Chapter 12. Killer Planet
Hernan, sitting on the terrace, read a videographic volume of the universal history of soccer. He was wearing sunglasses, shorts, and a T-shirt. Fred, with an organic plastic chair, approached him with a defiant look. Fred placed the chair on the terrace near Hernan and sat down.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Hernan. “You are invading a private property.”
“I know,” said Fred. “Mister Weyden is a generous gentleman.”
“Can you move your chair to the common area, please? To the grass?”
Fred looked at him with contempt.
“Aren’t you the chap Sir Weyden hired to cut the grass?”
Hernan stood up offended and Fred laughed.
“This is a community, Signore” said Fred.
Cleopatra just then came out from their apartment.
“Are you all right?” she asked Hernan.
Fred looked at her in surprise and stood up.
“Miss Gloucester,” he said, dazzled. “How did you get here?”
“This nasty intruder,” said Hernan, “wants me to adapt to his condescending Martian rules in my own house.”
“Fred Parkinson,” Fabio addressed the audience, “a retired Martian Army officer who kept Sir Weyden up to date on Hernan Sousa’s private affairs.”
From a dark room, Fred slid the curtains and looked out his window, behind a silky velvet veil. Hernan went to his gravimotor followed by Cleopatra, who hugged and kissed him as soon as he ascended to this ship. The gravimotor rose rapidly into the sky. Cleopatra waived her right hand toward the zenith, smiled, and entered back into her mansion.
Fred then reached for his mobile and dialed a sidereal code.
“Sir Weyden?” he asked. “I am Fred. Sousa has just left his house. Yes, I’m sure, I just saw him. Cleopatra is alone right now.”
At home, Cleopatra took a shower, dried her body, and brooded out dictating the afternoon menu to her robot cook. She covered herself in her cotton robe and walked towards the bedroom. It was then that she heard the sound of broken glass.
“Hernan?” She asked, advancing a couple of steps.
Suddenly, a baseball bat hit her on her right leg, which burts open bleeding profusely. Cleopatra groaned and fell onto her knees. A man whose face was covered with a veiled stock, with blood running down his cheek, opened several drawers, grabbed some money and jewelry, and fled in a gravicycle by the window door leading to the inner garden. Cleopatra crawled over to her mobile, leaning against a table, her leg wounded. Her lips emitted a faint moan before fading onto the ground.
“Who was the man who broke into the house for just two thousand pounds?” Fabio continued.
“Mister Maximilian Weyden?” asked Sir Weyden.
“I won’t even think about it,” Fabio replied. “In fact, they hired a needy man, a heartbroken student, tormented by gambling debts: Mister Severus Urwin.”
A wave of whispers and exclamations of reproach fell on Severus’ ruddy face.
Sir Weyden laughed, shaking his hands in the air.
“What a lie!” he exclaimed with exaggerated calm. “Mister Urwin was with me that night. Anaximandra and Lord Gloucester can confirm it.”
“It’s not necessary,” Fabio nodded. “They may have suffered a memory lapse. Mister Severus Urwin has already signed a thorough confession of his theft.”
“His wife seduced him!” Sir Weyden bellowed in outrage.
“He who dishonors a lady in public is a scoundrel, Monsieur,” replied Fabio, in a calm voice.
Some members of the crowd applauded his words, and then the mass furiously. Martha looked at Severus, who turned his pale face to Sir Weyden, who blinked in disappointment before dropping into a chair, where he fell into a deep silence. The audience continued to whisper for several seconds.
“Cleopatra was taken to the Eleutheria degenetization clinic,” Fabio continued, “where she met Doctor Philippe.”
The crowd gave a groan of admiration.
“Oh yeah!” Fabio insisted. “Because we all know that Eleutheria subsidizes legal degenetization clinics, where desperate women can get degenetized until the nine eleven months before acquiring breathing independence.
Martha looked at Guillermina, who, frightened, opened her eyes like emeralds in cheese ponds. Nefertiti took a step toward Anaximandra, who lifted her chin haughtily. Cancerbero coughed and cleared his throat uncomfortably at the back of the hall.
“It was in Eleutheria,” Fabio continued, “where Doctor Philippe assisted Cleopatra, who was hospitalized for two days.”
“It was Cleopatra who requested her degenetization,” Lord Gloucester interjected.
