will happen or are they in the dark as we were?’

‘I believe that the magnitude of the disaster has not been provided. Not here anyway. Either the newspapers remain silent, or they know nothing either. And this is perhaps the best. In this way, the evacuation appears to be a simple precaution. It’s as such that the religious want to submit it because everyone knows the stories of the two previous cases. Again, there was significant damage, even floods, but the bulk of the population was able to survive.

It’s already a moment that Penelope is sitting at the usual table in conversation with the manager of the tavern, Abdubu. She tries to convince him to close his establishment this evening for, ostensibly, family reasons because she just discovered that her friend was a seaman and knows navigation, how to identify at sea by the stars using appropriate tools. She came just to order her tea-with-ice-cubes, when Ajax accompanied by Jou-el enters.

‘Hi guys, you all right?’ She launches to them.

‘Hi good looking,’ they reply in chorus, ‘still at work?’

‘But yes, I still have customers, even if it runs significantly lower. You can also look and see the customers who come still here. I try to convince Abdubu to come with me to my family. We would anyway need a good marine to go join the Macs.’

‘Good marine? Abdubu? You were once marine? I can’t get over it’, says Ajax.

‘But yes, I have been navigating. I started deckhand, coming up navigation officer. This was before I took over a small restaurant in my country. There was a revolution at home, which forced me to leave. So I could take over this bistro. But that was long ago, you know well.’

‘Then,’ says Jou-el him, ‘you go anyway, don’t you. You don’t stay here when people need you elsewhere. Isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, must see. But I think it’s better to close. I offer in this case a free drink tonight. You come back tonight? I’ll prepare something. It’s sure eh, Penelope, I can come with you and your family? Can’t I?’

‘But of course, what you think. I’ll present you Felicity, my cousin, you will enjoy her. We will need everyone where we are going in two days in the early morning.’

‘In two days?’ Asks Ajax, ‘but that is the day of the disaster.’

‘We couldn’t leave before, we have too much to organize.’

It’s suddenly Laïos who is entering to say them hello with a newspaper under his arm. He welcomes them and throws the newspaper on the table and says:

‘Did you see that? They found half a dozen individuals, all maimed as the other that we have fished out of port a few days ago. Do you have your designs on you, Ajax. I would like to compare those of the newspaper with pictures of yours.’

Penelope, who just takes a glance at the newspaper, perceives there a picture that could, in her eyes, be one of the men who lived in “Bel Horizon”.

‘Did you see that,’ she says, ‘they maimed a godfather of the Bezlebubs. That promises! I am sure that the lieutenants will get angry and try to do something.’

‘You think,’ asks Laïos, ‘they will blame the royal guard and try to take revenge by capturing the princess Ussa?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Penelope, ‘but it’s just a hypothesis. But,’ she continues, addressing Ajax, ‘you know them, don’t you?’

‘I think they will try to extort a safe-conduct for the evacuation plan. Caution should be used at this time. I fear less for Leith as for Ussa. It’s better that she does not come alone. Can you ensure that she doesn’t come out unless accompanied by bodyguards’, he asks Laïos?

‘That will complicate us things, they, Leith and Ussa thus, have planned to come retrieve their affairs at his home and the one of Amilius tomorrow morning. It’s important that we are on our guard. Ajax, may we ask you to intervene in case of a problem?’

‘Ask the monks of the temple of Ozin, they promised to monitor a former monastery where the Bezlebubs have a hideaway. If they hide someone, it’s probably there because they know the city too well guarded by the military and those have received the order to fire without warning on all the thugs, looters and thieves.’

Everyone takes thereafter a small thing to eat in the almost desert bistro. Even Abdubu is sad to see so few people and realizes that it’s better to close and leave with Penelope in the evening.

The king, having dined at home, summoned the military leadership, the prefect Assen-Ni and the chief of police Ax-Tell in the meeting room having already served in the morning for the meeting of religious leaders. He has put at each seat a document prepared by him the previous days and adds the document that Leith and his master have prepared some time ago. The meeting should not take very long because he has yet to join his wife, daughter and Leith at the Temple of Ozin. The military don’t have a lot of time either, even though the country remains, unlike the country of Altla, quiet, we should monitor the city to prevent looting. Then, many people, as what it seems, already joined their families in the country, leaving their homes empty. The office established in the former home of Amilius drew fewer people then expected. We have expected a rush of applications in exile, but most people living downtown have either left to the countryside or don’t want to leave. They feel, for one reason or another, more secure at home, with family, then in town. The only people who remain are the elderly, the foreigners with no family in the country and still those whose family has lived for generations in Osuo and refuse to leave. It’s in this context that the meeting can begin.

‘You’re welcome,’ says Pâris Bel-Ra, ‘you undoubtedly know the reason for this meeting. I will let you view documents that are before you and we can discuss the points then. I made refreshments available on the buffet there, take it. Feel free to ask questions. If you find that it’s better to modify an item, tell me. Nobody is infallible and it may be that I forgot something important.’

‘What is our role?’ Asks a member of the Army?

‘Before any, surveillance!’ Says the King, and goes on: ‘perhaps assisting people and logistics. Place the soldiers there where they are familiar with the terrain and know the people. This will avoid complications with badges and passes. Nothing better than people who know each other.’

‘Who will have the coordinating role?’ Asks a master mariner.

‘I have appointed our chief of police, Ax-Tell, here, as coordinator and commander in chief. It’s the prefect, he learns it himself at this moment, who will take the coordinated follow-up of the selection of people into exile. This selection is primarily driven by religious leaders. They are the ones best placed to be able to select people to exile. Most are also willing to accompany in their sorrow those who cannot leave.’

‘Will we make a selection from our soldiers, if there are some who prefer to stay in the country?’ Asks the chief of land forces, ‘then it seems to me that many believe that we will emerge as the two previous cases’.

‘You are yourself in the best position to know’, says the King. ‘We don’t need as many soldiers in our place of exile. If there are volunteers to accompany those who remain, let them.’

‘What are we going to do with members of the movement of Belial,’ asks a police officer. ‘They do believe anything for the most of them. It’s quite dramatic for them. Should we not better monitor them?’

‘Their religious leaders have already discussed this problem and will put the most of their volunteers on the job’, replies the King. ‘But keep an eye on them, you never know.’

‘Should we not make all the transport capacity available to the army?’ Asks the head of the army.

‘I wanted to come back to this point’, says the King. ‘The most will be transported by the Railway Company. You, the Army, you are providing local logistics and in the port areas.’

‘Without being indiscreet,’ asks the head of armies, ‘where did you get the details shown in this document? What you claim could not be calculated by our scientists, so you must have another source of information.’

‘You are absolutely right,’ replies the King, ‘but I hesitate a bit to uncover. It may, in fact, that I covered ridiculous. As you know, I have a daughter and she and her childhood companion got in touch with young people, a girl and her brother, of their age living in the distant future. The contact took place at the temple of Ozin, where Leith, that’s how the companion of my daughter is called, wanted to seek contact with the girl of his dreams, who apparently knew a lot of things on our country and what will happen. The information he has obtained is unfortunately consistent with ours and it’s my personal astrologer and astronomer who has validated this. I can assure you that the event will take place as described in the seven plagues. You see that the bulk of the transaction must take place within thirty-six hours preceding the collision, for after tomorrow morning thus. We have perhaps a few hours on the morning of the event, but this is not a guarantee.’

‘Were you able to know how soon the country will sink?’ Asks a master of a ship?

The King Pâris Bel-Ra sets off by a private car to the temple with his astronomer, astrologer and man of science to do everything because his wife Selena, his daughter Ussa and Leith are in principle already there. Pâris doesn’t expect major discoveries because he knows that Angelica could not have much more useful information. For him, knowing where the comet falls has little importance, especially when it became virtually clear that the country has, unlike the two previous cases, no chance of escape this time. He is already very saddened by the fact that he must leave behind the bulk of its citizens. It’s very painful for him to know that the transport capacity of just over two hundred boats, represents merely half a percent of the population. Passing the field of Ajahel’s, the family of Leith, he promises to stop on the way back. He planned in fact taking a load of young trees and other plants with him, including the people who know how to treat them. He knows that the family of Leith is very devout and that they refuse to leave their land, even when they have to die there. He knows that it will be hard to convince some of them to come with him into exile. When he arrives at the temple, the others are already in the central hall, where the communication screen can be found and chat there with his parents-in-law, the grandparents of Ussa. The latter try to convince Ussa and Leith to not lose hope when all seems lost because a very tough experience awaits them the next day.

‘Hello Pâris’, they say, when the King makes his entry into the holy of holies of the temple.

‘Hello everyone,’ he says, ‘in conversation I see. But I fear that this will be the last time, isn’t it?’

‘Yes my dear Pâris,’ says his father-in-law, ‘because there where you go, will be no temple like this. We will have no more than your dreams to talk to you, so be very careful of what you dream. The only people you can still talk to, are Ussa and her friends, then her hacked device, which is absolutely essential to take with you, will be able to communicate with the place where she, Leith and another friend go.’

‘This is where, this place?’ Asks Selena, ‘are you allowed to communicate it to us?’

‘No, we’re not allowed to communicate it. We know, of course, and we will watch over our little darling and her friends, but we can’t give you any other indication then the path of life to follow. That is why we insist that you don’t lose hope. A point to remember is that it’s imperative to give Ussa’s baggage to Leith, who should not under any circumstances leave it. Yes Leith, my dear it seems strange to you, especially since your luggage and that of Ussa is rather heavy. You will have help. Don’t worry! You’ve promised Angelica anyway, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s it’, says Leith.

‘So my children,’ they say, ‘we’ll leave because I see that some are impatiently waiting for you. So goodbye my dears and pay attention to your dreams, we will see you again.’

After that the grandparents of Ussa have disappeared from the screen, the interior of the yacht, rented by the family Leblanc, is slowly becoming visible. The only person missing is Armand, the father of Angelica and Julian, who is at the helm at this time. Angelica and Julian are studying a navigation map and look obviously for something at the other side of the Atlantic. Cecilia, their mother, is as usually immersed in her reading and crosswords. It’s Angelica the first to hear some small noises behind her, which indicates that the family of Ussa and Leith have kept their promise. She turns around and says:

‘Hi Pâris. Hi Selena. Hi Ussa,’ and continues speaking to Leith, ‘big kisses my love. Hello sir’, she says to the astronomer and astrologer. ‘Thank you for coming to see us.’

‘Hello and big kisses my love’, says Julian to Ussa, ‘Hi everyone and thank you for coming to see us.’

‘Mom! Mom, here are Pâris and Selena Bel-Ra, Ussa their daughter and Leith, you could at least say “hello” to them! I will present you,’ she continues talking to her mother who, surprised, interrupts her reading, ‘Selena and Pâris Bel-Ra and their daughter Ussa, the love of Julian. The last time you haven’t heard but their voices, now you can see them. This boy here is my love, Leith Ajahel. On the other hand, the other gentleman, I don’t know him.’

‘Hello,’ says Cecilia a little embarrassed, ‘it surprises me as the last time that my daughter dares to address you as high school buddies.’

‘Don’t you worry my dear lady,’ says Pâris, ‘we like her spontaneity. We are here as the parents of Ussa, I left the King at the royal palace, it’s there where he receives his hearing its citizens. Let me introduce to you this gentleman. He is my astrologer, astronomer and man of science to do everything. I think he would like to ask some questions to Angelica, who seems just to study a map on this issue.’

‘Hi madame, miss, sir, could you find the place that your friend asked you a few days ago?’

‘I think. Are you able to see our map? Here? Julian and I have found a place likely to be a crater, which is compared to your highest mountain, our “Mount Pico”, eleven degrees South and forty degrees West. The approximate size is two hundred and forty nautical miles. Does this fit you? Does this correspond to your expectations.’

‘Alas, yes!’ Says the astrologer, ‘we expected roughly this value, given the size of Arcturus. It will make a hole of three thousand six hundred stadia in the bottom of the ocean,’ he says to the King, ‘it’s huge. Our country will have no chance to cope with it. The distance, however, leaves us a respite of about twenty minutes between the impact and the first tremors over here.’

It’s in that moment that Armand, curious to hear voices that he doesn’t recognize, enters the cabin bay and remains speechless in seeing the scene in front of him.’

‘What is happening here?’ He asks without addressing someone in particular.

‘Papa,’ says Angelica, ‘I’ll present you the loves of Julian and me: Ussa Bel-Ra and Leith Ajahel, and then the parents of Ussa, King Pâris Bel-Ra and his wife Selena, the other man is a scientist, astronomer and physicist. You couldn’t hear but their voices a few days ago, now you see what they look like physically.’

‘Hello to you all’, says Armand.

‘This blue areas on your map,’ says the man, ‘they represent what?’

‘These are areas with less than two hundred meters’, says Armand. ‘It are these areas that were above sea level at your time.’

‘What is a meter?’ Asks the King?

‘A little over three feet,’ says the physicist, ‘I had the same reaction when Leith was talking meters. It’s their unit of measure, they brought everything down to units of ten.’

‘Your sea level is about one hundred twenty meters lower than ours,’ says Angelica, ‘the sea will necessarily go up as much. It’s believed that it’s in about hundred years, but I am not sure. Keep this in mind if you build your new cities.’

‘How do you know that?’ Asks her father?

‘But, it’s simple,’ says his daughter, ‘you remember the Erika accident? All the beaches polluted by the oil? So to put the new sand on the beach, they searched between a hundred and one hundred and thirty meters of depth. If there is a sandy beach below, means automatically that there was a beach and a seashore. The difference corresponds to the rising of the sea level. What we do not know is how long. This gentleman Otto H Muck speaks in his book of a hundred years, but there is no evidence of that. It’s a reasonable estimate of its share, but that’s all.’

‘You’re still far from our home?’ Asks Ussa Angelica.

‘No, not so far, we are here and you’re there’, she says designating locations on the navigation map.

‘A day and a half, two at most,’ says Armand, ‘we well advanced. We will be symbolically at your home at “Day-J”, even if I don’t know how Angelica accounts doing the rest. She is convinced that it’s we who come to pick up Ussa and Leith. I don’t know how, but I know my daughter well enough to know if she says that something will happen, it will happen for sure. Isn’t it darling?’

But Angelica disappeared to get something in her cabin and returns with an identity card. Before anyone could ask her the reason, she aims to Pâris and asks him:

‘Hey! Pâris, this is called an identity card. Make one for Leith, Ussa and Penelope. They’ll need it.’

‘What language should we put on there? For I fear that our language is not understood by the authorities of your country because it’s certainly for them that you want this card, don’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ replies Angelica, ‘it’s better to have identification papers with you over here.’

‘According, as I understand from the stories of my daughter,’ says Cecilia always surprised that the intimate is mutual, ‘it’s probably the Hebrew, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek.’

‘Greek?’ Questions Pâris, ‘you mean the Hellenic language may be.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ replies Cecilia, ‘we say Greek.’

The discussions then become, despite the reluctance of the parents of Angelica and Julian, a little more familiar. The young people talk to them during their parents exchange information about their respective companies, their professional activities and others. The astrologer, surprised that astrology is used as a divinatory art, starts to take information from Angelica, who turned on her computer in the meantime. Their conversation continues until it’s time to leave the temple. It’s Angelica who launches a last farewell by saying:

‘See you after-tomorrow morning. It’s then when we will meet one last time. Remember to prepare a bag for Ussa! She will not be able to do so herself. As soon as you see us, come to us and take everything she needs in her new life. See you next!’

With these words the appearance of Ussa, Leith, the royal couple and astrologer disappears, giving way to the sides of the boat.

‘Well!’ Says Angelica, ‘the next time we will surely meet in the flesh, and then the understanding will probably be more difficult.

‘It’s heartbreaking, but that will be the last time that Ussa sees her parents alive’, says Julian.

Abdubu has taken care to put up a panel saying that he will close for an indefinite period and that a farewell drink will be offered to everyone in the evening. To his surprise and despite the fact that there were only a few customers during the afternoon, his tavern begins to fill. Many faces are sad because most of them know very well what may happen and the topic of the day is obviously the possible collision of the comet with the Earth. Even though many think they will get by, they begin to doubt this. The newspapers have published an analysis of the facts, but do not know what a small group of insiders know. Many believe, as the newspapers say, that it is as the last two times and that it’s enough to seek the heights. Others think that it’s of no use because they believe that the Earth will be destroyed. The merchants of the neighborhood, regular customers of Abdubu, have for the majority come with a small gift, and insist to pay a general round on their behalf. Many of these traders do as Abdubu and Penelope do: they close tonight. Abdubu suddenly sees a carrier car, usually used to transport horses, stopping in front of his bistro and sees Penelope come out. That’s what he believes in any case.

‘Good afternoon madam, good afternoon gentlemen,’ she says by taking a circular look before addressing Abdubu: ‘Abdubu that’s you, isn’t it? My cousin has well described you, we can’t go wrong. To describe beautiful guys, she never goes wrong. Oh! Before I forget, I’m called Felicity. I am her cousin and I just come to pick you up after this drink. You can load your stuff in the carrier and don’t fear, I’ve cleaned. She is not yet there? My cousin?

‘Hello, says Abdubu, observing her carefully from head to toe and replies: ‘Penelope might come in any time. She came to close her shop because I helped her putting on the panels for protection.’

‘I didn’t see anything, when I passed at her home. It was closed and she did not answer the doorbell.’

‘She may be in the flat of Leith,’ says Abdudu, ‘he will also move. I think they have planned to come back and retrieve their stuff tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes that’s right’, says Felicity. ‘She wants to safe everything with us. She’s right, you never know. We share with four families a former military bunker, it’s there where we store our equipment. Tonight we’ll take with us whatever you want to take with. I guess because you will have things to be taken. Then, you don’t leave your good things here, don’t you? We may desperately need them!’

Then they hear the door open, look and see Penelope enter with Leith.

‘Hi everyone’, says Penelope.

‘Hi to everyone’, says Leith.

‘You were where?’ Asks Felicity, ‘I have searched you at the shop, but you were gone. We thought you were at Leith’s place to take care of his business.’

‘No,’ she answers, ‘I went to pick him up at the palace. He is part of the team and wanted to come have a drink with us.’

‘And Ussa, you have not taken her with you?’ Asks Abdubu Leith.

‘No, she would have come if I insisted, but it may be too dangerous. There are still zozos belonging to the Bezlebubs in nature and no one knows what they are capable of. Already for tomorrow she insists to pick up our stuff. I don’t agree that she comes, even with the protection of the royal guards, but she sticks to it.’

‘You go where?’ Asks Penelope him, ‘are you coming with us, or do you leave with the royal family. You’re apparently still convinced that you will join your beautiful Gallic girlfriend, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘even if I don’t know how. I will surely join the Royal ship with Ussa if the trip doesn’t take place, I owe her that.’

‘You are lucky, you. The more that Ussa seems to be very in love with her brother, isn’t she? But as I said, if this journey does not take place or if there is a failure, you’re taking care of Ussa?’

‘But of course. That’s what I had to promise to Angelica’, says Leith.

‘What is this story of travel?’ Asks Felicity.

It’s then that Leith tells her what happened. The initial contact by interposed dream, then the meeting in the temple of Ozin, until the one just now. Penelope feels to add comments and tells her dream where she woke up in a poor condition in a hospital with unknown devices. It’s certain that this dream was in the land of Gaul, but is much less clear that this dream comes true really. What delights her least is the fact that the hospitalization is probably preceded by a serious accident. She hopes that this dream means nothing, as usual. She retains in the back of her head the description of a handsome man, the father of a girlfriend of Angelica, made by her, but is careful enough not to say. Penelope and Leith then go and say, each in turn, hello to various residents and shopkeepers of the neighborhood, they know well. Many people are wishing them good luck and a good trip. It appears that many artisans are on the evacuation plan. The elderly, on the other hand, don’t want to leave. For the most attached to their city. Others will join their families in the countryside. Leith and Penelope did not pay attention to the fact that Felicity had meanwhile begun to lend a hand to Abdubu. It’s Leith who suddenly noticed that Abdubu has an aide resembling mistakenly to Penelope and says quietly:

‘Hey Penelope, look, your cousin has managed to seduce Abdubu. She helps him at the service.

‘It’s better for both of them’, she says.

Later, when the room starts to empty, Penelope and Leith offer Abdubu to assist him in loading the carrier. While Felicity continues to deal with recent clients, Penelope and Leith begin to load the goods of Abdudbu in the hors-carrier of the Axarz’s. A little later, Leith, not wanting to delay because he has to join Ussa and her parents to spend the evening with them, takes leave of Penelope, her cousin Felicity and Abdubu by making an appointment for the next day before the house of Amilius.

U ssa and Leith got up earlier and are alone in the dining room. Selena, the mother of Ussa, already has joined a charity that wants to take care within the framework of the evacuation plan of difficult cases. Specifically those who cannot leave. They, as this association is composed almost entirely of women, are responsible for monitoring those who no longer believe anything and have lost faith in their religion and those who don’t belong to any religion. Ussa is quite happy to be with her half-brother and true forever companion. They planned to pick up the affairs of Leith and those who remain in the attic of the house of Amilius, now belonging to Leith. They await the arrival of the carrier car with driver, to go then along with two guards to the office of Amilius. It’s Leith who breaks the silence that has settled while they take their breakfast.

‘I still don’t agree that you come with us. It’s too dangerous. You never know. I agree with the prefect, who believes that you run a danger of kidnapping. They may try to catch you to extract a safe-conduct. You should stay here.’

‘But Leith, the brave man of the other day, is he suddenly scared? There is no risk! There are guards with us and there are in the office.’

‘I don’t know, but I have a strange feeling. I don’t dare to appear before your parents if something happens to you. I will certainly make every effort to liberate you, but I confess that I don’t dare to present myself at the palace in such a case.’

‘Don’t tell me that! You have no right to do that. They need as much you, as you need them. Promise me that you don’t flee. Contact at least Penelope or Ajax if you’re in grief. They will do the work and take care of you.’

