Van looked around at them all:

“You have come from the human world. What is it called now? Earth?” he asked.

“Um… Yes,” David grinned, “it’s always been called that.”

“Always?” Van snorted. “Just because you call your home by that name, it doesn’t mean that everyone else does. All right, Earth. Then the answer is this,” he paused for greater effect. “You’re on the Sun.”

Dr Capri, Yulia, and David began to ask other questions in rapid succession.

“How is it possible?”

“How can we be here if we have to burn?”

Van looked up at them with annoyance and shook his little head negatively.

“You said you would leave!” he said grudgingly and sharply.

“Wait,” Dr Capri tried to exhale. “We received a signal on Earth from our spacecraft. That’s why we’re here. Do you know anything about it?”

Van took small steps closer to the doctor.

“What kind of signal?” he looked at him questioningly.

“The signal from the Voyager,” the doctor was confused, unable to find the words in front of the unusual creature.

“It records the sounds of our planet, music and…” Yulia didn’t finish.

“Music?” Van smiled.

“Yes!” cried Dr Capri. “Did you send it? Did you want us to come here?”

“What?” said Van in surprise. “No. I mean, I’m not sure, but…” he hesitated again. “No, that can’t be right.”

Van turned away from the group of people who were grasping at the thin straw of understanding in this unusual and strange situation. He took a few steps and rubbed his forehead thoughtfully with a small hand.

“Okay,” Van concluded, “we’ll go to the palace and see if you should be here. But…” he turned sharply to the group, “you won’t ask any more questions, or…” the little Sun-dweller pondered.

“Or what?” Yulia asked.

“Ah!” shouted Van irritably. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’d better not say anything. Don’t say anything, or,” he thought up, “I won’t take you anywhere.”

Debby pointed with her finger that she was silent.

“Don’t do that,” Van said, mocking Debby. “Let’s go to the palace.”

“Wait a minute!” Jean-Pierre stopped him. “We have many questions, and we would like to understand how we got here and how it is possible that we are still alive.”

Little Van stopped for a second and turned to Jean-Pierre in surprise.

“How should I know exactly how you got here? You tell me.”

“We crashed in a plane and ended up in a cave somewhere in the Himalayas. And an old man, his name was Bhrigu, he…” Jean-Pierre saw Van’s little face change.

The little creature’s eyes rounded, and for the first time a sincere rather than sarcastic smile shone on his face, then he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

“Ha-ha-ha,” Van laughed in his squeaky voice. “The old man?! He is a great rishi. A sage who can travel from one planet to another. The keeper of the path between the worlds.”

“Oh crap,” Jean-Pierre whispered.

“Do you think he sent us here on purpose?” David asked Jean-Pierre quietly.

“How should I know? If he is so great, he might have.”

“Yes,” Yulia shook her head. “He probably didn’t like it very much when you grabbed him by his clothes and shook him.”

“Is he a great sage?” Dr Capri clarified. “Could he have sent us here?”

“Apparently, yes,” Van said uncertainly. “We should ask Dandin. He is the king’s assistant. And the sage Bhrigu is a great soul. Come, we can’t stand still for long.”

Little Van walked in small steps ahead.

“We have to find out everything,” Dr Capri said, warning Jean-Pierre’s words. “We must follow him.”

“Em, doctor, I wouldn’t be so sure,” replied the Frenchman. “Look, Tulu-Manchi…” Jean-Pierre began to speak.

“Yes, look, we’re on the Sun,” smiled the doctor, “we have to find out what all this means.”

Everyone smiled and got up to follow Van.

“Van,” Debby called out, “why can’t we stand for a long time?”

Van answered without turning around:

“Drown.”

“Well,” Jean-Pierre grudgingly agreed and started walking with the others, “then at least we won’t have to drag,” and he tried to lift Van into his arms.

It turned out that the little creature was very heavy. Van slapped Jean-Pierre on the fingers and jumped away from him.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” Van squeaked.

“I just wanted to speed up our walk,” Jean-Pierre said, continuing to be surprised by Van’s weight.

“Speed up?” Van shook his head. “Well,” he said, and rose above the surface, he floated through the air with increasing speed.

The cell phone began buzzing on the table beside the bed. Bernard Bajolet opened his eyes, looked up at the ceiling for a second, and tried to guess what the call might be about. He held the phone to his ear.

“Monsieur, I’m sorry to call you at this hour,” the temporary assistant named Desiree began to justify herself.

“It is your job,” said Bernard, without much ado. “To the point.”

“General assembly again. The Indians found a helicopter carrying a Russian engineer from Roscosmos and a doctor from the observatory in Kathmandu. They were the ones who detected the signal…” the assistant wanted to continue.

“I know. Car!” Monsieur Bajolet interrupted her.

“Already downstairs.”

Bernard Bajolet hung up and quickly got ready. In five minutes he was in the car. Twenty minutes later, he entered the hall he was already familiar with and sat down at his seat. There were several people in the hall besides him. Everyone looked sleep-deprived. Igor Komarov entered the hall and looked at his watch. Mr. Bajolet nodded at him in greeting. The screen began to set up a video conference call with the Indian military base.

More and more people began to enter the hall. Soon an Indian general entered the room, speaking on the phone, and informed his colleagues that the video conference should begin.

“Will we be able to start soon?” Jean-Jacques Dordain asked via microphone.

“Yes,” replied the general, “helicopter pilots are already there.”

A small conference room appeared on the screen. The camera was fixed on top and showed a simply furnished room. A great number of military men were sitting at the table.

“So, gentlemen,” the Indian general hung up his phone and began speaking into the microphone. “Our team just returned from a rescue expedition. We found the pilot, Captain Shah, the co-pilot and the military communicator. They were sent by the Nepalese military as an escort…” the general didn’t have time to finish.

“Excuse me,” Igor Komarov interrupted him, “have you found Yulia Danilina?”

“Um… No,” replied the general.

“What?! But what happened?” the head of Roscosmos began to get nervous.

“That’s why we asked Captain Shah to tell us his version of what happened. It is more about the missing plane.”

There was a pause. It was obvious that the signal had already reached the military base, but Captain Shah didn’t start any explanation.

“He doesn’t speak English, so he will be translated,” the general added. “Please, Captain Shah, tell us what happened.”

A few more seconds of silence and everyone heard the tired voice of the Nepali pilot. The Indian military interpreter began to speak:

“We left our base yesterday morning. We had two civilians with us. One was a Russian girl from Roscosmos, the other was Dr Capri from Kathmandu Observatory,” the interpreter swallowed, clearly worried. “We were moving to the specified quadrant near Kanchenjunga. Near the supposed place of the emission, all the helicopter systems shut down. We contacted the base…”

“Shut down?” the Russian general sitting next to Igor Komarov asked into the microphone. “Describe in details what happened.”

There was a pause again.

“I don’t know,” briefly, but with a shiver in his voice the Indian soldier translated, “all systems simply turned off. I hardly landed the machine.”