Since they had finished their work, a priest led back them to the Prelate's office.
"You did an excellent job!" She praised them, after she checked the data of their results. "You have collected 21 Hydrogen-Deuterium pairs for the race. Do you want to collect more?"
The twins looked at each other. They didn't know whether the number of the collected pairs were enough, or not, so they couldn't decide.
"You still have two full days until the race, and the more pairs you collect, the more chance you will have." The Prelate said when she realized the kids' perplexity. "Of course, if you are willing to sort one more room of Hydrogens, you could stay here until the race."
It was the magic word. They could stay in a comfortable room, sleeping in bed instead of waiting on the chairs of the central office. Valerie and Conrad nodded, and went back to work. The work this time seemed to be easier, and faster. However, the work really went faster, since they had already learned the tricks. They even had time on the second day's evening to run back to the central office, to ask about their grandfather. Unfortunately, their grandfather did not give any news about himself during that time. Since they still had time, they walked down to the harbor, but not even their old friend came back from the harvest. The twins were neither surprised, nor sad. They were already used to the lack of news. They walked back to the temple, and went to bed. In their dreams they were riding on big Hydrogen molecules circle around a racetrack, and their grandfather were crying with them. He was blaming them not to be able transform their horses into Helium.
It was hard to wake up after a disturbed night, but when they remembered, that Noble Race was that day, they were energized by the thought. The priest, who was ordered to them came into their room, and informed the kids, that he would accompany them.
"There's no need to come with us!" Said Valerie. "We are 12 years old."
She was half polite, but half angry. Why did this adult look at them for kids? They are old enough to find the place of the Noble Race.
"I am sorry." he smiled. "But children under 18 years old are not allowed to enter alone to the arena. So you need someone, an adult to accompany. I am assigned to you."
Valerie and Conrad wanted to see the race anyway, and if it meant they needed an adult, it meant it. The twins did not protest further, and excitingly followed him. They couldn't really tell if they liked the priest, but his company was never burdensome for them. The crowds on the streets were unusually large.
"It is because of the Noble Race." their companion told them, when Conrad noticed. "There are a lot of temples, and more racers. So today everybody goes to the arena. This is the first day of the race, and the smallest racers are scheduled today."
"Are we the smallest racers?" asked Valerie stunned and a bit sad. She thought for the first time that they should have worked harder to earn more pairs.
"I don't think so. There are racers, who has smaller amount of pairs."
"Why?"
"They didn't find enough pairs, or they wanted to sell the Deuteriums alone, or they just found some pairs along their work, and wanted to give a try to the race. There can be many reasons."
The closer they got to the arena, the bigger the crowd became. The twins had hard time to be together with their companion among the adults, who were much more bigger than them, so they didn't have enough energy to speak. The noise were also astonishingly big. It seemed to an eternity, until they had reached the gate. Their companion had been right: they were only allowed to enter with an adult. The cashier informed them, when they would be lost, go to the information booth at the entrance, and not to talk to strangers. Valerie and Conrad swallowed their pride, and nodded. They were already looking forward to the race, and didn't want to argue about losing, like a small child.
"We need to fill the entrance forms, so come with me!" asked them the priest, after he had let them looking around a bit.
There were many interesting things around! Neither of them was at a horse race, but they saw some on tv. It really looked like a horse racing place. A lot of people were standing in long queues, many of them looked like using smartphones, but in the reality they were using their hand devices, while speaking about percents, odds and dark horses. There were a lot of priests around them, each one of them in different cassocks, and here or there they saw children. There were children even smaller than them. It seemed they were without companion.
"They probably belongs to the families, who are managing temples."
"Do whole families live here?"
"Yes, of course! There are temples, built and managed by families. Every members of these families are living here from the newborn to the oldest ones. Their temples are usually old, not too big, and they don't often participate in the race with a huge amount of Hydrogen. They produce enough to support their lives here, and nothing more. 5 or 6 fusions are enough for a year for a family."
The crowd became more and more, so the priest urged them to do the registration. The registration was surely different, than in a real horse race. There were huge and smaller tanks, filled with Hydrogens, and people were standing beside the containers, adding coloring to the little ones. The tanks looked gorgeous as they were painted to the colors of the rainbow. Their tank was much more smaller, ad contained only 43 pair of Hydrogens. The little ones were natural white.
"Ours are colorless!" complained Conrad.
"You have to add the coloring, after you do the registration." The priest told them, and handed them a tablet. "Could you fill the questionnaire?"
