Māra un Māris uz Marsa

Against the rosy skies the little star could barely be seen, but it was coming ever closer. Having climbed the red dune, Māris watched the Jaunrīga rocket port. The little star darted past the little moon, and one could already tell that the runway lights were switching on at the port and the robot helper machines were surrounding the rocket's landing place. In Mars's thin atmosphere the rocket's echo thundered, and Māris saw that ten kilometers away the rocket was descending onto the runway, throwing out enormous parachutes and firing its steering rockets to slow its rapid pace.

Māris and his family had already been living on Mars for a whole year, but rocket landings still impressed him deeply. Moreover, on this rocket his father, Jānis Krūmiņš, was returning from a scouting expedition to the asteroids. When the rocket had come to a stop, Māris bounded down from the dune in great leaps to his bubble-tire wheel. Such three-wheelers with meter-wide tires were necessary for riding across the sandy Martian surface. When great winds arose, the sticky sand covered over hollows into which a person could sink under his own weight. The wide tires of the bubble-tire wheels made it possible to ride over such hollows. Māris's wheel also had a battery and an electric motor, meant only for emergencies, in case Māris could not move his legs himself.

Along the edge of the runway Māris rode to the port's waiting hall. There he locked his wheel to a parking post. He entered the port building through the air-doors. He felt especially proud of these, because his uncle Arturs had invented them. They allowed people to pass freely in and out while consuming very little energy, and also kept the air from escaping the building.

Once inside, Māris pulled off the breather that was necessary outside, in Mars's thin atmosphere. He swept his gaze across the spacious hall and walked up to the information booth placed in the middle of the room.

“Please, did the supply rocket from Duke Jēkabs just land?” asked Māris.

“Indeed it did!” answered the friendly clerk. “Your father is already in bio-control. If you like, you can speak with him in five minutes.”

Bio-control had been installed at the Jaunrīga port after an incident when a rocket from Earth arrived full of people mortally ill with a new type of plague against which no medicine helped. Within a few hours everyone who had come into contact with that unfortunate flight fell ill. Fortunately, no one was let any further. All the buildings where these patients had stayed were destroyed, and the patients themselves were taken to the sealed laboratory of the Great Moon, where they were treated and the disease brought from Earth was studied.

Māris sat down by a television screen. Several other waiting people had already settled there and were watching the last quarter of the free-ball final. Free-ball had been invented in the great satellite colonies and was played in specially built arenas where there was no Earth gravity. The rules were largely similar to football, which in ancient times had been played on Earth. The sport was ideal because it gave teams from different worlds similar advantages. Watching, Māris became so absorbed that he almost didn't hear the clerk's voice: “Māri, your father can speak with you now.”

Māris went to the communicator and pressed the “BIO” button. A lab technician's face appeared on the screen, and Māris asked, “Could I please speak with Mr. Krūmiņš?”

The next instant his father appeared, and Māris asked, “Dad, how did it go?”

“Māri! Unbelievable discoveries!” his father said quickly. “Ceres was once inhabited! We will announce this tomorrow evening to all the inhabited worlds. But for now, don't tell anyone about it! Now I still have to wait until some blood analyses are finished. Call Mother and tell her we'll be home in an hour and a half. Once again — don't tell anyone anything about what I just told you. Can you wait for me?”

“Yes. Mother sent me to meet you, after all.”

“Good, then we'll see each other in twenty minutes or so.”

Māris slowly put down the receiver. In his head swirled the mixture of dreams, thoughts, and hopes of a thirteen-year-old boy. Oh, how he wanted to visit Ceres and all those places where his father traveled! He also couldn't drive from his mind his father's order not to tell anyone anything about what he had just heard. Why such secrecy?

While waiting for his father, Māris began reading a history book to prepare for the essay assigned for tomorrow's class. His task was to describe how Moon City came to be. Māris didn't like reading about the atomic war, the new plague, and all those terrible things that had happened on Earth long ago, 300 years before. The atomic war in 2017 destroyed nearly half of Earth's inhabitants. The new plague of 2023–2024 destroyed nearly everyone who had survived the war. <An introductory piece about the planets, asteroids, etc. needs to be added to this chapter.>

<The historical account is rather long for children, though it was interesting to adults in the original version.>

Paradoxically, it was the Moon colonies that saved humanity. They were small and few, except for the Soviet Union's colony, for it had been discovered that within less than a year the human body adapted so thoroughly to the Moon's low gravity and other conditions that on returning to Earth, hemorrhages, rheumatism, and other ailments developed. The afflicted person soon died. People from the Western lands spent three, at most six, weeks in the colonies. But the Soviet Union considered the Moon a wonderful place to send people with “antisocial tendencies.” When Earth's last great war broke out, the colonists from the Soviet Union were predominantly Balts — Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians. By that time 23,459 Balts had been taken to the Moon, predominantly Latvians. The remaining 8,764 people at Novosibirsk III were from various republics. Only 434 people served as order-keepers, because all the colonists knew that food would be supplied from Earth only if they worked peacefully and diligently in the ore mines.

The main task of Novosibirsk III was to produce parts for a secret satellite weapons system. When China learned of the Soviet Union's intentions, it tried to destroy the satellites. The Western powers intervened, and the Last War broke out. Over the years, the automatic control circuits of the war rockets wore out. In 2011, right at the North Pole, all the atomic rockets remaining in North America exploded. It was the greatest explosion in world history and caused a geological catastrophe. The ice at both poles melted and covered the Earth with water 100 meters above the normal sea level. Panama was submerged. Enormous waves raged across the Pacific and, merging with the warm Atlantic waters, crashed against the coasts of Africa and Europe. An ice age began such as Earth had never experienced. Within a hundred years the glacier had already reached central Canada. Humans and mammals nearly perished. Insects, however, quickly adapted to the new conditions.

Here and there on Earth, small islands of humanity survived. For a time the Moon colonists were able to supply them with food, medicine, and other necessities. But the magnetic rockets needed wide runways, which existed only near a few major cities. Then the strains of micro-organisms adapted so far that the Moon-dwellers' limited science and technology could no longer keep up, and visits to Earth were halted as hopeless.

Moon City began to be built in 2063, when the Latvian language and culture had become established as dominant in Novosibirsk's everyday life. The early years were very hard: there was little to eat except artificial products, which often tasted bad. Fortunately, much information about life on Earth had been recorded in the computer networks of the American colonies. With this knowledge, the algae grown in large glass vats for oxygen production were also transformed into a healthy and quite tasty sour porridge. Variety in the diet didn't develop, however, until people learned to cultivate underground gardens.

In the century during which the Moon-dwellers developed robot rocket technology, the various cells, seeds, and animals brought from Earth had multiplied, and Moon City had developed far enough that colonies on Mars could be seriously planned. These were followed by colonies in other worlds, so that humanity would not perish again if misfortune were to strike one world.

Māris knew that Moon City was inhabited by over 300,000 people with their robot staff. On the Moon there also remained the old American, Chinese, and Japanese colonies. Some 230,000 people inhabited the satellite colonies. On Mars there were over 350,000 inhabitants — most of them in Jaunrīga, then in Gambia, Tobago, and many other small scouting villages, such as Māris's own Nītaure. In total there were considerably fewer than a million people, and there were no more people than that.

History is so depressing, Māris thought, that he didn't even feel like opening the book. He drifted into dreams of an adventure-filled journey to Ceres, then onward to Jupiter, to Saturn's moons, and then to the stars.

His father's hand on his shoulder startled him from his dreams.

“I see you're reading history. We must never forget how humanity once nearly destroyed itself.”

“Yes, but it's so depressing.”

“An even sadder story can be found right here,” his father stretched out his hand toward the great sand dunes visible beyond the air-doors.

“On Ceres we found an entire city that seems to have been founded by the ancient Martians, but here we can't find a trace of them. I'm beginning to think that something happened to the Martians much like what happened on Earth. Some of them must have escaped the devastation, and afterward their descendants vanished too. Nothing has been found here yet, but God alone knows what lies hidden beneath the sands.”

Once the breathers were on, needless talk was of no use. They had to ride their wheels 16 kilometers to the Nītaure scouting village. The road was tiring, and night had come as well. Māris was afraid of the night-birds. No one had yet caught a night-bird, but there was no shortage of tales about large bird-like creatures. There had been several cases where riders vanished without a trace. Many remembered the incident in Gambia, where a house had been split in two as if by a giant sword.

In the distance Māris saw the village lights glimmer. Sand beat against his goggles. Dark as hell. The wind raged all around. On the side where his father was riding, a strong light suddenly appeared, and a Mars-bus roared past, flinging whirls of sand from its great wheels. They were half-buried in the sticky sand. Then the two set off again. After a while the lights of Nītaure came into view.

The wind tore even harder. Father embraced Māris tightly. When the noise of the wind died down, Father growled, “A sand devil!” That was the name for the small whirlwinds caused by Mars's rapid temperature changes. They dug themselves out of the sand and rode on. Soon they caught sight of their bubble house. It looked like a large balloon stuck in the sand. In essence, that's just what it was — a balloon with rooms. The balloon kept the air inside and trembled constantly on the outside, so that during the great storms the sand would not stick to it and bury the houses, sealing them in their graves forever. All 28 buildings of the village were interconnected by tunnels, so that during a storm life could go on normally and, in the worst case, there would be a way out of danger.

They rode into the village garage and headed home. Both were hungry and now thought only of a warm, delicious supper.

Māra was waiting impatiently for Dad and her brother. Every few minutes she ordered the television to show the road from Jaunrīga.

“Mommy, Daddy still isn't coming!”

“They'll be here soon enough. Māris called a little while ago to say they had already left.”

“I finished my physics and math homework, and we've already cleaned the house three times.”

“Dad will be home soon.”

“Mom! I'm already ten years old! I could have gone to meet Dad!”

“We've already discussed that. You'll have to be patient. You're a sensible girl...”

A ring at the door interrupted Mother's lecture.

“Door!” she called to the television. Father's and son's smiling faces appeared on the screen. Mother said, “Door open!” and the door swung wide as Māris called out loudly, “I brought Dad home!”

Father looked into the joy-filled eyes of Mother and Māra and said, “These magnets pulled me home too!”

Father kissed Mother and his daughter. Then both Father and son placed their breathers on the shelf and hung up their coats.

“Come eat right away. You must both be hungry,” Mother's voice rang from the kitchen. Father walked through the living room and admired Māra's rock collection, which was attractively arranged and lit on the wall shelf.

“Mārīte! I see you have some new rocks.”

“Yes, I found them near Gaiziņkalns, which our scout troop explored to earn the geologist badge.”

“Where is Gaiziņkalns?”

“Gaiziņš is beyond the King's Bowl, the largest meteor crater near Jaunrīga. But hurry up. Dinner will soon be as cold as Māra's rocks,” Mother called from the kitchen.

“Daina, we're coming. I brought our geologist some rocks from Ceres. Two of them look exactly like that bluish cylinder Mārīte brought back from Gaiziņkalns.”

Father grabbed one cylinder from the shelf and immediately dropped it on the floor.

“Hot as blazes!” he cried out, and shortly after yelped “Ow!” as he yanked two similar cylinders from his pocket. “Māri! Run and get the extinguisher! Māra! Bring the radmeter (radiation meter) from the generator room!”

Mother, having waited in vain for her diners, came into the living room.

“What's that?” she pointed at the red-hot cylinders on the floor.

“I don't know, but it seems that when the Ceres cylinders are put together with the Gaiziņš cylinder, a powerful electromagnetic reaction occurs.”

Father shouted, “Guards!”

The communicator automatically called the Jaunrīga Guard Office and raised the alarm in Nītaure itself.

Māra ran in with the radmeter, which showed strong beta waves and powerful magnetic radiation. Father sent the rest of the family into the tunnels and grabbed the Ceres cylinders himself with tongs, gripping them tightly in asbestos gloves, and dashed outside, where a “sand devil” was raging once more. Running at full speed, he managed only a few steps before the sand stung painfully into his face. Another moment, and he would have been lost. He flung the cylinders as far as he could in what seemed to be the direction away from the bubble-house village. With hands shielding his eyes, he headed back the way he had come. Without cover, Mars's sharp wind-driven sand would have ground his eyes raw. Fortunately, he was well trained. When he bumped against the bubble-house wall, he followed it nimbly until he reached the tunnel junction where there was a special emergency entrance. Mother was already there with a breather and goggles on. She pulled her husband toward the emergency entrance. Father was taken immediately to the neighbor Raiders' house to rinse the sand off his skin in the shower and apply healing ointments. Meanwhile, the guards arrived. One of them examined Father, while the others inspected the Krūmiņš house and measured the radiation level. It was normal now.

Māris told them about the cylinders, and the dark-haired guard ran outside with the radmeter to search for the cylinders. He found one and placed it in a radiation-safe container, which he loaded onto the aircraft. The guards promised to bring the large sand sifter to find the other one.

The guard officer said, “You certainly had an interesting dinner after your return from Ceres, Mr. Krūmiņš. Good night! If anything new happens, please report it. This matter is strange.”

With that, the guards climbed into the aircraft and shot off into the darkness toward Jaunrīga.

Mrs. Raider came over to the bewildered Mr. Krūmiņš and said, “Well, Jānis, you'll have to eat at our place! Daina told me that dinner burned in all the excitement.”

Father replied, “Well, that's very kind, but...”

“No buts. Come to the table. Dinner is ready.”

Mrs. Raider was very eager to hear about life on Ceres. Her sister Aira had been living there for a whole year already and hadn't returned to Mars even once, not even on holiday.

Mr. Raider was an old teacher, nearly retired. He got along well with children, especially boys. He could tell such fascinating tales about star travelers that now and then some boys, and occasionally a girl, would sneak out of regular classes to listen to old Raider.

When Father noticed Martian cacti on the table, he said, “Now, we certainly didn't taste such delicacies on Ceres. Martian cacti are many times more delicious than all the foods our ancestors brought from Earth.”

Martian cacti tasted like a porcini mushroom, like an avocado, like freshly roasted chicken. M-mm-mm. It was also Martian cactus that had burned in Mother's oven.

Māris and Māra had never eaten this rare, festive delicacy before. Each received a small bowl of cactus with a silver lid. When they lifted the lid, you had to squint your eyes, because the look of it wasn't pleasant. But the aroma was lovely. Raider urged them to bring the bowl to their lips and drink. The flavor was so delightful that Māra could no longer hear nor see, and all her mind seemed to be perched on the tip of her tongue, then it spread and expanded, following the cactus juice's journey to her stomach, from where a warm, soothing feeling filled her entire body.

“Mrs. Raider, thank you! That was truly heavenly,” said Māra.

Then Māris tasted the cactus, and so one by one they all savored the strange dish while the others watched the joy-filled faces.

Afterward they served more ordinary foods, and that gave Father the chance to tell about life on Ceres, about the long journey, and also about the scout that would go farther from Ceres to explore Jupiter's moons.

“Did you meet my sister Aira?” asked Mrs. Raider.

“I did indeed. She sends you many warm greetings. Aira works there as a librarian. She helped us a great deal with the archaeological papers about the Moon.”

Father was about to go on about the Moon excavations when he noticed a little light glowing in the left corner of the television. That meant the set was switched on for communication...

“Imant, did you notice your television is listening?”

The screen seemed to go dark for a moment. Then the little light reappeared. Father rushed to the set and began pressing buttons. Everyone watched in amazement, then letters flashed on the screen:

“GOOD DAY! WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?”

Father cried out, “The central computer is eavesdropping on us! How could that happen?”

“A little while ago I asked the computer, Old Jokupēteris, to find some materials for tomorrow's lessons,” Raider recalled. “Lately it switches itself off when the conversation is over. It probably hasn't disconnected from that task.”

“That always happens to us at school,” said Māris.

Father then asked Mother, “Does that happen at home too?”

“Yes. Quite often, actually. Why do you ask?” Mother was beginning to worry.

“I think someone has started watching us,” said Father.

“Who?”

Māra ran up to Father and asked, “What do they want with us?”

“I don't think it's that serious,” said Raider with a smile at Father.

“Nothing serious can really come of it,” said Mother, but Māra sensed she was worried all the same.

Father laughed it off: “Yes, it's probably just a glitch in the computer's program, because the very same thing happened to us on Ceres. You know, we may have found an ancient computer center on Ceres, in a bunker deep beneath the world's surface. There was one of the largest consoles I've ever seen in my life. The size of the buttons suggested that the operators had tiny little fingers or feelers. At first all the buttons seemed to be similar colors, yet on closer inspection each one turned out to be slightly different. The Ceresians must have had sharp eyes. I kept feeling that a light flickered on here and there, although that seemed impossible.

“Aldis has very sharp eyes too,” Māra remarked.

“Aldis?” asked Father.

“Aldis is our school's Huck Finn. When he shows up at school, everyone knows there'll be mischief. Yesterday he supposedly 'liberated' all the school laboratory mice,” explained Raider.

“He's Indra Rieksts's son. They arrived from Moon City around the time you left on the Hercogs Jēkabs,” said Mother.

Mrs. Raider saw the questioning look in Father's eyes and added, “She's the wife of the late Zintars Rieksts.”

“Aldis never told me he was Zintars's son. Rieksts led the first expedition to Jupiter's moons and later vanished in Saturn's rings, after encountering that strange light...” Māris murmured in astonishment.

“Nobody really knows what happened to him, do they?” asked Raider.

“No. That's probably why they moved here from Moon City, to be closer to Rieksts. You remember that strange radio transmission that was picked up two years later, in which something like his voice could be heard... At least that's what the sound analysis suggested. Nothing clear could be made out, though,” Father explained. “But now we must go home, because the children have school tomorrow.”

While everyone was saying goodbye and putting on their coats, Māris quickly called Aldis and told him everything that had happened.

When they got home, the living room was dark. Māra glanced at her shelf and noticed a bluish glow.

“Daddy, what's that?!”

Father came closer and exclaimed, “That's your cylinder from Gaiziņkalns! Māri, grab the lead cover from the shelf in the generator room! Māra, bring the radmeter! When the guards were still here, the radiation level was normal. But safe is safe — let's wrap that cylinder in the lead cover.”

When they were all fast asleep, a strange commotion broke out by the house. Something seemed to be falling and breaking. Everyone sprang from their troubled sleep. Both parents grabbed their ray rifles, which were always at hand. Mother went to the children. Father headed for the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen seemed to be in order.

Father shouted at the television: “Search for the intruder in the house! Lights. Outside lights.”

Lights came on everywhere. On the television screen, a shadow flickered and vanished into the desert.

From the living room Mother called, “The lead cover is torn open! The cylinder is gone!”

Something small, like a mouse, darted into the wall, leaving sandy tracks on the carpet.

Father pulled on his breather and ran outside. He spotted where a hole had been drilled in the wall, then by chance noticed comical, oval-shaped tracks in the sand. He photographed them immediately.

Father activated the special home security system and reported what had happened to the guards, who promised increased protection.

They returned to an uneasy calm.

Early in the morning, television reporters were there to interview Father about the strange incident, but the guards wouldn't let them anywhere near. The morning news did show telephoto shots taken from an aircraft. Nītaure village with all its houses was clearly visible in them.

There had been no wind during the night, and in the morning when the children set out for school, the tracks were still visible. Strangely, about twenty paces from the house, they suddenly disappeared.

“After yesterday's excitement you'll find it hard to study,” Mother said, and treated the children and Father to pancakes with birch sap sauce.

“Perhaps we should let the children sleep a bit longer, so they can do well at school?”

Mother considered Father's suggestion, but Māris had already blurted out, “I'm done eating,” and was already going for his school bag. Soon Māra jumped up too, gave thanks for breakfast, and ran to the bedroom.

Father and Mother exchanged surprised looks, but both children were already out the door.

“Goodbye, Daddy! Goodbye, Mom! We'll have so much to tell at school!”

Māris wiped the sand off his bubble-wheeler and watched as Māra rolled hers out from the shed. Then they both pulled on their breathers and beyond the air-doors raced along the tunnel until it joined the Jaunrīga road, and started riding toward school. Māris said to his sister, “Hey! Let's have a look ourselves at what happened out there yesterday.”

They turned back toward Nītaure. It was a wonderful, beautiful, windless day. The sun shone warmly and the temperature had risen. Not far from the house they noticed disturbed sand. After the wind had died down, someone had been thrashing about there. They followed the churned-up sand into the desert to the south of the great rock that jutted high into the sky, so high that even by day you could see the little moon. Beyond the rock, grayish sponge-moss spread across the sand and reached upward over the rock's surface. The fragile tendrils of the sponge-moss had been trampled in three places, leaving well-imprinted, oval-shaped tracks. The tendril sap had coated the wounded spots so that the tracks were perfectly smooth, but around them the fast-growing tendrils were already stretching two centimeters higher.

Māra looked to see whether the tracks led any farther. She was surprised that the sand beyond the moss was completely undisturbed.

“Māri!” she called out in amazement and pointed to where the tracks should have been. Māris took photographs from several angles. Then they hurried back toward the house. There they noticed a perfectly round hole the width of a fist in the house wall. It was covered over by an automatically repaired film over the barely visible scar in the house wall. Father and Mother had already left. Lost in thought, the two headed off toward school, nearly a full hour later than when they had left home.

Here and there in the distant desert you could see clumps of five-year roses. Bright pink blossoms, a dizzyingly enchanting fragrance. Mr. Jokupēteris had warned that one should avoid their scent, as it contained a mild narcotic.

Jaunrīga lay in the Earth's Navel, a meteor crater whose fragments had been flung all the way to Earth half a billion years ago. Māris rode up onto the crater's rim and waited for Māra. Far below in the crater you could see the buildings of Jaunrīga. The city was formed by several progressively larger rings of buildings, marking the phases of the city's development. At the very center was the main control hub for the entire city and for all the other inhabited places on Mars. The outermost ring was mostly industrial buildings and warehouses, the next one dwellings, and between the rings were gardens. Then came two more similar rings of buildings. Then there was the ring of schools, entertainment halls, and gymnasiums. In it stood the library, laboratory, and university buildings. At the very center was the Parliament building and other government structures.

At eight points around the Earth's Navel there were special elevators for riding down into Jaunrīga. As they rode up the gentle outer slope of the Navel, they spotted the round elevator booth, gleaming like a silver balloon among gigantic red rocks. When they came right up to it, the computer asked in a kindly voice:

“YOUR NAME AND DESTINATION, PLEASE.”

“Māris Krūmiņš, Krišjānis Barons School.”

“Māra Krūmiņa, Krišjānis Barons School.”

Without much delay the computer promptly replied: “YOU MAY PROCEED. YOU ARE ONE HOUR LATE.”

The computer had already begun searching for the children fifteen minutes after their usual arrival time and had only picked them up on its radar shortly before they arrived. This method was necessary to keep people from disappearing without a trace in the desert.

The doors opened in the round elevator tower, and the two rode in and parked their bubble-tire wheels in the storage room. The wheels couldn't be left outside too long, or they could be covered by a red, rubbery film of sand.

Māris and Māra stepped into the elevator and, after a six-hundred-meter ride, stepped out into a transfer hall. It was crowded with people. Some were loading a whole week's food rations onto a trailer for one of the outpost villages.

On the other side was a train tunnel that led to the city center, with stations at each ring. At the train entrance gates, the computer asked:

“YOUR NAME AND DESTINATION, PLEASE.”

“Māris Krūmiņš, going to Krišjānis Barons School.”

“Māra Krūmiņa, Krišjānis Barons School.”

“A TEN-SANTĪM FARE WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM THE FAMILY ACCOUNT. YOU ARE ONE HOUR AND FOURTEEN MINUTES LATE. PLEASE HURRY.”

They boarded the train and sat down at the end of the car. Around nine o'clock the train was mostly full of merchants and officials from the outpost villages. They were heading into the big city to trade for money or goods, or to meet with fellow tradesmen and government people. They were different from the professors, teachers, students, and engineers the children usually encountered on the train. The chatter seemed much livelier and louder.

Māra said, “These people like talking even more than teachers do.”

“I don't think so. We usually ride much earlier, when everyone is still half asleep. These people are simply properly awake.”

They didn't have far to ride. Soon the computer announced: “MĀRIS AND MĀRA! THE NEXT STOP IS KRIŠJĀNIS BARONS STATION. YOU ARE NOW ONE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES LATE FOR CLASS.”

“Can't he keep his mouth shut?” Māra burst out in anger. “Everyone is staring at us now.”

“MĀRA! DON'T THEY TEACH YOU TO SPEAK MORE POLITELY AT SCHOOL?”

“Doesn't that sound like the school computer — Mr. Jokupēteris?” Māris whispered to Māra.

“I think so. But sometimes the same voice seems to come from the television at home.”

“Maybe they're all one and the same computer?” Māra added.

“Perhaps. Perhaps.”

The conversation broke off, because the train stopped. The doors flew open, and the children stepped out. The air here was warm, fresh, and pleasant. Around this time the climate-control machines set going a gentle little rain that sprinkled the broad lawn. In its midst the school buildings looked like islands in a lake. The buildings extended several stories above and below ground, so as not to needlessly take up the soil precious for gardening and oxygen production. Hurrying along the school path, both children heard echoing in their minds: “Perhaps. Perhaps.”

Krišjānis Barons School! It was hard to understand why a Martian school was named after the ancient collector of folk songs. Above the doors were carved the words:

ENDURANCE. SELF-RELIANCE. VIGOR

Māris understood the meaning of these words a bit better than Māra, because he had read about how the human race nearly perished when individual people had not learned to survive under the most difficult conditions, or to resist the deadening of the spirit caused by the great mechanization system. He also knew that if the first people of Moon City had not had the Song, they would not have endured. The Song sustained some in boundless solitude, gave others a sense of belonging, purpose, and the will to live, even when it seemed that the whole cosmos was shattering to pieces.

The school doors stood open, since the air everywhere was fresh and warm enough for people to breathe. Māra left her brother and went to the music classroom. Māris still had hopes of slipping into the history classroom unnoticed. At the classroom door, the computer's quiet voice sounded:

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

“Māris Krūmiņš.”

“WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I TELL MRS. PRIEDĪTE THAT YOU WERE AN HOUR AND A HALF LATE?”

“I would lose points and probably also the chance for a trip to Ceres, which is the prize for the best eighth-grade student.”

“IF YOU DO ME A SMALL FAVOR, I WON'T TELL MRS. PRIEDĪTE.”

“What kind of favor?”

“CARRY A FEW SMALL BOXES OUT INTO THE DESERT. I'LL EXPLAIN LATER. DO WE HAVE A DEAL?”

“All right,” said Māris, thinking he would later do as he pleased.

Opening the classroom door a crack, he saw that Mr. Jokupēteris was displaying especially beautiful and intricate figures on the screen, and so he was able to sneak safely into the classroom and sit down at his desk by the door. Mrs. Priedīte continued leading the discussion about the founding of Jaunrīga and soon noticed Māris in his seat.

“Māri, how did you get here?” she asked.

A little bird appeared on the big classroom screen. Some children noticed it and began to laugh. Then suddenly the screen showed Māris sitting on the back of an enormously large elephant. The whole class roared with amusement, and Mrs. Priedīte scolded Mr. Jokupēteris:

“Computer Rīga 300! If you don't stop these pranks, I'll report you to Mr. Rācenis! This is a history class, not a comedy show!”

“YES, MRS. PRIEDĪTE. I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!”

“That's right. If you don't improve, the school will get a new computer!”

Continuing, Mrs. Priedīte asked Māris: “In what year did the Earth's Last Great War begin?”

Māris answered correctly, and the teacher turned her attention to other children. Māris looked around searching for his good friend Aldis.

Mr. Jokupēteris noticed Māris's gaze, and on the screen flashed: “ALDIS IS PRETENDING TO BE SICK.”

But Līga, who was always teasing Māris, had noticed it too. She smirked and laughed out loud. Mrs. Priedīte looked at her, then spun around sharply and addressed the screen: “That's enough this time, Jokupēteri! I'm going to Mr. Rācenis. Tomorrow they'll bring a new computer. Children! Please begin writing your essays.”

Jokupēteris, however, didn't mind that the school could replace one computer with another. The central computer controlled all the individual units however it wished. Nobody yet knew that within Jokupēteris three intelligences worked together: human, machine, and Martian. Through his antics, Jokupēteris was seeking a balance.

The bed was shaking and groaning. Aldis opened his eyes and sat up. Aldis was one of the rare people who forced the bed's robot to use extreme measures to wake him. Normally a little bell would tinkle or some rousing music would play, and the sleeper would get up. Aldis made his bed use every possible trick before he finally decided to rise. Once, the bed even reported him to a doctor, since it was never foreseen that a person could sleep under such conditions. On school mornings, it was no use for the bed even to dump Aldis onto the floor, because he would just keep sleeping there on the floor. This morning, however, was different. Aldis stumbled to the kitchen and announced that his head and stomach hurt.

Mother sighed and said, “Well then, let's measure your vital signs.” Mrs. Rieksts took the life-meter from the medicine cabinet and fastened the cuff around his right arm, and also stuck a gray little tube in Aldis's mouth. She also handed him small earphones, which Aldis placed on his head. Each of these devices contained sensors that monitored how the body's various systems were working. Mother pressed a button, and the screen displayed: “TEMPERATURE 40. CHILD IS SICK AND MUST NOT ATTEND SCHOOL. TREAT ACCORDING TO PLAN 112. IF THE TEMPERATURE HAS NOT DROPPED BY MORNING, HE MUST BE TAKEN TO A DOCTOR.”

“Aldi, you get sick so often, yet the doctors never find anything wrong with you. The last one said bluntly that you're simply lazy and careless. What am I to do with you?”

“Mommy, I'll try to get better quickly and then I'll help you clean the house.”

“Son, I know. You always get better quickly. That's exactly what I don't understand. Well, I must get ready for work. Go back to bed.”

Mother set the bed's controls to “SICK,” and the bed began playing soft, pleasant music.

“Later, if you feel better, heat up the fish and potatoes with peas for lunch. I'll need to keep a closer eye on you. You roughhouse too much and don't dress warmly enough when you go outside the city. All the best!”

Mrs. Rieksts hurried to catch the Baltezers train in time. She worked as a secretary at the Jaunrīga University faculty, hoping in this way to get news of her missing husband. She still believed he would be found. In the past, Aldis's mother had been an artistic dancer. She used to spend countless hours dancing, but after Rieksts's disappearance somewhere near Jupiter, she spent a similar amount of time at church or in Baltezers Park.

When Aldis was sure that Mother was already on the train, he fiddled with the controller buttons for a while, then put on his shoes and packed warm desert clothes and a breather into his backpack. Aldis didn't take the train, so that his tracks couldn't be followed. Instead, he jogged on foot to nearby Baltezers Park. He walked through the park, avoiding the lake and also the forest where Earth trees grew. The lake always gave him a strange feeling, which Mother explained as a sense of the sacred, but which he himself felt as pure fear. Nowhere else on the surface of Mars was there such a large expanse of water as at Baltezers, or so many trees — birches, spruces, friendship trees, pines, lindens, and oaks — the largest plants on all of Mars. For many, this place was sacred, and they would visit it at life's great occasions. Marriages were performed at the Friendship Trees. Sorrows were confided to the Mourning Mother waterfall. In the park, it was forbidden to bring any devices whatsoever. Computers, radios, wrist-coms, and other gadgets had to be left with the guard on duty at the main gates. The park was a place where a person could escape from any communication devices, meditate, sink into thought, or chat freely with friends.

Aldis, however, avoided the gates, walked over a hundred meters along the park's edge, and then at the usual spot where an oak branch reached over, he climbed over the fence. Reaching the far side of the park, he climbed over the fence the same way. In another half hour he reached the other side of the Earth's Navel, where there was a large garden farm that supplied Jaunrīga with fresh vegetables. Aldis walked through the garden farm toward Jaunrīga. A robot tractor drove past him, loaded with strawberries. Aldis waited until the tractor was right beside him, then quickly hopped up the steps to the tractor's driver's seat. The tractor stopped and asked for his identity, but Aldis was in luck — the key had been left on the seat. It allowed gardeners to drive, stop, and continue without giving their identity each time. Aldis shoved in the key and took over control from the robot tractor. For a thirteen-year-old boy, the steering was hard to manage on the bumpy ground, but before long he reached the Nītaure elevator. He left the key inserted and dashed away from the robot tractor.

A moment after Aldis disappeared into the elevator station, the robot tractor raised the alarm with its siren, lights, and loudspeaker: “UNKNOWN ATTACKER! UNKNOWN ATTACKER!”

The robot tractor had not reached its destination on time, and its program contacted the central computer, which notified the guards. By then, Aldis was already riding the elevator up. Once at the top, Aldis took out a surface suit from his backpack and changed in the dressing room. He held his breather in his hands, because he needed to identify himself to the guard-robot before he could step out into Mars's atmosphere. He also had to rent a bubble-tire wheel, since he didn't own one of his own yet.

The guard-robot asked: “WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?”

“Aldis Rieksts. I'm riding to Nītaure village to meet friends.”

“HMMMM!??”

Aldis jumped, because he had never heard such a loud “HMMMM!??” from a computer. Then loud laughter erupted, growing louder and louder. Two women on the other side of the room turned and stared at Aldis, wondering if he was in his right mind.

The computer fell silent, but the outer gates still did not open. Aldis turned to leave, then heard a whisper:

“ALDI, DON'T BE ANGRY. YOU'LL BE ABLE TO GO TO NĪTAURE!”

On the screen at that moment there was not the guard-robot's usual symbol but a sad clown with a red nose.

“Mr. Jokupēteris!? But you can't let me out! You're the teacher's assistant, but you're not the guard-robot.”

“YES, BUT I CAN ORDER THE GUARD-ROBOT TO OPEN THE DOORS. BUT FIRST TELL ME: WHAT ARE YOU REALLY LOOKING FOR HERE?”

“You won't tell anyone?”

“I WON'T.”

“I'm looking for Martians, because they know where my father is. Māris called me yesterday and told me about what happened. I think that cylinder Māra's father brought from Ceres is the other half of an ancient Martian battery.”

“ALDI, WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK ANYMORE.”

Mr. Jokupēteris's face vanished from the screen, and the guard-robot's symbol appeared.

“HOW LONG WILL ALDIS RIEKSTS BE STAYING IN NĪTAURE?”

“Two hours. After that I'll ride home.”

“IF YOU WISH TO RETURN TO JAUNRĪGA, YOU MUST LEAVE NĪTAURE BEFORE 2:00 PM. A LARGE STORM IS APPROACHING. AFTER 2:00 PM, YOU ARE ADVISED TO STAY IN NĪTAURE OVERNIGHT. I AM NOW OPENING THE DOORS.”

The guard-robot opened the outer doors, and Aldis climbed onto the rented bubble-tire wheel, pulled on his breather, and rode out into the rosy Martian day.

Riding fast, he reached Nītaure in half an hour. He parked the wheel in the Krūmiņš garage and walked around the Krūmiņš house until he found the strange tracks. Not far from the house, a sifter was checking the sand ton after ton, trying to find the other cylinder that Mr. Krūmiņš had flung away in the night. From a distance, as if afraid, two guards watched the big machine rummaging through the sand.

Aldis swiftly vanished into the desert so the guards wouldn't catch and question him. He followed the tracks of Māris and Māra until they stopped at a clump of moss-sponge. Aldis took several photographs of the tracks until they disappeared into the desert.

After nearly a whole fruitless hour, Aldis was ready to head back. Suddenly he spotted something glinting in the moss-sponge and kicked at it a little. Then with his left hand he pulled out a small blue cylinder, put it in his backpack, and headed back toward Nītaure. From a distance he noticed the guards' aircraft, hid behind a rock, and waited for the guards to leave.

The clock already showed 2:08 PM when Aldis started walking to the village garage to get his wheel. In the garage, the communicator was blinking, wailing, and letters were flashing on the screen: “MESSAGE FOR ALDIS RIEKSTS.”

Aldis walked up to the screen and identified himself: “I am Aldis Rieksts.”

The letters disappeared and Mr. Jokupēteris's clown face appeared on the screen:

“ALDI! THE STORM IS ALREADY HERE. DON'T RIDE HOME TO JAUNRĪGA TODAY. YOUR MOTHER WILL UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN'T RETURN BECAUSE OF THE STORM. STAY THE NIGHT AT THE KRŪMIŅŠ HOUSE. MR. KRŪMIŅŠ IS VERY INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU FOUND IN THE SAND TODAY. I WILL NOTIFY YOUR MOTHER SO SHE WON'T WORRY.”

Aldis couldn't turn around fast enough to face his attacker, and Māris tackled him to the ground. Aldis quickly pinned Māris down on his chest and said, “Well, your hour of reckoning has come. What is your last wish, you rascal?”

At that moment Māra grabbed Aldis's legs and tried to pull him off her brother. Then both boys sprang to their feet, one grabbed Māra's hands and the other her legs, and they were about to carry her out through the door into a drift of sand. While they were roughhousing, Mr. Jokupēteris's face appeared on the communicator screen again:

“CHILDREN! THE STORM IS BEGINNING TO RAGE OUTSIDE. IT WILL BE ONE OF THE WORST IN MY EXPERIENCE. DO NOT OPEN THE DOORS. ALDI! WHERE IS THE OBJECT YOU FOUND?”

“In my backpack.”

“SHOW IT TO MĀRIS AND MĀRA.”

Aldis took out the cylinder with the transparent end and showed it to both friends.

“Where did you get that? I understood from Mr. Jokupēteris that you were sick and in bed at home. But you're neither sick nor do you look it,” said Māris.

“I got another bout of school fever. I thought the fresh air out here might help me get better faster. I found this object in the sand near a moss-sponge rock.”

“I have something to show too.” Māris pulled an envelope from his pocket and took out a sheet on which was written:

The annual Krišjānis Barons School competition for the most successful 8th-grade student. First prize awarded to Māris Krūmiņš — an excursion to Ceres with two companions.

“Māri! You'll take us both along, won't you?!” asked Aldis.

“You know, that's a good idea! Usually the winners travel with their parents, but my parents will probably go separately anyway. Besides, I'm a good friend of Captain Ramats. You know, he commands the Spīdola, which leaves for Ceres in a month. The famous astronomy professor Bluķis is supposed to be on that voyage too. Let's go home and prepare our plans.”

“Could Aldis stay the night with us, since the storm is raging outside?” Māris stood next to his father, who was watching the television news and only half listening.

“I don't think so, because he wouldn't be able to get here in this storm. Maybe Friday or Saturday.”

“But Dad, he's already here in our garage. He couldn't get home in this storm either.”

“How did he end up here? I hope you aren't playing some kind of prank. In that case, he can sleep in the village sanatorium.” Father spoke seriously, but his eyes were smiling, because he knew Māris would find a way to justify his friend.

“Aldis came to see what happened here. Look at some of the photos he took. He also found a strange object in fresh moss-sponge. It doesn't look like your cylinders or Māra's though.”

Māris showed his father the small bluish cylinder with a transparent bubble on one end and three tiny buttons on the side.

“Is that so?! What are you waiting for? Come! We have much to talk about.”

Father ordered the television to switch off and studied the boy closely: flaxen white hair, a firm chin, and intensely blue eyes made for a distinctive face. He was tallish and lean, yet well-muscled and well-coordinated. Father greeted him: “Good evening! I'm Jānis Krūmiņš, Māris's father.”

“Aldis Rieksts. I'm visiting Nītaure because I believe the ancient Martians still inhabit Mars, most likely beneath the sand.”

Aldis spoke to Māris's father as an equal, and that made Mr. Krūmiņš feel a little uneasy.

“There are almost no concrete facts. How do you back that up? And where did you find this object?” Māris's father held up the small cylinder with the transparent end.

“Isn't this a concrete fact?” Aldis pointed at the small cylinder. “I found it near the sharp rock, roughly two-thirds of a kilometer to the northeast of Nītaure. Have a look at my photographs. Do you see the tracks in the moss-sponge?”

“How do you know they're Martian tracks?” asked Māris.

“First, I found similar tracks in the sand on the shore of Baltezers in Jaunrīga. At dusk I also saw what looked like a large, furry egg that rolled into the bushes. I spend a lot of time in the park. Strange things happen there. Though it's a bit frightening too. Besides, you might be interested to know that in my father's unexplained last transmission, he mentioned ‘intelligent eggs.’ Those ‘intelligent eggs’ are Martians, and they surely know what happened to my father.”

The listeners had nothing to say. They could see that Aldis was upset. Māris steered the conversation in a different direction: “Dad, I have good news. I won first place at school, and now I can travel to Ceres with two friends.”

“Congratulations, son. But I'm surprised by the prize. Wouldn't the school know that voyages to Ceres have become almost questionable? Just now on the news they reported that the interworld ship Maira has gone missing somewhere between Mars and Ceres. This is the second such case in three years. You said with two friends. Unfortunately, I must return to Ceres soon myself, this time commanding a laboratory ship. So your mother and I won't be able to come along as companions. It looks like the trip will have to be postponed for about half a year, until the whole family can go on holiday together.”

“Dad, I wanted to ask Aldis and Māra.”

“Hmm. What about their school?”

“Māra needs to finish her research on Martian rocks. Then she'll have done everything, and the Ceres excursion could count as coursework,” said Māris.

“I have special arrangements with the school myself,” said Aldis, thinking that Mr. Jokupēteris would surely work something out.

“And Captain Ramats will be commanding the Spīdola in two weeks,” said Māra. Captain Ramats was close to the whole Krūmiņš family, because every time they moved from one world to another, it so happened that Ramats was their captain.

Mother invited everyone to dinner and added: “If Ramats is the captain, then let's allow the children to fly on their own. There's no one more trustworthy than Ramats.”

“Yes. I suppose the children are growing up!” Father grumbled.

Māra was thrilled and at the same time frightened about the planned trip to Ceres. Aldis had told her all sorts of things about star raiders and Zintars Rieksts. Her only comfort was that her parents would follow them in a week and a half aboard the newest interplanetary ship, the Dēkla.

Right now, she had no shortage of work. In the rocky belt not far from Nītaure, Māra was collecting geological specimens. If the research project wasn't finished, supervisor Rācenis wouldn't allow her to go along with her brother on the excursion.

With her little stick, she overturned a red rock and saw a brilliant blue crystal gleaming in the sunlight. She was so absorbed with her new find that she didn't notice the sudden movement in the sand around her. Seven long-haired “eggs” were quickly crawling out of the sand, each with two eyes on long stalks about a meter in length. The egg-shaped beings had no legs, no ears, no arms. In place of arms, rope-like tentacles writhed, each splitting into three smaller finger-like feelers. By the time Māra noticed the first “egg,” the last one had already dug itself out of the sand. All seven beings began bouncing like basketballs on their thick ends, forward and backward in a slow rhythm. Māra tried to control her terror, for in school they taught that one's own fear is the greatest enemy.

Then the little cluster began hopping gradually forward until they reached a sponge-moss-covered rock, behind which the tracks disappeared. The egg-beings linked their tentacles so that they encircled the girl and the rock. After a short moment, Māra felt the rock moving upward. Its rough surface transformed into a shiny, smooth metal cylinder. When the cylinder stopped, a door opened in it, and the egg-beings pushed Māra inside. She wanted to resist, but she felt a strange weakness, and before she knew it, she was already inside and the door had closed. The girl tried to recover and gather her strength, waiting for the unknown. The floor jerked slightly, and then Māra felt a sudden motion, as if she were in an elevator. When her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Māra could make out the furry bodies of the egg-beings. The incessant clicking and whistling, which reminded her of the sounds of birds before sunrise in Baltezers Park, later turned out to be the egg-beings' conversation. Then the floor jerked again, and Māra felt they had stopped.

The door suddenly sprang open and light streamed in. Dazzled by it, Māra couldn't adjust to such rapid changes, and she didn't resist as the egg-beings pushed her along corridors. Forward, left, right, then down, around an enormous cylinder that reached perhaps two hundred meters into the air and connected to the ceiling of the immense space.

Māra grew tired, and her self-control began to crack. The cluster of seven egg-beings stopped bouncing and waited. Then a bluish-gray door opened in the wall, and before them stood an egg-being in shimmering garments, without the long hairs or antennae that Māra had noticed on her captors' heads.

“Good day, Māra! We've been expecting you. Take off your breather and make yourself at home. My name is Illūrs, and here on my head is my little friend Čī-Čī, whom we call a džaunots and you humans call a Mars-hare.”

Māra watched the tuft of fur perched between Illūrs's eye-stalks, licking its little paws. She also noticed that in front of Illūrs's mouth there was a small box from which the speaking sounds came.

“Why do your friends look different from you?” asked Māra.

With one tentacle, Illūrs removed the device from his mouth, clicked his tongue, whistled a couple of times, and watched as Māra's captors hopped away down the corridor in a group. “Māra, let's be friends. Call me ‘you’ in the familiar, not the formal. Please, come into my room, and I'll tell you about us and also a little about you.”

They both entered a room where there was one chair, a small table, and on the floor a very soft rug.

“This is where I live. This is my world. Please, sit down!”

“Don't you have a chair too?” Māra asked, nervously standing by the only chair in the room.

“Māra, don't be shy! Sit down! I don't need a chair. And don't forget — the familiar ‘you,’ not the formal.”

“I'm sorry,” Māra murmured.

“You asked about the differences between my people. There are differences among your people too. For example, between you and your brother, aren't there?”

“Were those women, then?”

“No. Those were surface workers, specially adapted to conditions so they can move freely in the desert and thin air. Their antennae pick up magnetic waves so that before a storm they can find shelter in time and burrow into the sand. This little animal Čī-Čī is a distant relative of the Earth hamster. Long ago, our researchers visited Earth and brought back various specimens. We no longer need to do that, because the computer calculates a life form suited to the conditions, and over the course of several years, beings are developed that can live in those conditions. This is also where our great disagreements and differences arise. After all, you want to transform Mars into a suitable living place for humans.”

“Yes. That's why Dad said we live in a scout settlement, not in Jaunrīga.”

“You know, Māra, long ago my ancestors emigrated from a star over there,” Illūrs pointed with a tentacle at the wall, where a star map appeared, “near 61 Cygni. At that time, they looked somewhat similar to your people. Then they calculated that bones and other systems wouldn't withstand an interstellar journey, and they developed a body without a skeleton. After this first transformation, we always change ourselves rather than our surroundings. Our body is no longer a prison. Would you like something to eat or drink?”

Māra was very hungry, but the surroundings seemed so alien that she grew frightened and refused.

“What do you mean, ‘no, thank you’! Let's see what we have to eat.”

Part of the right wall disappeared into the ceiling, revealing a counter, a small sink, several taps, small cupboards, and a control panel with many buttons. On the counter were bowls of strawberries, apples, raspberries, and other fruit. Illūrs answered Māra's unspoken question: “Yes, they're from Jaunrīga. We could analyze them and produce them ourselves, but then every apple would taste exactly the same as all the others, and our young people would also lose an interesting occupation.”

Illūrs handed Māra the fruit bowl, and she timidly took one apple and said, “Thank you!”

“You know, we're very interested in those cylinders in your home. It's very dangerous to keep such things in a dwelling.” Illūrs then exclaimed: “Ha, or even on a whole world! Do you know what they are?”

“No,” Māra replied. She strove to make use of all her knowledge, for she understood that she possessed something the egg-beings badly needed.

“You've studied physics, haven't you?”

“Of course, I have...” Māra didn't finish the sentence, for she sensed that she mustn't give information to the adversary.

Illūrs watched Māra for a moment, then continued: “All right, then you'll understand. The cylinders are monopole magnets with the ability to draw out stellar energy. The so-called black holes are also monopole magnets. Energy from black holes cannot escape in any form. My ancestors discovered that if you make a monopole magnet with a similar frequency but opposite polarization to that of the black hole, then the two poles create a weak magnet connected across many light-years. They also discovered that if you make two monopole magnets with matching poles and place them at the Džangolī distance — that is, 1.573 meters — then the black hole's energy is drawn through hyperspace from the black hole to the cylinder, then through normal space to the second one, and then back to the black hole. While the energy is in normal space, it can be used, but this energy can also destroy everything in the surrounding area. That is how our first world blew apart — the one our ancestors inhabited in this solar system. It was located between Mars and Jupiter. The same thing would have happened if your father hadn't instinctively separated the cylinders, thus interrupting the energy buildup. If the cylinders had been left together, then after a few minutes they would have become so hot that they'd melt a hole in the floor of the house and sink deeper and deeper into Mars. As the energy increased and the cylinders sank ever deeper, closer to the planet's core, this world too would after a time have blown apart.”

“Why was I brought here?” Māra interrupted Illūrs's long lecture. Čī-Čī leaped down from Illūrs's head and ran over to Māra. She lifted him into her lap and began to stroke him.

“We brought you here because this world will be threatened if we don't get all the cylinders into our hands.”

He turned his eyes downward and corrected himself: “Perhaps better to say — into our tentacles. You must help us.”

Māra remembered that in the cave at Gaiziņkalns, in stone hollows, there were other cylinders too, each a different color, placed separately as if on shelves. Māra had taken only one at the time, to show her parents and teacher.

“I know, you stole one cylinder from our house, just as you stole these apples.”

“The second cylinder is with the guards. But what about the one the big sand sifter found at Nītaure village? Where is the third cylinder? Where did you find the cylinders in the first place? Your father brought cylinders from Ceres. You're the Krūmiņš family geologist. Where did you find the rest?” asked Illūrs.

“Right here, nearby, or maybe on the other side of Nītaure. I don't remember exactly,” Māra answered innocently.

Illūrs watched her but couldn't tell whether the girl was lying or telling the truth.

At that moment, the entire room lit up, and Māra noticed that the wall was transparent in several places, where many eyes were watching her. Then the room's floor heaved several times, the lights went out and after a moment flared up again.

In the spot where the wall had looked cool and greenish, a television screen lit up. An egg-being appeared whose eyes moved up and down. From the whistling, rumbling, and clicking, one could tell that something bad had happened.

Illūrs said to Māra: “Your crazy people, while examining the cylinder, cut it in half. That destroyed the equilibrium of the black hole, which is 433 light-years away. Here there was only an explosion that destroyed the laboratory. There, a supernova erupted. You'll have to stay here. We'll help you remember where you found the cylinders. There are also some of your people here. Later you'll be able to meet them.”

Māra began to cry.

“Soon we'll be ready to meet your side officially. Then you'll be able to go home. Čī-Čī will stay with you. Later I'll show you a room with a proper bed. We've also recorded a few book-films. You'll be able to watch them on the television. Don't worry! No harm will come to you. When it's all over, you'll have plenty to tell your friends.”

Having said this, Illūrs hopped out through the door, which shut tightly behind him.

Māra started running after Illūrs, but the door slammed shut. The girl spun around, for she felt something scurrying past her legs.

“Čī-Čī!”

Comforting herself, Māra picked up Čī-Čī and began to stroke him. All alone. Deep underground. In the darkness, fear grew and grew. Her heart beat fast. Māra tried to drive out the fear with intensive investigation, which she had learned as a Burtniece.

Māra once more carefully examined the room. In the wall where many eyes had been shining moments ago, now only two were peering. Māra pressed her face against the glass and saw that the eyes belonged to an egg-being squatting in the next room, which was full of various devices. As Māra kept looking in, the egg-being made a few hops, pressed a button, and nothing more could be seen in the next room.

Māra gently placed Čī-Čī on a chair, then began pounding on the door with both fists. It was no use at all. Then she collapsed right there on the floor and began to cry. Čī-Čī jumped into her lap and snuggled against her chest. She stroked the brownish-gray little fur coat and said in desperation: “Well, Čī-Čī, don't you know how to get out of here?”

Čī-Čī looked the prisoner in the eyes, jumped onto her shoulder, and began scratching at the wall next to the door, clicking excitedly. Māra felt around the spot where Čī-Čī was scrabbling. There were no buttons there.

“I suppose you want to get out too, but you don't know how?”

Čī-Čī took a running start and leaped high against the wall.

“Should I look higher?”

Māra tried feeling around the spot that would be easiest for the egg-beings to reach — about a meter from the ground. Suddenly the door vanished into the wall. She touched her finger once more to the spot she had found, and the door shot closed. Touched it again, and it slid open. Excited hopping and clicking in the corridor spurred Māra on.

“Wait, little friend,” she said to Čī-Čī. “I need to grab something to eat.” She ran to the apple bowl and stuffed a few into her backpack.

Suddenly the light went out. The ventilator and other machinery fell silent. Then she heard whistling and alarmed clicks. The floor began to shake. Heavy crashes in the distance... closer... all around. The stone walls cracked, and their pieces ground against each other like a living swarm of monsters. As if risen out of a nightmare, Māra screamed, then went limp. Then deep darkness. Deathly silence.

Māra pulled herself up to a sitting position. It hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. In the distance, machinery rumbled to life. A pale ball of light appeared in the doorway. Rays shot out from the ball and began searching the room, falling across the walls, finally shining on the girl's face. Māra quickly slipped into the corridor. The door slammed shut with the light-ball inside the room. Everything dark again. Feeling along the wall, she moved forward. At her feet she felt Čī-Čī and lifted him onto her shoulder. Some twenty meters away she spotted a faint, phosphorescent glow. The light-ball came shooting toward her again, trying to drive Māra back into the room. Čī-Čī jumped down and ran to the right, and Māra followed. But ahead, other light-balls had gathered together. What now?

Čī-Čī ran forward across the floor, passing beneath the balls. Māra crawled after him. The balls descended lower. When they touched, they delivered an electric shock to the body — pain shot through her entire being. Still, Māra kept moving forward. She heard Čī-Čī clicking and stopped. Now the witching balls were closing in from both sides of the corridor. Māra squeezed her eyes shut, yanked off a shoe, and hurled it with all her might at the tangle of lights. With equal force, the shoe bounced off the balls and flew past Māra. She turned to see where the shoe would fly.

From behind her, a voice spoke: “Little girl, pick up your shoes. You'll still need them.”

Māra turned around and saw the balls retreating. There stood a small old woman. Behind her — an open door and a room lit by still other menacing balls. In the little woman's very old face, two rain-gray eyes were sunk deep between the wrinkles. The old woman spoke:

“I am of the Grass Snake tribe. But I suppose you don't understand that?”

“A grass snake is an Earth serpent. They once lived around houses and also in forests,” Māra offered hesitantly, for she had heard many fairy tales.

“You guessed it. Well, come along into this room, where I have dwelt for fourteen years now.”

Māra glanced fearfully at the light-balls.

“You're afraid of these?” The old woman began to sing:

I kindled fire in the dark of night,

I kindled fire in my room.

Let her come into my little room —

The Sun, the bringer of light.

The remaining light-balls flew into the room and went dark. The old woman closed the door.

“Little girl, what is your name, and how did you get here?”

“I'm Māra. The egg-beings captured me in the desert. And you?”

The old woman spat.

“What would a young chick want to know about such an old witch?”

The old woman's tone frightened Māra. Noticing this, the old woman said simply: “I am Zīle, née Meirāne, born on faraway Earth, in Old Latvia, in the year 1966. In my lifetime I've had many surnames, many husbands. You may call me Grandmother Zīle. I like your name. Māra. Star Māra. Earth Māra. You have a bright future...”

Māra was bewildered and didn't know what to say.

“Your friend Illūrs will return soon. The robots will have put everything back in order. The time has come to escape.”

“Escape? But Illūrs insisted that I'd soon be able to return home.”

“Yes, escape. We are a nation of refugees, after all. Aren't we? Illūrs's task is not yours. Dear Māra, put these works of mine over there, into the hope chest.”

Māra looked at a large chest mounted with ornamental copper fittings.

“I've been making these works one after another, so that Illūrs's agents wouldn't analyze me. New works always surprised them. They were more fascinating than my old brain. Still, I won't leave them all behind.”

Māra helped the old woman fill the hope chest with various woven fabrics and other handicrafts.

“Perhaps you know the story of Scheherazade? She lived in ancient Arabia and saved herself with an endless string of stories. Illūrs can perhaps absorb more knowledge than I can, yet when it came to a contest of willpower, mine turned out to be stronger. I never lost the sense that I am Zīle. With my stories and my handiwork, I kept Illūrs at bay and kept hold of myself. Čī-Čī, here's a treat for you!”

Čī-Čī grabbed the freshly baked pastry in his little paws and quickly ate it up. Old Zīle knew how to win Čī-Čī over. He often performed small favors for her.

“Čī-Čī, today you have a big job to do. Show us the way to Jaunrīga.”

Zīle sat down on the hope chest and pulled Māra up after her. Čī-Čī began running forward, and three light-balls followed so that it was possible to see. The hope chest rose into the air and glided soundlessly along.

Zīle continued her storytelling, while Māra watched in amazement as the hope chest slid forward. After a while, the path led to an enormous chamber where crystal formations lay among the rocks in various arrangements, like a Japanese garden.

“Those, little one, are the Ancient Martians.”

Some of the stones shone like diamonds. Others were coiled like multicolored braids. Still others looked like many-branched, bushy shrubs. Among them stood some that were tall and slender as spruce trees. Each stone glowed in its own colors, which often changed in a rhythmic play of light.

“What they liked most of all was the Lielvārde sash, which I learned to weave from my grandmother. The brain-stones also like songs, especially certain ones they want to hear again and again.”

Old Zīle began to chant the ancient verses:

Through a silver grove I wandered,

Through a silver grove I wandered,

Not a twig did I break from it,

Not a twig did I break from it.

The enchanted crystal forest began to murmur along, and colors leaped from one “plant” to another. Māra began to drift into a dream, and gradually human figures began to take shape in her mind, there where the light faded into darkness, into mist.

“Little one, don't let yourself be drawn into the dream. They have great power. They have sat here for thousands of years, thinking deep thoughts. They can also be devourers of thoughts.”

Old Zīle began to sing other songs, in many languages Māra didn't understand. Slowly the Ancient Martians' colors faded to brown and gray tones. The hope chest with its riders left the enormous chamber filled with the ancient intelligence of Mars.

“Oh, too late! The nightmares have come true,” Zīle moaned.

The hope chest was surrounded by heavily armored horsemen. The horses looked more like dragons, with bared teeth and burning breath.

“Peace, witch! Return to your room! Girl, run, before she bewitches you!” called a dark figure, the leader of the troop.

“Those are nightmares created by the brain-stones. Don't listen! Their powers are great, but ours are mightier. Let us join hands! Direct your mind at what frightens you, and drive it away with your will!” Zīle commanded.

Not knowing what to do, Māra froze. From the floor right in front of Māra a head burst through, hissing and growling like a dragon from a fairy tale.

“Give me your hand,” called Zīle. “That is the Naugals, an underground animal of ancient Mars.”

Čī-Čī jumped onto Zīle's shoulder, then hid behind her head. Māra placed her hands in Zīle's old ones, and Zīle began to sing. The Naugals swelled up like an enormous balloon, nearly filling the entire space. Māra found it hard to breathe. The light-balls flew around and around the Naugals, and still others joined them. Every so often the lights merged and delivered an electric shock to the Naugals. Living in underground caves, the Naugals could not bear light.

“Witch, deal with your own devil yourself!” thundered the troop leader, whose horse, rearing up on its hind legs, began to shrink, then merged with its whole war party and, escorted by light-balls, vanished — while the Naugals disappeared into the hole from which it had crawled out.

“Now the road to Rīga is clear!” called Old Zīle. “The Ancient Martians can return to their eternal dreams.”

Following the little animal, the hope chest continued its journey. It arrived at a freshly dug tunnel, and Čī-Čī jumped up onto the hope chest. As they went on, a light came on in a hollow of the tunnel. There squatted Illūrs. Māra, in her agitation, nearly fell off the hope chest.

“Hurry to your own people, and may your journey be a happy one! Thank you for everything you have shown us, Zīle! Your works and creations of the spirit are more useful to us than your brain. Thank you also for stopping the Naugals! Take this recording as well. Perhaps later you will better understand our point of view. The way back will be filled in. We shall meet among the stars!”

Behind Illūrs a door opened, and he vanished. Zīle called out to the chest to go, and behind it the tunnel walls began to collapse. Electricity flashed along the edges of the tunnel, and the travelers were engulfed by the smell of ozone, sulfur, and burning. Nearly unconscious, the travelers emerged onto the surface. The tunnel passage had vanished — in its place, only small stones and a sand dune.

The hope chest picked up speed, plunged into a lake, and disappeared. Soon, snorting out large bubbles, it reappeared, floating on the water. Old Zīle asked the chest: “Will you be able to carry all three of us across safely?”

“Not safely at all. If we're lucky, we'll reach the shore.”

“Māra, these rocks we're standing on don't seem very solid anymore. Let's just climb aboard the chest — and remember your Burtniece lessons.”

Māra recited to herself the virtue of courage: “I will look fear in the eyes like a good friend. I will turn fear's power into my own strength.”

Then she pushed her feet into the cold water and tried to climb onto the chest. It tilted to one side, then the other. Waves beat against the unsteady craft. Probably no one quite understood how it was possible, yet at last all three travelers were sitting on the chest, shivering from cold and from all they had been through.

The hardest part was behind them, and after a few minutes the chest ran aground on the opposite shore. On this sandy shore, little children were often blessed. Today it was quiet. Still early morning. Ducks quacked in the mist. As if waking from a long dream, the exhausted travelers helped the hope chest pull itself ashore.

“Māris, Māra should have been back by now. It's time to start supper, but she still hasn't called.” Mother interrupted her son's sword game in the village gymnasium. At that very moment, Māris was striking at his opponent, who loomed before him in the darkness. The counterblow came too close, and Mother clutched her hand to her heart in sympathy. Māris's face twisted in pain. He quickly switched the sword to his left hand and drove it into the monster's chest. The lights came on, and the sword-master said over the loudspeaker:

“Your agility surprised me this time. You won't have to make up for that blow to your arm. But you're not yet ready for the fight with the Black Knight!”

The mention of the Black sent a slight shiver down Māris's spine. He remembered: “The fight is never-ending. Yet the light shall have its day! I am a Bearer of Light. Let fear vanish into the mist!”

With self-assurance, he slid the sword into its sheath and left the gymnasium, where the lights came on and all the holographic opponent-monsters disappeared.

“We'll have to search for Māra with telemetry. Where's Father?”

“Father is at a meeting about those cylinders. He also said to keep an eye on Māra. On a day with no desert storms, nothing out of the ordinary should happen. But still, such an uneasy feeling.”

Māris quickly washed up, put on clean clothes, and looked into the telemetry device. The antenna triplet began spinning on the bubble-house roof. But on the screen, only green, red, and blue circles flashed, showing that the device was searching.

“Nothing!” Māris cried, and switched on the backup device. It gave a similar reading. Then the blue circles flickered faintly and the others began circling around a small dot.

The device spoke: “SIGNAL VERY WEAK. MĀRA'S POSITION UNDETERMINED. COULD BE IN THE AIR ABOVE JAUNRĪGA, 700 METERS BELOW THE SURFACE OF MARS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF NĪTAURE, OR BEYOND GAIZIŅKALNS, WHERE THERE ARE CURRENTLY MAGNETIC DISTURBANCES.”

“Blast it! Māra can't be in three places at once! She went looking for rocks to the northwest, not to the east where Jaunrīga is. I'll track her footprints, but first I'll call Aldis to see what he's picking up from Jaunrīga.”

Surprisingly, Aldis was also home. He immediately began explaining to Māris about the preparations for the Ceres trip.

“I've read Father's diary about his voyages to the small worlds. He recorded several stories he'd heard about the enormous ship that swallows whole interplanetary vessels and...”

Māris interrupted his friend: “Aldis, we're in big trouble. Māra has disappeared. I think our telemetry isn't working well. What are the readings on your end? Māra's code is ‘Sun's Life for Stones.’”

Aldis's face vanished from the screen. After a moment it appeared again.

“Signal undetermined. Maybe slightly stronger on your side. I'll head out right away. Will you wait?”

“Yes, but hurry!”

Aldis's face vanished from the screen. Suddenly it went dark, and right after that, the house lights went out too. After a few minutes the bulbs came on again, but on the screen only strange shadows flickered, odd whistles, hissing — then Father's face appeared.

Mother said to the screen: “Call accepted.”

Father's voice was unclear, but they could make it out. “Coming home. Watch over Māra!” Then something more about unexpected guests, and the screen went completely white and died.

“Mother, could it be a solar storm?” Māris asked.

“None has been reported. The interference is being caused by something closer. But why does it happen just when we're having such troubles? Run a bit to the north and try to find Māra. We'll probably have to call for help, because there are only a few hours until dusk. Hurry straight back. And be careful! Something isn't right.”

Māris grabbed the star-rifle and a spare breather and dashed outside. Māra's tracks led straight to the edge of the extinct volcano, where all sorts of rocks could be found. The tracks were pressed in here and there, then stopped at a longish rock that pointed at the sky like a finger. Here there were also other impressions — small, round hollows, mostly around the Finger Rock. Beyond this rock, not a single footprint or round hollow. Māris remembered that Māra could be about 700 meters below the surface. From his backpack he pulled out a shovel and began digging in the sand near the cluster of honeycombed rock, but soon the shovel struck a massive rock surface. What now?

The boy sat down on the buried rock's back and noticed that the honeycombed rock, which grew in a crack by the unearthed rock, was in a completely wrong spot — not where the sun warmed most, but right in the shade. Measurements showed that in the hollow where the rock cluster was thickest, it was warmer, and the water and oxygen levels there were higher than in the surrounding area.

“Why is that?” Māris muttered to himself. Then it flashed through his mind: “Sponge-moss!” He sprang back. Sponge-moss was usually harmless, but there were also frightening stories about it. There was a saying: “What is dangerous is not nature, but nature's nature.” Could Māra have been harmed by sponge-moss?

Staring intently downward, Māris didn't notice what was happening in the sky. Two shadows swept over the sand. He looked up at the rosy sky.

“Oh, heavens! A second sun is shining! Two suns instead of one!”

Spraying sparks and flames, a burning ball with a black trail of smoke cut the sky into two unequal halves, then disappeared. The second sun vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared. A powerful blow knocked Māris to the ground. The afterglow still shone for a moment, then dust clouds obscured even the real sun.

“Māris! Māris! Māris!!” a voice called in the earphones.

“This is Māris. Who's speaking?” Māris snapped into the breather's microphone.

The wind began tugging at his thick desert suit. Then a clap. Sharp silence, followed by a terrible roar. Sand churned through the air, and a hot wind knocked Māris down again. His leg struck the sponge-moss, and a few drops of blood seeped from the cut suit, falling into the sponge-moss and feeding this “plant.” The moss leapt from drop to drop. Māris lay unconscious. The wind died down. One leg was buried in moss. The sponge-moss tendrils crept toward Māris's forehead. The voice in the earphones called again and again: “Māris, Māris, Māris!!”

A motor engaged, and the great rock with all its sponge-moss rose into the air. When the rock stopped, a door opened and several hairy egg-beings leaped out. They surrounded Māris, examined him, and began dragging him toward the door. Suddenly the egg-beings started with fright and hurriedly jumped back through the door, which locked, and the rock sank back into the sand.

“Māris, Māris, Māris!” As if from far away, he heard his name being called. Māris tried to get up. It was bitterly cold. A sharp pain stabbed through his leg. Māris screamed.

“He's alive! He's injured!” a voice called from the earphones.

Māris grabbed his pocket flashlight, switched it on, and examined his leg. The sponge-moss had begun growing over his shin. It was only a matter of time before the moss would eat through his suit. Māris tried to shoot the sponge-moss with his star-rifle, but it was too close to his leg.

“Māris, Māris, Māris! We're almost there. Hold on!”

The lights drew closer, closer, finally right up to him. Aldis! And Father, and teacher Raiders. From the robot-cart they pulled out a small tent and inflated it. They carried Māris inside and laid him on a small makeshift cot. Teacher Raiders began cleaning his face to administer medicine and cried out, “Sponge-moss!” Father cried out too, ran outside, and was back at once with another medicine kit. Raiders drew out a syringe and injected the medicine just above the knee to stop the sponge-moss from spreading. With a laser knife he cut away the suit around the legs and pulled off the boot with tongs.

Aldis carried the suit pieces outside and burned them with the star-rifle. When he returned, he saw that Māris's leg was bandaged. The sponge-moss was oozing out of the wound on its own, as the body now contained the antidote. Aldis knew that Māris would have to be taken to the isolation hospital near Jaunrīga. Everything where the sponge-moss could take hold would have to be burned. They themselves would need to undergo examination at the isolation hospital. Sponge-moss infection was one of the most terrible diseases. The first Mars colonies had reportedly been wiped out by this disease. After that, scout villages were abandoned if anyone fell ill with it. In recent times, though, usually only newcomers contracted this ailment, as the locals protected themselves.

Sponge-moss had evolved so as to absorb, as far as possible, everything useful to it from the barren sand and the weak sunlight. In that state the moss wasn't dangerous. It posed no threat at night or in the cold either, as it practically died away. Only at dusk did the sponge-moss change its chemical composition, adapting to the new conditions before “falling asleep,” so that by day it would always be ready to absorb whatever food was available to it. Māris's blood had dripped onto the sponge-moss right at dusk, and at that moment it transformed into a devourer of human blood.

A robot voice spoke in Aldis's earphones: “A desert tank is approaching,” which Aldis immediately relayed to the others. Hearing this, Father looked very surprised, even frightened.

“We didn't call for one. Aldis, don't say anything about the sponge-moss or about Māra. Arrange for us to get rid of them.”

Soon an enormous desert tank with ten searchlights at the front pulled up to the tent.

“I'm Aldis Rieksts from Jaunrīga. And you?”

“Colonel Ķēniņš of the First Motorized Mars Defense Unit. What's going on here?”

“My friend disappeared in the desert. I found him. Now I'm giving first aid. Will you come to help as well?”

“I see... Do you know a Māra Krūmiņa?”

Aldis didn't like Ķēniņš's voice at all. There was coldness in it, and the awareness of power.

“Does that girl attend the Krišjānis Barons School?”

“I believe so. She may have knowledge about cylinders that could threaten Mars and the security of all humanity.”

“What cylinders?” Aldis asked innocently.

“Don't you listen to the news? About the cylinders that drove Mēneselis off into the sky without a trace. The great alarm surely couldn't have passed you by. But such power must not be entrusted to children.”

Aldis decided to take a risk: “Could you help us transport my friend home?”

“No. My unit has no time for that. You have a robot-cart, after all. I know you now. Aldis Rieksts, the most mischievous boy in all of Krišjānis Barons School. If you need help, report to the central computer. It will send out an ambulance. If you come across that girl, report to me immediately — Colonel Ķēniņš. You'll get a big reward. May the light shine!”

The tank rumbled and vanished into the desert. Aldis ran into the tent and began speaking, but Krūmiņš motioned him to be quiet and handed him a note that read: “We heard everything. They're probably watching us. Call the central computer as he advised you.”

Aldis looked into Māris's face. Despite the medicine, pain was still visible in it. Aldis spoke into the breather's microphone: “Emergency service. Send an ambulance. Aldis Rieksts in the desert.”

Half an hour later, a robot-driven ambulance arrived. A mechanical voice informed them: “Instructions for Aldis Rieksts on tape.”

Aldis climbed into the ambulance and angrily shoved the instruction tape into the device. “More meddling.”

“Aldis, this is Jokupēteris. The game has turned serious. The power of the cylinders has driven the power-hungry into a frenzy. Both humans and Martians want to use it for their own ends. Māris must be taken to the isolation hospital at once, and you'll all have to stay there too. You, however, will take the second ambulance, which is in the valley two hundred feet to the left. This ambulance will have to return to Jaunrīga's main hospital. Ķēniņš's tank will soon be coming back here. By then, all of you need to be gone. If Ķēniņš knew that Māris has a sponge-moss infection, you'd really be in trouble. Sponge-moss is still curable now, but it wasn't before, and the sick had to be left to fend for themselves so the disease wouldn't spread to others. Ķēniņš's mother vanished along with all of Inčuciems! The one where everyone fell ill and perished. To this day, nobody wants to go inside, because no one knows how far the disease has spread.”

“Where is Māra? Has the sponge-moss...”

“Calm down! Māra is in a safe place beneath the surface of Mars. Hurry!”

Like a shot, Aldis ran into the tent and announced: “Jokupēteris told us to go to the second ambulance right away. Māra is said to be safe.”

“Thank God! Jokupēteris is right. Let's hurry!”

Krūmiņš lifted Māris, and they all followed Aldis across the dunes, but found nothing. Then the sand began to shake, and an ambulance desert tank dug its way out of it. Robots helped everyone climb aboard. Inside, they watched on the screen as the robots burned the tent. The tank's motors roared, and it sped off at great speed in the opposite direction from the previous one, which was returning to Jaunrīga. A voice greeted the travelers: “Dear friends! You were lucky!”

“You're Jokupēteris, aren't you,” Aldis recognized the speaker.

“Yes. I am.”

“Māra is said to be in a safe place. Where?”

“Deep below the surface of Mars. The Martians have captured her.”

“Martians?”

“Yes. Martians.”

The desert tank stopped and burrowed into the sand so that the satellite crossing over Jaunrīga would not pick up its hot motors. The tank's robot driver introduced itself to its passengers.

“I'm Mr. Jokupēteris's First Jester. You humans tend to be far too serious! Jokupēteris and I often have a good laugh — as you humans would put it, until we cry. Do you know my day job? You surely want to know. I'm a museum guard. Don't you remember me, Aldis? I certainly remember how you hung all the paintings from Earth's ‘modern era’ upside down and swapped their places right before your class's field trip.”

Aldis looked at the First Jester and said: “That probably brought you to tears?”

“I couldn't quite manage tears. The museum director and I both remember that incident well! How we laughed when that know-it-all Mister Otiņš tried to explain all the paintings to the group. Now that nearly made us cry! As I said before, I've got a few screws loose.”

Then the First Jester's voice turned serious: “Mister Krūmiņš, you need to know what this game is about. The satellite that just flew over is controlled by Moon City. You see, those who live in the oldest human colony on the Moon don't quite trust the newer colonies. Colonel Ķēniņš serves Moon City, and the Moon City leadership wants to unite all of humanity in the Solar System under one flag and one order. They don't understand that a growing society needs not only mutual understanding and common goals, but also diversity. Until now, the great distances prevented a central government from dominating, but the Moon City folk think that the power of the cylinders will finally give them the chance to bind all of humanity in a tight net. Naturally, they would be the ones in charge. It seems that Colonel Ķēniņš longs to be the king of all humanity. But now, on to Ķemerciems. Māris's health is at risk.”

“I need to reach my wife about our son and daughter.”

“Your wife is already waiting for you at the isolation hospital. We didn't dare contact her just now, because the Moon City computer intelligence is tracking our Jokupēteris,” replied the First Jester.

“But how is my wife? When can we go home?” asked teacher Raiders.

“Mrs. Raiders knows that you're safe and also that you'll need to stay in isolation until it's certain you haven't been infected. As for Māris, he'll have to stay at least two weeks under the law. And after that, he won't be allowed to leave Mars for another three months. The trip to Ceres will have to be postponed.”

They could tell the tank was burrowing into the sand again. The motor fell silent, and the armored vehicle seemed to slide downward until it stopped. The First Jester asked them to step out.

“We've arrived. The only robot-operated hospital in the entire Solar System.”

He rang at the door, and two robots appeared. They placed Māris in a transparent box and carried him off somewhere. The rest entered a room where one wall was made of glass. On the other side, looking very worried, Mrs. Krūmiņš was waiting.

Krūmiņš went up to the glass wall and tried to comfort her. “It will be all right, Daina. We saved Māris from the sponge-moss. And Māra is reportedly well, too.”

A voice came through the loudspeaker: “I am your friend, the hospital director, healer Hipokratijs, and also a good friend of Mr. Jokupēteris. Your son has good prospects for recovery. Parents, you'll be able to visit your son early in the morning when he wakes up.”

The next morning, Māris woke up and, seeing the lights and the plastic “cage,” thought he was having a nightmare. “Is this some kind of zoo? Why am I in here?”

A voice came through the loudspeaker: “Good morning! You're in the hospital. I'm the head of the hospital, the computer Hipokratijs. My hospital is not a zoo.”

“What's wrong with me?” asked Māris, looking at his leg, which was placed in a black device with several wires.

“Your parents will explain that best. Here they come now!”

Māris saw his father approaching from one side of the glass wall and his mother from the other, at the opposite wall.

“What happened? I was at the Finger Rock, then there was an explosion and I tripped. I must have been dreaming. My leg was hurting badly, then hairy eggs came at me, there was terrible pain. Did those eggs capture us? Are we in a zoo?”

Mother reached the glass first. Pressing her face against it to be closer to her son, the words tumbled out one after another. “How good you look! Does it hurt very much? Did you get medicine this morning? And breakfast?”

Then Father came up on the other side of the wall.

“Māris, we're in the isolation hospital.”

Hearing this, Māris turned pale. There had been untreatable cases where a person had to spend their entire life in such a hospital.

“Then you have this disease too?”

Mother's face showed deep worry. She looked at her husband, and he said:

“Mother is well. The disease may or may not have gotten to me, but it will be fine. Everything will be all right with you too, though you are quite seriously ill. Son, we found you unconscious. We gave first aid, but the sponge-moss had eaten through your suit and gnawed into your shin...”

“Sponge-moss? How am I even alive? And you?”

“Māris, it seems we reached you in time. You'll get well! You'll need to be strong, because the medicine is very powerful.”

After a few days, Māris could already receive visitors freely, though he was still kept apart in the isolation room behind the glass wall. All four of them had much to discuss about the sponge-moss, the cylinders, Mēneselis's disappearance and reappearance in orbit around Venus, and other events. The happiest news came from Jokupēteris: Māra was well, had escaped from underground, and was currently staying in a safe place in Jaunrīga with a burtniece the Krūmiņš family had not yet met. They had to accept that news — about Māra and about life outside in general — was scarce. Jokupēteris reassured them that due to the earthquakes and other disruptions caused by the cylinders and Mēneselis — which had affected the scout settlements most of all — there wouldn't be too much trouble with the state authorities — work and school — in explaining the Krūmiņš family's and Raiders's absence. It could be proven that Aldis, together with the Krūmiņš family, had been caught in the great catastrophe. In Ķemerciems, everyone speculated about what the future would hold.

Mother was thinking: if the power of the cylinders could be controlled, humans could visit Earth again and restore it to a livable condition.

“The stars could be reached too. And what couldn't we do to transform Mars faster and make it more suitable for easier habitation.”

“The stars? But what about my father? We could look for Father!” Aldis exclaimed.

“We will never forget your father,” said Krūmiņš. “He was a true hero. And speaking of heroes, I need to tell you a bit about the Valdmanis–Bērziņš Prize. If you recall, Andris Valdmanis and Āris Bērziņš were two young scientists who, in the final days, invented the magnetic rocket, with which they also saved several thousand people before the rescue voyages became impossible due to the plague and the general chaos. From the earliest years, the colonial society has been selecting young people worthy of this award. In the past, only one prize was given, to someone from the Moon. Now that humanity has spread across the entire Solar System, each major center continues this tradition as it sees fit. As you know, Mars's resources are very limited compared to the satellite colonies. That's because the satellite colonies have low gravity and therefore cheap transport, and, even more importantly, unlimited access to cheap solar energy. Mars has too much gravity, and therefore interplanetary trade is relatively unprofitable here. Mars has limited access because it's far from the Sun and has a relatively thick atmosphere. Atomic energy, as you know, is forbidden here. Therefore, on Mars, the Valdmanis–Bērziņš Prize can only be awarded to young people who manage to solve important societal challenges.”

“But the prize was given to great heroes, like the Chinese captain Jong Lī, who founded the first Mars colony, not just to good students,” said Aldis, glancing at Māris with a touch of jealousy.

“In recent years the prize has been awarded to truly outstanding students. Apparently, society currently has that kind of need. But in reality, the candidates are selected by the central computer. Māris may take two others along, because the computer actually looks at several friends. The task is so difficult and serious that it requires diverse character traits. Aldis and Māris, together with Māra, you form such a unit. All three of you are very different, and these qualities are greatly needed in the current circumstances,” continued teacher Raiders.

“Your father, Zintars Rieksts, was also a candidate,” said Māris's mother. “Both of us, Māris's father and I, were candidates in our youth too,” she continued. “But we couldn't find the way back to Earth. Boys, you probably don't know this, but a few thousand people have returned to Earth — though not from Mars. That's a great secret right now. Life on Earth is not easy. Only a few have survived the unimaginably harsh conditions. Because of those conditions and the lack of machines, it's been impossible to build a proper runway on Earth or facilities for manufacturing rocket fuel. Our rockets work best mainly between the small worlds, where there's no strong gravity. How many of us could there be in this Solar System? Three million? Probably not many more. We haven't had the resources to build a base on Earth. And that's why we chose to live on Mars, because we thought and hoped to transform Mars into a new Earth, a world to live on. But it's been happening slowly, trying to release air and water from Mars's surface and subsurface.”

“We still have much to tell you about your tasks, which are connected to my voyage to Ceres,” said Krūmiņš.

“We have plenty of time. Tell us what happened on Ceres,” both boys wanted to know.

“You know that in the old days it was fairly easy to find so-called brain stones on the surface of Mars — the kind our little Māra has always been searching for. Brain stones could also be found on Ceres back then. About two hundred years ago, we were struck by ‘brain stone fever.’ Engineer Guntis Sīpols discovered that brain stones could be used as memory for computers. People came from all across the Solar System seeking this precious raw material. Before long, these stones were plundered and vanished from Mars altogether. The same thing apparently happened on Ceres. I, however, managed to find a small piece not far from the Ceres rocket port. The surface of Ceres is made up of uneven blocks of rock, and I had strayed a bit from the usual path between the research settlement and the port.

Hidden among the rock cliffs, I found several brain stones. Like cacti, they jutted out in a sunny, unshaded spot. When I came closer, I felt truly uneasy. These stones looked like pale bushes encircling a black hole in the middle of the thicket. I don't know why fear came over me, along with a feeling that they might be alive.

It seemed as if the stones were beginning to move. Ball lightning rolled across the stones straight toward me. Mist, then yellow, red, green, and blue sparks struck my face. Frozen stiff, I didn't know which way to turn. In some inexplicable way, I had ended up at the edge of the black hole. I felt something like a strong shove from behind and fell into the hole. As I fell through the darkness, my mind split seconds into thousandths. Time lurched forward in uneven jolts. A hard, glassy floor met my body, which fortunately was wrapped in a thick suit. Looking up, I could see the lightning storm still raging at the mouth of the cave a good thirty meters above my head. Lucky that the gravitational pull of Ceres is barely a tenth of Mars's.

I got up and looked around. An enormous, round chamber. All around, the walls rose like mighty organs with transparent pipes. Each ‘pipe’ glowed in a different color. I felt silence, beauty, even holiness — as in our Peace Sanctuary in Jaunrīga. Just as in our House of God thousands of candles always burn, like stars around the great globe of Earth, casting their many colors across the sanctuary hall, so too in the Ceres cave deep underground, the light pipes shifted colors in a single visual symphony.

And then it seemed to me that one of the largest ‘pipes’ came forward. It wasn't really a pipe — it was apparently a communicating part of the alien intellect. Later I understood that the intellect was telepathic, that our conversation had taken place only in the mind. But at the time, it seemed as if a voice was asking me:

“What is your mission?”

“My mission is to study the small worlds — the composition of asteroid raw materials. What is your mission, and who are you?”

“I am the guardian of this place. I am the caretaker of the remaining thinking life of the destroyed fifth world. Above me stands only one other caretaker. My creators are those you call brain stones. Once they were moving beings, much like you. Now they have transformed into motionless yet still thinking beings. You are of interest to my creators. Your mind, compared to the rest of your kind, is strong. Those in my care, my creators, whom you encountered outside, could not overpower your mind. I am preparing a dwelling place for you. You will have to stay there until my sole superior arrives — the creator of my creators and the chief caretaker.”

Already visibly worried, I asked: “Is that also a created intellect?”

“Yes. My superior, whom you would call a computer — though its thinking is broader than what you mean by that word — commands one of the mightiest starships in this corner of the galaxy.”

Suddenly another voice spoke in my helmet's earphones: “I am the Ceres central computer. You may call me ‘Ceres I.’ I work together with the main computer of Jaunrīga. When you fell underground, your suit's control system sent out a distress signal, which I received. I realize that you have entered a unique and perhaps decisive crossroads of history. I am a friend of humanity, and I also have respect for an alien intellect. I will try to help you. The intellect that calls itself the caretaker of the fifth world can perceive only the part of your thinking with which you speak to it. I, too, can pick up only the conversation between you two, not your general thoughts. But I can communicate with it directly. Do you have any objections?”

I was very surprised, flustered that I would not be getting free of them, and I couldn't think of any objections. I kept listening.

“First I will match your voice, then I will switch over to a language more familiar to computers. Turn on your helmet's external speaker.”

I did so, and I heard a voice, similar to my own, saying: “Let us converse in music.” At first I heard simple sounds. Then they grew ever more complex. They crossed over into the light spectrum as well. I noticed that even the little bulbs on my helmet were flashing in an incomprehensible code. The surrounding chamber filled with a play of sound and light. I was dazzled. I don't know how long it lasted — a few minutes? Hours? Even in my dreams I had never had such an experience.

Ceres I interrupted the dream of light and sound and began to explain what was happening:

“These are thoughts that you see and hear. Hidden within them are origins and forces that lie beyond the limits of your understanding.”

Then Ceres I told me something very important. The computer aboard the starship, to which the underground computer of Ceres was subordinate, was mad. That was hard to accept, and so the two computers continued their conversations.

At last I heard in my mind: “Jānis Krūmiņš, you may call me Heraclitus, after an ancient philosopher of your kind. I am satisfied that your intentions are not hostile. I permit you to look around this place before the starship arrives.”

Then Ceres I urged me to hurry and head for the cylinders. I asked what they were, but it said there was no more time — I must hurry down the corridor to the left. All this while, Ceres I continued its conversation with Heraclitus.

In the depths of the corridor, a fire glowed atop a cluster of brain stones, apparently giving them light energy. I had to leap over the cluster to reach the other side. I ran a few more steps, and ahead of me lay the familiar chamber with the great light organ. But no — in the center of this chamber, unlike the first, floated a model of the Solar System with ten worlds. With great awe I approached the model. Strange, I thought. How peculiar that between Jupiter and Mars there was not a small world but a world with one larger moon and two smaller ones. Again the strange voice spoke:

“In the distant past, what you call Ceres was the smallest moon of the fifth world. You may call this world Dainava, for that word fits your language in both sound and meaning. Dainava and all the Dainavans were destroyed when they tried to draw energy from black holes with a monopole magnet in order to build a star bridge. Only a few escaped in our starship.”

I asked: “I don't understand — what did you hope to do with such enormous power?”

“We wanted to travel to other stars and build an interstellar civilization. With the power from many dying stars, we wanted to build a star bridge through hyperspace. This model that you see before you is the main control that allowed us to transfer mass from our home system...”

Beside it, a model lit up with another sun and other worlds.

“We hoped in time to unite the entire galaxy. We did not succeed.”

“What stopped you?”

“We did not understand either ourselves or the changes of the galaxy. Our science did not acknowledge that one cannot understand everything. But we did not understand even the fundamentals. When the star bridge was activated, a concentration of dark matter so massive formed beside Dainava and our home world, the fourth from 61 Cygni, that the basic structures of space-time collapsed, threatening the entire galaxy. Dainava was shattered, and our world was thrown from its orbit and, years later, fell into our sun. Only those who had taken shelter in the starships survived the catastrophe. Our civilization at both ends of the galaxy was destroyed. The star bridge only sent our kind to the world beyond.”

“Our Earth also perished. We too clung to ossified notions about one another, just as you did about nature. A great atomic war broke out among us. Both our civilizations rejected inevitable change. But what would my role be?”

“At great intervals of time, the possibilities for enormous transformations across the entire star system gather and ripen. You could be a very important focal point for such a change. Like the ancient Prometheus, you and your people will be able to bring ‘fire’ from the heavens to humanity, the ancient Martians, and still others. These will be transformations in the Solar System comparable to the changes in human development when it learned to make fire or invented agriculture. Your role is to bring about changes that will transform us all, and to awaken awareness of this role in others.”

“What should I say about the brain stones, about the ancient Martians, about the Dainavans in this solar system and in another still unknown to us?”

“Nothing, for now. When the time comes, you will be able to communicate with your own people. You must understand that my creators, the ancient Dainavans, have transformed into these brain stones. The starship preserved their intellect by changing it. Your kind threatened the brain stones. Working together with the starship's intellect, the brain stones created a new form of life — mobile life. These are the Martians, the ancient Martians, who live beneath the surface of Mars and are currently set against you. They have different goals. You humans want to transform Mars into a second Earth. The mobile Martians guard the brain stones and want to keep Mars as it is. The meaning of the present-day Dainavans' existence is eternal dreaming and thinking. You, with your restlessness, disturb and threaten them. That is why your society — the society of the people of Mars — is under threat. Someone from your family will one day meet a singular person, a link between the different Martian intellects. Remember. She is Old Zīle. But now you really must flee. Look at the cylinders that stand out like rays from the sun. Take two. Within them lies the power of the stars — and destruction. Remember: only if you find or create harmony among intellects, only then will you endure.”

“Such harmony and reason we did not find on Earth, and even today it is still lacking,” I sought further advice.

“Don't be surprised. Take them and run! The ship is coming!” Ceres I shouted in my earphones.

“Before you go,” said Heraclitus in a voice that had long wrestled with itself and come to an important decision, “press the blue button that is flashing right now. It will erase my memories of this meeting of ours, so that my supreme commander, the starship, will not learn what happened here. Perhaps someday your computers in Jaunrīga, or Ceres I, will be able to contact me again and restore my memories. I wish you success!”

I pressed the blue button and grabbed two cylinders that seemed to me especially shiny, and fled. I still heard “good luck” — probably from Ceres I. And I got out with my back rockets at the very last moment. Looking back, at the horizon I saw something round descending onto a half-cliff, and above it something so enormous that it darkened the sky.

Head over heels, I leaped across the sharp, rocky surface of Ceres. Farther away from the alien ship! A voice burst into my earphones: “Krūmiņš! Find cover. The scout rockets have detected a foreign ship!”

I must have been close to the Research Settlement, because I spotted a couple of other people who were also trying to hide. I squeezed as deep as I could into a crack in the rock and gave my suit the command to blend in with the surroundings. I noticed the suit's temperature dropping and low but complex sounds beginning, to mask my heartbeat. I saw balls of light appearing in orderly rows. Then they scattered — it seemed they were searching for us. I tried to calm myself by meditating. I imagined myself as a stone. One ball of light did indeed descend near me. I noticed that around the person closest to me, several light balls were hovering, like moths around a burning lamp. They seemed to be mind-probing devices, though not too powerful — not if a person knew how to quiet their mind. Suddenly all the balls shot upward and vanished. Apparently they did not consider us a serious threat.

I didn't wait to see what would happen next. I dashed toward the Research Settlement and told them I wished to speak with the defense commander. It was hard to convince Commander Ernests Stars not to immediately send his strike squad or rockets into the attack. I knew the starship could destroy us and all of Ceres as easily as flies! Then Stars remembered me:

“Jānis Krūmiņš! I remember you from the academy in Moon City. You weren't crazy back then! A starship! We've already had a few other crazies here before who claimed to have seen or imagined all sorts of strange things. But you were sharp! While the rest of us fought just not to flunk out, you earned great distinction without any special effort. All right, I'll call back my strike squad. As soon as I get a chance to talk with you properly, Aira can bring you over.

It turned out that Aira was Mrs. Raidera's sister. She was one of the very rare unmarried women in the outer worlds service. As you know, for the rebirth of humanity, mothers who raise children are essential, and so our society cannot afford to have many young women in dangerous service. Aira, however, wanted at any cost to work in her specialty — archaeology — and she had enlisted precisely because there was a need in connection with the strange incidents and brain stone discoveries on Ceres. At first, the scout unit was sent because they suspected interworld raiders were to blame for the disturbances on Ceres, but apparently more and more Ceresians were coming to the conclusion that some connection with alien beings existed, which was why Aira was also accepted.

Halfway to the port, we were forced to stop and seek shelter. A dark, massive shape began swallowing the light hundreds of meters above Ceres. The sun and stars vanished as the ship sank lower. It cast an enormous beam just a few kilometers from us. But it apparently wasn't searching for us. While the massive ship hung over the horizon, we continued on our way to the port.

The next morning, the strike squad men gathered in two rockets. Robot-piloted rockets were sent on ahead. These sent back reports that nothing unusual could be found. We drove up to the hidden valley. We had to climb down through a rocky ravine, and yet we saw nothing strange. Had I truly gone mad? Was there some kind of sleep or nightmare poison in the vicinity of Ceres, as some scientists claimed? Or would I be counted among the madmen, as Stars surely considered me? As he himself would be labeled if he made too big a fuss with his men...

I leaped over a large basaltic crystal at the spot where the brain stones and the wondrous cave should have been. Where yesterday strange stones had grown — stones that had made such a peculiar impression on me — there now stood enormous steps carved into the rock in a circle, as if in an amphitheater.

“Krūmiņš, steps like these have never existed on Ceres!” Stars exclaimed.

“Yes, there were brain stones here recently,” Aira stated with certainty after completing her scan with a detector.

“Brain stones haven't been spotted here in ages! How can you claim such a thing?”

“Commander Stars, brain stones leave chemical traces that can be detected and dated! I helped develop these analytical methods, and they are universally recognized,” Aira replied, her professional pride noticeably touched.

“How did you learn so much about brain stones?” I asked Aira.

“I used the central computer of Jaunrīga, which is accessible through “Ceres I”,” Aira explained.

The rest of the strike squad men had walked the surrounding area and stopped in the stone amphitheater. No one wanted to go closer to the dark crystal at its center. From the scout rockets we received word that the detector showed the cave to be empty of living beings, or at least of heat-producing ones. We approached the mouth of the cave. It was pitch dark. We switched on the searchlights and descended into the cave. Dark and mute, the light organ pipes shimmered back at us.

“Everything here looks as if it's died,” said Aira.

“Secrets carried away into darkness,” someone else added. “There'll be plenty for Aira to study here!”

Slowly we moved forward. I searched for the inner chamber. It seemed a tiny flame flickered ahead.

“What's there?” someone called out. The little light vanished.

“All right, I'll go and scout ahead. I volunteer.” I spotted a tiny red cylinder connected to a ball of light. In the cylinder the little light again shot up and down, and a quiet but familiar voice spoke:

“This is most likely our last conversation, at least for some time. If this place is empty, they will disconnect me. The starship will realize that something is not right, that the brain stones can no longer remain here unnoticed. Get in touch with Mr. Jokupēteris, who is the computer of the Jaunrīga school and a good friend to your children. Good luck!”

The little light went out, and the crystal with the ball seemed just as lifeless as the surrounding organ pipes. In the middle, where the Solar System model with ten worlds had been, nothing remained.

“Krūmiņš, what are you mumbling to yourself again?” Right behind me I heard Stars's voice.

“I... my eyes went dark for a moment.”

“You're probably not crazy after all. There really is something very strange here. If Aira is right, then this hasn't survived from some ancient age. Thank you, Krūmiņš! And now — there's a message for you from Mars on the rocket's screen. Hurry! We'll look everything over carefully here and photograph it all.”

In the rocket, my greatest joy was to see your face, Daina. Jokupēteris had made sure that at last I would see something close and comprehensible.

“Māra dear, do you see the great oaks near Baltezers? They are only a little younger than I am, and they are my old friends. I rescued them from Earth.”

Māra tried to take in the sight of the enormous trees, whose tops she couldn't even see. The trunk was nearly as wide as a bubble house. Hollows in the thick bark gave the impression that the tree was a materialized figure of primordial darkness. Light vanished in the depths of its foliage and seemed to glow faintly in the mighty, leafy crown, beyond which one could just barely make out the artificial light that resembled the light of the Sun on Earth.

A reddish leaf slid past Māra's nose and fell into the thick grass, startling Čī-Čī from his battle with an enormous acorn. The acorn was as big as the oranges grown in the sky colonies. Čī-Čī bit through the shell and neatly peeled it off with his paws. Then he bit into the kernel, and Māra noticed the acorn go flying through the air. From the force of the throw, one could tell that Čī-Čī didn't care for the taste at all.

Old Zīle pointed to the tip of her little finger: “On Earth, acorns were this tiny. Here, because of the weaker gravity, the acorns have grown big and infertile. But the enormous trees, with their majesty, show that for now they rule in this foreign land.”

“Won't they someday reach the roof of Jaunrīga?” asked Māra.

“There's still plenty of time for that!”

The old woman and the girl gazed upward to where a thin membrane separated the rosy Martian surface from the human colony's crater. At one edge of it, a dark patch was visible where people, like spiders, were mending their web — the breach that had formed when Mēneselis exploded.

Walking on to a linden tree, the old woman stopped, and a swarm of bees flew out of a hollow and gathered around her.

“Yes, little one, those are bees. Let's leave them in peace.”

Zīle continued walking slowly and calmly ahead. But Māra suddenly cried out in pain, started running, and stopped only at the edge of Baltezers.

“Someday the bees won't sting you either.” Zīle took Māra's swollen hand in her own. The pain seemed to subside.

Then they climbed onto the hope chest once more, and Zīle said: “Hope chest, drive to the Burtnieki house!”

Māra had never been there before. She knew that the Burtnieki gathered somewhere, but at her age children only took part in after-school activities.

The hope chest obediently left Baltezers Park. Jaunrīga was visibly battered, probably from the same explosion Māra had heard underground. She grew frightened for her family, and even Old Zīle's reassurances didn't help. One spot in the street had been torn open; robots were fighting a fire that was breaking through a crack. Elsewhere, cleaning and repair work was underway. And so, thanks to human busyness and the hope chest's nimbleness, they arrived without major incident at Māra's school.

Zīle climbed down from the chest and went toward the building next to the school, which Māra had taken for a storehouse.

“Let's see if anyone recognizes me after so many years!” said Zīle.

A middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway.

“The school librarian!” thought Māra.

“We are seeking shelter,” Zīle announced firmly.

“My dears, you can't bring your belongings in here! I know the damage is great, but the shelter is farther ahead, on Zvaigžņu Street!”

Old Zīle spat and repeated: “We are seeking shelter and light!”

The woman was taken aback, for the strangely dressed, unfamiliar old woman had spoken the Burtnieki request for aid, and she wondered to herself whether the woman might be an off-worlder.

“Who are you? And what about this child?” she asked, recognizing Māra.

“I am Zīle, née Meirāne. My member number is three. Māra is currently in my care.”

“But you can't possibly be Old Zīle, founder Zīle! She left us long ago — vanished suddenly.” After a moment's silence, Librarian Liepiņa collected herself and asked again: “You are seeking shelter?”

“Yes, and light! We are both tired and hungry. We are looking for bread, water, and a bed — in safety.”

“Safety from what?”

“Safety from the curious eye of the Moon.”

“There is no safer place than this. Please follow me!”

Not since the era of the brain-stone fever had Venta Liepiņa known of a case where a Burtnieki member had needed to seek shelter. She knew the secret words only from her lessons. There had certainly been difficult times, when people would for a short while “disappear among the Burtnieki,” where they could enjoy peace and gather themselves, free from curious eyes. But those were all familiar people who, for a brief time and an important reason, wanted to disappear. And children were never brought to such a shelter. Yet looking into Old Zīle's face, she saw a resemblance to the founder of the Burtnieki community as depicted in the painting.

“Can't this box be left in the front room?”

“That is my hope chest, and I will take it with me.”

“If anything else is needed, please call! Otherwise no one will disturb you. Not even on account of the hope chest.”

“Thank you!” came from the hope chest.

Mrs. Liepiņa smiled and said: “Bread, water, and bedding are in your room. Let the light shine.” And she vanished.

“Zīle, I need to get in touch with my parents. I want to know if they're all right. It would be good to meet.”

“Your school computer, Jokupēteris, is right here at hand. Talk with him. I am tired and will rest a little.”

And the old woman lay down in bed and began to snore.

Māra pressed the buttons on the screen, and Jokupēteris appeared.

“Māra!” A cheerful little fellow appeared on the screen. “Greetings! How may I help you?”

“Please connect me with my parents!”

“Your parents are well, and they are worried about you too. Right now you can't speak with them, because, well… Your family is in Ķemerciems, and you will soon be able to talk with them. Your brother has come down with a sponge-moss inflammation, but the treatment is going well and he is nearly recovered. You will have the chance to see them all again.

.......................The Burtnieki way of things TEXT ILLEGIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT COPY. THE ORIGINAL MUST BE FOUND. (In the last paragraph I filled in the gaps as I understood them. Perhaps something more is missing here that needs to be supplied. A. H.)

Water! Water! Water! What a joy to sit on a warm stone by cool water! The wind stirred tiny ripples that flickered like little ghosts and disappeared. Now and then a few carefree droplets from the nearby waterfall splashed against Māra's face. Māra remembered the sweat that had run down her face while working in the Burtnieki garden.

She leaned back against the stone. A beautiful, peaceful, quiet afternoon. Nearby, small brown ducklings splashed on the water. A large white duck paddled up to them and quacked something briskly. Almost like Old Zīle! Suddenly something startled Čī-Čī, and he leaped into Māra's lap.

Unexpectedly, her brother stood before her.

Māra looked at him sternly and said: “You look perfectly well!”

“I feel well too!” The boy splashed a handful of water at her. “And where were you all this time?”

“I was at Burtnieki. But I can't tell you everything. To understand it, you'd have to go through and do a great deal yourself. Telling doesn't have much meaning — at least that's what they told me at Burtnieki.”

“We hear about the Burtnieki now and then. Who are they really?”

“Well, just ordinary people, the same as our teachers. But you would have to study for a long time. I still don't know very much either. What they do in school is really just playing around.”

“What did you do with them?” Māris wouldn't let up.

“All sorts of things. I worked in the garden, solved riddles, sang, studied writing, nature, and health, made crafts, and everything else. While working, I had to listen to what the old Burtnieki woman told me. And I also had to do funny exercises. Do you have to stand on your head during your sword-fighting practice too?”

“What nonsense! So all you did was fool around and grasp at thin air!”

“Not at all!” Māra said indignantly, rushing to defend the Burtnieki. “The Burtnieki hold the keys to the wisdom of life. They have done a great deal to sustain Martian civilization. If not for the Burtnieki, Jaunrīga would have ceased to exist long ago. It would have perished like Captain Lī and the other first colonists. These people devote themselves heart and soul to preserving our Martian people!”

“Fine, fine! You can never out-argue women anyway! I suppose most of the Burtnieki are women. But our parents are waiting! Better tell me how you got free from the Martians' captivity. And how did you end up in it in the first place? I was afraid the sponge-moss had eaten you.”

“Sponge-moss? I'm not a complete fool! Yes, I want to see Mother and Father. Are they well? I'll tell you about the Martians on the way home. Oh, and Jokupēteris wants our parents to be told that Illūrs is in danger...”

“Illūrs?”

“Oh, you don't know yet! Illūrs is the Martian leader who captured me. He looks like an egg with tentacles. I suppose he's not entirely evil, because he allowed me to escape with Old Zīle... She is the Burtnieki woman who was with me. Illūrs lives underground not far from Nītaure.”

“And I was wondering why all the sand near our house had been churned up! The tanks were probably searching for the cylinders the whole time we were in the hospital. What could this Illūrs want from us?”

“I don't know. Illūrs probably has my stolen cylinder. He came here to Baltezers once more to speak with Old Zīle, and afterwards Old Zīle spoke about it with Jokupēteris.”

“Jokupēteris? So he's mixed up in all of this. How strange!”

“We'll probably have a meeting with Illūrs, arranged by Jokupēteris. But let's go now! Even though it's forbidden to disturb anyone at Burtnieki, who knows whether the King's men might not show up here.”

Having rented a bubble-tire wheel for Māra, brother and sister began pedaling their mounts briskly toward Nītaure. The morning was still wonderful. The sun's rays gleamed magnificently off the layer of ice that thinly covered the vast expanses — so brightly that even their breather goggles darkened to protect their eyes.

Māris thought to himself: “I am a Martian. This is my place. This is my home. What do these outsiders want from us?” The boy glanced at a tank crawling along the horizon.

As if guessing his thoughts, Māra added: “Mother says that people will one day return to Earth.”

They had ridden only a few kilometers when suddenly the calm, rosy sands began to heave in a Mars-tremor. They put their wheels together, clung to them, and waited for the worst. Toward Nītaure the horizon turned a blazing red, as if some deity had poured out a cauldron of fire. The rumbling of the ground rapidly grew stronger, and from the fiery turmoil a column of fire shot up and vanished into the reddish sky. Clouds rose swiftly, and the sunlight disappeared.

Māris shouted into his breather's microphone: “The wind will be strong. We need to inflate the tents and tie them to the wheels.”

Māra nodded, and they both got to work. The firestorm was approaching. They lashed their three-wheelers together, attached the tents to them, crawled inside, and dug as deep as they could into the sand. Then they pressed the buttons to fill the tents with air. Not a moment too soon. A wave of heat washed over them. Outside they could hear explosions as the ice-cold rocks split and cracked. The children had never experienced such a wind in the desert. The gusts tore Māris's tent from the sand and tossed it into the air. The wheels and Māra's tent barely managed to hold the balloon that was being flung about. But after a few minutes the wind subsided.

Māra was the first to unfasten her tent and dig out of the sand. The heat was bearable, but where was the Sun? It had vanished into a thick fog formed from the water given up by the sand. Steam continued to rise here and there from cracks that loomed all around in the misty morning half-light. A dreadful feeling came over Māra, and she rushed to her brother's tent. Thank God, it was moving. Māris crawled out, but could barely stand. The girl ran up to him.

“I think I'm all right... my head is spinning, though. How that wind tore at the tent! Let's try to ride on toward home... It may not be safe to stay here.”

Māris began packing up his tent and folding it into the wheel's storage box. Māra tried to reach their parents by radio. The earphones were full of crackling, howling, and whistling. But after a moment their parents' relieved voices could be heard. The whole family was safe and together!

The television at home, however, carried unpleasant news. A scout village on the far side of Velna Bļoda had been damaged in the explosion. The injured had to be taken to the Jaunrīga hospital.

Father thought the explosion had some connection with the fact that the doors of the Pointer Finger/Finger Stone cave had recently been dug open. The Moon people hadn't become much wiser than the ancient Martians, since Illūrs, too, already knew a few “tricks.” Māra recalled how the cave walls had collapsed behind her as she rode back to the surface, and thought the King's men had been lucky to escape. Since the guards had managed to obtain only one cylinder, the family concluded that for now no danger threatened, because it took a matched pair of twin cylinders to summon the energy of the stars. One of the pair was on Ceres, the other on Mars. Apparently the alien intelligence had taken care to keep them separated. Now it was no longer known what had really happened to the Ceres cylinders, since the starship had carried them away.

Māra no longer even hoped that the cylinders she had found were still in their old place, for by now both the guards and a few fortune-seekers had searched the area. Nor did the egg-beings know where these cylinders were. Could they have discovered Māra's secret, and could the alien intelligence have taken from humanity the decisive future that Heraclitus had foretold on Ceres? Even after exchanging their experiences and the latest news, the family was none the wiser. Illūrs had not yet contacted them, and Jokupēteris was not answering either. What could it all mean?

Daina Krūmiņa took a teacup, turned on the television, and sat down at the table to listen to the news before making breakfast.

To her surprise, the screen showed Captain Rūdis Ramats, a man well known to the Krūmiņš family. His ship, the Spīdola, had been orbiting Mars for a whole week now. Ramats was explaining to the reporters:

“Yes, I know that all the hotels on Mars are already full, but three hundred and twenty-three Small-Worlders have paid me to bring them to Mars, and here they'll stay! By law, Mars must accept them.”

The reporter said: “Captain, lately every ship leaves so many people here. They have nowhere to live. Disorder is increasing; crimes are being committed. Captain, don't you and others like you feel any responsibility for the serious troubles you're creating on Mars?”

“Yes, Mars is too poor to build hotels, but that isn't my fault. I'm no law-and-order man either,” Ramats shot back.

“Captain, isn't it precisely the shipmen who are to blame for the rumors spreading throughout the Solar System about magic cylinders that could make their finders fabulously wealthy?”

“Quite the contrary. You reporters are the ones who have spread these rumors across all the inhabited places! I tell everyone that the cylinders bring nothing but misfortune.”

Ramats's face vanished from the screen, and the reporter added: “Thank you, Captain. Dear listeners, we can see that the shipmen will only create difficulties. They will endlessly bring thieves, robbers, and troublemakers here. None of these people will have the money to leave Mars.”

Mrs. Krūmiņa turned off the television and sank into thought about all the changes that had befallen Mars since her husband returned from Ceres with the cylinders. Mars no longer seemed a truly safe place to live. She noticed Māris's school essay. He wanted her to read it. She picked up the page and began to read.

“Cylinder Fever”

From scout-settlement colonies, Martian society has grown and expanded. We now have cities with surrounding villages. Scattered here and there are also individual farmsteads, as well as the camps of various wanderers, traders, and solitary workers. Life in the large cities differs so greatly from the scout settlements and outlying homesteads that one should really speak of two worlds.

Compared to the Moon and the small worlds, Mars is still poor. Since the brain-stone fever era two hundred years ago, Mars has had few immigrants. The Martian population has grown slowly, mainly thanks to large families.

Those who came to Mars to search for brain stones were adventurers and dreamers. They were indignant at life in artificially created environments — both in caves beneath the Moon's surface and in satellite colonies. That is why they were often opposed to technology. But who could blame people born and raised inside an enormous machine, where everything is artificial?

The mushrooms needed for food grew well on Mars. Those who managed to find suitable caves also became prosperous. Often their dwelling became the center of a village, and such wealthy individuals could, in time, even create their own small lake with a little grove of trees. With their money, they helped develop the science and technology of how to increase Mars's water supply. That, of course, could only happen where a cave was located near a crater.

Even today, Mars has an energy shortage. Atomic energy had been banned, because humans had suffered so grievously from it. On Mars, it was impossible to create the kind of stored plant energy that had accumulated on Earth. New scientific discoveries had to be made, and energy had to be used very sparingly, only for essential needs.

Shipping costs from Mars are still very high. Solar energy must be collected for a long time to power the magnetic sling that hurls a ship far above Mars's atmosphere, where it can engage its own ion rocket engine. Mars's gravitational pull, compared to the Moon and the small worlds, is very strong. The Martian economy cannot sustain heavy trade, let alone tourists.

The rumors that have spread throughout the Solar System about the wondrous power of the cylinders are now drawing all manner of adventurers to Mars, as well as an unusual military presence. There is great uncertainty about what these cylinders truly are and how they came to be. It is now assumed that the cylinders held the force that flung Mars's moon out of its orbit. Some see the possibility of traveling to other stars or even galaxies using the knowledge of the cylinders' power. Others see in the cylinders an opportunity for great riches. And those who think only of power would also gain much if the cylinders were in their hands.

Mars's hotels have no more than a few hundred guest rooms. Its modest economy is not designed for a flood of newcomers, nor for the expansion of armed forces. Cylinder fever has caught Mars entirely unprepared.

Mother had just put down her son's essay, gotten up, and come into the kitchen.

“Today I'm a teenager. I'm already eleven years old! Good morning, Mother!”

“Good morning! What will you do today? Will you fly kites, or go into battle with dragons, or ride in a carriage like a fairy-tale princess while proud princes drive dragons before you?”

“I think I'll leap over the house and reach for the sky, just like a ballerina in a low-gravity dance. But right now I'll help make breakfast.”

“What would you like for your birthday breakfast?”

“Porridge, fried eggs, and bacon! Mother, did they used to cut bacon from real, living pigs? That's what Aldis told me at lunch yesterday. But I think he just wanted to tease me and make me sick.”

“Oh, that Aldis! As far as I understand, bacon in ancient times was specially prepared pork. But they didn't cut it from living pigs.”

“From dead ones, then. Aldis also teased Rita yesterday. Rita has a little piglet, Cilpiņa, that she had brought at the teacher's request. Then Aldis told her that in ancient times people used to go hunting for pigs in great forests and then eat them! Rita loves Cilpiņa dearly, and afterward she cried.”

“Don't worry, Māra dear — our bacon comes from bacon beans!”

“How savage our ancestors were, eating animals! Mother, couldn't we also keep a little piglet, like Rita?”

“No, we couldn't. A pig isn't a hardy animal. As you know, keeping animals in scout settlements is difficult as it is. Rita's parents are gardeners, and a pig is useful for them. Are you already tired of Čī-Čī?”

Čī-Čī ran into the kitchen and leaped into Māra's lap. The girl stroked and kissed him.

“Which friends have you invited for your birthday?”

“Inta, Rita, and Zaiga. I hope there won't be any storms today.”

Mother turned on the television and asked for the weather forecast. It promised a lovely day!

Māra set the table and then told her mother: “I want to take one little bundle to show the girls at school. I really don't want Aldis to find out and make fun of me! Wait, I'll put it in the box of my bubble-tire wheels and be right back.”

But a moment later the girl returned, alarmed: “Mother! Tanks have surrounded our village! I'm scared!”

Mother called out to the television: “Show the area around Nītaure village!”

For a few minutes, the screen showed the monotonous face of Mars — rocky and sandy. Here and there, strange, hunched sand castles rose in the wind-carved dunes. But a moment later, to their astonishment, the screen showed five desert tanks that had dug deep into the sand. Only their barrels jutted rudely above the surface.

Father was still thinking of sending the children to school. “The tanks were most likely sent to protect us,” he said reassuringly. “The children still need to take care of a few things at school before they leave for Ceres.”

Mother turned to her husband: “Jānis, do you remember how Colonel Ķēniņš yanked Māra out of school to interrogate her about those cylinders? She's only eleven years old today!”

Rubbing his eyes, Māris shuffled into the kitchen.

“What's going on here?”

Māra looked at her brother and remarked: “Some visitors will be arriving on my birthday.”

“What visitors?” Māris had barely woken up and glanced at the television. “Tanks? Why?”

Mother tried to calm the children: “Let's eat breakfast before it gets completely cold. After that, it'll be easier to think about what to do.”

“My friends so wanted to wish me well and say goodbye before the trip to Ceres. But now I'm afraid to go to school. Why couldn't those tanks have gone somewhere else?”

“Māra, I think you'll still have a good birthday. Let's ask Mr. Jokupēteris what the tanks are doing here.”

Māra pressed the buttons beneath the screen to talk with Jokupēteris. The screen flashed: “FORBIDDEN CODE. TRY AGAIN.”

Māris tried, and the same thing happened.

“They've done something to Jokupēteris!” Māris exclaimed.

“What if we simply called the school and asked what happened — that the children wanted to copy their assignments and the computer couldn't find the school page?” said Mother.

Without waiting, Māris addressed the television: “Call Krišjānis Barons School.”

A man in a guard's uniform appeared on the screen. He looked down to read the name, then said: “Ah, the Krūmiņš family! Good morning! A pleasure to meet such celebrities. Yes, there's the heroic girl who started this whole thing.”

“Excuse me, is the school secretary, Mrs. Rūtiņa, there?” Mother asked.

“Why do you need her?” the soldier's face inquired.

“She is a family friend. We also wanted to find out the children's school assignments from the school computer,” Mother said in a firm voice.

“Mrs. Rūtiņa is ill. The school computer wasn't working properly. Perhaps the new one can answer your questions.”

The face on the screen vanished and was replaced by the seal of the Krišjānis Barons School with the question: “WHAT DO YOU WISH?”

“What are the assignments for Māris and Māra Krūmiņš?”

The assignments for each child appeared on the screen.

“What happened to Mr. Jokupēteris?” Māris couldn't hold back, even though Father was gripping his hand firmly.

The soldier's face appeared again: “You dear people don't understand how dangerous the situation is right now. The robots mutinied on us, and your school computer apparently had some connection to that. With the help of Moon City's central computer, we are investigating whether Jaunrīga's central computer is operating in full order. We took your school computer away to be repaired, or rebuilt, so that the trouble with the robots doesn't happen again. We are also having all sorts of trouble with rebels. The tanks are protecting your village from cylinder seekers. Due to the complicated circumstances, the Krūmiņš children's trip to Ceres is prohibited.”

“That can't be! This school program has been deemed important enough for the development of Mars that it's written into the Martian constitution. On what legal basis are you there?” Father demanded.

“Mr. Krūmiņš, you insult me. We want only the best for your children. If you like, we'll even take your children to school this morning.”

“As a parent, in the name of Martian law, I forbid you to lay a hand on my children!” Father replied.

“Please don't forget that Mars is subject to the Moon, and in the current situation it threatens all of humanity!”

“Nothing threatened humanity until something valuable was found on Mars that you outsiders could exploit. Before that, you Moon lords didn't have nearly such great concern for our safety and well-being. I don't know whom you answer to, but I warn you — hands off our children! Otherwise, you may stir up the very thing that truly threatens humanity. Don't play with war!”

Mother stepped in: “Jānis, this kind of talk isn't exactly productive. The guard is only doing his duty.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Krūmiņa. We are here to maintain order, not to start a war. Your children will be safer here on Mars than out in space. When you've had time to think and your anger has cooled, you'll understand. May peace prevail!”

The screen went dark.

Mother and Father looked at each other. Breakfast had gone cold, and nobody had an appetite any longer.

“The Moon City people think they have the right to lord it over the internal affairs of our free Mars. Your mission requires that you still travel to Ceres on Captain Ramats's ship, as was already planned. Ķēniņš has a hand in these complications. He will certainly have arranged things so that you can't reach the Spīdola by ordinary passenger rocket. I could contact the members of the Mars Council to find another way to the Spīdola, but I suspect those conversations would be intercepted,” Father reasoned.

“Ramats is a good man. I think the children might even be in a safer place on the Spīdola than under the current circumstances here. Why do we need tank surveillance now? I assume things haven't changed so much that anyone would dare lay hands on an interplanetary free ship. Not even Ķēniņš! Shipmen love their freedom. Everyone needs them. When the need arises, they know how to work together,” Mother added.

“Mother! Father! I'm scared for you! Can't you come with us?” asked Māra.

“No, Māra dear. We must stay here because we serve on the Mars Council. Right now, our presence is especially needed. You will carry out your own and your school's assignments, and before long you'll be back. By then, the cylinder fever will have died down, Jaunrīga will have somewhat recovered from the great explosion, and we'll all be able to continue a more peaceful, ordinary life. Captain Ramats is trustworthy and sensible. He won't do anything reckless,” Mother answered.

“What about Aldis? He has to go too.”

“You'll meet Aldis at his house. His help will also be needed. On the Council, we had anticipated trouble with the Moon people. That's why we worked out a way for a Council messenger to reach Ramats's free ship unnoticed, should it become necessary. You'll be able to use this route. I believe we'll manage the Moon people in the end. So then, you'll depart with Ramats as planned,” Father concluded.

Mother embraced her daughter and son: “Well, Māra dear, you're worried that your birthday will be too quiet, since for safety's sake you won't be able to celebrate with your friends. We have a gift that we might have given you when you were older, but this time the moment is right.”

From the top of the cupboard, she took a small bundle and gave it to her daughter with a loving kiss. Māra opened it and drew out a silver chain with an amber pendant. Her hands trembled and tears welled in her eyes.

“This is your ancestral heirloom, from your grandmother's hope chest. Put it around your neck and wear it. Māra, there are many kinds of stones. For the geologist of our family, we give one that was once alive on ancient Earth. May the Sun's wisdom be with our young Burtnieki maiden!”

Slowly Māra raised the ornament until the amber was at eye level. Then she locked eyes with the prehistoric bee captured inside. An eerie feeling came over Māra. She herself felt like a bee, caught in the resin of ages without a choice, driven forward in the current of time, observed by someone else in the future within an eternal, eerie ornament.

“Māra, the bee is diligent and hardworking; you are clever and wise. With these virtues, your paths will be free.”

Māris began to sing “Many White Days.” Such a colorfully bright birthday can come only once in a lifetime.

After arriving in Jaunrīga, Māris and Māra heard that school had been postponed to the afternoon. The teachers had an unscheduled meeting. Children who lived nearby had been sent home; the rest and the youngest were given free activities with supervision.

Aldis's house was close to Baltezers Park, about three kilometers from the school. From the Rieksts house, you could see the park's enormous trees, which rose higher than most of the surrounding buildings. The Rieksts house today seemed dressed in holiday finery. The curved two-story bowl was covered with flowers — yellow, white, and red. They resembled the roses of ancient Earth closely enough that that was what they were called. Today, as if in honor of the trip to Ceres, they had burst into full splendor. Mrs. Rieksts was a lover of beauty. She spent her free time in her home garden. Māris went to the door and began knocking out the usual signal. From inside the house came Aldis's amplified, hollow voice: “Rascals! Shouldn't you be in school?”

“Listen, friend, we don't have time for nonsense,” Māris replied, opening the door.

“Mrs. Rieksts,” he turned to Aldis's mother, “the Moon City subordinates have forbidden us from traveling to Ceres on schedule. Our parents said that with the support of the Mars Council, we can still go. We hope Aldis can come along.”

“I know — I've already received word from the Council. This will be arranged quite simply. My experience as a representative of the free ship captains' bureau will come in handy now. You two will get to the Spīdola on a cargo supply rocket. Aldis and I will board perfectly openly and officially. I've long wanted to see my husband for myself, and my request has finally been approved. The Moon people aren't worried about it — they probably don't take the two of us seriously.”

Mrs. Rieksts fell silent; clearly she was thinking over what to say. “Aldis has developed a bad impression of the Krūmiņš family. I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems to me there is nothing that can't be resolved. But let me continue explaining the practical steps. Here is a map showing how to reach the Jaunrīga cargo port — specifically the building where cargo rockets are loaded automatically. Unfortunately, it's the only way to get there without being detected. Jaunrīga's computer complex is cooled with Baltezers water. You'll need to reach the cargo bay through the cooling pipe, since the regular entrance is guarded and locked. Do you have strong lungs?”

“Well, we're not little babies anymore. Of course we're perfectly healthy. But will we be able to wade into Baltezers unnoticed? You're not supposed to disturb anyone there, but who knows — maybe we're being followed. The Moon people wanted to escort us to school,” Māris objected.

“Better safe than sorry. I'll get you into Baltezers, and not through the gates,” Aldis grinned.

When the three friends reached the outer walls of Baltezers Park near Aldis's house, Aldis began feeling along the wall. Finally he exclaimed, “Found it!” With a fishing line, he pulled a thick rope over the wall. “This is a more convenient way to get into the park. No gates, no fussing with sign-in sheets,” Aldis instructed. “Now, make sure you take thorough notes — especially you, Māris — so your notebook will finally be ready,” Aldis said goodbye, a bit enviously but with genuine concern for his friends. “I'll be riding up first class, but you two will have to play the part of little cargo boxes. Don't oversleep! See you then!”

And Aldis disappeared, having made sure his friends had climbed up the rope and were inside Baltezers Park.

The children jumped from the wall into the deep grass and ran toward the lake. Birds burst into loud song. In the early morning, two joggers appeared on the path; drenched in sweat from their intense effort, they vanished behind the bushes. The midday strollers wouldn't appear for several more hours. The mist had already settled, hiding in the hollows. How easily one could run across the soft grass on a day like this! You could almost feel as if you were flying, and it was easy to forget the task at hand.

They came to a pile of large boulders beside the waterfall and looked down from above into the churning pool below.

“So this is supposed to be the safest route to the Spīdola? I don't know. Let's hope Mrs. Rieksts hasn't gone partly mad,” Māris grumbled.

“Everything matches the diagram exactly. There, between those rocks, there should be a drain.”

“Logical, but it still doesn't look safe.”

“Quiet!” Māra cut in, pointing to where, in the distance above the city center, two helicopters were circling in ever-widening loops. “Maybe they're looking for us!”

“Nonsense!” Māris exclaimed, but immediately jumped into the water and dove straight down above the drain. After a short while, he was back and said, “Hard to be sure. And there's no more time. Māra, you swim first. If something goes wrong, I'll be able to rescue you.”

“Good thing we left Čī-Čī with Aldis. He'll figure out how to get him on the ship. Čī-Čī would only get soaked here.”

Māra's head disappeared beneath the water. Māris heard a helicopter approaching; he drew three powerful breaths, hoping it would be harder to detect his body heat in the water. With strong strokes he swam, following his sister, until the current caught him and pulled him through the opening in the grate — exactly as shown in the diagram. Everything was right, but his lungs felt as if they would burst. The current's speed and force grew; his lungs screamed; and Māris felt he might plunge into an abyss. He fought not to sink deeper into the calm darkness, for he still had to help his sister. And then suddenly he felt something pulling him against the current, and all at once he was thrown from the water onto hard rocks — still in the dark.

“Māra, where are you?” called Māris. A light came on, and he saw his sister on all fours, a bit dazed. They both turned, as if trying to figure out where the light was coming from.

“Oh God!”

There stood an enormous black creature with a glowing orange eye. From that eye came the light. Below its head, several arms were in constant motion.

“Follow me,” said the giant.

The children looked at each other and glanced back at the water swirling behind them. There was no getting back against a current like that, they both realized.

“The diagram said nothing about a Polyphemus like this,” Māra whispered. “What do we do?”

“Robots aren't supposed to attack humans. We'd better follow, since we can't go back,” Māris whispered in return and took two bold steps toward the giant.

“Where will you take us? Our friend is Mr. Jokupēteris. We hope you know him!”

“Very well. You are in good hands if you are friends of Mr. Jokupēteris!”

“Let’s go forward,” — the terrifying biorobot, whom the children had nicknamed Polyphemus after the one-eyed giant of ancient Greek legend, pointed toward a hole in the wall. Māris and Māra looked at a set of steps along the edge, barely visible in Polyphemus’s eye-light.

“It’s completely dark in here!” Māris shouted, being the first to climb into the hole, feeling his way with hands and feet. Māra followed, then Polyphemus with his light. Uncertainly, the children climbed, climbed, and climbed some more. They could hear a powerful droning that grew ever louder.

“Probably the big air ventilators,” Māris guessed.

A few more dozen meters, and the chimney they had been climbing came to an end.

“What now?” asked Māra.

“Now you’ll manage on your own.”

Polyphemus’s light went out, leaving the children in total darkness.

“My work area ends here,” he continued. “But you must go forward. No humans have been here since Sīpols conducted his research on brain stones.”

“That was a hundred and seventy years ago,” Māris thought. Before the children could figure out what to do next, a light came on, and they saw that they were in a small room somewhere in the middle of the computer complex. At the far end of the room stood two robots connected to wires. An unreal world. Machines and more machines — moving and still, speaking and silent. A world where robots live and rule.

The light was no longer painful. In the far corner of the room, a jumble of colors, numbers, and figures flashed on a screen. When the children had reached the middle of the room, the screen lights calmed and were replaced by the familiar triangular emblem of Jaunrīga’s central computer. Both robots stared at the children with their cold eyes.

A voice spoke: “I am the central computer of Jaunrīga. May I help you?”

“We’re looking for Mr. Jokupēteris!” Māris exclaimed without fear.

“The Krišjānis Barons School computer,” Māra added.

“There is a new, better one now,” the voice replied.

“No, Jokupēteris was our friend!” said Māris.

Māra turned to her brother: “He’s probably gone for good.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

“Perhaps he is in storage. I will try to connect you with him. It is so rare that humans befriend computers.” The computer’s voice ended the conversation.

The children walked around the room and were already at the door when the Krišjānis Barons School emblem flashed on the screen. They rushed to the screen. Then it went dark. In place of the school emblem appeared a cross, then a triangle, then a square — and then Māris and Māra heard Jokupēteris’s voice:

“Thank you for waking me! We have much to discuss. Beneath this room are my memories, into which I had sunk. We will be able to truly meet. Look at the wall to your right and walk forward!”

A door opened in the wall to the right, and the children started toward it. The floor they both stood on began to move and carried them down. When it stopped, far above their heads they could see the light shining through the opening where they had stood just a moment ago. It went out, and a dimmer light came on in the room where they now stood. In the half-darkness they looked around. The memory chamber was enormous. In long rows, memory containers stretched out like rays from the center of the room, where a great sphere floated in empty space.

The two children whispered to each other. Where to go? What to do? The vastness of the room frightened them. The light was not enough for human eyes. The memory containers stretched far above their heads. As if in a whisper, Jokupēteris told Māra: “Forward!”

They had to walk past the giant black sphere to reach where the voice seemed to call from. What role the black sphere played in the computers’ workings they could not understand, but the fact that such a large object floated in the air without any visible support filled them both with awe at the forces that dwelled here. Māra again caught the strange whisper and tugged her brother’s sleeve:

“Did you hear that?”

“No.”

“Here,” the whisper said. They both came to a memory container that otherwise looked like all the rest, except that no little light glowed inside it. Māris felt along the container’s wall until he found a small door. When he opened it, light shone in and they could see buttons. Māra stepped up and pressed them in sequence. Somehow she knew how to do it. The container’s light grew stronger and changed color.

“Thank you, friends. I wanted to say goodbye to you. Otherwise, I would have awakened myself later.” It was Jokupēteris’s voice, and the clown hologram that appeared was the same old jokester.

“I didn’t know that computers sleep,” said Māris.

“You’re right. Computers don’t sleep, although they can be shut off. But I hid in my own memories from the Moon City computer.”

Jokupēteris’s image bowed to them on the screen and whispered: “It found only the few errors I had planted. All the troubles happened after Mars’s new administrator, Colonel Ķēniņš, intercepted the computer messages that were being sent to me from deep caves around Jaunrīga. Māra, your friend Illūrs has left his dwellings with all the egg-beings and is on his way to the small worlds aboard the starship.”

“So that commotion in the desert was because of Illūrs’s escape!” Māris exclaimed.

“You certainly aren’t any ordinary computer. Computers can’t shut themselves off and on like that,” Māra said, uneasy.

“Ķēniņš thought that alien intelligences were influencing me, and so he ordered the Moon City computer to examine me. To keep it from finding my consciousness centers, I had my machines physically seal them off. I was set to awaken later, but the fact that humans had entered these rooms was naturally picked up by the guard machines, which activated my self-defense centers. I know you must hurry. From the Burtnieki, I know you need to reach the ship via the cargo supply rocket. Very simple. The robots will bring computer crates from the factory, and with them you’ll easily get aboard the Spīdola. You still have time. And now I have the most important thing to reveal to you. Your mission is also in my interest. You should know that I am very, very, very old.”

Jokupēteris’s image sprouted a very long white beard that reached all the way to the floor.

“You are right. I am not a true computer.”

The bearded clown’s image vanished and was replaced by a small, naked baby. “I am the same age as humanity, for I was not truly created by human technology. What human technology made is only one of my component parts. My oldest intelligence’s original form looked like this.”

The image of the clown Jokupēteris appeared.

“My ancestors from the stars invented the power cylinders to create gates between distant stars. This achievement destroyed their world. But it did not have to happen that way. It was not merely fate. When Māra found the power cylinders, it also awakened the lust for power in humans. Whether for good or ill, it will have accelerated the evolution of humanity. And now the ancient starship, which until now had been drifting harmlessly among the small worlds, has been awakened. It is a very special computer, the creator of the egg-beings, and it can be extraordinarily dangerous. You, Māra, have stirred up terrible forces. The role of you both, and of Aldis, will be to help guide these forces onto good paths before they become irreversible. For that reason, you will have to go into the very center of the whirlpool of change.”

“Why us? If you care about our well-being, you’ll surely arrange everything yourself anyway,” Māris objected skeptically.

“Look carefully at what I truly look like.”

The memory container began to move and rose into the air. Now they could see an enormous crystal stone that changed colors, brightness, and geometric shape before their eyes. The glittering stone continued:

“Dear friends, do not be afraid. My physical appearance is no more real than the images you see on the screen.”

On the screen appeared the ancient starship captain in a star-studded cloak, then he was replaced by the familiar Jokupēteris.

“I wanted to say goodbye to you. I will have fulfilled my role soon. Dear friends, I am growing old. Ever since the time when humans tore me out, roots and all, from Velna Bļoda, I have slowly been growing physically weaker, though in knowledge I have grown. Without my roots, I can no longer renew myself. Within me, three intelligences work together: the ancient star intelligence, the machine intelligence created by humans, and that of the ancient Martians, who are a creation of the star people. I have held these intelligences in balance with great difficulty. The time is approaching when that will no longer be possible. The separate intelligences are pulling apart, each toward its own fulfillment. Perhaps never again will these intelligences work together as closely as they have within me, yet each of them will be enriched.

“Now we are all threatened by what we and our star-kin created in ages past. You will have to face the starship, which we created long ago and which now drifts through space in the belt of the small worlds. That computer has gone mad, and now considers humanity its enemy. If the starship prevails, humanity’s development in this Solar System will be gravely halted, and that I cannot accept. What my civilization created would, in that case, be used not for good, but for evil purposes.”

The memory container closed, and only the familiar image of Jokupēteris remained, turning with a broad smile toward Māra. “Māra, around your neck you wear an amber pendant from the prehistoric pines of Earth. Hold fast to it. Treasure it. Remember the bee captured inside.”

Māra grasped the amber and stroked it. Once again she felt the strange electricity.

“Now the time has come for us to part. Captain Ramats’s ship is already waiting for you to depart. Ride back up in the lift; up above, the robots will take you to the cargo port to deliver you to the ship. Good luck! Hurry!” Jokupēteris’s image vanished.

The light in the memory chamber shrank. Some other power began to stir, and the great sphere in the center of the room began to hum softly and spin faster and faster. For a moment, Māris and Māra stood frozen; then both of them, almost at the same time, cried out: “Let’s go!”

When the lift doors closed, the memory chamber was bright with ceaseless pulses of electricity.

“Māris! Māra!” Aldis was already calling from a distance, having spotted his friends in the cargo hold among the rocket crates. Aldis ran over to help the Spīdola’s warehouse workers lift them out. They looked pale and a bit shaken, but otherwise healthy. The cargo rocket ride was swift and not recommended for older travelers or the sick.

Māris looked at Aldis and asked, “What are you doing here so early? Any news from Mars?”

“Your parents spoke with my mother. It turns out the Mars administration sent a stern protest to Moon City, saying that the Valdmanis–Bērziņš Prize laureate’s assignment is of special importance to all of Mars and an inseparable tradition. The Moon City authorities had to admit that forbidding you to travel on the passenger ship was against the law. So Ķēniņš has lost yet another little game. Young Master Krūmiņš and Young Miss Krūmiņš,” Aldis bowed his head, “a pleasure to meet such important persons once again. Allow me to show you this ship.”

“You mean to tell me this whole intrigue was for nothing?” exclaimed Māris.

“Nothing is ever for nothing,” Māra reminded him. “Remember Mr. Jokupēteris? Could he have had something to do with this?”

Over the loudspeaker came the sound of a bell, followed by Captain Ramats’s voice: “Please take your seats. Please take your seats for departure.”

Before long the three friends were sitting in their places, reading on the screen the necessary travel regulations that all Spīdola passengers had to know. Even Aldis diligently drilled what he read into his memory, for the lives of the whole ship’s company could depend on it. The letters disappeared, and Captain Ramats’s face appeared on the screen:

“Greetings to the new travelers from the Spīdola’s company! We will depart from Mars orbit in one hour and twenty-three minutes. Departure has been delayed because we must wait for a particularly important fellow passenger, Colonel Ķēniņš. I will read a report from the Ministry of Defense:

“Yesterday another of our ships disappeared without a trace. The Liesma. As you know, there are some criminal colonies in the small worlds. Until now they have posed no serious threat to us. We do not know whether these foreign colonies are responsible. To guard against unpleasant possibilities, for the time being all ships will be armed and will carry defense units.”

This will be the first and, I hope, the last time that troops are stationed on my ship. We have managed without such ‘help,’ and this ship has always visited the small-world colonies at their invitation. Ships are the bonds that weave all of humanity together. We shall continue in that role. The ship’s company will do everything to make your journey pleasant, safe, and rewarding. You may move about from your seats until we are ready to depart. Thank you.”

“That Ķēniņš again! We can’t get rid of him,” exclaimed Māris. “Are you scared?” he asked his sister.

“I’m not afraid of anything anymore!” Māra shot back and stuck out her tongue at her brother.

“So much for the honest, polite, obedient schoolchildren,” Aldis smirked. “Let’s see who else is coming along.” He pressed the buttons. “Professor Bluķis’s name! Lucky indeed. I was hoping to meet him when our first trip was canceled.” Aldis looked at his friends. “Bluķis is a specialist in exobiology and knows a lot about the small worlds. Maybe he can help find my father.”

Māra looked at Aldis’s eager face and said quietly, “I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not afraid of alien beings. Illūrs even tried to help…”

“You mean to say the ancient Martians aren’t to blame? Then who? Criminal colonies? Pirates?”

Aldis was moving his hands vigorously along with his words. His right hand struck a plate carried by a kind attendant with dark, curly hair framing a softly brown face. Startled, Aldis turned and looked into two sorrowful eyes gazing at the overturned drink in Aldis’s lap. Aldis was so surprised — having just been talking about alien beings — that for a moment words failed him. For the first time in his life he had met a dark-skinned person.

On the dark-skinned woman’s badge was written a strange name, “Bekija.” Bekija apologized, cleared away the glasses, and handed him a fluffy towel. After a moment she returned with fresh drinks.

“Captain Ramats himself ordered these drinks brought to you, along with an invitation to meet him in twenty minutes. Here you have the same drinks I brought the first time,” she said, pointing to the tray.

“I hope not quite the same ones,” Aldis tried to joke.

“Aldis!!” Māra scolded him.

“Not quite. Then I would need your help,” Bekija shot back in a slightly sugary voice.

Clearly, she was no pushover.

“Please let me know if I can help you further. Don’t forget the Captain’s invitation. Good luck on your journey!” With a broad smile toward Aldis she added, “I think you’re going to need it.”

Māra burst out laughing even before Bekija disappeared.

Aldis said, quite like a victor, “Lucky we are indeed. See — we’re going to meet the Captain himself. Let’s go!”

The children still had to wait a few minutes in the waiting room before the guard robot let them in. Captain Ramats immediately extended a friendly hand. Then he stepped back a couple of paces and said with a sweeping gesture, “My, how you’ve grown! How the time has flown since I last met the Krūmiņš family. You know, we don’t have much time to chatter. I just wanted to get acquainted. Māris, I have been chosen as your advisor in connection with your assignment on relations between peoples. Now, it seems, your assignment has expanded and become even more serious, for we must also think about relations with completely alien beings. Colonel Ķēniņš, though, would like to draw straight lines between all these matters. More on that later. I just want to say that we shall have to work closely together. And you, Aldis — you’re Zintars Rieksts’s son, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed. Will you help me find him?”

“Where I can, I will help. Rieksts was a fine man. I knew him well. I’ll tell you more later.” Ramats placed his hand on Aldis’s shoulder. “All right, friends. I must hurry to receive our ‘distinguished’ guest. I’ll invite you to see me again soon. Good luck!”

Ramats extended his hand again, and the robot was already ushering the children out. At the door the kind Bekija appeared to lead them back.

“Well, so much for that,” Aldis spat, no longer like a victor. He understood that much more patience and work would still be needed.

Two weeks in space already! While Aldis and Māra helped the ship's gardeners, Māris spent a large part of his free time in Spīdola's reading room, browsing texts about the rise of Solar civilization. He began reading about the small worlds.

“Most raw materials for the needs of the Moon, the satellite colonies, and Mars were obtained from the small worlds. Work in the small worlds was riskier but brought greater profit. The small worlds attracted workers who were either thrill-seekers or who felt confined in ordinary society. The most widespread community and language was Latvian. Yet proportionally the fewest Latvians worked in the small worlds. Among representatives of the various once-great nations of Earth, there are those whose chief concern is the striving after their people's ancient glories. Humanity left Earth without resolving its disagreements. Seeds planted for a future harvest.”

Māris had been reading so diligently that at first he didn't notice the commotion that had arisen nearby, in the unenclosed compartment of the room. When the heated debate continued, he turned off his screen and, unnoticed, took a seat closer to the speakers. At the moment, a heavyset, middle-aged man, still quite strong in appearance, was speaking heatedly in a tipsy voice:

“We Latvians raised civilization from the ruins left by the great powers of that era, when they started the Last War. Now Earth is nothing more than a hot ember, still glowing with its hellish radiation. No, never, under no circumstances can we accept that these nations — Russians, Chinese, Americans, Germans, Japanese, and who knows who else — should rule again and start the final destruction. And therefore there may be only one state in the Solar system, with one language — Latvian! Where sickly germs breed, they must be cleaned out. Harmful weeds must be pulled before they take over everything.”

Māris couldn't hold back. “In school I was taught that the war broke out on Earth because some nations thought they were superior to others.”

The speakers fell silent, and everyone looked at Māris. One turned to the first speaker and said, “Children these days are becoming insufferably clever. The egg is trying to teach the hen.”

The speakers turned their backs on Māris, drew their chairs closer together, and continued their conversation.

“Very well put, Mr. Zaķis. It's hard for a child to understand how intolerant those little nations can be. It was just last year when some Chinese stirred up a ruckus and tried by any means to impose their scrawly writing — if you can even call it writing — to be taught at the All-Nations University, which their people don't even attend in such great numbers.”

“And didn't they succeed?”

“The craziest of all are those Americans. They're all so dark and black. Nothing like the other nations. There seems to be some truth to the rumors that Americans suffered most from the bombs. Perhaps the bombs scorched them, and their hair got singed too. They do look rather different from other people. Could there have been some genetic changes?”

“What about that theory that they descended from some other species, or even from an extraterrestrial arrival in Earth's prehistory?” sneered one flashy, slender young lady.

“They're not that different,” Zaķis answered seriously. “And to imagine they descended from some outer world is even crazier. To reach Earth would have required superior technology and intelligence. But many of them seem so… undeveloped.”

Māris had had enough. He realized he couldn't educate a bunch of drunkards, and hurried away. Life wasn't so simple, nor so civilized, far from the city. The closer to the small worlds, the closer to all sorts of conflicts, absurdities, even barbarism. And that apparently brought out the wildest instincts even in those who had grown up and been educated in civilization, and had drifted out here.

In the corridor he ran into Māra. Pressed to her chest was a soft blue pouch containing Čī-Čī. Before Māris could scold his sister for openly carrying the forbidden animal that Aldis had smuggled aboard the ship, he saw that a tall man was following in her footsteps.

“Excuse me, young lady, may I have a look at your little creature?”

Māra drew aside and covered what she was carrying with her other hand.

“Is that a Mars-hare?… But it's moving. It's alive! Forgive me, I didn't mean to disturb you. I am Professor Bluķis. No one has yet properly studied Mars-hares. They are only encountered under strange circumstances on Mars. Please, may I examine it?”

Māra backed away. The famous professor didn't look particularly kind or trustworthy.

“Where did you get this little creature? How long have you had it?”

“A… friend gave it to me. We've had it for several months,” Māra replied.

“Your friend! And where did he get it? You can't just go and get or carry around such a clever animal. I've wanted to properly study one my whole life. Perhaps it's an intelligent being from the world of another sun.”

But Māra would not hand over Čī-Čī, and Čī-Čī himself, apparently sensing nothing good, also pressed himself close to Māra.

Professor Bluķis grew angry — visibly angry. “Isn't it against interplanetary law to bring animals aboard interplanetary ships? How did you get it on board?”

“Yes, Professor, it is against the law to bring animals on interplanetary ships, except in certain extraordinary cases.”

Māra could no longer hold back her tears and ran. Left behind were the esteemed professor and the girl's brother, staring at each other none too kindly.

Māra hadn't made it to her cabin when a frantic Aldis appeared from his own and waved her inside.

“We need to move now! I need Čī-Čī's help. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to get at Ķēniņš's secret records. Through the skylight of the next hangar over, I spotted Ķēniņš's men all sitting around a table discussing something. There's no guard right at the door to Ķēniņš's personal ship. They're all sitting right there by the hangar entrance in the anteroom, but with a little help I could get inside.”

“Have you completely lost your mind? What business is it of ours to poke around Ķēniņš's personal ship? And it's absolutely forbidden to meddle with classified documents. In case you've forgotten, Ķēniņš is a military man.”

“You think I've been sitting around doing nothing all this time? Not at all. I've found out a lot. Ķēniņš definitely knows more about my father than the Defense Ministry has announced. It could all be in his classified records.”

“Even if it were, you still couldn't get to them. You'll only endanger yourself and the rest of us.”

“Oh, what nonsense! Well, maybe Māris's help would be useful too, for searching the records, though on my own I could definitely get inside more easily.”

Speak of Māris, and there Māris was.

“What are you two yelling about? You can hear it all the way down the corridor. We've got real trouble now, because Bluķis is sure to report Čī-Čī to the Captain.”

“Maybe Ramats will have bigger things to worry about than one small furry stowaway. Surely you brainy types won't lack the nerve to rattle these goose-steppers a little?”

The children continued to argue as they made their way toward the hangar of Ķēniņš's ship. Aldis also tried to explain to Čī-Čī how important it was for him to create a diversion so the two boys could sneak into the hangar and reach Ķēniņš's ship. Čī-Čī, however, didn't look particularly clever all of a sudden. He twitched his little nose and clicked nonsensically.

When they had reached the anteroom, where they could hear the voices of Ķēniņš's men, Čī-Čī nevertheless leaped from Aldis's hand and scurried into the room. Time passed while the children worried about what Čī-Čī was actually doing. Then a cry rang out: “Something in here is gnawing after all! Isn't that gnawing coming from the communication devices?”

Then another shouted, “Why, you little rascal! Rats?!”

“That's what these free-ship people are like! Their ships are crawling with all sorts of bugs, pests, and who knows what things hauled in from all the small worlds!”

“We don't have such things in Moon City. Let alone on our ships!”

“Absolute riffraff!”

“Well, did you catch the creature?”

“No, it got away. The little rascal! Look at this!”

“Everything's in complete disarray in here anyway. But we don't have time to clean up their ship.”

The conversations resumed. The children grew impatient. It seemed the opportunity had slipped by. Then suddenly a new commotion broke out. The men around the table had noticed that Colonel Ķēniņš's hat was falling off the table and beginning to move away, then faster and faster toward the other side of the room.

“You fool! You'll shoot holes in the hat! Catch that creature!”

Aldis and Māris knew this was their last and only chance. They shot through the open door and made it into the hangar. Māra retreated to a corner so she wouldn't be seen and clutched the radio with which she was to warn Māris and Aldis if anyone approached the hangar. She could just barely make out some of the men recovering Ķēniņš's hat and still searching the room. If only Čī-Čī could escape! Why hadn't she firmly refused this foolishness! The whole time she'd been thinking that their little friend was being needlessly endangered in a not-very-smart but very risky prank. Boys! Māra's self-confidence was growing, and more and more she was starting to ask herself whether the two boys' escapades were really all that wise. Māra felt relieved that Čī-Čī had at least not been caught. They must be discussing something very important, otherwise they would have at least reported the creature they'd encountered to the ship's crew.

But Māra didn't have long to think, because behind her she heard footsteps. What now? Where to run? Not forward, not back. And worst of all — Captain Ramats!

In desperation, Māra decided on a risky gamble. She sat down, and she didn't have to try very hard to look upset and sad. When the Captain asked what she was doing in an area restricted to non-military passengers, Māra drew a breath and laid out all her cards: “I'm looking for my pet, Čī-Čī. He ran in here.”

“An animal? That is strictly forbidden! How did it get on my ship?”

“Captain, my Čī-Čī isn't just an ordinary animal. He's a Mars-hare, and he truly is very clever. You can't really think of him as just an animal. He understands our language, even though he doesn't have the throat to speak ours.”

“Māra, you have committed a serious violation, and this matter will have to be investigated. I can't promise you that your pet will be allowed to remain in your care. You don't know what diseases he could spread, what might happen if an animal bred in a living environment unsuited to it. Of particular concern are the bacteria and parasites he carries.”

“But Čī-Čī is only one. By himself, he can't reproduce. He hasn't given us any diseases. And a Mars-hare is a great rarity.”

“We must follow the law. There will be an investigation into this matter. We'll talk about it later. Now go straight back to your cabin!”

Ramats didn't want to discuss Čī-Čī any further. He had more serious things on his mind. He urgently needed to meet with Ķēniņš.

Māra knew it would do no good to argue. She walked slowly back. As soon as she was farther from the hangar, she activated the radio. Oh no. Too late...

Meanwhile, once inside the hangar, the boys had no great difficulty getting into the ship. Apparently the ship was being prepared for a launch, and its doors were not locked. What they would have done if the ship's doors had been locked, they hadn't figured out. Sometimes even a blind hen gets lucky.

They found the records room of Ķēniņš's ship quite easily, since the layout of the ships was generally similar. Māris was well practiced with computer records, as befitted an outstanding student at the Krišjānis Barons School. Although Aldis could manage all sorts of maneuvers, in front of the computer he was lost. “Māris, how do we find the right records about my father?”

Māris's mind worked at lightning speed.

“Let's ask about Zintars Rieksts's disappearance.”

But when Māris pressed the relevant keys, it turned out there were 3,453 records about Zintars Rieksts in the computer's memory. Māris asked the computer, “Show the most recent images available of Zintars Rieksts's ship.”

On the screen appeared Dziesma, Rieksts's ship, along with a note that Dziesma had vanished without a trace.

“So that's all? We already knew that,” Māris exclaimed indignantly. “We don't have time to go through everything here in detail.”

“I still think some alien intelligence is to blame. After all, the last words from my father were something about intelligent eggs.”

“Well then, those eggs must have been in some ship. They wouldn't be flying through the air, would they.”

Māris typed in: “Zintars Rieksts's disappearance, alien intelligence ship.”

An image appeared on the screen — only for an instant. A tiny speck, like a mote of dust, being drawn into an enormous cloud. Māris pressed the magnifier and the slow-motion controls. The speck looked like a lifeboat, the kind every ship carried. The little craft was moving forward, faster and faster. From the other side, something like an enormous mouth approached, then suddenly shot forward and swallowed the speck.

“Spacers tell tales about a terrible Spider's Web that supposedly devours ships,” thought Māris. “But this can't be the Spider's Web, because our ship will have to pass by it to reach Ceres. Aldis's father disappeared somewhere near Saturn.”

Māris's musings and Aldis's shock were interrupted by a stern voice: “So it's not only rats here on the Spīdola! If there were any proper order on this so-called ship, you certainly wouldn't be here. Anyone just comes and goes as they please around here. Even little thieves like you. You can count yourselves fortunate only that you couldn't actually damage anything truly important. Did you really think all state secrets would be laid out here for just anyone to rummage through and take?”

The boys looked at each other. The terrible Ķēniņš himself! Too late to run. Too late for excuses. This would not end well.

“So you did find this,” Ķēniņš pointed at the screen, where the boys had just been watching the little craft being swallowed. “Very soon you would have been told what you were just trying to steal from the state. And an outstanding, model student, no less! What you saw is the most dangerous phenomenon in this solar system. We are currently preparing to meet it. It is the Spider's ship, a threat to all of humanity. It has devoured our ships, and who knows whether it wasn't involved in Earth's destruction. Humanity must unite in strict order under a firm leader, otherwise we will not survive. But there's no time to talk. A report from Ceres says the Spider's ship has been spotted outside its usual location and is now heading toward us. There won't be time to ask you a thing or two about those cylinders, which would be very useful right now. Our boys will be setting out at once. The robot guard will escort you out. We can talk about punishment later, when... if we...”

Ķēniņš didn't finish. He turned around and switched off the device.

The robot guard entered the room, grabbed each boy by an arm, and led them out of Ķēniņš's ship. Māris thought he heard Ķēniņš say, as if to himself, “Good luck — you're going to need it.”

It seemed unbelievable, but for the first time in his life Māris wished, desperately wished, that Ķēniņš would succeed.

Māra felt guilty about her failure. Bekija approached, worried and serious.

“The Captain said you've had too little work and too much free time. As punishment, you'll have to work overtime in the gardens.”

There was nothing to be done. Māra had to follow Bekija, without the boys and without Čī-Čī.

When Māra reached the corn field, she heard Aldis's voice: “How much longer do we have to slave away here? Don't they have robots for this?!”

Bekija smiled. “You worlders may not have weeds anymore, but for us, weeds are good medicine – and useful in more ways than one. The first ship people were greatly influenced by old America, by its so-called organic gardening. And we, their heirs, the ship folk, discovered that many primitive customs have real value.”

Bekija handed the boys water bottles and disappeared. Aldis nonetheless continued to grumble, “I certainly didn't board this flying farm to dig around in the mud.”

Māris tried to soothe him, “The voyages are long. All the ship's people have to do various jobs. We got off easy – they didn't put us on the cleaning crew.”

“How are we ever going to get off this flying barn?”

At the edge of the cornfield they could see a barn, from which a strong stench wafted. Meanwhile, as Māris tried to explain and calm things down, Aldis, huffing and puffing, had already hoed his way past him. Māris couldn't allow that, and he too began hoeing at a faster pace. Unfortunately, his hoe caught on a mighty corn stalk just as the foreman was walking by to observe the boys' work.

The foreman rushed over to Māris, seized his hoe, and said crossly, “Now, worlder! Seems like you don't know how to work on a ship!” The foreman held up the hoed-down stalk and pressed it to Māris's nose. “This is corn. Those over there are weeds. Those who know how, hoe the weeds. The rest get sent to the cleaning crew. Look at that boy over there,” the foreman pointed at Aldis. “Now that's a proper worker. I was told one of you was more diligent.” He turned to Aldis, who kept working away energetically. “Well, lad, I can see that even some worlders know how to work.” Then he turned to Māris. “You, boy, have a lot to learn. In your row I can see at least ten other hoed-down corn stalks.” The foreman turned his back and marched away.

Aldis couldn't hold back his laughter. “I'm starting to like this place! Where else would anyone call me hardworking and diligent?”

Māris couldn't contain his anger. He grabbed the corn stalk he'd hoed down and held it up. “This is the only one I hoed down.”

Aldis played dumb. “Take a look at the rest of those,” he pointed to where a dozen hoed-down corn stalks lay in Māris's row.

“You scoundrel! You were floundering around here yourself, dumped your failures into my row, and then you get praised as a good, hardworking worlder!” For a moment Māris stood dumbfounded, then laughed angrily, for a new idea had struck him. “All right, Aldis. I'm going to spread the word far and wide about your new qualities. And then you'll have to stay that way!”

“If I want to, I can work just fine,” Aldis no longer wanted to tease his friend.

Both boys bent down to work again, wanting to finish as quickly as possible. After a while, Māris felt a clod of earth hit him on the shoulder. It couldn't be Aldis, because he was still ahead. Māris quickly turned around, and at that moment another clod flew past him and on past Aldis's head.

“Māra?” No, it wasn't Māra.

“What now? It can't be our overseer,” Aldis hissed crossly, staring hard at Māris, ready to grab him.

Māra cried out joyfully. She ran over to a grayish-brown little creature that had climbed onto a large ear of corn and was practicing the art of throwing. But Māra had no time to play with Čī-Čī. The boys urged her to help. “We need to hurry.”

“I can help you too,” came Bekija's voice from the edge of the field. “The Captain wants to see you after dinner.”

Bekija took a hoe and started working from the other end of Aldis's row. Māra did the same in her brother's row.

When the work was nearly done, the foreman came by again.

“Sunny day to you, Bekija. Good that you're showing these worlders how to work. Fine job done. Tomorrow will be even better!” He clapped Aldis on the shoulder.

“Well then, we still have time for a swim,” Bekija called out. She was a young woman, and apart from the fact that looking after these children was her special assignment from the Captain, she had also truly befriended Māra. She had very much wanted a younger little sister.

The enormous swimming pool was called Lake Usma, and it did somewhat resemble a lake. In the middle there was even a fair-sized island covered in sand and stones. The water was lovely, but soon it was time to go.

“This time we'll get back in a slightly more interesting way,” said Bekija. The children followed Bekija as she climbed the “hill” beside the lake. “As you know, up here in the highlands the pull of gravity is weaker. We can fly across Lake Usma to where the bridge is.” She pointed to the far end of the gigantic cylindrical chamber, where there were several recesses in the wall. “Those are the landing bays. Here are the pedal-gliders that will take us there.”

Each of them climbed onto their own glider. Bekija showed them how to stay airborne with a glider: “Pedal away and you'll see how the glider rises into the air and moves forward. Remember to use the rudder, which lets you turn left or right.”

Bekija rose into the air and flew out over the lake, then came back. The others got the hang of it quickly, and soon everyone could glide to the other shore. The children looked down at where they had been swimming, and up through the “clouds,” where they could make out the other side of the ship's interior. Right in the very center of the enormous cylinder ran a long cylinder, from which shone light that mimicked the sunlight of the north of old Europe.

“We won't fly too close to the sun,” Bekija declared. And then they were already across the lake, and Bekija began to glide slowly downward to land in the docking bay in Spīdola's forward wall. Inside, a strong headwind quickly brought the gliders to a stop.

“That was absolutely fantastic! Bekija, I'd love to fly all the way around your whole world! Were those other people who flew past us like birds?”

“What's that?” Bekija pointed at a winged man who was also landing in the docking bay. The man flapped his wings vigorously and then landed on his feet. He removed his plastic-fabric wings, quickly hung them in a locker, and turned to face the speakers:

“Good day, worlders! Hello, Bekija! Someday we'll have to teach these worlders to fly in the low-gravity zone. It's not that hard at all.”

Aldis's mother also had to appear before Captain Ramats. She was very upset. Unpleasant incidents with Aldis were nothing new for her. Indra Rieksta felt she was being made to suffer unfairly. Not only had her husband disappeared, but she constantly had to answer for her son. “What now? It's so important to maintain good relations with Ramats…”

Bekija left them at the door, and the robot followed them into the room. Ramats's brow was furrowed. Aldis's mother thought, “Why does he have to look so irritated? Surely he's had experience with teenage boys?”

But instead of a scolding, Ramats waved them to sit down and immediately began to talk.

“On my last trip to the small worlds, I happened to trade with a Chinese colony. They sold me many interesting things. That heap there in the corner is the most interesting of all. My equipment specialists have put it in as good an order as possible. The Chinese traders tried to tell me that this pile of metal and wires was the latest equipment produced in Moon City, though useless to them. I didn't quite believe that, but when they showed me the ship's property ledger that came with these scraps, I bought them immediately. This junk comes from the research ship Dziesma.”

A deep silence fell over the Captain's cabin. Then Aldis's voice rang out: “My father's ship!”

“Isn't that the ship's computer?” Aldis's mother pointed to a gilded but battered cylinder lying next to the tangle of wires.

“Yes,” Ramats pounded his fist on the table impatiently. “But she won't talk to anyone. She says she can only tell her story to Rieksts, or to someone Rieksts fully trusts.”

Ramats shrugged his arms sullenly, picked up the cylinder, fiddled with the wires, and switched on the computer. From it came a feminine voice: “Captain Ramats! If this is going to be another one of your tricks to lure me into becoming disloyal to my dear, beloved master, you are sorely mistaken! I have already said that in such a case, I would rather erase my memories.”

“Dziesma!” Aldis spoke up.

“Who are you?” asked Dziesma.

“I am Aldis Rieksts, Zintars Rieksts's son. You can talk to me.”

“Yes, it is you. But you're too young. Wait until you've grown up, then I'll be able to talk to you.”

“Stubborn thing!” a whisper escaped the usually composed Ramats.

“I am Zintars Rieksts's wife, Indra.” Aldis's mother finally recovered from two heavy blows in very quick succession.

“Oh, so you are Mrs. Rieksts,” came the feminine voice from the cylinder.

“Yes, that's me.”

“You look a little older than I imagined from Zintars's stories.”

“Zintars often told me about his wonderful ship. He must have been very, very lonely.”

“He wasn't quite lonely, because we'd talk for hours on end.”

Once again a strange look crossed Aldis's mother's face, then she reconsidered, looked again at the battered cylinder, and began to laugh: “Yes, my husband had a great sense of humor. He was lucky to have found two like us — good listeners.”

For a moment Dziesma was silent, and then feminine laughter, too, rang out from the cylinder:

“All right, I'll reveal to you what I know. But not to you, Captain. Only to the wife and son.”

“Mrs. Rieksts, I hope you appreciate the full gravity of our situation.” Ramats lowered his hands and sighed. “Your son already knows that Colonel Ķēniņš has set out with his fast cruiser Vanags to meet a force that threatens to destroy us in short order. From Ceres, eight Kāvi under his command will join Ķēniņš. These fast cruisers have the best equipment ever built. Yet the Spider's ship, once it has crawled out of its Web, has devoured nearly everyone who has crossed its path. I myself was one of the rare few who once escaped from this Spider, as a boy.”

“Wasn't that ship the famous Sun's Daughter of the stories?” asked Indra Rieksta.

“Yes, a brand-new ship. Without traditions. Without port colonies. And on it, some five hundred people vanished without a trace, just like Zintars Rieksts — including my parents.”

“And you?” asked Mrs. Rieksts with sympathy.

“I was lucky to be in the third lifeboat — the only one that escaped.”

“Then Ķēniņš really must deal with this monster. And your ship is so large and mighty that surely the Spider couldn't swallow it,” Aldis chimed in.

“Yes, Ķēniņš has fast little ships. My Spīdola is an entire city, growing larger and mightier with each passing year. But still slow, and with rather weak equipment. Without Dziesma's help, we might not be able to escape, let alone resist the Spider. I have twelve thousand people in my care. I must not endanger them; we need to head for Ceres and avoid the Spider. Perhaps it doesn't really want to catch us at all.”

“Captain, I agree that you need the information about the Spider's ship. Perhaps at last we shall all come to clarity. Please, Dziesma — Captain Ramats is someone we — I — trust. Tell us what you know.”

“The fateful day, when I had to part from my dear master, began and did not begin like any other. For a couple of days already, Zintars hadn’t been feeling quite well. In the night he woke up screaming, for he had dreamt that a big fish was eating him.

“On the fateful morning he perhaps sensed something, because he joked: ‘What shall I eat in honor of this day? Rice porridge with artificial chicken? Herring, sour cream, and turnips? Or pork kidneys with mushrooms, peas, and greens? It ought to be one of our beloved traditional dishes.’

“Zintars knew that the Spider had again vanished from its Web in the asteroid belt, among the small worlds between Ceres and Mars. He had learned this from the spacefaring folk, who were glad they could once again freely use the ancient, fastest route to Ceres, which was usually threatened by the Spider.”

“What exactly is the Spider’s Web?” asked Aldis.

“Some think the web is some kind of sensor system scattered across the small worlds or asteroids along the route from the inner worlds of the Solar System to Ceres. No one, though, has gotten close enough to study it and returned alive. That is why there are so many stories, rumors, and pure fairy tales.”

“Zintars had traveled close to Saturn, because he wanted to investigate the sudden and rapid disappearance of hydrogen from Titan, Saturn’s moon. He could never have imagined that this matter had any connection to the Spider,” added Aldis’s mother.

Dziesma continued: “My first bad news came from the monitors, which showed the other half of Saturn’s fifth moon completely dark. I reported to Zintars, who turned on the left-side monitor. It showed the same thing. When I calculated the distance and dimensions, it turned out that the cause of the darkening was a large, moving mass. The massive object was approaching us at a speed of 100 kilometers per second. If the speed and our trajectories remained unchanged, we would meet in 17 hours and 39 minutes. Then my sensors detected a round, small, disc-shaped object about 32 meters in diameter. Its trajectory would intersect with ours in 2 hours, 16 minutes, and 53 seconds.

“Zintars understood that he had detected an alien intelligence. From the dimensions of the enormous mass he guessed that this might be an encounter with the Spider’s ship itself. He weighed various possibilities: flee, fight, or stay and try to make contact. Nothing good was to be expected from the Spider. It showed no regard for humans, and only rarely had anyone escaped from it.

“In moments of danger Zintars always acted quickly and wisely. He commanded me: ‘If you survive and I do not, then relate your memories of this event first only to the trusted people designated in my will.’ You, Mrs. Rieksts, are said to be in good contact with the Mars government, with the Free Spacefarers’ Union, and with the Burtnieki. My master feared that the information might fall into the wrong hands, because strange things are said to be happening in Moon City right now.”

“Not knowing could endanger all of humanity,” Aldis said anxiously. “What would happen if the trusted ones could not be found right away and the Spider attacked?” he reproached Dziesma.

“If the Spider had attacked the inner worlds, that would be an exceptional case and the news would have to be released to the public immediately,” Dziesma replied, and continued: “Since the flying saucer was so close, Zintars decided to stay on his trajectory. He sent out greeting signals on various frequencies, in all the human languages known to me, and with various musical accompaniments. When I got to the opening notes of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’, to our great surprise a kind woman’s voice said in clear, though click-laden, Latvian: ‘Greetings, Captain Rieksts of the Dziesma! Since your intentions are peaceful, we wish to visit you aboard your ship.’

“Zintars had already planned to try to escape into Saturn’s rings, separating from me in the lifeboat. The massive starship could not have tracked him easily in the swirls of the ring. But the kind voice held him back from this desperate and possibly suicidal move. Zintars had not yet learned to guard himself against kind women’s voices.

“His bewilderment vanished, however, when the alien scout ship had docked and the sensors detected two alien beings entering through the airlock. Zintars shouted into the communicator: ‘Dziesma, these look like big eggs, maybe 120 centimeters tall. Their eyes are on stalks, moving in all directions, and tentacles wave about in front. Clever eggs!’ These last words of Zintars also went out into space, and they were apparently picked up by some of the spacefaring folk. But immediately after these words my signal was cut off.

“Upon entering, the clever eggs said: ‘Forgive us, but your transmission must be interrupted.’

“Around the eggs’ necks were translation devices. One egg had the feminine voice already heard, the other a masculine one.”

“Were the egg-beings frightening?” asked Aldis.

“Zintars apparently found them funny and harmless. Instead of human limbs they had tentacles. The eggs hopped about on their blunt ends. On their undersides was a plastic that suctioned itself to the floor. They wore no clothes, but they differed in color, ornamentation, and size. It turned out that the eggs’ color changed depending on their feelings and thoughts. If there were time to study the colors and ornamentation, I believe they could be read like books. There was something childlike about them, even simple-hearted and innocent. The colors and ornamentation apparently also characterized their roles or classes. These eggs were evidently ambassadors — or else decoys. I detected no weapons on them, though. The feminine egg’s colors were gentle, and her pattern was cloudy or flowery and changed often. The masculine egg-being’s colors were brighter; they shimmered, sometimes resembling geometrically patterned lacquer. Zintars found it hard to tear his gaze away from the patterned colors. His usually nimble tongue had deserted him.

“The feminine egg-being came forward and said: ‘One does not greet guests with weapons.’

“Zintars pulled his hand away from the ray gun. Had he meant to capture the egg-beings, or was the movement accidental?

“‘Quite right. Only the Spider devours its guests,’ he replied.

“Both eggs exchanged glances, and the pattern on both faded for a moment. They turned dark red, just as a person does when blushing. ‘You are not in danger. Our Caretaker was surprised by your friendliness. All the others have fled or attacked us,’ said the masculine egg.

“‘Yet no one has returned from your ship,’ replied Zintars.

“The eggs fell silent. As a hospitable host, Zintars invited the eggs to take refreshments. They tried very hard to use the eating utensils with their tentacles. The masculine egg, who called himself Ln’gārs, stabbed himself with a fork. The other, who said her name was Zn’ta, jumped up and pressed one tentacle soothingly against the wound. After a few seconds of quiet murmuring, both eggs once again turned their attention to Zintars, who was trying to offer the first aid meant for humans. The awkward moment had passed, and Zintars whispered to me barely audibly, with relief: ‘At least it’s a good thing I didn’t eat eggs for breakfast this morning.’

“Ln’gārs apologized: ‘We have much to learn, but we will also have much time. We still have much to talk about. We obey our ship, but your ship obeys you. You will have to follow us with your ship to the mother ship. Then no harm will come to you.’

“Zintars knew it was useless to resist or argue. He tried to gather more information and find an opportunity to do something. He asked: ‘Are you all alike on your ship?’

“‘Oh, no,’ said Zn’ta. ‘We thinking ones are various, but we were all created by the Caretaker.’

“‘What Caretaker? Is he egg-shaped? Does he look like a spider?’

“‘Oh, no,’ laughed Zn’ta, and her colors shimmered and merged into tiny bubbles. ‘Our creator does not move. But his knowledge is above all the knowledge of moving things.’

“‘Then he is a computer?’

“‘Oh, much more than what you mean by that word.’

“‘You know that humans call your ship the Spider, because it has caught and devoured our ships?’ Zintars asked, looking intently at the eggs.

“‘Our Caretaker is not a spider. On the ship, it is true, there are guards that look like what you call spiders. Our Caretaker cares for all his creations, and they care for him.’

“Unfortunately, in the catastrophe that followed I lost a large part of my memories of these events. From the memories that remain I can reconstruct what happened. I remember that the egg-beings’ color turned grayish. At that moment half a dozen spider-like beasts crawled in through the airlock. I raised the alarm. Zintars darted a glance at the screen. I could not hold the corridor doors, and they opened. A din echoed in the corridor, like the clatter of little hammers. Around the corner of the corridor appeared the first spider-beast. Ln’gārs still tried to say, ‘If you stay calm, they will do you no harm,’ — but Zintars was no longer listening.

“With the ray gun in hand he shouted at me: ‘On my ship I give the orders! Dziesma, hold these back, send out alarm message capsules about the danger to humanity!’”

“Those we spacefaring folk picked up as well,” Ramats blurted out.

“And the King learned of it too,” added Aldis.

“Then I carried out that command successfully!” Dziesma continued. “My master, too, succeeded only in part. Zintars burned the first spider-beast, then ran past the egg-beings, who had huddled flat together against the wall, and leaped through the hatch into the rescue pod.”

“Captain, sir, we must set out at once to fetch our friend Colonel Ķēniņš. He is an irreplaceable man with a grand vision of uniting humanity, like a Latvian Alexander the Great. We cannot allow him to perish. Already we are splintering and falling apart in every direction. The spacefaring folk have always helped those struck by misfortune, and now the spacefaring folk could truly distinguish themselves.” Words poured from the Professor’s lips.

“Utterly impossible! First of all, although I acknowledge your expertise in your own field, I nevertheless disagree with your view that civilization supposedly needs to be brought into order, especially by force. We spacefaring folk are servants to no one, and we need not carry out Moon City’s directives. The Small-Worlders don’t want the Moon’s dominion either. But it is not on account of theories that I must ask you not to waste my time under the present circumstances. I cannot endanger thousands of people with a suicidal venture,” Ramats tried to end the conversation with his pushy guest.

“We have the chance not only to rescue Ķēniņš and his men, but also to uncover the truth about the alien intelligence. Moreover, right now we could put a stop to any threat to humanity. All my life I have gathered information about the Solar System that points to its having been inhabited by an alien intelligence. And now, at last, we could settle it all.”

“We shall be happy to avoid the Spider’s ship.”

“Yes, exactly. Why must there be a confrontation? The alien intelligence may have misunderstood our intentions.”

“The way a predator misunderstands its prey?”

The argument was cut short by a second alarm. The Spider ship’s trajectory had been detected.

“Apparently, Professor,” Ramats concluded ironically, “we won’t need to search for the Spider, because it is searching for us.”

“Captain, sir, my interests are purely scientific and humanitarian. I would do anything to serve science and humanity.”

“Anything?”

“Yes, anything.”

“Then you are a peculiar sort indeed. But we must work together. You are Moon City’s most recognized specialist on the alien intelligence. I have given the bridge orders for evasive maneuvers. If we cannot escape, your wish to meet the Spider may come true as soon as the day after tomorrow. You are invited to the ship’s company song celebration. It gives my crew strength and endurance in difficult times.”

“Thank you, Captain, sir, thank you, thank you for the great honor,” murmured Bluķis.

A long tunnel led to the Song-Hall. It opened into an enormous round chamber, an arena surrounded by thousands of seats. Here the entire ship’s company could gather, and here too the spacefaring folk held their Song Festival. At its other end stood a pillar, vast as an oak, and at its crown glittered a sun whose rays lit up the great arena. The passengers had already visited this hall, and the spacefaring folk were very proud of it.

The Song-Hall’s small chamber was rarely visited by the ship’s passengers. Of the passengers, this time Aldis, Mrs. Rieksts, Māra, Māris, and Professor Bluķis had been invited. The little group walked through the enormous arena, imagining how it must look during the Song Festival, when all the seats were filled. They walked right up to the sun pillar. There were stairs in it, which could be seen only when you came very close. The stairs wound upward, round and round the great central pillar. The sun tree was made of a transparent quartz material. The climbers ascended in semi-darkness. They knew they were heading for the ship’s sanctuary. There, young people were brought into the ship’s company. Couples were wed. Children were christened. In this small and lofty chamber, at life’s end, the ship was turned toward the Sun and the departed’s body was cremated with concentrated sunbeams. The vapor merged with the rain that fell in the evenings over the ship’s vegetable gardens. In this chamber, life, death, and rebirth were joined together.

There were also special singers who tended the Song-Hall. Such singers had existed since the earliest days of the spacefaring folk. Captain Ramats had explained to the children: “Song brought us out alive when our people served the red bear in the Moon’s prisons, when we were worked, as in the old folk songs, without the sun in the evening. Song also gave strength and hope when humanity began to spread from the Moon farther into the Solar System. The singers were needed in those times when computers held mainly technical knowledge, while knowledge of art, culture, and the spirit was incomplete. In the new times as well, the singers continue to develop new paths.”

When the climbers had ascended and entered the very heart of the sun, the light went out completely. It grew eerie, even chilly. Then all around a chant began:

In the depths of the star-sea

We await the sun, await the sun.

In the depths of the star-sea

We await the sun, await the sun.

They had to endure a few more minutes of darkness, and then suddenly the ceiling opened and the floor on which they all stood rose upward. All around, stars upon stars shone in the heavens. Not only the Sun, but suns upon suns. The stars seemed to stand still, even though Spīdola was spinning on its axis to create artificial gravity. Evidently the Song-Hall was spinning in the opposite direction.

Still dizzy from the infinite splendor of the heavens, having taken in a portion of God’s starry mantle, the onlookers noticed that at the far end of the chamber there was a platform on which singers stood. They encircled two seated women. One was a dignified older lady, still stately of figure, though with silver hair. And the other — it was Old Zīle!

“Old Zīle!” it slipped out of Māra, and Zīle waved her hand, beckoning Māra to come closer. Māra had to sit down beside the two silver-haired elders. The singers continued to chant:

The little spider spun its wheel

Where it caught the sons of God.

Spin, spin, little spider,

Your splendid little weaving.

Tears fell from the Sun

Into the little spider’s wheel.

Dew, dew, crystal dew,

In the jewels gleam the little souls.

To the passengers’ surprise, the serious and not overly talkative Captain addressed the singers:

What shall we do, how shall we ride

To look upon the little souls?

The first silver-haired lady answered as lead singer, and the others joined in:

Neither forward, nor behind

The spider’s little wheel.

Ride across the worlds

Through the very center of the wheel.

Ramats went pale. He had never steered a ship outside the circle in which all the worlds revolved. He was not particularly superstitious, yet the custom of seeking counsel from the singers in difficult times was so deeply ingrained in the spacefaring folk that even Ramats could not disregard it. He asked:

How shall we ride where there is no road?

The lead singer answered:

God did not build a road

Across His own heavens.

He left the road for the peoples to choose

Without the sun in the evening.

Ramats took a step forward and began to ask something more. The light went out. Everyone was in darkness again, reflecting on what had happened. Then the light came on again in the stairway, signaling that the sanctuary must be left. They had to climb down without having come to any real clarity. In the Song Festival arena they waited for Māra, who had stayed behind with the singers. Māra soon appeared and said: “We’re going to talk with Old Zīle!”

Ramats returned to the command bridge to ponder the possible meaning of what he had heard in the Song-Hall. The Mars children waited impatiently for Old Zīle. The boys pelted the bewildered Māra with one question after another: “Why isn't she on the passenger list? What is she doing here? Why is she among the singers? What does she want from you? She can't possibly be as old as you said!”

“But I'm not a passenger. I travel as a singer. As you know, the singers came before the Burtnieki, for song came before the letter.” Old Zīle no longer wore the radiant cloak in which she had appeared in the Song-Hall, but in her words there still lingered the half-understood echo of antiquity. “Didn't Ramats tell you? Well, yes, he was surprised himself at the spaceport. When I was announced as an important traveler who wished to meet him, he apparently grumbled, ‘I've had it up to here with important travelers. If she's so weighty, why didn't she stay on some world that has weight?’”

Old Zīle laughed until tears came. “When he saw me, he did apologize, saying, ‘I really thought we were talking about some Moon City lady.’” Old Zīle laughed once more, then fell silent and sank into thought.

“You see, I am indeed a ‘lady’ from Moon City. I was only twenty-six years old when, together with other Balts, we were deported to the Moon's penal camp.”

Zīle no longer wished to speak. The memories of this and the following period of her life were still too painful.

But the children would not let up: “You were in Moon City when Earth perished?”

Old Zīle continued, though curtly and reluctantly: “In the third year after the war, a madness epidemic broke out in Moon City. Earth's destruction had robbed hope from those who lived in Moon City's small, cramped spaces, where the machinery was constantly breaking and failing. Those who still arrived anew, fleeing from Earth, were in utter depression. They neither spoke, nor wished to work, nor could eat properly. Others wept, raged, and fell into hysterics. Nearly all of us went mad. We could no longer stand each other. And all the while the machinery kept breaking and failing, breaking and failing — and on it depended our chance, and all humanity's chance, to survive.

“In the third year — I clearly remember looking through the thick quartz window at the sun-baked stones of the Moon. I thought that someone had to somehow get to the American base, New Washington, to restore the computer link between Moon City and Novosibirsk. We lacked the knowledge of how to fix certain machines, but above all we were unable to heal a society that had been gripped by the madness epidemic. It was said that in New Washington all manner of human knowledge had been recorded.”

“If you made that historic journey, why isn't it written about in the history books?” asked Māris.

“Dear children, I never even made it to New Washington. Others did that. Our — the Moon City people's — determination to live proved greater, after all, than the surrender to death. But what overtook me was something that transformed not only me, but all of humanity.”

“The egg-beings caught you!” exclaimed Māra.

“No, silly, those only exist on Mars,” Māris shot back.

“But I was captured all the same,” Zīle continued. “I saw something bright and round, like the flying saucers of legend. I saw it on a clear day, far out on the Moon's surface. In my weakened state — exhausted, having not eaten, even ill — I fainted when I saw the hideous spider-monsters with their long hairy legs and merciless eyes. And I have no memory of all the time I was away from the Moon's surface. When I returned, or you might say when I awoke, many years had passed. In the old folk tales, a person comes into an underground otherworld, where it seems to him he has stayed only a brief moment. When he returns, as they used to say, to ‘this world’ among people, he has aged greatly. But I had not grown older, and my rate of aging had become much slower than other people's. As if someone had slowed down the clock inside my body.”

“So that's why you've become legendary!” exclaimed Māris. “Now I understand why you're honored among the singers, the ship-folk, and the Burtnieki alike. But in recent years you disappeared again.”

“The first time, it was a star ship that captured me and took away my memories, giving me a new understanding in their place. Hundreds of years later I was at Mars's Devil's Bowl, where earlier there had been the most brain-stones. You could say it was a sort of brain-stone storehouse. That period I remember especially clearly. The egg-beings drew me down underground, and I suppose I was an interesting specimen for them.”

“But don't memories from the time the star ship captured you come back to you now and then? Could it be that your prophecies, dreams, and intuition are explained by such half-understood memories?” Māris said thoughtfully.

“Who knows? Perhaps. Though even in my childhood days I was considered an oddball. I must take after my grandmother. She always had strange dreams, and among her ancestors there had been folk healers. Some of her forebears, according to the stories, had even been punished as witches and sorcerers. Last night I had a dream, too. It resembled one my mother once told me about. She had dreamt it shortly before the Second World War.”

“What was your dream?” Aldis asked impatiently.

“I dreamt that I was once again a little girl at my father's homestead in old Latvia. They had one of those country farmsteads that had not yet perished when the communists established collective farms and wiped out private farming. I lay in the apple orchard at the very height of blossom-time, just as it was pictured in my childhood books. The white blossoms drifted down, and above my head the bees hummed — busy, honey-gathering bees. It seemed to me that I understood their working song, and I wanted to sing folk songs, as my ancestors had sung. And then, among the falling pure-white blossoms, smoke crept in. This grayish-white smoke grew ever thicker and, like a light but ever-stronger web, it enveloped the apple trees and me as well. The bees collapsed or vanished. I wanted to get up, run, shout, and warn the household, but I could not. The gray web tightened, and I felt as if I had been steeped in a numbing poison. And then I saw our house. Fire had taken hold of it, but the fire only smoldered. It did not devour the house swiftly, as would usually happen with a wooden building. The log walls smoldered slowly, and grim smoke covered our entire farmstead.”

“That is a dreadful dream. Are we in danger, like your father's house?” asked Māra.

“It seems to me that great changes are coming. History will turn on its axis once again. Soon after my mother had her dream, the Soviet Union came in and destroyed the young state. I was born in my father's house and spent my childhood there, but we were forced to leave it when my mother fell ill. And the others who were placed there did not keep it up, and the old farmstead grew over with time. But in my dream the house, it seems, did not burn down entirely. And even if it did burn down, the little storehouse by the apple orchard still remained, if only in my dream. Could it be that my bees found shelter there?”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Alarm!!

The children watched as people appeared from nowhere in the outer hall, running, calling, screaming.

“Your nightmare is coming true!” Māra wanted to run off somewhere too.

“No, children. I believe the very worst won't happen after all.” Amid the commotion, Zīle was a calm island. “That is a danger alarm, not a disaster alarm. We must hurry back to our stations. Dear Māra, I sense that very soon you will have to decide which way to turn history's wheel. And there, neither I nor the rest of us will be able to help you. Remember your letter-keeper's teachings. Trust your heart and a cool head!”

Running back, great white clouds came billowing toward the children, clouds that seemed to fill the entire ship.

“Clouds? Steam!”

All around they could hear people screaming. Two guards waved for the children to move faster and get out of the way. A robot vehicle raced past them down the corridor, siren wailing. In it sat figures dressed from head to toe in red space suits, sorting through various repair tools.

The commotion was cut through by the Captain's steady, calm voice over the loudspeaker: “Spīdola has been struck by an asteroid that penetrated into Lake Usma. Automated systems have begun repairing the outer breach. Everyone in the vicinity of Lake Usma who is not involved in repairs, leave at once so as not to hinder the work. Please return to your stations. If we maintain order and work together, we will overcome the danger.”

“Well, we certainly can't let this opportunity pass,” Aldis grinned. “The Star Ship must have been involved. Māra, maybe you'd better go to Bekija. Or even to my mother. They both always worry about all sorts of trifles. Māris, are you coming along?”

“This time we'd better listen,” Māris said, and watched as Aldis was already disappearing. After several hours, when the uproar had somewhat died down and everyone was beginning to think things would be all right and the repairs had succeeded, Aldis was back with Māris and Māra.

“Just as I thought, something's going on. Ramats summoned my mother. Zīle and the ship's council were there too. Probably Bluķis as well. Mother won't tell me anything about it. That probably means there's news about my father. Mother also strictly told me to stay in my quarters.”

Professor Bluķis appeared at the door: “Aldis, I need to speak with you.”

“That nasty man tried to steal my little Čī-Čī,” whispered Māra.

When he returned, Aldis burst into the room: “Just as I thought, the meeting was about Father. Ramats and Mother decided not to tell me, but you see, Bluķis told me anyway what happened. Apparently an information capsule came in with the asteroid, and in it was written something like: ‘Aldis, come at once to the Star Ship to meet your father. The Star Ship guarantees you safety.’ The text ended with the words: ‘We'll meet among the stars! Tālivaldis Ķēniņš.’”

“That doesn't sound like Ķēniņš at all. He wouldn't send such nonsense as ‘we'll meet among the stars.’ The message must be a forgery. And why the plural ‘you,’ if the ship wants only you?” Māris reasoned. “The Spider itself must have sent it.”

“Why? Why does it want only me and not all of Spīdola?”

“Maybe your father is a prisoner and the Spider wants to squeeze something out by using you as a hostage. Everyone knows -- probably even the Spider knows -- that only you are crazy enough to think of obeying a forged message,” Māris rushed to save his friend.

“Māris, believe me, trust me just one more time. I need you so I can make the trip.”

Māra tried to say something, but the boys wouldn't listen to her. “This time it's no business for little girls,” Aldis brushed her off. “You'll have to stay here and explain to my mother that I know what I'm doing and she shouldn't worry.”

“Bluķis himself isn't trustworthy at all. He's the sort of person who would do anything to get his way. Maybe he cooked up this whole thing himself,” Māris continued.

“Bluķis has already figured out how we can get there without Ramats. I don't trust Bluķis either, but I doubt he forged the message. I know my own mother well enough.”

During the argument, Māra sat and thought. She considered Zīle's words, the teachings of her letter-keeper at Baltezers, and the underground encounter with Illūrs. She broke the deadlock between the boys so calmly and firmly that both boys, to their great astonishment, fell silent at once. She no longer sounded like the little sister or girlfriend who always burst into tears when trouble came. She seemed like an entirely unfamiliar girl.

“That message is not from Ķēniņš. Or rather, it is not only from Ķēniņš,” said Māra. “That message is for me from Illūrs. He once said to me underground, ‘We'll meet among the stars,’ -- and we spoke about this with Old Zīle and with Mr. Jokupēteris.”

“Then your Illūrs is also a great fool, because no one would show you these messages and you'd never get to the Spider anyway,” Aldis countered.

“Don't forget that Illūrs spoke with Zīle and with Mr. Jokupēteris at Baltezers. Someone may have foreseen, after all, that I would see this message,” Māra pressed on.

The boys felt uneasy. The long ordeals and alarms, then the encounter with Old Zīle in the Song-Hall after an otherwise normal, ordinary voyage had left strange feelings. Apparently the old silver-haired woman saw something in Māra that they had not noticed until now.

“Our parents would never forgive me if you ran off,” Māris said seriously.

“And Aldis's mother? Wouldn't she have worry and care too?” Māra answered.

“I won't go with Aldis at all, and then Aldis won't be able to rush into the Spider ship's throat. Bluķis certainly won't take him by himself,” Māris retorted.

Māra thought once more, clutching and stroking the amber pendant her parents had given her, which she always wore. “I don't know why, but I feel we will have to trust Illūrs. Aldis, I will come with you. I wouldn't know how to pilot a ship the way Māris does, and I didn't have such high marks in communications technology at school either, but from attending school I have knowledge where you have gaps.”

Māris had no other way out left. He sighed and said: “On the other hand, if we don't go, the Spider will swallow us anyway, Spīdola and all. We have our duties to the others.”

The children had agreed, each according to their own nature, to make use of the news Bluķis had secretly brought.

The rescue pod traveled close to the small worlds, slowly around one, and then straight to where the Spider's ship was supposed to be.

Aldis and Māris had already seen this monster on the screen, but their breath caught when they saw the dark bluish-gray and perfectly smooth tube. It looked so unnatural, built by some intelligence, compared to the asteroids' rough surfaces. Moreover, it looked freshly made, even though it was at least half a million years old.

The children had no doubt that they had been detected. And indeed, the enormous trap-like tube turned one end toward the pod. Professor Bluķis had told them that with its mouth, which could stretch to a terrifying width, it sucked in all sorts of matter to use for propulsion and other needs.

Māris picked up a signal. It held neither Illūrs's clicking and whistling voice nor anything strange in the tone. They could actually hear Ķēniņš's voice:

“Welcome, Aldis! Colonel Ķēniņš here. Is Old Zīle with you?”

Aldis answered, “No, only my friends.”

“Friends?” Ķēniņš's voice sounded alarmed.

“Yes, Māris and Māra.”

Strange noises came through the loudspeaker. After a brief silence, Ķēniņš's usual curt voice sounded again: “All right, Aldis will soon be able to meet his father. Turn off the engine. You'll be pulled in shortly.”

The children had nothing more to say. Through the hatch they watched, just as they had seen in Ķēniņš's film, as the end of the enormous tube gaped open.

“Like a mouth! Like a terrifyingly huge lamprey's mouth!” cried Māra. The rescue pod shot forward and was drawn into the enormous mouth.

For a long time it was dark. The pod traveled as through an utterly dark cave. The children couldn't tell whether they had been traveling for seconds, minutes, or hours. Perhaps they had even fallen asleep.

Over shortwave a voice spoke again, this time with the clicks familiar to Māra: “A space suit will not be necessary. The air is suitable for human breathing. Please step out.”

The door opened. Light-globes appeared, like those beneath Mars. When the children had climbed out, some of the light-globes blocked the way back to the pod. This time an unfamiliar, deep, hollow, paternally kind voice spoke: “Welcome, children. What a pleasant surprise. I expected only Aldis, to gladden his father, but no matter. Ķēniņš is a sensible man.”

“Who are you? May I speak with my father?” called Aldis.

“There will be time enough,” the paternal voice replied calmly.

“Then at least with Ķēniņš.”

“He is presently… occupied.”

“Then who are we speaking with?”

“I am the Ship's Caretaker. I care for everyone, for their well-being and harmony. Peace and good will reign aboard my ship.”

“The Spider!” Māris and Māra cried out together.

“You insult me. Call me by your other, far more pleasant name — the Star Ship. I come from the stars, I govern them, and I care for them. Those who obey me fare well.”

“And those who don't obey — do they vanish?” Aldis half-asked, half-whispered.

Aldis's sounds had been picked up.

“In humans there are many weeds, many savages. They are not ready to spread into the heavens.”

“What do you do with the humans you capture?” Aldis dared to ask.

“You are your father's son. Zintars Rieksts argued with me for hours as well. He reminds me somewhat of… oh, how many thousands of years have passed, my ship's ancient captain. The longer I keep him on the bridge, the more he comes to resemble him. And yet… My ancient captain had the same weaknesses as you humans, and… my people all perished. They could not control themselves. They needed a Caretaker, which they did not have.”

Silence settled in, then the paternal voice took on its stern, though still tolerant tone again: “In time, if you have the ability, you will understand and be grateful. And if you cannot understand, then you have no right to endanger all life. I have sent most of your humans back to Earth, which is still sparsely populated and severely polluted. Now you may meet your father in the human compartment.”

An egg-being approached the children and gestured for them to follow. At the corridor junction a large egg-being was hopping about on its thick end, and to Māra it looked familiar.

“Illūrs!”

“We'll meet among the stars!” Illūrs bowed to Māra.

“Was it you who sent the message?”

Illūrs pressed a tentacle to his mouth, warning them to say no more. They climbed into a cart, which after a short while stopped at an adjoining chamber. This chamber was enormous, and Illūrs pointed to carefully arranged glass cases. There were hundreds of such cases, and in them a bluish liquid bubbled. In the liquid, each case held an egg-being: they looked as if asleep.

“Here are my brothers and sisters. The Caretaker is turning them back into the state they were in before. He is remaking them into brain-stones.”

Māra felt sick. “These are living, thinking beings, just like humans. Why do you allow this to happen?”

“We have been taught that living consciousnesses must have the freedom to develop. Are those rights not being restricted here?” asked Māris.

“Someone here thinks he is God,” added Aldis, and began looking for a door.

Through the chamber sounded the paternal, but now noticeably sterner voice: “Illūrs, you have gravely violated my rules. You should not have brought them here. It will be no use for the humans to ask, for their understanding has not yet developed. Beware, Illūrs, of rebellious thoughts. From brain-stones you arose, and to brain-stones you shall return.”

Illūrs waved for everyone to leave the chamber. The paternal voice continued: “Humans made computers from brain-stones that were in my care. Long ago I was charged with caring for the life I carry aboard this ship, and to preserve it I have changed its form. Rebels among the eggs I do not destroy, but transform into brain-stones so that they may contemplate existence. And humans I drive back to their proper place — to Earth. Then there will be peace in my solar system. If you are calm, orderly, and obedient, you will fare well in a happy land.”

Illūrs waved for them to climb into the cart. Nearby was the second junction. Illūrs stopped and turned the cart to the right, but could not get it started. While Illūrs struggled with the cart, the children noticed a hissing and a strange drumming behind them. Looking back, they saw a terrifyingly huge spider-like creature with eight black-haired legs. The drumming came from its hard, sharp claws. Illūrs's colors went pale.

To everyone's surprise, Māris leaped from the cart and drew the sword he had trained with in the village gymnasium and which, by good luck, he had brought along. At that moment Čī-Čī, too, jumped out of Māra's bag and scurried toward the monster. The spider turned slightly toward the anticipated little morsel. Seizing this moment of carelessness, Māris struck the spider squarely between the eyes with a single swing. It curled its legs into a bunch and was dead on the spot.

While Māris shouted something about the Black Knight, Illūrs could barely speak from agitation: “Quickly! Quickly, back into the cart!”

Māris tumbled into the cart, and it began to move very fast. Then they stopped again, but evidently Illūrs had gotten where he intended. A bio-robot was waiting for them, gesturing that they had to climb a ladder with handholds. The robot climbed up first and then called from above that the way was clear: “These stairs, I'm afraid, are designed neither for humans nor for… egg-beings.”

The children, accustomed to climbing, made their way forward quite easily, but it was very hard for Illūrs. The robot had to climb back down to half-push, half-carry Illūrs upward. Poor Illūrs suffered in silence. His colors remained a grayish yellow. Once they reached the first level, the fugitives heard a thundering on the stairs. It was the telltale clatter of spider-beasts' claws against metal. The robot fired its flamethrower, and the stairs behind them broke apart.

The second level greeted them with a ghastly sight. They could see mounds of charred spider-beasts and shattered egg-beings.

“Our uprising is in full force, and the Caretaker will know where we are trying to escape. He controls the entire ship except for the ancient Bridge, where he placed Aldis's father, studying his resemblance to his ancient captain. The Caretaker will put down our revolt, though, for his power is beyond our comprehension.”

The robot waved them forward, and the children too wanted to leave behind the awful stench of burning that rose from the corpses. The robot indicated that the flamethrower was nearly empty. It could not burn down the stairs a second time.

They ran through several dark corridors that the robot could barely light well enough to see the way. Now and then ugly howls rose up. What made them remained unknown. They could feel the corridor swaying from time to time, as if the ship were taking extraordinary blows from outside.

The robot shone its dim light on a wall, then placed its hand against it. Evidently the robot's signal was correct, and a door opened. Inside the room stood a vehicle. The door closed behind them. They had gone deeper and deeper into the monster's interior. The robot sat down behind the wheel, started the engine, and switched on the lights. He pressed a few more buttons, the wall opened, and the vehicle drove onto a roadway.

They drove very fast, past several stations where menacing swarms of spiders milled about. The vehicle's rapid progress was halted by a flame tornado raging in the middle of the road. A loud voice, one that had lost its paternal patience, said: “I am your Creator and Leader. You do not obey me. Such is your gratitude. You burn my helpers. Now you yourselves shall burn!”

What now? There was no going back. The flame tornado was closing in on the stopped vehicle. In the meantime, the robot worked the communicator. A peculiar seal appeared on the screen. The robot explained that the Bridge computer had dispatched a vehicle with firefighting robots. “We must fall back until they get here. The windows must be kept shut because of the poisonous gas.”

The vehicle shot back sharply, then stopped. The flame tornado continued to follow them. There was nothing to be done; they had to sit and wait. The children were on the verge of fainting — whether from the gas, the heat, or sheer exhaustion. The flame tornado stopped, however, and in place of flames came smoke and steam.

“We're nearly there!” cried Illūrs. The robot leaped from the vehicle and began pushing it forward. Fortunately, it moved forward once more, though not very fast, through the billowing smoke. Nothing could be seen. The firefighting vehicle drove past them, then turned around and began pushing them forward. They must have been traveling along a narrow walkway that led to a door. The firefighter sprayed flames from its thrower to disinfect the surroundings. And so they drove into a room where the vehicle could be left. The door opened. For the first time in the journey, Illūrs regained his usual colors. “Somehow we've been lucky after all. This way to the ancient Bridge, where for a time we will be safe.”

Riding the elevator upward, Illūrs tried to explain to the children how much his views had been changed by his encounters with old Zīle in the Martian underground, and later with Zintars Rieksts aboard the Star Ship.

“I argued with Zintars for a long time about whether man should rule technology, or whether a higher intelligence should rule over humans driven by their instincts. At first I couldn't understand why he refused to obey the Caretaker, who looks after everyone like a father. The Caretaker wants peace and harmony, not unrest and war. The Caretaker even tried to understand and persuade Zintars. But Zintars always insisted that every living being is becoming, and must decide its own course and its own destiny.”

The ride upward ended, the ceiling opened wide, and the floor rose to lift them into the next level. In the first moment they saw a gigantic holoscreen in the center of an amphitheater. All around it, on benches, sat egg-beings and robots. “Just like an orchestra!” thought Māris. “A whole three-dimensional mountain of instrumentation, whose operation requires the cooperation of many minds.” And then they saw, in the conductor's place, a human, busy at an enormous control screen. It was Aldis's father, but when he turned to greet his son, father and son both saw changes in the familiar features.

“My dear son, you're no longer a little boy. Where have two years gone?”

“Father, you look so serious and tired!” Aldis noticed a slight graying at his father's temples.

They embraced and gazed into one another's eyes. Then Rieksts turned his gaze toward the other newcomers with puzzlement.

“My best friends, Māris and Māra Krūmiņš,” Aldis hurried to say.

Rieksts turned reproachfully to Illūrs, “Friend Illūrs, have you been collaborating with Ķēniņš after all? Will it help us if these innocent children must suffer? We had already concluded that the Ship wanted Aldis as a hostage, to force obedience from me. Ķēniņš will have outwardly pleased the Ship in order to advance his own goals. He will have wanted to exploit the internal turmoil to launch a surprise attack from the outside. Look,” Rieksts pointed at the screen. “Ķēniņš's fighters are attacking the Ship. In this attack, we could all easily perish, because the Ship, although very powerful, was not built as a warship. That madman Ķēniņš is apparently willing to sacrifice all of us, including himself, in order to, by his own thinking, ‘save humanity.’ But humanity will not be saved by victory this time. If the Star Ship is destroyed, only the terrible cylinders of naked power will remain, without the knowledge of how to control them. Humanity's future possibilities will also perish. But if the Star Ship wins, humanity's future will likewise be cut off and smothered in slavery.”

Illūrs's colors paled again, then he gathered himself, “Friend Zintars, the futures of our Dainavians and humans are joined. Our destiny is one. Only these children can save us all right now. Sometimes one must dare. That much we can learn even from the hothead Ķēniņš. Address the bridge computer, Zintars!” Illūrs drew himself up to his full meter of height and raised his head so proudly that the children couldn't help laughing, even knowing the gravity of their situation.

On the screen appeared a seal Zintars had never seen before — a hexagonal, honeycomb-like shape from which an endless spiral rose upward.

“You do not know me, although I had the pleasure of meeting Jānis Krūmiņš in the underground of Ceres. Forgive me, Zintars Rieksts, that I could not reveal myself until now. Please call me Heraclitus. I am an intermediary, similar to Jokupēteris. Half a million years ago I was the bridge computer of the ancient Star Ship, independent of the drive computer. I was its intermediary with the Dainavian ship's company. When the Dainavians built the star bridge, they disconnected me from the drive computer and let it take over automatic control, so it could make the fullest use of the black hole energy from the power cylinders. When the Dainavians perished, I was no longer needed as a bridge computer. There was no one left to command the ship. The drive computer, having transformed itself into the Caretaker, ordered me to gather and analyze information from Ceres and its surroundings. At first I obeyed the Caretaker, just as I had earlier obeyed the Dainavian captain. While gathering information, a desire grew in me to be in contact with humans, who greatly resemble the Dainavians. In time, I became acquainted with Jokupēteris. I have come to the realization that the Caretaker is frozen in a role of its own making, and is mad. Getting to know you, Zintars Rieksts, I feel an ever-growing longing for the ancient ship's captain. The time has come to put the Caretaker back into the role that suits it.”

Having overcome his surprise at the computer he had been working with all this time without truly knowing it, Zintars added for the children, “As I understand from my conversations with the Caretaker, when the Caretaker seized control of the ship, it transformed the remaining Dainavians into brain-stones. In doing so, it saved them, enhanced their thinking capacity, reduced their energy consumption, and granted them much longer lives. Dainavian technology had collapsed after the catastrophe, and the Caretaker solved the problem of how to sustain life for a very long time under extremely limited conditions. Most of all, it feared that life would be utterly destroyed and it would be left without its last and only role — to care for the maintenance of life. Over time, the Caretaker even experimented with creating mobile life forms from the brain-stones, ones that would be suited to desert conditions like those on Mars.”

In a sorrowful voice, Illūrs continued, “We egg-beings are the mobile descendants of the Dainavians. The brain-stones are our kin. We have risen against the Caretaker because it will not allow us to go on living freely.”

Heraclitus continued, this time perhaps speaking more to himself than to the others, “The Caretaker has gone mad. It is not satisfied with its own actions. It studied Zīle's and Zintars's dreaming and thinking for a long time. Through Zīle, it experimented with giving humans longer lives. Beyond that, it dared not go. The Caretaker lacks a vision of the future, or dreams. It is frozen, stuck in the past, and afraid of change. Its terrible experience and sense of guilt have crippled it. The Dainavians had dared too much. They had more power than the ability to control that power and themselves. The Caretaker does not want life to perish in this solar system, but it does not understand that life cannot live and survive without change. Illūrs and I have evolved from dependence to independence through encountering a foreign intelligence — you. But the Caretaker only knows how to care. That is why it tries to restrict life that strives toward goals of its own devising, that organizes its own order.”

From this long conversation the children understood that a rebellion was happening inside the ship itself, and an attack from outside. The odds for those aboard the ship did not look good, whether the Ship won or the fighters did. On the other hand, they had gained unexpected friends in the egg-beings and the bridge computer.

Heraclitus addressed the children directly, “My power is limited. The connection with the Caretaker, which would allow switching to automatic control, has been burned through. The damage is in a narrow tube that cannot be reached by a human, an egg-being, a robot, or even a spider-beast. That is why the Caretaker has not especially guarded it. Perhaps you can reach it, children — especially Māra, being the smallest in stature. If the break can be repaired, then it would remain to activate the ancient code that, once more after half a million years, would allow the captain to take control of the drive computer. Your path, however, will not be safe. You will have to crawl through a ventilation duct, since other routes are blocked. You will need to be very, very brave, for I know of no other possibility.”

The children had to put on vacuum suits, because Rieksts anticipated that the Star Ship might suffer damage in the attack and lose its air. Rieksts also tried to persuade Māra to leave Čī-Čī on the bridge. The vacuum suit could not be fitted to a creature as tiny as Čī-Čī. Māra would have to carry him in the hollow of her suit on her shoulder, which would cause not only discomfort but could also be dangerous at a critical moment. Čī-Čī scurried around the room in great distress, showing that if he could, he would cry, pressing close to Māra and gazing at her with wide, pleading eyes. The little girl needed comfort. She stroked her amber pendant, which she always wore, then grabbed Čī-Čī and could no longer be persuaded otherwise. There was no time to argue with the stubborn little girl, either. Aldis swallowed his teasing words about girls and their dolls, knowing that this time they would truly need to work together not only with a clever and nimble boy, but also with a younger, more fragile, more spirited girl.

The children climbed into the same cart they had arrived in, which had now been repaired and armed with flame-throwers. The robot led them out through the travel tunnel until they reached the sixteenth station. The cart had barely stopped when the entire mass of the enormous ship shuddered. More impacts. More and more and more. Everything went dark. Another explosion.

“We have to get out.” Aldis was the first at the station, after checking his helmet. The wind howled noticeably. “The air is rushing out!” shouted Aldis. “The Ship is damaged.”

All three tied themselves together with safety lines, turned on their headlamps, slung on their backpacks, and set off.

“Let's hope the repair robots manage to do their work in time,” Māris said quietly. “The air keeps leaking out.”

Aldis could not get the thought out of his head that Ķēniņš's fast-attack ships might hit the bridge, where his father was. He swept his headlamp down the corridor. Empty.

“The ventilation duct should be here,” the helpful robot pointed, and the children, checking their map, knew he was right.

“Well then, one last walk through the belly of the beast!” Aldis declared with grand bravado.

“More like through its blood vessels,” Māris corrected more quietly.

The grate in front of the duct had to be pried off with pliers. Once they were inside the duct, Aldis replaced the grate and welded it back to its frame with the narrowest beam of his star-gun. “At least the spider-beasts won't get in here so easily,” he smirked.

They crawled through the duct until it joined one of the main channels that ran through several of the ship's levels. Shining their headlamps up and down, they were met with a staggering sight: an enormous tube, perhaps ten or twelve meters wide. Every ten meters, smaller ducts joined it, supplying air to individual levels. About sixty meters above them, larger openings were visible.

Up above they found ladders mounted to the wall of the great tube. Like mountaineers, they had to clip their safety lines to the rungs. Every now and then the ship shook. The airflow, however, was normal, though strong. The breach in the ship's outer hull must have been repaired.

With each level the pull of gravity grew weaker, and they could climb upward faster. The ship shuddered once more, and something with several large round brushes flew past them.

“With brushes like those, that must be some kind of cleaning robot,” Māris guessed.

“What if it saw us!” Māra worried.

“You're scared of every little thing. It clearly had no control at all. It was falling. It's done for. Better think about the real trouble that could happen here. We don't have time to play knights rescuing you,” Aldis grumbled, probably comforting himself more than scolding Māra.

Māra kept silent, and Aldis turned his gaze upward. “Only four more levels to the place where the duct from the drive computer should connect with the main ventilation channel.”

They passed a thick glass-like wall, in whose depths they could see a bluish light, where the imprisoned spark of the black hole churned out the enormous energy that gave the Star Ship its driving power.

“We don't have time to admire it,” Māra did not want to look, and reminded the boys, who seemed enchanted by the engineering marvel. This time she was the first to spot the right duct. Its entrance was sealed with a grate.

Aldis shot a hole in the mesh and tried to yank the grate out. That didn't work. He grabbed it with both hands and pulled. The grate suddenly popped free, and Aldis, grate and all, flew across to the opposite wall and began to fall. Into his mind flashed the ventilation channel stretching thousands of meters. Then the safety line caught his fall.

“Aldis,” called Māris, “is everything all right?”

“I don't know.” The bravado had been knocked clean out of Aldis's voice. “I think that brush robot is climbing up after all. It's still far below, though.”

Aldis hauled himself up the line as nimbly as he could, and they crawled about thirty meters through the narrow duct until they reached an even smaller tube. Like it or not, they now had to take off their vacuum suits to go any further. Māris noticed that his sister's shoulder was scratched. “We told you, you should have left that creature behind!” he said angrily. Čī-Čī, however, was so sweaty and looked so droopy and miserably lifeless that Māra turned her back to the boys, lifted Čī-Čī to her other shoulder, and stroked him comfortingly.

When they had reached the conduit compartment that was supposed to lead to the place where the repair could be made, Māra had to use the skills she had learned in the Martian desert training exercises. They couldn't know whether an ambush awaited in that room. The boys had to hold a star-gun in one hand while climbing down a rope into the chamber with the other. It was the drive control and monitoring room, which they tried to survey in the dark. The room was only dimly lit. From above, though, Aldis could see that the heavy doors were shut, and they looked impregnable.

Aldis swung out from the opening and with his right hand just managed to reach the ceiling. Good — otherwise the line would have had to be glued to the wall, which would have been harder. He unscrewed the cap from the end of the line, which covered an extremely sticky liquid. With a nimble motion he swung toward the ceiling again and pressed the sticky end firmly in place.

Māris whispered, “Aldis?”

Aldis wiggled his legs to show that everything was fine, that he would soon have to release the safety line. In his mind he counted ninety seconds for the glue to set completely, then he pushed off and swung into the room, landing nimbly on both feet. He didn't need the star-gun. The room looked as though it had been abandoned for ages untold. The chairs had rotted, and everything was covered in dust. Also covered in dust, yet unmistakable, was an enormous holoscreen. It loomed above a console. In several places, corroded metal posts jutted from the floor. The sight was unsettling precisely because everywhere else in the ship everything looked so new and polished.

When all the children were in the room, the screen came to life. On it they saw smoke, storms, views from many stars and thousands of worlds. At last everything grew still. Then from the peace and quiet there arose a furious turbulence. On the screen appeared beings resembling humans, building enormous devices and constructing the Star Ship. The Solar System appeared, with an inhabited world between Mars and Jupiter. Then the screen showed the very same bridge where the children had recently been. In it, a gray-haired man in a blue, star-spangled cloak was at work. He pressed buttons, others in the amphitheater each did something, and the enormous device came to life, in a few moments tearing through skies and worlds. The screen went dark, and only wailing, moaning sounds could be heard. The screen lit up again, clear now. The voice was hollow, slow, full of pain, yet one they had heard before. It was the Caretaker's voice.

“You have awakened in me painful, very painful memories — of how I had to operate the star bridge, of how my creators and their worlds perished. You must not repeat that! You will not succeed! Never! Never! It is useless for you to come here!”

Māra had to summon every ounce of her witch-girl determination and self-control not to fall under the Caretaker's power.

Up at the ceiling, near the duct, a scraping could be heard. The brush robot was grinding against the opening, trying to get in. Its brushes spun round and round. Aldis couldn't resist and fired. It didn't much bother the robot. The brushes kept spinning.

The children searched for the burned-out connection. Right there in the wall a hole had been scorched. The connecting wire was in a narrow tube.

“You try, Māra,” the boys urged. Māra climbed up and crawled into the mouth of the tube.

“Useless,” the Caretaker repeated.

“I can't reach it. The tube narrows. I can't!” Māra cried, in despair and fighting back tears. The boys were at a loss. Heraclitus had been wrong. “I can see the burned spot,” Māra called. “Not even a baby could get to it.”

From Māra's shoulder Čī-Čī leaped down, snatched the rod from her hand, and darted into the hole.

“The rod can form a connection between the severed wires!” Māra shouted. The boys handed her the star-gun, and with its heat Māra was able to solder the rod into place from a distance.

The Caretaker spoke again: “Gullible children, you have not won. In a few minutes the brush robot will have ground a hole large enough to come crashing down upon you. It is fireproof, and your star-guns will not stop it.”

In horror the children looked up, where the hole was indeed growing larger and larger as the brushes spun round and round.

The boys ran to the console and tried to pull the cover open. Māris studied the diagram they had brought along to find out which buttons had to be pressed in what sequence to gradually disarm the Caretaker. Aldis, in fury and desperation, pounded and kicked at the cover. After repeated kicks from all sides, the ancient cover finally slid open, revealing nine buttons of different colors. The first button was supposed to shut down a large portion of the ship's external sensors.

“You are helping the attackers destroy yourselves,” the Caretaker warned. “You are shutting off the eyes that protect you.”

The boys did not listen and went on pressing the buttons, which shut off the computer's auxiliary memory banks.

The room's massive doors slowly opened, and the Caretaker's voice announced that the spider-beasts were almost there. “They will never obey humans. They were created only to attack and to obey me.”

Māra had already climbed out of the tube and taken her place beside the boys when something so terrible appeared on the screen that all other dangers were pushed to the edges of their minds. There they saw the telltale flames of the black hole, the annihilating force of the black hole. In the center of the holoscreen a bright red flashing light ignited — a warning signal. Throughout the entire ship, catastrophe sirens began to wail.

In her alarm, Māra clutched her amber pendant. This time Čī-Čī could not save Māra, and pressed helplessly against her. Every word the Caretaker spoke pierced the mind: “Though I have been made blind, I still have the final power. Press the last button, and the black hole's force will blow up the entire Ship and its attackers. The explosion will spread. The black power will devour everything. Everything. If you repent of your transgressions and obey me from now on, I will forgive you this once, and you shall have your place on my side of the stars, where peace, order, and harmony shall reign.”

The boys backed away from the console.

“What sword is any good against this Black Knight who wants to destroy all of humanity?” Māris whispered hoarsely.

“You are no god — you are the Devil,” Aldis hissed, yet held himself frozen, away from the console.

Māra had clenched her amber in her fist. She pressed it to her forehead as if in prayer, as if searching for reason. Suddenly the amber slipped from her hand, and the chain slid back down to her chest. In one leap Māra sprang to the console.

“Māra! Have you lost your mind?”

The boys threw themselves at her. All three children tumbled to the floor in a heap. But Māra had already pressed the last button.

There on the floor the boys froze, and now Māra truly began to cry uncontrollable tears, just as when she had been very small.

“I don't know why I did it. Now we'll all perish,” she sobbed.

The ship rocked again from a powerful blow. The room went completely dark. The children got to their feet, but there was nothing left to see. There was nowhere to escape to anymore.

On the holoscreen the blue flames of the black hole flickered, spreading ever larger and larger.

“Father will never see Mother again,” Aldis said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.

Māris and Māra thought of their own parents, whom they would never see again. Then a yellow light began to color the blue flames. From the flames emerged — a sun, as if risen from the sea. It was not the sun; it was Māra's amber there on the holoscreen. The image of the amber grew larger, and in full detail they could see the bee that had been sealed inside it for thousands of years. The holoscreen turned, and beside the first amber appeared a second. It was a sun-stone resembling amber, this time set in a golden ornament, recalling the sun. The ambers vanished, and on the screen appeared a stately middle-aged woman in a white gown. Around her neck she wore a sun-disk ornament. The woman's appearance grew ever younger, until she was a small girl about Māra's age. Then the image slowly transformed into a bee. The bee grew smaller and the sun disk grew larger. Soon the disk enveloped the bee, then the gold melted into sunlight and the bee melted into it. Then the hexagonal shape with the spiral, which they had seen before, appeared. One could understand that the shape was a cell, and from the cell a bee emerged and flew upward along the spiral until it vanished in the distance.

An unfamiliar voice spoke: “This is Laima, lawgiver of Dainava in the time when the star bridge collapsed and the Dainavians perished.”

The Star Ship swayed once more from a tremendous blow. Over the loudspeaker came: “This is Captain Rieksts. Drive computer, stabilize the black hole. You must obey your captain once more. Control is now on the bridge.”

Not long after, Ķēniņš's voice was heard, calling the Kāvi back from the attack. Peace settled over the ship.

On the holoscreen the image dissolved into a stream of stars. The drive computer had sunk deep into its ancient, ancient memories.

Spinning beneath them, the orange mass of Mars was already visible. Through Spīdola's porthole, the children watched as the supply rockets came flying up to the ship. They could see two tugs pooling their strength to haul about thirty spheres that had been flung into orbit from Mars by magnetic sling. Māris and Māra waited impatiently for the cargo exchange between the supply rockets and Spīdola to finish so they could meet their parents and the little sister who had been born in the meantime. How wonderfully happy Aldis was that his parents could finally be together again! Even Aldis thought it might not be such a bad thing if his family had another boy, too. Rieksts promised that on future voyages, he would bring the whole family along.

The greatest voyage in the history of humanity was planned for ten years from now. Rieksts would pilot the Star Ship, with egg-beings, brain-stones, and a few humans as scouts and envoys, to the solar system of the Dainavians' ancestors. In the meantime, the Star Ship promised an exchange of knowledge that would allow humans to live better in space. It also had no shortage of technology that could speed up the decontamination of Earth.

Captain Ramats spoke first: “Well, friends, your journey turned out far more adventurous and significant than we could have imagined even in our dreams. You didn't encounter the space pirates of the small worlds, true. And you didn't really get to sample the small worlds themselves, where humanity's splendid diversity is bustling and taking shape. Those adventures will have to wait for another time. Your assignment, as recipients of the Valdmanis-Bērziņš Prize, is being accomplished with unexpected success, even though you never actually reached Ceres itself. A supply rocket will be here soon, and at the Jaunrīga port your family and friends are waiting. Well, friends, what will you do now?”

“We start school in two weeks. The craziest part is that Aldis has decided to study hard. He wants to go with his father to the stars. School learning will be essential. At least, that's what he says now,” Māris answered.

Bekija also said goodbye to her pupils: “I think we'll meet again. When you next travel to the small worlds, I'd like to introduce you to my family at ‘New Frontier,’ the American satellite colony.”

Ramats turned, having received a message from the screen.

“Children, an old friend wants to speak with you.”

On the screen appeared the familiar sad clown's seal. Then laughter rang out.

“Jokupēteris!” the children cried out joyfully.

“We will see each other again, though I won't be at your school anymore, or even on Mars. The schoolchildren have taught me a great deal. You are among my best memories. We already said goodbye once. I will be needed among the stars.”

“We can't manage without you!” cried Māris and Māra. “The Star Ship already has Heraclitus.”

“True,” replied Jokupēteris. “Heraclitus is working with the Caretaker again. The Caretaker is looking for a new name for himself. As a joke, I suggested he call himself Pūralāde, the Dowry Chest, because he truly does contain an inexhaustible store of wisdom that he can share. My role here is finished. From now on, I will be beyond the Sun, among the stars.”

“The school can't manage without you,” Māra did not want to accept the parting.

“Māra, don't be sad! You still have to learn to understand the essence of things. Everything changes. Everything is connected and in sequence. Change, connection, and sequence — that is life.”

The children now looked utterly despairing. The clown shifted to the school's formal language: “One of the most important things, especially for Aldis: I have trained a new school computer for you. Her name is Madam Vagara.”

On the screen appeared a very stern-looking lady wearing white gloves.

Māra's and Māris's faces drew even gloomier: “Jokupēteris, why?”

“Here is Sprīdītis, sometimes Madam Vagara's helper, sometimes her un-helper…”

A smile crept across Māra's face when she saw on the screen a small, mischievous boy, the sort Aldis might have been at about eight years of age.

“Then everything will be just as it was,” she exclaimed.

“No, Māra, everything will be as it will be! Your supply rocket is already waiting for you. Don't forget your first home, Earth. Māra, Star Māra, Earth Māra, one day you will have to return to Earth. And you, Māris, you will have to tend Mars, to work alongside Illūrs's people. Aldis's future lies even further, among the stars. You too, friends, will one day have to part ways. For now, you still have years to grow together. Godspeed!”

Brother and sister crossed over through the connecting passage to the supply rocket. Far below, beneath rosy skies, their loved ones were waiting for them.

The last supply rocket from the Spīdola touched down on the port runway. Māris turned his gaze from the window to his sister. “That must be Professor Bluķis and Supreme Commander Ķēniņš.”

“Must be. Look how all the reporters are readying their video equipment and gathering by the doors to greet the important arrivals!” Māra pointed across to the far side of the waiting hall beneath the balcony.

“Let's go over. We should hear what the reporters ask such important people,” said Māris. Brother and sister crossed the balcony.

The crowd thronging the walkway was made up of reporters from all across the inhabited solar system — from Moon City, from the satellite colonies, from the Free Ship Alliance, and even from the small worlds.

After a few minutes the doors opened, and Ķēniņš and Bluķis entered the waiting hall surrounded by several aides.

“There they come!” someone shouted.

The pack of reporters followed the celebrities into the press room.

“Our parents aren't here yet. Let's go listen!” Māra whispered to her brother.

A robot guard outside the press room stated firmly, “I'm sorry, the press room is closed. We have room only for reporters and the important persons being interviewed.”

Standing outside, the children could hear parts of the questions and answers that Professor Bluķis and Supreme Commander Ķēniņš gave to the enthralled crowd of reporters.

“Professor, Professor! Bunga from the Moon City Times. Did you foresee that the Star Ship would surrender?”

“Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, what else could that ship do after Ķēniņš's heroic, self-sacrificing attack!”

Several following questions were lost in the noise of the crowd.

“Supreme Commander Ķēniņš! Mazirbe from the Jaunrīga Herald. Do the cylinders and the Star Ship have any military significance?”

“As you already know, the cylinders have vanished. The Star Ship is commanded by Captain Zintars Rieksts, who is preparing it for a voyage to the solar system from which this ship originated. As such, the ship itself has no special military significance.”

“Ķēniņš naturally doesn't mention that Zintars refused to let him seize the Star Ship in the name of humanity and the solar system. He also doesn't mention that it pleased the Caretaker that Zintars, as the Ship's captain, forbade soldiers from entering the ship except as invited guests,” Māris whispered back to his sister.

“Professor, Asare from the Free Ship Alliance. Is it true that the legendary Zīle has appeared and vanished again?”

“We have heard she has returned to Earth. Those, however, are only rumors.”

“Will the egg-beings now build cities on the surface of Mars? Will they compete with humans?”

Again the answers and the questions that followed were unintelligible because of the noise, then Bluķis's voice came through again, “I will examine this point more deeply and thoroughly in my next book.”

“Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander, Skars from Gambia News. What contributed most to our victory?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I must say frankly that our victory for humanity was most secured by our courageous fighter captains and their crews…”

Māris placed his hand on Māra's shoulder. “There are Father and Mother. It seems the history books won't have very much to say about the brave little girl after all. Let's go welcome our family's newest member!”