Babylon. Unfinished

Baby with the satisfaction turned the light out. Great.

Everyone knows today that VDass is a servant, centurion and a tutor at the same time. It's also trying to look like your friend, but actually it's not. Why? Well, maybe because it doesn't actually care about you? All it really cares about is an order. It takes care of your health and appropriate education, but not because it loves you. It does this because it thinks there is less trouble with you when you are well, well fed and well trained.

"So today, I'm going to tell you about the alphabet," Nigel said.

Baby rolled her eyes and sighed a sigh.

"It can be used to look up words in large dictionaries," Nigel said.

Then there was a bunch of stray letters floating on Baby's screen – like lazy silver fish in ocean water. Then one of them flickered and turned back against the current.

"It's A," Nigel said. "Through the force of symbols…"

"Warning! Depressurization! Initialization emergency system!"

The wailing of sirens started somewhere high above.

"What is it?" Baby asked.

"I think some ship crashed," Nigel said. "It hit the dome."

"Wow… What kind of ship? "

"I don't know," – Nigel said. "I've never seen this ship before."

Baby ran to the entrance hall and grabbed her spacesuit.

"Just stay where you are," Nigel said.

"The hell I will!" – Baby said. "How I'm supposed to breathe without air?"

She shouldered in the suit in five seconds.

"I think you should consider the idea of waiting for your parents' come," Nigel said. "How about it?"

"Are they going home?"

Sirens still wailed, and then there was the deafening sound of breaking glass and plastic.

"Oh-oh," Nigel said. "There is a second unknown ship. I think I've changed my mind. Well, so let's move."

"Are they going home?" Baby repeated.

The sirens got quiet, and the silence fell.

"Turn on the intercom and go," Nigel said. "I'll be with you."

Baby felt fear crawling in her chest.

She rushed out of the door.

She ran into the elevator, pressed the first-floor button… and nothing has changed.

"Sorry," Nigel said. "You have to take the stairs down."

Baby turned around and took the stairs.

Starship

The big gray starship was lying in the wreckage of the dome on the traffic area, half-way along the concrete track, almost completely blocking use of the track along its entire length. The giant ball of Jupiter was floating in the open black sky, surrounded by birds doomed to death. Also, at the crash site there were a smashed flyer and people lying around.

Baby's other family had appeared as a black dust right before the shell of starship cracked.

"Don't move," the dust said. "You'll survive."

Baby froze up.

There was a dull noise, the shell of ship shuddered and many fine interconnected openings snapped on the lateral surface of it. Few people around the wreckage rushed in different directions.

"Run," Nigel said.

"Don't," the dust protested. "There's no safe place for you here, not anymore."

Baby swallowed and stayed still.

The edges of the openings collapsed inwards, the nearest ship cracked silently in the airless space of the shattered dome and broke apart. Its parts started to move, grow pseudopods and crawl in all directions. Then the second ship broke apart.

For a while, Baby watched in fascination as this river of machinery spilled over around by her, and then someone turned off the sun.

Night

A night on Ganymede isn't much fun. Without the artificial sun, cities become dark and echoing, not like cities at all, they are lost among large glaciers and icefields of Outer Lands.

Jupiter continues to float in the space high above the ground, but it only bathes everything in the dim pale light, and Outer Lands stretch across the surface of entire Ganymede – formidable and fearsome for human.

The city, however, was more formidable and more fearsome now: dark, silent, airless and full of lurking beings.

"Nigel?" Baby whispered.

"Still here," Nigel said.

"Is home okay?"

"It's still intact," Nigel said. "But there is no air there."

"What am I supposed to do?"

Nigel made an unintelligible sound.