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All this Manhir tolerated, but for his own reasons. He hated him for letting him steal too much. He had been taught from birth to love and honor the power of the Darkstone, the Plague Empire, and his own kind, but he stole from his own kind. Shame and greed clashed in him, and the other always won.

Pozharin admired it all for him: the structure of the Empire's society, the supernatural abilities that had overcome once human civilization, the physiological makeup, and even his squeamishness towards humans. He disdained humans, even though he was one of them.

On March 25, the situation in the Donetsk-Makeyevka group changed: a message arrived from the center (the phones were working):

"Personally to the karak of Donetsk-Makeyevka Manhru from the broz of the Slavic column Bluh:

I am disgusted to inform you that some time ago I was informed that you, Karak Manhr, are engaged in treasury theft and are secretly transporting raw materials to the territories of Kuban, Sector 7, granted to you. Do not try to deny your involvement in this. You are required to return 264 tons of coal to the Dark Stone Empire within two weeks. In addition, pay 36,000 Roks as a fine. If you fail to do so, you will be stripped of your rank, position, lands and other property, and you will be placed in the employ of your former subordinates, where you will remain for the rest of your days.

Broz Slavic Column Bluh.

After reading this message, Manhra's eyelid twitched, the fingers on both hands shook, and the green snake tongue came out and became immobile.

Half a minute later Pozharin appeared in the karak's office. According to the rules, the man was not allowed to sit in the presence of the chum – an exception was often made for the A1 category. But this time Pozharin, when he saw the grimace on his patron's face, thoughts of that jumped out of his head.

"I should definitely thank you! Slave!" – Roared the plague. Pozharin lowered his broad head and stared at the floor. "You don't know why?!"

"Nah, sir, I don't know."

"Ahh… You don't know… Ah, what I'm facing for this, do you know?" – Manhir got up from the table and walked over to 'his guilty self'.

"No, sir, I don't."

Manhir swung his palm at his opponent with a wide, nasty swing. Pozharin flew aside, against the wall, and fell to the floor; he knew well enough that if he tried to get up, he would get hit again. It was useless to argue with the chums – they were incapable of admitting their mistakes.

"They'll twist my head, that's what they'll do! Me! I, Manhru, will have my head cut off! Do you hear me, slave?! Me! Manhru! Do you hear?!" – Manhru went up to the lying man and kicked him with his foot as hard as he could. Then again. And again.

"Do you hear, slave? Do you hear?" – Karak went into hysterics. He couldn't believe this was even happening. It was simply impossible. He shouldn't be the one on trial – someone else. For thirty-five years he'd been in charge of this region, he'd had no complaints, and then suddenly here he was.

After a series of blows of varying strength and emotional coloring, Manhir stepped away from the half-dead, universally hated number 726629A1 toward the window and gazed into the distance. And for the first time in his destructive lying life, he looked objectively at the sky. Imperial propaganda had portrayed the Earth Sky without a shadow of a doubt as some kind of natural error: in their world, the sky was purple. Now it didn't seem like dogma, or a weighty statement at all. For the first time, Manhir could feel his own self, already separable, albeit at an insignificant distance, from the Empire. He had formed his own opinion.

"Your own opinion? – thought the karak. – What does it represent without everything else? Nothing. No… It does. It's me, after all. Manhr. But I'm separate now… Nonsense. How can anyone be separate? It's impossible. It's possible. That's how the Maquis live. No. That's humans. It's not like that with humans. They're people. Not us. We're better. Why are we better? Why are we better?"

Something stuck in Manhra's head, then everything else stopped. The whole machine came to a standstill. And all because of one trivial question, "Why?"

Chum turned around and looked at the still lying Pozharin, "How am I better than him? This is nonsense! He's a piece of garbage incapable of anything. Of course I'm better than him!… Him yes, but there are millions more people… They're working now. They sleep only eight hours. They endure such conditions… I couldn't do that… But then why did we defeat them if they're stronger?"

Manhir sat down at the table and leaned forward and clasped his head with his hands: he had never had to think before, he had only thought of money before. He was faced with a dilemma: on the one hand he thought of the superiority of the humans over the plagues, on the other hand he knew for sure that the humans had lost the war. It was impossible to reconcile the two, and it was simply not possible to cancel any of the theses. The second thesis was almost an irrefutable fact. And the first one was so ingrained in his soul, so obvious that it made him literally pick up arguments in his favor.

"Do you hear that, slave?" – Without moving his hands away from his head, Manhr asked.

Turning from his stomach to his side, Pozharin opened his mouth and tried to make a sound, but he couldn't – his breath wouldn't let him, it was too heavy. Manhir had broken three of his ribs.

"Speak!" – The karak's hands remained in the same position. Number A1 mumbled something and immediately coughed.

"Who's the strongest? – Manhr spoke loudly and menacingly as usual. – Tell me, who is stronger? Us or the humans?"

Seeing no options, Pozharin opened his mouth and, nodding in agreement, tried to answer. "Don't you dare lie to me! Think before you answer. Think! And tell me, who's the strongest?" The answer came out quickly crisp and from the last of his strength, "Chum!!!"

Manhra's eyes turned away to the side, his hands moved away from his head and rested on the windowsill, "You're lying to me. I know. You've all lied to me, all this time… But that's okay. I won't kill you… Okay. Go and get everyone working. Today's plan is to double the workload. Go and tell everyone that."

Chum turned toward the window and looked at the Sky again, "I don't know how much stronger humans are, but their Sky is a hundred times more beautiful than ours."

Same on March 25.

After explaining all matters: family and work, Gabriel finally took charge of the purification. The task was extremely difficult – to clean no more than 12 tons. Ah, what a difficult word "no more" was, and what it meant to the miners. They had to hit that number: more than that, and the 253rd catfish would give everyone a long life; less than that, they themselves would give everyone a long life; the others were on a slightly different calculation, but still they would probably get some too.