“Here, everyone can fly. If you still think you have bodies, perhaps you should take off some of your clothes.”
Dr Capri began to look at his clothes in wonder. He took off his jacket and looked questioningly at Van. He made a sign to drop it. The doctor threw his jacket to the surface, a moment later the jacket simply disappeared.
“Here you are what you want to be, and you do what you want to do,” his voice sounded loud, but his body was no longer visible.
The huge flying castle was already almost over the heads of the travelers. The upper part of the city, which looked like a medieval citadel made of some kind of metal, was covered by the base of the flying island. From below, it looked like an unhewn rock that had been torn from the surface of the Sun. A huge stream of light burst from the center of the city downward, piercing the surface of the Star with force. The flow ignited the bowels, feeding them and heating them.
The earthlings threw their heads upward and stared in fascination at the impending island. The powerful roar of the ray grew stronger. It was approaching like a great tornado.
“What do we do?” hoping that someone had a plan, shouted Jean-Pierre.
“I don’t know,” David shook his head.
“We left our bodies on Earth,” Dr Capri said quietly so that no one could hear him, “the laws are different here. We need to understand what it’s like to fly.”
“Hey You! It’s time to tell us how to fly,” Jean-Pierre began to shout and looked around for shelter.
Suddenly, Van spiked from on high and shouted:
“Just take off after me! Otherwise, you will burn! No one can withstand this heat.”
“We can’t!” Jean-Pierre shouted. “We have never flown before.”
He looked at the fire stream tearing up the surface, turning it no longer into the lava, but into a moving volcano. All the travelers began to rush in different directions. Yulia cried out, David panicked:
“We have to run!”
“Run where? Look how big it is,” answered Jean-Pierre.
The pillar of fire was bubbling two hundred meters away from them. It was more than a kilometer in diameter, and it filled the space in front of the travelers, carrying the raw, searing, roaring energy from the overhead rock to the very heart of the Star.
The pillar was approaching rapidly, and running was pointless. It was impossible to hide from such unbridled and immense power. This deadly light was like a fiery tornado or a sheer cliff stinging with sparks.