«So today we really have to dedicate the day to Earth, don't we?»

In sighing this question with its obvious answer, Kidhe declared his own defeat in the face of Wilol's insistence.

Sleeld got to his feet and stretched his back as if he had just come out of hibernation.

«Well, I'll leave you my crystal of reports. I'll see you later...»

«Wait!» Wilol stopped him. «Kidhe, I guess Sleeld can stop playing blind man's buff now, can't he?»

The Earth Intervention Officer froze with his fists still in the air and his mighty biceps flexing his arms in the act of stretching them out. A fully awake look flashed across his face for a moment.

«I hadn't thought of that, but indeed,» reflected the president, «Cronquit, what do you say?»

Cronquit's gray eyes, in the midst of which black pupils stood out, fixed on an imaginary reality, while with his forehead he revealed the effort of a mental calculation. The red hair, styled in spikes directed just about everywhere, resembling a miniature of the Coral City, swung for a few moments along with his head before the Executive emerged from a deep state of abstraction.

«Yes, I'd say we can reveal everything to him,» he then said, relaxing into a cheerful expression.

«Ah,» exhaled Sleeld, then uttered the words with a narcotic calmness, «I hope you will also explain to me why it was decided to keep me in the dark about the details of the Plan.»

Kidhe, Wilol and Cronquit turned towards Riklev succeeding in top-scoring synchronicity.

A grimace of paternalism strained Riklev's tidy goatee. Then his blue eyes mellowed as he turned to the blameless Sleeld.

Sleeld knew only the general structure and main points of the Plan. He knew that it pivoted on a single individual from Earth and that he alone had to initiate the process that would make Earth a civilized and united planet.

«In the end, we confirmed the decision to use the old capital of the last Plan, Rome. The last time you were still fully involved in the decisions we were planning to birth the key individual for the new Plan right there.»

«Yes... I remember,» nodded Sleeld placidly. «Then you interrupted the Assembly, asked everyone to say no more, and invited me to leave the dome.»

«More like kicked me out of the dome...» Wilol commented.

Riklev ignored him.

«We planned the details, such as the selection of his ancestors over a series of twenty-eight generations to build his genetic material or the network of people who would surround him and the precise events he would face. It was important, though, that you, as the person in charge of Earth operations, didn't know which people were involved or when he would be born.»

«Did we succeed? When...?» began Sleeld to ask, but Riklev anticipated his curiosity.

«Twenty-one years ago» Riklev's blue eyes lit up with satisfaction. «Everything went well. The initial phase of his formation is complete, and it was decisive that, up to this point, you remained in the dark about everything concerning his identity.»

The Executive scrutinized the innocence carved on the unsuspecting colleague's face and saw fit to go into detail. Very much in detail.

«Since you are the one who carries out interventions on Earth, we wanted to eliminate the risk that your subconscious might bring systematic influences into operations, to avoid incurring statistical deviations from the Samādhi Plan. The issue was particularly delicate since everything converged on an increasingly smaller number of individuals and, in these final stages, almost everything will depend on a single person.»

While Riklev's explanations were still queuing up to enter Sleeld's mind, Wilol again presented his well-thought-out analysis of the situation.

«That is to say, to avoid failing just like it happened with the previous plan. Right?»

«You're a pro, Wilol...» grumbled Kidhe, «do you intend to torture us for much longer today?»

Riklev ignored them both. He stared at Sleeld who in turn stared into space with a furrowed brow.

Cronquit stood in front of the head of Earth operations and hoped he could get him to remember how to blink.

«If you had known everything from the beginning,» he tried to explain, «you would have been tempted to act in such a way as to accommodate the aims of the Plan as to its key individuals.» The copper-red-haired Executive drew a deep breath and plunged into the explanation: «When, for example, you had to arrange for two people to meet at a certain place and at a certain time, you had to decide how to bring them together, the route to be taken by the two, and the situation in which they would find themselves. Since you never knew anything about their roles in the Plan, you didn't bother to look for a particular way to carry out the arrangements we were passing on to you. Had you known instead, you would have been inclined to do things in a way that favored the Plan itself. From time to time, your methods would not have been random and would have been influenced by you. And we couldn't tell you how to carry out orders because even we couldn't know the best way to carry them out. We had to let this part of the program follow a random course without outside influence.»

Cronquit then noticed that Sleeld's eyelids showed vital signs. Sleeld gave a smile, a sign that more or less this time things were clear to him. Then he turned his blond head toward the president.

«Kidhe, so did everything go as you planned?»

«Sure, sure! That young man should have almost completed his studies; in less than a year, he should be ready to take action. In addition to his genetic code and training, over the centuries, we have also prepared the ground for him so that he could elevate his position and initiate a planetary chain reaction for the fulfillment of the Samādhi Plan. He is the first domino in a long row... and now it's about to fall.» Kidhe winked approvingly. «You did an excellent job. You know, we were really sorry that it was you, of all people, who had to be excluded from the Assembly when you brought us the annual reports on Earth and we reviewed them...»

«No problem», Sleeld replied seraphically, «I had more time to dedicate to something else».

There was a silence in which everyone looked at him perplexed by his indifference.

«Oh, come on! Do you want to keep the whole Assembly in suspense about such vital information?» Wilol joked. «How did you spend all this free time?»

Sleeld slowly turned to look at him. «I took the opportunity to train in Sphere, I improved in the Focus variant».

«Wow, that extra training per year must have made a huge difference!» Wilol exclaimed with a grin.

The most popular sport on the Assembly planet had already a few millennia of history and was also the most played game by the Executives. Wilol was one of its founders and had named it Sphere, inspired by his amazing imagination and the shape of the playing field: a large hollow sphere. On the whole planet, only a handful of athletes could compete with him and, being the great sportsman that he was, he was keen to assert his superiority over others in all three variants, including the Focus variant, a solo version played mostly for training or relaxation purposes.

«Dear Sleeld», Cronquit intervened, «we know we have relied on your great patience all this time. But it is precisely for this quality of yours that five thousand years ago we chose you to take care of Earth». «Thank you», Sleeld yawned.

«Well!» Kidhe rejoiced rubbing his hands, «I hope you feel like showing us some recordings of Earth from the last year», the president glanced at Wilol, «even though it wasn't planned for today».

«Of course. Clearly, I didn't take the time to prepare detailed reports since the last time you examined them». Sleeld yawned again, then continued with unmatched composure. «There should still be something interesting about these last two months».

«Oh! We have noticed! Earth has become very dynamic lately, just as we planned» Kidhe said with satisfaction, giving a smile of complicity and approval to Riklev. «Let's see this recording, we'll show you the boy». He stood up and pointed an arm at the cylindrical bench that occupied the exact center of the room. «May I?»

«Sure. The blue trapezohedron» Sleeld indicated.

Kidhe approached the bench adorned with a concentric cavity the width of a palm. Among the twelve colorful crystals arranged in a radial pattern around the cavity, he found and picked up Sleeld's one.

He caressed the velvety red surface of the bench and made a grimace.

«No...» he complained, «enough with this colored fabric. Computer, dark wood!» he ordered. In the blink of an eye, the surface of the bench changed its appearance to become smooth and shiny according to the President's whim.

Kidhe lifted the crystal that occupied his palm. He examined its hypnotic reflections and transparencies for a moment, then, holding it between his index finger and thumb, he carefully placed it on top of the central niche and let go. The crystal, suspended in mid-air, immediately began to rotate on itself.

All cheerful, Kidhe returned among the Executives and settled down. The armchair made his body float, just like Sleeld's crystal above the bench in the center of the room.

He immediately felt relaxed by the slow and wide rocking that lulled him; then he turned again to the computer.

«Earth!»

The room darkened to night, and from the niche of the crystal bench a beam of light hit the small rotating trapezohedron, making it shine. At the same time, a three-dimensional image of Earth appeared to fill the entire top of the dome.

«Computer, let's resume from the last report examined: show us a descriptive selection of the most relevant events concerning our Flavio Mancini» Kidhe commanded.

The projection in the middle of the room plunged into the image of Earth until it reached some part of the city of Rome. Standing next to a parked car, it showed a boy with glasses. Extraordinarily tall and so thin as to look frail, he was hunched over holding his arm in an insecure and ungainly pose.