Noor ran swiftly over the grass, followed by Tulkas, who was carrying the water canisters. Tulkas had decided that this was the parting of ways between him and Noor. He would not continue with him any longer. He would get the crystal's location from him by force, or he would track his companions until he knew its location. If he didn't find it with them, he would have to find it alone, which was preferable.

Noor entered the village quickly and found it burning again. He avoided the falling, burnt pieces of wood and leaped over the obstacles in his path until he found what froze him in place.

Noor saw Mshdal's body. He ran to him and held him in his arms, trying to wake him, but he didn't move an inch. Noor flinched, his face contorting in pain. Then he looked and saw the bodies of the two little girls. His eyes widened. He left Mshdal and ran to them. He found Malha, a lifeless corpse, blood streaming from her. He found Lala still breathing with difficulty. He held her close. "Who did this to you?" he said, tears streaming down his face.

She looked at him with eyes whose light was almost fading. "I knew... you would come... O Miracles Maker," she said, panting, the words catching in her throat. "The evil... man... was wrong."

The light vanished from her eyes, and her hand fell to the dirt. Noor cried out in agony, clutching her to him, weeping and weeping, his sobs ragged, until his tears fell to the ground, mixing with the dirt and the blood. He didn't know if he was crying just for them, or for everything that had befallen him and his planet, or for all the madness he had seen in the universe so far. He had always wanted to sail into space, to escape the atrocities on planet Earth. But he had discovered that the universe was far more terrible than what he was fleeing from.

Tulkas reached him and saw him broken down and crying. He put the canisters down, looked at the children's bodies, and said, "Do you understand now why I tried to spare you these unnecessary feelings? If you continue to get close to everyone you meet, you won't reach your goal for a thousand years. You will always want to stay and protect them, and your heart will burn with their loss. And so, loss after loss, until your drive falters, your resolve breaks, your will weakens, your mind goes mad, and your heart is broken. You will find no goal to strive for but death. Perhaps what happened today will be a lesson for you, so that you do not stick your nose in everything. And perhaps it will bring you closer to our desire to create the new world as soon as possible, so we can avoid this pain."

Noor clenched a fistful of sand in his hand, gritted his teeth, and said, "I will kill the one who did this to them, even if it's the last thing I do in my life."

Tulkas sighed in frustration and continued on his way, deeper into the village.

Noor created small coffins for the children with his imagination and placed them inside, to return for them after he had his revenge. Because whoever killed them was undoubtedly not far away.

Noor ran alongside Tulkas, his face like a burning devil. He rushed into the village square and found nothing but a painting. He approached the strange painting and found that it depicted Franks soldiers hunting the three children. He knew then that the one who had killed them was Hugo, the general who loved art and painting. Hugo must have thought the Miracles Maker was just a Zurix spy who had deceived the Ghlizan with some advanced technology and then fled when he realized the Franks forces had returned to the village. And he must have been the one who set the traps in front of the village to warn him of the approach of the Franks soldiers. General Hugo was certain that this spy had fled and run away, so he and his battalion left the village and headed to where Qwaider had told them.

Tulkas stood next to Noor and looked around. He saw that the villagers had been killed and hung on wooden poles throughout the village. He put his sword on his shoulder and said, "Let's get out of here and continue our mission."

Tulkas heard the ground shaking violently, as if an enormous earthquake was rocking the village. He followed the source of the tremor with his ear and felt that it was huge footsteps moving. He startled, sharpened all his senses, and looked behind him at the horizon. He found something enormous moving toward the village. Tulkas looked closely, and his eyes widened because it was the mobile capital of the Prince, Qalma, which the Prince had built to move throughout the planet Ghlizan and not be in a fixed place that the Franks could invade and end the resistance, as had happened to the Dayi, the ruler of Ghlizan, when the Franks came with their forces, stormed the capital Ghardaia, killed him, and tightened their grip on the capital. The city's huge legs rose and fell on the ground, shaking it from afar, and the Prince stood on top of it, looking at the burning village.

Tulkas swallowed hard and said to Noor, "I think we're in trouble."

***

General Jasto, commander of the most important brigade in the Franks' Third Army and the second-in-command of the entire Third Galactic Army after Hugo, looked at the glowing village. It was lit by huge, orange mushroom-trees that glowed at night with a cheerful, blazing light, filling the village with light and beauty. The Ghlizan were moving about the village with their goods, chatting at night under the light of the three moons, while their children played and their women talked.

"These primitives disgust me," Jasto said with revulsion. "I wish we could wipe them all out, to the last one, and let the civilized Franks live in their place. They would build a great civilization of importance in the universe, like the one on our planet."

One of the Franks doctors stood before Jasto. He had frizzy, fluffy hair and wore a white coat and a monocle on his right eye. He gave Jasto a military salute and said, "We have spread the viruses and bacteria in the air and the water streams that extend to the neighboring villages. It will only be a few days before the disease spreads among many of the Kilghoul and Masirghin tribes. Then they will be afraid and flee from death to the next villages, spreading the disease with them. And so, the largest possible number of these primitive enemies of civilization will die without much effort from us."

Jasto smiled and said, for his soldiers to hear, "This is why I love you, Doctor Barth. You always know how to invent effective, lethal weapons that don't cost us soldiers, equipment, or money. I will make sure to give you the funding you requested for your research on cosmic viruses."

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