“What happened?” he asked. “Let’s go!”

“Look,” Debby said, “there are women here after all,” she pointed at the sculpture.

“What?” said Jean-Pierre in surprise.

“Yes, that’s right,” David said, turning to Dandin. “You said there are no women here.”

“That’s correct,” Dandin answered, lowering his eyes so as not to see the sculpture. “There are no women here for a long time now, but there used to be one, an amazing woman – our lord’s wife.

“And what happened?” Debby wondered.

“She left the Master.”

“Are there divorces in paradise?” Jean-Pierre grinned.

Dandin left his comment unanswered and turned to move on.

“Let’s move on,” Jean-Pierre shouted to Debby and Yulia, “no time to wait.”

The screen in the conference room presented information on the Sun’s activity: figures and graphs showed the situation in real time. The room was buzzing with activity. It was now the command center for all nations at once. Presidents and generals, ministers and heads of intelligence agencies came here. In the next room, a space was set up for press conferences, where representatives of various departments reported to the major news agencies.

It was decided that the focus should be on information about the Sun and the anomaly on it. About Voyager, they were silent for the time being because no one could link the information about the signal to what was going on with the Sun. In half an hour, the head of the European Space Agency had a big press conference. The world needed information.

Numbers flickered on the screen. In the background, people were discussing that weather services had begun to report changes in the weather in all regions of the globe. Jean-Jacques Dordain covered his face with his hands and repeated the same question to himself, “What is going on? Just one sensible thought.”

When he opened his eyes, a dazed assistant stood in front of him.

“What is it?” rubbing his forehead, Jean-Jacques Dordain asked.

“Monsieur,” said the assistant, “we have discovered something interesting,” he pointed to the laptop screen.

Monsieur Dordain picked up his glasses from the table and put them to his eyes, he gazed into the image.

“A new spot?” he suggested.

“Compared to this,” the assistant zoomed out of the image, “everything else on the Sun is a spot. It looks like the beginning of a plasma ejection or something. The temperature at that spot has almost doubled in a matter of minutes.”

“What a nonsense,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, closing his eyes. “How many degrees is it now?”

The assistant swallowed.

“Twenty million Kelvin,” his eyes darted around. “But we’re checking the data, there might be an error somewhere.”

“No,” Monsieur Dordain said with a shake of his head, “it’s not an error.”

He had already turned his gaze to the big screen and made sure that the information was up to date. The indicators on the screen were growing before his eyes. The last time Monsieur Dordain had looked at the monitor it had a figure of ‘-20%’ next to the phrase “solar activity, changes”, now it had another even more frightening figure, ‘+24%’. There was chaos in the room, everyone was talking and ringing loudly. Jean-Jacques Dordain turned on his microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. As you can see, the Sun’s activity has changed dramatically.”

Someone shouted from his seat:

“South America and the USA are now seeing a northern lights: does anyone in this room have an explanation for this?”

Mr Dordain was approached by the ESA’s chief analyst. He shook hands with Jean-Jacques, sat down next to him and switched on the microphone.

“Good afternoon, my name is Claudio Sianti. I have an answer for you.”

The room froze.

“Right now, we are observing an area on the surface of the Sun with a surface temperature of about 20 million Kelvin,” he saw that there was no reaction. “That’s a lot. We are now witnessing the largest coronal mass ejection in history. So what are the consequences of that?” he thought for a moment. “Northern lights? Yes. And also disruption of electrical appliances, navigation equipment, radio signals.”

“That’s clear. What’s next? What should we prepare for?” shouted out one of the military men grudgingly. “Can the planet withstand this pressure?”

Dr Sianti nodded, understanding the question.

“Yes, I see your point. What does this mean in the long run, that is the question? Well,” he pondered his answer, “it threatens termination.”

The whole room let out a questioning exclamation, “Huh?” Some recoiled back, and some started pointing at the screen with their hands. Monsieur Dordain and Dr Sianti turned to the screen. The graph showing the signal activity from Voyager froze.

Jean-Jacques Dordain was whispering to a running assistant.

“Are you sure this is accurate?” he switched on the microphone and clarified. “Gentlemen, the signal has stopped broadcasting. No one can register it even close to the quadrant.”

“So, is it over?” someone from the audience asked.

“No,” answered Dr Scianti and pointed at the number of the absolute luminosity which had jumped up two points.

Dandin walked ahead. He was pensive and sad, occasionally glancing at the travelers.

“What is with him?” Debby asked David in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” David shrugged, “maybe he’s still upset about the fall?”

Debby wanted to go up to the light-haired boy and ask him what was wrong, but she held herself back. She looked around at all the travelers for support. Dr Capri caught her gaze. Debby shifted her eyes to Dandin and turned back to the doctor. Dr Capri nodded.

They walked down a long corridor that seemed to have no end. Sometimes they turned and there were golden walls again. There were no pictures or objects on the walls, only a fine geometric pattern that mottled them from floor to ceiling, making them look like a honeycomb. Dr Capri approached Dandin. He signalled to the travelers to slow down and leave them alone.

“Dandin, is something worrying you?”

Dandin came out of his reverie and looked at the doctor in confusion.

“Huh? I was just wondering. My master once asked me if I wanted to get married or to serve him. At that time I confidently chose service,” he pursed his lips in an attempt to find the words and added quietly. “But today, when I saw… perhaps I was rushed?”

Dr Capri looked at him good-natured and lowered his eyes, remembering something.

“That’s all quite normal,” the doctor said, smiling. “How old are you, Dandin?” he asked.

Dandin hesitated for a moment and then said:

“According to your timeline, it’s about two million.”

The doctor coughed and blinked rapidly.

“I’m 17 here,” Dandin smiled.

“Good,” laughed the doctor. “It’s all right. Don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. Love gives us strength. You see,” he pointed to the statue that represented a beautiful woman, “and here once were…” he did not finish and stopped beside the sculpture.

The others caught up with them and looked at each other in bewilderment.

“Hey, that’s the statue we saw when we entered the palace,” David said grudgingly.

“Yes,” Dandin replied calmly and walked over to the large door that led to the center of the palace. “We just walked around our King’s chambers.”

“What?” said Jean-Pierre with a frown. “You took us around in circles for about an hour?”

“It is our tradition,” Dandin smiled, taking hold of the door handle, “to think before we speak.”

Everyone gathered in front of the door. Only Debby stared appreciatively at the statue of the woman near the entrance to the king’s chambers. She lowered her gaze to her feet: they were not touching the ground. The two images combined in Debby’s mind. She smiled to herself and whispered: