At a certain stage of the mankind’s development, we put forward a fighter for a single combat with the Galaxy Civilization. The fortunes of the Earth’s population – whether they will live on or not – depend on the result of this combat.

It’s a standard procedure of admission to the community of civilizations of our Galaxy for any civilization. They want to know – to what extent we have developed and have established ourselves as a civilization.

Combats are carried out on the planet chosen by the Supreme Council of the Galaxy.

The place where they are carried out is always the same; so, we reproduced its exact copy. It is our training facility now. All scenes of battles we had have lost were built into the program. Besides, we added our own episodes. Now it’s the place where one can learn a lot.

If we win, the Sixth Civilization of the Earth will get a powerful impulse for further development, and, in several thousand years, it will become equal to other civilizations of the Galaxy. Not everything is so simple, though. There exists one more danger.

When all civilizations of the Galaxy join the United Civilization of the Galaxy «Milky Way», the next stage will be admission of our United Galaxy Civilization to the General Cosmic Civilization.

Loss means destroying the whole United Galaxy Civilization.

It will be the last, but the most complicated and dangerous exam. However, it’s still far in the future. Let’s not think about things that will not happen for some time.

We couldn’t pass the first trial – to win in mortal combat – and were thrown back for millions of years; that’s why we can’t use the knowledge of the United Galaxy Civilization.

After millions of years of necessary waiting and detailed analysis of all combats, which were carried out, we worked out a new training technique for our future fighter. The losses of the previous five civilizations gave us an enormous data base to analyze our defeats. This time we must win…»

Julia was listening and watching closely the scene taking place around her, while the voice was commenting on what was going on.

The space around her was transmitting the end of one of the earthmen’s combats for their right to life.

The battlefield took up all the visible space around the fighter. The ground was dug through all around; huge trees were broken or torn up by the roots; pits and gaps were being filled with water, and, in the distance, one could see large woodlands in conflagration.

Flame was coming up to the stars, forming fire whirlwinds. With frightful roaring, they were coming away from the main bulk of fire for a long distance from the burning woodland. The fire whirlwinds quickly died, burning and evaporating everything on their way, and then were soon displaced by new ones.

Large field stones were cleaved by powerful blows and scattered all over the field, up to the horizon.

Everything in view was flooded with thick luminous liquid looking like blood, which was not only red, but also blue, green, black, and yellow.

A big man, about one hundred and fifty feet high, was fighting shadows, trying to win.

It was clear that he was exhausted. His numerous wounds were bleeding, and he himself and the ground around were in blood. Several times the fighter fell down on his knee, and each time he rose up, beating off attacks; long blinding flame was shooting out of devices fixed on his hands.

Everything was in vain, however. His enemies were too numerous…

Suddenly, ambient light started pulsating. This pulsating lighting worked against the fighter.