‘Take at least a micro-spy with you and put it there’, he says, referring to her breasts. ‘It allows the tracking by Ajax. That’s how we can identify you in case of abduction. You surely won’t be able to call using your communicator. Hide it too.’

‘Take yourself one too, you never know. I will ask the guards to find two.’

During that a guard goes and fetches two surveillance devices, the two friends descended the stairs to the ground floor where they await the carrier car with driver. The two guards supposed to accompany them, are already there and put the different trunks of transport on the porch of the palace. Suddenly Ussa sees that Leith begins to lug a relative large suitcase with him, she recognizes to be hers.

‘What do you do with my bag? I don’t leave yet!’

‘But,’ he says, ‘I respect the fact of both your grandparents and Angelica. I don’t know myself why, but it seems that this is important. Don’t you remember what they told us?’

‘Yes, of course. But I did not understand why.’

The discussion doesn't go any further, then the carrier car has come in between. Leith finds the fact that the Royal Guard has rented a car with driver rather than use one of theirs a little suspect, but does not want to worry Ussa more. Trunks, which contain material to be transported later to the port of Amaki, have already been loaded. Leith and Ussa take seat in the vehicle, as do the two guards. Leith is, going down to the office of Amilius, a bit saddened to see so many shops closed. Passing in front of the tavern “The Gardens”, Leith is invaded by a strange sense of sadness by seeing the blinds down and the protective grid in front of the door. The blinds of the apartment of Abdubu are also lowered, which means that he has indeed left with Penelope and Felicity in the direction of the stud of the Axarz. Penelope’s boutique, located not far from the office, also has the protection panels on, made in the past by the Macs. The guards meanwhile unload the trunks and want to start loading because there is still material of the master to be transported to the palace and then later to be taken to port. Leith and Ussa descend with their bags and go first to the apartment of Leith.

‘What do you want to take?’ Asks Ussa, ‘your clothes?’

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘but also these books there. These are my study books and I would like to keep them.’

Leith begins in the meantime to fill his bag and adds some personal effects inside. Memories mostly.’

‘What are you doing with those worthless trinkets?’ Asks Ussa him.

‘Leave them me, they have great sentimental value for me. You should also take with. You never know. If we really join Angelica, this will be the only memories we have.’

Once the bags loaded, they descended to the office of Amilius, where they enter without suspecting the changes that have occurred in the meantime. Leith, respecting the instruction to never leave the bags, places them at the entrance and that will be the last thing he remembers.

When Leith wakes up, the first thing he sees is Penelope who is tipped over him and asks:

‘But, what are you doing here sleeping at the door of the office of Amilius. By the way, where are they, the guards? I don’t see them!’

Leith, who has a heavy head, doesn’t answer. He looks sadly around him and begins to cry. Penelope, pained seeing a big boy, almost a man, crying, sits down next to him, puts her arm on his shoulder and tries to console him.’

‘Don’t cry my boy. I guess, they caught Ussa, isn’t it. You feel terribly guilty, don’t you. I bet it’s Ussa who was determinated to come with. I am sure you have tried to dissuade her. But wait, I will immediately call Ajax. He may know where they go with her.’

She goes up in the former office of Amilius and notes that the present royal guards have been neutralized by means of chloroform. The smell is still strong enough to be out of for not falling too. She decides to take Leith with her and asks him:

‘These are the bags that you must take with you?’

‘Yes’, he says with a small voice.

‘So, help me to load your stuff of your apartment and mine. It’s good that I have a man to help me. Thereafter, we go to our home at our stud. You could spend the last day with our family and yours. We have decided to spend it together. Sure, hey. You’re coming with us? Don’t you?’

‘I don’t know, I had to promise Ussa to go with her family. She believes that they need me, if something terrible happens to her.’

‘Leith you know, we’ll see it tomorrow morning. We’ll contact them and if they’ll hold we’ll transfer you to the royal ship. In the meantime, you come with us spend one last day with my family and yours. You’ll owe them that too. Ussa can maybe take you as her half-brother, but you, you still have a family who loves you. You have your parents, your grandparents and all your nephews, nieces and cousins. We will make a farewell party and then we go to the boat by horse riding in passing through the fields. It’s better because you will see, all roads will be blocked from the afternoon onwards. You know, I got already up early this morning because I come from the port where I have loaded our boat. Your suitcases and the ones of Ussa, we take them with us from midnight. It’s at midnight we will go towards the harbor. It takes one or two horses to carry the luggage. Then, the animals come back alone, they know the way home. Then, you just help me? Come on my boy, don’t look at your feet, look at the sky. Where is life, is hope.’

‘Yes,’ he says with a still small voice, ‘it’s necessary that I do. I promised.’

‘But what do you have screwed with these bags? They seem heavy, but aren’t.’

‘Oh! They contain only a few clothes and trinkets. I have distributed the heaviest books among the three bags so they float if dropped into water. That’s what Angelica asked us to do, you remember?’

‘Ah yes, I almost forgot. I remember now. But,’ she says, ‘wasn’t it the visionary who said that? You know, how is she called? Something with Mo.. or Ique.’

‘Monique,’ says Leith, ‘it was when we were with you in your attic. She works with a crystal ball, like the one Ussa cobbled.’

‘Well, you just now, I need strong arms of a man!’

It still takes time to load all of the apartment of Leith, then he was able to accumulate, although this is a furnished apartment, a lot of things during the years he has lived there. Then, they go to Penelope’s apartment where they take the objects to her heart, the clothes, some books, and especially not to forget her samples of herbs, earth, and other necessary for her work. She puts them in a bag specially designed for, but, as she says, this bag does not float. It’s after having taken her main tools, she has also put in a bag, that they take the way to the area of Axarz, where the whole family of Penelope and Leith awaiting them already. It’s his mother who greets him first:

‘Hello my boy, thank you for coming to spend the last day with us. We were already afraid that you were going to spend it at the royal palace with Ussa. Where is she in fact? You have not brought her with you?’

Noting that Leith has once again tears in his eyes, she suspects that something serious happened. It’s Penelope, just finishing a conversation with Ajax, who answers in his place:

‘Helena, Alas, we come from the town and it’s there I found Leith unconscious on the doorstep of the office of Master Amilius. He had come there with Ussa to recover their business and I have found only Leith. The guards have been neutralized. I just talked to our detective, he will take care of it. He will also inform the King.’

‘Then you spend the last day with us?’ Asks his father. ‘It’s nice boy. But? Tell me! This trip, you still believe in it? You still think to join your Gallic girlfriend?’

‘Yes,’ says Leith, ‘three different people told me that this trip will happen.’

‘I hope for you my boy,’ says his mother. ‘You surely find better living conditions than those who attempt to build a new society on the continent.’

‘Who knows,’ says Felicity, ‘she may be a distant descendant of us. Then, that’s where we go. Abdubu explained everything to me, tried in any case because I don’t know much in navigation. On the other hand, what he does not understand, is that the place you have described there exists, you know, the cliffs of Gaul near a large river. The snag is that it’s four hundred miles further inland. The more you said that she swims and sails on a plank by the sea where she lives.’

‘This is perhaps not so complicated,’ says Ilosa, the father of Leith, ‘the climate warms up rapidly and in a hundred years the sea level will increase three to four hundred feet. We should not have screwed up everything, as we did this last half-century. We should have continued to live in harmony with nature, respect it and the global warming would not have happened.’

The families begin to organize their farewell party because as it seems there are also Leith’s family members who join the evacuation vessels. They have already made several trips with saplings ready for planting. They are now just waiting that we come to pick them up. They leave, if all goes as planned, with an army convoy between midnight and one o’clock in the morning. The members of the family of Penelope, the Axarz, leave at the same time, but on horseback and across fields. Until then, the two families are celebrating the departure of their children and there are even some neighbors who have come to say good luck. Members of both families who do not leave claim to want to finish their lives in prayer in the temple of Ozin.

Pâris Bel-Ra has, contrary to what one might have thought, a lot of work with the evacuation plan. Assen-Ni, the prefect, and Ax-Tell, the head of the police are doing what they can, but the central role is still him. Towards the second half of the morning he watches the time and is surprised to not see his daughter and Leith accompanied by their two guards come back. He tries to call them on their communicators, but those seem to be switched of. Concerned, he calls his guards and decides to go to the place where she and her companion went. Pending the arrival of his personal vehicle, he quickly makes a tour of the apartments, just to see if the two young people have returned without having had noticed. Which is not the case. Suddenly a strange feeling takes him and he fears not only for his daughter, but especially for the poor Selena who has barely recovered from the previous ordeal. He decides to go see her doctor and inform him that he must prepare for a psychological follow up. Going down the street in his car, he looks sadly at the distressing and unenviable spectacle of the old city where is normally animation with its little shops. More than two thirds of the blinds are lowered. He sees that even the small café where Leith had his habits, is no more open, as is the beautician shop. Arrived at the office of the former master, he finds that there is something abnormal. The carrier car, hired this morning by the Royal Guard, is no longer there. He sees inside four guards lying on the floor, some with bruises on the head and elsewhere. He asks his guards because coming out of the office by feeling strange, to immediately call health services and the forensic science. The trunks supposed to be filled, are only at half and are still there. The suitcases of Ussa are as she and Leith; missing. What he fears most is that the kidnappers don’t know how much time remains until the disaster. He knows very well that they want to obtain a safe conduct and that the army is very well able to free his daughter. But the time factor plays against them and that is what he fears most. He hopes that the two young people do not panic and not let them go away with that. Awaiting the health service and police to come, he begins, helped by the guards, to serve the people coming to present their cases for the evacuation plan. There he becomes aware of the disarray of its citizens. Many are questioning why and they feel be abandoned by Ra. Then, there are those who accuse Sanieds to have altered the trajectory of Arcturus and that in retaliation with the war waged by the federation. For the King, however, this argument does not stand up because the changing the trajectory should have been done hundred three years ago. But at that time the federation had good relations with them. The war is since the time that Ra-Ta took over power and his ambition to control the world militarily and economically. It’s during that he serves its citizens that he receives a communication from his favorite detective; Ajax.

‘Good morning Your Excellency, I am afraid I have bad and good news for you.’

‘Tell me first the bad, I guess.’

‘Indeed, sire. It’s Ussa; she was captured and is currently near the temple of Ozin.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She took by precaution, a micro-spy on her and this told us the place. But we cannot take action until that evening has come. It’s an isolated area and too light during the day. Only the monks of the temple have been able to visit her. The kidnappers don’t know that they work for us.’

‘And Leith, her companion, he is where?’

‘He is in shock with his family and that of Penelope, the beautician. He has a lot of worries. He is sorrowed for you and is full of reproaches. I’ll visit him a little later. He planned to spend one last evening with his relatives and the Axarz. They will then join their boat. They lead Leith, if possible to your ship, before going north.’

‘You believe that we, my wife and me, should make him a visit? I think we owe it to Leith. I’m heartened that he cares about our pain because of Ussa and there is no reproach to do so. He is her friend and not her body guard.’

‘Sure! He himself needs your support sire, it’s mutual.’

‘See you in a moment in front of the stud of the Axarz.’

‘See you in a moment sire.’

Pâris suddenly remembers what Angelica asked him yesterday. He decides to send a guard at the palace with the mission of it. He may as well give them these pieces of identification for Penelope and Leith, and the one for their daughter. He remembers that he had to hand over everything what is important for Ussa to Leith, even if he doesn’t understand the reason. It’s not only Angelica who insisted on this, but also his parents-in-law. The health service, which has come in the meantime, begins to ventilate the premises and to carry the victims of aggression to the nursing room of the palace. He awaits the changing of the guards who continue to take care of people that come with their records. Thereafter, he must go to the palace to begin a very difficult task: inform his wife Selena. He hopes she will be courageous, not loosing, like her parents told them, hope and that everything will be fine in spite of the appearances.

Ajax has, as he had promised to Penelope, joined her family at their stud. It hasn’t been easy for him to find the place. He has deceived many times in spite of the detailed explanations of Penelope and the mention of the field of the Ajahel’s. When he enters the domain of Axarz, nothing suggests that here people are preparing to flee. Although Arcturus is a small star visible to the naked eye, no one is able, if we don’t know, to suspect that this little dot in the sky appears to be a killer star who has set his appointment for the next early morning. Ajax looks around and sees the boxes where they continue to care for horses as if nothing has happened. He seeks the place where the meeting takes place because Penelope has told him that there were many people. It’s when he wants to go to one of the people who treats a horse in its box in that moment that Penelope comes towards him and says:

‘Hi my friend, could you find us?’

‘So, your explanation! I repeatedly went wrong. I had to ask people and they sent me back. I was much too far. You don’t live so far from the city.’

‘But you, there was no easier. We are here on the main road for Ozin and just stop just before the arboricultural field of the Ajahels, they are the only ones in cutting trees like this. But come, this is not serious. You could find and that’s the principal. Just comfort Leith. The poor blames himself in a unimaginable way. I’m sure you can release Ussa, can’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s why I came. I intend to go there as soon as the evening starts to fall. You know, where she is, is fairly clear and easy to monitor. Only the monks of the temple were able to enter without being suspicious. They were able to talk to Ussa and fortunately she speaks Egyptian. So they could suggest her, to wait until it starts getting dark before trying to get out. This former monastery, she knows, has a secret exit. But she could not attempt an escape until the night, otherwise they will see her. The police and army are around and when she comes out and at a secure place, the assault will be made. I guarantee you there will be some travel with a single course to the kingdom of Ra. We also know that they have replaced the driver of that carrier car that the guards had rented this morning. The vehicle was also reported stolen.

‘The guys who’re in the “Bel Horizon”, what we’ll doing with them?’

‘Well, one died and the other is just being arrested with his lieutenants. They were put in charge for an indefinite period, if you see what I mean.’

They come in between to the place where the meeting takes place. It’s a barn that has been cleaned and arranged for the occasion. When they enter through the large doors, Ajax sees Leith with two people who are obviously his parents because the resemblance is striking. He goes towards them and sits down beside his mother on the bench and presents himself. Leith’s parents present themselves in their turn and say they are saddened by what has happened to Ussa. They are, unlike their son, more optimistic and believe in a favorable outcome, which confirms Ajax. He continues to chat a moment with Leith and his parents, as a sudden excitement is spreading among the people and for a good reason. On the outside come stop two transport vehicles and from one of them descends the King himself. He goes first to the house, but sees that Penelope comes to meet him and greets:

‘Good morning Your Excellency, are welcome. Your wife is not coming with you?’

‘Hello my dear,’ he says, ‘here she is.’

‘Hello Penelope,’ she says, ‘how are you?’

‘I’m well, it’s Leith who doesn’t go well. He is worrying. He did not even dare to contact you. He feels guilty and responsible for what happened.’

They are moving silently toward the barn where the guests are. Once entered, the King and his wife welcome everyone present and go to the location where Leith and his parents are. He signals to Penelope to join them and reaches out of his bag three plastified documents as Angelica has requested. He tells them:

‘These are the documents necessary to reach your love. Penelope, my dear, don’t be surprised, you will need it. Even if I don’t know, like you, the way you two will join together with my daughter, the kingdom where Angelica lives, these documents will there be required. This copy is the one of Ussa and must be carried by Leith. Don’t ask me why, all I know is that it appears very important to Angelica and my parents-in-law who are, like mines, no longer of this world as you know.’

‘But,’ replies Penelope, ‘I have no intention to follow them, even if I want to.’

‘Alas, my dear, I have confidential information, provided to me by my parents-in-law, that you go too.’

‘Oh! Will this be my dream that comes true?’ She says.

What she does not see is that Leith changes the color of his face to become pale because he remembers all too well what Ussa has narrated them the previous day, which is certainly a serious accident. It’s Selena who saves the situation:

‘But surely you find a handsome man there. If Ra sends you there, it’s that someone is waiting for you. I’m sure you’ll meet someone, as Leith and Ussa did.’

Penelope sees that some of her neighbors are left with the guards who came with the second vehicle and asks:

‘Still looking for things?’

‘Yes,’ says Pâris, ‘we wanted to take seed in waterproof bags. I ordered the guards to go around the peasants to take the maximum. The seeds will be useless here and people know it. I don’t know how and how long we should withstand the situation, but I take the precaution to take as much as possible with me. There is a risk of several years, very, very difficult life. Everything will to be started over again. I doubt even if our descendants will be able to pass our knowledge and wisdom to their children.’

It’s thereafter that the King will talk a little bit everywhere and with everyone before returning to the table with the parents of Leith. He is pleased that there are not too many problems in his country, as this is the case in the neighboring state, Alta. There are skirmishes across the country. The capital, Poseidia, is, according to his information, fully ransacked by looters. He is feeling a little pinch of heart when he thinks of this brave prince who, sent there, is trying whatever he can since Ra-Ta has buggered of. The evidence is that we have no more emissions from Poseidia on the Bioscope. Emissions from four others of the ten states have also stopped since a few days ago. It’s after having discussed a while that they perceive that Ajax has disappeared. It’s Penelope who exclaims:

‘Wow, Ajax goes without saying goodbye.’

‘But my dear,’ says Ajax, ‘what you think. I was out with Felicity and Abdubu to see where we should go. I’m not sure whether I can come with you. I’m going to join the yacht with Jason and we will, I know it’s very risky, go to the middle of the lake and await the sinking of the country there. It’s sufficient to leave after.’

‘That’s right,’ says the King, ‘I circulated a document on this subject. I invited all those who have a boat to do that and come to join our armada thereafter. We will have then just a day to protect us against the heavy weather. According to my man of science, we will have a quantity of rain for a millennium in two weeks only.’

‘It’s as serious as that?’ Asks Helena. ‘It’s unimaginable. There will be nothing left but mud after.’

‘Unfortunately yes, dear lady,’ says Pâris, ‘this is why we take young trees ready for planting and seed with us.’

‘Then,’ she says, ‘the seven plagues have not lied?’

‘No Mom,’ says Leith, ‘that’s it. Moreover, Angelica confirmed it. All her stories speak about it. She told us that it will preferable to avoid the Mediterranean and go further north or south.’

‘Or in Egypt as the Hebrews have done’, says Selena.

‘Then,’ says Pâris, ‘if they wait there for their guide, they may have to wait for a long time.’

‘What do you mean,’ says Ilosa, who had listened silently the conversation, ‘although they expect the next coming of a guide who will guide them to the promised land, right?’

‘I believe,’ says Leith in place of Pâris, ‘they have to wait eight thousand five hundred years.’

‘What do you mean,’ says his father, ‘how do you know that?’

‘It’s Angelica who told me about that. I have narrated her the story of the Hebrew, and she was able to put a name on him. He’s called, as she said, Moses and was born one thousand three hundred years before her era. Since we are roughly nine thousand eight hundred years before hers, make the difference.’

‘Then,’ says Ajax to Penelope and Leith, ‘I’m going and I’m not sure if I will see you again. I wish you good luck and have a good trip.’

The friends have a long curly and have tears in their eyes as they greet and accompany him to the exit. The King, too, must go along with his wife and greets everyone. He says a final word to Leith and Penelope:

‘If you are not going to go with Angelica, assure me that you two are going to join my vessel, don’t you. I am sure that Ussa will be released by tomorrow. Leith, don’t worry, it’s not your fault. You have you tried to convince her not to come. So do me a favor and come join us. Penelope, you take care of it, isn’t it. You come with your boat to mine and then transship you and Leith, your luggage and those of Ussa. See you to tomorrow.’

‘See you tomorrow Pâris’, they say in chorus.

U ssa has a heavy head. She thinks that it comes from the product, which they have used to make her asleep. If you can call it sleep, it’s rather being knocked out. Ussa does not remember at all how it happened. She remembers only that she entered with Leith the office of Master Amilius, but nothing else. When she awoke, she found herself already in this small room in the in-between basement of the monastery. She has later been visited by two priests of the temple of Ozin These two priests who came back visiting her just a moment ago with the pretext to bring something to eat and drink, have promised to remain talking with the kidnappers for a diversion so that she could open the lock. They have indicated where the hatch is and what path she should take once in the underground. She sees that night has fallen in the meantime and is on the lookout. She reads every noise from the rooms on the ground floor. Fortunately, the cells of the monastery in the in-between basement are still fitted with locks of the same type as the former majority on the palace. She knows them by heart. Since she hears no more noise coming from upstairs, she goes to work. She welcomes that her hairpins are solid models and well suited for the delicate task she undertakes. “Shit,” she says to herself, “they left the key in the lock.” She turns the key gently in the upright position and pushes it slightly outside the lock without making it fall, which could alert the kidnappers. “So,” she says to herself “if I lift this latch, I could release the one below”. After several unsuccessful attempts, due to a lock a little rusty, she manages to release the locking mechanism. Thereafter, she needs the strength of the two pins to push the latch off the seat. Once outside the cell she listens carefully to determine if there is a danger, but all the kidnappers seem to sleep. It’s certain that the priests, who took wine and food, have done something with it to make them sleep a little. Now she tries the trapdoor, hidden in a cupboard, like the library and at Penelope’s place. The mechanism appears to function similarly. Suddenly, she comes back on her steps and closes the door of her cell, as she says: “It’s like a miraculous disappearance.” Coming back to the place, she believes that her heart is going to stop. She hears a noise. “Shit,” she says for herself, “I’ve been caught.” But at the very moment that she thinks it she must retain herself with all her strength not to cry out loud because she has just crossed a big rat. She stays glued to the wall, with a face turning from red to purple, having the more and more difficulty to retain herself not to scream out loud, until this beast is willing to continue his path. But her suffering does not end there. Especially when he had the bad idea to come and sniff her shoes. Which is, however, certain, is that she now knows where the smell of badly washed clothes came from. When this big rat, almost as big as a cat, decides finally to continue his way, she says for herself: “Whew! ” Arrived again at the place of the trap, she activates the mechanism and frees the entrance to the corridor of the underground. Once the door closed, making still enough noise, she is in complete darkness. She not only feels uncomfortable, but has, since she was a child, a senseless fear of being in the dark. She realizes now the courage demonstrated by Angelica and Leith. She says to herself: “if they are not afraid, why me? ” She begins to follow the right wall, as the religious people have said it. She knows she is not entitled to the error, it’s the second right. Then, as they have said, follow the left wall and behind the third door, is a staircase that finishes behind the altar of a chapel dedicated to Zeus. But for now, she isn’t there yet. The corridor seems endless until the first portion to the right lane. She says to herself: “This was the first, I have to take the next one.” She has the impression that the corridor, which is not as dirty, wet and stinking as the other one they had taken in fleeing the library on fire, turns slightly right. She loses contact again with the right wall and knows that she must enter into this corridor. She follows, as the men of faith have said, the left wall up to the third door. She opens the door and feels the fresh air that comes to her. Over her is another trapdoor, which she opens. It’s, as they said, behind the altar of a chapel open to all winds. She sees, leaving the chapel, that she is on the main road which goes from the temple to the station. There is, on the other hand, a way to run until the first houses and up to there, she may be seen by her captors. She starts to run as long as she can. She now regrets not having done that what clearly Angelica has done: maintain physical activity to stay fit. Ussa has difficulty moving forward. Suddenly she sees a car, just beyond her, make a U turn and stopping next to her. She says to herself: “Shit, they came back and there is no place for me to hide.”

