It is time to speak about the day I stepped onto Donna. One of those days that drain everything — body, mind, senses — and reveal how fear can mold the human instinct. There, I felt everything: urgency, loneliness, apprehension... and that feral fraction that awakens when we realize we are far too distant from home.

  The weak sun of Donna was still dragging itself across the horizon when the ship landed among rocks and a small patch of forest, an improvised disguise to avoid curious eyes. Inside, it was just me and AX. Invisible as always, yet present enough for me to miss truly human company.

  After two months aboard the Shoros, it was there that I understood the irony of my situation: an entire mission based on observation and coexistence, but one that began with absolute solitude. Couldn't others have come? Perhaps, for them, AX was more than enough — and yes, he was powerful, a living being, but not an equal.

  “Jazzia, keep the doors closed when we're not here.”

  “There is no need when we are anchored,” the ship replied. “But I understand the concern.”

  “And don't forget to fly toward me if AX calls you.”

  “I will be ready. Remember to take water; the climate here is aggressive to your body.”

  “Thank you.”

  I prepared a backpack with the basics while recalling the first objective of the mission: observe the humans from the nearby city, and nothing more. No unnecessary interventions. Any improper contact could provoke fear, violence, or distance — and it was fear that I felt as I faced the ship's door opening to that arid, dry, abrasive environment.

  On Earth, we lived in peace, but learning to live in peace always demanded a particular condition: pretending we are not afraid. Something impossible for us.

  I thought of Ester, the Sekvens who once threw herself from a six-hundred-meter mountain just to feel the taste of terror. She was saved at the last second — as always — because Sekvens observers interfere only at the final moment, even knowing that pain exists along the way. They master their feelings with a coldness we will never possess. That leap even gave rise to a Terran legend: the suicide of Princess Ester.

  “AX?” I called, looking upward.

  “I am here,” he answered, without showing himself.

  “You could appear. I would feel safer.”

  “There is no reason for concern.”

  He would not appear; I already knew that. Being seen beside a glowing sphere would be far too strange for the local inhabitants. And to be fair, our coexistence was still too recent to feel natural.

  As soon as we left the forest behind, the landscape opened into a dry plain dotted with shrubs and short trees. Very different from where I lived and at the same time absurdly familiar: a bluish sky with a greenish touch, breathable air, plant life, animal life. Out of hundreds of thousands of planets, some inevitably develop similar patterns. While thinking about this, I wondered for the thousandth time whether all life had originated from the same point.

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  “There is a man on the road, one thousand meters ahead,” AX said abruptly.

  “Don't scare me like that,” I muttered, heart racing. “I was... a little lost.”

  “We are exactly where we should be,” he replied, serious.

  He may not have intended to make me laugh, but it worked. The tension eased a little.

  The rocky terrain made the walk difficult, but soon I saw the man: young, perhaps less than thirty Terran years, wearing pants and a rough cloak. He seemed ordinary until I noticed that he did not recognize me. His expression tightened in an instant. He drew something from his waist and pointed it at me.

  “Who are you?” his voice trembled.

  “Nobody you need to fear,” I replied, raising my hands instinctively.

  “His weapon is not loaded,” AX informed.

  “Who is speaking?!” the man grew even more agitated.

  “AX! You said you wouldn't appear,” I murmured, irritated.

  “And I did not appear,” he replied calmly, as if logic alone solved everything.

  I began to laugh. I shouldn't have, but the nervousness overflowed. The three of us were trapped in a knot of inexperience — me, AX, and the man. And fear is always a dangerous fuel.

  “Calm down,” I asked, still catching my breath between restrained laughter. “I'm a traveler. I need help.”

  “You speak strangely,” the man said, still not lowering the weapon, looking around. “And that other voice? Tell him to come out from behind the bush.”

  “He is not a person. AX, appear. And please, lower your weapon. We know it is not loaded.”

  AX revealed himself. The man paled, stepped back. Sweat dripped down his face. Something in that fear was deeper than mere surprise at the appearance of my guardian.

  “What is happening?” I asked. “Why such terror?”

  “I thought you were bandits,” he confessed. “They kill for almost nothing.”

  “If the road is so dangerous, why are you alone?”

  He found the question strange, but the panic was beginning to subside.

  “No one cares.”

  AX and I seemed alone there, but we were not. One request, and I would be rescued immediately. Millions watched everything in real time through him. The loneliness I felt was merely a shadow, a sensation — not reality.

  “You said I speak strangely. I trained so much in your language...”

  “Where are you from? And what is that thing?”

  “AX. He is here to protect me. And I am from Earth. From another planet.”

  “Earth? You mean lands from the North?”

  “No. I came from space,” I clarified.

  “I know nothing about that.”

  His ignorance about his own planet disappointed me. But someone, somewhere, must know.

  “I need a guide. Someone to introduce me to the city and the people. I can pay. Do you accept gold?”

  “Gold? What for?”

  “Then... what do you use as currency?”

  “We trade things. Salt is the most valuable.”

  “Salt? I have a few grams on the ship.”

  “Ten kilograms,” AX corrected.

  The man's face changed instantly.

  “You are very rich! Of course I will take you.”

  A crooked smile formed on his lips — dangerous, though useful.

  “AX, from now on, do not appear or speak when there are other people. Only if I ask.”

  “Understood.”

  “Faro,” the man said. “That is my name.”

  “William,” I replied. “But tell me... why live here, in such an arid place, if there are huge forests to the North?”

  “It is no use. Almost everything there is poisonous.”

  The road showed marks of decades of passage, but no wheels, no hooves. The wind blew without lifting dust, and small insects dotted the air like fragments of stubborn life.

  Faro walked without any curiosity. Faced with the unknown, he did not ask, did not wonder, did not investigate. And so we continued side by side, in silence, for almost an hour, until the city appeared before us.