Fabio felt his condescending hand on his shoulder. The strong smell of mint, whiskey, and tobacco from Lord Gloucester’s breath filled him as he articulated a paternal laugh.
“Or should I say,” he continued, “her crime? Cleopatra didn’t ask the police for help, because she knew that it was not a thief who attacked her, but Severus, her former ex-boyfriend, who in a gesture of love executed what she, in her weakness, did not dare to execute.”
“That’s right, Monsieur!” Lord Gloucester exclaimed. “Severus Urwin hit Cleopatra’s embryo with that baseball bat out of love!”
The crowd applauded Lord Gloucester’s irony.
“Well said, Lord Gloucester!” Sir Weyden shouted as he clapped his hands to rage.
“But it happens, Lord Gloucester,” Martha intervened, “that Cleopatra did call the police.”
“Impossible!” Nefertiti exclaimed.
“We have the recording of her call,” Keiichi interjected.
Sir Weyden bit his lips in grudge.
“The case was closed soon after,” Lord Gloucester stammered.
Fabio, reading a piece of paper, stood up when Martha sat down and looked at Cancerbero.
“The police found out that the embryo had not been destroyed,” said Fabio. “It was then that Doctor Philippe arrived at the scene in a graviambulance to take Cleopatra to Eleutheria, where he extracted and removed the embryo after twenty days.”
“Lies!” Guillermina protested. “I saw her bleeding at the gates of Eleutheria myself! It was twenty past ten at night! No embryo survives the impact of a baseball bat!”
“I am very grateful, Madame,” Fabio agreed, “for corroborating the arrival of Cleopatra and Doctor Dupin to Eleutheria.”
“What a fool!” Sir Weyden insulted her from across the room.
Fabio projected the image of Doctor Philippe Dupin into the air.
“The destruction was not instantaneous. Doctor Dupin used to remove embryos and then turn them into organ matrices that were cellularized in three-gallon containers, in the hallways of Eleutheria.”
Fabio made a gesture with his hands and showed from his point of view his arrival at the Martian mansion, him climbing up the wall, and, omitting the scuffle in Mister Cancerbero’s office, the rows of Eleutheria organ containers.
“Traitor!” Doctor Cancerbero shouted. “You promised not to mention it in exchange for my confession!”
A tense silence reigned in the room for several fractions of a second.
“Justice requires that I sacrifice my promises, Monsieur.”
“Is there anything illegal in saving other being’s lives?” Guillermina asked.
“No,” said Fabio, “if they are cultivated without profit. What is illegal is to trade these organs with pharmaceutical companies from other planets.”
A growing roar of outrage rose from the audience.
“It’s for this reason, I fear,” said Fabio, “that certain members of Eleutheria judged and sentenced Doctor Philippe to death. An act of justice, according to them. Could they not, I wonder, have handed him over to justice, where he would have likewise been sentenced to death?”
“How was he sentenced on Neptune?” Severus protested.
“Dura lex, sed lex,” Martha said.
“Speak to us in the Martian language, miss,” Guillermina said tightly.
“The law is harsh, but it’s the law,” Martha translated.
“Too bad Mars has abolished the learning of ancient languages,” Nefertiti grumbled.
“Still we can ask ourselves,” said Fabio, “was the death of Doctor Philippe Dupin a murder or an act of justice? Eleutheria members love to read Robert Louis Stevenson’s books, particularly his ‘New Arab Nights.’ It’s true that humanity has practiced suicide soon after its expulsion from paradise. But to summon such dark and private thoughts to a group of philanthropists?”
“I have never thought of committing suicide, Monsieur!” Lord Gloucester exclaimed.
Fabio shrugged his shoulders.
“Those who have read the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, discovered that most people contemplate suicide at some point in their lives, perhaps not always directly. It’s evident, for example, when a crime is committed out of greed or envy.”
“Don’t try to fool us with such twisted thoughts!” Sir Weyden shouted, triggering a laugh from the crowd.
“It’s true that the strongest souls defeat such deceptive thoughts,” Fabio replied with a conviction that silenced the crowd. “Life, in fact, is full of pleasant surprises. We just have to wait for them, without falling into temptation, that is, into crime. The man or woman who thinks his or her life is over will be always surprised by a sudden change in fortune. Otherwise, how can you explain that so many people survive in the midst of so many difficulties? Look around you. Who among you has not been on the brink of destruction?”
“Nonsense!” Sir Weyden laughed, infecting several attendees, until Fabio projected a video hologram in the middle of the crowd.
“Making use of the theater history histrionic software, I have reconstructed the facts in these holograms.”
The cards from a playing card were shuffled on a table in a dark room. They were distributed, face down, before the hands of 13 players.
“And the executioner,” Fabio continued, “whoever he was, was secretly chosen for a card game. Following one of Stevenson’s darker ideas, a playing card was shuffled whose cards were turned face down. Whoever got the ace of spades immediately became the killer.”
The cards were exhausted in three rounds and the four of diamonds was placed in the center of the table. A man’s hand overturned the ace of spades.
Fabio articulated another clip in which Doctor Philippe was writing on a notebook on his desk, until he turned around and welcomed a shadow with a smile. Both human beings exchanged words. Doctor Philippe’s face hardened, he stood up and poured a drink from his bar.
“Wretched was the one who had to strangle Doctor Philippe!”
“Who was the murderer, then?” Severus shouted.
“Mrs. Nefertiti Gloucester?” Fabio asked. “Or maybe Mister Cancerbero? In fact, he was such a cunning assassin that he used his secret for his own benefit.”
The assassin’s hands, covered in a pair of light blue gloves, gleamed under a moonbeam. A silver thread reached Monsieur Philippe’s back and closed around his neck like a snake coiling its prey. Doctor Philippe Dupin gave his last moan and the bloodied metal cord fell to the ground.
“Now we understand why all the members of Eleutheria were so desperate to believe that Cleopatra committed suicide,” Fabio added. “But let’s get back to our main topic: her death.”
The crowd remained motionless, almost hypnotized by the series of scandalous revelations.
“That night,” Fabio continued, “Mister Sousa took Cleopatra back to the party around eight-thirty at night. They had an argument and Hernan flew away. Cleopatra then walked towards the mansion, but she was intercepted by an acquaintance, someone who, she thought then, could never harm her. How wrong she was!”
Fabio moved his hands and Cleopatra met a fuzzy figure to which she smiled and spoke affably.
“They exchanged a few sentences,” Fabio continued. “A couple of guests crossed near them, but neither Cleopatra nor her killer dared to greet them.”
Cleopatra is guided by a gloved hand until she reaches just under a tree.
“They guided her to a chosen place, just below her last abode.”
From the tree, a rope descends very slowly. Up in the tree, between the branches, a dark figure emerges.
“His accomplice was already waiting for them among the branches of an oak,” said Fabio. “He or she lowered the rope just above Cleopatra’s head.”
A pair of gloved hands caressed Cleopatra’s face, who smiled oddly.
Suddenly, the killer tugged on the rope, which caught on Cleopatra’s neck. The accomplice then jumped to the ground, lifting Cleopatra’s fragile body with his weight. He immediately tied her body to a lower branch.
Fabio pressed a command and the crowd saw the three-dimensional image of Hernan’s gravilimusine descending in front of the Gloucester mansion.
“But the murderers didn’t count on the inconsistency of games between lovers. As a poet from a now-defunct planet wrote:
Parting is such sweet sorrow
that I’ll say good night
until tonight becomes tomorrow.
“Hernan Sousa’s gravilimusine descended on a small garden just as Cleopatra was dying in the air, and the assassins were forced to flee. One of them was too slow and had to hide in the bushes, those hitherto inexplicably destroyed just five meters from the scene of the crime.”
Fabio then projected the video of Lord Gloucester shaking hands with the King of Saturn.
“As we all know,” Fabio continued, “Lord Gloucester has recently signed an agreement to extract coltan from southern Saturn, exactly in Ancora, a region devastated by civil war. It’s a shame that Martians care so little about other worlds. Only a disaster, earthquake, flood, or a coup d’etat can draw the attention of the Martian media. Cleopatra Gloucester, however, became interested in interplanetary politics. Mister Sousa introduced her to his wife, Mrs. Bogle, who is present with us tonight.
Fabio pointed to Mrs. Bogle, a slimy olive-skinned Saturnine, standing, wearing a wide light blue skirt among the crowd. All eyes fell on her porcelain complexion.
“Do you recall, Mrs. Bogle, Cleopatra’s opinion on her father’s businesses on Saturn?”
