"Now play along!"
Iza knew what Marius had in mind.
"Just one second!" he said, pushing a lever in the wall. All of a sudden, all the equipment in the room turned to metallic granules and scattered all around.
Marcius was shocked and at a loss, not knowing what to say.
The old man let himself be apprehended and led up the stairs.
"Lika, follow us!" he ordered the girl.
Marcius led him out of the theatre carefully, holding the beam to his throat. He dragged him out to the open platform of the dock and let the robots line themselves up around them. Lika pressed herself close to the old man.
The robots aimed their flying discs at Iza. Even their cold, emotionless faces betrayed a sense of longing and impatience as they looked at him. Catching him was of highest importance to them.
Ionian robots looked just like humans, but their skin was much more light and sturdy, its texture reminiscent of frosted metal. They could be recognized by their unnatural slenderness and lack of hair. Contrary to appearance, they were very heavy, and wore identical tight-fitting hooded suits with cross-like bags hanging behind their backs.
"The old man is unarmed and not dangerous. In the name of Tulona, lower your disks!" Marcius ordered.
The robots lowered their weapons reluctantly, but didn't dare disobey the Tulonian warrior. The deal was going according to instruction.
Marcius smiled, just about to push the old man in their direction, but instead stealthily activated his beam with a quick motion sent it all along the circle.
The long shining beam, taking on the shape of a lasso, lashed out along the heads of all ten robots, putting them out of order with its strong electric discharge. The whole bunch fell down, dysfunctional.
"Run!" he yelled, pulling the old man behind him.
Iza grabbed Lika up in his arms and jumping over the lifeless bodies, took off after Marcius, who led them towards his capsule. It was already opened up by Karii.
"We need to get out of here, now!" Marcius yelled.
Karii couldn't understand what was going on, but he listened to his friend and readied the craft for takeoff. Marcius helped Iza and Lika get into the capsule and shut the doors behind them. Some of the robots had managed to recuperate, and disks started to fly their way. Two of the robots managed to jump onto the capsule, but got caught in the ferromagnetic liquid and slid back down. The capsule shot out of the station.
"We're being followed!" yelled Karii, seeing two Ionian ships at their tail.
"I'll knock them down!" said Marcius, and started to aim.
He let out three shots simultaneously. One of the ships got blown to pieces. The second got hit by a fragment of the first, started to spin and lost momentum. Karii turned up the acceleration, approaching the speed of light. They vanished out view, leaving the Ionians behind, attaining freedom.
Karii gave Marcius a questioning look, then glanced over at the old man and the girl sitting in the back, then back at Marcius again.
"And now explain what all of this is supposed to mean!" he exclaimed.
Marcius quickly told him about the signal and what he saw, adding at the end:
"Iza is too important, I couldn't give him up. He knows the coordinates of the world that I see. This is important for Indro as well. We must take him to Tulona."
The old man overheard this conversation and jumped in:
"That wasn't part of the deal! We agreed that I will tell you the coordinates and you'll let me go!"
Marcius gave him a stern look.
"I never said I'd let you go. I said I won't hand you over to the Ionians."
"Taking me to Tulona is the same as handing me over! Your general has a deal with them! You're going against your word!" the old man pressed on.
Marcius remained silent.
"Then where should we take you?"
"To Sirius!" ordered the old man. "As soon as we're there you'll get your answer."
Karii could take no more and intervened.
"Marcius!" he retorted. "Come to your senses! Indro will never let us live this down!"
Marcius looked back at the old man.
"I can only take you to Tulona."
The old man smiled, arranging his face into an understanding expression. He nodded mysteriously, looked over at Lika, patted her on the head and said:
"Red little beam, a lengthy slumber!"
The girl smiled in return. Marcius didn't know what this meant, looking at the girl. She was carefree, her eyes hypnotizing as she slowly unbraided her right braid, which concealed an ampule. She squeezed it with her fingers, letting out a red gas that immediately spread throughout the capsule.
Marcius reached his hand out towards her hair to stop her, but all of a sudden, he was overtaken by convulsions. He collapsed to the floor, and Karii followed his suit. Everything started to swim before their eyes. As if through a fog, Marcius saw the old man pull them back from the controls and position himself in front of them instead. The girl stood beside him, laughing and talking quietly. The two of them were immune to the gas, which meant they had taken an antidote beforehand. The old man lived up to his reputation.
The following day
Marcius awoke still inside the capsule. Karii lay close by, his eyes closed. They were chaotically tumbling through open space. The old man and the girl were nowhere to be found.
"Karii!" he shook his friend. "Wake up!"
Karii slowly came to.
"Where are they?" he asked in a raspy voice.
"I don't know," said Marcius.
"And where are we?"
"No idea."
Marcius crawled up to the monitor. He had a terrible headache, blood pulsing in his temples. The radars showed that they were close to Guinea. A hologram was left on the panel with the following text:
"The signal came from square number twelve of our galaxy. That's all I was able to establish. Don't try to find me. And don't try to find that world either."
Marcius read the text. The information was insufficient. There were millions of planets in the twelfth segment of their galaxy. Even if he could live a hundred lifetimes, he'd still be unable to search them all. But now at least he knew the general direction.
"It's in the other end of the galaxy," he told Karii.
"Our capsule??" asked his friend in shock, collapsing into a chair.
"No, that planet!" Marcius replied.
"You should think instead of how we'll get home," Karii grumbled.
That's the last thing Marcius wanted to think about. He failed the mission, lost the money, broke his deal with Indro and let the old man get away.
"We might end up in jail," said Karii darkly, guessing what his friend was thinking about.
"I, not we," Marcius replied.
"You need to tell Indro everything that's happened. Tell him that you found a signal that came from another world of humans! Explain to him that these were extraordinary circumstances and you couldn't give the old man up to the Ionians."
"I have no proof, they'll never believe me. But that's not the point - I had no right to disobey my instructions."
"If only the old man hadn't escaped, we would have somehow managed," said Karii with disdain."
"If he hadn't, then yes. But now it's all over for me," Marcius sighed.
"We also shot down the Ionian patrol ship," Karii reminded him.
"I, not we," Marcius corrected him again.
Karii was silent.
"Karii," Marcius started, "Listen to me. You have a flawless reputation and you still have a future on Tulona. You can still make a career for yourself. You have your parents and you have Gayla. But me - everyone already thinks I'm crazy. Let me take full responsibility for what happened."
"What do you have in mind?" Karii asked cautiously.
Marcius stretched out his hands.
"Tie me up, take me to Tulona as a prisoner. Tell them you disagreed with my decision and you drove the capsule from Girius because I threatened you."
"No!" Karii exclaimed.
"Indro's like family to me, I'll manage somehow!" begged Marcius.