It pleases Ajax that the vehicles are equipped with automatic navigation. That’s what permits him not only to greet the guests of the meeting in the Axarz place for a long time, but also to relax from the effect of coffee with this great old cider Brandy made by the Ajahel’s because he didn’t remain at the party with nothing to eat or drink. Once on the road, he gets out his detection device to see if Ussa is always in the same place, which is no longer the case. His device indicates a very low signal, which means that she is in the underground corridors. But before going to call Ax-Tell, he decides to go to the station of Ozin to reserve a cabin for Ussa and tell them to put reading, food and some drinks. He tries several times to contact the King on his communicator, but he does not answer, and for good reason, as being always busy. He does, however, not leave a message to the standard of the palace, you never know. The case of kidnapping and eventual release of Ussa must remain secret. He tries in between the communicator of Ussa which displays well that she is no longer in the monastery, but seems to be in the “stand-by” position. All it says is that she is not far from where Ajax is now. The signal of the micro-spy remains low, but moves. Ajax no matter where he looks at, can see nothing. He goes therefore first to the station of Ozin to perform the necessary steps to reserve the cabin for Ussa. He then returns in the direction of the signal, but without result. He sees a little chapel on the roadside and in the middle of nowhere, but the signal remains low, even if the device indicates a point in the middle of the field. He looks at the distance between this point and the monastery and finds that the daughter of the King is advancing rapidly. Suddenly he sees her changing direction. She has taken a right angle, which seems to go in the direction of this little chapel. He must, on the other hand, take a tour of the fields to join the main road and once on the road he just crosses Ussa, which runs as pursued by lions. He turns around and stops next to her, steps out of the vehicle and calls her:

‘Miss, Miss! Stop, don’t fear and come in!’

But she must be called several times because she seems to be panicking, fear of death. Then, she recognizes the detective who had worked for her father.

‘Hello to you,’ she says, ‘and thank you for coming.’

She climbs into his car and they go together to the station where the train to the port city of Amaki is waiting. There, she has all the time to settle because the train is not ready to go, many people with baggage must be boarded yet. As soon as the train sets in motion, he greets the princess and wishes her a good trip and good luck because he is almost certain that they will ever see again. The trip itself will take place as Angelica had dreamed ten days ago, who was also careful enough not to tell her. It’s when Ajax is back in his vehicle that he takes communication with Ax-Tell.

‘Hello my dear, how are you at this late hour?’

‘Like you, I work, but I don’t think you call me for a small talk, do you?’

‘No, indeed. I would like to point out that Ussa just left with the train in direction of the port of Amaki. I note that unfortunately the train is very late. I loved driving her to the port myself, but I know that the roads are impassable there.’

‘You could have led her among the family of this Penelope, the Axarz, I think they join their boat on horseback through the fields.’

‘I thought about that, but the time I go there, the Axarz are already gone for an hour.’

‘I hope the train will arrive at the dock in time, in other words before the first tremors begin. Otherwise, he risks a derailment and that’s not what we need.’

‘The zozos,’ says Ajax, ‘what about them?’

‘I give the army order to attack, they are unlikely to leave with the evacuation plan.’

It’s with these words that Ax-Tell closes the conversation. Ajax, tries again to get communication with the King, who answers this time.

Penelope is happy that Leith remains with her. They do, not to overload these poor beasts, take two horses for their own luggage and those of Ussa. The solemn meeting-style feast continued until midnight and this is when the guests begin to take the long, emotional farewell hugs. They all know they will never meet again, not in this life in any case for the believers among them. The ones set en route to the temple of Ozin, while the others are beginning to prepare their horses. Some of them have already left with a military convoy which came to pick them up just a moment ago. It’s Penelope who takes her favorite old horse, Phebus, and Leith takes his brother, of the same dam and the same standard, Ephebe, which has one year less. Leith assists Penelope to get into the saddle because drinking a little more than usual, she has some difficulty to get in all alone.

‘Are you okay?’ asks Leith. ‘You manage to stay in the saddle? I don’t like see you falling because there will be more hospital tomorrow.’

‘No,’ she answers, ‘it will go. Have you checked if we have all our luggage. Don’t forget those of Ussa. Where is she right now?’

‘I don’t know, her communicator indicates a fast movement, which means that she has taken the train. I hope that the train is not too late because he must be at the platform before the tremors begin.’

‘You know the exact time?’ She asks.

‘No, I know it’s early in the morning, but nothing else. The King says he will oversee communications with countries in the west, Oz, Om and Yuk. We have a good chance that they will be cut at the time of impact and the shock wave comes to us in almost twenty minutes thereafter.’

‘We must be far from the coast in six o’clock, seven at latest if I have understood, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right. So they are ready? The others?’ Asks Leith.

‘Yes, I think so. So we go? It must be us that precede because it’s you and me who have passes.’

‘Passes? Why then?’ Asks Leith.

‘But,’ replies Penelope, ‘from here, we have to pass north of the city and cross the river Osuo. Bridges are guarded by the military and it’s only you and me who have a safe-conduct for us all signed by the King.’

‘Yes, I hadn’t thought about it’, says Leith.

They go silently up to the entrance of the city of Osuo. Noting that traffic is not as terrible as expected, they stop and it’s Penelope who asks Leith and the others:

‘What do you think of it? I want to say last goodbye to our town. From here we can take the Grande Rue to the palace and the railway station, go down passing the old town to the boulevard and cross the bridge near the park. It must be feasible since it seems to me that those who have cars have already left the city.’

‘I agree,’ says Leith, ‘what do the others say about it?’

It’s after a few talks that everybody will agree. They continue the road to reach the city center by the Grande Rue. Leith is the first to feel sad. He sees, when they move up the main road towards the Place Royale, to his left on a side street next to a small beautifully arranged place with trees, the library destroyed by arson. The Grande Rue itself is not as friendly as before since most stores are lowered. There is some animation in front of the city hall and the temple. Even as the authorities did not release the date and time of the catastrophe, Arcturus is enormous and you can see it moving towards the west to the naked eye. The most of the population guesses already that the next day comes perhaps ever. That’s why people do as the Axarz’s and Ajahel’s did, some finish the night in prayer at the temple while others are celebrating in a solemn meeting and a little sad the departure of theirs to a future more than uncertain. The small shopping street, where Penelope has her shop, offers the same show; stores closed and here and there some animation. Penelope as well as Leith, but first of all Abdubu, who also makes the trip, have tears in their eyes when they pass in front of the tavern “The Gardens”. Many of the people and merchants who are not leaving, are greeting them, surprised to see them travel as is, in passing. Penelope’s shop offers the same sad spectacle with its protective panels on the windows and shutters closed to the first floor. The only other place where are people, is the office of Master Amilius. There also it’s Leith who has again tears in his eyes because normally he would have continued his work. Arrived at the boulevard and passing the park, they see that even Mélia preferred to stay because there is light and music. Only Penelope wonders if it’s Mélia herself because it could be that it’s her mother, she also a not leaver. Crossing the bridge of the river Osuo is not a problem either. In spite of the presence of military, as elsewhere in the city, there is neither control nor movement.

‘Then,’ says Leith, ‘everyone said goodbye to his hometown? I must confess that I have sorrow, a lot of sorrow. And you, Penelope, what do you say?’

‘It’s not that I am sad,’ she says between sobs, ‘these are sorrows I can’t get rid of. I am beginning to believe that those who don’t want to go, are right, but I’m too young to die without trying to get out. I am also still convinced that I come with you. I don’t know why, but I stick to it.’

‘Hold on,’ says Leith to her and the others, ‘the hardest remains to be done. We still have six hours to go.’

The rest of the road takes place like any ride, except it’s the last one and at night. When they leave the suburbs where the houses spacing out increasingly, they take the path of peasants and pass through the fields. It’s like this, they arrive at the small harbor where their boat is moored. Everyone descends from his horse and puts away his last luggage in the hold of the boat. Penelope and Leith, on the other hand, leave, to the astonishment of all, their luggage in the cabin. Once finished, they remove the harness from the horses and leave them free. These poor animals do first understand nothing and remain at the dock watching their masters on board, before they begin to return. The sailors because they exist among them, verify all one last time the whole and drop the lines. Penelope and Leith, who remained at the stern look a little sadly the dock leaving while Abdubu puts the machine in full power. They both realize that their trip without return begins and that they will see their country ever again. Abdubu is sad, but not for the same reason because it’s the second time for him that he loses everything and must flee to an unknown destiny. He knows how others feel, but for him it’s déjà vu, except that this time the conditions of survival will surely be tougher.

‘Did you hear that?’ Asks Penelope, ‘I thought to have heard a roar.’

‘You may be right,’ says Abdudbu, ‘the horses are crazed, they don’t know where to go. The poor.’

‘What do you look at,’ asks Penelope him after a moment, ‘it’s like something that’s puzzling you? ‘

‘That! There! This fog bank, it’s not normal. There is a strange glow inside, I never saw that. Keep it in the eye!’

‘But,’ asks Leith Abdubu, ‘why did you head for the east? I thought we were going north, right?’

‘The impact will certainly generate a tsunami,’ says Abdubu, ‘it’s better to be far from shore.’

Pâris-Ra Bel welcomes that there are not so many problems with the evacuation. It’s the opposite of what he feared. The only thing he fears now is that the impact of Arcturus will surely, according to astrologer, astronomer and physicist, create a big wave flooding the coast. His wife Selena took some tranquillizers and is currently in her cabin to rest. They are both very anxious for the life of their daughter. They eagerly await the call of their detective. It’s suddenly that he receives the long-awaited communication on his communicator.

‘Hello Ajax,’ says the King, ‘how are you?’

‘Good afternoon Your Excellency, I am sorry for the late hour, but I have an important communication to make. Ussa, your daughter, has just left with the last convoy to the port of Amaki. What is not so good is that the convoy was delayed and it’s feared that this delay will worsen. Your daughter is in a reserved compartment just behind the locomotive. Employees of the Railway Company told me that the arrival, taking into account the delays on the way down, will be between half past six and seven o’clock.’

‘Thank you,’ says the King, ‘what do you do yourself? Can you join me, or is it to late?’

‘No, I cannot, I still have to go with a host committee to the kidnappers and then I will join Jason and Laïos on their yacht. I could not even go with the Axarz family, you know. They are gone when I get to stud.’

‘So good luck and have a good trip. But where will you go?’

‘We had planned to join the families of Macdonald and Macintosh in the north, they have land on the continent. The far north is certainly harsh, but safer at this point then the southern part of Gaulle. We must not forget, sire, that we will find ourselves thirteen degrees further south and it will be warmer thereafter. But before I forget, you and your wife have a good trip and good luck.’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘One more thing, sire. Can you send me news of Ussa and Leith, I’m curious if they will get out of it and especially if their journey is really going to happen.’

Angelica, who has taken the helm since an hour and a half after being awakened by her brother, focuses on the map. She sees that they are only an hour of sailing from the place indicated by Leith. She memorizes all the manipulations of urgency that her father taught her during the trip. Especially how to make a U-turn, approach another ship and others. From time to time she scans the horizon with her binoculars, even then when she is convinced that their boat is going to them, she does not exclude to see them as survivors. From time to time she thinks, as she says, of her guy and wonders what he is doing at this time. She knows very well that this “at this time” is eleven thousand eight hundred years in the past, but it does not bother her. It’s for her in her head as if they are beside and that it’s enough to just go there. She can’t get rid of this strange feeling of danger. She feels a threat to one of the four, probably Ussa. She decides to focus on navigation and not to daydream because the time and place of the appointment is coming near. She has only a dozen minutes left to go to be there. She blocks the bar and goes down to wake up her father and brother, and then ascends again. Back at the helm, she sees that they are entering a layer of fog. She says to herself: “Angelica don’t panic, there is worse.” It’s on throwing a glance at the GPS, that she finds that something goes wrong, the device displays a place corresponding to the north pole, with all zeros everywhere and a small red light to indicate that there is no satellite signal. Another glimpse at the magnetic compass learns her that it‘s also panic-stricken as her.

‘PAPA! JULIAN! HELP!’

Suddenly the fog lifts and a sad sight is showing. She sees a coastal area where a train derailed, people in the process of drowning in the waters of a port where small boats are trying to recover these poor people in the middle of the various debris that have been carried off shore by a tsunami. In looking at a large wooden wall of a wagon, not far to starboard, she recognizes the silhouette of a young woman, with jet black hair, lying unconscious on it. Then she shouts again:

‘PAPA! JULIAN! HELP! There’s Ussa to starboard. She’s drowning! Come quickly!’

She begins in the meantime the emergency procedure to return the boat and stop, like her father has taught her and as one must do when someone fell into the water.

The day starts to rise, this morning the thirteenth day of Leo, the fateful date. The royal ship is still docked where Pâris, the King, seems to be very busy with the last who leave. He likes to be present, he feels responsible for the correct approach. He is, on the other hand, as his wife Selena, very worried. He fears that his daughter cannot reach them before they must release the quay. The captains of vessels have actually decided to get off at the time of impact or shortly thereafter. To monitor this fateful moment, the radio operators of the royal ship verify communications at all times because they know, thanks to information supplied by Angelica, that communications with friendly countries in the west will be the first to be cut at this time there. Pâris went to see an officer of the maritime railway terminal, to see if there is a chance that the train will arrive soon. The employee does what he can and informs him that the train has just left the station of Osuo. The King knows that the journey, even if the employees do what they can, is a good half hour to the port area of Amaki. He is, like the others have done in the meantime, back aboard his boat where Selena awaits him. She is very anxious, much more than her husband. The doctor has prescribed her some tranquillizers and wanted even to give her enough to sleep. She did not agree, remembering what the beautiful Gallic girl told them: to come to them with the luggage once they have seen their sailboat. She decides to regroup her forces and do what Angelica asked her: prepare the luggage of her daughter. She has come back up on deck in the meantime see her husband because she wants to add gifts, not only for Angelica, but also for her family. She could keep the baggage if Ussa ever comes to join their ship or if Angelica and her family do not come to pick her up. In the case that she joins Angelica and her family, she could give her what she needs in her new life. Selena knows that farewell will surely be emotional and that we must not let us go. Suddenly she wonders what Leith could be doing. She regrets that they remained without news of him. She puts the bags in evidence on the bed and climbs on deck, where is already Pâris, her husband, also anxious as she, even if he does not show it.

‘Pâris, my dear, do we have news about Leith? I thought he would come with us.’

‘No, my dear, he has, however, foreseen to come to us with the fishing boat of Penelope.’

‘We will take them with us, don’t we. Penelope also, no?’

‘Of course my dear, but be sure they arrive first. I don’t see them anywhere. I don’t even know where their home base is. I think it’s further south and that they wanted to do the journey on horseback in order not to be bothered by traffic. They had planned to leave between six and seven o’clock. They can logically show up at any time.’

‘Sire! Sire! Says an employee, ‘radio contact was lost with the countries of Oz, Yuk and Om. We have just informed the captain and he probably wants to leave the port within ten minutes.’

‘Damn, don’t tell me that. Where is my daughter? Where is the train?’

‘PÂRIS!’ Says Selena, who sees that her husband was about to get off the ship, ‘you don’t go off now. Allow them to deal with the arrival of Ussa. She could come on board using a ferry. This is what we had originally planned anyway.’

‘I’ll see the captain. We must decide what we will do now. It’s fine to continue to aboard a maximum of people, but we can’t endanger those who are already on the boats. In addition, we must notify the harbor authorities that they send a message to ships to stay away from the coast during the initial shock. Then, we can see and assess the damage.’

‘Should we not send a message to people on the dock to go further inland,’ asks Selena, ‘they could be rescued later, isn’t it?’

Hector, the train engineer, is angry against himself and is mainly against those responsible for railway stations. They have in fact received a communication that they should certainly not delay the last convoy, as painful as this is for those who remain behind. Now there is a delay so dangerous that in case of problems, passengers will no longer be rescued. He knows since the departure of Ozin, that he has Princess Ussa on board and it’s imperative to save her at any cost, he owes that the King. It was annoying having to wait the adding of cars on this countryside station near the city of Osuo. The convoy has become unnecessarily long and difficult to drive now because the old cars added do not support high speeds. He finds himself thus with a delay of thirty minutes, which is twenty minutes too late to get safely to the maritime terminal of Amaki. He knows that military and evacuation vessels will not wait beyond this period because the collision of the comet with the earth is expected in any minute from now. Specialists have said that there would be a delay of about twenty minutes between the time of impact and the first earthquakes over here. He begins in the meantime to perceive the port area of the city that is fast approaching while the train runs along the port towards the maritime terminal with its crowds of people and their baggage awaiting shipment. Suddenly he feels a seismic jolt, then another more violent. The locomotive is pitching dangerously. Hector tries to slow down his convoy, but the soil seems to stall below and in spite of his desperate attempts to stop it, the train accelerates and derails. During the derailment, he runs back and enters the compartment where the princess is. The latter clings already to the structures of the car. He takes her by the arm and tries to get her out of there. It’s in that moment that the car breaks down. Hector has just enough time to put the princess on one of the walls of the first car disintegrated, which is rapidly swept away by a current out to sea. Hector himself is trying to move to the rear of the train holding on the remaining structures to try to save other people. There is little doubt that the military will do its best to evacuate. Even if the big ships have already left the port by precaution, there are many small boats which go forth and back between the disaster area and evacuation vessels. Hector himself does not even matter if he is saved or not, he puts, like many other believers do, his destiny in the hands of Ra.

Leith, who holds Pénélope by her shoulder, looks at the sad spectacle of the coast of their beloved country go away. Abdubu, who steers the boat, explains to him the path to take and why first go away from the coast. Penelope still has tears in her eyes. She feels terribly sorry and fears that she will be homesick, like Ussa. Selena had told her how Ussa felt during her study visit to Egypt. The disorientation, the feeling of being abandoned, her periods of nostalgia and other ills still less well defined.

‘Come on,’ she says to Leith, ‘let’s go in the cabin. I voluntarily take a drink, and you?’

‘Yes, it’s a good idea. I have anyway to prepare a conversion table for the seafarers.’

‘Conversion table? Why?’

Pâris Bel-Ra is very saddened by the fact that the captain refused to wait any longer. The sailors are preparing to cast off. According to the captain, who is, as everyone knows, the only master on board, the shock wave could come here within ten minutes. The control office has sent a message to all vessels to leave the port and wait offshore. Experts fear in fact a big wave breaking on the coast and this is why they prefer that all vessels leave the port temporarily. Pâris and Selena feel weariness when the royal ship leaves the dock to go off. They know that it’s for the best of the many people already on board. They should not be put more in jeopardy. It’s also time to start to assemble the armada of different boats so that the smallest vessels are inside and the large ones of the army abroad, to be able to protect others from the big weather that will surely follow. The royal couple scans the horizon with a long view to see if the train with their daughter arrives in time. The army left a fast launch near the dock to the transship her. Their ship comes in the meantime to stop just there, where the waters are deeper and less risky.

‘Here,’ says Selena, ‘I see the train coming.’

‘Where is it,’ says Pâris, ‘I see nothing.’

‘Here in the distance,’ she says, ‘take the long view and you will see.’

‘But it’s still far’, he says, ‘he never arrives in time. It’s very dangerous what he does. He should wait there where he is now. The tremor may begin at any time.’

‘Sire,’ says a radio operator to him by submitting a paper, ‘I have a message for you from the west.’

He opens and sees skimming though the message that tremors began on this side there. The message speaks of a wave going up to the sky. The message also says that sea water has drawn back before forming a big wave. Only those residing in highest places have been spared and the large vessels that had already searched the depths.

‘My dear,’ asks Pâris to his man of science by showing him the message he received, ‘how much time do we have left?’

‘Five minutes at most, sire.’

‘But it’s horrible,’ says Selena, ‘the train is not yet at the station and I fear for the life of our daughter.’

‘Don’t forget that all those other poor people in the same train,’ says the King, ‘they also have right to live. But the damage is done and we must now try to make the best possible way.’

‘Here,’ says Selena, ‘he comes. He enters the port area. With a bit of luck he may reach the station in time.’

But she has just expressed her wishes that the engine starts to pitch dangerously. You can easily hear the screech of the brakes. The engineer tries to make an emergency brake, but a new jolt derails the convoy. At the same time, the ground below seems to stall below and the locomotive and the first cars brake in seawater. Pâris must hold his wife, appalled by aspects of the disaster.

‘Oh! Pâris what do we do without our daughter?’ She says between sobs, ‘look, her car is completely destroyed. Only the walls are left.’

‘Quiet baby, there is a brave man, I am sure that it’s the engineer, who has saved people from the first car and has put them on the walls. Pass me the long view, I see our girl on one of them.’

