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      "We were missing you," replied Petri jumping down from that sort of lift, even before it had touched the ground, immediately followed by his travelling companion.

      "We were worried" said Elisa finally reassured. "We witnessed a strange event that occurred on the moon a little while ago and we seriously feared that something terrible had happened to you.”

      "Unfortunately, my dear, something terrible really did happen," said Azakis with a forlorn air.

      "There you are, I knew it," exclaimed Elisa. “A little voice inside me kept telling me so. But what happened?"

      "It all happened really suddenly.”

      â€œSo, are you going to tell us? Come on, don’t keep us on tenterhooks. Just tell us everything, now.”

      "Our spacecraft no longer exists," Azakis announced all in one breath.

      The two terrestrials looked at one another for a moment, absolutely stunned. Then Jack spoke, saying "Are you joking? What does ‘no longer exists’ mean?”

      "It means that, right now, the biggest piece of the Theos could quite easily fit on the tip of your index finger.”

      "But what happened? And the rest of the crew, where are they? Are they all well?"

      "Yes, they're fine, thank you. Right now, they’re on the other three shuttles and very soon they’ll be here too. If you don't mind, we will set up an emergency structure around here and we’ll try to organise ourselves somehow."

      "But of course, that's not a problem," said Jack. "We’ll give you all the help we can. You don't even need to ask."

      â€œSo,” blurted out Elisa who could no longer hold back her curiosity. "Are you going to tell us yes or no what the devil happened up there?"

      "It's rather a long story," said Azakis seating himself on an upturned tin pail. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

      After about ten minutes, the alien had pretty much told them the whole story. From the loss of the remote-control system, to the attempt to deactivate it. From the recklessness of having given up on its recovery, up to the sudden reactivation of the instrument which had then caused the launching of the self-destruction process.

      "But that’s shocking," said Elisa appalled. “Whoever can have caused a disaster like that?”

      "Probably," said Azakis, “somebody must have found that strange object and began to study its features. Then they must have found some information among all the data we downloaded onto your servers and, somehow, managed to turn it back on, so causing the result we now know.”

      "For crying out loud!" exclaimed the Colonel upset. "It seems such an absurd story... And, knowing the danger of a device like that, you didn’t do anything to recover it?”

      "It was my fault," said Petri, joining in the discussion. “I thought I’d completely deactivated it and that no terrestrial, even if somebody did find it, would be able to reactivate it.”

      â€œAnd yet it happened,” said Jack. "Do you have any idea where it was lost?”

      "We honestly thought we’d lost it while retrieving the Zenio crystal but, most probably, it must have ended up somewhere else, that was much more crowded. There was no one at all down there.”

      â€œZak, I’ve had an idea,” said Petri standing up. "I think that if I worked on it a bit, I might be able to backtrack and trace the moment the remote control was unhooked from your belt."

      "It’s not all that important now, but I must admit I too am a little curious about it."

      â€œGood. So first of all, let’s try and inform the Elders about our situation and as soon as we're organised a little, I'll try and retrieve this information."

      â€œElisa,” said Azakis. "Unfortunately, the only H^COM we had was destroyed with the Theos. Would you kindly lend us the one we left you before we took off?”

      "Do you mean the helmet? But of course. I’ll get it for you straight away."

      "Unfortunately, the situation is serious,” whispered Azakis turning to the Colonel, as soon as Elisa had moved far enough away to be out of earshot. "Even if we do manage to contact the Elders, the chances we can get back to our own planet are virtually nil now. "

      â€œBut can’t they send someone to pick you up? Hasn’t Zaneki also got a ship like yours?”

      "Unfortunately, the engines installed on his ship are considerably less powerful than the ones we had on ours. That’s why he had to leave almost immediately after Kodon’s passage. If he hadn't, he wouldn’t have been able to reach Nibiru anymore, because it was moving rapidly away. We were able to stay here much longer precisely by virtue of our experimental engines. Unfortunately, the Theos was the only ship in our fleet with that type of engine. The production and installation of two more new ones like that could take a lot of time. A lot of ‘our’ time."

      "You mean you might have to stay here until Nibiru’s next passage?”

      "Here it is," said Elisa as she came hurrying back towards them.

      "Unfortunately, yes Jack," said Azakis in a whisper, as he rose to take the H^COM helmet that the archaeologist was holding out to him.

      â€œThank you, Elisa” said the alien as he put it on. “Let’s see if it works.”

      "Actually, we tried it ourselves, but we didn't manage to talk to anyone."

      "That’s my friend’s work," commented Azakis looking towards Petri. “Nothing he does ever works.”

      â€œNice as always,” said Petri with a serious air. "I'll remember that when you ask me to fix your bathroom.”

      â€œOh yes,” exclaimed Elisa smiling. “I remember only too well how your bathrooms work. A truly unforgettable experience."

      All four broke out into a roar of laughter at the end of which Petri slipped the helmet out of Azakis’ hands and said, "Wait, you ungrateful old thing. First, I need to change a setting. The system was programmed to call us on the poor old Theos and I don’t think anybody will answer you there now.”

      The alien fiddled around for a bit with the controls of the portable H^COM then, when he was satisfied with his work, he passed it back again to his companion saying "Try now. Hopefully my memory hasn’t betrayed me, and I’ve been able to configure it to connect you to the right person.”

      Azakis didn’t doubt his friend’s memory even for one moment and put the helmet on. He pressed the start button and waited patiently. Almost a minute went by before the three-dimensional image of the bony face of his direct line Elder was projected directly onto the retina of his rather tired eyes.

      â€œAzakis, how nice to see you,” said his white-haired contact, raising his slender right arm in greeting. "But where are you calling me from? Your picture looks a little strange and rather distorted."

      "It's a long story," answered the alien. “I'm using a makeshift device for long distance communication."

      "But aren’t you on your ship? Don’t tell me you still haven't left. You know that your time limit for reaching us has almost run out now, don’t you?"

      "That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused briefly to try and find the most appropriate words then continued saying, "There’s been a setback... Our spacecraft’s gone."

      â€œGone? What do you mean?"

      â€œIt exploded. The self-destruct system was activated, and we only just made it to safety in time, before everything exploded into thousands of pieces."

      â€œBut

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