The kid nodded. It wasn't difficult, but the last step, were they should have chosen a color made the twins argue again. Valerie wanted to paint them pink, and Conrad wanted anything else, but pink. The couldn't agree. When the priest became bored with their quarreling, he took over the tablet, and chose a color himself.
"Why are they brown?" Both kids cried, when they had seen their little ones. Neither of them liked the color.
"Light brown." the priest corrected them. "It will look like they are golden from the viewing area. They will look gorgeous, won't they?"
The kids had to admit, that he was right. The priest picked out his hand device and added seven red pairs to tank.
"Each participant must start 50 pairs. That's why they were added to your tank." He told the kids, before they could ask. "When there aren't enough pairs, the participants could team up, or ask a temple to cooperate. Our temple's color is red. The ones I put into your tank, were bought from Mr. Kerry-Orr."
The kids cheered a bit. In fact, every little one that was in the tank was harvested or sorted by them, and that made them happy and proud.
"If there is a mixed winning, the prize is dividing into half-half. Now, let's find a good place to watch the show! It will be a bit difficult to find three seats beside each other."
The priest was right, it took time, to find seats to sit down, but they found a relatively good place at the corner of the viewing area. The arena itself was incredibly big, but it was more like a hockey track than a horse racing track. The place of the race was separated by a big glass hemisphere, and there were four huge screens, one at each of the four sides of the viewing area. In the middle of the arena there were twelve big tubes. The beginnings and the ends of the tubes were only visible, the middle of them was covered by shiny yellowish orange light. There were containers both the beginning, and the end of the tubes.
Everything was very simple, so the kid were getting bored with watching the tubes, and they looked the people instead. There were people from every race and age group. There were families, with small children, priests in cassocks, groups, wearing the same clothes, or uniforms. However banners were missing. Some people – mainly the children – were holding flags, but that was all. Ads were running on the big screens, but the twins didn't understand what they advertised. When they asked the priest, he was just laughing, and said that much more needs to be stuffed into their heads to understand.
"Look! It is about to start!" He pointed toward the arena.
Priests were carrying the tanks to the beginning of the tubes, and poured the contents into the containers.
"They are very colorful!" Conrad stated.
"They are from individual racers, who are teamed up for the race. Each racer have a different color, so the more racers, the more colors. That's why they are so colorful."
"They look like candies." Valerie stated, and gulped a big.
The priest laughed, and gave them candies to snack a bit. There were boring things before the race could start. Every racers were introduced, their earlier statistics were drawn, and the announcer analyzed them a bit.
"It has started!" cried excitingly the priest, together with thousand other people. He was also a big fun of the race.
The doors of the containers slapped open, and the molecules started to float toward the shiny place. They were slow at first, but they disappeared one after another in the sparkling light. After the last one had arrived to the light, the people all around the arena fell silent. They were waiting, holding their breathes. Suddenly on the fifth track a little one is came out, and the silent was broken by cries of joy and frustrated shouts. The little one was a bi-colored Hydrogen.
"There was at least one fusion!" The priest told to the kids, then he turned his gaze back to the arena.
The first little one broke the ice, and the others came one by one. The crowd was now roaring, and the voices of rejoicing people could not be distinguished from those of frustrated ones. Valerie and Conrad noticed, that there were not so much Helium was among the Hydrogens. Like they didn't really want to fuse. They would like to ask their companion, but he was so exited with the race, that they had to wait with their questions. So they were silently watching the show, reading the results of the race on the screen, and having fun observing the other participants. They didn't want anyone to realize they didn't understand anything of what was going on in the arena, around them. After the first stage ended, the priest turned to them.
"It was exciting, wasn't it?"
The kids nodded uncertainly. The priest's face darkened a bit.
"Oh. I am sorry. I forgot, that this is your first race! Have you got any questions?"
Of course they had. It was so much that they didn't even know which question to ask first.
"Why didn't it convert to all Helium?"
"We don't know. Probably we don't know how to make them to convert effectively. A lot of researchers are thinking about this problem. This race is the only thing we could do, this has proven to be the most effective so far."
"Why are there bi-colored Hydrogen pairs?"
"Those are by-products. During the process only Deuteriums are melted and fused, so they cut ties with their pairs. So the lonely Hydrogen pairs are reforming, making bonds with each other. That's why the bi-colored Hydrogen pairs indicates that there was a fusion."
"Why do they have to fuse? They don't want it at all!"
"Because that's the way the elements are born. It is a natural way to the elements to evolve bigger ones. We have just copied the process."
"It is very cruel to force them doing something they don't want!" Valerie erupted in despair.
"It doesn't hurt them, and they don't even mind the fusion. If you want to see yours after the race, I could show them to you."
Valerie was thinking a bit, because she didn't really believed to the priest, then nodded.
"I want to see them after the fusion. But I still don't understand, why do we have to force them, to do this."
"Mainly for the energy of the fusion."
"Energy?" the two children raised their heads at the word.
"The fusion makes a lot of energy, and this amount will be yours, if your Hydrogens make fusions."
The priest did not have to explain further, the two children knew they needed the energy to get home. And this energy can be obtained by fusing the little ones. It didn't make it any easier for their souls at all.
"Is there a procedure that can reverse this?" asked Conrad.
"Yes, of course!" nodded the Priest. "There is a procedure to divide the melted atoms, it is called nuclear fission, but it is only available in the Mountain."
The kids became excited, and it seemed they had forgotten the violence on the little ones, so the priest didn't informed them, that they would have required a special pass to enter the Mountain area.
"Moreover the fission also occurs naturally, mainly at the biggest elements. If you are lucky, you would observe the fission at the seaside."
"Do this Kingdom has a seaside?" asked Conrad surprised.
"No, of course not. We are now in the middle of the Island, and the Island is surrounded by a sea. There are small islands at the shore, but they are short living phenomena."
"Could we see the sea?" The kids were hyped. If they had to miss the Maldives, there would be a chance to swim in the sea here.
"Why not? You just have to travel there."
Travelling. It was the main reason, why they were here. It is the cause of all further inconvenience.
"We don't have a car."
"Not to mention the license. We are underage. Even if we had a car, we wouldn't be able to drive." said Conrad sadly.
"You could buy a train pass, and travel there by train. Cheap and easy. I often go there in my holidays, even for a day. There are camping sites, where you could sleep, or simply travel there in the morning, and back in the evening."
The priest didn't say a word more, the next round was started. The race was practically the same as before. The colors were different, and in the end the results were also different. The kids were not interested in the announcer's analysis either. There were moving stripes on the screens, which reminded them of math classes. These events were repeated over and over again. Even watching the people's reaction lost it's interest. Valerie and Conrad were bored. The long-awaited race that everyone was talking about so excited turned out to be nothing more than a series of tedious data sets. The kids were disappointed.
"You are bored because you could not bet." told them the priest. "The adults could bet on the results, like in a real horse race. That's why they are so excited."
"I suppose they could win energy."
"You are right. They can gain a lot of energy with right bet." The priest nodded. "But I suppose in the next round you will be excited too!"
"Why would we?" asked Conrad in disbelief.
"Because it is your little ones' turn!"
They became really excited. It was interesting seeing their names on the big screens, listening to the announcer saying their names, calling them dark horse, and the amount of pairs and their age were indicating a new future dynasty in the Noble Race. This time they were watching carefully their container, where the little ones were floating cheerfully, held back their breath, as the gates were opened, and the molecules disappeared from their sight in the light. The first ones, which were coming out at the other side were not theirs. Neither the second nor the third. They looked at the priest, who stared nervously at the field.
Finally a bi-colored pair of Hydrogen came out from their tube. The priest jumped to his feet and began to cheer.
"Hey, be glad!" cried to the twins. "You have made at least one fusion! Half the prize, because they have made it with the temple's property, but you reached one!"
Valerie and Conrad were happy, but they wouldn't get a train ticket with just a half fusion, they needed at least one more half. But the next the molecules were light brown (looking golden) ones. After them there was another bi-colored pair, then another one. One more followed the others. The arena fell silent. Only the announcer's voice was audible, who counted their little ones. Valerie squeezed Conrad's hand in excitement. A bigger group came out from their tubes, and there were three more bicolored pairs.
The priest looked at them in disbelief: they made at least seven fusions for their first time! All with the temple's pairs, but they made them! It was a new record! The announcer and the audience were counting the little ones at their tube. One Helium, two Heliums… after the seventh Helium even the announcer hiccuped. There came the eighth one… ninth, tenth… the counting ended at thirteen.
The viewing area were exploded. It was unbelievable, what happened. The twins broke almost all existing records for the beginners. Thirteen fusion with only one container of Hydrogen! Not even the oldest people remembered such a performance. The crowd celebrated them, even though whoever bet on this race lost everything. According to the announcer, with this performance, the children would be included in the history of the Noble Race.
Valerie and Conrad enjoyed the celebration. They rarely experienced anything like that. They, for their part, were glad that they had certainly gained enough energy to finally be able to travel home.