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treasures
that were now worthless in this new world we lived in. I’m not even sure where
he found all of these things. Barely anything was left after the terrible wars
after the Vandelrizi invaded earth. What wasn’t destroyed in the wars was wiped
out of existence by the terraforming of our planet. I hated living in this
house. It was a daily reminder of how much I loathed living in Palasium.
    I strolled to the kitchen and grabbed a piece of
bread off the kitchen table and stuffed it in my mouth. Maria stood in front of
the stove and looked like she was about to object to my lack of manners, but
she only shook her head and gave me a broad smile. 
    “Eat, Alexis. Comer un desayuno adecuado . ”
 Maria was one of the few people that insisted on calling me by my birth name. She
pointed to a chair. Every morning she insisted I sit down and eat a proper
breakfast.
    “I haven’t got time. I have to get to the quarters.”
I chuckled at her disapproving scowl as I grabbed another piece of bread. “And
you know I can’t resist your fresh baked bread.”
    “You make your padre very angry, cariño .” I shrugged, savoring the doughy
goodness of the warm bread. 
    “Father’s always upset with me.” Nothing I did would
ever please him, so I could just as well do as I pleased.
    “Take one, cariño . 
Don’t fall, you squash bread.” She pointed to a freshly baked loaf of bread on
the kitchen table. Steam rose in wispy waves from it and the smell made my
stomach grumble. No one could bake bread like Maria. I tried my best to smuggle
food from our kitchen to take to the slave quarters and although Maria never
openly said the food was for the slaves, she always made sure there was
something to take with me. The meager rations the slaves received were barely
enough to keep them alive.
     “I’ll protect it with my life,” I promised and
hugged the old woman.
          The
city of Palasium was divided in four – East-, West-,
North- and Southside. It was more of a town than a city, with barely a thousand
residents. We lived in East-side. Robert’s mansion stood ostentatious among the
more humble houses in the area. Each soldier of the Guard received a house,
though the younger soldiers preferred to share houses. On the West-side was a
humungous palatial building where the Vandelrizi stayed when they were not on
their ships hovering in the earth’s atmosphere. It was also where the cobblestone
square was where public trials and executions were held.
     Until a couple of months ago the Vandelrizi were
more in numbers than the humans in Palasium, but most of them left, in the
utmost secrecy and returned to their ships in the past couple of weeks. I
wouldn’t even be aware of them leaving if I hadn’t overheard Robert discussing
the situation with his protégée, Sargent Tom Benson. They were baffled by the
sudden exodus of Vandelrizi, but it was not like you could go up to them and
ask what they were up to, except if you had a death wish. Not even Robert, who
was their most trusted human employee on earth, would dare to ask them. From
what I could count, only about fifty of the Vandelrizi were left in Palasium
and I heard rumors spreading that the same was happening in Cyrius. Something
was definitely up with them.
    The South-side was divided between fields for
cultivating food and warehouses where supplies were kept. The big monstrous
power station providing electricity to the city was on the border of the South-
and North-side. The whole of the North-side was cordoned off from the rest of
the city with tall chain linked fences with barbwire on top. The slaves were
kept inside, only allowed to leave under supervision of the soldiers. They were
forced to live in tents and derelict buildings with only the bare necessities.
An oversized gate was the only entrance and not only was it guarded day and
night, but it was electronically locked and only father and the soldiers of the
Guard had the code. 
    If that wasn’t