Mrs. Bogle went onto the stage and took a microphone from Fabio’s hands.
“Yes, I do.”
A new wave of whispers was heard among those present. Lord Gloucester sighed impatiently. Mrs. Bogle continued without taking her eyes off Anaximandra.
“Lady Cleopatra told me that she would never allow her father to sign an agreement with Saturn.”
New whispers and exclamations shook the audience. People looked at both Lord Gloucester and the holographic image of the King of Saturn.
“Can we know why?” Martha chimed in.
“Cleopatra wanted her father’s company to share profits with the needy,” said Mister Bogle. “Her university professors had persuaded her to counter the will of her family. Cleopatra wanted to build hospitals and schools in the poorest regions of Saturn. She suffered, and I express this as a psychologist, from the Saint Francis of Assisi Complex, that social remorse that leads so many wealthy heiresses to sympathize with those who demand we all live in poverty.
The crowd expressed their amazement in loud exclamations of support or censure.
“Cleopatra Gloucester,” Martha continued. “An idealist who sacrificed the interests of her own family for the welfare of others.”
Martha then approached Lord Gloucester and Herr Bergman, the Saturnian politician.
“But now she’s dead,” Martha added, “and Lord Gloucester has complete control of his investments. So, he signed the announced deal with Saturn last week.”
“I loved my daughter!” Lord Gloucester intervened. You guys have gone too far! I’m not a crook! I’m not my own daughter’s murderer!”
“You didn’t murder her, Monsieur,” Fabio replied. “Perhaps, in the worst case scenario, you longed for Cleopatra’s repentance. We all know, on the other hand, that now that Cleopatra is gone, Lady Weyden is the main” heiress of your fortune.”
“Everyone suspects me!” Anaximandra exclaimed as the assistants distanced themselves. “But I am innocent!”
Fabio seemed to enjoy the expectant glances around him.
“Inspector!” Lord Gloucester yelled. “You must stop this sham immediately. This foreigner ...”
Lord Gloucester’s voice weakened until becoming dry and mute. Keiichi took him by the arm and led him to a chair, where he took a seat.
“The story of Cain and Abel has happened once more in Cheshire,” said Fabio.
His hand fluttered the air and the crowd saw, illuminated by rays of a full moon half hidden by flanks of clouds, Sir and Lady Weyden’s honeymoon mansion. His gravilimusine descended on the front garden and Sir Weyden entered the mansion carrying his wife in his arms.
“Cleopatra’s death was carefully planned,” said Fabio. “Sir and Lady Weyden knew at what time Cleopatra would be returning to the wedding celebration, for Anaximandra had continued chatting to her sister after departing secretly for her honeymoon. The married couple had, in fact, already prepared what seemed to be a sumptuous private reception in remote and lonely wooden mansion next to an abandoned golf course, now covered by bushes and birches.”
“Camera recordings show that we never left the mansion!” Sir Weyden protested.
“It’s true,” Fabio agreed. “And for many days I was certain that you and Lady Weyden were not to blame. Until you uttered a phrase, no doubt prompted by vanity, that brought me back on the right track: “We both have the rare privilege of traveling (you said), if we wish, to anywhere in the universe.”
“I also said that we were traveling in our imagination, Monsieur,” replied Sir Weyden.
“If you were an artist or a poet I’d believe you, Sir! But, does a man who presumes that his wedding trip will cost him the equivalent of five gravilimousines, love poetry? No. You are too literal to appeal to the imagination, Sir Weyden.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Guillermina.
Fabio projected a document of sale in the air.
“We discovered this in the files of one of his companies,” Martha chimed in, “this receipt is for the purchase of four teletransporters. One of them was reported as damaged two months later. Its parts were never returned to the manufacturer for a replacement.”
Anaximandra hugged Sir Weyden, hiding her face from the crowd. Fabio pressed his three-dimensional light screen.
A Magnesium City grass field was silent for a few moments, until suddenly a mini-gravimotor buzzed out from a small cloud at full speed, parsimoniously descending on the grass. Anaximandra and Sir Weyden got out of the ship, both dressed in black suits. A long rope remained coiled in Sir Weyden’s hands. The couple walked and crossed the road before stepping onto the grounds of the Gloucester Mansion.
Sir Weyden climbed up a tree while Anaximandra smiled wickedly at him.
