“Oh, Dandin,” Van sang happily, “how glad I am to see you.”

“Thank you, Van,” the young man replied, “I see,” he looked at the Valikhilya for a moment. “Are you feeling better?”

Van bowed in embarrassment.

A semblance of a small gangway extended from the ship. One of the sides thinned out, forming an entrance. The earthlings, still breathing heavily with fear, began to come to their senses and looked at the ship and the young man.

David walked over to Van:

“Were you not feeling well?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” the flying escort said and shook his head, “I was sad for the first time in a million years and I had to leave the castle.”

“You had to?” David clarified.

“I was told to,” replied Van.

“For being sad?” Yulia was horrified.

Van nodded.

“But why?”

“Because sadness is the beginning of madness,” Dandin answered for Van. “If you’re sad, you have forgotten your position. You can be angry, you can be happy, but you cannot be sad,” he smiled. “Come up to the chariot,” Dandin invited everyone.

“But this is the King’s chariot,” Van shuddered.

At that, everyone looked at each other.

“I’m not sure,” Jean-Pierre interjected. “What if we come with you and sneeze for example, and you throw us from the top, because it is not supposed to.”

“You are the Emperor’s guests,” Dandin laughed. “You are allowed anything. My lord has sent his chariot for you. Isn’t it an honor?”

“I guess so,” said Dr Capri. “But who are you?”

“My name is Dandin, and I’m a servant of Vivasvan the King of the Sun. He has found out that you have come to see him, so he is graciously willing to welcome you. Have you come to ask for something?”

“Ask for something?” Dr Capri repeated.

“Yes, travelers most often come to ask for something from the emperor,” Dandin said.

“Is there something he can give us?” David wondered.

“Do you often have visitors?” Jean-Pierre added softly.

“He gives what is asked for,” Dandin smiled and then looked at Jean-Pierre. “It happens, they drop by.”

“We’ve been looking for the source of the signal,” Dr Capri interjected, “it brought us here. It’s a signal from one of our spaceships. We picked it up by accident and went in search of the source.”

Dandin nodded to the doctor, letting him know that they couldn’t get any more answers here than they’d already been told. For the rest, they would have to go up to the soaring city that still stood in place directly above the travelers.

“We will find all the answers,” Dandin nodded. “The Emperor will find them.”

“Do you know about the signal?” the doctor hesitated. “We would like to know why you sent it to us.”

Dandin tilted his head, trying to understand the doctor’s words:

“You want to ask the Emperor why he turned on the recording you sent him?”

“What? No!” the doctor wondered.

Everyone looked at each other.

“Are you trying to tell us we sent you the message?” Jean-Pierre asked. “I’m completely confused.”

“You just can’t see everything,” Dandin smiled. “Come on up, and I will try to explain.”

Van was the first one to board the ship, but before he did so he bowed down to the ground again. The doctor and then everyone else climbed aboard. The chariot was not pulled by strange beasts, nor did it have an engine or any semblance of machinery. Just a smooth surface, like a platter with sides. Everyone fit freely, the ship was big enough.

As soon as the last passenger from Earth climbed into the chariot, the ladder pulled into the base of the ship, and it began to rise slowly.

The hum began to build again, and the soaring castle-island moved on. Everyone looked down at the huge beam of light penetrating the surface of the Sun all the way to the core, leaving not a scar on it. It pierced the surface of the star, and from it diverged circles of fiery power in different directions. Orange mixed with red and yellow. The surface absorbed this energy without a trace, it spread out in heat in all directions and shone with a calming light into the darkness of the impenetrable cosmos.

The ship rose above the edge of a floating island, the pillar of fire disappearing beneath the smooth surface of the city streets. The travelers had a view of the beautiful city. The higher they climbed, the more they realized that the island held thousands of houses and streets. Many yellow towers and domes densely clustered on the smooth surface of the floating block. The city shone with many amazing details and jewels. There were small and large multi-storey buildings, columns, arches and intricate aqueducts. The material that shone on all the buildings was, without exception, a bright yellow color. It resembled the surface of a planet, but it did not melt before one’s eyes, it was frozen and nobly soothed. Translucent stones of varying size and color were visible everywhere. Some were green, others red or blue, and all were shining with a pleasant light.

“Is your king expecting us?” Jean-Pierre inquired casually. “Did he say by any chance what for?”

“Yes, he wants to see you,” Dandin smiled, “but you should answer by yourself for what. It is you who have come to see us.”

“Bhrigu sent them here,” Van said timidly.

Dandin turned to Van with a raised eyebrow.

“Bhrigu the rishi?” Dandin hesitated.

“I have a feeling that everyone knows this Bhrigu,” Jean-Pierre added grudgingly.

“Everyone here knows him,” Dandin was still deep in thought, “he is a relative of our Emperor, and you come from the Earth,” Dandin seemed to have made a discovery.

“Of course, from where else?” Jean-Pierre held up his hands, he was completely confused.

“Maybe at least the relative of this Bhrigu can explain why he sent us here,” said David to himself, shaking his head.

“From the Earth,” Dandin repeated with a little excitement.

He looked around at the earthlings, stopped his gaze on Yulia and froze. His eyes suddenly darkened, and his face went limp. His breathing became labored, and he blinked rapidly. The flying ship rocked and hit one of the tall buildings. Everyone was thrown to the left side, the ship flew rapidly downward. Only Van remained suspended in midair. The earthlings and Dandin dived downwards. There was a general shout.

The ship fell just outside one of the walls of the main palace. A hole was left in the wall and several jewels fell out of the loopholes. Everyone lay at the bottom of the golden vessel and tried to recover from the unexpected incident.

Dr Capri groped himself and looked around at the others.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh,” David rolled onto his back. “I think I’m okay.”

Everyone started to rise to their feet. Yulia suddenly noticed a red translucent stone, almost the size of her fist, in front of her, and automatically reached out for it. It glowed from within, but was cool to the touch. She looked up and realized that it had fallen from the wall: every half meter along the top edge of the palace wall, similar crystals glittered.

“What was that?” Jean-Pierre shouted.

Dandin shamefully shrunk his eyes and said quietly:

“There are no women here. I am sorry.”

“How old are you?” Jean-Pierre wondered. “Didn’t a woman give birth to you?”

Dandin looked at him with tears in his eyes, and Jean-Pierre immediately fell silent. He was surprised and backed away, not expecting such a demonstration of emotion. “All right, all right,” Jean-Pierre repeated, waving back and checking on how the others were feeling.

“The important thing is that everyone is alive,” Debby said, defusing the situation.

A worried Van came down from above:

“Are you all right?”

“Help us to get to the Emperor’s quarters,” Dandin asked, still lowering his gaze. “We will have to walk from here.”

“Oh yes,” Van said, “let’s go. Come with me.”