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Things were packed up, the goals are clear, the tasks are set, and the actors are balanced and calm. At least, from the outside it looked just like that.

Matt ran away to pack his bags, leaving Aia and Benji together. Both of them sat on the grass right there, by the hatch, leaning back against its thick transparent cover.

They sat like some kind of weird couple of angels guarding the hermetically sealed entrance to heaven.

"You know, sometimes it seems to me that they simply didn't finish with me."

Benji waved his hand somewhere toward the weightless space, where, from the outside of Alpha, the shuttle was hanging like a large metal wart, which still didn't belong to him, and in his intonation slipped the fatigue unnatural for any sort of machine.

"It seems to me that somewhere deep inside of me there is some kind of stupid incompatibility of my software and the world around me."

"Don't be absurd, Benji. The world around us has perfect compatibility with everything in the world. And you'll never be an exception, no matter how much you want it."

"But I don't want to be an exception," the android said. "The problem is different. The problem is that at times I don't want to be at all. I don't want to start from background mode. And, worst of all, I don't want the background mode as well. It seems to me wrong. I think it's some sort of system error."

"Of course, it's an error," agreed Aia. "Only it's yours, not those who did you. The error is to think that if you leave, something will change for the better in this world."

Benji looked up at her silently.

"Stop it, Benji. No one of us is to blame for the fact that the world is as it is."

"I don't blame anyone." He reached out and covered Aia's palm with his silvery palm. "It's just recently that it strangely struck me to watch myself: you are too crucial for me, and I'm not sure that it's right."

"It's hard to surprise the one who knows everything in advance," Aia chuckled bitterly. "I know more: I also know that you are not sure about the opposite."

Yes, nodded android, not sure.

"Do you want a piece of advice?"

Yes, he nodded.

"I think that such a layout - what is right and what is wrong - matters only in the context of goal-setting. Let's say you need to get from Paris to Stuttgart. If you took off and took to the east, you are approaching the goal, and, therefore, did the right thing. If the other way..."

"Mm-hmm... I got it," Benji nodded. "If at first sudo rm-rf, and then defragmentation, it's not very correct. Although..."

He suddenly reached for Aia's shoulders, gently turned her toward his face and kissed her so humanly as he could, whispering to the girl's little ear:

"Although in the reverse order, in my opinion, it's also wrong."

"Benji!" Aia gasped.

"I knew you'd like it."

24. 2330th year. The Earth.

In August, Matt caught a cold for the first time in his life.

By that time it had been exactly two weeks since Benji left four of them in Prague's Ruzyne.

For these two weeks, Matt has already relatively used to living on the Earth. He managed to get used to the fact that the houses and their inhabitants aren't quite as he imagined. He managed to get used to the skyscrapers, to people, to the wind, to the strong smell of flowers in the Prokop valley, to the sky - the blue, then the orange, in which the inexhaustible rivers of aircars were constantly flowing, and to the clouds crossing the sky.

The adults - Lukasz and parents of Matt - all this time, almost never stayed at home, constantly went to somewhere: the meetings, negotiations, seminars, congresses, conferences, and on those rare days when they were at home after all, the house was full of strangers.

Matt occasionally was messed around them as a little useless toy - he was not concerned with the international law, politics, and ideology. All of its "diplomatic" functions had been focused on being visible to others and watching others.

On that morning the birds sang like crazy: opposite the window, on a thin poplar branch, in the bright colors of the August dawn, the young sparrows chirped - hungry and hollow.

Matt opened his eyes and immediately shut them again: the sun that flooded his small bedroom was so bright that it hurt to look.

For about five minutes he lay thus, delighted by the chattering of birds and the noise of a big city, until he remembered that in this evening their family has to pass another foolish reception.

Over the past fortnight he was bored with all these receptions - in the daytime, in the evening, the seating chart and without seating chart, with the possibility of making contacts or without it, solemn and not so much, strengthening and expanding the connections, influencing the local authorities. Bored stiff.

By and large he didn't care about the generally accepted rules and protocol formalities that had fallen on him, it was a strange life, not interesting at all. He didn't want it. He would prefer to meet the dawns, listen to the wind and look at the stars.

This desire was so sharp that he even jumped from his bed. He jumped, rushed to the dressing room, found there what he thought was the least stuffed with electronics, fast dressed, and get out into the courtyard.

The courtyard was green and deserted.