“They had the perfect alibi,” said Fabio, “their honeymoon at a bend 867 miles away. But just as they reached the Gloucester mansion, they were unlucky enough to witness the end of a dispute between Lord Gloucester and his employee, Mister Cancerbero!
A shadow approached and Anaximandra hid in the shadows. The audience saw Lord Gloucester slap Mister Cancerbero, who stormed out of the mansion to board and depart on his gravimotor.
“What was the reason for your dispute, Monsieur?” Martha asked Lord Gloucester.
“I informed Lord Gloucester of the recent disappearance or escape of Dr. Philippe.”
“With a slap!” Guillermina Grave exclaimed.
“All of Lord Gloucester’s employees have signed a verbal and physical abuse clause,” Severus said. “In return they receive 450% of their basic salary.”
“I do not question the labor laws of Mars,” Fabio continued, “nor the indignation of Mrs. Grave.
A shadow approached and Anaximandra hid in the shadows. The audience saw Lord Gloucester slap Mister Cancerbero, who stormed out of the manor and faced Anaximandra before getting on and off in his gravimotor.
In front of Sir Weyden’s house, barely illuminated by the full moon hidden by the clouds, looking down from the tree, Sir Weyden examined a Benz gravilimousine parking in front of the house. Hernan, visibly upset, got out of the gravilimousine and opened Cleopatra’s door. She immediately got out.
“We can resolve our differences,” said Hernan. “Why don’t we go to my apartment?
“I promised my sister that I wouldn’t leave my father and Nefertiti alone tonight,” Cleopatra replied, turning his face away from her lover.
“Very well,” said Hernan, turning his back on her.
“Anaximandra!” Sir Weyden muttered from the tree ten feet away.
Anaximandra, sitting on the ground, raised her head and saw her husband among the branches of the tree. She heard footsteps approaching and got up and intercepted Cleopatra, who immediately approached her. Behind her, Hernan’s gravimotor was already rising in the air
“Anaximandra!” Cleopatra said. “Why are you wearing that suit?”
Anaximandra smiled mischievously at her before the image dissolved and the room was lit up again
“Once the crime was committed,” Fabio continued, “both assassins returned to their nest of complicity. A soulless couple united by the indissoluble bonds of ambition!”
Fabio moved his hands, the lights went out and the mini-gravimotor rose into the air and accelerated along the deserted field until it entered and disappeared into the cloud from which it had emerged. A groan of surprise then gripped the crowd as they witnessed the sudden outburst of that cloud, which disintegrated into pieces of metal.
“Those pieces belonged to a teletransporter, which remained in the camouflaged air until, having already accomplished its task, it was destroyed by Sir Weyden. One week after, Sir Weyden’s gravitrucks collected the luggage from their wedding night’s wooden mansion.
A gravitruck, connected to the cabin by a three-meter-wide hose, closes its doors and rises into the air, picking up the hose on its way. Guillermina then greets the gravitruck with her hands from the ground.
"“It’s Sir Weyden driving one of her four-ton gravitrucks,” she said to Fabio.
Lord Gloucester watched Anaximandra with a pan-face expression.
“I know what’s going on,” Anaximandra exclaimed. “You’re jealous!” Because I love Sir Weyden! And Sir Weyden loves me!
“I don’t doubt it,” Fabio replied. “What is love, after all, but unconditional complicity?”
“I was never interested in my sister’s fortune!” Anaximandra yelled. Tell him, Dad! I never got along with my sister, but ...
“And Doctor Caicedo?” Lord Gloucester asked.
“He knew too much,” Fabio replied.
“You are such a liar!” Anaximandra yelled.
“It was a mere suspicion, but they feared he was aware of what had happened. So they decided to get rid of him. They gathered false evidence to send him to prison, where Sir Weyden hired an inmate to cut his neck. It happened minutes before we could reach him.”
“We hired Doctor Caicedo, yes!” Anaximandra yelled. “He was our private dentist, for God’s sake! What are we talking about? Dad paid you twenty thousand pounds Fabio! You don’t bite the hand that feeds you! Or maybe nobody in this hall knows that we were lovers! Didn’t I help you in difficult times?”
“That’s why I’m helping you now,” Fabio replied.
“I accuse this man of raping me six years ago!” Anaximandra yelled. “I have video recordings and ...”
“That’s enough!” Lord Gloucester exclaimed, walking towards his daughter, slapping on her face.
Anaximandra backed up two steps and was apprehended by two police officers.
“I want to speak to my lawyer!” she said panting. “You have no substantial proof!”
Sir Weyden, meanwhile, slipped away into the audience and, seeing guards at the entrances, drew three silver discs from his suit’s pockets.
“Very clever, Saint-André!” he shouted defiantly. “But you made the mistake of considering me less clever than you!”
The crowd gave a cry of surprise when they saw the three spheres whistling through the air towards the entrance gates. Each of them exploded, triggering strong conflagrations. Sir Weyden pressed the palm of his hand and his body, as well as Anaximandra’s, was covered with a thin film of translucent titanium liquid.
“They are oxygen bombs!” Keiichi shouted. “Down!”
The fire spread through the air instantly burning half the crowd. The other half managed to drop to the ground at the same time, avoiding the rapid calcination process of the oxygen bombs. Martha raised her face and saw the blue sky open after the cremation of the auditorium dome; hundreds of gravimotors flew over them. A silver gravitaxi swiftly descended and Sir Weyden and Anaximandra ascended inside before a policeman could react.
“We are not finished yet, Monsieur!” Sir Weyden shouted.
His ship rose into the air until it disappeared into a cloud, which immediately disintegrated to reveal a hollow, oval capsule about thirty meters in diameter, supported by four gravitaxis. Keiichi, with his blaster gun pointed at the sky and fired too late, consuming the anomalous structure in a vacuum.
Lord Gloucester got up and confronted Mister Cancerbero.
“Traitor!” he snapped. “What an ungrateful chap!”
“I had no choice,” Cancerbero sighed.
“You!” Guillermina shouted. “You mongrel bastard! We don’t want you on this planet! Do you hear me? Go back to your damn Venusian lair!”
Minutes later, Severus, with a smiling face, was handcuffed and led to a large police patrol before Martha’s pitiful gaze. Around them, graviambulances took off, transporting the corpses and the wounded. 12 gravipatrols floated in the air.
Days later, under the sun of a summer afternoon, Fabio, Martha and Keiichi were traveling in a new crystal L’Otriche UJM456 taxilimousine, over the fields of northern Mars.
“Too bad we weren’t able to save Doctor Caicedo,” Fabio apologized.
“He saved the lives of Lord and Lady Gloucester,” said Keiichi. “We have reliable evidence that they would have been their next victims.”
“Evidence that could have been manufactured,” Fabio replied.
Martha pressed a button and, just as they reached the white beaches of equatorial Mars along with its immense turquoise sea, the limousine’s omni-directional speakers played Bach’s prelude and fugue in A major, BWV536.
“Would they have dared?” Keiichi asked.
“If they had the chance,” Martha agreed, “they are ruthless souls. Lord Gloucester knows this.”
“I just learnt he gave you a substantial reward as a token of his personal appreciation for your work,” Keiichi agreed. “Well deserved!”
“Lord Gloucester already suspected Anaximandra,” Fabio replied, “but the old folk was not willing to accept it.”
“I’m sure Anaximandra and Sir Weyden will be captured,” Keiichi replied. “Portable teleporters only cover Venus, Mars, and Saturn.”
“And what will happen to Eleutheria?” Martha asked.
“It will be liquidated,” Keiichi sighed. “And it will surely be reborn under another name.”
“I suspected so,” said Martha. “Our law cannot punish them.”
“Our law hardly irritates the powerful,” Keiichi agreed.
“What about Anaximandra?” Martha asked.
“Her lawyer will prove she’s nuts,” Fabio muttered.
“All blame will fall on Sir Weyden,” Keiichi agreed.
“The slaughter in the auditorium will not be easily forgotten,” said Fabio.
“Will you both settle on Mars?” Keiichi asked.
“Most likely,” Fabio agreed.
“You both have built a good name in this community,” Keiichi approved with a smile.
“Thank God,” Fabio nodded, “or, to avoid religious misunderstandings, thank fate.”
Keiichi raised his eyes to the evening sun, on whose horizon two moons were distinguished before the celestial sphere, completely covered with water, of the uninhabitable planet earth.
“Thank Allah!” Keiichi seconded him.
Fabio and Martha smiled as their ship descended on their summer hacienda before the Martian sea.
Index