The reflux preceding the big wave had not occurred. The water rose very high, like a wave on the country and immediately receded, taking with it the debris. On one of these debris, a wall of the car, is actually Ussa. There are also among the debris: people, some dead, others clung to a beam and some onto their luggage. It are the small vessels not affected by this movement of water, which are trying to save them and bring them to larger vessels waiting outside offshore. It’s Selena, looking with the long view in the direction of a fog bank, who says:

‘Pâris, look here. Have you seen this beautiful sailboat? I think it’s turning.’

‘Yes, I see,’ he says, ‘I am sure it’s the Gallic girl and her family that came. I didn’t see it coming from elsewhere. They came from nowhere.’

‘No,’ says his wife, ‘they came out of this weird fog bench, there. I’ve seen them come out of there. But they picked up our daughter! Quickly, let us prepare a fast quick a shuttle, we will join them with her luggage. Don’t forget to take the board doctor because I think she is unconscious.’

‘You have done more luggage for her?’ Asks Pâris.

‘Yes, mostly small things to which she sticks terribly, the little girl clothes, jewelry, ornaments and other souvenirs. I kept some for us to keep a memento of her. But she will need it in her new life. And not to forget them, the gifts about which I have talked to you a moment ago.’

‘Ah! Yes, I’ve almost forgotten it,’ says the King. ‘Oh,’ he continues, ‘there is another boat goes out to them, I think that it’s the family of Penelope with Leith aboard.’

As they approach the sailboat from the Leblanc family, they are powerless in seeing the accident of Penelope and the courageous response of Angelica, especially when she repeats it to recover a bag that Selena recognizes as being Ussa’s.

‘Have you seen how this girl swims?’ Says Selena.

‘Yes, I saw. Poor Leith, he thought she would drown too. But note that they swim both very well. Moreover, her brother and her father know the gestures that save lives. They probably spend most of their free time by the sea and are accustomed to these types of tasks.’

Angelica and Cecilia, her mother, brought Penelope gently into the cabin where Cecilia, who is a nurse, conducts first aid. Penelope, only unconscious and not in a coma as they first feared, is groaning from time to time little incomprehensible words. Cecilia takes advantage of this to try out her reflexes.

‘Why are you doing this, Mom?

‘To see if the spine is not broken, she wouldn’t react to picks on her feet if this was the case.’

‘I see, fortunately for her. But the head, she must have a fractured skull, isn’t it.’

‘Yes, that’s it, it’s not broken completely, but surgery must take place very quickly. While we are at sea, she must remain in this position and let her sleep. I will put her on infusion. Once on land, she should be transported by emergency in a hospital.’

Leith, who followed, tries, by making signs with his hands, to ask if it’s serious. He approaches his bistro girlfriend and gently caressing her hair. Then, he points to the bloodied location and says with a questioning eye; “AY”. Cecilia tries to make him understand that it’s delicate. They then leave the cabin, intrigued by an engine noise, followed by fragments of voices. It’s Cecilia which reacts first:

‘Still more bags? It’s a move!’

‘Than Mom,’ says Julian, ‘this is Pâris and Selena Bel-Ra, the parents of Ussa in the flesh. This gentleman here is a medic, try to speak to him in ancient Greek, perhaps he understands you. About moving, these bags appear to contain memories of Ussa to which she holds, then those are the ones of Penelope, for as I believe they cannot take her in the state she is. We have enough room to fit all, don’t worry.’

‘So Ussa, Leith,’ says Pâris, ‘you don’t come with us I guess?’

‘No, Dad,’ says Ussa, ‘I love you and I will never forget you, but my place is next to Julian. To speak we will do well. Use the Biovoix if you want to talk to us. I think Julian and Angelica had planned to go from time to time see this Monique in order to talk to you.’

‘Hello,’ says Leith, ‘I think staying with Angelica. I think we will soon try to return home. They will certainly go to where they came from just now. I can’t wait to discover their country, although I find it difficult to leave mine. I think however, looking at the speed that the land goes down, that in only a half day everything will be below sea level.’

Julian, who came in between, takes a questioning look because he does not understand to the words expressed, even if the language seems him familiar. He begins to reach his hand out to Pâris and asks him something that the King does not understand. Then, he repeats the same thing to Selena by making gestures towards Ussa.

‘Pâris,’ says Selena, ‘I understood what he meant, he asks the hand of Ussa!’

‘It’s good Selena, let’s accept it. Do we have something with us for offering him?’

‘Give him your ring of our engagement.’

‘But you don’t think about it, don’t you!’ Says Pâris.

‘Si! You got it yourself from my father. Now it’s up to you to retransmit it. Ussa will explain what this gesture means.

The King removes his ring from his finger, takes the hand of Julian and puts him it, adding words that Julian does not understand, but who guesses the meaning. It’s Ussa who thanks her parents in his place:

‘Thank you Dad, thank you Mom, I’ll do the same with his parents, but I doubt they will give me a ring now.’

Then follows the long curly farewell between daughter and parents. It’s Selena who takes the initiative to take Julian in her arms and wishes him good luck. Pâris follows her example.

‘Attention,’ says Leith coming on the scenery, ‘the Gauls have the habit of kissing between friends, with the exception of boys. Therefore only girl-girl and girl-boy. A kiss on each cheek, twice between good friends.’

In this time the doctor comes out of the cabin with Cecilia and expresses reservations about the fate of Penelope:

‘Ussa, Leith, you are the only two to understand me. This woman can’t come with us, we have no surgical instruments needed for an operation. If she goes with her family, it will be for her funeral. Angelica’s mother is very capable and was able to understand me. She knows how to keep her alive for five days at sea. It would be the best that she could be quickly transported to a hospital, but she has a chance of survival if she is well treated during the trip. However, those who sail must watch over her permanently.’

‘Leith, my boy, watch well over Ussa and your little tigresses’, says Selena. ‘Good luck in your new life. I think, looking at the anxiety of Angelica, that it’s time for them to leave.’ And she continues by addressing her daughter: ‘Ussa my child, watch well over yours and I wish you the best and good luck in your new life. Do not hide in a cupboard when something goes wrong, they will help you.’

“Armand, Cecilia,” she says toward the parents of Angelica and Julian waving them to come to her and her husband. It follows shy braces between the parents and it’s Selena who dares to kiss first. Pâris follows timidly her example. The words, on the other hand, exchanged by the four are not well understood, but that is unimportant. On the other side of the boat, the same ceremonies take place between friends of yesteryear. Leith and Ussa promise to keep in touch by Monique interposed. They promise to provide news about Penelope, since it’s Felicity who has great difficulty because of the accident of her cousin. Abdubu as being more optimistic, tries to console her by saying she will surely be in a better world, but is on the other hand careful enough not to say what he means by “better world”. It’s Angelica who ends this appointment not as another by putting the jib and main sail in position. She seems to be in a hurry because in addition to the sails she started, to the astonishment of all, the engine and is ready to put it in the position “Full Forward”.

‘Hey guys! Time of departure! Off the moorings.’

‘But what are you doing,’ says her father, ‘suddenly in a hurry?’

‘YES! Look there!’ She says pointing with her hand in the direction of the fog bank, ‘our window is closing. I like this country, I like these people, but I want to go home.’

She doesn’t wait for the rest, nor whether it pleases or not to others and puts the engine in full power, making Ussa shiver, worried by the strange noise coming from the belly of the boat. The two other boats tries in vain to accompany them to fog bank, but must recognize that this beautiful white bird takes a speed well beyond the capacity of their means of propulsion. It’s especially Abdudu who is full of admiration. He says to the King and others close to them in their boat, whose crew try in vain, as Abdubu, to follow the yacht:

‘Wow! You saw that? It’s at least twenty knots, if not more. I am at maximum power and no way to do more than half of its speed. It’s not an ordinary yacht. This is certainly one which we can use for racing.’

‘I think this girl is right,’ says Pâris, ‘she does not want to stay here. She wants to go home there from where they came from.’

It was after the last wishes of everyone that the boat disappeared in the fog as it came an hour and a half earlier. Although nobody has paid attention to the lightning coming out of a small box of Julian. It’s Ussa who finally understood what Cecilia and Julian have done and she tels Leith designating Cecilia with her finger:

‘You see Leith, she did as Julian, she takes images with that little box. We will have memories of our own.’

When they look again behind them, their country has disappeared, leaving the place to the ocean and nothing but water to see. Suddenly there is silence, Angelica has just cut the engine and only the waves against the hull remain audible.

A ngelica, who still holds the helm, looks a little incredulous the display of the navigation instruments. She tries to, making gestures with little words, explain Leith how to stay at course. She descends, whilst Leith does, a little uptight, that what he can, to look for maritime map in the cabin. Her father, surprised to see her coming down, asks:

‘You’re not steering?’

‘No, my guy is doing very well. He is still a little tense, but he succeeds staying at course.’

‘What do you want?’

‘There is something wrong. Can you check a position using the sextant?’

‘Why?’

‘I feel that the GPS goes wild. It displays a different position and four days later than we supposed to be.’

‘I’ll verify it, I have anyway to contact the ships around. I wonder whether it’s not better to call for help because of Penelope.’

Cecilia, who is out, did not notice that her daughter Angelica has begun, helped by Ussa, to store the various bags. Ussa who did not initially suspect something, suddenly understands the intentions of her fiancé’s sister and becomes red when she realizes that Angelica wants her to share the sleeping cabin with Julian. It’s when Angelica stores Leith’s business in hers that her mother, Cecilia, comes in the cabin and objects:

‘You don’t think of it anyway! Once you see a boy, you want to sleep with him. You’re too young! Put me this elsewhere!’

‘NO!’

‘How NO? YES!’

‘Mom stop me …’

‘You must …’

‘MOM! Stop your “musts” and imperatives!’

Ussa, who remains there without saying anything, watches the fight and thinks to herself: “Hey! Well! Two tigresses that clash. They do not even take time to listen.” Armand who is with Julian and Leith at the helm, says, hearing the roars of voice, to his son:

‘I think we have a storm down there. I can’t make Cecilia understand that she should no longer talk to Angelica as a child and especially not to speak at the imperative tense. She has a short fuse when we do that.

Leith has joined Ussa in the meantime to try to understand why they fight. Ussa explains what she understood about the sharing of cabins and adds:

‘She wants to ensure your love. She fears her girlfriend Alicia. She believes to lose you and wants at least spend the days at sea with you. Reassure her! She needs you.’

Nothing but that Ussa pronounces the word “Alicia” is sufficient to trigger an attack of hysteria among Angelica. Ussa believes that this dialogue of the deaf has gone on long enough and charges.

‘Oh,’ says Armand to Julian, ‘look yours. She eventually stopped to be a nice and pretty girl. She turned into lioness that charges.’

Ussa is placed before them by putting up right, taking a hard look and talking as an army sergeant does to new recruits in having lowered the tone of her voice as a man. She makes understand Cecilia, by putting her finger on the mouth followed by the gesture by pointing to the ear to listen and not to talk. She then makes understand Angelica to talk.

‘I am no longer a little girl Mom. Your little girl is dead Mom. Dead! Dead! Dead!’

‘But …’ Cecilia fails to get any further, she finds her words cut off with a furious look of Ussa, which signals to Angelica to continue.

‘I became a young woman Mom, why did you not see anything? Why didn’t you see your little girl grow up? She is dead Mom! She doesn’t exist but in your memories! Hey! I’ll show you something that’ll marvel.’

To the astonishment of all, she goes in the sleeping cabin of Julian and comes back with a bag of Ussa who is making big eyes, but says nothing. She opens it and takes out a little girl’s dress and goes on to say:

‘You see Mom, the mom of Ussa, she kept all! You see how she’s cute her little girls dress? Why didn’t you do that? I so loved to have few memories of my childhood, but all I have are a few photos.’

‘But …’ Cecilia finds her words cut again by Ussa who wants Angelica to continue.

‘Yes, Mom, I spun all my loves off to Alicia. She doesn’t care. She takes them and throws them away after use, such as dirty rags. I can’t. I have always sought someone who loves me. There is a little less than two years that I gave in to the request of one to sleep with him. It hurt me horribly. I felt dirty and I was scared to dead to be pregnant. The more, he was pretty brutal. The whole hasn’t been of any use anyway because he left the next day with someone else. They are rotten these little guys, once they got what they want; they throw you away like a common paper handkerchief. I then dropped all the boys who didn’t want other than sleep with me. There was no one that really loved me. You remember well my depression, but you never wanted to know why. It was as usual, you don’t listen to me. You cut me the words off and you start with your “musts” and imperatives. In addition, you did not find better than send me to this dumb psy. Mommy, why do you not understand, I am also a woman, who needs to talk to another in whom she trusts. There are things I can’t discuss with Dad or with Julian or with the therapist because he is a man too. And I don’t want to discuss this with Alicia or other girls. I haven’t but you. Mom. Then, listen to me when I need you. I do have Leith now and I don’t share him. If Alicia dares to touch him, I’LL KILL HER! Let him me now. What matters if I spend the night with him here or elsewhere. So Mom treat me as a young woman and not a little girl.’

‘Come,’ says Ussa to Leith and Julian, ‘let us go on the bridge and leave them alone. They need to talk.’

Ussa must repeat what she said, using gestures to communicate to Julian that he must leave his parents and his sister a moment between them. She picks up the sea map, takes Julian by his arm, and goes to the helm. She makes a circle in the air with her finger, then points on the map with a questioning look. Leith wanted to intervene, but suddenly understands that Ussa wants Julian to explain it and keeps silent. She is surprised to see that they advanced only a few fingers, their centimeter.

‘Leith,’ she says by turning to him, ‘these hieroglyphics, they mean our names?’

‘Unfortunately yes, there are things to learn. This sign, the cross there, is not one of their letters, this is where our country was. We are here at this time’, he continues by designating a place in the middle of nowhere on the map. ‘This device indicates our position, you see.’

It’s Julian, trying to follow the words, who sees that his love one has tears in her eyes and understands that she is in grief because of her beloved country disappeared. He tries to comfort her by whispering sweet words in her ear. He then shows, for diversion, how to hold the course and he shows her the route they are taking. Armand who comes back, nods his head to Ussa to descend into the cabin to join the two other women as they have begun to watch her wardrobe and her memories of little girl and need her presence. Armand goes towards the front of the boat and beckons Leith to follow him. He wants him to show how to adjust the jib and main sail against the wind because he noticed that the boy is interested.’

In the evening almost everyone, except Cecilia who remained in the cabin to watch TV, sees an image that seems to float in the air beside them. It’s Leith who recognizes her first and that for good reason, she’s his mom.

‘Hello Leith, hello everyone, let me introduce myself. My name is Helena Ajahel and I am the mother of the boy there.’

‘Hi Mom, nice to come and see us. Tell me, where are you now? I thought you wanted to go to the temple end your life in prayer?’

Ussa, half awake, feels that she is not alone. She does not realize right away where she is and believes that Leith is sleeping next to her. It’s when she prepares to ask: “But what are you doing in my bed? ”, that she realizes that the man beside her, who holds her in his arms, in this tight little bunk in the sleeping cabin of the sailboat is not Leith, but Julian. She remembers suddenly the evening they spent together on the deck under the starry sky. It’s Armand who steered until midnight and it’s Angelica and Leith who took over. They should have wakened up Julian at three o’clock, but have obviously forgotten it. When she raises her head, she sees Angelica standing in the doorway with a big smile and asks:

‘Then the lovers? Slept well? You come for breakfast?’

‘What happens,’ asks Julian still half asleep, ‘you’re asleep at helm? Forgot to wake us up?’

‘Not at all. It was so cute to see you with Ussa in the same bed that we let you sleep. You deserve these few hours of happiness. You slept so well that you did not even notice that we have taken a photo of you.’

‘Have you taken a picture of us? When we slept? You must be kidding!’

‘Yes, you can come and see it. It will be a good memory you know. You’re coming, we’ll await you for breakfast.’

Cecilia, who just gets up also, looks at the eyes of Angelica and Leith with an interrogative eye and is about to say something, but Angelica is more quickly and says:

‘NO MOM! It’s not what you think! Leith and I have wakened all night. We left Ussa and Julian sleep, they were both so cute. So happy together. Leith showed me, had tried in any case, the stars and even the astrolabe. He uses it as a sextant.’

‘He must also show it to me’, says Armand. ‘They don’t exist any more in a complete sate and those in museums are all in tatters such that nobody knows how to use them. We now know that the ancient sailors used them to locate themselves before the invention of the sextant.’

‘And the accurate time,’ says Angelica, ‘because I believe that a sextant is not worth much if we don’t have the correct GMT time. We could determine latitude, but never the longitude without the accurate time. This is what you have told us anyway.’

They continue to discuss this for breakfast and then go up the bridge. There is no great thing to do for navigation because they can maintain the same course for at least a day. This leaves time for other occupations. Angelica goes down in the cabin where Cecilia tries to explain Ussa what she is doing. That we must have only once the same number in a box, in a column and in a row.

‘Mom? Do you have a moment?’

She signals Ussa who wanted to leave that she should stay and continues:

‘Ussa, surely wants to ask you and Dad officially hand of Julian. You should perhaps look for a ring for her. You have still rings of grandmother and you have taken them with you.’

‘You want me to seek one for Leith at the same time maybe?’

‘No, we can wait a bit. We aren’t in a hurry, he can wait. Anyway I need to talk to you and you now know why.’

‘Yes,’ says Cecilia, ‘the first time was not good and you have fear now. Stay a moment with Ussa, I’ll see what I have for her.’

Ussa blushes when she sees Cecilia coming back with her jewelry box and she suddenly understands the contents of the conversation of Angelica and her mother. Angelica nods her and goes to seek Julian and her father.’

‘Papa, Julian, you must descend because Ussa wants to ask you something very important. Leith and I will stay at the helm in the meantime.’

The following night, it was the turn to Julian and Ussa to forget to wake up Angelica and Leith. Ussa, delighted with the ring received from her mother-in-law, has managed to explain to Julian and Armand that Leith had not slept two nights in a row and it would be better to leave him alone overnight. They slept, to the astonishment of Julian and Ussa, who wanted to wake them up as they did to them the day before, everyone quietly in a couch. They closed the door and let them sleep.

‘Leith and Angelica, don’t they come for breakfast?’ Asks Cecilia.

‘Let them sleep,’ says Julian, ‘they look tired all two. They did not even dare to sleep together. They sleep each wisely in a couch.’

The way back is simply not as fast as the outward journey. They are not in a hurry and even Cecilia has, despite the clouds, been able to tan. Especially the easy tempo lets her watch TV, even then when the reception is because of the movements of the boat, not that what it should be. During the outward journey, the boat was moving too much for a good satellite reception and Cecilia had to rely on her crosswords. So it’s this morning that Angelica and Leith, coming to breakfast, find very surprised that the others are ready for dinner.

‘So far recovered?’ Asks them Armand. We have let you sleep. Hungry? There remains a bit of coffee in the thermos, if you want any. We should, on the other hand, put a cross on the croissants, we did not have time to go to the bakery.’

‘We have enough craquottes and jam, isn’t it.’ Asks Angelica. ‘I had planned for many.’

Ussa, who did not see come back her two friends, descends into the cabin and sees to her astonishment a mixture of disparate things on the table. Angelica has in fact taken out her laptop and enters one by one the data of Leith in a spreadsheet, from which she tries to explain to him the operation.

‘Come and see Ussa,’ says Leith, ‘we put my details in her machine. This thing can make millions of calculations before we have time to make a wink. The impact changed the precession and I have errors if I use my astrolabe. Come and see, she has a superb clear image of Andromeda.’

‘Hey Leith!’ She says looking at the picture without paying more attention to it, ‘did you try to learn the words of their language. I am beginning to know a few.’

‘Yes, it was for fun to designate parts of the body. Face and others if you understand what I mean.’

‘Yes,’ says Ussa with a smile, ‘it’s the same for both of us. But, tell me, didn’t you share the couch with her? Why?’

‘I did not dare ask her and she has, I believe, fear. I think I do have to be a little patience. I don’t understand why, but she needs time. She knows now that she has nothing to fear from her girlfriend Alicia. The rest will come when it comes.’

The days go by and are not alike. The watching at the helm becomes on the other hand more delicate because they are coming closer to the area of the English Channel with its intense maritime traffic. The Leblanc decided to have shorter shifts so that there is one at the helm and the other one watching. Armand and Cecilia feel happy that their children deal with the night watching. They are young and better bear shortcut nights, but it’s especially Cecilia who does not feel good enough sailor to take the helm or to do the watching. During the day, it’s okay. We see the boats from far. It’s a sudden thrill of Leith who attracts the attention of Julian. He actually comes with the sea map which he shows Ussa and explains that they are not far from where the family of Penelope wanted to go.

‘But my dear Leith,’ says Ussa making a circular gesture around her, ‘there is no trace of any land over here. There is water, water and nothing but water. Where do you want to find land over here?’

Julian, who begins to understand a little, seizes the map and shows it to his girlfriend. He tries to explain to her that the blue area on the map is where once the continent was.

‘Dad,’ he says, turning to Armand, ‘I understand what Leith wants to tell us. We are at the place where the family of Penelope wanted to go.’

‘Yes land’, says Leith and designates areas in the open sea and next to Cornwall.

‘I understand that this land belonged to two of their Celtic friends’, says Angelica. ‘They thought they had a greater chance of survival there than further south because of the flood that would surely follow.’

‘Our Irish and Scots are descendants of their friends and fellows then?’ Asks Armand.

‘Yes, certainly,’ replies Angelica, ‘and our Basques are surely the descendants of the evacuation plan of Paris and Selena, as it’s in the Pyrenees they wanted to go.’

Armand explains to them that he wanted to go north to the Isles of Scilly and then move on east along the south coast of England. He begins to change course, to head towards the northeast. He tels them that it will be another nine hours before we must head east. He tels them that this road is due to the wind, not so fast as now, but safer.

‘If all goes well,’ he says to the others, ‘we will be at Fécamp tomorrow afternoon.’

Ussa who spent most of her time watching the English coast with Angelica’s binoculars, descends into her cabin and opens by chance another of her bags her mother had entrusted her. To her surprise, she sees a gift package with the remark “For parents of Angelica.” She goes up with this package and shows it to Leith and says: