"Don't be silly," Aia waved it off like it was nothing. "Sure, if I can get to the bottom of something, it's only about my own femininity. And, of course, I'm not very good at this, because I even like being a woman. I like it so much that I'm ready to repeat this experience in one of the following lives."

The darkness began to crackle and rustle, once again thickening and gathering into a black mass: Mora, implemented back by Robert, sighed, heavily spreaded a long dragon body on the top of the hill and again curled as a huge cold black cat around the Makers who were sitting in a tight circle.

Robert leaned with a relief back on its huge side as on a back of a chair, stretched out his legs and crossed his arms over chest:

"I thought once of reincarnation. I actually think about it every time when I gather some similar pleasure against the vector of chi dispersion. And there is some interesting things coming out: we all need to spend a lot of energy for this kind of pleasure. And who will then be spended for me, when I've gone? Who will do it so to preserve the integrity of my energy shadow?"

"And who is spended for the water, running in the rivers?" Lukasz shrugged his shoulders. "Or for the snowflakes in order to give them a six-pointed shape? And who in the whole world cares about us so that we are able to take care of ourselves?"

"It's strange," Aia said. "When you talked about inanimate, I thought about the causes and consequences, and when it came to us, I remembered about karma."

"Yes, the line between the first and the second is not clearly cut." Robert raised his hands and somewhere there, high above his head, patted Mora's fur - like a flea which try to stroke a cat. But the "cat" flinched and purred.

Robert glanced at Matt, who was quietly cuddled up to his almost-lost sister:

"Matt, who you want to be in your next life?"

"Eh... I did almost nothing in this one, and you want me to make plans for the future," the boy answered without any hesitation.

The Makers laughed.

"It's true, my dear old friend," agreed Robert. "And what do you like in this one?"

"In this I like everything."

"In this one he was lucky with the company. Yes, Matt?" Lukasz winked at the boy.

"Yes." Matt nodded and cuddled up even harder to his sister, and she patted his ginger curls.

"The best company for anyone is the one himself. And this is not a pessimism," she said.

"And what is this?" Lukasz was surprised. "A real pessimism as it is. Look at it from the other side: a friends are the eyes by which the world can look into your eyes as an equal partner."

"I don't know about others, but I'm feeling a little better today," Aia sighed, carefully removing Matt and getting up. "The longing for others no longer seems to me an unhealthy longing of healthy person to use crutches."

The night in Alpha has always been a magical time, at least because many of the Makers were asleep.

The dreams of the Makers, slipping from their personal reality into the common, were usually colorful and strange: some of the generated entities, being still, only illuminated the night, others - those in which a vague meaning could wander - wandered around dark Alpha without meaning and purpose, because both their meaning and purpose remained there, at their masters, on the other side of the dream.

They were sluggish and indifferent, no one touched them and no one was afraid.

They walked home on foot: Robert was followed by Aia and Lukasz, who carried Matt in his arms. They walked in silence, because everything that wanted to be said was already said.

The night was dark and thick, like a jelly. The darkness around sighed and swayed, from time to time here and there an ephemeral essences flickered as flamboyant funny dancing lights. The fog came down on the shoulders of the Makers as a small cold drops and made them chill to the bones.

The road was dark, but no one except Matt needed light, and Matt was almost asleep.

16. 2330th year. Benji.

February was running out. People and machines together have been cleaning the remnants of the outgoing winter from the city sidewalks.

For the last year, Benji was busy almost 24 hours a day, and that didn't burden him at all. He thought, analyzed, communicated, arranged seminars and charitable events. He was no longer pestered by contemplation: in rare moments of inactivity, he took from the archive folders his idea of who he are, why he are, what to do, and, as a rule, called Aia: