“Is your king expecting us?” Jean-Pierre inquired casually. “Did he say by any chance what for?”
“Yes, he wants to see you,” Dandin smiled, “but you should answer by yourself for what. It is you who have come to see us.”
“Bhrigu sent them here,” Van said timidly.
Dandin turned to Van with a raised eyebrow.
“Bhrigu the rishi?” Dandin hesitated.
“I have a feeling that everyone knows this Bhrigu,” Jean-Pierre added grudgingly.
“Everyone here knows him,” Dandin was still deep in thought, “he is a relative of our Emperor, and you come from the Earth,” Dandin seemed to have made a discovery.
“Of course, from where else?” Jean-Pierre held up his hands, he was completely confused.
“Maybe at least the relative of this Bhrigu can explain why he sent us here,” said David to himself, shaking his head.
“From the Earth,” Dandin repeated with a little excitement.
He looked around at the earthlings, stopped his gaze on Yulia and froze. His eyes suddenly darkened, and his face went limp. His breathing became labored, and he blinked rapidly. The flying ship rocked and hit one of the tall buildings. Everyone was thrown to the left side, the ship flew rapidly downward. Only Van remained suspended in midair. The earthlings and Dandin dived downwards. There was a general shout.
The ship fell just outside one of the walls of the main palace. A hole was left in the wall and several jewels fell out of the loopholes. Everyone lay at the bottom of the golden vessel and tried to recover from the unexpected incident.
Dr Capri groped himself and looked around at the others.
“Are you all right?”
“Oh,” David rolled onto his back. “I think I’m okay.”
Everyone started to rise to their feet. Yulia suddenly noticed a red translucent stone, almost the size of her fist, in front of her, and automatically reached out for it. It glowed from within, but was cool to the touch. She looked up and realized that it had fallen from the wall: every half meter along the top edge of the palace wall, similar crystals glittered.
“What was that?” Jean-Pierre shouted.
Dandin shamefully shrunk his eyes and said quietly:
“There are no women here. I am sorry.”
“How old are you?” Jean-Pierre wondered. “Didn’t a woman give birth to you?”
Dandin looked at him with tears in his eyes, and Jean-Pierre immediately fell silent. He was surprised and backed away, not expecting such a demonstration of emotion. “All right, all right,” Jean-Pierre repeated, waving back and checking on how the others were feeling.